Sylvia Wiegand Receives CCSW Award

Sylvia Wiegand, professor of mathematics and statistics, has been named the seventh recipient of the Outstanding Contribution to the Status of Women Award as presented by the Chancellor's Commission on the Status of Women.

The award recognizes actions and activities such as a record of recruitment resulting in the appointment of women, support for the advancement of women in their careers, and mentoring or other services that helps retain women as students, faculty or staff.

Jim Lewis, chairman of the department, and a past recipient of this award, says his department owes a great debt to Wiegand. The department was honored in 1998 with a presdiential aware for excellence in science, mathematics and engineering mentoring because of its success in mentoring women graduate students, and he says Wiegand had a large role in that success.

Lewis said that despite an outstanding record in graduate school, Wiegand was hired as an instructor in the department in 1972, while her spouse was actively recruited for a tenure track associate professor position. She was the only female faculty member in the department until 1988.

A superb scholar, she earned appointment as an assistant professor in 1972, as associate in 1976 and as full professor in 1987. In 1991, she became the first member of the UNL mathematics faculty to deliver an invited hour-long address at the regional meeting of the American Mathematical Society.

Lewis said her tireless work on departmental search committees proved that a serious search could identify outstanding women candidates and the faculty became more serious about hiring women. Currently four of 34 tenure-track faculty and one visiting professor are women.

Lewis said Wiegand has taken seriously the role of mentor, not only in the math department but other departments as well and has served on a number of task forces and committees charged with developing a welcoming community for women.

She has been a player on the national level as well. She recently ended a two-year term as national president of the Association for Women in Mathematics, a role that made her the most visible woman mathematician in the nation and brought substantial attention to UNL, helping recruit women faculty and graduate students to the program.

She also has served a number of appointments for the American Mathematical Society where she worked to ensure that women are included at every level of the organization.

Wiegand blazes trails outside the math department. She has run more than 100 marathons, including a few ultras. She was the first woman to finish the Kansas Relays Men's Marathon and was instrumental in forming the Lincoln Track Club.

Sartori Is Lake Award Winner

Leo Sartori, professor emeritus of physics, received the James A. Lake Academic Freedom award from the Academic Senate on April 25.

Dermot Coyne, George Holmes Professor of Horticulture and chair of the Lake Award Nomination Committee, said Sartori had a long career as conciliator and advocate for faculty and academic freedom, based on deep regard for principle and careful consideration of facts, not popularity or self-interest.

Coyne said Sartori, a "wise and gentle scholar," constantly defended and promoted academic freedom in a variety of leadership roles and that Sartori, "made things better and clearer for us in our times."

In his address to the group, Sartori recounted how he taught his first class in 1952 and spent 27 years at UNL. During the 1950s, he said, the threat to academic freedom was external and involved loyalty oaths and "witch hunts" for Communists in academia. In the 1960s and '70s, the threat was the disruption of learning by anti-war demonstrators.

Sartori said it was frustrating for liberal anti-war faculty who despised the war, but also opposed the tactics of classroom occupation and campus violence, preferring methods such as teach-ins to persuade others to join the cause of peace.

Contemporary threats are less overtly dramatic, he argued, but no less important. The academic freedom of students sometimes appears to be in conflict with that of faculty, he noted. Faculty must be sensitive to student concerns, he said, but students do not have an absolute right to avoid discomfort in a classroom, where thoughts and expression of ideas are paramount.

The conflict lies in a faculty member's right to a confrontational teaching style, for example, and a student's right to a classroom free of hostility, he said. A teaching style must sometimes give way to a student's right of expression, Sartori said, but careful consideration must be taken when making those decisions.

Still, he said, he is troubled that students often have little or no voice in the grievance process and they need better representation.

He also voiced concern that promotion and tenure decisions might be hinging on individual scholar's success at attracting external funding. Faculty must be free to choose their own area of study and no one should be forced to chose a research course based on funding sources.

Prior to conferring the award upon Sartori, Richard Edwards, senior vice chancellor for academic affairs, shared his thoughts on academic freedom with the senate.

Edwards said he believed the most important reasons to defend academic freedom are that the quality and legitimacy of faculty research must be free from predetermined outcomes and that academic culture must be an environment of free inquiry.

He said academic freedom means an environment where faculty are supported for being outspoken, courageous and controversial, and where "probing, deep and sometimes troubling and even irksome questions can and should be asked."

And, he asked, has UNL truly established such a culture on its campus?

Edwards cited several specific instances from recent campus experience that raise serious questions on this score. He mentioned cases where faculty feel afraid to speak out, fearing their promotions might be compromised; other cases where faculty, upon leaving the institution, air their grievances in the newspaper. Why do they feel the need to "save up" their complaints, Edwards asked, until they have escaped the reach of their colleagues and supervisors, and what does this say about our culture of free inquiry on the campus?

Most controversy at UNL is internal, he said, and centers on issues like parking and coaches' salaries. While not wishing to discourage such internal criticism, Edwards suggested that academic freedom must also be used for grander and broader issues than these internal matters. "Academics earn their right to academic freedom when they engage larger, more socially significant issues that have state, regional, or national implications," he said.

So too, building a culture of truly free inquiry requires UNL to develop a stronger sense of how to engage responsibly in informed debate, especially when highly controversial questions are raised, he said.

He asked the senate to think about whether UNL has achieved a campus culture that, not only in its rules and rhetoric but in its everyday practice, embraces all aspects of academic freedom.

The full transcript of Edwards's comments are available on the Academic Affairs website at http://www.unl.edu/svcaa/ priorities.html. Sartori's comments will be added to the same site at a later date.

Senate Installs Officers; Moeser Praises Faculty Governance

Academic Senate, at its final meeting of the semester April 25, the body installed Sheila Scheideler, animal science, as president and approved Miles Bryant, educational administration, as president elect.

David Jackson, food science, was elected secretary. Darrel Siekman, extension agriculturalist, and Teresita Aguilar, curriculum and instruction, were reelecte to the executive committee. Shelley Fuller, art and art history, was elected to the executive committee. Margaret Mering, libraries, and Tom Powers, plant pathology, were elected to the committee on committees.

The group accepted a number of committee reports.

A resolution regarding class notes, tabled at a previous meeting, was withdrawn by the executive committee. A resolution on student absence policy forms was postponed until fall for futher action.

In his final appearance before the senate, Chancellor James Moeser expressed his apprecation to outgoing senate President Gail Latta and said that he has the sense that faculty governance is in a stronger position than when he arrived in 1996.

Moeser said he is proud of efforts to recenter the focus of the institution on graduate and undergraduate education, of centering the institution to focus on values and diversity and praised UNL for its ongoing commitment as a "people's university."

"I believe the trajectory is positive," he said. "I will watch with great interest and pride the future progress of the institution."

Moeser said his goal before leaving in mid-July is to successfully complete two vice chancellor searches (business and finance and IANR).

He said he believes that critical issues for the university will be state support for higher education and a commitment to support the concept of a single strong flagship research university with UNL as that flagship.

A&S Faculty Win Summer Fellowships

Brian Horowitz, assistant professor of Russian, modern languages and literature, and Judaic studies; Effie Athanassopoulos, assistant professor of anthropology and classics and religious studies; and Sidnie White Crawford, associate professor and chair of classics and religious studies, all have received awards for humanities fellowships.

Horowitz is the recipient of an Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship, and the first Fulbright Minority Studies Fellowship award. He will begin a 12-month study May 1 at Heidelberg on the Humbolt fellowship, and follow it with a four-month Fulbright study at the Center for Jewish Education in Kiev. He will be researching the sole society representing Jewish education and politics in Czarist Russia, the Society for the Promotion of Enlightenment (1869-1929).

Athanassopoulos has received an American Council of Learned Societies fellowship for 2000-2001. Her project is "Archaeology and Text in Medieval Greece: The View from the Countryside." She will research the subject of rural settlement, land use and agrarian systems of the medieval period in Greece based on evidence provided by the documentary and archaeological records.

Crawford was awarded a Harvard Divinity School Fellowship for 2000-2001 academic year for the Women's Studies in Religion program. She will be studying the topic of women in the Dead Sea Scrolls. She will also teach a course on the subject at Harvard Divinity School, and give a public lecture. She plans to produce a book on the subject.

Crawford also was recently elected president of the W.F. Albright Institute of Archeological Research, which specializes in the study of the Bible and archeology of the Ancient Near East.

Jimmi Smith Inducted Into MO-KAN-NE Hall of Fame

Jimmi Smith, director of TRIO Programs (within the Office of Multi-Cultural Affairs), was inducted into the MO-KAN-NE Hall of Fame on April 14. MO-KAN-NE is the professional association serving TRIO personnel from the states of Missouri, Kansas and Nebraska. The criteria for being inducted into the Hall of Fame include a miminum of 10 years of membership in MO-KAN-NE, active member status, committee service, leadership and training roles, fundraising for the organization and supporting the goals and missions of the organization.

Smith was the President of MO-KAN-NE from 1990-1991 and is a member at large on the MO-KAN-NE board of directors.

Larsen Joins Journalism Faculty

Phyllis Larsen, director of public relations, is vacating her position and joining the faculty of the advertising department in the College of Journalism and Mass Communications. Her appointment is effective Aug. 14. An interim director will be named to serve until a search for a replacement is completed.

ASUN Thanks the Faculty Women's Club

ASUN thanks the Faculty Women's Club for its help in staffing polling sites for the ASUN Student Government elections. The FWC helped in both the March 1 election and the March 8 run-off election. The 134 members worked from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. at seven polling sites. Coordinators for the election from the Faculty Women's Club were Noreen Goebel and Gail O'Hanlon.

The student government donates $800 to the Faculty Women's Club, which uses the donation for a scholarship fund at UNL.