THE STUDENT VOICE SINCE 1904
SPORTS
INSIDE KU has debuted a “retirement incentive plan” for older faculty.
Kansas soccer starts the season 2-0 for the first
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time since 2014 The University Daily Kansan
vol. 137 // iss. 2 Mon., August 20, 2018
The University’s Theatre and Dance departments have merged.
SEE SOCCER • PAGE 8
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‘Tell My Family I Love Them’
Erik Harken lost his older brother in a car accident four years ago. Now, he’s turning the tragedy into a short film COURTNEY BIERMAN @courtbierman To this day, Erik Harken isn’t sure exactly what the police officer said to his mother. The next thing he heard was his mother’s scream as she was told that her eldest son had died. Harken lost his brother Mark in a car accident four years ago. Harken was 17. Mark was 20. Now Harken, a senior studying film, is making a short film to honor his brother and the lessons he learned from his death. The 14-minute film is called “Tell My Family I Love Them,” and is largely autobiographical, according to Harken. It follows high school student Thomas as he reckons with the loss of his brother. At the beginning of the story, Thomas is focused on his track career and nothing else — he’s “blatantly an asshole.” But losing a brother makes him reevaluate what’s really important. Thomas emerges from tragedy having learned to better appreciate his friends and family. “I wanted to write something that was authentic to my experience and hopefully would be to other people’s, and also I wanted it to be something that dealt with grief in a positive way,” Harken said. “That’s the part that never gets discussed, that there’s a lot of hope in the whole situation. You can’t change what happened, but you can make something better out of it.”
The title “Tell My Family I Loved Them,” has a layered meaning. For one, they were Mark’s last words. “I think the last thing that my brother said to the first responder was basically like, ‘Tell my mom and dad that I love them,’ or ‘Tell my family I’m sorry,’” Harken said. The words are also the lesson Thomas learns from grief. Like Thomas, Harken hardly, if ever, said I love you before his brother died. He said he couldn’t remember ever saying it to his parents, and he certainly never said it to Mark.
“... I wanted it to be something that dealt with grief in a positive way.” Erik Harken senior
“My biggest regret about the whole situation is that I never did get the chance to tell my brother that I loved him. Up until that point, I don’t think I really said it to my mom or my dad or anybody,” Harken said. “Once you get to know someone in a relationship, it’s really important to show affection and vulnerability toward people.” It was the day after the Fourth of July in 2014. Harken and his family were on vacation at Tru-
man Lake in Missouri. Members of their extended family were there as well, along with family friends the Millers. Harken was on his way back to his family’s cabin with his mother Sarah, aunt, and best friend Cole Miller when they encountered a roadblock. The police wouldn’t let them pass, and Harken immediately got a bad feeling. “I think at first Erik was pretty upset, and I didn’t really understand why,” Miller said. “I guess he had a feeling that something happened to [Mark].” Hours passed. No word and no Mark. He had been in the car with Miller’s older brother, Clay, as well as four friends. Finally a police officer approached Sarah and broke the news. Mark had lost control of the car on the gravel road and crashed into a tree. He died shortly after. The four other passengers, who had been in the backseat, had only minor injuries. “At that point I didn’t even cry or get upset, I just kind of went into shock and I walked the other way,” Harken said. “And I just sat down on the curb, and was like wow, that just happened.” They were on their way to the hospital to view Mark’s body when Miller got a call from his parents. The accident had also killed Clay. Policy required police to notify the parents first. Miller and Harken were
Contributed photo Harken shot the film over two weekends in Overland Park and at Lake of the Ozarks. Above is a still from the movie.
friends before the accident, but they’re ever closer now, Miller said. Later that same day, they were sitting next to each other, still processing the events of the last few hours. “And I said, ‘We just need to keep hanging out all the time now.’ So that’s where it started,” Miller said. “We just started hanging out more to try to make ourselves feel a little better and talk about it when we needed to. Ever since then we’ve been closer than ever.” A scene in the script is
inspired by their conversation that day. “I started reading it and I was like, ‘Oh my god. I cannot read this. This is too powerful,’” Miller said. But Miller was supportive of the project. He visited the set and even appears as an extra. Production of the film was completed over a twoweek period in July. Principle photography took place in Harken’s hometown of Prairie Village. The remainder was shot the following weekend at Lake of the Ozarks.
Production went smoothly, but it wasn’t easy for everyone on set. Harken said his family tried to visit, but it was too painful for them to stay. It was too familiar for them. Many scenes are an almost exact retelling of what happened that day in July, such as a scene in which Laura cries over her son’s body at the hospital. LAURA I love you so much Mark. She clutches onto him waiting for a response. SEE HARKEN • PAGE 4
University set to enter fall semester tobacco-free HAILEY DIXON @_hailey_dixon Jayhawks entering the fall semester will have to find a location off-campus if they want to take a smoke break. After three years of lobbying from anti-smoking groups, the University is set to enter its first full school year as a tobacco-free campus, a policy that went into effect on July 1. For campus leaders, it’s a point of pride. But for smokers, many of whom are international students, it’s going to mean hunting down a new spot to light up. “We ask them to respect the policy,” said Aftan Jameson, Watkins Health Services education program coordinator. The habit is most common for international students, she said, where smoking is more widely accepted. “From their culture, their country, they came in where that is not only legal, but it is accepted,” she said, noting the Tobacco Free KU Steering
Committee spent the spring semester trying to inform international students of the impending change. Zsofia Oszlanczi, president of the International Student Association at the University, said the group has been working to inform international students of the impending changes and consequences. Last year, then-president Hollie Hall worked with the steering committee to print informational flyers in five different languages. Still, Oszlanczi said, the change is going to be tough. “The intent is to ensure a healthy and positive learning environment,” she said. “However, what I can say is that I think it can still negatively affect international students.” A survey issued last fall by the committee found that 87 percent of individuals did not smoke within the last 30 days or had never smoked at all. After that survey, the campus began looking at banning tobacco products, Jameson said.
“It took a year to get the policy up and running and [give] people a heads up,” she said. “There’s been a lot of work on this policy for a long, long time.” “Although some smokers may not be pleased with the policy,” Jameson said she has received “a lot of positive feedback.” “I see a lot of relief,” she said. “I see that perception; people are relieved.” Although smoking is banned at the University, individuals can still smoke in their cars on campus, Jameson said. There are no guidelines for whether or not windows must be closed. Oszlanczi said she expects the change to be difficult for all students, but specifically those who come from a place where tobacco use is more accepted. “For someone that’s specifically coming from a culture that allows tobacco use and it’s very common to smoke and they’re not regulated that much, they’ll probably feel a bit forced to quit,” she said. “But after a while, if they
Bob(Jiatong) Li/KANSAN Tobacco will not be allowed on campus starting in the fall semester.
see there are resources available for them, I think that maybe it can encourage them to try to quit smoking.” For those who are interested in quitting, Jameson said there are resources available on campus, including UKanQuit, a free, six-week program, which includes nicotine replacement therapy. “And it’s private sessions with me to go over behavior techniques of
how to cope with quitting,” she said. She said there is a similar program for staff and faculty. Jameson said individuals can also take steps to cut back on smoking, such as only smoking during social events, and on the weekends or evenings. “To come to Watkins, they have to be in a place where they want to quit,” she said.
As the school year commences, Oszlanczi said the group will focus on making sure everyone is well aware of the change. It’s going to be hard, it’s going to be hard for everyone,” she said. “All we can do is make sure they understand what this is and how they can make use of the resources available to them.”