Peter Bleed was in Lincoln in September on vacation from his research sortie in Japan.

Pen Mightier Than Sword

Excavating Secrets to Ancient Japanese Technology

By Scott Franzen, Public Relations Intern

A 30-year fascination with ancient Japanese technology has resulted in a happy coincidence for Peter Bleed, a professor of anthropology. He's on sabbatical leave in Japan till December, spending seven months teaching and researching at Tohoku University. And he's also celebrating the publication of his first novel, National Treasure. The book grew out of his long-time study of Japanese swords.

Bleed holds the position of a guest professor at Tohoku University, one of the five old imperial Japanese universities, in Sendai, an ancient hilltop castle city north of Tokyo. Aside from giving lectures about "Primitive Technology," he is conducting research on Paleolithic stone tool technology for the newly designed Museum of Tohoku University.

The understanding of the thought processes behind the creation of ancient tools has captured the interest of many modern archeologists, but is a difficult topic to assume, Bleed said. Being associated with Tohoku since he did his dissertation research 30 years ago, Bleed is familiar with a great deal of Japanese archeology. Bleed is using data assembled by Japanese archeologists and collections of stone tools that have been gathered from several 20,000 year old sites. The data are some of the very best in the world and should produce exciting and significant results into the processes of tool production, he said.

The focus of his research is the steps that ancient Japanese people used to develop their tools.

"There is an intrinsic order to technology and part of the problem I'm trying to solve is the relationship between the steps that built stone tool technology," he said.

"With the refitted materials, I have been able to work out very specifically how those people made their tools," Bleed said.

"This is important and interesting because I think I can use the data to consider how they organized their technical information and how they 'thought' about the tool making process."

Bleed also is interested in an excavation next to his Japanese office building. Bleed's office is in one of the few pre-war buildings left in Sendai. An Imperial Army base, the city was firebombed in July of 1945, destroying large parts of the city. His building was spared from the fire that consumed the buildings next door.

Upon becoming a military base during the Post-War Occupation, a great number of American-style buildings were built. To accommodate modern expansion, these post-war structures have been torn down by the university. With the ruins of the old Sendai castle beneath the surface, excavations are under way to recover a part of Japanese history. While he's not actively involved in the excavation, he visits daily with the archeologists.

In addition to his current endeavors in Japan, his latest book, National Treasure was published in June by RKLOG Press, a press for books about and by archeologists. (Bleed notes that spelling out the publisher's name gives a clue to its audience.)

Saturated with ancient sword lore, the novel is based on Bleed's past scholarly research from an archeology perspective, but the characters and events are completely fictional. It covers several historical periods weaving the complex history of a couple of Japanese swords into the life of Eric Mallow, a modern-day dentist from Minneapolis. The interaction of history and societies that share nothing in common is covered with detail and expertise. The mystery surrounding the life of an 14th century sword once belonging to a samurai warrior brings intrigue to Mallow's encounters with modern world of business, politics and the owa, the Japanese underworld.

"Writing the story was a very stimulating exercise," Bleed said. It is quite different than the usual writing he does, but allowed him to tell a more complete story than archeologists are usually able to do. It permitted him to use a great deal of information he has acquired as a scholar of Japan and material culture.

"It gave me the opportunity to further investigate some ideas and institutions of Japanese archeology and culture that a solely academic perspective makes hard to address," he said. Bleed has been interested in Japanese swords since graduate school when he read Yumonto The Samurai Sword.

Beginning with a few stories that he had written down and read to his sons one morning at breakfast and after noting their curiosity as to what happened next, a novel began to take shape.

When asked about using it as part of his teaching curriculum, he replied, "No, but I would love it if the book was used outside the classroom to learn more about Japan."

He has been invited to present the results of his sabbatical research at the Society for American Archeology meetings in 2001.

UNL Earns Spot in Lombardi Research Universities' Rankings

By Kelly Bartling, Public Relations

A new study from the Lombardi Program on Measuring University Performance includes UNL among the ranks of "The Top American Research Universities."

Released in July, the University of Florida-based project assessed university and college research performance based on nine performance indicators:

• Total research expenditures
• Federal research expenditures
• Endowment assets
• Annual giving
• Faculty members in national academies
• Faculty awards
• Doctoral degrees
• Postdoctoral appointees
• Entering freshmen SAT scores

The study evaluated these performance indicators and placed UNL on a list of 47 public universities that placed in the top 25 in one or more of the indicators. UNL placed in the top 25 in two categories: endowment assets and annual giving. This placed UNL on the same rank level as six other public institutions: Indiana University at Bloomington, Michigan State University, North Carolina State University , the State University of New York at Stony Brook, the University of California at Irvine and the University of Georgia. Institutions placing in one indicator category were listed below UNL. Private institutions were evaluated separately.

"No available data can accurately capture the totality of a university's quality and productivity," said the report. "No available indicator can measure the complete performance of these complex and diverse institutions. At the same time, some measures provide quite reliable indicators of institutional performance."

The report was well-received by the UNL administration because of the quality of the data and its refreshing approach that recognizes areas of excellence, officials said.

"It's pleasing to be placed among the top public research universities in this objective study, but it's also pleasing to have an exact measuring stick on where we stack up against our competition," said David Brinkerhoff, acting senior vice chancellor for academic affairs. "We have established benchmarks or goals for our research performance and measurements of quality on this campus, so it's good to see how we are doing compared to other larger institutions. There are areas, of course, where improvement is needed, and we will identify those, but it is good to see a comparison study that uses quality data and in which we excel."

In the 49-page report, its authors also seek to dispel myths of current popular rankings and define performance indicators that support the clustering of universities by quality.

"Universities that seek to rise into the ranks of the nation's elite research institutions need reliable measures of performance that will reflect their success in the competitive higher education marketplace," the report said.

Institutions were purposefully not "ranked" as in many popular publications, whose rankings fluctuations "generate the interests that sustains the process" and sells publications, the report said. Instead the analysis clusters groups of universities on their relative performance.

UNL's top 25 marks were earned on the financial side, in endowment (25th) and annual giving (seventh). Those numbers were included in the comparison criteria because, according to the report, "endowment represents a significant source of revenue in support of research and quality education, and ... the measures of private support identify the success of the university in persuading its various constituencies that its programs represent a good investment."

Of the other seven criteria measured, UNL ranked 50th in total research dollars, 66th in federal research dollars, 68th in national academy faculty numbers, 51st in faculty award numbers, 36th in number of doctorates granted, 64th in number of post-doctoral scholars, and 54th in freshman SAT scores.

The Lombardi Program on Measuring University Performance, based at The Center at the University of Florida at Gainesville, is directed by John V. Lombardi, president of the University of Florida from 1990-99, and now a professor of history. The Center is a research enterprise focused on a variety of projects in the humanities and social sciences, analyzing topics of interest to the scholarly community.

Prioritization of Academic Programs

Interim Chancellor Harvey Perlman sent the following email to faculty and staff on Sept. 5

Dear Colleagues:

I know that most of you have followed in the newspapers the accounts of the Board of Regents' adoption of criteria for the evaluation of academic programs. I am aware that the tone of some of those accounts suggested the prospect of another elaborate exercise leading to dramatic and painful programmatic cuts. Let me give you my perspective on what was intended and how I believe with your help this University should respond.

This university has already engaged in considerable strategic planning which has resulted in a careful articulation of campuswide priorities. With Othmer funds dedicated to enhancing carefully selected academic programs, we were already committed to selecting programs that could shine with additional funding. The Board of Regents believe, and I agree, that we can best move the university forward by emphasizing those programs that give us the potential for greatness. At the same time we have an obligation to the children of Nebraska to maintain a comprehensive program of undergraduate, graduate, and professional education as part of our historic land-grant mission.

Establishment of priorities is a part of the routine administration of the university and of colleges and departments. Decisions are made every day that favor one program over others, that commit resources to a faculty initiative that shows promise of success, that provides support to a department or program. I embrace the criteria adopted by the board as a useful reality check on our planning efforts. The criteria will show us if we are wide of the mark in the priorities we have chosen. However, the selection of priorities will be informed but not driven by supposedly objective data which are often unavailable, misleading, or not useful in comparing different types of programs. Ultimately, the decision on our priorities are judgments derived from our normal processes of shared governance.

I have detected no evidence of an intention on the part of the president of the university to use these criteria as a mechanism for a round of program cuts. I can assure you that I have no such intention. We will, as we continually do, move resources from some programs to others as opportunities arise. Unless we become faced with a major financial exigency, I do not sense that the threat, implicit in some of the news accounts, is a real one.

At a recent Chancellor's retreat with the deans and vice chancellors, we agreed to treat this exercise as part of our normal administrative responsibilities. I have insisted that the faculty be involved as they should be in planning exercises. If academic units have not already engaged in a planning exercise, this should be seen as a good opportunity to do so. If strategic plans are already in place, this is an opportunity to check their appropriateness against the recommended criteria. There is no expectation that existing priorities will be jettisoned or dramatically altered. Most importantly, I think it is not in the best interest of this university to allow this exercise to drain our energy from the other important tasks that I set out in the State of the University address or that are part of the agendas of the colleges.

I am committed to fully responding to the Board of Regents' prioritization initiative. I believe we can do so as a university in a responsible and appropriate way without elaborate new processes, without the fear or bitterness that is often the product of a ranking exercise, and without disrupting our ongoing efforts to make this a better University.

Harvey Perlman, Interim Chancellor