UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Thursday, October 17, 1996
5A
KJHK rule may force DJs to give up radio shows
By Jeff Ruby
Kansan staff writer
Change is in the air at KJHK
The campus radio station recently instituted a rule that will remove staff members who have been in the same position for four semesters, replacing them with new disc jockeys, said David Day, program director.
"It's something I have to do to keep the high interest in KJHK," said Day, Wichita senior. "It's a rule that that's been around for a long time, but it's never been enforced, because there wasn't as much interest in KJ being on the air. But now I've had more people coming up to me who are interested in doing shows."
The original rule was a three-semester limit for anyone in the same position at the radio station, but four seemed like an effective, lenient compromise. Dav said.
Due to the institution of the old rule, longtime DJ Sara Collas, host of Wild Women Don't Get the Blues, a weekly women's music show, is one of six DJs who has been asked to find a replacement for her show
nextsemester.
"The decision was made through the executive staff without any consultation with the DJs who were directly involved," said Collas, Cleveland graduate student, who has been host of the show for 2 1/2 years. "And some of us who have been doing our shows for a few years have a tremendous amount of loyalty to our audience."
Day said he had encouraged Collas to seek the position of special programs director for KJHK.
"It's not that their shows have to be eliminated," Day said. "I'm encouraging them to find hosts to take over their shows. It's like handing over the baton. There are people who are interested in becoming DJs. It seems unfair to deny them."
Gary Hawke, JKHK general manager, said the rule was not implemented to eliminate particular staff members, but instead to get more people involved in the station.
"The idea is to give more students an opportunity to do more shows rather than the same person doing one for five years," he said. "There's no one on staff that we're
trying to force out. They sign an agreement that says they read the handbook and understand it."
Hawke said that the KJHK staff members were given plenty of notice so they could find a replacement.
Day said that because the station is financed by Student Senate, it needed to be sure things were open to all students. But loyal KJHK listeners are disappointed with the news that some of their favorite DJs will not be around next semester.
Lisa Wilson, Wichita senior, has listened to Collas's program for years, and she said she thought the decision was a mistake.
"I think it's terribly horrible," Wilson said. "I listen to KJ often, and Sara's show is powerful. Her show has nothing but positive effects for people."
Tim Sutton, JIKH's jazz director, said he liked the idea.
"It keeps the music fresh," he said. "It allows new DJs to start working and keeps the turnover going."
Journalist describes disasters
German focuses on solutions in Europe
By Nicholas C. Charalambous
Kansan staff writer
A few weeks after the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, German university student Maren Schibilsky broadcast the first radio report on the environmental devastation of communist East Germany.
She described sickly yellow smoke belching from the chimney of the local power plant, houses black from pollution, and vegetables that tasted of soot.
A few miles outside town, the area looked like a moonscape, said Schibilsky, now a freelance environmental journalist for German National Radio. Open-cast lignite mines had stripped the landscape of vegetation, leaving craters filled with polluted water.
East Germans sent bags of mail to the news media, which was desperate for information that had been hidden for years. Most journalists deluged the public with disaster coverage.
"After the change to democracy, we had a
journalism of catastrophes," she said. "My task was to show what had happened in these dirty areas and to show solutions for these environmental problems." on Friday. She is visiting the United States on a fellowship with the Central European Environmental Journalism program, which advances media freedom in former Soviet-bloc countries.
Schibilsky said East Germans were lost and confused after the transition to democracy. Her focus on solutions was one way of rebuilding pride.
"The main task for journalists in Eastern Germany is to give people a new identity as a whole," Schibilsky said. "We haven't had a chance to think over really what we want. We lost some culture and some identity. We had to look to the future. We couldn't look back."
She said that the former East Germany continued to have water and air pollution problems and that it would take more than 20 years for open-cast mines to be reclaimed for cultivation.
Kris Wilson, assistant professor of journalism, said, "Environmental journalism is not an easy thing to do anywhere. She's working against a lot of obstacles. She seems very aware of her topics."
Maren Schibilsky, a freelance environmental journalist, says reporters in the former East Germany must focus on solutions to environmental problems. She spoke at the University of Kansas Friday.
Randy Weinstein, Skikie, Ill., junior, and Joshua Brown, Manhattan junior, practice their parts in *Come Here: A Trilogy*. The play opens Friday at 8 p.m. in Craft-on-Preyer Theater in Murphy Hall.
Contributed Photo
Family stories become KU play
By Bradley Brooks Kansan staff writer
An inside look at the immigrant experience begins tomorrow night with the performance of a KU professor's original blav.
John Gronbeck-Tedesco's play Coming Here: A Trilogy, will be performed in the Crafton-Preyer Theatre in Murphy Hall.
"The play is about the experiences of a family of Italian immigrants who come here for a number of reasons," said Gronbeck-Tedesco, professor and chairman of the department of theatre and film. "They try to establish themselves in ways that have to do with their backgrounds and abilities."
The three-act play is based on stories that Gronbeck-Tedesco heard about his own family while growing up.
"Those stories were the kernel of the plays you'll be seeing. But 60 percent of what you will be seeing is fiction," he said.
Performances will be at 8 p.m. on Oct. 18, 19,
24 and 26. Tickets are $6 for KU students and
$12 for the public.
Gronbeck-Tedesco said that he acted as an adviser to the director of the play, Samuel Schimek, Lincoln, Neb., graduate student.
Schimek said that having the playwright accessible made his job as a director easier.
"It rarely enters my mind that the playwright is there. We have never approached it like we
were working on his play," Schimek said. "It is nice to be able to ask him directly what he wants to get out of a scene."
Schimek, who received his undergraduate and master's degrees in fine arts from the University of Nebraska, has directed more than 20 plays. He said he had directed original scripts such as Gronbeck-Tedesco's before.
"Most university theaters run in similar fashion. The people here are very professional, energetic and fun to work with," Schimek said.
Joshua Brown, Manhattan junior, plays two roles: Sid, a telephone repairman in the first act, and Salvatore, a young metalsmith in the third act.
"Working on the play has been fun from start to finish." he said.
Brown, who has been in four other plays at the University, said that he particularly liked the writing in this one.
"The script is actor-friendly. It is very easy to read, and very easy to follow," he said.
Gronbeck-Tedesco said that he hoped the audience would think about their own family experiences when they see his play.
"I hope the audience gets reconnected to their immigrant origins. Many of us come from somewhere else. The difficulty was to make this interesting to and to bridge a gap for an audience that may not have had experiences like this," he said.
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