Wednesday, February 7, 2001
The University Daily Kansan
Section A · Page 3
Art exhibit shows new perspective
By Michelle Ward
writer@kansan.com
Kansas staff writer
The pictures represent both the triumphs and tragedies of African-American history. The first depicts a slave running to freedom. A model shows a present day African American running from the police back into the past.
"Though slavery is not outwardly legal, in a sense, we, as a people, are still running, sometimes forward and sometimes backward," said the artist, J.R. Roland, a Grandview, Mo., senior, and vice president of Kappa Alpha Psi.
Roland created these for the "Walk th rough History" display. The exhibit, open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. tomorrow in the Parlor Room on the fifth floor of the Kansas Union. will provide a sense of history of the African-American community.
The story begins in Africa following slaves to the United States through the Civil War and the Civil Rights Movement.
While these are the most prominent events, Kappa Alpha Psi, a historically Black fraternity, will present everything in between in celebration of Black History Month.
"I didn't know so many kings and queens existed in our history," said Conway Ekpo, Lawrence senior and treasurer of the fraternity. "This is not what we learn about in history class. We learn that we were slaves, but we never learn where we came from before we were slaves. We never learn about the great inventors and people in our past."
Along the tour, people will learn about the creative past, which has led to more than 70 inventions.
L. A. Burr invented the lawn mower in 1889. Garrett Morgan conceived the idea for the stoplight in 1923. In 1971, Henry Sampson changed communication with the creation of the cellular phone.
"I hope people will learn something about African Americans they didn't know," Ekpo said. "Our history is American history, but it isn't a side that is predominantly shown growing up."
While walking through history, people will receive a taste of African-American music, such as jazz and hip-hop, and historical movies. Ekpo said it would give visitors a sense of their heritage and culture.
After spending months compiling the data and raising money to print it, the fraternity wrote "A Long Story" that chronicles the history of African Americans. Ekpo said.
It will give out more than 500 free copies to visitors of the exhibit.
— Edited by Courtney Craigmile
'A DROP OF BLOOD COULD DO YOU IN'
Ethnicity focus of panel
By Danny Phillips
writer@kansan.com
Kansas staff writer
Bv Danny Phillips
Haydel.
Christopher Haydel, Philadelphia senior, relates a story of racial prejudice he experienced at the University of Kansas as fellow diversity panel members Yvette Washington, Tuba City, Ark., junior, left, Jessica Wovdzick. Doualress junior, and facilitator Trina Ramirez listen. Photo by Aaron Showalter/KANSAN
Christopher Philadelphia senior, first became aware of his ethnic complexity in the fourth grade when a classmate asked him if he was white.
The fair-skinned Haydel, half Puerto Rican and half African American, said he didn't understand what the student meant, so he went home to ask his parents about his background.
"From that point on," said Haydel, "I've tended to engulf myself in those cultures."
Haydel, along with two other students, shared their experiences and difficulties growing up with mixed heritage last night at the Diversity Dialogue Series titled "Race, Ethnicity & Culture: A Drop of Blood Could Do You In."
More than 100 students attended the event at the Kansas Union.
Haydel said he planned to become a physician in an inner city area after he graduates, so he can work with African Americans and Puerto Ricans.
"Money is not an issue," he said.
What is an issue, however, is that while most of his racial peers accept him, Haydel said there were a few people from both cultures who didn't think he was African-American or Hispanic "enough" to fit in.
"A lot of Hispanics feel that speaking Spanish is vital to be a part of the Spanish culture," he said.
Panel speaker Jessica Woydziak, Douglass junior, is one-quarter Japanese, but as a child she said she was raised white.
That is one of the forces that drove him to learn the language now, he said. Haydel also recognizes that speaking Spanish will be vital if he wants to work as a doctor in the Puerto Rican community.
It wasn't until a childhood birthday when Woydziak's friends began to inquire why her grandmother "talked that way" that she began to develop a
curiosity about her Japanese ethnicity.
Despite that interest, Woydziak said discrimination from her peers growing up prevented her from learning more about her culture. She recalled a time in school when some girls called her a "Jap."
"Here I am, not really knowing that much about my culture," she said, "and I'm trying to learn it, but if I learn it and start acting and doing things in that culture, then I might not be accepted."
Even when Woydiak came to the University, she said she didn't feel "Japanese enough" to join the Asian American Student Union. It took a friend to convince her to join the organization.
Now she has a good working relationship with the president and actively pursues knowledge about both her own cultures and others.
Yvette Washington, Tuba City, Ark., junior, was the third panelist of the night. She's full-blooded Native American, and because of her family's mixed tribal background, is only half
Navaho.
She said that was an important distinction, because different degrees of Native-American blood determined if someone could be enrolled into a tribe.
Each tribe can set its own standard. For example, a person has to be at least a quarter Navaho to be enrolled in that tribe, and the number of members a tribe has determines how much federal funding they receive.
However, Washington said that Native Americans with diverse tribal backgrounds could also run into some problems. Not only can the government deny funding in certain situations, but some children of mixed backgrounds can't be enrolled in tribal schools.
While the three panelists continue to learn more about their diverse backgrounds, sometimes the raw experiences of the past are relived.
An emotional Haydel said just a few weeks ago he and his African-American girlfriend were talking to each other with another African-American student nearby. When Haydel left,
the African-American male asked Haydel's girlfriend "Do you need to find yourself?"
The student apparently had a problem with Haydel's girlfriend dating a "White" person.
"That sort of thing hurts me," Haydel said as he choked up. "If I was White, what would it matter?"
"This is where most of the learning takes place," said Santos Nunez, program director of the Multicultural Resource Center.
After the panel discussion was over, members of the crowd split into smaller groups to talk about what they had heard and how they felt.
Each group was led by a faculty facilitator from the School of Social Welfare.
The panel discussion was the first of three diversity dialogues scheduled for the semester. It was sponsored by the Multicultural Resource Center, the Office of Multicultural Affairs and the KU Coalition Against Racism and Discrimination.
- Edited by Matt Dougherty
Lawrence businesses franchising
Continued from page 1A
Ben Johnson, Shawne sophomore, said, while he thought it was only natural Lawrence-based stores would expand, it would be hard for any franchise store to duplicate the original's character.
"I don't think the original companies will lose their feel, but the added-on companies won't be able to 100 percent reproduce the feel of the original," Johnson said. "For example, you have to quantify what makes Waxman in Lawrence so cool, and if they do a good job of that then they'll be fine."
To combat a loss of "feel," Chad Glazer helped the Scoggins produce the new Rudy's every step of the way.
"I did all the business projections for Steve and Sharon," Chad Glazer said. "And I flew out there and helped them before they opened up."
Johnson said he thought the Bellingham Rudy's could more easily keep the original's feel because of the small-town atmosphere, which he thinks is an important element in popular Lawrence-based companies.
"You can't produce a small-town feel," Johnson said. "You can get a faux small-town feel, but that doesn't fool anybody unless they want to be fooled."
Meanwhile, Chad Glazer said he'd had other offers from former employees to expand the Rudv's empire.
"We have a friend in northern California who worked for us for a long time who wants to open one up." Chad Glazer said. "And we also have another good friend in Chicago whose been asking questions about opening one."
Werts said while he had no immediate plans to open another Waxman, his customers shouldn't be too worried about the company's growth.
"Waxman is a Lawrence thing," Werts said. "We're still a tiny, tiny business. You have to grow or you stagnate."
Edited by Courtney Craigmile
Industrial design students work on NASA project
By Ali Brox
writer@kansan.com
Special to the Kansan
Julia Finnegan is going to cyberspace to do research on outer space.
Finnegan, Kansas City, Mo., senior, is one of five industrial design students collaborating with the School of Engineering on a NASA research project. The project, University Earth System Science Program, involves launching satellites for earth observation.
She is taking part in a seminar class designed to make the University of Kansas more competitive in the NASA proposal evaluation process. The focus of the seminar is the outreach aspect of the proposal. The outreach part of the program is crucial because it educates the public, Finnegan said. In fact, outreach is so important that the Kansas Space Grant Consortium provides tuition money for many of the students in the seminar.
"Offering scholarship money is a great way to jump start a research program," said Mark Ewing, associate professor of aerospace engineering.
The seminar class is generating a Web site to fulfill the outreach
requirement.
"We are learning the technology through the seminar and then designing the Web site," Finnegan said. "Industrial design is a broad field that works with engineers a lot. This is a good opportunity to see what engineers do." Plus, it fulfills a class requirement."
Ewing said the site would enable people to use information from remote sensing to verify a hypothesis or to take an image from a satellite and then make inferences. For example, elementary schools could use the Web site to record the temperature every day.
The University made a draft proposal in 1999 but Ewing designed
the seminar class with a December 2001 proposal in mind. If the proposal were accepted, the University's emphasis would be global temperature changes.
KU students would use the satellite to look at ice sheet elevation in Greenland and Antarctica. The observations would allow students to predict how much sea levels will rise and where and at what speed the ice sheets will move.
The satellite would also be used to observe trends in vegetation or carbon accumulation. When most people see a forest, they see trees, but some scientists see a forest and see tons of carbon, Ewing said. The change in carbon accumulation combined with the ice sheet observations would allow for long-term global climate models.
He described the underlying theme of the project as an opportunity to get people other than engineers involved in NASA research.
Sometimes research can have a scary connotation, and originally engineers would do the engineering and the design students the designing, Ewing said.
"Through the seminar we have found students want cross over," he said. "The design students are interested in the content of the Web site too."
— Edited by Megan Phelps
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HELP!
Earthquake victims in India - Relief Fund
Please spare atleast some loose change in your pocket and help us make a contribution to this heart-rending cause...
The KU India Club is collecting contributions from students, faculty and staff on campus to buy food and medicines to the tens of thousands of people in hospitals struggling for their lives. You too, can help in this struggle for human survival. We need your help.
A collection drive will be held TOMORROW, 8th Feb. with collection boxes located at the following places:
2. Wescoe Beach
1. SUA Office, Kansas Union
3. Nichols Hall, West Campus
Checks, in favor of "KUCIC Earthquake Relief Fund", can also be mailed to KU India Club, 400 Kansas Union, Lawrence, KS, 66045 * KU India Club Exec. Comm.
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