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WEATHER: INDEX
Friday, mostly cloudy with a 30 percent
chance of afternoon t showers Winds from 5 1A _
to 15 mph and a high around 80 A 60 pet cent News L>‘0e*1.2
HT chance of t-howers Friday night, low around Editorial 4
65. Saturday, mostly cloudy and cool with a 40 Sports.7
percent chance of t-showers, high around 75. Arts* Entertainment.11
Extended forecast cool with a chance of t- ciassitieds.14
aHHa I_a showers daily Highs 70s and lows 50s.
89___University of Nebraska-Lincoln Vol. 89 No. 9
[Ceiling falls, releasing asbestos
IProfessor says he requested ceiling repairs two years ago
By Jerry Guenther
Senior Reporter
Although parts of an asbestos
ceiling caused extensive
damage when they fell in
Burnett Hall over the weekend, the
director of the damaged lab said he’s
more upset that the ceiling in the
room wasn’t replaced earlier.
Hans Gilde, assistant professor of
modern languages and literature at
the University of Nebraska-Lincoln,
said he first suggested that the ceiling
in rooms 305 and 306 needed to be
removed and replaced two years ago.
Rooms 305 and 306 of Burnett
connect to form a lab that foreign
language students use to listen to
tapes and practice their speaking
skills.
Gilde, who oversees the lab, said
he made another request this summer
to have the ceiling replaced when
parts of it fell in the hall outside the
lab.
“1 got no response,” Gilde said.
“If they would have fixed that ceiling
last summer, we would’ve only put
out about 200 students. Now it’s
2,000.”
Gilde said he saw the collapsed
ceiling Wednesday morning after
reluming from Labor Day break and
immediately notified maintenance
men.
UNL officials quickly closed the
lab because some asbestos was re
leased.
“Asbestos. Thai’s the magic
word,” Gilde said. “That got their
tails moving.’’
Jerry Delhay, manager of building
maintenance, said many buildings on
both UNL campuses contain asbes
tos, but it is removed only from build
ings that show signs of wear or stress.
Delhay said it would cost millions
of dollars to replace all the asbestos in
buildings on both UNL campuses.
“Asbestos. That’s
the magic word.
That got their taiis
moving. ”
-Gilde
Gilde said that although the ceil
ing has looked “iffy” for the past
couple of years, he didn’t notice
anything unusual Friday when he left
the room.
“We were very lucky that the
room was unoccupied when it fell,”
Gilde said. “Somebody could have
been very seriously hurt.”
Delhay said the university has
hired an emergency contractor to
clean the room and furniture.
Dclhay said UNL will install new
lights and a drop ceiling in the room,
and the room will be closed at least
eight days.
Although Dclhay said he doesn’t
know yet why the ceiling fell, he said
he thinks it was probably condensa
tion and old age.
Total costs of the damage still arc
unavailable, Delhay said.
Because of the fallen ceiling,
Gilde said, students will be unable to
use the lab for about two weeks. Stu
dents in some foreign language
classes arc required to spend time in
the lab.
Gilde said the temporary loss of
the lab is causing academic problems
for students because it is occurring
early in the semester when many stu
dents want to get off to good starts.
But, Gilde said, students in for
eign language classes still can gel and
drop off tapes for their classes from
307 Burnett. However, students must
find a different place to listen to their
tapes and use their own tape players,
he said.
‘‘I think the students have every
right to be upset,’ ’ Gilde said.4 ‘They
paid a $5 lab fee and now they can’t
even use it.”
Gilde said the ceiling in his office,
located next to the lab, also fell, forc
ing him to move to the audio/visual
room next door.
Blank says NU Regents need to answer
key questions before picking president
By Lisa Twiestmeyer
Staff Reporter
Members of the NU Board of
Regents must answer five
key questions before decid
ing whether an outside consultant is
needed to help in an analysis of the
un i versi ty ’ s adm i n i strati ve structure,
said Regent Don Blank of McCook.
The regents met Thursday with
three consultants whom they may
consider to help in an internal assess
ment of the university structure and
the search for a new NU president.
Blank, chairman of the board’s
internal governance committee, said
that before the regents decide
whether to hire an outside consultant
they must answer: where the univer
sity is now, where it is going, where it
should be going, whether structural
changes arc necessary, and what kind
of person they arc looking for in a
president.
Blank said he wants the regents to
come up with answers within 10 days
to two weeks so they can decide how
extensive an analysis is necessary
and whether an outside consultant is
needed.
The answers to the last question
will hinge on the answers to the first
four, Blank said.
“Anytime you are looking for a
new president, you need to know
what guidelines to set up,” Blank
said. ‘ We will do a thorough internal
assessment (of the institution), and
following that, we will begin our
search.”
The three consultant firms the
board heard presentations from were
chosen because they could help not
only in the internal assessment proc
ess, but also in the presidential
search process, Blank said.
Other consultant firms primarily
are search organizations only, he
said.
The following representatives dis
cussed their firms’ services with the
board: Charles B. Neff, vice presi
dent of the Association of Governing
Boards of Universities and Colleges,
andCacser Naples, vice chancellor of
faculty and staff relations for the
California State University System
and a consultant to AGB; Ronald
Stead of the Academic Search Con
suliation Service; and Paul Sharp of
Leadership Development Associ
ates.
Neff said the AGB is a higher
education association in Washing
ton, D.C., that works with the govern
ing boards of universities and col
leges. Presidential searches and con
sultations are one of the services the
association provides.
The AGB conducts a pre-search
consultation, Neff said, which would
help the regents define the leadership
qualities needed at NU. Such a con
sultation usually lasts three to four
days and costs about $9,(XX), he said.
Neff said a full search for a presi
dent, including the pre-search con
sultation, costs 521,000 plus ex
penses such as travel and lakes about
six months.
Stead said the Academic Search
Consultation Service conducts a pre
search study to help the search com
mittee look at the university’s needs
and what kind of person it needs as
president.
After this report, his service helps
See REGENTS on 6
Eric Gregory/Daily Nebraskan
Jean Du rgin-CI inchard, left, and Kathy England brought
their messages to a “vigil against hate crimes” at the State
Capito: Thursday night.
Vigil marchers protest violence
By Emily Rosenbaum
Staff Reporter
End the Silence” and “One
Night Without Violence”
read the banners carried in a
group of about 150 demonstrators
who marched in a candlelight vigil
Thursday night.
“We’re here tonight to show our
distaste for violence,” said Todd
Brittain, one of the vigil’s organizers.
“We must find it unacceptable and
we must say so.”
The participants gathered on the
north steps of the State Capitol and
then walked along Centennial Mall to
R Street.
See VIGIL on 6
LES uses UNL power plant, causes outage
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By Theresa Sindelar
Staff Reporter__
The University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s
City Campus was without electrical
power for five minutes around 11:30
p.m. Wednesday when the UNL power plant
assisted the Lincoln Electric System by letting
it use UNL’s power.
Don Ganow, assistant utilities manager of
the UNL plant, said LES had a 34,500 volt
switch that wouldn’t open or close. LES
needed power from the UNL plant while it was
working on the problem.
Officials from both plants decided to wait
i until evening to work on the switch because
they didn’t want to risk cutting power to the
slate fair.
“UNL had to back-feed power from East
Campus while LES used our power,” Ganow
said, “and that was the first time we have had
to use their (East Campus’) power.”
Ganow said the outage occurred while
power to City Campus was being restored by
LES.
Power was restored to the entire campus
within five minutes.
Douglas Gale, director of the UNLComput
ing Resource Center, said he knew of no prob
lems with the major computer systems because
of the outage.
Ganow said LES had to repair the switch
because “it was an outage waiting to happen.’’
