K 55/30
Today, partly sunny, windy
and colder. Tonight, partly
cloudy. Tuesday, mostly
sunny, high near 60.
Official says events protect tenured faculty
By Wendy Navratil
Senior Reporter
Three developments emerging
from the Budget Reduction
Review Committee hearings last
week cast a brighter glow on the budget
cutting process, an official said.
Thomas Zorn, _ __
chairman of the BUDGET
Budget Reduction
Review Commit
tee and the Aca
demic Planning
Committee, said
the APC explicitly committed itself
last week to preserving tenured fac
ulty positions and to avoiding the loss
of faculty currently in tenure-leading
positions at UNL.
Committee assigns priority to gender equity
The APC also assigned high prior
ity to UNL’s goals and commitments
to gender equity in the resolution.
“A number of committee mem
bers stressed that it was important to
indicate the committee’s strong
commitment to tenure and gender
equity, in part, 1 think, because of the
widespread perception that these were
being ignored,” Zorn said.
Some departments may still be cut,
Zorn said. In any case, protecting
tenure and gender equity goals may
make it more difficult to formulate
recommendations for incoming UNL
chancellor Graham Spanier to con
sider in December, he said.
“It may mean moving tenured
faculty to another department, or it
may mean changing the structure of
the department, or leaving the depart
ment as it is,”Zorn said.“We haven’t
acted on specifics yet.”
Zorn said the APC also considered
a suggestion from the BRRC to com
municate to the UNL chancellor that
the speech communication department
was no longer being considered for
elimination.
“The APC has not as yet taken
action,” Zorn said. “There is a pend
ing motion close to that in language,
but it has not been acted on. The
committee has indicated that it in
tends to further del iberate on that this
week.”
Zorn said the BRRC suggestion
was significant, but it would only
affect one department, even if the
APC decided to adopt it.
A decision with broader impact is
the ATC’s positive response to a re
quest by the Academic Senate that
more hard budget data be gathered
for the UNL colleges to examine.
“We had already requested that
the vice chancellors provide us with
more details on the budget and other
impacts of the budget cuts,” Zorn
said. “What (the Academic Senate)
wanted was for the various college
committees to have time to respond
to the various cuts.”
Zorn said the Academic Senate
resolution allotted four weeks for the
college committees to respond once
the hard budget data was supplied.
But the APC did not set a specific
time period in its requests to the vice
chancellors, he said.
“How all of this affects the ulti
mate time line is a little problematic,”
he said. “How long the process will
be delayed is unclear.”
Zorn said that although the hear
ings woqld not be delayed, the col
lege committees would be given a
chance to respond to the hard budget
data after they have assessed it.
See BUDGET on2
Proposed
cuts resisted
on grounds
of fairness
Counseling, home economics
officials defend programs
By Jean Lass
Staff Reporter
In budgeL hearings Friday, officials from
the Counseling Center and the Collegeof
Home Economics told the Budget Re
duction Review Committee that cuts in their
programs would hurt gender equality and ra
cial minorities.
The hearings arc part of the University of
Dl inrCT Ncbraska-Lincoln’sbudget
BULHjb I reduction process, initiated
last spring when the Ne
braska Legislature man
| dated that UNL cut its budget
by 3 percent over the next
two years.
Proposed budget cuts in the College of Home
Econom ics amount to onc-fi flh of its budget, or
17.6 percent.
Joan Laughlin, associate dean of the home
economics college, said a statement that the
proposed budget cuts arc “gender neutral” to
faculty, students and staff, made by Stan Lib
erty, interim vice chancellor for academic af
fairs, is inaccurate.
“The home economics college serves pri
marily female students, and most of the faculty
arc women,” Laughlin said. “Saying that the
budget cuts arc gender neutral doesn’t make it
_ _ »»
so.
Proposed cuts in the home economics col
lege stem from “inherent unrecognized biases
of people who made the recommendations,”
Laughlin said.
Laughlin said officials who proposed the
cuts said they were made on the basis of two
criteria: quality of the program and centrality
to the processes of UNL.
Budget officials fail to sec women’s contri
butions as central to the university’s mission,
she said.
See HEARING on 2
rvnui idle, r auimai
Brian Mary, a senior art major, leads a protest march for hemp legalization down Centennial Mai l to the State Capitol,
while Scott Kolb (center) and David Splichal, both of Lincoln, carry a large joint that Mary made in a sculpture class.
Proponent espouses hemp values at rally
By Wendy Mott
Staff Reporter _ __
Proponents of marijuana legalisation
displayed tic-dyed banners of mari
juana and a figure of a smoking joint
at the University of Ncbraska-Lincoln’s
Broyhill Plaza on Friday.
Members of National HEMP, Help End
Marijuana Prohibition, joined UNL student
members of the National Organization for
the Reform of Marijuana Laws in sponsor
ing the rally that drew about 250 people.
Coordinators of the rally said their goal
was to leach students about the benefits of
legalizing hemp, the marijuana-producing
plant.
Scott Fuglci.a freshman philosophy major
and the co-coordinator of UNL’s HEMP
NORML organization, said the short-term
goal of the rally and the benefit concert that
followed was to raise money for the organi
zation. The group’s long-term goal, he said,
is to “enlighten minds.”
Jack Hercr, author of “The Emperor Wears
No Clothes” and a hemp-legalizing activist,
was the key speaker at the rally.
Hercr said the most important point of
the rally was to show the world the benefits
of hemp and the fallacy of outlawing it.
“The U.S. government is the most fascist
pig in the world for outlawing marijuana,”
Hercr said.
The plant is a viable alternative fuel
source to fossil fuels, which, he said, “do
nothing for the human race except end it."
' It hemp was legal, Herer said, Nebraska
could provide enough fuel for America.”
Hemp could completely replace fossil fuels
using only 35 to 40 acres of land, he said.
He said people who smoke marijuana
live longer, healthier lives than those who
don’t, citing U.S. Department of Health
studies.
“You have to be a damn idiot not to
smoke pot,” Herer said.
Juan Gonzales, a senior secondary edu
cation major who attended the rally, dis
agreed with Hcrcr’s statements, saying that
he thought the information was inaccurate.
“These people are living in a fantasy
world,” Gonzales said. “They arc so care
free about smoking pot, but there’s more to
it than that.”
I 1
Page 7
Twins take the pennant. Page
8
“Frankie & Johnny" hits the
spot Page 9
INDEX
*. Opinion 4
Sports 7
, Arts & Entertainment 9
Classifieds 10
UNL budget troubling, Nelson says
By Jeremy Fitzpatrick *
Senior Reporter <
He received his undergraduate,
mastcr’sand law degrees from
the University of Ncbraska
Lincoln and taught there for four years.
That back
ground hasn't
made decisions
regarding UNL’s
budget easy for
Nebraska Gov.
Ben Nelson.
“It’sdefinitely a struggle,” he said.
-i
“A struggle of principle and expecta
tions and vision and reality.”
Nelson said economic realities have
been hard on all state agencies.
‘‘At least in the case of the univer
sity — for whatever it’s worth — it’s
more (funding) than they’ve gotten in
the past, but not what they needed or
expected in their own judgment.”
To meet reduced funding levels,
the Legislature has ordered UNL to
cut its budget by 3 percent over the
next two years.
Nelson said he has been following
the budget-reduction process but
doesn’t believe he should involve
himself directly in it.
“I don’t think it’s
appropriate for me
to try and step in
and somehow
micro-managc,” he
said. “We’ve got
the (NU) Board of
Regents plus we
have the new post
Nelson secondary coordi
nating commission to begin to deal
with that and to help resolve these
areas of contention in the process.”
But his lack 01 direct invoivcmeni
docs not mean he thinks the process is
unimportant, he said.
“It’s not as though I’m disinter
ested or detached. It’s just that 1 don’t
think I should micro-manage.”
Nelson said he thinks the budget
reduction process is helping UNL
determine what its priorities arc.
“I’ve always operated under the
approach — and 1 really believe it’s
accurate—if everything is a priority,
then nothing is.”
See NELSON on 2
a
>.
