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Death penalty
opponents voice
support for bill
Former governors join senator
in legislation to end executions
By Cindy Kimbrough
Senior Reporter
About 20 Nebraskans rallied Tuesday at
the Capitol to support a state senator’s
bill to repeal the death penally.
Supporters of LB327, a bill that would elimi
nate the death penalty and replace it with life
imprisonment without parole, included two
former governors and several area religious
leaders.
“The death penalty is a gloomy subject, but
also an extremely important
one,” said Sen. Ernie Cham
bers of Omaha, the bill’s chief
sponsor.
The state, Chambers said,
should not have the right to
decide what offenses justify
the death penalty and who
should be put to death.
Former Nebraska governor Frank Morrison
said he didn’t know of any other subject on
which opinions were formed so quickly on so
little information.
Morrison said he opposed capital punish
ment because it did not work.
The death penalty is not an effective way to
control crime and does not benefit the victim’s
family, he said.
“It does not bring the victim back to life,” he
said.
It also is unjust, he said, because capital
punishment allows the state to do what it pro
See DEATH on 3
ASUN senator
plans to bring
UNL diversity
By Kara Morrison
Staff Reporter
A cultural diversity summit held Friday at
UNL made a start in addressing minor
ity issues, one ASUN senator said.
Arts and Sciences Sen. Steve Dietz, who
attended the summit, said he would help organ
ize a cultural diversity program that was pro
posed at the summit.
The cultural diversity summit was spon
-sored by the Chancellor’s
Commission on the Status of
Minorities and Faculty in
Support of Cultural Diver
sity.
The first stop in creating a
cultural diversity program at
the University of Nebraska
Lincoln will be establishing a group of faculty
and students to outline goals for the university,
See ASUN on 3
^-Ml-J&t--MM =-* . :
Greg Bemhardt/DN
Jeanine Teodorescu, a UNL French graduate teaching assistant, recently returned from her native Romania, from
where she defected in 1987.
Defecting to democracy
Student discovers increased freedom on visit to homeland
By Michelle McGowen
Staff Reporter
The changes in Jeanine Teodorescu’s
life since she left her native Roma
nia Five years ago parallel the recent
changes in the once-Communist country.
Teodorescu, a UNL graduate student and
teaching assistant in French studies, said she
disagreed with the restraints placed on her
as a teacher by Romania’s government.
Since leaving, she said, she has grown
under the freedom of democracy.
“It’s a relief to see everybody can really
be free.”
Teodorescu relumed to Romania for the
first lime last month when she visited her
parents. She found a much different envi
ronment there, she said.
“Small businesses have started, and the
prices are skyrocketing,” she said. “You can
find things you never would have thought
you could find before. Things that are easy
to find here, like oranges.”
But the markets aren’t the only things
that have changed, Teodorescu said.
“The people were different too,” she
said. “There was a sense of freedom.”
Teodorescu left Romania to find such
freedom in the spring of 1987, during a trip
to Israel.
She was lucky to receive a tourist’s visa
to travel to Israel, she said, because govern
ment restrictions prevented most Romani
ans from traveling.
“It was a miracle that I got it,” she said.
“The ones who could travel were the ones
who had higher responsibilities, like direc
tors and party members.”
Once in Israel, Teodorescu said she de
cided to take her chances and leave for
Austria.
“I was very scared, but I knew I could
offer something,” she said. “I could work
and support myself.”
While in Austria, she held a clerical job
at a hotel and applied for immigration to the
United States. Once accepted by the United
States, Teodorescu traveled to Boise, Idaho,
in March 1987.
She said she was impressed with the
friendliness shown toward her.
“Americans are wonderful toward people
new to this country,” she said. “This is home
for me, and they make the transition easier.”
However, Teodorescu said, coming to
the United Stales was a culture shock. There
were many things to get used to, she said,
such as shopping and talking on the tele
phone. To further her education, Teodorescu
applied and was accepted for an assistant
ship at Boise State University. But while
visiting friends in Lincoln, she said, she
decided to apply at UNL.
She accepted an assistantship at UNL,
and continued her studies. She currently is
working on her master’s degree in French
literature.
Teodorescu taught French 101 and 201 at
UNL this year. She said she would like to be
able to teach at higher levels, but graduate
students in the French department are al
lowed only to teach at the 100 and 200
levels.
Teodorescu’s interest in French began at
a young age, she said.
At age 5 she watched as her mother, a
French teacher, taught class. She was en
thralled by the magic of leaching, she said,
and dreamed of following in her mother’s
footsteps.
Teodorescu attended a French high school
in Bucharest, and then continued her educa
tion at the University of Bucharest, where
she received degrees in both French and
English.
Following graduation, she taught at vari
ous junior high and high schools for three
years. She ended up at the Cultural Univer
sity in Bucharest, teaching English to people
who wanted to improve their foreign lan
guage skills.
Despite her trip home, Teodorescu said
she was comfortable in Lincoln.
“Lincoln is a wonderful town, small and
quiet,” she said. “And it offers many cul
tural activities.”
Teodorescu said she would like to see an
exchange program between the University
See TEODORESCU on 3
Supreme Court to review
Pennsylvania Law, abortion.
PageS
UNL’s graduate art students
featured in Sheldon display.
Page 9
INDEX
Wire 2
Opinion 4
Sports 7
A&E 9
Classifieds 11
Spanier to lecture on family at UNMC
Chancellor says
classroom post
to help relations
By Kristine Long
Staff Reporter
Lecturing at the University of
Nebraska Medical Center won’t
affect Chancellor Graham
Spanier’s commitment to UNL, he
said.
Spanier was appointed to lecture
at seminars on marriage and the family,
divorce, remarriage, human develop
ment and family demography in
UNMC’s Department of Family Prac
tice.
“I feel it is important for all aca
demic administrators to spend time in
the classroom," he said.
Spanicr also will be lecturing on
marriage and the family in the De
partment of Sociology at the Univer
sity of Nebraska-Lincoln.
Spanicr said these lecturing posi
tions would maintain his ties with the
medical community, and would show
that faculty members were interested
in “cross-campus cooperation.”
In previous academic appointments,
Spanier said, he worked in medical
and sociology departments. When he
- II
I feel it is important for
all academic adminis
trators to spend time in
the classroom.
Spanier
UNL Chancellor
-tf -
was an administrator at Penn State
University, he worked with the De
partment of Medicine. At the State
University of New York at Stony
Brook, he worked in the Department
of Psychiatry, he said.
It is “symbolic” that the chancel
lor of one. school would lecture at
another school, he said, and it should
help relations between the two schools.
William Bcmdt, interim chancel
lor of UN MC, said that Spanier would
present lectures as his time allowed.
It is not unusual to have courtesy
appointments such as Spanier’s, he
said.
“With Chancellor Spanier’s back
ground, he is perfect for this appoint
ment,” Bemdl said. “This is a posi
tive kind of thing between the two
campuses.”
Spanier has taught a University
Foundations class at UNL, and said
he planned to lecture at sociology of
marriage and the family classes
throughout this year.
*
