Lt. Osborn Launches Notre Dame Game

Navy Lt. Shane Osborn, a 1996 UNL alumnus, flips the coin at the start of the Nebraska-Notre Dame game Saturday night at Memorial Stadium. Osborn successfully landed his crippled plane after a collision with a Chinese jet fighter last spring.

Chancellor Comments on Terror Attacks

Chancellor Harvey Perlman issued a statement Tuesday morning regarding the attacks on the United States:

This is a time of shock, distress and great sadness for all members of the university community.

At UNL, classes will continue as scheduled; however, I ask all instructors to be sympathetic to students who, because of particular distress, feel unable to attend class. University offices will remain open, but I ask all supervisors to be sensitive to employees who feel they cannot continue their work. This is a time for the entire university community to come together with compassion and understanding.

For persons experiencing particular stress, the Employee Assistance Program and Counseling and Psychological Services staff will be available on a walk-in basis in both the Nebraska and Nebraska East Unions, as well as the EAP Office (700 N. 16th St.) and the CAPS offices at the University Health Center (15th and Q streets) beginning at noon today until 6 p.m.

For students requiring other assistance, please contact the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs (472-3755).

For employees wishing to donate blood, Administrative Leave will be available.

At this time of national tragedy, I ask that we all keep the victims of these horrible acts in our thoughts and prayers.

U.S. News Rank Confirms UNL's Successes

The University of Nebraska-Lincoln is included in the second tier of "National Universities - Doctoral" in the 2002 edition U.S. News & World Report's "America's Best Colleges" issue.

Although many refute the validity of the U.S. News rankings system, some categories do provide a comparison of institutional performance. UNL officials said they are pleased that the university's freshman retention rate and alumni giving have each improved for the fourth consecutive year. UNL's six-year graduation rate also improved to 51 percent from 47 percent.

Officials said the improvement in freshman retention rates is a reflection of increased admission standards that have produced freshman classes that are better prepared to succeed. Retention increases are also a reflection of the university's concerted efforts to enhance the undergraduate experience through programs such as:

· Learning Communities, in which groups of freshman students with similar academic interests study together with the guidance of mentors;

· Honors programs including the J.D. Edwards Honors Program in Computer Science and Management;

· Undergraduate research programs such as the Undergraduate Creative Activities and Research Experience grants funded by the Pepsi Endowment; and

· Peer review of teaching, in which professors assist each other with development and evaluation of innovative teaching techniques.

The scope of such programs earned UNL national acclaim as a Greater Expectations Leadership Institution from the Association of American Colleges and Universities. UNL is one of only five major research universities in the nation to receive this award for "visionary campuswide innovations in undergraduate education."

In addition to increased alumni giving, UNL has benefited from increased support from the legislature, 88 percent growth in research awards from $33.4 million in fiscal year 1996 to $62.9 million in fiscal year 2001, and the successful conclusion to the University of Nebraska Foundation's Campaign Nebraska. These levels of financial support are critical to the ongoing positive momentum of UNL's unique teaching, research and outreach missions.

Mentor Plan Pairs Tech Pros, Novices

By Kim Hachiya, University Communications

A new program to pair faculty experts in instructional technology with those who want to add technology to their teaching repertoire has been launched.

The Teaching and Learning Center is collaborating with the Office of Extended Education and Outreach to coordinate the program. Charles Ansorge, professor of health and human performance, is facilitating the program. He is an instructional consultant for technology to the Office of Extended Education and Outreach.

At a meeting Sept. 6, Ansorge said about 22 UNL faculty and administrators have been recruited as mentors, based on their experience and expertise with using instructional technology.

"We have a pot of gold here in terms of talent," he said, "and we are going to be panning for gold on campus."

The pilot project's goals are to widen the circle of successful users of instructional technology, Ansorge said. If the number of faculty who use technology in traditional teaching settings increases, faculty may be induced to teach distance education classes, he said.

Ansorge, who has taught a number of distance education courses, said he finds it challenges him to learn the best way to teach and he's enthusiastic about meeting the students who enroll worldwide.

Jim O'Hanlon, Teachers College dean and associate vice chancellor for extended education and outreach, said he saw them as pioneers in developing strategies help others learn to enhance teaching.

"This program is really a work in progress," he said.

Del Wright, director of the teaching and learning center, noted that the faculty who have been recruited as mentors have experience using technologies such as BlackBoard Course Info, satellite distribution, multimedia or other technologies.

"There isn't anyone here who hasn't already done a lot of mentoring of their peers," she said.

One of the recruits, Brito Mutunayagam, community and regional planning, said he hoped the program focused on the impact of technology on teaching rather than simply learning how to run specific software packages.

Jim King, agricultural leadership education and communication, said mentors should be ready to serve as consultants and problem-solvers.

Ansorge said program partners are being sought through several methods. Anyone interested in the program should contact Ansorge or the Teaching and Learning Center.

Leakey, Gorbachev Highlight 2001-2002 Thompson Lectures

World-renowned paleoanthropologist Meave Leakey (shown at right) and Mikhail Gorbachev, former president of the Soviet Union, will visit the University of Nebraska-Lincoln campus this fall as part of the E.N. Thompson Forum on World Issues. The Forum will also feature two speakers in the spring, Holocaust writer Anna Rosmus and China expert Andrew Nathan.

Lectures begin at 3:30 p.m., except for Gorbachev's, which begins at 10:30 a.m. Oct. 17.

Leakey will begin this year's series with "The Search and Discovery of our Earliest Ancestors" on Sept. 24. Her 1999 "flat-faced man of Kenya" discovery made international headlines and challenged the prevailing view that a single line of descent stretched through the early stages of human ancestry.

She is the standard-bearer of a family of paleoanthropologists who have dominated their field since the beginning of the 20th century. For 70 years, the Leakeys have been digging in Africa, uncovering fossilized clues to the origins the earliest human ancestors.

Head of the paleontology division of the National Museums of Kenya, Meave Leakey's research has focused on fossils recovered from long-term field work in the Turkana basin and includes the evolution of monkeys, apes, carnivores and other mammalian faunas.

Here is the schedule for the other Thompson Forum lectures:

· Oct. 17, Gorbachev, "Russia: Retrospect and Prospect";

· March 7, Rosmus, "Growing Up Where Hitler Lived";

· April 11, Nathan, "Is It Any Of Our Business? Human Rights As An Issue In U.S.-China Relations."

Lectures Lectures in the 2001-2 E.N. Thompson Forum on World Issues are free and open to the public. They will be presented in the Lied Center for Performing Arts, 301 N. 12th St., and are available live on Lincoln public-access cable Channel 21, UNL's KRNU radio (90.3 FM), via satellite at Learning Centers in Scottsbluff, Norfolk, Grand Island and North Platte, and on the UNL Web site (http://www.unl.edu).