Paul Johnsgard, UNL Foundation professor of biological sciences emeritus, hopes to do more writing and teaching of the general public now that he's retired from UNL.

Retirement doesn't ruffle Johnsgard

By Kelly Bartling, University Communications

He may be officially "retired," but Paul Johnsgard's lifelong relationship with birds hasn't ended.

"Did I do everything I wanted to do in my career? Perhaps not," said Johnsgard, UNL Foundation Professor of biological sciences. "But I have no major regrets."

Johnsgard, 70, taught and researched at UNL for 40 years, and although he officially added "emeritus" to his title of professor May 31, he has no plans to quit writing or studying his favorite subjects.

But he does plan to trade what formerly was teaching time for different activities like conservation work and more travel. And more writing.

"I want to become more involved in regional and national conservation activities, and do more writing intended for educating the general public, including children, on ecological and conservation issues," he said from his office of many years at Manter Hall. "A heart attack and a stroke have slowed me down and prevented me from taking some trips into wilderness areas I would like to have seen, but I have seen more of the wilder parts of the world than most people."

Johnsgard's retirement leaves a void. A teacher and researcher passionate about biology, zoology and ornithology, and an iconoclastic personality, students for many years lined up to be lectured by a living legend.

"Professor Johnsgard has been a prolific scholar and an inspiring teacher for many generations of students," said Rick Edwards, senior vice chancellor for academic affairs. "His passion and courage have sometimes discomfited the comfortable, but his towering legacy shows the kind of difference that a life of integrity can make."

Johnsgard discovered birds as a child growing up in southeastern North Dakota, and he began drawing them, later hunting them. Learning from his uncle, a game warden, he decided he wanted to be a professional biologist and game warden. As his passion for birds grew, so did his drawing and photography abilities. He sold his shotgun to buy more camera equipment.

He earned his bachelor's degree at North Dakota State University, his master's at Washington State University, and his doctorate at Cornell. While doing postdoctoral studies at the Wildfowl Trust in Slimbridge, England, he received a job offer at Nebraska. He accepted it over the phone.

He soon fell in love with Nebraska and its birds, particularly the sandhill cranes. And began cranking out books at the rate of one a year.

"My top career achievements are on three levels," he said. "At the state level, I gave three literary 'gifts' to the state, in the form of books on the ecology and natural history of the Platte (1984), the Sandhills (1995), and the entire state (due out later this year). Through my three books on cranes, I publicized the migration of Sandhill cranes in Nebraska, and thereby helped develop a major tourist industry in central Nebraska, as well as spotlighting the then-endangered status of the Platte River."

In addition to more than 100 journal articles, Johnsgard recently published his 40th book, and four more are in press or are being prepared for publication. He is by far the most prolific writer of non-fiction or fiction books in Nebraska's history, and is correspondingly the world's most prolific author of ornithological literature.

"At the national and world level, I published six monographs on North American bird groups, and eight world monographs on birds. Collectively about 250,000 copies of my books are scattered around the world, in four languages. No other ornithologist in history has produced so many world and regional references, or so many total titles," he said.

Looking back at his career, Johnsgard is proud that his accomplishments have been multi-faceted.

He was the first person in biological sciences to win the Distinguished Teaching award, the Outstanding Research & Creative Activity Award, and to be named a University Foundation Professor. And over a 40-year period, he taught more than 5,000 UNL undergraduates.

He has won conservation awards from the Stewards of the Platte, and from both the Lincoln chapter and the Nebraska section of the National Audubon Society, as well as a wide variety of writing awards for his books. He was listed by the Lincoln Journal Star in 1999 as one of "100 people who have helped build Nebraska - politically, economically, socially or physically, in the past 100 years," and by the Omaha World-Herald in 1999 as one of the 100 outstanding Nebraskans of the 20th century.

He has a book due out this fall on the natural history of Nebraska. More are in the planning stages. He stays involved in various conservation groups and leads volunteer activities. His knowledge continues to earn local newspaper headlines and he isn't shy about voicing his opinion, especially about nature and conservation of Nebraska.

Schooner conference marks 75 years

By Kate Flaherty, special to the Scarlet

Founded at the University of Nebraska in 1926, Prairie Schooner was just one of hundreds of "little magazines" that sprang up in the first half of the 1900s.

Most of those magazines folded over the years, but Prairie Schooner can claim the distinction of being the oldest continually published literary magazine west of the Mississippi. Prairie Schooner will celebrate its 75th anniversary with an international conference in Lincoln Oct. 11-13.

The conference at the Cornhusker Hotel will feature a fiction reading by Nobel prize nominee and Oprah's Book Club author Joyce Carol Oates, as well as more than 80 other scholars, critics and writers who will give readings and presentations.

Hilda Raz, current editor-in-chief of Prairie Schooner, says the choice of Oates as keynote speaker was obvious.

"When I first came to the magazine, a new writer, J.C. Oates, was sending work of astonishing quality and daring and we were publishing it," Raz said. "Joyce Carol Oates's stellar career represents the vigor and ambition of contemporary writing and we wanted to bring her to Lincoln to help us celebrate our 75th birthday. All 80 writers coming to Lincoln bring talent, enthusiasm and commitment to Prairie Schooner."

Prairie Schooner was founded by Lowry C. Wimberly, a popular professor of English at the university, and a collection of students known as "Wimberly's Boys" who had been meeting in Wimberly's living room every Sunday to discuss writing and literature. At various times, this collection of "boys" included cult novelist and Oscar-winning screenwriter Jim Thompson, poet and artist Weldon Kees, journalists Edward R. Murrow and Edward Stanley, and author Mari Sandoz.

"(Sandoz) may have been one of the boys," Raz said, "but she was a woman of talent and ambition, and a major supporter of Prairie Schooner in its first decades."

Prairie Schooner was begun in part because this talented collection of Nebraska intellectuals felt somewhat snubbed by the New York publishing world, but after only a few years, Prairie Schooner was wholeheartedly welcomed and pursued by editors at the major houses. Doubleday, Scribner's and Little, Brown all solicited Prairie Schooner authors, and Alfred Knopf himself wrote a letter to Wimberly praising the magazine.

However, at the tail end of Prohibition, Wimberly, as well as Prairie Schooner's associate editor and business manager were thrown in jail by agents of "Three Gun" Howard Wilson, deputy Federal Prohibition Administrator of Nebraska, after being caught at a student dance with liquor. According to Robert E. Knoll, author of Prairie University, Wimberly was suspended without pay in what was called a "frame-up, or at the very least a double cross." After a campus uproar, Prairie Schooner continued, and Wimberly stayed on as editor for two more decades.

Prairie Schooner's second editor, Pulitzer Prize-winner Karl Shapiro, did leave the magazine following a scandal. In 1963, a copy editor had complained about the "vulgar language" of a story Shapiro intended to publish, and the administration stepped in to prevent its publication. Incensed, Shapiro not only resigned but also read the story over Nebraska's public radio station in protest.

Though the past three decades have seemed calm in contrast, Prairie Schooner has maintained its consistency of excellence and its commitment to publishing the best writing by authors both established and new. The list of notable authors published in Prairie Schooner could go on and on: Nobel laureate Octavio Paz, Pulitzer Prize winners Rita Dove and Stephen Dunn, National Book Award winners Marilyn Hacker and Joyce Carol Oates, best-selling novelists Kent Haruf, Sherman Alexie and Richard Russo, and Oprah's Book Club authors Ursula Hegi, Bret Lott and A. Manette Ansay, as well as the names seen every year on all the Best of prize volumes for fiction, poetry and nonfiction.

Prairie Schooner also has published special issues on literature from China, Japan, Germany, Australia, Canada, an issue of Czech and Slovak literatures published on the eve of the Velvet Revolution, a special "Nebraska" issue, which went through two printings, a Latina/Latino issue, and a Jewish American issue reprinted as an anthology by the University of Nebraska Press.

Raz says this diversity in publishing will also be represented at the conference through the rich multiculturalism of its contemporary artists.

Information For more information about Prairie Schooner or the Prairie Schooner 75th Anniversary Conference and Celebration, contact Prairie Schooner at 472-0495 or check out the Web site at http://www.unl.edu/schooner /psmain.htm.

Sharon Evans, (center, at computer) associate professor of educational psychology, speaks with visitors during a tour of the Gait and Motion laboratory in the Institute for Rehabilitation Science & Engineering at Madonna Rehabilitation Hospital. Several UNL researchers have laboratories dealing with movement, communication and assistive technology at the institute, which was dedicated last week.

UNL Partnership generates potential

By Kim Hachiya, University Communications

partnership between UNL and Madonna Rehabilitation Hospital's new Institute for Rehabilitation Science and Engineering, promises to reap benefits for both partners, and for patients.

The institute, which has been open since last spring, was formally dedicated Sept. 19. UNL professors are deeply involved in the institute's three centers of excellence, which focus on movement, communications, and outcomes and informatics.

"This is just a great relationship," said Prem Paul, UNL vice chancellor for research. "It's a unique relationship for UNL and shows tremendous potential for growth in research funding from the NIH (National Institutes of Health). Everybody is very excited, and you cannot buy that level of excitement."

Marsha Lommel, Madonna's CEO and president, said the new institute is the first devoted to studying the comprehensive and holistic aspects of rehabilitation. "Research in rehabilitation has been fragmented," she said. "There has been research by physical therapists, research by physicians, research at medical centers on specific issues, but never any that has pulled together all aspects of rehabilitation."

Lommel said that computers can now be used to look at multiple data sets to find a best practices model for rehabilitating people with a variety of diagnoses.

Three researchers from UNL are involved in Madonna's various labs.

Sharon Evans, associate professor of health and human performance, is lead researcher in the Chapin Gait and Motion Laboratory. Research in this lab focuses on a person's ability to improve his or her motor functions or movement. Participants are evaluated using infrared cameras, force plates in the floor and computer technology that creates a three-dimensional image of the person's movement. What may have taken several clinicians a week or more to evaluate might take just hours in this lab.

Evans said the eight cameras in the lab use infrared light to measure markers placed on a person's body. Among the criteria that can be assessed are whether muscles are active or inactive at appropriate phases during the movement, she said. And software can evaluate the possible outcomes of surgery before the surgery takes place, she said, allowing decisions to be made based on possible effectiveness of the surgery or modifying it to create a better outcome.

The Center of Excellence in Communications helps people regain the ability to communicate, and also looks at how changes in communicative methods affect other aspects of a person's life. David Beukelman, professor of special education and communication disorders, is lead researcher in the Harris Family Assistive Technology lab. Here, adults and children who have difficulty communicating in traditional ways can be helped through augmentative speech devices. These electronic instruments not only can provide a voice, but can also help with daily functions, such as turning on lights or turning a page, he said.

Beukelman gave the example of a patient whose only communication ability was to make a kissing sound with his lips. A device was tailored to recognize that sound only when made by the patient, and it then could trigger a variety of commands.

Beukelman also said the lab is perfecting "safe" lasers, which can be activated by a patient's eye movements and only fire when they contact a laser sensitive surface, triggering commands. Lasers, he said, can cause burns or retinal damage when pointed at the eyes. Safe lasers do not cause these problems and are safer for children to operate.

Lance Perez, an assistant professor of electrical engineering, is working to merge advanced wireless technology and rehabilitative and assistive technologies. Perez has studied making digital technologies, space probes and cell systems more reliable through wireless technology.

He first became aware of Madonna's work because he plays on the hospital's wheelchair basketball team. During a tour of an independent living facility run by Madonna, Perez said, he realized that some of the problems the patients faced could easily be solved by technologies.

For instance, the purchase of a wireless device to connect a laptop computer to the Internet solved one person's inability to plug his computer into the wall-port, Perez said.

"The hospital lacks the technological awareness of an engineer," he said.

Last spring, Perez directed undergraduate students in senior design projects involving Madonna patients. Accreditation standards require seniors to have human-based design projects, he said, and this is a way to fulfill that need.

"There was a substantial learning curve for the students," he said. "They needed to learn to translate the needs of the therapists into engineering terms." The students learned to surmount bureaucratic obstacles, learned to think creatively and developed materials useful to patients, he said.

"Wireless technology applied in seemingly trivial ways helps fill in some gaps," he said. For example, in Europe, people can make purchases at vending machines by using their cell phones.

"The cost of adapting and applying existing technologies to new uses is trivial as compared to starting from ground zero and inventing something new," he said.

NU campus enrollments increase

Enrollments at the University of Nebraska have increased 2.5 percent compared with fall 2000, according to the university's annual headcount enrollment report. This reverses a trend toward lower enrollments that began when the university instituted more stringent admissions standards in 1997.

"I'm very pleased to see these increases," said university President L. Dennis Smith. "We have been strengthening recruitment programs on all campuses, and we're now beginning to see results. We will continue to intensify our recruiting efforts for both resident and nonresident students."

Smith said the substantial increase in graduate student enrollments also was gratifying. All four university campuses ­­ the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, the University of Nebraska at Omaha, the University of Nebraska at Kearney, and the University of Nebraska Medical Center­­ experienced increases at the graduate level, ranging from 1.5 percent at UNK to 11.4 percent at UNL.

Three of the four campuses also experienced increases in total enrollments as well. The largest percentage increase was at UNO, at 4.9. UNL's increase was 2.2 percent, and UNMC's was 1.0 percent. UNK experienced a 1.2 percent decline, although UNK's freshman enrollment was up by 6.4 percent.

In fact, total first-time freshmen enrollment increased for the university as a whole, from 6,554 in fall 2000 to 6,574 this year. UNO has 4.8 percent more freshmen than last fall and UNK has 6.4 percent more freshmen this year. UNL has 3.4 percent fewer freshman this fall.

The numbers Headcount numbers are: UNL total: 22,764 (undergraduate, 17,985; graduate, 4,309). UNMC total: 2,722. UNO total: 14,143. UNK total: 6,426. Nebraska College of Technical Agriculture (IANR): 234. NU total: 46,289

E-News system consolidates Email-to-all

By Sally Buchholz, University Communications

It's a love-hate relationship.

People with an event or deadline love to send email to all faculty and staff to reinforce calendar items and notices in the Scarlet. But many members of the campus community hate to receive them.

The increasing number of these "Email to All" messages is taking its toll on computing resources, slowing down the regular email traffic as thousands of copies of the same message are distributed to each mailbox. There is also concern that the proliferation of non-urgent email announcements may cause email recipients to ignore urgent messages that come less frequently, but in the same format.

The latest solution to the "Email to All" dilemma is E-News, a weekly compilation of notices to be distributed to all faculty and staff. The notices will be entered through a web-based form and will include contact information and the ability to link to a website with more details. The submitted web forms will be automatically compiled, and the week's list of notices will be reviewed to ensure that all items are sponsored by a UNL department, program or organization. Each week the deadline for submissions will be 5 p.m. on Monday and E-News will be distributed on Tuesday evening.

Staff members in Information Services and University Communications have collaborated to develop the new system that becomes effective Oct. 1.

Kent Hendrickson, associate vice chancellor for information services, acknowledged that the "Email to All" problem has been steadily growing, "In addition to the strain on our email systems, there was a steady increase in the number of complaints from faculty and staff. We hope that E-News can strike the balance between helping people communicate and not overloading the recipients of those communications."

The E-News website is located at http://www.unl.edu/o pcenter/forms/E-News.html and links from the Faculty/Staff tab on the UNL homepage. The website would be restricted to UNL computer IP addresses in the same way that the proxy server restricts access to library materials and other resources. The website gives instructions on how to use E-News as well as how to submit text-only information to create a companion website if desired. Further questions about E-News can be directed to the Information Services Help Desk at 472-3970 or helpdesk@unl.edu.

What kinds of notices can be sent via E-News? E-News is a university resource and as such will be limited to university-related notices only. Each item must be sponsored by a UNL department, program or organization. Individual announcements of a non-university nature are not allowed, and no commercial or non-university entity will be allowed to send announcements through E-News. Events happening on campus, but not sponsored by a UNL department, program or organization cannot be announced through E-News. E-News is for announcements, not for generating discussion. All items should have news content rather than opinion. For example, a member of the faculty or staff who belongs to a community group cannot submit an event for that group to E-News (concert at church, soccer league fundraiser). Neither can a member of the faculty or staff submit a personal item that is not related to the role and mission of the university (subleasing apartment, garage sale). The faculty sponsor for a recognized student organization could submit an event on behalf of that group (Rodeo Club cookout at East Union). A business would not be allowed to announce faculty/staff discounts or other promotions on E-News, but the Computer Shop, University Bookstore, or Credit Union could submit items. For more examples, see the sample E-News at http://www.unl.edu/o pcenter/forms/sample.html.