I WEATHER: Wednesday, mostly V "% *g I |nsid6'
sunny with little temperature ^g I 1^)1 I \ 7 ^g BpiipiltfWfi
change. High in the 60s. Wednes- V ^g JL^dAJL \ ^g ■ News Digest.Page 2
day night, mostly clear and not as B^B I _ ■ _ _ m _ ■ Editorial.Page 4
cold. Low in the low40s. Thursday, 1 ^jk I /tf^k B, gT^ I ^^k I Sports.Page 9
partly cloudy and warmer. High I %lOI if Jm %K JM || I Entertainment.Page 7
,n,he7Qs_ 1 ^ICL/1 adivciii I™ ::::::.»«H
October 7, 1987_Universityof Nebraska-Lincoln Vol. 87 No. 30
Students sign for better financial aid office
By Miawn Hubbell
Staff Reporter
Long lines, bad communication
and constantly busy phones at the
Office of Scholarships and Financial
\ Aid have led to a campus-wide peti
b°n drive calling for an investigation
and reorganization of the office.
Dave Regan, a first-year law stu
dent and one of the organizers of the
petition drive, said he started the peti
tion last week after he found out that
many students standing in line at the
financial aid office were experiencing
the same problems he had.
Regan said most of the students had
tried to get answers to their questions
over the phone, but complained that
the lines were always busy.
Regan said he found the most
common problems with the financial
aid office included bad communica
tion, slow service, lost financial aid
forms and long lines.
Regan collected more than 100
signatures from students at the Col
lege of Law alone, and said if response
to the petition is as good on City
Campus he could get thousands of
signatures.
Residence hall governments gave
Regan permission this week to post
the petitions at the front desks at all
halls except Selleck Quadrangle. The
Selleck government has yet to discuss
Regan’s proposal to post the petitions
in the hall.
In addition, Regan said he plans to
set up a booth in the Nebraska Union
to gather signatures next Wednesday
and Thursday.
Regan said he plans to appear at
ASUN’s meeting tonight to ask for the
organization’s endorsement of the
petition.
William McFarland, director of
Scholarships and Financial Aid, said
students expect and should get good
service from his office, but admitted it
has been difficult keeping up with
students’ needs this semester.
“We know this very well and are
working on it,” McFarland said. “But
in administration circles things don’t
always work as rapidly as we like.”
One step to alleviate the problem
came last January when the financial
aid office got a new computer system.
Although that will solve some of the
problems, McFarland said, it won’t
eliminate all of them.
McFarland said many of problems
associated with the Office of Scholar
ships and Financial Aid are linked to
lack of money, space and personnel.
McFarland said he has asked for more
space and V ice Chancel lor for S tudent
Affairs James Griesen has been sup
portive.
“It’s taking awhile to get those
things approved,” McFarland said.
Regan, who spoke with McFarland
Tuesday, said McFarland told him
about the office’s problems. Regan
said one problem they talked about
was the high turnover rate of full-time
employees in that office.
About two-thirds of the office’s
full-time staff leave every year,
McFarland said.
“I’m not trying to hang anyone
here,” Regan said. “I’m just trying to
make it clear to the higher-ups we
have a problem here. If they’re work
ing on it already, great, but let’s speed
it up.”
DNgranted right to refuse ad
By Kip Fry
Staff Reporter
The Nebraska Civil Liberties Un
ion agreed to a higher court ruling
allowing the Daily Nebraskan to ref
use classified ads stating sexual orien
tation, and will not appeal the decision
again, according to the executive di
rector of the NCLU.
“The decision firmly places con
trol of the paper and editorial policy in
the hands of the staff and not the
publications board,” John Taylor said
Tuesday night after a meeting of the
NCLU’s Board of Directors. “If the
editor chose to run the ads, it would be
a First Amendment victory.”
Taylor went on to say that the
decision was a “strong students’ rights
opinion.”
“This decision is clearly a victory
for student rights,” Taylor said.
NCLU sponsored the lawsuit,
which was filed in September 1985 by
two then-University of Nebraska
Lincoln students. Pam Peam and
Michael Sinn sued in 1984 when the
Daily Nebraskan refused to run a clas
sified advertisement requesting
homosexual roommates because the
ads were considered discriminatory.
At the time, Peam and Sinn were
members of the UNL Gay-Lesbian
Student Association.
The suit contended that their First
Amendment rights of freedom of
expression had been violated.
In his decision of summer 1986,
Urbom wrote, “Editorial freedom of
expression has consistently prevailed
where various lorms of censorship
were applied to student publications
of state-supported universities.”
waste dump still homeless
Decision delayed until states receive additional information
By Micki Haller
Staff Reporter
Choosing a host state for the
region’s low-level radioactive waste
site will be delayed so more towns can
get information about having a site,
said Jim Neal, Department of Envi
ronmental Control public information
officer.
Neal said Monday that one or two
communities in Kansas wanted more
information about hosting a site for
the Central Interstate Low-Level
Radioactive Waste Compact Com
mission. The compact includes Kan
sas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Arkansas
and Louisiana.
Garden County in Nebraska has
also shown some interest in having the
waste site, Neal said. Department of
Environmental Control representa
tives met with officials and citizens of
Garden County to give them more
information, he said.
Garden County residents will now
“pursue discussions within their own
county,” Neal said."
In order to give other communities
a chance to get more information
about the sites, the compact extended
the tentative Nov. 16 deadline for
selecting a host state. The compact has
not set a new date yet, Neal said, but
must choose a host state by Jan. 1,
1988.
Neal said the compact has also
pushed back a meeting to weigh crite
ria for choosing a host state.
At a Sept. 22 meeting the compact
officials chose four criteria which a
host state must meet before it is se
lected. Butcompact officials have not
yet decided how important each crite
rion will be.
The state must have a suitable site
for the disposal, ensuring that no leaks
will contaminate the surrounding
land, air or water supply.
The amount of low-level radioac
tive waste a state has produced in the
past and projected levels for future
production will be taken into account.
DN to have forum
on AIDS controversy
Last year the Daily Nebras
kan had an open forum on the
anniversary of the Roe vs. Wade
abortion decision. The response
was overwhelming.
With the recent controversy
about AIDS, the DN has
planned another open forum in
conjunction with its Sower sup
plement. On Tuesday, Oct. 13,
the DN will run letters from
readers responding to the fol
lowing questions:
• Should children with
AIDS be allowed to attend pub
lie schools?
• Should health-care pro
fessionals undergo mandatory
testing for AIDS? If they test
positive, what consequences
should they face? Should the
test results be made public?
Please center your letter on
only one of the questions. Drop
off letters at the DN front desk,
Nebraska Union 34. Show iden
tification to secretary when you
leave the letter. Deadline is Fri
day, Oct. 9, at noon.
Among the states in the compact,
Nebraska has been the biggest pro
ducer oflow-level radioactive wastes,
which include clothes, tools, filters
and resins from nuclear power plants,
and radioactive materials from uni
versities and hospitals. Most of these
materials have a half-life of 30 years,
Neal said.
Transportation of the waste is a
third factor. A site should not be far
from the waste producers to lower the
risk of accidents. Available roads and
their safety will figure in this criterion,
Neal said.
The final factor is whether the state
already has assumed a risk by taking
on regional hazardous wastes. States
that already have many chemical
dumps may be given credit.
Kale Allen, legislative aide to Sen.
Sandra Scofield of Chadron, said
Nebraska was the only state in the
compact opposing the criteria. She
said Nebraska was against including
past volumes and giving credit to
states that already accept hazardous
wastes.
Historically, Nebraska has pro
duced the most nuclear waste of the
five states, Allen said, and has rela
tively few hazardous waste treatment
facilities.
Neal said the scheduled mid-Octo
ber meeting to weigh these factors has
been moved to late October or early
November.
After these factors have been
weighed, the developer of the waste
site, U.S. Ecology, will rank the states,
Neal said. The states will then have a
chance to discuss anything they feel is
unfair about the rankings.
After choosing a host state, U.S.
Ecology will look for an environmen
tally sound place to build the site, Neal
said. This will take more than a year of
study, he said.
The compact has until Jan. 1,1990,
to file applications with the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission for a license
to operate the disposal facility.
John Bruce/Daily Nebraskan
Students are worst
campus litterbugs
By Victoria Ayotte
Staff Reporter
From dead lab animals to used
Burger King cups, the University
of Nebraska-Lincoln’s 175 gar
bage dumpsters carry it all.
Between 3,000 and 3,500 tons
of garbage was disposed of last
year at UNL, said Wilbur Dasen
brock, director of the grounds
department. The department
spends between $100,000 and
$120,000, or 5,600 hours cleaning
up litter each year, he said.
Workers spent a total of 4,400
hours picking up garbage with
UNL’s two garbage trucks and
hauling it to the city dump.
Despite those efforts, officials
said, students still leave a lot of
litter on the floor.
“People just don’t use trash
cans,” said Bill Behmer, opera
tions manager at the Nebraska
Union.
Frank Kuhn, assistant director
of operations at the Nebraska Un
ion, said the Saturday football
crowd picks up after themselves
better than students.
“Students do a very poor job
picking up after themselves,” he
said. “The main lounge is a con
stant litter battle.”
However, students do bus their
dishes from the Harvest Room, he
said.
Kuhn said the Daily Nebraskan
creates a big litter problem in the
Nebraska Union because advertis
ing inserts fall on the floor and
students don’t throw the papers
away when they’re done reading
them.
“All those fliers and ads are a
terror to the union as far as making
a mess,” he said,
Dasenbrock said litter is worst
near vending areas and Daily
Nebraskan distribution centers.'
However, he said, he gives UNL
students an “A+” for throwing
away trash.
Maintenance manager Jerry
Delhay said he thinks students do
“a fair job” throwing away trash if
there are ample containers.
Dasenbrock said his department
spends 100 hours picking up the
grounds after a home football
game. The athletic department re
imburses the grounds department
the $800 it takes to pick up after a
game.
Garbage volume has increased
about 5 percent this year because of
the addition of Burger King, Kuhn
See GARBAGE on 6
_I
