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Opinion
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NetSaskan
Thursday, July 18,1991
Blinded by the light
Raising admissions standards should he priority
In a time when it seems administrators are doing little
to improve the quality of education at the University
of Nebraska-Lincoln, the prospect of raised admis
sions standards is a beacon in the night.
University of Nebraska President Martin Massengale
recently appointed a committee to consider changing ad
missions standards. Although in his charge to the commit
tee Massengale billed its task as a routine evaluation, far
more is at stake.
The committee would not have been formed if it had
not been for the report on higher education restructuring
issued by Widmayer and Associates of Chicago to the
Legislature. The report recommended raising admissions
standards at UNL and was the impetus for discussion on
the issue.
The committee, to be led by NU Executive Vice Presi
dent and Provost Lee Jones, is the first step in acting on
the discussion. Hopefully, the result will be more in line
with the needs of the state and not a ploy to preserve the
status quo.
UNL each year admits hundreds of students who have
not taken prerequisite high school courses, such as alge
bra. These students have a low chance of succeeding at
the university, causing a high freshman year dropout rate.
Expending professors’ time and university resources on
these students makes for a lower quality education for the
rest of the student body.
Surely, the transfer system with the community and
state colleges would need to be improved to raise admis
sions standards, but the change would be worthwhile.
Such a move would give borderline students the attention
they need, while still giving them the eventual opportunity
to attend and graduate from the state’s main research
postsecondary institution.
In a period of.budget cuts and calls for higher quality,
raising admissions standards would be a step toward refo
cusing precious resources to their best use.
— Victoria Ayouc
for the Daily Nebraskan
Rhino display should go
The ongoing campaign to retain
the rhinoceros statue in Morrill Hall
(Daily Nebraskan, July 3) displays a
profound misunderstanding of the
purpose of a modem natural history
museum. The principal function of
museum exhibits is not wowing the
yokels, but exciting public interest in
the study of the natural world through
the display of real artifacts and speci
mens of actual, natural objects.
Whatever else one can say about an
asbestos and steel simulation, it is
unquestionably not a specimen. It is
nnf cvr “nalnral” in inu ncnfiil
sense of these words. And there is no
reason for the state museum to have
to indulge in such fakery. Nebraska is
the source of one of the most diverse
and remarkable collections of fossil
mammals in existence. There arc
mounted specimens in Morrill Hall of
animals that can be seen nowhere else
in the world. Bert Schultz’ vision of a
Hall of Giants would degrade these
magnificent exhibits to the status of a
pathetic carnival sideshow, a tangible
expression of Nebraska’s erroneous
collective fear that the stale has noth
ing of true value to offer.
If this is the image that the admini
stration wishes to foster, however,
why stop at just one humongous sculp
ture? At a small risk of making our
selves the laughingstock of every
university in the country, we could
people the whole campus with mono
lithic simulations. There’s a town along
the interstate in North Dakota that
bills itself as the home of the world’s
largest Holstein. And a few miles
further on, there she is, on a bluff
above the freeway, about 40 feet tall
at the withers, staring off with a bea
tific expression in the general direc
tion of Saskatchewan. Perhaps UNL
should inquire whether the local city
fathers would be willing to part with
her. We also could acquire the world’s
largest prairie chicken from that place
in Minnesota, or the overdeveloped
Brontosaurus sculpture from Wall,
S.D. We even could wcatheri/e the
rhino and mount it outside on the
circle, guarding the cast entrance to
the stadium. Maybe paint it scarlet
(who is to say they weren’t scarlet,
after all?) and call it Big Red.
Alan Bond
research associate
Nebraska State Museum
Division of Zoology
"HEY QTcY, vsycne / |
JIM HANNA
Death penalty reflects moral repugnance
I’m tired of grayness.
How much easier my life would
be if more things were black and
white. In the great morass of political
and social issues that whip me into a
polemical tizzy, I rarely feel abso
lutely right about anything.
Imagine the despair of a card-car
rying liberal like me when he reads a
George Will column and actually sees
some good points.
There is little that compares to the
warm feeling that comes over me
when I know that I’m 100 percent
right on an issue. Nothing like moral
certainty to brighten my day.
Unfortunately, there just aren’t
enough issues that 1 know I’m right
about. Most of them I think I’m right
about, but I always can sec some
sense in the opposing point of view.
So as I swim in thick soup of
political wishy-washiness, I love to
find issues about which I know I am
absolutely and undeniably right.
Thank God for the death penalty.
I freely and willingly stand before
the world and declare without a scrap
of doubt anywhere in my soul that my
position on the death penalty is stupe
fying in itscorrectncss. Anybody who
doesn’t agree with me (and there are
a lot of you) must face up to the
IlIKhakahll' fur I that vnn urn %urnno
Don S ten be re is wrong. Ben Nel
son is wrong. 80 percent of the U.S.
population is wrong.
As Nebraska gleefully rushes
toward the state-sanctioned execu
tion of one of its citizens, however,
being right is of little solace to me.
The wrong people are the ones with
all of the power.
I can stand in front of the gover
nor’s mansion and hold up a sign that
displays my correct position, but I
have little faith that it will keep my
government from plummeting to the
depths of moral repugnance. People
who are wrong drive by and look at
me with pity or disgust or fury, and I
know I can have little impacton them.
But let me try. Let’s look at why
I freehand wittingly
Stood before the, mild.
and declare without a
scrap of doubt any
where. in my soul that
mv position, on the.
death penalty is stupe
fying in Us correctness.
I’m right by responding to arguments
used by those who are wrong.
BAD ARGUMENT #1: “How
would you like it if some sicko raped
your mom 40 billion times and then
strangled her and stabbed her and
shot her and cut her up into little
pieces and ate her?” (NOTE: When
using this argument, it is apparently
■ mill IV IIIUIXV UIV VIIIIIV 03 ^IUV
some as possible)
If this happened. I’d be out of my
mind with grief and anger and proba
bly would want to kill the “sicko” in
question. 1 count on my government,
however, to rise above such powerful
feelings and administer justice in an
unemotional way. As I see it, my
government has failed me when it is
unable to do so and insists on vcngc
fully killing a killer.
BAD ARGUMENT #2: “Why
should my lax dollars go toward sup
porting a sick killer in prison for the
rest of his or her life.”
My question is: Why should my
tax dollars go toward killing a person
' whom I don’t want killed? Our tax
dollars go to support many policies
that we personally might hate. Some (
don’t want abortion advice financed
federally, and I don’t want to help pay
for immoral wars in distant gulfs. It’s
the curse of being an American.
Beyond that, there is the well
documented fact that it costs far more
to litigate a death penalty case than it
does to support a prisoner for life in
prison. But even so, to place a dollar
value on a human life is repugnant.
The money argument suggests that
there is some magic price at which it
would be okay to keep a killer alive in
prison. Perhaps if it only cost $100 a
year to support an inmate, it would be
OK*, but if it cost more than that, kill
him or her. Pretty shallow thinking.
BAD ARGUMENT#3: “That kil
ler’s victim didn’t get any appeals.”
Absolutely, and for that, we arc
outraged. So why do we want to prac
tice the very acts that repulse us?
Let’s give the criminal the justice his
nr her victim never received. To do
otherwise is to sink to the killer’s
level. I honestly fail to see the differ
ence between a criminal killing a
victim and us in turn killing the crimi
nal.
There arc countless other reasons
to punt the death penalty — it’s a
racist policy, innocent people arc
executed, no other “civilized” nation
that we respect kills its citizens, de
terrence is a statistically proven sham
— and all of them arc right.
The citizens of this state need to
wipe the slobber off of their chins
long enough to promote a healthy
respect for the lives of even the most
contemptible humans. In a world that
is becoming increasingly violent, we
must resist the urge to respond with
more violence.
It is the only right thing to do -r
just ask me.
Hanna is a May University of Nebraska
Lincoln graduate.
