University Daily Kansan / Tuesday, March 7, 1989
Campus/Area
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'Black American' meal offensive to residents
by Mary Neubauer
Kansan staff writer
Barbecued ribs, collard greens, sweet potato pie, black-eyed peas, corn bread and watermelon are often mentioned in racist jokes about black people.
And one Lewis Hall resident was offended Feb. 22 when the hall served those items for a "Black American" dinner to honor Black History Month.
Rachel Roth, Dallas sophomore, said she submitted a letter to the editor to the University Daily Kansan about the dinner because she failed to see the honor in a dinner that served foods associated with stereotypical jokes about blacks.
"I thought the dinner would be steaks, something nice to honor them," Roth said. "But they said they served baked chicken. It
was fried. And they didn't put watermelon on the menu; they just put dessert. Then when we got down there, they had carved African masks out of the watermelon rinds.
matured in theatres and thought, 'You are so ignorant. I'm from the South, and this is a Southern meal, not a black meal.'
Roth said she asked some of her black friends what they thought about the menu
"They said they weren't surprised that this happened at this University," she said. "They think there is a very racial atmosphere here."
place here.
Karin Lawson, Denver freshman, said that she was at the dinner and that she tried not to take it too seriously.
"It's just one of those things that goes by unrecognized," she said. "But blacks eat lobster and caviar just like other people."
Lawson said she thought the dinner's menu was associated with blacks because society puts minorities in lower classes and sets lower standards for minorities. Any people in the same class will eat the same food, she said, because it's what they can afford.
Blacks have etiquette, too.'
"Some people came up to me and said, 'If they have watermelon, I'm goin' to break out,' " she said. "I just laughed when I saw the watermelon."
Roth said she didn't think the Lewis cafeteria staff members asked any black residents what they would think about the menu.
"When I went through the lunch line today, they were grinding about the letter," she said.
Darlene Binns, Lewis resident hall direct
tor, said she knew there were a lot of stereotypical things on the menu, but she also said she knew blacks had eaten those items in the past when they could afford other food.
"The menu wasn't meant as a joke," she said. "It was requested by black students here. Our cafeteria manager tries to honor as many requests as possible."
Other special menu requests included serving Chinese food for the Chinese New Year and serving a special Christmas dinner, Binns said.
"The cateraella staff was very careful in asking what the black students here wanted on the menu," she said. "They knew there were many specialties and the stereotypes ended and history began."
Connie Mitchell, dietician manager at Lewis, said she thought Roth left out menu
items to add strength to her arguments.
"We offered more menu items than were mentioned in the letter," Mitchell said. "Baked chicken, oven-browned potatoes, corn on the cob, baked beans, Black Forest cake and fresh fruit combo should have been included."
The whole idea to serve a Black History Month dinner came up when Mitchell received a request for the dinner in her food complaint and suggestion box.
"I received a notice that said a student didn't appreciate that we served Chinese food for the Chinese New Year and didn't buy it," she added, "food for Black History Month," she said.
Mitchell said she received three or four comments in her box about how wonderful the black history dinner was.
Classics department gives play in Greek
by Brett Brenner Konson staff writer
Kansan staff writer
On Thursday, a woman will kill her husband's lover before taking the lives of her own children.
All in the original Greek language.
of the剧院. The drama department is staging classical Greek playwright Euripides' "Medea," featuring an original score, at 7:30 p.m. Thursday in the Spencer Museum of Art. English supertitles will be displayed so the audience can follow the play.
This is the first production of such a large scale that the department has done, said Stanley Lombardo, chairman of the department of classics.
"We've done dramatic readings." he said. "But nothing on this scale, with the whole play in the original Greek."
Medea is a bartainian woman who carries a Greek man. She discovers that her husband is going to marry the daughter of Creon, the ruler of Corinth.
Medea becomes angry and sends her husband's mistress a poison robe. The robe bursts into flames, killing the princess and her father. She returns to Bali.
mirs and hates. Killing her, Medea then kills her children to get revenge on her husband.
She offers or deserts to obesies, who read
Pam Gordon, assistant professor of classes, who reads the part of the speaking chorus, said she was nervous.
"The Greek isn't hard," she said. "I've never been in any play before, much less in Greek."
Steve Addiss, professor of art history, composed the score for a flute, oboe and cello instrument that plays steady tones.
He said that this was a new composition because of the lack of knowledge of ancient music.
"No one fully understands Greek music," he said. "We just have fragments of it, and no people know, for sure how it was performed."
and not one knew the value of Address said that he was trying to convey the intense flavor of the play in his music.
"It's somewhere between tension and sorrow," he said. "The sounds of the original words and the poetic drama are lyric. I tried to enhance that mood through the music."
The part of Medea will be played by a man, Gareth Morgan, a classicist from the University of Texas.
from the University of Texas"
"It was a tradition in the Greek theater that all of the parts were played by"
"it."
men," he said.
The production is in conjunction with the Corinth exhibit at the art museum
Rhonda May, visiting instructor in music, work on the background music that will accompany the play.
SUA assesses its programs
Kansan staff writer
by Merceda Ares
Student Union Activities board members are looking at their organization through a microscope.
their organization throughout
Or at least that is how SUA's first assessment in
February appeared to Sue Morrell, director of student
unions.
"The assessment told us, 'Hey, you're not going out and asking students what they like.'" Morrell said. "The assessment helped SUA decide what issues needed to be addressed."
She said events needed to be promoted on a larger scale because a lot of people didn't know what events were offered in the Union.
"I think SUA kind of got comfortable with herself and became an internal organization instead of an exterior organization." Morrell said. When you reach out to more of the campus, you're going to find out more
Philip Chamberlain, chairman of the Higher Education and Student Affairs Program at Indiana University, conducted a $600 assessment workshop Feb. 9 and 10 to assist the SUA board in the assessment process, said Jim Long, director of the unions.
"He is one of the most prolific writers today in the area of student activities and college unions." Long said. "He has the only statistical type of tool for assessment of SUA
activities that I am aware of today."
Morrall said Chamberlain's workshop helped determine the changes needed in SUA structure such as the number of committees, the type of committees and the amount of responsibility placed on each person.
One change that has resulted from the assessment is the deletion of the outdoor recreation committee and the addition of one more film committee.
Morrall said the outdoor recreation committee was deleted because the recreation services on campus sufficiently took care of that area. The film committee was divided into feature films and spectrum films.
we were here at St. Peter, indoor recreation board member, said the bulk of new implementations would be done by the new board. New board members were chosen Sunday and will begin their term in July. St. Peter will be the new president of SUA.
"We book over 100 films a year," she said. "We need someone who is up and into what's coming out now, and then, someone who is into classics. This semester alone we're having 155 showings. It's too much for one person."
The new board members are Lisa Nodar, Boise, Idaho, sophomore; David Frey, Lincoln, Neb. junior; Anita Bajaj, Wichita sophomore; Dan Searles, Des Peers, Mo., junior; Jim Petterson, Topeka junior; Tom Walker, Stroudsburg, Pa. freshman; Kevin Eberman, Overland Park junior; and Mary Horvatin, Shawnee junior.
Lesson lingers from Klan interviews
by Kris Bergquist
Kansan staff writer
Controversies come and go, but the learning experiences surrounding them can sometimes be invaluable.
Harry Jones, former journalism instructor, and his students found this to be true.
students look uninformed to me. Jones invited members from the Missouri Knights of the Ku Klux Klan to his Reporting II class to learn about extremist-group interviewing techniques March 2. 1988.
"I thought they were going to meet people like that." Jones said. "Why not meet them when they were students and could make mistakes and not make them on the front page?"
"I think they learned a lot more in the course of all that fuss. It was a real educational experience."
Jones was a part-time instructor in Spring 1988. He was not rehired for Fall 1988, when he was living in Prairie Village. He now lives in Osage Beach, Mo., where he is writing a college textbook and a novel.
wrote a column for Jones, who had worked at the Kansas City Star from 1956 to 1980, was hired in December 1987 when a vacancy at the University of Kansas opened unexpectedly.
"I was teaching for one month in my life, and suddenly I was a big source of controversy," Jones said. "I was just sitting with my mouth open."
Jones had scheduled the Klan to speak to his class, and JayTalk 91, JKHk's live call-in show, decided to have the Klan participate in a forum.ecause of the campus and
Jones said he would have liked to return to KU for Fall 1988, but he didn't want to teach full-time.
community protests, the class and the call-in forum were canceled on Feb. 19, 1888. The class later interviewed two Klassenman at the Lawrence Municipal Airport.
"Generally speaking, it's not too good to have guys like me substituting." Jones said about part-time instructors. "I would have liked to correct my mistakes. I only had a month before I taught the course.
"I asked the dean specifically if I was not being hired because of the controversy, and he said no, and he seemed very sincere about it. I just felt that I should have been happy if I'd never been born. But since I was born they had to put up with it."
bottle bus. Sneeze. Mike Kautsch, dean of journalism, said that Jones was not rehired because the school was hiring full-time employees.
"The goal of the school is to minimize our part-time work. Kautsch said, "I think that all of our classes, with the exception of one editing class, for this academic year are full time. We have no obligation to rehire part-time."
Jones said three issues were involved with the KKK controversy: sensitivity to minorities, the question of academic freedom and whether professors should be trained to how they wanted, and freedom of speech for the Klan.
"It meant a lot of things to different people," Jones said. "The whole thing was good for the students."
Temporary Employment
11015 Metcalf, Overland Park, KS.