UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Nicolas Shump, a 28-year-old Topake graduate student, is the Multicultural Resource Center's newly appointed graduate assistant.
Wednesday, November 8, 1995
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Since its opening in September, the Multicultural Resource Center has become invaluable to many student and faculty groups.
Center integrates student staffer
Steve Puppe / KANSAN
Nicolas Shump is the recently hired graduate assistant at the Multicultural Resource Center..
- Multicultural Center hires graduate assistant
By Hannah Naughton Kansan staff writer
Another ingredient was added to the Multicultural Resource Center's mix last week.
Nicolas Shump, a 28-year-old Topeka graduate student, moved into an office at the center as the center's newly appointed graduate assistant.
"Just in one week, he's already taken a load off," said Gloria Flores, associate director of minority affairs and Shump's new supervisor. "He is definitely going to help to expedite the amount of information and activities the Multicultural Resource Center is attempting to provide."
The center, which officially opened Sept. 6, had been run by five staff members from the Office of Minority Affairs who split their time between the two places. The staff members will continue to work at the center, but now Shump also will work 20 hours per week.
"I think it's easy to be pessimistic and cynical and say multiculturalism is just a fad," Shump said. "It's more difficult to make it work, and that's what I want to do."
Shump said he applied last spring for the position and updated his application at the end of August after he had graduated with a degree in comparative literature.
Flores said she and the four other members
of the search committee extended the deadline to widen the application pool. Shump went through three interviews before he was selected from 22 applicants.
Last semester when he was still an undergraduate, Shump researched and taught a course in the department of American studies which examined the Hispanic-American culture. Flores said Shump had a unique background and could draw on his experiences in strengthening the center and building a rapport with the rest of campus.
"I have some general programming ideas I want to propose to certain professors and get them involved," Shump said. "I'm looking into getting a web site for the center, and I'm working on some ideas for publicity."
Part of his job is to promote the center and help orient people who want to program through the center, he said. He has already been contacted by a McCollum Hall staff member to develop a diversity fair for Nov. 28.
Shump said some of his long-term goals were to tap into the wealth of knowledge that KU professors have and use that as a source to build resources in the center.
Shump also wants to build databases and an annotated bibliography, listing different resources, both inside and outside of the center, so people can do research on multicultural topics, he said.
"When I leave here, I want to see that this place has become a place of research," Shump said. "Ideally, it would be nice if people called us as much as KU Info."
Multicultural Resource Center a good place to meet
By Hannah Naughton
Kansan staff writer
Samantha Florek has moved her group's meeting place at least three times in the past year, but she finally found its niche this semester.
Florek, Lawrence junior, is the president of the Recovery Medicine Wheel Support Group. She found her group's niche at the Multicultural Resource Center, a place where more and more people at the University of Kansas are finding resources and space for themselves and their groups.
"We needed a good place to have it," she said. "I went to the opening, and I realized the center
would be a great place to get this going and get students involved.
Florek met Julius Williams, assistant director of the Office of Minority Affairs, at the center's grand opening and said that he had helped her get the support group started on campus.
Other groups, including GREECS, Asian American Student Union, OAKS — Non-Traditional Students Organization, have met at the center.
"The center is a place where you recognize the importance of good relations," Florek said. "The group helps build good relations with all relations."
Amnesty International also used the center. They held a program
there that focused on indigenous people, said Rachel Wiese, Overland Park sophomore and the group's president.
"It's really a nice facility, and they were really flexible about time," Wiese said. "It's easier to secure a place there. You have to go through more bureaucratic paperwork to get space at the Union."
Some people missed Amnesty International's program because they didn't know where the center was, Wiese said. The center is in the Military Science building's old annex. north of Summerfield Hall.
The center also attracts people who come to see programs that it sponsors. Jim West, the chairman
of the Douglas County AIDS project, spoke Thursday about issues related to being HIV positive.
Richard Crank, library assistant at Anschutz Science Library, said that he lent 22 different posters to the center to raise awareness about AIDS and tolerance toward gays, lesbians and bisexuals.
Crank also has donated books to the center's library and leads the Man to Man support group every other Tuesday to promote safe sex among gay men.
"It took me a while to make the connection to the center," Crank said. "I think it is underutilized, and it doesn't have to just be used by students. It's for faculty and staff, too."
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