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========================================= March 10-12, 1995
Minuses gain
support at
NU schools
By Brian Sharp
Senior Reporter
When James Ford came to the Academic
Senate last year proposing to add minuses to
UNL’s grading system, critics said he was
unorganized in the face of strong opposition.
The proposed 40-point grading scale was
never voted on, and after two hours of debate,
the idea of a minus system was rejected.
This year, Ford returns with the advantage
— momentum.
Academic senates at both the Kearney and
Omaha campuses of the University of Ne
braska recently passed resolutions in favor of
a minus system. Kearney approved the mea
sure March 2. Omaha voted Wednesday to
institute the change.
The recent votes have blindsided student
government, said Andrew Loudon, ASUN
president. Loudon said UNO’s and UNK’s
actions have put considerable pressure on his
office to organize those opposed to the minus
system.
“We do not have many allies on this issue,”
Loudon said.
Ford’s motion calls for a 12-point grading
scale.
Loudon has submitted a bill opposing the
motion. The bill, relying on figures gathered
by James Griesen, vice chancellor for student
affairs; states'the following points:
• 64 percent of American and Canadian
colleges and universities use nine or fewer
grading categories.
• 80 percent of UNL undergraduate and
graduate students favor a grading system with
10 or fewer categories.
• A change would create confusion in tran
scripts, scholarships and would be unfair to
students.
The bill also raised the issue that NU stu
dents would be subject to different grading
systems. . •
Ford summarized the ASUN position in
simple terms.
“It’s like saying that switching to Daylight
Savings Time makes all the clocks wrong,”
Ford said. “The answer, of course, is to change
all the clocks.”
Ford said he had spoken with the UNL
registration director and was told the cost of
such a change would run close to $3,000 and
would be easy to accomplish. If the senate
approves the measure Tuesday, the earliest
practical implementation would be the 1996
97 school year.
The UNL plan supports a breakdown by
thirds. UNK has advanced a similar model,
while UNO noted the thirds plan as well as a -
quarter plan. The latter idea grants a half-point
to letter grades and a quarter-point for plus and .
minuses. 5
While the actions of the other two campuses
came as a surprise, Ford said there had already
been some discussion of coordinating a uni
See GRADING on 3
Dream come true
Jay Calderon/DN
Shawntell Hurtgen says every one of her goals as the new president of ASUN is attainable.
Hurtgen ready
to take on new
ASUN position
By Paula Lavigne
Senior Reporter
Shawntell Hurtgen never ran for student
government when she was In high school at
home in Sioux Falls, S.D.
She waited until she came to the Univer
sity of Nebraska-Lincoln to tackle student
government — and she won.
“My philosophy was, ‘I get one chance
to do this — one chance — and I’m done,”’
she said.
Now, Hurtgen has one year to reach the
goals she told students her party would.
£ “I think everything is attainable.”
When Hurtgen called her parents
Wednesday night to tell them she was the
new president, her brother Tommy didn’t
recognize her voice — what little voice she
had left.
“He kept saying, ‘You have the wrong
number. I’m sorry,’” Hurtgen said in a
raspy, barely-audible voice.
Hurtgen’s parents set her apart from the
rest since the day she was bom. The rest of
her family had “boring” names, but not
Shawntell Nevada Hurtgen.
“Nevada made me the oddball,” she said.
“My mother always thought I’d live some
place cold, so she named me after some
place warm.
“It could have been worse, a lot worse —
like New Hampshire.”
But Hurtgen chose the middle road of
hot and cold — Nebraska — because she
said the campus was beautiful and going to
Nebraska was a “big deal” for someone
from South Dakota.
“I love going to school down here. I
couldn’t be happier anyplace else,” she
said.
Hurtgen’s happiness sank in last night
after she received a phone call about the
election results.
Since then, friends, reporters and class
mates have swamped Hurtgen with phone
calls. When she woke up to a phone call
Thursday morning, she said her own and her
IMPACT party’s victory “almost seemed
like a dream.”
■ Hurtgen is a junior finance major from
Sioux Falls, S.D. As a freshman, she was
the senate representative for the
Division of General Studies, a member of
the Committee for Fees Allocation and
the five-year protection committee.
■ She became CFA chairwoman during
her senate term and moved on to
become Government Liaison Committee
chairwoman.
It’s a dream she developed last fall when
she sat down and wrote 10 reasons why she
would run for president of the Association
of Students of the University of Nebraska.
‘‘I knew I could get more student in
volvement and be more aggressive in going
out to students,” she said. “I knew I was
running for the right reasons.”
Hurtgen, a junior finance major, was no
stranger to A SUN. She got involved her
freshman year as the senate representative
for the Division of General Studies, a mem
ber of the Committee for Fees Allocation
and the five-year protection committee.
See HURTGEN on 6
Student voter apathy common at Big Eight universities
Low student interest
contributes to poor
turnout, senators say
By J. Christopher Hain
Senior Reporter
Chuck Lee was one of the LET
TUCE party’s few successes in
Wednesday night’s ASUN elections.
He received only three votes, but
that was enough to give him a major
ity of the five votes cast by Criminal
Justice students for the department’s
ASUN senator.
A total of 339 criminal justice
students were eligible to vote.
But Lee, who ran unopposed, said
he wouldn’t lose any sleep over his
lack of support.
“I got in,” he said. “That’s what
matters most.”
Overall, voter turnout among Uni
versity of Nebraska-Lincoln students,
at 12.7 percent, was slightly higher
than last year’s 11.5 percent.
Lee said criminal justice majors
might feel detached from the rest of
the student body because their degree
program was administered through
the University of Nebraska at Omaha.
“A lot of criminal justice majors
couldn’t care less about what ASUN
does or what I do,” Lee said.
Ryan Horner, who was elected
College of Architecture senator as an
independent, said he wanted to in
crease interest in ASUN among stu
dents in the college.
Homer won with only 19 votes.
He said many architecture stu
dents probably weren’t interested in
ASUN because they felt student gov
ernment couldn’t do much for them.
“ASUN needs to have more of an
influence on the student body,” he
said.
This year’s turnout places UNL
near the middle in rankings the num
ber of student voters among several
other Big Eight schools.
Kansas State University has had a
turnout of around 13 to 15 percent the
last two years, said Chad Schneiter,
elections chairman for the Student
Governing Association at Kansas
State.
Iowa State University has had a
turnout of around eight to 10 percent
the last two years, said Steve Elliot,
who was elections chairman last year
for the Government of the Student
Body of ISU and currently is trea
surer.
In its election last year, Oklahoma
University had a 12.8 percent turn
out, said Craig Hayes, chairman of
Student Congress at OU.
Hayes said voter apathy was a
concern on the OU campus, particu
larly among those involved in stu
dent government.
“There’s not much broad-based
involvement in student government,”
Hayes said.
But Hayes said lack of student
involvement on campus could be
applied outside of student govern
ment.
“There’s a general apathy toward
involvement in any student activity.”