CAMPUS/AREA UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Thursday, February 1, 1996
3A
Filmmaker to share experience at KU
University included as one of 10 stops at Burns' request
By Jason Strait
Kansan staff writer
Ken Burns wasn't invited to the University of Kansas, but he's coming anyway to lecture about baseball, politics, and why he chose film to reflect them.
Center. The lecture is free and open to the public. Tickets for Burns' lecture are limited to four per person and can be obtained at the Student Union Activities office in the Kansas Union.
Burns, creator of the public television documentaries The Civil War and Baseball, requested that the University be one stop on his 10-stop national lecture tour of universities. Burns' lecture, Sharing the American Experience, is at 8 p.m. on Feb. 13 at the Lied
Howard Sypher, chairman of communication studies, said the Washington Speaker's Bureau contacted him with Burns' specific request for the University to be a part of the list. Burns' request was then approved by General Motors, who is sponsoring the tour, and graciously accepted by the University.
Sypher said Burns likely chose Kansas because he wanted to hit a few universities in the Heartland during his tour of the nation.
"He is an excellent example of someone who used the medium of film to hold a mirror up to American life," Williams said.
The lecture is the main attraction of a Celebration of the 100th Anniversary of American Film being held throughout the semester, said William Andrews, director of the Hall Center for the Humanities and professor of English.
At previous lectures at the University of Syracuse and the University of Michigan, Burns' lecture featured a variety of topics from history to politics. The lecture's message centered on why he chose filmmaking to teach people about history and its social significance.
"For many of us, we are brought to our history in just this fashion — story, memory anecdote," Burns said at a Syracuse lecture. "These emotional connections become a kind of glue, which makes the most complex of past events stick in our minds and, particularly, in our hearts."
Burns was the director, producer, cowriter, chief cinematographer, music direc
tor and executive producer of the public television series Baseball, which is more than 18 hours long and took more than four years to make. His documentary The Civil War was the most-watched series in the history of public television in the United States and won more than 40 major film and television awards, including two Emmy Awards and two Grammy Awards.
In the previous lectures, Burns has criticized television for not treating the present with any context or perspective. He has criticized those in Congress who want to cut government funding to public television and other art groups.
"Let me say the marketplace could not have made — and to this day could not make — my Civil War series or the baseball series, or indeed any of these films I have worked on," he said.
Well-known filmmakers to celebrate film
Medium turns 100 in America this year
By Jason Strait Kansan staff writer
On April 23, 1886, the film medium was introduced to the United States.
In honor of that cinematic event, A Celebration of the 100th Anniversary of American Film is being held by the Hall Center for the Humanities in cooperation with the department of theatre and film this semester.
The celebration began last week with Hollywood filmmaker and KU graduate Mike Robe receiving a Distinguished Kansan Award.
In addition to the Robe tribute, the University's film celebration will include three documentary filmmakers' lectures and various film series.
Ken Burns will lecture at 8 p.m. on Feb. 13 at the Lied Center; Soraya Mire will screen her film Fire Eyes at 9:30 p.m. Tuesday in Alderson Auditorium and regional filmmaker John Altman will lecture at 7 p.m. on Feb. 29 in the Spencer Museum of Art auditorium.
KU faculty also will present a mini-course called The American Cine-Century: Mapping a Medium, a screening of American documentary films Feb. 24 and a 10-hour film festival March 10 in the Kansas Union.
"We wanted to recognize the impact of film," said William Andrews, director of the Hall Center and professor of English. "Film has been not only a mirror but a lens. It's a way we can look at our culture and lives. We wanted to look at these people who held that camera up."
The celebration's feature attraction will be Ken Burns' lecture Sharing the American Experience, Andrews said.
said Burns would provide the celebration with the perspective of one of the best documentary filmmakers in the world.
"He's not making up a new story, he's giving us stories we've all seen and putting them in a package so we can understand them more completely," Bergsaid.
Chuck Berg, professor of theatre and film.
Berg said he approached Andrews with the idea of a film celebration a couple of years ago, and Andrews was all for the idea.
"It's a date that's a landmark," Berg said. "It's when the American public was introduced to film, and we're holding this celebration in honor of that."
Wealth of information awaits researchers at archives
University's memories housed in little-utilized collections
By Heather Kirkwood
Kansan staff writer
The University of Kansas has a hidden treasure that many students don't know exists.
tained or where it was.
Located on the top floor of the Spencer Research Library behind Strong Hall, University Archives house the history of the University.
However, Eric Eicher, Colby graduate student, was not sure what the Archives concluded that those who need to use the archives will find it.
"Do you mean by archives the library's special collections?" he asked.
Established in 1969, the archives contain thousands of dusty boxes full of official and unofficial publications, theses, minutes, correspondence, student records, photographs, blueprints, financial records, yearbooks, movie films, video tapes and sound recordings dating back to 1866.
But the fact most students don't know about University Archives does not concern Kehde or Barry Bunch, who have been collecting and organizing the University's history for 26 and 17 years, respectively. They have concluded that those who need to use the archives will find it.
Every day Kehde and Bunch comb local newspapers looking for stories about the University, update the photo collection, which numbers 980,000, and help researchers find documents.
"We're super secretaries — that's all we are," Kehde said. "There is nothing glamourous, or glorious, or woody-zoohy about it."
Even though Kehde and Bunch consider their jobs mundane, Amber Reagan-Kendrick, Lawrence graduate student, said doing research at the archives was fascinating. Reagan-Kendrick is working on a dissertation
about the experiences of African-American students between 1870 to 1970.
"I just love what I do," she said. "I don't know if people believe me or if they think I'm brown-nosing, but I really enjoy what I do."
Reagan-Kendrick has dug through old issues of the University Daily Kansan, correspondence from the past 15 chancellors and publications such as the Dove, an unofficial liberal newspaper with a culturally diverse staff published between 1925 and 1951.
Reagan-Kendrick said that the archives were invaluable to her research and were critical for students who wanted to learn from the past.
Theatre honored at festival
By Jason Stralt
Kansan staff writer
KU students and faculty were honored with awards last week during the regional Kennedy Center/American College Theatre festival in St. Louis.
University entrants included the productions The Adding Machine and The Devil's Game.
Mark Reaney, associate professor of theatre and film, received an award for his technical work on The Adding Machine, and Ronald Willis, professor of theatre and film, was honored for his direction of the virtual reality production.
The Adding Machine is still in contention for the national competition at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., in April. Willis said response at the festival was encouraging and the decision for nationals would be made in mid-March.
"They were quite complimentary with our integration of virtual reality and theatre," Willis said. "They said they were transfixed by a sense of wonder by something that was so exciting."
English Alternative Theatre founder Paul Lim was honored for his contributions to theatre at the festival, and as founder of the alternative theatre, an organization devoted primarily to producing original scripts written by KU students.
the alternative theatre's production The Devil's Game is no longer in contention for nationals, but the festival's experience was extremely helpful for the students, Lim said.
"Everyone was extremely positive about The Devil's Game," Lim said. "I talked to one judge who said the first thing written on his notes was 'wow.'"
Other winners were: Alan Yeong, graduate student, first for graduate costume design; Daisey Hethcoat, Rogersville, Mo. senior, second place for undergraduate design.
Students say skating on Potter Lake is cheap frozen fun
Wil Averill, Lawrence senior, and Bo Price, Wichita senior, both received awards for student playwrights.
Irene Ryan Scholarship Competition: Brian Paulette, Lenexa junior, finalist; Jenifer Nichols, Topeka junior, semifinalist; Emmie Hsu, Topeka junior, semifinalist.
By R. Adam Ward Kansan staff writer
Frigid weather can be hard on cars, but it presents opportunities for students interested in skating.
And students with their own skates can do it right on campus at Potter Lake.
"It's kind of hard to find things to do in the winter time," said Rhonda Houser, Emporia senior. "It's nice to get outside and exercise instead of going to Robinson."
Houser said expense was a big issue for students that skated on Potter Lake, and so was the convenience of having a place to skate that was close to campus. Houser said she also enjoyed skating on natural lakes rather than big skating rinks.
crowded than skating rinks."
"I learned on natural ice," she said.
"It's not so smooth, and it's a lot less
Nils Jergensen, Colorado Springs, Colo., senior, also likes skating on Potter Lake. However, when he first started skating on the lake, he said he was afraid that he might be breaking a University rule.
There are no regulations or laws concerning skating on the lake, and it is legal to do it, said Gayle Reece, KU police community education and media officer.
Jergensen is the captain of the KU hockey team and said he wished the hockey team could practice on the lake, rather than paying $200 an hour at Shawnee Mission Rinks. However, he said it was impractical to practice at Potter Lake because many hockey team members had
"I have seen people skating when I wish they wouldn't, but it's up to their individual judgment," she said.
day classes and at night it was impossible to see the puck.
"Usually the weather is so unpredictable that you cannot skate during the day," he said. "But because it hasn't gotten above 30 degrees during the day, the past couple of days has been ideal for skating."
Jergensen said he talked to the hockey team at Kansas State University about playing a game on Potter Lake but that were problems with the idea.
The largest obstacle is the unpredictability of the weather, he said. Other problems are making the lake smooth enough for hockey and keeping people off of the lake.
However, Jergensen said he thought the problems could be overcome and predicted that a game might take place on Potter next year.
David Hill, St. Louis, Mo., Junior, and Nils Jorgensen, Colorado Springs, Colo., senior, practice their hockey skills yesterday on Potter Lake. The University of Kansas has no rules regarding skating on the lake.
Gina Thornburg/ KANSAN