Wednesday, September 24, 1980
daily nebraskan
page 5
JohnHopgood'i.esposc of problems in the College
of Architecture reported in Monday's Daily
Nebraskan was extremely poor journalism well beyond
the limits of tolerance which student-run newspapers can
be granted.
Hopgood's sloppy data gathering destroyed his claim
to credibility at the outset. Here are some gross factual
errors:
1 . When tornadoes leveled parts of Grandlsland in
June, the college offered to help the city with its rebuid
ing plans." The college did more than just offer, it sent a
number of faculty members out to help assess the extent
of damage door-to-door and provided planning support
through the temporary assignment of one of it's planning
faculty to the city of Grand Island for a period of two
weeks.
2. Peter Wood was not "director of the American
Institute of Architects" but was a director of continuing
education for the AI A.
Jay Garrott (not Garrett) was an assistant professor,
not an associate professor.
Mary Kihl was not in the department of architecture
but in the community and regional planning department.
Mr. Kihl found a job in Ames, Iowa and Mary found
one in Lincoln. Mary jumped at the opportunity to join
her family in Ames, Iowa. So, Mary is not at Iowa State
University, not Arizona State U. as the article states.
4. Dean Steward is a registered architect, but not
registered in the state of Nebraska.
Once I plowed through these gross errors and shallow
presentations, I found that the Hopgood article depicted
a tense and suspicious-laiden atmosphere in the College
of Architecture. The anonymous sources of derogatory
quotes gave the appearance that the dean was inaccessible
to faculty and intolerant of differences of opinion.
As one who has laid many a problem in his lap without
the benefits of appointments to do so, I can say that
I am surprised at Dean Steward's continued optimism
in the face of real and persistant problems of poor salaries
and substandard facilities. I think the last lines of Hop
good's article should have been reversed and amended to
read: 1t's going to be (another) tough year" but "there
is a lot of vitality and excitement within the college.'
Dean Steward is a very accessible person who listens
sentence, but no understating his optimism.
Mele Koneya
Associate Professor, Community
Development
College of Agriculture, UNL'
Aliens . . .
In other words, you'd have the Hispanic having to
demonstrate residency or citizenship in the United States,
while you wouldn't have that problem with any other
group. Any time you have that type of situation that's a
glaring inequity, one that would probably result in em
ployees refusing to hire us."
Torres' point is difficult to refute. But so is
Huddlestone's. The senator claims that millions of low
income workers are unemployed because they are dis
placed by aliens who are willing to work for less than
prevailing rates. Labor Secretary Ray Marshall once esti
mated that the VS. jobless rate could be reduced by more
than a third if illegal aliens were taken out of the job
market.
Torres, who prefers the term "undocumented
workers," says the displacement is vastly exaggerated.
"Displacement isn't the problem," he says, "the
problem, which affects not just black youth but to
some extent other youth, including Hispanics, is a very
high rate of functional illiteracy, continued discrimin
ation, lack of job skills, the escalating qualifications for
entry-level jobs-those are the problems."
Torres acknowledges that there is some displace
ment of American workers by illegal immigrants, but
thinks that to focus attention on it is simply to obscure
more serious aspects of minoirty joblessness in America.
For there to be any displacement factor, you must
assume that (Americans) would take those jobs. But
there is nothing to substantiate that they would," the U.S.
born Tones contends.
"Under the present circumstances of the welfare
approach by this country, there is a huge disincentive to
work at the minimum wage.
"I worked for the California Legislature for two years
as a budget analyst, and my interviews with welfare reci
pients, my interviews with community people, my inter
views with the administrators of welfare programs, there
was a concensus that the welfare approach is very much a
disincentive for people to go to work."
But granting Torres assertion that it is unfair to make
undocumented workers the scapegoat for all unemploy
ment in America, what would he see as a reasonable
approach for dealing with the displacement that does
occur?
"The only reasonable approach is a policy on the part
of this country that addresses the needs of the countries
that are sending the people over here. You'd project
development projects along the border areas. You'd have
to relax some tariff laws with Mexico. You'd have to in
crease the trade that Mexico has with this country.
"Those are some of the things that would help to
stem the flow. But you're never goinglo stop the flow,
no matter what you do."
(c) 1SS0. Tha lYarftington Post Company
Reagan . . .
Continued from Page 4
The American people don't know a lot of these things.
The people's right-to-know machinery has had its screws
tightened. As far as public debate goes, Ron never has
been one for out in-theopen negotiations. He prefers the
"this is the way it's going to be" approach.
But things could be worse. Alexander Haig, secretary
of defense, pulled the plug on one president in the final
days, maybe he has already had a talk with military heads
about Reagan's tendency to shoot first and ask questions
later.
Four years of Reagan. What lurks in the musty corners
of a cobweb mind? What can be done to stop the ebb of
closet conservatives and power-mongers in the produc
tion rooms and in tne director's chairs that sit behind The
Actor?
But maybe these are just the blind rambling of a
sore-loser liberal. Maybe the reign won't be as bad as the
running and none of this will come to pass. After all, as
John Mitchell said in 1969:
"Watch what we do, not what we say."
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