Bronco LeBeau, a member of the Cheyenne River Sioux tribe, reads the inscription on a memorial to Native Americans dedicated Oct. 2 on East Campus.

Native American memorial dedicated

A memorial was dedicated Oct. 2 to Native Americans at a ceremony on East Campus.

During the ceremony, UNL Chancellor Harvey Perlman stated: "We at the university hope this ceremony marks both an end and a beginning. First, we hope this ceremony helps bring closure to this painful episode. We know the story. Native American remains, held in the university's archeological holdings, were burned in an incinerator located on this site. We now understand and apologize for the grave offense our insensitive actions caused both to the spirits of your ancestors and to the feelings of Native Americas everywhere. Today, we fulfill the commitment made by former Chancellor James Moeser when he agreed in 1998 to erect a memorial on this site to honor Native Americans. Through the actions of the Board of Regents of the university, this site is set aside in perpetuity for this purpose. This stone serves as a reminder to all of us of our obligation to respect each others' beliefs and traditions as well as our common humanity."

The text of the stone's plaque reads: "This memorial honors an unknown number of Native Americans whose remains had been taken from their graves for inclusion in the University of Nebraska's archaeological collections. In the mid-1960s, these remains were incinerated in a facility located near this site, in a manner totally inconsistent with the beliefs and practices of the tribes of the Great Plains. In 1998, UNL Chancellor James Moeser and tribal representatives agreed to set aside this site as a memorial to honor these Native Americans, and to remind future generations of this cultural injustice. Memory of these events must be more than symbolic, for people who forget the past are bound to repeat its mistakes. May we learn from this and treat all persons with honor and respect."

Gorbachev lecture delayed until 2002

Because of international political conditions, former Soviet Union President Mikhail Gorbachev has postponed his lecture at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln until spring 2002.

Gorbachev was scheduled to lecture Oct. 17 at UNL's E.N. Thompson Forum on World Issues and appear at several events in Omaha.

Details on the rescheduled events will be distributed when available.

FULCRUM project leverages love of science

By Tom Simons, University Communications

By the eighth grade, most U.S. students are lagging their international peers in their understanding of and interest in science. A new project developed at UNL aims to change that.

The Third International Mathematics and Science Study compared science and math scores from students from around the world at the fourth-, eighth-grade and 12th-grade equivalents. In the fourth grade, American students are competitive with students from around the world, but by the eighth grade, they've fallen behind their international peers.

"Something is happening in that region between the fourth and eighth grades," said Diandra Leslie-Pelecky, assistant professor of physics and astronomy in UNL's College of Arts and Sciences. "The kids are either not learning science or they're not being interested in science," she said. "All the research that's been done on gender studies in science indicate that that's really the region of time where young women become less interested in science."

With that in mind, she and Gayle Buck, assistant professor of curriculum and instruction in Teachers College, created Project FULCRUM. Funded by a $1.44 million National Science Foundation grant, the project will put graduate and undergraduate science students from the university in third- to eighth-grade classrooms in the Lincoln Public Schools, where they will form partnerships with teachers.

The goal of the project is for it to act as a "fulcrum" to leverage the love of science felt by the budding UNL scientists into the public school classrooms.

In the schools, lead teachers will act as a mentors to the graduate students, teaching them about the educational process and how to work with younger kids. In turn, the graduate students will introduce the elementary students to the scientific process, show them that science is a way of doing things, not a body of knowledge. The graduate students will also be accompanied by UNL undergraduate science majors.

"We picked elementary and middle schools for a number of reasons, but when you look at the TIMSS test, you can see that something is happening in those grades," Leslie-Pelecky said. "We thought that by getting in early, we might be able to make a difference at that level, which would then perpetuate to the higher grades."

The three-year NSF grant eventually will allow Leslie-Pelecky and Buck to work with 30 schools, but they're starting this year with four - Clinton, Everett and Maxey elementary schools and Lefler Middle School.

The first-year Project FULCRUM teams are teachers Peg Honeycutt and Sue Kirby and geosciences graduate student Andrea Bair at Clinton; teacher David Szabat and mathematics grad student Matt Koetz at Everett; teacher Ann Wardle and geosciences grad student Heidi Hoffower at Maxey; and teacher Angela Zabawa and biometry grad student Jeanette Stafford at Lefler.

"We're dealing with a diverse group of schools and we have an absolutely terrific group of people to work with," Leslie-Pelecky said. "They're some of the most motivated and dynamic teachers I have ever met, and the graduate students that we've chosen for this project are the ones that we believe are going to go on to take leadership positions in their fields. We hope they will become effective advocates for K-12 education and for scientists getting involved in K-12 education."

To get involved Leslie-Pelecky said applications will be accepted through Feb. 1 for the 2002-03 school year. Application information and other materials can be found on the project's Web site http://www.physics.unl.edu/~ fulcrum.

Chancellor warns of challenges

The following e-mail was sent Oct. 2 to all faculty and staff at UNL by Chancellor Harvey Perlman:

October 2, 2001

Dear Faculty and Staff:

This afternoon at the (Academic) Senate meeting I will address two matters that will impact the university in the months ahead. I preferred to send this to you directly rather than have you interpret what I said from whatever the press reports of the senate meeting.

The first issue is the forthcoming special session of the legislature and what affect it may have on the university's budget. We are all aware of the rapidly declining state revenues that cannot support the two-year budget that was adopted last May. Nebraska is certainly not the only state facing considerable revenue declines as the national economy sputters. The events of Sept. 11 may intensify the problem. Public universities across the country are wrestling with the same problems.

At this point we do not know what may be asked of us. We are working hard to inform the governor and the legislature of the positive strides we have taken over the last few years in so many facets of our enterprise and how important it is for the State of Nebraska that we sustain our upward momentum. Nonetheless, we must also begin the planning effort essential to an intelligent and humane reduction of our budget. Accordingly, I have asked the vice chancellors, and through them the deans and directors, to begin developing scenarios that reflect up to a 3 percent cut in this year's budget and a similar reduction in next year's budget. I would assume this will require in most units a cessation of searches for all but the most essential positions. There is no other way to characterize a reduction in this amount except to say it will be painful. It will require the very best of all of us to avoid long-lasting damage to our ability to serve students and the people of Nebraska.

I indicated in the State of the University address that progress does not come in linear fashion. We must not be discouraged by events that are outside of our control. Whether we are investing new resources or reducing existing resources, the objective should remain creating as strong a university as possible under the existing circumstances. We will not be a "better" university in the abstract because of these reductions but our peers will be facing similar challenges. The challenge is to find ways to increase our competitive position even with reduced resources.

Let me also emphasize my understanding that we will also be judged, both internally and externally, by the process we use to arrive at these difficult decisions. My expectation is that there will be broad consultation with faculty and staff before decisions are finalized. Right now we are in a planning mode; the extent and nature of the reductions will not be known until November. I also will insist that we effectuate these reductions, not in a way to create the most dramatic headlines, but in a way that is sensitive to the needs of the university and the members of our community.

If this were not enough of a challenge for one year we must also face up to the increasing pressure on our medical health insurance program. You will receive from President Smith a letter outlining the background, the problem, and the need for a significant increase in our premiums. I just want you to know that I can find no devil to blame for this situation other than ourselves. What we are collectively spending for medical care is increasing and since we are a self-financed insurance pool we have to pay the bills. The reserve that carried us (and subsidized our premiums) has been exhausted.

At one level this is a simple problem of assuring that the dollars coming into the system equal the dollars going out. But the issue is more complex. We could decrease the premiums by decreasing the insurance benefits. We could redistribute the total premiums to different categories of employees in different ways so that some employees' premiums would rise and some would fall. Or we could seek a greater contribution from the State of Nebraska. Obviously given the current circumstances, the latter option is not likely to be available.

President Smith has agreed to form a blue-ribbon panel representative of the campuses to advise him on how to address this problem on a long-term basis. For next year, however, I am afraid that the monthly premiums we each pay will rise significantly. I will continue to search for ways to moderate the hardship this will cause, particularly among lower-paid employees, but thus far I don't have any brilliant, or even mundane, ideas. If you have any thoughts please let me know.

I'm very sorry that the message here is so negative. At least neither of these challenges has been self-inflicted; they are the result of events largely out of our collective control. Moreover, there are so many wonderful things happening at the university that I hope we don't let these challenges distract us from our efforts to turn a very good university into a great university. That is still possible; it depends entirely on us. I will need your help now more than ever. Thanks.

Harvey Perlman

Chancellor