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NebraskaN_
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Michael Welxei/Daiiy NaDrasxan
Search nears end
Officials await naming of chancellor
By Dionne Searcey
Senior Editor
NU officials are anxious for a UNL
chancellor to be named, but the time
table is up to President Martin Mas
scngalc, liic Board of Regents chair
man said.
Regent Don B lank of McCook said
he would be surprised if a new chan
cellor wasn’t named by September,
but the timing depends on Masscn
gale.
Joe Row son, University of Nebraska
director of public affairs, said a chan
cellor probably will be named at the
start of the fall semester.
Masscngalc is in charge of ap
pointing the chancellor, but the selec
tion must be approved by the NU
Board of Regents.
Blank said the candidates also are
probably anxious to find out who will
be designated as chancellor.
“The candidates don’t like to be
hanging out either,” he said.
Five candidates’ names have been
forwarded to Masscngalc, Blank said,
and he needs to “move as quickly as
possible” to appoint a chancellor.
“You always want it done yester
day,” Blank said. “But it’s a very
important position,” and the selec
tion should be made carefully, he
said.
Blank said a chancellor needs to
be named soon because the searches
for some administrators, such as di
rector of university relations and vice
chancellor for academic affairs, have
been put on hold until a chancellor is
appointed.
“The whole campus is in an in
terim mind-set,” he said.
Blank said that once the candi
dates have been named, the process
will go quickly as they visit the UNL
campus and arc interviewed.
Rowson said Massengale may not
invite all five of the candidates to
visit the University of Ncbraska-Lin
coln campus. Massengale is expected
to name the finalists in two to three
weeks.
Devaney unsatisfied
with regents’ decision
for 1993 retirement
By Dionne Searcey
Senior Editor
Bob Devancy has had many great
moments in his 24 years as
Nebraska athletic director, but
he said his worst moment came Satur
day when the NU Board of Regents
announced his 1993 retirement.
Even disappointing football losses
such as the 1984 Orange Bowl, when
NU was beaten by Miami, only come
close to Devancy’s worst experience
as athletic director.
“I guess as bad of a moment as any
is when the regents made this deci
sion,” he said.
The NU regents will begin a search
for a new athletic director in April
1992.
Dcvancy said NU football coach
Tom Osborne would be a good choice
to replace him, but that Osborne wants
to continue coaching.
Osborne was unavailable for
comment.
Devancy said “things have gone
good” in athletics since he’s been at
Nebraska.
When he arrived at UNL to coach
football in 1962, Devancy’s goal was
to “gel the NU team back into con ten
lion in the Big Eight.”
Dcvancy said UNL athletic pro
grams except for football were poor
when he became athletic director.
“I tried to gel the programs going
to be good,” he said.
Currently, Dcvancy said, UNL has
the best athletic facility in the Big
Eight, and the football stadium has
doubled in size since he became di
r . iWiin.iii I
Devaney
rector in 1967.
Dcvancy also is proud of helping
UNL gain cigarette lax money from
the state to build the $12 million Bob
Dcvancy Sports Center.
But his best moments as athletic
director came in 1970 and 1971 when
the Big Red football team won two
national championships, he said.
Dcvancy'said he was disappointed
when the regents announced his re
tirement. He said he could stay on at
UNLasa lund-raiscr, but that doesn’t
compare to being athletic director.
“I’m not satisfied.... I told them
I wanted to work a couple more years.
... I’m not happy. . . . It’s not very
fair.”
Rhino may be saved from museum extinction
By Steve Pearson
Staff Reporter
Only five weeks ago, Morrill Hall’s model
of an 18-foot-tall, prehistoric rhinoceros
was facing extinction.
Now University of Nebraska-Lincoln officials
may have worked out an emergency breeding
plan, of sorts.
University officials are negotiating with seven
other museums to make fiberglass reproduc
tions of the model, according to Bill Splinter,
interim vice chancellor for research and dean
of graduate studies.
The model was placed on the surplus prop
erty list five weeks ago because its skin is 65
70 percent asbestos and some consider it incon
sistent with the theme of Elephant Hall. Three
weeks later, all action on the model was placed
on hold. Splinter stressed that discussions on
reproducing the baluchithere are still in the
-44
It (the rhino story) got into the national press somehow. Since
then, people have been calling from all over creation.
—Splinter
interim vice chancellor for research
preliminary stages.
“Everything is purely tentative," he said.
“We’re still contacting several companies to
sec how much it will cost. No one has agreed
to anything yet.”
The plan under discussion is for the inter
ested museums to help finance a mold of the
model in exchange for a fiberglass copy of the
baluchilhere. Morrill Hall would keep one of
the fiberglass models. Splinter said.
The interested museums include the Frank
H. McClung Museum at the University of
Tennessee, the National Museum of Natural
History in Washington, the Natural History
Museum in Los Angeles, the Field Museum of
Natural History in Chicago, the National Zoo
logical Park in Washington, the Wyo-Braska
Museum of Natural History in Gcring and the
Olympic Cultural Center in Seoul, South Ko
rea.
Splinter said university officials contacted
some museums, but some of the museums
contacted the university.
“It (the rhino story) got into the national
press somehow,” he said. “Since then, people
have been calling from all over creation.”
Bertrand Schultz, former Morrill Hall direc
tor and current director of the Nebraska Acad
emy of Sciences, said the model can be saved
without the duplication process.
“We should just keep it,” Schultz said. “It
just needs to be impregnated with some mate
rial, and it can last forever. The asbestos prob
lem is a farce.”
Schultz is pushing Morrill Hall to keep the
rhino and move forward with a Hall of Giants
concept. According to Schultz, Morrill Hall
has the world’s tallest giraffe, the world’s larg
est rhino, the world’s largest mammoth and the
world’s largest boar.
Splinter has said the Hall of Giants proposal
is being looked at, but that there isn’t any
funding at this time.
