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November 9,1989_ University of Nebraska-Lincoln Vol. 89 No. J0 Q
Gregory’s testimony continues
Supervisor says Visser was ‘insubordinate’
By Jerry Guenther
Senior Reporter
and Victoria Ayotte
Senior Editor
General studies Director
Donald Gregory said during
testimony Wednesday morn
ing that he believed staff employees
thought Mary Jane Visser was
“keeping a book on them.”
Gregory and Vice Chancellor for
Student Affairs James Griesen are
named in a lawsuit in which Visser
alleges that the university Fired her
for exercising First Amendment
rights of free speech when she told
other university employees of ath
letic department irregularities. The
trial completed its seventh day in
U.S. District Court Wednesday.
Gregory, Griesen and the NU
Board of Regents also are named in
Visser’s suit for alleged sexual dis
crimination.
Gregory, who was Visser’s imme
diate supervisor at the time of her
dismissal Sept. 2, 1988, said Visser
kept track of employees’ work times
and their language.
“It was almost, in effect, as if they
had another supervisor,” he said.
Gregory said he did not think it
was Visser’s “prerogative” to keep
track of him and other employees
since she was not the office manager.
Employees in the general studies
office were aware that Visser was
watching them, Gregory said.
“It was my perception that every
body believed they were walking on
eggs,” he said.
Gregory also testified that Vis
ser’s work performance undercut the
overall performance of the staff.
Visser sometimes would come to
work late, leave work early or come
back from lunch late, he said.
Students whom Visser advised
sometimes had to wait for appoint
ments because she wasn’t there or
wasn’t available to meet with them,
Gregory said.
“I was always sensitive to stu
dents sitting there waiting,” he said.
Although Gregory said other
employees also came to work late,
left work early or took extended
lunch breaks, they did it less often
than Visser.
Gregory said the staff needs to be
able to interact and work with each
other in day-to-day business.
Gregory said that based on the
office calendar from September 1987
to August 1988, Visser was gone 43
hours, more than one week of work
time. This figure excluded tardiness
and time Visser took off to take a
class, Gregory said.
The 43-hour figure included both
approved and unapproved absences,
he said. Visser’s attorney, Thom
Cope, asked Gregory if he thought it
was fair to penalize Visser for times
she left the office on approved ab
sences. Gregory said that although
some of the absences were approved,
they increased the total hours Visser
was unavailable to advise students.
Gregory said that from March 30
to May 17, 1988, Visser was “very
cold, very abrupt, often silent and
generally filled with tension,’’ which
affected the staff’s ability to serve
students.
He also testified that Visser was
insubordinate.
Gregory said he sent a memoran
dum to Visser on May 31, 1988, and
received it back with her response.
Gregory said Visser’s response
indicated that she was not familiar
with a form that office employees had
used for many years.
Visser sometimes acted ignorant
of things she should have known
about, Gregory said. She was “fight
ing almost every step of the way of
anything that came up.”
Another time, Gregory said, a
work-study student who had worked
in the office for a couple of years quit.
Gregory said he and the rest of the
staff contributed to buy the student a
gift and card that was signed by the
staff.
Later, Visser gave the work-study
student another gift and card that was
signed by everyone but Gregory, he
said.
Even with something as trivial as a
gift, Gregory said, Visser had to react
to him.
Under cross-examination by
Cope, Gregory testified that he was
out of the office on some occasions
because of other commitments, and
wasn’t always able to determine
when Visser arrived or left work.
Gregory also said it was not neces
sarily inappropriate behavior for an
adviser to have a closed-door session
when counseling a student.
The adviser has the discretion to
close the door on a counseling session
for a short time if the session might be
overheard by others near the office,
he said.
Gregory said that March 18,1988,
— one of the days he accused Visser of
having extended closed sessions - he
didn’t actually know how long Visser
kept the door closed when she was
counseling students.
Gregory testified Wednesday af
ternoon that he did not pul Visser on
probation.
Personnel Director Bruce Currin
said Gregory came to him in March
1988 for advice. Currin said he gave
Gregory a counseling form to give
Visser, but Gregory caiied and said
he was not going to use it.
The counseling form would have
been in Visser’s permanent personnel
file, Currin said, and Gregory wanted
to send her a memo “to try to keep it
as low-key as he could.’’
Visscr’s response to Gregory’s
March 30 memo was a surprise, Cur
rin said.
In April, Currin said, Gregory
See VISSER on 6
Environmental activist speaks
Toxic waste a ‘people problem’
By Roger Price
SufT Reporter
Dealing with toxic waste is
not a techniva! problem -
it’s a people problem, John
O’Connor said Wednesday night
in a speech titled “Working Solu
tions to Toxic Pollution.”
O’Connor, director of the Na
tional Toxics Campaign, told the
audience of about 40 in the Com
monplace that there are serious en
vironmental problems that need to
be dealt with today.
These problems include toxic
chemicals and heavy metals in
water supplies, a hole in the ozone
layer larger than the continental
United States and global warming.
The transformation of industry
during World War II, O’Connor
said, is to blame for today’s envi
ronmental problems.
'...we could make
a smog-free car In
a couple of years. ’
-O’Connor
During that era, O’Connor said,
shortages caused by the war forced
American industry to look for al
ternatives to rubber, cotton and
wool. The results of this search led
to the development of synthetic
rubber and fibers as an alternative,
he said.
“These blessings have turned
to plagues,” O’Connor said.
O’Connor said that since this
transformation, the cancer rate in
the United States has doubled from
one in six people to one in three,
and tire birth-defect rate has
doubled.
O’Connor said the government
has not helped solve these prob
lems because it “is not challeng
ing what is produced or how it is
produced,” but simply transfer
ring toxins from one form to an
other.
As an alternative, O’Connor
said, government should force
industnes to look for other means
of production t hat do not prod uce
toxic waste.
WMi«iu Lsuw/Daily Nebraskan
John O’Connor
O’Connor said Americans
should consider the hydrogen
powered automobile being devel
oped by several German auto
makers as one alternative.
"If we decide to do this as a
nation - we could make a smog
free car within a couple of years,"
O’Connor said.
Chemical users such as farmers
also should be targeted for change,
he said.
O’Connor said a study done by
the National Academy of the Sci*
ences found that farmers who did
not use chemicals did as well fi
nancially as those who did.
Government regulations re
quiring the overuse of chemicals to
be eligible for farm subsidy pro
Es add to environmental prob
, he said.
AS UN resolution addresses
faculty shortage problems
By Jana Pedersen
Senior Reporter
Asking university officials to
draft an initiative to increase
the number of instructors, the
Association of Students of the Uni
versity of Nebraska passed a resolu
tion Wednesday that named faculty
shortages as a problem at UNL.
Engineering senator Michael Ho
said he introduced the resolution to
emphasize the need for more instruc
tors in certain areas at the University
of Ncbraska-Lincoln.
The resolution names the colleges
of journalism, engineering and busi
ness administration as just three of
“many areas” in which faculty
shortages exist.
Last year, the UNL Faculty Senate
lobbied for increased salaries for in
structors, Ho said, which helped to
increase morale.
But working conditions also arc
important for retaining faculty, he
said.
If instructors feel they have too big
a workload because of faculty short
ages, he said, they won't be satisfied
with their jobs.
“The faculty shortage aspect has
kind of gotten pushed to the side,” he
said. “I think priorities need to be
shifted.”
The resolution names department
chairpersons “taking on a greater
teaching load than is acceptable,
given the additional demands of their
positions” and courses “being
taught by graduate teaching assis
tants rather than faculty members” as
examples of faculty shortages.
Ho said he hopes the resolution
will bring attention to the shortage at
UNL and let students know that they
should be concerned about it.
“Students should be looking at it
- maybe not being outraged, but
being alarmed -- and they’re not right
now,” he said.
If students lake a leading role on
the faculty shortage issue, he said,
something can be done about it.
ASUN passed the resolution 23-1.
One senator abstained.
service walks students
to cars, residence halls
By Jennifer O’Cilka
Staff Reporter
After breezing through a one
month trial period, the
Cather/Pound Escort Service
for students walking on campus at
night seems bound for success and
expansion, according to the service’s
founders.
Tanya Christiansen and Kirk Car
penter, who started the service Oct. 9,
said the number of students using the
service has increased while more
escorts have been signing up.
The number of women using the
service has increased to about five
each night, Carpenter said.
Only two or threo women used the
service the first week, he said. No
men have requested escorts yet.
Christiansen said the increase in
use is partly because it is getting dark
earlier.
To better serve students during
these hours, the escort service
changed its hours from 7 p.m. to
midnight to 6:30 p.m. to 11 p.m.
Publicity also helped increase
usage, she said. Student assistants
throughout the complex have talked
about the escort service at floor meet
ings, and posters were put up, Chris
tiansen said.
Carpenter said the Cather/Pound/
Neihardl student government has yet
to approve funding for an advertise
ment on business cards.
If approved, these cards will in
clude the service’s phone number and
will be distributed to all complex
residents, Carpenter said.
Christiansen said posters also help
attract escorts. Many students have
called asking how they can become
escorts, she said.
Before the service opened, 75 to
100 students attended an informa
tional meeting for escorts.
4 ‘I was surprised and impressed by
the number of people that volun
teered,” Carpenter said.
Sixty-five Cather/Pound residents
currently work as escorts, Carpenter
See ESCORT on 6
