Daily Nebraskan
Tuesday, January 13, 1987
Jeff Korbelik, Editor, 472-1 766
James Holers, Editorial Page Editor
Use Olscn, Associate News Editor
Mike Reillcy, Night News Editor
Joan Rezac, Copy Di'sk Chief
.tv't ii Daily
NsDraskan
Univtrsity ol Nebraska-Lincoln
wo fti?em mem
Page 4
. ' ' " -4
Crockett, Vamer gave much
The contributions of two key
individuals will be sorely
missed this semester. D.B.
"Woody" Varner retired as chair
man of the NU Foundation board
of directors on Jan. 1, and long
time sociology professor Harry J.
Crockett died Dec. 14 after los
ing a seven-month battle with
lung cancer. He was 59.
Varner has retired from the
day-to-day activities of the foun
dation but will still play a part in
the foundation's efforts. He has
been instrumental in raising
money for such projects as the
Lied Center for Performing Arts
and the proposed indoor prac
tice and student recreation cen
ter. In fact, Varner has invested
$10,000 of his own money into
that project.
Edward J. Hirsch, NU Founda
tion president and executive
director, called Varner a "tre
mendous fund-raiser" and said
his expertise will be missed.
We would like to thank Varner
for all he has done for the Uni
versity of Nebraska. Why would
one man d6 so much? Obviously,,
this school means something to
him. In light of budget cuts, it's
nice to see someone who cares,
Crockett was also a man who
stood Up fot what he believed. He
devoted his career to academic
freedoisn, tolerance and noncori-
TT
Hi
myemtfsr.
All Nebraskans should be concerned
with the November action of the NU
Board of Regents which approved major
construction projects for non-educational
agricultural activities. The board
approved the construction of a headquarters-public
events building at Mead,
a support center and a staff conference
center at Whitman, and a headquarters
remodeling at the North Platte research
center. The Mead building cost alone is
$4.65 million. This action clearly dem
onstrates that the university continues
to pursue a non-academic commitment
to agriculture as opposed to a realloca
tion of assets to the future needs of the
state. Is the university pursuing a
commitment to excellence by reallo
cating university assets to meet the
needs of the future, or is it influenced
by the needs of the past?
Guest Opinion
The summary of the current UNL
general operating budget provides some
interesting cost comparisons between
the colleges at UNL
From 1980 to 1986 College of Agri
culture enrollment dropped 28 per
cent while state-aided operating ex
penditures increased 28 percent. From
1980 to 1986 the ag college's state
aided operating cost per student
increased from $2,1 24 to $3,794. During
the same interval, business college
enrollment increased 19 percent and
the state-aided operating cost per stu
dent increased from $960 to $1,372.
What is the vital need? The ag college's
per student cost is $3,784 and enrol
lment is sharply declining. The busi
ness ccl'ep's per student cost is $1,372,
cr.rc"r.cr.t is sharply increasing
71.2 viid r.scd would seem to be to
formity. For his efforts on behalf
of community and university civil
liberties, the former chairman of
the UNL sociology department
and professor of sociology and
psychology won the James Lake
Academic Freedom Award, given
by faculty members.
Henry Baumgarten, Foundation
professor of chemistry and chair
man of the Lake Freedom Award
Committee, called Crockett a
"man of great personal integrity.
He stood up for what he believed
in, regardless of the conse
quences." Crockett not only made an
impression on his students but
also on his peers, earning deserved
respect. The UNL community
benefited from his resources.
Thank you, D.B. Varner.
Thank you, Harry J. Crockett.
Editorial Policy
Unsigned editorials represent
' official policy of the spring 1S37 Daily
Nebraskan. Policy is set by the Daily
Nebraskan Editorial Board. Its mem
bers are Jeff Korbelik , editor; James
Rogers, editorial page editor, Lise
Olsen, associate news editor; Mike
, Reilley, night news editor and Joan
Rezac, copy desk chief,
Editorials do not necessarily re
flect the views of the university, its
employees, the students or the NU
Board of Regents.
expansion
provide quality education, to contain
the per-student cost in agriculture, and
to meet the student demand in the
business college.
The regents have approved myor
construction projects for non-student-related
activities. Ag students, busi
ness students, university faculty mem
bers and taxpayers must ask: Does an
increase in plant and equipment fulfill
students' need of the future? This con
struction will result in an increase in
the annual operating costs needed to
maintain the plant and equipment. An
increase in staff and personnel will be
needed to staff and maintain the build
ings. Does not a commitment to excel
lence require major salary increases to
a reduced staff, as opposed to increased
expenditures to an increased staff?
Our university must provide leader
ship in preparing students for the
state's business and industry needs of
the future. It should be committed to
establishing the premier business col
lege in our region, just as it strives to be
the premier agricultural school in our
region. It must provide the research
and the support for those businesses
and industries which can be important
to out state's future. A commitment to
excellence does not mean more tax
dollars, but rather a major reallocation
of university assets to the needs of the
future. I submit that major construc
tion projects, regardless of how funded,
should be scrutinized very carefully to
determine whether or not they meet
the future vital needs of the student
body as well as of the state as a whole.
Robert E. Johnson Jr.
Omaha
Johnson is a grad si&te of the ?.TU College
cf Essiaees end College of Law end
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Take a right and then don't go to UNL,
To those freshmen and transfer
students who are just beginning
their academic careers here at
UNL, I would like to extend a warm
welcome and my sincere wishes that
you can get out of this school before it's
too late for your education. .
When I came to UNL in the fall of
1389 I felt good because I felt I was
starting out at a good school At that
time a lot of people felt that UNL was
on the way up. Students, faculty and
the citizens of Nebraska locked forw ard
to aday not so far in the future when
this" state U in the middle of the
nowhere belt could lock the very best
colleges in the country right straight in
their academic eyes.
Then the economy of Nebraska took
a dip. Not so bad a dip, really, but the
government took it seriously. It was
decided that a lot of the differences
could be made up by trimming the fat
from the university budget, fine.
Then it happened again.
Then it happened again.
Now it's about to happen again. The
fat of the university has been gone for
years. Now they're trimming the meat,
and pretty soon they'll be sucking the
marrow out of your education.
Maybe you think things will get
better. Maybe you're willing to gamble.
Things aren't completely hopeless, are
they?
No, not completely. After all, there's
a brand new administration in the
governor's office. Kay Orr has called
higher education her highest affordable
priority. Gov. Orr could still throw the
Rumania's 'perfect' shutout election
proves accuracy of tyranny index
Jn 1982, Albania held an election
which Communist Party chief Enver
Hoxha won by 1,627,959 votes to 1.
A decisive victory. It suggested to me at
the time a key to what political philfr
sophers had long been seeking: a relia
ble tyranny index.
The Tirana Index (named .after
Albania's capital) holds that repres
siveness correlates with electoral suc
cess. The higher the score rolled up by
the ruling party in elections, the more
tyrannous the regime. At one end of the
spectrum are places like Albania, the
Soviet Union and Syria, where 89 per
cent of the vote is the norm.
At the other end are freewheeling
semi-anarchies, like Italy, where it is
unsafe to drive and where the ruling
party never gets half the vote.
In between lie orderly democracies
like the United States (winning mar
O T7T Tl
weight of her office wholeheartedly
behind higher education and save the
university. Will this happen? Will a
Reagan Republican go out on a limb for
some very little people who have been
abandoned by a progressive Democrat?
Stranger things have happened. Some
where. Sometime. Probably.
Chris
McCublin
Then there's the NU Foundation. The
foundation is a bunch of rich people
who go out and ask other rich people to
support NU with their money. The
foundation does lots of nifty things for
UNL. Right now the foundation is
building UNL a nifty new performing
arts center. If all the rich people at the
foundation asked all their rich friends,
and all the rich companies that the
rich friends work for, to give UNL
money, UNL would probably have all
the money it needs. The only problem is
that the foundation asked so many
people for money to help build the nifty
new performing-arts center that nobody
had any money left for a long time to
give for things like academics or the
library. Things like that just aren't nifty
enough.
Now the NU Foundation has just
raised $800,000 for a nifty new indoor
gins of 60 percent, tops) and moderate
autocracies like Mexico, which will
broach 70 percent but not much more
for fear of embarrassment to all
concerned.
Charles
Krauthamnk .
A few weeks ago, the Tirana Index
met yet another challenge. In the midst
of a severe food and energy shortage,
Rumania held a referendum. The result:
17,699,772 Rumanians voted yes, no
one voted no. A shutout. A perennial
contender for the honor cf most repres
sive regime on earth' (in Rumania,
columnist advises
practice area and recreational center,
so it will be a little while longer before
the rich people will have extra money
to give to academics. The foundation
president said the foundation decided
to raise money for the nifty new indoor
practice area and recreation center
instead of, say, the library because
football fans would send money for a
nifty new indoor practice field and
recreation center, but there are no
library fans to send money to the
library.
Now Reagan has taken away the rifyi
people's tax breaks, so if the foundation
ever does get around to asking rich
people to give money for academics,
fewer of them will want to. Reagan also
is taking away financial aid, so unless
your folks are rich you probably won't
be able to go to school here much
longer whether there's a school here
for you to go to or not.
You expect to graduate in 1990? In
1990 UNL will be a few rich kids and
football players all playing games in
their' nifty new indoor practice field
and recreation center, ignoring plays
and ballets in their nifty new performing
arts center, and never going to class at
all because all the professors will have
either quit, been fired or starved to
death.
If you're not rich, or a football player,
or if this isn't your idea of an education,
I suggest you get while the getting is
good.
McCubbin is a senior English and philo
sophy major and a Daily Nebraskan
Diversions editor.
typewriters must be registered with
the police) had conducted what may be
the most perfect election yet.
The Tirana Index is a proven instru
ment. But events over the Christmas
holidays have convinced me that, not
withstanding its accuracy and elegance,
there is another measure of tyranny,
more subtle and more qualitative, that
needs to be explored. Call it the Par
don Index: the more lawless, capri
cious, and imperious a regime, the
greater its propensity to make use of
the pardon power.
There have been a lot of pardons
issued over the holidays. In the most
famous of these, Mikhail Gorbachev
phoned Andrei Sakharov and released
him from exile in Gorki, to which
Sakharov had been banished as
See KftAUTI1A!.ir"n on 5