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Minuses may sting honors students
BY UNDSEY BAKER
Next semester, university students
will have to relearn the ABCs of UNL
grading.
For honors program^tudents, the
new lesson stops at A.
This week, honors program students
received an e-mail from program admin
istrators stating the current grade point
average to remain in the program, a 3.5 or
B+ will not change to 3.33, the GPA
assigned to the B+ on the newly adopted
plus-minus grading system.
That means honors students will have
to maintain above a B+ grade point aver
age.
The University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Academic Senate approved a move horn
the current 9-point grading scale to a 13
point plus-minus grading scale in
February.
The senate decided the new scale will
be implemented in the Fall of2001.
Academic Senate President Sheila
Schiedeler said she was happy the admin
istration decided to implement the plus
minus grading system this fall, but she
didn't think the Honors Program's deci
sion to keep the 3.5 requirement sounded
fair.
She said she hoped the honors office
had rational discussions about the deci
sion with both honors staff and students.
“This is not a result of changing the
grading system that we want to see,”
Scheideler said.
Judd Choate, a UNL visiting assistant
political science professor who teaches
honors courses, said he suspects honors
administrators made the decision to stay
in line with competing universities.
“We're stuck with racheting up stan
dards to compete,” he said.
Some honors students had negative
reactions to the decision.
“The standards are already difficult
enough,” sophomore chemical engineer
ing major Justin Vala said.
Vala, attending UNL on a Regents
scholarship, said he is particularly con
cemed about the decision because he has
to maintain an A average to keep his full
ride scholarship.
He said he feared the Honors Program
would become a “grades and perform
ance-based program” instead of an
enriching, interest-based program.
“Focusing on students and trying to
move forward is really what’s important,”
Vala said.
Undeclared freshman and honors
student Shannon Mullaney said she
doesn’t oppose the addition of minus
grades, but she does oppose the pro
gram’s decision to stay at the 3.5.
Please see GRADES on 3
Senate OKs
newspaper
fee request
V
BY MARGARET BEHM
After three weeks of debate in student govern
ment over the funding for the Daily Nebraskan, the
newspaper was granted its full funding
Wednesday.
The Association of Students of the University
oTNebraska voted 14-7 to give the newspaper
$50,862, or $1.19 per student, per semester.
Joel Schafer, ASUN president, said he was tick
led pink the newspaper received the full amount
requested. Schafer said he had been working for
weeks to spread the word to senators that the
newspaper deserved the
“/ helieve money.
L rur -I believe the DN should
the DN have gotten the full funding
Should amount, and I’m glad they did,”
, he said.
tiUVe The Committee for Fees
gotten the Allocation voted earlier in the
full semester 6-2 in favor of agiving
the Daily Nebraskan $50,300 to
funding pay for a portion of the paper's
amount printing and production costs.
, ’ With this funding, the newspa
ana I m per estimated a profit of
W W m w ____
glad they $61350 for this year.
j. j » When this amount hit the
u senate floor three weeks ago,
debate kept the funding from
being approved. Senators were
Joel Schafer confused about whether or not
ASUN president the newspaper should be given
the money because it has about
$300,000 set aside in a Money
Market account
Russell Willbanks, Daily Nebraskan
Publications Board chairman, said although the
amount sounds like a lot of money, it will only
cover a portion of the production costs of the
newspaper.
“We’re not asking you to approve funding for
anything other than 20 percent of publishing
costs,” he said.
The money is set aside in case of libel suits,
equipment breakdowns or technology upgrades,
Willbanks said.
“The contingency fund has to be as big as it can
be for emergencies,” he said.
And plus, Willbanks said, the newspaper does
n’t have a crystal ball or a good psychic to predict
future advertising revenues.
Please see ASUN on 6
NateWagner/DN
Though Chancellor Harvey Periman undoubtedly spends a good deal of time in his office, there's a lighter side to him few students may see.
The realHarvey
Common man's chancellor: He's not all business
BY JILL ZEMAN
Harvey Perlman is a lawyer.
No ifs, ands or buts about it
His comments are well thought out, and he usual
ly doesn’t deviate from what he wants to say.
If he doesn’t know something, he'll say so.
And even in the height of his seriousness, he has a
way of saying “no comment” with flair.
Perlman, chosen Friday as the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln’s 19th chancellor, doesn't have a lot
of free time.
His hobby, he joked, is going to banquets and wel
coming groups of people who visit or are interested in
UNL
But the lawyer and chancellor hats come off when
die 59-year-old Perlman goes home, he said.
“My family wouldn’t put up with that stuff,” he
said.
At home, Perlman isn't anything like what the stu
dents see, said his wife, Susan.
The Perlmans have two daughters-Anne, who is
a doctor, and Amie, a UNL senior psychology major.
Outside of work, life is casual, low-key and
relaxed, Susan said.
“We make fun of him a lot,” she said with a laugh.
And he can cook, too.
Perlman came back with a slew of recipes after he
and his oldest daughter, Anne, went on a bike trip
through Northern Italy, Susan said.
According to Susan, one of the chancellor’s best
dishes is angel-hair pasta with tomato and basil.
***
Although he now leads the state’s largest school,
Perlman wasn't always a top name in academics.
He began his academic career at the University of
Nebraska in 1959, where he majored in journalism for
a semester.
He then tried out an English major, but that ended
when he learned he had to read 25 books over a sum
mer.
Next came political science aspirations, which
lasted for about a month.
And finally, Perlman ended up with a degree in
history.
“Tb the extent I paid attention, I liked it,” he said.
For the first two years of college, Perlman picked
and chose which dasses he wanted to attend regular
ly
But in his defense, the partying didn’t start until
Friday - unlike students who celebrate Thirsty
Thursday now.
Perlman was a member of Sigma Alpha Mu and
served as the fraternity’s representative to the
Interfratemity Council.
“The fraternity had grand visions of me being a
member of the Innocents Society,” Perlman said
Please see PERLMAN on 3
Fetal tissue bill could ban common medical practices
■ Vaccines and other drugs may be
affected by the new bill aimed to stop
fetal-tissue research.
BY GEORGE GREEN
A bill to ban fetal tissue research in
Nebraska might do more than stop
researchers.
In fact, in a recent evaluation of
LB462, Lincoln attorney Alan Peterson
found the bill would ban all Nebraskans
from any vaccines, drugs or treatments
derived from fetal tissue research.
Hie bill - originally aimed at stop
ping fetal tissue research at UNMC -
contains sweeping language that per
verts its initial intent, Peterson wrote in
a letter to the NU Board of Regents.
“LB462 has extremely broad scope,
and creates a myriad of legal effects not
all intended by its drafters,” he wrote.
Sen. Philip Erdman of Bayard,*who
designated LB462 as his priority bill,
said he hadn't had a chance to review
Peterson's work.
But, he said, he expected opponents
of the bill to raise concerns about the
bill’s legal ramifications.
“It doesn’t surprise me,” he said.
Peterson's findings didn’t necessari
ly surprise Harold M. Maurer,
University of Nebraska Medical Center
chancellor.
He said the bill's effects were signifi
cant enough to warrant a letter to sena
tors.
“I felt compelled to say something
to the legislators about the conse
quences of this bill,” he said.
In a letter to Nebraska’s 49 senators,
Maurer explained how much the bill
could disrupt the practice of medicine
in Nebraska.
Specifically, he wrote the bill would
prohibit any state-owned facility or
institution from administering any type
of medicine that was discovered
through fetal tissue research.
He said new vaccines for Hepatitis
A, chicken pox and rubella would all be
off limits if the bill became law.
The language of the bill would also
forbid people from using Medicaid dol
lars to pay for any treatments that
involved fetal tissue research, he said.
Erdman’s priority bill would spill
into the public arena, Maurer wrote, by
barring private institutions from
accepting Medicaid funds if they deliv
ered any vaccine, drug or treatment
that could be traced to fetal tissue
research.
Any institution - public or private -
that violated the bill’s provisions could
be brought up on felony charges.
Such an extensive list of conse
quences would severely damage the
quality of health care in Nebraska,
Maurer said.
“I don’t think it’s in the best interest
of the health care of Nebraska,” he said.
Please see RESEARCH on 3