Volume 125 Issue 52
kansan.com
Monday, November 26, 2012
CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
Kyle Young, a freshman from Overland Park, started the KU Slacklining Club in October. The club meets twice per week outside of Tempoin Hall.
SLACKLINE SUPERSTARS
BALANCING ACT
New slacklining club offers students social and athletic opportunities
CHRIS SCHAEDER
cschaeder@kansan.com
A new sport is taking shape at the University, and it has nothing to do with a ball, but rather a rope.
Kyle Young, a freshman from Overland Park, founded the KU Slacklining Club in October. He said the idea for the club originated from his passion for climbing.
"I've been climbing since I was 5 years old, so that was what got me started with this," Young said.
"My parents then got me a slackline for my birthday last April, and I fell in love with it."
According to slackline.com, slacklining is "the sport of walking a small, flat nylon rope between two points." People compete in slackling by attempting to cross a rope that is usually hung between trees or other sturdy objects. The length of the ropes vary depending on the skill of the slackliner. There is no scorekeeping, but people who conquer the longer, more difficult ropes are seen as premier slackliners.
Young also said he fell in love with slacklining because it presents a different challenge than other sports.
"The sport itself really focuses
In order to spread awareness for the club and the sport, Young and one of his roommates, Taylor Thomas, a freshman from Pittsburg, created a Facebook page. The page provides information to followers about meetings, videos on slacklining and group events.
ple show up regularly for meetings and events.
on balance, and it's really a case where it's mind over matter," Young said. "You don't have to have a great amount of strength, and it's driven by your own desire."
According to the club's website, the club is dedicated to promoting the sport at the University and the surrounding communities, to educating members on the safe and proper use of slacklines and to challenge members to push their limits.
The group has 18 online members, and about seven to 10 peo-
Thomas said Young was the one who got him started in slacklining.
and it, and I thought it was blast," Thomas said.
"One day, Kyle took a bunch of us out of our dorm to go try
Thomas also said there are many benefits to slacklining and being a part of the club.
"It's a great way to meet new people because everyone thinks it's really interesting," Thomas said. "It's also a great challenge because it's something that you can always get better at."
Although the club is struggling with funding right now, Young thinks its future is bright.
"I think that as time goes on and we get more people to come to the meetings, the club will grow and succeed," Young said.
The club's weekly meetings are on Wednesday outside Templin Hall from 4:15 to 5:45 p.m. and Fridays from 3:00 to 5:30 p.m. These meetings consist of teaching the basics of slacklining to those without prior experience with the sport. On Fridays, the club chooses a location where they can slackline and practice its technique.
—Edited by Andrew Ruszczyk
RETAIL
Fair trade items another option for holiday gifts
MARSHALL SCHMIDT
mschmidt@kansan.com
While commercial retailers kicked off the holiday shopping season with Black Friday deals, the Lawrence Fair Trade Holiday Market opened its doors for its 21st year last Friday.
Hosted at Ecumenical Christian Ministries on campus, the market, which will last until Saturday, consists of 18 local fair trade retailers selling chocolate, sugar, coffee and other fair trade items.
Trade fair certified products, which promote fair wages, environmental sustainability and suitable working conditions, have only recently been available in Lawrence, said Sarah Stern, a senior from Lawrence and publicist for the event.
"When you buy fair trade, you know the person wasn't being taken advantage of," said Stern. "Until very recently, we didn't have any fair trade shops in Lawrence."
The Mere Community Market and Deli and Ten Thousand Villages, which recently opened on Massachusetts Street are a few places students can buy fair trade products. Also, the coffee beans used in the Roasterie coffee shops on campus are fair trade too.
Lawrence, prefers buying fair trade products because he knows from whom and where the items come from.
Gustin Bova, a sophomore from
"From the consumer standpoint, the tricky question is verifying how much of whatever extra you pay actually trickles down to the end," Bittlingmaver said. "And then we are wondering about the actual effects at the economic level in Mexico, or Guatemala or wherever that may be."
LUKE RANKER/KANSAN
"The larger goal is to economically express the message that workers worldwide need to be respected and compensated fairly," Bova said. "Consumers, when given sufficient information, will choose to support businesses that do so."
Although the extra cost supposedly goes to pay fair wages, George Bittlingmayer, professor of economics, is less certain of the actual benefits incurred by fair trade practices.
Bittlingmayer said not all stipulations for fair trade certification necessarily promote economic improvement and may unintentionally afford larger producers more leverage in the market over small farmers, who may find the
And while the cost of fair trade products are higher, Stern admitted, so is the quality.
Hand made statues from Tanzania stand on display at the Lawrence Fair Trade Holiday Market at the Ecumenical Christian Ministries. Fair trade products promote fair wages, sustainability and suitable working conditions. The Fair Trade Holiday Market will be open until Saturday.
However, Alicia Erickson, member of the community group, Lawrence Fair Trade, said fair trade buyers can see how much of a product's cost goes to the producer at www.fairtradecalculator.com.
And while sweat shop wages may not be ideal, it allows domestic prices on food and clothes to remain low for consumers, Bittlingmayer added.
cally fair trade and promote the ascribed benefits. And as far as social good is concerned, buying fair trade is superior to donating to charity, Erikson said.
certification harder to obtain.
Erickson said her organization works with vendors to ensure products purchased are authentic-
"As we've seen with the recent economy downturn, people will cut back or eliminate their charitable contributions," Erikson said. "However, this has not translated a hit for fair trade products, as it is not giving away surplus funds, but rather a lifestyle shift in how we approach our purchases."
—Edited by Christy Khamphilay
TECHNOLOGY
Professor seeks students to help design robot
MARSHALL SCHMIDT mschmidt@kansan.com
Artificial intelligence is on its way to the University.
A team of KU students will soon develop cognitive models for humanoid robots under the instruction of Dongkyu Choi, assistant professor of aerospace engineering. The research is funded
by a $371,000 grant awarded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and the group will use its findings in the Virtual Robotics Challenge, which is sponsored by
Choi is currently recruiting two graduate and three undergraduate students for the project. And while he prefers students with a background in cognitive science or human-robot interaction, he is mainly looking for quick learners.
Designing a humanoid robot to perform these tasks is cutting edge, Choi said, but the competition allows for technological advances
DONGKYU CHOI Asst. professor of aerospace engineering
have a signifi nt view of the
with little risk.
There is little chance of the robots becoming self-aware,
Choi added.
DARPA and will be held next June.. The challenge requires the robots to perform tasks related to managing toxic environments like last year's Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan.
"People will have a significantly different view of the
"For obvious reasons,tele-operated or autonomous robots are crucial tools we can use in such situations," Choi said.
robotics field in general after the Robotics Challenge," Choi said. "That, in my opinion, is the biggest impact on science and beyond that we can get from a project."
STUDENT SENATE Senate to vote on bill for student survey board
Edited by Nikki Wentling
The Student Senate Student Rights Committee passed a bill to create a student survey board at its meeting Nov. 14.
The bill will be discussed at the full senate meeting this Wednesday. The purpose of the board would be to measure student opinion on Student Senate, its initiatives and its use of student fees. Part of the responsibilities of the board would be to survey a sample of the student body at least once per semester and report its findings to the full senate.
Zach McQuiston, senate development director and one of the authors of the bill, said the board would help Senate develop its platform by receiving input
The board would consist of the senate development director, who would act as chair, one representative from each committee, the senate outreach director, the student body president or vice president and one representative from the University Daily Kansan.
"Having something like this legitimizes it more," McQuiston said at the meeting. "It's hard data. We have to get as much visibility as possible."
"Our job is to serve the student body," said William Easley, an author of the bill. "And we need to be a good steward of their money."
from students about what they would like to change on campus.
Nikki Wentling
The Student Senate University Affairs and Student Rights committees discussed a bill to replace the Court of Appeals with the Judicial Review Board at their meetings Nov. 14. Both committees passed the bill unfavorably.
Senate to consider creating judicial board
STUDENT SENATE
Tyler Childress and Alex Rippberger, College of Liberal Arts & Sciences senators, co-authored the bill, and 11 other senators sponsored it. In the time between the committee meetings and the full senate meeting this Wednesday, Childress and Rippberger have had the opportunity to make changes to it.
If the bill passes full senate, the Judicial Review Board will have the authority to resolve grievances between senate and students or student organizations, determine if an organization has used senate resources against senate rules and regulations and hear and resolve appeals regarding interpretation of senate rules and regulations. It could also interpret text of the senate rules
Hannah Bolton, student body president, spoke against the bill Nov. 14. She was concerned that because some members of the Judicial Review Board would come from the committees, there would be a conflict of interest.
"We want to make it where the board is transparent," Childress said during the student rights committee meeting. "This exists so you can mediate any problem that you have, and we want to increase its visibility and legitimacy. Right now, it's very vague."
"They would come in with some sort of bias," Bolton said. "Most of the problems being discussed would have been happening in committees, because that is where a lot of the controversy takes place."
If passed, the student judicial review board would be in effect in the Fall 2013 semester.
aex CLASSIFIEDS 11 CRYPTOQUIPS 4 SPORTS 10
CROSSWORD 4 OPINION 8 SUOKUKA 4
All contents, unless stated otherwise, © 2012 The University Daily Kansan
and regulations and determine whether a senator or executive officer has failed with their responsibilities.
Today is the first day to redeem your basket ball tickets for the second set of games.
Nikki Wentling
Don't forget
Today's Weather
Partly cloudy, winds from the NNE, at 10 to 15 mph.
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