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February 28, 1994 University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Vol. 93 No. 113
‘BigTwelve’ translates to dollars, sense
By Tim Pearson
Senior Reporter
At the Orange Bowl on Jan. 1, UNL
Chancellor Graham Spanier was doing
more than watching Nebraska play for
the national championship.
He also was in meetings all day drawing up
a plan for the merger between the Big Eight and
Southwest conferences, which was finalized
Friday with the addition of Baylor, Texas A&M,
Texas and Texas Tech to the Big Eight.
Spanier said the addition of the four South
west Conference teams could only help the
university and the conference.
“We think this is not only good for the Big
Eight, but this is especially good for the Univer
sity of Nebraska,” he said. “We believe by
expanding the Big Eight Con
W A
ference to include 12 teams,
rseDrasKa wm De in a
! strengthened position.”
^ But before the university
^ gave i ts approval, Span ier met
Kwith administrators and
JF coaches to hear their opin
ions.
SW Cmference
I was very pleasantly sur
prised to come out of those
discussions finding that there really weren’t
any drawbacks and a long list of positives,”
Spanier said.
There certainly will be no drawbacks finan
cially, Spanicr said.
“We’ve looked at this very carefully finan
cially,” he said. “We are ih the midst of negoti
ations with the television networks about this
12-team league, and 1 can tell you we have offers
on the table that are considerably more gener
ous than we expected.
“We are very optimistic about this 12-team
conference, and financially we’ll comeout ahead
on this.”
Nebraska Athletic Director Bill Byrne said
the conference was talking with both over-the
air networks and cable networks. A television
contract should be announced by the end of
March, he said.
Byrne said discussions with the networks
had included continuing the Ncbraska-Oklaho
ma and Tcxas-Texas A&M football rivalries.
“Some of the proposals we’re looking at, in
fact almost all of the television proposals, call
for a Ncbraska-Oklahoma game and a Texas
Texas A&M game as part of the television
package,” he said. “My guess is that those will
continue.”
The merger came about when the Southeast
Conference signed a television contract with
CBS, which sent other conferences scrambling,
Spanier said.
“It put the Big Eight in a vulnerable position.
See CONFERENCE on 2
New idea
for grades
suggested
ct another proposal has been
submitted to the Academic
Se natc to change the way U N L
professors grade their students.
Psychology professor Don Jensen
issued a memo to the members of the
senate Feb. 16 outlining his proposal.
Jensen’s system would assign a
grade for every credit hour earned. For
example, the highest grade a student
could receive in a five-hour class is
AAA AA, the next would be AAAAB,
and so on.
“Conceptually it’s a very simple
system,” Jensen said. “For a one-hour
course it gives fewer differentiations;
for a three-hour course it gives more
differentiations.”
Jensen’s plan comes after the Aca
demic Senate voted down a proposed
minus system and tabled a proposed
40-point system.
Jensen said a system similar to his
proposal was used at Yale University
when he was a graduate student in
1955-58. He said the system would
keep the University of Nebraska-Lin
coln committed to the A through F
scale—keeping the numerical cquiv
By Matthew Waite
Senior Reporter
aicnts tnc same.
Jensen said the professors to whom
he talked were opposed to the idea.
“Most of them feel like (the sys
tem) would be cumbersome, because
you would have to put down more than
one mark,” Jensen said. “I think that
is a trivial problem.
“Any change gets some opposition
because people prefer not to change,”
he said. “I simply want a variety of
options for the Academic Senate to
consider.”
Jensen said one problem with his
proposal was that a new form would
have to be made for each class earning
a different number of credit hours.
“Those are practicality problems,
which 1 don’t think arc very great,” he
said.
Keith Benes, president of the Asso
ciation ofStudents of the University of
Nebraska, disagreed, saying there
would be other problems of cost to
implement the system and confusion
with the new system.
“Until there is compelling evidence
that there is something wrong... then
there is no reason (to change),” he
said.
Benes said the attitude of the Aca
demic Senate was silly.
“It’s almost chaos ... like these
(professors) think our system sucks,”
Benes said. “There has become this
prevailing attitude that they want to
change it just for the sake of changing
it.
“I’m starting to feel like a rcaction
See GRADE on 3
Jeff Haller/DN
Members of the Kiyira dance ensemble smile while singing and dancing Friday night during their concert at the
Nebraska Union. The Ugandan group performed at the African Peoples’ World Conference.
Conference explores African issues
By Kimberly Spurlock
and Paula Lavlgne
Staff Report**_
As people of color become a
more dominant part of the
United Slates, a speaker said
Friday, Americans need to become
more familiar with the different
cultures around them.
Neville Murray, coordinator of
the Multi-Cultural Arts Council of
Nebraska and keynote speaker at
the first African People’s World
Conference, said everyone, includ
ing blacks, needed to learn more
about the history and culture of
Africans.
“As diversity becomes a fact of
life and not just a buzzword.”
Murray said, “there will be a great
er need for an understanding and
appreciation among cultures.”
The conference included poetry
recitations, presentations on Afri
can music and the art of storytell ing.
and a panel discussion about rela
tions between Africans and African
Americans.
A performance by the Kiyira
Ensemble from Uganda closed the
daylong conference.
Murray said in the past, Afri
cans were not viewed as human
beings.
“We were commodities to be
sold,” he said. Because Africans
not only were dehumanized and
discouraged from learning but also
were robbed of their culture, Murray
said it was “incumbent for Africans
to lcam about their diversity, cre
ativity and beauty."
“It is through that recognition of
self that African people will pros
per.”
Through the arts, including
music and literature, Murray said
one could learn about the many
cultures surrounding Americans
today.
“The best way to understand a
group (of people) is through the arts
— it’s the least intimidating.” he
said.
Murray said that although the
art created by people of color was
not considered good at one point in
American history, people took the
art and claimed it as their own.
“Today the world recognizes jazz
as American classical music.... But
See CULTURE on 3
Banking expert: Americans should save more
By Todd Neeley
Stall Report*_
Before the American dream can
be restored, Americans must
quit spending and start sav
ing, a federal banking expert said
Friday at the Lied Center for Perform
ingArts.
Peter Peterson, an investment bank
er, author and member of the Kerrey
Danforthentitlement reform commis
sion, said the key to investing in
America’s future was addressing
health-care reform and budget issues.
“We need to have a positive vision
about what America should look 1 ike,”
he said to a crowd of about 100 people
attending the Lewis E. Harris Lecture
on Public Policy.
Investing between 6 and 8 percent
of the gross national product, Peterson
said, would be essential in fixing the
national economy. Also, he said, if
Americans would learn to save more
money, it would help to improve the
economy.
“We would be far better off to rely
on personal savings,” he said.
Because the public deficit has
drained about two-thirds of the sav
ings pool, he said, saving money may
not be the solution to combat the def
icit.
“It would be hard to increase pri
vate savings in the near future,” he
said. “But if we could find a way to
encourage more pfcople to save, it may
be a way to partially restore the Amer
ican dream.”
Peterson said Americans needed to
realize what they were doing by let
ting the deficit get out of hand.
“When we pass debts on, we are
committing fiscal child abuse,” he
said.
If the deficit continues at the cur
rent pace, Peterson said, generations
40 or 50 years from now may be
contributing more than 80 percent of
their income to help pay for it.
In 1960, he said, 20 percent of the
national budget was applied to the
national deficit. And in 1990, that
number increased to 60 percent.
“The current deficit is
unsustainable,” Peterson said.
In the next century, he said, it is
See PETERSON on 3
