Editorial
Nebraskan
University ot Nebraska-LIncotn
Mike Reilley, Editor, 472-1766
Jeanne Bourne, Editorial Page Editor
Jann Nyffeler, Associate News Editor
Scott Harrah, Night News Editor
Joan Rezac, Copy Desk Chief
Linda Hartmann, Wire Editor
Charles Lieurance, Asst. A & E Editor
New Orr program
UNL can use ‘money to grow with ’
It has been a long time com
ing, but it appears that the
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
finally has some gubernatorial
support.
Gov. Kay Orr has proposed a
multi-million research develop
ment program for the University
of Nebraska. The plan was un
veiled last week in a presenta
tion to U S West, a telecommuni
cations corporation that is con
sidering Nebraska as a possible
site for a $55 million private
research center that would involve
1,500 jobs.
The plan would use money
from existing tax funds to appro
priate $60 million within five
years to create and embellish
university research programs. A
Nov. 1 deadline has been set for
the NU Board of Regents to out
line how the money would be
used. Orr said some money should
be used in computer science
technology, hiring new faculty,
raising the salaries of present
faculty, supporting graduate as
sistant programs and purchasing
new research equipment.
The proposed appropriations
would be added to a $7.5 million
grant from the Peter Kiewit Foun
dation to link UNL and Dart
mouth College in Hanover, N.H.,
for research in engineering and
technology. Ten million dollars
in private donations would ac
company the program. The money
would be divided between UNL,
UNO and the NU Medical Center.
The planned funding will be
adopted with the Legislature’s
approval whether U S West
chooses Nebraska or not.
After a $3.3 million midyear
budget cut during the ’86-'86
school year and a $1.6 million
midyear cut during the '86-’87
school year, the university is
finally turning into what it’s
supposed to be — an institution
for learning and growth, emphas
izing the growth.
The past budget cuts have
whittled programs down to the
bare essentials. Now, pending
legislative approval, the univer
sity will have some room to work
and some money to grow with.
LdDranes deserve neip;
constituents are sought
When the dust cleared in
the controversy over the
student recreation center
last spring, the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln was left with
more than just a place to play
football and racquetball.
The discussion over whether
to build the rec center drew
attention to a more important
issue — improving the univer
sity libraries.
It also resolved a problem that
Edward Hirsch, chairman of the
board of the NU Foundation, has
said the university was strug
gling to solve.
Hirsch said last spring that it
was difficult to find donors for
projects such as libraries because
there are no strong supporters.
He added that it was easier to
find donors for the new practice
field in the rec center because
the football team has “defined
constituents” such as season
ticket holders.
But now the library has found
some “constituents.” One is
Edmund Field, who established
a $900,000 endowment for the
libraries in the memory of Ed
mund Burke Fairfield, his late
grandfather and a former UNL
chancellor.
The libraries will receive in
terest from the $900,000 — ap
proximately $60,000 to $70,000 a
year — to buy more books, jour
nals and supplies. University
officials also earmarked $250,000
left over from the heating budget
last winter for the library system.
Although they’re long overdue,
these efforts to help the libraries
should be applauded. A 1985
study rated UNL’s Love Library
as the worst in the Big Eight. The
library system has long been
ignored by the university’s
money-raising projects.
The NU Foundation should
look at Field’s endowment as
incentive. It needs to take the
time to raise funds for existing
programs instead of creating new
ones, no matter how tough it is to
find those “defined constitu
ents.”
They’re out there — some
where.
FarmAid III scheduled
despite past disputes
The date of the FarmAid 111
concert has drawn closer
and plans for many extra
activities on the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln campus are all
but completed.
Plans for the concert, which
will be Sept. 19 in Memorial Sta
dium, weren't always so rosy.
Just a few short months ago the
UNL administration nearly lost
the concert because of “foot
dragging" in contract preparation.
Despite the apathy of NU Pres
ident Ronald Roskens, the oppo
sition of head football coach
Tom Osborne and the slow-moving
administration, FarmAid III will
take place here and will draw
national attention to Lincoln and
the farm crisis.
On July 13, Willie Nelson and
UNL Chancellor Martin Massen
gaJe signed the contract to bring
the concert to Memorial Sta
dium on Sept. 19.
Proving the community’s sup
port, tickets sold out within one
week.
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UNL may see brighter future
Recent events show interest in improving education
Each autumn, excitement and opti
mism swirl with the falling leaves
on the University of Nebraska
Lincoln campus as students and pro
fessors head back to class. But the start
of the 1987-88 school year should go
down as one of the most optimistic in
university history.
It’s good to be back. Renewed vigor
usually engulfs the campus every fall,
but I also have found renewed interest
in improving the quality of education
at UNL.
This commitment comes after long
standing concern about budget cuts,
faculty departures and college closings.
Although the course the university
will take this year cannot be predicted
with certainty, recent events point to a
brighter future.
This summer NU President Ronald
Roskens and other administration offi
cials emphasized that they are com
mitted to raising faculty salaries. The
Legislature has indicated that enough
votes can be found to make faculty
salaries a high priority in the next NU
budget war.
On the heels of a modest increase in
Joel
Carlson
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the budget for the next fiscal year, Gov.
Kay Orr recently announced an aggres
sive plan to beef up the university’s
research. The proposal could mean as
much as $77.5 million over the next five
years. Not only could sophisticated
equipment be purchased, but more
endowed professorships would be es- ^
tablished.
Out elected officials are finally real |
izing that the university is an integral I
piece to a comprehensive economic
development program. Let’s hope they
can come through on their promises.
Also student lobbying should be
more effective this year. UNL withdrew
its membership from the Nebraska
State Student Association and chan
neled its allocation to ASUN’s Govern
ment Liaison Committee.
This decision was a smart one. Lob
bying efforts now can be focused on
issues that more directly affect UNL.
NSSA was ineffective because it could
lobby only for “higher education” in
See CARLSON on 5
AIDS not yet cultural plague
Here is the quarrel going on, much
of it beneath the surface, having
to do with the AIDS epidemic.
At first, the disease was isolated as
having two highly identifiable target
groups, male homosexuals and intrav
enous drug users. Publicity was given
to the dangers of certain kinds of sex
and to the use of needles that might be
contaminated. The result of this pub
licity has not, according to preliminary
evidence, done a great deal to slow
down dirty-needle use, this being in
William
Buckley
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part because the drug culture tends to
hypnotize users against collateral
dangers. The homosexual community,
on the other hand, has made consider
able strides in self-regulation. The
bathhouses in San Francisco, for
instance, are closed down, and whereas
the infected population was doubling
every 12 months, as of one year ago that
period appears to have stretched to 20
months — a step, at least, in the right
direction.
But along the way, the fear of the
disease and its increasing incidence
among women and children gave rise to
the assumption that for all intents and
purposes it is and should be consi
dered to be a general epidemic, from
which only the monogamous, non-drug
using, non-hospital-working minority
were entirely safe. Although one can
not and should not endeavor to con
clude that these general fire alarms
were cynical, it is true that they served
particular purposes.
One such purpose, obviously, is the
call for federal funds. There are those
(I am one of them) who believe the
federal government is properly called
upon to finance research for any dis
ease, no matter how particularized its
victims. If an epidemic were to break
out that afflicted only Scandinavian
sun worshipers, remedies are properly
investigated by government financing.
But it is correct that much of the public
takes the position that if homosexuals
desire to continue to live promiscu
ously, then they should suffer the con
sequences of doing so, and that if drug
users persist in using dirty needles, let
them die a dirty death. Accordingly, it
was in the political interest of the two
standard victim-groups to universalize
AIDS — AIDS will get you if you don’t
watch out.
A second reason for considering the
virus to be universal had to do with the
desire of the victim groups to make
themselves anonymous. When a death
occurs among young or middle-aged
men and AIDS is given as the cause of
death, the public presumption has
been that the deceased was an active
homosexual or a drug user. Although
cultural vectors lighten progressively
the invidious overhead of homosexual
activity, still it would soothe many who
live under tension to accept an AIDS
death as saying nothing about the sex
ual life of the deceased.
But there is recent evidence that the
disease continues to be highly discrim
inatoiy. Robert Scheer of the Los Angeles
Times, a supercharged reporter nor
mally associated with left causes, has
written a widely unnoticed series,
accumulating evidence the burden of
which is that heterosexual transmis
sion of AIDS is very, very rare in the
United States. Other not widely noticed
scientific groups have come to the
same conclusions. They don’t tell hete
rosexual couples to take no precau
tions, but attempt to assure them that
their chances of contracting the dis
ease are slight. The burden of which is
to ease a little of the pressure on the
panic button, the highest pitch of
which was reached by Professor Ste
phen Jay Gould of Harvard when he
wrote a few months ago that the way
things were looking, it was passible
that before a cure or a vaccine was
developed, 26 percent of the human
race might have died firom AIDS.
But whatever Scheer’s findings, there
is no gainsaying the fact of diseased
children being bom, destined to live
only five, six, seven years. These are the
congenital AIDS victims. And since
there is no retroactive way to relieve
the child’s parents of the disease,
necessarily one depends on research of
a kind that can actually treat the dis
ease, since prophylactics hardly are
usable on diseased fetuses.
Research, then, will continue. But
apparently evidence mounts that the
victim groups of yesterday are the
likely victim groups of tomorrow.
®1987 Universal Press Syndicate