NEWS
4A THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
▼ GREEK LIFE
MONDAY, AUGUST 29, 2005
Chapters teach social lessons
BY LOUIS MORA
lmora@kansan.com
KANSAN STAFF WRITER
New members of the greek community gave up their Saturday afternoon to learn more about their organization and to get acquainted with members outside their chapter.
Fraternity and sorority members gathered in the Kansas Union Ballroom to take part in the annual lessons of "Greek Life 101." The meeting provided an overview of greek life and stressed the importance of the new members' role, said Lauren Harjung, Leawood junior and vice president for scholarship and educational programming for the Panhellenic Association.
"Members can understand that they are a part of something larger than just their own chapter," Harjung said. "They are very much involved in the entire Greek community."
greek community Current members were in attendance to talk about the standards and goals set by the community.Members highlighted the four pillars of the greek community: leadership, service, scholarship and brotherhood and sisterhood. Members also provided ways for new members to get involved in the community.
Each of the 32 fraternities and sororites had at least one representative present at the event.
For the new members that entered their first year of college, the session was especially valuable as all the new members in attendance got acquainted.
The transition from high school to college can be tough, said Harjung. But building relationships outside of their chapters helps them make the transition that much easier.
"I think it's beneficial to get introduced to as many people as you can in a very constructive way." Harjung said.
Brad Stephenson, Leawood freshman and member of Sigma Phi Epsilon, 1645 Tennessee St., said the event was a productive way to gain a better understanding of other chapters as well as meeting other people.
The program was a way to get to meet new faces and teach them the lessons of the greek organization, said Corey Bruce, Leawood junior and member of Phi Kappa Psi, 1602 W. 15th St.
Having all the new members together was also a benefit for current members who helped facilitate the event.
The group also received advice from guest speaker, Lori Hart Ebert, who is the director of alcohol education for Pi Kappa Phi, 1537 Tennessee St.
She spoke about how members are the ones who decide what their experience will be like and how they can get the most out of their involvement in the organization.
"Make the right choices in this organization and they will experience great things," she said.
While members came away
- Edited by Jayme Wiley
Hurricane
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1A
5 storm, 1992's Hurricane Andrew, which at 165 mph leveled parts of South Florida, killed 43 people and caused $31 billion in damage.
"It's capable of causing catastrophic damage," Mayfield said. "Even well-built structures will have tremendous damage. Of course, what we're really worried about is the loss of lives."
By evening, the first squalls, driving rains and lightning began hitting New Orleans. A grim Mayor C. Ray Nagin earlier ordered the mandatory evacuation for his city of 485,000 people, conceding Katrina's storm surge pushing up the Mississippi River would swamp the city's system of levees, flooding the bowl-shaped city and causing potentially months of misery.
"We are facing a storm that most of us have long feared," he said. "This is a once-in-a-lifetime event."
Conceding that as many as 100,000 inner-city residents didn't have the means to leave and an untold number of tourists were stranded by the closing of the airport, the city arranged buses to take people to 10 shelters, including the Superdome.
Nagin also dispatched police and firefighters to rouse people with sirens and bullhorns, and gave them the authority to commandeer vehicles.
For years, forecasters have warned of the nightmare flooding a big storm could bring to New Orleans, a bowl-shaped city bounded by the half-mile-wide Mississippi River and massive Lake Pontchartrain. As much as 10 feet below sea level in spots, the city is at the mercy of a network of levees, canals
Scientists predicted Katrina could easily overtake that levee system, swamping the city under a 30-feet cesspool of toxic chemicals, human waste and even coffins.
and pumps to keep dry.
"All indications are that this is absolutely worst-case scenario," Ivor van Heerden, deputy director of the Louisiana State University Hurricane Center, said Sunday afternoon.
Jefferson Parish President Aaron Broussard said some who have ridden out previous storms in the New Orleans area may not be so lucky this time.
Katrina was a Category 1 storm with 80-mph wind when it hit South Florida with a soggy punch Thursday that flooded neighborhoods and left nine people dead. It reformed rapidly as it moved out over the warm waters of the Gulf Mexico.
"I'm expecting that some people who are die-hards will die hard," he said.
By 8 p.m. EDT, Katrina's eye was about 130 miles south-southeast of the mouth of the Mississippi River. The storm was moving toward the northwest at nearly 11 mph and was expected to turn toward the north. A hurricane warning was in effect for the north-central Gulf Coast from Morgan City, La., to the Alabama-Florida line.
"We're not evacuating," said 57-year-old Julie Paul. "None of us have any place to go. We're counting on the Superdome. That's our lifesaver."
Despite the dire predictions, a group of residents in a poor neighborhood of central New Orleans sat on a porch with no car, no way out and no fear.
Chalk rocks Jayhawks
Rylan Howe/KANSAN
Peton Donahoe, 6, chalks a notice for Open Swim, an event sponsored by Grace Evangelical Presbyterian Church, on a sidewalk outside of Stauffer Flint Hall yesterday. Open Swim will take place tonight in Woodruff Auditorium in the Kansas Union.
MIDDLE EAST
Iraqi constitution finished despite Sunni Arab objections
BY ROBERT H. REID THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
BAGHDAD, Iraq — Iraqi negotiators finished the new constitution yesterday and referred it to the voters but without the endorsement of Sunni Arabs, a major setback for the U.S. strategy to lure Sunnis away from the insurgency and hasten the day U.S. troops can go home.
The absence of Sunni Arab endorsement, after more than two months of intensive negotiations, raised fears of more violence and set the stage for a bitter political fight ahead of an Oct. 15 nationwide referendum on the document.
ened to sharpen communal divisions at a time when relations among Shiites, Sunni Arabs and Kurds appear to be worsening.
A political battle along religious and ethnic lines threat-
Sunni negotiators delivered their rejection shortly after the draft was submitted to parliament They branded the final version as "illegitimate" and asked the Arab League, United Nations and "international organizations" to intervene.
Intervention is unlikely, however, and no further amendments to the draft are possible under the law, said a legal expert on the drafting committee, Hussein Addab.
"I think if this constitution passes as it is, it will worsen everything in the country," said Saleh al-Mutlaq, a Sunni negotiator.
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