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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 7, 1994)
McAuliffe’s dreams preserved Columbus teacher wins award named after astronaut By Paula Lavigne Senior Reporter_-j._ Grace Corrigan, the mother of teacher Christa McAuliffe, was in Lincoln this weekend to help keep the dreams of her daughter alive. Eight years ago, the nation watched in horror as the space shuttle Chal lenger exploded in blue skies over Florida, taking the lives of seven as tronauts with it. McAuliffe was among those seven. But her example lives on in the Christa McAuliffe prize given by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. The Christa McAuliffe award is presented annually to a Nebraska ed ucator who displays courage and ex cellence in education. This year’s re cipient was Ronald Callan, a biology teacher at Columbus High School in Columbus. During her first visit to Lincoln, Corrigan was a special guest at the awards ceremony. Corrigan, author of “A Journal for Christa,” spent the weekend lecturing, signing books and attending workshops. The book was recently published by the University of Nebraska Press. She said she was overwhelmed by the support herdaughtcr’s efforts have received. “I’m very touched by them, these awards arc all over the country,” she 17th & TNT 8t. No Appointments Necessary 476-9466 $6°° Off Full Service Oil Change *We change oil. oil filter up to 5 quarts 'We lubncate the chassis 'We check and fill: Automatic transmis sion fluid only, brake fluid, battery fluid, power steering fluid, and washer fluid * We check anti freeze, air filter, wiper blades, tire pressure, vacuum interior, and wash your windows Best Service In Just 10 Minutes Most brands available Expires 5-31-94 Mon-Fri 8-6 Sat 8-4 said. Corrigan said she knew of at leas 1,000 teachers honored by her daugh ter’s legacy. “1 have met wonderful teachers,’ she said. “I couldn’t really tell yoi how proud I was of them.” Corrigan, whose work takes her tc educational institutions across the country, said she had to carry on her daughter’s mission. “She really did make quite an im pact on education,” she said. “We’ve heard from people all around the world who felt they knew her as a teacher, friend, sister or the girl next door.” In her travels, Corrigan said she encouraged children to not worry aboul success. “You have to follow your dreams,” Corrigan said. “And you have to get a lot of fun out of it.” She said students told her about the impact her daughter made on them. Corrigan said McAuliffe left teachers all around the nation with higher lev els of esteem for their occupations. “She made teachers so proud ot themselves,” she said. “She gave them a pride they didn’t have before.” If McAuliffe were here today, she would be overwhelmed by the impact she had made, Corrigan said. Gregg Wright, associate professor of educational psychology at UNL, was one of the founders of the Nebras ka award. Wright, who had three small children at the time of the tragedy, said his whole family was anticipating McAuliHe’s lessons from space. “My wife and I, right after the TANNING SPRING BREAK STUDENT SPECIAL 10 sessions for $20 with student ID. Offer gcxxl only with this ad Kxpircs 3-31-94 Wolff System Bed & Bulbs for darker tan \ \ViJj7✓ . gaail 70th & A 489-6998 Low Cost Tax Preparation. It's Easy. ® J NEBRASKA It’s Quick. BOOKSTORE No Hassles. Professional Preparation. Instant Refund Loans.* Ib Qualified Filers accident, wanted to do something,” he said. With the help of several donors, a fund was established to honor Ne braska’s teachers. “We undervalue teaching,” he said. “We needed a prize to honor Nebraska teachers for courage.” “Teachers are such a huge part of what wc do,” he said. “We should be attracting all the best men and women into teaching.” _ Wright said Callan was chosen because he was clearly a committed teacher. “His students said he really paid individual attention to them,” he said. “He was really clear about the impor tance of education.” When Callan was called and told he won the award, he thought it was a practical joke. “When I finally realized it was legitimate, I was overwhelmed,” Callan said. Callan, who has been teaching for 30 years, said he enjoyed his job. “I really like young people,” he said. “And it’s from liking young peo ple and education that makes caring easy.” “I care that young people have success,” he said. Because of society’s damage to young people, teachers have to raise their self-esteem, he said. “You can take them any place,” he said. “You can make them fly.” Callan was honored at the ceremo ny along with other nominees Mary Jean Blumcnstock and Sharron Shipp of Lincoln and Paul Lindgren of Nor folk. \ Class notes go electronic By Jennifer Groen Staff Reporter Students in three UNL classes no longer have to dig through mounds of paper and packets for class notes and sample test ques tions. Gopher works for them. Charles Ansorge, professor of health and human performance at the University ofNebraska-Lincoln, said he used to have his students buy a packet from Kinko’s, but all the class information had been put into a computer program named Gopher. William Glider, biology teach ing laboratory coordinator at UNL, uses Gopher for his Biology 101 class, and Ansorge uses it for his two graduate-level statistics class es. Storing all of the information in the computer could save a tree or two, Ansorge said. Gopher—named after the mas cot of the University of Minnesota, where the program was designed — makes class information more accessible to students. They can even get class notes and make cop ies off Gopher, Ansorge said. Off-campus students with a per sonal computer can enter the Go pher program if they have a modem and a computer account, said Paul Kramer, the Computing Resource Center mainframe computer sup port specialist. Computer accounts are $10 per semester, modems cost $ 100 or less. Ansorge said about one-third of his students had their own personal computers and modems. Most of his other students said they were going to purchase modems, he said. Wende Baker, a graduate stu dent in health education, is in one of Ansorgc’s statistics classes. Baker, who owns a PC and mo dem, said she used Gopher fre quently to get information about her class. “I find it helpful to be able to look up problems and test samples that he gives us,” Baker said. “It’s a very useful tool. “It’s an absolutely wonderful, wonderful thing.” Tim Druckc, a graduate student in postsecondary education admin istration, also is in Ansorge’s class. Gopher has some advantages, Drueke said. “You don’t have to pay for a packet or copies, and it’s easy to communicate with your teacher,” he said. Druckc doesn’t own a PC or modem, but he has considered pur chasing the equipment. In the mean time, he has used Gopher once or twice from the computer laboratory in Mabel Lee Hall. RHA votes to oppose grading proposal By Stacie Hake I Staff Reporter The Residence Hall Association voted Sunday to oppose a proposed grading plan that some say may put UNL students at an academic disad vantage. RHA voted 16-3 against the pro posal, with three senators abstaining. James Ford, associate professor of English, will propose to the Academic Senate on Tuesday to change the present half-step, or nine-point grad ing system, toa40-pointgradingscalc. The new system would allow pro fessors to assign students any grade between 0.7 and 4.0, instead of the Investigation Continued from Page 1 Casady said police had not yet determined who owned the gun, a .22-caliber revolver. “We’re trying to find out more information based on the serial number,” Casady said. “But it can take some time to trace a serial number.” University Police Chief Ken Cauble said Steele had contacted him last Monday and asked Cauble whether he should attempt to re cover the weapon involved in the shooting incident. “I told him if it was possible to go ahead and do that,” Cauble said. During the same phone call, Cauble said Steele asked him what should be done with the weapon if it was recovered. Cauble said he told Steele to turn the weapon over to him or to the city police. Cauble said he did not talk to Steele until Wednesday afternoon, afier Steele already had turned the gun over to city police. Steele told Cauble he had unsuccessfully tried to contact him Tuesday. Cauble said the athletic depart ment had not tried to withhold the weapon. “There was no effort to conceal the evidence," Cauble said. “Coach Steele went far beyond what he had to to help secure the weapon and provide it to law enforcement." current half-step system where stu dents can be assigned one of nine letter grades, translating into incre ments of 0.5 on their grade point average. Trent Steele, first viccprcsident of Association of Studcntsof the Univer sity of Nebraska, attended the Jan. 23 RHA meeting to get feedback from senators on the proposed scale. “To be fair, it can cut both ways,” Steele said. “Overall, this will really, really have a dramatic effect on grade point proposals. 1 think this will be the biggest academic issue we will have all year. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Let's not change it if there’s not an over whelming cry for a change in the grading system.” In other business, James Mackicwicz, residential enhancement committee co-chairman, presented the National Residence Hall Honorary Government Evaluation. Mackiewicz said the surveys com pleted by the executive board revealed that more attention needed to be cen tered on whether RHA represented and served the residents and the level of activity of RHA. The evaluation team also found the meetings were too “light-hearted” and that there was a lack of parliamentary procedure, Mackiewicz said. UNL seeks top students Enrollment post created to keep scholars in state By Angie Brankow Senior Reporter Kris Dillon said she would make sure more of Nebraska’s top high school students stayed at the Univer sity of Nebraska-Lincoln for college. On Feb. 1, Dillon filled a new position asassistantdirector for honor student enrollment at UNL. Lisa Schmidt, director of high school and college relations at UNL, said the position was created as part of a reorganization ofher office designed to target special students. Previously, Schmidt said, all re cruiters tried to attract those types of students, but couldn’t give them much specialized recruiting attention. Rod Brakke, director of guidance at Omaha Burke High School, said he thought UNL did a good job of attract ing top Nebraska scholars. Of the top 100 seniors attending Burke, Brakke said, one-fourth usual ly choose UNL each year. “As of last year’s class, that started with the valedictorian and went on down,’’ he said. Don Dean, associate principal of Lincoln Southeast High School, said of the top 11 to 16 graduating seniors at his high school, one-third to one half chose UNL. Both high school officials agreed that for UNL to attract more it needed to tailor its efforts toward honor stu dents. Brakkc said competition among universities for students was “keen.” “The student population is getting slimmer in this country,” he said, “especially for the quality student.” “You got to be out there working at (recruiting),” he said. Brakke said some universities lured students away by having a reputation of being selective. “That’s an automatic given for cer tain schools,” he said. Dean said other students chose out of-state institutions to get away from home. A personalized recruiter may over come these hurdles to keep top stu dents at UNL, Brakkc said. Like athletes, he said, honor stu dents want to think they’re wanted at a university. Dillon said the university always had welcomed honor students to visit, but had never actively sought them out. With her new position, Dillon said she could invite honor students to Lincoln and personalize the visits to meet their needs. Dean said UNL may need to uo more to make the students enroll. Out-of-state schools put together attractive financial aid packages for Nebraska honor students, he said. Dillon said financial constraints did limit recruiting. “We do what we can with the schol arship money we have,” she said. The university is planning to begin awarding scholarships and putting together aid packages earlier to en courage students to commit to UNL.
