Opinion
Outside eve
Spanier’s cuts should be unbiased
A University of Nebraska-Lincoln committee last
week passed the bucks — $157,000 of them, to be
exact — to new Chancellor Graham Spanier.
That’s how much money Spanier must come up with to
comply with this year’s portion of the Nebraska Legisla
ture’s required budget cut for UNL.
The committee was charged with recommending cuts in
the budget to meet a 2 percent reduction this year. Instead,
Lisa Pytlik/DN
it recommended cuts that
total about 1.88 percent,
3 leaving the rest to Spanier’s
) discretion.
1 The committee spared two
' academic departments that
had been threatened in the
^ budget deliberation. While
'f the speech communications
| and classics departments now
• can breathe a little easier,
l there is no guarantee that the
1 chancellor or the NU regents
won’t decide to reinstate
those cuts.
If Spanier or the regents
make that choice, they will
become the bad guys. Thus,
the Academic Planning
Committee members, who
are scheduled to send final
recommendations to the
chancellor by next week, may
have voted to spare their own
heads as well as the two
departments.
But in falling short of 2
percent, the committee’s
work is incomplete. While
that may be an inefficient, ir
responsible way to handle the
process, the results may be advantageous.
Spanier is a newcomer to UNL. He obviously doesn’t
know as much about the intricacies of the university as the
committee’s collective membership, but he should be able
to oversee the process with a clear, unbiased eye.
When businesses seek to increase efficiency, they often
hire outside analysts to study the operation and recom
mend improvements. The UNL budget reductions must be
seen in the same light. Spanier now becomes the outside
auditor.
We hope he rejects some of the flawed thinking that has
led to the current budget stalemate.
Throughout the process, administrators, committee
members and other interested parties have cited cost
efficiency ratios and other supposed measures of a pro
gram’s value, as if academic excellence can be charted on
a graph.
Such thinking is inevitable when programs and jobs are
under fire. But it is not conducive to an intellectual cli
mate.
The committee chose to duck the fire by leaving
Spanier with a portion of the cuts. Apparently, the univer
sity could not come up with cuts from within. Now it
remains for the new chancellor — still a virtual outsider
to the politics of UNL — to finish the first stage of the
process.
— E.FJ>.
Professor inspiring to women
I’d like to comment on your front
page article on Professor Kathy Kee
ler (“Professor at home on the range,”
DN, Nov. 25). Although your article
is a nice tribute to Keeler, I think you
may need a new bloodhound on staff.
Did you know that just last week,
Keeler was appointed to full profes
sor in the School of Biological Sci
ences. She is the first female full
professor for a school that was founded
13 years ago. She is a groundbreaker
in a system, science academia, that
lags4)ehind society’s progressiveness.
The time has come that we address
the deficiency of women in science
academia. Women in research and
teaching of hard sciences such as
biology, chemistry and physics noi
only have a significant contributor
to make but should be welcomed intc
these departments both across the
country and at UNL. Thank you, Dr
Keeler, for being an inspiration tc
we>mcn who love and pursue the leach
ing of science in higher education.
Jennifer Emisse
senioi
biolog)
I'M FEEUNG.
MUCH BETTER.
POPULISM (’
"L HMNK TU RUM FOR
PRfcSlD'E^
JAMES ZANK
Christmas drowning in greed
Christmas stinks.
Every year the season creeps
up on me. I’m always lulled
into a sort of seasonal complacency. I
see Thanksgiving coming for weeks
but fail to sec the approach of the
most hypocritical holiday of the year.
Some people are horrified by my
hatred of Christmas, but they fail to
understand why I’ve developed this
opinion.
There are many reasons, but none
so evident as the sickening level of
greed this holiday brings out in people.
I used to be just as prone to this as
anyone else. After all, I grew up with
the white, middle-class, euphoric vision
of Christmas bombarding me from all
directions.
Christmas has become a holiday
for mov ing merchandise. This has led
many people in our society to become
berserk consumers of gotxls from the
day after Thanksgiving until Christ
mas Eve.
Children arc taught to think about
Christmas in materialistic ways. They
write Santa to tell him what they want
him to bring, or construct a list so that
Grandma knows what to buy.
It all seems to be about how much
loot we can get. I grow tired of end
less television ads for credit cards,
flashing countless numbers of expen
sive gifts across the screen.
Hundreds of no-name actors and
actresses pose with lead-crystal gob
lets, pouring innumerable glasses of
overly expensive champagne to cele
brate the holidays.
I struggled to write a Christmas
list for my sister a couple of weeks
ago, and it was one of the most diffi
cult things for me to write.
Of the things I want, most can’t be
bought and wrapped in gaudy paper
and jammed under a dying evergreen
tree. My list became filled with many
items that would just be OK to have,
but nothing essential to my existence
or happiness.
America’s addiction to material
wealth has caused many of the prob
lems that we have to face the other
364 days of the year. As more and
more Americans arc faced with eco
nomic hardship, it becomes harder to
justify people’s wastefulness.
What is the point of Christmas? Its
meaning, if it ever had one, has been
ignored for so long that it has become
Christmas has be
come a holiday for
moving merchandise.
This has, led many
people in our sanely
to become berserk
consumers of goods
from the dav after
Thanksgiving until
Christinas Ei&
habitual to celebrate it.
If we arc going to continue to
celebrate this, let’s come up with a
new holiday and just have one day
when we can celebrate our greed
properly. Let’s call it Federal Deficit
Day. We can all spend the day trying
to gain as much material wealth as
possible.
Instead of writing letters to Santa,
children could write to Ronald Re
agan. We’d still have the same cus
tomary problem of whether children
have Figured out whether he’s real.
Why should children be any different
from their parents? ,
Some people undoubtedly still claim
to understand the “true” meaning of
Christmas.
What that rcallv means, I’m not
sure. Christmas, of course, is not the
actual date on which Jesus Christ was
bom, but rather, the most convenient
pagan holiday that early Christians
could find to assign to this celebra
tion.
The underlying theme of Christ
mas — “Peace on Earth, goodwill
toward man’’ — is not a bad notion,
but unfortunately it is an ideal that
humanity seems incapable of achiev
ing.
Looking back on the last couple of
Christmases, peace on earth has been
the last thing on most people’s minds.
Christmas 1989 brought the crisis
in Panama and the U.S. involvement
there. I remember vividly all the news
coverage including interviews with
mothers of service people who were
upset that this invasion had to happen
during the Christmas holiday. It was
hard for American families to be i
separated by military action.
1 somehow think it may have been
a bit worse for the Panamanians, who
had to deal with thousands of civilian
casualties.
Of course, last year we had the
warm-up for the Persian Gulf war.
Since the Bush administration came
into office, it would seem that watch
ing the president in his macho war
mongering posture is a part of every
red-blooded American’s holiday cele
bration.
Bush seems to be very traditional.
Tradition is what families and war
fare are all about. As we enter the
holiday season, Bush has been mak
ing his list and checking it twice. As
he shops for another war for the holi
days, he’s finding out who has been
naughty or nice. He certainly has a
wide selection of potential wars to
choose from.
There are any number of ways to
exploit the powder keg of the Middle
East, Libya being a country we have
n’t waged war with in a while. Then,
of course, there is North Korea. Eve
rybody seems to be nearing nuclear
capacity these days.
In these lean economic times,
though, Bush probably secs the need
to cut back on the frills this Christ
mas. Wars are very expensive, and
this year money is really tight- Be
sides, the cost of another war might
include losing the next election.
Perhaps I’m a bit too harsh on
Christmas. It really does have some
redeeming qualities. It is a time lor
people to come together with loved
ones. This Christmas, I hope, people
can pause to reflect on what they are
celebrating and take some time tc
examine just how far from these ide
als our country and our species are.
Zank Is a junior art and kngllsh majoi
and a Daily Nebraskan columnist.
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