monday, march 8, 2004
news
the university daily kansan 5A
Communication club lacks students
5A
By Rupal Gor
rgor@kansan.com
Kansan writer
Communication studies is one of the most popular majors at the University of Kansas, yet an organization designed for communication majors lacks members.
About 15 to 20 students are in the Students in Communications Studies club, a low number in comparison to the 900 students in the major, said Laura Johnson, president of SCS.
Johnson, Overland Park senior, said she wanted to revive
SCS, a club that began about six years ago. She said the club's goal was to provide peer support among communication students.
Communication studies is the third most popular major after biological sciences and psychology in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, said Robert Rowland, chairman and professor of communication studies. He said that classes filled up within the first couple days of enrollment, but that faculty often tried to accommodate extra students.
Johnson said it was frustrating for students who could not enroll in communication classes but she
Adriane Kunkel, assistant professor of communication studies and SCS adviser, said few students joined in the past because of the lack of leadership, but she expected more students to join this semester.
encouraged them to join the club as an alternate learning opportunity
"We've tried to be really good about advertising in class," she said.
Kunkel said the members were also working harder to recruit students outside of class by making banners and word-of-mouth.
She also said that students should join the club even if they
are enrolled in classes because there are opportunities available that they wouldn't learn about in class.
These opportunities include learning about internship opportunities, refining their interviewing skills and meeting communication studies alumni.
The meetings, which are open to current and future communication majors, are held every two weeks. The next meeting will be 6:30 p.m., March 16, in the Kansas Union. The meeting room will be posted that Tuesday.
— Edited by Cindy Yeo
Art students find niche in downtown cultural hub
By Ron Knox
rknox@kansan.com
kansan staff writer
The grease-laden doormat in the entrance of the Farm Gallery read "Job Safety Begins Here."
This relic of the gallery's past life as a manufacturing warehouse draped the doorway, and led into its rough, open space.
Inside,19 University of Kansas art and design graduate students opened Fresh Produce, an art exhibition located in the blooming Kansas City Crossroads district downtown.
The doormat wasn't the only indication of the gallery's rough past. The ground was paved with concrete, and a single barrel of butane strapped to a small, openfire furnace heated the entire space.
For KU artists, the brutal space provided a fresh break from galleries at the University.
"The space there is very plain," said Nicholas Alley, fine arts graduate student. "This is so raw, so cold. It's a much better place to view art."
For the show, Alley brought three dolls he created, all with the same face but different outfits: one in a tux, one in a shirt and
pants and the other naked.
The dolls were part of a series of 17 Alley created in his own image — each pink, stuffed doll telling a different story from his life.
When Alley first arrived at the gallery, he stood with his dolls, and connected small speakers and CD players to the dolls' podiums. The CDs told the dolls' stories, all taken from Alley's life.
"The stories are all kind of comic, but tragic as well. They're just parts of life," he said.
Alley said that it's easier for him to tell the stories at galleries, where his work is in context with other artist's displays.
"There's a weird anticipation at first, but then you have a couple of beers, and you start relaxing. It's easier to tell people the stories then." Alley said.
As Alley tooled with his display, other artists quietly wandered the floor of the gallery, inspecting all of the art, including their own. In the far corner, tens of hairy, brown clumps hung from string. In the center, a fat mass of brown drizzled down into a puddle on the concrete floor.
Beth Powell, fine arts graduate student, wove her way between the dangling clumps of brown.
"This is real hair," she said, pointing to the clump closest to her. "I'm a hairdresser, when I'm not doing this."
She spoke quietly, hesitating before she said anything.
"There's all kinds of stuff in here— animal bones and teeth and things," she said. She pointed at another clump with jagged white bone jetting out of its center.
"This one," she said, moving further toward the central brown mass. "Now this one has a squirrel foot in it."
Sure enough, a small furry leg reached out from the center of a mass.
"That's why I called it Tumors," she said. "It's that darkness inside of you."
Slowly, Powell began to open up. She looked more comfortable. Her eyes brightened.
"Tumors are like my bad feelings, like insecurities," she said. "The longer you have them, the bigger they get."
As she talked and relaxed, she told more and more of her art's story.
"The more tumors I made," she said, "the better it made me feel."
—Edited by Collin LaJoie
NATION
Kerry says president resisting investigation
JACKSON, Miss. — John Kerry yesterday accused President Bush of "stonewalling" separate inquiries into the events leading up to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorists attacks, as well as into the intelligence that suggested Saddam Hussein was hiding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
Kerry, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, endorsed complaints by some members of a federal commission investigating the attacks that Bush was resisting their efforts to get documents and question witnesses.
"Why is this administration stonewalling and resisting the investigation into what happened and why we had the greatest security failure in the history of our country?" Kerry said at a hastily arranged news conference.
"This is another inaccurate attack by John Kerry," responded Bush campaign spokesman Scott Stanzel. He said the Bush administration has provided more than 2 million pages of documents and other materials such as computer disks and tape recordings, in addition to providing extensive briefings and submitting to more than 560 interviews.
The Associated Press
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