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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 12, 1994)
Activist offers challenge Speaker addresses changing roles of gays and lesbians By Swm McCarthy_ Staff Reporter National Coming Out Day ended at UNL Tuesday night with a chal lenge from a gay rights activist to obliterate the proverbial closet. Toric Osborn spoke in front of about 300 students, faculty and visi tors in the Nebraska Union Ballroom. The speech, sponsored by the Univer sity Program Council, lasted more than an hour and was followed by a question and answer session. Osborn, an activist for almost 30 years, spent 22 of those years out of the closet. She emerged as a national figure for gay rights in April 1993 when she served as a media spokes woman during the march on Wash ington for lesbian and gay rights. During that year, she also met with President Clinton to discuss gay issues. She directed two major gay organizations: the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and the Los An geles Gay and Lesbian Community Services Center. During the speech, Osborn dis cussed the role gays and lesbians have in history and in society. “This is an extraordinary time for gays and lesbians in society,” said Osborn, “Virtually every institution in the 1990s is grappling with homophobia.” Osborn called the time between July 1992 and the present a cataclys mic period. She referred to the period as “Stonewall II” because gay and lesbian issues were put on the Ameri can social agenda. Gay rights issues were first put on the social agenda in the 1960s. she said. In the late 1960s, police raided Slonewail, a New York City gay bar. The event became a rallying point for homosexuals. Four factors brought gay and les bian issues to the forefront of national attention, Osborn said. The first fac tor was Clinton’s presidential vic tory. During the election, Clinton publicly courted the gay vote, she said. The second factor, she said, was the rise of the right wing, which gave gays and lesbians a wake-up call. The third factor was the rise of thousands of gay and lesbian support groups. The final factor was AIDS and its effect on communities. During the speech, Osborn talked about homophobia and the difficul ties of coming out of the closet. Osborn said homosexuals must have courage when facing parents and peers. “There’s nothing more free than coming out of the closet,” Osborn said. New group to handle ticket jam By John Fulwldw Staff Reporter A second parking appeals com mittee is being formed to handle the backlog of ticket appeals, said UNL's parking manager at a Parking Advi sory Committee meeting Tuesday. Tad McDowell said the addition would give students more opportuni ties to schedule their appeals. The backlog of appeals has been caused by the infrequent meeting of the appeals committee. Time con flicts between committee members have made meeting times difficult to arrange. The advisory committee also dis cussed the upcoming annual campus safety walk. The walk is designed to improve campus safety for students and faculty who walk on campus late at night. Representatives from the advisory committee, university police and other groups will walk the campus at 4 a.m. on Nov. 12. The walk is scheduled for a time when all building lights will be off. During the walk, the group will look for poorly lit areas on campus and for overgrown bushes and trees that could conceal assailants. Daryl Swanson, committee chair man, said he planned to invite repre scntativcs from the Women’s Center because of the importance of night time safety to women. The committee also reviewed pro posals to improve existing parking areas. The committee denied a proposal to pave the rock lot east of Cather Pound Residence halls. The group said the $670,000 cost of the project was too much. Another rock lot north of Harper Schramm-Smith also will not be paved because of a possible city project to build a bypass there. The bypass will relieve traffic congestion on 16th and 17th streets. Libraries to reduce periodicals By Chad Lorenz _ Staff Reporter Cuts will have to be made in the number of periodical titles in UNL’s libraries, the library dean told the Academic Senate on Tuesday. “I’m not thrilled to be here to talk on this topic,” Kent Hendrickson said. Hendrickson said the rising infla tion on periodicals would cause the University of Nebraska-Lincoln li braries to cut 1,500 periodical titles from its collection in January 19%. The inflation on serials, such as medical and political science jour nals, has driven up their prices an average of 11 percent each year for the past five years, he said. The li braries' budget for materials has in creased only 2.4 percent. Hendrickson snowed a graph indi cating that the price of the periodicals increased at a greater rate than medi cal and higher education costs. The increasing inflation on peri odicals resulted from fluctuations of the dol lar in Western Europe, he said. And UNL libraries spend more than half of their serial budget on serials from Western Europe, Hendrickson said. “They’re price-gouging us to death,” Hendrickson said of Euro pean publishers. Hendrickson's solution is to cut $350,000 worth of serials in January 1996. The subscriptions are paid through the end of 1995. The libraries will offer Journal Express to compensate for the loss of materials, Hendrickson said. UNL faculty members, staff and graduate students can have articles not avail able in UNL’s libraries sent to them through the service within three days. Hendrickson said he still would seek additional library funds to cover the rising costs of periodicals. The long-term solution to serial inflation, however, is to get publish ers in Europe to control prices, he said. “There’s not enough of us... argu ing about this.” ASUN may ask for lobbying effort From Staff Reports ASUN senators will discuss a bill at its meeting tonight that would di rect the Government Liaison Com mittee to lobby against the creation of a separate engineering college at UNO. Andrew Loudon, president of the Association of Students of the Uni versity ofNebraska, said the bill would tell GLC members to convince the University ofNebraska Board of Re gents and Nebraskans that a separate engineering college at the University ofNebraska at Omaha was not needed. Stylish slapstick! SCAPiNO ' October 6-8 & 11-15 TICKETS ON SALE NOW! CALL 472.2073 THEATRE ARTS & DANCE BOX OfFICE: TEMPLE BUILDING, I2TH4R STREETS UNIVERSITY Of NEBRASKA-LINCOLN If the bill is passed, Loudon said, GLC will conduct letter-writing cam paigns and make phone calls during the next six weeks to regents in west ern Nebraska and in Lincoln. Loudon said he wanted to provide regents and their constituents with information about the cost of a new engineering college, the lack of state funds to pay for it and the need to avoid duplication of programs. GLC members have a lot to ac complish before NU President L. Dennis Smith accepts a report in mid November from the engineering task force, Loudon said. The task force is creating a plan for implementing an engineering college at UNO if the .regents decide one is necessary. Loudon said GLC members must stress how the quality of education of engineering students would be af fected if a separate college was cre ated. “Now that we see how the issue is coming to a head, we will make sure that the regents and the people of Nebraska know how (engineering) students and their parents feel about it,” he said. Student Organization Conference October 22 on East Campus October 23 on City Campus 1 p.m. - 4 p.m. For more information contact Office of Student Involvement 200 Nebraska Union Blaze a trail to sucess and register today! Gerik Parmele/DN Scott Roower, a music education major, takes flyers condemning homosexuality from people. Day Continued from Page 1 “We want to affirm who we are and ' encourage others to come out ” National Coming Out Day is just an extension of the civil rights movement, Pavao said. “By having us here, we’re here. We’re not on TV and in the news papers, and we’re not dressed in leather or dressed as drag queens,” Pavao said. Robert Anderson, a senior po litical science major, approached the microphone and leafed through a book of gay and lesbian poetry, searching for the poem he wanted to read. “I ’ m gay; I’ve been here for four years,” he said. Although he said he expected more people to come, he said the event would have a positive effect. “We want to show gay and les bian people that we have a voice. We can talk,” Anderson said. He said National Coming Out Day should show people who were afraid to disclose their sexuality that they had support. “We want to reach out to our ‘family’ in the closet,” he said. V i " 3 5 f ® s. 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