Wednesday, December 3, 1997
The University Daily Kansan
Section A · Page 3
Greeks seek to strengthen racial harmony
Continued from page 1A
Robert N. Page Jr., coordinator for multicultural recruitment, talks with Aida Garcia, Lenexa sophomore and member of Sigma Lambda Gamma sorority. Page also is the adviser for the National Panhellenic Association, the governing body of historically African-American fraternities and sororites. Photo by Dave Morantz/KANSAN
bers in Interfraternity Council and Panhellenic Association chapters.
Amber Tetlow, greek liaison at the University of Colorado at Boulder, said that Colorado does not track the number of minority members in the Greek system because diversity was not an issue to be singled out.
"I would venture to say that every chapter at CU has a minority member in their house." Tetlow said. "I would even say that all minority members who go through rush are given a bid if they want a bid. It's not an issue we concern ourselves with. It is more important that we make sure that minority members feel comfortable when they go through rush."
Once minority members join a house they are not singled out or treated differently, said Leigh Bottiger, Lenene junior and Gamma Phi Beta president.
"We have 132 minority members in our house," Bottiger said. "Because we are all women, we are all members of a minority. We don't single our members out. It's our national policy."
Azadeh Pirzad, Lawrence junior and member of Sigma Kappa sorority, said that she didn't feel singled out because she was Iranian.
"I think we're past that," she said.
"It's just not like that anymore. I've never encountered any prejudice in the Greek system. It been a really positive experience for me, and I don't feel as if I've ever been
treated any differently because of my nationality."
Still, many minority students choose to join historically African-American or Hispanic chapters.
The National Panhellenic Association, a historically African-American greek system, is essentially a service-based organization, said Robert Page, assistant director of admissions and adviser for National Panhellenic. The Interfraternity Council and Panhellenic Association are traditionally social organizations, although they sponsor philanthropy projects.
Page said he thought there was a need for a separate associations for
historically African-American and Hispanic fraternities and sororites because of the way they operate.
"A lot of it is based off of housing and rush issues," he said. "The goals of different house are different."
Page said that there was a need for the separate systems because National Panhellenic fraternities and sororites recruit members differently and do not have a traditional rush system.
Page said most members of the historically African-American and Hispanic fraternities and sororities were recruited through informational meetings that are held throughout the year.
Page also said the requirements for students interested in National Panhellenic fraternities and sororities were different from those for students interested in IFC and Panhellenic Association houses.
There are no credit requirements to rush for IFC and Panhellenic.
"There is more emphasis on community service and on the involvement in academics in National Panhellenic," Page said. "Students have to wait until they have at least 16 credit hours and a 3.0 GPA."
Greg Smith is the president of Kappa Alpha Psi, a historically African-American fraternity that has nine members, all of whom are African-American. Smith, Wichita junior, said the separate systems were necessary.
"While I do think that there is a need for the two organizations, I don't think that that should serve as a barrier between the historically Black fraternities and sororities and the historically white fraternities and sororities." he said.
IFC, Panhellenic and National Panhellenic have started to meet once a week to discuss how to strengthen and unify the different systems.
Jennifer Keith, Kansas City, Kan., senior and president of Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority, said that she had attended one meeting with all the governing bodies of fraternities and sororities.
"We talked and answered a lot of questions that we had about each other to help end some misconceptions and ideas about what each of us do," she said.
Living on campus pre-empts racism
Continued from page 1A
broadened it so that it can be everything."
She said her floor was a good example of diversity because residents there include a blind student, a student with a prosthetic leg, Asian-American, African-American and international students and students who are Catholic, Jewish and Baptist.
The residence halls also attract a high number of international students. Four percent, or 147 of the 3,353 students living in residence halls, are international students, according to International Student Services.
Scholarship halls have the lowest number of international students among University student housing with 38 out of 435 residents.
A total of 1,519 international students attend the University. Jayhawker Towers apartments have 123 international students out of 698 total residents, and Stouffer Place apartments house 106 international residents out of the 266 students who live there.
Askia Ahmad, Wichita sophomore, says living in a residence hall has broadened his ideas of diversity. Ahmad's roommate in Oliver Hall is a caucusian student, and he says their differences have brought something unique to their friendship.
Photo by Geoff Kriener / KANSAN
The Department of Student Housing does not keep an exact count of the number of minority students living on campus. Housing applications do not ask for that information, said Ken Stoner, director of the department of student housing.
But because of the many backgrounds of student-housing residents, the department requires resident assistants to devote one-sixth of their floor's programming to cultivating diversity. Resident assistants also must complete cultural sensitivity training.
Training includes a "tunnel of
oppression" in which students experience what might be considered an oppressive situation, said Randy Timm, assistant director of student housing.
The tunnel includes listening to tape recordings of slang terms to recognize the negativity of the terms, viewing video clips depicting hate crimes and bigotry and participating in role-playing situations. It ended with Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech.
Brenda Chung, a resident assistant on Howze's floor at Lewis Hall, organized a "diversity night" earlier this semester where residents talked about their backgrounds.
"Our RA does a great job as far as trying to get everybody together," Howze said.
"We in the residence halls are trying to teach people how to get along with other people's differences instead of just looking past them," said Laura Bennett, president of the Association of University Residence Halls. "I don't know where else you would get that."
Creating a definition for diversity is not easy, said Scott Strawn, complex director at Ellsworth and Hashinger residence halls.
"We need to embrace diversity in the broadest sense of the word," Strawn said. "It may be ethnicity, or the families that we grow up in, the differences that we all have. Some people see it very narrowly as ethnicity, but it goes much more than that. It is very, very encompassing and broad."
Howze said that she did not make a big issue out of living on campus as a minority student.
"Being Black here is as hard as
living," Howze said, "I deal with people who don't realize that some of the statements they say are racist, but you have to deal with it."
Askia Ahmad, Wichita sophomore, said that living in a residence hall broadened a person's ideas of diversity. Ahmad is an
African-American student whose roommate is Caucasian.
"We both brought something unique into the friendship," Ahmad said. "It seems like if I want to open myself up to different nationalities, everyone else follows that pattern. Living in this place opens you up."
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