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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 8, 2000)
A tribute to John Lennon; 20 years after Ms murder, fans remember his impad In Arts/8 Friday December 8,2000 Volume 100 Issue 73 dailyneb.com Since 1901 Daily Nebraskan %/ Lincoln fifth grader cooks her way to New York with In News/5 Last year’s star player, Nancy Meendering, watches NU fight for No. 1 -without her. In SportsWeekend/12 Great Platte River Archway Monument celebrated, criticized ■One critic says the Kearney museum's architecture detracts from the history it is meant to portray. BY BRADLEY DAVIS AND GEORGE GREEN When President Clinton sets foot in the Great Platte River Archway Monument on Friday, some Nebraskans say he will be exploring a grand museum. But at least one archway critic remains steadfast in his opposition to the monument. Assistant General Manager of the arch, Ronnie O’Brien, said no matter what some detractors say, most visitors leave the arch in awe. “It’s a very powerful experience," she said. O’Brien said articles in local papers rave about the arch’s technologically advanced displays. Barbara Clark, group sales coordi nator for the arch, said the $60 million monument fuses infrared technology, modern audio systems, Western arti facts and murals into a genuine experi ence of what the Old West used to be like. “You get the feeling like you’re real ly there,” she said. Visitors put on radio headsets before they traverse the arch, Clark said. And, when they enter new exhibits, infrared sensors trigger the displays to begin their presentations. Some exhibits place visitors in the heart ofWestem lightning storms while others bring them face to face with stampeding buffalo, she said. When visitors aren’t dodging buf faloes, Clark said, they are listening to cast figures describe life on the prairie. “It's so fabulous that it’s beyond words," she said. Kearney Mayor Pete Kotsiopulos said the arch also is bolstering local economies. Preliminary sales tax numbers and motel booking figures show that the arch is helping Kearney businesses, he said. Moreover, he said, the arch’s posi tive repercussions will ripple across the state. If visitors stop at the arch for even an hour or two, he said, they are more likely to stay in a hotel in Lincoln or Omaha that night. But, Kotsiopulos said, the figures he has are only preliminary, and he expects more good news from the monument. "We only know the tip of the ice berg,” he said. Kotsiopulos said I the arch’s historical ft value is equally as I important as its I financial benefits. Visitors will I learn about E Nebraska’s rich his- [ tory from presenta- m tions that use the I latest technology | Courtesy Photo The Great Platte River Archway Monument spans the width of Interstate 80 near Kearney. The archway Ijas Nebraska history exhibits in its museum. from around the world, he said. The inside of the arch is fascinating and will surprise vis itors with its interactive exhibits, he said. “The internal part is incredible,” he said. Though people are raving about the arch's inside, there will always be dis cussion about its exterior, Kotsiopulos said. Architects will debate about the monument's structural significance for years to come, he said. One of the arch’s most vocal critics, Please see ARCH on 6 The Clinton Yeats President paved way from Cold War to globalization BY BRIAN CARLSON In what is billed as a major speech, President Clinton will discuss his foreign policy record today and chart a course for the future of the U.S. role in the world. As part of his first visit to Nebraska as president, Clinton will speak today at 9 a.m. at the University of Nebraska at Kearney. His address is tided “A Foreign Policy for the Global Age.” "The president will talk about the role that America has played in the world over the course of the last several years, the principles that have guided the administration's foreign policy and the path we should take in the future,” said Jason Schechter, a White House spokesman. “He will stress the continuing impor tance of America’s engagement in the world and the American people’s interest in for eign policy. “This speech is as much a look back on the successes of the Clinton administration on foreign policy as it is a look down the road to what our foreign policy should be in the future.” Clintons foreign-policy address in Nebraska provides a chance to evaluate die foreign policy record he compiled during his two terms. Two | University of Nebraska- jj Lincoln professors said Jj Clinton’s record was a mix ture of Mures and successes, marked by confusion over the nature of the post-Cold War era. An article by bandy Berger, Clinton s national security adviser, in the November/December issue of Foreign Affairs bears the same title as Clinton's speech. Berger gives Clinton credit for expanding NATO, halting the violence in Bosnia, leading the NATO bombing campaign to stop human-rights abuses by Yugoslav forces in Kosovo, sealing free-trade agree ments and leading the country into a globalized world. "I believe President Clinton's most fundamental achievement is that he steered America from the Cold War era to the era of globalization in a way that enhanced not only our power but also our authority," Berger wrote. “That is the foundation on which we must advance our interests in a global age.” Berger argues that the next president should maintain the strong U.S. alliances but help them adapt to new challenges, constructively engage for mer Cold War adversaries such as Russia and China, work to quell local conflicts that threaten intemation al peace, address me prouieration ot weapons or mass destruction and continue to press for economic inte gration and free trade. David Forsythe, a UNL political science professor, said Clinton’s foreign-policy legacy is difficult to define. No “Clinton doctrine” has emerged, he said, but that may be because of the era's complexity. During the Cold War, the United States had a clear enemy in the Soviet Union and was able to define its foreign policy in terms of containing Soviet commu nism. No such simple foreign-affairs paradigm is apparent today, Forsythe said. “His legacy is the difficulty of establishing a coher ent policy after the Cold War,” he said. “It's not at all clear that Clinton is associated with any particular vision about the U.S. and world affairs. He was much more in the pragmatic, muddle-through tradition than he was in the big picture tradi tion.” After primarily stressing domestic policy during his suc cessful campaign to defeat President George Bush in the 1992 election, Clinton received criticism for his early foreign policy. "Most scholars believe Clinton was not very inter ested in foreign policy when he came into office,” he said. “It was only late in his second term that he began to pay more sys tematic attention to foreign policy.” Early Clinton failures includ ed the humanitarian mission in Somalia, i which the United | States abandoned after i a 1993 firefight in Mogadishu left 18 U.S. Rangers dead. The I allure to inter vene to stop genocide it Rwanda in 1994 also was a fail u r e , Forsythe said. The Clinton administration also was reluctant to intervene decisively to stop ethnic warfare in the Balkans. Finally, in 1995, NATO bombing and Croatian success on the battlefield helped bring the fighting to a stop. Clinton learned from the early U.S. and NATO fail ures in Bosnia and intervened more decisively in Kosovo, Forsythe said. Although the operation was messy, it eventually stopped the attacks on civilians by Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic’s forces. Clinton may have been most successful on inter national economic issues, Forsythe said. He helped secure passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement, oversaw the creation of the World Trade Organization and successfully argued for continuing trade with China despite its poor human rights record. He also drew mostly positive reviews for his attempts to bring peace to Northern Ireland and the Middle East through negotiations, part of his attempt to fashion a foreign policy legacy, Forsythe said. ON File Photos “Maybe it’s not ultimately a bad thing to have a pragmatic leader, but it does leave us with the lack of a clear lega cy and a lack of vision about the place of the U.S. in die world after the Cold War/' Forsythe said. “I can’t imagine what he’ll tell us in Kearney. It’s awfully late to be talking about foreign policy in con ceptual terms. Why didn’t he do this eight years ago?” Lloyd Ambrosius, a UNL history professor, said Clinton came to office at a time when the United States was uncertain about its new role in the world “If there is a legacy, it is that American presidents in the post-Cold War era have had to deal with the messiness of the world, and there is no single doctrine Please see CLINTON on 6 State earns B average for schools BYJILLZEMAN On the higher education report card, Nebraska didn't bring home straight As, but it won’t be placed on academic probation either. The Chronicle of Higher Education published grades for all 50 states, rating them on different edu cational aspects. Nebraska’s high schools fared well, with the state’s receiving As in student preparation and the percentage of high-school graduates enrolled in col lege. But the state’s affordability and retention rates didn’t make as good of grades, earning a C+ and C respectively. States also were graded on benefits, which meas ures the percentage of residents with a bachelor’s degree or higher, residents who vote and residents with high literacy skills. For this, Nebraska received a B-. All in all, the state ended up with a B average. No state came away with straight As. Massachusetts came closest, with four As and a D in affordability. On the lower end of the spectrum, Louisiana received two Fs, one D+, a C- and a C. Susanna Finnell, University of Nebraska-Lincoln director of admissions, said she was pleased with Nebraska’s grades. At first, Finnell said, she was disappointed with the C grades, but after examining other states’ scores and the criteria used, she didn’t think Nebraska fared too badly. “It’s tough,” Finnell said, in reference to the grad ing criteria. "There’s no grade inflation here.” Finnell said she was especially pleased with the A- grade for high-school preparation. “It speaks highly of the preparation of high school students,” she said. "These are the students we'd like to attract” Please see CHRONICLE on 7 i Regents Board to focus on'brain drain' BY VERONICA DAEHN The University of Nebraska has been suffering from what Papillion Regent Drew Miller calls the “brain drain” for some time. But on Saturday, the NU Board of Regents hopes to come closer to solving that problem. The regents meet Saturday at 8:30 a.m. in Varner Hall, 3835 Holdrege St., on East Campus. Their strategic issue this month is undergradu ate student recruitment. A panel of administrators from all four NU campuses will speak on the issue, said Joe Rowson, NU spokesman. The panel is in response to a request for infor mation the regents made about six months ago, Rowson said. TTiey want to know how the university system can improve recruitment. Miller said intensifying undergraduate student recruitment efforts at NU has been a concern for quite some time. “We’ve been asking for better action to be taken by the university so we can be more competitive” he said. Please see REGENTS on 7