Multicultural awareness emphasized
Campuses develop new teaching course
By Dionne Searcey
Staff Reporter
A multicultural awareness course
to help fulfill teacher recertification
requirements is closer to develop
ment, a University of Nebraska offi
cial said.
Betsy Kean, associate professor of
curriculum and instruction at UNL,
said a steering committee with repre
seniatives from the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln, the University of
Nebraska at Omaha and Kearney State
College has been meeting to develop
the framework for the course.
Each campus will develop a course,
but the classes will share common
characteristics, Kean said.
The course is being developed to
comply with LB250, which requires
teachers seeking recertification after
January 1993 lo receive training in
human relations.
Teachers must be recertified peri
odically depending on the amount of
teaching experience they have. Re
certification requires teachers to take
six credit hours of graduate courses in
their fields of endorsement.
Kean said that under the law, which
passed two years ago, teachers will
take courses designed to lead to an
awareness and understanding of a
multicultural society.
“The law puts good options in
teachers’ hands for dealing construc
tively with the need of students to
deal and prosper tn a multicultural
society,” she said.
Jim Walter, chairman of curricu
lum and instruction in the Teachers
College, said the steering committee
set up to develop the course has met
twice a month this fall to discuss how
to structure the course.
The required course may be added
as a graduate course, Walter said.
The course then could be taken by
students studying in a degree pro
gram, as well as by teachers seeking
recertification, he said.
Professor questions legislators’ priorities in education
.. __»»
By Michael Ho
Staff Reporter
In its quest to chase national grants, higher
education is forgetting its true purpose, a UNL
electrical engineering professor said.
Teaching students is the whole purpose of
education, Ezckial Bahar said. The University
of Nebraska-Lincoln has performed well in this
area, but legislators and administrators seem
less interested in students than in money, the
former Faculty Senate president said.
“These guys, these bureaucrats, forget what
education is all about,” he said. “Our job here
is to make a kid from high school move into the
real world.”
Not just the top 1 percent of students, he
added, but all students. Top-notch students
probably don't even need professors to gradu
ate. he said.
The true duly of U NL, he said, is to motivate
and leach students who may need a little more
hand-holding.
-44 --
These guys, these bureau
crats, forget what education
is all about. Our job here is to
make a kid from high school
move into the real world.
Bahar
electrical engineering professor
-99 “
That’s different from the role of private
schools, he said, and UNL shouldn’t be judged
the same way tncy are.
Bahar recounted the story ol a C+
student who made it through UNL, with a little
help, and went on to take a job at a big-name
research company.
The persona! attention that J.G. got at UNL
probably was what saved him, Bahar said.
“If he went to one of those posh schools like
MIT (the Massachusetts Institute of Technol
ogy) or Stanford,” Bahar said, “he would have
been washed out. That’s what’s unique about
Nebraska.”
Other schools, he said, don’t have the same
commitment to their students. He said his
daughter, who went to the University of Illi
nois, never saw' a professor until her senior
year.
Illinois is “an excellent university,” he said.
“Otherwise I would never have sent my daugh
ICI UICIV/. DUl il 3 a umvivm iviiiu ui j-'iavv.
Trying lo lump UNL together with such
schools is a mistake, he said. UNL probably
will never catch up with schools like Illinois in
federal grants, he added.
“They always lose in this race, but it’s their
mistake,” Bahar said. “They’re running the
wrong race/’
“What are we here for?” he asked. “To leach
students.”
In order to demonstrate a commitment to
teaching, Bahar said, the University of Ne
braska might try a new approach when submit
ting this year’s budget request.
“(NU President-elect) Martin Massengale
should keep his aides locked up at the univer
sity,” he said, and take one student — just one
— with him to sec slate officials.
And all the bar graphs, Bahar said, should be
left at home.
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Peer
Continued from Page 1
peer groups forced on them. The
University of Wisconsin-Madison is
using a peer group that was picked by
the state, rather than by the school.
The university had drawn up its
own list, said Steve Schumacher,
assistant director of UWM’s news
service. On that list, designed mainly
to compare faculty salaries, UWM
ranked last.
The Wisconsin Legislature balked
at the inclusion of private institutions
like Harvard and Stanford, Schuma
cher said.
The slate then designed its own
peer group for the university. This
group consisted of the public Big Ten
institutions with some large public
research schools thrown in.
Iowa Slate’s Stanley said the UNL
peer group, made up of the 11 land
grant institutions in the Association
of American Universities, is reason
able.
“It’sa legitimate choice,” she said.
In some ways, it’s even more use
ful than Iowa Slate’s peer group,
Stanley said. The AAU schools arc
more closely knit and share more
information, she said.
Bill Splinter, interim vice chan
cellor for research and dean of gradu
ate studies at UNL, said peer groups
— chosen within reason — can help
make schools more competitive.
Many faculty members have been
recruited from UNL’s peer institu
tions recently, he said, which is a
marked change from the exodus a few
years ago.
“I think we’ve turned the corner
on that,” Splinter said. “We were
really losing some quality faculty.”
The peer institutions arc all slate
supported research universities, he
said, and they serve as a good bench
mark for UNL’s progress.
“Nebraska may not ever rank as an
MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Tech
nology) or a Harvard,” Splinter said,
“but there’s no reason why we should
not be ranked with other major state
universities.”
Condoms
Continued from Page 1
that there’s very little use of these
things.”
At the University of Missouri at
Columbia, he said, about $50 in con
doms is sold every year.
In addition to health concerns, he
said, the university must not ignore
the beliefs of students who oppose
condom dispensers on moral grounds.
“I think they’re legitimate points
of view that arc very hard to recon
cile,” he said.
