SPORTS ROE
Rebound Are you on the bus? October 10,1997
The NU volleyball team tries to get back on the Shrunk and trapped in a pantry, Ms. Frizzle and
winning track tonight when the Huskers face OU her students escape by crossing a banana cream WHY Fly SOUTH?
in Norman, Okla. PAGE 9 pie in “Magic School Bus - Live!” PAGE 12 Mostly sunny, high 75. Cloudy tonight, low 63.
I
VOL. 97 COVERING THE UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA-LINCOLN SINCE 1901 NO. 34
Committee:
Reaccredit
! university
By Erin Gibson
Senior Reporter
An evaluation team recommended reac
crediting the University of Nebraska-Lincoln
| for another decade in a report released
f Monday.
\ But the team also plans to reevaluate the
university’s work to assess student academic
achievement.
The report lauds the university for its
undergraduate programs - especially the
University Honors Program - for its highly
committed faculty, and for increasing its
* emphasis on teaching while achieving
Research I status since the university was last
accredited in 1987.
It also notes a need for more, competitive. e
i faculty salaries, more funding
r technology and more women in senior faculty
positions.
The report will advise a commission of the
North Central Association of Colleges and
Schools on whether to accredit the university
during its meeting Nov. 14 through 16 in
Chicago. The university has retained its
Please see REPORT on 3
Christensen’s
exit opens
House race
By Brian Carlson
Assignment Reporter
Following Jon Christensen’s decision to
leave the U.S. House of Representatives to run
for governor, Nebraska Republicans are seek
ing continued conservative representation in
the 2nd District.
Christensen’s surprise move threw the race
wide open, and, political observers say, opened
the door for an exciting 1998 campaign in the
Omaha district.
Please see related story on page 6
Two Republican candidates have entered
the race: Christensen’s ex-wife Meredith
Christensen and Omaha City Councilman Lee
Terry.
Chuck Sigerson, chairman of the Nebraska
Republican Party, named three others who are
- considering seeking the Republican nomina
tion for the congressional seat in the May pri
Please see REPUBLICANS on 6
Students find success
By Erin Gibson
Senior Reporter
On gay students’ road to embracing
their lifestyle, there exists no
common finish line.
For the lucky few, it’s a line of
bravado crossed in youth with supportive
parents and an open community.
For others, it’s a vague line they tread
meekly while struggling in a bigoted soci
ety - one where misconceptions can out
number truths and hate lingers like
scratched welts of poison ivy.
But for all of these men and women, the
final decision to accept their sexuality and
live gay in the conservative, traditional •'
Midwest is monumental.
The decision brings woes of bearing
others’ prejudices and scorn from their
families and their churches.
But, for many, the decision to pro
nounce their sexuality - if only to them
selves - brightens their outlooks and
secures their identities.
They begin seeking love and compan
ionship rather than shallow sexual encoun
ters, and, for the first time, they don’t feel
disgusting, isolated or abnormal.
The University of Nebraska-Lincoln
\ " '•••: • ; ■
students and graduates who have accepted
a gay or lesbian sexuality know they are
not alone in their experiences.They know
other students still grapple with whether to
pronounce their gay lifestyle or live
straight, in accordance with societal pres
sures and their own religious convictions.
They know not every gay person should
live an openly gay lifestyles; they aren’t
recruiters.
And they will not condemn others’
choices or beliefs.
By sharing their experiences before
Saturday’s National Coming Out Day, they
only hope to shed light on a life-changing
decision often kept
“in the closet.”
Sandy Summers/DN
ABOVE: ALISON
KNUDSBI and her girl
friend, Stacy Schultz,
relax outside during
Schultz’s half-hour
break from her night
Job.
LEFT: KNUDSEN’S
IMAGE Is reflected in
the rearview mirror of
a UNL shuttle bus as
she takes the bus
back to her classes.
Alison’s story
For UNL senior Alison Knudsen,
accepting her sexuality was a five-year
rendezvous with denial and self-loathing. -
She worked to suppress the lesbian ten
dencies she realized were a part of her
early in high school, she said. And she
lived a “normal” life in her hometown of
Fremont, complete with a strong Christian
Please see LIFESTYLE on 8
- • • • r
Read the Daily Nebraskanon the World Wide Web at http:/ /www.unl.edu/DailyNeb \