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KANSAN.COM / THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN / MONDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2010 / NEWS
5A
CAMPUS
New handbook helps female international students
BY KELSEY RICHARDSON
editor@kansan.com
A new support group created for female international students at the University is working to establish itself and raise awareness about the potential difficulties international women encounter while attending college in the U.S.
The Emily Taylor Women's Resource Center has collaborated with International Student and Scholar Services, the Office of International Programs, Center for Global and International Studies
and Kansas African Studies Center to create International Women Connect. The idea for this support group originated from an undergraduate student project.
Nicole Tichenor, a KU alumna, came up with the idea of a handbook for female international students while she was working on a women's studies service-learning project. Tichenor approached Kathy Rose-Mockry, program director of the Emily Taylor Women's Resource Center, about potential ideas for projects. They identified needs pertaining
to women on campus.
"International women were a population that had kind of been neglected, as far as needs go," Tichenor said.
The University has services and orientation geared toward international students in general, but Rose-Mockry found that international women have a set of needs and expectations that may be different from international men. Rose-Mockry and Tichenor came up with the idea to create a handbook and held a series of focus groups to decide what information
it should supply.
"We talked about their experiences and the challenges that they faced," Tichenor said. "Based on what the most frequent responses were, that's how we tailored the handbook."
The authors said that international students often face language barriers and don't know how to communicate with professors. The handbook was designed to help ease these problems.
International Women Connect arose from the focus groups that scheduled discussions, workshops
Read the handbook at kansan.com/documents
and presentations for the spring semester. They are open to both international and non-international students.
Jane Irungu, associate director of the Kansas African Studies Program, said she hopes that the group will serve to mentor international female students and assist them with cultural challenges. When Irungu moved to the U.S. from Kenya, she wished someone had reached out to her.
"The culture was so different," Irungu said. "The interactions were difficult. It was difficult not
having friends and having to start over from zero"
Irungu suggests that international students research the culture, food, weather and the people, and find a mentor to establish connections before moving to the US.
"For women, what we want to do is to make sure that they can find life here a little easier," Frungu said. "Navigating on your own is hard, so try to make connections."
The group said they hoped to make a handbook for men.
WORLD RECORDS
— Edited by Kristen Liszewski
"Teddy McHuggin' embraces thousands for heart health
ASSOCIATED PRESS
LAS VEGAS — A 51-year-old Ohio man has embraced the Valentine's Day spirit faster than anyone before, giving 7,777 hugs in 24 hours for a new world record.
Jeff Ondash, who sought the squeezes under the costumed alterego Teddy McHuggin, broke the record Saturday night outside the Paris Las Vegas hotel-casino on the Las Vegas Strip.
"When you hug somebody, they all walk away from each other smiling," Ondash said. "They say an apple a day keeps the doctor away; a bug a day — it's just fun."
Ondash said he wanted to become the world's hugging champion to raise money for the American Heart Association during American Heart month.
The cause is important to him because his brother and father both died relatively young because of heart problems, he said.
His daughter Carlie, who tallied her father's hugs with a manual counter at the start of his attempt on Friday, came up with his pseudonym to make his spectacle a bit more fun. As Teddy McHuggin, Ondash sports a red NASCAR-
style driver's suit with hugging logos and a wrestling-style championship belt.
"Jeff Ondash breaking a record really doesn't mean a lot," he said. "Teddy McHuggin on the other hand, he's the reigning world speed hugging champion, now going after the world marathon hugging champion.
"No one on earth has ever attempted something like that before," he said.
He said he embraced all kinds of people throughout Friday night and Saturday and was tired from being on his feet and not eating. But Ondash said he wasn't planning to go to sleep right away.
Ondash, of Canfield. Ohio,
already held the record for most
hugs in one hour with 1,205,
according to Guinness World.'
"I'm going to go and enjoy the town tonight," he said Saturday.
"They say an apple a day keeps the doctor away; a hug a day — it's just fun."
Ondash said he did not expect
Guinness World Records.
JEFF ONDASH Record-setting hugger
The previous record of 5,000 hugs in one day was set last year by Siobhan O'Connor in Dublin, Ireland, Guinness spokesman Philip Robertson said.
To break O'Connor's mark, Ondash needed more than 208 hugs per hour — or about $3\frac{1}{2}$ hugs per minute. Ondash logged just over 700 hugs during his first hour of embraces on Friday night.
Guinness World Records to certify his record for several weeks. The organization did not have a judge present at his attempt. Instead, indeed had
es who tracked Ondash in shifts were to submit affidavits to the organization.
Ondash says he, as McHuggin, is now eyeing both the world's longest single hug — currently 24 hours and 1 second — and breaking his current two records consecutively, which he said "unheard of."
"I don't even know if I can do that but I'm going to attempt it," Ondash said. "It's like climbing
Jeff Ondash, nicknamed Teddy McHugh, hugs a tourist Saturday on the The Las Vegas Strip on his way to setting the Guinness World Record for hugs in a 24 hour period. Ondash succeeded in giving 7,777 Hugs to raise money for the American Heart Association.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
CRIME
Oldest death row inmate dies at 94
FLORENCE, Ariz. — The oldest death row inmate in the U.S. has died of natural causes at age 94.
An Arizona Department of Corrections spokesman says
Viva Leroy Nash died late Friday at the state's prison complex in Florence.
Nash was born in 1915 and had a criminal record dating to the 1930s.
He spent 25 years in prison for shooting a Connecticut police officer in 1947, and was sentenced to life in prison for shooting a
man to death in Salt Lake City in 1977. He escaped from a prison work crew in October 1982 and fatally shot a Phoenix coin shop sales clerk a month later.
He was sentenced to death for that crime.
Associated Press
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