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UNL research concerns
quelled by administrator
By Cindy Kimbrough
Staff Reporter
State senators’ concerns about
the return UNL gets from com
panies developed through the
millions of dollars the state has fun
neled into the Nebraska Research
Initiative are unfounded, a UNL offi
cial said.
Interim Vice Chancellor for Re
search Bill Splinter said spinoff
companies evolved from inventions
developed at the University of Ne
braska contribute royalties to the
university and benefit the commu
nity.
At a briefing with university offi
cials in late February, state Sen. Dan
Lynch of Omaha had questioned what
benefits the University of Nebraska
Lincoln receives from research fund
ing that leads to the formation of
spinoff companies, according to
Michael Mulnix, director of the Of
fice of Public Relations at UNL.
University officials had been lob
bying senators for $6 million in state
funds to finance the George W. Beadle
Center for Genetics and Biomaterials
Research and had brought up one of
the spinoff companies, BioNcbraska
Inc., as an example of what the fund
ing could do for the university’s high
tech research effort.
Lee Jones, provost and executive
vice president of the University of
Nebraska, responded in a letter to
Lynch that the spinoff companies don’t
just use NU research facilities and
expertise, then leave the university to
make profits on the resulting inven
tion.
The university must consider the
private funds donated for research
when developing contracts, he said.
“When federal or state funds have
supported the research, the patent is
the sole property of the Board of
Regents,” the letter stated. “Where
private industry funds have supported
the research to a significant extent, an
agreement is usually written in the
grant document giving that company
the first right of refusal of an exclu
sive license band on any patent re
sulting from the research.”
For example, Splinter said, a
company called Finnsugar invested
more than $200,000 for research re
lated to sucrose esters. Because it had
contributed a substantial amount, he
said, the company was offered the
first right to license the patents of the
See RESEARCH on 3
Evaluations' value hard
to assess, officials say
By Michelle Wing
Staff Reporter
How much emphasis should be
placed on the grades instruc
tors get from students is diffi
cult to evaluate, students and faculty
members at the University of Ne
braska-Lincoln have found.
Ellen Baird, associate vice chan
cellor of academic affairs, said stu
dent evaluations arc “useful as a self
improvement tool to fine-tune leach
• tt
mg.
But English Professor Joyce Joyce
said she thinks opinions other than
classroom performance or competency
are reflected in student evaluations.
“If students get low grades, (the
comments they write) may not be a
reflection of the professor’s perform
ance,” Joyce said. “I know of students
that, as a group, dec ided to gang up on
a professor and write negative evalu
ations.”
Stephen Hilliard, English depart
ment chairman, said negative student
evaluations can affect more than in
structors’ classroom performance.
“If students don’t feel they have
learned in class, it’s very serious,”
Hilliard said. “We use weak evalu
ations with teachers to improve per
formance, but they can affect merit
pay or non-rcappointment.”
Baird said student evaluations are
taken into consideration most often in
times of promotion and tenure, but
action taken based on student evalu
ations depends on the severity of
remarks.
“Comments must be kept in con
See EVALUATIONS on 6
Shaun Sartin/Daily Nebraskan
The agony of defeat
Omaha Marian High School players Cara Timmerman (left) and Cristen Wuebben console each
other during the last seconds of Saturday night s Class A Girls Basketball Championship
game at Bod Devaney Sports Center. Omaha Marian lost to Omaha Gross, 36-34.
| Mothers plan ‘little things’ for sons’ return
By Lisa Donovan
Senior Reporter
Abed, not a cot. Four walls and a roof,
not a tent. And good food, not military
rations.
For two University of Ncbraska-Lincoln
students who served in the Persian Gulf war,
coming home means Fremont and eating —
eating some pizza or becoming a regular at the
local McDonald’s.
Glenda Tichota said she talked with her son
Gary, who serves in the Army Reserve’s 1012th
General Supply Company, Saturday morning
and he said he couldn’t wail to see his family,
say hello to friends and sink his teeth into a hot
slice of pizza.
“One of the first things he wants to do after
he sees his family — he wants to have a pizza.
He loves pizza,” she said of Tichota, who was
a sophomore at UNL before he left for the
Saudi Arabian desert in October.
Another Fremont native, John Villwok, told
his mother, Donna Millie, on Sunday that he
was looking forward to enjoying the comforts
of home, too.
“The first week or two, he wants me to cook
all his favorite meals — chicken, homemade
noodles, chocolate cookies.”
But Millie said she knows some of those
home comforts won’t be found in her house.
“He says he wants to be on a first-name basis
at the local McDonald’s,” Millie said of Vill
wok, who was a UNL sophomore when his
See MOTHERS on 6
111 n i i YiimWrTHBT
Defensive
intensity was
the key word
in the men’s
Husker bas
ketball team’s
defeat of the
Jayhawks.
Page 7.
UNL faculty invent more than
ever before. Page 3.
INDEX
Wire 2
Opinion 4
Sports 7
A&E 9
Classifieds_ 10
JN U endowments exceed
U.S. donation average
By Michael Hannon
Staff Reporter
The University of Nebraska has
managed to escape the low en
dowment growth that struck
other colleges and universities na
tionwide during the 1989-90 fiscal
year.
NU recorded an overall endow
ment growth of 14.8 percent, exceed
ing the national average of 9.6 per
cent during 1989-90, according to
figures from The Chronicle of Higher
Education.
According to Theresa Klein, di
rector of public relations and publica
tions at the University of Nebraska
Foundation, “They (foundation offi
cials) arc happy with the growth rate
because it means that they arc being
fiscally responsible to donors.”
The foundation is an independent
organization that manages $159 mil
lion of NU’s $178 million endow
ment. The remainder of the endow
ment is managed by the university.
It is hard to tell if the growth of
See DONATION on 6 ■
NU Endowment Growth $ $
A look at how the NU Foundation compared with
the rest of the nation from 1989 to 1990.
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