CAMPUS BRIEFS
Observatory to open for
viewing of planet movements
Tonight, while the planets are
moving closer to one another in
alignment, students have a chance
to take a closer look.
The UNL Student
Observatory will be open tonight
from 8:30 to 11 for a free public
viewing, weather permitting.
Martin Gaskell, a senior lec
turer of physics and astronomy,
said five planets, the sun and the
moon are moving into an unusu
ally close alignment that will cul
minate in the second we$k of
May.
Tonight, three of the planets -
Jupiter, Saturn and Mars - will be
visible moving into their close
alignment, if conditions permit.
“The interest, really, is in the
grouping,” Gaskell said.
Such close alignment will not
happen again for about 50 years,
Gaskell said.
Also during tonight’s viewing,
some highlights of the late winter
and spring sky, including nebulae
and star clusters, will be shown
through the observatory’s 16-inch
telescope.
The Student Observatory is on
the roof of the Stadium Parking
Garage, 10th and T streets.
The next public viewing will
be May 12 from 9:15 to 11 p.m.
Black Male Empowerment
conference today, Saturday
A conference starting today
will allow intergenerational dia
logue between boys and men ages
15 and older.
The Black Male
Empowerment Summit will be
today and Saturday at the
University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
At a kickoff at 7 tonight,
Colleen Jones, assistant manage
ment professor, wiU sp^tk about
her deceased husband, former
vice chancellor for business and
finance at UNL, Melvin*Jones. A
$5 variety show will follow at 8.
On Saturday, participants can
attend empowerment workshops,
all related to “Nguzo Saba,” the
seven principles of Kwanzaa, an
African-American holiday.
Topics will cover economic
empowerment, collective and per
sonal responsibility, spirituality
and academic achievement.
The event features Joseph
White, professor emeritus of psy
chology and psychiatry at the
University of California at Irvine
and author of “Black Male
Emerging.”
Saturday’s summit will start at
9:30 a.m. and end at 5:30 p.m at
Henzlik Hall. Those interested
must register ahead of time. It
costs $7 for students and $12 for
non-students.
%
i:_i
Professor asks students
to see outside classroom
MOORE from page 1
group of students. But I try to think
about my teaching as embedded in a
larger set of goals. I either work to
develop or I connect up to new pro
grams that are developing.
So, a lot of my teaching takes place
outside of the formal classroom. I find
that that helps me be a better class
room teacher. I gain new understand
ing of my own field. I gain a better
understanding of the craft of teaching.
QIs there one thing you try
to especially instill in your
students?
A We call it the sociological
imagination. It is a set of crit
ical thinking skills based on
sociological theories and
research methods. It gives people a
new way of looking at their own world.
Once you’ve had that opportunity, you
never think of the world around you in
quite the same way again.
I also want them to understand the
scholarship of feminist research, the
scholarship of educational research.
I want them to have this intellectu
al set of skills, but I also want them to
have a foundation of knowledge they
can use.
What does winning this
1 award mean to you?
A Honestly, it means to me that
the university community
values innovation in teach
i ing, values efforts to bring
women’s studies and studies of
oppressed groups, minority groups,
social class issues (to light). It shows
that the university values that. And
they value the way in which I do that.
NU Dance Team,
Yell Squad &
Mascot Try-outs
April 13th - 15th
Registration begins on
April 13th at 5:00 p.m.
in Cook Pavilion
Call the NU Athletic Marketing
Office at 472-5918
to register
‘Membership benefits include:
Full Book Scholarship, $500
stipend/semester (if GPA is maintained),
and meals at the performance buffet.
File Photo by Newsmakers
PEOPLE WHO LIVE In cities are more likely to be sick than those who live In rural areas. A study released Thursday
by the Centers for Disease Control said pockets of people with high unemployment and poverty are III more often.
People sick more in cities
■ Urban areas foster ill
ness because of high unem
ployment and poverty.
ATLANTA (AP) - City dwellers
get sick more often than their rural
counterparts.
People who live in areas of high
unemployment are more likely to feel
unhealthy. And people living in pover
ty are sick most often.
Those trends were drawn from a
five-year study released Thursday by
the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention.
The government asked adults how
many days in the prior month they
were unhealthy and compiled results
from 1993 through 1997. Those num
bers were compared to factors such as
population, income levels and unem
ployment rates.
The study supports earlier
research showing that residents in
some pockets of extremely high
unemployment reported feeling
unhealthy up to 20 days a month.
“People that say they are unable to
work have extremely high levels»of
unhealthy days,” said David Moriarty,
spokesman for the CDC’s National
Center for Chronic Disease
Prevention and Health Promotion.
“We really don’t know if people are
not feeling well because they are
unemployed, or they’re without a job
because they may not have resources
to have health insurance.”
For the general population, the
average number of unhealthy days a
month is 5.3.
People living in counties with
more than a million residents were
unhealthy almost 5.6 days a month,
while those who live in counties with
between a half-million and a million
people felt bad 5.1 days a month.
However, people who lived in the
least populous areas - fewer than
25,000 residents - were almost as sick
as their urban counterparts, with 5.4
unhealthy days a month.
Moriarty said the study is a first
step to help local officials identify
problems that lead to high illness rates
in their communities.
Mary Martin, public health man
ager for the Columbia-Boone County
Health Department in Columbia,
Mo., agreed. “You have to know
where you are to be able to know
where you want to go,” she said.
A detailed analysis of the CDC
study results for 3,000 counties will
be released in July.
Disney workers allowed mustaches
LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla.
(AP) - Attention Disney workers:
Don’t throw out thos&razors just yet.
A week ago, Walt Disney execu
tives said they were relaxing a
decades-old policy that prohibited
theme-park workers from sporting
mustaches on the job.
But the policy has a caveat: You
can only grow a mustache on vaca
tion, and not at work.
Walt Disney World spokesman
Bill Warren said there’s nothing
unusual about the caveat in the policy.
“It’s a very common corporate
guideline that you should grow a
mustache on your vacation so you
wouldn’t have an unkempt appear
ance,” Warren said. “I’m not a hair
expert, but I’m sure someone can
grow a mustache in a reasonable
amount of time.”
Warren said apparent confusion
among workers means that “some
body didn’t get the message.”
Disney officials decided to scrap
the mustache ban - Which had been in
place since 1957 - in order to make it
easier to recruit employees in a tight
labor market.
