! '■ • •' , 4
D^lilv Pw
^ I//I I I V ^ f Vednesday
^ooxjooxtxjxxsxxooxooxxtxxooxooxxtxxooxixsxx
I % I I ^ Nebraska swimmer
I KmmmJk B ^ W ^ ^ * Jk V B gunning for record, page 9
I I I ^^B I I Arts & Entertainment
-L 1 V/^yX iALyX lAAX X nlfva« u^oal^lo
pldy ill UIML, DaSC 1 ^ «i«*»«««mutti««»«m«i
COVERING THE UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA SINCE 1901 VOL. 94 NO. 124 ---
; __ March 15, 1995
Minus grading system downed after debate
By Brian Sharp
Senior Reporter
A proposal that would have
brought minus grades to UNL suf
fered a “decisive
defeat” Tuesday
before the Aca
demic Senate.
The hearing
room emptied
shortly after the
decision as stu
dent government president Andrew
Loudon declared, “The issue is over.”
The 40-28 vote came after more
than an hour of debate and several
motions that would have delayed a
decision to a later date. Senators ap
peared restless at times and annoyed
with the barrage of motions and ques
tions being voted on as the debate
wound down.
The minus proposal would have
increased the number of grade cat
egories at the University of Nebraska
Lincoln from its nine-point system.
Current policy assigns only letter
grades and pluses.
James Ford, an associate English
professor who proposed the motion,
said minus grades would be a small
start, but a definite improvement, to
UNL academics.
The motion received a last-minute
revision before Tuesday’s meeting,
allowing for cooperation with
Kearney and Omaha campuses in
deciding policy. Both campuses re
cently approved minus grades.
That would prove to be a point of
controversy later in the debate, as
some senators didn’t want to approve
a motion with details to be decided
later.
Senators in favor of minus grades
labeled the current scale bizarre and
a “half-system.” Several senators ar
gued that the resulting “grade infla
tion” was a disservice to students.
George Wolf, associate English
professor, said the only real argu
ment had been that UNL would stand
alone in the NU system by adopting a
minus policy. Now that argument is
gone, he said.
But Leo Chouinard, an associate
mathematics professor, said he had
yet to hear a good reason to revamp
the current system.
, “I don’t see that there is a consen
sus (among faculty),” he said. “I don’t
see a reason for changing. And I
don’t see where anything UNO and
UNK does frankly has anything to do
with what we should be doing.”
Gargi Sodowsky, an educational
psychology professor, said the cur
rent system was not used completely -
or adequately anyway. Given that,
she said, there was no reason to add
more categories.
“Just a year ago, this motion
failed,” Sodowsky said. “I don’t un
derstand why we brought it back
again.”
The vote may have provided a
decisive answer for some, but after
the meeting, Ford did not rule out
reviving the issue again next year.
UNL legacies
making marks
of their own
By J. Christopher Hain
Senior Reporter —
Sara Broyhill has always felt attached to the
UNL campus.
She has a photo of herself and her sister,
Ann, at the ages of seven and eight sitting on
the UNL fountain with which she shares her
name.
Broyhill said that while she was growing up
in Dakota City, it was almost a given that she
would attend the University of Nebraska-Lin
cotn.
Now she is a freshman at UNL and her
sister, Ann, is a sophomore. Her father and
grandfather attended UNL, as did her aunt
Lynn Diann Broyhill.
Lynn Broyhill was involved in numerous
campus activities at UNL from 1963 to 1966.
She was vice president of Pi Beta Phi sorority.
She was an Aksarben countess. And she even
could fly a plane.
But on Sept. 8,1966, on her way to pick up
a gown for the Aksarben ball, she was killed in
a car accident. She was 21 years old. The
fountain north of the union was constructed as
a memorial.
Now, whenever Sara Broyhill passes the
fountain or is met by one of the numerous
people who knew her aunt, it fills her campus
experience with the reminder of an aunt she
never knew, she said.
“I can’t begin to tell you the number of
people who have come up to me and said *1
knew your aunt, she was great,”’ site said.
But more often than not, Broyhill said,
when people first meet her, the first thing they
ask is how she is connected with the fountain.
Broyhill has begun to step out of the shadow
of her aunt’s legacy at UNL and establish her
own record of involvement on campus.
Last week, she was elected to the ASUN
sciences advisory board for the College of Arts
and Sciences. She also is a member of the
chancellor’s leadership class.
Broyhill said she would like people to say
the same things about her as have been said
about her aunt.
bne was so well-liked for her values and
her goals,” she said.
“It would be nice to keep going where she
left off.”But Broyhill is not the only recently
elected ASUN representative sharing her name
with a figure from UNL’s past.
Nelle Cochrane Woods was elected last
week as an ASUN graduate senator. If that
name sounds familiar, it’s because the build
ing that houses the Department of Art and Art i
History is named after Woods’ great-great- i
grandmother of the same name. (
Woods grew up in Lincoln and received her t
undergraduate degree in advertising. Now she £
is in the graduate museum studies program in
the College of Arts and Sciences. 1
Woods, who is from Lincoln, said her great- £
great-grandmother ’ s legacy didn’t have a large 1
influence on her decision of where to go to 1
school, but her family’s history of involve- 1
ment with the arts swayed her toward museum
studies at UNL. i
_ .... GarikParmale/DN
Sara Broyhill sits on the fountain named after her aunt, Lynn Broyhill,
Tuesday afternoon. Broyhill was recently elected to an ASUN advising
committee.
The Woods’ great-great-grandmother en
olled in drawing and painting classes in the
Ichool of Fine Arts in 1889. She was active on
ampus and was involved in the selection of
he official colors of the university — scarlet
nd cream.
She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts de
cree in 1893. She was involved in several
harities and was a sustaining member of the
Nebraska Art Association for 21 years — all
he way to the time of her death at age 80 in
950.
In 1955, the Woods Charitable Fund was set
ip in her name. And four years later, a gift from
the fund made possible the construction of the
building that eventually bore her name.
Both women said their names frequently
turned heads when roll was called in classes.
But Broyhill and Woods said they also
would like to turn heads in student govern
ment.
Broyhill said that as an ASUN representa
tive, she hoped to bring student concerns to die
attention of faculty members. She said she
especially wanted to work toward centralizing
See BROYHILL on 6
/ - ■
Spanier to'
discuss job
prospect at
Penn State
By J. Christopher Hain
Senior Reporter
and Jeff Zeieny
KfitoF
Chancellor Graham Spanier will meet to
day with top UNL administrators to discuss his
future at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln,
the Daily Nebraskan learned Tuesday.
UNL officials, who spoke on the condition
of anonymity, said Spanier planned to discuss
his involvement in the presidential search at
Pennsylvania State University to members of
his cabinet.
Spanier also will attend a previously sched
uled meeting today with UNL deans and direc
tors, where he is likely to be questioned about
the Penn State presidency.
Sources said Spanier could tell his cabinet
that he is a finalist for the president of Penn
State, which has 22 campuses with 69,000
students.
Penn State President Joab Thomas plans to
retire Aug. 31. A list of 10 to 15 names was
forwarded in January from the search commit
tee to the selection committee, comprised of
university trustees.
See SPANIER on 6
Regent bill
gets held up
once again
By John Fulwider
Staff Reporter ~~
An amendment to a bill that would allow
the governor to appoint the NU Board of
Regents was killed twice in the Legislature’s
Education Committee Tuesday.
And once again, the committee didn’t ad
vance the bill to the floor. When the committee
adjourned Tuesday, LR29CA, or amendments *
to it, had been discussed 15 times.
Sen. Ray Janssen of Nickerson introduced
the amendment to LR29CA that would have
made five Board of Regents positions elected
and three appointed. The. amendment would
have phased in a new board structure in a series
of steps.
After less than 10 minutes of discussion,
the amendment fell one vote short of the five
it needed. But it was later brought again by
Janssen and again failed, 5-2.
The elected regents’ districts would have
followed the current Public Service Commis
See REGENTS on 6