Kay Logan-Peters is working on a book chronicling the history of the architecture at UNL.

Writing the History of UNL's Bricks and Mortar

By Scott Franzen, Public Relations Intern

When Kay Logan-Peters began her job 13 years ago as a librarian serving the College of Architecture, she discovered what she believed to be a glaring omission in the university's holdings: there were no books or easily accessible documentation on the development of UNL's physical campus and buildings.

Prompted by her own curiosity and ongoing requests for information on particular campus buildings, the associate professor of University Libraries and director of the Architecture Library decided to write a history of UNL's architecture.

"I took it on as my mission to create a source of information on the development of the university for people to come to," Logan-Peters said.

She might not have taken on the task of studying the history of UNL buildings had it not been for the significance of the building in which she works. Logan-Peters' office is on the third floor of Architecture Hall, the oldest remaining building on city campus. Construction of Architecture Hall, (at the time, the university library) began in 1891. The north section of the building, where the architecture library is now housed, was built first.

The research project allowed her to combine her interests in art, architecture, writing and history, she said. She began serious research in 1994 and in 1996, she took a six-month sabbatical to exclusively focus on it.

"I would come to campus every day for six to seven hours and research information," said Logan-Peters. Even some of her vacation time was devoted to researching archival photos. She spent countless hours in the library, museum, photo archives and Facilities Management and Planning sifting and poring over lists, plans and correspondence involving each building on campus. Even though it was a challenge to combine information from several sources, she found the task to be rewarding.

Reading the correspondence about the projects revealed a lot about the people involved in creating the buildings, Logan-Peters said, and the materials gave her insight to what problems they dealt with. Surprisingly, they often dealt with situations such as budget restraints, just as we do today, she said. And issues such as the role and mission of a land-grant university were often debated.

"Doing this research showed me that a lot of situations we deal with now are the same ones that affected the university in the beginning," said Logan-Peters.

For instance, when the second building on campus, Chemistry Laboratory, was built in 1885, it signaled to Nebraskans that the university was intent on being permanent, she said. The commitment to build the building showed that there was support for the university at a time when many did not believe it would survive or did not want it to.

In her search for information on Morrill Hall in the State Museum's archives in Nebraska Hall, she uncovered a letter from Thomas Kimball, the architect of the first state museum, to Erwin Barbour, head of the museum at that time. In the letter, Kimball used little drawings to illustrate his intentions to enlarge the museum. The original museum stood near where Hamilton Hall is now. In further correspondence from Charles H. Morrill, the museum's benefactor, to Barbour, she discovered that Morrill did not want Kimball to design the new museum because of a fire that had taken place in the original museum.

She encountered some disappointments. She discovered that the original campus master plans were discarded for no documented reason and a new master plan was created. Several of the campus's original buildings had to be razed because of poor construction, due primarily to the poor quality of materials that were available for construction in Lincoln.

The overall aesthetic of the modern UNL campus can be attributed to the Boston-based firm Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge ­­the official architects of the university from 1912 till 1926. This firm was the successor of H.H. Richardson, a world-famous architect whose signature style is evident in UNL's Richards Hall, although he did not design a building for the Nebraska campus.

Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge planned college campuses across the nation including the University of Chicago, Stanford University and University of Oklahoma. While some of their work has a gothic design, noticeably at the University of Chicago's campus, their work in Nebraska has more of a restrained classical design, Logan-Peters said. Some of their original work included the Teachers College (now the north wing of Canfield Administration Building), and the College of Business Administration.

Charles Hodgson represented the firm in Lincoln. He was fired when local architects demanded university work. Ellery L. Davis, a local architect and founder of what has become Davis Design, took SRC's design and plans and incorporated it through his work through the mid-20th century, Logan-Peters said.

She believes the relationship between architects and the university has strengthened over the past decades. Now projects take place with the input of various committees with a lot of feedback as to the needs of faculty, staff and students who will occupy the building.

She also has noticed that architects are making a greater effort to tie into and acknowledge the existing campus environment today than they did in the 1950s, '60s and '70s, when the modernist trend was not to connect with the established environment.

Restoring Richards Hall and Architecture Hall were some of the best things the university has done to capture the institution's history, Logan-Peters believes. Richards Hall was the original Mechanical Engineering Laboratories building. Now home to the offices of the department of art and art history, its galleries and painting and ceramics studios, the building was part of the first northerly move of the university.

Logan-Peters is using the fruits of her research to write a book and publish articles about the university's built history. She is also a member of the 2000-2001 Speakers Bureau, where she gives a slide show about the university and its buildings. She often encounters people who remember certain buildings and tidbits of what happened on the campus when they were associated with it.

Her work is not over. She's looked at the built history up to the 1940s, meaning there's more than a half-century of material waiting to be collected, documented and analyzed.

S. Rosowski Is Dec. 16 Commencement Speaker

By Annette Wetzel, Public Relations

Susan Rosowski, Adele Hall Distin-guished Professor of English, will give the address at the UNL winter commencement exercises, at 9:30 a.m. Dec. 16 in the Bob Devaney Sports Center. Interim Chancellor Harvey Perlman will preside over the ceremony. Approximately 1,100 students will receive degrees.

Rosowski is an internationally known scholar and a gifted teacher. Although she is best known for her work on the writings of Willa Cather, Rosowski is also a leading authority on women writers and particularly their significance to Western American literature.

Rosowski received her B.A. from Whittier College in California and her M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Arizona-Tucson.

She is the author of Birthing a Nation: Gender, Creativity and the West in American Literature, as well as many monographs and essays on Cather and women's literature. Rosowski has also edited a number of books, including Approaches to Teaching Willa Cather's 'My Antonia'. She is also general editor of the Cather Scholarly Edition (eight titles) and editor-in-chief of Cather Studies.

During Commencement, for mer NU professor Charles Mebus will receive an Honorary Doctor of Science. During a nearly 40-year career as a veterinary researcher, Mebus contributed immeasurably to the body of knowledge surrounding viral diseases in cattle and swine ­ knowledge that also has applications to treatments for similar diseases in humans.

From 1965 to 1977, Mebus was a professor of veterinary science at the University of Nebraska. A rotavirus vaccine for calves, developed by Mebus and his colleagues, was patented and licensed to Norden Laboratories, now part of Pfizer, Inc. The vaccine helped Norden develop into a leading veterinary biologics company, was one of the first patent licenses for the University of Nebraska and a major contributor of royalty income for the university.

After leaving the University of Nebraska in 1977, he became a research leader at the United States Department of Agriculture's Plum Island Foreign Animal Disease Research Center, a high-security research center in New York. He retired in 1995 as assistant director of the facility. Mebus is a 1956 graduate of Cornell University (D.V.M.) and earned M.S. (1962) and Ph.D. (1963) degrees from Kansas State University in the field of veterinary pathology.

A drop-off area for graduates and mobility restricted guests will be available on the south side of the Devaney Center. Special seating will be reserved for disabled guests attending commencement. Sign language interpreters for hearing impaired individuals will be provided on screen by HuskerVision. Reserved seats for guests who are ambulatory restricted will be available in the north and south sides of the arena. Guests in wheelchairs will be seated on the northeast corner of the arena floor. Golf carts will be located at the ramps on the exterior north and south sides of the Devaney Center to assist disabled guests entering and leaving the sports center. Admission is free.

Chancellor Perlman Reflects on Past Year's Successes

Dear Colleagues:

As the semester comes to a close, it seems natural to reflect on our accomplishments and activities. It's been a privilege for me to serve as your chancellor during the past six months, and I sincerely appreciate all the support that members of the campus community have provided to me. When I presented my State of the University address in August, I encouraged all of you not to be concerned by the interim nature of our campus leadership, and pledged that I and my other interim colleagues would actively pursue this university's many important goals. It is my belief that even in this short span of time we are collectively making progress on many fronts.

Discussions of the 2020 Vision report continue to provide an important dialogue about our future; working groups are actively discussing academic prioritization, the life sciences curriculum, distance education, and a system-wide rural outreach initiative.

This semester Wayne Drummond, Christine Jackson, Marjorie Kostelnik, and Janice Driesbach joined our administrative team, and we completed searches for the Vice Chancellor of IANR and the Dean of Arts and Sciences who will arrive early next year. We also look forward to Rick Edwards' return from medical leave in January. Even as we welcome these new and returning members of our campus community, there is no way to express our indebtedness to each of those who were willing to take on an interim or acting role; their service has been of critical importance.

The end of the year also brings a close to the University of Nebraska Foundation's extremely successful seven-year fundraising effort, Campaign Nebraska. This semester, we dedicated the new Hewit Place galleries and broke ground for Othmer Hall. All around us the campus is alive with construction and remodeling, not to mention the many programmatic enhancements that the Campaign will support.

As a place of inquiry and exploration, it is natural that we should be constantly striving to improve, to change and to grow. The unfortunate side effect of focusing on where we are going is that we sometimes overlook opportunities to celebrate where we are. Criticisms are often widely discussed, but we neglect to share compliments, such as this one that I received from the father of two currently enrolled undergraduates. He writes, "We are very strong advocates of the quality and philosophy of education exhibited at the UNL campus. The Nebraska culture on campus and in the community of Lincoln is very noticeable for parents from another state."

Thank you all for your ongoing efforts to educate our students, to discover new truths, to support the citizens of Nebraska, and to take this university to new heights. I look forward to continuing our work in 2001.

Sincerely,

Harvey Perlman

Home Field Advantage: UNL grad Chris Harnly poses on the future site of Donald F. Othmer Hall, a $24 million addition to the College of Engineering and Technology. Harnly is a 1997 graduate in Construction Management.

Othmer Project Engineer is UNL Graduate

By Connie Walter, Engineering and Technology

Chris Harnly is seeing the College of Engineering and Technology from a different perspective these days.

Instead of poring over books inside Nebraska Hall, the construction management graduate now pores over documents and plans for Donald F. Othmer Hall, the $24 million engineering addition.

It's a job he's enjoying immensely.

"It's a wonderful opportunity to work on the campus that gave me the backbone to my career," Harnly said.

The Seward native is a project engineer with Hawkins Construction, where he's worked since graduating from UNL in 1997. His first assignment was the new Westside High School at 87th and Pacific streets in Omaha, where he worked primarily with document management and scheduling.

It was his outstanding work on that job that propelled Harnly to his new position on Othmer Hall, said Dan Biere, project manager and vice president of Hawkins.

"He's grown into the job and is nearly to where he could do (project management) himself," Biere said.

"Hawkins has given me so many opportunities to learn and grow in my career," Harnly said. "I work with some of the most intuitive and skilled people, who are very willing to help me learn and increase my knowledge about the construction industry.

As project engineer, Harnly works in the field and in the office. His fieldwork includes assisting with the layout of the building - foundation walls, deep foundation, column lines - and working with subcontractors. In the office his work includes contract writing, document management and project scheduling.

Part of Harnly's excitement about his new job comes from his ability to give back to the UNL construction management program.

"Working on this project has allowed me to give the professors and students a 'working classroom.' As students walk past the project, they can see the ideas and concepts that the professors are trying to teach them and hopefully this will aid in their education," he said.

He's also excited about the opportunities the new building offers the College of Engineering and Technology.

"This space is going to help the college and the university attract the people they need ... and elevate the already top-notch education this university provides."

Construction of Othmer Hall began in July and is scheduled to be completed in May 2002. Funding comes from the estate of Mildred Topp Othmer.

Increasing Urbanization Presents Land-Use Challenges

By Lisa Jasa, IANR News and Publishing

Nebraska is urbanizing its rural landscape faster than the national average - sacrificing some of its richest farmland and creating challenges for areas where rural and urban interests collide, several speakers said at the University of Nebraska Agronomy and Horticulture Highlights program Dec. 5

Land use concerns and issues associated with the rapidly evolving face of agriculture were the focus of the program. UNL's Department of Agronomy and Horticulture hosts the meeting to profile its Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources research, teaching and extension programs across the state.

"We put cities where the best farmland is," said Charles Francis, IANR agronomist. "At this rate, our cushion of available (agricultural) land will disappear by 2020."

If the current trend continues, Francis said, some reports indicate farmers will have only enough land to meet the nation's domestic food needs by 2020.

Saunders County, located in eastern Nebraska between Lincoln, Omaha and Fremont, is especially feeling the pressure of conflicting land uses and values, as more and more acreages and housing subdivisions are developed there. Two NU Cooperative Extension educators from Saunders County, Robert Meduna and Susan Williams, discussed the challenges of their work the past couple of years to provide a neutral forum for local and county groups to identify and work to resolve land-use issues.

There is a clash of conflicting values, Williams said, and "communities often have difficulty looking for a long-range solution." Extension has served a facilitator role, helping bring forward issues and providing continuity and unbiased information.

Planned growth and planned communities may be one solution for some land-use issues, suggested Kim Todd, a horticulture instructor. A recent survey indicated "70 percent of Americans wanted to live in a suburb, rural community or small town," she said. New residents' idealized vision of country life may be far from reality. Conflicts and disappointments can develop when newcomers are confronted with the sounds and smells of nearby farm life and customary services such as water, sewer or snow removal depend on the homeowner. Better planning, smart growth and education can help new residents avoid pitfalls, she said.

Several agronomy and horticulture classes are being adapted to address long-range issues, speakers said. Classes are increasing their focus on how agriculture and people's values influence and are affected by land-use decisions, including longer-term social and environmental implications.

"The context is global, but the focus is local," Francis said of the expanded courses.

Global implications of local decisions were in the spotlight as speakers addressed how Nebraska farmers might modify their practices to sequester, or store, more carbon in the soil to help combat global warming. IANR Soil Scientist Dan Walters said that accurately measuring the amount of carbon in soil, determining how specific practices affect carbon storage, verifying what has been sequestered and international politics are among obstacles to selling carbon credits in the near future. Under a carbon credit scenario, farmers would be paid to sequester additional carbon in soil.

Other speakers discussed alternative ways to use agricultural land to produce income.

Ken Vogel, a U.S. Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service geneticist and agronomy professor at UNL, discussed a multi-state project to grow switchgrass as a biomass fuel. Vogel's research focuses on developing improved switchgrass cultivars and management practices to maximize biomass production. This prairie grass is a prime candidate as a renewable fuel source because it can grow on marginal land, is high yielding and is environmentally friendly, Vogel said.

The first biomass ethanol production plant to use switchgrass could open by 2005, providing producers with another cropping option. Further development of switchgrass as a renewable fuel likely would depend on political support, he said.

This was the first highlights program since the departments of agronomy and horticulture combined last July, creating UNL's largest academic unit. Department Head Ken Cassman said the merger has provided a fuller breadth and scope to the unit's work, allowing for increased integration of its research, extension and teaching programs.

The Agronomy and Horticulture Highlights program will be available for viewing via the Internet at NU Cooperative Extension's Rural Routes web site at ruralroutes.unl.edu in the Crops subdivision.