Western Front - 1998 June 2

              WESTERN WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY VOLUME 104 ISSUE 17
TUESDAY
June 2,1998
BELLINGHAM, WASHINGTON
Sisters of Color move into 21st century
Women share views
of political identity
Conference opens
with stories, poetry
By Miliissa Brown
The Western Front
The Sisters of Color International confer­ence
began Friday night with Native
American dancing, official speakers and
poetry readings from a local Native
American artist.
More than 150 people attended the
opening in the Viking Union Main Lounge,
said Director of Women Studies Rosanne
Kanhai.
Kanhai said she felt it was important for
this type of conference to take place in a
homogenous community like Western..
"(The conference) is a strong voice to be
heard by anyone who is listening," Kanhai -
said. "It is important that this type of event
is supported by the campus."
The SOCI conference is a national event
that rotates around the country, Kanhai
said. Each time it is hosted somewhere, it
integrates itself into the area, Kanhai said.
The opening ceremonies included pre­sentations
from Vice Provost Ken Simes;
Margaret Green, Chieftan of the Samish
Indian Tribe; and tribal dancing and drum­ming
by Chief John Cagey of the Lummi
tribe with his wife and five grandchildren.
Green shared her story of earning a
degree from Evergreen State College in The Little Swan Dancers performed the Dance of the
1978 and continuing to fight for greater tne sisters of Color conference opening.
education for her people.
racism of a dominating white culture,
Front/Matt Renschler
Little People Friday night at
Green expressed desire for Western to con­tinue
to educate students about her native
lands.
"The university should be a place to help
people help themselves and make them
grow," Green said.
Provost Roland De Lorme formally opened
the program.
"Dr. De Lorme has always been a strong
supporter (of women studies)," Kanhai said.
"It was appropriate that someone from
Western's faculty should welcome conference
participants."
Gail Tremblay of Olympia substituted for
Mary Crow Dog, who was scheduled to be
the featured speaker of the night.
Tremblay read poetry concerning the
toward Native American cultures.
She began her readings with
excerpts from Mary Crow Dog's book,
Lakota Woman.
She also read poems from her book,
Indians Singing in 20th Century
America.
Kanhai said the conference was
meant to be a gathering of people
coming together regarding issues of
color.
The conference will be followed up
by an anthology of participants'
works. Kanhai said she is expecting an
enthusiastic response for the publica­tion
that will be distributed in the fall.
Front/Erin Fredrichs
Angela Eun Ee Koh Gibson spoke Saturday.
By Robin Skillings
The Western Front
Five women of color spoke about their
personal experiences during a panel
Saturday afternoon titled "The Politics of
Identity" in Viking Addition 461-3.
Angela Eun Ee Koh Gibson, an
American Cultural Studies major, opened
the panel with the background and histo­ry
of her topic of discussion, "Involuntary
Immigrants: Korean-American Adop­tees."
"... I'm a bad memory to my mother. I'm
an embarrassment to my nation. I'm not
sure where I was born. I am not sure who
I am. I'm case 8,819," Gibson read from a
Ji Sun Sjogren poem, "Seed from a
Silence."
The U.S. government, Gibson said,
adopts Korean children as a humanitarian
action to "save them from their poor liv­ing
situations." She said the humanitarian
theory is the most prominent issue for
transracial adoptees.
It is important for adopting families to
know the children's situations and for
children to have knowledge of their back-,
grounds should they begin to ask, Gibson
said.
Adopted from Seoul Korea at the age of
2, Gibson said she views being Korean as
only a "physical appearance."
She traveled with her father to Korea at
the age of 16. While there, she realized that
"even though we shared the same color, I
still didn't feel like I fit in ... due to my
mannerisms."
She continues to ask the questions,
"Where do I fit in?" and, "Who am I
accepted by?"
Following Gibson's presentation, Touk
Praseuthsy and Bopha Chan opened their
discussion titled "Caught in a Culture
Clash: Young Women Straddling South
East Asia and America."
Praseuthsy, a Western finance student,
said, "The mom versus the daughter of the
See Identity, -page 4
Western students saved from JWE headache
By Ken Brierly and Julie Graham
The Western Front
A thorn in the side of many Western stu­dents
was yanked out Monday by
Western's Faculty Senate.
"The Junior Writing Exam is eliminated"
said Faculty Senate President Jim Hearne
after a unanimous vote to remove the test,
"effective immediately," from university
requirements. "Hold your applause," he
said.
The change removes one hurdle in the
graduation requirements for current stu­dents,
Hearne said. Specifically, whether
they've passed the JWE or not, students
currently attending Western will now only
be required to take a writing proficiency
course in the process of fulfilling gradua­tion
requirements. Incoming freshmen and
transfer students as of fall quarter 1999 will
be bound by a new set of standards, which
are yet to be finalized.
The motion to eliminate the test came on
the recommendation of the Academic
Coordinating Commission, which received
the recommendation from the Expository
Writing Committee.
Faculty have long seen limitations in the
JWE, said Carmen Werder, consultant to
the EWC.
"I had students who would write beauti­ful
things for me, then fail the JWE," said
Diana Weymark, an economics professor
who first came up with the idea of writing
units three years ago.
As part of its original recommendation to
remove the JWE, the EWC suggested
replacing the current writing proficiency
requirements — both the JWE and the writ­ing
proficiency course — with classes that
would supply one to three writing credits,
depending on the amount of required writ­ing
in the class, said Thor Hansen, geology
department chair; the geology department
worked with the EWC to formulate the pro­posed
new requirements.
"Instead of having one class to satisfy a
writing proficiency requirement," Hansen
said, "you can have writing from several
different disciplines" for writing proficien­cy
credits.
Under the proposed plan, a student
would need a total of six writing units with
a passing grade of "C" or better in order to
graduate, Werder said.
In their draft form, "writing units"
would be credited as follows:
Three units for a course in which 70 per­cent
of the requirements are draft writing;
two units for courses in which 50 percent of
the course work is draft writing; and one
unit for courses in which 30 percent is writ­ing.
"This will make it easier for sciences to
come up with classes that count for writing
proficiency," Hansen said. "But here's the
' See JWE, page 6