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Student regent
A proposal to add a student to the
membership of the NU Board of Regents is
currently stalled in the Unicameral's
Constitutional Revision and Recreation
Committee. The measure deserves committee
approval so that it can be advanced to the
floor of the Legislature for consideration.
LB323, introduced by State Sen. Richard
Marvel of Hastings, calls for a constitutional
amendment to be submitted to Nebraska
voters. If approved, the amendment would
add a student position to the current
eight-member Board of Regents. This ninth
seat could be held by as many as three
full-time NU students, under the provisions of
Marvel's bill.
At a public committee hearing on LB323
last week, Marvel testified that the existence
of a student regent would "encourage
students to work within the institution." A
student regent would give other regents "a
point of view which may not be there" now,
Marvel correctly pointed out.
ASUN second vice president Michele
Gagne, in her testimony before the committee
last week, stated the most important reason
for implementing the student regent idea.
"Major (Board of Regents) decisions are not
mads in public meeting," she said. She
explained that the student advisory board
which currently confers with regents prior to
their monthly meetings has little influence on
the regents because the advisory board
doesn't "have access to information."
Hopefully, the regents would find it more
difficult to act without informing NU's
student population if there was a student
regent in their midst.
Theoretically, a student regent would
guarantee that NU students, who are the
primary consumers of the University's
"product," would be represented in the
policy-making processes of the institution.
Indeed, they would be participants in decision
making.
Some Nebraskans fear that students are
trying to take over the University
administration and that the student regent
proposal is the first step in that direction.
Student proponents of LB323 never have
made any statements which would support
such fears. Several students have said that the
first priority concern of any student regent
should be the improvement of the quality of
University teach ing-hardly a revolutionary
idea. Campus and student life issues also are
seen as possible major concerns of a student
regent and it is obvious that a student would
have more first hand knowledga of dormitory
rules, tuition policies and other student
matters than does the current membership of
the Board of Regents.
Nebraska Wesleyan University (NWU) now
has student membership on its governing
board. In the view of many NWU students, as
well as some administrators, the "student
governor" has increased rapport between
students and the governing board at that
school.
The NU Board of Regents currently is
composed of individuals who have little or no
direct contact with the campus environment
or the student population at the University.
As Marvel hds pointed out, the regents are
"not present consumers of education." Their
professional commitments simply do not
allow individual regents much time for
interaction with students. A yearly dinner
with the UNL Innocents and Mortar Boards
obviously does not fulfill the regents' need for
contact with students.
LB323 should be advanced to the floor.
And the Unicameral should then approve the
measure for a citizens' referendum. University
students deserve the chance for better and
more direct representation on the Board of
Regents.
Tom Lansworth
God created
man, solitaire
and politicians
With today's politicians constantly in the
limelight (more preferably they should be in
our headlights, so we could keep on driving),
it is amazing that no one before me has
written a piece explaining the origins of
politicians. Below, in simple question and
answer form, are those origins.
Why did God create man?
Before there was anything else, there was
God. God was alone. For a while He
entertained Himself by inventing and playing
double solitaire, but this soon bored Him. So
God created the universe and mankind to be
His playthings.
Previously, God has had problems with
angels who were a bit too smart for His own
good. He therefore created Man so that Man
was dumb. Man was not smart enough to get
in His hair.
Man was also dumb enough to be fun to
watch.
God was quite a buffoon and trickster.
He appeared to man in all sorts of forms and
disguises. (Incidentally, God appeared to
Moses as a burning bush on October 31,
2000 B.C. We have commemorated this day
ever since as Halloween.)
God was not a bad sort. He created Man
so that Man's main purpose in life was to
make love. (After all, God so loved the
world that He made His only Son and where
do sons come from?
bob russell
However, God and Man were soon in
trouble. The devil, the angel God created
before He was smart enough to create dumb
creatures, started enticing Man and leading
Man on false paths. After the devil's
chicanery, Man thought that he too was
smart So God ended up with a creature who
was dumb and arrogant at the same time.
How did all this nonsense lead to
politicians?
After watching Man as both a dumb and
arrogant creature, God started enjoying
himself again. He let the devil oo on with his
handiwork and created two fundamental
laws of the universe.
Law one: As a man is dumber, so shall he
be more arrogant in direct proportion to the
square of his dumbness.
Law two: As a man is arrogant, so shall
his wind-baggedness and belligerence
increase in direct proportion to the cube to
his arrogance. With no further explanation,
we can see that politicians are simply the
dumbest and most arrogant men on earth.
When did God pull off his biggest trick?
,The one known as God's Son is His
biggest trick. His Son is the greatest
politician in all history. He offered the
people both love and fire. Nevertheless, He
gained more constituents than any other
politician in either ancient or recent history.
However, toward the end of his career, He
went beyond His limits and His constituents
crucified Him. These days we have less crude
methods for getting politicians out of office.
Of late, politicians have offered their
constituents love or fire, but not both (with
less short-range success than God's Son). The
major politician in our country today has
had only limited success with fire.
Is there no hope for having decent
politicians?
There is only slight hope. There are some
rare individuals who do not conform to
God's two fundamental laws completely. A
few men are somewhat intelligent and
extremely arrogant at the same time.
We should search out these men to be our
politicians. Unfortunately, this law can also
vary in the opposite way, that is, some men's
dumbness is way out of proportion with
their arrogance. (In our own state, for
example, we have Sen. Roman Hruska.)
What do these new and profound insights
into politics say about the upcoming ASUN
elections?
Unfortunately for the student body we
have had more than our share of Roman
Hruskas in student government. (This
includes the quality of mediocrity, although
I have yet to derive the empirical relation
between arrogance, belligerence, dumbness
and mediocrity.
This election looks like a re-run (re-runs
being in vogue in America these days-this
tendency commonly referred to cs
conservatism) of past elections. The only
hope the voters have is if they can get a
friend or relative elected to office, they too
can get in on all the goodies (although the
ASUN goodies are not bounteous, this fact
perhaps accounting for the out of
proportion dumbness of ASUN people).
What can an intelligent person do about
politicians?
About all an intelligent person can do is
sit back and enjoy the fun (as our Greater
Example does). Admittedly, politicians get
out of hand quite often, insofar as they
promote looting, pillaging, death and other
things. The only answer here is prayer,
offering God better entertainment than he is
already getting from the politicians.
Greeks want
dialogue, not
cheap potshots
Ken . Cobb ,Js : a senio in the College of Business
Administration; He is chairman of the Interfraternity Council
Judicii 'Boardf: : - (
by Ken Cobb
It has become popular in recent years to malign Greek
systems about various campuses and to predict their
immediate downfall. Too often the tremendous by-products
offered to a college by a strong Greek system are ignored by
those who are not a part of it. Yet nationwide membership
continues to grow steadily at between five and eiqht per cent a
year, and there are good reasons for this.
Quite simply, I believe that the average Greek gets more out
of the University because he puts more into it. The
opportunity in a house to know many people closely, to lead,
to get involved, and to develop one's self-potential exists to an
extent that is more difficult to achieve in other living units.
The sense ot identity provided by the group has had a positive
effect on many lives; nationwide a Greek student is more
likely to obtain a degree than his non-Greek counterpart.
At UNL, Greeks participate in intramurals, University
activities, and even vote in campus elections in greater
proportion to the total student population. The impact is
unmistakable. For instance, how many people know that 72
per cent of the U.S. Congress consists of former Greeks, that
80 per cent of the presidents of the 500 largest American
corporations were once fraternity members, or that 90 per
cent of alumni contributions to UNL come from former
members of the houses here?
Man non-members like to perceive the system as consisting
merely of "Freddie Fraternity Rat" and "Susie Sorority." If
this type of stereotying was ever true at all. it belonaed to a
different era than the 1970's. Outside of some overzealous
younger members who overdo the Greek identity bit. on this
campus it is usually impossible to tell who is a Greek and who
isn t, which is as it should be.
suggQslisfi box
The discrimination question is being overdone at this time.
There is still room for much improvement, but several fo UNL
fraternities have actively sought to pledge blacks in the last
year, which represents a marked change since 1969. When
minority group students decide to join, an evergrowing portion
of the houses will await them with open arms.
Physical hazing almost has been and should be totally
eliminated from the system, although some verbal fun-poking
Is directed at new members in every spirited peer group. Most
of the fraternities have replaced hell weeks with house work
projects, campus speakers and other projects.
At its best, the Greek house can be a dynamic learning
environment for the oeoDle-oriented inHiuirlnal Tha
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isn t for everybody and does not claim to be, but it is a vitally
important living alternative on any rounded university campus
All too often, however, the most ardent supporters of campus
freedom would like to deny the Greeks' right to exist, as if the
houses represented some sort of threat to the other students
Perhaps in this area we need more meaningful dialoque and
rewer cneap snots. I
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Wednesday, march 7, 1973
page 4
daily nebraskan
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