Wednesday, august 27, 1975
daily nebraskan
page 3
1
r"V
Information center to open
Ely Meyerson, dean of Student Development
Photo by Lis Burd
By Terri WiSLson
A personal touch and information at
one's fingertips are the goals of the Campus
Assistance Center, which opened second
semester.
According to Ely Meyerson, UNL's dean
of student development, the idea for the
center came from UNL students and
student affairs staffers who heard about
similar centers on other campuses.
The three-year-old idea saw committee
studies and filed reports on the
three-year-old plan were ignored because of
lack of funds. But last year, new funding
ideas "made the project feasible,"
Meyerson said.
Meyerson also said the Nebraska Union
TV lounge will be relocated and its
expanded and remodeled site will house
the glass-enclosed center. After completion
over interim, the center will start operation
in February on an $11,000 to $12,000
annual budget.
Reliable and personalized
Because of the large and often
"impersonal university community,"
campus information sometimes varies,
Meyerson said. But he foresees the
student -staffed center as a reliable and
personalized student source.
Since the center will tape current
information, it will act as a "rumor
control," he said.
Center staff members will refer students
directly to needed sources. By
incorporating a "sophisticated telephone
system," and HELP line employes who will
man a tape library, a student will be able to
call or come in to request a 3-3 Ms minute
tape on anything from campus news to
academic subjects.
Meyerson said that the center, which is
set up mainly to aid students, will be a
coordinating point for Redcoats, a campus
touring organization, and also will serve as
an information booth to campus visitors.
Without shuffling
Carol Lou, newly hired director of the
Campus Assistance Center, said her goal is
to help make the center personal and to
make it a place where students and others
can find the right information, "without
being shuffled to window number three."
Lou, a graduate student in educational
psychology and specializing in counseling
and student personnel, just finished a job
as coordinator for foreign student
orientation.
Religious studies minor now offered ; endowment
from Cotner College provides professor's salary
The UNL College of Arts and Sciences
has recognized religion as a legitimate area
of scholarship and is offering a minor in
religious studies this semester.
The development of a religious studies
program has been planned since 1972-73.
John Yost, program director, said. He met
with interested faculty members who
formed an ad hoc committee when there
was a prospect of receiving an endowment
from the Cotnei School of Religion. After
invesiigation, the committee decided that a
program could be developed even without
the funds.
Cotner College made an endowment of
almost $250,000 to the University of
Nebraska foundation, which will provide
money yearly for a professor. Members of
the Arts and Sciences faculty approved the
Religious studies program in a meeting last
April. i
Yost's specialty is western religious
history, with emphasis on medieval and
early modern periods. He has a PhD. in
history from Duke University and a B.D. in
theology from Harvard Divinity School.
Search begun.
Yost said a search has begun for the
Cotner Professorship of Religion and said
he hopes a selection is made by the end of
this semester. This would permit classes
which the new professor will teach in the
fall of 1976 to be included in the class
catalog printed in the spring.
The Nebraska School of Religion
(Cotner) will no longer exist after the
1975-76 year. But, the Cotner name will
continue with the name of the
professorship.
Yost said the Cotner Professor Search
Committee is looking for a person who will
.not necessarily direct the program, but
who will be trained in biblical studies,
(including Greek , and Hebrew), who is
competent in world religions and who has a
background he an bring to teaching
religion in a secular state university.
Although the Cotner professor will
probably not be able to teach until next
fall, the program was offered this fall for
students interested in earning a minor.
Yost said he hopes classes applying toward
the minor can be grouped in one section of
the spring 1976 course catalog allowing
students to see the variety, of classes
available.
Minor offered
Students may meet requirements for the
minor by completing 18 hours from a
group of 27 courses offered in nine
departments. The individual's minor
program must also be approved by the
chief adviser and be representative of two.
departments.
A brochure available through Yost or
the Nebraska School of Religion (Cotner)
lists the classes needed for meeting
requirements and explains some aspects of
the program.
The classes will allow students to study
religion in a thorough, critical, objective
and comparative fashion as they would
study other subjects-, Yost said. The
courses are not intended to shape the
beliefs of students or to spread the beliefs
of any one sect or denomination, he said.
Separate department
Yost said he doubts that a department
or religion ever will be developed at NU
and said he is not in favor of it. He said
religion should not be a separate
department because it overlaps in too
manv areas. :
Before the program was offered,
students could earn majors in religion
through Integrated studies programs. Yost
said he now advises 12 students under
integrated studies in one of the two
religion areas: "Religion in Culture" and
"Religion in Society." All of these students
plan to do advance work in the field of
religion, he said.
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