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WEDNESDAY • FEBRUARY 9 • 2011
In Egypt: ‘What the kids did was break the barrier’
City approves $1.2M for library design By Chad Lawhorn clawhorn@ljworld.com
The spending for an expanded public library has begun at Lawrence City Hall, and commissioners Tuesday said they’re open to at least considering spending a little bit more than originally planned. Commissioners at their weekly meeting unanimously approved a $1.2 million contract to design a $19 million expansion and parking garage project for the library at Seventh and Vermont streets. “This is a great night,” said City Commissioner Aron Cromwell. “This is going to be a fantastic project that will proCITY duce a fantastic building.” COMMISSION It also may produce a few extra bells and whistles not originally planned for when the project was approved by voters in November. Commissioners agreed to have Lawrence-based Gould Evans Architects include several options into their design work. They include: Please see CITY, page 2A Mike Yoder/Journal-World Photo
MOHAMED EL-HODIRI, PROFESSOR OF ECONOMICS AT KU, left Egypt 52 years ago, but he’s still in touch with people there and visits regularly. His last trip back was in July, and he said young people were the instigators of the protests. “This is a young people movement. It’s a Facebook movement,” he said. “People thought in general that they don’t care. They got serious for some reason.”
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Budget cuts Egyptians in Lawrence eager advance; critics for change, but also apprehensive say education
By Brenna Hawley
bhawley@ljworld.com
A few months ago, Aliaa El Kalyoubi was living in Cairo. She was preparing to leave for college in a faraway place called Kansas, hoping to go into a field she loves: graphic design. Now, she’s far from her home, where civil unrest has been at center stage for two weeks. Egyptians have taken to the streets to protest the reign of President Hosni Mubarak, which has lasted almost 30 years. During his presidency, the gap between the rich and poor has expanded immensely, and many of the 80 million Egyptians live below the poverty line. El Kalyoubi, a freshman at Kansas University who is one of nine students from Egypt, knew people were unhappy, but she was surprised at the
speed of the uprising. If she were back in Egypt, she doesn’t know whether she would take part in the protests because she’s certain her mother would try to keep her inside. But she said most of the people in the streets are young and she was proud of them for taking a stand. “We’re the part of the population that’s most affected by what’s happening; we’re the ones who are actually doing something about it,” she said. Mohamed El-Hodiri, professor of economics at KU, may have left Egypt 52 years ago, but he’s still in touch with people there and visits regularly. His last trip back was in July. “This is a young people movement. It’s a Facebook movement,” he said. “People thought in general that they don’t care. They got serious for some reason.”
El-Hodiri, who is blogging and tweeting about the protests, said people older than 40 are scared of Mubarak’s regime, but more than half the population of Egypt is young people. “What the kids did was break the barrier,” he said. Heba Hamdy Mabrouk Mostafa, a graduate student in microbiology, and her husband, Maged Zein El-Din, a graduate student in molecular biology, haven’t been home to Egypt for more than a year. Both have family and friends who have been affected by the protests. “I don’t think anyone here knows about how bad the situation is in Egypt,” Mostafa said. “No one knew anything about Egypt. People here live in a very good way, and I don’t think they can understand or know how bad we live.”
Mostafa’s best friend’s brother is one of the protesters in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, a main gathering place for those still calling for Mubarak’s departure. “She is worried, but she is proud,” she said of her best friend. El-Din said the couple have been watching as much news about the protests as they can during the last two weeks. He said he and most of his friends want change in Egypt. “You really want this stuff to happen, but you are at the same time and worried about your people, about your country. You don’t want a lot of destruction,” he said. — Reporter Brenna Hawley can be reached at 832-7217.
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will suffer
By Scott Rothschild srothschild@ljworld.com
TOPEKA — House Republicans pushed through budget cuts Tuesday that they defended as responsible, but that Democrats said would hurt public schools and jeopardize life-saving research at Kansas University and other higher education institutions. The measure would cut base O’Neal state aid to schools and enact a 7.5 percent pay cut to high-wage state employees, including about 1,500 at higher education institutions. House Speaker Mike O’Neal, R-Hutchinson, called the bill “a responsible budget that provides a positive ending balance for this fiscal year.” It Please see STATE, page 2A
Egypt. Page 6C
Dancing flash mob at KU basketball game provides popular floor show By Andy Hyland ahyland@ljworld.com
Before she spotted the sign-up sheet, Lindsey McAlonan didn’t even know what a flash mob was. If they didn’t before, the 16,300 fans who packed into Allen Fieldhouse for the Kansas-Missouri basketball game Monday have a much better idea of what it is, too. After the under-8-minute media timeout in the first half, about 150 students — with no warning — began standing up and waving their arms in the
air and dancing a synchronized, scripted routine. They all wore the same red shirt promoting Kansas University’s Buddy System, a student health and safety campaign. “People were just like, ‘What is going on?’” McAlonan said. “Once they figured it out, everybody just started cheering us on.” McAlonan, a KU freshman from Victoria, saw the sign-in sheet for people camping in Allen Fieldhouse for basketball seats. She zipped off to YouTube, pulled up some
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All told, the students practiced for about two and a half hours, McAlonan said. Frank DeSalvo, associate vice provost for student success, helps oversee the Jayhawk Buddy System. He said the idea came from the campaign’s student advisory board. The buddy system encourages students to pair up when going out in the hopes that their peers will keep them safe and discourage them from participating in bad behaviors, like excessive drinking. The best part about the flash mob was the makeup of
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videos and got the general idea of what was being planned. She added her name to the list and went to a couple of practices last week. Cathy Jarzemkoski, KU’s spirit squad coordinator, choreographed the dance routine. It was designed to be simple and visual. She was impressed with how quickly everyone seemed to pick it up. “When we started on Monday, everyone picked it up in like an hour,” she said. “We came back on Thursday and had another rehearsal and they knew it.”
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the group, DeSalvo said. Though organized by student leaders and athletics officials, most of the students who participated weren’t part of either group. “We had just general students who got to do something really cool” and get on national TV, he said. McAlonan thought it was cool, too. She hopes flash mobs become a tradition at KU. “I would definitely do it again,” she said. — Higher education reporter Andy Hyland can be reached at 832-6388.
Nick Krug/Journal-World Photo
A FLASH MOB performs during a timeout in the first half of Monday night’s KU game at Allen Fieldhouse. See the video at LJWorld.com
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