ir Da ily Nebraskan
More than just drinking and sun: Bryan Snyder, not 2000 Planet Butter, an
Students spend spring break champ Brad Vering, eclectic jazz/funk band,
buiding houses for low-income finishes highest at will be at a music store
famfties NCAA’s near you soon
In News/9 In SportsMonday/12 In Arts/8
Jennifer Lund/DN
ULTIMATE FUN: Brothers Adam and Andy Kafka play Ultimate Frisbee Sunday afternoon in Woods Park.
They play twice a week with friends.
Perlman drops'interim/
named new chancellor
BY JILL ZEMAN
A year ago. Harvey Perlman had no
idea he’d be sitting in the office he’s in
now.
In fact, he said, he was surprised he
was chosen in July as interim chancel
lor.
But now, Perlman will drop the
interim from his title, pending approval
of the NU Board of Regents in April, NU
President Dennis Smith said Friday.
“I’m still a little surprised I am where
I am.” Perlman said.
Apart from the excitement,
Perlman, a Nebraska native, said he did
n’t feel much different.
“I tried to do what the university
needed (as interim chancellor),” he
said. “Now I can take a long-term look at
issues on the horizon.”
Perlman has found favor with lead
ers both in and out of the university
community.
Political officials, such as Gov. Mike
Johanns and Lincoln Mayor Don
Wesely, commended the university
“My dream is to be 95
years old and having to
be wheeled into the
classroom to teach."
Harvey Perlman
___NU chancellor
Friday for choosing Perlman as chan
cellor.
Perlman said he was delighted he
had the support of others in the state
because UNL played an important role
in all of Nebraska, not just the educa
tional community.
Perlman will follow two chancellors
who each spent four years at UNL -
James Moeser, who left to become
chancellor of the University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Graham
Spanier, who became chancellor at
Penn State University in State College.
But Perlman said he would stick
around at UNL as long as his health was
good and the university was pleased
with his work.
And Perlman said he wouldn’t aban
don the university after his tenure as
chancellor was over.
He said he didn’t know if he would
be able to continue teaching at the
College of Law while he was chancellor,
but he hoped he could teach after he
stepped down.
“My dream is to be 95 years old and
having to be wheeled into the class
room to teach,” he said.
“I’m not longing for a sailboat any
where.”
Perlman, 59, grew up in York and
graduated from the UNL College of Law
in 1966. One year later, he became a law
professor at UNL
Perlman left for eight years to teach
at the University of Virginia Law School
but returned to Nebraska in 1983 and
served as dean of the law college for 15
years.
Please see PERLMAN on 9
Willborn named new law dean
BY JILL ZEMAN
Newly-appointed Chancellor Harvey
Perlman has a lot in common with Steven
Willbom, UNLs new law college dean.
The two worked together in the
College of Law - Perlman as dean and
Willbom as a faculty member.
Both were promoted from interim
leaders to permanent positions in the
past week - Willborn’s promotion was
announced March 9 and Perlman was
named chancellor Friday.
And both have nothing but the high
est praise for each other. t
Last month, Willbom said he couldn’t
have expected a better law dean than
Perlman.
“He was a perfect dean, in my eyes,”
he said.
And Perlman said Sunday he was
“very pleased” Willborn was promoted to
law dean.
“He’s been around long enough to
know where the bodies are buried, but
he’s fresh enough to bring new ideas,”
Perlman said
Willborn has served as interim law
dean since last summer when former
Dean Nancy Rapoport left to become
dean of the University of Houston Law
Center.
Willborn, who has served on UNL’s
faculty since 1979, will begin his term July
1.
He has been a Fulbright Scholar at
the University of London, a visiting pro
fessor at Oxford University, the University
of Michigan and the Australian National
University.
Willborn also has received three
Distinguished Teaching Awards from the
College of Law.
He earned his bachelor’s degree in
philosophy from Northland College in
Ashland, Wis., a master’s degree in coun
seling from the University ofWisconsin
Madison and his law degree from the
University of Nebraska Law School.
Before coming to UNL, he worked as
a lawy er for three years in Cleveland.
Please see WIUBORN on 5
Debates concern two bills
Alcohol rights debated for minors
Research on
senators'minds
BY GWEN T1ETGEN
As senators shift from com
mittee hearings to all-day floor
debate, one bill that will linger
in the back of all senators’
minds is the bill that would ban
research using aborted fetal tis
sue.
Committee hearings end
Tuesday, making way for hours
upon hours of floor debate.
Sen. Dwite Pedersen of
Elkhorn, the bill’s sponsor, and
its supporters are trying to keep
the bill from a repeat of last
year's defeat.
BY GEORGE GREEN
State lawmakers took a vacation of
their own last week, but senators weren’t
pleased with the extra free time.
In particular, Sen. Mark Quandahl of
Omaha didn’t want to lay off his work.
A standstill rippled across the senate
floor early last week when Sen. Ernie
Chambers of Omaha stifled debate by fili
bustering a bill introduced by Quandahl to
change minor in possession laws.
LB114, Quandahl’s bill, would have
beefed up MIP penalties and included a
provision that would have let officers pre
sume that a minor had been consuming
booze if they were in the proximity of alco
hol and exhibited signs that they had been
drinking.
Quandahl said his bill would have
closed a legal “loophole” in a state law that
lets minors consume alcohol without risk
ing getting a ticket.
Currently, cops can arrest minors for
possessing alcohol but not for consuming
it.
punishing minors “far more harshly than
adults.”
The senior senator said he immediate
ly caught th£ attention of other lawmakers
when he added the amendment because it
would have revoked a slew of drivers
licenses.
For example, if the amendment would
have passed, adults caught selling alcohol
to minors could lose their licenses for sev
eral months.
“I chastised (senators) for hypocrisy,”
he said.
In addition to beating back the harsh
penalties and the presumption clauses,
Chambers also challenged language he
felt unfairly applied only to the Christian
religion.
Both the old and new version of the bill
allowed minors to consume alcohol if it’s
part of a religious ceremony.
But Chambers said the old bill con
tained language "unjustly peculiar to the
Christian religion” using terms like “sacra
ment" and “wine.”
But history is repeating
itself, as the bill is deadlocked in
the Judiciary Committee again.
Four of the committee’s
eight members have said they
would support a vote to
advance the bill out of commit
tee.
The otheffour senators have
indicated they were against
advancing the bill out of com
mittee.
Sen. Matt Connealy of
Decatur, who was considered by
many as the swing vote on
whether the bill would be
advanced, said last week he
couldn’t support the ban.
Connealy said while the bill
was more constitutional than
last year, it was still too vague for
him to suppoVt the measure.
“This ban has been struck
down in other states where it
has been instituted,” Connelly
said.
With a "no” vote by
Connealy, the bill would need
25 senator’s votes out of 49 to
Please see RESEARCH on 5
After the dust settled from the legisla
tive showdown, a modified bill emerged
that still punishes minors for consuming
alcohol but doesn’t let officers presume
they were drinking if they are near booze.
The modified bill requires that a scien
tific test, like a breathalyzer, prove that a
minor had been drinking.
The new version doesn’t include the
old proposal’s hefty penalties, including
one that revoked the drivers licenses of
minors convicted of MIR
Before producing the compromise bill,
senators battled for four days over the
concept.
“There was a little bit of a tussle over
the issue,” Quandahl said.
Chambers launched opposition to the
bill when he started the eight-hour fili
buster and continued the attack when he
tacked on an amendment that would
revoke the drivers license of any person -
adult or minor - caught violating any part
of Nebraska’s liquor laws.
Chambers said he added the “nuclear”
amendment, which was eventually with
drawn, to show lawmakers that they were
Those terms were dropped in favor of
more neutral language.
Quandahl labeled the religious’
amendment as “ancillary” but important
and predicted the new version would easi
ly pass into law soon.
While some senators suffocated under
the standstill, Sen. Ron Raikes of Lincoln
and his peers on the Education
Committee hit the books and produced a
proposal to increase teacher pay.
Nebraska ranks 45th nationally in
average teacher salaries, and lawmakers
have been struggling all session to rectify
the problem.
The Education Committee’s proposal,
which hasn’t passed, would alter teacher
salaries in the three main ways, Raikes
said.
■ In 2001, teachers still in their first
four years of work would get a $2,000
Please seeMIPon5
Scaffolding frames Capitol
chamber restoration project
BY SHARON KOLBET
In the Nebraska State Capitol there is
a small landmark used by those who fre
quent the Memorial Chamber on the 14^
floor.
With two identical elevators on either
side of the tower, it is not uncommon for
visitors to get confused.
“It is easy to get a bit lost up here.”
Roger Frink said when asked for direc
tions.
Frink, a member of the Capitol
restoration team, gestures to an anomaly
in the marble wall near the elevator
lobby. He pointed to a small fossil
embedded in the smooth marble surface
near the narrow elevator door.
“You can always look for this little
guy,” he said gesturing to the fossil in the
wall.
“When you see this, you know you are
at the northeast elevator,” he said.
The 14th floor has been a popular des
tination for visitors who want to view the
murals or walk along the observation
deck. Right now the deck is closed to the
public, but small windows give visitors a
view of the restoration progress.
Sections of the masonry wall along
the observation deck are being removed
as the conservation crew repairs dam
aged areas. Tom Kaspar, an architect with
the State Building Division, said the proj
ect was more about restoration than ren
ovation.
We want to preserve as much ot the
original material as possible," he said.
The architects’ commitment to main
tain the original design of the building is
demonstrated in the work being done on
the tower windows.
Above the murals that grace the 14th
floor’s Memorial Chamber is a bronze
framework that holds more than 500
tower windows. The windows need to be
re-glazed, so the restoration team is busy
removing them.
”WTe are preserving as many of the old
windows as we can," Kaspar said. “New
windows are being made to replace the
broken ones. They are being custom
made to match the texture and amber
Sharon Koibet/DN
Framed by scaffolding, the Capitol building is under
going a massive restoration project. The tower scaf
folding will be taken down next spring, but the entire
project isn't expected to be completed until 2007.
color of the originals.”
The process of removing the tower
windows is a delicate and time consum
ing job. In a narrow walkway hidden from
the publics view, a stairwell winds its way
up to the top of the tower between two
walls of windows. In this small, cramped
area, the restoration crew has very little
space in which to erect a scaffolding.
“We are literally walking on glass up
here,” Frink said.
Frink isn’t kidding. The floor of the
walkway is made up of panels of glass
seven-eighths of an inch thick. While this
glass floor is stronger than a person
might expect, the restoration crew is cov
ering the floor with plywood to protect it
from dropped tools and accidental chip
ping.
“The floor was made of glass rather
than concrete to allow as much light as
possible into the Memorial Chamber."
Kaspar said.
With delicate historic windows on
Please see CAPITOL on 5