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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 9, 1989)
Editorial I Daily ■Nebraskan Amy HdwrariwfldBnr, 47i-l7t6 LoeKcod. editorial Rote Editor Jam Kin, Momgi*f Editor Brandon Luomii, Associate Nem Editor Brian Svebodc, Coitemist . Bob Notion, Cmfnwniiif Jerry Guenther, Senior Reporter Ted and Wally’s mourned What a shame that we can no longer enjoy Ted & Wally’s ice cream in Lincoln. This August the local ice cream parlor was forced to close foe several reasons, not the least of which was financial. You see, when Ted and Dean (Wally) first opened their store on 12th street, business was incredible. Thev bad a marketable product and the location was very accommodat ing. However, this soon changed as the urtversky, in its infamous wisdom, required die business to move from te building a few years back. The masoning was that Uiey decided to reevaluate the use of the space on UNL property Of course, the building still stands todty. same mtwojtap ago, except without two Srefwfe businesses operating in k. Whew they moved to feted about a two- thirds profit loss. Many factors can be ounbutod to this, including: saturation by sev eral other ice cream/yogurt store;, a poorer location, ana lack of availr able parkings White not ail the blame is the university's, it Is sail apparent that they contributed Id the demise of an original and very suc cessful operation. By the way, you can still or joy Ted A Wally’s ice cream ft liwr Omaha store m the Old Market. Anyway, thanks Ted and Dsm lor serving die public in more ways than one. First, by creating a version of ice cream that in rated in the top 250 in thecouatry. and secondly, by showing the quectkmibte business operations that ao an around here at ourUNL. Keelan Kaiser former Ted A Wally's eibfSye* Too few students ask questions Action should be taken to end fear of professors’ retaliation Have you ever heard a student challenge a professor in class? When a professor makes a statement with which you disagree, do you take issue with the point or simply let it slide by? Ltd weak, one of my nrofceeers made some bold statements about iife and society in daas. One of his con tentions was that we arc all living out the script of a movie with which we identify. He gave a number of ex amples sad showed how we could see many people living out movies. One bold student in our class did something our professor said had never been done to him: He put the professor on the spot and asked him to explain what movie he lived in and why. After our professor got over his initial shock, he gave usa very inter esting and insightful answer. What struck me was not his answer, but the £Kt that no student had put him on the spot before. This particular professor dm been teaching here for quite some time and yet no one had ever asked him 4o personalty verify his contention. Another student in our class said that he figured someone would have asked the ptofessor that question. Feriiaps we all figure someone else is asking the lough questions. But if we aren't, who is? Far too often students are passive observers rather than active partici pants. Every day professors and graduate students tell us their truths of the universe and we write them down, rarely questioning or asking them to prove what they say. The big question is why? Why don't we challenge our professors? The answers are probably wide and varied, but 1 think there are a few general ones which might be tree. Perhaps we just really don’t care. we re afraid of the conse quences of raising a stink, or perhaps we just don’t think it’s our place to Cffffjkw these ututhon(ics •• dcs*t die. Every one of us is readied 110 trike chases we just don't want to take. Obviously we're not going to spend allow time dealing with these, but we should take a stand on those issues, and classes, we care about Few of us stand up to our profes sor, perhaps because we't* afraid of the consequence*. After all. it's our professor who give ns grades and do any safer for us to just sit there and taka what they say, regurgitate it on a test, get oar good grade, and be on oar merry way. ! can remember many times when I disagreed with a profes sor but didn't say anything because I feared questioning him or her would endanger my grade. We live with a grade guillotine above our heads and it is preventing us from making professors prove their contentions to ensure us that they know what they're talking about We sit passively and accept, rather than question and decide. Per haps this is a misguided perception Maybe our professors wouldn’t hurt us for challenging them. But there is s perception that they would, or at least a tear that they might And re gardless of what is real, we live in a world dominated by perceptions and fears. •t ^ Am It all comes down to who works for whom. Typically we see professors as being “in charge" of us. But is this right? We pay, through tuition, and our parents pay, through taxes, die salaries of our teachers. They are employees of the state of Nebraska and we are the people of this state. In other words, they work for us. But it rarely seems that way, does it? We don't seem to act like employ* ers and our professors don’t treat us as such. I’m reminded of a specific inci dent of professorial arrogance which infuriated me last year. I was shown a course syllabus dial a student had received from a professor. On the bottom of the syllabus this conde scending, self-inflating professor had typed. This is a bitch of a course. Drop now and avoid the rush." Can you believe that? Is this the attitude which should be held by a state em ployee who is hired to serve us? Or for a couple of other example*: A student recently told me that she had a teacher's assistant who showed up to teach a review session drunk. Another student told me his professor caw to class drunk. In the “m| world," if any of us had an employee show up ic work drunk, werd fk» them. & less extreme, but more fre quent, cues, wev© all had professors show up less than prepared foraclass. And we’ve all bad professors make contentions which may not be true or they probably couldn’t prove if ques tioned* Professor* certainly penalize us when we are unprepared or when we can’t verify our conclusions. Why should it be any different for them? It's time we re-evaluate roles, and realize dial incidences such as these show cases of instructors willfully neglecting their duties to serve the students and facilitate learning in this sane. Obviously we can’t fire our pro fessors and die relationship is a slightly different employcr/em picyee situation. Certainly professors roust control classroom situations and they must evaluate the work of students. Perhaps it's actually more of an eropioycr/emptoyer relation ship. They art employed to teach and we are employed to learn, and we evaluate each other. But it’s up to us to mate sure they are doing their jobs. Even if this mates sense and it’s something we want to do, we still have the rear of retaliation from fac ulty. Perhaps some action could be taken to remove this fern. I am quite confident that people like Jim McShane, faculty senate president; James Grieseu, vice chancellor for student affairs; and Robert Furgason, vice chancellor for academic affairs, want students to feel like they are getting the moat out of their classes. I’m sure they also would want to ensure that. UreL faculty are doing a good job. Maybe they can come up with some action or at least some state mem to assure students that reporting drunken professors or challenging questionable ones won't be allowed to hurt our grades. Maybe such a policy already axis*, but if it does we need to know about Hand be encour aged to follow ft. . When instructors neglect their duties, we SoSdbesareroe people who can fire them know about the problem. And they better be willing to listen. We need to do leas question ing in our minds and more question ing in our classrooms. After all. the quality of education we receive is directly dependent on the quality of teaching done by our professore. When they don't do their job well, we're the ones who lose. So let's make sure we don't lose. li a wkr hrmirwinu au^ar and " ■Hr Hirtrarti ratoiwttt