Clarion 1996-03-01 Vol. 71 No. 10

              Clarion
The official student publication of Bethel College
Friday/ March 1 / 1996    Volume 71, Number 10
Unside.
Variety
Video
Valedictorians
Four Bethel students
receive prestigious award.
|Not only did they beat out
students, they stole the
honor from professionals.
News
Lose 100 Pounds In
An Afternoon
Bizarre medical condition
removed by surgery
lightens the load for one
woman.
Arts
Pretty Woman Stars In
Ugly Flick
Mary Reilly combines the
talents of several big
names and serves us a
recipe of disaster.
Babes Embraced By
Art Editor's Arms
New Guthrie production
adds song and glitz to
make for an award-
winning performance.
Opinion
Primary Putzes
Campaign trial goes mad
for plaid and leaves a trail
of unsatisfied voters left
without a man to beat
Clinton.
Next Edition
March 15
Royal senior shoots
for All-American honors
By SETH HINRICHS
Sports Editor
Kitri Peterson came to
Bethel in the Fall of 1992 not
knowing how good of a
basketball player she could be.
Averaging 17.6 points and 6.7
rebounds with an 84 free-
throw percentage in her senior
year, she has been nominated
for All- Conference and All-
American honors. In addition,
Peterson has been the subject of
an article in Minnesota
Basketball News. She has come
a long way in four years.
Coming out of Anoka High
School, Peterson received more
attention for her talent in tennis
rather than basketball. She says
that one of the reasons she
chose to come to Bethel was
"because of the Christian
atmosphere and because it was
a small enough school that I
could play both tennis and
basketball. If I had to just pick
(between the two sports), I
couldn't just pick one of them.
Tennis is my favorite when I am
playing tennis and basketball is
my favorite when 1 am playing
basketball." Peterson has
played both sports all four of her
years   at   Bethel   with   the
exception of her sophomore
year when she did not play
tennis.
Her development as a
basketball player peaked during
her senior season."My
freshman year I just kind of
came in and played basketball
and then in my sophomore and
junior years I just thought about
things too much. Then I just
started playing and trying to use
the talent that God has given
me," Peterson said.
Women's Basketball Coach
Deb Hunter, who recruited
Peterson out of Anoka High
School, said that at the
beginning other freshman year,
Peterson was "... probably the
second best player on her team.
Kit started out pretty quiet and
timid. She was a little bit
skeptical of her abilities. And
this year she has really stepped
it up to the point where there are
SEE HONORS PAGE 8
Students
participate
in award
nominations
By MEGAN LAWTON
Contributing Writer
For the first time in the ten
years that the Faculty Excellence Awards have been
awarded. Bethel students have
an opportunity to nominate the
professor of their choice. The
Professional Development
Committee is allowing students
to be a part of the nomination
process in order to get some different perspectives.
Karen Ciske, member of the
award committee, stated that
both the student and peer recognition will help the committee because they might "not be
aware of some of the excellent
teachers." Ciske also said the
students are the recipients of the
professors' teachings.
Marion Larson, of the Fac-
ultv Awards, said the alumni
SEE AWARD PAGE 2
Gas execution    Student academic
rulinq upheld      freedom conference
By ASSOCIATED PRESS
SAN FRANCISCO— As
California prepared for its first
execution by lethal injection, a
federal judge's ruling barring
use of the state's gas chamber
was upheld by an appeals court
last week.
The ruling, the first by any
U.S. court to declare a method
of execution unconstitutional,
was properly based on evidence
of extreme and sometimes
prolonged pain suffered by
prisoners in the San Quentin gas
chamber, said the 9th U.S.
Circuit Court of Appeals.
The October 1994 ruling by
U.S. District Judge Marilyn
Hall Patel requires the state to
conduct future executions by
lethal injection, until then an
unused option under a 1993
state law.
"It's an important decision in
that it prohibits the state from
torturing people to death," said
Michael Laurence, an American
Civil Liberties Union lawyer
who represented prisoners
challenging the gas chamber. "It
recognizes that even people on
death row who are going to be
executed deserve some
humanity.
"It is not a challenge to
capital punishment. It is a
challenge to torture," Laurence
added.
Gov. Pete Wilson called the
ruling "shortsighted and
misguided" and said he would
urge an appeal.
"California should not be
prohibited from using the gas
chamber to perform executions
to society's most brutal and
heinous killers," Wilson said.
The constitution's ban on cruel
and unusual punishment "was
not designed to micromanage
the state's performance over its
constitutional duty to put
vicious criminals to death," he
said.
Patel heard from a battery of
scientific experts and expert
witnesses and examined a half-
century of official execution
records during an eight-day trial
in her San Francisco court. She
found that prisoners in the gas
chamber are likely to suffer
excruciating pain for between
15 seconds and several minutes.
The primary cause of pain is
cellular suffocation,
experienced as an intense "air
hunger," Patel said.
"Symptoms of air hunger
include intense chest pains,
such as felt during a heart
attack, acute anxiety, and
struggling to breathe," the judge
said. She said there may also be
other types of pain, including
"the exquisitely painful muscle
spasms" of a condition called
tetany.
SEE EXECUTION PAGE 2
BY AMY TUCKER
News Co-Editor
ST. PAUL—"The freedom
of students to learn has been neglected in recent years," said
Dan Ritchie, Minnesota Association of Scholars (MAS)
president and English professor
at Bethel. This observation
spurred MAS to approach the
Minnesota State University Student Association about cospon-
soring the upcoming Conference on Student Academic
Freedom.
The first collaboration between MAS and the Minnesota
State University Student Association (MSUSA) was held on
Saturday, February 17, at
Dayton's Bluff campus of Metropolitan State University. At
the conference, administrators,
faculty and students from various areas of higher education
discussed students' academic
freedoms both in and outside
the classroom.
"Finally, we are going to be
able to get some information
and spread our ideas around a
little bit better," said Stephanie
Hegg, Southwest State University Student Association president. "We will be able to let the
legislature, faculty and administration know that we are serious about our education and the
way in which it is presented to
us. Many great efforts could
come out of this, and I feel that
they will."
According to Ritchie, student academic freedom has
been threatened throughout
academia. For example:
• Officials at the University
of Minnesota attempted to revoke the "recognized group status" of the Inter-Varsity (Graduate) Christian Fellowship.
•An associate dean and professor at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls authorized
the removal of posters put up
by the College Republicans because he considered the clip art
(used to depict a stunned student reacting to the result of the
November 1994 elections) offensive.
•At a fall 1994 forum in
Northfield, a professor described education as a necessary
form of repression, where institutions must have the freedom
to construct the proper setting
for repression to take place.
MAS and MSUSA members
have grown increasingly concerned about reports of students
keeping their thoughts to themselves inside the classroom.
Because they often see professors as "almighty grade givers"
students may wonder, "Why offend the professor? It might hurt
my grade," according to Wendy
Haavisto, MSUSA Academic
Affairs Committee coordinator
and graduate student at Winona
State University.