Let the Good

Times Roll:

Traveler Weekender
Page 8

Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2014

University of Arkansas Student-Run Newspaper Since 1906

Civil Rights Pioneer Authors

Autobiographical Stage Trilogy

Lauren Husband Staff Photographer

Betty Anderson, MFA candidate for Theater and Playwriting, is working on a one-man-show trilogy.

Lauren Robinson
Assistant News Editor
On an afternoon in May of
1967, not long after most Little Rock Central High School
graduates had proudly accepted their diplomas, Betty
Anderson stood at the top of
the steps in front of her alma
mater.
Anderson had taken her allwhite cap and gown and drug
the attire down and up the

steep front steps of the school,

then folded them neatly and
put them back into the box for
return. The trials and tribulations she underwent while in
high school were not worth
integrating into the school system almost seven years earlier,
she said.
I was then, and still am, a
work in progress, the backstory for her autobiographical
play reads. I didnt return to
those steps until my daughter, Maliaka, became a stu-

dent there approximately 20

years later. For sure, a lot had
changed by then.
Anderson, now 64, has
spent the last 30 years revisiting people and places from her
past, and sometimes that includes revisiting periods of racial oppression. When she isnt
volunteering at the Walton
Arts Center in Fayetteville or
spending time with her family,
shes likely on the University of
Arkansas campus, where she
is working on her masters de-

gree in theater and a three-part

play called Out of One Blood,
based upon those experiences
beginning in junior high.
She calls the first part of
her play Heres to West Side,
which pays a tongue-in-cheek
homage to the junior high
school into which she integrated. In 1961, just four years
after the racial integration of
LRCHS in 1957, Anderson
and eight other black students

continued on page 7

Internships Vital in Job Hunt

Bailey Kestner
Staff Writer

Internships are often highly

encouraged by colleges and professors, but some students question whether internships hold
weight in the job market.
Of students who graduated
in 2013, 62 percent participated in at least one internship or
cooperative education assignment, according to the National
Association of Colleges and
Employers. This percentage is a
record high, compared with 57
percent in 2008.
Alysson Lefler, a senior
broadcast journalism major,
has two internships. She works
14-16 hours a week between the
Northwest Arkansas division
of the March of Dimes and at
KUAF, the Northwest Arkansas
NBC affiliate.
I started working with the
March of Dimes in August,
Lefler said. I applied mid-July
because my parents were bugging me about getting more
experience anywhere I can. I
found the job online and was
called in for an interview two

Jordan Martin Staff Photographer

Sara Bogue, intern at Liberty Tax Service in Fiesta Square, works long hours to
complete customers taxes.
days later.
While working with the
March of Dimes, Lefler has been
able to complete tasks related to
her journalism major, including calling and visiting local
businesses to ask for donations
to the auction, updating the
March for Babies blog, making

newsletters in illustrator and assisting in planning other events.

Through this I made a ton
of contacts with companies I
would love to work for, she
said.
For her other internship at
KUAF, Lefler heard about the
opportunity from a few of her

classmates. She emailed the station manager and was given an

interview.
The station manager told
me that a lot of people had
started to email him so it really depended on scheduling

continued on page 8

Vol. 108, No. 25

ASG President Rules

Bills Unconstitutional

Meredith Turner
Senior Staff Writer

President Bo Renner vetoed bills regarding the censure of the Associated Student Government Judicial
and the elections commissioner that were proposed
Feb. 18 by ASG Senate.
Renner vetoed Senate Bill
No. 16, the ASG Right to Fair
and Competent Legislative
Elections Act, and Bill No.
17, which was attached to Bill
No. 16.
The constitution can only
be changed through student
referendum and the approval
of Chancellor G. David Gearhart, Renner said.
Renner asked the members of ASG senate not to
override his veto in the ASG
Senate meeting Tuesday.
As the president of the
Associated Student Government, it is vital that I not only
lead the organization with
discernment, but integrity
as well, Renner said. That
being said it would not be
right for me to sign something into law I know to be
wrong and also a dangerous
precedent for any president
to set. The decision that I
made this afternoon was not
based on what I think, but
rather what I know to be true.
That is, Senate Bill No. 16 is
blatantly unconstitutional in
more ways than one.
ASG can do better than
the bills that were proposed,
Renner said.
Listen, I have no dog
in this fight, if I didnt care
about ASG I would not waste
time rejecting this bill,
Renner said. I just want to
go on record, this exec team
and the senators that vote
not to override this veto have
washed their hands of this
bill.
Senate Bill No. 16 is an
unviable and unconstitutional piece of legislation, said
Rudy Trejo, the ASG advisor.
The bills would amend
the ASG constitution in order to place the elections in
the hands of the senate. The
senate proposed this because
of lack of candidate participation in spring elections,
which resulted in 32 candidates for 45 positions. The
lack of candidates is allegedly
because of insufficient advertising, which is the duty of
the elections commissioner.
The senate proposed that
they amend the part of the
constitution that mandates
they have explicit deadlines
for elections. There are three
candidate orientation meetings offered Feb. 10, 12 and
13, according to elections
guidelines.

ASGJ ruled by a 3-1-1

vote to deny any make-up
orientation sessions requested after the specified Feb. 10
deadline.
By vetoing the bills, ASG
Senate was denied the ability
to amend the constitution,
which would not allow only
32 candidates to run for 45
positions, sophomore senator Beth Anne Harrison said.
Jeff Martin, the elections
commissioner, is under investigation by ASGJ chief
justice Mark Nabors.
The elections commissioners responsibility is to
enforce policy, prepare informational sessions, trainings
and other election events, as
well as sitting on ASGJ, in the
event of a filing and hearing
of an election complaint, according to the ASG website.
Nabors opened an internal investigation of Martin
to find if there was significant
and sufficient advertising for
a fair election.
There is only one provision (Title VII, Sec. 5 (F))
that says ASGJ must coordinate significant advertising,
Nabors said. I am in the
process of reviewing whether
this was done.
Martin declined to comment.
Competition for Senate
seats is not the responsibility
or goal of ASGJ, Nabors said.
Our responsibility is
to conduct fair and impartial elections, Nabors said.
We have done that; we are
still doing that. Moreover, I
would challenge the causal
link between ASGJs performance and low electoral and
candidate participation. That,
I believe, is an institutional
problem.
Martin is also accused of
relaying inaccurate information to candidates who
missed the mandatory orientation dates stated in the
ASG constitution. Martin allegedly told candidates they
could make up the mandatory dates, but the constitution does not allow make-up
dates, several senators said.
ASG voted to censure the
ASGJ and the elections commissioner, meaning the ASG
Senate formally admonished
and denounced the actions of
ASGJ and the elections commissioner, senator Grant Addison said.
Its a formal statement of
you did bad. It is not taking
away formal powers, Addison said.
The censure was the mildest formal statement of punishment, Addison said.
The ethics clause I left in
my impeachment bill already

continued on page 3

Walton College Alters Curriculum

KUAF Producer Composes Career

Hogs Prepare to Defend SEC Titles

Walton College administrators changed the curriculum

for students who enrolled in fall 2013 and onward.

Katy Henriksen has been involved with music her entire

life, and now she has transitioned into a new role at
KUAF.

The mens and womens track teams head to College

Station, Texas, this weekend to put their top-5 rankings
on the line in the SEC Championships.

PAGE 2

PAGE 6

PAGE 11

Page 7

Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2014

The Arkansas Traveler Newspaper

UA Student Crafts One-Woman Show

continued from page 1

Desperate Youth
Santigold

Headlines
Drake

No. 1 Party Anthem

Arctic Monkeys

Young Blood
The Naked and the Famous

Big Jet Plane

Angus and Julia Stone

STUDENT MEDIA

CALL FOR EDITOR/STATION MANAGER APPLICATIONS

The UA Student Media Board is accepting applications for the following editor and station
manager positions for the 2014-2015 academic year.
KXUA radio, station manager

Lauren Husband Staff Photographer

UATV television station manager

Andersons one-man show depicts experiences and wisdom learned over her lifetime.
stepped bravely into the halls of the junior high.
At the time, Anderson didnt feel like she was
making any waves, but she did find importance
in clearing a path upon which her younger sisters would one day walk.
I still remember my daddy saying, better
books at West Side, Anderson said. Which is
true, but I didnt want to go.
Anderson wanted to attend Dunbar Junior
High School, an all-black school, with her childhood classmates and neighborhood friends. But
she passed the personality test administered to
black student and teacher candidates for integration into white schools, and was pushed into
a successful but difficult academic career.
The group of black students was split up
among several classes. Though she had a couple
of encouraging grade-school teachers, she had
others who did what they could to make sure
she didnt excel beyond the white students in
her classes. In one instance, a math teacher
curved test grades so that her 96 percent grade
on a test fell to a B.
They set us up to fail, Anderson said.
Another one of the nine integrated students
who went on to high school with Anderson,
Kenneth Jones, said he remembered one teacher
consistently gave him bad grades, but she gave
Anderson good grades. One day, Anderson
came up with the idea to switch their papers,
and she was given a good grade for Jones paper.
We supported each other emotionally,
psychologically, and academically. We did everything we could to build each other up, said
Jones, who is now the dean of student services
for Shorter College in North Little Rock.
Anderson reminded him that he was not
to blame for the problem, and that it was the
teacher to blame because she could not overcome her personal prejudices against the boy.
Racial prejudice was an obstacle that Anderson faced as early as junior high school. After
lunch one day, Anderson and a young white boy
got into a fight on the schools tennis court. It
started as she was standing in a long line of antsy ninth graders waiting to go back inside and
she mumbled sarcastically, I just hope somebody kicks me. As soon as she had, she felt a
sharp pain in her back. Though both she and
the boy were injured after the fight and the boy
initiated the violence, she was sent home and
the boy was taken to the doctor.
The entirety of the junior high group, along
with a handful of other students who were the
first to integrate into East Side Junior High
School across town, went on to attend Little
Rock Central High School. Thus begins the
second part of her play: Hail to the Old Gold,
which takes place at LRCHS.
Andersons love for the stage developed
while in high school. As a member of the National Association of Colored Womens Clubs,
she competed in oratorical contests statewide
and won awards for her speeches. She began
networking a large group of friends through the
club; for example, at an NAACP conference she
attended when she was 16.
While at LRCHS, Anderson and two of her
close friends, Myrna Davis and Rita Washington, got together and formed a musical group
called The Pearls, for which they wrote musical numbers and sewed their own costumes.
The singing group performed mainly at school
talent shows also being the first black students
to perform in the schools show.
In 1967, Walter Cronkite of CBS News interviewed her on national television for her
achievements, which also included being the
first black student to work in the schools bookstore and being the first black student to direct
the senior class play.
I remember him asking me how it felt, and
I said, Its almost over, and I actually am glad,
Anderson said of Cronkites interview concerning her high school experience.
Despite the challenges Anderson faced, she
graduated from high school in the top 10 percent of her class.

The third part of Andersons trilogy, Choice

Made, Price Paid, alludes to her and her classmates experiences since integrating. Though
theyve all become relatively successful, she
said, it was not without a price.
I had deep, conflicted feelings about my
time at both West Side and LRCHS, she said. I
harbored a lot of rage for a long time.
She was drawn to Augsburg College in Minneapolis, Minn., because of Guthrie Theater located just a little more than a mile away. She got
to perform in and direct plays at the Guthrie.
Anderson studied communication and speech,
which reflected her favorite subjects throughout
grade school and college: English and drama.
Just out of college, she worked for the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorderoriginally the
Minneapolis Spokesmana small black newspaper. From 1972 to 1981, she worked as the head
librarian for the Arkansas Gazette, a job that she
jokingly tells people was what caused her first
marriage to break apart.
I married the Gazette, she said.
From then on, Anderson worked several
odd jobs in communications, marketing and
sales to support her daughter, Maliaka, whom
she had with her first husband in 1972. She remained active in church and in theater, as an intermittent member of Toastmasters for 10 years
beginning in 1984.
Anderson moved to Fayetteville two years
after her Little Rock home burned down in
1999. The move enabled her to be nearer to her
daughter and grandchildren.
She has the spirit of never giving up, no
matter the situation or the circumstance, Maliaka said.
In 2005, Anderson was confronted with a
situation she hoped she never would face, when
Maliaka became seriously ill and was left unable
to remember any events that had happened to
her over the past three years, including the birth
of her daughter.
I had an opportunity to exercise my faith
like I had never exercised it before, Anderson
said.
Anderson caught a breath of fresh air during this tragic time when she met her second
husband through an online dating site. She was
hesitant at first about the prospect of meeting someone online, but Lawrence Anderson
proved to be tremendously loving and supportive. He was a part of the family immediately
upon moving to Fayetteville in 2006, as he took
Maliaka to rehab every day after her recovery.
Betty and Lawrence married in 2007.
In 2001, Anderson began taking courses
at the University of Arkansas, and in 2013 she
entered the graduate program. Since being a
part of the theater program, she has directed
and acted in plays and musicals at the UofA.
She is currently cast as Mama in a play based
upon the Toni Morrison novel The Bluest Eye,
which is in production by the African & African
American Studies program. She plans to graduate in 2016 with two graduate degrees, in theater and in African American studies.
Anderson drew inspiration for her trilogy
from a Bible verse, along with notes gathered
for another original piece that she developed
in the 1980s called Sitting on the Flat Side of
a Dime Learning Spiritual Principles From
Lifes Experiences.
She said the verse that states that God created all nations of men and women out of one
blood had been with her since seventh grade.
Black theater has a different message, or raison detre, she said. We have to shine a light on
the things that the world would not necessarily
think about in its normal, day-to-day goingson.
Andersons ultimate goal is for Out of One
Blood to be taught to students.
I always had my mouth, and my inherent
gift of gab, her Out of One Blood back-story
reads. I guess it was destiny that I am Diva,
Drama Queen, actress and aspiring playwright.

The Arkansas Traveler editor

The Traveler Magazine editor
The Razorback editor
Applications should include a cover letter to the board and a platform outlining the applicants plans and
goals for the organization during their tenure. Packets are due not later than 5 p.m., March 7, 2014. One
paper copy should be delivered to the the Office of Student Media and a digital copy in Microsoft Word submitted to the director of Student Media. The Student Media Board will meet at 1 p.m. Friday, March 14, 2014,
(tentative, subject to change) to interview candidates and make these appointments. Candidates should
expect to make short presentation defending their platform and a follow-up interview with the Student Media Board. Should no candidate be found suitable for the appointment further applications will be sought.

Eligibility for appointment

To be considered, candidates must meet the following criteria: be a student in good standing at the University of Arkansas; have completed at least one full semester of applicable experience at the Student Media
group for which he or she is applying, or have other qualifying experience determined to be acceptable
by the UA Student Media Board, and meet the requirements for student officers in the University Student
handbook.
Applicable excerpts from the University of Arkansas Student Handbook
C. Conditions of Membership and Leadership
In selecting its membership and leadership, no student organization may discriminate on the basis of age,
disability, ethnic origin, marital status, race, religious commitment, sexual orientation, or gender (except
for single sex social sororities and fraternities and residence halls exempted from Title IX). Registered student organizations may, however, limit their membership and leadership to students who, upon individual
inquiry, affirm that they support the organizations religious, political, or other legally protected views,
consistent with the First Amendment. All officers of a student organization must meet the requirements for
co-curricular participation as outlined in Section D below. Officers and advisors of student organizations are
held responsible for seeing that this condition is met.
D. Eligibility For Co-curricular Participation
The major concern of the University of Arkansas for its students is their academic achievement. One mark of
academic achievement is orderly progress toward a degree. Students should complete a minimum of twelve
(12) hours of course work each semester. Each student is therefore advised to balance a desire to progress
in a systematic fashion toward a degree and the desire and ability to participate and/or lead in co-curricular
activities. After a student has assessed the abilities and interests he/she may have, the student may then
choose to participate in activities or organizations (taking into consideration the qualifications required by
the various activities and organizations). To assume leadership, elective and/or appointive positions, the
student must meet the University requirements listed below:
1. Co-curricular
Requirements: The minimum requirements that the University sets for students to assume elective and
appointive positions in co-curricular activities include full-time enrollment and continuance (a minimum
of twelve (12) hours of on-campus course work for undergraduate and law students and six (6) hours for
graduate students), a 2.25 or better cumulative grade-point average, and the absence of academic or disciplinary probation. Additional requirements: Organizations or groups may make, with the consultation of the
Office of Student Activities, such additional eligibility requirements as they deem necessary. These additional
requirements cannot be in conflict with University policies on nondiscrimination.
2. Types of Participation Subject to the Requirements: The above stated requirements must be met in order
to:
a. apply or receive consideration for an appointive or elective office
b. campaign for an elective office
c. hold an elective or appointive office
d. receive special honors
e. receive an appointment to serve on an all-campus (student or faculty/student) committee or governing
organization (RIC, IFC, Panhellenic, NPHC, etc.) or on the staff of any University or student publication

Period of Appointment
The appointment of each editor or station manager shall be according to the following:
a. The Arkansas Traveler editor June 1, 2014, through May 31, 2015.
b. KXUA radio station manager June 1, 2014, through May 31, 2015.
c. The Razorback editor Upon appointment the editor will serve until the 2015 book is completed and all
pages have been accepted for printing. For example, the final deadline for 2014 book is May 30.
d. UATV station manager April 1, 2014, through March 20, 2015.
e. The Traveler Magazine editor April 1, 2014, through Dec. 11, 2014

For more information or assistance, please contact

Steve Wilkes, Director of Student Media.
575-3406 Kimpel Hall 119 swilkes@uark.edu
Please submit electronic documents in Microsoft Word to
Steve Wilkes at swilkes@uark.edu.