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daily nebraskan
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valuation key to increased regent management
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Accountability, or how to assure Nebraska
taxpayers that they are getting the best invest
ment for their contribution to higher education,
was the matter on the table before the Nebraska
Legislature's Appropriations Committee Tuesday.
President D.B. Varner addressed the problem
of accountability in the context of proposed
changes that would place the management of the
University of Nebraska back with the body to
which it was originally delegated-the NU Board
of Regents.
The regents have requested that the Legislature
appropriate funds for the university in one lump
sum and let the regents be responsible for parcel
ling out the dollars.
Before the Legislature hands over the goods
and gives up some measure of fiscal control over
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the university, it wants the assurance that tax
dollars won't go down the drain-of waste, inef
ficiency and poor academic programs.
Varner claims that by returning financial
control to the regents, the burden of finances will
be the most compelling means of control over
academics and faculty performance.
Under Varner's proposal, the Legislature would
look at goals for the long haul as well as shorter
term objectives and decide what financial support
is needed.
Evaluation at the end of each year would let
the state senators know how far the university
had gotten with its goals and objectives.
The plan supposedly would reduce financial
haggling and allow the state senators a more
direct forum for probing university academic
objectives. It would also return financial control
to the regents, in everything from programs to
merit salary increases for faculty who deserve
those increases.
Varner's plan stated, "No management tool is
more important than budgetary control."
The question behind this question, as one
senator did asMs how can the regents be active
managers of a multi-million dollar institution
composed of three large entries when they meet
for only one day a month?
There seems to be two answers. .
First, in every case they wouldn't manage. The
day-to-day authority would be delegated to the
university administration.
The regents would set budget amounts for
specific areas but would necessarily have to rely
on the administration's working knowledge of the
letters to
Dear editor:
We believe that the letter written by Peter D. Murphy
which appeared in the Letters to the Editor column,
Jan. 16, 1976, was inaccurate and misleading, addressing
emotional issues rather than objective facts.
First, the $50,000 referred to was a separate line item
appropriation by the Unicameral, an appropriation
which was added to the general library fund (see March
26, 1974 Legislative Journal p. 695 1,6952).
Second, the access to the Law Library is a prerequisite
for studying by the law students. Access to non-circulating
materials, available only within the Law Library, is
more logically analogous to the laboratory access needs
of a chemistry major and clearly distinguishable from the
needs of the undergraduate, who needs primarily his or
her course materials, which have been purchased and are
with the student 24 hours-a-day. It is these specific needs
which have prompted law students to lobby for expanded
library access.
We invite anyone who questions the Law Library
situation to visit us regarding the facts.
P. J. Canarsky, DJC. Rusk and Mark Buchanan
Only two showed
Dear editor:
Hey sports fans, guess what's new at Nebraska? We
university to estimate what those amounts need
Second, if the regents were managers, perhaps
they would be forced to manage.
Instead of the yearly melodrama of the regents
presenting one budget request, consisting of pre
cise and inflexible categories, only to be met with
the Legislature appropriating less funds ir. each of
those categories than the regents requested, the
regents would have power to put the money
where they wanted it to go.
They would be subject to more scrutiny and
pressure, since they would be the ultimate source
of what everyone in the university wants-money
for their own department
The regents would be more than figureheads
with constitutional authority and no real power.
And a lot of people would be more interested in
what the regents do.
Varner presented a plan which he called
workable but not necessarily foolproof. The pro
posal is carefully conceived and deserves serious
consideration by the Legislature.
The key is evaluation. While educational
matters are difficult to evaluate, and much of the
evaluation is subjective, procedures such as
accreditation reports and investigation of
university departments by evaluation teams are
useful measures of where the university stands in
relation to other schools.
Giving the regents the financial power to act
on those evaluations and move in directions
toward improvement could only serve the best
interests of students.
Vince Boucher
have a basketball team. That's 'right. Only two members
of the yell squad have heard, at least that's all that showed
up at the Kansas State game last Saturday. Maybe there
was a reason for such poor representation.
Be it as it may, Nebraska does have a basketball team
and a good one at that. Ten wins against four losses and a
defense which ranks in the top ten nationally! It seems to
me that they deserve a little more support and respect
than they received last Saturday.
A basketball fan
Squeeze a few more
Dear editor,
Since the city decided it needed more revenue from the
university sector and installed all those meters (I assume
they will also spring up like dandelions on R St. this
spring), another problem became worse as a side effect
less parking.
The marked, metered spaces are big enough to park i
truck and consequently there are about 20 to 30 less
. parking spaces available. This makes it important that we
utilize what space there is efficiently. Everyday I see cars
with big spaces in between them, some almost big enough
for a VW or some other small car. But almost doesn't
count.
When you park make sure you are close to the car in
front of you. You only need 1 to 2 feet between to get
out. If you have the first car, move to the front of the
area, even hang your bumper over the red line. In this
manner we can squeeze a few more spaces. The city
doesn't need our 5 cents and $.
EricSeberg
By Del Gustafson
"J am an aristocrat. I love liberty and hate equality.
-John Randolph (a statesman of the
early south.)
Sam Ervin's speech the other night was a real joy. Not
only in the actual content of the address, but moreover, in
the knowledge of discomfort and downright dismay the
speech must have brought to the huge audience.
The reason for the mass discomfort came from the fall
of great expectations-a devastating collision of myth with
reality. The speech, titled "Post-Watergate America," was
delivered by none other than the man who "got" Tricky
Dick-Sam Ervin. What could be better, cried Alphonse
Student, than to hear folk-hero Sam attack those nasties
vhich, everyone knows, led to Watergate: privilege, free
enterprise, greed (and, to hear It in that cute Southern
drawl!).
Well, the key to the speech lay more In the Southern
drawl, than in the evils of Watergate. Sam Ervin Is first
and foremost a Southern Democrat, and it is a statistically
proven fact that no Southern Democrat can talk for five
consecutive minutes without praising liberty or reverently
invoking the name of Thomas Jefferson, John C. Calhoun
or John Randolph.
Five freedoms a surprise
Sam didn't even make an attempt to talk on Post
Watergate America, but rather spent the entire speech re
Ealina the surprised Yankee audience with an exposition
ofthe five freedoms Implied in the Declaration of Inde
pendence's immortal phrase, "the pursuit of happiness":
Economic freedom (free enterprise), intellectual freedom,
religious freedom, personal freedom and political freedom.
It was a fine address-the kind the members of a free
society should listen to at least annually if they are to pre
serve eternal principle against temporary passion-but it
really didn't deal with Watergate. Or did it?
Upon reflection, it seemed the secret to the control of
future abuses of governmental power could be the preser
vation of those five freedoms against state encroachment.
With the concentration of vast economic and social power
in the hands of the central government and, more
specifically, in the hands of the President, it is not sur
prising that sinful men use that awesome power for illegal
ends.
Privileges dispensed
' As government increasingly supercedes the marketplace
as a distributor of economic reward, it is inevitable that
men will gravitate to the one seat of power which
dispenses social and economic privileges supported by the
legal monopoly on coercion-the state. While viewing the
central government's movement to crush all counter
vailing power bases independent of society's control,
we would be wise to recall Lord Acton's maxim about the
corrupting influence of absolute power.
Individual freedom never promises to end all social
evils-it is tyranny which seeks to eradicate all social
illsbut freedom will lessen the scope of the abuses of
itats power. Wise statesmen like Sam Ervin know that.
'Thank goodness! .
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.morris Surprised Yankees hear Wateraate reality
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