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frlday, march 23, 1979
lincoln, nebraska vol. 102 no. 101
Brown wins vice presidency
Ceca9 Nigra meet in ram-off lection
By Shelley Smith
Because of no clear majority vote, a run-off election is
scheduled April 11 between two ASUN presidential
candidates.
Bud Cuca with the Students of the University of Ne
braska (SUN) party and Joe Nigro with the Students Or
ganized for Active Representation (SOAR) party are the
two candidates who will compete.
The extra election is necessary because of a rule
adopted by the NU Board of Regents last spring which
requires that ASUN executive candidates win by a
majority of the students voting.
To achieve this majority, the ASUN Electoral Com
mission adopted a new ballot system that permits voters
to rank each candidate in preferential order.
System failed
However, because voters expressed no alternative
preferences, chose one candidate four times, or chose less
than four candidates, the system failed, according to
Electoral Commissioner Susan Ugai.
After the count of first preference presidential votes,
completed early Thursday morning, the tallies were:
Nigro-1,090, Cuca-904, Scott Brittenham (SAIL)-331,
Denny Wurtz (OSI)-322, and Henry (Bob) Winkler
(SINK)-240. There were 63 write-in votes.
However a majority vote was received in the first vice
presidential race and at 4 p.m. Thursday afternoon,
Hubert Brown (SOAR) was officially declared the winner.
Brown is a junior journalism major and acting president
of the Afro American Collegiate Society.
Nigro said he thought the presidential election would
be close but said he didn't expect that a run-off election
would be necessary. He said he would like to be done with
this S lectioii Completely over ...
' . , ' V ?4 "Better .chancev v -i
However j Cuca said he was pleased with the result of
another election because it "gives us a second chance
a better chance.'
"If it gives us a shot at winning, then by God we'll do
it," he said.
Both candidates said it might be difficult to generate
as much interest in the second election as there was in the
first. Wednesday's voter turnout was the highest since
1971 and was projected at about 18 percent by ASUN
President Ken Marienau.
However, several of the losing candidates said they
will throw their support and campaign with one of the
two remaining candidates.
Scott Brittenham (SAIL) said he would support Cuca
because of Nigro's actions in the past weeks.
SAIL supports Cuca
"Bud is the most qualified" he said.
"But the tactics Joe did in the last couple of weeks
are going to change a lot of peoples votes," he added.
Brittenham said he was disappointed that he and his
first vice presidential candidate Jon Pfeiffer lost the
election, but added he was more upset by What Nigro has
allegedly done. T
He attributed his loss partly to the tack of support by
the Daily Nebraskan endorsement editorial which named
Nigro as the first choice and Cuca second. .
"It hurt us immensely," Brittenham said.
He said this will end his political career and now he can
start studying: . A
Henry (Bob) Winkler (SINK) also said he would
support Cuca in the run-off race, because he felt that
Cuca has "the right idea" about ASUN.
No expectations
Winkler, who proposed raising the drinking age to 30,
the driving age to 21, building a roof over the stadium and
supporting the NU Board of Regents, admitted that he did
not expect to win.
"My personal goal was to bring the issues out in front
of the student's eyes," he said.
Winkler added that he believed the SINlt campaign
added to the increase in voter turnout. ..
Hubert Brown said he will continue to support Nigro,
and added that he will "work as hard for Joe as if I was
still a candidate." ; ". ;-
"Joe -getting the presidency was my primary goal in
joining the party," Brown said: - .'-
Money for nnvoff: .
ASUN treasurer and electoral commission delegate"
Scott Ballentine said he wasn't sure where the fundi
'would come from, for the run-off election, but said he
hoped that Vice Chancellor, for Student ATMs, Rkhiid
Armstrong could allocate some money out of the student
fees contingency fund. " r - , ;
i Ballentine said the commission already has gone
way over" its budget of $2,000.
t , Continued on psje 2
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Daily Nebraskan photo
Daily Nebraskan photo
SOAR presidential candidate Joe Nigro
SUN presidential candidate Bud Cuca
Gracle officials propose changes
By Alice Hrnicek and i. ,
, ; Ejirb Richardsoa 1 1
A proposal by the Faculty Senate Grading Committee
initiating changes ui three areas of UNL's grading
system has met with varied reactions from students, facul
ty and officials.
The committee has proposed changes in policies re
garding incomplete, passfail and withdrawals.
Two changes in the incomplete grading policy have
been proposed.
First, the committee proposes that the student and
faculty member sign a contract that clarifies what the stu
dent must do to erase his incomplete grade, when the
course must be completed in not more than two years, the
grade the student will be assigned if he or she does not
complete the course and the percentage of course work
that grade represents. Currently , there are no contracts for
incompletes.
Second, if the student does not finish the work
required for the course he will not receive a permanent in
complete, but will receive the grade that the instructor in
dicated on the contract.
CPA results
Presently, under the passfail system, if a student fails
a course it affects his GPA; Also students may change
from passfail to a grade or from a grade to passfail
within an 8 week period. Under .current practices what is
considered a passing grade is at the discretion of each in
structor at UNL.
The committee proposes that the 'passfail" be
changed to "passno pass,' that a passing grade be a C or
better and that after a week and" one day a student
registered for passno pass can not change from passno
pass to a grade. A student will be able to change from a
grade to passno pass during the first eight weeks of the
semester.
4 Under the present withdrawal policy students may
Withdraw from a class until finals week of the semester.
Under the Committee's proposal students may not receive
a withdrawal, W grade, after the twelfth week,
t Also under the proposal, a W grade will not be a grade
an instructor may give a student without signing a drop
form. Currently, instructors can give students a W as a
grade without signing a drop form. The proposal will not
affect complete withdrawal from the university.
M Good students
: Frank Gdfeather, Senate Grading Committee chairman,
said the : changes willbe - 'least advantageous to the
'marginal student. Good studentswill only be affected:
for the better by the changes! he said. - ..
h "We, up until this time, had the weakest (grading)
: policy" of the; Big Eight schools Gilfeather said about
UNLV procedures. "It's my vkw'that'4 thtt change will .
move us right about in the middle as far as toughness."
flit fa ftutant mrm v1i- Rm a foil!.
grade affects their GPA while a passing grade does not
under the present system. . .
He said the current passfail procedure is not fair
because a passing" grade is interpreted differently, by
different Instructors. 1 . . .
He. also said he thinks that changing a passing grade to
n a, bettei beneficial .because" t passing grade could
be used is fi prerequisite to courses that require a C c
better in a previous class. It is a good change because"
passing grades of C or better will look better on records
of students that transfer from UNL.
W instead of F
One of the problems with the present system, Gil-,
feather said, is that it allows some faculty members to give
a W for a grade rather than an F. He said this is not fair to
students in other classes that receive F's while other stu
dents get W's instead of an F.
When students withdraw from full classes, other stU
dents who would have taken the course and finished it are
hurt, Gilfeather said. He added that the withdrawal policy
also is a problem because students that withdraw from
classes they are required to take later block other students
from entering into the class because they must sign up for
the class again.
"The three things put together, the new passNo pass,
incompletes, and withdrawal policies, will serve to the ad
vantage of the students and faculty," said Gerald Bowker,
assistant vice chancellor for academic affairs.
Nebraska and Colorado are the only two Big Eight
schools that have "punitive" passfail systems, Bowker
said. He explained that if students fail a course at
Colorado or Nebraska, the grade counts against them on
their GPA,
Make up grade
He said that most of the Big Eight schools, except one,
require a contract for incomplete grades between the stu
dent and the faculty member. Nebraska allows the longest
period, besides Oklahoma State, to make up an
incomplete grade, Bowker said. Nebraska allows two years
while Oklahoma State allows a maximum of three years to
make up incomplete grades.
Bowker said that withdrawal policies in the Big Eight
are varied. One school allows a student to withdraw out of
a class on the last .day of the semester while another
school allows students to withdraw out of only seven
classes their entire career.
Kent Whitacre, chairman of the Academic Policy Com
mittee of ASUN, conceded that the new incomplete
policy poses the least difficulties.
"This will eliminate some of the problems of people
graduating with an I or the professor
Continued on pas S -
Deadlocked: Committees have tie votes cn
advancing drinking age bills. . . . . pje 1 1
Gettin' away: Potential spring break activities
listed in a series of articles.. pses 6-7
Updike again: Book review Bill Reier comments
of John Updike's current bestseller p; a
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