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Restructuring plan satisfies regents, senator
By Jerry Guenther
Staff Reporter
Two members of the NU Board of Re
gents and a state senator said they are
satisfied with the restructuring plan for
post-secondary education that the Nebraska
Legislature adopted earlier this week.
Senators passed legislation Monday which
requires a constitutional amendment to create a
more powerful Coordinating Commission for
Postsecondary Education.
Originally, senators had considered a pro
posal that would have abandoned the current
NU Board of Regents and State College Board
of Trustees.
Those boards would have been replaced by
separate boards of trustees at each of the state
colleges and universities.
Sen. Jerome Warner of Waverly said he
preferred the original concept, but thinks the
current proposal will bring efficiency to educa
tion in the state.
Warner said the adopted proposal should be
more attractive to regents, and he is optimistic
about its chances for approval in November.
Don Blank, chairman of the regents, also
said he is satisfied with the final proposal.
“It’s kind of nagging that this happened so
quickly,” Blank said. ‘‘It would have been
nice to go the normal route with public hear
ings and media scrutiny and student and faculty
input and the whole bit.”
But considering senators’ time constraint,
Blank said he is “comfortable” with the pro
posal that passed.
Blank, who is from McCook, said he and
several others worked last weekend with Warner
and Sen. Ron Withem of Papillion to clarify
differences between coordination and govern
ance of education in the state.
Regent Rosemary Skrupa of Omaha called
the legislation “a step in the right direction.”
Skrupa said the proposal that would have
replaced the existing boards of regents and
trustees with one board of trustees for each
university and state college would not have
been workable.
Still, Skrupa said she has some questions
about the proposed changes.
Although nothing has been scheduled, Skrupa
said she hopes the regents will be able to meet
with Warner to go over the changes “with a
fine tooth comb.”
Warner was responsible for the legislation
that added provisions to grant the coordinating
commission budget authority and coordinating
power.
Skrupa also said she was disappointed that
senators moved so quickly to adopt the changes.
The public did not have a chance to comment
on them, she said.
Gosch disappointed by legislation,
will delay efforts for official vote
by jerry Guenther
Staff Reporter
The newly elected ASUN president
said he will wait to see how LB 1141
is received before resuming efforts
to get a student regent vote.
Phil Gosch, who took over as president of
the Association of Students of the Univer
sity of Nebraska Wednesday night, said he
was disappointed by the “hasty action” of
the Nebraska Legislature during the final
days of the session.
“It definitely dealt the student regent
vote a wow tor the immediate time, Gosch
said.
Because state senators overhauled the
original higher education restructuring plan,
Gosch said, he is unsure what action to
pursue next.
Senators voted Monday to place LB1141,
which had been transformed from its origi
nal version last week, on the November
ballot.
LB 1141 was intended as implementing
legislation to LR239CA, which would have
See VOTEon3
“A constitutional amendment is big time,”
Skrupasaid. “If it’s approved, it’s pretty much
etched in stone.”
Skrupa said now that the legislation has
been passed, she hopes the University of Ne
braska presidential search can be resumed soon
to ease lime constraints on Martin Massengale,
who has been serving as both interim NU
president and University of Nebraska-Lincoln
chancellor.
The regents delayed the search for the NU
president last November.
Not many officials would have been able to
perform both positions for as long as he has, she
said.
Blank said the regents will discuss resuming
the presidential search at their meeting April
21, but it’s still too early to tell how long it will
be before the next NU president will take
office.
Regents to consider
fighting words policy
for code of conduct
By Emily Rosenbaum
Senior Reporter
University of Ncbraska-Lincoln
administrators have completed
a revision of the student code
of conduct, which includes a fighting
words policy.
Students and faculty now will have
the opportunity to read the new code
before the NU Board of Regents
decides on its adoption.
The policy would make certain
language — so-called fighting words
-- punishable by penalties under the
UNL Student Code of Conduct and
Disciplinary Procedures.
The policy defines lighting words
as “those personally ahusiv-' epithets
of a lewd, obscene, vulgar, profane,
defamatory, insulting or fighting na
ture which, when directly addressed
to a person, are by their very utter
ance in the context used and as a
matter of common knowledge likely
to incite an immediate breach of the
peace, whether or not they actually
do so.”
The policy goes on to state that,
“such words include those terms
widely recognized to be derogatory
references to race, sex, national ori
gin, religion, disability or other indi
vidual characteristics.”
James Gricsen, vice chancellor for
student affairs, said the revision will
be presented to the judicial board in
the next two weeks.
Griescn said the meeting is de
signed to get input on the proposed
fighting words change in the code,
included under the misconduct sec
tion of the code.
He said he will meet with various
faculty and staff members and dis
cuss the new policy with students
before asking for approval of the code.
Changes could be made in the final
draft of the proposed code if there is a
significant amount of conceit^ ex
pressed with the current draft, he said.
Richard Woods, NU vice presi
dent and general counsel, Kathy Austin,
director of the Student Judicial Af
fairs Office, and Gnesen drafted the
code of conduct revision. Gricscn said
the main difference between the cur
rent code of conduct and the revision
is that the new version is “more
explicit.”
The current code has 12 general
points, and the new version cues
specific instances of violation. The
new misconduct section lists acts such
as gambling, property damage, mis
use of computers and failure to report
fire.
Gricsen said he hopes to present
the code to the regents in June and
have the code in place by the begin
ning of the fall semester.
First, the code would have to be
approved by UNL Chancellor Martin
Masscngalc.
Gnesen said it is important to present
the proposal to students before the
end of the spring semester because 4 41
don’t want to eliminate student input
on the code of conduct to the board. ’'
He said the code ‘‘needs to be
discussed thoroughly in the academic
community.”
Students and faculty members who
have come into Griesen’s office to
talk with him about the fighting words
policy have4 ‘typically been respond
ing to newspaper articles” and
4‘haven’t had the benefit” of reading
the exact wording of the policy, he
said.
Many of these people arc against
the code at first because they perceive
it as an4 4 inappropriate suppression of
freedom of expression,” he said.
But there arc 4 ‘constraints on free
dom of expression now - the classic
being that you can’t yell ‘fire’ in a
crowded theater,” he said.
He said every example he has heard
of what others think would be a viola
tion are things that 4‘wouldn’t be
covered under this policy.”
‘‘It’sa very, very limited policy,”
Gricsen said. 44We walked a very
tight line.”
The policy would indicate to stu
dents that they 4‘should be held ac
countable” for using words that pro
voke violence, he said.
Because of the policy’s narrow
scope and the possible difficulty in
proving violations, Gricsen said, he
wouldn’t expect to see many cases as
a result of the policy.
^AlScnaben/Dail^ssbr^skan
D. Kirk Darnell is sworn in as the 1990-91 ASUN graduate studies senator at the Wick
Alumni Center on Wednesday night. ASUN President Phil Gosch, other senators and
student court members also were sworn in. »
Write-in senator fights for ASUN seat
By Emily Rosenbaum
Senior Reporter
When Sandy Haughton wrote
in her name for Association
of Students of the Univcr
* $ity of Nebraska senator from the Di
vision of Continuing Studies on March
14, she said she didn’t expect to win.
Then she saw the election results
the next day and her name was listed
as the winner - with one vote.
The Division of Continuing Stud
ies was given a senatorial seal for the
first time this year because students
in it now pay fees.
No student from continuing stud
ies ran on the ASUN ballot, so a
write-in candidate was the only op
tion for voters.
Haughton, a junior marketing major,
said she didn’t know anyone who
wanted the job, so she chose herself.
‘‘I didn’t know anyone belter for
the job,” she said. ”1 was amazed
that I won.”
Haughton said she decided to ac
cept the position and later was sent a
letter from ASUN stating that she was
not eligible to be a senator because
she did not carry 12 credit hours of
classes. ASUN’s constitution states
that senators must carry a minimum
of 12 hours.
Haughton said she lakes six hours.
Continuing studies.students have full
time jobs and take night classes, so it
would be almost impossible to carry
12 hours as a continuing studies stu
dent and also serve as a senator, she
said.
Students doing that would have to
spend four nights a week in class and
then could miss the weekly ASUN
meetings, she said.
‘‘I don’t think they put a lot of
thought into what they should expect
lrom a Division of Continuing Stud
ies student,” Haughton said.
She said that because the continu
ing studies senator is a new position,
“they really didn’t have any idea
what Division of Continuing Studies
students do.”
Haughton said she didn’t give up
after receiving the letter.
Phil Gosch, ASUN president, is
working on a petition which would
exempt Haughlon from the require
ment and allow her to serve on ASUN
next year.
He said he will file the petition
Monday or Tuesday with the student
court. If the court approves the peti
tion, Haughlon could be seated as the
Division of Continuing Studies sena
tor by April 25.
“Although the constitution is very
specific. . .,” Gosch said, “I think
there arc some extenuating circum
stances for Division of Continuing
Studies students.”
‘ ‘The college deserves representa
tion,” Gosch said.
He said he hopes Haughton will be
allowed to serve as a senator.
Haughlon said she has developed
a “greater appreciation” for a sena
torial position because she has had to
“work for it.”
“If I wouldn’t have questioned
authority then this probably wouldn’t
have been fixed,” she said. “It makes
it worth more.”