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Wednesday, december 12, 1973
lincoln, nebraska vol. 97 no. 57
CSL polls students on differentiated housing
By Jane Owens
About 1,200 UNL students have the chance to
answer survey questions on visitation and alcohol
polities in dormitories this week, according to the
chairman of the differentiated housing subcommittee.
The subcommittee is part of the Council on
Student Life's (CSL) Housing Policy Committee.
Distributed Friday to dormitory student assistants,
the survey asks students whether they would like to
live in unisex or various types of coed dorms, student
Tim Evensen said. It also asks their opinions on
alcohol and visitation policies and on establishing
acodemic floors in dorms, he said.
Such floors would house students who want to live
in a quiet, studious atmosphere or who share certain
majors or interests, Evensen explained.
Results of the survey will be used to prepare a
differentiated housing proposal. The proposal will set
up dorm floors having varying rules on visitation and
alcohol, he said. Students will be able to choose to
live on floors having from none to 6 hours of
visitation a day to those having none to 24 hours,
Y vensen said.
They also will be able to choose to live in dorms
that are unisex or coed by alternating floors or wings,
he added.
The proposal would abolish both the open door
policy, which states that residents must keep room
doors open when entertaining guests of the opposite
sex, and the need for sponsors during visitation hours,
lit; said.
"We decided to do away with both policies
because they're a farce," he said.
Evensen said he thinks the proposal will ask that
half the dorms allow alcohol, but it depends on
results of the survey.
"That's what they're (the surveys) for-to find out
where students want the emphasis put and what
policies they'd like to live under."
Evensen said he also hopes to include in the
proposal plans for some dormitory floors which
would attract students having the same major or a
common interest One floor might be for architecture
majors, another for "stereo freaks," he said.
Asked this fall by Chancellor James Zumberge and
the Housing Office to prepare a proposal for
differentiated housing, the subcommittee plans to
complete its work by January 29, Evensen said.
The proposal then will go to the Housing Policy
Committee, CSL, Ken Bader, vice chancellor for
Student Affairs, and then to Zumberge, he explained.
The Board of Regents will have to approve any
changes in visitation and alcohol policies, but the
Housing Office could set up academic dorm floors
itself, he said.
The regents probably will not act on the proposal
until a pending lawsuit dealing with current UNL
alcohol and visitation policies is settled, he said. The
suit was brought by the Residence Hall Association
(RHA) and ASUN against the university.
"Our proposal will give the lawsuit a backing," he
said. "Hopefully, the judge will look at it and realize
that people who don't want liberalized visitation and
alcohol (policies) are protected, because there will be
dorms open to them without those policies."
According to Evensen, Bader believes the proposal
should be a positive factor in deciding the case in
favor of the students.
Consisting of 12 members, including four housing
officials, three RHA members, two Housing Policy
Committee members, two faculty members and one
ASUN representative, the subcommittee also has
conducted a telephone survey among UNL students
who have moved out of dorms and has gathered
information on housing policies, at other Big 8
schools, Evensen said.
Results of that survey, not yet compiled, also will
be used in drawing up the proposal.
Why is such a proposal even needed?
"It's very apparent that the atmosphere in dorms
is not satisfying to students," Evensen said. "You can
see that in the great migration to apartments." The
yearly return rate of upperclassmen to dormitories is
only 30 to 40 per cent, he noted.
Last spring, the Housing Office and Zumberge's
office received "an in-flood of proposals for changing
dormitory policies," Evensen said. "Both offices
thought it would be better to present a housing
proposal (to the regents) as a package, so they asked
our committee to draw one up."
However, the proposal is designed so it could be
split, with the regents only approving a part of it, he'
said.
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resigning, cites loneliness
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Student Y director Jean Schafer is resigning after three months in
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of tire.
Jean Schafer, director of the UNL
Student YWCA since early September,
is resigning.
Calling her job "sort of lonely at
times," Schafer said she is leaving the
position for reasons which are both
personal and job-oriented.
She said she found her job "rather
isolated." She explained that because
there are very few volunteers working
with the Student-Y program, she has
had to handle many aspects of the
program which normally would be
taken care of by a staff.
She said she has held other
positions while working with a staff,
and "I didn't know how important
having a staff was to rw; (until she had
to do without one)."
Schafer said the Student-Y program
now is oriented toward recruitment of
memfwrs, and her area of interest is
programming.
She said tho position of director is
too extensive for one person.
"A branch association needs
volunteers. They have to p'ay an
important part (in the program)," she
said.
She said there is a small group of
volunteers that are doing "the
nitty-gritty work," but those
volunteers "can't do it all."
Schafer said since she became
director, the Student-Y has rnado some
headway. She explained that the
Student-Y advisory board has become
more active than last year. She said the
program also has been pulled out of
debt. When she took office, the
program was several hundied dollars in
debt, she said.
Schafer said applications now are
being accepted to fill her vacancy
which will take effect "by the end of
this month." She said her successor
probably will be named by Friday.
UNL staff trained in efficiency
UNL officials are trying to solve problems of
employe efficiency "from the bottom up," according
in Miles Tommeraason, director of business and
t ii ice,
oince August, SynCionamics, a management
I .lining firm in New York, has been training
lii -.i level supervisors in several UNL work forces,
I omineuiuseii said.
Currently, the firm is helping supervisors in
Campus Security, the Nebraska Center and the Office
of Housing's Food Service increase work output of
their staffs, he said.
f'liey already have worked with first-level
'.upeivir.ois of custodians in both ihe Housing Office
and Physical Plant.
1 Ik; efficiency of these lowest level supervisors
needs to he improved, Tommeraason said. They
iv i.illy are piomotod to manager lal positions because
of their outstanding job skills, not lcause of their
'.! ill in management, he said.
After making -:i preliminary study to determine
whether work efficiency could be improved,
SyiCnoramics asks both supervisors and workers
wleii tfieir job duties ate and how they suggest the
lob miuht tx; done faster and letter.
The management training firm then might change
employes' work schedules, shift employes to different
job positions or ask that work saving equipment be
purchased, Tommeraasen said.
However, no employe has been fired as a result of
the efficiency studies, he said.
"They (employes) sometimes have been shifted to
new positions, but tho natural turnover in staffs, such
as the cusiodians, is enough, that it takes care of
having 10 fire anyone," ho said.
The training firm agrees to train first level
supervisors in various work forces only if their
preliminary studies show that dollar savings to the
force probably will exceed training costs within the
first year.
For example, SynCronamics estimated the cost of
training UNL's first level custodial supervisors would
be $50,000, Tommeraasen said. However, they
projected that savings to UNL would exceed
$140,000 the first year and each following year.
Because they have no long term contract with the
Now York irm, Tommeraasen said his office can
decide lo release them at any time if their woik is not
satisfactory.
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Today's Super Poll story details students'
attitudes about sexual activity and their drug,
drinking and social habits. Story on Page 3.