The University of Kansas

Benefit auction organized by KU employee to help victims of Sept. 11

A benefit auction organized by a KU employee and his mother will raise money for the Red Cross Sept. 11 Disaster Relief Fund. The auction begins at 9 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 3, at the Douglas County Fairgrounds, buildings 1 and 2.

Tony Johnson, assistant to the network administrator for the School of Journalism, said he and his mother had been working with local businesses and individuals to obtain more than $5,500 in merchandise for the auction.

“Everybody seems to want to do something,” Johnson said. “Some people may not be able to afford to give money, but maybe they can find a nice item from home to donate. This is a good way to get everyone in town involved.”

Donated items include a “Late Night” program autographed by Roy Williams, a DVD player and work by local artists.

Donations will be accepted from the public from noon to 9 p.m. Friday, Nov. 2. All donations are welcome, except clothing.

KANU thanks listeners with free CDs
KANU 91.5 FM will hold its annual weeklong compact disc giveaway Nov. 4 through 10. The event is KANU’s way of thanking listeners who helped raise more than $165,000 by pledging their support for the station during the RadioFest 2001 fall fund campaign.

KANU will give away one CD every hour during locally produced programming, including more than 100 hours of classical, jazz and acoustic music. Listeners will be able to call (888) 526-8365 to have a chance to win a CD. Beginning Sunday, Nov. 4, listeners also can visit KANU’s Web site and register to win a daily online giveaway.

The CD giveaway week begins at 1 p.m. Nov. 4 during “Trail Mix,” KANU’s Sunday-afternoon staple featuring Celtic, bluegrass, contemporary acoustic and folk music. The station will continue to give away CDs during nine hours of classical music and four hours of jazz each weekday. The giveaway week will close with “The Jazz Scene” at 4 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 10.

Record companies donate the CDs KANU uses for giveaways.

Design faculty to showcase work
Department of Design faculty members will exhibit their work Sunday, Nov. 4, through Friday, Nov. 16, at the KU Art and Design Gallery. Admission is free.

The Department of Design includes ten areas of study: ceramics, industrial design, interior design, textiles, metalsmithing and jewelry, illustration, theater design, graphic design, scenography, and visual arts education. The exhibit will contain works from all areas.

Free concert series continues
Unique performances carry the excitement of Brown Bag Classics through the fall on three Wednesdays in November. The free concerts take place from 12:30 to 1 p.m. in the Kansas Union’s Alderson Auditorium.

Nov. 7 features Hugo Vera, graduate teaching assistant in voice. On Nov. 14, the acclaimed student ensemble known as the KU Saxophone Quartet performs its own brand of woodwind magic, while on Nov. 28, Toni-Marie Montgomery, dean of the School of Fine Arts, and assistant professor Ben Sayevich brighten the noon hour with a piano and violin recital. There is no performance on Nov. 21, the day before Thanksgiving break.

Launched last year as a way to highlight School of Fine Arts performing artists, the Brown Bag Classics series makes the arts more accessible by providing frequent gatherings in the Kansas Union.

This year’s program offers jazz, opera, piano, woodwind ensembles, string, voice and brass concerts. At the end of the series, faculty from the Department of Art and the Department of Design will lead a lively roundtable about the creative process.

The audience is invited to bring along a lunch and enjoy a delicious treat. The Kansas Union supplies the soda. For more information, contact the Department of Music and Dance at (785) 864-3436.

“Music at the Med” series launched
The School of Fine Arts extended its musical arm to metropolitan Kansas City when the “Music at the Med” concert series was launched Oct. 30 at the KU Medical Center.
All Music at the Med concerts take place from noon to 12:45 p.m. in Battenfeld Auditorium in the Student Center. The performances are free and open to the public.
The format for Music at the Med is similar to that of the Brown Bag Classics.
“We are pleased to have this opportunity to connect with the KU Medical Center,” said Toni-Marie Montgomery, KU fine arts dean. “Both series offer performances that are entertaining and educational because the performers discuss the works they play and field questions from the audience.”
The fall 2001 Music at the Med schedule is as follows:

Nov. 8: KU Percussion Ensemble, student musicians
Nov. 13: Pianist Kathryn Koscho, student musician
Nov. 20: Violist Peter Chun, faculty member
Dec. 4: KU Saxophone Quartet, student musicians
Dec. 11: Violinist Ben Sayevich and pianist Toni-Marie Montgomery, faculty members

Vigil to honor veterans in campus community
For the fourth year, a 24-hour vigil will commemorate Veterans Day.

“The purpose is to honor veterans in the KU community, including staff, students and faculty,” said Marla Herron, assistant director of KU’s Veteran Student Services.

The candlelight vigil at the campus Vietnam memorial will begin at 4 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 8, and continue until 4 p.m. Friday, Nov. 9. Col. Kevin McNellis of Air Force ROTC Detachment 280 said ROTC cadets take turns standing guard holding a lighted candle.

“It’s quite touching,” McNellis said. “Students and the community recognize it, even though it’s done in a low-key way. The response is overwhelming, and folks are remembering.”

A tribute will take place in Alderson Auditorium in the Kansas Union immediately following the vigil’s start at 4 p.m. Thursday. There will be a presentation of colors, an MIA/POW ceremony, a soloist and a guest speaker.

Lt. Col. Ret. Barry Bridger was a prisoner of war for six years in North Vietnam. He will speak at the ceremony, and he will show videotapes and discuss the situations prisoners face. Bridger will say a few words at the start of the vigil as well.

“The notion is that most of the cadets today were born into freedom,” McNellis said. “We have to recognize that not everyone comes back.”

Herron said the Veterans Day events are the work of two groups, the Veteran Students Association and the Arnold Air Society. She said each group used to do two separate smaller services, but this year they decided to join forces and do one bigger service.

The ceremony means even more this year because of the attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C., Herron said.

“In times of war, people are more sensitive to the sacrifices of the military,” Herron said. “In times of peace it’s easy to forget. You have to look around and say, ‘These people could be shipped out tomorrow.’”

The service at Alderson Auditorium is free and open to the public. People also can visit the site of the vigil for reflection or to leave flowers or gifts.

KU faculty donate to Garden City clinic
The United Methodist Western Kansas Mexican American Ministries Health Clinic in Garden City hardly sounds like a tour stop for Kansas visitors.

But about 200 KU faculty and staff have voted the multilingual clinic as one of their most thought-provoking stops on the annual Wheat State Whirlwind Tour.
The annual bus tour gives new faculty the chance to learn more about Kansas by traveling across the state.

In May, the faculty and staff left the clinic wanting to help the small staff with its many outreach services. The clinic primarily serves Spanish-speaking families from Mexico and Central and Latin America who moved to Garden City to work in meat-packing plants. The KU group decided to donate money, food, cleaning supplies, clothing and toys. Joan Letendre, assistant professor of social welfare, volunteered to coordinate the collection and delivery of the donations.

Isela Learma, community developer at the clinic, and her sister Consuelo Sandoval, who works with the clinic’s dental health program, met Letendre Oct. 20. Learma and Sandoval are the daughters of a retired meat-packing plant employee.

“I heard many stories that demonstrated the difficulty of peoples’ lives,” Letendre said of her visit. “But Isela said that she had never seen people quite so desperate since a major meat-packing plant burned down and hasn’t been replaced.”

A fire destroyed a packing plant in December 2000, forcing hundreds of immigrants, whose first language may be Spanish or Vietnamese, out of work. People continue to look for jobs, but with the loss of a major area employer, few are available, Learma said.

Letendre said that in her short visit to Garden City, she learned about the community outreach to help new immigrants gain citizenship and about the clinic’s programs for cervical and breast cancer education, early childhood education and dental health. She also found out that the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks may result in increasingly strict immigration policies, which would impact people from Latin America as well as other places.