4B
LIFE/XIit Cliatlotte $ot
Thursday October 13, 2005
Katrina victims in the North
prepare for their first cold winter
Continued from page 3B
gear.
“I’m looking at the leaves,”
he said. “It’s amazing to me.
In New Orieans, you get two
colors: green and dirty
brown.” In New England, “I
see pretty yellows, a little
burgundy color, li^t green.”
He also plans to give skiing
a shot.
Jackson, who plans to find
work as an HIV counselor,
said fall in New York has
been preferable to the siz
zling heat in Louisiana. "It’s
likp we have air conditioning
outside,” she said.
A few chairs away fiom her
in a New York assistance cen
ter sat Bernard Pearce, a
New Orleans musician. “It’s
not 200 mph winds and a 30-
foot storm surge,” Pearce
said. ‘I’ll take a little cold and
snow over a hurricane any
day”
Andrew Chambers found
shelter with relatives in New
York after fleeing Biloxi,
Miss. Originally fi^m
Jamaica, Chambere has
never seen snow and he won
ders how cold weather com
pares to standing in fiont of
an open refiigerator.
Snow is “something I’m
looking forward to seeing,” he
said. “It’s making my imagi
nation run wild.”
Winston-Salem State University losing
its ‘suitcase college’ atmosphere
IHE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WINSTON-SALEM-The
clock-tower bell tolled eight
times. On a recent Thursday
night, strains of the marching
band drifted through the
open windows of the dimly lit
dorm living room.
Students plopped into over-
stufied chairs. When the
seats ran out, others leaned
against the walls.
The master of ceremonies—
a Winston-Salem State
University sophomore named
Ashley Bowman — walked to
one end of the room and
raised her voice.
‘T ask at this time that all
cell phones be turned off or on
vibrate,” she said, opening
the student open-mike night
at Moore Residence Hall.
“First up is Melessia Kellar.
She’s a fi^shman biology
mtyor from Connecticut, and
she is going to do a mono
logue called ‘Dark Secret.”’
The days of Wmston-Salem
State’s reputation as a “suit
case” school—where students
came for the week and left for
the weekend—seem to be
waning.
As enrollment at WSSU
has increased—more than 98
percent in the last five years
— so has the number of stu
dents living on campus.
Designated a “focused-
growth” campus by the
University of North Carolina
system, WSSU is one of seven
public universities in the
state expected to accommo
date a wave of high-school
graduates.
This year’s fi^hman class
is the laigest in school histo
ry Although school officials
are uncertain whether
WSSU will continue to grow
at the current rate, they
expect to enroll about 8,000
students by 2015.
At the recent open-mike
ni^t, a handful of students
signed up to read poetry and
sing about love, their child
hoods, relationships, sex, love
and more love. About 30 spec
tators drifted in and out of
the living room of the all-girls
dorm, sharing seats on couch
es and even on tables as they
drank lemonade and ate
cookies.
The singing and the read
ing went on well into the
evening.
‘Tf you know it, hdp me out,
because I’m nervous,” said
Mychaell Johnson, an 18-
year-old fi'eshman biology
rn^or, before she began to
sing in fix)nt of the living-
room crowd.
A few beats later, she was
joined by a chorus of female
voices and a staccato of snap
ping fingers. “Let’s take a
long walk around the park,
after dark,” they sang.
During a five-minute break,
the blaring band passed by
Several students began danc
ing.
Mason Parker, a 19-year-
old junior who lives on cam
pus, stood outside.
He said that the change in
campus atmosphere — or
that there’s now an atmos
phere at all — is noticeable.
The change seems genuine,
something that’s not just
orchestrated for glossy col
lege-brochure photo shoots.
‘Tt creates a kind of school
spirit because the fi:eshmen
become a lot more involved,”
Parker said. ‘When I was a
fi'eshman, everyone went
home on the weekends, and if
you didn’t go home on the
weekends, you were just
bored.”
Residence advisers are
oiganizing game and card
nights, ice-cream socials,
video-game tournaments,
and a haunted house. For the
more practical-minded, there
are dorm workshops such as
“How to Tie a Tie” and “How
to Get a Tlitor.”
The student healih center
will have more part-time
staffers this yesir, including a
pharmacist. The student fit
ness center is open longer on
the week^ids, and, on some
Saturday nights, there are
late-night parties in the gym.
“In the past, we probably
wouldn’t have dreamed about
putting a comedy show on
Saturday because nobody
would have come,” said Theo
Howard, an assistant vice
chancellor who oversees cam
pus activities.
University officials hope
that more campus activities
for greater numbers of stu
dents mean that fewer of
them will drink alcohol.
But Howard said that cam
pus life is also tied to student
retention.
“On the weekend, people
are actually here,” said
Ashley Barbre, a residence
adviser and a junior.
‘It’s very interesting to see
a bunch of women singing to
‘Beauty and the Beast,”’ she
added.
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Black Holocaust Museum struggling financially
77/A’ ASSOCIATED PRESS
MILWAUKEE - The
nationally acclaimed
America’s Black Holocaust
Museum is struggling finan
cially, due to its inability to
find an executive director and
lagging attendance, officials
say
The nearly 20-year-old
museum has gone fium hav
ing a working capital budget
of $1,1 million a few years ago
to not having enou^ money
to make full mortgage pay
ments on its building.
‘We’re digging out of the
hole,” said Marissa Weaver,
the museum’s former execu
tive director, who recently
came back to the board to help
stabilize the facility ‘We’re
putting tcgether a whole new
board.”
One of her key functions
had been grant-writing.
Since her departure, the
museum has been led by a
string of interim directors
working on month-to-month
contracts.
‘We are now working to re
establish relationships with
donors,” Weaver said.
One of the first of its kind in
the country, the museum
explores the struggles of
blacks in America fixtm slav
ery to the present time. It
was founded in 1988 by
James Cameron, who, in
1930, survived a lynch mob in
his hometown of Marion, Ind.
Over the years, the muse
um has hosted a number of
high-profile exhibits, includ
ing the “A Slave Ship Speaks:
the Wreck of the Henrietta
Marie,” which brought in
75,000 visitors in 1999.
“It was wonderful and
things were really booming,”
said Marty Stein, a philan
thropist who recently joined
the board.
But in the past two weeks
the museum has seen just
305 visitors.
Stein attributes the muse
um’s current state to lack of
leadership fiom its board,
“There were people who
didn’t really take their
responsibility seriously and
consequently let the museum
drift,” Stein said “Now we
are out raising money”
Board member Reuben
Harpole said the museum
needs to raise about $300,000
a year for its operating bud
get.
The National Underground
Railroad Freedom Center,
which has had nearly
300,000 visitors since open
ing in Cincinnati a year ago.
looked to Mlwaukee’s muse
um and others like it for tips
and advice before opening,
said Paul Bemish, chief com
munications officer for the
Ohio facility
“The significance of that
museum is that it brings to
the forefiont issues and histo
ry related to Afiican-
Americans, who are an inte
gral part of this society,”
Bemish said. “This country
has the most div^se popula
tion in the world”'
Funding for black miise-
ums throughout the coimtry
has always been a challenge,
said Lawrence J. Pijeaux Jr,
executive director for the
Birmingham Civil Rights
Institute and president and
chief executive officer of the
Association of Afidcan
American Museums.
Often, he said, the difficulty
comes with the subject mat
ter.
“Tbey focus on the pli^t of
Afiican-Americans in this
country and tlie stories we
tell are painful,” Pyeaux said.
“A discussion on civil rights
and slavery may be imcom-
fortable. It makes it difficult
for us to receive financial sup
port fiom the m^ority com
munity”
Board member and
Wsconsin Secretary of
Revenue ^fichael Morgan
said their fund raising drive is
heading in a positive direc
tion.
‘Tt hasn’t resulted in pulling
us out of the crisis, but we
have good people who eire part
of the museum now,” he said.
Milwaukee Mayor Tbm
Barrett said he’s confident the
museum can work throug^i its
financial problems. The muse
um received $75,000 as part of
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