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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 21, 1991)
■m T t DflllV -i 1 63/30 I _ ■ J ■ Today, partly cloudy. To I I night, cloudy I r ^B * ^B ^p^^B percent chance of rain or r- B ■ ■ BBL ■ ■ snow a 40 ■ M ■ M ■ ■ ^^B ■ m ■ ■ ■ percent chance of rain or ^B JB» BlBL JL aBL BL _ snow. High in the low 40s. Lobbying group requests investigation By Wendy Navratil Senior Reporter Common Cause/Nebraska asked Attorney General Don Sten berg to investigate whether the Board of Regents and UNL have violated state open meetings laws Monday. As of Wednesday, the group had received no response from Stenberg, and the attorney general’s office re ported that he had not looked into the matter yet. Bill Avery, a University of Ne braska-Lincoln political science pro fessor and a spokesman for Common Cause, said the group drafted a re quest that Stenberg look into the Budget Reduction Review and Academic Planning committees’ policies of closing some of their meetings over budget reduction proposals early last week. Avery said the regents general affairs subcommittee meeting that was held in private late last week com pounded the urgency of resolving the issue of whether laws were being violated. “Stenberg is obligated to look into it,” Avery said. “I’m not in the posi tion of rendering a legal opinion, but neither is (NU General Counsel) Dick Wood.” Avery said that Common Cause/ Nebraska, which is part of a national grassroots organization that lobbies for the public interest, was not satis fied with the legal opinion of Wood. Wood’s opinion upheld the legality of the closed meetings being held by the regents subcommittee and the BRRC and APC. Avery said Wood could not render an impartial opinion as an employee of the university. David Brooks, a UNL professor of chemistry education, curriculum and instruction and a BRRC and APC member, said he was against holding meetings of the BRRC in closed ses sion. But his objection is not based on the state open meetings law, he said. “It has to do with the purpose of an academic institution — teaching, openness. I don’t think you can have a meeting of 22 people and call for confidentiality. I’m a democrat. I believe they should make it public.” Brooks said the meetings would merit closure to the public only if the “specifics of a specific case” were being discussed. Because he doesn’t think this has been the case, he has abstained from voting to go into closed session. Regent Charles Wilson of Lincoln said he thought that the regents would have been sensitized to closing meet ings after receiving criticism for its conduct in recent years. “I intend to address this issue at least in a one-on-one way with my colleagues. I think we all need to recommit ourselves to adhering to the spirit as well as to the letter of the law.” Official makes plea for sparing classics program By Jeremy Fitzpatrick Senior Reporter Arguments that the Department of Classics is not cost-effec tive arc absurd, the depart ment chairman told the Budget Re duction Review Committee in a final plea Wednesday. “How do such absurd calcula tions come out? They come out when people try to manipulate numbers to prove what cannot be proven,” Valdis Leinieks said. Leinieks spent most of his testi mony attempting to refute an evalu ation of classics by Stan Liberty, in terim vice chancellor for academic affairs. Liberty recommended cutting the program as part of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s budget-culling process. Cuts of 3 percent over the next two years were mandated by the Legislature last spring. But culling classics doesn’t make sense, Lcinieks said. “The vice chancellor didn’t think, and didn’t think of the consequences and didn’t look at the evidence,” he said. He argued that three criticisms of the department — that its entry level classes arc too large, that it docs not undertake quality research and that its resource allocation is not being used efficiently — are misguided. “Small classes are not always the best,” he said. “Trained instructors in large classes arc better than a small one with untrained professors.” The department’s faculty arc quali fied, he said. Three of six professors in the department have received dis tinguished leaching awards in the past 10 years, and all six have finished or are finishing books this year. He called Liberty’s analysis of the department’s resource allocation “complete nonsense.” In addition, Lcinieks said, if clas See BUDGET on 3 Budget cut committee cramps time schedule Teachers forced to delay tasks By Kara Morrison Staff Reporter Since budgel-culting procedures began in September, 25 UNL faculty and staff members have had a lot less of one resource: time. In addition to their regular sched ules, some members of the Budget Reduction Review Committee esti mate that their BRRC duties, which are unpaid, are taking about 25 hours a week to fulfill. These committee members have been reviewing and hearing appeals for proposed University of Nebraska Lincoln budget cuts. The budget cuts arc in response to a Nebraska Legislature mandate that the university cut 3 percent of its budget over the next two years. Desmond Wheeler, a professor of chemistry and member of the BRRC, said that about 70 hours of hearings took place in October alone. In addition to the hearings and meetings scheduled through Decem ber, a significant amount of prepara tion lime is required, Wheeler said. “There are mountains of letters and statements to be read,” he said. Rita Kean, interim department See BRRC on 3 Soviets get food aid. Page 2 2 ASUN planning committee gets 4 OK. Page 3 5 3 The bare facts about nudity. 4 Page 5 <^y, Linden thinks of protests. Page 7 ' T7f _ i 1 _ . Michelle Paulman/DN Anna Quindlen, columnist for The New York Times, speaks at the Cornhusker Hotel ballroom Wednesday night for Family Service’s 100th Anniversary Banquet. Family affair Speaker says moms and dads must work together By Stacey McKenzie Senior Editor New York Times columnist and author Anna Quindlcn told a crowd of about 500 people at the Comhuskcr hotel that the family has changed in the last 20 years “but not enough to make it work.” Quindlcn spoke at the 100th anniversary celebration of Lincoln’s Family Service, a private, non-profit human service organization. Issues of the family are at the forefront of many of Quindlcn’s “Public & Private” columns. She is also the author of a collection of essays called “Living Out Loud." Although society has changed and sometimes improved laws and institutions in an effort to help families, Quindlcn said, it hasn’t changed the way that men, women and children deal with each other. “What we need is radical change in the entire way that men, women and children live together,” she said. “We need to understand each other better.” A mother can face confusion, crying on the first day that she returns to work because she has to leave her children, Quindlcn said. Yet, the educated woman who stays home with her children can face frustration because she is afraid her brain might turn to mush. Quindlen, a mother of three . and the second woman to write a column for the New York Times opinion page, has faced this career/mother dichotomy. When she was 25, Quindlen said she would never have children. At that time, she said, “I would have walked over my grandmother in golf spikes to do two columns a week.” The New York Times granted her wish in 1981 when she began writing a column called “About New York.” Then Quindlen became preg nant with her first child. She an nounced to her editor that she needed six months of maternity leave and later told the editor that, ‘‘I wouldn’t be back.” The paper made certain allow ances, though. With the addition of each child, Quindlen’s job ad justed to the point where she now writes many of her columns at See QUINDLEN on 2