Image provided by: University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries, Lincoln, NE
About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 16, 1995)
MONDAY WEATHER: Today - Mostly cloudy. Breezy. South wind 15 to 25 mph. Tonight - Partly cloudy. Low in the mid 50s. October 16, 1995 Powwow pleases cultures By Paula Lavigne Senior Reporter A powwow celebrates American Indian culture, but Sunday’s powwow on East Campus catered to a multicultural crowd. The two-day Si xth Annual Univer sity ofNcbraska Intertribal Exchange Pow Wow represented about 26 American Indian tribes. The powwow ended Sunday. UNITE President Yolanda Few Tails said thisyear’saudience included more non-American Indians even though the powwow was moved to East Campus and scheduled a month earlier. Admission to the event was SI or a can of food. The powwow wasa dance competition divided into six catego ries. All contestants had a tribal affili ation. The crowd was more of a mixed bunch. A groupoi visitors tromtne parlia ment in Thailand, guestsoftlie Ameri can government, came to watch the powwow as part of their U.S. tour. Ekhaphap Polsue spoke for the group through an interpreter. “This is very exciting for us to learn about this traditional art,” Polsue said. 1 he 1 hailand visitors knew about the American Indians through books and movies, he said, which sometimes gave a distorted view. “We think the Hollywood movies aren't very accurate,” lie said. “They show Indians as very savage.” The visitors received a brief his tory of the powwow before the dances began. “Despite all the technological ad vances, it’s great that the American Indians are able to keep this tradi tion.” Brandic Buss and Tiffany Jahn, both freshman accounting majors, came to the powwow to fulfill their multicultural requirement for their University Foundations class. Buss said she didn’t know much about American Indians before the powwow, but Jahn said she’s always been interested in the culture. “I have a little bit of Native Ameri can in me,” she said. Both said they learned how the family plays an integral part in Ameri can Indian culture. “It starts out so young,” Buss said. “ You see all these little kids dancing.” Ryan Kawate, a freshman elemen tary education major, also came to the See POWWOW on 3 Air Leitzel Travis Heying/DN Interim Chancellor Joan Leitzeltriesa shot during a celebrity free throw contest Saturday night at Midnight Blues, the NU men’s basketball team’s first practice. Leitzel made this shot, but wasn’t as successful on other tries. Peeler challenges students to soar high By Kathryn A. Ratliff Senior Editor Introduced as a learned and experi enced fighter of the good light, Mary Peeler rose from her chair and took the podium Friday to address the his tory and future of the NAACP. Peeler, executive director of the North Carolina State Conference of Branches of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, radiated power and poise as she opened her lecture in the Nebraska Union with a poem illustrating the mission of the NAACP: “We the willing, lead by the un known, doing the impossible for the ungrateful,” Peeler recited. “We have done so much for so many for so long. People think we arc non-quali fied and justified to do anything and every thing with nothing.” Peeler called the NAACP a deter mined group of men and women who gave their time, skills, experience and resources toward the tight for justice in the country. Established in 1909, the NAACP assumed the role of America’s con science and challenged the country to do the right thing, Peeler said. But, she said, in 1995, the organization’s work is far from finished, with much still to be done toward realizing Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream. Racism is still alive and well. Peeler said, and the tension between races is building. The problem cannot be solved until society is willing to face the problem, she said. “It’s like a disease,” she said. “We must admit it, face it so the healing can start.” Peeler said the media shaped much of society’s thought by framing and directing what they chose to report. Much of the news is negative, she said, so the media also should accu rately and fairly promote and empha size the positive. Blatant attacks on Affirmative Ac tion arc another reason why the NAACP’sworkisnot finished,Peeler said. In order to fight these attacks, she said, the NAACP must dispel the myths and misconceptions in the com munity. Affirmative Action is not a quota system in which employers hire un qualified minorities, Peeler said. “It is a set of realistic goals and timetables,” she said, “which open the doors of opportunity to those shut out by the system, whether by design or intent.” Some officials say society is“color blind” and that this country does not need Affirmative Action, Peeler said. But few minorities and women are found at the top rung of the job ladder, she said. And a wide gap in earnings based on race or sex exists, she said. She ended her lecture with a pow erful story, challenging the country to have the heart and courage to speak truth to individuals in power. She told the story of a wise, old See NAACP on 2 GM donates cars to UNL for safety testing By Angie Schendt Staff Reporter General Motors Corporation will donate 12 luxury cars over the next two years to the „ Midwest Roadside Safety Facility at UNL’s College of Engineering and Technology. Lincoln automobile dealership Williamson Oldsmobilc/Volkswagen helped the facility dis cover that automobile companies make cars speci Fical ly designed for testing, Facility Direc tor Dean Sicking said. “We were unaware that auto companies had these types of vehicles,” he said. The companies usethe cars for development and manufacturing. Because they are made from experimental parts, they are not intended tor public use. The companies usually destroy the% cars after they arc done with them. After the facility learned about the test cars, they arranged to have the University Founda tion contact car companies. The foundation contacted GM, Ford and Chrysler. The wrong people were contacted at Chrysler, and Ford has yet to respond, Sicking said. The donation equals about $20,000 per car, he said. GM recognizes the importance of support ing higher education, said Anna Kretz, assistant chief engineer of Quality and Product Assur ance for Cadillac Luxury Car Engineering and Manufacturing Division. “The donation of vehicles to the University of Nebraska’s Midwest Roadside Safety Facil ity enables GM to support important research in roadside safety products and provide valuable resources for higher technical education simul taneously,” she said. The cars will be used for impact safety re search on guardrails and concrete construction zone barriers. The amount of testing the facility can get out of one car depends on the test, he said. The research benefits the Nebraska Depart ment of Roads, and six other states: Kansas, Iowa, Missouri, Wisconsin, South Dakota and Minnesota. Those states, part of a pool fund program, represent about 70 percent of the facility’s work, Sicking said. The facility has three roles, he said. The first isdesigning and test ingsolutions to safety prob lems that states bring to them. The second is testing the safety of designs that states bring to the facility. The third encompasses all other problems. The facility also benefits the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s civil engineeringstudents, he said. It employs both undergraduate and graduate students. The undergraduates do most of the labor; they construct the equipment and get hands-on experience. The graduate students are the primary re search group, he said. “They do most of the details of the research. We instruct them and they conduct the re search,” Sicking said.