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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 7, 1995)
Grant allows engineering college to expand, improve curriculum By Wendy Thomas Staff Reporter A research grant awarded to UNL by the U.S. Department of Transportation will allow the Col lege of Engineering and Technol ogy to expand and improve its curriculum, an engineering pro fessor said Monday. Patrick McCoy said the college would develop specialized courses and offer fellowships to minorities and women as a part of its ad vancement in transportation re search. UNL is sharing the $30 million grant with 10 universities, each representing a region of the coun try. The money will be used to establish research centers at each ' site, McCoy said. The $ 1 million awarded to UNL each year will be matched by non federal funding. That way, the re search center will receive a total of $2 million to spend for the year. The program could last anywhere from two to six years. McCoy said that the theme for the center would be “the improve ment of design and operation of transportation facilities and ser vices in Mid-America.'', That is why the research will be based primarily in engineering, he said. The center’s goals, McCoy said, include development of courses in areas of weakness. He said a sur vey of the region would identify those weaknesses. “Already we have a very good program in transportation,” he said, “and certainly when you look re gion-wide, the survey would iden tify holes in that program.” - Two such holes are the areas of human factors in transportation and the impact of transportation on the environment. McCoy said new classes would probably be intro duced to address those issues. The human resources compo nent of the center will be improved by offering fellowships to gradu ate students, minorities and women and by enacting a program that would aggressively recruit faculty and students, McCoy said. * The Department of Transporta tion awarded the universities with grants, in part to create research opportunities for students and prac titioners already in the field, said a representative for the University Research and Education depart ment in Washington, D.C. The goals of the departments are: — To develop multi-disciplin ary education programs. — To increase the number of people who are attracted to the field of transportation. — To increase the diversity of those people. — To develop an objective project for selecting research that advances the theme. — To develop a quality control mechanism to ensure the high qual ity of research. — To operate systems for the transfer of knowledge and tech nology. “As long as each center does things to advance each of those six goals, we don’t either micro-man age them or put them through a cookie cutter,” the representative said. The techniques that UNL plans to use in most areas will be shared and complemented by five other universities — the University of Kansas, Kansas State University, the University of Missouri, the University of Missouri-Columbia and the University of Missouri Rolla. “What we hope is that once the grant is over, we will have this program in place and that it will be ongoing,” McCoy said. Yfaim rm Msdl Look For These Great Savings Every Tuesday In The Student ID Section . THE GRIND ESPRESSO BAR In the Reunion.. .between 14th & 1.6th on W Street. M-F 7 am to 3pm 435-5838 (Bring in your Student I D. for a 10% _discount.) M^nia/re Speeds' 25% off Acrylic Nails reg. $40 - NOW $30 25% off Rebalance Expires 2*22*95 reg. $20-NOW $15 3810 Normal Blvd. Both offers good with UNL Student ID. ^ 483-4726 ~_ _ Open Evenings Lincoln's Hotspot MfJkOfStDancing-Pool* Spirits D J- Dancing...ciub Mix W w 12TH & O in the Centrum «*SDAV $1 longnccks FREE ADMISSION w/student I.D. I I___L kncsdaY College Night 500 drinks/$1.50 pitchers FREE ADMISSION w/ student l.D. ■: V ' 3| MING PfiLfiCE CHINESE RESTAURANT $1 OFF lunch Sat.8 Sun. (SS min. good for Sat A Sun. only) OR or $2 OFF Evening Meal ($10 minimum purchase) 15% OFF Purchase of $15 or more for evening meals (for evening meal) $100 First Prize $50 Second Prize $$$ Paid back to all teams Doubles Starts Mid-February $10 Entry Fee w/ Student ID Sign Up NOW at Morgan's Upstairs 1409 O Street r"' Thursday Night $2 Off Pitchers w/ Student ID 18230 Street Law & Order _ / 1 I_I Weekend assault, robbery j keep cops on their toes | From Staff Reports An area Coastal Mart was robbed at knife-point over the weekend, Lin coln police said. A clerk at the convenience store, located at 900 South St., reported a loss of $111 in the Saturday incident. Police reports give the following account: The clerk was outside at about 11:23 p.m. checking the gas pumps when a man came around the east side of the building. He followed the clerk into the store and around the counter. The clerk then noticed a knife in the man’s hand. He demanded money from the cash drawer and fled, taking the money and two packs of Marlboro cigarettes, the clerk reported. The man was last seen heading north down a nearby alley. Sgt. Ann Heermann said police were looking for a 19- to 20-year-old Caucasian or Hispanic man about 5 feet 6 inches tall and weighing 170 pounds. The clerk described the man as having a heavy build, shoulder length dark hair and wearing dark pants and a striped jacket, Heermann said. Police have no suspects in the incident. In other incidents: Terry Jones, 1508 S. 7th St., was arraigned Monday on an attempted first-degree sexual assault charge and a first-degree false imprisonment charge. A $50,000 percentage bond was set, and Jones was ordered to have no contact with the victim. Jones was arrested Sunday after police received the following report from a 36-year-old Lincoln woman: The woman reported she had been drinking at a friend’s house and was walking near 1 Oth and South streets at 1 a.m. Sunday when Jones, 32, offered her a ride. She said she ac cepted the ride though she did not know Jones. After she got in the car, the woman said Jones hit her several times in the face and told her to do what he wanted. Police reports show Jones drove to the 500 block of Sumner Street and told the woman get in the backseat and undress. While Jones was un dressing in the front seat, the woman fled, according to police. Persons nearby assisted the woman after hearing her screams, police said. Police later found the car stuck in a ditch and traced it to Jones. A rash of vandalism in university parking lots this weekend totaled $700 in broken windows. UNL police reports show four windows were broken Friday night in the area 1 lot at 19th and R streets. Another window was broken in an area 1 lot at 17th and R streets Satur day morning. Merger Continued from Page 1 newspapers throughout the Midwest. Under the agreement, Journal Lim ited Partnership, the Seacrest family entity that owned the company, will trade its 50.25 percent controlling interest in exchange for 7 percent of Lee common stock, which makes it one of the corporation’s largest share holders. Richard Gottlieb, president and CEO of Lee Enterprises, said he ex pected the transaction to be complete by March 31. Ron Rickman, vice president of newspapers for Lee, said any changes in the newspapers would be decided by the newspapers’ management, not Lee Enterprises. Rickman declined to say if the newsrooms would merge, but said he expected a decision about a possible merger to be made sometime this year. The newspapers already share sports, photography and advertising staffs. Gordon Winters, managing editor of The Lincoln Star, said he didn’t know whether the deal would result in layoffs. Winters said layoffs weren’t men tioned when the agreement was an nounced Monday morning. Craig Swanson, editor of the Jour nal, could not be reached for com ment Monday. John Bender, assistant professor of journalism at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, said the agreement was part of a trend in the newspaper industry that began in the 1920s. Since that time, he said, the number of cities with more than one daily news paper has been declining. This trend is due in part, he said, to the Newspaper Preservation Act of 1970, which allowed newspapers to combine all aspects of their opera tions except newsrooms. Bender said the act was supposed to save independent newspapers but hasn’t. “We’re still moving in that direc tion toward one-newspaper towns,” he said. “This, today, is just part of this trend.” Wildlife Continued from Page 1 “Burning’s the hard work — it’s hot and dirty,” said club member Mike Bullerman. After waiting for just the right wind and weather conditions, the group uses drip torches, fire lines and fire borders to start and control the flames, Bullerman said, j One of the club’s larger controlled bums took place last April on a 60 acre project at Camp Comhusker near Humboldt. “We were really pleased with the bum, because we coordinated it over a large area with hills where we couldn’t see everybody. It was still very successful,” Bullerman said. Heyne said removing trees and burning large areas of land was not everyone’s ideal way to manage land. However, only 2 percent of native prairie is left in Nebraska, he said. Restoring land to tallgrass prairie usually means getting rid of the trees, Heyne said. “A lot of people don’t agree with that,” Heyne said. “They associate trees with wildlife and don’t like to sefe them cut down, even if the end result is a native community like this one. “But Nebraskans are pretty good about understanding.” After a bum, the grass comes in thicker and healthier, Heyne said. The prairies can again fill with wild life such as game birds, pheasants and other small animals and their predators, Heyne said. The brush piles left behind pro vide cover and shelter for other small animals such as rabbits. “If you go back to the same site in the summer and see the end results, it is gorgeous,” Heyne said. Another result is that students gain experience both on paper and in prac tice. Heyne said students in the wild life field gain valuable experience by actually writing and implementing a land management plan. Students write the plan to restore the land, and after restoration, they give the plan to the owners to carry out, he said. Within a few days after this spring’s controlled bum, Pawnee State Recreation Area already will be more green than black, said Karl Krauter, who is majoring in range science and fisheries and wildlife. “And in two more weeks it will look like a green carpet,” Krauter said. Eventually, club members said they hoped to restore wetlands and wooded vegetation.
