Joan Laughlin, center, speaks with Virginia Moxley, associate dean of human ecology at Kansas State University, and Merlin Lawson, dean of graduate studies at UNL, about the finer points of the FISPE project.

Inter-Institutional Master's Program Pioneers New Thinking

Getting Away from Yesterday's Model

By Kim Hachiya, Public Relations

Say you're an administrator in a fine, but small college who's hoping to start a new and in-demand program, but you lack the faculty expertise to offer a full-blown degree. You look around, and find a lot of your colleagues are in that same predicament.

Undeterred by present realities, you forge ahead, toss out yesterday's model and build a new program that combines the talents of faculty at a half-dozen universities in as many states.

That's what a group of Great Plains colleges of family sciences (once almost universally known as colleges of home economics) have done in offering an on-line master's program in family financial planning.

And the new model is working so well that it caught the eye of the U.S. Department of Education, who bestowed a three-year $1.073 million grant to iron out the details and perhaps extend the model to other programs.

Joan Laughlin, associate dean of the UNL College of Human Resources and Family Sciences, said the new program, which this fall enrolled its first cohort of students, has proven wildly popular. Financial planning is a hot job category, she said, and students who successfully complete the program not only come away with a master's degree, but they earn the right to sit for the Certified Financial Planner accrediting exam.

Laughlin said that in 1994 and 1995, the deans of a number of Great Plains family/consumer science colleges were meeting to talk about mutual concerns.

"We all had ideas about courses we wanted to offer and we didn't want to be limited by geography," she said. This group evolved in to the Great Plains IDEA (Interactive Distance Education Alliance) whose goal was to cooperate and collaborate rather than compete.

By 1996, she said, distance education had become a bigger theme in the region, as did efforts to promote things such as faculty development activities over the Internet and Web.

In 1997, faculty from a number of institutions including UNL, Iowa State, North Dakota State, Kansas State, South Dakota State, Texas Tech and Montana State, met in a workshop with the goal of designing a "module" for distance education.

The idea for a financial planning master's degree surfaced.

"This was excellent thinking," Laughlin said. "Most campuses have one or two people (with expertise) in this area but not enough faculty to support a full degree program. But by using the resources of all of us, our sum becomes larger than our parts. We surmount the problems of not having a critical mass of faculty."

Laughlin said the advantages of the program are many: students get a full complement of courses in a program area with high demand; faculty gain graduate students and a slate of colleagues; and universities gain students and tuition dollars.

"It's a model ripe for repetition," she said because universities cannot invest in full complements of faculty, but there is demand for these courses. If universities don't offer them, someone else will, she noted.

But there are barriers. Laughlin said that Great Plains IDEA pulled together graduate deans from the region to begin talking about removing obstacles.

"We told them that faculty had developed the curriculum, the course load, methods of assessment, etc. and we said to the deans: We want you to look at this as a total degree program at your particular college."

For example, seven students who matriculate at Nebraska will eventually receive their degrees from UNL, she said. They will take some of the 42 credit hours from UNL faculty, but the rest will be taught by faculty at Iowa State, Montana State and the other member participants. The deans had to be persuaded to look at offerings from the other institutions as comparable, and more importantly, waive the "residency" rules that graduate hours must be taken at the school where the student matriculates.

That hurdle was surmounted. But others soon popped up, she said.

Does a student pay a fee at each institution to matriculate? What about tuition costs, which vary by institution and by residency?

That's where the grant comes in. Using a Funds for the Improvement of Post-Secondary Education (FIPSE) grant, teams of administrators will meet periodically for the next three years to resolve policy issues, organizational and financial problems and infrastructures barriers in order to smooth the way for the development of other inter-institutional programs.

Laughlin said administrators such as registrars, chief financial officers, college deans, graduate deans and also faculty will be involved in the project. The UNL team includes Laughlin; James O'Hanlon, associate vice chancellor for extended education; Merlin Lawson, dean of Graduate College; Earl Hawkey, registrar; Christine Jackson, vice chancellor for business and finance and Sheran Cramer, family financial planning faculty.

"We are looking for ways to detour around the roadblocks, to get out from under out yesterday's model," Laughlin said.

In addition to UNL, others in the FIPSE partnership are Iowa State, Kansas State, Montana State, North Dakota State, Oklahoma State, South Dakota State, and Texas Tech. Laughlin is lead investigator for UNL; the grant is being administered through Kansas State.

Distance Ed Methods Inform Classroom Activities

Joan Laughlin is no stranger to distance education. She's teaching her fifth course by distance education this fall. And she's found that the process has made her regular classroom teaching better and it's intellectually stimulating.

"In classroom teaching, a lot depends on your personality and performance," she said. "On the Web, you must rely more on your content. They (the students) get a take on your personality in what I write back to them."

Laughlin, a professor textiles, clothing and design, said she had relied heavily on lectures during her teaching career. "But I really wanted to get past that," she said. For her distance classes, she developed 10-minute "lecture-ettes" that are videotaped. She augments these with an experiential active-learning component that drives home the lesson with the students.

"I had to answer the question 'how do students do things to make it a learning situation for them?'" she said. "I had to do the thinking t make sure the students got it right."

She now teaches her on-campus classes in the same manner.

"Distance education has converted how I teach," she said. "I would no more walk into a classroom and lecture for an hour than I would fly to the moon."

The active-learning Web-based environment helps her know when individual students understand assignments and topics. She spends lots of time in email conferences, but can do that on her own timetable. And as long as students make her 4 p.m. Central Time Monday deadlines, everything works well.

She gets to know the students well. One student, for example, started the year living in Newfoundland, but has since moved to Paris. Laughlin and others in the class have enjoyed sharing the student's experiences as she adjusts to living in Paris.

Brian Halla, chairman of the board, president and CEO of National Semiconductor Corporation speaks with students in the Computer Science and Engineering program Nov. 2 in Ferguson Hall as part of Master's Week 2000.

Master Repays Debt for Advice Well Taken

By Kelly Bartling, Public Relations

Brian Halla heard a message from a Master's Week speaker 31 years ago that changed his life. So upon returning to UNL Nov. 2-4 for the first time since his own graduation, Halla wanted to return the favor.

That Master's Week speaker suggested that instead of aerospace, electrical engineers explore computers.

If Halla could remember the name of that speaker, he might thank him. Halla is now CEO of an international force in highly integrated, application-specific computer semiconductors.

The advice proved sound. And Halla returned to talk to today's students about the even greater opportunities they have as the world evolves from a computer age to an information age.

Halla, who graduated from UNL in 1969 with a B.S. in electrical engineering, is head of National Semiconductor Corp., which specializes in system-on-a-chip technology. Based in Santa Clara, Calif., his company has led the way in designing and manufacturing the computer chip devices that will drive a new wave of information technologies. National Semiconductor had sales of $2.1 billion for its last fiscal year and has 10,500 employees worldwide.

Back in 1969, Halla said, he was "clueless" about his career and the future in technology.

"By contrast today, students are probably clued in better than most people, even myself, because they are on line. They understand what is going on out there," he said.

But students with careers in information or technology will be short-sighted if they are planning their careers for today, Halla warned. They need to anticipate new technologies that revolve around productivity.

"There's such a diversity of opportunities in computer fields, it's not just personal computers anymore, it's servers, wireless, and beyond that the whole new world of information appliances that is exploding as we speak, and offering a whole new selection of companies to go to work for. There's infinitely more opportunities."

Today's and tomorrow's careers will center on information, not computers.

"We're now moving from the age of the computer to the age of information," Halla said. "If anybody here has a major feeling to work for a PC company, if I accomplish anything it would be to tell them the world has moved beyond that."

"Beyond computers" is a real concept of infinite information, anywhere, anytime.

"That's the direction and where these engineers should put their careers at," including infrastructure, servers and bandwidth technologies; display technologies, thin client, flat panels, audio or speaker technologies; longer battery life, portability and miniaturization. Computer displays are becoming the ultimate information provider, and displays will be available virtually everywhere so that individuals will be untethered to computers, telephones, and displays will provide virtual realities.

National Semiconductor created a Geode GX1 processor that is the heart of the new iPAQ home internet appliance. The processor integrates graphics, audio, memory control and PCI interface on one chip. The company already has versions of the processor that will have uses in numerous handheld devices and other appliances.

For those interested in someday being a CEO, like Halla, the NU grad advises making themselves valuable.

"I like to tell new workers that you're always working for yourself," he said. "Find a company consistent with your goals and needs. Any decision you make, step outside of your sphere of influence and ask how it will impact others and impact the bottom line of the company, not just the project. I tell them their attitude toward their work is critical, and what I learned on my first job... that you are 100 percent responsible for anything you are even remotely involved in. Your job isn't done when you take out your 5 percent of your effort: Always feel responsible, and become very valuable."

"It's not the CEOs who turn businesses around and make them successful. It's the handful of people that by their example make all the difference. It's the ones who are dedicated, the ones who other people look up to. Go out of your way to find those people."

Halla's visit included lectures and meetings, a visit to the electrical engineering department, tours and talks with student leaders, administrators and fellow alumni.

Other Masters this year were Kimberly Erusha, director of education for the U.S. Golf Association Green Section in Far Hills, N.J.; Barbara Nagle, president/ owner of Marketscape Research and Technology in San Diego; Debra Powell, mayor of East St. Louis, Ill.; and Douglass Scott, design director of WGBH Educational Foundation in Boston.

Douglass Scott, right, design supervisor of WGBH Educational Foundation in Boston, explains an idea to Ember Pirruccello while reviewing her portfolio Nov. 3 in Nelle Cochrane Woods Hall. Scott, a 1971 UNL graduate was back visiting campus as part of Master's Week 2000.

From Masterpiece Theater to NU Master

By Scott Franzen, Public Relations Intern

Doug Scott has turned his degree in architecture into a career that spans the worlds of design, publishing and television.

As a design director for WBGH Television in Boston, a book designer, an exhibit designer, a teacher, a gardener and collage assembler; he follows his passion for design.

Scott returned to campus Nov. 2-4 as one of the Masters in the university's Master's Week.

His current work includes designing visuals for television series productions, and related materials for fund-raising, proposals, teacher guides, identities and invitations.

Among the television programs that bear his design imprint: This Old House, Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego?, NOVA and Victory Garden.

In October, he finished work on a teacher's guide for Masterpiece Theatre's "Oliver Twist." The guide gives tips on how teachers can use the production when teaching the Dickens classic.

Scott also is the consulting art director of Davis Publications, an art education publisher. And he teaches graphic design, typography and graphic design history at the Rhode Island School of Design and graphic design at the Yale University School of Art.

Much of his work is typographically oriented.

"It is my great love," he said.

He began his education at the university in 1965 and graduated in 1971 with a bachelor's of architecture. He delayed graduation for one year to take more classes in photography and art and so he could continue working as art director of the Cornhusker yearbook. That project, he said, was one of the high points of his university experience.

In an interesting twist, Scott spoke to an architecture class taught by Tom Laging, who was a first-year professor when Scott took Laging's class in 1968.

"Laging energized our class about drawing," said Scott, who added that drawing is a fundamental element in architecture and design.

Scott said there were five professors who had a powerful influence on his education. They are, in addition to Laging, Keith Sawyers, Linus Berr Smith, Homer Puderbaugh and Bob Guenter.

They taught him what it meant to be an architect, the seriousness of design, the interconnection between the arts and architecture and how to connect with students, he said.

Teaching his own classes at the Rhode Island School of Design and Yale University, he incorporates what his former professors taught him in his instruction.

"Whether it is architecture, graphic design, furniture or museum exhibits, designing is designing," he said. "The differences are in the technical stuff."

He recalls a strong but quiet competition among his studio classmates and their hunger for architecture.

The ability to take a wide variety of classes at the university led him to further his interests in art and photography. The diverse experiences at the university gave him a broader perspective on how to approach life, he said.

He recounted that as a student, he attended a powerful performance of Julius Caesar. The performance began outside the Temple building with the audience being escorted in by soldiers in modern army uniforms. The memorable impression has stayed with him.

Scott also had strong memories of using UNL's libraries.

"The Architecture and Love libraries were oases to me," he said, adding that he has relied on using libraries and their resources throughout his career.

Kauffman Family Gift Benefits Legal Writing Program at Law College

By Robb Crouch, NU Foundation

A $500,000 gift from the family of the late Harold W. Kauffman to the University of Nebraska Foundation creates the Harold W. Kauffman Legal Writing Fellows Fund to benefit the University of Nebraska-Lincoln College of Law.

The gift honors the 1934 College of Law graduate and long-time Nebraska lawyer by funding the addition of a legal writing suite and fellowships for adjunct professors. His family, including his widow, Esther Kauffman, and their children, Carole McVaney, Thomas, Martin, Gary and Fredric ­ all University of Nebraska graduates ­ provided the gift.

"Throughout his lifetime, our father continually expressed his warm feelings for the university and his high regard for the College of Law," said Fred Kauffman, Harold Kauffman's eldest son and UNL College of Law graduate. "Our family's Nebraska background, coupled with the loyalty and pride we have for the university and our confidence in the College of Law, made this an ideal opportunity to recognize him."

Harvey Perlman, UNL interim chancellor and former dean of the College of Law, expressed appreciation for the gift. "The university is honored that a significant part of the college's legal writing program will bear the name of Harold W. Kauffman, who was known throughout the state as a skilled craftsman of the written word," he said. "Once again the Kauffman family's generosity has enhanced an important program at the university."

Retired Nebraska Supreme Court Judge D. Nick Caporale and lawyer Gary Young, both of Lincoln, are the first legal writing adjunct professors to be named Kauffman Legal Writing Fellows. They were invested at a private ceremony on Nov. 6.

Caporale has taught one year at the college. In 1979, he was appointed Douglas County District Court judge and then to the Nebraska Supreme Court in 1998. He is of counsel to the Baird Holm law firm in Omaha.

Young has taught five years at the college and is a litigation lawyer at Keating, O'Gara, Davis and Nedved after previously clerking for the Nebraska Supreme Court. Last year he was awarded a grant from the Nebraska Legislature to study the death penalty.

"This gift greatly enhances our ability to provide this crucial training," said interim Law College dean Steve Wilborn. "Legal writing requires dedicated teachers and a great deal of one-on-one feedback and student guidance. The Kauffman Fellows program will enable the college to attract and retain highly skilled teachers and gives us the opportunity to provide students and teachers with modern facilities designed specifically to enhance legal writing instruction."

Harold Kauffman was born in North Platte in 1909 and moved with his family to Columbus in the 1920s, where he was graduated from Columbus High School. He attended Nebraska Wesleyan University and completed law training at the University of Nebraska in 1934.

He returned to Columbus to practice law before taking a position with West Publishing Co. in St. Paul, Minn., in 1936, where he became senior editor.

Harold Kauffman married Columbus native Esther Smith in 1938, and they lived in St. Paul, Minn., before moving to Muskogee, Okla., in 1943, where he clerked for a U.S. district judge. In 1944, he was drafted by the U.S. Army for civilian service at a munitions plant in Pryor, Okla.

Kauffman and his family returned to Nebraska in 1945 when he began clerking for Judge Joseph Woodrough of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Omaha. He went to the law firm of Dan Gross and Harry Welch in 1947 and became a partner in 1950, where he practiced law until his death in 1982.

During his career, Kauffman argued two civil cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, an unusual and valuable experience for a Nebraska lawyer.

Willborn said the Harold Kauffman memorial sets a high standard for law students. "It definitely encourages them to approach the writing excellence of a noted alumnus."

Status of 2020 Report

TO: Faculty and Staff

FROM: Harvey Perlman, Chancellor

SUBJECT: A 2020 Vision: The Future of Research and Graduate Education at UNL - Status Report

In my State of the University Address (Aug. 18, 2000), I enthusiastically endorsed the report A 2020 Vision: The Future of Research and Graduate Education at UNL. As I noted then, "It defines the essential ingredients of a 'vigorous scholarly community,' and calls upon us to have a conversation about the kind of university we want to be. It dares us to embrace, in everything we do, a culture of achievement, an insistence on excellence, and an impatience with those who cling to the status quo for its own sake."

Over the past several months, the campus community has engaged in many conversations, assessing and evaluating the recommendations of this long-range plan and has provided input to me on the correctness of this vision for UNL's future. This input includes:

o a workshop with chairs, heads and directors

o a presentation and discussion with important outside stakeholders, the Committee of Visitors

o discussions in departments among faculty with input forwarded to deans

o on-going discussions with deans and a focused discussion at the dean's retreat in October on "whether the report reflects the proper vision of the university and if so, how to implement that vision"

o faculty forums conducted by the Academic Senate

What I have learned from these conversations is that there is substantial consensus on the campus which supports this vision of a Research University. That vision includes both scientific research as well as the research and creative activity produced by the humanities, the arts, and the social sciences. It is equally clear that this vision must also embrace and help define the university's missions and commitments to undergraduate education and outreach. A strong research university can and should strengthen both graduate education and undergraduate education. A strong research university can and should be the basis of our outreach activities, extending the discovery of knowledge to an effective application of knowledge to our constituents. The strength and quality of research and graduate education are the unique foundations at UNL that when leveraged properly in future decision making will yield programs of excellence and quality in our undergraduate and outreach programs.

Because of the apparent strong support for the vision in the Task Force Report, I will seek the appropriate way to share the report with the Board of Regents and, more importantly, encourage activities that will implement the report. The report appropriately identifies nine primary strategies (pp. 34 - 50). Although there is little disagreement on the primary strategies, the precise tactics used may vary by discipline or by the culture of a particular program. Several potential tactics are listed in the Report itself. It seems to me what we now need is an opportunity for each academic program to work through its own strategy for how it can assist us collectively in achieving these ambitions.

I am asking the Senior Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs and the Vice Chancellor for the Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources to jointly initiate a process through which each program may develop its own set of actions for implementing the vision of the 2020 Task Force through the primary strategies it describes. A program should be free to pursue additional primary strategies appropriate to it. The tactics should be both realistic and ambitious. They should indicate whether it can be accomplished with the program's own existing resources, whether public or private, or whether it can be accomplished, in whole or in part only with the investment of additional external resources. The Task Force Report suggests there are many things we can do within our existing resources to improve the quality of the university. The result of these program plans will be measured, not by the elegance of their language or the length of their presentation, but by the evidence of commitment on the part of the program to enhance its stature and a realistic but ambitious plan to do so.

In return I understand that programs will need some commitments from the campus administration. There is always the potential for sacrificing long-term quality for short-term strategic considerations, such as, for example, the hiring of a marginally qualified individual because of the fear of losing a line if it is not filled. In addition bridging funds are often required to achieve long-term goals, such as the need for professional development funds to permit a faculty to re-tool his or her teaching or research agenda. The campus administration must be sensitive to these considerations and where appropriate support and encourage programs in making long-term strategic plans. We expect to build this support into this planning process.

Finally, it becomes clear that our implementation of the 2020 Task Force Report must inform the prioritization process now currently under way. The achievement of any ambition requires a focused commitment to it and thus a high degree of coherence is to be expected between those programs that emerge as priority targets for investment of resources and those that have a clear, realistic, and ambitious plan to move toward the 2020 vision.

As we move forward in this direction I want to acknowledge the open and constructive dialog engaged in by this campus on the 2020 Report and the very helpful suggestions received from faculty and staff. I have no doubt that continued discussion and engagement among all members of this community will permit us to achieve more than any of us initially anticipated. Thanks for your help.