Volume 21  Issue 1   August 21, 1998

 Contents:

• Tivoli officials nix Boiler Room's mix of spirits and free parking
  by Tara Trujillo
• Metro student on the road for Nov. election
  by Perry Swanson
• MetroBriefs
• Many factors determine textbook prices
  by Alicia Beard
• Off-campus bookstore offers price alternative
  by Michael Byrd
• Metro student becomes campus affairs director for CSA
  by David Proviano
• Competition at last
• Adults fight, children suffer
  Kyle Ringo
• It's a dirty story, but someone's got to tell it!
• Dave Flomberg
• Learning through the Lakota
  Gayle Johnson
• Three-decade love finally realized
  Gary Brady-Herndon
• Metro philosophy professor wants a model program of excellence
  by Arlene Wilson
• Shows coming to the Denver Performing Arts Complex offer students half-price tickets in their own backyard.
  by Ricardo Baca
• Emmanuel Gallery presents a show that ranges from "pretty to pornographic"
  by Sean Weaver
• Artists to put art over river in 2002
  by Sean Weaver
• No washing up hands after pants go down
  Ricardo Baca
• Man Power for women's hoops
  by Kyle Ringo
• Men's team loses three to fatherhood
  by Kyle Ringo

NEWS

Tivoli officials nix Boiler Room's mix of spirits and free parking
by Tara Trujillo
The Metropolitan

Free all-day parking will no longer be an accommodation for Boiler Room customers since owners renewed their lease with the Tivoli Student Union.

In the past, customers who bought a burger or a beer at the Boiler Room could receive complimentary parking at the Tivoli. Now, Boiler Room customers will have to eat faster if they want complimentary parking because the bar will only validate  parking for one hour this semester.

In spring, the hour will drop to 30 minutes, and there will be no free parking for Boiler Room customers by summer. This is part of the agreement that owners Lawrence Gonzales and Nestor Romero accepted when renewing their eight-year lease.

"We wish we could still validate for the whole day," said Andrea Newlun, manager of the Boiler Room, "We have no control over it."

But now it's hard to have 100 percent complimentary parking for businesses at the Tivoli because of increasing demand for downtown parking, said Tivoli Business Manager Dave Caldwell.

Boiler Room owners re-newed their lease with the Tivoli a year and a half early because the bar wanted to secure its long-term tenancy, Caldwell said. An attorney for the Boiler Room and Tivoli officials spent "hours upon hours" negotiating  parking, rent and standards that businesses renting Tivoli space are expected to follow.

With such diverse customers, the Tivoli wanted to maintain turnover in the parking lot so spaces would be available to students, conference committees and the community.  But the Tivoli's main concern is to make sure students have parking, Caldwell said.

Before July 1, parking at the Tivoli was a maximum of $5 for weekdays. Now, the maximum is $10.

One reason for the increase is to prevent Pepsi Center patrons from robbing Auraria students and Tivoli customers of parking spaces on campus. Sports fans going to the Pepsi Center might take advantage of cheaper parking at the Tivoli, using spaces that would otherwise be used for students or Tivoli customers, said Mark Gallagher, director of the Parking and Transportation Centre.

The other business in the Tivoli that provides free parking at the Tivoli lot is the AMC Tivoli 12 Theaters.
The Tivoli may re-evaluate parking for the movie house when its lease is up, Caldwell said.

The theater's lease ends in  2000, with the option to extend or renew it, said Diane Ramirez, Tivoli 12 general manager.

"There is not a theater where you have to pay for parking. It would be an incredible hardship.  I can't imagine the owner of the AMC letting that happen," Ramirez said.

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Metro student on the road for Nov. election
by Perry Swanson
The Metropolitan

Metro student Ted Sell said his campaign to represent House District 3 in the Colorado legislature is about a government that listens to citizens.

Sell won the Republican nomination Aug. 11 and will now face Democrat Jennifer Veiga in the November general election.

Sell is a political science major in his junior year at Metro.

As he crisscrossed Inca Street in Englewood in the late evening Aug. 17, Sell asked residents, "What do you think I can do to make this state a better place to live?"

The answers varied from improved roads and education to apathy about government's ability to change.

To the first man he approached the question of whether to support Sell was simple.

"Are you Republican?" asked Bill Fleet.

"Yes."

"Well then you're all right," Fleet said.

Sell said he has campaigned door-to-door for various political causes since age 13. It's meant scaling fences to escape growling dogs, talking to people with almost no knowledge of politics and, more than anything, trying to convince strangers that politics actually matters.

"I learned one thing the first week I was doing this, and that is if you try and get too cute you're gonna turn people off," Sell said.

Sell kept an even and friendly tone as he approached each potential voter. He told them he wants to hear their opinion on how government can be better, and he said that attitude would continue if he is elected. That goes for positive suggestions as well as criticism.

"I'm going to be somewhere where you can find me and grab me and say, ÎHey, you messed up here and we need to talk about it,'" Sell said.

He said if he's elected he will work to direct money toward improving roads and supporting local law enforcement.
Sell's opponent, Veiga, is a one-term incumbent. Veiga's campaign is better funded than Sell's. She reported a balance of $6,225 in her campaign fund at the end of July, compared to Sell's $186.

Sell criticized Veiga as ineffectual in her first term as a legislator. He pointed out Veiga's record of introducing five bills in this year's legislature on topics from auto insurance to  family and medical leave. None of her proposals became law.

Veiga co-sponsored 19 other bills, 18 of which became law.

Sell said he worked on a law that passed this year, which would subject "sexual predators" to psychiatric treatment.
He said he won't take classes this fall since the campaign will take most of his time, but he intends to register again in summer 1999.

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MetroBriefs

Metro to hold accessibility tour
The Metro Americans with Disabilities Task Force took an "accessibility tour" of Auraria campus Thursday, August 20.

Tara Tull, on the sub-committee for facility accessibility, said students will join Metro and Auraria employees on a tour of the campus to point out specific issues of concern for people with disabilities on campus.

"We want to make specific recommendations to Dr. Kaplan," Tull said.

AIDS Walk registration begins
Metro will join the Community College of Denver and the University of Colorado at Denver in sponsoring a team to walk in the AIDS Walk Colorado,Sept. 13.

Karen Bensen, director of Gay, Lesbian Bi-trans Student Services, said tables will be set up around campus from Aug. 24 to Sept. 4 to register students for the walk.

Bensen said Auraria's goal this year is to raise $10,000.

"It's a big goal," Bensen said. "We're going to have to work hard to make it happen."

Bensen said about 150 students marched last year in the Auraria team and raised $7,000.

The fundraising walkathon will be held Sept. 13 to benefit the Colorado AIDS Project and other AIDS service and education providers in Colorado.

Bensen said there is no fee to register for the AIDS Walk, but participants must preregister to receive a sponsor form and people with pledges of at least $15 will receive a free Auraria walk team T-shirt.

Swing theme at fall fest
The 1998 Fall Fest, Swing Fling will be held on the Lawrence Street Mall Sept. 2-3.

The event serves as a kick-off to the new school year and provides new and returning students the opportunity to become involved in the campus community.

A swing theme was chosen for this year.

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Many factors determine textbook prices
by Alicia Beard
The Metropolitan

After paying tuition and fees, students face one last financial hurdle...textbooks.

Melanie Sparks, assistant director for the Auraria Book Center, said she estimates a student taking four classes will spend an average of $200 for textbooks. She said for students majoring in subjects such as engineering, books are even more expensive.

Sparks said textbook prices and release dates of new publications are controlled by the publishing houses.

Because professors choose the publishers and then places the book orders, publishers give away a lot of free merchandise to try and please professors, Sparks said. These materials are not paid for directly, but are absorbed into the cost of the textbook.

Nelson Black, senior marketing manager for Irwin/McGraw-Hill, said for a basic economics textbook, his company would give away more than 10,000 copies to try and sell the book. Black said additional costs absorbed in the prices are instructor's manuals, tests, and overhead and computerized transparencies.

Black said production of the book, which includes  editing and storage, account for the largest part in the textbook price.

"Textbooks these days are more colorful and engaging," Black said.

He said in order to print graphs and photographs, a more expensive coated paper must be used. The amount of color used in a book, whether its a two- or four-color design, also affects the price.

Another factor which affects price is the market size, or how many copies of the book the publisher expects to sell.
Unlike a regular book, which has many ways of penetrating the market, a textbook only has the college bookstore, Black said.

Other marketing factors include the salaries of sales representatives, sending out brochures and advertising in professional journals.

Katie Blough, spokeswoman for the Association of American  Publishers, said with the amount of work and research that goes into a textbook, not too many copies are sold.

Black said with too many used books in circulation, the publishers and authors can't make much of a profit, which averages 7.1 percent for the publisher and 11.4 percent for the author.

Black said publishing companies haven't always been fair with putting out new editions, but with some books there are new developments and things change.

Sparks said after the bookstore receives the professor's book order the first thing they try to do is find used books through buying student's books back and through wholesalers. She said when professor's orders are received late it is much harder to find used books, because they are bought and sold nationwide.

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Off-campus bookstore offers price alternative
by Michael Byrd
The Metropolitan

A textbook-sales battle for student dollars is being waged between the Tivoli-based Auraria Book Center and the newly relocated Colorado Textbook Outlet at 1050 W. Colfax Ave.

According to flyers the store has posted around campus, Colorado Textbook Outlet is touted as Auraria students' "off-campus alternative," referring to the campus textbook monopoly previously held by Tivoli-based Auraria Book Center.

Located across the street from Auraria, in the space formerly occupied by Kinko's photocopy center, the store has positioned itself close to grab a share of the summer semester textbook buy-back period in early August and the fall semester back-to-school rush of late August.

The new store, according to Frank Morales, store manager, buys used textbooks year round, as opposed to the Tivoli-based bookstore which only buys used textbooks at certain periods in the semester, mainly the beginning and end of each semester. Besides offering year-round textbook buy-back, Colorado Textbook Outlet, according to Morales, will reserve students' textbooks for free. 

Colorado Textbook Outlet, Morales said, has been serving  the Auraria campus and University of Colorado Health Sciences Center from the corner of Sheridan Boulevard and Alameda Avenue since July 1997. The move to West Colfax  Ave., he said, was to better serve the students. He added that the change was also a matter of survival.

Melanie Sparks, assistant director for the center, said she estimates the average student will spend $200 per semester on textbooks.

"Students won't want to drive a mile to reach us," Morales said, "To survive in this business, you have to get where the students are."

Although the store has been open since early August, Morales said, the store has suffered shipment delays and it is rushing to stock its shelves by the beginning of the semester. "It's a crunch," Morales said, "But we're trying to get everybody to work in unison to get everything done."

Morales said that there is a friendly competition between Colorado Textbook Outlet and Auraria Book Center.
"We're both looking to serve the students as best as possible."

"Competition is good," said Bobbi Rubingh, marketing manager for Auraria Book Center.

According to Rubingh, Auraria Book Center's main strength is that it has all the books for all the classes at Auraria. She also said that since Auraria Book Center is a state-owned institution, all the store's sales goes back to the campus by supporting campus programs, the student bond fund, and providing jobs for students.

 A price comparison  by The Metropolitan, using basic textbooks from three Freshman level classes: Math 1100, History 1010 and Biology 1000. On average, although Colorado Textbook Outlet's prices were a few dollars less than Auraria Book Center's, the latter had a better selection and availability.

In the comparison, a used textbook for one Math 1100 class, College Algebra, cost $53.90 at Colorado
Textbook Outlet and $58.25 at Auraria Book Center. Also, the history textbook, Western Civilization (Volume One: To 1715), in used condition cost $33.90 at Colorado Textbook Outlet, and $39.75 at Auraria
Book Center. Finally, the textbook, Human Biology, cost $40.90 used at Colorado Textbook Outlet compared to Auraria Book Center's price of $44.75.

Both stores are open from 8 a.m.- 6 p.m. Monday through Thursday, Fridays 8 a.m.-5 p.m., and on Saturdays 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Colorado Textbook Outlet will also have extended hours during the first two weeks of the new semester, Morales said.

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Metro student becomes campus affairs director for CSA
by David Proviano
The Metropolitan

Metro student Jane Duncan joined the Colorado Student Association staff last week as campus affairs director.
She will be required to visit colleges around the state to gather information on student concerns while keeping them updated on legislative issues.

Duncan has been involved with student issues for the past two years.

Since 1997, she has been involved with Metro student government and the Student Advisory Committee to the Auraria Board. During that time, Duncan was also a member of the Auraria Board of Directors and an intern for Congress-woman Diana Degette.

"CSA is a perfect example of many voices chanting in unison. CSA has the reputation and the knowledge to take their concerns directly to the decision makers. I would be honored to work for such a respectable and dedicated team," said Duncan in a letter to CSA.

Duncan will be giving up five jobs to serve the students of Colorado on a full time basis.

"Work in Student Government over the past years demonstrates her competence to do the job. I look forward to working with her," said Ruth Burns, Metro's CSA representative.

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COMMENTARY

Competition at last

News:
A second bookstore serving the campus opened this month.

Views:
The competition can only benefit students.

Auraria students finally have a choice when it comes to buying books for class, now that Colorado Textbook Outlet has moved closer to campus, just across Colfax Avenue.

Auraria Book Center and its suppliers have a seemingly endless supply of excuses for the extravagant price of textbooks. For evidence, just check out the story on page four of The Metropolitan this week.

Here's a sampling:

• The bookstore doesn't set prices, publishers do.
  
• Publishers are at the mercy of high printing costs, picky professors and expensive marketing campaigns that distribute as many as 10,000 free books.
  
• Textbook prices are high because they are aimed at a narrow population.

Well, that's business, so cry us a river.

Every semester, students deal with professors who don't order their books in time for the first day of class, and bookstore student employees are seemingly clueless on how to carry out their jobs. Book costs total $200 or more, and students must wait in  ridiculously long lines to pay for them. Then, worst of all, the books often collect dust during the semester because some professors rely almost strictly on lectures.

But publishers still eke out a profit of 7.1 percent on each book, according to Nelson Black, a marketing manager at Irwin/McGraw-Hill ­ not too bad in the book business.

Auraria Book Center buys used books for half their original price ­ if it buys them at all ­ and then jacks up the price by 50 percent. So when students buy used they're paying three quarters of the price of a new book.

Students can already take advantage of the second bookstore since Colorado Textbook Outlet buys used books year-round, while Auraria Book Center only buys back at the end of each semester.

The second bookstore provides a needed balance.

A Metropolitan reporter compared the two stores and found that Auraria Book Center has a better selection and only marginally cheaper prices, but that's likely to improve with time.

Students should shop both stores to get the best prices. It's past time for Auraria Book Center to compete for the students' buck.

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Adults fight, children suffer
Kyle Ringo
COMMITTING JOURNALISM

Hundreds of children died today in battles between adults.

Little arms and legs were blown off by .50 caliber bullets, land mines, rockets and bombs placed without concern for the young.

Seven-year-olds. Six. Five.

Some simply starved to death.

Some were crushed in the rubble of their homes imploding around them.

Little girls have been raped and murdered by men who have judged them unfit to regard as human because their parents worship the wrong god.

Yugoslavia. Africa. Ireland. Eastern Europe.

These little girls do not merit headlines because their fathers are peasants and commoners, not millionaires. These little girls have competed only in the beauty contests in their parents' hearts.

I'm dragging my ass out of bed just in time to make it to class. First, I'll inhale my Cap'n Crunch, turn on SportsCenter and read about the dying young in 500 words or less in the morning newspaper. Make it any longer and I might become bored. And I'm going to check out the home run race first.

While I am spending 20 minutes on the sports page, more orphaned infants have somehow realized that the crying isn't getting them anywhere. Mom is not there to protect them and hold them and she never will be again. They stop crying ­ and feeling.

A lucky few will go from dire straits to suburban streets and the loving arms of adoptive parents. Most will go unloved. Many will go to the cemetery.

I have to fill the tank for my drive to school. I'm miffed that the price of unleaded has risen 13 cents in two days. I'm frustrated waiting in line.

I'm reciting anxieties in my head all the way to class, but I'm breathing.

I'm one of a tiny number of people who read about the dying young today, and I haven't given them a second thought since putting down the newspaper.

Everyone, it seems, has an opinion on the bloody glove, the stained dress and the philanderer/president. Nobody cares about dead kids.

Why?

Kids kill kids in Kentucky, Oregon and other American places. It momentarily keeps my attention. Adults kill the young in other countries, in terrorist acts and I don't have time to read the story ­ I turn the channel.
Isn't there a game on?

The stories are there every day. The Associated Press reported one incident this way: "The dead included both Protestants and Catholics, as well as three teen-age girls, a teen-age boy and an 18-month-old girl.

"ÎThere was one boy had half his leg blown off and it was lying there with the wee shoe still on it. He didn't cry or anything,' said Dorothy Boyle, 59, a witness to a bombing."

When a boy doesn't cry when his leg is blown off, I explain it as shock.

When I don't cry when a boy's leg is blown off, I have no explanation.

The talking heads and the newspapers should keep track of the underage victims of war and cowardice. A daily total announced on the nightly news in place of the latest on Hollywood might work.

"The total number of 7-year-olds killed fell dramatically today, from 35 yesterday to 25."

Maybe then there would be fewer people like me.

Maybe then children wouldn't die today.

Kyle Ringo is a Metro student and a columnist for The Metropolitan. His e-mail address is ringok@mscd.edu.

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It's a dirty story, but someone's got to tell it!
Dave Flomberg
JIVE

Hail to the chief.

I'll be damned.

I'll the first to admit, it caught me off guard. I never expected him to pony up to the bar and give any modicum of a confession. I figured he would just continue on denying everything, maintain the status quo and escape into obscurity in two years.

Instead, he told us he lied and cheated — reminding us it's none of our business — and asked our forgiveness.

Too little too late, Bubba.

It's not like you didn't have some choices.

You could have told everyone up front that whether or not anything happened between you and whomever interns was your business, not ours. Or, you could have admitted to it and apologized when it was first exposed, not half a term later.

Instead you lied and lied and finally got caught.

Now, because of your impropriety and deception, America finds itself with dangerous precedents, a weakened executive branch and serious indigestion.

Take the secret service. Now any member of the secret service can be called to testify on goings on the public has never been privy to. Kind of oxymoronic if you ask me. Or how about the blasting of the attorney-client privilege that went on? This whole process has done nothing except isolate the office of the presidency from all its advisers.

That can't bode well.

Now, anyone in this office will find themselves surrounded by people they can't trust implicitly. That breeds paranoia. Remember our last extremely paranoid president? Remember Johnson? Remember what his paranoia brought us? Remember Vietnam?

In the opinion of this columnist, the Clinton administration is on par with Grant's and has done more to sully the office of the president than any other administration, save maybe Nixon's.

The sad thing is, you can't blame him entirely. The supreme court failed on this one. Kenneth Starr should die.

Yet it's because of Clinton's more-than-questionable moral fiber that this happened. It's because of his inability to stand strong on even one issue — regardless of what it was — that his team didn't much care for him and the other side didn't fear him. And this is the effect.

It's lucky Reagan brought down the Soviet Union. The bad guys can't have any respect for the leader of the free world right now.

So what comes next?

A huge insurgence of acts of terrorism. Every psycho right-wing fanatic and religious zealot all look at Clinton with, at best, an air of extreme harmless disdain. Who's going to stop them now?

China's going to start pushing harder on its issues of sovereignty. Hussein's going to start kicking sand in our faces.

And it's going to be at least another two years before we can do anything about it.

Just please, I beg you, don't vote for Gore. I like listening to music with questionable lyrics once in a while.

Hail to the chief.

Dave Flomberg is a Metro student and a copy editor/columnist for The Metropolitan. His e-mail address is flomberg@mscd.edu.

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We expected to see people frozen in time. Instead, we shared meals with the grandson of Black Elk and his family. We saw the great-grandson of Red Cloud as he pulled into camp in his old Ford pick-up. These mysterious people became very real and we were honored to have been invited.

They shared so much with us about their present lives that this excursion has given us a deeper understanding —not only who the Lakota are now, but who we are as well.

We went to observe, but instead became a part of this experience. Some of the practices that we witnessed during the Sundance have been described by other whites as barbarous. We found them astoundingly beautiful and emotionally moving.

During a naming ceremony where a baby was recognized with the name "Flying Star," we ate sacred foods to honor the event. We participated in a healing ceremony, witnessed a wedding and were even given gifts. A Lakota man brought his "chanumpa" to our camp and invited us to participate in the pipe ceremony.
No, the pipe is not for peace, but for prayer.

Enduring the constant Hollywood perversion of their culture, the Lakota have every reason to exclude us. But we could not have been more warmly welcomed.

One day the rain poured for hours. The only thing to do was stay dry. A Lakota man named Wicasa Ho' Waste' came out in the rain to sit with us and told us Lakota creation stories. He taught us about the White Buffalo Woman and explained some of the prayers and songs we heard.

At Pine Ridge we saw people that by outside measures we should have pitied ­ they were poor, unemployed, with extremely high mortality rates from disease. But they were more honorable and respect-worthy than many at home.
These Lakota are committed to family, to the earth and to other human beings. They have a bond of community that we are only beginning to recognize and attempt to artificially recreate. They have made tremendous sacrifices to preserve the earth. It made us begin to acknowledge the damage our materialism is causing.

The highlight of the trip for most of us was when Alvis Montgomery, one of the Metro students, brought the singers over to visit our camp one night. They sang their prayer-songs, but also showed us how we are not so different. They sang Amazing Grace in Lakota while our group sang in English.

They sang songs for us in Lakota that had us laughing hysterically — Barney's "I love you, you love me, we're a happy family..." We talked all through the night about things we have in common, yet how their experience of being Lakota separates us.

This experience opened many discussions on multiculturalism and ethnic issues. We discovered that diversity is not tolerance, but rather should extend to opening ourselves to learn from each other. We learned that every human being has something to teach if he or she is willing to listen.

We learned honesty, respect, gratitude, courage and conviction from the Lakota. We came home not only remembering and appreciating our new friends, but also appreciating the gifts that we each have to share with others.

Our learning didn't end with the experience, but had only just begun.

Gayle Johnson is a Metro student who also works in the department of Student Activities.

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Three-decade love finally realized
Gary Brady-Herndon

This August I am ending a 30-year love affair. As is the case with most involvements where love is the primary motive, the reasons are obscure and not easily understood by others. My story began in the fall of 1968 when I was a shy, immature and naive young man.

She excited and terrified me from the beginning. I was under her spell from the first day I met her. Through her I glimpsed the future, the man I could be. She offered me the world and all of my dreams. Her name was Bachelor of Arts in History and Sociology.

I am what all parents fear their children might become: A 30-year degree candidate. When I started college in the fall of 1968 my intentions were to go straight through and get my degree as soon as possible. Unfortunately, a little skirmish in Southeast Asia called Vietnam changed the course of many young men's lives during that time, mine included. Suddenly, four years of college deferment didn't seem very long, especially when your draft number was 40. Guys like me were being snatched up faster than the Pepsi Center is being built.

I took every day of the four years I was entitled to ­ and let me proudly say ­ I would have taken more if it had been offered. Two weeks into the spring semester of my senior year, just 15 hours away from my degree, the ax fell. I received in the mail my pre-induction notice to report for my military physical. Let me say unashamedly, I was scared. Words cannot describe the fear a letter of this type instilled into the hearts of young men at that time. The letter implied when I walked across the graduation stage, my ass belonged to Uncle Sam. Canada suddenly took on a whole new and mysterious aura, a place I might want to visit.

Who was I fooling? With every male in my family over 20 a veteran, most of whom fought foreign wars, I wouldn't turn tail and run. I had to go. In many ways, I am glad I did. In my 48 years, I have never experienced anything before or since to equal the surreal and absurd 10 hours I spent in the care of the U.S. military in the Houston Federal Building on a Thursday in February 1972. It was a trip.

I failed. When the major in charge of overseeing the final portion of the testing looked me in the eye and said, "Get dressed. You can go," I was stunned. The "old football injury," long forgotten, reared its beautiful head and made me ineligible to go to war.

What was the first thing I did on returning to school? I went immediately to the registrar and withdrew from classes. Fifteen hours away from my degree, and I withdrew. In the scheme of things, I left my bride at the altar. My rationale was I had worked hard for three and a half years, and I deserved a break. I planned to return in the fall and knock out the remaining 15 hours and go on my merry way. I mark that February as the beginning of my real education.

This past summer was when I finally returned to finish my long abandoned dream. I salvaged 90 core hours from the 120 hours I had to my credit. Over the years, I started to write, so it is in English with creative writing as my emphasis that I will receive a degree, not history and sociology.

Any regrets, you ask? Tons. Big ones, little ones, black ones, white ones, more than I care to remember. Not that all 30 years were bad, just naggingly unfulfilled. What are my plans for the future? I go to New York City for a month in September for training to teach English as a foreign language. Where am I going? Asia, of course.

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FEATURES

Metro philosophy professor wants a model program of excellence
by Arlene Wilson
 
he philosophy department should be a place where academic and teaching excellence reinforce each other, said Timothy Gould, a philosophy professor at Metro for 12 years and published author.

"We want a vital enterprise in the department that engages both students and faculty, not just a program that provides techniques for students to go out and make money," Gould said.

This fall, Gould will replace Richard Doepke as chairman of the Philosophy Department.

Gould wrote Hearing Things: Voice and Method in the Writing of Stanley Cavell and said it was founded on a few professional articles that he wrote about Cavell's teachings. Cavell was one of Gould's professors at Harvard, where Gould received a Ph.D. in philosophy.

Hearing Things explores the human voice of philosophy, Gould said, and reflects what is expressed in his own teachings at Metro.

Gould said he has seen a lot of change in the Philosophy Department and hopes to continue to build on the positive changes that Doepke and others have brought about.

In the past, many liberal arts degrees were pursued mainly by the rich and middle class sectors, Gould said. In the present, philosophy is beginning to be viewed as an academic study that allows students to pursue various fields of work.

He hopes to provide non-philosophy students the opportunity to learn and enjoy philosophy when taking it as a general studies course, he said.

 Gould is planning workshops to give students and faculty the opportunity to express their opinions about classes and the department.

Others in the philosophy department feel it is important for the faculty to maintain visibility as an educational presence. Many college philosophy departments in the past have focused on research, he added.

The department has continued to grow into a quality liberal arts curriculum, Gould said, and by continuing that trend, it will lead to a place where excellence in academics and faculty support each other.

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Shows coming to the Denver Performing Arts Complex offer students half-price tickets in their own backyard.
by Ricardo Baca
 
ust talking to people on campus, I find  that few people have ever been to the theater. Even fewer have been to the world's second-largest theater complex, the Denver Performing Arts Complex, which is across the street from Auraria Campus.

The Tony Award-winning musical Ragtime opens Aug. 21 at the DPAC. Did I mention the complex is across the street? And that some people still haven't been there?

Sure the theater's expensive, but so is the education you're working for. Like education, theater's worth the money. Plus, milk the system which tries to hold you down. Get all the student discounts you're entitled to.

Most touring shows coming to town through Denver Center Attractions offer half-price student tickets an hour before the show. So does the Denver Center Theatre Company, which won the 1998 Tony Award for outstanding regional theater.

So here's the haps on this semester's theater across the street. It includes everything from a play by comedian Steve Martin to the most praised work of American musical theater since Rodgers and Hammerstein (not Ragtime, but Rent).

Ragtime runs tonight through Sept. 26 in the Temple Buell Theatre. This all-American musical is brand spankin' new, comparatively. It went through workshops and readings for years before its conception on the stage. Once it reached Broadway it was nominated for 13 Tonys and received three of them.

It is the story of three diverse families in the beginnings of the century as their lives intertwine. The 55-member cast is making its second touring stop in Denver. With an impressive cast, including ex-Denverite Michael Rupert, the show has payed no attention to the theater norms. Instead of four weeks of rehearsals, the show's Broadway cast had 10. Whereas normal Broadway casts have one-week tech rehearsals, Ragtime had three weeks of technical joy.

After that is the Michael Flatley-less Riverdance, Nov. 19 to Dec. 6 in the Buell. This non-stop performance showcases Irish step-dancing, and has thrilled (mostly female) audiences for a couple years now. It should make for an interesting evening.

Following up the step-dancers is Rent, a modern musical with adult themes set in New York City; Dec. 9 to Jan. 3 in the Buell. Based on Puccini's La Boheme, the musical has intellectual depth to spare. The stories told are the stories that we live in our everyday lives. They can't pay the rent. They (or a friend) have AIDS. Their relationships fall in and out of place like grandfather's teeth. This musical is a beautiful work written by a beautiful man. Jonathan Larson, who wrote the music, the book and the lyrics, died just before the show opened on Broadway.

On a smaller base, the Denver Center Theatre Company offers more variety for less price. Their season, which follows up their winning the much-respected Tony, includes two world premieres and many regional premieres including Best Play Tony winners from 1996 and 1997. Here are the plays that will wrap up this semester:

§ Travels with My Aunt by Graham Greene at The Space Theatre Oct. 8 to Nov. 14.
§ Picasso at the Lapin Agile by Steve Martin at The Stage Theatre Oct. 15 to Nov. 14.
§ The Last Night of Ballyhoo by Alfred Uhry at The Ricketson Theatre Oct. 21 to Nov. 28.
§ A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, adapted for the stage by Laird Williamson & Dennis Powers at The Stage Theatre Nov. 27 to Dec. 6.
§ Dream on Monkey Mountain by Derek Walcott at The Space Theatre Jan. 14 to Feb. 20.

And if all of that is readily accesible across the street, think of what else is out there in other Denver theaters.
Not the movie theaters, but the real theaters.

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Emmanuel Gallery presents a show that ranges from "pretty to pornographic"
by Sean Weaver

Denver artist Rolland Bernier will be one of 34 artists exhibiting work in the Alternative Art Alliance show at Emmanuel Gallery on campus.

The exhibit features 58 works by 34 Colorado artists, representing diverse subject matter, styles and media.
Andra Archer, who coordinated the exhibit for the alliance, said the show provides a different outlet to show work for established and new artists.

"It's a very dynamic and provocative show," Archer said. "There are new artists (in the exhibit) with really strong pieces. It's exciting to see artists doing unique things."

Jim Robischon, owner of the Robischon Gallery and one of the two jurors for the show, said, "The work ranges from the pretty to the pornographic."

Renee Stout, a Washington, D.C.-based artist, is the second juror for the exhibit.

"(Robischon and Stout) really worked well together and had a good eye," Archer said.

Rolland Bernier, an established artist working in Denver, said he enjoys entering juried shows. Bernier will be exhibiting his two pieces: Ahead of its Time and Crossfire.

"It's a way an artist can get stuff out for public viewing," Bernier said. "I like to see the reaction to my work and it's a way of staying in contact with other artists."

With Ahead of its Time, Bernier explores, as he does with most of his current art, the relationship between clichés, words and images. "My particular  slant (in the piece), is the cliché of time," Bernier said.

Bernier's Crossfire is from his Crosswords series.
 
"The cross is just the form for putting words on a different format, rather than square or rectangular," Bernier said. "In many cases people will look (at the Crosswords series) and it will have a religious connotation to them, but it doesn't to me."

After the show closes at the Emmanuel Gallery, it will be exhibited at the Eleanor Bliss Center for the Arts in Steamboat Springs in October, and the University of Southern Colorado Fine Art Gallery in Pueblo in November.

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Artists to put art over river in 2002
Story and photograph by Sean Weaver

An art project by international artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude along the Arkansas River in Colorado might begin construction in 2002, according to the artists.

For their project, Over the River, the two artists plan on suspending woven fabric panels for four to six miles over the Arkansas River, 10 to 20 feet above the river bed.

"The long stream of successive panels will be interrupted by bridges, rocks, trees and bushes, creating abundant flows of light," Christo said.

Christo said they completed a third life-size test with their engineering team on the fabric in June outside Grand Junction.

Christo, pictured, and Jeanne-Claude, plan to cover about six miles of the Arkansas River with fabric panels.

After inspecting 89 rivers in the Rocky Mountains, Christo and Jeanne-Claude said they chose six as possible sites: The Payette and Salmon rivers in Idaho, the Wind River in Wyoming, The Rio Grande in New Mexico and the Cache La Poudre and Arkansas rivers in Colorado.

They said they chose the Arkansas River in 1996 because it had high banks for the steel cables to be suspended, a road running along the river and water suitable for rafting and conoeing.

"The road running along the river and footpaths will allow the project to be seen, approached and enjoyed from above by car and from underneath on foot and rafts," Christo said. "For a period of two weeks, the temporary work of art will join the recreational activities and the natural life of the river."

"The most difficult part of all our projects is to get permission," Jeanne-Claude said.

They said their 1995 project, where they wrapped the Reichstag building in Berlin with 1,076,000 sq.feet of fabric, 51,181 feet of rope and 200 metric tons of steel, took 24 years of planning and obtaining permission from the government.

The two said individuals can help by writing a letter to Steve Reese of the Arkansas Headwaters Recreation Area (PO Box 126, Salida, CO 81201) or David Taliaferro of the Bureau of Land Management..

"We need a lot of moral support," said Jeanne-Claude.

She said when the project moves closer to the "hardware" stage, the project will be nearing actual construction and they will be employing hundreds of skilled and unskilled workers.

"Everybody who works gets paid, except my mother," Jeanne-Claude said. She said they pay unskilled workers 25 cents above minimum wage.

She said when the time comes they will publish the address and phone number of their project director in local papers.

But, patience will be required. "We are talking about the next millennium 2002 at the very earliest.

"It's like giving birth to a baby," Jeanne-Claude said, "it will come when it's ready."

Their first project in Colorado was the "Valley Curtain" in Rifle in1972.

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No washing up hands after pants go down
Ricardo Baca

You people are sick.

On these first days of school, you've been caught with your pants down. And up. And down.

Recently, I went under cover researching men's hand washing habits.

I pretended to wash my hands repeatedly. I stood by the hand dryer for 10 minutes at a time. I even sat in stalls on toilet seats. I counted who washed their hands and who didn't.

What I saw was very unappetizing.

Of  100 men using the rest room facilities, only 43 washed their hands afterwards.

People, come on. Washing your hands takes 10 or 20 seconds. Not washing your hands is like driving drunk: everyone else loses.

 You're borrowing my pencil. You're shaking my hand. You're touching my desk, and I don't like it.

And it's not just students. Professors are just as guilty. But professors have a busy look and papers under the arm which makes

them seem too preoccupied to care if their hands are washed.

Nobody is exempt from this. I saw a janitor not wash his hands. I saw an old man make a bee-line to the exit from a stall. And once, while sitting on the toilet seat reading my Ayn Rand book, I thought I heard someone lapping water out of the urinal (he didn't wash his hands either).

Uggh! And think about how many men use that urinal in a day. They walk up, unzip, pull it out, do the deed, shake it off, and then most of them flush the urinal by putting that very same hand on the lever and pushing.

Right there you're touching another 100 men's penises. I don't expect anyone to wash their hands before they flush to maintain the sanctity and cleanliness of the urinal lever. Just wash them after flushing.

That's how the pledge of allegiance should read: I pledge allegiance to Rico,  that I will always wash my hands after going pee or poop.

By writing this, I feel like my sister when she was potty training her two-year-old. But you all aren't two.

If you feel this isn't a problem, then keep telling yourself that. One day, like in the movie Mallrats, you'll get stink-palmed, and, in turn, you'll go on an international crusade against the biological warfare going on in our school bathrooms.

Ricardo Baca is a copy editor and theater writer for The Metropolitan.

It reminds me of a Seinfeld episode (doesn't everything?). Jerry's girlfriend took him to her father's restaurant where her dad would make them his "specialty." Before dinner, Jerry heads in the rest room and her father comes out of the stall, talks to him for a second and then leaves, without washing his hands.

Seconds later he is fondling the dough that will soon be Jerry's dinner. When the prepared dish comes to the table, Jerry won't eat it.

I'm sorry if you didn't have my sister there to potty train you and to tell you to "always wash your hands." She's very good at it, because CJ now always hits the water and always washes his hands.

I don't know how many went number one or number two, but obviously more people pee at school than they poop. It was probably about 3:1 in favor of pee.

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SPORTS

Man Power for women's hoops
New coach has Smith-like intensity, McGwire's look
by Kyle Ringo
The Metropolitan

It seems intensity was never a problem in the coach's cubicle of the Metro women's basketball program after all.
Unless the hiring of a coach whose last team was so upset by its last loss that several of its members vomited in the locker room while the rest of the team sobbed uncontrollably is considered toning it down.

The coach's wife says he resembles Mark McGwire. His name might be better suited to the St. Louis slugger. And Mike Power is even familiar with living in the spotlight of success and the media.

But, now that Power has had his moment in the sun, he is tossing aside the notoriety he deals with in Sioux City, Iowa, and experiences suited better to John Elway or men chasing home run records in favor of a calmer more quiet life in Denver.

Metro hired Power on Aug. 12 to succeed former women's basketball coach Darryl Smith. He resigned in June to take over as women's head coach at Wichita State University in Kansas.

Power will receive the same salary Smith would have been offered, Metro Athletics Director William Helman said.
Several Metro administrators, including President Sheila Kaplan, admitted being concerned about Smith's intense sideline demeanor and occasional run-ins with officials.

It turns out, Metro hired a coach who has had a few intense moments himself, and he wouldn't have it any other way.

"I am excited, because it's a great opportunity to take over a great program that coach Smith has built," Power said in a telephone interview from his home in Iowa. "Although there are a lot of similarities, I told the kids, ÎI'm not coach Smith, and I'm not going to try to be coach Smith.' "

Power said he feels no pressure in filling Smith's shoes other than the pressure he normally places on himself. Smith led Metro to three conference titles and three national tournament appearances in eight years at the school.
"I've been in sports my whole life," Power said. "Pressure is all self-inflicted.

"I'm going to have the same amount of pressure on me no matter what the situation. I look at it more as a challenge than pressure."

The move surprised some who had expected the school to hire a woman to replace Smith.

Even Smith said he thought Metro wanted a female to fill the position when he left.

Stephanie Allen, the team's playmaker and starting point guard, said when Smith left that she expected a female coach to be hired.

"When he was hired, I was really shocked," Allen said. "But, I think he is a lot like coach Smith in a way. He is really intense."

Administrators had said they would hire the best coach for the job regardless of gender.

Power spent the past six years coaching at Briar Cliff College in Sioux City. While there he compiled a record of 127-73, but what might have attracted Metro most was Power's record in his final three seasons (93-17), when Briar Cliff was an NAIA national championship contender.

Two years ago, the Chargers won 37 games in a row before losing once and falling out of the national tournament.
Last season Briar Cliff was ranked No. 1 for much of the year, and was favored to win a championship before being upset in the Elite Eight of the national tournament. The scene in the locker room afterward lingers in Power's mind.
"Nothing in my coaching career is as tough as that last loss last season," Power said. "We had two kids that puked, they were crying so hard.

"I felt so bad I actually thought about quitting."

Instead, Power decided he might like a change of scenery. He likes the idea of coaching at a school that doesn't command all — or, in this case, any — of the communities attention. At Briar Cliff, Power and his wife were routinely approached in public much the same way as Denver Bronco quarterback John Elway and other celebrities.

"It's unbelievable," Power said about all the attention the Briar Cliff program receives in Sioux City. "It's going to be nice to go to Metro.

"It's going to be fun to be anonymous again. During the basketball season, it can get... We created our own monster here."

But creating a monster is just what Power intends to do at Metro — an offensive monster.

Power said he plans to play an up-tempo brand of basketball. He calls it "track on a basketball court." It's a style he is known for using. Other teams hate it, and fans quickly fall in love with it - even opponent's supporters.

"The North Dakota State fans gave us a standing ovation," Power said. "That's fun because then you get people buzzing about the program, and people want to come and watch."

Last season, Briar Cliff's opponents averaged 35 turnovers a game. On some nights Power's team attempted over 100 shots. Both statistics rank well above average at any level of women's college basketball.

Full-court trapping defense and running the ball up the court typify Powerball.

Power likened his approach to combining the offensive style of former Denver Nuggets coach Paul Westhead and the defensive style of Boston Celtic coach Rick Pitino.

"I could not coach or, if I was a fan, I could not pay to watch a walk-it-up-slow style," Power said. "I like to play very up-tempo."

Allen said Power has already made it clear what practices will be like. He told the junior about what had become a ritual at Briar Cliff.

The first practice each year entailed the team running a hill near the school. The hill was renamed each year after the first player to vomit.

Of course there is a price to pay to reach the level of conditioning required to play Power's style. He makes no bones about what it takes.

"You have to be in great shape," Power said. "This fall will be boot camp."

Power said he has talked to each player on Metro's roster and each has confirmed they will return to Metro for the coming school year.

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Men's team loses three to fatherhood
by Kyle Ringo
The Metropolitan

Former Metro men's basketball player Nathan Hallows, left, was a team leader last season when the team appeared in the Division II national tournament. Hallows and two of his teammates will not play for Metro this season because they became fathers.

Under different circumstances, players leaving the Metro men's basketball team over the summer might be seen as business as usual.

But since the arrival of coach Mike Dunlap before last season, business has been anything but predictable.

Three players will not return to play at Metro this year because they recently became fathers. Another will not return because he decided to transfer to a warmer climate.

Despite the departures, Dunlap is comfortable with the decisions each player made, he said.

Nathan Hallows, Phillip DeGraffenreid and Chris Tiritas are the three new fathers.

Sophomore Ollie Brent, a Jackie Robinson Scholarship winner, said he had a hard time adjusting to the Colorado winter and being away from his family.

Brent came to Metro last year fresh out of high school in southern California where he grew up.

Leaving Metro to be a responsible father bucks the trend in recent years when players have failed out of school and others have been asked to leave for using drugs.

"We have three new players coming in," Dunlap said. "Our core is intact, and I'm feeling good about the coming season."

Dunlap boasts a 100 percent graduation rate of his players, and he doesn't plan to let any of those players who leave to forget about their education. The coach says each player plans to enroll in school this fall. Some will attend other colleges.

"That educational issue burns in me deeply," Dunlap said. "Just like a parent, I wouldn't want these kids treated any differently than my own son.

"We are making an assualt on academics at Metro State."

Since Dunlap's arrival, the men's basketball team's cumulative GPA has risen nearly one point.

Dunlap admitted being disappointed in Brent's decision to leave, but he said because Metro is a commuter school, every coach will have to deal with players leaving on their own or being lured away to more traditional college settings.

"We have to compete against that," Dunlap said. "Guys in this conference that I have to go up against have said (the commuter school tag) is one thing they use against us."

Metro will not sign anyone to replace Brent so late in the year, Dunlap said. Instead, coaches will spend the fall researching potential recruits and, maybe, sign a player between semesters.

"I think it is wasteful to bring people in just to have a body here," Dunlap said.

Dunlap's three incoming recruits are all junior college transfers.

John Bynum, a 6-foot-2-inch guard, comes to Metro from the College of the Sequoias in California. Bynum averaged 15 points last season and made the All-State team.

Richard Lugowski, a 6-5 forward, also made the junior college All-State team in California last season. Lugowski averaged 19 points per game playing at Merced College.

Jody Hollins, a 6-10 center, transferred to Metro from Columbia Junior College in California.

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