Nearaskan
Weather: Tuesday, partly sunny, high
around 40, winds out of the NW at 15-20
mph. Tuesday night, partly cloudy, low in
the upper teens. Wednesday, partly
sunny, high near 40.
A&E: For the birds —
Page 5.
Sports: Nebraska faces
Kansas tonight at Allen
Field House —Page 6,
IAjNR may get crop project
Research to improve crop yield in Nigeria
By Gretchen Roe hr
Staff Reporter
The University of Nebraska
Lincoln’s Institute of Agriculture and
Natural Resources may be selected
for a five-year, multi-million-dollar
crop research project in Niger within
the next two weeks, Dean Glen Voll
mar said.
Vollmar, director of international
programs at IANR, said the U.S.
Agency for International Develop
ment is also considering Purdue Uni
versity, Alabama A& M and Win rock
International for the project.
Vollmar said the project will de
velop cereal crop research, irrigation
capabilities and vegetable produc
lion, and train scientists. IANR has an
excellent chance of being selected by
USAID, Vollmar said.
Officials from the north-central
African country have shown interest
mm m
'History has
proven that they
can be our best
customers. ’
—Yohe
in having IANR participate in the
program, Vollmar said.
Vollmar and Jerry Eastin, UNL
professor of agronomy, recently
spoke with officials from Niger at
Purdue University in Indiana.
“They showed a lot of interest in
what this group could offer them,”
Vollmar said.
UNL agronomists Stephen Mason,
Jerry Eastin, David Andrews and
Jerry Maranville arc researching
ways to produce sorghum and pearl
millet under extremely hot and dry
conditions.
Vollmar said IANR has partici
pated in four Nigerian projects in the
last six years. However, irrigation is
fairly new to crop research in that
See NIGER on 3
Huntwork pleased with SRI survey;
research suggests curriculum changes
By Ryan Steeves
Staff Reporter
and Mary Nell Westbrook
Senior Reporter
Gerald Huntwork, director of aca
demic affairs at the Nebraska College
of Technical Agriculture said he was
pleased with a recent survey, recom
mending the Curtis school remain
open under a modified curriculum.
Huntwork said he welcomes the
suggestions for the school from SRI
Gallup Market Research of Lincoln
because the research shows the cur
riculum changes Curtis needs to keep
up with the changing agricultural
industry.
The survey suggested that Curtis
would be a more effective school if it
emphasized agri-business.
The programs suggested by the
survey were marketing and computer
consulting, finance and records tax
consulting, a continued veterinary
technician and horticulture program
and agriculture production courses.
Huntwork said these changes may
have already been made if the school
had not been fighting for its survival.
“We’ve always wanted to be cur
rent,” he said, “and meet the needs of
the industry that we’re educating our
students for.”
Huntwork said he was also pleased
with SRI’s survey because it is more
scientific than a committee study
process used by the school.
The Curtis school already has six
committees which essentially do
what this survey has done, Huntwork
said.
These committees, consisting of
agri-business people and others in
volved with agriculture, interview
students and review curriculum. Then
two members from each committee
form an advisory council which sug
gests changes that may need to be
made in the system.
Irvin Omtvedt, vice-chancellor of
the Institute of Agriculture and Natu
ral Resources, said he believed the
survey was sort of gray.
It didn ’ t separate two and four year
colleges, he said.
The employers surveyed know
what they like and expect from the
students they hire, but they wouldn’t
be knowledgeable about curriculum
specifications, he said.
The survey showed a need for tax
knowledge and computer literacy,
Omtvedt said.
Three areas of I AN R—veterinary
technology, commercial horticulture
and production agriculture—were in
demand according to the survey,
Omtvedt said.
If the Legislature grants the $1.7
million needed to finance Curtis, an
external review committee would
further examine the needs of the
school, he said.
Omtvedt said the SRI survey was
not as official as he would like to see
if the school gets financed.
Stretch
Pete Carr, a junior speech communications major, stretches
inside the Cook Pavilion. See related story on page 3.
Two law students advance to national trial competition
By Amy Edwards
Senior Reporter
Two University of Ncbraska-Lincoln stu
dents will put their courtroom skills on trial in
the American Bar Association National Trial
Competition in April.
At the regional competilion in Lincoln ort
Saturday and Sunday, John Ryan and Cheryl
Zwart, both seniors in the UNL Law College,
advanced to the national competition in Hous
ton, along with a Washington University trial
team.
Peter Hoffman, UNL law professor and trial
team coac h, said the Col lege of Law has panic i -
pated in the competition since 1975.
Hoffman saiu two teams are chosen from the
UNL law students. Those teams compete with
18 others from nine schools in the regional
competition.
All teams are given the same case. The
regional competition case was a dispute about
the lime and amount of money involved in a
plumbing contract, Hoffman said.
Other universities with teams in the regional
competition included Drake, St. Louis, Mis
souri at Columbia and Kansas City, Washburn
and Creighton.
The trial teams prepare both sides of the case
for the competition. Hoffman said the trials
have the same intensity of a real trial.
The teams were selected before Christmas,
Hoffman said, and the students put in about 100
hours of preparation on the case.
“They’re very talented, hardworking
people,” Hoffman said. “They spent a lot of
time on (the case), put it all together, and it
worked out for them.”
Hoffman said competing in a trial competi
tion makes the students better trial lawyers
because they learn firsthand how to prepare a
case.
Preparing for the competition includes not
only researching and rehearsing a case, but
working out scenarios for anything that might
come up unexpectedly in the trial, Hoffman
said.
Hoffman said two teams from each of the
eight regions will compete in the national
competition.
The case for the competition will be sent to
each team at the same time, so they have equal
time to prepare, Hoffman said.
Officials contemplate new photo ID system
By Anne Mohrr
Senior Reporter
University of Nebraska-Lincoln students
may carry photo identification cards next fall,
said James Griescn, vice chancellor for student
affairs.
Instead of several cards, students will need
to carry only one, he said.
He said many students now have four cards
they use on campus, such as library, student ID,
bookstore credit cards and residence-hall din
ing cards. Athletes also have IDcardsihat allow
them to use the training table and other athletic
buildings.
Griesen said three types of cards are used on
campus. Dining cards use magnetic strips, the
library uses OCR (optical character recogni
tion) codes, and the University Bookstore uses
bar codes.
The campuswidc card would work much
like the dining cards, but would combine the
technologies of the other three identification
cards.
“Most major universities have gone to a
campuswidc card,” he said.
Griesen said he hopes to know in March
whether the first step in getting the cards will
begin. His goal is to have the dining cards for
next year’s residence hall students in the format
of the new card.
By issuing the new cards to hall residents
next fall, 5,000 of the 25,000 university stu
dents would have the new cards, he said. The
rest would have their pictures taken in the fall
and would get their cards for the spring semes
ter.
In addition, the library would have to coor
dinate its present number system and the cam
puswide number system.
In the future, the photo IDs would be issued
during New Student Enrollment.
The cards would be used for the entire time
the student was enrolled at the university, Grie
sen said.
When a student moved out of the residence
hall or owed money for library fines, the com
puter would no longer be programmed to accept
his card for the use of the hall or library.
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