CAMPUS/AREA
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Friday, March 8, 1996
3A
Council proposes open evaluations
Students would be able to view professors' work
Scott Sullivan has resolved to do whatever it takes to make faculty evaluations available to students.
By Colleen McCain Kansan staff writer
Last month, Sullivan requested that the University release numerical data from faculty evaluations, but his request was denied because faculty evaluations are part of faculty members' personnel files.
Yesterday, Sullivan, University Council member and Nunemaker student senator, employed a new strategy. Sullivan, Leawood sophomore, proposed that University Council approve a statement expressing support for the immediate release of numerical data — compiled through student evaluations — for each instructor and each course.
Although some faculty members on the council said they were not opposed to releasing the data, they
suggested doing more research on the legality of the issue and on possible ways to compile and release the information. Rather than making a final decision on Sullivan's proposal, council members voted to form a task force of students and faculty members to explore these issues and to bring a proposal to the council.
"I want this to be a collegial effort," said Robert Minor, council member and professor of religious studies. "I don't want this to be something the faculty has no input in, which is what it has been so far."
Sullivan was the only council member to vote against the task force.
Sullivan has hired an attorney to research the legality of releasing faculty evaluations and to represent him if he files a lawsuit.
"I have made this my goal, and I am serious about making it happen," Sullivan said.
John Michel, council member and professor of speech communication, suggested that it would be more fair to publish data from evaluations with comments from faculty members
because students were not always fair in their assessments of a class.
For example, Michel said six students in his class of 65 described his tests as requiring unwarranted memorization. Michel's tests are opennote and open-book.
Other council members expressed concern about the lack of a common faculty evaluation used by all departments. Kim Cocks, student body president, suggested that a common evaluation form could be developed and accessed by students on-line at a minimal cost.
Robert Nunley, council member and professor of geography, said he could make developing an on-line evaluation a student project for one of his computer courses.
These and other ideas will be considered by task-force members, who will be appointed by Cocks and Jack Davidson, Senate Executive Committee president.
Sullivan, however, was not optimistic that working through University channels would accomplish his goal.
"I'm being stonewalled," he said. "I've done everything the University has asked, and they just keep giving me more requirements and more delays."
Modern kabuki theater opens to more accepting crowds
Japanese short stories provide basis for play
By Jason Strait
Kansan staff writer
Brian Hott / KANSAN
When the timeless question, "What is truth?" is posed at the University Theatre's production of Rashomon at 8 tonight, audience members are expected to take an active role in answering the dilemma.
"It is the audience that ends up figuring out what is the real truth," said Andrew Tsubaki, professor of theatre and film, who will be directing the drama. "This play has the power to pull us into the vortex of uncertainty and eventually wash up on shore to ponder what has happened."
Rashomon is based on two short stories published in 1915 by the Japanese author Ryuunosuke Akutagawa.
The wife of a samurai fight for her life as her husband is dying bound only feet away. *Rashomon* is being performed by the University Theatre.
The stories were made into an internationally successful film by Akira Kurosawa in $1951^{3}$ that won the International Film Festival in Venice, Italy.
In the drama, the wife of a samurai has been raped and her husband killed. Different versions of the crime are told using the same facts, but with drastically different characterization of the events.
Tsubaki, who staged the production for the first time at the University in 1976, said he knew the production's dramatic style was new to audiences then, but hoped the audiences of today would be more open.
"I hoped they would enjoy the new approach as a means of enhancing the excitement created by the story," he said. "Today, I believe the audience will be more clearly aware of why I am doing the play as a multicultural production with mixed styles."
He said the use of the dramatic Kabuki style helped bring out some elements in the play that may not clearly manifest themselves otherwise.
Tsubaki said he used the the stylized Kabuki approach in the scenes that take place in the past to emphasize the time differences in the play.
"To a Western eye, it can seem off the cuff, a little stylish. And maybe a little too stylized," Paulette said. "But when you open your mind to it, you can really recognize it for its beauty."
Brian Paulette, Lenexa junior, likened the Kabuki style to that of dance and advised audience members to come with an open mind.
"The production emphasizes the fragmentation of the truth through all the visual elements," he said.
"It will give me great pleasure if I can see the audience taking this different approach in stride this time around and viewing the production with a fuller appreciation of its value and meaning." Tsubald said.
Tsubaki said he hoped the audience would be able to appreciate the performance.
Ymie Chien, a ninth-grader from Central Junior High, 1400 Massachusetts St. gets help from Julio Suarez, UniPran, pamana, after school. Such tutoring is part of a program sponsored by the Office of Minority Affairs.
Pam Dishman / KANSAN
KU tutors raise spirits
Volunteers help minority children
By Susanna Löof
Kansan staff writer
For Lola Loeb, the greatest reward of her job as a tutor at Lawrence's Central Junior High School is not the paycheck — it's the satisfaction she gets from helping children.
Loeb, Los Angeles graduate student, is a tutoring counselor through the Minority Affairs Project Outreach Program.
"It's a good way to help minority kids," she said. "It's a good way to be a role model. It's important for these kids to see somebody who looks like them and is relatively successful."
Loeb and the seven other KU students who are outreach program counselors spend an hour a day, four days a week at Lawrence's junior high schools. They are available to tutor or just be friends to about 60 junior high school minority students who are enrolled in the program.
The program has existed in Lawrence since 1990. Gloria A. Flores, associate director of the Office of Minority Affairs, said the main purpose was to make the children feel good about themselves.
"We encourage students to have confidence in themselves and their ability to finish high school and go on to other forms of continuing education," she said.
But the program is not a recruitment program for the University of Kansas, Flores said.
Instead, it is an early intervention program designed to show children their abilities.
"Our ethnic minority children are still at an unequal level," Flores said.
"That playing field is not leveled out vet."
This semester's tutoring began this week, and so far, only a few children have been coming to the tutors for help.
But as soon as the children get to know the tutors, the numbers will pick up, said Carol Pilant, librarian at Central Junior High School, 1400 Massachusetts St.
However, for Ovibivey Idemundia,
Los Angeles graduate student and
program counselor, the number of
students is not important.
"Yesterday, I only helped one kid," she said. "But that was enough to put a smile on my face."
Loeb tutored a student named Steven, who wasn't doing well in math.
"But it only took him ten minutes to do his homework." Loeb said.
"His problem was that he didn't have anybody to sit there with him and give him the motivation and confidence to do it. Basically, all I did was sitting there saying 'Gee, you're really smart.'"
Julio Suarez, Chitré, Panama senior and program counselor, said that when he grew up, his family gave him the help and confidence he needed for school.
But today, many children don't have that support, which makes the outreach program important, he said.
Besides tutoring, the program also includes occasional field trips and five Saturday programs at the Multicultural Resource Center. During those programs, the tutors and children play and do exercises that encourage confidence and self-esteem.
Student Senate pays for the tutors wages, while the Office of Minority Affairs finances other costs, such as marketing costs: The program is free for the junior high school students.
Flores said that the University should fund the program because it had a positive effect.
"If we can make an impact in the long run, then we'll have college students with higher rates of success in the future," she said.
Cheap travel to Europe a reality
By R. Adam Ward Kansan staff writer
To travel cheaply in Europe, forget everything Mom said about talking to strangers.
That was the advice given by Gil White, author of Europe on 84 Cents a Day, last night in the Kansas Union Ballroom. The speech, which drew a crowd of about 120 people, was sponsored by Student Union Activities.
"One mistake that people make is thinking that how much money they have determines how much fun they'll have," said White, a native of Niagara Falls, Canada.
But White said the figure of 84 cents in the title of his book was
invented. Some days he was able to travel for nothing, and other days he would spend $10.
White has criss-crossed North America, Europe and the former Soviet Union on a meager travel budget.
He said that during the 1970s he stayed in Europe for four months and visited 30 countries for less than $1,000, which included his $350 airfare.
He did it by staying with people that he met on the road hitchhiking, he said.
Most people are willing to help out strangers and are interested in visitors from other countries, he said.
While traveling, he carried a large Canadian flag, which he said helped
pick up rides when he was hitchhiking.
SUA paid $1,600 in travel costs and a speaking fee for White to come to the University, said Mike Enenbach, SUA recreation and travel coordinator and Overland Parksenior.
White has spoken at college campuses in every state except Mississippi. Elenbach said.
KU students were receptive to the message of trust that White gave but were somewhat skeptical about how practical hitchhiking was.
"You could probably get away with it sometimes between towns a couple of miles apart," said Rob DeWitt, Andover senior. "But you should still be careful."
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