EDITOR
Josh Funk
OPINION
EDITOR
Mark Baldridge
EDITORIAL
BOARD
Lindsay Young
Jessica Fargen
Samuel McKewon
Cliff Hicks
Our
VIEW
Needed
feedback
Midterm evaluations
aid students, professors
OK, teachers.
It’s your chance to help both your
selves and your students.
The Association of Students of the
University of Nebraska Academic
Committee members are urging you to
hand out midterm evaluations.
You know, those fill-in-the-circle
scan sheets students grudgingly fill out
at the end of every semester, for every
class?
Well, now students may get to do
- that again - but about a month early.
But only if you take advantage of the
situation.
We hope you do.
You see, these evaluations, which
aren’t required, will give you the feed
back you don’t usually get until the end
of the semester.
by then, it s too late tor your stu
dents to benefit from any changes you
may make as a result of the evaluations.
Sure, your next semester’s students
will benefit. But why not heip your cur
rent students out.
Give the students a forum to speak
out, and they will.
In fact, they may even spend more
time on the evaluations simply because
they know it could be to their advantage
to do so.
Don’t worry about making drastic
changes in your teaching styles halfway
-through the semester.
It doesn’t have to be that dramatic.
Maybe a student’s complaint is as
small as not being able to read your
handwriting on the board or overhead.
Or maybe you talk too quickly - or
quietly.
Those problems are easy to fix but
once fixed could drastically change the
attention you get from your students and
the amount of information they remem
ber.
Students might have wanted to
spend more time on a particular chapter.
Or they want more comments on the
papers they write.
Maybe they don’t understand how
you grade their tests, but they are too
scared to tell you in person.
Midterm evaluations are to every
one’s benefit.
Your students do better in the class,
_ and you feel better about your teaching.
And future students are bound to
benefit, as well, from the changes you
put into practice.
Besides, mending the problems in
the middle of the semester may result in
better evaluations at the end of the year,
in turn leading to better teaching overall
at the university.
Everybody wants that.
Editorial Policy
Unsigned editorials are the opinions of
the Fall 1999 Daily Nebraskan. They do
not necessarily reflect the views of the
University of Nebraska-Lincoln, its
employees, its student body or the
University of Neoraska Board of Regents.
A column is solely the opinion of its author.
' The Board of Regents serves as publisher
of the Daily Nebraskan; policy 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.
Letter PaUcy
The Daily Nebraskan welcomes brief
letters to the editor and guest columns,
but does not guarantee their publication.
Tbe Daily Nebraskan retains the right to
edit or reject any material submitted.
Submitted material becomes property of
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returned. Anonymous submissions will
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Submit material to: Daily Nebraskan, 20
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letters@unlinfo.unl.edu.
Obermeyer’s
VIEW
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DN
LETTERS
Ain’t over ‘till it’s over
I commend the Daily Nebraskan
editorial staff’s efforts (DN, Sep. 27)
regarding the AIDS problem in Africa,
as the situation there is profoundly
troubling. AIDS is a disease that threat
ens to bring down entire nations.
However, I feel your editorial of
Sept. 27 should also have addressed
what continues to be denial much clos
er tc^home.
After many years of being “inun
dated” with prevention messages, an
estimated 40,000 Americans become
infected with HTV every year.
Today, while new life-prolonging
drugs have ended the automatic death
sentence of an HIV diagnosis, the
decline in the death rate due to the dis
ease has contributed to a sense that the
epidemic is somehow over, or that the
problem is now only in other countries.
There is no doubt that HTV preven
tion efforts have saved many lives; the
infection rate has slowed from more
than 150,000 per year in the late 1980s.
However, AIDS is quickly becom
ing a crisis of American youth: half of
the new infections are occur among
people under 25.
Not only Africa needs to come
clean. Reinvigorating our own national
HTV prevention is also a moral and
political imperative.
Charles Housman
Public Education Coordinator
HIV Prevention
Nebraska Health and Human
Services System
Don’t fence me in
A group of friends and I arrived at
the last home game, Oct. 9, about 45
minutes early in order to ensure a fairly
decent seat
About 10 minutes before the game,
a small group of fans, many of whom
were wearing T-shirts bearing the greek
letters for Sigma Phi Epsilon and
Kappa Alpha Theta, informed us that
their houses had the surrounding seats
reserved.
To avoid conflict, our group split
up, filling up any empty seat nearby.
Apparently, our efforts weren’t
good enough.
For some reason this entire group
decided to stand on the bleachers, even
though no one in front of them was
standing on the seats, and they could
have seen perfectly fine standing on the
concrete.
Through the entire first quarter,
more and more people pushed past us
unapologetically. As more people
moved in, the group spread out so that
the bench-standers were now directly
in front of us, completely obstructing
our view of the field.
We politely asked them to move
down but were met with lame excuses
or complete ignorance.
When I bought my tickets for the
game, I was aware the seat number was
a mere formality and that seating was
actually on the first come-first serve
system. The only way to “reserve”
seats is to come early and sit down.
If you plan on arriving halfway
through the first quarter, then show
early-comers, such as my friends and
me, a little respect by finding seats that
don’t obstruct our view or crowd us in.
Lucas Johannes
freshman
pre-architecture
Hymn to Reason
I would like to thank the DN and
Mark Baldridge for their active role in
the attempt to discredit the creature for
mally known as “God” (DN, Friday).
In appreciation of their work I have
provided the following litany to our
new (18th century) god, Reason, may it
bless me from on high (perhaps
CHdfather Hall, even).
Thank you, O wise Reason, for
Bureaucracies, the IRS, the ATF and all
of your wise and Holy men who you
have seen fit to control our lives.
Thank you, O just Reason, for two
World Wars, for Korea and Vietnam
and for brainwashing those who sacri
ficed their lives so that we can feel
comfortable.
Thank you, O almighty Reason, for
the Atomic, Hydrogen and Neutron
Bombs and for the wisdom to know
who to blow away.
Thank you, O gracious Reason, for
solving all of our sexual woes and for
making perversion and rape a reality
that we can all enjoy.
Thank you, O most pleasurable
Reason, for the intelligence to make
Meth-Amphetamine, refined Cocaine
and Heroine, with these we have kept
the undesirables down.
Thank you, O most tasty Reason,
for processed foods, MSG and dietary
supplements, Without these how would
we know we were healthy?
Most of all, thank you, O most
righteous Reason, for killing the
Christian devil, Jesus, and for quelling
his devilish plot to have everyone “treat
each other as they would be treated.”
I couldn’t have done without you,
Reason, for you are all-knowing and
all-powerful and all my thoughts bend
to you lest I be lost in the wilderness of
spirituality and believe that my “spirit”
be taken to a better place after death
and not know that I am only chemicals
and to chemicals I shall return.
Thank you, Reason, thank you.
Remember, Mr. Baldridge, not to
be to certain of the direction you are
going in, or you may begin to walk in
circles.
Joe Fraas
sophomore
English
