Official: Proposal won’t hurt UNL research
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Staff Reporter
UNL research would not be significantly
hindered if President Bush succeeds in reduc
ing federal funds earmarked for college re
search, two university officials said.
“In terms of total amount (of money re
ceived), I don’t tiiink there would be a signifi
cant difference. It would be about an even
situation, at least from an agricultural perspec
tive.” said Darrell Nelson, dean and director of
the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s Agricul
tural Research Division.
Earmarked funds, which reached a record
level of $493 million last year, are appropri
ated for specific college research projects and
have been criticized by the Bush administra
tion, according to an article in the Feb. 27
Chronicle of Higher Education.
Nelson described the funds as the “preroga
tive of Congress.”
He said the funds often are appropriated for
political reasons by members of Congress in
key committees for their states.
“That is not the case in Nebraska, though,”
he said.
Bill Splinter, interim vice chancellor for
research at UNL, said there are two processes
for obtaining federal money: Earmarking and
competitive grants.
In the competitive grant process, he said,
university officials submit proposals for avail
able federal funds. The proposals then are
ranked, and money is appropriated on the basis
of the rankings.
Splinter said he thought “the faculty at UNL
would generally support a reduction of ear
marking so more money would be available for
competitive grants.
Some faculty members are concerned that
big universities dominate the competitive gram
process, he said, but “they would still rather
have a chance to compete for funds than not to
have any at all.”
He said that since Nebraska had not signifi
cantly shared in earmarked funds in the past,
the impact of reducing them would be slight.
Nelson agreed.
“It is a difficult issue, but I think we would
be able to compete well (for grants),” he said.
Speaker addresses oppression j
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Senior Reporter
Women have been plagued by oppression in
the law field, a law professor at West Virginia
University told about 150 students Friday at the
UNL College of Law.
Marie Ashe, a specialist in feminist writing
that attempts to describe how women are sup
pressed, why women are subordinated and how
that structure might be changed, said her work
has stemmed from her experiences as a lawyer,
a professor and a student.
As a student, Ashe said she was discouraged
from becoming a defense attorney because she
was a woman.
As a professor, Ashe said, she was refused a
tenure-track job, and when she went to the
University of West Virginia, she was the only
woman faculty member.
As a lawyer, she said, she found the courts
didn’t address topics such as rape and domestic
violence.
Ashe gave the example of a rape case in
which the woman’s defense was passing a
polygraph test to prove she wasn’t lying, an
altitude that is a reflection of a culture that
hadn’t addressed such problems.
To illustrate the problems women have in
the legal system and to parody the justice that
is “embedded in Western culture,” Ashe used
the example of the biblical King Solomon.
In the King James Bible, King Solomon
requests “an understanding heart to judge my
people so I can discern from good and bad,”
Ashe said.
Solomon’s first judgment after his request
was granted dealt with two “harlots,” Ashe
said.
Both claimed the ownership of a child, so
Solomon’s first command was, “Bring me a
sword,” Ashe said.
When faced with the prospect of having the
child divided, the “real” mother surrendered
the child, being restrained by the “yearning of
her bowels,” Ashe said.
Questions from this biblical story are rele
vant to contemporary judicial cases, she said.
But contrary tojudicial opinions, mothers don’t
always have such yearnings, she said.
Ashe, a 1979 law graduate of the University
of Nebraska-Lincoln, spoke at the UNL Col
lege of Law as part of “A Celebration of
Women Law Students at Nebraska: The First
100 Years.”
-—-POLICE REPORT-1
- Beginning miumgnt Friday, March 1
9:36 a.m. — Accident, 16th and W streets
parking lot, $300.
11:22 a.m. — Hit-and-run accident, Sigma
Alpha Mu fraternity, 733 N. 16th St., $700.
12:09 p.m. — Burglary, 50 compact discs
taken, Abel Residence Hall, $700.
12:11 p.m. — Bicycle taken, Hamilton Hall,
$475.
12:57 p.m. — Purse taken, Mabel Lee Hall,
$40.
1:49 p.m. — Cash taken, Oldfather Hall,
$22.
3:27 p.m. — Wallet taken, Henzlik Hall,
$10.
3:38 p.m. — Cash taken, Westbrook Music
Building, $9.
3:56 p.m. — Wallet taken, Lyman Hall,
$210.
4:11 p.m. — Wallet taken, Henzlik Hall,
$12.
5:18 p.m. — Wallet taken, Andrews Hall,
$41.
5:30 p.m. — Man hit head, transported to
Lincoln General Hospital, Lied Center for
Performing Arts.
5:34 p.m. — Television set taken from
lounge, Abel Residence Hall, $300.
5:4J pan. — bheet rock vandalized, Richards
Hall, S3.
Beginning midnight Saturday, March 2
12:28 a.m. — Man arrested tor driving
while intoxicated, 10th Street and Sun Val
ley Boulevard.
1:07 a.m. — Obscene phone calls, Sclleck
Residence Hall.
8:49 a.m. — Hit-and-run accident, Harpcr
Schramm-Smith complex parking lot, $350.
12:57 p.m. — Bicycle taken, Nebraska State
Fairgrounds Coliseum, $850.
1 p.m. — Bicycle taken, Abel Residence
Hall basement, $120.
3:41 p.m. — Hit-and-run accident, 15th
Street between S and U streets, $80.
4:02 p.m. — Convertible top cut, 10 cas
sette tapes taken, Harpcr-Schramm-Smith
complex parking lot, $1,500 damage, $200
loss.
4:55 p.m. — Window broken, Varner Hall,
unknown damage.
6:07 p.m. — Car taillights broken, Harper
Schramm-Smith complex parking lot, $ 100.
9:51 p.m. — Illness, woman taken to Bryan
Memorial Hospital, Lied Center for Per
forming Arts.
10:26 p.m. — Woman fell down stairs, Bob
Devaney Sports Center.
Faculty members find it pays to research
By Kristie Coda
Staff Reporter
Research is paying off for more
University of Nebraska-Lincoln fac
ulty members this year, according to
UNL research department figures.
The research department has seen
a large jump in invention disclosures
and patent applications in the past
year. This year, 10 patent applica
tions were filed, more than twice that
of any previous year.
Henry Baumgartcn, UNL interim
associate vice chancellor for research,
reported an increase in royalties in
1990, totaling $116,000, up from
$86,000 in 1986.
“In one sense we’re actually doing
better than the figures,” Baumgartcn
said. He said the university had a li
censing agreement that has brought
in income for the last 20 years. The
agreement ran out in October, but
“we’ve kept the same level of in
come,” indicating increased output,
he said.
Baumgarten said a lot of the new
developments are in the biosciences.
There are five Lincoln businesses the
work of which is primarily based on
technology coming out of UNL, he
said.
The College of Business Admini
stration also has a Center for En
trepreneurship that matches scientists
from tfte research department with
business students interested in mar
keting an invention, he said. These
pairings have established local busi
nesses such as Genotype, BioNebraska,
Inc., and ENTR AC, Inc., all of which
work with technology developed at
UNL.
Programs such as these have been
successful and offer an outlet for stu
dent interests and inventions, he said.
“They’re young and they’re eager
and they’re looking for openings,”
Baumgarten said.
Money generated from licensing
and other agreements is returned to
UNL’s general fund, he said.
“Any monies we generate helps
the inventor, the department and the
whole university,” he said.
Baumgarten said increased research
output is a national trend. He said
UNL’s production is about on par
with other Big Eight schools.
“Most of the Big Eight schools are
just like us,” or only in the business
for about five years, he said. Iowa
State has been working on a technol
ogy transfer program for six years
and finally has broken even this year,
he said.
Of course, he said, “the private
schools have been doing it for a long
time.”
Baumgarten said increased inter
est is one reason UNL has more in
ventions.
“I think it’s more interest,” he said.
“We’re bringing in a lot of young
people. They tend to be fairly aggres
sive. They sec the future.”
Baumgarten said past success
generates new interest.
“There’s just no substitute for
success,” he said.
Research
Continued from Page 1
research.
But because the product was not
closely related to its normal product
line, Finnsugar and the three profes
sors at the university who developed
the patent formed a spinoff company,
BioNcbraska Inc., Splinter said.
If Finnsugar only had contributed
a 52,000 piece of equipment, he said,
the university would not have felt
obligated to give it the First chance of
exclusive rights to the discoveries.
Normally, he said, anything above
520,000 is considered substantial
enough to consider the private donor,
but each contract is different.
In each contract for spinoff com
panies, besides specifying the com
pany’s exclusive rights, royalty ar
rangements to the university also are
specified.
Each contract is negotiated differ
ently, Splinter said. Percentages of
royalties range from 2 percent to 25
percent, averaging about 5 percent.
The percentage of royalties depends
on the market and if the product is
expected to have a long market life,
he said.
Unc success! ul example was a
scours vaccine licensed to Norden
Laboratories about 20 years ago. The
university has received more than SI
million in royalties on the project, he
said.
Besides contributing royalties to
the university, companies evolved from
inventions developed at the Univer
sity of Nebraska contribute to the
communitv, Splinter said.
Spinoff companies stay in Nebraska
and hire Nebraskans, he said.
“Eventually down the road,” he
said, “we might get to the point where
we will have to import engineers.”
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