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November 20, 1987 University of Nebraska-Lincoln Vol. 87 No. 62
Agriculture College attracting urbanites
By Christine Anderson
Staff Reporter
Although overall enrollment in
the University of Ncbraska
Lincoln’s College of Agriculture has
decreased by about 30 percent in the
past 10 years, the number of students
enrolled with urban backgrounds has
doubled, said Dean Ted Hartung.
In 1977,25 percent of the student
population came from urban areas,
Hartung said. But this year the num
ber reached about 50 percent.
Currently, 1,231 students are en
rolled in the college.
Students are finding fields of
i
study outside of traditional farming
to major in, Hartung said. Such fields
include horticulture, agricultural
business, natural resources and food
science.
These courses have attracted stu
dents without farm backgrounds, he
said. And they provide students with
opportunities besides livestock and
grain production — an industry
closely associated with traditional
farming.
Angie Cartwright, a sophomore in
natural resources, said she didn’t
know much about agriculture until
she started college.
Coming from a non-farm back
ground, “I wasn’t interested in it,”
she said.
Cartwright said it wasn’t until she
joined the UNL Wildlife Club and
talked to other members that she
became interested in the major and
changed colleges.
Other students have also been at
tracted to courses offered in the
Agriculture College.
Erik Wagner, a sophomore natu
ral resources major, said although he
doesn’t come from a farm back
ground, he has always been inter
ested in the conservation of rain for
ests, endangered species and wildlife
habitat.
Hartung also said some students
have entered the college because of
the type of people and atmosphere
associated with it.
Wagner said he liked the college’s
atmosphere.
“People are nicer and more re
laxed” on East Campus, he said.
Cartwright agreed.
Students and instructors are
“more one-on-one,” she said. “You
can talk to them — you can get an
idea of what the fields arc about.”
Hartung also attributed part of the
increase in urban students to the shift
of the farm population to the city
during the last decade.
Many students from farm back
grounds are attracted to production
courses such as animal science,
agronomy and mechanized agricul
ture, Hartung said.
But, he said, production course
enrollment has dropped by 30 per
cent during the past five years.
Wagner said one reason for not
enrolling in production classes is the
farm crisis.
“The way the farm economy is,”
he said, “I’d never get in those areas
today.”
• i
Fossil collection a natural history treasure
r
Mark Davis/Daily Nebraskan
Professor Mike Voorhies shows off the fossil remains of
two mammoths that became entangled in battle and died
because they could not get free. Voorhies is curator of the
University of Nebraska State Museum’s research collec
tion of fossil vertebrates in Nebraska Hall.
fSi iji 11
" I ■ P» l fry *^7
By Mick Dyer
Staff Reporter
Nebraska Hall usually conjures
up images of computers, high-tech
instruments and the engineering
students who use them to develop
technologies for the future.
But Nebraska Hall is also home
to brushes, scrapers and the pale
ontologists who use them to ex
plore Nebraska’s distant past.
Nebraska Hall, 16th and W
streets, is home to the University of
Nebraska State Museum’s re
search collection of fossil verte
brates. The collection, housed in
Room W436,contains more than 1
million fossil bones, skulls, jaws
and teeth of Nebraska’s prehistoric
wildlife.
Michael Voorhies, curator of
the collection, said the collection
is often used as a pool to draw upon
for displays in Morrill Hall.
“People from Nebraska like to
sec things from their own area,” he
said.
The specimens are arranged
systematically according to the
kind of animal, geological age of
the fossil and where it was discov
ered. The collection provides a
resource for researchers or mcm
bersof the general public who wish
to identify fossils they have found,
Voorhies said.
The collection consists primar
ily of mammal specimens from the
past 30 million years. Elephants,
mammoths and mastodons arc
most common in the collection.
But camels, rhinos, sabercats,
homed gophers, giant tortoises,
sharks and other extinct Nebraska
animals are also represented.
Each specimen is listed in a
catalog that contains data on the
fossils. The data includes where a
fossil was discovered, how far
beneath the surface it was located,
what the sediments around it were
like and other important variables.
“It’s a little bit like a library,
except we have bones instead of
books,” Voorhies said. “The rea
son for a collection like this is to
document the past.”
The collection also has several
hundred “type” specimens from
Nebraska, including a tiny cat, a
hornless rhino and an oreodont —
a brush-eating, sheep-toothed,
pig-like animal found in the bad
lands.
A type specimen is the first
specimen of a species to be discov
ered and described scientifically.
They are standards by which future
discoveries will be evaluated. The
type specimens are stored in safes.
“These arc some of Nebraska’s
treasures of natural history,”
Voorhies said.
The fossil record does not tell
the whole story, but one can deter
mine a lot about an animal by
studying its skeletal structure. For
example, teeth can indicate what
the animal ate and its age at death,
Voorhies said.
“Fossils are packed with a lot of
information,” he said.
Fossils are often found eroding
in creek beds or at road work or
construction sites, Voorhics said.
“There are fossils to be found
just about anywhere you scratch
the surface in this state,” he said.
About once a week the center
gets reports from people who have
found fossils, Voorhies said. The
most recent discovery being
treated in the lab adjacent to the
collection was excavated from
near McCool Junction. Bruce
Bailey, highway salvage paleon
tologist, and George Comer, staff
paleontologist, found the site sev
eral weeks ago after a report from
a resident of the area.
“Many important discoveries
arc made by accident,” Voorhics
said.
Perhaps the most unusual item
in the collection is a pair of bull
mammoth skulls, tusks locked in
mortal combat.
“As a fossil it is very exciting,
because it tells you something
about behavior,” Voorhies said.
“As far as I know, it’s the only one
like it in the world.”
The skulls are wrapped in plas
ter traveling jackets, waiting for
display in Morrill Hall after its
renovation. The skulls were dis
covered in the badlands in 1965.
'There are fossils to be
found just about any
where you scratch the
surface in this state.'
—Voorhies
Saturday is last time musician will chime in
By Dave Weber
Staff Reporter
Alice Corkill will give her final
performance on Saturday before the
Ncbraska-Oklahoma game, and any
one in the vicinity of City Campus
and downtown Lincoln will probably
hear her.
Corkill, who has played the caril
lon bells in Mueller Tower before
home football games for four years,
graduates in May.
Twelve preprogrammed songs
play during the week. An assortment
of football songs like “March of the
Comhuskers,” “Hail Varsity” and
“Dear Old Nebraska” have played all
week.
But Saturday the music will be
live. Corkill said she plans to play
“The Nebraska Fight Song,” and
pieces ranging from “Bach to Chop
sticks.”
“I have a favorite arrangement of
‘Chopsticks.’ If I get requests for
anything else, I’ll also try to play it,”
she said.
Corkill, a graduate student in her
10th year al UNL, will receive her
doctorate in education psychology in
May. She is also a counselor at the
Near Center on campus.
Four years ago Harley Schrader,
recently retired Physical Plant direc
tor, asked Corkill to play the chimes.
Corkill then was playing chimes al
St. Paul’s Methodist Church.
“When the last people wanted free
football tickets as compensation for
their playing, we got Alice. She does
it from the goodness of her heart,”
Schrader said.
Corkil! said she leaves the door
open while playing, but “when you
walk by from most directions you
can’t see the person sitting at the
keyboard.
“I often wonder il they think it was
a mistake that the door is open, when
they look in,” she said.
But if they inquire, she said, she
invites them into the tower.
“If anybody wants to take a try at
it, I’ll let them. Young children get a
real charge out of trying to play the
bells,” she said.
The four-octave keyboard is con
nected to electronically controlled
mallets that hit 36 bells, amplified to
four of the eight stadium-type speak
ers atop the 75-ftx>i lower.
The tower was built in 1948 and
dedicated to Ralph Mueller, a major
benefactor. The current solid-state
system was installed about 10 years
ago, Schrader said.
Corkill said she’ll stop playing
“when I hear the cheering in the
stadium and the teams come out onto
the field.”
