SPORTS
Winning ways
The Nebraska baseball team snapped a 13-game
losing streak, winning two of three games from
Missouri this weekend. PAGE 6
B1A & E_
Welcome ‘Return’
“Return of the Jedi,” the final film in the re
vamped “Star Wars” trilogy, opened Friday with
new scenes and cleaned-up effects. PAGE 8
MON »AY
March 17, 1997
At The End Of The Rainbow
Cloudy, high 58. Light rain tonight, low 27.
VOL. 96 COVERING THE UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA-LINCOLN SINCE 1901 NO. 122
UNL professors return home from Albania
By Erin Gibson
Senior Reporter
A University of Nebraska-Lincoln
professor who remained trapped in
Albania until Friday stepped off an
airplane and back into America and
into the arms of loved ones in Lincoln
Sunday night.
“I’m very happy to be home,”
Harish Gupta said after a series of hugs
and warm welcomes. “It’s wonderful
to be home.”
The professor emeritus of econom
ics took nothing but the clothes he
wore and a small carry-on case when
he escaped an Albania he described as
“very scary.” He left by U.S. Navy air
lift last Friday morning.
Gupta and Diane Hambley, UNL
marketing professor, were teaching at
the University of Tirana in Albania’s
capital last week when the U.S. State
Department ordered all Americans out
of the country, which had collapsed
into anarchy.
Both professors booked Friday or
Saturday flights out of Albania on
commercial airlines, but became
trapped in the country after airports
closed Thursday.
Gupta said he and Hambley “were
counting the minutes and seconds”
until they could leave the tom coun
try, where ordinary people shot ma
chine guns from their cars while driv
ing down streets in a deadly show of
chaos.
But Gupta said he hoped the situa
tion would improve so he could return
to Albania and complete his work.
Sang Lee, director of UNL’s Cen
ter for Albanian Studies, said Gupta
traveled to Albania three weeks ago
to teach a 10-week, graduate-level
business course at the university.
Gupta’s course was cut short when
all Americans were ordered out of Al
bania Wednesday, Lee said. Hambley,
who had been in the country for two
years, also left her work and belong
ings behind.
Albania’s government and
economy fell to anarchy after citizens
lost their life savings in failed pyra
mid investment schemes.
Lee said he called the U.S. Agency
for International Development in Al
bania Monday to make sure teaching
could continue and the UNL profes
sors were safe.
“They assured me there was no
problem,” Lee said. “It was calm in
Tirana.”
Within two days, gunshots kept the
professors awake at night, and aH or
der in the country had collapsed, Lee
said. Every town in Albania spawned
its own rebel group, which looted the
towns and stole guns from military
depots.
In the fury, typically calm Alba
nians were “shooting their guns like
crazy,” he said.
Lee talked to Gupta Thursday
Please see ALBANIA on 3
Matt Miller/DN
SANG LEE (left) welcomes home Harish Gupta, who was teaching at the University of Tirana in Albania when the
country fell to anarchy. The UNL professor worked in Albania as part of the U.S. Agency for International Development
project, which works with Albanian officials to establish a foundation for a market economy.
UNL boasts
innovative
teaching lab
By Erin Gibson
Senior Reporter
The University of Nebraska-Lin
coln has gained one more shining gem
in its crown — the nation’s No. 1 cen
ter for research of innovative teaching
methods.
Christy Horn, who co-directs the
Center for Instructional Innovation
Research with Roger Bruning, said
UNL has finished building an ideal lab
for testing technology that assists
teachers and students.
The lab, in the basement of Mabel
Lee Hall, includes a multimedia re
search classroom, a lab to test learn
ing structure and strategy and state-of
the-art equipment to assist students
with disabilities, she said.
\ “It’s not enough to just bring them
on campus and let them sit in a class
room if they can’t interact,” Horn said.
For UNL, the real worth of the cen
ter is not the bragging rights for the
nation’s premier facility, she said.
The center’s true value may lie in
Please see CENTER on 3
^^_I
Daniel Luedert/DN
FORMER SEN. JAMES EXON, hit wilt Pat Etta and Saa. Bah
Kerrey, cut the ribbon Saturday to the mw Exon Center.
Research library
marks Exon's work
By Jim Goodwin
Staff Reporter
With congratulatory gestures, more
than 100 Democrats mingled and remi
nisced with former Sen. James Exon Sat
urday afternoon at the grand opening of
his Lincoln library and research center.
Sen. Bob Kerrey, Lt. Gov. Kim Robak
and former Exon aides were among those
attending the ceremonial homecoming,
which also marked Exon’s 26-year public
service career. Exon retired from the Sen
ate in January.
The two-story Exon Center, 985 S.
27th St., houses campaign and senatorial
papers and memorabilia of Exon’s two
terms as Nebraska governor and three
terms in the U.S. Senate.
Kerrey said the repository honored a
man well known for fighting to maintain
a philosophy held important by both
Democrats and Nebraskans.
“This library is a tribute to his legacy
and what we can accomplish through po
litical action,” Kerrey said of his professed
mentor. “It is Jim Exon’s ideas. It’s his
visions that have made him so popular
with Nebraska voters.”
Exon said he intended fa* the library to
tt
It's his visions that
have made him so
popular with
Nebraska voters ”
Sen. Bob Kerrey
D-Nebraska
serve as a meeting space for the discussion of
government-related issues and as a research
center touting the Senate’s worthy merits.
“I want to dedicate this to a better history
and a better understanding that die U.S. Sen
ate is a wonderful institution,” Exon said.
Among mementos of Exon’s political
career are autographed photographs of
Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson. A
placard signed by Exon’s colleagues from
the 104th Congress fills prominent wall
space in an upstairs office.
The Exon Center also shares planning
and committee meeting space with the
Lancaster County Democratic Party. It is
free to the public by appointment.
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