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Eco 3 : campus
All too often students see the ecology as a
combination of several ideals-complicated,
optimistic and unrealistic ideals.
These ideals, while admirable, are usually
inconsequential. More often, what students
need is insight Into their immediate
environment, the UNL campus.
For far too long students have emphasized
the nonsubstantiaK side of ecology and
ignored the dirt-urtder-the-fingernails facts:
UNL is in desperate need of ecological
concern.
Take, for example the wastepaper strewn
from one end of the campus to the other,
rrlaking the University more a giant waste
basket than a campus. A trivial concern? Not
really. Every small component of the problem
of ecological neglect makes a solution more
unlikely.
Take also plans for a new East Campus
Union-which may be placed directly in the
center of a now-grassy mall. Some East
Campus students have complained that this
placement of the new East Union will destroy
one of the few green areas left for students.
Remembering the destruction of many
East Campus pine trees this summer for a
road-widening project, it seems even the
agricultural community is not safe from
environmental rape. And, of course, City
Campus is already little more than a cement
slab.
Consider also, the lack of a total campus,
ecology study. As far as can be ascertained,
no real effort to study the UNL campus
ecology problems has been made. Which in
many ways explains ecological nonconcern in
campus planning and expansion. No one
knows the exact status of the UNL
environment or where it will go in the
future.
ASUN's Environmental Task Force has
made some definite moves toward a
constructive campus ecology program.
However, it has received little help in its
efforts from the student body or the
administration.
A Task Force-initiated plan requesting the
University to buy recycled mimeograph paper
was rejected by the University on the grounds
that the 15 per cent increase in cost of the
paper was not economical. Obviously,
priorities are somewhat misplaced.
Similar is the runaround given the Task
Force by University Job Pool this year. Last
year, you will remember, the Daily Nebraskan
and the University cooperated in placing and
emptying recycling barrels for used newsprint
around campus. At the end of the year, the
University picked up the barrels, with the
professed intention of returning them this
fa"- u
Over the summer, however, many ot the
barrels were misplaced. Some mysteriously
turned up as trash barrels, but the
whereabouts of most are unknown.
So now the campus has gone without
recycling barrels for a full month. And despite
the urging of the Task Force, which is now
assisting with the project and the Daily
Nebraskan the barrels are not out yet.
(Promises are that the barrels will be placed
Monday.) .
Finally, one of the most affirmative
actions taken by any area of the University
has come from the residence halls.
Burr Hall has begun a newsprint and can
recycling project, which it hopes to expand to
include a larger area of East Campus.
Another effort in this direction is in the
works at Abel and Sandoz Halls, where the
residents will be holding a can and newsprint
drive to raise funds for the All University
Fund. Both these projects are clearly worthy
of commendation.
The sad part is that without help from the
University these projects will fail. The
administration and the student body must
both lay aside ideals and start doing the dirty
work.
Jim Gray
V :
Botch (the Elder) finds strange new twist
michee
coye
Someone once said journalists never
really lie, they just print the news as
they would like you to see it. Ever
since the time a local reporter quoted
the first and last words of a statement
I made, but invented everything in
between, I just haven't been much of a
believer in the printed word.
Yet it was with no small amount of
anxiety that I approached the seventh
level stacks in Love Library last week.
I had just read a statement by an up
and coming regent candidate, a
statement which bitterly condemned
the lawlessness and disorder running
rampant on this campus. I hadn't
really noticed much of anything
running about campus lately, let alone
anything running rampant. (I thought
the campus police had some sort of
law against that.)
At any rate, this same regent
candidate went on to criticize the
University administration for its
"excessive permissiveness," which has
not only allowed students to become
exposed to "every form of human
depravity," but has also resulted in
"the fear some students have of
entering the library to study in the
evening.
Needless to say, my curiosity as
well as my blood pressure rose as I
thought about that last statement.
Could it be that I have spent three
years, two months, and four days on
this campus, completely exposed to
every form of human depravity, and
have not been aware of it?
Is it possible that one man, known
to frequent University grounds only
occasionally, knows more about
campus life than any student who lives
there year-around? It was with a
sinking heart and befuddled mind that
I entered the library to do my own
investigating.
It didn't take time to immerse
myself in study once I'd climbed the
steps to seventh floor Love.
Nevertheless, I somehow couldn't
shake the feeling that someone was
watching me. And sure enough, only
ten minutes after I'd settled myself in,
a man in a trench coat, with a hat
pulled low over his face, emerged from
the shadows. Naturally I was
somewhat surprised, but I became
even more so when I recognized this
strange figure as old former State
Senator Precipice Botch (the Eldsr).
"What are you doing here?" I
demanded to know.
"I am exercising my rights as a
citizen of this state by. . .by. . .by. . .,"
he sputtered.
I noticed that a book had dropped
from his coat pocket as he approached
me. "What are you reading?" I asked
as I picked it up and began to leaf
through the pages. I immediately
noticed that band aids had been placed
over several of the drawings and many
of the photographs, yes, even many of
the sentences had been blacked out. I
rushed to the nearest book shelf and
started flicking through the pages. All
the books had received the same
treatment.
"This is censorship!" I cried in
dismay.
Old Botch merely smiled and said,
"I've only just begun to curb the tide
of evil and disruption on this campus.
Wait unil the November regent
elections."
I could only groan in reply. It
seems politics in Nebraska have taken
a strange new twist.
thursday, October 5, 1972
page 4
daily nebraskan
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