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www.unews.comFebruary 15, 2010 Vol. 77, Issue 21
SMOKING
RUL ES
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2February 15, 2010 www.unews.com
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Alexia Stout-LangNews Editor
Clearing the air around smoking policy
While legislators debate statewide smoking laws, some students are still un-sure what the smoking rules on campus are.
Jamie Walsh, senior in Communication Studies, is one of them.
She said she does not worry about the smoking policy because she does not smoke. But she has noticed a trend on cam-pus.
“I am not sure where the designated smoking areas are but I have noticed that a lot of students smoke around the entrances to Royall Hall, Haag Hall and Flarsheim,” Walsh said. “I do find that whenever I want to go into Royall Hall, I have to wade through a cloud of smoke before entering.”
Heather Sprigler, a pre-med student who smokes occasionally, said she knows the university has a smoking policy, but she thinks most people on campus do not care.
“There are designated smoking areas on campus and then there are areas where people smoke,” Sprigler said. “They are not the same. A) Nobody enforces the rules. B) Nobody follows the rules. C) Nobody cares. Congrats, UMKC, on an-other ineffective policy.”
Sprigler admits she does not smoke in the designated areas.
“What are they going to do to me?” she said. “Take away my cigarettes?”
Her suggestion for those who are upset some people smoke near doors is to avoid the smokers.
“If you see people smoking, walk around them, go to another door,” Spri-gler said. “There is more than one door for every building.”
UMKC’s current smoking policy was drafted in 2006 and enacted by former chancellor Guy Bailey.
The policy is posted on the Human Resources Web site, www.umkc.edu/hr/master/UMKC-Specific.asp, the Residen-tial Life Web site, www.umkc.edu/HOUS-ING/guide_conduct.asp, and the U-News Web site. The School of Medicine’s poli-cy is found at www.med.umkc.edu/admin/sections/admindepts/business/Policy11_Smoking.pdf.
The use of cigarettes, cigars, pipes or other devices to generate smoke from to-bacco or other products is prohibited in all university vehicles and buildings ex-cept private housing, according to the policy.
Also, smoking is only allowed in designated areas.
Following the policy is up to individuals.
“Compliance with UMKC Smoking Policy is the responsibility of each em-ployee and student,” the policy reads. “Each unit supervisor is responsible for enforcement of the policy within his/her facility or unit. Reasonable efforts to en-force this policy must be made by each unit supervisor.”
In a letter sent when the policy was first created, Bailey asked for cooperation.
“I am asking all members of the cam-pus community to act responsibly and provide your completed cooperation in the implementation and administration of both of these policies,” he said. “The university has both a social and regula-tory responsibility to provide a safe and healthy learning and work environment for our students, faculty and staff.”
The director of Environmental Health and Safety has the overall responsibility and authority for implementation and ad-ministration of this policy.
Current director Bob Leutzinger said 32 smoking areas have been designated on the UMKC campuses. Labeling the smoking areas has been at the discretion of each building dean and/or director.
“Campus Facilities has worked with any building users who requested signs, and no one has been turned down,” he said.
For more information, visit www.un-ews.com.
1. Dental School - North Loading dock 2. Medical School - West Loading dock 3. Admin Center - Eastside patio 4. Law School - Southeast entrance area 5. Epperson - West side pass-through 6. Educ School - Southeast area 7. 51st Annex - Northwest corner 8. Performing Arts - North entrance & Dock area 9. Bloch School - West side bldg & NW Courtyard 10. Swinney Recreation - North pass-through 11. Pierson Auditorium - West pass-through
12. Univ. Center - South of 2nd floor entrance 13. Fine Arts Building - Northwest corner area 14. Miller Nichols Lib - South entrance area 15. Scofield Hall - South entrance area 16. Old Maint. - West side area 17. Flarsheim Hall - North Loading dock & South pavilion 18. Newcomb Hall - South entrance area 19. Manheim Hall - South entrance area 20. Royall Hall - Between Royall and Haag 21. Haag Hall - Between Royall and Haag
22. Grant Hall - West entrance 23. Katz Pharmacy bldg - North entrance 24. Biological Sci bldg - Southwest entrance 25. Spencer Chem bldg - Northeast entrance 26. Lab Animal Center - North Loading dock 27. General Services bldg - West parking area 28. Univ House - South parking lot area 29. Cockefair - East entrance 30. Berkley Child - No Smoking 31. 4747 Troost bldg - East Loading dock 32. 4825 Troost bldg - East Loading dock
“A) Nobody enforces the rules. B) Nobody follows the rules. C) Nobody cares. Congrats, UMKC, on another ineffective policy.”
HEATHER SPRIGLERUMKC student
In November 2006, the Environmental Health & Safety and Campus Facilities Management worked with the Building Liaison Committee
to designate the following 32 smoking locations:
Photo ALEXIA STOUT-LANG
The entrance outside of Haag Hall is a popular spot for smokers.
Despite years of experience cover-ing war and famine as a journalist, Peter Morello recently visited Haiti and saw the worst devastation he has ever seen.
A professor of journalism at UMKC for the last 10 years, Morello was a PBS correspondent in Eu-rope and covered the breakup of the So-viet Union, the war in Bosnia and the famine relief efforts in Somalia.
“I have had a lot of experience as a reporter in crisis ar-eas,” Morello said. “But nothing really prepared me for what I saw scale-wise in Port-au-Prince. The question I kept asking myself af-terwards was, ‘How can we fix this?’ There are so many people on so many different levels who are suffering.”
Morello and two ministers from the Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, Kan., spent Jan. 24-30 in Haiti.
Morello offered to accompany the ministers because of his experience in disaster-torn areas.
He said he will never forget his ex-perience. The smell of death sticks out strongly in his mind.
“There was one 10-story techni-cal school that collapsed,” Morello said. “Since there is a lack of heavy
equipment in Port-au-Prince, many of the bodies are still in those buildings and there is no way to get them out. The smell, that combined with dust from the rubble and also the traffic, it was sickening. It was a smell I will never forget.”
Every open space was occupied by displaced Haitians
whose homes were either destroyed or too dangerous to go back to.
“I met a gentlemen who is living with his family in his front yard because he can’t move back into his house be-cause another house is leaning on it,” Morello said. “Every time there is an af-tershock – and I experienced a couple of them – a few more buildings fall down.”
But Morello wants to focus on the good being done there.
“There are established aid groups in the country who are doing a remarkable job right now,” he said. “Catholic Relief, the Red Cross, they are all doing good jobs. I don’t want to harp on their issue because it’s insignificant to the amount of good being done in the country.”
Morello said his experience changed his perspective.
“It changed me because I have a lot of concern for the people of Haiti,” he said. “I did not know that much about Haiti before I went there and I am cer-tainly not an expert now, but I know what I saw. This country is in our back-yard and I think we need to do every-thing we can do to help Haiti.”
The road to recovery for Haiti will be long, Morello said. He expects it to take at least 10 years.
“The help has to be strategic,” he
said. “We can’t all rush down there to fix Haiti because it would not work. Right now, Haiti does not have the infrastruc-ture to support most aid groups.”
He added the country needs building inspectors, engineers and architects.
He recorded three hours of film while in Haiti. He hopes to use it for a documentary. Morello plans to return to Haiti soon.
“A lot of it depends on what the situ-
ation there is,” he said. “I do not want to go back without a mission. If I can help in some way with relief efforts, I will do that.”
When things are more stable and safer, the Church of the Resurrection will also go back to Haiti with medical and construction teams.
Morello emphasized this is an active church with affluent members, and the ability to be self-sustaining.
Most importantly, he said people should remain positive regardless of the devastation.
“That doesn’t mean you have to lose hope,” he said. “You know, these people, they’re very resilient and re-sourceful. They just need tools to do it themselves.”
[email protected]@unews.com
Nikki Peters, staff writer, contributed to this story.
3News
www.unews.com February 15, 2010
Photo courtesy REV. ADAM HAMILTON
Photo courtesy REV. ADAM HAMILTON
Many Hatians are living in tents after their homes were destroyed.
“Nothing really prepared me for what I saw scale-wise in Port-au-Prince. The question I kept asking myself afterwards was, ‘How can we fix this?’”
PETER MORELLOJournalism Professor
Patrick ShamiStaff Writer
Focusing on the positiveA look at relief efforts in Haiti
“The smell, that combined with dust from the rubble and also the traffic, it was sickening. It was a smell I will never forget.’”
PETER MORELLOJournalism Professor
The U.S. Peace Corps held a re-cruitment seminar on campus last week with hopes of educating stu-dents about its benefits.
Several students met with recruit-er Betsy Blum, who explained the purpose of the Peace Corps and why it is important for students.
“The mission is to promote world peace and friendship,” Blum said.
The fundamental goal of the Peace Corps is to break the cul-
tural divide and form relationships between countries.
The Peace Corps travels to coun-tries that ask for help and works to solve problems affecting communities.
The corps mostly works to edu-cate developing nations.
“In Ethiopia, I was an adult doing an adult job (teaching) in a culture that was different than my own in ev-ery respect,” said Dr. Harris Mirkin, chair of the Political Science Depart-ment at UMKC. “Living in a different culture made me much more aware of what that meant.”
Volunteers may qualify for stu-dent loan deferment or even partial cancellation of student loan debt.
The Peace Corps also covers liv-ing expenses and provides up to 48 vacation days per year.
More practical benefits include field experience and fluency in for-eign languages.
Students are encouraged to apply at least one year in advance because the application process is very com-petitive and encompasses several steps, including submitting letters of recommendation and a résumé, as well as interviewing with former vol-unteers.
Once accepted, students are re-quired to serve in the Peace Corps for 27 months.
Most of the volunteers have a col-
lege degree and those who don’t have at least a year’s experience in their field.
The Peace Corps is unique because volunteers are sent to foreign places and are expected to be self-reliant.
“They are on their own in a differ-ent culture and they aren’t tourists, but are working in that culture,” Mirkin said.
Contact Blum at [email protected] with questions or vis-it the Peace Corps’ Web site at www.peacecorps.gov.
Peace Corps reaches out to students“Living in a different culture made me much more aware of what that meant.”
HARRIS MIRKINChair of the Political Science Department
Melissa OribhaborAssistant News Editor
Alexia Stout-LangNews Editor
The philosophy society, Phi Sigma Tau, hosted an event called “The Lust of the Eye: Krzysztov Kieslowski Looks at Love” Friday evening in the Diastole.
A short film by director Krzysz-tov Kieslowski titled “A Short Film about Love” was followed by a lec-ture given by C.D.C. Reeve, author
and professor of philosophy at Uni-versity of North Carolina – Chapel Hill.
The film is an extension of Kies-lowski’s sixth installation of his TV miniseries “Decalogue,” based on the Ten Commandments.
Reeve began his lecture com-menting on the importance of the questions brought up in the theme of the film.
“The drama is, what does love look like?” he asked. “How can you tell if what you are seeing is love? You see people doing things but what is the feeling inside them? Is it love or something else? That is the theme of this film.”
University of Missouri – Colum-bia Classics professor, Rich Loey, attended the event and said the film
left a lasting impression of beauty and thought.
“It was dazzling, beautiful and richly symbolic but difficult to piece together,” he said. “You see various elements of symbolism, but you can’t really figure out what the whole story is. It’s perplexing and beautiful altogether.”
Though Loey enjoyed the film, he was more interested in what Reeve had to say.
He drove from Columbia to at-tend the lecture, after having at-tended a different lecture by Reeve 15 years ago as a graduate student.
“He has an international reputa-tion as a scholar of Plato and ancient philosophy and now he is working with film, too,” Loey said. “I saw him give a talk on Plato and it stuck with me.”
Mariah Hone, senior Psycholo-gy major, also said she learned from Reeve’s insight.
“Professor Reeve brought so much depth, I thought that I caught a lot of the symbolism, but a lot of the things that he said were fasci-nating,” she said.
Reeve concluded his lecture with an idea on the obsession with movies as juxtaposed to the obses-sion found in the film. He ended the night with the meaning of the
event’s title, “The Lust of the Eye.”“When you love a film you want
to see everything there is to see about it,” Reeve said. “But most of the time we just consume films. We
eat them with our eye, we engage in a kind of lust of the eye. We let them titillate us for a while, then we throw them away.”
A series of vehicle break-ins during the fall semester had some Roos concerned, but the bitter temperatures have chilled campus crime.
UMKC Chief of Police Michael Bongartz said the winter/spring semester is generally quiet until the springtime, thanks to the cold weather.
Bongartz reported good news regarding the GPS unit thefts last fall.
“Last semester, fall semester, we were having a lot of GPS units stolen out of cars,” he said. “We ended up working with Rock-hurst. They had a picture of a suspect vehicle. We ended up getting involved in a car chase when the suspect was spotted on one of our cameras. We didn’t have him doing any of the crimes, so we ended up getting him on some
warrants and traffic charges. [Afterward] all the thefts stopped.”
While the GPS thefts have stopped, some still have concerns about reported crimes.
Student Amanda Osbourne said she thinks the UMKC police are good overall, but she still has concerns.
“Effectiveness is a little lacking consider-ing the number of reports in the blotter,” she said. “[I’m concerned about the reports] con-cerning assault and burglary.”
Isaac Allen, adjunct professor of Com-munications/Program Coordinator for DE-BATE-Kansas City, said he feels safe on campus. But he worries about his car when he has to leave it on campus.
“I also have had my registration stickers on my car stolen several times,” he said. “I know they keep an eye out for these sorts of things. But they can’t be everywhere always. All I can think they could do is increase the number of officers. But I am generally pleased with our police people.”
Student Government Association senator Cassie Knoth said she worries about lighting.
“During the day I do not have any major complaints, but at night I feel that there are many improvements that could be made,” she said. “I think that parking around the Univer-sity Center and library could be worked on. At night it is often dark in many areas, which makes for a weary walk to the car when you’re a female and alone, especially when there are events going on at the Performing Arts Center or Pierson, so student parking is
4February 15, 2010 www.unews.com
News
Photo KATHERINE LAWLER
C.D.C. Reeve.
Photo KATHERINE LAWLER
C.D.C. Reeve speaks to Philosophy students about lust.
Photo ALEXIA STOUT-LANG
Cameras in the garages record activity.
“We eat them with our eye, we engage in a kind of lust of the eye. We let them titillate us for a while, then we throw them away.”
C.D.C. REEVEAuthor and professor of Philosophy at University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill
Rachael HerndonStaff Writer
Katherine LawlerStaff Photographer
Thefts decreased on campus
See THEFT I page 20
Lusts of the eye revealed
UMKC’s Institute for Urban Edu-cation (IUE) is partnering with three Kansas City school districts and communities to revolutionize the way teachers are educated.
The School of Education at UMKC created IUE in 2005 after a group of educators decided teachers were not being correctly prepared for urban education.
“All the research shows if you’re going to make a difference in the lives of students, then it starts with the quality of the teacher,” Dr. Ed Underwood, executive director for the IUE, said.
IUE is recruiting students straight out of high school who want to become teachers and leaders in the community.
Students must pass an admissions process, maintain a minimum 3.0 GPA and teach four years in one of three urban school districts.
IUE students learn and teach in the Kansas City, Mo. School District (KCMSD), Kansas City, Kan. School District and Hickman Mills School District, as well at UMKC charter schools.
The reward is a full scholarship. Unlike alternative programs where students typically complete two years of general education require-ments before entering a classroom environment, IUE places students in schools by the second week of their first semester.
“I could meet you at your high school in the spring and you could be with me in a classroom in the fall,” said Erica Hernandez-Scott, assis-tant teaching professor and recruiter for IUE.
Hernandez-Scott is a graduate of Hickman Mills high school who received a master’s degree from UMKC, taught for seven years at Burke Elementary and worked for one year as an instructional coach in the Hickman Mills School District before returning to UMKC in 2005.
She said she wasn’t prepared when she began her career because she had not been around enough good teaching.
“When you go into a situation you’re unprepared for, you start do-ing things necessary to survive,” Hernandez-Scott said. “And if you’re just surviving, you’re not growing.”
Underwood said three simple steps allow the IUE to effectively prepare educators.
Students are recruited from within urban school districts, edu-cated and professionally trained in the same urban districts, placed as teachers in the districts and given continued support through mentor-
ship.“We need a better prepared teach-
er for math, science and literacy,” Underwood said. “We have a method we believe is going to be replicated around the nation.”
The United States tends to score in the bottom third internationally for math and science.
National recognition IUE received an $8.36 million
Teacher Quality Grant from the U.S. Department of Education.
The grant will allow IUE to build its infrastructure and hopefully ex-pand the program to 140 students with 35 graduating every year within five years.
Next fall, the number of available scholarships is doubling from 20 to 40.
“We’re bridging the gap between what was only theory two years ago and is now learned through experi-ence,” Underwood said. “If you pre-pare a teacher to teach in the urban core, they can teach anywhere.”
What’s at stakeMayor Mark Funkhouser said
Kansas City depends on strong school districts to keep vital busi-nesses invested in the community.
He recently pointed out that Kan-sas City has lost 100,000 citizens during the last 40 years and a con-tinuation of this is unsustainable for the city.
He has proposed a Schools First initiative that will repair sidewalks and roads within a 50-mile radius around every school in Kansas City, Mo., and hire an additional 100 po-
lice officers to increase security.“What happens in the commu-
nity around the schools is incredibly important to the education that goes on within the schools,” Funkhouser said.
Zone 27: Anchor of Hope is a womb-to-graduation program mod-eled after the Harlem Children’s Zone started by Geoffrey Canada in Harlem, New York.
The program, targeted for the 64127 zip code in Kansas City, Mo., is supported by Kansas City Police Chief Jim Corwin and KCMSD su-perintendent Dr. John Covington.
Funkhouser would also like to hire a full-time City Hall staffer to serve as a liaison to the school districts in a city where there are more than 14 public school districts, stretching over city limits.
This individual would coordinate communication between the dis-tricts, assist in grant applications and promote partnerships among pro-grams with similar goals.
“These things are incredibly complimentary and synergistic,” Funkhouser said. “We want to en-gage folks as much as possible and the IUE and UMKC are valuable partners in that process.”
Underwood said the process in-volves cooperation across state lines.
“You can’t allow a state line to arbitrarily say, ‘Well, those kids fall on that side of the state line so don’t worry about them,’” he said.
Kansas City public schools have budgeted $1.6 million for the School of Education to train and mentor more than 100 of their teachers.
By next year, these teachers will all be trained according to IUE cur-riculum.
“The district is very proud to extend a partnership with UMKC,” said Andre Riley, Kansas City, Mo. School District spokesperson. “We know we are the primary benefactor, but the IUE helps other districts in the Metro grow enthusiastic, innova-tive young people to strengthen the community through education.”
The future teachersAshley Holmes, who graduated
from Grandview High School last spring, said she has always wanted to be a teacher.
“I want to be a hard working, available teacher,” Holmes said. “When the kids need something, they know they can come to me.”
Oak Park High School graduate, Zach Hinton, applied to the IUE be-cause he was a student who always hated school, but loved to work with kids.
“I want to be one of those teach-ers that do more than just give in-struction,” Hinton said. “I want to be a resource.”
Brendan Garrison is halfway through his sophomore year in the IUE.
He decided to make education his career path while working with Free-dom School at Central High School, his alma mater.
He chose UMKC for the opportu-nity IUE provides to end the cycle of poor urban education.
“Teachers are some of the most influential people in your life,” Gar-
rison said.All classes are designed around
urban learning. Students take college algebra one
semester and then a class on how to teach algebra in elementary schools the next semester.
English classes incorporate Kan-sas City history and focus on multi-cultural education and social justice themes.
The Summer Immersion Project requires students to take an unpaid internship in the urban core.
This allows students to gain un-derstanding of the environments children in their classrooms come from.
According to the IUE, nearly 50 percent of teachers abandon their profession after three years and it takes three to four years in the field to become a true educator.
IUE graduates are in correspon-dence with experienced professional mentors three days a week for their first two or three years as teachers.
“We don’t want a teacher to feel isolated,” Underwood said.
Last May, Hernandez-Scott watched eight out of 11 of her first class of recruits graduate.
They completed more than 1,500 hours of field experience, roughly one year of teaching and 143 hours of UMKC credits with two summer immersions.
Hernandez-Scott said she loves what she does.
“The only thing I love more than teaching is teaching about teaching,” Hernandez-Scott.
5News
www.unews.com February 15, 2010
Photo courtesy INSTITUTE OF URBAN EDUCATION
Teacher Dayonne Richardson and class play telephone.
Kip RyanStaff Writer
“We want to engage folks as much as possible and the IUE and UMKC are valuable partners in that process.”
MARK FUNKHOUSERMayor of Kansas City, Mo.
UMKC knows urban education
“Lobster Quadrille” is a dramatic reading of “Alice in Wonderland.” It was also the very first episode of New Let-ters on the Air, recorded in April 1977.
Since then, New Letters has recorded about 1,000 epi-sodes.
New Letters on the Air, produced by Angela Elam and Dennis Conrow, is a unique type of radio show. It consists of a variety of interviews with American contemporary writers. The writers, and sometimes poets, also perform readings on the air.
Recently, New Letters received a Save America’s Trea-sures grant to archive all of their past shows.
“[Getting the grant] has been something we’ve been trying for at least a decade,” Elam said. “It’s just been
really hard to get that money to do it. So now to be able to get this and to be called an Ameri-can treasure, that’s the best part.”
S a v e A m e r i c a ’s Treasures is a public-p r iva t e pa r t ne r sh ip that includes the White House, the National
Park Service and the National Trust for Historic Preserva-tion.
New Letters received $138,000 from the partnership to preserve its own historic treasures.
“We’re going to make .WAV files of each thing and then also have a CD,” Elam said.
Marr Sound Archives, located in the Miller Nichols Library, will have a CD of the archives as well.
“For the first time, students will actually be able to go in there and listen to New Letters on the Air,” Elam said.
The transition, however, is not going to be as easy as it might seem.
“The stuff that’s in the older form of either reel-to-reel, cassette, even DAT which is digital audio tape is in a for-mat which is going away right now,” Elam said.
Conrow said he is happy to finally have a permanent home in the Marr for all of the New Letters archives.
“Before it was moved from place to place to place,” Conrow said. “We had this back over in [the media lab]
which was not humidity controlled at all, which is not good for the tapes.”
Aside from keeping the work of New Letters orga-nized, the converting process will allow the files to remain viable for many years.
“I think it’s really important because right now a lot of our reel-to-reel tapes are suffering from something called sticky shed syndrome, and if you don’t treat them properly they have to bake them,” Elam said.
Baking the reels is part of a preservation process with reel-to-reel tapes.
It is necessary to perform this process at the first sign of sticky shed syndrome to maintain the content on the reels.
If the process isn’t completed, Elam said the content will just go away and there will be nothing in existence.
“So that’s why it’s important to get it digitized – so we can access it,” she said.
New Letters has more than 4,500 recordings to transfer to WAV files. The estimated time frame is a year to a year and a half.
“The most important reel that we have of an author that no one else has is John Gardner,” Elam said. “There’s so few recordings of him, so this one is a rare one.”
To listen to New Letters on the Air, tune in at 6 a.m. on Sundays to KCUR-FM 89.3 or go online to www.newlet ters.org.
6February 15, 2010 www.unews.com
News
Photo CASEY OSBURN
UMKC professor and radio host Angela Elam.“So now to be able to get this and to be called an American treasure, that’s the best part.”
ANGELA ELAMHost of New Letters on the Air
Casey OsburnStaff Writer
by RACHAEL HERNDON
Rep. John Burnett talks hot issuesMissouri Politicians Series:
Missouri State Rep. John Burnett is from the 40th District, which encompasses the His-toric Northeast area of Kansas City.
Despite serving his last term, Burnett is not finished yet.
Burnett said there are challenges sur-rounding effective lawmaking. He believes term limits hinder the effectiveness of state lawmakers.
“I think [term limits] have given us a dis-advantage against the lobbyists,” he said. “You’re only there for eight years, so it takes you five years to learn how the budget works. Most people are not very effective for advo-cating for that budget. Missouri has some of the shortest term limits in the country and I’ll tell you that I think term limits were a great idea when I first heard about it. I think ours are too short.”
Education is another issue that concerns Burnett.
“When I went to Jefferson City, I thought I knew about education because I have served as president of a school board,” Burnett said. “I knew about education policy and I had a
pretty good background in finances. So, when I got to Jefferson City, I thought, ‘I’ll be on the education committee because I really know
that.’ I don’t.” He said education has become complicated
by politics.
While St. Louis has many of the same is-sues as Kansas City, Burnett said Missouri may need a complete education reform to fix them.
Burnett said effective constituent commu-nications can be on issues important to them.
“People don’t realize how powerful they are in impacting their elected representa-tives,” he said. “They think, ‘Well, why should I bother to express my opinion because so many people do and I would be one of a thousand?’ That’s not true at all. If one person calls and is worried about that issue, your rep-resentative is worried about that issue.”
Burnett plans to run for the Missouri Sen-ate after Jolie Justus’ term is up.
“I’ve lived within a long walking distance of downtown my entire life,” he said. “I’ve had access to this community. I feel like I am a part of this community. I have been on the ballot every two years since 1992.”
To hear the full interview with Burnett, check out the Coffee with Rachael podcast at www.unews.com/podcasts.
Photo RACHAEL HERNDON
Rep. John Burnett cares about education in Missouri.
ATLAS OF KANSAS CITY
Tre
asu
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arc
hiv
ed
fo
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isc
ov
ery
by ALEXIA STOUT-LANG
During the early 1900s, insurance companies kept track of the properties they insured with at-lases.
These atlases were extensive with the smallest details noted.
The 1907 Tuttle & Pike Atlas of Kansas City and Vicinity once served as a record for insur-ance companies. But now it is a record of Kansas City history.
Housed in the Miller Nichols Library, the gi-ant atlas is at least two-feet by two-feet in height and width and several inches thick.
The hand drawn maps were printed in color and include every street, alley and structure.
The names of the owners are written on nearly all of the houses and buildings.
The structures were drawn in different colors based on the buildings materials. Stone structures are blue, brick are red and frame structures are yellow.
The maps, created by Chief Draftsman Charles McCrae, offer a look back in time.
To take a look at the leather bound atlas, visit the LaBudde Special Collections on the fourth floor of Miller Nichols Library. Or go online to http://library.umkc.edu/spec-col-home.
New Letters on the Air receives grant
UMKC student Emma Frank works in a morgue and loves her job.
She said it’s a dream come true.After almost a year and a half of volunteering,
Frank became a part-time employee at the Jackson County Medical Examiner’s Office. She helps in the autopsy suite.
“I watched it for a year and half from the other side of the table,” she said. “Now, I get to cut and learn how to be a full blown autop-sy technician. I am definitely following a dream. I am also following my instincts, my intuition and my heart.”
Frank first discovered fo-rensic pathology while read-ing fiction novels.
In high school, Frank’s best friend’s mother introduced her to Kathy Reich’s novels.
“She knew I really liked mystery novels, and she said I should try one of Kathy Reich’s books out. So I did.”
Reich’s work inspired the Fox television series “Bones.” Her main character, Dr. Temperance Brennan, is a forensic anthropologist.
Here, Frank fell in love with forensic anthro-pology. But it was only a stepping stone. The real passion awakened when Frank found Patricia Cornwell’s fiction.
“Reich is often compared to Cornwell,” Frank
said. “So, I got into Cornwell from reading Kathy Reich.”
Both writers based their novels on their own life-experiences.
“Kathy Reich was a forensic anthropologist, which means that she looked at bones,” Frank said. “But Patricia Cornwell was a forensic pathologist. That is a medical examiner, essentially. It is an M.D. who does autopsies.”
Cornwell’s heroine is Dr. Kay Scarpetta, a medical examiner. In these fiction stories, Brennan and Scarpetta lead very exciting lives, Frank said. But that is not what attracted her.
“It is not that I read the books and said, ‘I want to do this because I want my life to be this exciting,’” Frank said. “Obviously, the jobs are not that exciting, you know. It
was the subject matter that captivated me.”Frank followed what captivated her with a de-
termination. She looked for opportunities to learn about the field, which led to a volunteer position with the Jackson County Medical Examiner’s Of-fice.
“I had just bought a book on forensic science,” Frank said. “It was one of those things, you know. I was just looking through it and thought, ‘I should really find out what kind of system we have here in Missouri.’ Because, it varies from state-to-state.”
While browsing the Internet, Frank found out Mary Dudley, chief medical examiner in Jackson
County, was going to hold a three-day course on forensic medicine.
“I looked it up, I saw how much it cost and I thought I could do that,” Frank said. “My mom helped me pay for it. It was just by chance.”
Frank signed up for the course, and she even called the examiner.
“I said, I was just a sophomore and I wanted to check that it was OK for me to sign up and par-ticipate.”
The lectures took eight hours a day, but it was
not a problem for Frank. She was too excited.“[The examiner] showed lots of pictures and
slides, and I was like, ‘What is that?’” Frank said. “She talked about things like SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome), mass fatality and other things that I never thought about before.”
At the end of the three days, the examiner gave the course participants a tour of the morgue.
“I was really excited,” Frank said. “I never thought I would be let into one of those places. I was so into it.”
Frank was not shy. She seized a moment of op-portunity.
“I walked up to [the examiner] and said, ‘I am a student, do you think I could ever come in and watch an autopsy to see if I could handle it?’”
Two weeks later, the examiner invited in Frank for an observation.
“The doctor was very engaging, showing me everything and explaining things,” Frank said. “I got to help out with writing down the weight of or-gans or with putting labels on stuff.”
At the end of the observation, the examiner in-vited Frank to come the next day and help again. The following day, Frank received another invita-tion. And a few invitations later, she became a per-manent volunteer.
“I said, ‘I will do whatever you want.’ I mopped floors covered with maggots. The most important thing for me was that I was al-lowed to be around. It was like, ‘I can’t be-lieve I am looking at what I am looking at.’”
7News
www.unews.com February 15, 2010
See MORGUE I page 20
Photo LYDIA STRONG
Emma Frank.
Nila HallStaff Writer
Lydia StrongStaff Writer
The typical day for Dr. Karen Dace, deputy chancellor of Diversi-ty, Access and Equity, is hardly ever average.
Hired three years ago for the po-sition, Dace’s job is to bring more diversity to UMKC.
Her job also comes with challeng-es, like getting all students involved with events that address diversity is-sues.
Dace believes people often self- select, meaning they participate in activities with students who look and act like them.
In her position, she also meets with tenured professors and retains women and people of color in faculty positions.
Dace has a bachelor’s in Liberal Arts from the University of Illinois.
She also holds a master’s degree in Mass Communication and a doc-torate in Communication Studies.
Day in the life: Deputy Chancellor of Diversity,
Access and Equity
Livin’ life among the dead
“I believe that you can give voice to the dead and help the living.’”
EMMA FRANK UMKC student and Jackson County Medical Examiner’s Office employee
Photo courtesy DR. KAREN DACE
Dr. Karen Dace
8February 15, 2010 www.unews.com
NewsC
am
pu
s
brieflymentionedby MELISSA ORIBHABOR
‘Movie Review: Dear John’Due to an editor’s error, the article, published in issue 20, Feb. 8, stated the movie was a premiere. It should have said it was an advanced screening.
Correction
Campus Crimes as of Feb. 12CRIMES 2009 YTD 2010 YTDBURGLARY* 3 9ROBBERY 0 0MOTORVEHICLETHEFT* 0 1LARCENY 13 13AGGRAVATEDASSAULT 0 0COMMONASSAULT 2 0FORCIBLESEXOFFENSES 1 0DRUGLAWVIOLATIONS 1 1
*MOTORVEHICLETHEFTSANDBURGLARIESINCLUDEATTEMPTS
Police Blotterby ALEXIA STOUT-LANG
Feb. 5
4:32 a.m. Property Dam-age –A staff member noticed writ-ing on a men’s room stall in the Spencer Chemistry Building.
9:17 a.m. Pursuit –An SUV led officers on a short chase after the vehicle took off from a traffic stop 55th Street and Troost Av-enue.
1:54 p.m. Information –A student reported an un-known person left a note on her car parked at 4825 Troost Ave.
6:08 p.m. Burglary –A staff member left his prop-erty in an unsecured office in the SRC and returned to find it missing.
Feb. 6
11:10 p.m. Disturbance –Officers contacted a person at 54th Street and Rockhill Road for playing a stereo too loud.
Feb. 8
9:01 a.m. Illness –A student in Flarsheim Hall had a reaction to her medi-cation and was taken to the hospital by MAST.
2:25 p.m. Larceny –A student parked in the Spencer Chemistry Building parking lot might have left her vehicle unsecured and returned to find her parking pass missing.
3:35 p.m. Larceny –A student parked on the Hos-pital Hill campus returned to her car to find the license plates stolen.
Feb. 9
1:49 p.m. Vehicular –A stopped car was hit by another car in the Rockhill Parking Structure.
2:54 p.m. Illness –A man in the Dental School was complaining of chest pains. He was transported by MAST to the hospital.
6:02 p.m. Information –A suspect was taken into custody at 52nd and Holmes streets for possibly driving while intoxicated.
Feb. 10
11:47 a.m. Larceny –A student returned to her ve-hicle parked on the Hospital Hill campus to find the li-cense tabs were missing.
9:37 p.m. Larceny –A student left her property unattended in the Perform-ing Arts Center and returned to find it missing.
Recyclemania has posted the results for the second week of the recycling competition.
UMKC came in it at number 14 out of 191 universities competing in the Waste Manage-ment category.
So far, Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, N.J., is number one.
UMKC’s numbers are down a bit from last year, but Kaye Johnston, coordinator, Cam-pus Facilities Management and chair of the Sustainability Team, believes it might be as a result of the difficult weather Kansas City has experienced this year.
According to a 2003 waste assessment on UMKC’s sustainability Web site, the university generates 800 tons of trash on the Volker cam-pus each year, half of which can be recycled.
Johnston said it is important students and faculty take recycling seriously, on campus and throughout Kansas City.
“UMKC’s new recycling program has the potential to save 7,000 trees, 3 million gallons of water and reduce air pollution by 12 tons each year,” according to the Sustainability Team’s Web site, http://web2.umkc.edu/admin finance/cfm/recycle/Recycle_Team.htm.
Relay for Life Team Captain Kick OffThe UMKC Relay for Life committee is
having its Team Captain Kick Off, 6-9 p.m. Feb. 16 in the basement of Oak Street Resi-dence Hall.
Relay for Life is a fundraiser through the American Cancer Society (ACS) where teams camp out and walk or run on a track for up to 24 hours to raise money for cancer awareness and research.
Those interested in participating in Relay for Life with UMKC can attend the meeting to
find out how to register or join a team. Fund-raising strategies to help ACS as well as other tips and ideas will be discussed.
A requirement to participate in Relay for Life is a $10 registration fee per person, due at registration.
The Team Captain Kick Off is open to all Kansas City community members and all stu-dents interested.
For more information, visit www.relayfor life.org/umkcmo.
UMKC ranked #14 Recyclemaniacs in the nation
After a UMKC graduate student’s lab experiment overheated and caused a fire on the fifth floor of the Health Sci-ences Building Dec. 30, the sprinkler system activated in the building leaving water damage on four floors.
Y. Joyce Johnson, executive staff as-sistant for the School of Pharmacy, said the temperature regulator the student was using malfunctioned.
“It was a small fire on the circumfer-ence of the oil bath located in the hood in the research lab,” Johnson said.
The fire alarm went off and the building was evacuated.
The sprinkler system put out the fire, causing water damage to the north side of the building on floors two through five including stairwells and faculty of-fices on floors four and five, Johnson said.
John Austin, senior information spe-cialist at UMKC, said the UMKC Police and Campus Facilities responded.
After determining the fire was out, the alarms were shut off.
“I don’t have information regarding the extent of equipment damage,” Aus-tin said. “Fire and smoke damage was limited to the immediate area of the fume hood alcove and there were no in-juries.”
The $50.2 million building was opened in 2007 for an additional 225,000 square feet of labs and class-rooms for School of Nursing and Phar-macy students.
Melissa CowanStaff Writer
Lab experiment caused fire at
Health Sciences
SIFE Financial CornerJerry Croft, an Engineer-
ing student, asked, “I have $1,000 to invest. I know it isn’t much but I would like to get as much return as pos-sible. Do you have any sug-gestions?”
Let’s assume you want to invest your money for a long duration, greater than 10 years. Here are a couple of options for you to get a favorable return on your in-vestment, but the return you receive will vary on the risk you are willing to take.
The lowest risk invest-ment is a U.S. Treasury I Series Bond. These bonds ac-crue interest monthly at 3.36 percent but have a couple of restrictions. The bonds must be held for at least a year. If you sell it before five years, you forfeit three months
worth of interest. One plus is these bonds will accrue inter-est for up to 30 years.
A more risky option is a person-to-person loan. These programs take the bank out of the loan process. A com-pany takes applications from people who need loans. Gen-erally, these loans do not meet the criteria to get a traditional bank loan.
As a prospective lender, you review the loan applica-tion and decide how much of your money, if any, to loan them. If the applicant receives enough approvals, he/she gets the loan. This is a good way to diversify your money and protect against losses. But as with all investments, there is a possibility of losing money.
Please e-mail your fi-nancial questions to UMKC [email protected].
Safety tip of the week
Courtesy the Baton Rouge Police Department
When using the bus, have your fare out and ready before you leave home, office or store.
Plan your route to use the busiest, best-lit stop possible, both to get on and off a bus. If you must wait, stay near the at-tendant’s stand or in the best-lit area available.
Keep your purse, shopping bag, backpack, packages, etc., in your lap, on your arm or between your feet – not on an empty seat.
Sit near the driver, but not right next to the door.
Don’t let yourself doze off on a bus. It can make you an easy target.
V i s i twww.unews.com
“I like to focus on the moment.”
WHITNEY KINNISONUMKC student and artist
9www.unews.com February 15, 2010
Culture
Whitney Kinn-ison received her first camera from her mother
as a child. From then on, she de-veloped an interest in people and photography.
In high school, she gained ex-perience in photography through working on the yearbook staff.
Her attraction to photography only spiked from there.
She began developing her style through what interested to her.
Those inspiring interests for Kinnison range from artists and their self-portraits to fashion art-ists and people who are portrayed as being strange.
Kinnison believes photogra-phy can capture a lot of moments, which is what she finds so in-triguing about it.
“I like to focus on the mo-ment,” Kinnison said.
Kinnison’s interests do not lie only in photography – she is also into painting and drawing.
In fact, last year Kinnison came in second place at the UMKC art show with some of her work.
When she entered college, she decided to become a Studio Arts major with an emphasis on graphic design and photography.
Along with having received some attention for her photogra-phy and other artwork, includ-ing having her works published and shown in galleries, Kinnison continues to supplement her in-come by taking wedding photos.
Kinnison said she has great career aspirations she will con-tinue to pursue.
“I have hopes to be a success-ful photographer, but in the sense of being an artist,” Kinnison said.
Nila HallStaff Writer
Capturing intrigue
10February 15, 2010 www.unews.com
Culture
Nearly every child is intrigued by Scooby-Doo and his mystery-solving gang.
However, these children grow into adults and some begin to take a closer look at the cartoon, often wondering what the characters are really up to.
Many of us have talked to our friends about whether Scooby-Doo and the gang were really solv-ing mysteries.
With all of the 1970s clothing, snacking, finding clues and cap-turing phantoms, it can make you believe something else was going on in the Mystery Machine.
Most of us have continued cu-riosity and know something more than mystery-solving was happen-ing.
We all knew Fred was hot for Daphne, Scooby and his hippy friend Shaggy were probably hid-ing a stash in the Mystery van (which explains their ever-so-frequent munchies) and they were all more than likely hallucinating when claiming to see ghosts, mon-
sters and phantoms, possibly on a trip rather than following a clue.
With “Spooky-Dog,” an inter-pretation of the beloved cartoon, we will all finally have our an-swers.
Or at least we will know we were not the only ones pondering the TV show.
In a “Scooby-Doo” inspired production, UMKC’s Theatre’s professional training program and the Coterie Theatre have teamed up to present an adult-only version of the cartoon called “Spooky-Dog.” UMKC’s own Chaz Bell is technical director of the program.
“Spooky-Dog” is a unique mys-tery for adults who have eagerly awaited some help into the secret subtext of “Scooby-Doo.”
The play involves comedy, pro-fane language, sexual innuendoes, improvisation, interactive perfor-mances and audience participa-tion.
That being said, the show is rated PG-13 and will be shown as an evenings-only production as a part of the Coterie at Night series, a new initiative aimed toward at-
tracting new audiences.The teenage mystery gang in
“Spooky-Dog” creates a blast of a show through confronting crimi-nals, sexual desires and unexpect-ed side effects from dog treats, or Scooby snacks as they’re called on the TV show.
Staying true to the time period and honoring Hanna-Barbera, Di-rector Ron Megee has incorper-atedcostumes, music and dance moves from the late 1960s and early 70s.
Megee said the thoughts most of us have been thinking about the car-toon will be revealed in the produc-tion and should be uproarious.
“It’s like ‘Scooby-Doo’ on acid,” he said.
“Spooky-Dog,” funded in part by the Missouri Arts Council and the ArtsKC Fund, opened last Thurs-day and runs through March 7 at La Esquina in the Crossroads District, 1000 W. 25th St.
Tickets are $12, discounted for season ticket holders and large groups, and are available by contact-ing the Coterie at 816-474-6552.
Kelley KatesCulture Editor
‘Spooky-Dog’ takes you on a trip that explains what those crazy, “Scooby-Doo” characters were really up to.
Photo courtesy COTERIE THEATRE
Lingering questions from “Scooby-Doo” are answered in “Spooky-Dog”.
‘Spooky-Dog’ interprets popular ‘70s TV show
Tattoo of the week by CASEY OSBURN
Everyone has a favorite child-hood book. One read to them as a bedtime story, one they constant-ly checked out from the elemen-tary school library and one that stays their favorite book even as they grow up.
“Where the Wild Things Are” by Maurice Sendak is that time-less book for Theatre Manage-ment major Susi Krulewich.
She’s been so in love with the book, two years ago she decided to get the Wild Thing tattooed on her right shoulder.
“I really like the book ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ and it was my favorite book growing up, so I just felt like I needed a monster on my back,” Krulewich said.
It goes to prove love isn’t re-served for just people, sometimes inanimate objects can hold such a
value it becomes embedded into that person’s life, skin-deep.
The monster took around two hours to finish at Kansas City’s renowned Mercy Seat in the Crossroads District.
Photo CASEY OSBURN
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@UNewsScoop
Those of us who are not yet of legal drinking age often face the dilemma of what to do on a Fri-day night.
A solution has been found. One can now stum-ble into a culturally illuminating alternative to the bar scene or house parties in the form of hookah.
A hookah is a middle-eastern water pipe. The smoking of such has become a fad, sweeping the 18-25 demographic in recent years.
Kansas City is home to at least four hookah bars, the newest of which is Sinbad’s Café and
Lounge. For $11, patrons of smoking age can puff on
any of 25 different tobacco flavors. The house specialty though, the Sinbad hookah, will set you back 15 bucks and consists of flavored tobacco smoked from an apple, rather than a normal bowl.
UMKC sophomore Kevin McGannon said the apple enhances the flavor.
“It definitely tastes better than just smoking out of a normal hookah because it mixes with the apple juice,” he said.
Unlike other hookah joints, Sinbad’s smokers are often treated to a performance by the owner, Sami Mac, who sings in Arabic and plays synthe-sizers. The performance sometimes translates into dancing on the part of patrons.
Patron John Keefer was pleasantly surprised by the music.
“It definitely wasn’t what I’d normally listen to, but it was cool,” he said.
For those who are parched by all their puffing, Sinbad’s offers imported teas, but is prohibited by law from selling food or alcohol. Kansas City’s indoor smoking ban allows only tobacco shops to host smokers. The shops must not sell alcohol or get more than 20 percent of its revenue from non-tobacco sales.
The atmosphere at Sinbad’s is laid back and lively. Smokers can join fellow patrons in dancing, or can simply relax, puff delicious apple flavored
hookah, enjoy the tiger painting on the wall and thumb their noses at the city and their smoking ban.
For McGannon, the atmosphere was what made Sinbad’s a repeat outing.
“The vibe is just cool and the hookah is deli-cious,” he said.
Sindbad’s is located at 3929 Broadway and may be contacted at 816-255-3988.
Photos KEVIN BRYCE
Sinbad’s Café offers 25 different tobacco flavors for customers to try.
dating 101by CHRISTIAN ROSE
11Culture
www.unews.com February 15, 2010
Evan HelmuthStaff Writer
Sinbad’s hookah offers a flavorful outing
After a couple years writing what I loving-ly refer to as “my little dog and pony show,” it should come as no surprise to anyone that I date a lot.
In fact, I am a serial dater. Unless a neon warning sign is f lashing out of
my peripheral vision, I assume 20-40 minutes alone in a public place for coffee or, a cocktail could end in either a full-length column or at the very least, an honorable mention in a future one.
When someone bravely saunters up to me at a bar, nightclub, restaurant or even a Quik Trip parking lot and should profess a willingness to spend time with me, as a general rule, I find it polite to say yes to their, often times, shaky re-quest.
Having stated this, I take for granted that most people read my column, digest every mor-sel of wisdom and commit entire sections to memory.
OK, well that is a little too much to hope for, but I assume folks at least glance at it while they line their kitty litter or use it to wrap glasses as they move out of their dorm or apartment.
My point is this – I write about my dating life, social circles and even my friends’ dating lives.
So should you haphazardly stumble like a bull in a china closet into the microcosm that is my personal dating pool, odds are good I may have to put you in the center ring of my little dog and pony show.
I went out with someone a couple months ago.Somehow, the first date lead into a second and even a third.
There was no real connection and I didn’t see a long-term relationship looming on our hori-
zon, but the end-of-date goodnight kisses were well above PG and sometimes even bordering on NC-17.
You simply cannot teach a good kiss, and once you find that rare person who excels in this talent, good night kisses tend to linger way past the time they’re supposed to end.
Because modesty is not a particular talent I possess, I can make the proclamation I am a great kisser.
Next to making the perfect martini, I would say that kissing is my second most useful talent.
As great as the end of our evenings were, the beginnings, middles and in-betweens were as dull as butter knives and I spent most of the time trying to figure a way to fast forward to the good part.
It has been said all good things must come to an end. So, nearing the end of one of our dates, I thought it was time to drop the “F” bomb.
Now I have captured your attention with that last statement, I will ask you to unfold my col-umn from that glass you’re wrapping and have a seat for what I’m about to explain.
The “F” word to which I’m referring is “friends.”
Once you date someone, whether it is a one- time event or for years, why is it impossible to be friends after the relationship?
I figure after someone has kissed me, the least I could expect is a resemblance of cordial-ity.
My lesson from this debacle is to make sure if I am planning on dropping the “F” bomb, I am at least within walking distance of my loft or have a cab waiting nearby.
Your lesson should be to use an actual litter box liner instead of my column, it’s far more absorbent.
Why can’t we be friends?
This recipe for a traditional Southern food was passed to me from my mother.
These pickles are perfect any day as a side dish, or for the more enthu-siastic pickle lover, a main course.
Considering the fried nature of the dish, moderation should be at-tempted while eating, even though they are marvelously delicious.
Ingredients:1 egg, beaten1 cup milk1 tablespoon all-purpose flour1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce1 teaspoon salt1 teaspoon ground black pepper3 cups plus 1 teaspoon all-purpose flour1 (32 ounce) jar sliced dill pickles, drained (Vlassic Ovals work best.)2 cups vegetable oil for deep-frying
Combine 3 cups flour, salt and pepper in a flat bowl. Beat egg, Worcestershire sauce, milk and 1 tea-spoon flour in another bowl.
Drain pickles and allow to air dry, too much moisture will repel the fry batter.
In a saucepan, heat oil to 350 de-grees.
Dip pickles one at a time into the liquid mixture and then cover them with flour mixture. Repeat one time.
Gently place battered pickles into hot oil (a fork or spatula can be used for this to avoid burns).
Let fry until pickles float to top and are a golden brown in color. Re-move from oil and place on a paper towel or paper bag to cool.
Salt and pepper can be added to taste. These also taste good with ranch dressing as a dip.
Other types of pickled vegetables may also be fried in this manner (such as okra or peppers). Enjoy!
Chelsea SoetaertStaff Writer
Deep fried pickle slices
Photo CHELSEA SOETAERT
V i s i t www.unews.com
12February 15, 2010 www.unews.com
Culture
The Conspiracy Room at the Uptown Theater has quickly become the place to go for lights, cameras and drag queens with Night of Fame.
The event is part celebrity dress up, part dance party and part drag show.
“How I look at it, when I’m going out, I’m going out – like I’m getting ready,” said Ali-cia Solombrino, creator and host for Night of Fame. “I want to be noticed, and that’s the whole (idea behind) Night of Fame.”
Solombrino is also involved in Web de-velopment, advertising and promotions (and whatever else is handed to her) for the Uptown Theater.
“I just wanted to throw a dance party,” she said.
Night of Fame (Vol. I) was definitely a party.
Four hundred people (the room only holds 447) attended the first Night of Fame: Lady GaGa vs. Madonna, in which GaGa reigned victorious with the majority of the crowd dressed as the pop star super-force.
“[The event] met my expectations by a million,” Solombrino said.
But the ghost of pop stars past is the theme for Night of Fame Vol. II: Britney Spears – The Circus at 9 p.m. Feb. 28.
Solombrino joked that Britney Spears called her, offended she wasn’t included in the last show.
“No, really – there’s just so many things you can do for a circus party,” Solombrino
said. “And [Spears] is one of my favorites because she is such a hot mess.”
Participants are encouraged to dress as “Brit-Brit” (as Solombrino refers to her) or a circus freak. Those who comply will re-ceive $1 off every drink and prize packs in-cluding Britney Spears’ “Circus” perfume and CD, a MAC cosmetics gift certificate and VIP treatment for the next Night of Fame, guaranteeing closer parking, free en-try and drinks.
The prize packs are just one addition to this Night of Fame.
“Last time, the bar was slammed, and we got a lot of feedback on it,” Solombrino
said.This time staff will be
more prepared.Drink prices will still be
low, and there will be a 2-for-1 drink special until 10 p.m.
“We’re going to have more paparazzi when you walk in,” Solombrino said. “We’re going to have the red carpet this time – [the party]starts outside before you
even enter the door.“There will also be caged and flying hu-
mans. We want Night of Fame to be some-thing people get excited about.”
Night of Fame will not necessarily hap-pen every month. However, another is in the works for April. Solombrino is not sharing the theme just yet.
“You have to keep your ear out,” Solom-brino said.
Tickets are available at the door for $6. This is a 21 and over event.
Freaks come out for Night of Fame
Melissa CowanStaff Writer
“We’re going to have the red carpet this time – (the party) starts outside before you even enter the door.”
ALICIA SOLOMBRINOCreator and host for Night of Fame
The astounding actor/direc-tor combination of Leonardo DiCaprio and Martin Scorsese teamed up to produce a film sure to draw audiences.
“Shutter Island,” based on the book by best-selling author Den-nis Lehane, opens in theaters Fri-day. DiCaprio stars in the film as U.S. Marshall Teddy Daniels who is sent to an island off the coast of Massachusetts where he and his partner Chuck Aule are to solve a mysterious disappearance.
The year is 1954 and the island houses a hospital for the crimi-nally insane, and the woman they are sent to find has murdered many, as most who are housed there have.
The problem is this murderess disappeared into thin air despite be-ing under constant watch and on an island impossible to escape from.
To make matters worse, a mas-sive hurricane is headed toward the island so no escape is possible for anyone.
During their search, Daniels encounters many mysterious hap-
penings, experimentations and terrifying surgeries leading to the discovery nothing on the island is what it seems.
The film is intense. With the history of films behind DiCaprio and Scorsese, would it even be possible for this film to be a dis-
appointment? I think not.“Shutter Island” is not the first
time Scorsese and DiCaprio have created an amazing film.
Take for instance the great movie-making roll they were on beginning in 2002 with “The Gangs of New York.”
The film starred DiCaprio, Cameron Diaz and Daniel Day Lewis, an all-star cast common to Scorsese’s pictures, and grossed nearly $200 million.
In 2004, the team released an-other box-office hit, “The Avia-tor,” starring DiCaprio, Kate Beckinsale, Cate Blanchett and Gwen Stefani.
Between the magnificent and skilled artistry of Scorsese’s di-recting abilities and DiCaprio’s convincing performance, the film won five of the 11 Academy Awards it was nominated for.
Most recently, the two power-houses combined their talents in “The Departed” (2006).
It won four Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director.
This team has a proven track record of brilliant collabora-tion and film-making, so expect “Shutter Island” to be added to the list.
‘Shutter Island’
Scorsese and DiCaprio will make you shudder
Photo courtesy GOOGLE IMAGES
Shutter Island opens February 19.
Most of us want to get out of school as soon as we can. We pile on the coursework each semester, even taking courses during breaks.
But as many of you have probably en-countered, staying on track can be difficult – and not for lack of effort.
UMKC is not the most organized school out there. Many of my classmates have complained about having to delay gradua-tion because something went wrong – their transfer credits did not end up transferring (though they were told they would), they did not meet the requirements needed and the list goes on.
Honestly, it was not an easy task for me either. But I am graduating this summer as I intended before I even came to UMKC.
This list should help you do the same so you don’t have to waste any time or money:
Be persistently annoying: Your ad-visors should know you by name when they see you.
Most of us have at least two advisors: one for your major and one for your general studies.
Check with both each semester since you have requirements for each. E-mail or call them if you have any questions – that is what they are there for.
Make copies: I transferred with my Associate of Arts and all of my credits were accepted or were marked exempt (because I received a degree).
But other students have had problems with this. One of the first things you should do – do it now if you have not – is meet with your general studies advisor.
He or she will write exactly what you need (and what you are exempt from if you are a transfer student).
Make sure it is signed and dated, and you receive a copy.
If for some reason you are told differ-ently later, this is proof to fight it – and you should.
This goes for any paper you receive from any advisor. Keep your own records.
Focus on your major: There are tons of fun classes you can take outside of your major that count toward your required up-per level hours.
But if you don’t get your required hours and major-related electives out of the way, you are going to be making those up.
This is your second step – have your ma-jor advisor tell you how many credits you need specifically in your major, including electives, and make those priorities.
You will be able to plan out your semes-ters this way and fit in the other courses you want, too.
Take what you can handle: Some se-mesters I took 15-17 credit hours. Some of my classmates have taken more.
But only do this if you know you can manage your time accordingly.
If you are going to fall behind and have to drop a class (or more), it is not going to do you any good to overload.
And don’t forget about summer as an op-tion.
This is a great time to intern or study abroad if you don’t want to do either during the summer or the “regular” school year – and you’ll get plenty of credits (up to four for interning. Study abroad credits depend on how long you stay).
It really is up to you to keep yourself on track. You cannot count on an advisor solely.
And if you follow these tips, you should be out of here in the time you want.
13Culture
www.unews.com February 15, 2010
food reviewby KELLEY KATES
Melissa CowanStaff Writer
How to: Graduate
No place on earth can top the out-rageously delicious Cajun delights New Orleans is known for, but a sub-stitute has been found.
Most of us cannot jet off to New Orleans when having a craving for jambalaya, shrimp gumbo or a po’boy sandwich. But as Kansas Citians, we have an alternative for Creole cravings – Jazz: A Louisiana Kitchen.
Considering right now is Carni-val, and this Tuesday is Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday), Jazz may be the best spot in town for a festive feast.
As soon as you walk in this little place, you instantly feel as if you are in a shanty New Orleans restaurant. The walls are decorated with feather masquerade masks, NOLA (New Or-leans, La.) memorabilia, aprons and an entire horn section is displayed atop a shelf to signify New Orleans rich history in jazz music.
To top off the decor, Jazz’s pa-trons are allowed to sign the walls, tables and decorations – basically anywhere you can actually find an empty space.
Every item I encountered at Jazz was so delicious I could barely stop
eating it, even at my fullest moment. Their appetizers are incredible,
from the crab cakes a la mer (which are covered in a parmesan cream sauce with shrimp and crab meat) to the catfish nuggets and alligator bites.
If you really want to get authentic try the oysters. It is said to be a natu-ral aphrodisiac.
Jazz runs daily specials Sunday through Thursday and has a happy hour from 3-6 p.m. allowing for their mouth-watering appetizers to be en-joyed for next to nothing.
The entrées are equally as deli-cious as the preceding appetizers. Some come in half and full-size por-tions. Yes, they are that big.
For instance, the coonass chick-en, a house specialty, can be ordered
in such a way. The coonass chicken is a large breaded chicken breast on a bed of dirty rice, covered with shrimp and crab meat. It is served with broccoli, carrots and zucchini and as a little something extra, I add-ed a side of hush puppies served with their special dipping sauce. They are the best I have had.
Every entrée is served with French bread and insatiable, Creole butter.
Several dishes have the spicy flavoring you would expect from a Cajun restaurant as well as some that are toned down a bit for the average eater.
However, they do provide hot sauce so you can spice it up as much as you would like. The Jazz also uses heavy whipping cream in several of their dishes to deliver that special rue unique to New Orleans.
Yes, the appetizers and entrées are entirely enough of a reason to visit this home away from NOLA, but that is not all Jazz has to offer.
Their desserts are delicious, in fact, the Kentucky bourbon pecan pie is out of this world. They drizzle your pie with a bourbon sauce and top it off with a scoop of Chantilly cream, which has a hint of brandy and triple sec.
Their drinks are very tasty and
creative, too. The bartenders cer-tainly don’t deny your drink of any alcohol either. Their Hurricanes, na-tive to New Orleans, are amazing, but if you want a real treat, try the Bermuda Triangle. This powerful drink comes with three straws, each filled with a different rum. Trust me, you will only need one.
The really excellent part about this restaurant is it gives a real au-thentic New Orleans vibe by hosting live music nearly every night. Usu-
ally a jazz or blues musician plays into the evening delivering that Bourbon Street feel. As Jazz adver-tises, “There’s a Dixieland band in every bite.”
This is definitely the place to spend Mardi Gras or any day or night you would like to kick back, relax, have some spectacular food and drinks and let the good times roll. Or in Cajun French, “Laissez les bon temps rouler!”
Jazz: A Louisiana Kitchen
Photos HILARY HEDGES
Jazz offers great food in a fun atmosphere.
Horror-film king and long-time metal musician Rob Zombie has released his follow-up album to “Hellbilly Deluxe” (1998) but, as usual, the sequel doesn’t com-pare to the original.
“Hellbilly Deluxe 2,” released last Tuesday, does not do Zombie’s true musical capabilities justice.
Yes, it has the old horror film quotes and screams in his songs.
The music sounds like it should be the soundtrack to a haunted house and the upbeat tempos make devil-ish vixens want to get up and shake something, all is customary to Zombie’s music.
Yet, something is missing. Very few of the tracks have the kind of impact “Su-
per beast” had on “Hellbilly Deluxe,” or the catchiness of “Dragula.”
The album does ref lect the newer style Zombie seems to be heading toward as heard on his “Educated Horses” album. It almost seems pop-like.
In fact, “Sick Bubblegum,” the first single off the new album, reminds me of “American Witch,” a single off the “Educated Horses” album.
It’s more mainstream than I ever remember Zombie being.
Three tracks on the album sound like singles. “Sick Bubblegum” already being one of them, the others are “Burn,” the eighth track and “Mars Needs Women,” the fourth track.
The last two are actually reminiscent of White Zombie where the songs made you believe you were at an evil dancehall bash in hell.
Although I was not impressed by the new release (even though I am an avid Zombie fan), the second half of the album does make up for the rest.
It is a little more throwback, a little rawer and un-hinged – more of what I would expect on a Zombie album.
It is not a bad album by any means, but I will con-tinue to listen to the incredible first “Hellbilly Deluxe” album where every track is killer.
Grade: [email protected] courtesy AMY SCIARRETTO
“Hellbilly Deluxe 2”
14February 15, 2010 www.unews.com
Culture
Monday, Feb. 15President’s Day: Happy Birthday Lincoln and Washington! Too bad we still have class.
Roller Disco Night: Come join the fun as the Activities and Programs Council (APC) hosts a night of roller skating. The event runs 6-8 p.m. at the Winwood Skate Center, 4426 NE Winn Road. Transportation is provided and will leave the Univer-sity Center at 5:30 p.m.
Tuesday, Feb. 16Tuesday Tune-up: Stop in for a tune-up during your Fat Tuesday
,sponsored by the MindBody Con-nection. The session begins at noon in the University Center, room 161.
Composer’s Guild: UMKC Con-servatory of Music and Dance is-sponsoring the Composer’s Guild. The performance begins at 7:30 p.m. in Grant Recital Hall, 5227 Holmes Road. Admission is free.
Mardi Gras Poetry Slam: Spon-sored by UMKC and IWCA, the Writing Center will host a number of events for International Writing Centers Week. Stop by from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. at the Writing Center, 5201 Rockhill Road, to join in the poetry
slam.
Wednesday, Feb. 17‘Slammed!: KC Speaks Out on the Recession’: The UMKC The-atre department presents the open-ing of “Slammed!” at 7:30 p.m. in the James C. Olson Performing Arts Center, 4949 Cherry St. Tickets are available through UMKC Central Ticket Office, 816-235-6222.
2010 Relay for Life Team Cap-tain Kick-Off: The Relay for life committee is in search of team cap-tains. Register your team and learn tips about fundraising for the cause from 6-9 p.m. in the Oak Street
Residence Hall Basement. Anyone in the Kansas City area is welcome and encouraged to join and become a team captain.
Thursday, Feb. 18Women’s & Gender Studies Sa-lon: ‘Praising Girls’: The Women’s & Gender Studies Program is spon-soring an informal conversational salon focusing on the turning point in history for white, black and Na-tive-American women. The event will be held from 5-6 p.m. at the Chancellor’s residence, 5106 Cherry St.APC General Meeting: The APC
will hold their general meeting from 7-8 p.m. in the Brookside room at the Administration Building.
Friday, Feb. 19
Study Abroad Information Ses-sion: International Academic Pro-grams Office is sponsoring an in-formation session to discuss study abroad opportunities. The discus-sion begins at 2 p.m., 5325 Rockhill Road.
‘Broke-Ology’: “Broke-Ology” will be performed from 8-10 p.m. on the KC Rep’s Copaken Stage at 13th and Walnut streets. Tickets are available through https://tickets.kcrep.org/subscriptions/index.aspx.
Saturday, Feb. 20Got Crêpes?: The French Club is sponsoring the event where crêpes will be served. The event begins at 9 a.m. in the Oak Street Residence Hall basement. Attendees must RSVP by Feb. 15 at umkcfrench [email protected].
Master Class: Amy Marinello: UMKC Conservatory of Music and Dance is sponsoring the event. As-sistant Professor of Bassoon Amy Marinello of the University of Georgia presents a Master class. The event will be held from 9-11 a.m. at the Diastole, 2501 Holmes Road. Admission is free.
Sunday, Feb. 21
Alice in Chains: Alice in Chains and opening act Creature with the Atom Brain perform at 8 p.m. at the Midland by AMC, 1228 Main St.
save the dateCompiled by KELLEY KATES
Play it by Earby KELLEY KATES
Rob Zombie‘Hellbilly Deluxe 2’
The Summit League bet-ter look out as the Roos aim to sweep it come conference time.
Coming off only the third 20-plus-win season in program history, Head Coach Meredith Smith has her girls ready to take on the competition.
“The core of the team has returned,” Smith said. “We created the base for success last year and are ready to reach new heights this year.”
Last year was successful for the Kangaroos.
Smith came to UMKC with an idea to build a successful program up from the ground level and she has done just that so far.
With each successive year, the Roos have had an improved record and last season was the most victories since the 2002 campaign.
Competition from the oppo-sition looks to be some of the most challenging the team has ever faced.
With teams from the Big 12 (Kansas and Missouri) in addition to Texas Tech, the tough competition looks only to toughen up the Kangaroos before they enter conference play.
“Having difficult teams will test the team’s mettle,” Smith said. “But having tough adver-sity will only prepare our team for the conference slate that is to come.”
The season officially got underway in a four-team tour-nament in Monroe, La.
Saturday the Kangaroos fell twice to Northwestern State, 13-2, and Southeast Mis-
souri State, 6-4. On Sunday, they picked up a win against Jackston State, 3-2.
The season is long but the lessons learned in non-confer-ence play will be exactly what the program needs to succeed in the future as UMKC strives to its ultimate goal of a Summit League title and a birth into the Women’s College World Series.
The men’s and women’s tennis teams are in two very different positions after last week.
The men are undefeated for the season and the women
struggle to win a match.The men’s record improved to 3-0 follow-
ing their 5-2 win over Creighton. The men kept Creighton on the defensive throughout most of the match.
The Roos managed to keep the match at 5-0 until the final singles matches where Creighton won its 2 points.
Head Coach Kendell Hale was impressed with the success of the men against Creigh-ton and reaffirmed how the confidence level has been high.
“Off to a great start ... our guys are ready to play,” Hale said.
“They came out strong and what I said last week about confidence is prominent now.”
The women’s record dropped to 0-5 fol-lowing a 7-0 loss against KU and a 5-2 loss against Creighton. Hale attributed the KU shutout as the Roos inability to score big points.
“Experience,” Hale said. “We could not
execute on big points. That comes with expe-rience as we are playing with three freshmen right now.”
Freshman Laura Bouet was the only Roo to pick up a set victory against KU.
In the match against Creighton, Bouet and sophomore Jillian Yakominich were the only ones to gain victories for the Roos.
The loss raised some questions, but Hale dismissed the losing streak as a learning pro-cess for the women.
“My expectations for the women are high,” Hale said. “We have a tough non-conference schedule. [KU and Creighton] are experienced teams. You still have to look at the positives, we’re seeing a steady improve-ment and I think around conference time we will peak.”
The peak was reached earlier than expect-ed when the women pulled out a 7-0 victory over South Dakota Feb. 13, increasing their record to 1-5 and breaking their losing streak.
The men look to remain undefeated when they play Marquette at 6 p.m., Feb. 20 in Mil-waukee, Wis.
The women’s next match is 6 p.m., Feb. 27 in Des Moines, Iowa against Drake Uni-versity.
[email protected] courtesy UMKC ATHLETICS
Freshman David Heckler hits a forehand against Creighton.
John PfortmillerSports Editor
15www.unews.com February 15, 2010
Sports
Tennis has some ups and downs
Photo courtesy UMKC ATHLETICS
The 2010 softball season has begun.
extra pointsby JOHN PFORTMILLER
The dark cloud cast over the 2010 Winter Olympics following the death of Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritash-vil also left an aura of controversy.
The Whistler track, located in Whistler, British Columbia, was noto-rious for its speed.
But its safety was also questioned many times because of the steel poles lining the outside of the track.
As tragic as the accident was, things became ridiculous from that-point forth.
Immediately after the death of their fellow luger, athletes deemed the track’s speed was what led to his de-mise.
Naturally, they did not say any-thing about the steel poles sitting mere inches away from the track.
The International Luge Federation (ILF) decided to reduce speed on the track by altering the ice and moving the men’s start to the women’s. They did not say anything about the steel poles, either.
After the changes were made, the lugers said the track was now too slow.
Really guys? A fellow competitor died on this track and now you think it isn’t fast enough?
Perhaps it is the luge mentality that caused these athletes to be disap-pointed at the lack of speed with the modified track.
However, Kumaritashvil was not the only one to have an accident dur-ing practice.
Defending gold medalist, Armin Zoeggler, crashed and slid for more than 650 feet before he gained his foot-ing.
Luckily, he only suffered minor
injuries and was deemed able to con-tinue to compete.
In addition to Zoeggler and Ku-maritashvil’s crashes, there were five female luger crashes and four Ameri-can athletes crashed during practice.
One of these left a Romanian com-petitor unconscious briefly and sever-al experienced American lugers were injured, but able to compete.
The majority of these injuries hap-pened before Kumaritashvil took onto the track.
When a defending gold medalist crashes, as well as more than half a dozen experienced athletes, one would think there would be an investigation into how dangerous the track was.
It took a death to have the ILF in-vestigate the track.
The fact that someone had to die before authorities stepped in and said the track was dangerous is simply ap-palling.
That’s similar to letting people cross a busy street that was danger-ous and caused several injuries, but only building a walkway over it when someone was killed.
Regardless of how tragic Kumari-tashvil’s death was and how absurd the business with Whistler track’s speed has been, they should really look into those steel poles.
Yes, the one Kumaritashvil crashed into at over 90 mph caused him to die.
If only everyone would have no-ticed those earlier and mentioned someone about them, then a young Olympian would not have had to die.
Brian SandersContributing Writer
First pitch for softball
With a lot going against them, the men took a 65-56 win Thursday night against Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne (IPFW).
“Today we had a type of confidence,” junior guard Bakari Lewis said about Thursday night’s game. “At the back of our minds, we knew we were going to win.”
With sophomore forward LaTreze Mushatt playing with the stomach flu, ju-nior forward Jay Couisnard tweaking his ankle in the opening minute of play and a deficit of 4 at the half, UMKC had a game to be proud of.
“It was the best game of the year in terms of our men-tal toughness,” Head Coach Matt Brown said.
UMKC had trouble with dropped shots. They shot only 33 percent in the first half and fell behind IPFW who made three shots from behind the arc in a row in the first five minutes.
“We missed our first 12 shots, but we just kept go-ing,” Couisnard said. “Every time we went to the sideline, everyone would just say, we’ve got to finish, finish, finish.”
Couisnard took that to heart and led the team in scoring with a double-dou-ble with 20 points and 10 rebounds.
Couisnard made a game- changing 3-point play that evened the score at 43.
Junior forward Spencer Johnson also secured a dou-ble-double for the night with
10 points and 11 rebounds, marking the first time this season two UMKC players have had double-doubles in one game.
“You’ve just got to find ways to win this late in the year,” Brown said.
The men were looking to take that intensity into their Saturday game against Oak-land.
Unfortunately, UMKC couldn’t capitalize on that Saturday, ending the game with an 83-71 loss.
Sophomore guard Trey McKinney-Jones managed to walk away from the game with a career-high 22 points and Mushatt followed suit with 21 points.
The women’s team suf-fered two losses this past week, one to North Dakota State (NDS) on Feb. 8 and one to Oakland on Feb. 13.
The loss against NDS lowered the Roos to 11-12 overall and 8-4 in the Sum-mit League. Despite having higher shot (.404 compared to .400) and 3-point percent-ages (.417 compared to .313) than NDS, the Roos could
not stop their opponents. NDS also had more op-
portunities at the free throw line.
The women’s Saturday game against Oakland re-sulted in a 73-53 loss.
The Roos fell behind in the first half and never man-aged to catch up to Oakland. The game tied at 7-7 early on, but Oakland heated up and went on a 29-4 run. Oakland ended the first half, 41-28.
The Roos emerged from the locker room determined to gain the lead, but Oak-land took advantage of its rebounding ability (42 Oak-land rebounds to 29 UMKC rebounds) and kept the Roos on defense most of the match.
The UMKC coaching staff did not wish to com-ment on the loss.
The men will travel to face off against IUPUI at 6 p.m. Feb. 18 in Indianapolis, Ind., and the women stay at home to play IPFW at 7 p.m. Feb. 15 at Swinney Recre-ation Center.
16February 15, 2010 www.unews.com
Sports
Upcoming events that will be distributing medals this week: Monday – Cross-Country skiing: Men’s 15km, Women’s 10kmFigure Skating: PairsSnowboarding: Men’s snowboard crossTuesday – Alpine skiing: Men’s CombinedBiathlon: Men’s and Women’s pursuitLuge: Women’s singlesSnowboarding: Women’s snowboard crossSpeedskating: Women’s 500 metersWednesday – Alpine Skiing Women’s DownhillCross-Country: Men’s and Women’s SprintLuge: Men’s DoublesShort Track: Women’s 500 metersSnowboarding: Men’s half-pipeSpeed Skating: Men’s 1,000 metersThursday – Biathlon: Men’s and Women’s individual
Figure Skating: Men’s singlesSnowboarding: Women’s half-pipeSpeed Skating: Women’s 1,000 metersFriday – Alpine Skiing: Men’s Super GCross-Country: Women’s 15kmSkeleton: Men’s and Women’sSaturday – Alpine Skiing: Women’s Super GCross-Country: Men’s 30kmShort Track: Men’s 1,000 meters and Wom-en’s 1,500 metersSki Jumping: Men’s Large HillSpeed Skating: Men’s 1,500 metersSunday – Alpine Skiing: Men’s Giant SlalomCross-Country: Men’s and Women’s Mass StartBobsled: Two-manFree-Style Skiing: Men’s ski crossSpeed Skating: Women’s 1,500 meters
2010 Winter Olympics commence
Men’s BasketballDate Event Place Time2/18 IUPUI Indianapolis,Ind. 6p.m.2/20 WesternIllinois Macomb,Ill. 7p.m.
Women’s Basketball2/15 IPFW SRC 7p.m.2/20 WesternIllinois Macomb,Ill. 4:30p.m.
Softball22/19 Maine Lubbock,Texas 11a.m.2/19 TexasTech Lubbock,Texas 3p.m.2/20 Maine Lubbock,Texas 11a.m.2/20 TexasTech Lubbock,Texas 1p.m.2/21 TexasTech Lubbock,Texas 12p.m.
Men’s Tennis2/20 Marquette Milwaukee,Wis. 6p.m.2/21 Illinois-Chicago Chicago,Ill. 6p.m.
Sporting Eventssports shortsby JOHN PFORTMILLER
Golf
One win amidst three losses Kevin Bryce
Photo Editor
Photo KEVIN BRYCE
The men’s basketball team lost to Oakland last Saturday
Track
The men’s golf team earned runner-up status at the Pat Hicks T-Bird Invi-tational.
Four Roos placed in the top-20 on the 36-hole tour-nament.
Freshman Viktor Mi-kaelsson tallied his best finish at 143 and placed fifth on the individual lea-derboard. Sophomore Will Robson and senior Alex
Hogben tied for eighth place on the individual lea-derboard, finishing with scores of 146.
The fourth Roo to place in the top-20 was senior Brett Iliff. Iliff tied for 19th place with a score of 149.
The golf team has two weeks off, but will be back on Feb. 22-23 at Chandler, Ariz., for the Snowman Getaway.
The UMKC track and field team competed in the Iowa State Classic on Feb. 12-13.
Following the second day of the meet, the Roos recorded two top-four fin-ishes and seven personal
records.The Roos had better
than usual placement in the jumps, with Kim Nagy placing third in the high jump and Oscar Emegano placing fourth in the long jump.
The largest and greatest winter spectacle in sports has finally come back to North Amer-ica.
The 2010 Winter Olympics are now under-way after Friday’s Opening Ceremonies held in BC Place Stadium in Vancouver, British Columbia – the first ever in an indoor facility.
A 17-day event, packed with the best ath-letes in all winter sports, competing for the honor of their families and nations.
More than 82 countries are participating in 15 sports. Newcomers included the Cayman Islands, Colombia, Ghana, Montenegro, Paki-stan, Peru and Serbia.
All the countries are vying for 258 med-als with bronze for third, silver for second and gold for first and champion of that sport.
For the United States, a grand total of 216 athletes are representing the country, the most of any participating country in the Olympic Games including host Canada.
During the opening ceremony at BC Place, the bearer of the American flag, Mark Grim-mette, said leading his country into the domed stadium was his greatest honor as he partici-pates in his fourth Olympics.
Ten events have gotten underway dur-ing the weekend in the categories of alpine skiing, biathlon (cross-country skiing and sharpshooting), pairs figure skating, freestyle skiing, women’s ice hockey, men’s luge, men’s Nordic combined (cross-country skiing and ski jumping), men’s short track, normal hill ski jumping and 5,000 meter men’s speed skating.
As of the third day of the games, the United States has won one gold, one silver and two bronze medals.
Hannah Kearney won the gold for women’s freestyle skiing moguls, Apolo Ohno won the silver for men’s 1,500 meter short track, J.R. Celski took bronze in men’s 1,500 meter short track and Shannon Bahrke received bronze for women’s freestyle skiing moguls.
Brian SandersContributing Writer
It was the eve of my birthday when my brother called to say my dad had a sinus in-fection that had moved into his brain (extremely rare),
causing him to need an emergency brain surgery.
For the next four hours, I waited with my phone and two friends to see if my dad would make it through the high-risk surgery. He did.
The next day, my 23rd birthday, I was on a f light home to Canada to spend the next week in a hospital with my family.
After a week, doctors said the re-covery would be slow and indefinite. We decided as a family it was best if my brother, sister and I went back to school because we knew dad really wouldn’t want us to fail or drop out.
Upon arriving back in Kansas City, a close friend asked me if my family had good insur-ance.
“ I n s u r a n c e f o r what?” I responded, not understanding the question at first.
I am Canadian. I was born in the small-est city of the smallest province of Canada.
The province is called Prince Ed-ward Island and is found off the east coast of Canada.
As a baby, I had ear infections and had tubes in my ears. At age 3, I had an asthma attack and spent three days in hospital. At 14, I had a low platelet count and had routine blood work.
And at 18, I had a lung collapse and spent a week in the hospital with a small vacuum coming out of my chest cavity. I never had any insurance.
Honestly, I still don’t fully under-stand the concept of having to pay to get better. It doesn’t make sense to me.
I have heard it said tCanada per-haps doesn’t have as good of health care as the United States.
But in all of my above conditions, I was always restored to full health and often kept in hospital longer just to be sure.
I’ve seen friends and family with everything from a cleft palate to a bro-ken wrist, and I’ve never seen a single person complain about the treatment they’d received.
Perhaps Canada does have worse health care, but I haven’t seen it.
Growing up, if you were sick for more than a couple days, you went to the hospital. If you had a prolonged pain, you went to the hospital. And every year, you had a physical.
It was always understood that to have proper care was a right, not a
privilege. I find it hard to believe that here, in the land of the free, a woman can’t have a baby without paying.
What I’m trying to say is in Cana-da, money isn’t even part of the equa-tion. The words “health” and “financ-es” rarely fall into the same sentence.
They are, as they should be, two completely separate entities.
But if I don’t pay to get better, then who’s fronting the cash? With that question I hear Americans (the United States ones) bring up that evil word “socialism.”
“Canadians are socialists,” one friend of mine often jokes. If Canadi-ans are socialists, then so are Ameri-cans. We’ve just managed to add one more thing to the list of things the government pays for.
If you’re against government run health care, then surely your against public libraries, highways, fire de-partments, police departments, public schools and, of course, the post office. No?
My friend says socialism, I say helping people.
In 2004, a Canadian television sta-tion aired a series called “The Great-est Canadian.” Citizens nominated and then vote on who they believed the greatest Canadian to be.
Entertainers like Mike Meyers, Neil Diamond and Wayne Gretzky all saw the top 100. But there was once a young man named Terry Fox who got can-cer and, at age 19, had his leg amputated as a result. Then, on one leg, Fox decided to raise money for cancer by running across the
country. At 21, he started the Marathon
of Hope and ran halfway across the country raising almost $24 million.
But halfway through the run, the cancer had invaded both his lungs and he was forced to stop.
Fox’s goal was to raise a dollar for every Canadian citizen and, before his death at age 23, he managed to do that.
Today, the Terry Fox Foundation has raised more than $400 million for cancer research.
But Fox was voted second in “The Greatest Canadian” series.
Who was voted first? Tommy Douglas, the man who allowed Fox to have free treatment, the man who instituted free health care in Canada.
More than a month has passed and my dad is still in the hospital.
After two brain surgeries and six or seven CT scans, things are starting to look up.
A CT scan last Thursday showed that finally the infection and swelling are going down and, hopefully, a third brain surgery will not be necessary.
Chances are, right now, my dad is lying asleep in a hospital bed and my mom is sitting nearby.
My mom is thinking about her hus-band, she’s thinking about her kids.
And the last time she thought about her bank account? Maybe when she bought her last meal. Maybe.
“If Canadians are socialists, then so are Americans. We’ve just managed to add one more thing to the list of things the government pays for.”
17www.unews.com February 15, 2010
ForumOh Canada
KEVIN BRYCE
When I came to the university as an assistant professor in 1967, all Arts and Sciences course evaluations were conducted by students.
The procedure was simple. The faculty mem-ber would leave the room, a student distributed and collected the evaluations, they were sealed in view of the other students and delivered that same day to student government offices.
In those days, students drafted the questions of interest to them, which were not always the ques-tions the professors wished to have asked.
Specialized esoteric questions were out, es-sential questions about the value of the course and skills of the teacher were emphasized.
Students evaluated the answers, emphasizing the written comments, and a pamphlet was pre-pared and sold.
Nearly everyone on campus who was involved in the college purchased a copy.
This was a process used across the country at various times from Princeton to UCLA.
Of course, some people were periodically dis-gruntled with what the students had to say about their courses. But it tended to even out, because the students responsible for publishing the results changed from year to year.
Classes with small enrollments were sometimes omitted, so not all classes were evaluated. The lack of students was itself an evaluation by the students themselves.
By emphasizing the written comments instead of merely reciting data with small differences, the student community got a better sense of what the classes were about.
The idea was to provide representative student comments, not the views of the occasional outlier. By and large, it was a system that worked well.
It provided a useful grapevine for students, which can be of considerable value at a commuter
campus where people often do not know a great many classmates very well.
But then it changed and the administration de-cided to control class evaluations. The results were now made known only to the faculty member, the chair and the administration. There was no trans-parency.
Teaching became subject to privacy, so poor teaching was protected from public view except from those enrolled in a class. But even those stu-dents were never told the results of the evaluations they filled in.
As one who has served on college Good Teach-ing Committees for decades, I recall how one ques-tionnaire form after another became the subject of earnest debate and criticism.
As it happens, all of these questionnaires were much the same even as they grew more elaborate and self-serving. Any question on which a commit-tee member did poorly was likely to be criticized.
But these instruments had their place, and all of them differentiated adequately between good teaching and mediocre teaching. Yet, the results remained secret. There was and is no transparency.
The recent debacle (the online evaluations) has the distinct disadvantage of telling us nothing because of the low level of student participation, which was entirely predictable.
We were told it was likely there would be par-ticipation if it was encouraged by the faculty, but that was not to be. Clearly, even ratemyprofessor.com is an immeasurably better guide to teaching excellence on campus than our recent evaluations.
So what to do? We need to return course evalu-ations in the college to the students.
Student governments have always done an ex-cellent job with these and have, in the bargain, made them interesting. Students can make money with the pamphlets (and online data purchases, if they wish), students can again ask the questions they think are important, students can distill the data in a way they consider representative and use-ful for other students and there will again be trans-parency.
Let’s again shine a little sunlight on the process and let our students encourage good teaching once more in their own way.
Curators’ Distinguished Teaching Professor of Political Science and Law
Chair of the Publications Board for the University News.
Evaluating college coursesDAVID ATKINSON
What do you th ink?
Do you think there are enough parking spots on
campus?
A. Yes
B. No
Go to www.unews.com and tell us your answer!
Your answers to last week’s question:
Who do you think should enforce the campus smoking policy?
A. Campus police C. A special taskforce B. Faculty and Staff D. No enforcement
A B
B. 85%
A. 15%
If you enjoyed 2009’s health care brawl, you’re in luck.
In a surprise briefing last Tuesday, Presi-dent Barack Obama announced plans for a televised health care discussion with mem-bers of Congress from both parties to take place on Feb. 25.
A part of me wants to believe the presi-dent when he says he wants a substantive dis-cussion rather than political theater.
But why should act two of the “who’s go-ing to subsidize my health care” fight be any different than the first installment?
The actors are the same and Democrats have chosen to interpret voters’ messages to them in Massachusetts, New Jersey and Virginia as “throw the bums out” scenarios, rather than drawing the obvious conclusion the electorate doesn’t like their agenda.
It is also an iron-clad fact any time you put politicians in front of a TV camera, the result will always be political theater and 90 percent of everything said will have been run through a battery of focus groups and polls.
The other 10 percent will likely consist of artificial attempts to sound folksy and down-to-earth (the president is about as good at this as his predecessor was at sounding professional).
Furthermore, the more politicians com-peting for the same TV camera, the less like-ly it is any of them will say anything substan-tive or intelligent. Rather, if history is any guide, all of them will compete to see who’s scripted line can be the most populist and, by extension, simplistic and idiotic.
Meanwhile, the set up will undoubtedly feature Obama in the middle, playing the moderate, temporizing, grown-up trying to make the congressmen play nice. This will be great for his brand, but probably won’t do much for Democrats in Congress.
An outside chance (a pretty small one in my view) exists that Democrats will make real concessions, include some Republican ideas, and manage to pass a bill. This would be a genuine shift from the last season of the “let’s make absurd promises about health care” show. I’m cautiously optimistic such a catastrophe won’t happen though.
Democrats have too much of a vested in-
terest in keeping their patron saints, the trial lawyers, happy to seriously tamper with our medical lawsuit system. Furthermore, seri-ous concessions to republican ideas would probably mean losing the votes of at least a few of the most liberal members of Congress.
On the other side of the table will be Re-publicans, who also won’t be all that open to a deal.
The GOP has no interest whatsoever in handing the other team a big legislative victory right before a mid-term election, al-though they will want to avoid looking like obstructionists.
All of this is to say nothing of the actual policy problems that will infect any com-promise. No one is actually addressing the root causes of health care inflation because it’s way easier to just demonize those big evil health insurers and promise the public a system that gives the same quality of care to more people, for less money.
One of the pithiest and most repeated tru-isms about politics is, “politics is show busi-ness for ugly people.” I think politics actually comes closer to a really bad infomercial than show business.
Of course, by saying that, I run the risk of insulting infomercials. At least when Billy Mayes sold stuff he made you want to buy it. Then again, he also never claimed to be able to give Oxy-Clean to 30 million people for free.
18February 15, 2010 www.unews.com
ForumLetter to the editor
Bryan Eagle Communication Studies
Having recently heard that U-News was launching podcasts, I decided to check some out. I listened to several of the Wiretap podcasts by Alexia Lang and was truly surprised and irritated by what I heard.
Lang’s podcasts are not informa-tive from a journalistic perspective, nor are they insightful or revelatory as commentary pieces. Ms. Lang under-mines her own integrity by contradict-ing herself many times in her podcasts. In Episode 8, she admits she prefers us-ing “big words,” but in Episode 5, she mispronounced the word “façade.”
In Episode 14, she expresses anger at the FFRF for taking a simple mat-ter and drawing it out to “a point of ri-diculousness,” while in her podcast on Halloween, she elaborately draws out a celebration of Halloween to an igno-rance of world events and a participation in the downfall of civilization like that of the Rome. Such piousness and preten-tion only served to alienate me from the material at hand, and frankly, turned me away from other materials U-News has to offer.
Perhaps the editors and Ms. Lang should reevaluate their content and de-livery system for the Wiretap podcasts. As a commentary aimed at pointing out problems, Ms. Lang’s podcast offers few solutions, merely condemnations of those she disagrees with or who she believes have taken actions detrimental to society.
The Wiretap comes off like a piece of college journalism attempting to ap-pear worldly but falls short because the journalist does not have the life experi-ences necessary to grasp the world as it is. This is not entirely a fault of Ms. Lang – individuals in their 20s have not yet experienced much in life, and I con-sider myself part of that category.
There is nothing that can alter that situation, but Ms. Lang and the editors at U-News can and should take this into consideration. I will conclude by of-fering a specific rebuttal to a specific podcast. In her podcast on Halloween, I believe Ms. Lang has missed the point of the holiday. For one, Valentine’s Day is much more exclusionary.
I for one have not participated in V-Day for the last five years. Halloween welcomes any and all participants. Sec-ondly, Halloween offers an escape for children. Their eyes light up at playing make believe and getting a few candy bars to satisfy their sweet tooth. Would you like to tell your child, “No sweetie, you can’t go out this Halloween because the government is taking away our writ of habeas corpus?” And while adults sometimes do go overboard on Hallow-een, did it ever occur to Ms. Lang that the celebration is an escape from the realities of the world, and not an avoid-ance? We live with these realities 364 days a year.
Shouldn’t we take an opportunity to escape from that every once a while? Or at least enjoy the fact we live in a soci-ety that affords us such escapist celebra-tions? I certainly think so.
Now I’m going to start sewing my cape for next October.
Journalism is a strange beast.In journalism school, stu-
dents are taught journalists are advocates and friends of the people – heroes really. We de-fend those in peril and protect the citizens’ interests.
However, we are not idolized like firemen or policemen, we do not have white horses and shiny armor and we hardly ever get accolades or notes of apprecia-tion for a job well done. (I might petition for the armor, though. We receive enough feedback to make it quite practical.)
Why are we the outcasts of the community service family?
Well, sometimes we get things wrong. Such is the nature of a fast-approaching deadline industry. And then money-driv-en, network news “reporters” have given us a bad rap. But we also make readers uncomfort-able. We make them think.
We keep politicians on their toes, read and report on legis-lation the establishment would rather keep quiet and advocate for equal rights even if we don’t agree with the people who need advocates.
This job is far from being a walk in the park. But that’s why we say journalism is a lifestyle, not a career.
You might have grown up wanting to be president, a doc-tor or some other prestigious professional with a high in-come, but I grew up dreaming of becoming a writer.
Most journalists have person-al heroes – people who inspire them to keep fighting the good fight. I look to Ron Rowden, C.S. Lewis, Edward R. Murrow and Brad Cooper.
Ron Rowden was not only my grandfather, he was the best journalist I have ever had the privilege of knowing. Putting aside my personal connection, Rowden gave his life serving his community. That’s the way it should be.
C.S. Lewis is arguably the greatest philosopher of the 20th
Century. He dared to ask and answer the questions no one else was brave enough to broach. He had the spirit of a good journal-ist.
Edward R. Murrow was strong in the face of adversity. He knew the government’s sins and he defended the innocent people who were under afflic-tion. He risked his life and his career to let the truth be known.
Brad Cooper is a reporter on the City Desk covering transpor-tation for the Kansas City Star. I met him two years ago when I was still an intern for the John-son County Neighborhood News.
Cooper and I arrived at the office about the same time ev-ery morning, before most of the reporters, editors and sales staff filled the desks, making enough noise to annoy a preschool teach-er.
He would settle in, no doubt check his e-mail and prepare for phone calls.
Basically, his job is to let all of us know if there will be prob-lems with the roads, if the gov-ernment is going to hike taxes to pay for a new road or transporta-tion system or any other related issue.
Unfortunately, Cooper’s du-ties often required heated dis-cussions with people who did not want to release information to the public. He also faced situ-ations where people were upset they were quoted, even though they spoke on the record.
I used to think I would hate having his job. But, some time in the last year, I landed in a similar place.
I chose to leave soft news behind and tackle issues like political scandals and injustice. Suddenly, my inbox began fill-ing with positive and negative e-mails from readers.
Oddly, most of them weren’t complaining about the quality of reporting. They simply said they
did not want to know. One went so far as to say he likes living in a “protected bubble” and he would really appreciate it if I did not pop it.
While one part of me dislikes receiving these e-mails, another part sees them as wake-up calls. Most of us do live sheltered lives by choice. I am here to give you the information you really do need when you decide you want it. I get my inspiration from Mr. Cooper. He is driven and pas-sionate. He really wants the public to have the information and doesn’t care if he has to be beaten to a pulp to get it.
My friends, that’s love of community, of country, of free-dom.
Mr. Cooper, you are a true hero.
I might not always get every-thing right. But it’s not because I am lackadaisically doing my job. Morning, noon and night, I live my life with a purpose.
You, as readers, might not want some of the disturbing in-formation right now, but down the road you just might. So, it’s been documented for posterity.
Years from now, I plan to be doing the same thing. So, check back in later if you have a change of heart. Journalists aren’t out to get you, but to serve and protect you.
With some help from Mur-row, “Goodnight and good luck” on your journey in life. Just let me know if you ever need me.
I’m an instigator
ALEX
IA S
TOU
T-LA
NG
Stout’s Shouts“This job is far from being a walk in the park.”
EVAN HELMUTH
Sequel to health care fight announced
“Why should act two of the ‘who’s going to subsidize my health care’ fight be any different than the first installment?”
I find myself in a little “Situa-tion” this Valentine’s Day (homage to the great Mike “The Situation” of the Jersey Shore).
Facebook has managed to semi-force its users to determine a rela-tionship status by merely raising the none-of-your-damn-business question, what is your “relationship status?”
Only one option on the list really makes sense, “It’s complicated.”
Shoot, you can be married and it’s still complicated! So I’m single and it’s painfully complicated this February.
Painful to the point it was barely New Year’s and I could see Wal-Mart was already showing signs of a Pepto-Bismol regurgitation of pink and red in certain well-ap-pointed sections, primarily by the friggin’ front door.
Why must retailers rub it in re-lationship-challenged faces that it’s still complicated and always will be?
So I say screw Valentine’s Day. I’m calling it Victory Day.
It’s a mere miracle we single people make it through that dreaded two-month, pre-Valentine’s Day pe-riod, from New Year’s to Feb. 14, that makes us want to walk in to a
store with a blow torch cheerfully humming, “What’s love got to do, got to do with it.”
No man actually proposes on Valentine’s Day anyway, right? Ap-parently not, because that 2 1/2 carat total weight, 14K, white gold with a multi-stone center containing four princess cut diamonds engagement ring has never found its little, expen-sive way to my lonely size eight ring finger. Wait, I’m sorry. I digress.
This year, Victory Day is the day to celebrate. I’m celebrating life.
I’m celebrating the freedom in being single and not having to ex-plain some ridiculously bad Valen-tine’s Day date story where I got stood up at my favorite restaurant looking as hot as I’ll ever freakin’ get, smelling and looking like a sin-gle man’s dream, wondering if he would have eventually broken my heart anyway.
By the time this article goes to print and ends up in your compli-cated hands (don’t even try to tell me it’s not complicated), Valentine’s Day will be over.
So don’t ask me what I did for Valentine’s Day. Ask me what I did on my one and only Victory Day celebrating my single life and me.
For me, Valentine is the new “F” word. Don’t send me those stupid text messages asking me to be your “V.” Stop it, I say!
Bitter, you think? No, I wouldn’t say bitter. I would say realistic — finally. I have figured out it’s me I should be loving and celebrating.
If I need a stinkin’ ring that bad I should take my ghetto booty up there and buy it myself.
Maybe I’ll meet some hot, single, educated, confident, dark-skinned, mentally capable man along the way. (I know, I know. I’m flicking the devil off my shoulder as I write.)
But I’m tormented during my daily trip to the Plaza Starbucks for my fix. As I’m adding the cream and eight Splenda to my tall, dark coffee, my eyes gaze adoringly across the street at the little “Tiffany” blue aw-ning of the store with the same name.
The bars on the windows and the bullet-proof front door seem like a smaller hurdle to jump than getting my dream man to supply me with the ring himself and, of course, the love and life-long, healthy relationship that should go along with it.
For those of you in secure, lov-ing, uncomplicated relationships, I applaud you.
Hang on tight. Life is so short and truly committed, unconditional love is hard to come by. Maybe it will not elude me forever.
In the meantime, I’m making a little, unaccompanied trip to Tif-fany’s and will flash that sucker on my right hand to hopefully promote a healthier love question about me and what I stand for as an educated, young woman making it on her own in this complicated world.
Our generation has reached a point where we need to make a huge decision about how we will contin-ue to socialize and problem solve.
We can either tread softly or speak the truth. Both have incred-ible benefits and drawbacks.
The importance of being politi-cally correct by treading softly at all times has reached the point of counterproductive problem solv-ing. However, the benefit is that fewer people are angered by little things.
We are all taught the impor-tance of speaking the truth from an early age. But, in politics today, telling the truth is considered divi-
sive or offensive. In reality, truth solves real problems.
These days, it is easy for politi-cians to say they are going to sup-port causes or ideologies.
When they do not, they are rarely called on for not speaking the truth.
Regular people have issues with this, too. We say we want to help a cause but do not follow through.
In class, students talk about wanting to help Haiti or wishing politicians would listen to them, yet they do not donate money or time to Haiti or take five minutes to call or e-mail politicians.
Kansas City, as a whole, says it will work on race relations. In annual publications, various civic organiza-tions analyze and point out issues.
However, despite all efforts, race relations have remained seem-ingly unchanged. Further, when politicians attempt to take on racial issues, they are considered divisive or to be destroying progressive problem solving.
Nationally, we struggle with
truth telling. Our federal govern-ment talks a big game of trying to be fiscally conservative and fol-lowing a tight budget, yet a record-breaking budget will be submitted.
It is time for people to stop beat-ing around the bush.
We have many problems in this country and it is time to step up and solve as many as we can instead of complaining about them from the comfort of our own homes.
Of course, we can speak the harsh truth without being rude. But we cannot speak the harsh truth and be politically correct at all times.
Teddy Roosevelt once said, “Speak softly and carry a big stick.”
That quote is incredibly differ-ent from what we are doing while treading softly and carrying noth-ing. Not a pen, telephone or meta-phorical stick is carried by our gen-eration to aid in problem solving.
Where is your voice, young America? Where is your stick?
19Forum
www.unews.com February 15, 2010
Word on CampusInterviewed by NILA HALL
How do you feel about the smoking ban being reviewed
by the Missouri Legislature?
“I think it’s good that they banned it.”
SHARAYAH IAMUKISeniorPre-Dental Hygiene
“I look at it as sort of a good thing because it helps people physically.”
RONNELL JOHNSONSophomoreFrench
“Speaking for myself as a non-smoker, I’m against overturning such legislation. I enjoy being able to go to a restaurant where it is a smoke-free environment.”
TODD DARELINGJuniorElectrical and Computer Engineering
“Personally, I see it as a step in the right direction. But it’s incomplete, because it’s affecting some people and not all people.”
CHRISTINE WEBBJuniorUndecided
“I feel it’s better for everyone.”
EVA DALVAIFreshmanPre-Med
“Keep the ban. I understand why people think it’s a bad idea to smoke from my own perspective and sense of well being.”
JOSH YOUNGBERGSophomoreInformation Technology
RACHAEL HERNDON
Find your stick and carry it
NIKKI BOMGARDNER
V is for victory, not Valentine
“By the time this article goes to print and ends up in your ‘complicated’ hands (don’t even try to tell me it’s not complicated), Valentine’s Day will be over.”
taken up by visitors forcing us to park further away.”
Bongartz acknowledged safety is linked to lighting and recommended to always stay in lit areas and travel with another person.
“Especially after hours, always try to travel with at least one other per-son,” Bongartz said. “It makes such a big difference. Follow the sidewalks and the areas that are well lit. If you see anything suspicious, call 816-235-1515 and we will be over there in a matter of minutes. People have to trust their instincts and call us right away.”
The police have cameras located on both campuses to help ensure the safety of students, staff, faculty and visitors.
Sgt. Timothy J. Layman said key
locations for cameras viewable by the police department include the Rock-hill Parking Structure, Oak Street Parking Structure, Administrative Center, Dental School, Medical School, Hospital Hill Parking Struc-ture, Health Sciences Complex park-ing, 4825 Troost parking and 4747 Troost parking.
Last spring, the Rockhill Parking Structure cameras were not record-ing, but the problem has been fixed.
“The recording equipment for the Rockhill structure had failed and was not repairable,” Layman said. “It took a while to replace such a costly piece of equipment, but it has been replaced and is functional.”
[email protected] Stout-Lang, News Editor, contributed to this story.
THEFT from page 4
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Frank planned on volunteering until graduation. But her dedication paid off and she became a member of the staff.
“I owe so much to the people that I work with,” Frank said. “I am thankful that they saw something in me to hire me. I mean, it’s a huge deal. Why would you hire somebody who is coming in anyway for no pay?”
Frank can see herself going to a medical school, but she keeps other doors open, too.
For now, she is a UMKC junior studying Chemistry. She will graduate in May 2011.
“A medical examiner is not the only doctor that I ever wanted to be, but it is up there like in the top two,” Frank said.
While volunteering in the morgue, Frank could have been doing other things with her free time. But she be-lieves in the work done in the autopsy suite, and it keeps her going.
“I believe that you can give voice to the dead and help the living,” Frank said. “With murders, you can figure out so much from the victim that you can put someone in jail. With diseases you can figure out so much from a dead body, you can make sure that others don’t get sick.”
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