WE RS
ADVENTURING ACROSS EURASIA
Seniors plan for massive road trip in Mongol Rally. | 4A
A
JAYHAWKS BLOW OUT HORNETS IN EXHIBITION Kansas tops the century mark in 103-58 victory. SPORTS | 1B
THE STUDENT VOICE SINCE 1904
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSA
KAISAN 14
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2008
SUA
WWW.KANSAN.COM
VOLUME 120 ISSUE 60
Second-year contestant wins Project Runway
BY BRANDY ENTSMINGER bentsminger@kansan.com
Bonnie Croisant's fierce designs won the Student Union Activities Project Runway competition last night.
Croisant, Humboldt senior, beat out four other design teams with her three garments featuring lederhosen-style pants, a Samurai-warrior-inspired top and a hand-dyed dress with a long slit up the side.
Croisant said she set high standards for herself after losing the competition last year.
"It was my last chance." Croisant said.
SUA awarded Croisant $500 for winning the competition. She said she planned to give the money to her mother because her mother recently bought Croisant a computer after Croisant's broke.
SUA provided the judges with specific criteria to use while judging the garments. The criteria included craftsmanship, fit, how well the designers responded to the challenge and overall appeal.
Christian Siriano, winner of season four of Bravo's "Project Runway," Katie Hunt, Memphis senior and winner of the 2007 SUA competition and Natasha Kastl, 2006 graduate and manager of Epic Apparel, judged the competition.
Hunt said she would also be looking for unexpected designs and details on the garments.
Croisant used the armor of Samurai warriors for inspiration in the Asian-Inspired challenge. The top of her garment was collared, with pleats down the front. She said she felt as though she knew exactly what to do with the design and systematically measured strips of fabric for the pleats.
Kastli said Croissant took risks and was the most unpredictable of the contestants. She said the judges based the final decision on her concepts, although there was room for improvement with her sewing.
Croisant said her innovative designs came through experimentation.
"I come up with ideas and just try to make them," Croisant said.
"The top is fabulous" Soriano said
"I'm telling you: Sell that top"
The models walked the runway under Christmas lights and paper cranes. Spencer Titus, Newton sophomore, said members of the SUA Cultural Arts
SEE RUNWAY ON PAGE 8A
Transgender speaker to visit Burge
LGBT
Davis, a member of the transgender community, provides students with information about the "T" in LGBT.
KU Queers and Allies will recognize Transgender Awareness Day today with the help of Debra Davis.
NEW SLATE OF CLASSES
FULL STORY PAGE 3A
Jon Goering/KANSAN
Students at the Fregenet School in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, practice writing Amharic on the chalkboard during recess. The University is starting classes in Amharic, the official language of Ethiopia, beginning in the spring semester.
$1.4M grant adds Amharic courses
Few universities in the United States offer course in the official working language of Ethiopia
BY SACHIKO MIYAKAWA
smiyakawa@kansan.com
The department of African and African-American Studies will start an Amharic language course in Spring 2009 courtesy of a $1.4 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education. Amharic is a Semitic language spoken mainly in Ethiopia and parts of Eritrea and Sudan.
The department created the course for students like Gabrielle McCully, Overland Park graduate student, who recently volunteered to provide medical care in Yebeton, Ethiopia. McCully did not know
Amharic is the official language of Ethiopia, and it is spoken by more than 17 million people in the country. Only a few U.S. institutions have Amharic programs.
Amharic before visiting Ethiopia, but she learned some on her trips there during the summers of 2006 and 2008. Because McCully attends the KU Medical School in Kansas City, Kan., she won't be able to take this class. She is planning another trip and said that if the class were available in Kansas City, she would take it to a travel
such as historical dynasties involving King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. He said other students wanted to study archaeology in Ethiopia, where archaeologists discovered Lucy, the 3-million-year-old skeleton, in 1974.
Ukpokodu said that some refugees from Ethiopia lived in the Kansas City area and that some of them didn't speak English, so people who understood Amharic could be resources for the refugees.
Peter Ukpokodu, chairman of African and African-American Studies, said the department was offering the course in response to student demand. He said some students were interested in studying anthropology and the history of Ethiopia.
"Ethiopia has never been colonized by Europeans," Ukpokodu said. "Ethiopia has rich history."
take it to make travel easier.
Ukpokodu said the department was in the process of hiring an instructor. Only the first-level elementary class will be offered in the spring. He said a second-level Amharic course would eventually be offered so students could fill the foreign
PETER UKPOKODU Chairman of African and African-American Studies
He said that because several international organizations had regional offices in Ethiopia, students could have an advantage by learning Amharic.
"Ethiopia has never been colonized by Europeans. Ethiopia has rich history."
Although McCully said she had heard about poverty, AIDS and inadequate medical care in the area before her trip, she
language requirement of College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. He said he also wanted to develop an exchange program with a university in Ethiopia.
Shiferaw Assefa, Africana librarian and bibliographer at the University, will supervise the Amhari program at the University.
write Amharic
found welcoming and generous people and a beautiful landscape. She said the trip made her decide she wanted to work for a medical missionary after finishing school.
McCully said she was surprised the language would be added to the state of African languages already taught at the University because it wasn't as widely spoken as others. Other languages available through the department include Arabic, Haitian, Hausa, KiSwahili and Wolof.
French and Wolof. He said studying a non-European language exposed him to different ways of thinking and culture.
"It allows me to explore something very different and look at people and the world in different ways," he said.
For example, he said that in Wolof, there was no direct translation for family; instead, people use the phrase "people of the house."
Steven Groene, Salina senior, spent a semester in Senegal in 2007 and studied
— Edited by Lauren Keith
index
---
Classifieds...2B Opinion...7A
Crossword...6A Sports...1B
Horoscopes...6A Sudoku...6A
All contents, unless stated otherwise, © 2008 The University Daily Kansan
ARCHAEOLOGISTS
FIND NEW PYRAMID
The 4,300-year-old Egyptian pyramid is under an ancient burial site. INTERNATIONAL | 5A
weather
TODAY
53 40
AM clouds/PM sun
THURSDAY
63 41
FRIDAY
55 33
Partly cloudy/wind
wyneths.gov
Cloudy