v EDITOR
./ Paula Lavigne
OPINION
EDITOR
Matthew Waite
EDITORIAL
BOARD
Erin Gibson
Joshua Gillin
Jeff Randall
Julie Sobczyk
Ryan Soderlin
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Our
VIEW
Wake
up
Class participation
fosters thought
Somewhere between the cover and the
end credits of a text book, and among the
many lectures dished out over the course
of the semester, there must be a little room
for a rebellion.
No, not a throwing-your-chair-at-the
overhead rebellion, but a rebellion in
thought.
It’s extremely easy to sit in any class
from 101 to 865 and just absorb informa
tion. Information comes in. It’s stored in
your memory. The test comes. It’s regurgi
tated on paper. End of story.
You’ve learned something almost as
valuable as being able to repeat the alpha
bet backward. In other words, you haven’t
learned anything worthwhile.
It’s sad that so many students - and pro
fessors - are content with this. But what
does that A really mean when all it means
is that you can remember and repeat? And
only for a short time, at that?
What needs to happen in all universi
ties classes is the encouragement of inde
pendent thought.
You really cannot nod off when your
jaw is moving. So instead of pinching
yourself to stay awake during a lecture, try
to participate.
And instead of jawing on, professors
should encourage open discussion.
Obviously, the professor is going to lead
that discussion. And some days, students
ar^ibout as responsive as road kill. But it’s
the principle of the matter.
There is an exchange to be found.
Allow yourself to voice an opinion or
even challenge one.
And be willing to accept a challenge. It’s
easy to move from chapter to chapter with a
nice, tidy outline. It’s better to allow students
to carry professors off on tangents and
explanations. Even tenured professors need
to allow their teachings to be challenged.
A good debate is usually a good discus
sion, and there is much to be learned from
watching people defend their positions.
And there is much to learn from having to
defend your own. Making your point, and
having to defend it, forces you at once to
re-evaluate what you believe and gain more
confidence in what you believe is true.
There is valuable information to be
absorbed, but it’s not really going to sink in
unless students can take ownership in that
information. And while research papers
and presentations are novel ways to do that,
they don’t foster the feedback and interac
tionthat independent thinking would dur
ing the class with all the students present.
Aside from making class a little more
interesting, it should foster the “life of the
mind” that university administrators
desire.
This is the reason why students are the
ones paying to learn.
coiiunai roiicy
Unsigned editorials are tiie opinions of
the Fall 1997 Daily Nebraskan. They do
not necessarily reflect the views of the
University of Nebraska-Uncoln, its '
employees, its student body or the
University of Nebraska Board of Regents.
A column is solely the opinion of its author.
The Board of Regents serves as publisher
of the Daly Nebraskan; poticy is set by
the Daily Nebraskan Editorial Board. The
UNL Publications Board, established by
the regents, supervises the production
of the paper. According to policy set by
the regents, responsibility for the editorial
content of the newspaper lies solely in
the hands of its student employees.
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The Daily Nebraskan welcomes brief
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The Daily Nebraskan retains the right to
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Submitted material becomeeprop^rty of
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r Submit material to: Daily Nebraskan, 34
} Nebraska Union, 1400 R St Lincoln,
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Haney’s
VIEW
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Good Journalism, part I
Predictably enough, the Daily
Nebraskan decided to forgo any
attempt to actually report the faculty
senate debate on the King holiday, in
favor of a propagandistic juxtaposi
tion of the vote with a report of the
Chancellor’s Commission on the sta
tus of People of Color.
For the benefit of the DN readers
thus shortchanged by your reporter,
the principal arguments against the
King holiday and the fall break were
logistical. Shortening the semester by
one day creates major problems for
laboratories, recitation sections and
distance education courses that meet
only on Mondays. Some of us spent a
considerable amount of time looking
at the impact of adding an extra
Monday break, and concluded the
likely result would be to reduce those
components of our curriculum by a
full week in both the spring and fall
semesters. n
It’s easy to mouth slogans about a
‘motherhood’ issue like the King hol
iday. After all, who among us, these
days, would disagree that King was a
great man, and should be suitably
honored? It takes a little more maturi
ty, and, yes, time and effort to realize
thpt any change we institute has con
sequences, and to weigh those very
real consequences against the more
intangible institutional benefits of
such a holiday.
Of course, that’s a complex issue,
not easily reducible to the sloganeer
ing the DN seems to confuse with
journalism.
Gerard S. Harbison
professor of chemistry and fac
^ ulty senator
Good Journalism, part II
It is with great distress that I saw
an advertisement from the Committee
for Open Debate On the Holocaust in
the Daily Nebraskan. The firsts
amendment rights, the right of people *
to freely voice themselves and their
opinions, however erroneous and
fraudulent these may be, are indis
putable. However, this constitutional
protection of free speech is not
extended to advertisements; especial
ly not fallacious quasi-historic adver
tisements.
An advertisement for the revision
ist view of history should not be
i-....*
looked upon as a mere advertisement.
It is a dangerous and reprehensible
statement that in effect condones its
contents.
I have two objections to the DN’s
policy of running this. It is not only
the inclusion of the advertisement in
the DN that is outrageous, but also the
cowardly way the editors deal with
this issue. Attaching an inadequate
disclaimer to an offensive and repre
hensible advertisement does not make
a wrong right. If the DN is so cash
strapped that it is compelled to
include quasi-historical advertise
ments to fund itself, it should proba
bly re-evaluate its existence.
I call on the DN to return any fees
it has collected for this advertisement
and make an equal contribution to the
U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum or
review its advertisement policies.
Furthermore, the disclaimer states
that “advertisements in the Daily
Nebraskan do not necessarily reflect
the view of the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln, its student body or
the University Board of Regents.”
This disclaimer implies that these
bodies do not necessarily condemn
this advertisement, and a revisionist
view of history, but they do in fact
condone it.
I do not want to speculate on the
reasons why this advertisement was
included. One reason to include this
advertisement might have been to
liven up the tepid debate in the DN.
Using a revisionist view of history to
spark a debate is immature, impru
dent and inappropriate.
Peter Went
graduate student l
business
Good Journalism, part HE
Wednesday, the Daily Nebraskan
published an advertisement from the
Committee for Open Debate on the
Holocaust. This committee has been
buying ads in campus newspapers
around the country to spread their
specious tale of holocaust denial. This
is not sloppy scholarship. It is an
intentional distortion of history. Its
subtext is hate, a virulent strain of
anti-Semitism.
This campus should be a place
where ideas are debated and the truth
sought. As our vision statement reads,
“We seek the truth for its own sake.”
However, let us not confuse the advo
cacy of controversial ideas'with the
pursuit of an agenda that is intended
to injure and harm others. I feel com
pelled to state my abhorrence of this
ad and the message behind it.
Janies Moeser
chancellor
Good Journalism, part IV
The late Mike Royko, in one of his
editorials, wrote “What has Mexico
done besides given us tequila?” and
was censored for this remark. Now a
senior news-editorial major and Daily
Nebraskan columnist writes, “When I s
find out who this El Nino fellow is, I
am gonna kick his Mexican ass.”
It saddens me that there are those
on this campus and across the country
who continue to choose to write
inflammatory, insensitive and igno
rant remarks that contribute to the
continued negative stereotype and
image of certain groups.
There is no doubt that El Nino is a
fascinating phenomenon. It doesn’t
take a genius to know that El Nino has
little to do with Mexico or a “Mexican
ass.” El Nino means “boy child” or- ^
“little pne” in Spanish and refers to
the Christ child. The name was coined
by a Peruvian fisherman for the warm
current that visits South America peri
odically around Christmas.
i here are those who are now
blaming El Nino for last week’s storm.
Willey takes this blaming even further
and proposes to do violence to a cer
tain body part of a certain ethnic indi
vidual.
Equally disturbing was the Daily
Nebraskan’s editorial board’s decision
to put this paragraph in the quotes of
the week. Did they find this quote so
“interesting,” “funny” or “newswor
thy”? When I questioned the DN staff
about the criteria for choosing the
quotes, they confirmed my initial
impression of their insensitivity. I find
their decision to be in poor taste.
Reporters write about what they
know, what they feel and what they
sense. Both Steve Willey and Mike
Royko have gone beyond the latitude
of good j ournalism.
Marty Ramirez
UNL Counseling and
Psychological Services
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