6A
/ NEWS / TUESDAY, OCTOBER 12, 2010 / THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN / KANSAN.COM
Fraternity holds car demolition for charity
Ethan Huber, a freshman from Cape Girardeau, Mo., smashes a car outside of Watson Library Monday afternoon. The car smash was sponsored by Phi Kappa Tau to raise money for Hole in the Wall Gang camps. "People can take out some stress, give to charity, and hit something purple," said Lucas Commodore, philanthropy coordinator.
BY NICOLAS ROESLER
nroesler@kansan.com
WHAM! A student heaves a 10-pound sledgehammer onto a car painted in Kansas State colors. The sound of crunching metal and plastic fills the air.
Students lined up on the lawn in front of Watson Library Monday to take part in a fundraiser put on by Phi Kappa Tau fraternity. The fraternity was raising money for the Hole in the Wall Gang summer camp in Ashford, Conn. The camp is one of several run by the Association of Hole in the Wall Camps, a cause Phi Kappa Tau selected as its national philanthropy in 1995.
The association was founded by late actor Paul Newman, a Phi Kappa Tau member, and provides services for seriously ill children and their families via camp programs and year-round outreach to hospitals and clinics.
Lucas Commodore, a sophomore from Overland Park, is the philanthropy coordinator for Phi Kappa Tau. Commodore decided to bring back the fraternity's former tradition of bashing a car for charity this fall.
Commodore said an associate of the fraternity donated the car and Bulldog Towing, 1881 E. 1450 Road, pulled it up the hill after the fraternity members painted it purple and sprayed on the number eight: a reference to the number worn by Kansas State running back Daniel Thomas.
"We didn't think anybody would catch on, but we put it on there anyways," Commodore said.
He said the fraternity encouraged people to donate between $1 and $5 to hit the car. Although the event was not scheduled to start
until noon, the group had raised more than $80 by 11:50 a.m.
in between class periods, while students walked by, a rotating group of fraternity members called out to passersby to come hit the car.
"You know you want to take a swing!" yelled Joe Getto, a sophomore from Lenexa.
Most people kept walking,
but others took advantage of the opportunity to swing a sledgehammer and let off some steam. Getto said one person paid $2 to take one swing at the car, but ended up taking about 20.
"He probably paid for a year's worth of therapy sessions," Getto said.
sanit.
By the time the event ended at 5 p.m., the group had raised $290.
An alumnus matched that amount, bringing the total to $580. All of the proceeds from this event will go directly to the Hole in the Wall Gang camp.
City, said the experience was exhilarating and definitely worth every cent. He donated $2 for his first two swings but said hed be back later with more.
"We have to destroy K-State this week," Hohman said. "I just felt like I did my part."
Edited by Dana Meredith
NATIONAL
Universities consider allowing coed dormitory rooms
MCCLATCHY-TRIBUNE
At most colleges, men and women have lived harmoniously together in coed dorms — often just a floor, wing or few doors away — for decades.
Student activists at Ohio and Denison universities are now pushing for the final step in the student housing revolution: to allow members of the opposite sex to share rooms.
The movement started about 10 years ago at a few small, progressive liberal-arts colleges in an effort to help gay and transgender students feel comfortable in on-campus housing. But more colleges are embracing the idea to allow all students, gay or straight, to pick the most compatible roommates
In Athens, the Student Senate voted last week to support an effort to start a test program next fall at Ohio University. School leaders are studying the issue.
Gay, bisexual and transgender students at Ohio University currently can request special accommodations, but they have to "out themselves" to the housing staff to do so, said Amelia Shaw, vice commissioner of the Student Senate's GLBT panel.
"Can you imagine being put into such an uncomfortable situation? I don't have to go in and say, 'I'm straight,'" she said.
"We're in the business of creating safe environments, and we think this is just the next logical step," said Judy Piercy, associate director for residential housing. She said her department would need to make a recommendation by February to make it possible to roll out
Shaw noted that such accommodation often means students are put into single-occupancy rooms, which are more costly.
Campus housing officials have been independently studying the issue since the summer.
few coed units next fall.
men and woman to live in "genderneutral" housing. Freshmen typically aren't eligible. Some schools have specific housing for gay students and the small number of transgender students on campus.
About 55 schools nationwide, including the Columbus College of Art & Design, Miami University and Oberlin College in Ohio, allow
Others offer a few units where men and women of any sexual
orientation can live together. A few make coed housing possible everywhere but in single-gender halls. Generally, advocates say, about 2 percent to 3 percent of rooms at the institutions have been made coed.
Many universities have resisted the concept because of concerns
not some students would end up sharing not only a room but a bed.
"We're in the business of creating safe environments ... we think this is just the next logical step."
At Denison University, a small private college in Granville, student leaders submitted a petition this
spring to allow coed rooms.
JUDY PIERCE Housing, Ohio University
"We are still in the very early processes of reviewing data, talking with students, thinking about it in committee and studying other programs at peer institutions," said Bill Fox, associate dean of students.
CCAD officials started offering gender-neutral housing last year after opening its new Design Square Apartments, which have private bedrooms.
and residential-life director.
"We knew students wanted to live with whomever they wanted
but at the same time, we knew some people would look at this as a morality issue," said Dwayne Todd, associate vice president and dean of students.
Like most schools, CCAD discourages romantic partners from living together. But officials were prepared to make room transfers if couples did move in together and then broke up. That hasn't happened.
"Most coed roommates are just friends," said Jeffrey Chang, cofounder and associate director of the National Student Genderblind Campaign, an advocacy group that works with students and campus administrators to provide coed housing.
Claims that gender-neutral housing would result in promiscuity among straight couples and the potential for violence haven't materialized, said Chang, a second-year law student at Rutgers University.
NATIONAL
Mormon leader calls gay people unnatural
ASSOCIATED PRESS
SALT LAKE CITY - A Facebook campaign launched in support of a Mormon church leader's sermon on same-sex relationships has drawn more than 4,500 responses.
The "I support Boyd K. Packer" page was started Oct. 5, two days after the senior leader of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints called homosexual attraction unnatural and said gays could and should change.
By Monday afternoon, more than 4,500 people had joined the page as fans.
Packer, 86, is the second ranking leader in the church and next in line to be president of the 13.5 million-member faith. He was speaking at the faith's semiannual general conference.
When the text of the speech was posted on a church Web page days later, Packer's remarks had been altered.
In the speech, he said: "Some suppose that they were born pre-set and cannot overcome what they feel are inborn tendencies toward the impure and unnatural. Not so! Why would our Heavenly Father do that to anyone? Remember he is our father."
On the website, the word "temptations" has replaced "tendencies" and the question about God's motives has been removed entirely.
Church public relations officials said the changed wording was part of a routine practice that allows conference speakers to edit their speeches to clarify their meaning.
National gay rights activists, including the Human Rights Campaign, have denounced the speech as factually inaccurate and dangerous, and have called on Packer to recant his remarks.
A Thursday protest of the speech in Salt Lake City drew thousands.
The Facebook page has sparked some opposing viewpoints, but most responses have praised Packer and thanked him for defending the values of traditional marriage and family and "speaking the truth." One poster called Packer a "Christian hero."
Latter-day Saints consider their senior leaders prophets who lead the church through direct communication with God.
ODD NEWS
Couple accidentally buys real skeleton
TAMPA, Fla. — A Florida couple thought they were buying a Halloween decoration at a yard sale, but it turns out they bought a real human skeleton. Judith and Mitchell Fletcher paid $8 for what they thought was a box of scary holiday decorations at a yard sale in Brandon. When they got the box home, they realized they had
They called the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office. Detectives took the bones to the medical examiner, who determined they came from a professionally prepared human anatomical skeleton, normally used in medical courses.
bought real bones.
Sheriff's spokesperson Cristal Bermudez Nunez said detectives are contacting colleges and universities who may be missing a skeleton.
Associated Press