Wednesday, april 26, 1978
daily nebraskan
page 1 1
Regent candidates focus on salaries, fees and budget
By Rod Murphy
Faculty salaries, student fees and the
university budget are important issues to
the regents candidates in the upcoming
May 9 election battle.
Ed Schwartzkopf, who holds the 1st
District seat, and Kermit Hansen, from the
2nd District, are both seeking re-election.
The challengers running for the 1st
District post are Leo Hill, Richard Halvor
sen and write-in candidate Kirk Erlich.
Hopefuls in the 2nd District are Arden
Means, Edward Wenzl, Steven Shovers and
Harlan Nelson.
Leo Hill, 65, retired Lincoln business
man and 1934 UNL graduate, is running
for the board because, he says, he has a gift
of leadership.
"I have a knack for getting people to do
things," he said. "I don't say you do this' I
say 'let's do this together.' "
Hill is a past president and member of
several organizations and many university
groups.
If elected as a regent, Hill said one of his
first priorities would be to help raise
money for the university through the NU
Foundation.
On the issue of speakers, Hill said, he
supports the program. He said he thought
campus groups should bring speakers in on
their own. Hill said it was important for
students to get involved with raising money
for speakers.
Other goals Hill has if elected to the
board, would be to improve Architectural
Hall and authorize prevention maintenance
on existing buildings.
Richard Halvorsen, 31, of Lincoln who
also is running for the 1st District regents
seat, said the most important need at the
university is the overcrowding problem.
Halvorsen said he thinks there are
plenty of classrooms but not enough
faculty members to teach in them.
Some money, now earmarked for re
novations or building projects could be
shifted to pay the salaries of more faculty
personnel to help end the overcrowding,
he said.
Another reason he is running for regent,
he said, is his dissatisfaction with the
regents' action concerning student fees for
speakers.
Halvorsen said student support for the
previous speaker fees program was "fairly
well substantiated." He referred to a
petition presented to the board at the Feb
ruary meeting containing some 5,000 signa
tures from students indicating their
support of mandatory student fees for
speakers.
'The regents just looked at it (the
petition) and seemed to say, 'That's nice,'
and then dropped it in file 13," he said.
Halvorsen also addressed the issue of
faculty salaries, saying money should be
spent for salary increases rather than new
buildings that are not needed.
Halvorsen works for the state Depart
ment of Correctional Services and is a
1969 UNL graduate.
He now is attending graduate school at
UNL part time where he is studying
criminal justice.
Kirk Ehrlich, 23, is the only write-in
candidate for regent. He also is running in
the 1st District race.
Ehrlich said he is running because he is
dissatisfied with the job the regents have
been doing, particularly in the area of stu
dent fees funding for campus speakers.
"I don't like the way the regents knuck
led under to a pressure group on speaker
fees," he said.
Ehrlich is a broadcast journalism major
and a theater major.
As a student, he said he could better
represent student views than Hill or
Schwartzkopf.
If elected to the post, Ehrlich would
like to see the student fee structure chang
ed and a new parking policy enacted, he
said.
He said campus speakers should again
receive student fee funding. He said he also
would like to see a depth study of how
student fees are spent.
Concerning parking, Ehrlich said,
"While the regents are preoccupied with
such important issues as stadium expan
sion, they should be trying to get some
decent parking!"
Ehrlich said he also supports allowing
the student regents the right to vote at
meetings and alcohol consumption in the
residence halls.
In the 2nd District race, there are four
challengers for the board position.
Arden Means, 50, is seeking the seat
now held by incumbent Kermit Hansen.
Means said he disagrees with the board
decision regarding campus speakers. He
said the student support for speakers
should be restored.
Means also said he was concerned about
low faculty salaries. For many instructors,
he said the teaching load was too high.
Means said he thinks a better liaison
between the governor, Nebraska Legisla
ture and university has to be forged before
many needed changes can be made.
He added that he hoped, if elected, he
could bring a "common sense approach"
to university government.
Edward Wenzl, 30, also is running for
the 2nd District regent post.
Wenzl said the board should look into
the possibility of faculty unionization to
replace the tenure system. Such a program
would help solve various problems, includ
ing working benefits, that the faculty now
experiences, he said.
Wenzl said he thinks student fees should
be spent for speakers. He said speakers
were for everyone and it was a matter of
choice whethei to attend a speech or not.
The problem of low faculty salaries, he
said, is not unique to the University of
Nebraska.
"All colleges think they have to re
cruit higher quality faculty through higher
salaries," he said.
He said that as student enrollment de
clines in the next few years, faculty al
so will have to be cut back. This will free
money for higher salaries for those who re
main. At the present time, he said, it would be
better to offer more benefits to faculty
members, not more money.
Wenzl is an Omaha life insurance agent.
Steven Shovers is the only student
candidate running in the 2nd District race.
Formerly UNO student body president and
non-voting member of the Board of
Regents, Shovers is now three credits short
of his masters degree in urban education.
If elected to the board, Shovers said he
would like -to act as a watchdog to make
the board more fiscally accountable.
He suggested a zero-based budgeting
system be implemented for each depart
ment. Shovers also said he was alarmed to
learn that "42 percent of all state
employees were employed by the univer
sity." He suggested that the number of staff
personnel could be cut, which would allow
more money for faculty salaries, and
education programs.
He said he would like to raise faculty
salaries, if possible. However, he said he did
not know if it could be done given the
budget now allocated the university by the
Legislature.
Shovers said, if elected, he would push
for holding regent meetings outside
Lincoln.
meet in every
said. "This is a
'The regents should
district of the state," he
statewide university."
The last candidate on the ballot for the
2nd District seat is Harlan Nelson, 62, who
is a businessman with a petroleum
company.
Nelson, a graduate of the University of
Minnesota, said he is running for regent in
order to "put something back from what I
received at land-grant colleges," he said.
If elected regent, Nelson said he would
try to end some of the remedial courses
now taught at the university.
"Universities are sometimes prone to do
things that should be done in the high
schools," he said.
The university's function is to provide
people with background that they can use
in their vocation, he said, as well as help
them become a more viable citizen in the
community.
On the issue of student fees, Nelson said
there should be both voluntary abd manda
tory fees. Fees for speakers would fall into
the first category, he said.
On the issue of faculty salaries, he said
faculty members were facing the same
problems as the rest of the community.
'Those people face inflation like every
body else and should be treated accord
ingly," he said.
Because of his involvement in the
business world, Nelson said he believes he
is qualified to sit on the board of regents
who manage the "largest business in the
state of Nebraska."
Robert Raun
Continued from page 9
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SPEAKER SELECTION
78-79
The final meeting for Speaker
Selection will be held this afternoon
3 p.m. in Rm. 232
Nebraska Union.
Students. Faculty and Administrators Welcome.
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