SPORTS: The Toronto Blue Jays capture their second consecutive AL pennant. Page 11.
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
VOL.103,NO.38
THE STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS
ADVERTISING: 864-4358
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 13, 1993
(USPS 650-640)
It's off to Allen for basketball ticketholders
They'll make seven trips to field house for tickets
NEWS:864-4810
By Shan Schwartz Kansan staff writer
Students wanting to pick up their basketball tickets are discovering that the Allen Field House ticket office will become a familiar sight this season.
As part of a new ticket distribution process, all students who did not pick up their football tickets by Sept. 27 were put into a lottery for the remaining 141 seats.
Those students must go to the ticket office during October to find out whether they were selected.
All students who paid for basketball tickets, including those who picked up their football tickets and were not involved in the lottery, must pick up their coupons by Oct. 29 to guarantee their tickets to home basketball games.
Coupons not claimed by Oct.29 will be distributed through a second lottery for students not selected in the first lottery.
After each distribution period has expired, the remaining tickets for that period's games will be sold to any student for $1. The new distribution
process was designed by the KU athletic department to ensure full crowds at each home basketball game without violating fire code capacities in the field house, Bob Frederick, athletic director, said in an earlier statement.
"Ithink it's a hassle," said Brit Laurent, Dewey, Okla., sophomore. "First off, you have to remember to go down and get the coupons, and then you have to go down there seven more times for the tickets."
Laurent said he was worried that he might forget to pick up his tickets during the distribution periods.
But some of the students who must participate in the process are not happy about it.
"I'd already forgotten about the coupons." Laurent said.
John Shoemaker, student body president and a member of the athletic corporation board, said that he understood why students might complain but that the change was inevitable.
"We were the last major university that sold tickets on a yearly basis." Shoemaker said.
He said that KU students still had the best deal in the country for basketball tickets.
"Students at Indiana only get to see six home games," Shoemaker said. "At Kentucky, only 30 percent of the seats are reserved for students compared to our 45. And they have a strict lottery — game by game. Students have to wait in line for each game, and they may not even get tickets.
"We hold up extremely well with comparable universities." Shoemaker said.
Ticket Dick-up
Before Oct. 29: Pick up coupons to be redeemed later for ticket
Nov. 1 - Nov. 10: Pick up tickets for games 1-3
Nov. 29 - Dec. 1: Pick up tickets for games 4-6
Dec. 5-Dec. 7: Pick up ticket for game 7
Dec. 8- Dec. 10: Pick up tickets for games 8 and 9
Dec. 13 - Dec. 15: Pick up tickets for games 10-12
Jan. 26- Jan. 28: Pick up tickets for
ages 13 and 14
Feb. 16- Feb. 18: Pick up tickets for games 15 and 16
HE DESIGNS THE EXHIBITIONS. HE PAINTS THE BACKGROUNDS. HE STUFFS THE ANIMALS. HE'S ...
Source: KU Athletic Department KANSAN
The Man Who Does Everything
By Sara Bennett Kansan staff writer
For Tom Swearingen, collecting is an art form, and everything is art.
A man who can't bear to see anything go unloved or forgotten, Swearingen sees potential in the most unlikely castoffs.
"They always say I'm the great scavenger," said the director of exhibitions for KU's Museum of Natural History. "But you see something, and someone's going to take it to the dump, and you say, gosh, someday that's going to be something."
Tucked away in a tiny room on the sixth floor of the museum, Swearingen transforms those somethings into works of art. A combination toy shop, artist's studio and taxidermy workshop, Swearingen's office is a museum in itself.
"It's a treasure box, a menagerie," said Errol Hooper, exhibits perpetrator. He has been an assistant to Swearingen for eight years. "You're talking decades of accumulation. Everyone who works in a museum has a little pack rat in them. He likes to gather his treasures."
Swearingen's treasures are his inspirations. Antique rocking horses stand guard in the corner. A huge moose head keeps sightless vigil from a wall where longhorn skulls sport championship ribbons. The shelves that ring the upper walls overflow with books about horses. The setting is macabre, whimsical and otherworldly all at the same time.
In this workshop, Swearingen creates the collections that captivate museum visitors. As director of exhibitions, this wiry, square-spectacled man of 57 years does it all.
He designs the exhibitions. He paints the backgrounds. He even does the taxidermy.
"It's kind of a dying trade," he said. "There are so many specialists now. They're either an artist or a taxidermist. But I do 'em all. Not too many specialize in doing everything."
And Everything can be exasperating, Nancy Swearingen, his wife of 26 years, said.
Tom is one of the few people I've met whose gifts are
Continued on Page 9.
Paul Knotz / KANSAN
Tom Swearingen, director of exhibitions at the Museum of Natural History, painted a winter scene in an exhibit that was recently finished at the museum. Swearingen does most of the background painting for the exhibits.
Libraries face overcrowding, shifting tasks
By Kathleen Stolle
Vancouver staff writer
If the KU libraries were a motel, the neon "vacancy" light would be flickering erratically.
The shelves are booked nearly to capacity.
"By the turn of the century, if we don't get new space, we'll be gridlocked," said William Crowe, dean of libraries. Only one of KU's libraries has significant room to grow. Anschutz Science Library, which opened in the fall of 1989, has about 12 years of growth left. Crowe said
But its space has been reduced by the overflow from the other, crowded libraries.
"We add 75- to 80,000 volumes per year on this campus and they have to go someplace." Crowe said.
During the summer, the last of the science and technology collections were moved from Watson Library to the science library. Although the shift allowed for 18 more months of growth in Watson, it consumed almost four years of space in the science library, a much smaller building. Crowe said.
Even more books will be moved from Watson next year, Crowe said.
About 4,000 books were moved to the science library when it first opened. Another 4,000 are scheduled for relocation this semester.
Murphy Hall's music library also has had to transfer materials to the science library.
"This causes patron inconvenience, and it causes us a lot of work," said Susan Hitchens, music librarian.
Upstairs in Murphy, two office-sized rooms are filled with music books, and the walls, once lined by listening booths, are now lined by shelves.
Hitchens and Jim Smith, a library assistant, said that although they had heard virtually no complaints from the library's patrons, the constant shifting of books and music scores was disruptive.
Across campus in the Government Documents and Map Library, cramming is imminent.
"We've raised and lowered as much as we can, and after that, there's not much left but the floor," said Mary Lou Warren, library assistant for circulation and stacks.
The oodies of congressional committee reports, census data and other documents that threaten to rupture the roof of Malott Hall represent only about 50 percent of the library's total volume. The remainder is kept in closed cages in the science library.
The documents library will have relief soon. It has been designated as one of the new tenants of Hoch Auditorium, scheduled for completion in Fall 1995. Related collections from Watson, such as the geography collection, eventually may be placed in Hoch as well.
Crowe said the library staff members, the University Senate Libraries Standing Committee and the Office of Academic Affairs would be addressing the overcrowding in the following months.
Despite the belief of some that technology will soon alleviate crowding problems, Crowe said the current generation would not eagerly abandon books for diskettes.
"Books won't go away," he said.
Amnesty awareness
Members of the KU Amnesty International group called out to students on the steps of Wescoe Hall yesterday to sign petitions that would free international prisoners.
Page 3.
Homosexuality tried students' friendship
By Chesley Dohl Kensan staff writer
Kansan staff writer
In elementary school, while the other kids were playing games on the playground, Tonia Cresssey, Overland Park junior, was questioning her feelings.
Cressey said she did not know who to tell or who to trust — so she spent six years denying, questioning and doubting herself.
"I felt like there was a big part of me I was hiding," Cressey said. "I was leading kind of a double life and I felt strange hiding something that important from everyone."
"I knew things weren't quite right when all my friends had crushes on just the boys and I knew I liked girls too," Cressey said.
She said she knew she was different.
One day after high school in her freshman year, the 16-year-old confided in her best friend, Sheilamay Orcutt, now an Overland Park senior. That day Cressey said she felt a freedom she had never felt before, but she said with that freedom came the chance of losing an inseparable friendship.
Cressey said she brought it up in a casual conversation. "I just told Sheila I liked guys but that I had a tendency to like some girls too," Cressey said. "I think her immediate response was 'Oh, okay,' but then I think she really started to think about it."
Sheilamay Orcutt, Overland Park senior, left, and Tonia Cressey, Overland Park sophomore, have been friends for more than eight years. The friends had a few problems at first when Cressey revealed her homosexuality, but are now "like sisters."
Cressey and Orcutt did not speak again for almost two months.
Orcutt looks back today and remembers walking out of Cressev's house and the events that followed.
"We were the best of friends, and the way she told me, very casually, I couldn't have been shocked or surprised. It was the only way it could have been," Orcutt said. "We never stopped being friends and I needed some time to
think about what I thought was right."
"At that age I was very homophobic myself because I hadn't been introduced to it," she said. "I thought it was the grossest. nastiest thing there was."
Orcutt was brought up in a strict Catholic home. She said her parents were homophobic, and she was taught that homosexuality was a sin. Her mother told her if she ever were lesbian it would kill her father.
Orcutt said she jumped to conclusions after she learned her friend was gay. She remembered a time when she was dressed up for a school event, and her friend told her she looked pretty. She said she began to make assumptions that Cressley was interested in her for more than just friendship.
"I became really leery about all the times she had ever touched me," Orcutt said. "I just didn't want her to even touch me."
Orcutt said it was her close friendship with Cressey that made her realize that homosexuality was real — it happens, even to best friends.
"I slowly realized she wasn't a threat to me," Orcutt said. "Just because she's into women doesn't mean she's into me."
After her first year of college, which helped her become more familiar with gay issues, Orcutt said she apologized to Cressey.
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"I've learned that you have to judge people by their content," Orcutt said. "Tonia is like a sister to me now. She's one of my best friends."