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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (March 15, 1991)
xt 1 Daily t £==? I \| O r*% “S^ ^ C? ftX' f*! ^bJ §B^ B ■ m ^8B|& im B H day-mostly cloudy-30 p®r* I B| m ffi Jr B B JB ■ w SI « B SH Sf cent chance of rain or snow, A Pi^ JB* it high near 40. _ ___ _ km Regents expected to OK UNO, UNK pay raises By Dionne Searcey Staff Reporter The NU Board of Regents is ex pected to approve collective bargaining faculty salary in creases for UNO and UNK at its meeting Saturday, arousing concerns about the future of salaries for UNL faculty members. The University of Nebraska at Omaha and the future University of Nebraska at Kearney, which joins the NU system July 1, will ask the NU regents to approve salary agreements Saturday at the board’s^iionthly meeting. UNO will request a 6.5 percent increase and UNK will request a 8.72 percent increase for next year, as outlined in the collective bargaining agreements. The University of Nebraska-Lin coln does not have a collective bar gaining arrangement, however, so no contract will be approved. The re gents will decide UNL faculty sala ries after the Nebraska Legislature approves budget decisions later this spring. George Tuck, president-elect of the Academic Senate, said faculty members have received pay increases the last three years without collective bargaining. For the past three years, university faculty and staff members received increases of more than 10 percent each year as part of an initiative to bring NU salaries to the midpoint of those of its peer institutions. This year, Gov. Ben Nelson has proposed an increase of only 3.75 percent because of a tight stale budget. The Nebraska Legislature’s Appro priations Committee made a prelimi nary budget that would give univer sity faculty a 4 percent increase. To make faculty salary increases higher than those the Legislature approves, the university would have to reallocate resources, raise tuition or both. Academic Senate President James McShane said he doesn’t know if UNL will receive the same salary increases as UNK and UNO, but he was concerned because of the low increases proposed by the governor and the Appropriations Committee. Cutting programs is troubling, McShane said, if the university de cides to reach the 10 percent salary raises requested by the regents to the See REGENTS on 5 Massey declines pedestal New ASUN president promises open door By Adeana Leftin Staff Reporter After two almost sleepless nights and a day full of calls from reporters, relatives and friends, ASUN President-elect Andy Massey is tired. “You never really prepare your self to win,” he says. “All of a sudden, your role changes.” But Massey says that in spite of the fact that his role in the Association of Students of the University of Nebraska has changed, he won’t. He says that if he were treated differently he wouldn't be able to relate to the average student. “As an average student, I don’t want to be put on a pedestal,” Massey says. Being approachable is important to Massey. He says he thought Uni versity of Nebraska-Lincoln students believe the ASUN president is unap proachable. “I’m not the best politician,” he says, “but I’ve always tried to be approachable.” Massey says that if a student came to him with a problem that he didn’t agree with, he would find a senator who did. And he hopes students will bring their problems to ASUN. But, Massey says, part of that re sponsibility is theirs. “We’re here to serve the students and they need to realize that — that the door is open,” he says. Massey says he will expect a lot of hard work and dedication from the senators. He is planning to gel the senators prepared for the upcoming year by having a retreat the weclTend after their installation on April 3. At the retreat, Massey says, he will give senators a packet of facts about See MASSEY on 3 ... jrxiziflli ■ miiihi Michelle Paulman/Daily Neb* ask an The party’s over A student walks past deflated ASUN campaign balloons near the Collegeof Business Admini stration on Tuesday. Registration by phone on hold By Eric Pfanner Editor Beth Eslinger needed a study break on an afternoon last October. Instead of ordering pizza, she decided to register for spring semester classes. Eslinger, a junior English major, called the registration computer from home on her touch-tone telephone. She keyed in codes for four courses in English, one in political science and one in history. Before she went back to her books, a mechanical voice listed her confirmed schedule. The call took about five minutes. Eslinger doesn’t have a special phone. She goes to Iowa Slate Uni versity. Iowa State is one of two Big Eight schools that have installed touch-tone registration. The other is the University of Colorado. Five Big Eight schools register students with individual sessions at com puter terminals. The University of Nebraska-Lin coln is the only Big Eight university that still uses course request forms. It’s the only university that isn’t “on line”— students don’t immediately get confirmed schedules when they finish registering. Some UNL officials defend the system, saying it is more flexible and efficient than the on line terminals. But most agree that a move to the cutting edge of technol ogy — touch-tone registration linked to an integrated database of student records and information — would benefit administrators, professors and, most of all, stu dents. “It’s certainly something we want,” said Ted Pfeifer, UNL director of registration and records. Until December, it looked like See REGISTRATION on 6 State could make waves in relativity theory By Kristie Coda Staff Reporter Nebraska has thrown its hat into the ring to be the home of a $200 million scien tific project aiming to finally prove a portion of Albert Einstein’s theory of relativ ity, a UNL professor said. “This would be a whole new kind of astron omy,” said William Campbell, professor and vice chairman of the physics and astronomy department at the University of Nebraska-Lin coln. The project involves building a pair of labo ratories 1,500 to 3,000 miles apart to detect gravitational waves from distant, massive, accelerating astronomical bodies such as super novae and binary stars, he said. The project, called the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, is a joint venture between the California Institute of Technology and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Campbell said detection of such gravita tional waves finally would verify Einstein’s theory of relativity prediction of the existence of gravity waves from massive objects. Other aspects of the theory have been ob served and recorded, but the technology has not existed to detect gravitational waves, which belong to an entirely different spectrum from light waves, he said. Although Einstein’s theory has not yet been physically proved, indirect and theoretical ■ See LAB on 3 The curtain comes down on the Husker men’s basketball season. Page 7. INDEX Wire 2 Opinion 4 Sports l A&E ,2 Classifieds_12, Gender amendment fails to pass By Jeremy Fitzpatrick Staff Reporter An amendment to change all gender references in the AS UN constitution failed to pass Wednesday despite the fact that two thirds of students who voted on the issue approved of the change. The amendment would have changed all references in the Asso ciation of Students of the University of Nebraska constitution from he or him to she/he or her/him. The ASUN constitution stipulates that an amendment must be “ratified by a two-thirds majority vote of the eligible students voting in the elec tion.” More than two-thirds — 1.472 of 2,153 — of ihc sludcnls voting on the amendment approved it. But 228 of the 2,381 students who cast ballots did not vole on the issue, so only 61.8 percent of the total voting sludcnls approved it — not enough for it to pass. Sandra Haughton, the Division of See GENDER on 3 Gender Neutral Amendment R Vote on the proposed gender ^ neutral constitutional amendment: I 1,472voted to change all m reference of he to she/he or a| I her/him in the ASUN I >. constitution. gjjj 681 voted to keep all H'l I reference of he in the ASUN r: I constitution. |jj ^