CAMPUS/AREA
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Monday, December 4, 1995
3A
Finals can be a holiday Grinch
Holiday lights decorate this Lawrence home. Although finals are approaching, many students are in the holiday spirit.
Students find ways to cope
By Tara Trenary
Kansan staff writer
Christmas trees, brightly lighted windows, decorated yards and Frank Sinatra albums — it's that time of year again.
Some KU students are getting into the holiday spirit even though finals and returning home are only a couple of weeks away.
"There's nothing like finals to bring someone down," said Joe Zielinski, development coordinator for the St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center, 1631 Crescent Road. "And there's nothing like Christmas to bring someone up."
The center holds many Christmas activities for KU students, such as the Festival of Lessons and Carols on Dec. 8 and the Pancake Feed on Dec. 10.
He said some students did not seem to think about anything else during finals, but they should, especially during the holiday season.
And many students are taking the season to heart.
"I just love Christmas," said Kenyon Eyman,
Topeka junior.
He said that when students were not at home with their families, much of the time they felt homesick. But decorating, as he and his roommates have done, makes college more like home. Eyman said.
Jack Standiford, Fredonia senior, said that he and his roommates began decorating a week before Thanksgiving and that the decorations kept his spirits up.
He and his roommates crawled out a second floor window and hung from the roof just to put up hundreds of Christmas lights on their townhouse, he said.
"It breaks the monotony around finals," he said.
Aaron Puttroff, Newton junior, said the best part was bringing the holiday spirit he experienced growing up to college.
"I consider this my home
now, and why not just make it home?" he said.
But many students just cannot find the time or energy to take part in the holiday spirit.
Jennifer Rygg, Wichita junior, said she felt being festive was more important to students who lived far from KU.
Her family exchanged names for Christmas Eve gifts, but this year, she was just too busy, she said.
"If I had time and the decorations I might do it," she said. "Up until finals, it's like, 'What's Christmas?'
Chris Cooley, Long Valley,
N.J., junior, knows what
Christmas means to him.
He said he and his roommates decorated their house with lights and had a lot of fun doing it together.
"Christmas is the spirit of family," he said. "It's a celebration of life."
'Tis the season to tune in to area stations
Holiday songs to flood the air waves this week
By Craig Lang Kansah staff write
It's easy to tell how close it is to Christmas Day — turn on the radio.
"It's a ball rolling downhill," said Mary Margaret Simpson, assistant director of KANU, 91.5 FM.
As area stations start playing their Christmas music and programming this week, listeners will notice that the frequency of the holiday tunes will increase until the big day, when it will be hard to find anything on the radio that's not related to the Yuletide season.
While many stations will be playing the holiday music and shows pretty frequently, others will dish out only small portions of the Christmas spirit:
"One of the big reasons is that when people think of the holidays, it's usually associated with music," she said.
Simpson said that KANU would play the first of its holiday programs this week, beginning with "Carrington's Christmas," a collection of holiday recordings by the King's Singers, a renowned vocal ensemble. The King's Singers include Simon Carrington, who is an associate professor of music and dance at the University of Kansas. Simpson said KANU played a lot of musical programming during the holidays because it was what listeners expected.
Roger The dodger, program director of KLZR, the Lazer, 105.9 FM, said that starting this week, the station would play some Christmas music by artists usually featured on the Lazer, such as Julianna Hatfield and Shallow. Theodoger said the station would not flood its programming with the holiday
music. However, he said this year the station did have a greater variety of holiday tunes from which to choose because many of the artists on the Lazer had released Christmas songs.
The Lazer's sister station, KLWN,
1320 AM, started playing its holiday
music immediately after Thanksgiving
Day, said John Flood, program director. The station is playing two Christmas songs an hour and will increase the number until Christmas Eve, when the station will play continuous Christmas music through Christmas Day.
"Our listeners expect it every year and love it every year." Flood said.
John Duncan, program director for KYYS, 102 FM, said he thought everyone wanted to get into the Christmas spirit but did not want to be inundated with it. He said the station would pull out Christmas music this week, playing a little bit every day. Duncan said that on Christmas Eve, the station would
play nothing but rock and roll Christ- mas songs featuring every artist from Hootie and the Blowfish to PearlJam.
Mario Estevez, programming assistant for WDAF-AM, 61 Country, said this week the station was playing one Christmas song every hour and would increase until Christmas Day, when they would play Christmas music all day. Estevez said the station would play both the serious songs, including new ones by Clint Black, and humorous holiday songs, such as Jeff Foxworthy's "Twelve Redneck Days of Christmas."
Doug Gondek, program director for KKCJ, 106 FM, said the jazz station was playing one holiday track every two hours but would play more as Christmas day got closer. Gondek said KKCJ would play continuous holiday music from 6 p.m. Christmas Eve until midnight Christmas Day.
"Just about everybody we play has put out a Christmas album," he said.
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Man attacks student behind Nunemaker
Kansan staff report
KU police are looking for a man who they say tried to apprehend a KU student Wednesday night behind Nunemaker Hall.
The man — described as a white male, six feet tall with blonde eyebrows — allegedly grabbed the woman at about 11:50 p.m. and told her to come with him. When the woman refused, he tried to pull her with him. He let her go when some people who saw the incident came out of Jayhawker Towers. The woman was not hurt.
The man was wearing a mustard-colored down coat, blue jeans, hiking boots and either a white KU baseball cap or a tan knit hat.
By Eric Weslander Kansan correspondent
Police have asked anyone who saw a person matching this description in the area around Nunemaker or Jayhawker Towers to contact them or KU Crime Stoppers. They have offered a cash award for anyone who has information that leads to the man's apprehension. KU police can be reached at 864-5572, and KU Crime Stoppers can be reached at 864-8888.
Delta Chi forum puts hazing on trial
Delta Chi, which has been suspended by the University for hazing incidents, sponsored the program to satisfy one of 13 steps it must take to apply for reinstatement of full fraternity privileges. The forum was also an attempt to educate fellow greeks, said Kirk Royse, Delta Chi president.
In a mock trial held last night at Woodruff Auditorium in the Kansas Union, members of Delta Chi fraternity and anti-hazing speakers David Wostall and Greg Houser demonstrated the harmful effects of hazing to more than 400 members of the Greek community. The presentation, which was adapted from an actual case, involved a pledge class member who died of alcohol poisoning during a pre-initiation event referred to as "hell week."
The verdict has been delivered: Hazing is not to be tolerated.
"We had a lot of representation from other chapters," Royse said. "Hopefully, this will hit close to; home with them, especially after what happened to us."
Westhall and Houser, who have given more than 600 anti-hazing presentations in the past 14 years, played the prosecutors. They described hazing as an ego-driven opportunity to exert authority over people, and they questioned its function in the fraternity system.
"You call yourself brothers," Westhall said to the president of the fictitious fraternity. "If you had a little brother at home, would you treat him this way?"
Houser, who admitted to hazing while he was at Michigan State University, said he had taken part in hazing because of a "little bully" inside of him. He also said hazing had nothing to do with the concept of a fraternity.
"Hazing is not about unity or brotherhood," he said. "Hazing is about power and the abuse of power."
Houser and Westhall had been in Kansas City, Mo., for the National Interfraternity Conference. Houser said the process of joining a fraternity or sorority was changing.
"By the year 2000, pledging as you and I know it will be gone," Houser said. He said that the process would either be completely eliminated or would be shortened to less than three weeks.
"That's what we have do to if we want to get rid of the hazing," he said.