—H h—
Nebraska
vs.
ASU
78/52
Sunny this morning, but
doudy this afternoon,
tonight and tomorrow
with a chance of rain.
'
(National
Hispanic
Eric Jolly, new assistant to the chancellor and director of affirmative action and diversity, is the first Native
American to hold a senior position at UNL. He is a member of the Cherokee Nation West.
Coalition builder
New UNL official plans to enhance cultural diversity on campus
By Angela Opperman
Staff Reporter
Eric Jolly, UNL’s new assistant to
the chancellor and director of
affirmative action and diversity,
said he wanted to create a corner of the
world that was exciting for everyone at
the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
“In the long run,” Jolly said, “I’d like
to change the culture of this university. I
think we can do that.”
I - A member of the
Cherokee Nation West,
Jolly is the first Native
American to be ap
pointed to a senior
position at UNL. He
started Sept. 8.
His duties include
supervising and coordinating cultural
diversity activities, planning and imple
menting programs for statewide involve
ment and providing university leadership
in advocating for diversity and affirmative
action. _
“I am very enthusiastic,” he said.
Jolly was formerly assistant dean of
University College at the University of
Rhode Island in Kingston.
He said he had both long-term and
short-term goals that he hoped would
enhance the culture of the university.
His first long-term goal centers on
UNL’s justice system.
“I would like to develop a system,”
Jolly said, “that would monitor and assure
all faculty, staff and students that their
problems will be dealt with in an honest,
open, direct and courageous way.”
He said he wanted to instill confidence
in everyone at the university, and beyond
that, show people that this is a fair
institution.
That is why the office is hiring an
associate director to manage the justice
system, Jolly said.
Second on Jolly’s list is creating an
environment at UNL that is comfortable
for all people, from all cultural back
grounds, including women and the
disabled.
“I want graduates of UNL to feel
comfortable in expressing themselves, and
with all kinds of human interaction,” he
said.
More than 80 percent of the school
districts in Nebraska have no diversity, he
said, and UNL will be the first place many
students will encounter real diversity.
“If people are going to be successful in
life,” Jolly said, “they’ll need to broaden
their skill of dealing with other people.”
Jolly also wants to build a coalition
between diverse groups, he said, and form
a common commitment to aid each group
in meeting its needs.
“We don’t want to work for a common
action from all the groups, but a common
agenda,” Jolly said. “This work will
include not only the campus and Lincoln,
but all of Nebraska.”
One of his short-term goals for the
Affirmative Action and Diversity office is
to incorporate a minority vendors purchas
ing program at UNL.
Jolly said this program would increase
the involvement of minority-owned
companies with UNL and increase their
share of UNL purchasing dollars.
This will increase the minority
community’s access to the vendors, he
said.
Another short-term goal Jolly is
working toward is a major diversity
programming initiative for the fall of
1993.^
See JOLLY on 6
Search for
UNL student
discontinued
By Susie Arth
Senior Reporter
L ancaster County deputies called off the
search for UNL freshman Candice Harms
Thursday night, but they haven’t given
up hope of finding her.
Harms, 18, has been missing since about
11:45 p.m. Tuesday.
i Sgt. Terry Wagner
of the Lancaster County
Sheriff’s Department
said authorities had ex
hausted all possibilities
of finding her in the area
of North 27 th Street and
Bluff Road, where
Harms’ car, a 1987 blue
Chevy Corsica, was
found. The location is
____| about three miles north
Harms of Lincoln.
The authorities are now waiting for public
assistance, Wagner said, and are hoping to find
new leads in the case.
He said the sheriff’s department already had
received some phone calls, “but so far nothing
has panned out.”
See MISSING on 3
Past professor
calls regrading
of exam unfair
By Dionne Searcey
Senior Editor
Joyce Joyce, a former UNL English pro
fessor, is demanding an apology.
Joyce, who recently resigned from the
university, said she was treated unfairly when
a member of a University of Nebraska-Lincoln
grade appeals committee regraded one of her
student’s exams in 1991.
“That was a total insult,” Joyce said. “What
that suggests was that I did not have a right to
make a decision on my student’s work,” she
said. “Why in the world did they hire me?”
Joyce, who is now associate director of the
Gwendolyn Brooks Center at Chicago State
University, taught a 1991 UNL summer pre
session English class focusing on African
American writers.
In April, Joyce took her grievance to the
Academic Freedom and Tenure Committee of
the UNL Academic Senate, of which Helen
Moore was serving as acting chairwoman.
The Acadcm ic Senate committee ruled Sept.
16 that Joyce’s academic freedom was violated
during grade appeals. Academic freedom is the
right of a faculty member to pursue teaching
and scholarship without undue interference,
Moore said.
Joyce said she wasn’t satisfied with the
senate committee’s ruling.
See JOYCE on 2
Lincoln Christian Church leader denies charges
By Susie Arth
Senior Reporter
The minister of the Lincoln Christian
Church said Thursday that accusations
that his church was a cult were ridicu
lous.
“I wouldn’t be part of the church if it was a
cult,” Jay Kelly said. “1 think (the accusations)
are insulting.”
The church is a Christian church, he said,
and it leaches no unusual doctrines.
Kelly said he believed former members
were attacking the church and calling it a cult
because they were unable to meet its high
standards.
Kelly, who joined the church in 1984 when
he was a student at Boston University, said the
church was also attacked on the Boston cam
pus.
But Kelly said the attacks at Boston were not
as vengeful as those at the University of Nc
braska-Lincoln.
Other students jeer at the church’s members
as they walk to class, he said, and members arc
receiving prank phone calls.
“It’s a form of discrimination,” he said. “It’s
a spiteful, terrible thing."
A full -page warning about the Lincoln Chris
tian Church appeared in the Sept. 14 Daily
Nebraskan. A former member of the church
wrote the advertisement.
Kelly, responding to the warning, said the
church’s practice of rebaptizing its members
followed the Bible’scxamplc. Only adults were
baptized in the Bible, he said, because it is a
mailer of personal choice.
Kelly, who was raised in the Catholic Church,
said he was rebaptized when he joined the
Lincoln Christian Church because he wanted to
make it his own choice, rather than one made by
his parents.
But even people who were baptized as adults
must be rebaptized when they join the church,
he said.
The church also follows biblical example,
Kelly said, in that all members must be com
pletely immersed in a pool of water.
. Kelly also denied the accusation that mem
bers must “totally submit” to the church’s
“disciplers.”
~ ~—~
“Nobody is told how to live their life,” he
said. “That is absurd.”
The diseiplers, he said, act as “big brothers
or big sisters” and help new members become
Christians.
Kelly also said it was untrue that the church
forbade its members to dale outside the church.
It does, however, encourage its members to
date others within the group.
Purity, he said, was the main reason behind
the encouragement.
Kelly also denied the accusation that the
church’s leaders decided what constituted a sin. ,
“The Bible decides sin,” he said. “Sin is not
a matter of opinion.”
See KELLY on 3
