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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (April 25, 1986)
.4 Weather: High today of 78, slightly cooler Saturday with a high of 70. Lows of 52 for both nights. Showers are possible throughout the weekend. It's rock 'n' roll time at Cornstock concert Arts and Entertainment, page 9 Annual Red-White scrimmage Saturday Sports, page 7 n Daily April 25, 1986 University of Nebraska-Lincoln Vol.85 No.147 center to more 4 tftfi By Todd von Kampen Senior Reporter Beginning next fall, UNL students won't have to run from building to building for help with class schedules, career decisions, study skills or personal problems. Four existing offices that served students in those areas will be combined to form the UNL Student Resource Center, said Vernon Williams, director of the new office. The center, which will be located on the second floor of Teachers College, should provide students with better service than they receive under the present system, he said. The center will include the present Counseling Center, Educational Learning Center, Office of Multi-Cultural Affairs and Office of Undergradu ate Advising. All staff members in those offices will be retained in the center, Williams said. Former Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Richard Armstrong first proposed combining the four offices two years ago, said Williams, the present director of the Counseling Center and Educational Learning Center. Although UNL's budget problems cast the future of some of the programs into doubt, plans for the new center continued, he said. The center's location should benefit students the most, W'illiams said. Those looking for the services the center will provide now have to go to the Administ ration Building for advising, Selleck Quadrangle for help with study skills and Seaton Hall for counseling and assistance for minority students. "An undeclared student may want to go to an adviser to talk about next semester's schedule and at the same time talk about a more definite career decision," Williams said. And now staff members in the center will be able to offer help in more than one area if necessary, he said. Staff members also should benefit from each other's expertise, Williams said. Although the offices have worked together before, he said, they should be able to put together more effective programs for students than they could when they were working separately. Williams said budget pressures had little effect on the decision to combine the offices. Because no positions will be eliminated, he said, the center's budget will not differ greatly from the combined $600,000 spent by the four offices this year. Some staff members think consolidation could hurt services in several areas, Williams said. Those involved in personal counseling, he said, fear the resources devoted to counseling might decrease at a time when mental health services at tire University Health Center are "booked up." But the center should be "a big boost for minority students," said James Smith, director of multi-cultural affairs. Minority students will benefit not only from the central location, but from the assurance that the center's services are available to all students, he said. Smith said Williams and Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Rudy Lewis have promised to maintain his office's visibility. His staff members will continue to seek out minority students on their own, he said. The Office of Multi-Cultural Affairs will move into Teachers College May 1 and 2, Williams said. Depending on the amount of money available to finish renovation at Teachers College, all four offices should be in their new locations by September, he said. t f J r ' " U 1 ,4, A xuTa v trrtafc: v.:m , ....... n. do inn Schultz me Qoonng on Oavid CreamerDaily Nebraskan III! Plains states plunging into a mini-ice age, scientist says By Kent Endacott Senior Reporter Bertrand Schultz can recall looking out of his north Lincoln home during the 1940s and seeing armadillos. But last week, he said, an arctic black raven came to visit his backyard. "It's getting colder," said the retired UNL pathologist and director of the Nebraska Academy of Sciences. "In the 1940s, we had av Texas-Louisiana type climate in Nebraska. In the last 1,100 years, we've had three mini-ice ages one in the ninth century, one in the latter part of the 12th century and one in the 15th century. "We're coming off the best agricultural climate in the last 5,000 years. Since 1947, we've had a watershed of change in the type of vegetation that can grow.. We've lost over 6,000 types of flowers. We're plunging into it (another ice age)." Schultz is the executive director of the Institute for Tertiary-Quaternary Studies, a group of scientists from a variety of disciplines who believe climate charts point to a mini ice age in our time. The movement runs opposite to the "greenhouse effect" theory, which holds that carbon dioxide trapped in the earth's atmosphere is making the world hotter. "It's getting colder, not warmer," Schultz said. "They're absolutely crazy. What they don't take into account is the increased amount of particles in the air." Climate charts, he said, show that the average yearly temperatures are steadily decreasing from a peak in the 1940s. If temperatures in Nebraska had averaged just one-fourth of a degree warmer for a few years during the 1940s, he said, palm trees would have migrated as far north as Falls City. The decline in temperatures is caused by an increase in dust particles in the air, Schultz said. Schultz and his wife, Marian, a fellow scientist, have studied deserts around the world. In their research, he said, they found amazing similarities between the sand in the Sahara desert and the sand in Nebraska's sandhills. They concluded that the sandhills will expand during the mini-ice age, losing the thin layer of soil that now cover them. The sandhills will become another Sahara desert, he said. This cycle, he said, has already occurred several times in Nebraska. But Nebraskans can easily adapt to these changes in the environment. ' - "We've found more fossil camel ibones in the sandhills than anywhere else in the world," he said. "The Indians were eating the camels. It's not going to be that bad. We're going to have to adapt." Even with the approaching ice age, he said, life will not change much. "At worst, all that we're going to get is Minnesota weather " he said. Health center ends class excuse policy By Chris Graves Staff Reporter Beginning next fall, students no longer will be able to obtain routine class excuses from the University Health Center, said Dr. Gerald Flei schli, medical director. The center's medical staff voted unanimously last December to recommend discontinuing the policy that has been in existence "for as long as anyone can remember," Fleischli said. Some students make appointments to get a class excuse without being sick, Fleischli said. In such cases, students take away appointments that could be used by ill students, he said. Fleischli said diagnosis is difficult in these situations because students conjure up "an unusual cluster of symptoms" to get an e Many times when students are sick and miss class, their instructors request a health center class excuse. In such cases, the center must take a student's word that he was sick the day before. Fleischli said instructors should show the same faith. "Students are adults ... we should treat them like that," he said. Although the routine class excuse procedure will end this spring, the health center will continue to issue them in "special situations," he said. A request from a college dean would be such a situation, he said. Although Fleischli said he anticipates some student and professor inconvenience in the beginning, he said it will be worth it because more appointments will be available for those students who are really ill. David Forsythe, a political science .professor, said he thinks the change in policy "will create all kinds of difficulty in the university." On a more personal level, he said, the change would "open myself up to all kinds of buffoonery." Forsythe said he hopes the health center will rethink the policy because "it's the only control on students' creative argument." But Philip Dyer, also a political science professor said the change would not affect his policies. Dyer said he believes students when they tell him they were sick because "I have an optimistic view of the nature of man." Class forms entrepreneur skills Page6