Nebraskan
WEATHER:
Wednesday, cloudy and cold with chance of
flurries, temperatures steadily declining from 35,
north winds 5 to 15 miles per hour. Wednesday
night, cloudy and cold with chance of flurries, low
of 10 to 15. Thursday, partly cloudy and cold, high
of 25.
INDEX
News Digest.2
Editorial.4
Sports.7
Arts & Entertainment.9
Classifieds.10
December 6, 1989_____ University of Nebraska-Lincoln___Vol. 89 No.tgg^Q
Professor sues for reinstatement of voting rights
By Victoria Ayotte
Senior Editor
AUNL professor in the Depart
ment of Modem Languages
and Literatures is suing the
department chairman and the NU
Board of Regents for depriving him
of his constitutional rights when he
was not allowed to vote on depart
mental matters with other faculty.
Bruce Erlich, professor of English
and modem languages, is suing
Helmut Pfanner and the regents to
allow him to vote on departmental
matters and to give him general
damages, which are unspecified.
Erlich states in a lawsuit filed
Sept. 20 in U.S. District Court that
Pfanner was behind the action not
allowing him to vote on departmental
matters within modem languages.
I ■■
Erlich has devoted one-third of his
employment to the modem lan
guages department and two-thirds to
the English department since 1973.
He was granted tenure in 1979.
According to the lawsuit, the Col
lege of Arts & Sciences University of
Nebraska-Lincoln Faculty Hand
book states that “recommendations
for tenure are voted on by all faculty
members in a department or school
whose tenure has been approved by
the Board of Regents, and only by
them.”
Erlich voted on tenure and promo
tion matters in modern languages and
English since he received tenure in
April 1979, the lawsuit said.
On Nov. 1,1988, tenured and non
tenured faculty of the modem lan
guages department voted to change
the tenured faculty members’ rights.
Since then only those faculty mem
bers, tenured or non-tenured, who
spend 50 percent of their time in the
modem languages department are
allowed to vote on personnel deci
sions.
This rule, in effect, eliminated
Erlich from the decisions since he
spent only one-third of his time in
modem languages.
Erlich states in the lawsuit that the
arts & sciences handbook lets depart
ments adopt their own rules, but those
rules must agree with the college’s
rules and the bylaws of UNL and the
regents.
Because the modern language rule
change does not agree with the arts &
sciences rule that tenured faculty
vote on personnel matters, Erlich said
the change “is violative of the uni
versity bylaws and was arbitrary and
capricious.”
A significant number of the fac
ulty members voting for the modem
languages rule change were non-ten
ured, the lawsuit also states.
The lawsuit says the bylaws of the
regents are a contract which gave
Erlich “a property interest in his
rights to tenure.” One of the rights is
to vote on departmental matters, it
said, and that right ‘‘was taken away
from plaintiff without due process
and in contravention of the regents’
bylaws.”
* ‘The acts and omissions of defen
dant Pfanncr, including but not lim
ited to orchestrating and allowing the
faculty under his direction to deny to
the Plaintiff voting privileges on ten
ure and promotion issues, were taken
under color of law.”
Pfanner’s alleged actions also
were ratified by the Board of Regents
through its policymakers, the lawsuit
states.
Erlich alleges that the actions of
the modern languages department
deprived him of his right to property,
due process and equal protection of
the laws as guaranteed by the Four
teenth Amendment of the U.S.
Constitution and the Nebraska
Constitution.
Erlich is suing for treble, or triple
damages, from Pfanner and the re
gents under Nebraska Rev. Statute
28-926 which states that any public
officials who “willfully . . . injure,
decline, harm or oppress any persons
. .. commits oppression under color
of office and shall be answerable to
the party so injured, deceived or
See SUIT on 6
Renovation shuffles employees
O- \71~a, • A A A JL. •/
** j ▼ iviui ia nj ihw,
Senior Editor
One month into the Univer
sity Health Center’s reno
vation, employees are
“doubling and tripling” up on
space, Director Kunle Ojikutu said
Tuesday.
“We play what we call musical
thairs now,” Ojikutu said.
The mental health department
has moved into four unused patient
rooms, the program analyst is in a
basement storage room and the
administration has moved to other
unused basement space.
The $467,300 renovation by
Shanahan Mechanical and Electri
cal of Valparaiso will put a ‘ ‘pent
house” on top of the health center
to house a new heating and cooling
system for parts of the two-story
building.
Dick Chase, construction engi
neer for the UNL Physical Plant,
said construction is scheduled for
completion about April 1. Con
tractors are working on the second
floor now and then will do the first
floor and the basement.
Ojikutu said the health center
will maintain the same level of
student services during the renova
tion.
Even though the renovation
caused health center employees
the inconvenience of moving,
Ojikutu said, they know it is worth
while.
“ Wc manage and we know this
will just be a temporary inconven
ience,” he said.
Doris Johnson, director of the
clinical lab, said her employees
were inconvenienced when they
moved the lab to the basement
before Thanksgiving, but student
services have not been affected.
The day of the move, the lab
had 30 patients’ lab work to do,
See CENTER on 6
William Lauer/Daily Nebraskan
Jerry Dvorak solders hot-water pipes being installed at
the University Health Center.
Student leaders back report’s findings
By Lisa Bolin
Staff Reporter
Some student leaders at the
University of Nebraska-Lin
coln say they strongly support
the recommendations for changes in
the post-secondary education gov
ernance made to the Legislature’s
Higher Education Committee last
week.
The report, made by the Chicago
based consulting firm Widmayerand
Associates, touts eliminating the NU
Board of Regents and the Nebraska
State College Board of Trustees and
reorganizing the governing bodies.
Seven boards of trustees.for each
of the three branches of the Univer
siiy of Nebraska system, and Wayne,
Peru, Chadron and Kearney state
colleges would be responsible for
governing their respective campuses,
A new board of regents would be
responsible for coordination of those
bodies at a state level.
The part of the report that is of
particular interest to student leaders
is the recommendation for the com
position of the boards of trustees, said
Deb Fiddclkc, chairperson of the
UNL’s Government Liaison Com
mittee.
The report given to the Higher
Education Committee provides for a
student to be on the board of trustees
at each campus, she said.
Fiddclkc, also a member of Stu
dents for the Right to Vote, said it is
important that the student members
on the boards would be voting mem
bers.
Students for the Right to Vote is an
ad hoc student organization formed
earlier this semester to advocate a
student vote on thecurrcni NU Board
of Regents.
Devi Bohling, first vice president
for the Association of Students of the
University of Nebraska, said she
supports having student representa
tives on the boards. But, Bohling
said, she would like to see the student
clarified as a voting member.
J. Matt Wickless, another membci
See SUPPORT on 3
Despite UNL gains,
low TA pay remains
problem, Yost says
By Jana Pedersen
Senior Reporter
Although a two-year-old study
ranks UNL near the bottom of
eight institutions for graduate
teaching assistant salaries, Vice
Chancellor for Graduate Studies John
Yost said low salaries arc not just a
UNL problem.
“It has to be seen as a national
problem,” Yost said. “It’s a tremen
dous sacrifice to pursue graduate stu
dents with that level of stipends when
they could earn much more in busi
ness and industry.”
According to a 1987-88 study
done by the University of Nebraska
Lincoln, Yost said, UNL ranked sev
enth among eight peer institutions in
stipends given out as graduate teach
ing assistant salaries. UNL’s peer
institutions are land-grant, research
oriented universities of comparable
size belonging to the Association of
American Universities.
The highest ranking UNL attained
was fifth in the area of agricultural
stipends for graduate teaching assis
tants, Yost said. The lowest was in the
physical sciences area, he said, where
UNL ranked last.
Average UNL salaries ranged
from S4,523 a year in education to
$6,185 in engineering, not including
the waiving of tuition and fee
I UM 5<1IU.
“I want to emphasize the fact that
this study is two years old,” he said.
‘‘There’s no way to determine how
we rank now ... but I’m optimistic
that we have gained over the past two
years.”
Despite UNL’s probable gains,
Yost said, low graduate teaching as
sistant salaries remain a national
problem.
He said the lack of adequate sup
port for graduate teaching assistant
salaries means that fewer under
graduate students are choosing to
continue into graduate studies.
Recruiting high-quality under
graduates for careers in higher educa
tion will become increasingly impor
tant as the number of students select
ing that route continues to decline,
Yost said.
In the next decade, he said, the
expected increase in openings in the
higher education profession won’t be
caused by an actual increase in the
number of positions, but by a lack of
qualified individuals to fill those
positions.
‘‘Those won’t be new positions
opening up,” Yost said. ‘‘They’ll be
vacancies.”
By 1997, he said, some areas of
graduate study will have only one
student to replace each faculty open
ing.
“But where wiVi graduate students
come from unless we make their sti
pends greater?” he said.
Until graduate salaries nationwide
are increased to attract more students,
he said, universities will find few
students willing to make the sacri
fices necessary to continue in gradu
ate studies.
“It comes to a matter of public
policy,” Yost said. “I don’t think
we’ll see an expansion in higher
education, (but) just the opposite. I
think we face an era of increasingly
restrained resources.”
But universities won’t be able to
increase salaries on their own, Yost
said.
He said he thinks UNL has made
gains in recent years partly because
of the Nebraska Research Initiative,
which has provided additional sup
port for graduate assistant salaries.
It will take combined efforts from
both universities and government to
get the money needed to attract more
high-quality graduate students, Yost
said.
it is oi crucial importance tnai
we strengthen the quality of elemen
tary education, secondary education
and the general education that we
offer at institutions like UNL,” he
said. “That’s the best way to prepare
talented youth for the prospect of
graduate study and a career in higher
education.”
Although graduate teaching assis
tants at UNL said they wouldn’t mind
a pay raise, they said they don’t view
salaries to be as big of a problem as
the amount of time required to teach.
Arden Aspedon, graduate teach
ing assistant for three lab sections of
Biology 101, said he probably won’t
be a teaching assistant after this
semester because of the time in
volved.
“Being a TA docs cut into my
time dramatically,” Aspedon said.
He said he has been unable to
pursue substantial research this se
mester because of his teaching load.
“I can hardly get anything started
in the lab before I have to go teach,”
he said.
But the pay, he said, is adequate.
“It works out to about S10 an
hour, which is OK by me,” he said.
“I think it’s a pretty good deal.”
John David, graduate teaching
assistant for Microbiology 314, said
See PAY on 6