Mikayla Roller – The Hilltop Monitor

Special Elections in Kansas

Mikayla Roller — Fri, 21 Apr 2017 13:00:38 +0000

A contested special election between Republican Ron Estes and Democrat James Thompson in Kansas’ 4th Congressional District caught leaders on both sides of the aisle by surprise, highlighting the disenchantment many Kansans have with Governor Sam Brownback. Liberals argue that the challenge to long-time Republican-held districts in both Kansas and Georgia signals a wider-spread discontent with the current Republican-ruled government at the federal and state level, possibly foreshadowing outcomes of the 2018 congressional midterm elections. Republicans argue that the results of special elections in many state legislatures across the country affirms their popular mandate to govern.

On April 11, 2017, a special election in Kansas’ southern 4th Congressional district, which includes Wichita and Wellington, was held to replace former Representative Mike Pompeo, who was recently appointed as director of CIA by President Trump. The election was not expected to be troublesome for the Republican establishment given President Trump and Representative Pompeo’s significant electoral leads in this district during the 2016 election. Yet, a Republican poll on the brink of the election showed Estes’ lead to be a lot narrower than was originally projected. This prompted a fervor of spending and a swift mobilization of support by Democratic and Republican leaders across the country on behalf of their respective Kansas candidates. Get-out-the-vote calls recorded by President Trump and Vice President Pence flooded the district.

Estes defeated Thompson last Tuesday. However, Thompson earned the majority of the early and absentee votes, and Estes’ victory was only secured by a margin of around 7 percent. Thompson and many other Democrats do not consider this a loss.

“Mr. Estes did not beat us. It took a president of the United States, the vice president, the speaker of the House, a senator coming into our state and a bunch of lies to drum up a vote,” said Thompson, responding to the slight election results.

The close race may be due to the ill-perceived tax policies pursued by Brownback. The state’s budget crisis and its impact on education in Kansas help account for Brownback’s low approval ratings which hover around 26 percent. According to a recent survey by the Morning Consult, Brownback earned the title of the nation’s least popular governor.

Yet, since this is the first congressional election since the start of the Trump Presidency, this may reflect a broader dissatisfaction with the Trump administration and Republican-ruled government. Georgia’s special election to replace Tom Price’s seat April 18—Trump’s new secretary of health and human services—was also close. A subsequent runoff between Democrat Jon Ossoff and Republican Karen Handel will occur June 20.

On the other hand, Estes says that his victory confirms the will of the people for Republican governance, despite the close special elections and the President’s 40 percent approval rating.

“The pundits…[said] we were going to lose a Republican seat…that it was a chance for the Democrats, they were motivated, there was a lot of angst against the president. But we really showed the pundits tonight, didn’t we?” announced Estes late Tuesday.

Whether or not these narrow victories in the recent special elections spell trouble for Republican-dominated Congress and many of the Republican-held state legislatures in 2018 remains to be seen. Despite Democrats pouring funds in special elections at the state level, they have failed to flip the legislatures of every contested district across a myriad of states since the beginning of 2017. Moreover, Democrats’ ability to isolate contested elections and offer support for congressional candidates in close races seems less aggressive than Republicans’. Democrats did not initiate a get-out-the-vote campaign in Kansas’ 4th Congressional District until after the Republican survey in the district materialized, leaving little time to rally Democrats and sway undecided voters in the district.

Both parties have lessons to learn from the recent special election in Kansas. Republicans might need to emphasize Estes’ victory and Republicans’ state-level victories amidst Trump’s controversial policies in order to secure dominance in the 2018 midterm election. Democrats may need to improve their tactics of gaging popular opinion in congressional elections and increase their response time for offering support to candidates trailing or leading by a margin.

Photo courtesy of Politico.

Thursdays are now a little more tender

Mikayla Roller — Fri, 07 Apr 2017 15:00:41 +0000

With the work-week weighing students down and the weekend almost in sight, Thursdays can be a difficult day for students at William Jewell College. Yet, these tough 24 hours have recently become more tender thanks to an initiative prompted by WJC’s Student Senate: Chicken Tender Thursdays. Every Thursday evening from 5 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. in the William Jewell cafeteria, students can find and fill their plates with chicken tenders.

Student senators noticed that many of their friends were obsessed with this form of chicken. They proposed that Senate approach the dining services at Jewell with a request that chicken tenders appear weekly on the caf’s menu.

“Senate itself seemed excited at the prospect,” said Ben Shinogle, Vice President of Student Senate.

Student Senate was not unanimous in their support of the chicken tenders initiative, however.

“One [senator] suggested it was disgusting for me to spread the pain and misery incumbent on factory-farmed animals further,” said Shinogle.

Yet, given the majority opinion, Shinogle approached Kiki Strecker, the vivacious Director of Dining Services at Jewell, to see if Fresh Ideas, the food supplier at William Jewell, could accommodate students’ request for chicken tenders. Strecker approved of the idea. She reasoned that Thursday nights would be the perfect time to serve the projected meal. Since dinners in the Jewell dining hall are predominately enjoyed by students, Chicken Tender Thursdays would be directly “geared toward satisfying the student experience,” said Strecker.

Student Senate is also concerned with maximizing the student experience at Jewell. It is a body directly charged with advocating on behalf of the well-being of students on campus. This means tackling a wide variety of issues, from rewriting Jewell’s alcohol policy to promoting awareness of Title IX. Though the food served in the caf may seem like a smaller issue, it is a contributing variable to the success of students.

“The reality is that a student’s everyday life at Jewell is influenced by a constellation of diverse factors,” said Shinogle. “We have come to realize that working on smaller elements of the student experience can have a positive effect on students’ lives—and the food we eat plays a big role in this.”

Given the influence that food plays in the health and morale of students, both dining services and Student Senate plan to be responsive to future food requests. Strecker urged that she has an open-door policy.

“I want students to know they can come see me at any time,” Strecker said. “I owe it to students to say, ‘That’s a good idea, let’s start it’ or explain to them why something is cost prohibitive or won’t do well in quantity.”

Student Senate will remain an essential intermediary between students’ stomachs and the food served in the cafeteria. A formstack on Student Senate’s website permits students to offer more requests to Jewell’s dining services. Senate plans on promoting this feature and continuing to relay feedback through this medium to Strecker and the rest of the Fresh Ideas team.

AFE: Students sue Residence Life for injuries from Ely’s burlap walls

Mikayla Roller — Sat, 01 Apr 2017 15:00:01 +0000

Ely—once called the only place to BE-ly—has now been deemed unBElievably dangerous and unfit for housing students for the 2017-18 school year. This decision came after two students sued Residence Life last month for third-degree rugburns sustained by the burlap walls in their Ely dorm room.

The two unsuspecting first-years were reportedly “hugging” too close to the walls on the third floor. They both incurred tragic burns on their legs and immediately cried for help. Help was delayed as first year Resident Assistants struggled to find the students.

“I forgot we had a third floor!” explained RA Chandler Eaton.

After the students were located, they were rushed downstairs to the Ely clinic. However, since the Nurse Practitioner was on her four hour lunch break, the students were sent to Liberty Hospital for treatment instead.

Having just recovered their reputation from the giant bean bag incidents of 2015, these recent lawsuits have put Ely under severe scrutiny again. Thus, Residence Life has decided to bar students from living in the dorm until the rooms pass the necessary safety inspections.

Some Residence Life staff are confused as to where the college plans to house the seven incoming freshman in the Fall. “I’m not sure what will become of the first-year experience; it’s not like there are other first-year dorms on campus!” exclaimed current Ely RA Macy Tush.

The “Monitor’s” sources at Student Life allege that the burlap will be replaced with bubble wrap. Packing peanuts may or may not be supplied for all first years during Orientation.

Historical Revisionism on the Hill: An Unfair Accusation

Mikayla Roller — Fri, 24 Mar 2017 17:07:44 +0000

A month ago, KCUR, Kansas City’s public radio station, highlighted revisionist history being propagated in Clay County and alleged that William Jewell College had similarly sanitized history. Yet, while sources from William Jewell’s archives show that there has been controversy for years over the extent of Jewell’s commitment to and its shortcomings in preserving its Civil War history, KCUR’s article distorts William Jewell’s historic pledge to precisely portray its history and memorialize Union soldiers who often remain unrecognized in this region.

Feb. 22, 2017, KCUR reported on the Experts from the Diary of Judge A.H. Shelton, a work that was recently compiled and published by the Clay County Museum and Historical Society. Former Historical Society President Jana Jesse Becker assembled the book, omitting all of Shelton’s writings on race relations in mid-19th century America—excluding racial slurs and mention of slavery—in order to avoid controversy. Yet, as KCUR wrote, these omissions work to sanitize history and de facto glorify the South’s institutions in the Civil War.

“The excerpted diary serves revisionist historians who [can] use it to portray the Confederate cause as a battle for state’s rights rather than a defense of slavery,” the KCUR article highlighted.

The Confederate flags that adorn many porches today in mid and southern America underscore this perversion of the Civil War as a conflict that was strictly over state’s rights.

However, the NPR article conflates a supposed dismantling of a Civil War monument honoring Union soldiers at William Jewell College in the mid-1990s as a similar distortion of history.

The monument to which the article refers was dedicated by the William Jewell Senior Class of 1931, commemorating fallen Union troops and their use of William Jewell’s campus during the War Between the States. This monument marked the first recognition of Union Army action in Clay County.

William Jewell Class President and senior Everette Webdell gave the dedicatory address for the Civil War memorial in 1931

In 1993, the stones of the Union monument, originally erected in the historic trenches down the hill at the base of Jewell Hall, were deconstructed, but its memory and significance did not disappear as the article alleged. The plaque delineating the Union’s influence at Jewell was simply moved to the grounds surrounding Grand River Chapel. Two other historic markers surround the chapel. These are tributes to the Union as well.

A picture of the plaque from the Civil War monument in 1931. Though the memorial was dismantled, the plaque still stands by Grand River Chapel today

The second marker showcases the history of the Civil War trenches which were built through Jewell’s campus. After losing the battle of Blue Mills Landing—also known as the Battle of Liberty—on Sept. 17, 1861, Union forces retreated to Jewell’s hill; they remained on the hill for weeks, transforming the first floor of Jewell Hall into stables, the second floor into barracks and the top floor into an infirmary for Union casualties. The next year, Union troops established their headquarters on Jewell hill and dug rifle pits from today’s president’s home to what is now Marston Hall and around Jewell Hall. These trenches were constructed in response to rumors of an impending Confederate invasion. The marker is placed where one of the three cannons stood ready to fight the encroaching rebels. However, the South never advanced to Jewell after the installation of the cannons so the trenches never saw war.

The third marker by Grand River confirms the mass grave site in Jewell’s midst. It memorializes the death of 17 Union soldiers who were killed in the Battle of Blue Mills Landing. The soldiers remained buried there until 1912 when their bodies were unearthed and reburied at Fort Leavenworth National Cemetery.

William Jewell has long faced criticism that their construction projects that eliminate essential Civil War landmarks. A Kansas City Times article from Dec. 14, 1956 bemoaned that the advocates for maintaining the historic trenches had, like the Union forces in 1861, lost a battle.

“A preparation to erect a new student building caused the final assault,” the article reported. The Kansas City Times outlined other construction projects that masked the trenches, such as Carnegie Library built in 1906 and Marston Science Hall built in 1913. The new student union building covered the residual evidence of the trenches in this region of campus.

Debate again ensued when the flagstone patio was constructed in front of Grand River Chapel in Sept. 1993. Though the plaques commemorating the Union forces were placed nearby, the patio did destroy the most noticeable sections of the remaining trench line. This move was a blow to historians at the Civil War Roundtable of Western Missouri who declared the Civil War trenches at Jewell a “must see” site. “The trenches are not even outlined anymore…[William Jewell] made absolutely no attempt to preserve this. Everyone feels the college intentionally deceived us about what was going on,” said Sonny Wells, historian and President of the Civil War Roundtable.

Jewell has attempted to balance the tension between preserving its heritage and adapting for future students. According to Cara Dahlor, William Jewell’s Director of Communications, Jewell constantly makes an effort to safeguard and share its history.

“Any time we talk about William Jewell College, we’re proud to share our history,” said Dahlor.

Jewell Cardinal Blazers stop at Jewell Hall to disclose its historical significance to the Union effort on all Jewell tours. The college also partners with Historic Downtown Liberty to initiate local walking tours of Jewell’s Civil War history.

Transparency about its history and new projects that may jeopardize historically significant spots has been a priority of Jewell. “There are references all over our campus to our history,” said Dahlor.

Along with the markers near Grand River, the history of the college is sketched in the interior of the PLC; informative plaques decorate the exterior of Jewell Hall. As for the patio project, it was well-publicized. “We discussed plans for the landscaping of the chapel…An artist’s rendering for the plans was displayed. It was all discussed very openly,” said Rob Eisele, Jewell’s Director of Public Relations in 1993.

“It’s too bad they’re gone; they were such a part of our heritage,” said Wells, referencing the bulk of the trenches in front of Grand River. “You could reach out and touch them. But now you can only look at pictures.”

Though Jewell may struggle, in some historians’ eyes, to adequately defend all of its historical landmarks as it continues to expand its infrastructure, it attempts to openly and accurately tell its history and relationship with the Union.