Thursday, April 5, 2001
The University Daily Kansan
Section A · Page 3
Senate dips into reserve for groups
By Brooke Hesler and Amanda Begin write *kansan.com* Kansan staff writers
Student Senate allocated $123,908 from the Student Senate reserve account at its meeting last night.
Senate approved recommendations from the Reserve Account task force about what groups and events merited Senate dollars. The most expensive allocation went to the Langston Hughes Symposium for $22,500. The symposium will be Feb. 8 and 9, 2002. The money will go toward a speaking fee for actor Danny Glover.
The symposium will also honor the late Shyra McGee, a former student senator who died in car accident in February.
The reserve account contains $428,000 that had been allocated to student organizations but was not spent.
Senate also granted $15,000 to the KU History Project; $14,000 for a Graduate School entrepreneurship program; $13,793 to the Service Learning Center; $12,925 for KUJH mobile production equipment; $11,571 for a sound stage for Student Union Activities; $10,000 for a new van for the KU Marching Jayhawks; $6,600 to the Writers Roost; $5,000 for a survey by the Commission on the Status of Women; and $3,000 for a new copy machine for Haworth Hall.
Ben Walker, student body president, said the task force had received numerous proposals for how to spend the money. Task force members said proposals from purchasing a new snowmobile a group to building a stage by Potter Lake were discussed.
Erin Simpson, task force member and off-campus senator, said she thought recent University budget cuts played a role in the number of proposals the group received.
"Everyone's strapped for money at the end of the year," she said. "I know I broke right now."
There is still about $160,000 remaining in the account. Walker said the task force would continue with allocations next year. Walker told the Senate Finance Committee last week that he would encourage the next student body president to assemble a diverse group of senators for next year's task force.
Senate also passed a bill allowing religious and partisan groups to receive money. The bill would allow Senate to pay for secular expenses, such as office supplies, but not things like salaries for religious officials.
The bill also set standards for allocating money to groups. Senate will take into account the group's history, number of members, degree of interest in the organization and the amount of money Senate has available for allocation at any given time. Walker said Senate considered those things now, but something concrete was needed in the rules and regulations handbook.
"It is something to point to when people ask why we didn't give them money," Walker said. "It's not because of what they're representing."
Edited by Jason McKee
Shirts recall acts of violence
Lines of communication
Women's group raises awareness
Jason Preston, Lee's Summit, Mo., sophomore, takes in a silent testimony of domestic violence. The Clothesline Project, organized by Women's Transition Care Services, which ran yesterday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., displayed T-shirts created by victims of domestic violence. Photo by Joshua Richards/KANSAN.
By Sarah Smarsh
writer@kansan.com
Kansan staff writer
The Clothesline Project, organized by Women's Transitional Care Services as
Bold words waved in the wind yesterday as T-shirts marked with testimonies of violence against women and children hung from clotheslines on the lawn of Stauffer Flint Hall.
part of the Center for Community Outreach's Into the Streets Week, aimed to provide a voice for victims of abuse and to raise awareness about the issue.
"For the little girl on the bench. We have not lost hope. 8/24/80/6/3/85," read one shirt. "Your hate and anger won't keep me down," read another.
Rape, physical and emotional abuse, molestation, survival and breaking the silence were recurring themes. Words like bullets, knives and threats appeared on many shirts. One shirt designer described witnessing her father murder her mother.
Lea Burgess-Carland, a Lawrence junior majoring in women's studies, wrote on a blue T-shirt about being sexually abused by a teacher during a summer acting class.
"It's a real release to get it out there," said Burgess-Carland, who works at Women's Transitional Care Services. "I hope that when women see it, it will inspire them to use their voices."
She said it meant a lot her shirt would remain in the project, which began in Massachusetts in 1990, for years to come.
The project included a workshop with T-shirts, markers and a large tarp spread out on
the ground on which passersby could stop to create a shirt. But Burgess-Carland said fewer people had done so than last year, when a tent was provided for privacy.
"There's a real stigma," she said. "Women are made to feel ashamed about it."
Kate Cavanaugh, a Lawrence graduate student who also works at Women's Transitional Care Services, hoped the display would make students think about the realities of the issue.
people can volunteer at a local level or get literature and educate themselves about issues surrounding violence against women and children," Cavanaugh said.
"If this touches somebody
Another Into the Streets Week project, "Empty Bowls," was stationed nearby. CCO sold nearly all of 90 bowls — painted by volunteers at Sunfire Ceramics and filled with vegetable soup donated by Kansas Union Food Services — to raise money for Jubilee Cafe.
— Edited by Jason McKee
Report focuses on minority funding
Senators call for chancellor's help
By Danny Phillips writer@kanson.com Kansen staff writer
Student Senate unanimously approved a report on the status of minorities last night that recommended Chancellor Robert Hemenway find alternative sources of funding for minority scholarships and establish a permanent commission to monitor the issue.
Marlon Marshall, student body vice president, said he wanted the administration to consider using money from its partnership with Coca-Cola for minority scholarships as well as appoint a committee on the status of minorities to "serve as a third-party examiner to evaluate the state of affairs and address potential solutions to the problem."
The University ranks 10th in the Big 12 conference in the percentage of minority students, ahead of only Kansas State University and Iowa State University, according to fall 2000 enrollment figures.
"I think it's going to have a big impact," Marshall said of the report. "The administration cares, but I don't know how much of a priority it is. This report will make it a priority."
Currently, Coca-Cola funds are disbursed into three areas of the University, including National Merit scholarship packages, which receive half of the money.
And while the number of incoming merit scholarls has doubled since 1995, the number of incoming minorities has remained stagnant.
Marshall said he would like the Coke money to be redistributed into four groups to include scholarships for minorities.
The new commission, similar to the Minority Issues Task Force created in the late 1980s, would include members from the administration, multicultural offices. Student Senate and minority student organizations.
The Senate Committee on Minority Recruitment and Retention presented the report, which documents the goals set forth by the chancellor during his first speech to the University of Kansas in 1995 and the progress made toward those goals.
During Hemenway's Faculty Convocation address, he said the University planned to recruit 200 minority faculty members by 2000 and increase the minority student percentage to 10 percent of total student enrollment.
While the student rate peaked at 9.9 percent in 1998, 2 percent higher than this year, the number of tenured or tenure-track minority faculty is short of the original goal at 129, according to the most recent figures.
Mercado said the Senate report was good and hoped the University would follow up on it. But she said she would have like to see it focus a little more on retention and not just recruitment.
but pointed out that Oklahoma University, which has a 22 percent minority population, has a recruiter for each minority group.
Marshall praised the work of the sole minority recruiter in the Office of Admissions and Scholarships, Claudia Mercado,
The report concluded by stating "Given the University's ignoble history, we fully realize that the University will most probably publicly embrace what we have written, issue press release upon press release claiming its reverence for diversity and democracy, and then do nothing to alter the shameful homogeneity of its campus.
"Even though it has given us little reason to, we love, trust and have faith in the University of Kansas."
The report will be presented to the administration later this week. Edited by Melinda Weaver
Oread neighbors discuss concerns local problems
By Erin Adamson writer kansan.com Kansan staff writer
Tenants, homeowners and residents of scholarship halls in the Oread neighborhood discussed parking, lighting, code violations and concerns about the University's encroachment on the 1300 block of the neighborhood last night.
The Oread Neighborhood Association invited neighborhood residents in its quarterly newsletter to discuss issues of concern.
Sarah Hill, public relations conferences coordinator for the All Scholarship Hall Council, said she attended the meeting to learn how scholarship halls could work with the neighborhood to solve problems that concerned everyone. She said availability of parking was a problem for scholarship hall residents.
"The KU parking department oversells our lots considerably every year." Hill said. "They have no plans to implement enough parking for us."
Marci Francisco, president of University of Kansas Housing Association and Oread resident, said parking was a problem throughout the neighborhood. She said the neighborhood had a fundamental lack of available parking, and part of the problem was residents of scholarship halls and Gertrude Sellards Pearson-Corbin residence hall parking in the streets when University parking wasn't available.
Hill said many scholarship hall residents had opposed a limit of parking permits because those living in those halls worked and needed their cars to get to work.
Holly Krebs, Student Senate Student Rights Committee chairwoman, said Senate hoped the new city housing ordinance requiring inspection of residences in neighborhoods zoned for single-families would spread to the Oread neighborhood. The Oread neighborhood is largest zoned for dormitory, duplex and multi-family use.
"We're very much in favor of the inspection being citywide," Krebs said. "It seems like this would be the prime neighborhood where you would want an inspection program."
Charlie Goff III, coordinator for the neighborhood association, said members of the community could call him at 842-5440 with any questions or concerns. Residents who have a complaint about noise or parking violations in the neighborhood can call Goff and he will make the complaint to the city.
Hill said many residents in the scholarship halls were afraid to walk back from their cars late at night because of the lack of lighting in the streets. The association identified this as one issue to bring before the public and the University.
— Edited by Jacob Roddy
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