October 9, 2003

Political theorist launches Thompson series

The 2003-2004 series of the E.N. Thompson Forum on World Issues opens Oct. 15 with a lecture by Benjamin Barber. The lecture begins at 3:30 p.m. and will be at the Lied Center for Performing Arts. An informal pre-talk precedes the lecture at 3 p.m. in the Lied auditorium.

Barber is the author of the international best-seller Jihad vs. McWorld and the newly released Fear's Empire: Terrorism, War and Democracy, which describes how America's foreign policy after Sept. 11, 2001, has gone wrong and offers a detailed plan for a more conscientious foreign policy option.

Barber is the Gershon and Carol Kekst professor of civil society at the University of Maryland. An internationally renowned political theorist, Barber consults regularly with political and civic leaders and organizations in the United States and abroad. He writes frequently for Harper's, the New York Times, the Atlantic Monthly, the Nation and other scholarly and popular American and European publications. He was a founding editor and for 10 years editor-in-chief of the international quarterly Political Theory. He is renowned for his defense of "strong democracy," a democratic theory that advances the role of robust democratic citizenship over formal constitutional mechanisms.

The E.N. Thompson Forum on World Issues began in 1988 when E.N. "Jack" Thompson, then head of the philanthropic Cooper Foundation, wanted to create a public lecture series that would bring prominent individuals to UNL to speak on important international issues. A cooperative project of the Cooper Foundation, the Lied Center and UNL, the series promotes better understanding of world events and issues by Nebraskans. In 1990, the name of the series was changed in honor of Thompson (1913-2002), a 1933 graduate of the University of Nebraska who served as president of the Cooper Foundation from 1964 to 1990 and as its chairman from 1990 until his death.

Past Thompson Forum events have featured, among many others: Mikhail Gorbachev, former president of the Soviet Union; Elie Wiesel, Holocaust survivor and peace activist; Robert McNamara, secretary of defense for the Kennedy administration; Archbishop Desmond Tutu; and Bono, rock musician and AIDS activist.

The rest of the 2003-2004 series will feature:

· Amos Oz, Israel's most distinguished literary figure and a founding member of Israel's Peace Now movement. His lecture, "Israel: Peace and War," will be Nov. 18. This lecture, which is also part of the Kripke Lecture Series, is co-sponsored by the Thompson Forum and UNL's Norman and Bernice Harris Center for Judaic Studies and the Lincoln Jewish Federation.

· Thomas Borstelmann, who joined the UNL faculty this fall and is the new Thompson professor of modern world history. He will lecture on the topic "America and Its Enemies" on Jan. 26. After receiving his Ph.D. from Duke University, Borstelmann spent 12 years in the history department at Cornell University. His most recent books include The Cold War and the Color Line: American Race Relations in the Global Arena and Created Equal: A Social and Political History of the United States.

· Mary Robinson, a former United Nations official and the first woman president of Ireland (1990-1997), who will give the final lecture of the season, co-presented as the Lewis E. Harris Lecture on Public Policy. It will be Feb. 17.

More information about the E.N. Thompson Forum on World Issues is available at <www.unl.edu/unlpub/special/ thompsonforum>.

Laurie Keeler, pilot plant general manager at the UNL Food Processing Center, fills jars with salsa for a client. The center, which helps small and large food businesses with technical, marketing and business services, is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year.

Center marks 20 years of helping state's food industry

By Shannon Hartenstein, IANR News Service

Entrepreneur Traci Dietz, owner of Mama's Salsa, has big plans in her small hometown of Orleans, Neb.

With help from the UNL Food Processing Center, her business has grown from selling 12 jars of salsa at a craft show to stocking gift store shelves statewide. Now she's building a $675,000 processing facility to produce her spicy specialty.

"I know I wouldn't be here without them," she said, crediting the center with helping her make business contacts, develop nutrition labels and market her salsa.

Since 1983, the Food Processing Center has provided assistance to the food industry with technological and business development services.

Conceived during a challenging time for America's farm economy, the center was established to help add value to Nebraska's abundant agricultural commodities, said Steve Taylor, center director and head of UNL's Department of Food Science and Technology. The center was a collaborative effort of the university, the Nebraska Department of Economic Development, the state's food businesses and then-Gov. Bob Kerrey.

Now in its 20th year, the center is dedicated to helping the Nebraska food processing industry continue to grow, Taylor said. The center provides a link between university expertise and food businesses.

The center has worked closely with the food industry to increase the number of food processing businesses in the state from 220 in 1983 to 350 today, he said. Of those, 70 percent are small businesses. In addition, nearly 70 percent of the entrepreneurs that began with the center's help remain in business today, a high percentage for this competitive industry, Taylor said.

"Our biggest challenge for the future remains one of the things we focused on in 1983: how to take agricultural producers and the communities they live in and get them a bigger hunk of the value-added pie," he said.

David Vetter, president of Grain Place Foods, was one of the center's first clients. The center's staff helped him with new product development, process development, business analysis, and labeling and regulatory issues. His Marquette, Neb., business grows, processes and packages organic grains for food processors and for tropical bird food.

"It has helped a lot of people develop new products, figure out how to get into the business if they wanted to or figure out if it's something they don't want to do," Vetter said.

The center also offers marketing research, feasibility studies, custom processing, and equipment, ingredient and packaging assistance. A third of the center's funding comes from state support through the university, a third from competitive federal grants and a third from client fees, Taylor said.

In 1987, the center expanded its services nationwide and has assisted food businesses in all 50 states and nearly two dozen countries. However, in-state entrepreneurs remain a central focus, Taylor said.

"We're in essence growing our own, and I think that's the best possible way, especially for smaller Nebraska communities," he said.

Mark Haskins, president of MBA Poultry at Tecumseh, Neb., worked with Food Processing Center researchers and their UNL students to perfect the air-chilled technology used for processing its Smart Chicken.

"It's given us product attributes that are proven by the university, so it's been a great benefit to market penetration," he said. "I think one of the reasons we're in 30 states today is the fact that the University of Nebraska was willing and able to assist a start-up company in their own state."

From irradiation to shelf-life studies, the center has been a valuable resource for MBA Poultry, which is the first U.S. poultry processing business to air-chill chicken to inhibit bacterial growth, Haskins said.

"It's not only been a great source of pride for us, but easy for us to request and get information back from them," he said. "I don't know of any other institution that has been as responsive as they have."

The center also is well known for its Food Entrepreneur Assistance Program, which began in 1989 to help aspiring entrepreneurs assess and launch their business ideas.

At the program's "From Recipe to Reality" workshop, entrepreneurs with new product ideas get information to determine whether starting a food business is feasible. In the second phase, the "From Product to Profit" workshop provides individualized confidential assistance for participants who decide to follow through with business ideas.

The entrepreneur assistance program has been one of the center's most successful programs, Taylor said.

"I think one of the keys of the Food Processing Center is that we continue to pay a lot of attention to Nebraska citizens - those who are interested in developing food processing businesses - and Nebraska communities," Taylor said. "I think we have become the nation's, if not the world's, best program in terms of entrepreneur assistance. Nobody has anything that comes close to what we do."

Dietz and other entrepreneurs receiving the center's assistance note its critical role in their business success.

"I'm just very thankful for them," Dietz said. "There are a lot of people who have helped me along the way, but the one I keep coming back to is the Food Processing Center. They're always there."

Dental hygiene program expands in Panhandle

The Panhandle Community Services of Gering has received a three-year, $221,690 grant from the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services System Nebraska Healthcare Cash Fund (tobacco settlement fund) that has allowed the University of Nebraska Medical Center to expand its dental hygiene program to western Nebraska.

PCS has subcontracted with the University of Nebraska Medical Center College of Dentistry, which is located in Lincoln, to make its dental hygiene program accessible in Western Nebraska. The first students began classes in August.

The UNMC College of Dentistry's dental hygiene program is a two-year program upon which students earn a bachelor's degree in dental hygiene. Students enter the dental hygiene program with two years of undergraduate prerequisite courses.

Dental hygiene students attend class at PCS and use distance learning technology to access Lincoln classes. They share student services with nursing students at the UNMC College of Nursing West Nebraska Division in Scottsbluff. Dental hygiene students will perform clinical skills in the dental facilities at PCS.

"We're very excited about the partnership with the College of Dentistry for a variety of reasons," said Margo Hartman, deputy director of PCS. "Over the past year we have updated our needs assessment. During that process people indicated that access to dental care was a need throughout the Panhandle. It's an opportunity for those who want to become dental hygienists to live here and not have to move to Lincoln to go to school to become a dental hygienist."

PCS recently has expanded its facilities and plans to have four dental patient care rooms where students will learn clinical hygiene skills with patients at PCS.

"We see this opportunity as positive economic development. And after graduation, students can find good-paying jobs with which they can support themselves and their families," Hartman said. "We serve children and adults in our community and surrounding areas who may not get dental care otherwise. The addition of students in our facility will enable us to help more children and adults, as well as free dentists to do more dental care."

George Schlothauer, D.D.S., an area private practice dentist who serves on the PCS Health Committee, is excited about the partnership.

"Our hope is that if we train the students here, they more than likely will elect to stay either here or locate nearby. As individuals like me get closer to retiring, there will be a great demand for both dentists and hygienists," he said. "We are very fortunate to have the facility that we have at PCS and an abundance of patients that need hygiene services. I am very excited about the program and I think it will be a program that we can all be proud of."

John Reinhardt, D.D.S., dean of the UNMC College of Dentistry, said the college has tried for a decade to increase the pool of students in the western part of the state.

"There is a big shortage of dental hygienists in western Nebraska, from Grand Island west," he said. "We are taking the program to the students in hopes we can encourage them to graduate and practice in the shortage areas. We've been hoping for this program for more than a decade. But we didn't get it funded until now. We were just waiting for the opportunity."

The college has hired a faculty member, Todd Junge, a graduate of the UNMC dental hygiene program, as the first instructor of the program, said Gwen Hlava, chair of the Department of Dental Hygiene, UNMC College of Dentistry. This semester, the course has four students.

David Brown, executive associate dean, UNMC College of Dentistry and professor of oral biology, said students who enroll will learn the same academics and clinical program as their colleagues.

"The only difference will be in the classroom where students will see and communicate with faculty and fellow students in Lincoln in real time, live via satellite or Internet communications.

"This is simply an extension of our program," Brown said. "It's exactly the same program except that the students will be in the Scottsbluff/Gering area. All of the academic instruction will come from Lincoln. The intent is to draw students from western Nebraska who are interested in building a dental hygiene practice in their home area."

Brown said he expects to see traditional as well as non-traditional students who are changing careers.

"The more hygienists we can have in underserved areas, the better," he said. "In Nebraska, we have a problem of access to oral health care. There really is a health care crisis in dentistry in the western part of the state."