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monday, december 1 1, 1978
page 4
daily nebraskan
opinioneditorial
Harvard of Plains
will not be easy goal
We hope the regents' plan to make the univer
sity the Harvard of the Plains succeeds. It would
be nice if NU were known for being an academic
institution and not a football factory.
The 12-point plan which includes increasing
research, strengthening graduate programs, main
taining undergraduate excellence, seeking more
federal grants, increasing the number of women
and minorities employed by the university and
carefully reviewing business and administrative
operations is a program this university desparately
needs.
We hope the regents can convince the Legisla
ture to give the university the extra money such a
plan requires and persuade administrative heads to
work for such goals. NU should concentrate on
excelling in undergraduate programs rather than
just maintaining the current programs. This would
uplift the total quality of the university. An im
proved undergraduate program would give NU's
grad schools more qualified students and bring in
needed undergraduates in view of predicted
enrollment decline.
Even so, in this age of lid bills, the dream to
make NU a dynamic academic institution will not
be easy to achieve.
Freedom op
'Arab activists9 mind-boggling rhetoric deserves ridicule9
By Bruce Nelson
Monday, Dec. 4, I read with both
amusement and consternation the guest
opinion column written by the Arab Stu
dents in Nebraska. The article, I assume,
was about the "myth of Palestine," but it
was so poorly written and badly argued
that might have missed this point.
The writing was an excellent example of
"chaos compounded by confusion." Not
only were several words and names spelled
wrong (puring for pouring, attrocities for
atrocities, Belfore for Balfour, and Ben
Gourion for Ben-Gurion), but the syntax
was mind-boggling.
Errors common
"We are even 4.5 million while the Is
raelis are 3.5 million (or so they claimed)
because it's not a lost cause (the liberation
of Palestine)." Here is another example:
"The people in Egypt will not believe him
guest opinion
(Sadat) anymore just like on Jan. 15, 1977
when the masses in Cairo destructed every
thing." What's-that-ya-say-Destructed?
Lovely. That these errors occurred in
almost every paragraph was entertaining,
but not nearly as amusing as the knowledge
that the piece was written collectively. (An
example of the awesomeness of Arabs
working together perhaps?!)
I suppose writing well is difficult to
master for revolutionaires who are so busy
being "committed." But I did believe that
thinking might well be useful for even the
most committed activist. Alas, the OASN
editorial revealed little of this trait either.
Fascism defined
They are quite taken, for instance, with
the word fascist. Not only do they describe
Hitler as a fascist (an enlightening point
I'm sure for many), but speak of "the
fascist British army," "an exclusive facist
state in Palestine," the fascists in Israel,"
and more generally, fascism in Iran, Latin
America and Africa. It must be good news
to many besides myself that fascism has
now been so clearly defined.
I was also happy to see the OASN
properly rebuke Jews for complaining
about their massacre during World War II.
The OASN rightly points out that many
others also died in concentration camps
"but the Jews made a big fuss about it."
It's difficult to know what to say in the
face of this ghastly violation of good taste.
Indeed! How dare the Jews complain of
such things-Amy Vanderbilt, I'm sure, is
displeased.
Major sin
Seriously, though, the major sin of the
OASN writers is their attempt to simplify
the Palestinian question into some sort of
good-guy versus bad-guy dichotomy. They
imply that "all Arabs" are this or that,
whereas in actuality many Arabs are as
divided over the problem in the Middle
East as are Americans. (Even the infamous
PLO has within it serious dissensions.)
Their gross simplifications are not only
evident in their history of Palestine (which
reads like something from the junior
edition of the World Book Encyclopedia),
but also in the mindless rhetoric they
continually evoke.
Kind of dummy
The members of the OASN would profit
from a reading of George Orwell's essay
"Politics and the English Language," where
he writes, "When one watches some tired
hack on the platform mechanically repeat
ing the familiar phrases-bestial atrocities,
iron heel, bloodstained tyranny, free
peoples of the world, stand shoulder to
shoulder-one often has a curious feeling
that one is not watching a live human being
but some kind of dummy. . . . The
appropriate noises are coming out of his
larnyx, but his brain is not involved as it
would be if he were choosing his words
for himself."
Deserves ridicule
The objections, however sarcastic, I've
raised here are justified. Any writing and
thinking that poorly presented deserves all
the ridicule others can muster.
Nevertheless, none of this is meant to
deny that problems exist in the Mid-East
nor that there have been wrongs commit
ted there by all interests. Actually, I believe
the members of the OASN could generate a
good deal of sympathy for their position if
they were less dogmatic and more sensitive
not only to the use of the English language,
but also to the complex and confusing na
ture of human conflicts. To the extent that
they violate these suggestions with naive,
uninformed, and belligerent propoganda,
they deserve to be ignored.
Editor's note: The author is a UNL
graduate student in history .
etters
The Daily Nebraskan's last issue
of the semester is Friday. Because of
the time element we will not print
letters or guest opinions on con
troversial subjects after Wednesday.
However, we will run replies to
opinions or non-controversial letters
after Wednesday as time and space
permits. The deadline for accepting
letters is Thursday at noon.
The Daily Nebraskan will begin
publishing for next semester on Jan.
15.
Michael Gibson rightly notes in his Dec.
4 column that recent UNL administrative
advocacy and evaluation of different teach
ing methods amounts to a smokescreen
which obscures the central question of who
is and who is not an effective teacher.
The university gives student consumers
the illusion of having input into their edu
cation, but the university certainly doesn't
desire student consumerism. If the uni
versity did, it would fund published stu
dent evaluations, would mandate faculty
participation in such evaluation and would
tenure and promote on the basis of these
evaluations.
By its current actions, however, the uni
versity indicates that teaching effectiveness
in reality constitutes its priority. Surveys
of teaching methods are meant only as a
distracting illusion aimed at both students
and faculty members dissatisfied with the
results of current hiring, tenure, promo
tions and "merit" salary policies. One
might suspect that in surveying teaching
methods the university may be gathering
specious data to justify lectures to larger
classes.
If teaching undergraduates were actually
important to the university, Stephen Sample,
executive vice-president for academic
affairs and dean of the graduate college,
would not have attempted this past
summer to force revised tenure and promo
tion policies down the throats of UNL's
faculty.
The proposed changes included the fol
lowing language: "The rank of professor is
among the highest honors the university
can bestow on a faculty member, and
should be granted only to faculty who have
earned national and international reputa
tion for being an effective teacher. For
tunately, it was discovered that the pro
posed changes were illegal; but they do
indicate clearly the mind-set of the UNL
administration-publish or perish.
If the university were concerned with
quality undergraduate teaching, President
Ronald Roskens would not make public
speeches which define his highest prioirities
for UNL as increasing teaching loads,
expanding graduate programs, encouraging
grantsmanship and intensifying "research"
while mentioning improving undergraduate
education only in passing.
If undergraduate teaching were the uni
versity's top priority, departments that re
ceived soalled Bereuter funds to improve
undergraduate teaching would not have
used this money to hire temporary,
visiting, emergency instructors who later
lost their positions.
If undergraduate teaching were a
genuine concern at UNL, the English
department, for instance, would not have
experienced a 10 percent budget reduction
for 1978-79. This reduction necessitated
increasing class sizes, diminishing course
variety, and leaving several hundred
students without needed classes in which
to enroll during the fall semester. More
over, the effects of this budget reduction
were at least in violation of the spirit, it
not the letter, of the legislation funding the
university for 1978-79.
If university administrators were
concerned with the quality of undergradu
ate education, they would not pay instruc
tors holding M.A.'s and Ph.D.'s SI, 000 to
$2,500 less than the Lincoln Public
Schools pay beginning teachers with B.A.'s.
Increased class sizes, expanded graduate
programs, emphasis on esoteric research
and publications read by a handful of
scholars, and grantsmanship have several effects-all
of them usually detrimental to
the undergraduate education most Nebras
ka taxpayers believe they are supporting.
First, increasing class sizes translates
into less instructor attention paid to each
individual student's work.
Second, expanded graduate programs
(in a period when new Ph.D.'s draw un
employment or find jobs driving taxis,
selling insurance, working construction,
etc.) not only waste taxpayer money and
graduate student lives, but also diminish
senior faculty contact with undergraduate
students.
Third, emphasis on research and
publication as the only criteria, or
even the major criteria, for tenure, promo
tion, and merit salary increases relays a
single message to all younger faculty
members. If you want job security or a job
at all, you should spend as much time as
possible in the library, the laboratory and
at conferences and devote as little time as
necessary to undergraduate student needs.
Fourth, hustling government and private
grants is time consuming, especially for
younger teachers who haven't the neces-
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