Making education
relevant
A long standing complaint of students has been that
their college education is not "relevant" to the world they
live in. However, two recent developments show that
University officials have been busy formulating education
programs that promise to offer innovative alternatives to
the typical lecture class.
One of the new programs, NOVA (Nebraska
Opportunities for Volunteers in Action) is a social action
program funded by ACTION, the new federal agency which
coordinates the Peace Corps, Vista and other service
programs. NOVA currently gives over 100 students from
the three NU campuses 30 credit hours and subsistance
wages for one year spent in volunteer community service.
NOVA volunteers will gain valuable experience in the
field to supplant their formal education. Hopefully,
students planning to be teachers, social workers or
psychologists will develop a greater understanding and
compassion as a result of their community work.
University officials should be complimented for securing
the grant for NOVA, which promises to be one of the most
exciting programs ever developed at Nebraska. Besides
being an innovative program, it answers the demand of NU
students to be granted credit for field work. University
officials should make every effort to expand the program to
accomodate as many students as possible.
In another new development. University administrators
recently announced tentative plans for "University
College," which would be a innovative degree-granting
college at UNL.
The proposed curriculum of the college would include
two years of general interdisciplinary studies followed by
two years of specialized studies. The program would stress
flexibility and offer both courses in the humanities and the
sciences. The proposed college, still under intensive
evaluation, is the result of a $250,000 matching grant from
the Ford Foundation.
Student demand for educational reform at UNL has
eDDed since May, 1970 when an all-University townhall
meeting called for the creation of a "New University" to
provide more relevant education. However, "University
College" and NOVA demonstrates that educational reform
is still a high priority of University officials and that they
are moving the school forward in the field of innovative
education.
We gotta get out
of this place
The tragedy of the Vietnam War has again been brought before
the American people recently by the strong arm tactics used by
South Vietnam President Thieu in that country's upcoming
Presidential election.
However, there will be no free election since Thieu has forced
all the other candidates off the ballot. Instead there will be a
referendum, like those held in Communist countries. The Thieu
dictatorship now sits on the throne of 45,000 American war
dead.
National columnist Tom Braden recently pointed out that
since Thieu has established a dictatorship, the last justification for
U. S. military involvement has crumbled.
President Nixon has told the American people that we had two
reasons for remaining in Vietnam. The first was to get the U. S.
prisoners of war back and the second was to ensure a chance for
the survival of a free government in South Vietnam.
North Vietnam eliminated the first reason when it offered to
return American prisoners once the U. S. declares a specific
withdrawal date. Now Thieu has crippled reason number two. A
free government without free elections is a contradiction in
terms.
The U. S., through its Vietnamization program, has ensured a
chance for the survival of the current government in South
Vietnam. But the question remains how long will Vietnamization
continue?
The U. S. should quit worrying about Thieu's dictatorship and
instead should concentrate on efforts to free the prisoners and
withdraw from Vietnam. This means setting a definite withdrawal
date.
Realpolitik calls for some U. S. aid to South Vietnam, but the
current South Vietnam government is certainly not worth the
continued sacrifice of American soldiers.
Gary Seacrest.
mm
Telephone: editor: 472 2588, news: 472 2589, advertising
472 2590. Second clast pottage rates paid at Lincoln, Nebraska.
The Daily Nebraskan if a student publication, independent of the
University of Nebraska's administration, faculty and student
government.
Address: The Daily Nebraskan, 34 Nebraska Union, University of
Nebraska, Lincoln, Nebraska 68508.
The harvest moon bathed the campus in red light once
again; the fifth autumn.
In the four years that had gone before its rising, many
things had changed and others stayed the same.
Freshmen still begin the year wandering across the malls,
looking lost. Lines seem to form everywhere and stretch off
into the sunset. Bureaucratic confusion is practiced almost
like a religion, world without end.
But other, more important, things have changed. In my
first fall, 1967, the Vietnam war was still at its height and
the Silent Majority was quiet and unnamed. Most of us
thought there was some justification for the fighting.
ASUN met quietly each Wednesday and didn't bother
anyone much. The student voice was low. The Vietnam
Moratorium was more than two years away.
There were riots in the cities as ghetto dwellers became
militant, but the university still taught strictly "liberal
arts." Social problems were for the graduate level. But , there were
powerful currents here that we scarcely felt beneath us.
Little by little the carefully built fascade was slipping from
Vietnam and the poor. Lyndon Johnson looked haggard
from trying to hold up the shield.
I remember hearing arguments outside an SDS booth in
the union. Pictures of mutilated Vietnamese children were
on display and the people in the booth talked about
following the lead of Berkeley.
Some argued that the war was necessary to stop
Communism and that students should only have the voice
in their own affairs they wer. able to pay for. The
arguments sounded good in 1967. Now they sound hollow.
The peace symbol appeared in a few places. Most ot us
didn't know what it meant. It was just a sign of the left.
But the red moon over the campus reflects less
Vietnamese blood now. The war is winding down and
almost no one supports it now. They have seen that the
fight was false and hollow, a politican's war, like most.
Students now have the vote. They are no longer just a
faceless glob of unrepresented humanity. They are a power
to be reckoned with.
Though freshmen still wander vacantly, looking for
Burnett Hall or Oldfather or CBA, they are caught up in
powerful forces of change just by being here. They will be
listened to when they decide to speak.
There are real hopes of enlightenment, real hopes of
understanding and hopes of a really new generation. The
times, if the reader will excuse the phrase, really are
changing. Let's hope the change continues for the better.
In future writings I hope to cover many subjects. This
hopefully to be my only column of nostalgia. As Lewis Carrol
put it:
'The time has come.' the Walrus said,
'To talk of many things:
Of shoes-and ships-and sealing wax
Of cabbages-and kings
And why the sea is boiling hot
And whether pigs have wings.'
M U'tMbS to
Brevity in letters is requested and the
Daily Nebraskan reserves the right to
condense letters. All letters must be
accompanied by writer's true nam but
may be submitted for publication under
pen name or initials. However, letters
will be printed under a pen name or
initials at the editor's discretion.
Dear bditor,
Sieve Tiwald's letter of
September 8 riled me good.
Partly because it wasn't true,
and mostly because he called
me irresponsible without
provocation, justification or
reason.
Steve said in effect, that
even though I was correct in
my comments concerning the
search committee we just
finished serving on, I had no
business making those
criticisms, because he had
judged me to be irresponsible.
That is approximately the same
thing the white supremist
power structure in this country
has been telling blacks and
other undesirables like
students, pinkos and poor
THE DAILY NEBRASKAN
people for years: "we don't
consider your criticisms valid
because you don't meet our
standards."
First, I was not
irresponsible. When I was
interviewed by the ASUN
nominating committee I said,
in response to their question of
how much time I could spend
on the committee during the
summer, that I worked for a
living and farmed during the
summer but would be able to
attend most of the important
meetings and I would do the
best I could. And that is what 1
did.
Second, and more
importantly, even if I were
irresponsible, who is Steve
Tiwald to decide who can and
cannot criticize what? Who
elected him God? And what is
more important-lhat wc gather
all the valid criticism wc can
concerning this search
committee to prevent needless
duplication of errors in future
committees, or decide who
ought to be able to offer valid
criticism on the search
committee?
I think that Steve ought to
get his priorities straight. If he
is going to resort to cheap
name calling tacti'i, I will
make him eat his words.
Tiwald should be at Hyde Park
this Thursday at 3:30 p.m.
wearing a gun.
John K. Hansen, student
member of the Chancellor
Search Committee
d.b. varnor
Revising NU
by-laws
Al&is bill smilherman
v- Nostalgia and
a few hard facts
The following are excerpts
from President I). H. Vomer's
comments in June to the
36-memher University of
Nebraska Study Committee,
which is now in the process of
revising the University 's
by-laws.
There are three particular
areas which have been a matter
of some concern for some
time, and 1 should like to
identify them with the hope
that you will devote some
serious thought to each of
them.
The first of these concerns
has to do with the general
concept of involvement in
decision making. Yet I must
confess to a degree of concern
about how much involvement
is appropriate and at what
point we have moved to gross
wastefulness of scarce human
talent. All of us who have had
experience in administration
know the value of open lines of
communication and of
participating with appropriate
persons in the making of
decisions. Not only is it
important that this be done
from the standpoint of internal
morale, but it also harnesses
the far flung abilities of many
competent contributors.
Yet as I have watched the
proliferation of committee
after committee within the
University, I have been
depressed by the growing
cumbersomeness of the
decision making process. As
each group claims its "right" to
participate and in turn creates
its structure and sub-structure
of committees, it is little
wonder that the University
moves with its characteristic
awkwardness...
The increasing involvement
of faculty and staff time on
internal non-academic matters
has been brought into sharp
focus in the course of the past
year as this University has
grappled with a sequence of
problems emerging from the
events of May 1970. Mercifully
I shall not recount them here,
but let me suggest that no one
in this University could be
proud of the number of man
hours which went into one or
two or t hree of the
controversial cases at this
University in the past fifteen
months.
In retrospect I have been
persuaded that surely there
must be a better way for a
university to manage these
kind of problems. 1 am
increasingly persuaded that the
extensive and expensive use of
faculty and student lime in
dealing with the more serious
internal disciplinary matters
cannot be justified. It seems to
me that there must be a more
effective scheme-from every
point of view-to accomodate
these situations. For example, I
have found attractive the
argument advanced by one of
the members of the law faculty
of the University of Wisconsin
in which he proposes that an
external hearing officer or
external hearing body be
utilized...
Such an external mechanism
could protect the rights of the
accused, as well as the
institution, accumulate the
evidence, and submit this to
the governing board, the
appropriate administrative
officer.or even to a designated
faculty committee. In light of
our own enormous expenditure
of manpower in the course of
these past months, I should
think that this approach would
warrant serious consideration.
As an alternative to some of
our existing patterns, 1 have
wondered occasionally if we
might not find it more
expeditious to elect annually a
small cabinet of respected and
senior faculty members to
work closely with the campus
presidents with the recognition
that their teaching
responsibilities must be
commensurately lessened.
While I am not making this as a
proposal, and I have not
thought about its many
ramifications, it would seem
just possible that this kind of
body, given broad powers by
the faculty, could achieve a
more desirable end result with
far less outlay of human
manpower. If it has merit at
the faculty level, it may
similarly have merit from the
standpoint of student
organizations.
A third alternative--and I
suggest this with
understandable timidity-is that
the administration be entrusted
with the mission of
administration--that there
might be some belief that the
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-
administrators have been
chosen because they are
competent, because they are
honest, and with the
expectation that they can and
will perform in the best
interests of the University as a
whole and of the individuals
involved.
My purpose in flagging this
area to your attention is not to
deny the spirit of participation
but rather to ask if we may not
have gone too far already in
this area in terms of the
will-being of the institution. I
have seen so many thoroughly
competent teachers and
scholars spend endless hours in
committee activities with
frequently questionable end
products and while afl this has
been occurring, I have been
mindful of the great
contributions which could have
been made in their assigned
areas of responsibility.
I hope you will give serious
and extensive thought to the
notion of making it possible to
the maximum extent for
teachers to teach, for scholars
to be involved with their
scholarship, for students to
learn and to grow, and for
administrators to
accommodate their assigned
responsibilities- all with a
minimum expenditure of
manpower.
The second major area to
which 1 would invite your
particular attention has to do
with the concept of tenure. I
am sure that I do not have to
underscore for you here the
fact that tenure is under attack
nationally. You and 1
understand what tenure is
about and we also understand
that the alleged abuses are rare
in the academic community.
Yet it is doubtful if any of us
who have spent some time in a
university would deny that
abuses have existed, that
occasionally tenured faculty
members go into early
retirement at full pay.
It is my belief that
substantial changes will occur
in the system of tenure as we
now know it to be, and it
would be my hope that we
might be creative enough to
identify and to preserve the
strengths of the tenure system
and eliminate the potential for
abuses. I do not suggest to you
today that I have the answer to
this sensitive problem.
A first approximation of
this concept would go
something like this. Tenure
would be awarded through an
appropriate procedure and at a
specified time to a faculty
member for a given
term-perhaps a five-year term.
At the end of this first tenure
term, a panel of peers-possibly
from other universities-would
be assembled to review the
continued growth and
effectiveness of the tenured
faculty member. If this group
of peers concluded that he was
indeed continuing to perform
with effectiveness, if he was
continuing to grow in his
teaching andor his scholarship,
his tenure would be extended
for an additional five years
subject again to the same
review process.
A plan of this kind would
protect the tenured faculty
member against political
witch-hunts and would assure a
continuation of tenure as long
as the individual demonstrated
his worth. On the other hand,
it would protect the
University's interests in
assuring that tenured faculty
members merited this
continued institutional
commitment.
The third and last
suggestion which I would place
before you for your
consideration is one closely
related to the concept of
tenure. I am increasingly of the
opinion that administrative
appointments should be for a
fixed term subject to the same
kind of external scrutiny as I
have suggested for tenured
faculty members. . . The length
of the term is open to a good
deal of argument. At the
maximum, in my judgment,
such a term would be five years
and it might be desirable for
review periods to be fixed each
three years.
Let me conclude as I began
by reminding you that the
work which you are beginning
is of the utmost importance to
the effective and proper
functioning of the University
of Nebraska. To do this job
well requires from each of
you an understanding of the
nature of a university, its
relationship to the people of
the state and to the legislature.
It calls for a particular
sensitivity to the authority and
responsibilities assigned to the
Board of Regents. At the same
time you can never lose sight
of true purposes of a university
and the particular purposes of
the University of Nebraska.
Your assignment is a
difficult one, but important
work has a characteristic of
being difficult and sometimes
frustrating. Yet the task is
important enough to warrant
the best efforts of our best
people, and I personally am
delighteJ that you are willing
to join in this enterprise.
THE DAILY NEBRASKAN
The BALFOUR Rep
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PAGE 5
PAGE 4
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 1971
