WEATHER INDEX News.2 Wednesday, partly sunny, high near 40, light and Editorial.4 variable winds. Wednesday night, low 15-20. Sports.7 Thursday, partly sunny, not as cold, high around Arts & Entertainment.9 Classifieds.11 February 28, 1990 University of Nebraska-Lincoln y0|. 89 No. 1 Executive student government candidates discuss UNL issues By Robert Richardson Staff Reporter | Executive candidates of TO DAY, STAND and VISION ■ discussed campus problems =. Tuesday at the first debate for 1990 » student government elections. About 250 people attended the debate in the i Nebraska Union. Several candidates said they thought that students want a change from the current Association of Students of the University of Nebraska. ‘That’s what student government needs,” said Phil Gosch, presidential candidate for the VISION party. ‘‘People with energy, people with motivation, people who want to change a system that, at the current time, people arc frustrated with.” Deb Fiddelke, TODAY parly presi dential candidate, said her parly sup ports a constitutional amendment to restructure the ASUN Senate. Currently, she said, ASUN is “predominantly greek,” and docs not represent all UNL students. STAND party presidential candi date Joe Bowman said he thought ASUN’s power was no longer in the hands of students but in the hands of “aspiring career politicians.” “Its original purpose was to pro vide service and build model citizens, not to grind up a new batch of special politicians every season that promise little and deliver even less,” Bow man said. Candidates for first vice president disagreed on what they thought was the biggest concern to students. STAND candidate Barb Walker said a big problem on campus is park ing. “It winds up being that the people with the most money will get to park closer to campus,” Walker said. “Students work for their money. Off campus students have to worry about rent and bills. They shouldn’t have to worry about paying SI50 to drive to campus.” TODAY and VISION party mem bers agreed that apathy in the AS UN senate was a problem this year. But the parties had different solutions. Brad Vasa, first vice presidential candidate for TODAY, said, “I would say the most important issue is an apathetic senate. The idea is that you have to motivate people, and you have to be motivated to do that.” Vasa said he thought course credit for senators would help an apathetic senate, “because it would push sena tors to get involved for that credit and they would work harder,” he said. Stacy Mohling, first vice presi dential candidate for the VISION party, See DEBATE on 3 Student’s explicit art stirs controversy over question of pornography approval By Victoria Ayotte Senior Reporter A controversial piece of art has generated discussion in UNL’s art department concerning whether to change the format of its student gallery. The discussion started several weeks ago when junior art major Ken Johnson displayed a work in the Art League Gallery that some thought might be approving pornography. Johnson’s work was a picture from an explicit magazine with a cartoon from a Burger King placcmat over it. Graduate student Dotty McGcorge said the Johnson piece was an “ob scene, degrading depiction of women.” As a result of Johnson’s artwork, McGcorge withdrew her two pictures from the gallery. Martha Horvay, associate profes sor of art, then asked Johnson if he would voluntarily remove his work until the Art League could discuss it, but he refused. The Art League met two weeks ago to discuss the gallery’s options. Eric Williams, a junior art major and secretary/treasurer of the Art League, said Joseph Ruffo, chairman of the Department of Art and Art History, “set down ultimatums” at the meeting and said the Art League had two choices. It would have to make the gallery a works-in-progress site, allowing students to exhibit any work, or make the gallery more of a public gallery that could be publicized, according to Johnson and Williams. They said if the gallery became more public, stu dents would have to evaluate the works, deciding which would be exhibited. Ruffo and Horvay said the issue merely was discussed and no ultima tums were given. “If they saw it as that, they were being defensive,” Horvay said. Ruffo said “there is no planned change” in the present operation of the gallery. Johnson said he was surprised at the art department’s response to the issue and Horvay’s request that he remove his piece. Johnson said he saw no reason 10 comply with Horvay’s request be cause the gallery is non-juried, mean ing any University of Ncbraska-Lin coln students can exhibit their works there. Although he said it was “hard to sec the intention” of his work, it was against pornography. McGcorge said it “just didn’t seem that way” to her and she removed her works to make people think about Johnson’s piece. She said she isn’t sure which type of gallery she would want, but said she will support what the majority of students want “I don’t think anybody wants to put any kind of censorship on the See ART on 6 William Lauer/Dally Na^raakan Efforts to talk Bruce McIntosh, of Lincoln, out of a tree by Lincoln Police officers Mark Wolfe (left) and Charles Starr, were fruitless. Protesters said it isn’t right to wipe out 100 years of growth and heritage in a tew minutes. Activists temporarily halt Cooper Park construction By James P. Webb Staff Reporter Plans to build a sports com plex at Cooper Park, 6th and F streets, were halted Tuesday afternoon when seven protesters hung in trees and dodged excavation equipment. Tuesday morning, UNL student J Burger of Ecology Now and ac tivist Bruce McIntosh of Lincoln perched themselves in hemlock trees to protest the removal of about 70 trees in the northwest part of the park. The land is being cleared to build a new soccer field, basketball court, running track, long-jump pit and tennis courts as part of Park Elementary School’s expansion, according to Mark Huettner of Bahr, Vermeer & Haccker Architects of Lincoln. Park Elementary, 714 F St., is being expanded to accommodate See COOPER on 3 Copple s legacy or excellence coming to an end William Lauar/Daily Nebraskan Neale Copple By Jerry Guenther Staff Reporter The man who has helped lead the Univer sity of Ncbraska-Lincoln’s journalism college to national recognition during the past 30 years said his decision to become an educator happened as much by accident as attraction. Neale Copple, who will retire as dean of the UNL College of Journal ism after a new dean is se lected, said he was hesi tant to become an educa tor. Copple was working as city editor of the Lincoln Journal when he was asked to leach an advanced re porting class at the uni versity during the mid-1950s. Even though he had bachelor’s and master’s degrees in journalism, Copple said, he wasn't sure at the time whether a journalism education was necessary for a journalism career. But after receiving encouragement from both the editor and the publisher of the Lincoln Journal, Copple said, he agreed to try teaching. Under the arrangement, Copple spent his weekly day off from the newspaper teaching students many of the same things he taught new reporters at the newspaper, he said. “One day a week I was coming up here spending the whole dam day bringing reporters along,” Copple said. “And I would go home at night feeling good about it.” After three years of leaching the advanced reporting class, Copple said, he was invited to join the faculty as an assistant professor. In 1966, he was promoted to director of the journalism school and has headed the journal ism program ever since. Since that lime, Copple said, he has seen the program undergo many changes. “Back when I started there were probably between 130 and 140 journalism majors on this campus,” Copple said. “Today we’re well over 1,100. That’s an enormous growth.” Another change was the creation of the graduate program in 1975. Copple said there were 12 candidates in the first class, and it wasn’t supposed to become larger than 24 candidates. Today, the graduate program has 75 candi dates, he said. Three years after the graduate program began, the journalism school was moved from the College of Arts & Sciences, and became a free standing college. “Everything has been an evolution, not revolution,” Copple said. “There really have n’t been any dramatic changes.” One of the more subtle changes has been the gradual development of the school's profes See COPPLE on 6