KANSAN.COM / THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN / FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 2010 / NEWS
ADMINISTRATION
3A
Program educates students about LGBT community
BY ROSHNI OOMMEN roommen@kansan.com
This semester the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community is seeking to educate KU students about what it means to be gay. With its own terminology and etiquette, students in the LGBT community feel it's important for others to understand them.
"There are a lot of misconceptions in the straight community about what being queer entails,"
said Saida Bonifield, graduate intern and LGBT resource center coordinator. "I think it's important to provide a forum to ask questions that students might otherwise be uncomfortable asking."
In order to educate students and promote respect, the LGBT resource center has paired with Queers & Allies to create a program called the Safe Space Ally Program. It's a peer education program that teaches KU students about LGBT issues that may affect
them in the classroom, said Rachel Gadd-Nelson, education outreach coordinator for Queers & Allies. The program held its first workshop last week.
"We want to create enough knowledge and terminology that they can begin to ask questions," said Gadd-Nelson, a junior from Kansas City, Kan. "Making it peered is going to make a big difference. It's going to hit people on a more personal note."
The program, which takes place
in a classroom setting, takes about 50 minutes to complete. This makes it ideal for lecturers and professors to incorporate the Safe Space Ally Programs into their curricula or lesson plans for the semester. At the beginning of this semester, lecturers and professors were told about the program and invited to request the workshop. The program is being used mostly in PRE 101 classes, which help familiarize new students with the University. Student housing employees were
also informed about the program and have the option to provide workshops to on-campus residents.
The idea for the Safe Space Ally Program stems from a program that is already active on campus, called Safe Zone. This program allows administrators and faculty members to create a safe area for LGBT students. Faculty members that go through Safe Zone training are given placards that show LGBT students that they have been
through training and are allies of the LGBT community. Bonifield said the LGBT resource center received a lot of requests for a student component. Creating the program allows the LGBT community to integrate the elements of the faculty program for college-age students.
"We want to educate students about LGBT issues," Gadd-Nelson said. "That's the bottom line."
Edited by Kirsten Hudson
AIRPLANE (CONTINUED FROM 1A)
Construction on the wings of the final plane has already begun. The majority of the plane is constructed out of bosal wood and manipulated with hand saw; all of the parts for the finished plane will be made in-house.
Spencer Walsh/KANSAN
assembled their prototype, which off the ground. So when it flew it Noyes said flew well, in just two was really a big sigh of relief?
weeks. It was the fastest a plane had ever been built and flown at the University.
"Once the prototype flew," Noyes said, "that's when we really started to feel alright about our chances
"Once the prototype flew, that's when we really started to feel alright about our chances."
ANDREW NOYES
Wichita senior
You know, with a prototype you don't even know if it's going to get
The competition's goal is for the students to have the lightest airplane that's able to hold the most weight. An airplane plus its payload cannot weigh more
hold 35 pounds of payloid would be good," Noyes said, "but having a 10-pound aircraft hold 45 pounds of payloid would, obviously, be even better."
than 55 pounds.
The KU team has designed an aircraft that weighs in at 12.5 pounds and will be able to carry about 34 or 35 pounds.
"We're extremely excited. We think we're really prepared, and we think we can do really well," Wilke said. "My team leader just told me to guarantee victory."
"Having a 20-pound aircraft
Edited by Taylor Bern
Weather poses challenge for florists
ASSOCIATED PRESS
VALENTINE'S DAY
Shops are marshaling SUVs and four-wheel-drive vehicles to make deliveries in storm-battered cities like Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington, which virtually shut down when a pair of blizzards dumped record-breaking snow.
PHILADELPHIA — Snow-clogged streets and closed office buildings are posing twin logistical challenges for Mid-Atlantic florists as Valentine's Day approaches, and some worry it won't be a rosy holiday unless sales bloom when the shoveling ends.
"This is probably the worst, there's no question about it," said David Hope, owner of Flower Gallery Inc. in Washington. "We're jokingly saying we want to suggest they pass a law to change Valentine's Day to August."
Though Valentine's Day always comes in wintry February, the combination of it falling on a long weekend, plus massive office closings, unplowed streets and weather-delayed floral shipments has put some florists on edge.
But most businesses have been closed because of the snow, which means a lot of rerouting to homes in suburbs that may not be well-plowed. And Monday is a federal holiday — Presidents Day — when government offices will again be shuttered.
When Feb. 14 falls on a weekend, florists say, many bouquet senders want the flowers delivered a day or two earlier so the recipient gets them at work in front of envious colleagues.
"I wish somebody would say, 'All of next week is officially Valentine's Week.' Hope said, "Every florist has hundreds of roses, and whether they're all going to sell or not is the big question."
Rosa Hernandez prepares a Valentine's Day bouquet at Caruso Florist in Washington Thursday. The shop rented four-wheel-drive vehicles in order to pick up employees and make deliveries in the wake of back-to-back snow storms.
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Bare feet were drawn in chalk on the floor of the Homegrown Market on Orcas Island, Wash., after the store was broken into overnight. The burglary, and the fact that a stolen airplane was found at the Orcas Island airport are leading to speculation that Colton Harris-Moore, known as Washington state's infamous teenager "barefoot bandit," may be back in action.
CRIME
Barefoot teenager accused of scores of burglaries
ASSOCIATED PRESS
SEATTLE — A stolen airplane found in the San Juan Islands and chalk-outline feet drawn all over a burgled grocery store suggest that Washington's infamous teenage "barefoot burglar" is back at it. Authorities across western Washington state have been hoping to catch alleged bandit Colton Harris-Moore since the lanky 18-year-old escaped from a halfway house in April 2008.
Since then, he's suspected in scores of burglaries, many of them near his home on Camano Island and in the San Juan Islands north of Seattle. Investigators believe he more recently turned to joyriding in airplanes.
Surveillance video of some burglaries showed the culprit barefoot — hence the monitor
Harris-Moore's legend has only grown since last fall, with a
S h e r i r
Pierson,
a bookkeeper
at Homegrown
monitor was left in a sink with water running over it.
now boasting 16,800 fans and a Time magazine piece ducking him "America's Most Wanted Teen Band."
Two of the footprints were leading out the door, next to a chalk
"He took everything out of our dessert case. We had a whole tray of raw croissants with fillings."
SHERRI PIERSON Homegrown Market
Market on Orcas Island, told the Associated Press someone broke into the store Wednesday night, and its owner arrived Thursday to find large chalk-out feet drawn all over the floor. Cash was taken — Pierson wouldn't say how much — and a security system
scrawled message: "C-YA!"
Pierson said that if the perpetrator wasn't Harris-Moore, who is suspected in a spate of burglaries in the same neighborhood last fall, it was clearly someone impersonating him.
"We use chalk on our deli board, and he apparently saw the chalk on the fish counter," Pierson said. "He took everything out of our dessert case. We had a whole tray of raw croissants with fillings."
San Juan County sheriff's officials are also investigating a plane from Skagit County that was left at the airport on Orcas Island Wednesday or Thursday.
Last fall, after a stolen small plane crash-landed at the airport, Harris-Moore was caught on surveillance video breaking into a grocery store. A hardware store, bar, coffee-shop and bank were also hit at that time.
A few weeks later, a Cessna was stolen from a rural airport in Idaho and crash-landed near Granite Falls, Wash., when it ran out of fuel on what may have been a course back toward Camano Island.
In the airport hangar in Bonner's Ferry, Idaho, the plane's owner found actual, rather than chalk, bare footprints, including some on a wall. The culprit had apparently put his feet up while eating.
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