-i-'v • "I KISS and Sell ■ I T The Omaha KISS Army expects to k J I I ^ draw crowds at Sunday’s expo. Nebraskan ” ^ ^k^^k^ ^k^^k^ ^ik Should universities be allowed to Wednesday, March 29,2000 dailyneb.com Vol 99, Issue 128 internet? opinion^pagiTs Senator ends tenure of research bill ■ The bill’s introducer said there weren’t enough sure votes to pass the bill this session. By Veronica Daehn and Jill Zeman Staffwritm He warned us. When senators voted last week to pull the bill that would ban the use of aborted fetal tissue in research out of committee and onto the floor, Omaha Sen. Ernie Chambers warned us. Chambers said he would take the full eight hours of debate himself. He said he would stall the bill with a filibuster. Tuesday morning, Chambers was on his way. But after three hours of debate, Sen. John Hilgert of Omaha withdrew his bill from the agenda. “It was close,” he said about his decision to pull the bill from the floor. Hilgert said he knew LB 1405 did not have enough votes to pass. The bill would have needed 33 votes to pass to the next round. Only 28 senators voted to pull the bill out of committee last week. With only nine days left in the session and other priority bills waiting to be heard, Hilgert said the withdrawal would give the university time to find alternative tissue sources. But the bill would be re-introduced next ses sion by Elkhom Sen. Dwite Pederson if the uni versity had not done so, he said. A controversy erupted in November when the Omaha World-Herald reported that the ” The university has made some changes, and, hopefully, they ’ll make one more.” John Hilgert Omaha senator University of Nebraska Medical Center was using tissue from aborted fetuses for research on Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases. Because of the controversy, Hilgert drafted the bill Jan. 20. It was sent to the Judiciary Committee, in which members were deadlocked in a 4-4 vote. Hilgert and Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Kermit Brashear of Omaha motioned to pull the bill from the committee to the floor for debate on March 21. Even though Hilgert withdrew the bill Tuesday, he said he was pleased with its progress. It forced the Legislature to respond to a con troversial issue surrounding the university, he said. He said he hoped the university would con Please see BILL on 3 inside the . campaign - ... • , Josh Wolfe/DN JENNA MADSEN hugs her boyfriend, Impact presidential candidate John Conley, after she found out Conley lost In the March 1ASUN election. Election night brings shocks, surprises By Samuel McKewon Senior editor John Conley stands at the ground level of P.O Pears, unsure what to do at his own party. He looks left, then right and then he just leans against a staircase railing. “Let’s go upstairs,” he says to no one in particular. It’s about that time his cell phone jingles. It is the call from the vote-counting office, the one that says “Yes, John, you win,” or “No, John, you lose,” or “John, you’re in a run-off.” His future beckons. Conley, the Impact presidential candi date, has spent the past two hours at P.O. Pears waiting, putting on a good face and planning out his acceptance speech, which he expected to give in one way or another, either to announce a run-off with Empower or an outright victory in the ASUN student government elections. He expects it. He knows it “Until I lose, I’m the winner,” Conley says near the second-floor bar, where his senators and campaign advisers play pool behind him. The entire dimly lit room was reserved for Impact candidates and sup porters; in the main room below, Duff can didates nurse a few pitchers of beer. “Everybody around me keeps saying, ‘You’ve got it, John,’ and of course they’re going to keep saying that until we actually find out. “When you’ve got people in Empower shirts telling their people to vote Impact, it gives you a good feeling. I’m not sure how many of (Empower presidential candidate) Mr. (Heath) Mello’s own people like him,” Conley says. Conley is feeling good, confident, sur rounded by family, friends and a few dozen hamburgers. His sister, Laina, surprised him with a visit after she said she’d be held up by a mandatory class at Northwestern University. He walked up the stairs of P.O. Pears and found her there, waiting. “One of the better surprises I’ve had in awhile,” he says. He spends other parts of the night down on the main floor, amid his two executive candidates, first vice president Brad Bangs and second vice president Amy Ellis, and Duff candidates. He’s at ease, not nervous for himself, more worried for Ellis, who must get elected on her own ticket “I told her not to cry,” Conley says. “I think she might, no matter if she wins or loses, but Amy tells me she won’t, so I have to believe her.” Will Conley? “God, I don’t want to sound like a hard ass, but I don’t know when the last time it was I cried. It’s just not me.” Ellis, in contrast, is worried for Conley. “I’ll try not to cry,” she says. “But, I’m really not worried for myself. I just want to see John win.” The reality: They’re all worried, period. *** In the two months since the campaigns started kicking into full gear, things have changed, and those gears have slipped into unknown realms. Two parties became four, and Impact, which once considered itself the maverick choice to the establishment and greek-fueled Empower, finds itself being labeled business as usual. A-Team and Duff have taken Impact’s place as reformers. A-Team has picked up steam, performing well in debates, putting Please see IMPACT on 9 Integration of life sciences recommended By John Hejkal Staff writer Finding the best ways to do research is always a top priori ty for universities depending on research for their reputations. Hence, the faculty-led Task Force on Integration and Enhancement of the Life Sciences discussed its January report at a press conference Tuesday. The report looked at ways to keep the University of Nebraska-Lincoln a competitive research institution in the life sciences. Life sciences include areas such as biology, agriculture, environmental sciences and medical research. The report focused on integrating the life sciences to get more out of the resources available to UNL. David Mortensen, co-chairman of the committee and pro fessor of agronomy, said UNL should implement research clus ters, which would include faculty from different departments in life sciences who would work on developing high quality research. Mortensen said he’s observed universities with high degrees of integration in the life sciences that get top funding. “The feeling is that we could do better, as we look at our own institution, in integrating those sciences,” he said. Mortensen also said barriers between UNL and the University of Nebraska Medical Center need to be broken. The report called current life sciences research at UNL “stodgy” and “tradition-ridden.” The report recommended get ting more outside funding to change such research patterns. The report also said a problem in the life sciences was that the “whole” of offerings in research and teaching was not greater than the “sum of its parts,” which was a reason to work for greater cooperation among departments. The committee addressed its recommendation for changes in the structures of the Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources and the College of Agricultural Sciences. Anthony Joem, co-chairman of the committee and profes sor of biological sciences, said the report was not an attack on the areas of agriculture and natural resources. “The emphasis is not anti-agriculture,” Joem said. “It’s how do we do a better job with fewer resources.” Mortensen said changing the structure of IANR and CAS would mean integrating their activities with other areas in the life sciences. He said integration would help, not hurt, agricul ture. “We had no intention whatsoever of weakening the agricul ture here at UNL,” he said. The task force included nine members from IANR, five from the College of Arts and Sciences and two others. Richard Edwards, senior vice chancellor for academic affairs, said there was no schedule for implementation of the task force’s recommendations. “This report now becomes a matter of consideration and reconsideration,” he said. Edwards said the report should have an overall positive effect on UNL. “This is not a bad story about science,” he said. “This is the success of science.”