daily nebraskan
Wednesday, October 4, 1978 lincoln, nebraska vol. 102 no. 22
Varied opinions
highlight hearing
on ASUN action
By Pat Gentzler
Varied testimony was heard by ASUN Tuesday night
about a bill passed last week recalling university commit
tees, and about a first draft of ASUN's proposition to
restructure the committees.
A tentative proposal should be compiled by Friday,
said Steve Upton, ASUN senator, with a final proposal
coming before the senate Wednesday, Oct. 1 1 .
Recalled committee members, students represent
ing only themselves and one faculty member, as well as
two past ASUN presidents spoke at the hearing.
Greg Johnson, last year's president, said he supported
the concept of increased student involvement but would
like to see ASUN slow down. The timetable that has
been set up does not allow enough time to solicit the
amount of student opinion necessary, he said.
Committee members should be reappointed, he went
on, while ASUN slows down because major university
decisions will not be delayed much longer and could be
made without any student input at all.
Former Fees Allocation Board and present Council on
Student Life members, Larry Williams and Jane Matzke,
said they agreed with Johnson that ASUN should slow
down.
"If you're going to reorganize something as big as this
you can't do it in two weeks and do a good job," Williams
said, suggesting that a semester would be a more
reasonable period of time.
Matzke expressed concern about the proposition
dividing students, faculty and administration.
"We are not the only thing that makes up our univer
sity system," she said. "We're only hurting ourselves by
trying to segregate ourselves from (faculty and adminis
tration)." Dennis Martin, past ASUN president, said that the
present system has problems because communication
between ASUN and committee members is poor. He said
he believed that ASUN should "centralize student govern
ment, student interest, and student input."
Eric Sandburg, member of the Arts and Sciences Advi
sory Board and Curriculum Committee, said he believed
that physical presence alone of students on committee
influences faculty members. The system, as is, teaches
students to deal with bureaucracy and is valuable, he said.
i " inn
ii. S J Ng
Photo by Jerry McBride
The First Annual Backgammon Tournament started Tuesday night and will be continued tonight due to
more players than expected showing up. Winners of this competition will advance to a regional tournament.
National Democrats bypass Nebraska
By L. Kent Wolgamott
Nebraska Republicans will host national leaders such as
Ronald Reagan and Barry Goldwater in the next few
weeks, but their Democratic counterparts have no nation
al figures slated to come to the state.
The lack of Democrats is not because of lack of effort,
according to Dick White, Democratic state chairman.
White said two Democratic campaigns had attempted
to bring in national leaders and the party had invited both
the president and vice president to appear at its Jefferson
Jackson day dinners the last two years.
"It is not all one way," White said, "it is difficult to get
them to come in."
The Whelan for Governor campaign attempted to bring
Sen. Frank Church of Idaho to Nebraska for a fund raiser
in September, according to John Welch, a Whelan
campaign aide.
Welch said the Church visit was scheduled for Sept. 1 2
but "the Camp David summit blew it" because Church
said he should stay in Washington during the summit.
A possible Church visit this past weekend was not
scheduled because of lack of time for preparation, Welch
said.
First District congressional candidate Hess Dyas made
"one fairly feeble attempt "to get House Majority Leader
Jim Wright of Texas to attend a fundraiser" according to
Dick Kurtenbach, Dyas's campaign manager.
He said the Dyas campaign would try to bring in a
nationally known Democrat "if we felt it would help
fundraising."
But he said bringing in a national figure involves a lot
of staff work which can often be better used.
All three agreed that it would be difficult to schedule a
national figure this late in the campaign.
Bill Hoppner of Gov. J. J. Exon's office said the Exon
for Senate campaign had made no effort to bring in any
out-of-state Democrats.
He said Exon "would run his own campaign" and
believed that appearances by national Democrats were
neither necessary nor appropriate.
White said the party had not made a "super active
effort" to get people to come to Nebraska this election
year, but he said if a great deal of time was spent to
arrange a visit it could probably be arranged.
Although he said a visit by President Carter was not a
possibility, White said he believed Nebraska Democratic
candidates would appear with him if he came to the state.
Perry explains educational growth steps to audience
By Pat Gentzler
Standing alone on a stage in the Nebraska Union
Centennial Room, William Perry seemed surprised at the
turnout.
"Doesn't anybody know that the Red Sox are playing
the Yankees?" he asked.
The room was filled with students, faculty and others,
some sitting on the floor or standing in the back, who had
come to hear the Harvard counselor and professor of edu
cation speak Monday afternoon.
Perry's speech was sponsored by Union Program
Council's Talks and Topics Committee and the UNL
Teaching and Learning Center.
After someone in the crowd updated him on the score
of the baseball game, Perry proceeded with his presenta
tion, "The Meanings Students Create."
He and a "bunch of counselor-type" people have
conducted a study over a 15-year period trying to under
stand how students grow and change intellectually during
the college years, he said.
Bothered teachers
'There were certain things that bothered us," he said,
inside Wednesday
Meatless Wednesday: Vegetarianism is sprouting
new roots in Lincoln page 6
Bewitched, bothered and bewildered: TV review
er fails to see the humor in The Gong Show . . .
page 13
Wide open spaces: Praise for the Husker offense
from Coach Tom Osborne page 14
that led up to the study. Of the students they'd been
counseling at Harvard, it was hard to believe they were all
in the same college and that many were talking about the
same class and the same professor, he said.
One student might view an instructor as a hero while
another viewed the same instructor as the "incarnation of
evil," Perry said. The counselors concluded that maybe
the problem was with the students and not with the
teachers.
"When bright people act stupid, we are in the power of
very powerful forces," he said.
So, with a $500 grant, the group began to study the
different personalities of students, asking "them to come
in and tell us what does on," Perry said. Soon the social
science-type questions like "Wha has influenced you the
most?" were discarded, and the sessions were opened up
into the students' own terms.
"It was very extraordinary," Perry said.
Things change
The same group of students were asked back again the
following year, and the year after that and it was found
that things had changed, Perry said.
Through these interviews, it was discovered that most
of these students were going through slow and often
unnoticed process of changing values and were changing
their views of knowledge.
From the time that we are children, we are taught to
think in a very clear-cut, rightwrong terms, Perry said, as
if there was some tablet in the sky with all the right
answers that teachers consult .
"Knowledge, at that point, is like marbles. You collect
them," he said. The importance is on quantity, "How
much do you know?" he said.
But soon, the rightwrong terms are challenged. "How
is it that English teachers disagree?" some students might
ask. "Maybe some of them are right and some are wrong,"
Continued on Page IS
Photo by Jerry McBrida
Harvard Professor William Perry
