SPORTS
Title hopefuls
The Nebraska cross country teams are looking
for their first Big 12 championship Saturday at
Pioneers Park in Lincoln.PAGE 9
P i v i r $ i 81 s
Safely spooked
Modern-day haunted houses are going to great
lengths to scare - and protect - their customers
in Lincoln and Omaha. PAGE 6
FRIDAY
October 30, 1998
Partly Scary
Partly sunny today, high 60. Cloudy tonight, low 43.
Groups say campaigns too costly
Task force
will focus on
UNL’s future
By Lindsay Young
Senior staff writer
Chancellor James Moeser announced
Thursday his appointments to a task force he
hopes will chart the future of UNL's research
and graduate programs.
The Future Nebraska Task Force will turn
the question of the University of Nebraska
Lincoln's future in those programs into a
research problem, Moeser said in a statement.
He announced the formation of the task
force at the State of the University Address in
August.
“1 truly believe that this is the most critical
planning endeavor in recent times at the univer
sity." Moeser said. “1 am counting on the task
force to prov ide the direction for the future.”
Moeser has asked the new committee to
"imagine, conceptualize and strategize for the
entire university,” but it is not being asked to
plan the indiv idual features of each program it
By Todd Anderson
Senior staff writer
As the number of days in the 1998 gubernator
ial election ticks down, the number of dollars each
candidate is spending on political advertising is
going up.
Meanwhile, members of several national and
local groups would like to see an end to expensive
political campaigns.
Two fundamental concerns arise for both poli
cy-makers and reform groups: How much money
is being spent and where is it coming from?
At the end of September, the Mike Johanns
gubernatorial campaign reported an election year
spending total of S1.86 million, and the Bill
Hoppner campaign reported spendmg more than
SI million.
And as Election Day draws near, representa
tives from both campaigns have said they hope to
spend more money on radio and television adver
tising to put out their message.
According to figures from the Center for
Responsive Politics in Washington, D.C., most of
the largest 50 contributions made to the national
Republican party came from corporations and
political action committees.
The same report also shows more contribu
tions from workers' unions and special-interest
groups than from corporations given to the nation
al Democratic Party.
Chuck Sigerson. chairman of the Nebraska
Republican Party, said those national trends are
also present in Nebraska.
He said the corporations that contribute finan
cially to political campaigns do so with both the
interest of their employees and a philosophical
interest in mind.
But while money is important, Sigerson said,
the support of individuals is central to the success
of a political campaign.
Anne Boyle, chairwoman for the Nebraska
Democratic Party, said the groups that donate to
Democratic candidates work for the improvement
of society.
Please see SPEND on 3
On the dark side
IviVIlLli
Some questions the committee will answer
include:
■ What are the goals of the research and
graduate activities?
■ What can UNL learn from the experi
ences of other universities?
■ What approaches should the university
follow in prioritizing and budgeting for these
programs?
■ How can the university ensure its nation
al reputation matches these aspirations'7
Those chosen for the task force were nomi
nated by faculty members. After they were noti
fied of their nomination, applicants were asked
to provide a copy of their curriculum vitae and a
short statement of why they accepted the nomi
nation.
The 29 members of the task force include
faculty members from different departments
throughout the university.
Some include Paul Barnes, assistant profes
sor in the School of Music; Gail Latta,
Academic Senate president-elect; Edna
McBreen. assistant v ice chancellor for the
Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources;
and Rick Edwards, senior vice chancellor for
academic affairs.
Edwards will be the task forces chairman.
Please see TASK FORCE on 3
Matt Miller/DN
NU ASSISTANT SPORTS Information Director Aaron Babcock sits in the sun as he watches indoor track practice at the Bob Devaney Sports
Center on Wednesday. With the temperatures nearing 70 degrees, a loading door was opened to let in outside air as runners practiced.
Program will evaluate students of UNL graduates
■ Teachers College will
ask parents, students about
UNL alumni’s performance.
By Jessica Fargen
Staff writer
In a move that could set a national
standard for assessing teachers col
leges, UNL's will soon start grading
itself relative to how well the students
of its graduates learn.
Starting next spring, the program,
Compact With Nebraska, will evalu
ate the University of Nebraska
Lincoln's Teachers College seniors
and graduates who have been teaching
for two years, said Ellen Weissinger,
associate dean of the Teachers
College.
Organizers said the program is
novel. Instead of looking at grade
point averages, job placement and test
scores, teacher quality is measured by
talking to principals, surveying par
ents and graduates and looking at the
standardized test scores and grades of
the students of Teachers College grad
uates.
“We’re not judging our teachers,”
Weissinger said. “We’re judging our
selves.
“I think in the process what we are
going to learn is what we’re doing
really well at. What are the character
istics that exemplify our graduates?”
The program will begin by evalu
ating 70 graduates in Lincoln Public
Schools and will be expanded across
the state in following years.
Representatives from UNL’s
Teachers College will present the pro
gram to the American Association of
Colleges for Teacher Education in
Washington, D.C., at its February
meeting, said David Imig, the organi
zation’s chief executive officer.
“This is going to become what is
expected everywhere,” Imig said. “It’s
a new form of accountability that all
education schools and teachers col
leges are going to be held to.
“It’s not just the success of the
graduates, but it’s how well the stu
dents perform.”
A lack of follow-up programs to
measure how well college graduates
do their jobs is a failure of most col
leges, Weissinger said.
“I think universities have always
felt that their education quits when
students graduate,” said Weissinger,
who is also an associate professor of
health and human performance at
UNL.
Imig also recognized the lack of
evaluation programs at most universi
ties. He said UNL’s program is some
thing that could apply to most careers.
“It isn’t how well the doctors do,”
Imig said. “It’s how well their patients
do that becomes the measure for how
successful the school is. And that is
not done very often in higher educa
tion.”
David Wilson, associate professor
Please see TEACHERS on 3
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