<4 SPORTS
Fifth-place
Finish
The 11 th-ranked
Husker wrestling
team won four of s
matches at the
National Dual
Championships in
Lincoln.
Page 5
Monday
53/21
Today, partly cloudy
with a chance of
rain in the evening.
January 24, 1994
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Vol. 93 No. 86
Fraternity found violating rules on alcohol
By Jeff Zeleny
Senior Editor
Sigma Nu Fraternity faces possible sanc
tions by the Greek Judicial Board in
connection with a party involving alco
hol and female strippers last Friday.
This was the second City Campus fraterni
ty house in two weeks where university offi
cials found alcohol.
No arrests were made after University of
Nebraska-Lincoln police broke up the Sigma
Nu party.
James Griesen, UNL vice chancellor for
student affairs, received an anonymous tip
about the party and notified police.
Officials report second greek group in two weeks
Griesen broke up a party on Jan. 13 in
another City Campus fraternity. He did not
disclose the name of that fraternity because of
the Student Code of Conduct confidentiality
clause. However, sources told the Daily Ne
braskan the Kappa Sigma house was involved
in the Jan. 13 incident.
Kappa Sigma officers would not confirm
or deny reports.
The Sigma Nu incident was made public
because university police were called to the
party, Griesen said.
UNL Police Sgt. Bill Manning said offic
ers arrived at the Sigma Nu house Friday at
2:06 a.m. and observed female strippers
through a basement window, Manning said.
Sigma Nu executive officers told police
there was a small amount of beer in the
basement — no more than a few six-packs.
The party was dispersed without incident,
Manning said, and no citations were issued
because police did not personally observe any
alcohol consumption, and there was no indi
cation of a law violation.
“There was no evidence of minors con
suming there,” Manning said.
Police did not enter the Sigma Nu house.
Fraternities and sororities are owned by
private corporations and are not university
property. Police cannot enter the houses with
out permission, Manning said.
However, five university officials can en
ter the houses at any time without permission.
They include: Griesen; Assistant Vice Chan
cellors for Student Affairs Peg Blake and
Doug Zatechka; Linda Schwartzkopf, student
judicial affairs director; and Jayne Wade
Anderson, director of greek affairs.
University officials received anonymous
tips about both fraternity parties, Griesdn
said, which may indicate the university com
See FRATERNITY on 3
Washington grading officials:
Decimal system works for us
By Angie Brunkow
Senior Reporter_
See related story on page 3.
Registration officials at universities using
a decimal grading system said they had
heard no complaints.
Virjean Edwards, assistant registrar for
records at the University of Washington in
Seattle, said the university’s 40-point grading
system gave professors a lot of flexibility when
assigning grades.
Under the system, adopted about 20 years
ago, professors assign students a numerical
grade between 4.0 and 0.7, she said. Students
earning a traditional A can earn grade points
between 3.4 and 4.0.
The University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s Aca
demic Senate will consider a proposal to change
UNL’s letter-grade system to a decimal system
at its February meeting.
Earl Hawkey, director of UNL’s Office of
Registration and Records, said only about 1
percent of U.S. universities used the decimal
system.
Although Hawkey said he didn’t know why
so few schools used the decimal system, he
guessed that few changed to it because they
were used to the system they had.
“A lot of it is simply tradition,” he said.
Clarice Wolfstone, superintendent of the
grade information office at the University of
Washington, said faculty pressure led her uni
versity to make the change from the A-B-C-D
F system used before the mid-1970s.
“They (faculty) felt there wasn’t enough
range,” she said.
Faculty pressure also prompted the change
to a decimal system at Eastern Washington
University at Cheney.
Debbie Fockler, program manager for the
registrar, said the decimal system gave profes
sors more leeway in grading the university’s
8,000 students.
Edwards said professors needed the 40 pos
sible grading options to accurately evaluate
their students.
“I think professorsareundera lot of pressure
from students,” she said.
Instead of giving a student a C grade and 2.0
points, a professor can accurately show wheth
er a student got a high or low C and assign grade
points accordingly, she said.
Wolfstonc said many students were leery of
the change before it occurred, fearing it would
be impossible to earn a 4.0.
Although exact figures were unavailable,
Edwards said it would be rare for one of the
University of Washington’s 32,000 students to
have a 4.0 cumulative GPA.
Hawkey said UNL had 399 students with a
cumulative 4.0 GPA — 61 seniors, 69 juniors,
See GRADES on 3
Arab students recollect war
By Kara G. Morrison
S0nbr R9Qort9f_
Last week’s three-year anniversary of the
Persian Gulf War brought memories of
another struggle to UNL students of
Arab descent.
Amin Ismail came home from his classes at
the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and turned
on the news on Jan. 16,1991.
“I cried when I saw it. It was really hard for
me to observe what was going on.... We were
all hoping for a more peaceful solution," Ismail,
a senior finance major, said.
Ismail’s entire family was living in Jerusa
lem. He spent the night on the telephone with
family members who, although safe, feared the
possibility of an all-out war in the region.
Tarek Tarawneh, who is working on ms
doctorate in civil engineering at UNL, was
living in Amman, Jordan, when the war broke
out.
“It was 3 o’clock over there. I woke up and
my mom was crying,” Tarawneh said. “She
said, ‘They’re bombing.’ I looked out and all
the lights in the neighborhood were on.
“Amman didn’t go to sleep that night,” he
said. “In fact, Amman didn’t go to sleep until
after the war.”
Nabil Zeidan spent most of Jan. 16 calling
his family members in the West Bank.
Zeidan, a junior business administration
major at UNL, was a student at the University
of Nebraska at Omaha when the war started.
“I was sleeping,” Zeidan said. “Someone
called me and told me to turn on the TV.... They
were talking about the airstrikes.
“I had to call my family, who lives in the
West Bank. They told me nothing was going on.
They hadn’t heard yet that the war had started.”
School didn’t help matters.
“The first couple days of the war, I didn’t go
to school because I was worried about home...
and because I thought there would be some
American students who wouldn’t like the idea
of an Arab or Palestinian walking around in the
student union,” Zeidan said.
When Zeidan finally left his television screen
and telephone and went back to his classes, he
heard, “F—ing Palestinian, go back home.”
Ismail, who was bom in Chicago, said he and
other students of Arab descent endured their
own battle at UNL.
“We had a lot of problems as far as harass
ment. People starting fights with us when were
were out, (shouting) racial slurs...” he said.
And while those of Arab descent had to be on
their guard in the United States, the U.S. Em
bassy was being closely protected by the Jorda
nian government, Tarawneh said.
“I came to the States a year after the war and
still felt the hatred Americans had for Arabs. I
thought ‘What did I do? I haven’t done any
thing.’”
In downtown Lincoln, three years after the
war, Tarawneh still hears phrases like “sand
nigger" directed at him.
Zeidan, Tarawneh and Ismail all say they
strongly believe U.S. involvement was yet
another unjustified interference in the region
by a superpower, and that the war was about oil,
not human rights. They sympathized with those
who worried about American troops and wor
See STUDENTS on 3
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Damon Lee/DN
Cal Thomas, a nationally syndicated columnist, addresses a crowd at
the 19th annual Walk for Life Saturday at the Nebraska Capitol. The walk,
sponsored by Nebraska Right to Life, involved an estimated 5,000 anti
abortion activists.
Columnist leads Walk tor Lite
Thomas urges crowd
not to give up faith
By Matthew Waite
Smtbr Reporter___
See related story on page 2.
The anti-abortion movement has been
pronounced dead by politicians and
the national media, according to a
speaker at Saturday’s 19th annual Walk for
Life.
“It's conventional wisdom, and as usual,
it's exactly wrong, said Cal Thomas, a
nationally syndicated conservative colum
nist.
Thomas kicked ofT the march, sponsored
by Nebraska Right to Life, at the steps of the
Nebraska Capitol. The march ended at the
Nebraska Union.
He said abortion-rights advocates were
making choices for pregnant women.
“Women are being herded like cattle into
making predetermined decisions by the left
in this country,” he said.
Americans view government as God,
See RALLY on 2
