inside
T
uesday
News Digest
300 passengers evacuate
sinking British ferry, page 2
Arts & Entertainment
Polka band enters its fifth
decade, page 12
COVERING THE UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA SINCE 1901 VOL. 94 NO. 143
April 18, 1995
Change in rules would reach student teachers
By J. Christopher Hain
Senior Reporter
Past behavior may come back to
haunt anyone wishing to be a teacher
in Nebraska if the State Board of Edu
cation gets its way.
The board suggested Saturday that
anyone convicted of certain misde
meanors be denied a teaching license.
Currently, conviction of a felony
means automatic rejection for a
teacher’s license. The rule change
would add to felonies anyone con
victed of a misdemeanor involving
abuse, neglect or injury to any person
or any crime involving moral turpi
tude.
Crimes of moral turpitude can be
divided into three categories: fraud,
deceit or misrepresentation; theft; or
criminal sex acts.
Student teachers also would be af
fected by the change.
No one convicted of such a crime
could become a student teacher in the
state.
Prior to entering the Teachers Col
lege, students are asked if they ever
have been convicted of a felony, said
Tom Wandzilak, certification officer
for the Teachers College.
Wandzilak said the intent of add
ing the misdemeanor offenses was
good but he didn’t know how the rule
would be enforced.
About 650 UNL students are par
r
ticipating in some kind of classroom
teaching in local public schools, he
said.
Merely asking a question of them
might not be enough of a check, he
said; the question needs to be backed
up with a background check.
“If they’re going to do one, then
they ’ ve got to do the other,” Wandzi lak
said.
But for the Department of Educa
tion to perform a check on someone’s
criminal history, the Nebraska Legis
lature must authorize it.
A bill in the Legislature that would
have put that approval into law was
killed by the Education Committee.
State Board of Education member
Kathleen McCallister of Omaha said
that by refusing to approve a back
ground check, the Legislature was
participating in any abuse that could
be prevented.
“If they have time to spend a week
and a half on Micron, then they have
time to spend on preventing child
abuse,” McCallister said.
If Nebraska doesn’t check into the
backgrounds of its teachers, she said,
it will encourage criminals to come to
the state.
“Nebraska is a safe haven for these
types of people,” McCallister said.
Thirty-six states perform back
ground checks for various types of
jobs dealing with children, such as
teaching or child care. Nebraska
doesn’t check for either.
The rule adding misdemeanors
needs to be reviewed by the attorney
general and the governor before it is
approved.
But McCallister said it was a step
in the right direction.
Often, she said, some of these seri
ous crimes are plea bargained to mis
demeanors to save time and money.
“But they’re still as concerning,”
McCallister said. “We’re not looking
at little stuff.”
She said children in Nebraska had
been abused by teachers who would
not have been licensed had this rule
been in effect.
“This is essentially to protect the
kids.”
campus warcn
could begin
with fall NSE
By Matthew Waite
Senior Reporter
A UNL campus-watch program, an idea 1 1/
2 years in the making, could begin with this
year’s New Student Enrollment, the program’s
originator said Monday.
Boon Lee Lim, a 25-year-old graduate engi
neering student from Malaysia, said the pro
gram could be included as
part of the UNL Police pre
sentation. He has talked to
police about that and is
awaiting a response. Lim
said he already had worked
closely with university po
lice, administrators and stu
dents on the project.
Sometime in the future,
Lim wants to distribute bro
chures and posters across
campus to get students to report suspicious
sightings.
“I just want to see something that is good
happen at this university,” he said. “This thing
has been put off for so long.
“For me, I feel that talking without doing is
a waste of everybody’s time.”
“I just want to see something
good happen at this
university. ”
BOON LEE
Engineering graduate student
A campus-watch program sends a strong
message to the community and to the parents of
students that the university is serious about
campus safety, he said.
The program seeks to raise awareness among
students and educate them on crime issues sur
rounding the university, Lim said. Students also
would look out for each other by doing such
things as providing escorts at night, Lim said.
The idea originated after the Oct. 17,1993,
beating of Boon Chung Ong, a University of
Nebraska-Lincoln student from Malaysia, Lim
said. Lim said sometimes he was the lone per
son pushing the idea.
'Hie effect of a crime watch on campus would
not be a physical one, where more police patrol
the street. Jt.
“It is a psychological effect,” Lim said. “If
you declare this a crime-watch campus, some
body may be more reluctant to commit a crime
because somebody may be watching.”
Lim said many would argue that with UNL’s
safe-campus image and decreasing crime num
bers, a campus-watch program was not needed.
Not so, said Lim.
“This is a safe campus, but we want to make
it better,” he said. “We will never have enough
police on the street to look out for everybody.
“The best thing we can do is educate people
... to look out for each other. Everybody work
ing together on this is going to be the key to this
program.”
Check your head
Scott Bruhn/DN
Cami Jurgens, a senior elementary education and early childhood major, gets fitted for her graduation cap by E.R. Moore
representative Jess Crane. Today is the last day for graduating seniors to be fitted for caps and gowns.
Plan for stadium parking garage heard
By Matthew Waite
Senior Reporter
With plans for a parking garage near the
Nebraska Union bogged down by site problems
and protests from potential neighbors, a new
garage plan has sprung from UNL administra
tion.
Paul Carlson, interim vice chancellor for
business and finance, said administrators in the
athletic department had heard a proposal for a
garage near Memorial Stadium.
“They’ve given no commitment, and we
haven’t given them any hard numbers,” Carlson
said.
The structure would be located between 9th
and 10th streets and T and U streets, he said.
Carlson said it would serve the athletic depart
ment, faculty and, “if the price is right,” com
muter students.
A stadium garage would be a separate from
plans for a garage near the union, Carlson said.
“It is a separate issue because it doesn’t solve
the problems we have over at the union,” he
said. “It isn’t a substitute for solving the visitor
need.”
- Talk about a stadium garage has athletic
department officials interested.
Gary 'Fouraker, associate athletic director
for business and concessions, said the univer
sity and the athletic department had talked briefly
about a garage near the stadium.
“We’re interested in talking to them about
it,” he said. “It just came up last week.”
Fouraker said the Athletic Department was
willing to listen, but that was all the further it
went.
In early March, the university was consider
ing three sites—east and west of the Nebraska
Union and a site in the visitor’s lots along R
Street.
The site east of the union has fallen on hard
times* facing opposition from the Alpha Phi
Sorority and the Nebraska Historical Society.
The site west of the union faces a load of
financial difficulties related to freeing up the
area.
A garage near the stadium originally was
considered as one of 14 possible sites in a
lengthy report commissioned by John Goebel,
then-Vice Chancellor for Business and Finance.
As the university narrowed 14 to four, the
site was,,rejected because it was not centrally
located to campus, a key criteria in selection.