dailu nebraskan
monday, december 11, 1978 lincoln, nebraska vol. 102 no. 58
The Harvard of the Plains' Regents' hope for NU
By Brenda Moskovits
The NU Board of Regents Friday adop
ted guidelines, aiming toward making the
university system what Omaha Regent
James Moylan called "the Harvard of the
Plains."
But the system will have to do so with
out creating a lot of new university posi
tions since NU President Ronald Roskens
declared "a moratorium" on creating new
positions and filling vacancies without
his approval.
The twelve planning guidelines are a
10-year plan prepared by the regents'
planning subcommittee and presented at
their November meeting.
Specific implementation plans should be
ready by September.
Roskens' comments added
The guildelines were supplemented by a
preamble added Friday from comments
made by Roskens to the board.
"In Nebraska we are accustomed to
reasonably often referring to number one,
aspiring to be number one, to be among
the top, to be best," Roskens said.
Nebraska should strive to be "one of the
strongest academic institutions in this
general area.
"If we carefully manage the resources
we now have. . .1 believe we could equally
aspire to become one of the best academic
institutions in this region."
Plan's guidelines
The guidelines include:
-encouraging research, scholarship and
creativity,
-improving federal research, instruction
and scholarship support,
combining graduate programs and de
veloping a few new nationally-recognized
graduate programs,
-reviewing undergraduate curriculum,
increasing the number of merit-based
scholarship and fellowships,
-increasing program coordination with
area universities,
-increasing off-campus cooperative aca
demic programs,
emphasizing faculty merit salary
increases,
increasing the number of women and
minorities employed,
redistributing state funds to meet
inflation and improving a limited number
of programs,
Daily Nebraskan photo
Omaha Regent Kermit Hansen
inside mondaij
The Sea Gull is hard to master:
Chekhov's masterpiece is being
presented at Howell page 8
Yule espiriru interruptus: Finals take
the fun out of Christmas . . .page 8
Explosion hits Huskers: Technical
fouls lead to NU loss to
Creighton PaSe 10
-remodeling existing buildings to mini
mize new construction,
-reviewing the effectiveness of the uni
versity's business and administrative offices.
a Regents give support
Roskens told the board that he will
work closely with the three campus' chan
cellors in enforcing the policy.
He asked the regents for their approval
or disapproval and received their unani
mous support.
In other business, the regents tabled
a proposal to give preferential out of state
tuition rates to UNL students living in Pot
tawattamie county residents and second, it
area.)
The board received UNO Chancellor
Del Weber's report recommending $32 per
credit hour tuition rate last month, but
Friday tabled the matter pending an at
torney general's opinion at the advice of
University Counsel Richard Wood.
Resident tuition is now $22.50 per
credit hour and the outstate rate is $61 per
credit hour.
Wood questioned the legality of the pre
ferential tuition rate as a violation of the
equal protection clause of the 14th
Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Two-tiered' problems
He described complications as "two
tiered." First, he said, the plan singles out Pot
tawattamie county residence and second, it
singles out the UNO campus, excluding
UNL and the Medical Center.
Wood said there is a "potential of a class
action suit being instituted by a non
resident student on behalf of all non
resident students outstate.
"My legal advice," Wood said, "is that 1
don't think it's viable and the university
could expose itself to some liability."
The motion was tabled unanimously.
In other action:
-the regnets academic affairs subcom
mittee decided not to consider the housing
office's recommendation to experiment
with 24-hour undergraduate residence hall
visitation on two floors of Selleck Quad
rangle, -approved a policy allowing the chan
cellors to approve minor budget increases
no more than one percent the annual total
budget,
-authorized signing the Orange Bowl
football contract,
-approved paying $9,740.09 to Kutak,
Rock and Huie for services not officially
authorized by the Eppley Institute.
f&L fJS JN. TW'" '"" """
0
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Photo by Mark Billingsley
Coach Cipriano expressed his concern over the officiating at Saturday's game and subsequently drew 3 technicals and was
booted out of the game. See story on page 10.
oney root of school problems Hansen
By Brenda Moskovits
Editor's note: This is the fifth in a series
of in-depth profiles of the eight members
of the NU Board of Regents.
NU Regent Kermit Hansen of Omaha,
as a bank executive, is interested in the uni
versity's money matters.
But the chairman of the board's
business affairs subcommittee combines
that concern with one for quality
education.
The university system's problems today
are "more monetary than academic," says
Hansen.
"I really haven't for quite some time
had taxpayers who say you ought to cut
out or eliminate any kind of a program.
"But," Hansen said the taxpayers do
have this message: " 'I'm not sure there is
anything more in the sock I can give you.
Therefore, we are looking to you (the
regents) as the governmental body and the
administration to say that we eliminate this
and consolidate that'."
Rather than increasing students' and
parents' financial burden by raising tuition,
Hansen applauds Friday's university efforts
to re-evaluate programs and priorities to
give the best possible education per dollar.
The regents' constituency is two
fold; the university community, including
faculty, staff and students and the Nebras
ka taxpayer, Hansen said.
"The balance is shifting more to the side
of the taxpayer because of inflationary im
pact and because of the growing tax
payer concern about the level of the tax
dollar," he said.
Hansen, chairman of the board of U.S.
National Bank in Omaha, graduated from
NU in 1939 and was a member of Beta
Theta Pi fraternity. Two of his four
children graduated from University of
Nebraska campuses.
Hansen served as a retired Brigadier
General of the U.S. Army reserve.
At various times in his life he has
worked in advertising, as a newspaper
columnist, assistant business manager and
as a radio announcer and program director.
He also has been affiliated with
numerous civic groups including the
Omaha Symphony, Ak-Sar-Ben and the Ne
braska Safety Council.
The twelve long-range planning goals
adopted Friday by the board especially ap
peal to him. They stress merit rather than
across the board salary increases, renova
tion of existing buildings as opposed to
building new ones, careful review of the
university's programs, particularly to coor
dinate functions with other area
institutions.
Hansen said he also approved of a mora
torium on new university positions.
The dichotomy between getting
qualified faculty members and keeping
salary costs down is difficult, says
Hansen.
He denies that Nebraska has had an in
crease in the number of faculty members
leaving because of low pay, saying it has
been "fairly constant" over the last five
years.
To raise salaries, "maybe you collapse
two positions in order to see the top five
people are compensated," he suggested.
Perhaps holding more seminars, en
couraging scholarly activity and adopting
liberal policies toward leaves of absence
would help bring and keep faculty he said.
Hansen admits eliminating positions is
"not easy" and would mean bigger work
loads. But he said it is one alternative that
must be considered.
Academically, "limited or very slight
increases in resources is going to be a real
testing period," says Hansen.
"We are really better than some from
the outside or some from the inside per
ceive us to be."
He cited chemistry, agronomy, journal
ism, architecture and law college work with
water rights law as areas "we should toot
our horn about."
Many of these programs were helped
by the university's Areas of Excellence pro
gram and have produced results "nothing
short of dramatic," he said.
"This kind of selective consideration we
have to take a hard look at.
"First, you have to know what your
priorities are. Good planning is exactly
that."
Increasing excellence in one area while
keeping the budget down will mean sacri
ficing weak programs, Hansen
acknowledges.
"It could mean to give up that program
that produces 20 graduates in the last 20
years."
Continued on page 11.
