SPORTS
Is it Crouch?
Or is it Newcombe? NU coach Frank Solich
wouldn't say who would start Saturday at quar
terback against UAB. PAGE 11
A&E
Hands up
Palm reader Mrs. Roberts has a lot of secrets,
including yours. Based in Omaha, the palm read
er is spending her week at the state fair . PAGE 9
FRIDAY
September 4, 1998
Fair Weather Friends
Sunny, high 92. Fair tonight, low 63.
VOL. 98 COVERING THE UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA-LINCOLN SINCE 1901 NO. 11
12-year plan maps UNL’s future design
Changes will affect Alpha Chi Omega Sorority, which will be relocated
By Jessica Fargen
Staff writer
A more pedestrian-friendly campus, more
scholarly and prominent entrances and long,
grassy malls will be the UNL of the future,
under a 12-year plan announced Thursday
Next year UNL will start work on the plan,
unveiled at Nebraska East Union, which adds
three large parking garages on its outskirts and
blocks most traffic from its core.
A grassy corridor will extend from
Memorial Stadium to the Beadle Center, cut
ting traffic off at 14th, 16th and 17th streets. That
traffic will be routed to Antelope Valley
Parkway, a thoroughfare running along cam
pus’ east side.
The university will tear down two greek
houses - Alpha Chi Omega Sorority and vacant
Sigma Alpha Mu Fraternity - on the southern
corners of 16th and Vine streets to extend
Memorial Mall.
A 50-foot wooded area will surround East
Campus on all but the west side.
A new recreation center will be built there;
people will be able to access the campus from
48th Street.
Russell Butler, vice president of EDAW,
Inc., a Denver architecture firm, told about 15
students and five administrators Thursday night
what the University of Nebraska-Lincoln prob
ably will look like in the future.
Students, administrators and architects have
been working on the Preliminary Master Plan
since April.
The plan will go to the NU Board of
Regents in October.
Construction is scheduled to start in 1999
and be completed in six-year phases until 2011,
and then beyond.
Please see PLAN on 7
Save Ferris
Farmers in crisis,
state official says
■ He says that good
weather, excess supply
and the Freedom to Farm
Act are the causes.
By Brian Carlson
Staff writer
As farmers prepare for this fall’s
harvest, bumper crops throughout
Nebraska and the Great Plains and an
economic crisis in Asia are conspir
ing to sharply reduce farm incomes
in 1998.
Low commodity prices - for
many products, the lowest in a
decade - are the result of the simple
law of supply and demand.
Good weather and the end of gov
ernment programs restricting prod
uct supply have created a surplus not
matched by demand.
That demand has been dented by
economic tensions in Asia, where
consumers have less disposable
income and a reduced ability to buy
imports because of currency devalu
ation.
While supply and demand may be
simple, the problems faced by farm
ers and policy-makers this fall are
not. The values of the top six com
modities are down 11-35 percent
from 1996-97, and farm incomes are
expected to sustain a 40 percent drop,
according to the Nebraska
Department of Agriculture.
“We are in a crisis,” said Larry
Sitzman, Agriculture Department
, director.
The department reported the lat
est corn prices at about SI.60 per
bushel, the lowest since 1988.
Soybean prices, in the $4.80 range,
are at their lowest since 1987.
Roy Frederick, a professor of
1 agricultural economics at the
1 University of Nebraska-Lincoln, said
the excess supply of many commodi
ties can be attributed to good weather
and agricultural reforms enacted in
1 the federal Freedom to Farm Act of
; 1996.
The federal legislation ended
! government programs that paid
farmers to keep some of their land
out of production in an attempt to
reduce product supply. Farmers now
produce the combination of goods
they believe to be most profitable.
The Freedom to Farm Act was
designed to institute a more laissez
faire farm policy and allow the mar
ket to dictate a sustainable level of
production, Frederick said.
“But the other side of the coin is
that we all recognize that food is one
of the necessities of life, and farmers
haven’t been able to control their own
destiny,” he said.
Under the current market struc
ture, he said, farmers have incentives
to choose the commodities that have
been most profitable of late and plant
them fence row to fence row.
Farmers have no incentive to
restrict production, Frederick said.
The market is so large, he said, that
one farmer can’t affect a commodi
ty’s price by producing less. But a
farmer who did so would pay the
price by having less product to sell at
the market.
The result is excess commodity
supply. And farmers’ productivity
has increased in recent years,
Frederick said.
“We would be in worse shape if
we did not have really good crops,”
he said.
Sitzman was able to see firsthand
some of Asia’s economic problems
during a recent trip to the Far East
with Gov. Ben Nelson.
In places such as China and
Japan, consumer uneasiness and a
desire for self-sufficiency have pre
vented American farmers from
increasing their market share, he
said.
“In the case of Japan, the ships
are coming this way, and nothing is
going back Japan’s way,” he said.
The result of these conditions and
the crop surplus, he said, is that “the
ability of our farmers to compete has
diminished and is almost nonexis
tent” unless farmers contracted in
advance for better prices.
He warned that the farm prob
lems could lead to a “ripple effect”
that could eventually hurt the larger
economy.
Please see CRISIS on 7
Sandy Summers/DN
JAMES SOPER of the Mighty Bluegrass Shows climbs the Ferris wheel for routine maintenance at the
Nebraska State Fair on Thursday afternoon. Midway rides run every day from 1 p.m. to midnight.
Pepsi fund rewards community service
By Ieva Augstums
Staff writer
One freshman UNL program is
fostering the next generation of com
munity service
Thirty-nine “outstanding, devot
ed, energetic” students are receiving
S 1,000 from UNL and Pepsi Cola to
continue students' volunteering
efforts on campus.
Kristen Steltzer, assistant director
of honors recruitment, said the Pepsi
Service Scholar Scholarship recog
nizes students for their past and pre
sent work in the community.
“The scholarship creates a
trusteeship between students and the
community,” Steltzer said.
The program was created as part
of the University of Nebraska
Lincoln’s S24.2 million contract with
Pepsi.
Steltzer said the non-renewable
SI,000 freshman scholarship is
offered only to those graduating from
Nebraska high schools.
u
This scholarship is not honors exclusive.
Its very inclusive”
Kristen Steltzer
assistant director of honors recruitment
“The scholarship is not honors
exclusive,” Steltzer said. “It’s very
inclusive. It’s a diverse group of stu
dents.”
For the next 12 years, 40 students
per year will receive the scholarship.
Steltzer said Pepsi scholars are
selected on the basis of their history
and involvement with the communi
ty, as well as leadership and academic
abilities.
Diane Podolske, Student
Involvement assistant director, said
the program will teach students the
“who, what, where, when, why, how”
of community service involvement.
“Through volunteer and leader
ship skills we are helping students
give back to the community,” saic
Podolske, who is the coordinator o
the Pepsi Scholar class.
Podolske said students will bt
trained as community ambassador:
and will provide services for tht
Lincoln community.
Sherri Biernbaum, freshmar
business management major and <
Pepsi Scholar, said she is looking for
ward to going into the community
and making a difference.
“The satisfaction you get fron
knowing you’ve helped someone’:
life is so strong,” Biernbaum said
“We’re about making other people’:
Please see PEPSI on 1