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Nebraskan
Official calls diversity conference successful
By Jeffrey Robb
Staff Reporter
□ he racial and ethnic mini-conference
held Saturday in the Nebraskan Union
was mostly successful, one university
official said.
John Harris, special assistant to the vice
chancellor for student affairs, said about 250
University of Nebraska-Lincoln students, staff
and faculty, as well as members of the Lincoln
community, attended the conference that was
co-sponsored by Harris’ office and the Racial
Action Pluralism Action Team.
Harris said the conference had three times
more people than last fall’s diversity retreat,
and all racial and ethnic groups on campus were
represented.
“It shows that people on campus are
concerned about what’s going on,” he said,
“and I hope they want to make it better.”
He said each group gave excellent evaluations
of the conference, and everyone gained new
perspectives to carry with them into the world.
“People were there bright and early at 8
o’clock, ready to begin the conference,” he
said. “With 200 people waiting in line for
registration packets on a Saturday morning, it
was amazing.”
Gary Doyle, ajunior business administration
major, helped coordinate the conference.
“There are a lot of issues on this campus that
faculty and students tend to ignore,” he said,
“and a conference like this brings the issues out
into die open.
“People need to get a new perspective and
try to see where others are coming from,” he
said.
Harris said the conference’s main attractions
included panel discussions and a video festival.
One discussion was called “My Reality: A
Perspective of Life for Minority Students at
UNL." Eight minority students shared their
experiences and showed their view of reality,
Harris said. The discussion was “eye-opening,”
he said.
Another discussion, titled “Giftsof Religious
Diversity,” addressed students’ different
methods of worship.
Harris said he was pleased with the
conference, but he wished there didn’t need to
be one.
“If we do the things we should do as a
college, diversity would be in the curriculum
and in everyday college life.
“Until we get to that point, we will go on.”
urant gives
ag students
chance for
foreign study
By Michelle Leary
Senior Reporter
A retired UNL dean has
established a grant for majors
related to agriculture as an
opportunity for undergraduate
students to study in other countries.
Robert W. Kleis, retired executive
dean of international affairs at the
University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and
his wife, Beatrice, provided the
$105,450 grant to allow students to
experience on-site international study.
“Many students could benefit
greatly from this experience, but
cannot afford to go,” Kleis said.
The Kleis International Study
Travel Grant Program would enable
students, who otherwise would lack
the funds to travel, to enjoy a
broadening experience, he said.
Kleis came to the university in
1966 as head of the agricultural
engineering department, which is now
biological systems engineering.
Before his last position in 1987 at
UNL, Kleis was an associate director
of the Agricultural Experiment
Station, which is now the Agricultural
Research Division, and dean of the
International Programs Division in
the Institute of Agriculture and Natural
Resources.
I spent a lot of good years at the
university, and I feci very strongly
about the programs it offers, espec ial ly
the international one,” Kleis said.
Jack Schinstock, assistant dean of
the College of Agricultural Sciences
and Natural Resources, said the
college was veiy grateful to the Kleis
family for making the funds available.
“We have a significant interest in
the program now,” Schinstock said.
“But, hopefully, the grant will generate
more interest.
The grant will subsidize expenses
associated with a foreign program for
credit, Schinstock said.
Students applying for the grant
must beemolled at UNL in the College
of Agricultural Sciences and Natural
Resources or any other major at UNL
which is related to agriculture,
Schinstock said.
The grant requires students to be
residents of Nebraska and to have
completed a minimum of 40 semester
hours toward a bachelor’s degree with
a cumulative grade point average of
2.7S or above for all college courses
taken.
Kleis said students must also be
working to provide a minimum of 10
percent of the cost of their college
education, said.
“The grant should go to students
who are contributing to their own
education," he said.
Schinstock added that the number
of grants would be limited annually
by the amount of net income available
from the fund.
, Damon Lee/DN
Treven Stuthert, a Lincoln High School senior, puts up soffit panels on the Lincoln High project house during his
applied residential construction class Friday afternoon. Three LHS classes are working on the house near 23rd and
V streets.
If you build it...
Lincoln high school students earn creditforbuilding houses
By Chuck Green
Senior Reporter
For two or three days each
week, students from two
Lincoln high schools leave
their classrooms and gather at 23rd
and U streets.
But they’re not skipping class.
In fact, they receive credit for being
there — from their schools and
residents of the neighborhood.
The students spend about an hour
at the site working together,
building a house.
The
mPnThe meetings
have been
going on at
various sites
in Lincoln
since 1983,
when Eric
y Knoll, an
instructor at
Lincoln
High School, began teaching
Applied ResidcntialConstruction.
Since then, Knoll and students
enrolled in the class have completed
nine houses, and are working on
their 10th — one house per year.
Knoll said the class was targeted
at students interested in
construction as a career, although it
could be helpful for anyone
planning to own a home.
The class gives students a
firsthand look at the process of
building houses, from the
paperwork involved in applying
for leases and loans toCity Planning
Commission meetings, and finally
the actual construction.
Every project, Knoll said, is
finished within the school year.
“The house we’re building this
year should be finished by the end
of May,” he said. “It would have
been sooner, but we didn’t start
construction until November
because we were held up in the
planning stage.”
Once the houses are completed,
See HOUSES on 3
UNL, LPS work together to bring technology to schools
By Mindy Letter
S&f Reporter
The UNL industrial education
program is cooperating with
Lincoln Public Schools to
bring technology into public schools.
Steve Johnston, a UNL industrial
arts graduate assistant, said the
industrial education program used
technology to encourage student
interest in the industrial arts.
The University of Nebraska-Lincoln
participation in such events as LPS’s
“Early Childhood Celebration," held
Saturday at Pershing Auditorium,
encourages student interest in
industrial technology, Johnston said.
“The main benefitof such programs
is that we get to market our programs
and show students what we do," he
said.
Johnston said about 1,000children
attended the childhood fair. He said
many of them stopped by the UNL
industrial arts’ booth to make
aluminum baseball bats using
computer technology and plastic
molds.
Dennis Van Horn of LPS said the
emphasis of such events was to get
young students to sec technology as a
way of life.
r‘We want to gel them involved in
the technology before they can begin
to fear it,” he said.
He said that students would have
an easier time looking at vocational
opportunities in their junior high and
high school years if they were exposed
to technology in their youth.
Neil Edmunds, professor of
vocational and adult education, said
curriculum development was also a
concern of the industrial arts
department. *
“We try to make sure teachers will
be prepared to use the technology in
the schools,” he said.
He said the industrial arts
department has instituted a curriculum
and instruction program with graduate
and student teachers to train them in
the new technology.
See INDUSTRIAL on 3