MINARET UNIVERSITY OF TAMPA’S NEWS SOURCE SINCE 1933
THE Vo l u m e
80
Number
23
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April
24,
2014
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ut.minaret@gmail.com
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theminaretonline.com
First Ever Diversity Week Helps Students Knock Down Oppressive Voices
By CHANCE SMITH News Writer
This week, the Office of Student Leadership and Engagement and various other organizations on campus hosted UT’s first ever Diversity Week. Events began on Monday, April 14, and ended on Monday, April 21. The OSLE designed this week to spread the awareness of the diverse population and organizations that UT has to offer. Diversity Week began with an event called the Wall of Oppression in which students were asked to decorate individual cement blocks with words that they found offensive or oppressive. The colorful blocks were painted with various phrases and words that the diverse student base at UT tends to hear regularly. There were explicit words such as “n•••••” and “slut” colorfully decorated next to phrases such as “But you don’t look like a Jew?” The powerful words and phrases on the cement blocks were then stacked to form a wall in the Vaughn courtyard. “I love walking by and seeing people talking about the wall and being able to relate to some of the issues that others have painted on the bricks,” said junior graphic design major Devin Phinazee. “It See DIVERSITY Page 4
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News................................. 2 Diversions........................ 6 A+E................................... 7 Opinion........................... 11
Sports............................. 16
Casey Budd/The Minaret
Students work together to pull down the Wall of Oppression, covered with all of the most hurtful words they have experienced throughout their lives.
Ryan Shuck Foundation Hopes to Create Scholarship for Disabled Students
By LAUREN RICHEY News & Features Editor
Ryan Shuck loved UT. While living on campus he made friends everywhere he went, and never missed a sporting event. Even after he graduated in 2004, Shuck was an actively involved booster. Yet, what makes his story special to the UT community? Shuck had a something that resembled cerebral palsy and paraplegia, there might soon be a UT scholarship in his name and a second annual 5k race will take place in his name. When Shuck was 18 months old he was in a car accident that caused him to be paralyzed on the left side of his body. As he got older, his injuries also prevented normal growth and he developed severe scoliosis in his spine. The doctors originally told his parents that his brain function and motor skills would be limited. He was able to prove them wrong. Shuck graduated Tampa Catholic and then went on to get a degree in sports management at UT. Traveling on his motorized scooter he was able to become an independent student, never asking for anyone’s help. He then went on to live on his own for 10 years, in an apartment near Howard, where he was known as “The Mayor of Soho” making friends with many of the local bartenders. Last year, Shuck passed away in his sleep on Mother’s Day at 29 years old.
He left behind a grieving community of works, Kabbage and the other five board family and friends. A group of Ryan’s close members of the Ryan Shuck Foundation friends wanted to do something more to have also organized another 5k, that is set help define the remembrance of their lost to take place May 18 at Al Lopez Park. friend. Shuck’s sister, Kelly Gowyen, had Half of the money raised will go towards already been running marathons for Team the Hoyt Foundation, the other half will Hoyt, an organization that sends the “Yes go toward Ryan’s. You Can” Message to disabled people “We’re still working out all of the across the country, for a few years. Every kinks,” Kabbage said. “It’s a learning race she ran was in honor of her brother. experience for everyone but it’s keeping It gave Eddie Kabbage, a bartender at Ryan’s memory out there, which is the Macdinton’s, and a few of Shuck’s close most important thing.” friends an idea. Lauren Richey can be reached at “A group of us just wanted to get lauren.richey@theminaretonline.com together to make a fundraiser. The fundraiser turned into a foundation and it escalated within the month,” Kabbage said. They started the Ryan Shuck Foundation, that held its first “Running for Ryan” 5k race last September. Over 240 runners turned up for the cause, some not even knowing Shuck personally. The success of this event got them thinking. What else could they do to honor Ryan? “Now, one of our main goals is to get together with the Hoyt Foundation and UT to get a scholarship in his name,” Kabbage said. “We would get to set the parameters, it would go toward someone with a similar disability to Ryan’s. The school would ultimately get to choose out of a few applicants The Ryan Shuck Foundation who would get the scholarship.” Ryan Shuck’s legacy is still going strong with a While the UT scholarship is still in the potential scholarship in his name.