VOLUME 120 ISSUE 71
PHILANTHROPY
Three students give back, defy the statistics
BY JESSE TRIMBLE
jtrimble@kansan.com
Though a recent report named college-aged people are less likely to do volunteer work, some KU students are trying to break that trend.
The report, issued by the United States Department of Labor and Bureau of Labor Statistics, said, between September 2006 and September 2007, about 18 percent of people aged 20 to 24 volunteered, compared with about 25 percent of people between 16 and 19 and about 23 percent of those between 25 and 34.
Ryan Campbell, Clarissa Unger and John Gawin are a few of the KU students who are active volunteers. Whether each student's passion for volunteering was sparked as a child or after coming to college, they now balance their regular volunteer activities with schoolwork.
WHY THEY DO IT
Paul Johnson, professor of political science, said recent studies have been done that may show a link between volunteering and certain hormones.
He said a hormone called oxytocin, released when people "behave in a cooperative way," could incite a "pleasant" feeling in those who experience it. A July article in Time Magazine also noted oxytocin's ability to increase feelings of generosity.
"My guess would be that they enjoy a feeling of involvement and leadership." Johnson said.
recent activities of active students
But chemicals aren't the only thing to consider. Johnson said evidence showed that volunteering could also become habitual.
He added that some programs, such as Leadershape, at the University encourage students to become more actively involved with organizations and groups.
I. Ryan Campbell, Olathe senior and Q&A executive director;
For Ryan Campbell, Olathe senior and Queers
YOUNGER YEARS
Monday, Queers and Allies held a candlelit vigil in South Park at midnight for World AIDS Day. The group sponsored the event along with the Douglas County AIDS Project.
Q&A will also have a Pride Night event at The Granada on Wednesday.
2. John Gawin, Abille senior and business intern for Greenpeace
3. Clarissa Unger, Colby senior and Obama campaign intern;
business intern for Greenpeace:
In January Unger will leave for an unpaid internship in Brussels, Belgium. She will work for the U.S. Missions for the European Union, which strengthens ties between the U.S. and E.U.
The event will begin at 1 p.m. on Saturday at the Ecumenical Christian Ministries.
The event will focus on global warming. Participants will write letters and make calls to President-elect Barack Obama concerning possible global warming solutions.
Gawin said Greenpeace was holding a event for the International Day of Action on Saturday.
and Allies executive director, the call to activism began at age 11 when he was in the Boy Scouts of America, learning to tie knots, build fires and survive outdoors. But Campbell said Boy Scouts was more than learning survival skills.
"I feel that it has enhanced my leadership abilities," Campbell said. "Years and years of Boy Scouts has sharpened my ability to interact with other people and give me different skills that I'm so grateful for."
Clarissa Unger, Colby senior, also began volunteering when she was young. Unger, who was part of a youth group at her church, said the group would travel to Denver and work at homeless shelters or package medical supplies to send to foreign countries.
"It definitely instilled in me a service to my community," she said.
In high school, Unger was also the president of student council and was a member of Supporting Our Students, a peer advisory group.
A DIFFERENT WAY TO START OUT
John Gawin, Abilene senior and Greenpeace business intern, said although politics had always been interesting to him, he wasn't involved with activism until college. Now, Gawin volunteers for Greenpeace, an environmental organization, and Big Brothers and Big Sisters of America. The program matches college students with a grade school student, with whom they spend an hour once per week.
"A lot of kids that age need positive morals in their lives," Gawin said. "They may not have a positive family setting and I'm glad that I can make a positive impact on a child's life."
helped pay the bills but also required her to volunteer 100 hours per year during her college career.
In February 2007, Unger became involved with a group in Lawrence dedicated to President-elect Barack Obama's campaign. She traveled to Chicago for the summer of 2008, where she served unpaid as a regional coordinator for the Obama campaign.
Unger worked 300 hours drafting press releases, coordinating conference calls and collecting information for state directors before the Democratic National Convention in August.
"I really don't think I could have ever had a better experience for what I want to do with my life," Unger said. "The connections I made and the people I got to work with were incredible."
In January, Unger will leave for an unpaid internship in Brussels, Belgium; working for the U.S. Missions for the European Union, which works to strengthen the relationship between the U.S. and the E.U.
Campbell said he discovered his passion for Queers and Allies his sophomore year when he was elected as Q&As representative to Student Senate.
Campbell also participated in Alternative Breaks when he attended the National Coalition for the Homeless in Washington, D.C., with six other students. The group spent the first two days volunteering at the largest homeless shelter in the country and the next two days living as homeless
SEE ACTIVISM ON PAGE 3A
CAMPUS
Anschutz goes social with new study area
Learning commons is still in research phase
BY HALEY JONES hjones@kansan.com
Graphic by Becka Cremer/KANSAN
Plasma screens and comfy couches might grace the third or fourth levels of Anschutz Library in Fall 2010.
The University is planning to create a new area called the "Learning Commons" in Anschutz, which would blend the library's informal study environment with its technological facilities, such as printers and computers. The area would also include a snack bar, projectors, group-study areas and career-planning and writing services.
Some students consider Anschutz the most casual of the University's libraries; some even call it "Club Anschutz" according to an article in the Nov. 17 edition of Oread, a KU publication. Katie Ashley, Lawrence sophomore, said she looked forward to having a noisier, social area in Anschutz.
"Even though it's really loud, sometimes I feel like I'm too loud," she said. "It would be nice to have a place for working on group projects and stuff."
Jennifer Church-Duran, assistant dean of KU Libraries, said Anschutz provided an ideal location for the Learning Commons because it was busy and popular.
"We can improve services to the campus community by offering a seamless environment that provides a coherent and integrated approach to learning, writing, research and technology support," Church-Duran wrote in an e-mail.
Although some students find a laid-back, group-study environment distracting, Shannon McNeal, Lenexa junior, said most students enjoyed background noise while studying. McNeal, who is a writing consultant for the KU Writing Center, said the Learning Commons environment would probably benefit students during their writing consultations because most liked working on group projects in a "talkative environment." But, she said, hearing other people talking would not help if students were trying to write papers individually.
"If I walk away and I leave a writer to work on some paragraph, and if there's tons of talking, it will take them 20 times longer to finish that paragraph," she said.
Several departments including Student Success
SEE ANSCHUTZ ON PAGE 3A
SCHOOL OF FINE ARTS
Some students feel stranded by reorganization
After the announcement of the plan to reorganize the School of Fine Arts, some students are still confused about how it's going to affect them. Lynn Bretz, director of University Communications, said the University would start working out all the details after finding out if the change was approved by the Kansas Board of Regents in January.
FULL STORY PAGE 2A
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