Graham, greenspace gotta go
A i a recent meeting in New
Orleans, I was talking with a
doctoral candidate about her
job interview at the University of
Nebraska. Seeing as I had experience
—three years of law school, a year of
graduate study), she asked me wheth
er she ought to accept an offer were it
made. I told her to go somewhere else.
It’s something I plan to do myself
after my master’s is completed this
spring.
This goes beyond my annoyance
with Herbie Husker and the people
who have to rely on vicarious achieve
ment such as an 11-0 record for their
self-image. Coming from Kansas
State, I’ve gotten a little perspective.
An 8-2-1 season is fine, and so is a
bowl bid. Going 2-8, as they did when
I was there in the mid-’80s, is disap
pointing but not the end of the world.
And they don’t blame the officials,
cither.
No, the problem with NU is that
there seems to be a lack of common
sense at the highest levels of adminis
tration. In the last four years, in be
tween public spats with each other
and racking up frequent-flyer miles
for relat i ves on state-chartered planes,
the regents have managed to:
• Fire a university president with
out discussing the reasons.
• Hire a replacement that wasn’t
even on the list.
• Only keep that replacement for
three years.
It’s a wonder they found anyone to
apply here again. God help Dennis
Smith, our new president, because the
regents won’t.
They haven’t fired the one person
they should, UNL Chancellor Gra
ham Spanier, now in the third year of
his politically correct reign. After
gaining a reputation for destroying
entire programs while in Oregon, he
tried to work some of that old budget
cutting magic here at UNL. First the
classics department had to go. Then,
last year, it was roughly 5 percent of
the university budget after a series of
cuts over several years had already
Here’s an idea. If we simply must
have green space, then I suggest
selling the Apollo 009 capsule to
the Kansas Cosmosphere and
earmarking the funds for green
space.
trimmed programs bare.
Students rallied, marched on the
capitol and managed to forestall most
of the cuts. And now, we find out that
we preserved the budget, but for what?
Green space, that’s what.
&%$#=+@# GREEN SPACE!!
We’re going to take aparking lot used
at night to prevent long walks to out
lying lots and turn it into a damned
park for $200,000. This, after spend
ing $ 100,000 to install new lights and
emergency phones. How does this
man’s thought processes work?
Richards Hall is a run-down hell
hole? Doesn’t matter. Burnett Hall is
loaded with asbestos? So what? Side
walks icing up in winter? Big deal.
Students don’t have enough green
space to si t and commune with nature,
or to gaze at bad abstract art? My God!
Something must be done immediate
ly!!
Here’s an idea. If we simply must
have green space, then I suggest sell
ing the Apollo 009 capsule to the
Kansas Cosmosphere and earmark
ing the funds for green space. If we
can get the NU Board of Regents to
give up their pride in having such an
historic artifact rotting away in a metal
shed, that is.
Other examples of idiocy abound.
The regents have also discovered the
need for an engineering college at
UNO. Seems having an engineering
department 50 miles away isn’t
enough. In March, we were talking
about saving programs; now we’re
spending money we supposedly don’t
have to create them?
Now the regents arc considering
lengthening the residency period be
cause everyone else has a one-year
requirement. This, on top of a tuition
hike this year, shows that whatever
else they have, business sense isn’t
one of them.
NU’s problem is too many stu
dents going out of state, because of
cost, and the perceived low rate of
return on those dollars. The solution
to keeping more students in state, and
attracting them from other states, is
not raising sky-high costs even high
er, but lowering them.
The administration could take a
lead from the residence halls and lock
in a guaranteed tuition rate for a stu
dent’s stay at UNL. I also would
suggest that the entire system get to
gether and eliminate redundant pro
grams, like a UNO engineering col
lege, and then cut tuition by 5 percent
or even 10 percent. Ease residency
requirements or eliminate them alto
gether— it’s the same theory behind
NAFTA. Lower barriers, and they
will come.
The mission of a university is to
educate its students, and the continu
ation of that mission depends on do
ing so at an affordable price. If NU
retains its present focus on pink trian
gles, green space and “diversity,” if
the only thing we can take pride in is
the annual thrashing in a bowl game,
if the administration is inept at man
aging the business end of the univer
sity, then NU roundly deserves to fade
into irrelevance.
Kepfleld is a graduate student in history
and a Daily Nebraskan columnist.
Humans have been unleashed
All cultures of all ages have told
stories of gods who fly through
the air, perceive at great dis
tances and possess a knowledge larg
er than the limited human sphere.
Today, we are those gods.
And like those gods we possess
frightening powers over nature. We
cause the extinction of species at the
rate of one per day. We can evaporate
cities in less time.
Technology has changed every
thing. There is something new under
the sun; we can no longer pretend
otherwise.
We are living in the future our
grandparents dreamed of.
Within a single lifetime the human
species has accomplished more than
in hundreds of years previously.
The first human landing on the
moon, the eradication of smallpox
from the planet, the dawning of the
silicon age and the advent of chaos
theory, these arc my contemporaries
— the current events of my brief life.
And there is always the temptation
to project, to imagine the future will
be like today, only different.
We want to draw a 1 ine around our
times that includes a tomorrow and a
day after. But the only line we have
the right to draw is a dotted one.
If I imagine that I can tell you
something of the future — flesh out
that line and connect the dots — I
have to accept the limits of my gaze.
I can only see what’s possible.
But I’m fortunate to live in an age
of possibilities; almost anything I pre
dict will come true, somewhere.
Because we are an unchained spe
cies, or can become so.
Not long ago 1 would have grown
up doing pretty much what my father
did. My sisters would have emulated
my mother.
The modern era is an era of op
tions, if it’s anything at all.
The dissemination and prolifera
tion of technologies has made this
We want to draw a line around our
times that includes a tomorrow
and a day after. But the only line
we have the right to draw is a
dotted one.
possible. Today anyone can cut an
album, publish a novel, correspond
with VIPs from around the globe and
spy on the neighbors using technolo
gies that were completely unavail
able 15 years ago.
Electronic media, digital data stor
age, fiber optics, commercial satellite
transmission and laser technologies
have opened up a world of possibili
ties. Think of that next time you stop
by a copy center or fax your parents.
Think of it every time you look at
a photograph taken this morning in
Bosnia or watch a show on cable TV.
The near future will experience an
explosion of options as high-end tech
nologies move down the scale toward
accessibility.
Lifestyle options, aided by techno
logical networks, will continue to pro
liferate.
Even now one can buy a glossy
magazine on literally any topic, from
roller-blading to midgets. And spe
cial interest groups, using new tech
nologies like VCRs and E-mail, are
exchanging information at an expo
nential growth rate. _ ^
I regularly watch Japanese anima
tion and television shows download
ed direct from the satellite. Lots of
people do.
The result of this kind of prolifer
ation is irreversible. We can never go
back.
Talk about traditional family val
ues and old-time religion just doesn’t
make sense anymore.
Sure, a lot of people will continue
to believe as their grandparents did,
but they will never again constitute
the overwhelm ing majority those same
grandparents always counted on.
As the number of people in “alter
native lifestyles” grows, talk of “al
ternative” will stop making sense.
We will one day view alternatives
of belief or life choice with eyes that
have grown used to difference. We
w il I no longer sec diffcrencc as threat
ening.
People who speak different lan
guages and live in countries on oppo
site sides of the globe will be in con
stant contact withone another through
electronic networks.
The danger is that oppressive forc
es will react as they feel their throttle
grip failing. They will create new
“Red Scares” to keep a frightened
populace out of touch and under con
trol.
But in the long run — and here I
engage long-range sensors — they
will fail.
Governments and multinational
corporations are slow-moving and
dimwitted, like our old model of the
dinosaurs. They will have to run, like
the rest of us, just to keep up.
These arc exciting times. If 1 could
live at any time in history I would
choose now—today, right this minute
— to do my living in.
Baldridge It a senior English major, a
Dally Nebraskan arts and entertainment se
nior reporter and a columnist.
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