McLaughlin honored by AS UN
McLAUGHLIN from page 1
chemistry books with names like “The
Paradoxicon” and “How to Prepare for
AP Chemistry.” There are others.
But in the middle of them all sits a
bright one.
“The Lorax” by Dr. Seuss.
Stuck right there in the middle of
all that chemistry.
***
McLaughlin enters the main part of
the office. He props Himself into a
wooden chair.
The interview begins.
He tells how he ended up at the
University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
McLaughlin came 2Vi years ago as
a visiting professor from Missouri.
He was only supposed to stay for a
semester.
But because of the reception
McLaughlin received from students,
the chemistry department asked him to
stay longer.
Last week, the department extend
ed his contract for another three years.
“I was looking for a different chal
lenge,” McLaughlin says. “Something
unique. I knew there was a strong use
of multimedia teaching here.”
So the university let him stay, but
not as a chemistry professor. It has
instead deemed him a “senior lecturer.”
Because McLaughlin is not here to
do research, he is not on track to be
tenured and technically cannot be
called a professor.
But McLaughlin doesn’t care.
And apparently neither do the stu
dents. *
The senior lecturer was recently
awarded the Outstanding Educator
Award for large classes for the second
year in a row.
Freshman biological systems engi
neering major Derek Robinson called
McLaughlin the best “professor” he’s
ever had.
His friend, Karl Albrecht, a fresh
man chemical engineering major,
agreed.
“He has a way of taking hard stuff
and making you understand,” Albrecht
said.
McLaughlin says he owes his
teaching and the outstanding educator
award to the students.
“They really do inspire me,” he
says. “I couldn’t develop the skills this
award recognizes unless I was inspired
to in some way. I have some incredibly
eager and interesting and motivated
students.”
McLaughlin said he realizes a
small truth that many other teachers
don’t.
The chemistry lecturer says he
wants to thank students for choosing to
attend UNL. Without that choice,
McLaughlin says, the university
wouldn’t even exist
He realized this about two weeks
ago when the Association of Students
of the University of Nebraska present
ed McLaughlin with his award.
The next morning, McLaughlin
went to Subway and ordered 375 cook
ies for the students in his classes.
It’s his way of saying thanks.
***
Class time should be spent engaged
in learning. This is the philosophy
McLaughlin adheres to.
He teaches three chemistry classes
this semester, all of them 50 minutes
long. f
McLaughlin is a man of perspec
tive.
He refers to those 50 minutes as a
micro-century or one millionth of a
century.
It’s imperative to use that time
wisely, McLaughlin says.
And the way to do that is to use a
variety of multimedia approaches.
McLaughlin says he does live
demonstrations in class. He uses an
overhead. There are five TV screens in
the room that he uses. He is a very visu
al teacher, he says.
“I try to use all this media to engage
” He has a way of taking hard stuff
and making you understand.”
Karl Albrecht
UNL freshman chemical engineering major
people for the whole micro-century
that they’re there,” McLaughlin says.
“And for them not to be passive. Ajid
for me not to be passive.
“That’s what it takes, I think. It’s a
partnership. Students are hoping that
they’ll learn something. Teachers are
hoping that students will be chal
lenged.”
McLaughlin gives credit where it is
due. He does not do his job alone.
Without the secretarial and technical
support staff, he says the job wouldn’t
be possible.
The senior lecturer wants to help
his students learn. He wants them to
look forward to class, and he wants
them to do well on exams, he says.
To help with that, he holds Chem
Jam two nights before every test. This
is a time for students to ask final ques
tions.
McLaughlin stays as long as it
takes him to finish off a large latte.
***
Einstein.
He peers out from two places in
McLaughlin’s disheveled office. One is
the calendar on the chalk board. The
other is a poster hung high on the wall
by the door.
The poster says something about
people letting go of personal hopes and
wishes and realizing they are then at
the “realm of art and science.”
McLaughlin says the two fields are
connected.
He takes a pottery class every
Wednesday night.
Some of his work is displayed
around the office - a white coffee mug
with a brown handle, a large colorful
bowl-plate thing.
He goes to the class because it’s
soothing and low-stress, he says.
McLaughlin also plays the har
monica. He plays blues downtown at
the Zoo Bar, where he says peers affec
tionately refer to him as “Screamin’
Billy Mac” because he plays the har
monica with so much force.
It turns out McLaughlin is also in
an Irish band called Irish Stew. They
have their own CD.
And they also have live gigs. The
seven-member band played at Barnes
& Noble Booksellers last month.
More than 100 people showed up.
The bookstore had expected 30.
McLaughlin says Barnes & Noble
is anxious to have them back.
sfcsfc*
It is evident McLaughlin has a
thirst for knowledge, for art, for new
ideas, for variety, for life learning. It is
visible in everything he does.
It shines through in the way he
describes his teaching, his students and
his staff.
And it is this aspect of his character
that lies just beneath the surface, just a
bit intangible.
It is this extreme quality of charac
ter that makes a home for Dr. Seuss’
“The Lorax” in an otherwise dusty
arrangement of chemistry textbooks.
And yet there is more.
McLaughlin volunteers at the
health food store Open Harvest once a
week, where he stocks and, among
other things, rearranges tofu. He’s been
a vegetarian for 16 years.
It’s an important job, he says. It
reminds him to appreciate everyone’s
work ethic. But, he adds quickly, every
job in the world is an important one.
McLaughlin smiles under his gray
mustache. He remembers when he
moved to Lincoln 2lA years earlier.
“I wanted to come to a place and be
a part of that place,” McLaughlin says.
It’s all part of a big picture that
McLaughlin takes it upon himself to
realize.
v • ( I- i
This senior lecturer of chemistry
does things most Americans don’t His
activities don’t seem to fit together. It
doesn’t make sense for one individual
to be so many different things.
But McLaughlin is.
And, for him, it makes sense.
He’s a teacher, a tofu-stocker, a har
monica player, an author, a potter, an
avid bike rider and a caring man.
Perhaps all these things that define
McLaughlin’s personality are ultimate
ly what compose the secret.
Because inside, just beneath the
surface, he knows something the rest of
us don’t, some tiny secret of life that the
rest of us ignore every day.
Perhaps we are too busy to take
notice.
But inside McLaughlin, it’s there.
It is ultimately what keeps a man
who is so busy so seemingly happy.
“We yearn for a greater purpose,”
McLaughlin says. “And what happens
sometimes is that we, humans, end up
yearning without learning.”
Legislature approves
parking fee increase
PARKING from page 1
faculty, staff and students, as the
construction of new buildings on
campus will eliminate current park
ing lots.
The garage at 17th and R streets
will take the place of parking lots for
students holding non-reserved per
mits and also will eliminate the
Campus Corner convenience store,
he said.
Construction on the garage will
most likely begin this summer and
has a tentative completion date of
fall 2001, Carpenter said.
Two more parking structures
also may be built in the coming
years, if plans are approved by the
University of Nebraska Board of
Regents and the Nebraska
Legislature.
Tentative plans for the new
structures would place them at 14th
and Avery streets and 19th and Vine
streets, he said.
Carpenter said he understood
the frustration felt by students, fac
ulty and staff because of increased
permit prices, but he still empha
sized the importance of the new
parking structures.
“Everything you’re paying for
now pays for the fiiture,” he said.
The legislative resolution also
includes the addition and renovation
of the University of Nebraska
Kearney Nebraska Student Union,
with the price tag of $6.3 million to
be funded by revenue bonds,
Wehrbein said.
Also included in the resolution is
the improvement of utilities at
UNK, a project costing about
$730,000, which will be paid for
through a surplus fund of student
fees, as well as revenue bonds, he
said.
you'll like it, you'll love it, you'll want some more of it
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