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Regents unanimously support family leave
By Andy Raun
Staff Reporter_
University of Nebraska faculty and staff
will be able to take up to 12 weeks of
unpaid leave to deal with family mat
ters as a result of a vote by the NU Board of
Regents.
The regents Saturday voted unanimously to
approve the new policy, which will not affect
other leave policies already in place.
Prior to the vole, NU President Martin
Masscngalc told the regents he thought the
policy would help improve morale and produc
tivity in the university workplace.
Under the policy, employees could take
leave to deal with situations such as the birth or
adoption of a chi Id, a serious il Incss of a spouse,
I ■ 1
Personnel director calls policy fair
parent or child, or a death in the immediate
family.
The lcavccould be taken in conjunction with
paid funeral leave, accrued paid vacation time
or leave granted under other
university rules. The em
ployee would not be paid
during family leave but
would continue to be cov
ered by university insurance
_ plans and would rcccivcolher
benefits.
John Russell, university personnel director,
told the regents that while attempts already
were being made to work with faculty needing
leave, the new policy would make the handling
of such situations fair, uniform and equitable.
Russell said hccxpcctcd employees to make
minimal uscof the leave because it was unpaid.
However, he said, the policy would help pre
vent employees from resigning because they
could not get needed lime off.
He said the university would incur little
expense with the policy.
And Regent Nancy O’Brien of Waterloo
said the cost of replacing faculty members who
had resigned would be two to three limes higher
than allowing them family leave.
Regent Rosemary Skrupa of Omaha and
Andrew Sigerson, student regent for the Uni
versity of Ncbraska-Lincoln, said they feared
the family leave policy would have hidden
costs.
Sigerson proposal an amendment that would
prevent such costs from being passed along to
students in tuition or fee increases. But).
Massengale and others said that with the
university’s accounting methods, it would be
almost impossible to enforce such a rule.
The amendment was defeated.
Russell said that whether the regents ap
proved the policy, the federal government was
likely to mandate something similar in the near
future.
* Russell said personnel directors on all NU
campuses were willing to track the policy’s
usage and provide reports on its effectiveness.
Julia Mikoiajcik/DN
Changing her stripes
Jenna Vaughn, 9, paints her face at the Lincoln Children’s Museum at 121 S. 13th St. Sunday afternoon. Vaughn said she
wanted to resemble a zebra by the time she was done. _ _
Regents
praise new
standards
By Andy Raun
Staff Reporter__
The NU Board of Regents is on
track to approve tougher ad
missions standards for three
University of Nebraska campuses at
its December meeting.
A proposal to tighten admissions
standards at the University of Nc
braska-Lincoln,
the University of
Nebraska at
and the H
University of Ne
braska at Kearney
was presented to
the regents at their
monthly meeting Saturday.
Regents, Coordinating Com mission
for Postsecondary Education are at
odds over capital construction pri
orities. See story on page 2.
Regents and adm inislralors pra iscd
the proposal, which will likely be
acted on next month after a scries of
public hearings are conducted around
the state.
“I think it’s going to be of enor
mous benefit,” Regent Robert Allen
of Hastings said.
Under the proposal, students would
See ADMISSIONS on 3
Abortion opponents, advocates keep issue alive
Wesleyan debate
delves into dispute
about human life
By Mindy L. Leiter
Staff Reporter
Cn abortion-rights advocate and
opponent tangled over
women’s rights and what con
stitutes the beginning of human life
Friday during a debate at Nebraska
Wesleyan University.
Randall Moody, president of the
Board of Directors for Lincoln Planned
Parenthood, said he was pro-choice
and pro-family, not pro-abortion.
“Whose choice will it be, the
woman or the government?” he said.
Anti-abortion attitudes arc a re
sponse of male-dominated govern
ment and religions, Moody said.
“If men could gel pregnant, abor
tion wouldn’t even be an issue,” he
said.
When faced with the difficult is
sues that surround abortion, Moody
said, he came out on the side of a
woman’s right to choose.
Helen Alvarc, an attorney and
spokeswoman for the National Con
ference of Catholic B ishops, said that
although most people tended to use
the “pro-choice” label, what they re
ally meant was that they were in favor
of abortion in eases of rape or incest or
to save the mother’s life. That means
they oppose about 99 percent of abor
tions, she said.
The greatest defeat of the abor
tion-rights argument,/Alvarc said, is
that a Ictus is a living, developing
human being from the moment of
conception.
During the queslion-and-answer
period following the debate, Rick
Duncan, a professor at the University
of Nebraska College of Law, asked
Moody to describe an 18-to 20-week
old human fetus and explain why it
was undeserving of legal protection.
“I do not believe that is relevant to
this discussion,” Moody said, draw
ing boos from the audience. “I do
believe in Roc vs. Wade and the right
of a woman to make her decisions
under that law.”
See DEBATE on 3
■s - '
B—not ready for the
responsibility or having a child
B economic reasons
ifl—feared how a child would
change their life
B—feared how a child would
affect their relationship with
parents or partners
incest
1% of the
the
the
mother comprises
1% of the
Conference of Catholic Bishops
Scott Maurer/DN
Official questions
abortion support,
citing ignorance
By Andrea Kaser
Staff Reporter
Most Americans oppose 98
• percent of all abortions in
the United Stales without
being aware of it, a spokeswoman for
the National Conference of Catholic
Bishops told students Friday at the
University of Nebraska College of
Law.
Polls indicate there is a high corre
lation between the public’s ignorance
and its likelihood to support abortion,
said attorney Helen Alvarc during a
lunch-hour speech, “Abortion: A
Failed Societal Ethic.” Alvarc hasco
aulhorcd legal briefs to the U.S. Su
preme Court in major abortion cases.
Alvarc said most Americans would
call themselves “pro-choice” but when
asked what they meant, most said
abortions should be protected in cases
of rape, incest or when the life of the
mother was threatened."
This belief comes much closer to
the “pro-life” stance when statistics
arc revealed, she said.
Rape and incest comprise I per
cent of the reasons for all abortions
performed in the United States. Health
of the mother comprises one-tenth of
1 percent of the reasons for abortions,
Alvarc said.
“American opinion changes when
you ask about what their label is to
what their stance is,” she said.
Those people who arc least aware
of the actual numbers of abortions,
the reasons behind them and the laws
that protect them arc more likely to
support legal abortion, she said. The
more facts people know about abor
tion, the more likely they arc to be
against it, she said.
The number of abortions has in
creased anywhere from six to 11
times the number of abortions before
1973, the year abortion was legalized,
Alvarc said. Per year, 1.6 million
abortions arc performed in the United
States, or about 4,400 a day. Of those,
350 a day arc performed between the
See ABORTION on 3
