Opinion
Jana Pedersen, Editor, 472-1766
Eric Pfanner, Editorial Page Editor
Diane Braylon, Managing Editor
Waller Gholson, Columnist
Paul Domeier, Copy Desk Chief
Brian Shcllilo, Cartoonist
Michael Slock, Columnist
Dash controversy
UNO's priority grammar, not education
University of Nebraska at Omaha student leaders are tired of
Lincoln-centric thinking. They are fighting back against years
of oppression.
Last week, the UNO student senate passed a resolution
urging that the University of Nebraska change the way it refers
to the Lincoln campus.
Senators were offended by the fact that UNL is called the
University of Nebraska-Lincoln, while UNO and UNK are
called the University of Nebraska at Omaha and at Kearney.
Last we checked, those campuses actually were “at” Omaha
and “at” Kearney. Of course, UNL is “at” Lincoln. But the
UNO student leaders’ arguments for calling UNL the Univer
sity of Nebraska at Lincoln apparently weren’t based on
geography.
The resolution says the dash, instead of the “at,” in reference
to UNL “fosters the opinion that good education is only to be
had in Lincoln.... This is certainly not the case.”
The education that students receive at UNO can’t be too bad.
Apparently they have learried the secret of UNL’s vaunted aca
demic opportunities — the dash.
Marx v anevennoven, a junior poiiucai science major anu a
member of the UNO student government, introduced the reso
lution.
“The professors here aren’t professors who couldn’t make it
in Lincoln,” he said.
That’s “at” Lincoln, Mark, not “in.”
Vanevcnhoven also said UNO students arc tired of being
treated as if they are attending “a two-year commuter college.”
In doing so, he uses the same educational snobbism that he
accuses UNL of. Just think about all those poor commuter
students who go to two-year colleges with neither dashes nor
“ats" in their names.
Vanevcnhoven thinks he knows why UNL gets the preferen
tial treatment of a dash. It bribes members of the NU Board of
Regents.
“The regents run on the basis that UNL gives them free
football tickets rather than on the basis that they can make the
\ University of Nebraska system run as well as it can,” he said.
Can you blame them? Would you want to watch a game
played by people called “Mavs”?
We urge the Association of Students of the University of
Nebraska — student government, at Lincoln — to pass a
counter-resolution.
It could be stated as follows:
“Calling the University of Ncbraska-Lincoln the University
of Nebraska at Lincoln fosters the opinion that UNL wants to
stoop to UNO’s level. In our ongoing quest for educational
excellence, we instead urge UNO to strive to reach that same
level. Then, someday, it can call itself the University of
Ncbraska-Omaha.”
—E.F.P.
What others think
Store-bought notes
do not cut it alone
Jon’s Notes, located in the Jay
hawk Bookstore, has obtained fac
ulty permission to print and sell
notes from six different classes.
Teaching assistants, graduate
students and those who have shown
proficiency in a given field have
been hired as note-takers.
Although we are skeptical be
cause we see the possibility of
abuse, we certainly are not opposed
to the concept. The instructor has
given permission, and the instructor
— just like mother — knows best.
Every two weeks the notes are
given to the instructor as a check
against errors.
Most of the courses that Jon’s
now services are freshman and
sophomore level, such as Sociology
1CW. Yes, younger students will
benefit from seeing how notes are
taken by the more experienced and
be able to assimilate the material
belter. But are they gaining or
losing experience in note-taking by
buying better ones? Buy them, but
take your own as well.
— ihe University Daily Kansan
University of Kansas
Education needs new
national emphasis
On the heels of a series of
cutbacks in services and academic
departments, University of Iowa
students learned this weekend that
the Board of Regents may raise
their tuition by 9.4 percent next
year in addition to a proposed 33
percent increase in the mandatory
health fee.
It is instructive to note where the
bulk of the bell-tightening is being
done. The UI Strategic Planning
Steering Group proposes that the
undergraduate degree program in
social work be phased out as well as
the entire School of Library and In
formation Sciences. Departments in
the College of Liberal Arts are
losing staff and faculty positions.
University maintenance employees
are being laid off. Students who can
barely afford the present cost of
tuition are being asked to pay even
more.
What is needed is not only action
on a stale level, but a reorganization
of national priorities to shift more
resources to education and human
services and away from military
spending.
— The Daily Iowan
University of Iowa
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DAVID REITER
AIDS demands respect, care
A surgical technician filed a law
suit in a Los Angeles Superior
Court earlier this week against
a former patient who concealed the
fact that she was HIV-positive. The
technician was exposed to the HIV
infected blood when she nicked her
finger on a scalpel during Jan Lus
tig’s cosmetic surgery.
Although the lawsuit alleges in
tent to inflict emotional distress and
fraud, there is no evidence that Lustig
intended to expose anyone to her blood.
Nevertheless, she concealed her con
dition by signing papers which stated
that she had no medical problems. In
other words, she lied.
Regardless of whether it is suc
cessful, this lawsuit highlights a ne
glected side of the AIDS health care
controversy. Considerable attention
has been focused on the protection of
patients, but little has been directed to
the protection of health care workers.
On Thursday, Kimberly Bergalis,
one of five patients infected with AIDS
by a Florida dentist, urged a House
r subcommittee to enact legislation
requiring mandatory AIDS testing of
health care workers.
_ ■ •
dncauy nas taken some
steps in this general direction. This
summer, the Senate passed a measure
imposing a prison sentence on health
professionals who know they have
AIDS but continue to practice with
out informing their patients.
A more moderate proposal also
passed by the Senate would require
health care workers who perform
“exposure-prone” procedures to be
tested for HIV-slaius. If they tested
positive, they would have to refrain
from performing the specified proce
dures unless they received permis
sion from patients and professional
review panels.
Critics of these measures claim
they are emotional responses, because
the risk of getting AIDS through
medical treatment is small. Accord
ing to Newsweek, scientists at the
Centers for Disease Control estimate
the chances of getting AIDS from an
infcclcd surgeon at between 1 in 42,000
and 1 in 417,000.
Critics also point out the impor
tance of proper medical procedures
The Daily Nebraskan welcomes
brief letters to the editor from all
readers and interested others.
Letters will be selected for publi
cation on the basis of clarity, origi
nality, timeliness and space avail
for the protection of patients. They
claim that if proper procedures —
such as adequate sterilization of equip
ment — arc followed, it is irrelevant
whether a health care worker has AIDS.
The critics are right to stress the
importance of proper medical proce
dures. The problem is that even if
they arc followed carefully, they are
not fail-safe.
Therefore, the fact that a health
care worker has AIDS is going to
present an additional — even if slight
—- risk to the patient. And even if it is
slight, it seems reasonable that the
patient should have informed consent
as to whether to take on that addi
tional risk.
The concern for protecting patients
is legitimate, but no more so than the
concern for protecting health care
workers. In fact, the AIDS virus pres
ents a greater threat to health care
workers than to patients.
Medical procedures generally
require cutting into the patient’s body,
making it possible for the patient s
blood to escape. In contrast, the phy
sician’s blood escapes only if he or
she is somehow injured during medi
cal procedures.
. While there are five known pa
tients who received AIDS from health
LETTER POLICY
able. The Daily Nebraskan retains
the right to edit all material submit
ted.
Anonymous submissions will not
be considered for publication. Let
ters should include the author’s
professionals, all stemming from
Florida dentist David Acer, there are
40 known cases in which health pro
fessionals have received AIDS from
patients.
Thoughtful legislation should not l
be focused arbitrarily on the protec
tion of patients and must address two
problems.
The first problem is a lack of re
spect. This is exhibited by infected
health care workers who continue to
perform invasive procedures without
informing patients of their condition.
This summer reports surfaced of a
New York doctor who continued his
practice while concealing the fact that
he had tested HIV-positive two years
earlier.
Patients also have shown a lack of
respect for health care providers by
not being forthright about their con
ditions. Lustig showed a lack of re
spect for health care workers by lying
about her medical condition prior to
her surgery.
The second problem is lack of care.
Newsweek cited a University of
California at San Francisco study,
which revealed that 74 percent of
medical residents surveyed indicated
that they would not administer life
saving treatment to HIV-positive
patients u doing so involved ai^
cent chance of gelling infected.
On the olhcr hand, we have the
case of Barbara Webb, a 65-ycar-old
teacher who was infected with AIDS
by Acer.
When Webb needed eye surgery
earlier this year, she told her doctor
that she was HIV-positive and ex
plained that she would not be insulted
if he refused to treat her. On the olhcr
side, her doctor agreed to do the
operation anyway.
Webb was quoted in Newsweek as
saying: “I would have understood
totally and gone down to the AIDS
clinic. And it wouldn’t have bothered
me at all to go down. I just gave him
the option. Nobody gave me the op
tion.*'
The Webb case illustrates the ulti
mate solution: care and respect.
Reiter is a graduate student in philosophy
and a Dally Nebraskan columnist.
name, year in school, major and
group affiliation, if any. Requests to
withhold names will not be granted.
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