Presidents
to debate
Dispute persists over
Engineering college
By Brian Sharp
Staff Reporter
It’s a question still unanswered.
But while the dilemma of whether to
create a separate engineering college ip—
Omaha remains with the NU Board of Rcgcijjs.
the students’ presidents arc speaking out.
A debate between Andrew Loudon, presi
dent of the Association of Students of the Uni
versity of Nebraska, and Matt Schulz, president
of the University of Nebraska at Omaha student
government, is scheduled for August 17 in
Omaha at the Swanson Library, located at 90th
and Dodge streets.
"1 see this as the starting point of the much
larger debate as to whether we will have an
engineering college in Omaha,” Loudon said in
a phone interview from Washington D.C.
Loudon spent the summer working for Rep.
Doug Bcrcutcr.
The issue of a separate college is not one of
Lincoln versus Omaha, Loudon said, but of
responsible spending.
“AnOmahacnginccringcollcgcisawasteol
taxpayers money,” Loudon said, “and a misuse
of taxpayer money by the university.”
Schulz disagrees.
In order to justify spending the money now,
Schulz said, it’s necessary to look at the long
term effects that the college would have on
See DEBATE on 2
Jason levkulich/DN
Keep Firing, Boys! )
Members o< the 9th Texas, 3rd Mo. and the Trans Mississippi Rifles, who comprise the “Extra Missouri Battalion,”
advance toward the Federal line at the War Between the States reenactment Sunday August 8th in Grand Island.
UNL participates in project to help Moroccan farmers
By Paula Lavigne
Staff Reporter
Sixteen years ago, the city of
Sattat, Morocco, was suffering
under the impact of a chronic
rm—ii . i ii i I l 111 I II LUH
drought which plagued the country
side leaving its citizens without food
or water.
Now, with the help of the Morocco
Project, the citizcnsof Sattat are learn
ing to live again. The project, which
T-rrhTHi.ru 11 ri r
I M I I Ml 1 1 1 I M m ILLL
Him 11111 ii in in11
James Mehsling/DN
will be officially terminated August
31, was engineered by the Mid-Amer
ican International Agricultural Con
sortium.
Funded by USAID, the program is
composed of educational institutions
in the Midwest in cooperation with
the Moroccan government. The Uni
versity of Nebraska-Lincoln was the
lead university in directing the project.
Larry Bitney, project coordinator
at UNL, said the main goal of the
project was to increase food produc
tion in the dryland area of Morocco.
in order to do this, he said, an
agricultural experiment station was
built near the project area where a
team of American scientists researched
and developed ways to increase crop
production. .
“The reason for the project was
much of the agricultural development
was based on irrigation,” he said.
“They have fairly limited water sup
plies there.”
Bitney said scientists worked on
developing drought-resistant variet
ies of crops. He said they also worked
— 44
It was a chance to
operationalize my U.S.
education for the
benefit of people who
have real needs that
go beyond Just
intellectual curiosity.
Those people are
poor. There Is no
reason why
academics cannot go
to an applied
environment like that
and make a real
impact on people.
—Azzeddine Azzam
UNL Agriculture Economics
Professor
-tf
on developing crops resistant to the
damaging Hessian flies which burrow
deep into the wheat stalks and reduce
the flow of nutrients.
“We wanted to make the crops
much healthier and make more effi
cient use of what is there,” Bitney
said. “Our project runs the gamut of
cultural practices, resistance and dis
eases.”
“All disciplines of agricultural sci
ence are there. It’s apretty well-outfit
ted center,” he said.
Bitney said the project was abroad
ening experience.
“You get a lot of personal satisfac
tion out of it,” he said. “You’re help
ing people help themselves produce
their own food.”
Azzcddine Azzam, an agricultural
economics professor at UNL and na
tive of Casablanca, Morocco, assisted
with the project.
Azzam and his wife, Sarah, worked
together to develop a package for the
economic evaluation of technology at
See MOROCCO on 3