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Editorial.4
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_ Vol. 89 No. » jj
■Minority staff grows; UNL officials
lay university still must hire more
Iry Guenther
Reporter
lthough the University of Ne
braska-Lincoln has added 20
minority personnel in admin
e and faculty positions since
ir, UNL officials said the uni
must work harder to hire more
ty faculty members,
tin Bradley Munn, UNL Af
ve Action and Equal Employ
)pportunity officer, said cen
a indicates that 130 of UNL’s
permanent administrative, fac
id managerial employees are
icial minorities.
; year, minorities filled 110 of
1,778 permanent administra
culty and managerial employ
said.
increase is encouraging,
said, but he would like to see
ire additional minority faculty
:rs.
L hired 25 new minority em
5 in permanent administrative,
and managerial jobs in 1989
lost five permanent minority
'ees from last year, he said.
988-89, UNL hired 15 new
ty employees in permanent
strative, faculty and manage
s, he said.
Jie new minority employees
n permanent administrative,
and managerial jobs, Munn
said, 14 are Asian, six are Hispanics
and five are blacks. No Native
Americans were hired into academic
tand administrative positions this
[year, he said.
Because colleges and universities
throughout the country are demand
ing more minority faculty members,
Munn said, UNL has had difficulty
hiring as it desires.
But, he said, faculty salary in
creases have helped UNL become
more competitive with other univer
sities.
Munn said minority faculty mem
bers are in short supply because there
are shortages of black, Hispanic and
Native American graduate students.
This shortage contributes to the
national shortage of minority faculty
members, Munn said, because most
colleges and universities require can
didates to have doctoral degrees to
teach.
Munn said it is a “crime” that
more minority students do not have
opportunities to work for doctoral
degrees.
“Each university must take an
introspection of itself and come up
with methods to change its enroll
ment and graduation rates of blacks,
Hispanics and Native American Indi
ans at the graduate levels.”
Munn said black students espe
cially have had difficulty achieving
an equitable proportion of doctoral
degrees.
“That’s a disgrace when you con
sider that the entire civil rights move
ment, on which affirmative action
was basically founded, was the result
of our (while) injustice to black
Americans,” he said.
“And yet it’s not Black America
who has seen the end result of af
firmative action,” he said.
Munn .aid black, Hispanic and
Native American students will not be
able to earn doctoral degrees until
they are given more opportunities to
earn their bachelor’s degrees first.
“We must change that tide,’’ he
said. “All of us, not just the Univer
sity of Nebraska.’’
Munn said he believes existing
faculty members are partially respon
sible for getting the demographics
changed.
He also said he thinks UNL and
other colleges could increase the
number of minority faculty candi
dates by increasing minority inspec
torships.
With more minority instructor
ships, Munn said, more minority stu
dents could earn doctoral degrees
while they assist with teaching.
“You can’t hire a black faculty
member in the College of Engineer
ing if you don’t graduate black (stu
dents with) Ph.D.s,’’ he said.
Munn said white and minority
students need to be exposed to and
interact with each other because they
will be working together after gradu
ation.
“Outside of Nebraska, it’s not a
lily-white world,’’ he said.
Jimmi Smith, director of multi
cultural affairs, said the increase in
minority faculty members is positive,
but UNL has not done all it can to get
more minortty faculty members.
“I believe there are a number of
minorities with professional degrees
who would like to work for the uni
See FACULTY on 2
1
Cultural awareness, recruiting of minorities increases
By Pat Dinslage
Staff Reporter
f
A year after UNL’s first “Appreciating
[ /m Cultural Diversity “retreat many of the
I-^nearly 100 suggested changes have
>een accomplished, while others have gone by
he wayside, according to some faculty mem
xxs, staff and students who attended.
Accomplishments include increased aware
less of minority concerns, programs on cul
ural diversity, a plan for recruiting high school
ninority students and a minority career night,
participants said.
Ideas not yet executed include the forma
tion of minority teams to speak to classes, an
oral history of racial incidents at UNL and new
student mentoring programs, they said.
The second retreat is scheduled for Saturday
Ernd Sunday.
Dora Olivares, president of Developing
Realistic Educational Activities for Minori
lies, or DREAM, said one of the most impor
tant results of the 1988 retreat was that it
‘ ‘brought a higher level of consciousness about
cultural diversity” to the University of Ne
braska-Lincoln.
Prior to the retreat, Olivares said, minority
issues were a “minority problem.”
The retreat promoted the idea that these
issues were “everybody’s problem,” and that
majority members also would benefit from the
progress, Olivares said.
In addition, DREAM members learned that
‘‘not only majority students had to learn about
minorities and their concerns, but minorities
had to learn about each other,” she said.
According to Peg Johnson, interim execu
tive assistant to the vice chancellor for student
affairs, the most positive effect of last year’s
retreat is the increased commitment to prog
ress on minority issues by the 40 faculty
members, staff members and students who
attended.
Retreat participants have become more ac
tive in mentoring and advising minority stu
dents, and working with and speaking to vari
ous groups on minority issues, she said.
Several programs were aimed at increasing
awareness of the cultural diversity at UNL and
the issues confronting minorities.
The programs included a series of brown
bag lunch seminars, primarily for Student
Affairs Office staff and interested faculty
members. The seminars focused on minority
issues, racism and discrimination. About 65 to
70 people attended the seminars, Johnson said.
Since the retreat, the Panhcllenic Associa
tion and Interfratemity Council also have of
fered programs on cultural diversity. Minority
speakers and students have spoken to the fra
ternities and soroiities, Johnson said.
There have been many staff development
seminars at UNL, and “a lot more people are
conscious of the issues,’ ’ she said.
According to Larry Rout), director of Ca
recr Planning and Placement, an increasing
number of employers contacting the center are
concerned about the lack of minorities graduat
ing from engineering and other technical pro
grams.
“The supply is just not there and the firms
that contact us are concerned,” Routh said.
The placement center is exploring ways to
increase minority graduates in these fields, he
said.
The center offered the first minority career
night in March.
“There tends to be a good marketplace, so
college graduates do pretty well_It depends
on how adaptable a person is to different cul
tures and environments,” he said.
Another concern raised at the retreat was
whether UNL was recruiting and hiring enough
minorities.
Johnson said the student affairs office has
See MINORITY on 2
purvey shows drop in percentage of college smokers
ly C J. Schepers
taff Reporter
Although results from the 1989 Student Health Sur
vey snow that only 10.8 percent of UNL students are
smoking cigarettes, college women are puffing ahead of
ollege men, while the number of seniors who smoke drags
>ehind the number of freshman smokers.
A slight drop in percentage of college smokers over the last
ive years indicates a “pause” in the cigarette-smoking chain,
ccording to Wayne Osgood, co-director of the UNL Bureau of
lociological Research, which conducts the surveys.
In the spring of 1989,10.8 percent of the students said they
Imoked, compared to 12.3 percent in 1988, 13.5 percent in
987,12.9 percent in 1986, and 13.4 in 1985.
The declines are slight and not significant enough to indicate
downward trend in cigarette smoking, Osgood said.
“It’s hard to tell,” he said.
When broken down by grade levels, twice as many freshmen
moked (14.7 percent) compared to seniors (6.5 percent). The
ercentage of sophomores smoking was 11.1. For seniors, it was
2.2 percent
According to Osgood, the significant difference between
reshmen and senio* smokers could be related to social class
ifferences.
He said freshmen who smoke could be dropping out before
they become seniors. Osgood said he doubts that students are
kicking the habit, because once they start smoking it’s hard to
stop.
He said studies have shown that the working class and those
with less education smoke more than the middle class and those
with a college education.
According to a nationwide study conducted by the Univer
sity of Michigan, daily smoking among those not attending
college rose far above the number of full-time college students
smoking. Thirty-two percent of the non-students surveyed in
the Michigan study said they smoked, while only 18 percent of
college students reported they smoked.
“College students are less likely to be smoking in the first
place,” Osgood said.
The UNL study reports that 60 percent of the freshmen
smokers who were surveyed said they only had been smoking
for one or two years.
Greg Barth, information systems manager for the University
Health Center and author of the survey, said he views the
incoming freshmen smokers as a “target group” for anti
smoking campaigns.
“If we’re going to stop smoking, we should get the freshmen
just as they come in the door,” Barth said.
However, Osgood said campaigns against smoking should
target younger age groups.
“A lot of efforts are aimed at junior high kids,” Osgood said.
When results for UNL were broken down by sex, more
women (11.7 percent) said they smoked than men (9.8 percent).
The Michigan study reports that since 1980, cigarette smok
ing consistently has been higher among women than men in
college.
Osgood said that although more men than women are ad
dicted to other drugs such as marijuana and alcohol, women are
beginning to surpass the men when it comes to cigarette
smoking.
“That’s the general finding - that the sex difference has
been shrinking,” he said.
In the UNL survey, when students who smoked five or fewer
cigarettes a day were asked if they would be smoking five years
from now, 77.8 percent said4 ‘probably not,’ ’ while 22.2 percent
said “definitely not.”
Of those who said they smoked half a pack a day or more,
only 25 percent said that they “probably will” be smoking in
five years, while the rest were evenly divided between “proba
bly not” (37.5 percent) and “definitely not” (37.5 percent).
Osgood said the high number of those who indicate they want
to quit reflects the typical ambivalence toward cigarette smok
ing.
