Bear Pit Digs Deep

Bears basketball brings back blackout 4 Men’s basketball will play No. 20 West Virginia at 3 p.m. Saturday in the Ferrell Center. baylorlariat com The Baylor Lariat WE’RE THERE WHEN YOU CAN’T BE From Lariat TV News: Homestead Heritage workers endeavor to keep traditional skills afloat through knitting, iron work and homecooking. Friday | February 27, 2015 Bear Pit digs deep: Students rally By Cody Soto The Bear Pit works closely with Sports Writer Baylor Athletics and the marketing department in order to provide When fans and spectators sit fans with an optimal experience at down to watch a Baylor basketball the Ferrell Center. game at the Ferrell Center, they The leadership team has in- will notice a lot of energy comes vested its time to be involved with from behind the basket. Originally many promotions that happen a club, the Baylor Bear Pit looks to throughout the season. The white- create a unique fan experience for out game against Iowa State on Jan. each spectator that walks through 14 was a product of the collabora- the doors of the stadium. tion between marketing and the The tides have turned since the student organization. original installation of the former “It’s really important that we club, and after a Student Senate bill work together and communicate proposed to disband the Bear Pit closely,” Great Falls, Va., senior in 2012, a number of changes have Andrew Miner said. “The white- occurred. out game was something that In its original format, mem- leadership wanted to see come to bers were required to pay an initial life. Originally we wanted to do it fee and purchase a black and yel- for the Texas A&M game, but we low striped jersey to wear to each learned that they were going to game. Since it is no longer a club, produce T-shirts for the Iowa State none of those regulations exist. game, so we held out.” The Bear Pit has developed its The unity of the leadership brand over the past few years and team has grown to be an essential took a step forward this year with SKYE DUNCAN | LARIAT PHOTO EDITOR part of the Bear Pit’s success. Waits the installation of new bleachers The Bear Pit throws torn up newspapers into the air to get hyped up before the game begins at the Baylor men’s basketball game against Oklahoma said one of the biggest goals of the at the front of the student section. University. The Bears won 69-58 against the Sooners on Jan. 24, 2015, in the Ferrell Center. Bear Pit is to create fans that will Last year, the Bear Pit had its own keep coming back. bleachers courtside, creating a dis- ground were going crazy, but the With the reconstruction of the derstand that the Bear Pit is the “We’re a fan of the way the new stu- “We want to establish a com- jointed atmosphere within the stu- other people in the stands were student section along with the student body, Chico, Calif. senior dent section is now, and it’s helping mitted fan base rather than just the dent section. just sitting there with their hands hashtag #BUnited as their season- Matt Strickland said. them realize that it’s not a separa- wild, crazy fans. We want people “Whenever we had the sec- in their laps,” Belton senior Emily long motto, Bear Pit leadership “The entire goal we’ve been tion. It’s a community between all tion separated, the people on the Waits said. members want students to un- pushing is to be together,” he said. of the students.” SEE BEAR PIT, page 4 Speaker gives voice Sanctions to unheard songs not filed By Shannon Barbour tions and new media, who applied for Reporter a grant to host Kernodle. against The importance of the female song Returning guest Tammy Kernodle leaders of the civil rights movement is sang and discussed the role of black increasingly relevant around the world women activists who used music as a today, said Robert Darden, associate UT frat nonviolent strategy Thursday evening professor of journalism, public rela- in Castellaw Communication Center. tions and new media. By Eva Moravec “I ain’t gonna let nobody turn me “The civil rights movement is grow- Associated Press around, gonna keep on walkin’, keep ing. The music that was sung there is AUSTIN — An investigation into on talkin’, marchin’ on freedom’s way,” being sung in China today,” Darden a University of Texas fraternity whose Kernodle sang, leading the audience as said. portrayal of Hispanics at a party of- the female activists did 50 years ago. Baylor students, professors, church fended students has been completed Kernodle, a professor of musicolo- members from the community and and no sanctions are forthcoming, a gy at Miami University in Ohio, visited Waco citizens attended the event. university official said Thursday. Baylor in October to speak at the Pruit “It warmed my heart to see people Phi Gamma Delta did not vio- Symposium, three days of presenta- from the community here,” Moody late any school rules during the Feb. tions, panels and gospel performances. said. SKYE DUNCAN | LARIAT PHOTO EDITOR 7 party at their house just north of She was invited to speak this time Houston senior Mariah Arceneaux Dr. Tammy Kernodle, author of the biography “Soul on Soul: The Life and Music of Mary Lou Wil- campus, Dean of Students Soncia by Dr. Mia Moody-Ramirez, associate said she was inspired by Kernodle’s lec- liams,” presented the lecture “Over My Head I Hear Freedom in the Air: Black Women, Music and professor of journalism, public rela- the Strategy of Non-Violence in the Civil Rights Campaigns of 1961-1964” Thursday evening in the Reagins-Lilly said. SEE page 4 SONGS, Castellaw Communication Center. More than 20 complaints were filed with the university’s Campus “It is disappointing, and Keston Center remembers USSR religious persecution the university takes all By Rachel Leland nen said. of these matters very Staff Writer He said his trip inspired him to found seriously.” Q the Keston Institute in 1969 to document Though one would struggle to find evi- with Xenia Dennen human rights abuses suffered by the many Soncia Reagins-Lilly | Dean of dence of persecution of Christians on Bay- religious groups in communist countries. Students lor’s campus, students and researchers can The institute relied on books, journals visit the archives of the Keston Center for XeniaA Dennen, chairman of the Kes- started getting masses of this stuff. I met and samizdat, which were copies of cen- Religion, Politics and Society to learn what ton Institute, speaks about the history him in 1966. I just finished my course at sored documents secretly distributed by Climate Response Team, and records living in a society without religious free- of her organization and the religious university and he was receiving a lot of dissidents. released to The Associated Press show dom is like. climate in Russia and the former USSR. material of Russian Baptists who were “You felt as you read this material you the team received a complaint about The center holds thousands of books, critical of their own leadership because were directly in touch with the persecuted “stereotypical Mexican clothing” that journals, documents and testimonies on How did the institute gather data in so- of compromises with the state. He also and called to widely spread the details of fraternity members wore at a similar the persecution of churches and religious cieties that are tightly controlled? read the Soviet press and once Keston what was happening to them,” Dennen party in January 2014. The fraternity expression in former communist countries, We were sent masses of unofficial was founded we expanded and covered said. president said the party was intended mostly in the former USSR. literature called samizdat, which means all the countries of central and Eastern Three panelists spoke at the event: Dr. to have a Western theme. The Keston Center hosted a lecture and literally self-published material that are Europe and the Soviet Union. We got Stephen Gardner, Baylor’s chairman of the Conversations with fraternity panel discussion Thursday about religious types of scripts that were produced clan- local newspapers and made cuttings, ar- Baylor economics department; Dr. Wallace leadership “about their freedom of persecution in the Russian Federation and destinely and distributed secretly. You ticles in the western press, articles from Daniel, a former Baylor professor; and the expression rights” and “where the former USSR titled “Defenders of the Faith: would have a top sheet of paper which journalists in communist countries. This third panelist, Dr. James Warhola is chair line is when it becomes offensive or Then and Now. impressed the letters into the sheet un- is the data we use and the basis of the of the political science department at the hurtful” are ongoing, Reagins-Lilly Featured speaker Xenia Dennen trav- derneath. I suppose Michael, people archives. University of Maine. said in an interview Thursday. eled to Waco from England to speak about just found out he was interested so he Daniel honored Soviet dissident and “Our work is not done,” she said. the origins of the institute and the religious SEE Q&A page 4 priest Gleb Yakunin, who was sent to Le- “It is disappointing, and the univer- oppression of the Soviet era. fortovo prison for five years on the charge sity takes all of these matters very Dennen has chaired the Keston Insti- The Keston Center is housed in the third named after. Bourdeaux traveled from Eng- of anti-Soviet agitation for his activism to seriously.” tute, a research organization that docu- floor of Carroll Library.

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