editofio
State not responsible for sports money woes
In a year when the Legislature is leaving no penny
unturned in its search for ways to put the University
of Nebraska on a subsistence level budget, the
Athletic Department has discovered a hole in its
pocket and would like nothing better than to have
the state play monetary seamstress.
It seems that the usually rosy complexion of
Athletic Department finances is being blotched by a
case of the inflationexpansion blues, perhaps to the
tune of an $86,982 loss this year, $81,000 next year
and a whopping $317,000 the year after. Oh for' the
days when a $30,000 profit seemed the harbinger of
things to come.
The problem is that a new sports complex and an
expanding women'.-; intercollegiate athletics program
have upset the precious balance which saw football
earnings ($813,914.56 in 1973-74) offset a host of
losers ranging from tennis (-$7,038.94 in 1973-74) to
track (-$141,675.93 in 1973-74). The projected losses
for this and the following two years do not even
include the estimated operating expense of the new
complex.
Unfortunately, in this case the Athletic
Department seems to prefer sacrificing its fiscal pride
in return for just enough money to get them out of a
tight spot. The request itself is not unusual. Kearney
State, UNO, Wayne State, Chadron State and Peru
State all have athletic programs financed through the
Legislature.
The idea of the all-mighty Athletic Department
kowtowing to a group of state senators who think
"down-and-out" refers to Terry Carpenter is
sot ehow perversely appealing. But the prospect of a
few senators, perhaps already wondering what to do
with next year's free football passes, getting the
department what it wants is sobering.
In this case the timing, something Athletic
Department coaches are usually well aware of, is all
wrong. With the senators already casting a wary eye
on professor's salaries and the-Areas of Excellence
program, a request from the Athletic Department
may be all it takes to drive them to an act of
budgetary rape.
There must be a way for the Athletic Department
to solve its financial woes without cutting into line
ahead of some worthy programs and forcing a
showdown of legislative priorities.
The most logical,- but perhaps not the most
nnnnlar. wav is to raise the price of home foothill
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tickets, the major source of Athletic -Department
income. While there might be some grumbling about
such a move, Nebraskans have to have something to
do on Saturday afternoons, and continued sellouts
are at least as certain as spring in April used to be.
Some of the expense of scholarships might be
saved if UNL were to follow other schools in charging
out-of-state athletes resident tuition instead of the
present out-of-state rates. If the money is going to be
spent anyway, it could just as well be used to offset
expenses.
And last but not least, the Athletic Department
could hardly be criticized for asking some
well-moneyed alumni to dig a little deeper the next
couple years when it comes to making their annual
contribution to what years of listening to the
marching band has convinced them is Dear 01'
Nebraska U.
A trip to the Legislature is justified only if the
Athletic Department finds itself cutting women's and
minor sports instead of comers.
Wes Albers
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1960s
shifted
attitudes
The 1960s may now be most remembered for the political
activism and social turmoil that enlivened the decade, but it is
probable that in the long run neither was the most important nor
the most basic phenomenon that affected American life. The
primary significance of the 60's, it seems, is not to be found in the
outbursts which have now quieted, but in almost imperceptible
shifts of attitude which may not be apparent for many years to
come.
Perhaps more than anything else the importance of the 60s is
that somewhere in those years lies the beginning of a fundamental
challenge in the dominant patterns of American thought.
The label given to these dominant patterns -rational empiricism,
objective consciousness, straight thinking-is unimportant, for
whatever the label the intention has been clear.-
The dominant educational approach taken by American society
is the cultivation of the intellect. We are taught from the very first
that only the senses can tell us anything valuable about the world.
Reliable, and useful knowledge is defined as thai which is
scientifically sound-it is a verifiable description of reality that
exists independently of intuition or non-rational modes of thought.
Accordingly, the usefulness and value of the mind is seen to be
limited within the confines of rational thought. The educational
system is directed toward cultivation of only rational modes of
thought. The irrational, intuitive, and wildly creative states of
consciousness are either discouraged or confined within narrowly
prescribed boundaries. The educational processes of society often
seem to aim at putting the mind in a rational straightjacket.
Several authors have used children as examples of states of
consciousness free from the fetters of exclusively rational modes of
thought. Paul Goodman observed that, "The childish feelings are
important not as a past that must be undone, but as some of the
most beautiful powers of adult life that must be recovered:
spontaneity, imagination, directness of awareness. . ." And yet, for
the most part, these "beautiful powers" are discouraged by our
schools.
A fundamental challenge to this dominant view was raised
during the 60' and seems to be strengthening today.
Some books appearing in the late 60's,such as Tlie Making of a
Counter Culture and the Greening of America, perceived thi3
challenge and pointed to the drug culture, increased interest in
daily nebraskan
Eastern religion and visionary literature as manifestations of the
radical criticism.
But such books also seemed to look for a faiily rapid
undermining of the prejudice of rational thinking. This rapid
reorientation of thought is clearly not taking place. It will
obviously take many years to change an orientation that has
become so firmly entrenched in our outlook.
However, the challenge is not dead, either, as some would say.
Important work is now being done in psychology and
parapsychology which are providing evidence of the existence of
necessarily complementary rational and intuitive modes of
consciousness.
Richard Ornstein believes that the rational and intuitive modes
of consciousness must be essentially complementary in order for an
individual to be psychologically healthy."
It must be stressed that what is being nought is a
balance-between the rational and the intuitive, the analytic and
the creative, the empirical and the mystic.
Andrew Weil,-in his book The Natural Mind, discusses what is
needed to restore balance to these conceptions. He calls for a
rickjohnson
rhymes cmd reasons
change in our approach to education from systematic repression of
the capacities "closely related to our curiosity, our creativity, our
intuition our highest aspirations" to one of conscious development
of these facilities.
The value of intuitive leaps to scientific and artistic creativity
has long been known. Some evidence now points to the value of
the unconscious and non-rational to mental health. Thus the 60'$
may have been important as the decade in which our curiosity,
creativity intuition and highest aspirations began to redress the
long-standing rational prejudice within our society.
f rom this viewpoint, it may not have been what was happening
in he streets during the 60'i that will ultimately have been
significant, but what was happening within some minds.
Wednesday, april 9, 1975
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