Professor concerned about restructuring
I was disappointed in your editorial (DN,
Feb. 5) supporting ASUN President Bryan Hill’s
testimony concerning the NU Board of Re
gents’ recorded opposition to LB 1141 and
LR239CA, just as I have been disappointed at
the Association of Students of the University of
Nebraska’s quick (though qualified) approval
of these pieces of legislation. What I read leads
me to believe that student support of the reor
ganization plan derives mainly, if not solely,
from the current regents’ refusal to grant stu
dent board members a vote. While I have no
objection whatever to a voting student regent
(and recognize that the new campus boards
would make such a thing simpler by assigning
only one student regent per board), I find your
position ironic in that LB 1141 specifically
excludes a vote for the student members of the
campus boards.
But let’s leave aside speculation about the
motivation for the position you and Mr. Hill
take, and indeed the motivation for the regents’
opposition to the proposed reorganization. There
are issues here that far transcend whether a
regent doesn’t want to lose his/her job or even
whether students can vote on the current board.
The problems with LB 1141 and LR239CA are
not ‘ ‘minor technicalities” by any means. First
of all, the massive nature of the reorganization
is akin to using a nuclear device on a dog which
raids one’s trash can. It creates position for 53
regents ana trustees (not counting seven
“nonvoting student members”), seven presi
dents and one chancellor (not to mention the
Nebraska Higher Education Commission that
sits on top of the whole structure). If students
often find the current system cumbersome and
unresponsive, how will they fare trying to work
through two or three levels of bureaucracy only
to be faced at the end of the process by the
Legislature itself? I find it ironic that the very
same campus leaders and legislature members
who decried the firing of NU President Ronald
Roskens and thought the previous system was
quite good (only needing “tine tuning”) now
embrace eagerly a total overhaul of the whole
state system of higher education.
That brings me to the second point. There is
precious little in these two pieces of legislation
about education, but there is a great deal about
politics. Think about it. The governor will
appoint all but five of the 53 regents/trustees,
and in fact will appoint every single one of
them as the new structure is implemented. The
Higher Education Commission, which among
other things feeds to the new regents the data on
which they must base some of their decisions,
is totally politicized. Moreover, despite the
Widmayer and Associates principle that local
campus governance is best, a reading of the
new structure as now proposed will make it
clear that the power to govern higher education
in the stale is gravitating directly back to the
Legislature, from whence it was taken (at least
technically) by the Regents vs. Exon decision.
Finally, LB 1141 does an end run around con
stitutional challenges to making Kearney State
College a university by declaring its intent in
the proposed constitutional amendment to be
that “the University of Nebraska at Kearney”
be one of the campuses governed by a board of
trustees. You’ll remember that Dave Landis,
among other state senators, admitted that
LR239CA, making KSC into UNK, was a
political, more than an educational, move.
My final general objection to the reorgani
zation plan is that it is being put in place before
the role and mission for all seven campuses has
been examined and re-codified, the Legisla
ture refused to deal with this issue when it
passed LR239C A, and it refuses to do so now.
Instead, it creates an amorphous higher educa
tion system which, labels aside, eliminates the
University of Nebraska as a separate entity (not
to mention any sense of the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln as a “flagship”). It leaves
to the new Board of Regents to determine
which campus will have a statewide mission
and which a local one, which campuses will
offer master’s and Ph.D degrees, where degree
programs will and will not be offered and what
admission standards will be approved at each
campus. How much of a voice do you think
students will have in such a process? How
much of a voice will the faculty have, even
though they are the ones with the expertise to
determine the quality and structure of degree
programs? And the Legislature maintains a
stony sncnce aoout now an mis win do paid ior,
which is an issue which finally transcends all
educational decisions. Experience indicates that
the state will not expend large amounts of new
funding to pay for a multiplication of programs
and the staff required to support the expanded
governing system. What will happen is also
evident for recent history -- such as the funding
of the University of Nebraska at Omaha Fine
Arts Building and the suggestion that UNL
energy savings be used to prop up a teetering
College of Engineering (ignoring the fact that
these funds are now used to keep afloat a
disastrously underfunded library).
My fear, then, is that LB 1141 and LR239CA
will create new problems, not solve old ones,
and ultimately leave UNL -- and possibly all of
the college and university campuses — at a
level of impoverishment detrimental to the
education of our students. I hope you will
consider these matters as the debate on the
proposed legislation continues. My job is not
threatened. I will be here -- barring disaster -
no matter what the Legislature does. Many
student leaders will have graduated and gone
on to their chosen careers. But we should all
worry about the institution which will be left
when the noise dies down and those of us who
remain try to determine, in Robert Frost s
words, “what to make of a diminished thing.’’
Robert Bergstrom
associate professor
English
Cause, not numbers, main issue
Henry Battistoni, was the primary intent of
your column (DN, Feb. 8) really to make me
waste an entire mouthful of coffee? Did you
hope to win the “Lee Atwater” award for
negative campaigning on the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln campus this year?
What I do know, Henry, is that you and 1
must have attended two entirely different ral
lies. My daughter and I were at a pro-life rally
that began at the State Capitol. We left after
several speeches were given Irom the Federal
Building. Was there a ’ ‘mob scene” after that,
Henry? My fault, 1 always leave the party early.
And gosh, Henry, if I’d have known you would
have been offended at the huge stick and poster
my daughter was carrying, you know, the one
with the ferocious teddy bear that said, “Life is
Beary Precious,” well, I just never would have
let her carry it. Even 4-year-olds should expe
rience censorship.
Did I mention my daughter was adopted?
Yeah, I knew when I adopted her that I’d get the
chance someday to throw it in someone’s face.
I mean, since I’ve been so enlightened by you
that I lack compassion, it couldn’t possibly be
because I love her or anything. It’s just loo bad
that the doctor my daughter’s biological mother
went to see ref used to perform an abortion at 20
weeks. Then I would have had more money and
freedom for myself instead of having to buy
size 10 toddler shoes, stop at the park on the
way home from preschool or interrupt the
writing of this letter to read a bedtime story to
my baby girl.
I don’t know, Henry. Does it really matter
that much to you how many people were at the
rally? When 1 left my house that morning, it
didn’t concern me how many other people
would be there. Actually, it was extremely cold
that day, and I was just kind of hoping
wouldn’t freeze to death! But 1 had to go
because I decided after several years of internal
debate that I would take a pro-life stand. My
conscience dictates that I do so. It is not an easy
issue to deal with. I hesitate to even discuss the
matter; the debate becomes so heated.1 £uess\
Henry, I just wanted you to tell me why Why
tan thealready raging tire / Your article seemed
so hateful. Or are you just jumping on the band
wagon of dumping on the “little old lady
fanatics?” I attended the rally with my four
sisters, and I am the oldest at 32! Fanatical?
Maybe about chocolate... but bombs? Henry,
come on, I’m lucky if I can follow the recipe on
the cake box correctly. Are there little old
ladies in Pro-Life? I’d say so. Are there fanat
ics? Most likely. Are there people who bomb
abortion clinics? Unfortunately, yes. Do the
bombers and fanatics represent the mainstream?
I would argue no. But, Henry, watch out for
those little old ladies; they will ply you with
homemade chocolate chip cookies, and before
you know it, you’ll be putty in their hands!
I don’t even know, Henry, why I bothered to
write. I’ve never responded to a piece before.
But I couldn’t let you column go unanswered.
Does it matter to you or anyone else in the Pro
Choice movement what my opinion is? Would
it matter to you ifl told you, “Gee, some of my
best friends have had abortions!” Would you j
believe me when I tell you that maybe I do have j
compassion? That I understand how difficult it j
is to raise a child when you are a single parent? |
Most importantly, that I believe a person is a (
person at conception? If people choose to be- (
lieve that a baby can be aborted because it i
cannot survive on its own outside the mother’s (
womb, then tell me how many 2-, 3-, or even 4- :
year-olds could survive without some kind ot ,
intervention. That, Henry, is what we should be
discussing, not how many people were at the ,
rally!
Anyway, Henry, thanks for listening .. . but J
I promised my daughter I’d give her a few hints
on how to get the other members of her “ko
ala” group to riot in opposition to naptime at
her preschool. And the article in the paper will
read, “The anti-nap group, who estimated the
crowd at their rally at 50 gazillion, but I only
counted six...”
Mary Shirlcy-McGuire
freshman
criminal justice
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