CAMPUS/AREA
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Wednesday, March 13, 1996
3A
Author addresses fertility rights
Rickle Solinger, author of the book Wake Up Little Susie: Single Pregnancy and Race, speaks to about 100 students at the Kansas Union. Both her book and the speech she delivered last night dealt with women's rights.
By R. Adam Ward
Kansan staff writer
She spoke to about 150 people at Alderson Auditorium in the Kansas Union last night.
The abortion debate is framed in terms that encourage doctors to discriminate against poor women, said Rickie Solinger, an author and historian who specializes in studying women's reproductive rights in the post-World War II period.
A marketplace mentality is set up by calling people who are in favor of abortion rights, Solinger said. Framing the debate in this way makes it possible to deny women the right to an abortion because of their economic status.
Solinger is on a university speaking tour supporting her book, Wake Up Little Susie: Single Pregnancy and Race, which is about poor women and minorities' unequal access to abortions. The tour is in conjunction with an art exhibit called Wake Up Little Susie: Pregnancy and Power before Roe v. Wade.
Solinger said that even though her book was solid history, she did address some of the political implications of her research.
"Women are very vulnerable through their fertility," Solinger said.
When the state has the power to decide who is a mother, women of different races are treated differently, she said. White, unwed mothers are urged to put babies up for adoption, while African Americans in the same situation are urged to get an abortion.
Some students with anti-abortion views were concerned about the image this speech portrayed.
"I'm not a fascist bigot, and I don't harass women at abortion clinics," said Patrick Wildman, Lawrence graduate student.
He said one thing that disturbed him was that he doubted whether the University would give a speaker with strong anti-abortion views the same platform.
Michelle Godfrey, Topeka freshman, agreed that Solinger's views were controversial.
She said she was disturbed by Solinger's message that people who were anti-abortion were anti-women's rights.
But Barry Shank, assistant professor of American Studies and organizer of the speech, said Solinger's distinction between choice and rights made him want to bring her to the University.
Mary Lou Oneil, Seattle, Wash., graduate student said KU's American studies, Women's studies, Student Senate and the Feminist Collective Force spent about $1200 to bring Solinger to the University.
Women ponder gender roles
By Scott MacWilliams
Kansan staff writer
Ballard, director of the Emily Taylor Women's Resource Center, used Women Make the Best Friends, a new book by Lois Wyse, as the basis for her speech on networking among women.
Barbara Ballard spoke to an audience of four women last night about the importance of friends, and it had nothing to do with a television show.
"Why do men envy the relationships that many women have with each other?" Ballard asked. "They see that women more easily share their deep feelings."
Ballard said that men tended to withhold their intimate feelings and that that was partly due to stereotypes that held people to imposed norms of behavior.
"When you say a 'blank' is crying, what comes to
d?" Ballard asked, "Most likely you will say a man, or a child, but not a man. That isn't fair to any-
Ballard said nurturing was considered a feminine trait but was actually gender-neutral. Ballard noted the juxtaposition of men in sports. They act masculine during the action and then hug each other after scoring a goal.
"I think it's important to have networks," said Gloria Flores, associate director of minority affairs.
Flores said that some women in the corporate setting were unwilling to support women in lower-level positions but that her experience in the academic world had been more positive.
"Since I've been at KU, I've seen some top-level female administrators who are willing to mentor younger women in administrative positions," Flores said. "It's been refreshing to watch."
Ballard said one of her favorite definitions of a friend came from The Prophet by Kahil Gibran.
"He said 'Your friends are your needs answered,'" she said.
KU composer equates music with life
Student's composition part of his degree
By David Teska
Kansan staff writer
Komei Harasawa has played the piano since he was 10 years old, but he never took a lesson.
"The piano is my instrument." he said.
"The piano is my instrument," he said. As part of his doctoral program in music, Harasawa, Gifu City, Japan, graduate student, started writing his five-part composition, Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, in August 1994. Nine months and 226 pages later, he finished the composition, the equivalent of a dissertation for students working for a doctor of music arts in composition degree.
"In the doctoral level, you have to compose a huge piece," he said. "This is the biggest and largest piece I've ever written."
The five-part concerto is made up of three movements separated by two intermezzos, which are shorter, lighter transitional pieces played between each main movement.
"The first movement is a theme in variation, and you hear it over and over," said Charles Hoag, professor of music and dance and Harasawa's instructor.
Harasawa said he had planned a career in electrical engineering while growing up in Tokyo. But a circuitous turn of events brought him to music. After he graduated in 1981 with a degree in electrical engineering from Akita University in Akita, Japan, Harasawa came to the University of Kansas to work on a master's degree in electrical engineering. When he ran out of money, he resorted to playing the piano at Fili's Restaurant, 925 Iowa St., a job he had for five years.
"I was lucky to get a job playing at Fifi,"he said.
After one semester, he changed majors and earned an undergraduate degree in
piano performance in 1986, followed by a master's degree in music in 1988. Harasawa said that he had wanted to study composition, something he had always liked. In 1992, he earned a second master's in composition.
In addition to composing a piece, Harasawa also has to give a final composition recital. His work will be performed at 7:30 p.m. Friday at the Lied Center by the University Symphony Orchestra, conducted by music director Brian Priestman.
"Composition was what I really wanted to do," he said.
Rieko Tanaka, Shizuoka, Japan, graduate student, will perform a piano solo during the concert.
Kim Alexander, Leavenworth freshman, said she had played the trombone for more than 11 years and looked forward to
"When he writes something for piano, you know he knows what he's doing," she said.
She said Harasawa's expertise on the piano came out in the concerto.
Concert for Piano and Orchestra
When: Friday at 7:30 p.m.
Where: Lied Center
Tickets: $6 for public
$4 for students and senior citizens
For ticket information, call
For ticket information, call:
Murphy Hall box office ... 864-3982
Lied Center box office ... 864-ARTS
SUA office ... 864-3477
"It's a very contemporary piece," she said. "The instrumentation really brings out the best sounds."
playing Harasawa's composition.
Looking back at his education, Harasawa said that his courses in electrical engineering seemed far away but that he doesn't regret his decision to switch to music.
"I don't regret it at all—I'm happy now," he said.
Terms to know when creating a web page
Browser: a program that can help "surf" the net for specific locations by reading hypertext, bold-faced key words that link various places on the Internet to each other.
Client: a type of software that helps you obtain a service from a service provider, or server. Some of these services may be access to the Internet, World Wide Web or e-mail.
Dial-in: the ability to connect to another computer by calling it through the telephone system.
Hypertext: bold-faced text that can be clicked on to move to a related document or another related section of the same document.
Internet: any loose connection of networks that work together as one.
World Wide Web: a hypertext-based system within a larger network that can be used for searching databases across the internet.
Server: a computer that provides files or other services to anyone who has been given permission to use it.
Students enjoy craft of creating own homepages
By Heather Kirkwood Kansan staff writer
"I'm going to be putting a resume on there," the Paola senior said.
Rick Gostautas has been learning how to make his own homepage for the last six months and has been loving every minute of it.
Gostautas is one of a growing number of KU students discovering how useful a homepage can be and how easy it is to learn to create one.
"The basics are pretty easy, but when it gets to the pictures, links or image maps, things are more difficult," Gostautas said.
Gostautas has been learning, however, by taking free classes offered at the Computer Center.
"They bring it down to a level that you can understand," he said.
"The first step is to get your computer up and running and connected to the Internet." Catlin said.
Jerree Catlin, supervisor of training at the Computer Center, organizes, plans and sometimes teaches the three-hour classes.
Catinin said the process of learning to create a homepage was not straightforward, but it was not difficult. She said the Computer Center divided the process into three sets of classes.
After the computer is hooked up, users need to learn about the client software that runs on their computers so that they can use services such as news groups, e-mail, file transfers or the Wide Web. Client software, such as Kermit, Eudora or NetScape, helps a computer work with the Computer Center's server much like a telephone works with the phone company.
Once users have done this, they can surf the net and check out other homepages to see what they are like.
To create their own homepage, users must then learn a computer language called HTML.
HTML is a hypertext markup language. This means that key words will appear on the screen in bold type. When users click on these words, they can move to other documents on the Internet or to other sections of the homepage.
Catlin said it took two three-hour classes to learn HTML HTML Basics and HTML Advanced are offered free at the Computer Center.
Michael Alvarez, Eudora junior, has had his homepage for three months. So far, 1,000 people have clicked on his page to look at his opinions about events and his own fashion photographs.
Alvarez, however, does not use the KU system to create his homepage. Instead, he uses a company in California called Geocities.
The company helps computer users who are not expert-
enced establish homepages. The service is free.
As users learn more about homepages, they can learn HTML by reading articles that Geocities puts on its web site at http://www.geocities.com.
"I just read a couple of those, and that is how I got started," Alvarez said. "It's easy, and I've never paid anything."