The Michigan Daily-New Student Edition-Perspective-Thursday, September 9, 1993- Page 5 Learning happens in the strangest locales by Jon Altshul Daily Staff Reporter Somehow my freshman-year roommate and I never got into that room decoration thing. No fancy loft, no wall-to-wall carpeting, no cozy sofa. Nothing at all to remind us of the comforts of home. In fact, the only needless embellishment that draped our musty walls was a four year-old Jimmy Page poster with a large chunk torn out of the side. Nor did we help our plight much with our malodorous, unhygienic personal habits. Our desks doubled as hampers, while our crooked floorserved as our never-emptied trash can. Once while roaming our hall, a passerby stopped to somewhat curtly reprimand us for the bitter stench that so rudely emanated from our self- proclaimed "Lair of Licentiousness." "Jesus," he exclaimed as lopened the door, "Did you guys forget where the bathroom was?" I'd never seen this guy before, yet I was impressed by his frankness. I ushered him in, offering him a half-smoked Camel and a Dewars on the rocks. With his right hand clenched firmly over his nostrils, he obliged and, taking one sweeping, panoramic glimpse of our abode, continued, "My friend, this is the ultimate freshman dorm room." Indeed, much of my first semester was spentcaged in 2120Markley-Frost. Long before we'd discovered such digressions as extra-curriculars and school work, my roommate and I were the inextricable staples of our room. And what a palace it was - sheets caked in month-old tobacco spit, cool school jazz trickling out of semi-broken speakers, half-empty beer cans posing as ant farms and scratched, uncased CDs acting as impromptu mirrors. Essentially, the dilapidated dorm room is the last great metaphor for the college experience. More to the point, the beauty of college lies etched not within inebriated fraternity reveries or buried within some 50-pound biology textbook, butrather, deep within the unpretentious confines of yourown room. In a school surrounded by endless mobs of people, the most comforting arena you have is your own space. My roommate and I never got too much sleep thatyear. Every night at about 12:30, when the common man was brushing his teeth in preparation for another mundane eight hours of rest, our doors would open up. Five or so of us would huddle around the cob pipe, smoking a few rounds of Captain Black, usually stripped down to ourboxers.Typicalgushy malebondingstuffmostly. And talk was always cheap: Kerouac, Descartes, Joyce, Malcolm X, maybe even a sex joke or two. These were freedoms never allowed to us in high school. To say what was on our minds, to expound political theory just for fun, to stay up until dawn even if it meant sleeping through our morning classes. At Michigan, learning occurs in the strangest places. Sometimes it's in a classroom, but mostly it occurs outside lecture halls and libraries. This is a school where "diversity" isn'tjust about statistics and numbers, it's about new ideas and original venues for exploration. I guess my moral, then, goes something like this: leam for the sake of leaming, not merely for the sake ofa degree. Challenge convention, obey your parents only when they're about to give you money and most of all, do something new. WATER SKI CLUB Competitive & Recreational Skiing Anderson Rooms in the Michigan Union Monday, September 13 at 7 pm For info call 763-4560 Women march down State Street during Martin Luther King Jr. Day last January. . BMC promotes muliticulturalism Center fights against racism, sexism, classism and homophobia by the Baker-Mandela Center Board In the winter of 1987, the campus exploded when black students, supported by other progressive students, organized to fight against blatant racist attacks and institutional racism at the University. Stu- dents formed theUnitedCoalitionAgainst Racism (UCAR), which presented the University with a list of 12 demands to make the school more hospitable and equitable for people of color. The Baker-Mandela Center (BMC) is a multi-racial, student-run facility initiated by UCAR. The center's pri- mary goal is to encourage research and activism regarding issues of race, class, gender and sexuality and to challenge Euro-centric, racist, sexist and homophobic paradigms. Progressive people ofcolor, women, lesbians and gay men must present al- ternative portrayals of our communities in order to counter right-wing mytholo- gies about us. BMC is an alternative teaching facility that uses the expertise of all segments of our communities: students, community members, cam- pus workers and faculty members. Since BMC was created through political struggle, the underlying phi- losophy of the center is to think in order to act. We try to create theoretical work that can be of practical use. That means engaging in educational projects that have direct connections to struggles being waged on and off campus. Since most people of color are excluded from Universities, channels must be created through which "scholarly" work is made accessible and relevant. We must con- sciously make our resources and our skills available outside the University. To that, BMC collects materials that focus on race, sexuality, class, gender andprogressivepolitical struggle. Books on the histories of people of color, peri- odicals such as The City Sun, Out/Look, and Palestine Focus, pamphlets on the Puerto Rican independence and free South Africa movements, videotapes such as "TheFraming Of The Panthers" and "DiAna's Hair Ego: AIDS Educa- tion Up Front," cassette tapes of Malcolm X and Angela Davis, student- created photo displays and magazine and news clippings from the 1960s are just a few of BMC's resources available for student and community use. BMC alsoproduces its own publica- tions, including a pamphlet called Rac- ism In Education and a bulletin on hate violence. We are expanding our publi- cations to include an activist-oriented journal, By What Means?. BMC also provides technical and material support to campus and com- munity activists. Additionally, BMC maintains a speakers' bureau and can provide workshops and consulting ser- vices to other organizations. Many of the resources at BMC are not found in other areas of the Univer- sity. The University's curriculum tends to ignore the historical and cultural re- alities of people of color. And if you look beyond the public relations rheto- ric to the actual policies and practices of top University administrators, it is clear that their commitment to combating racism, sexism, homophobia and elit- ism is limited at best. As intolerance pervades campuses across the country, masquerading as complaints against political correctness and First-Amendment infringements, and as hate crimes and state-sponsored violence escalate in our communities, it is critical that we get together and ad- dress these problems with serious re- search, debate and action. There are a variety of ways to get involved with BMC and make use of its resources. All students are welcome to stop by and visit us in Room 3 on the first floorof theEast Engineering Build- ing on Central Campus. The Center is open Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Ann Arbor's Fall KIWANIS September 10 & 11 Friday, 9 a.m. - 6 p.m. " FREE Laundry Bags -120 Washers & Dryers " Attendant always on Duty " ITS MILNOR TIME! Every Wednesday Triple Load Washers $1.50 In Colonial Lanes Plaza 1958 S. Industrial Bulk Dry Cleaning Open 24 hrs., 361 days L1eiA Sa,u1I 1 RUMMAGE S2 LE Appliances Books Draperies & Curtains Furniture & Lamps Hardware Household Items Linens Mattresses & Frames Saturday, 9 a.m. - 1 p.m. Kiwanis Activities Center Huron Washington Kiwanis Center liberty sr Washington at First Street i Qif kinds oq unbeieva~bly inexpensive stuff' for VorMs and prirtmeYts! === ATTENTION UOf M w" COMMUN ITY4 SOEVVSCENTER !mmm .1 rphe University of Michigan International TofkDance Club Opening Dance September 29, 1993 7:30 p.m. - 10:30 p.m. in thme ,8ViY " Food Stores " Sororities " Fraternities " Student Organizations " Daily Delivery " Wholesale Prices " Call for FREE samples BOOKS * MAGAZINES * CARDS * GIFTS A premiere bookstore featuring Ann Arbor's most extensive selection of magazines including many foreign and hard-to find titles i i