ASUN to debate revival
of prayer at graduation
By Angie Brunkow
Staff Reporter _
ASUN senators will debate tonight
whether to support a recent decision
made by the UNL Commencement
Committee to eliminate the invoca
tion and benediction from commence
ment ceremonies.
Andrew Loudon,
speaker of the sen
ate, said the
prayers were an
important tradi
lion in graduation
J$i HH and the ban was
not supported by the two Association
of Students of the University of Ne
braska-Lincoln members of the com
mittee.
Loudon said he planned to bring up
a bill on emergency status asking the
committee to reconsider its decision.
Herb Howe, associate to the chan
cellor and a member of the commit
tee, said he raised the issue bccauscof
the wide diversity represented among
graduating seniors.
Graduates, Howe said, have a wide
range of beliefs and non-beliefs.
Howe said thecommiticcalsocon
sidered a recent Supreme Court deci
sion banning prayers in graduation
ceremonies in schools-gradcs kinder
Senate
Continued from Page 1
interviewed and photographed by
UNL police in connection with thc^
casc, but not as suspects, they were
told.
Chambers has since demanded an
apology from university officials for
the investigation.
Jolly said his office should have
been directly involved in the contro
versy, but Chambers didn’t contact
him.
“My office wasn’t as highly in
volved as I wish it would have been,”
he said. “That won’t happen again.”
Jolly told the senate that UNL Po
lice Chief Ken Caublc sent a letter to
the students apologizing for the
department’s actions in the case. The
students’ photographs also were re
turned.
“It’s an accurate and real apol
ogy,” Jolly said, “one they deserved.”
Improving accessibility for people
gartcn through 12-whcn it made the
decision.
But Loudon said the Supreme Court
decision did not deal with post-sec
ondary school institutions and should
not be considered for the university
ceremony.
“It’s not against the law,” he said.
Howe said the committee realized
the Supreme Court decision did not
apply to UNL, but it did raise the
question of what role prayer played in
the ceremony.
“This is an academic exercise,” he
said. “Let’s keep it academic.”
But Loudon said the invocation
and benediction would expand cul
tural diversity by letting those attend
ing the ceremony Icam about differ
ent cultures and religions.
In other business, ASUN will de
cide how many senators need to be
represented on the Five-Year Projec
tion Committee.
The committee, which makes rcc
ommendations to AS U N about needed
campus improvements, currently has
six senate members represented. The
proposal would reduce that number to
two.
Also, ASUN will consider appro
priating S5(X) to support Rape Educa
tion Week.
with disabilities is another project
Jolly told faculty members he was
working on.
Jolly said he had made a list of
buildings that needed renovation.
Hcfycvcr, only S400,(XX) is now avaiI -
able for construction, Jolly said.
“Do we have enough money?” he
said. “No, but we’re getting there.
“I’ll be begging for money; you’ll
hear it loudly.”
In other business, Mary Beck, chair
woman of the Chancellor’s Commis
sion on the Status of Women, pro
posed that the senate begin oversee
ing campus safely inspections.
The inspections include a campus
walk by university officials after dark
once a semester. The walks haven’t
been sponsored by a specific organi
zation since the campus safety com
mittee was dissolved in the early
1980s, she said.
The senate unanimously passed
this proposal.
1 \ ■' * ' “ 5
Physicist says planet plagued
By Corey Russman
Staff Reporter
The world needs to make a fresh
start on the path to achieving a
more sustainable world, a Nobel
laureate said Tuesday.
Murray Gell-Mann, a theoreti
cal physicist, spoke at the Lied
Center for the E.N. Thompson Fo
rum on World Issues, telling more
than 1,000 listeners that in this age
of growing environmental prob
lems, the inhabitants of the world
must take the initiative to slop stag
nation and extreme growth.
“Time is special,” Gell-Mann
said. “The 20th century is the cross
roads for humans and the world.”
The human race has the techni
cal capability of altering the bio
sphere through chemical and
nuclear warfare. Humans also arc
capable of destroying the many
species with whom humans share
the world, he said.
In order to achieve a sustainable
world,Gell-Mann said,people must
use their minds to balance compe
tition and manage differences.
One means of doing this, Gell
Mann said, is to curb the current
rate of growth of the world popula
tion. A hyperbolic population curve
drawn years ago, he said, showed
that if the population continued to
grow at present rales, the world
population could reach infinity by
2025.
“Population growth encourages
environmental degradation,” he
said.
The biosphere and the environ
ment belong to everyone, he said.
The oceans, space and Antarctica
do not belong to just one person.
Polluting the environment costs
the present generation nothing,
Gell-Mann said. However, he said,
polluters are stealing from future
generations.
There needs to be a concern for
the future, as well as the present,
Gell-Mann said.
In order for humans to achieve a
sustainable world, transitions must
be made, he said.
The world needs to sec an elimi
nation of mega-city problems like
pollution and population over
growth. It is essential for all coun
tries to cooperate and work to
gether, he said.
The world also needs “botiom
up initiatives,” Gell-Mann said.
There must be a large number of
small, family efforts to save the
environment; ,
Robin Trimarchi/DN
Murray Gell-Man, a Nobel laureate in physics, answers ques
tions following his lecture at the Lied Center for Performing
Arts on Tuesday.
Gell-Mann said he thought there
should be a planetary bargain in
which wealthier countries helped
poorer countries monetarily. In re
turn, he said, the poorer countries
should be required to take mea
sures to ensure their own mainte
nance.
Governments also need to work
toward transnational cooperation,
Gell-Mann said. Groups from
around the world must connect and
join together.
As of now, “no problem is too
small to divide the world into an
tagonistic groups,” he said. The
world is filled with fragmentation,
he said. I
The concept of “us” has grown,
he said, but it will eventually need
to encompass the whole universe
— men, women and animals.
The world also needs to see an
ideological transition in which
present thinking is transformed to
overcome devastating tendencies
such as war and environmental
degradation, Gell-Mann said.
Gell-Mann compared the
world’s environmental problems to
driving down an unlit road at night.
“Even a little light from a flick
ering headlight would be benefi
cial.”
Veterans
Continued from Page 1
Korean War had been forgottenhe
said. ‘‘I felt an urge to do something to
call attention to it.”
Closer to home, Greene has been
active in fund-raisers to bring World
War II, Korean, Desert Storm and K
9 Memorials to Antelope Park and
added to the Vietnam Memorial.
Greene, a professor of education at
UNL, said the K-9 Memorial was one
that he felt especially close to because
his dog was killed in World War II.
But the memorial, he said, would be
dedicated to all dogs in all armies.
The idea of Veterans Day began on
Nov. 11,1919, exactly one year after
Crime
Continued from Page 1
Lundy said a car was set on fire
Ocl.21 in the unpaved parking lot cast
of Pound Hall. Officers believe the
arson may be tied to the death of Dung
Van Nguyen, 24, of 220 N. 21 si St.
Nguyen was (bund dead Oct. 21
from a knife wound to the chest in a
recreation area north of Crete. Uni
versity and Lincoln officers arc also
working together in that investiga
tion.
“There’s an awful lot going on in
Lincoln,” Lundy said. “We’re lied
up.”
The department has had to spread
its officers thin to work on the eases,
Lundy said, making it difficult for
officers to focus on individual inves
the conclusion of World War I.
President Woodrow Wilson set
aside the day for Americans to re
member those who had fought and
died the “war to end all wars.” The
day was called Armistice Day until
1954, when it was changed to Veter
ans Day to honor veterans of all wars
and those who serve in timesof peace.
Today’s holiday will allow both
men to spend lime remembering.
Green said he especially would
remember his friends who fought in
the Korean War and their families
uxlay.
“I think about the people I knfcw
and what they’re doing, and I particu
larly think about the people who lost
family members in the war,” he said.
Greene said he believed it was
important locommunicaic the memo
ries of the wars to future generations
ligations.
The UNL Police Dcparuncni has
27commissioncd officers whoarc arc
working on all the cases. Lundy said
ihc dcparlmcni had even called in off
duly officers lo help with searches.
“Thai's whai ihcy gel paid for,” he
said. “Thai’s whal ihcy’rc here for.”
UNL officers have spent time con
ducting interviews, searches and mak
ing phone calls for each of the cases,
Lundy said.
In the Harms case, for example,
Lundy said officers had contacted
people who have had any involve
ment with Harms during the past lew
months.
Officers constantly check with
other police bureaus across the nation
to sec if cases elsewhere could tic into
local investigations.
“All the investigators of all the
so that they could attempt to under
stand.
“I’ll be thinking about the people
involved in the war and all the cour
age it look,” he said.
Today, Anderson said. Veterans
Day allows him to recall many memo
ries of his tour in Vietnam — some
good and some bad.
Pic lures of his flight crew still hang
on the wall of his office.
Some of his memories include
golfing and joking around with the
men in those piclurcs.
Other memories arc more serious.
But both arc filling for Veterans
Day.
“(Veterans Day) means remem
bering a lolof people who served time
in the military for iheir country,” he
said. “It means America, it means ihc
Hag.”
agencies arc very busy contacting
people, conducting interviews and
pulling pieces together,” Lundy said.
Sgl. Ann Heermann of the Lincoln
Police said that the department shil led
its resources while investigating the
Harms case.
The Lincoln Police Department
employs 247 officers — 220 officers
more than the University Police De
partment.
‘‘1 don’t think we’re strained,”
Heermann said.
Lundy said U NL officers had spent
extra lime at the office working on
new leads and following upon each of
the cases.
“Time slips away from you, and
you don’t realize how many hours you
may have spent,” Lundy said. “Some
times things just don’t mesh, and that
makes for a very long day.”
-POLICE REPORT-.
Beginning midnight Monday
10:09 a.m. — Meier stolen, park
ing lot at Abel-Sandoz complex,
$650.
12:53 p.m. — Wallci stolen, Love
Library, S12.
1:05 p.m. — Vandalism to trees,
Abcl-Sandoz complex, S600.
e Royal G
Presents a
'Live' Musical Tribute
To
J
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