Cultural carnivals afford new horizons
Food, song, dance spice up
Turkish Independence Day
By Ann Mary Landis
Staff Reporter
Food, music and dancing made
the third annual Turkish Night feel
more like a party than an education
al experience. But organizers and
participants said it was both.
Turkish Night, which was spon
sored by UNL’s Turkish Student
Association, celebrated Turkish
Independence Day and taught the
audience about Turkish culture.
Lutfullah Turkmen, president of
the Turkish Student Association, told
the audience he was glad the group
could introduce them to Turkish cul
ture.
“We believe after tasting Turkish
culture., you will become friends of
Turkey,” Turkmen said.
Aliekber Aktag, a UNL graduate
student, played Turkish folk music
on an instrument that looked like a
small guitar. He sang in low, melodi
ous tones.
Orhan Yenen, a researcher in the
UNL physics department, then gave
a music presentation.
Yenen played taped songs from
periods of Turkey’s history, includ
ing one from the 1600s - the time of
the Ottoman empire - and a modern
song that used Western composition
techniques. At times the audience
clapped with the beat.
He also played an Islamic reli
gious song, noting the high percent
age of Turkish citizens who are
Islamic. During one song, a couple
in the audience spontaneously got up
and danced, and another couple fol
lowed.
To show off the customs of
Turkish dress, a man and two women
modeled traditional clothes. The
women wore colorful vests, head
pieces with coins and cloth, and
flowing pieces of cloth over pants.
The gold headpiece coins signified a
woman’s marital status, or if she
were ready to get married. Gold
coins hanging around their neck rep
resented the status of the family in
society.
The dancers used pieces of cloth,
strings of coins, and candles. At the
end of the night, the audience had
the chance to try Turkish folk danc
ing. Many members of the audience
left saying they’d gained a new
understanding of the culture.
The audience itself was a diverse
group.
Ranging from babies in strollers
to gray-haired adults, the audience
had various homelands: Turkey,
Korean percussion represents nature
By Josh Funk
Assignment Reporter
The sharp, hard clash of the
mallet striking the jang gu cut
through the rumble of the drums
with a driving rhythm that echoed
through the sanctuary of the
Culture Center Saturday night.
The sounds of this miniature
bronze gong controlled the cadence
of the other drummers on stage and
signaled a change in beat.
The crowd began to clap along,
and someone jumped up to dance as
the sounds of the “Sa mul nolri”
indoctrinated the audience into the
Korean Paradise.
The performance of the Sa mul
nolri, along with traditional dance
and song performances, highlight
ed the celebration of Korean culture
Saturday night sponsored by the
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Korean Student Association.
“Sa mul nolri,” or four-instru
ment play, is a traditional form of
Korean folk music that celebrates
the harmony of different elements
of nature.
Each of the four instruments
used, a large and small jang gu, a
large drum and a two-headed mid
size drum, represents elements in
nature.
The Sa mul nolri brings all four
of these percussive elements
together to create harmony.
Before the performances, a tra
ditional Korean meal was served
with rice and four main dishes:
■ “Jabchae,” a noodle dish cre
ated from sweet potatoes. The noo
dles are then cooked and served
cold.
■ “Kimchi,” which is pickled
and spiced vegetables with a dis
tinctive and perhaps dangerous fla
vor to the unaccustomed palate.
■ “Galbi,” a seasoned beef
dish. Strips of beef are flavored and
cut into chopstick-sized pieces.
■ “Kimbap,” which is Korea’s
version of sushi. Rice, vegetables
and some meat are wrapped up in
seaweed.
In Korea the food varies greatly
by region, said Hyosik Hwang, an
English literature graduate student.
Every town and sometimes
every family has a distinctive ver
sion of these dishes, Hwang said.
An atypical member of the per
formance that night was Cecil
Howell, a senior African-American
computer science and international
business major.
Howell is the first non-Korean
member of the Korean student
organization.
He joined to learn about other
cultures and because of his Korean
friends, Howell said.
The global community every
one is talking about is now, Howell
said.
The entire event was organized
by Jiyeon Yoo, a senior business
management major.
“We hoped to create a better
understanding of Korean culture,”
Yoo said.
Pakistan, India and Indonesia.
The audience also got to taste
Turkish food. A mixture of hard
boiled eggs, olives, onions and pota
toes was served cold. A combination
t)f beef, tomatoes and onions
reminded some of American foods.
Some people said the dessert tasted
like baklava, a sweet pastry.
James Foote, an educational
assistant in the Teachers College,
called the evening “very enjoyable.”
“It was an evening to broaden
cultural horizons,” Foote said, “and
:I
broaden the belt-line.”
James Griesen, vice chancellor
for student affairs, said he appreciat
ed what cultural nights did for the
university.
“I think it’s evenings like tonight
that make a university a culturally
Regents OK trainer for non-athletes
REGENTS from page 1
and rehabilitation equipment in the
training rooms. The activity would
not interfere with Weber’s university..
duties, the request stat#.^ T-.'T'., . :
Under NU bylaws, art employee
must get regents’ approval before
providing professional services for a
fee to outside businesses or govern
ment agencies and before providing
professional services with the use of
university facilities.
Chancellor James Moeser said
the university’s modest request of
Weber’s fees was intended to keep the
cost of his physical therapy treat
ments low for students, staff, and
community athletes outside the
Athletic Department.
Regents may have misunderstood
the reason his fees were low com
pared with academic faculty, he said.
As a result, “they were asking for
the university to take a bigger rake of
this guy’s fees,” Moeser said.
NU President Dennis Smith said
the university takes a higher percent
age of faculty members’ fees because
of higher indirect costs involved in
their outside employment.
The percentage is not intended to
discourage faculty from consulting
outside the university, Smith said.
Moeser agreed: “I encourage fac
ulty to work outside the university.”
Ford said he and other faculty
members planned to further discuss
university’s share of their outside
employment revenue with Moeser at
a meeting of his Executive
Committee.
“My concern is not what the fee
is, but whether professors at the uni
versity have the same access to the
facilities that the Athletic
Department has^lFord said.
Regent Drew Milter .of Papiltion
requested the regents’ General
Affairs Committee develop a new,
more consistent university policy for
sharing faculty and staff members’
outside employment revenue.
In other action Saturday, regents:
■ Expanded the University of
Nebraska Minority Student
Scholarships Fund, making funds
available to students on the Kearney
campus.
Since 1989, only students attend
ing the university’s Lincoln and
Omaha campuses were eligible to
receive the scholarships.
The scholarship endowment fund
started with a $800,000 legislative
grant in 1989. After an additional
legislative grant this spring, the fund
now contains $ 1.3 million.
■ Approved expanding the UNL
Crisis Leave Sharing Policy to all
four NU campuses.
The program allows faculty
members and staff to donate up to
three days of vacation leave per year
to a crisis leave pool.
Then, other employees suffering
from a serious illness or family crisis
may apply to receive days from the
pool instead of taking unpaid leave
from work.
Based on the 18-month pilot pro
gram at UNL, the universitywide
annual leave donations will total
about 1,500 days, and about 900 days
will be used by employees in crisis.
The program could cost the uni
versity up to $50,000 per year. But
John Russell, NU director of human
resources, said he believed the cost
would be much lower.
■ Approved paying separate
architecture firms to begin designing
renovations for UNL’s Richards Hall
and the West Center and
Communication Building in
Kearney.
Both buildings are included in the
university’s 16-building, $95-million
deferred maintenance initiative.
Construction on Richards Hall
could start by the summer and be
completed in 1999.
■ Authorized NU Athletic
Director Bill Byrne and another uni
versity official to negotiate a post
season football game.
■ Approved spending $381,000
to install a new elevator in the north
wing of the Nebraska Center for
Continuing Education on East
Campus.
■ Approved the Athletic
Department’s spending $1.8 million
to renovate portions of east and west
Memorial Stadium.
■ Approved an exception in the
university’s bidding procedure that
will prevent unexpected expenditures
on capital construction projects.
■ Approved leasing land to the
Nebraska Health System on which to
build a walkway between Clarkson
and University hospitals in Omaha.
NdhraslhTO
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Fax number (402) 472-1761
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Editor: Paula Lavigne
Managing Editor: Julie Sobczyk
Associate News Editor: Rebecca Stone
Assistant News Editor: Jeff Randall
Assignment Editor: Chad Lorenz
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Approved plan will pay
early retirees’ insurance
By Erin Gibson
Senior Reporter
The university could save
millions of dollars while helping
make retirement easier for some
faculty members under a new
retirement health care plan
approved by the NU Board of
Regents Saturday.
Under the plan, the university
will pay the full amount of early
retirees’ annual health insurance,
provided the retiree is a tenured
faculty member age 59.5 years or
higher with a decade of service to
the university.
These payments will continue
until the retiree is eligible for
Medicare, which now occurs at
age 65. The plan applies to all
four NU campuses.
iLee Jones, NU executive vice
president and provost, said the
plan will help older professors to
retire early. Then, the university
can hire younger professors at the
assistant professor level, he said.
The salary difference between
older professors and new faculty
could save the university between
$2 million and $3 million annual
ly
Jones estimated 30 to 40 per
cent of university faculty mem
bers eligible for early retirement
would retire under the plan. If all
eligible faculty members retired,
the university would save $7 mil
lion annually, he said.
“The concept is a little bit
cynical,” said Regent Rosemary
Skrupa of Omaha.
But other regents, NU
President Dennis Smith and UNL
Academic Senate President Jim
Ford said they had yet to find a
drawback under the plan.
“It allows the university, on
all four campuses, then, a much
greater level of flexibility” in hir
ing, Smith said.
When an older professor
retires, the university can decide
to hire a replacement or redistrib
ute funds to hire a professor in a
different discipline, Smith said.
Ford said some older profes
sors need to retire early for health
or other reasons, and he approved
of the plan’s helping those profes
sors and saving the university
money at the same time.
However, the plan’s early
retirement bonus is not lucrative
enough to encourage the univer
sity’s best professors to leave and
work elsewhere while continuing
to collect retirement benefits - an
action called “double dipping,”
he said.
Regent Drew Miller of
Papillion said he thought that,
instead of encouraging the best
professors to retire early, the plan
would encourage the worst pro
fessors to leave the university.
“It may be a quality issue to
allow a disgruntled professor to
retire,” Miller said about the plan.
“Better quality, potential lower
costs, I’m for it.”
u
It allows the
university...a
much greater level
of flexibility (of
hiring)!'
Dennis Smith
NU president
http: 11 www.unl.edu /DailyNeb
.