Heard on the Hill: New ‘Huck Finn’ edition replaces ‘N-Word’ with ‘robot’; federal aid form is the key to other grants, too; benefits of JayDoc free clinic highlighted

Here’s your daily dose of news, notes and links from around Kansas University.

• Alan Gribben, the Mark Twain scholar and KU alumnus who released an edition of “Huckleberry Finn” and “Tom Sawyer” without the “N-word” in them, continues to attract some national attention.

Cornel West, a noted American scholar and activist from Princeton University, tweeted, “Huck Finn is a FUNKY text b/c tells the truth about America. Don’t deodorize it for the reality-denying audience of contemporary America.”

Another take, courtesy of a link a colleague sent my way: While Gribben replaced the word with “slave,” a new project seeks to replace the word with the word “robot.”

They’re looking to raise money for the project, too, to pay for illustrations. Gribben told me he expected his work to be widely criticized, but I don’t think he could have anticipated the level of backlash he’s received so far. And it just seems to keep coming.

One other relevant bit of information about this comes to mind, too. Someone (maybe my father, actually, if memory serves) read my article and asked me if the work could be just picked up and edited by anyone willy-nilly. The answer: Yup. It’s in the public domain.

• The priority filing deadline is approaching for the FAFSA, that be-all, end-all of forms to unlock federal student loans and grants (and a whole bunch of other forms of aid, too).

KU asks for the form to be filed by March 1 for the best consideration. Here’s a worksheet that helps you do that.

Why go through all the trouble? Well, it never hurts to file it. And once you do, you may find yourself eligible for a stack of money you never thought you’d find.

A grant that I always use as an example when talking to people about this topic is KU’s child care grant.

If you’re a KU student, have a child and also some child care expenses, getting that FAFSA in by March 1 can help you qualify for some extra cash to pay for those expenses. Though KU does what it can to promote these kinds of grants, I’m not sure many folks know about their existence. And if they don’t file a FAFSA, they can miss out.

A lot of good information on this topic is available here.

• Here’s a nice story on KU Medical Center’s JayDoc clinic that ran recently in the Kansas City Star.

It’s the student-run, free medical clinic in Kansas City, Kan., that serves the area’s indigent population while letting students get good experience in the field. Doctors oversee the care, but students get to participate in the whole process quite a bit.

It’s a neat place. I’ve written about it before, too.

• All I want for Valentine’s Day is tips for Heard on the Hill. Spread the love at ahyland@ljworld.com.