Editorial
I Nefwaskan
, —.
Curt Wagner, Editor, 472-1766
Amy Hd wards, Editorial Page Editor
Jane Hirt, Managing Editor
Lee Rood, Associate News Editor
Diana Johnson, Wire Page Editor
Chuck Green, Copy Desk Chief
Lisa Donovan, Columnist
—
Visitation important
Regents should represent NU students
The NU Board of Regents passed a resolution Satur
day which recommitted the board to improved
communication with students, but only after some
board members showed they do not understand the full
1 scope of their responsibilities.
The resolution, which the board passed 7-2, was intro
duced by outgoing UNL student regent Jeff Petersen.
With its action, the board has pledged to meet with stu
dents at least once a year at the students’ invitation.
These annual meetings will ensure that regents are re
sponsive to students’ concerns on all three NU campuses.
Two regents, Margaret Robinson of Norfolk and John
Payne of Kearney, voted against Petersen’s resolution be
cause they said it inferred they were not doing their jobs
properly.
Although that was not Petersen s intent in arartmg the
resolution, maybe Payne’s and Robinson’s comments
against it show they are feeling a little guilty about the
quality of the job they are doing.
* Maybe hearing the truth hurts.
Invitations to meet with regents, or press releases her
alding a regent on campus for constituent meetings have
n’t been flooding the Daily Nebraskan offices or student
mailboxes in recent memory.
Payne said he “kind of resents’’ the resolution because
it “intimates that we’ve never met with a student or
shared their concerns.’’
“Why don’t we eliminate the student affairs offices on
II all the campuses and just move in and run the place,’’
Payne said.
That is a childish comment coming from an elected
official pledged to serve the student bodies at the Univer
sity of Nebraska. The resolution was not asking for such
drastic measures, it simply gives an extra push to both
students and regents to get together and find out what
issues regents need to address.
Robinson said theTesolution “alludes that we’re not
doing a good job.”
Until a couple of years ago, Robinson said, she was
always invited to meet with student leaders. Students used
to come to regents meetings and present their concerns,
she said
1 his aoesn t occur now, she said.
That is a bad situation, and students should take their
obligation as citizens more seriously.
But regents, as elected officials, should offer them
selves to the students. They should not have to wait to be
? invited, but should do the inviting themselves. Regents
should invite students to meet with them, just as student
groups should invite regents.
To this idea, some regents will say they live far away
and have their own careers to keep them busy. But they
“- should have considered the time spent on those other
interests before they ran for office.
An elected offical is obligated to meet with those
citizens he or she serves. An elected official should
understand that task before running for office, and should
work tirelessly to make sure it happens after being
elected.
If this doesn’t happen, elected officials do i.ot know
what their constituents want or need. They are not able to
do the best job they could.
Although regenu are elected by both students and non
students, their primary function is to represent the stu
dents from their districts - a fact that tne regents need to
seriously consider.
Again, regents primarily serve the students from their
districts, not for personal political goals or the wants and
needs of the non-student ' ik'
- Curt Warner
for th«. Daily Nebraskan
Signed staff editorials represent
the official policy of the fall 1988
Daily Nebraskan. Policy is set by the
Daily Nebraskan Editorial Board.
Editorials do not necessarily re
fleet the views of the university, it
employees, the students or the Nl
Board of Regents.
Alternative radio music needed
Lincoln 's radion stations should consider changing their tunes
Fact: Lincoln is a college town.
Fact: College students gener
ally like music other than that
spilling forth from bedrooms of jun
ior high school kids. Music from
early U2, The Alarm, R.E.M., The
Cure and at least a dozen other groups
comes to mind.
Fact: Lincoln has no college-ori
ented music radio stations.
Turn the radio on any time, and
most people can guess what they’ll
hear just by what station they’re
tuned to. Turn it to KFRX (the “New
102.7,” no less) and you’ll be treated
to 20 or 30 songs played over and
over and over and over. Madonna,
Bon Jovi, Guns ‘N’ Roses, Paula
Abdul, Tiffany ... Arrrgh!!
But, of course, those songs only
come between the endless blocks of
commercials.
A quick flip of the dial to KFMQ
will fill your ears with an excess of
25-year-old hits. Jimmy Hendrix,
The Doors, The Beatles; classic stuff,
but most people can just dust off their
older brothers’ and sisters’ albums if
they get the urge to relive the 1960s.
And the other songs on that station,
featuring flutes and harpsichords,
have never turned me on anyway.
KFMQ docs sprinkle current mu
sic in with the older songs, but not
enough.
A recent addition to the Lincoln
radio market is a station KKNB,
known as B-104. The station is new
but the format isn’t. It’s just another
Debbie Gibson, Tiffany-spewing
spot on the dial. Yaww-w-w-nn!
KLDZ plays even older music,
and the Omaha stations offer little
refuge. Z-92 is similar to KFMQ -- a
lot of older stuff - and every other
Omaha station lean read ily think of is
a KFR\ twin.
There’s nothing wrong with Top
40 music, 1960s hits or oldies, if
that’s your taste. But for a lot of
college students, it’s not.
Lincoln needs a radio station that
plays alternative music all the lime.
KZUM, Lincoln’s public station,
plays a lot of progressive music, but
usually during one-hour slots which
arc often followed by anything from
talk shows to country jamborees.
Travel to other college towns, like
Iowa City, Iowa, Madison, Wis.,
Lexington, Ky., and Austin, Texas,
and you’ll find stations that play
nothing but “college music.”
If anyone in Lincoln with enough
money and enough common sense
ever charters a station like that, the
possibilities for success are endless.
Think about it. The University of
Ncbraska-Lincoln has approximately
26,000 students. Wesleyan Univer
sity and Union College add a few
thousand more, and then there are
countless high school and junior high
school students throughout Lincoln.
If even half of those students listen to
progressive, alternative, “college”
music, they’d listen to such a station
almost religiously.
It would be safe to guess that if
half the college and high school stu
dents in Lincoln listened to a single
station, that station would have the
Lincoln radio advertising market
cornered. Profits would be maxi
mized and the station’s owner would
be happy — and rich.
Unfortunately, like a lot of other
thinking in Lincoln, things that
“work” aren’t going to change. It
sometimes seems that while other
communities progress and movt
ahead with new, improved ideas
about morals, government and soci
ety in general, Lincoln is caught in a
lime warp. The radio market here is
no different.
Whoever takes the initiative to
change that, however, will profit in
more ways than one.
If only I had a few hundred thou
sand dollars lying around ...
Green is a senior news-editorial and
criminal justice major and is a Daily Nebras
kan editorial and sports columnist, sports
writer and copy desk chief.
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Campus Notes by Brian Shellito
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