SPORTS
Injury-plagued
The Nebraska volleyball team, which lost two
matches in a row for the first time in four years,
is dealing with injuries to key players. PAGE 15
A&E
Cutting loose
After two years playing some of Lincoln’s most
original music, Kid Quarkstar calls it quits so its
members may pursue other avenues. PAGE 9
October 15,1997
Gray Matter
Cloudy, high 65. Clearing tonight, low 35.
Cardboard huts construct awareness
„ , . . . . S^jdySummers/DN
'IOSH BERGLAND, left, a sophomore computer engineering major, and Susan York, a junior biochemistry major,
sit outside the cardboard shacks that Hahitat for Humanity built.
o
By Brian Carlson
Assignment Reporter
Two ramshackle cardboard huts
in the middle of the UNL campus
have been turning heads this week.
And that’s exactly what the orga
nizers of Shantytown want.
The Shantytown huts, set up this
week between Andrews and Burnett
halls, were built by members of the
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Habitat for Humanity chapter in con
junction with World Hunger
Awareness Week. The group’s goal is
to call attention to the problems of
substandard and poverty housing.
Students are staffing the huts in
shifts from Monday morning until
after the Nebraska football game
Saturday, 24 hours a day. On Monday
night, 15 students braved the fall’s
first freezing temperatures to camp
out# Shaotytown.
Sp.an k^.u/is a senior sociology
major and member of tJNlJis Habitat
for Humanity, spent early Tuesday
afternoon in one of the huts. He was
participating in Shantytown to help call
attention to a problem of which he said
many students weren’t fully aware.
“The main reason is to bring
awareness to the UNL community as
a whole that poverty housing is a
problem,” he said. “We want people
to be aware it exists and to see what
people deal with.”
Lewis said many students who
have passed by the huts have shown
an interest in die project. Many have
asked how they could become
involved in Habitat for Humanity’s
goal of eliminating poverty housing.
“We’ve had quite a few com
ments,” Lewis said. “People have
said, ‘Wow, I didn’t know people
actually lived like that.’”
Mary Cornell, a sophomore psy
chology major, and Sara Lilly, a
sophomore fashion design major,
also took their shifts in the huts
Tuesday. Although not members of
Habitat for Humanity, they were
recruited by some of their Alpha Xi
Delta sorority sisters who were
involved in the project.
Cornell and Lilly said they had
received their share of funny looks,
but that their interest m the problem
throug^^ml^^^hremeS^^
Shantytown.
Please see HUTS on 6
UNL employees
lose exemption
■ Congress failed to
renew a law that allowed
employers a break on
tuition benefit taxes.
By Erin Gibson
Senior Reporter
About 300 University of
Nebraska-Lincoln employees who
have enrolled in a university course
since January will find a few extra
tax withholdings from their pay
checks during the next three months.
According to a UNL Payroll
' Office memo dated Oct. 8, Congress
failed in its biennial Tax Act to
exempt employees from paying taxes
on tuition benefits provided by their
Employers for the first timp sincft
1978.
The last exemption expired
before Jan. 1, 1997, and employees
must now pay retroactive taxes on all
benefits received after that date.
Those taxes will be subtracted from
their paychecks by the end of the
year.
For UNL employees, that means
they have paid $1 per credit hour in
tuition for up to 15 hours of courses
at the university, but they will be
taxed on about $96 per credit hour -
the amount the university deducts
from their tuition bill as an employee
benefit.
That benefit amount will count
as employees’ taxable income.
As a result, the university will
withhold all taxes on spring semester
tuition benefits from monthly paid
employees’ October paychecks.
Summer benefit taxes will be with
held from the November paychecks,
and fall semester benefits will be
withheld from December’s pay
check.
Employees who are paid bi
weekly will follow slightly different
withholding schedules, beginning
Nov. 6 and ending Dec. 31.
An employee who took 15 hours
in courses will be responsible for
paying taxes on about $ 1,440 in ben
efits within the next; three n^cjptfe. WT*
That employee would pay about
$110 in Social Security and
Medicare taxes (at 7.65 percent),
while the amount of federal and state
income taxes owed on benefits
would be established by individual
tax brackets.
Courses taken by graduate teach
ing assistants and by any employee
Please see TAXES on 3
UNL students bounce off wall,
By Sarah Baser
Assignment Repofter
This week University of
Nebraska-Lincoln students can
challenge a rock wall, try their
luck at human bailing or stick it
up with the Velqip wall, and they
don’t even have to leave campus
to do it y
The Jeep/Plymouth Collegiate
Health and Fitness Tour is visiting
UNL as part of this year’s
Homecoming Week festivities.
The event is sponsored by the
UNL Well Worth It Program and
the Social Responsibility
Committee.
The tour is in Lincoln through
Thursday and runs each day from
10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Events are in the
loop east of Memorial Stadium at
14*"- and Vine streets.
will be on the site of the
Collegiate Health and Fitness
Tour. The Wacky Olympic events
will be held throughout the three
days.
John Tokar, intercollegiate
communications director of spe
cial events, said this was one of
the most popular national college
Please see TOUR on 3
_
l_UHHi
Scott McClurg/DN
UNL FRESHMEN pre-med majors Jenn Heimann, left, and Melissa
Ciesielski, compete in the Bungee Run at the Collegiate Health and
Fitness Tour at the Vine Street Loop lliesday afternoon.
Read the Daily Nebraskan on the World Wide Web at http://www.unl.edu /DailyNeb