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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 20, 1971)
mm 24hou?s a day 7 days a week V3rn-, bill smtthcrman The only way is up f 5 1 'J Student rights Students pay tuition at UNL, so it follows that as consumers of University services they are entitled to some rights. Correct? Wrong. In many instances the student's role as a consumer in the education market is ignored. Students have little self-determination or input in many aspects of the University that vitally affect them. When University officials turn down some student proposal for change they often justify their action by saying the state's taypayers wouldn't like the change and after all the University does belong to the taxpayers. But they forget the University also belongs to the students. While the taxpayer should have a definite say in how the University is run, it does not follow that the student should always be sacrificed to the taxpayer. The student should have a large role in the decision making process of the University since tuition covers from 30 to 35 per cent of theccstsof his education and the primary reason for the University's existence is to educate students. Some examples in which the student's role as a consumer is ignored: Residence hall students have little self-determination over their living environment despite the fact that residence halls operate on money collected for room and board and receive no tax support. The Board of Regents has been blind to this fact and has repeatedly vetoed liberalized coed visitation proposals. The student in the classroom is often treated like a second-class citizen, not as a paying customer. The student usually has no say in how the class is run and is expected to attend every class session. In addition, there is a deadline after which time a course can not be dropped. Some will argue that the student, as a consumer, is not forced to attend this university. But does this fact give the University the right to act arbitarily once the student signs on the dotted line? Consumer protection is becoming a necessity in this complex world of ours. It's time that students challenge University officials as angry consumers and not just as dissatisfied students. Death's omen It is always sad to see a newspaper die as happened recenty when Courier 1 1, a campus weekly, announced it was ceasing publication for financial reasons. The Courier always made interesting reading and served a definite purpose in providing a different viewpoint than other campus publications. At a time when The Daily Nebraskan's use of student fees is under attack, the Courier's death is significant since the weekly was a financially independent operation. Many people have argued that students should not be forced to subscribe to The Daily Nebraskan and that the newspaper should become financially independent. The use of mandatory student fees for the newspaper is now being challenged in Lancaster District Court. In response to these attacks the University's Publications Committee, which acts as publisher of The Daily Nebraskan, is currently studying the feasibility of making the newspaper independent. Financial independence is a good goal to try to achieve for The Daily Nebraskan. However, as the experience of the Courier shows, the road to financial , independence for a campus newspaper is a rocky one. Gary Seacrest. 4 17 2r. '0 !.-' '. ti V " ' tr't . r,r r.r I'pifftity i U-nt xifrn-r.-Mr tti' n, fact.'- "' '" A't'lrw Tttf Oiwlv N;kkn 34 Nut, a w"tnr, U"vevi ol J i P if &w&t Sfe After numerous protests a.id arguments the University seems to be taking at least tentative steps toward solving the problems created by the lack of married student housing at UNL. With only 57 units of married student housing UNL finishes a poor eighth in the Big Eight. The nearest contender for the dubious honor of having the smallest humber of married student units is the University of Kansas with 300. But, even though a 1968 report here recommended a minimum of 400 units for married students at UNL, the University has consistently ignored the problem. In the meantime, UNL's 4,000 married students have had to find some place to live. They have naturally gravitated to lower income housing and helped to create an extremely tight low-income housing market in Lincoln, causing rents to spiral out of the reach of many low income people. In the past the University has encouraged those students who qualify to take advantage of the low income housing provided by the Lincoln Housing Authority (LHA). Over 40 per cent of the LHA units are now rented to students. It is evident that there is a problem and it is encouraging to see the University begin to realize it. At the last Board of Regents meeting Regent Robert Prokop of Wilber introduced a resolution calling for the University to discourage students from living in Lincoln's low income housing. It also called for a study of UNL's married student housing needs and the possibilities for obtaining more units. However, Prokop withdrew his resolution after it was announced by administration officials that a study of the housing problem was already under way. The study will consider the present and future needs of married students at UNL, according to. administration sources. The study is also considering the financial problems involved in obtaining more married student housing. It was also announced that the University is removing references to LHA housing from the literature it sends to perspective students. This will presumably discourage some students from renting LHA units. There are bound to be many objections if the University sets out to obtain more married student housing. If a significant number of students are taken from the Lincoln housing market the availability of low-income housing will be greater and rents will probably go down. This is not to the advantage of the property owner and there will doubtless be objections from the city's propertied people. But the University should not bow to pressures and help to exploit low income people by subsidizing high rents. The University has a social responsibility which extends to all citizens of the state. Low income people are just as important as land owners and real estate brokers. We now have cause to hope that the attitude of the University has really changed and that positive progress will soon be made in the housing area. It is the utmost importance that this much needed beginning not turn out to be a false start. Brevity in letters is request-d sr??1 ; Daily Nebraskan reserves the rigm :c condense Iptters. Ail letters rrvist bv accompanied by writer's t-iie r.,'rK , may be submitted for publication ii.ki... a pen name oi initials. However, letter, wril be printed under a pen name or initials at the editor's i'scretion. Dear editor. As I was having my car filled with gas and minding my own business the other day, a voice called from behind my station wagon. "You're for McGovern, eh?" After wondering for a split second if the young businessman addressing me was some sort of Orwellian "Thought Police" agent, I realized he was referring to the sticker on my bumper. I braced myself for a hail of invective and asinine questions as he walked over, but found to my surprise that he was full of praise for the Senator. It seems that more and more people--like this "Tiemann Republican" at the filling station - are beginning to appreciate George McGovern's "one issue" candidacy. That issue is much broader and more fundamental than ending the Indochina war and taking care of our crying domestic needs. Embodied in it are the need for honesty, straightforwardness and positive action in the highest office of this nation. Think about it. McGovern is trying to get elected without indebting himself politically to big business; without wooing the Dixie vote; without playing up to the paranoia of the Pentagon and the American Legion; and without making meaningless homilies to the type of "law and order" that involves redirecting law enforcement away from eliminating crime and towards suppressing dissent. We've been calling for a candidate like George McGovern for a long time. Let's get him elected. Andy Cunningham Goodbye, pill: tomorrow's contraceptives by M.J. Wilson (Newsweek Feature Service) It was just 10 years ago that birth control pills were first introduced to the American -market- and declared the ultimate in contraception. They were supposed to be easy to use, reliable and completely safe. But it was only a few months before the Piil was discovered to have some critical flaws: it was east to forget to take, occasionally unreliable and definitely unsafe for certain women. So for a decade, drug firms and the government have been spending millions of dollars on a research campaign to find an alternative to the Pill and its equally dubious counterpart, the intrauterine device (IUD). Now, scientists say, it appears that just such a breakthrough may be right on the horizon. In fact, so many new contraceptive techniques are being tested on humans that many scientists are predicting that at least a couple of brand new, safe, reliable and easy-to-use devices will be marketed within a year. The one closest to final success is another pill, known informally as the "mini pill." Like current pills, it must be taken every day. The difference is that the min pill does not affect ovulation. Rather, it seems to change the makeup of the mucus in the THE DAILY NEBRASKAN cervix so as to stop sperm from entering the uterus. So far, doctors have found in the mini-pill none of the damaging side effects that have plagued users of the Pill. Other promising newcomers involve drugs, hormones, rings, tubes and plugs-all of which prevent conception in a variety of ways. Some kill sperm, some prevent fertilized eggs from fastening themselves to the wall of the uterus and some even act as quick and painless abortive agents. For instance, two new techniques may end the danger of a woman forgetting to take her pill. In one, a tube of Silastic plastic is implanted under the skin of the forearm. It contains the synthetic contraceptive hormone progestin which constantly seeps in the bloodstream at the proper rate and lasts for a year. The other features a ring full of progestin that is placed in the vagina and is removed every month to permit a regular period. There is also a new kind of IUD called a "copper T"; the properties of the copper prevent conception for reasons researchers are unable to explain, as yet. And there is also a new drug that brings on a menstrual period every month, even if the woman has become pregnant, so any fertilized eggs have no chance of staying attached to the uterus. WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 20, 1971 Beyond that, there are drugs that should allay the fears of the most forgetful woman--"morning after" pills, containing synthetic estrogen, which apparently accelerate the passage of eggs through the Fallopian tubes to such a rate that they have no time to be fertilized before reaching the uterus. Even if a woman forgets to take any birth-control precautions, scientists think they will soon have "fail-safe" drugs that can be taken just after the first period is missed. These are called prostinoids and they seem to induce abortions when the embryo barely exists as a jumble of cells. Prostinoids are already being used in Britain, Sweden and Uganda with success and without side effects. The ultimate form of contraception, of course is sterilization, but it is a tough concept to peddle. Many men have fears of losing their virility -and both men and women hesitate to take such a final step. Researchers are working on a birth-control pill for men. But there seems to be greater promise in efforts to remove the finality from sterilization: giving men the chance to change their minds. The normal method of male sterilization involves snipping the tubes that carry sperm; but the process is irreversible. Now, scientists are experimenting with tiny plastic plugs that can be used to block off the WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 20, 1971 tubes. If a man later wants to have children, the plugs can be removed easily. Men already have one way to change their minds. If they don't want to have children now but are not sure about, say, six or eight years from now, they can deposit their sperm in sperm "banks" before they have a vasectomy. Frozen sperm remains fertile for at least 10 years and perhaps as long as 20 years. Curiously enough, one of the most dramatic developments in birth control involves the technique that has always been least reliable of all: the rhythm method. In the past, doctors figured that, at most, 6 out of 10 women could count on rhythm to work. Recently, though, two Illinois doctors have come up with a simple saliva test that has so far proven nearly infallible. Because a woman's body chemistry changes just before ovulation and the change registers in her saliva, it is possible to tell whether she is about to ovulate by placing a piece of treated paper in her mouth for a few moments each day. When she is about to ovulate the paper turns blue and she knows to abstain from intercourse for five to seven days. So far, according to a California gynecologist who has tried the test on 700 women, "we have had no case where someone conceived vhen the test did not show ovulation." THE DAILY NEBRASKAN "fcOTUHJ 5121 "O" STREET They're making a batch right now! 48811g Oonu (fx n i TEN YEARS AFTER IN CONCERT FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 5 8:00 PM PERSHING AUDITORIUM RESERVED SEATING 3.50 4.50 5.50 NOW AVAILABLE AT PERSHING AUDITORIUM BOX OFFICE BRANDEIS MILLER & PAINE TREASURE CITY RICHMAN GORDMAN ....A GOLD STAR PRODUCTION. 'rg3L- lb v i ft i Our Butt0n-hroig:li Jeaxi jSelllb byLje ! fl U It's the most popular jean on ths market. Our blue jean bells with brass buttons. Sizes 26 to 38. Stock u now. They move outlfait. I 7.S0 1 I Where It's At Shops Downtown and Gateway I 1 4 ! ti, (, iv. ti ', i K 1 . V "L'frt PAGE 4 PAGE 5