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UNL’s doors close to Nebraska blizzard
University shutdown
is the first spurred
by snow since 1987
By Cindy Kimbrough
Senior Reporter•
Mother N aturc played a late April Fool ’ s
joke on Nebraskans Monday and early
Tuesday with a storm that brought
freezing temperatures and seven to 14 inches of
snow.
The blizzard shut down the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln campusTuesday for the first
time since March 30, 1987. All classes were
canceled, and most offices were closed.
Temperatures had soared into the 70s last
week, despite a slight chance of rain, and then
dropped toward the end of the week to the 50s
and mid-60s over the weekend.
The sudden snowstorm surprised most
Nebraskans and dropped about seven inches of
snow on Lincoln and up to 14 inches elsewhere
in eastern Nebraska. Temperatures reached
record lows in the 20s Tuesday evening in
eastern Nebraska.
Michael Mulnix, executive director of uni
versity relations, said the snow drifts were so
threatening that Stan Liberty, vice chancellor
for academic affairs, and Jack Goebel, vice
chancellor for business and finance, made the
joint decision early Tuesday to close school.
The decision was difficult, Mulnix said,
because closing the university would have an
impact on a “small city.” Severe weather has
not closed UNL in about 10 years, he said.
See SNOW on 7
_---1
Staci McKee/DN
UNL senior Wendy Freeman, right, throws a snowball at freshman Karen Meyer, far right, Tuesday. Looking on
is junior Swati Shah.
Police officer protests
Baldwin case funding
By Chuck Green
Senior Reporter
Nebraska football coach Tom
Osborne said Tuesday that he
knew of only one formal com
plaint from state law enforcement
officers about his plan to pay for
Andrew Scott Baldwin’s ongoing
medical costs.
The complaint came from Omaha
Police Sgt. Charles Vcndiltc, presi
dent of the Nebraska Coalition for
Victims of Crime, who wrote a letter
to the NCAA on March 26 protesting
Osborne’s plan to pay Baldwin’s costs
with UNL funds.
Baldwin, a Nebraska football
player, is charged with assault for
allegedly beating Gina Simanck of
Lincoln and injuring a Lincoln police
officer on Jan. 18.
The incident was attributed to an
atypical psychotic episode suffered
by Baldwin, who has been undergo
ing psychiatric treatment for the last
three months.
In the letter, Vcnditlc called
Osborne’s plan “offensive,” because
the Cornhusker coach had tried to
portray Baldwin as a victim, when he
was the one who had allegedly as
saulted Simanck.
The NCAA gave Osborne and the
Nebraska athletic department permis
sion to help pay for Baldwin’s psy
chiatric treatment and transportation
for his family members from New
Jersey to Lincoln.
Osborne said he decided to send a
letter of concern to Omaha Police
Chief James Skinner after he spoke
with Vcnditlc on the telephone.
“After visiting with (Vcnditlc), I
was alarmed because he didn’t seem
to be able to distinguish the differ
ence between someone who is a crimi
nal, who premeditates an unprovoked
attack, and someone who might have
a psychological problem,” Osborne
said. “The concern I had was that
someone in law enforcement was
objecting to somebody getting a
medical checkup.
Osborne
“I thought that was a dangerous
attitude for a police officer to have.”
Osborne said, however, that he
never intended for his letter to Skin
ner to become a public matter.
“I just thought the letter to the
police chief might be a good idea, to
let him know that maybe this is a
topic that might be discussed with
some of the officers,” he said. “If
(Vendiue’s) perception is a common
one among police officers, maybe
See OSBORNE on 7
Peer group report
explains reasoning
Advisers present
basis for college
recommendations
By Cindy Kimbrough
Senior Reporter
□NL’s newest proposed peer
group is based on the nature,
mission and accomplishments
of the universities, as well as whether
they arc state or land-grant institu
tions, a report said.
The advisory group solicited to
select new peers for the University of
Ncbraska-Lincoln explained its meth
odology in a report issued Monday.
The advisory group had presented its
report to NU President Martin Mas
sengale Friday.
The advisory group was formed in
January toexaminc UNL’spccr insti
tutions, analyze available data and
recommend a new peer group.
The advisory group consisted of
Bryce Jordan, president emeritus of
Pennsylvania State University in
Middletown; Edward Boling, presi
dent emeritus of the University of
Tennessee in Knoxville; and Robert
Marston, president emeritus of the
University of Florida in Gainesville.
After meeting with UNL faculty
and administrators, regents and state
government officials, the advisory
group agreed on general guidelines to
use in its search. The guidelines in
cluded:
•The advisory group would begin
with a large source group of universi
ties that were comparable to UNL. ,,
•The source group would consist
of only state-supported public uni
versities.
•Some institutions in the source
group would be principal public insti
See PEER on 7
Once again, Manson’s pa
role attempt fails. Page 2
Cornstalk draws bands with
mixed sounds. Page 9
OU coach
says Husker
gymnasts
nave good
shot at NCAA
title Page 13
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,NDEX 9
Wire 2
Opinion 4
Sports 9
A & E 13
Classifieds 15
Odds against collectives, oihcial says
Hierarchy poses
threat to groups,
professor says
By Sean Green
Senior Reporter__
Government forms of majority
rule always have been the
mainstay of democracy in
American history.
But some organizations, including
a UNL women’s group, have rejected
traditional majority-rule methods of
govemmentand turned to collectives.
A collective is a form of self-gov
ernment in which each member’s
opinion is of equal importance, said
Robert Benford, an assistant profes
sor of sociology at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln.
Decisions in a collective system
are made on a consensus basis, where
all members must agree before an
action can be taken.
Collectives stem from an ideology
that criticizes contemporary forms of
social organization and is opposed to
hierarchical, or top-down, forms 01
decision making.
Proponents of collectives argue that
traditional majority-rule and hicrar
chical structures lead to the few gov
cming the many, Benford said.
“We in the United Slates have a
Kretty limited view of democracy,”
c said. “That is, there arc other or
ganizational forms which arc perhaps
more democratic in their structures
and processes.”
The collective form of organiza
tion is an explicit attempt to ensure
maximum participation by all mem
bers of the group, Benford said.
Although the idea of collectivism
has been around for centuries, he said,
protest and civil-rights groups caused
a resurgence of collectives in the 1960s
and 1970s.
Many of those groups, he said,
found that in typical American or
ganizalions, power tended to be con
centrated in the hands of the few, and
the voices of most people were ex
cluded from the decision-making
process.
Benford said examples of groups
run by some form of collective or
ganization included the student
movement groups of ‘he 1960s,
women’s liberation groups of the 1970s
and environmental groups of the 1980s.
Benford, who has studied such
groups for 10 years, said he found the
collective form of organization to be
more difficult to employ than the
majority-rules form.
See COLLECTIVE on 6