THENORTHERNLIGHT APRIL 9, 2013
A&E
UNIVERSITY OF ALASKA ANCHORAGE
A&E FEATURES
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‘New Dances 2013’ showcases student talent
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Ever wondered about Falafel?
Mabil “Mo” Duir leaves Behind the footprints of inspiration decision to fire Shyiak
By J. Almendarez
editor@thenorthernlight.org
A lot of people think planning to save the world is naïve. Mabil “Mo” Duir was not one of those people. “Mabil had amazing aspirations and wanted to help so many people. He was a huge advocate for helping the underprivileged. Mabil had great ideas of ways he could change the world for the better,” business sophomore Max Bullock said. He said Duir lived with him and his family for a semester, and he loved him as his own brother and best friend. Together, they wanted to create an organization for underprivileged youth to equip them with the tools and skills they need to be successful in life called the The Max and Mo Foundation. He hopes to some day still create the organization to honor his friend. Psychology junior Ashley Gaines was also a good friend of Duir’s. “He always had a smile on his face. He was just a great person,” she said. She mentioned an adage her mom and grandmother always said about the importance of giving people flowers when they’re alive instead of when they’re dead. She said she felt like she didn’t give Mo his flowers. According to Duir’s friends, he had many aspirations including working for the government to be the Secretary of Defense and teaching English in his home country Sudan.
Continued: INSPIRATION
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By Keon McMilian Staff Reporter
A statement was released March 27 by UAA announcing that the head coach of the hockey team, Dave Shyiak, will be departing from the program. Athletics Director Steve Cobb said the university does not publicize reasons for personnel discharge. However, he did say a change was needed for the direction the athletics department is trying to steer the program. The hockey team has continued its woes under Shyiak, managing only a 0.179 winning percentage this season. The ‘Wolves finished with a mere 10 wins the year before. Cobb said the athletics department will be conducting a two-week ad to find a new coach. From there, the department will select finalists and choose a new head coach for the 2013-14 season. “We hope to have our decision made by May,” Cobb said. Cobb was positive when talking about the former coach. “You know what, Coach Shyiak was a good man and he worked very hard,” Cobb said. “This is not pleasant, but it is a part of the job.” How this will affect longtime Seawolf hockey fans depends solely on each individual. Cobb said plenty of fans are happy about the choice, and plenty of fans are upset. But as far as he’s concerned, they have nothing to worry about because he hopes Shyiak’s departure is the first step in the Seawolf hockey team’s quest to push for new heights in the upcoming year. COURTESY PHOTO
Mabil “Mo” Duir leaves a legacy of peace and encouragement at the University of Alaska Anchorage. The social activist and student leader passed away Saturday night.
Cadaver incident remains a mystery to students, employees
A million bones to be displayed to draw attention to genocide
editor@thenorthernlight.org
arts@thenorthernlight.org
By J. Almendarez
“Inappropriate” behavior involving a cadaver on campus at the Health Science Building was reported to the University Police Department April 2. University officials and the UPD remain mum about the incident except for the barebones facts released in a mass email sent to students and employees Thursday. The email only states the incident was “inappropriate,” the cadaver involved was female and an act of vandalism was discovered the following day on the third floor of the same building. Case Detective Teresa Denette said she could not comment about details pertaining to the incident or whether there are any suspects as of Friday. She also said UPD does not know if the vandalism, confirmed to be graffiti of male genitals, is connected to the “inappropriate” incident, nor do they know when the graffiti happened. However, she did say the email was sent through the Office of University Advancement. The UPD did not release the email sent to students and employees about the crimes. UAA spokeswoman Jessica Hamlin said the information was released in accordance with the Clery Act, a federal ruling requiring all crimes nearby and on campuses must be disclosed to students. She also said the email was released to her Thursday and likely took the day to write because general council, the legal team for the University of Alaska system, collaborated with UAA administrators to write it. She does not know why the gender of the cadaver is released, but thinks it’s to promote transparency about the incident. The general counsel office was unable to return a request for clarification about the release of information by press time. The Northern Light independently verified that the automatic locking system in the Health Sciences Building, which restricts public access to certain areas of the building, are not functioning correctly.
Alaska Native Studies Conference comes to life through cultural expression
PHOTO BY MOHAGANI ADAMU
The Alaska Native dance group, the King Island Dancers, graced the stage during the conference closing banquet.
By Heather Hamilton
Imagine taking a summer trip to Washington D.C. It’s warm and sunny, so you decide to make a day of it and explore the National Mall monuments. But when you get there, it isn’t as pictured in the brochure. Instead of grass and statues, you see bones all over the ground, one million ghostly bones. That kind of startle is one of the things TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) Senior Fellow Naomi Natale of New Mexico is hoping to accomplish in the nation’s capital June 8-10 this year. Through her project, “One Million Bones,” she hopes to raise awareness about genocide and other atrocities happening around the world. “It wasn’t until my first year of college that I first heard about the Rwandan genocide, and that was nine years after it’d happened,” Natale said. “What really jarred me was how I had never heard about it before. We were never taught about it in school, never talked about it when I was growing up. Then to recognize that there were conflicts like that happening right now and still it wasn’t being talked about made me think, ‘How can we put this out there?’” Natale said the bones will serve as a mass grave on the National Mall. “I kept thinking that, suppose those murdered in Rwanda could be piled in the streets of Washington D.C.,” she said. “Would we have called it a genocide? Would we have been brave enough to take action at that time?” The bones Natale and her volunteers will set up are made of clay and other biodegradable materials, crafted in 25 different countries around the world. Shipping complications will prevent the internationally made bones from being present in the three-day display, but Natale said the project is working on a way to effectively represent them. Genocide, defined by the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide adopted by the UN General
Assembly in 1948, is, “Killing members of the (ethnic, racial or religious) group; Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group, or forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.” “Because of the Geneva Convention, countries who have signed on are required to intervene when (an atrocity is called) genocide,” Natale said. “Because of that, we’ve been really scared to call something that. We didn’t call what happened in Rwanda ‘genocide’ when it should have been.” In 1994, the Hutus people slaughtered over 800,000 Tutsis people during a period of approximately 100 days in Rwanda. The Hutu government, as well as extremists in various media positions, advertised and advocated for ordinary citizens to participate in the killings. The Tutsis were murdered no matter what age or gender. The mass slaughter was eventually recognized as a genocide among the general public, but never officially. A large part of the overall project is
Continued: BONES PAGE 09
READ THE FULL STORY: EXPRESSION PAGE 04
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