Daily Nebraskan Friday, November 5, 1982 Page 4 Edit Students benefited by election of women regents The NU Board of Regents increased its women mem bership by 200 percent Tuesday night. Voters in the 3rd and 4th Districts elected women over male opponents. In the 3rd District, Margaret Robinson of Norfolk beat Don Dworak of Columbus. Robinson, the president of Norfolk Iron and Metal Co., won 33,778 votes (with 271 of the 288 precincts counted) and Dworak, a state senator, earned 19, 982 votes. In the 4th District, Nancy Hoch of Nebraska City ousted Robert Prokop of Wilber. Hoch, a homemaker who serves on several university committees, earned 28,832 votes (with 211 of 213 precincts counted) to Prokop's 23,990. Robinson outspent Dworak many times over during the election. She spent $38,000 - more than any of the other seven regent candidates - to combat Dworak 's name recognition. Apparently she put her money in the right places. Hoch simply outworked Prokop. She campaigned heavily in her district, visiting county fairs and going door-to-door. The Daily Nebraskan welcomes the two women to the board. We are happy that the board will have its first elected female representatives and look forward to the changes that Hoch and Robinson proposed during their campaigns. If all those proposals are implemented - and we hope they will be - UNL students can expect the following from Margaret Robinson: - Sound business judgment. Robinson has headed her Norfolk company for eight years, a job that requires wise business and managerial decisions. Although this newspaper earlier endorsed her opponent because of his experience in handling the NU budget, we believe Robin son's business experience will make her a "quick study" with the NU budget. - A reduction in overhead costs. During the campaign, Robinson repeated that the place to start cutting the budget is in the administration. - More donations. Robinson has said the university should seek more non-tax funds; we hope she knows where to look for them. - Higher faculty salaries. Robinson, as did most of the regent candidates, said she supports higher salaries for faculty members. We challenge her to make that stand a priority during her term and propose verifiable salary and benetit increases. - Town meetings. Robinson promised to have a yearly town hall meeting in every county in her district We believe that will keep her in touch with how tax payers view the university. And this can be expected of Nancy Hoch: - Experience with a wide number of university groups. As a member of the President's Advisory Council, the Alumni Association board of directors, the Wick Alumni Center Committee and the University Health Center Board of Councilors, Hoch is already familiar with a large segment of the university community. - Willingness to work with students. Hoch emphasized that she would communicate with students. In a Wed nesday Lincoln Journal article, she said she will visit NU classes. Considering her opponent's poor record on this point, we hope Hoch carries out this promise. - Increased faculty salaries. Like Robinson, Hoch made faculty salaries a campaign issue. We extend our challenge to her to propose solid salary improvement plans. We encourage students to attend the Jan. 15 board meeting - the date that Hoch and Robinson will begin their six-year terms as regents. If all they promised comes true, students may have won their first two friends on the board in a long time. Fate deals great American, John Z., an unjust sentence One of the more unjustly maligned inmates of the California State Penal System has to be John Z. DeLorean. Overlooked in the hubbub of his drug Matthew Millea arrest have been the virtues he has con sistently demonstrated - the very virtues held highest in our society. John Z. had it all going for him. His third wife is a professional model whose own entrepreneurial abilities are of such a delicate nature that they've adopted a beautiful son. John Z. commands a fleet of 22 vehicles. (What a world this would be if every man had about seven cars for every wife!) After John Z. had succeeded in every possible way at General Motors Corp., he naturally turned his tremendous talents toward new challenges. The first to present itself was making fun of CM. He lent his name to a book named "On a Clear Day You Can See G.M." Thanks to John Z., undergraduate business majors across America have learned what a sluggish, unethical giant our largest car company really is. But this great American was not to be satisfied with merely publishing books. He saw his fellow human beings oppressed in a country far, far away - in Northern Ireland. John Z. realized the injustice of unemployment for those less tremen dously gifted than himself, and he knew the unemployment rate in Northern Ire land is easily the highest in the Anglo world. Clearly, John Z. thought, these people need a car company. Setting his fabled managerial and engineering skills to work, this great American conceived an idea truly worth of his character. John Z., recognized the tremendous desire gripping other wealthy people to own the car that would bear his name - complete with vertical "gull wing" doors, oversized wheels, a stainless steel body guaranteed for 25 years and a $25,000 price tag. There were, of course, always the doubters. This was before President Rea gan's plan to make investment capital available to America's risk -takers, and John Z. had a little trouble getting the cash together to put the Irish back to work. Luckily, the British government was almost as concerned about unemployment in Northern Ireland as this bold American and managed to come up with $135 million to help him out. Everything looked great for John Z., but it always had. Always the optimist, he scoffed at his marketing analysts who were insisting he couldn't possibly sell more than 4,000 cars per year. John Z., the great American, went for it all: He set his Irish factory up to crank out 20,000 of his stainless steel beauties right away. Continued on Page 5 i 4 ss -' rm Letters Only a college prank In response to Denise Wiedel's letter (Nov. 2),regarding a fraternity throwing a brother in the fountain: First of all, the percentage of fraternity sorority members that are strong religious believers and church-goers is probably quite comparable to the percentage of non Greek. Although we hear much "talk" about it being otherwise, there are never any statistics to back it up. And second, I think it is ludicrous to condemn a group of people for having innocent fun by throwing sofneone in a fountain. It's all part of college and if that is the most "horrifying experience" that you have ever witnessed . . . thanks be to God! Karen Morehead senior, business More letters on Page 5 Ogling, catcalls, "hey, sexy' are not compliments Karen Downs, 28. is. bv her own description, a !arie busted woman of above average looks. Which is why, for half her life, she has received catcalls, whistles and lewd suggestions from the men she passes on the street. Roger Simon "It can be anything from 'Hi, baby,' and 'Whoa! What a set of knockers!' to indecent and degrading obscenities like invitations to sex," she said. "I have outwardly tolerated these lewd remarks for 14 yean and I've had enough. I have begun to fight back." Downs' case is not unique. A lot of women attract such comments. And she admits that some other women even envy the attention she gets. But she feels there is nothing enviable about being shouted at on a street. One day, Downs, a Ph.D. candidate in biology, was taking a commuter train home. She found herself alone in the car with the motorman. "He had turned around 180 degrees from the tracks and just kept staring at me," Downs said. "1 asked him why he didn't keep his eyes on the tracks. "He said: 'Why should I when I have such a fox on the train to look at?' " Downs told him she didn't appreciate his comments "You're crazy," he told her. "What's wrong? You're a sexy looking thing." When Downs got off the train, she complained to a train employee at the station. She said the motorman had not kept his eyes on the tracks but had spent his time ogling her and making comments. "I don't rightly blame him," the employee said. The next day, Downs called the headquarters of the railway and - this I find astonishing - got action. A hear ing was held. "The motorman was put on probation for a year and suspended for three days without pay," Downs said. I asked her if she didn't think that was a little severe "No," she said. "Why should I have to be called things even things like fox or baby or honey? I don't like being treated like an object instead of a human being." Downs next success came at her local fire house. "For two years I got catcalls everytime I passed it," she said "They whistled at me like I was a dog or some kind of animal. "They'd shout things like 'Hey, sexy' or 'Look at those knockers' or worse. After two years, I finally called the fire chief. "He reacted immediately. He said if it ever happened again, the men doing it would be fired. That was a year ago and 1 have never been harassed by anyone in the fire station again." TU i .. i. iwu cases involved puoiic employees, wnu might be more likely to react to a citizen's complaint. But Downs has even had success complaining about con struction workers. "There was a construction site across from my home two months ago," she said. "I would get catcalls and whistles and then one day really crude sexual threats, real obscenities. comP'ained to the supervisor at the site and he said, Awe, c'mon, they were just admiring you. Who wouldn't?' Which is not something you say to Karen Downs. She went to the police and filed a complaint. The owner of the company said he'd fire the guys who had harassed her. But Downs finally settled for the promise that the men would never dc it again. And they didn't. At first, even some of the women I worked with thought I went too far," Downs said, "but I really believe that a woman who permits a man to sexually harass her on the street is admitting that she is inferior. u js imP,vin8 that man can say anything he likes to her. She is implying that she does not have to be re spected as a dignified human being." But don't some men think they are giving you a compliment when they say those things to you on the street? I asked. "Yes," she said. "And I am letting them know they are wrong. (c) 1&32, Lot Aftt Timtt Syndicate