Thursday, October 22, 1998
The University Daily Kansan
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Section A · Page 3
Bubbling over
Suds begin to pour out of the Chi Omega fountain Saturday morning after a soaping. Later that morning, the fountain was cleaned up by Facilities Operations workers. Photo by Kate Levenson/KANSAN
Hispanic, Latin American different, admissions says
By Mariana Paiva
Kanson staff writer
Lisa Marte does not take offense at being called Hispanic, or for that matter Latina.
Marte, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republican, freshman, said that she does not mind if people call her Hispanic or Latina. For her, those two terms are not different than being called Latin American.
But at the University of Kansas, there is a clear difference between students who are come from Latin American and students characterized as Hispanic who live in the United States but have a Latin American background.
The 20th day ethnic head count showed that there are 594 Hispanics and 174 Latin American students enrolled at the University of Kansas.
Robert Page, assistant director of admissions, said those numbers did not overlap and the office only counted Latin American students as Hispanics if they made this choice when applying to the University.
Last year, 11 more Latin American students were enrolled at the University and 17 fewer Hispanic students.
Juan Velasco, professor of American studies and Latin American studies, said Hispanic was a label created by the government to try and identify certain geographical areas or certain groups of people who usually are regarded as descendants of the post-colonial experience from Spain and Portugal.
"Because this name was created by the U.S. government, it usually doesn't reflect the diversity of experiences of people south of the border, or the ones who live in the United States." Velasco said. "Hispanic is a label the government uses to count the group as a minority, but you can call yourself whatever you think is better."
He said that Latin American descendants in different places of the United States named themselves differently, creating these variations.
"The word I use the most in my class is Latino". Velasco said, "Latino and Hispanic are very similar, but it seems to me that Latino encompasses more than Portuguese. Spanish and French."
Javier Castro Pena, Cordoba, Argentina, graduate student, said he preferred to be called Argentinean, but he said a lot of people think everything is the same from Mexico to Argentina.
"People may call us Hispanic, because we speak Spanish, but for me, Latin American is a more appropriate term to identify us," he said. "Although we are identified as one single group, there are many differences between all countries."
In an attempt to avoid more categorizing, the Hispanic American Leadership Organization does not want to restrict itself to American students who have Latin American background.
"Although the majority of our members are Mexican-American they don't want to leave the other Hispanics out. They want to be more inclusive, they want more people from Latin America to come," said Gloria Flores, program director of the multicultural resource center.
Veteran employee retiring soon
Facilities Operations will miss manager
By Nadia Mustafa Special to the Kanson
Ending a 44-year career that has spanned eight chancellors and beginning as a 75-cent-an-hour KU electrician, Bob Porter, veteran Facilities Operations manager, announced this week that he will retire in January.
Porter, associate director of physical plant maintenance, said he had wanted to retire in June 1997. He decided to stay on board to implement administrative and organizational changes he advocated.
When none of the changes occurred, Porter said he decided to retire. Porter would not comment further on what changes he wished to see.
Steve Green, Facilities Operations director of finance, said Porter has a reputation for getting things done quickly.
"I'm 62 years old," he said. "It's time to move on."
"If you go to him with a complaint, he is immediately on the phone getting someone to act on the problem," he said.
Green said he was sad Porter is retiring.
"A whole lot of knowledge and history goes out the door when he leaves," he said. "No one has done as many things as
"He has seen about one-third of the life of the University and he can remember when a lot of buildings were built and their intricacies," Richardson said. "He is always willing to share his knowledge with his co-workers. That is very valuable in a maintenance organization."
he has for as long as he has."
Mike Richardson, director of Facilities Operations, said Porter has a unique amount of institutional knowledge about the University.
He added that Porter is exceptionally talented at leading staff during emergency situations and that he played a key role in dealing with the fire in Hoch Auditorium in 1991.
A ceremony honoring Porter will be scheduled for January.
Richardson said the University is discussing Facilities Operations administrative restructuring, which must be completed before beginning a national search to fill Porter's position.
Porter began working for the University as a high school student, changing light bulbs in 1953. In 1954, after his high school graduation, he joined the Facilities Operations staff as a laborer in the electrical shop. He still recalled the exact date he was hired.
"It was May 27th,1954," Porter said. "I was really happy to get a job and come to work for 75 cents an hour."
He worked as a general maintenance
repair technician and an electrician before he became electrical foreman in 1963, a position he held for 13 years. Porter said the job was the one he most enjoyed because he was allowed to conduct his own estimating, ordering, scheduling and inspections.
"I'm not a desk person," he said. "I like to get out on the job site to visit with people and see what they're doing."
In 1976, Porter was promoted to assistant director of refrigeration and electrical systems. In 1980, the University offered him his current position. Porter said that at the time he was not prepared to make any more career moves, but he accepted the job on a temporary basis and ended up permanently holding the position.
He said he had enjoyed all his jobs at Facilities Operations.
"I was very fortunate to be able to stay within the same department for over 44 years," Porter said. "The University has been exceptionally good to me."
Porter said he plans on traveling and pursuing hobbies after he retires on Jan. 22, but he still will be involved in University activities and will attend athletic events.
He said the aspects of his job he will miss the most are his co-workers, faculty, staff and students.
"The people will be the hardest part to leave," he said. "Over the years I have met so many people from all around campus."
Senate passes hate crime resolution
By Seth Jones
Kansan staff writer
Last night's Student Senate meeting at Ellsworth Hall may have been more interesting then some senators expected.
Provost David Shulenburger took questions from senators for almost an hour.
One question was why the administration did not include the students in decisions that affected them, such as the Coca-Cola contract.
Sulenburger said the Coke contract didn't compromise any of the University's principals.
SENATE LEGISLATION
"All the contract did was move $7 million from the private sector to the University," he said. "This wasn't the first commercial intrusion on campus. It produced a lot of revenue on campus."
"The Coke contract was decided during the summer, while the students were not around," she said. "It was a 100 percent administrative
PASSED; a resolution affirming students' freedom from hate crimes and the ability to live free and autonomous lives.
Holly Krebs, holdover senator, wanted to know why the students were not involved with the Coca-Cola contract.
■ PASSED, a bill to allocate $500 to the KU Biology Club.
PASSED, a bill to allocate $600 to fund Concern, Aware, and Active Students' presentation of "Michael Stoops: Faces of Homelessness."
decision, and it took away the students' choice. In fact, I feel like they kind of tried to cover it up by doing it in the summer."
Shulenburger said that it was the students' responsibility to notify the administration if they had suggestions for improvement.
Once Shulenburger stopped taking questions, Senate moved on to legislation. The Senate passed a resolution affirming students' freedom from hate crimes and the ability to live free and autonomous lives.
The resolution asked that Chancellor Robert
Hemenway issue a public statement condemning the murder of Matthew Shepard, a 21-year-old gay University of Wyoming student who was murdered Oct. 7.
A debate ensued about whether the resolution should include two paragraphs that mentioned Hemenway's support of 14 African-American University of Wyoming football players who in 1969 protested against Brigham Young University and the way Mormons were treating African-Americans.
Hemenway, a University of Wyoming faculty member at the time, openly backed the players even though the University would not.
The resolutions passed,including the paragraphs to show that Hemenway had a history of supporting student rights.
All three senators who sponsored the bill declined to comment on if they thought Hemenway would actually make the statement.
"Regardless of whether Chancellor Hemenway makes a statement, Student Senate has made a statement for the student body," said Amy Cummins, graduate senator.
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