By James Ballard, News & Information
Over the years Congress has been the butt of jokes and negative comments, leading one to believe that the people's branch of government has never been very popular. Now, research by two UNL professors bears this alleged hatred out.
Political scientists John Hibbing and Elizabeth Theiss-Morse conducted focus groups and surveyed people across the country about their attitudes toward Congress. They found very intense-negative feelings and a cynicism toward Congress that Hibbing described as disheartening, but not surprising.
"The one thing that was really emphasized is that the public really doesn't like the processes that go on in Congress," he said. "It's not just a case of disliking the policies Congress spits out, it's more the way the darn thing works that people really object too."
Their findings were compiled before the elections of 1994 and published in a recent book, Congress as Public Enemy. The book tries to get at the basis for the negative feelings. Hibbing said they found no easy answers. Before the elections there was a sense that the majority of the negativity was blamed on conservatives who were upset with a liberal Congress. Now the feeling is just the opposite. However, Hibbing said there's more to it than political affiliation.
"That's not really at the heart of the dissatisfaction," he said. "At the time, more Republicans than Democrats disliked Congress, but there was still a strong majority of Democrats that fit that description. It's the same now, a majority of Republicans dislike Congress even though it's their branch."
Hibbing found the public wants a more straightforward kind of institution that better represents their concerns. They don't like the level of professionalization with all the staffers and committees. They think Congress has too many "bells and whistles."
"We see people really turning up their nose at the way they see Congress trying to represent the concerns of the country," Hibbing said.
This is where Hibbing becomes concerned. When Congress considers the interests of the country, it works through certain channels and takes into account a number of different perspectives. It can be very involved, working slowly and dealing with a number of different committees.
"More generally, they (the public) don't like compromise, they don't like debate, they don't like the democratic process which many observers would say is the essence of democracy," Hibbing said.
He said the public wants a democracy in theory, but often loathes it in practice. He called it "stealth democracy;" the public wants democracy but it doesn't want to know it's there.
"When it's laid out to them, they like it, but when they actually see the game being played they recoil from it. When there's debate, they say, 'Oh gosh, they're bickering,' and instead of compromise they talk about selling out," he said. "Congress has a very difficult situation, they have to represent our divided interests. How are they going to do that without getting into some debate and some compromise in a fairly deliberate fashion?"
He added that much of what Congress does is endemic to democracy, and it's an enemy of the public partially because it's so public. He said acknowledging the need for some reforms to be taken more seriously is the public's unwitting desire to reform democracy out of a democratic legislature. It's a cure more dangerous than the disease.
He added a big part of the problem is people see Congress as an undifferentiated mass of 535 members, hooked into the "Washington system." This is where the public sees all members of Congress on the take, in close with special interest groups and involved in scandals.
"We got a lot of responses that lumped all of them under the same kind of nasty heading of scandal-plagued members taking junkets and playing golf on the nickel of special interests," he said.
Hibbing said this is a concern, but one that should be kept in perspective. In fact, it's a problem with democracies all over the world.
"Old established democracies seem to engender in the people a sense of frustration and dissatisfaction. So it's not just the U.S. Congress that is getting clobbered by their public, it happens in a lot of other institutions," he said. "But, I don't think that means we can be cavalier about what's going on, I do think it's a real concern."
So much of a concern that Hibbing said we could see problems in the future. One problem could be that quality individuals aren't willing to run for Congress at the risk of being vilified by the public. Another is reaching the stage where the public is less willing to comply with the laws that are passed by Congress.
He said those issues may be down the road, and for now people don't spend a lot of time thinking about Congress. However, that doesn't mean the public's attitudes aren't real.
"I think when the issue is brought up, they tend to spew forth fairly
venomous types of attitudes, so I don't think that these attitudes aren't
real," he said. "But, I'm not sure that the public has thought through
exactly what they want. It goes back to the point about how the public
likes the system, but not the people in it, but when they say the system
kind of makes the people what they are, that doesn't always fit together
real well."
By Kim Hachiya, News & Information
That old adage about "neither rain, sleet nor snow" deterring the mails doesn't mention the flu. And actually, the flu didn't stop the mail at UNL this past week; it just delayed it.
Dick Schenaman, mail and distribution services manager, had five of nine mail carriers out Monday and Tuesday, all with the flu. As a result, mail delivery was reduced to once daily, rather than the twice-daily norm for UNL.
Monday, especially, was a mess, he said, because that's the biggest day due to weekend mail pile-ups.
Schenaman said his mail carriers typically arrive at 6 a.m., about 15 minutes after the U.S. Postal Service has delivered mail to UNL. The nine carriers sort by routes, then case it by department, put it into bundles, load it on trucks and drive it around. But with half his staff out sick, Schenaman had to pull folks from the processing side of the mailroom to help with deliveries. Those folks report to work about two hours later and are unfamiliar with the duties of carriers, he said.
"Processors are not as familiar with our routines or the addressing that the carriers are used to seeing," he said. "Lots of mail comes in addressed to just a name at UNL, no department or office. The carriers are used to it and know where most folks are. The processors have to look it up." It's hard to hire temporary workers, he added, because training takes more time than the worker usually is hired for.
Mail services personnel are considered essential, working every day that U.S. Postal Services work, he said. UNL handles about 30,000 pieces of mail, incoming and outgoing, each day. And by pulling people from processing, outgoing service was slowed, Schenaman said. He used folks from the courier service to deliver some specific items and folks from University Stores and Moving were called upon to pick up large mailings from the units.
"I've never had this many people out at one time. We are finally getting caught up," he said, adding that mail services hoped to resume twice-daily delivery on Thursday or Friday. On Wednesday, two employees returned to work, but another one was out sick. One of the returnees is on limited duty.
"These slick sidewalks don't help either," he said.
Next year, will Schenaman urge his employees to have flu shots?
"I never thought of it before," he said with a laugh, "but I think
it's a real good idea now."
By Tom Simons, News & Information
It could be the start of a long-term relationship when UNL and Nebraska Educational Telecommunications deliver an interactive management development seminar to employees of Deutsche Telekom, the German telephone company, on Dec. 14 and 15.
UNL management professors Sang Lee and Fred Luthans will offer "Beyond Total Quality Management" in two three-hour segments live from the UNL campus to an interactive classroom at Deutsche Telekom's headquarters in Bonn, Germany.
The two-day seminar is a pilot project, but if everything goes as planned, it will be the start of a sequence of seminars that would expand to multiple sites in Germany while using increasing technical complexity at the German end, according to Jack McBride, secretary of the Nebraska Educational Telecommunications Commission, and Stan Liberty, associate to the vice chancellor for research and professor of electrical engineering at UNL.
"This has prospects for a long-term relationship because they are very interested in the concept of continuing education in this manner," said McBride, who also is director of University Television at UNL and general manager of KUON-TV and Nebraska Educational Television. "As this is successful, the door opens for a continuing number of things that will benefit the university and NET as well. It's possible that Deutsche Telekom will put some advanced equipment here and anything and everything we develop in new and advanced multimedia designs and approaches will be available to be used here in Nebraska as well."
McBride and Liberty have collaborated for years in developing distance-learning capabilities in Nebraska and were instrumental in the founding of Nebraska CorpNet in 1985. In fact, it was Nebraska's technical expertise gained from long experience in delivering distance learning that attracted Deutsche Telekom's interest in the first place.
A consultant for the company was in the United States exploring the possibilities of a United States-European cooperation in the use of telecommunications and technology in distance education. The consultant, Hartmut Grebe, called Thad Kulik, an old college friend and an associate professor of electronics engineering technology on the University of Nebraska at Omaha campus. Kulik arranged for Grebe to participate in a conference call with McBride and Liberty, who persuaded Grebe to visit Lincoln for two days last summer.
"Jack's people put on a tremendous show-and-tell of all their classroom capabilities, the consultant was suitably impressed and recommended to Deutsche Telekom that it should work with the University of Nebraska," Liberty said.
In November, Deutsche Telekom flew McBride and Liberty to Germany, where they set up two live interactive teleconferences to demonstrate the capabilities of NET and UNL.
"Those teleconferences were key to our ability to convince them that this was a viable approach," Liberty said. "They had an a priori bias that you couldn't get enough visual information on an overhead camera, and what we presented was really a revelation to them. By actually demonstrating our studio classroom capabilities, they just became believers."
The UNL Management Department's expertise was also a good fit for Deutsche Telekom, a giant firm that is going through major changes. Since 1989 it has had to combine the East and West German telephone systems while transforming itself from a government organization to a private firm. A downsizing is planned that may cut 25 percent of its 235,000-person workforce, and a breakup into a number of smaller companies is also in the works.
"Their (Deutsche Telekom's) general needs are more in the management area, especially with all those organizational changes," Liberty said. "The Management Department already has experience with this kind of delivery and they are very good at dealing with learning in a multicultural environment. Plus they have content in these seminars that should be appealing to broad audiences within an organization, particularly one such as Deutsche Telekom."
The seminars will be conducted in English and will be delivered via
fiber optic cable laid beneath the Atlantic Ocean, a much cheaper method
of delivery than satellite technology. Liberty said Deutsche Telekom is
paying all costs of the project.
By Kim Hachiya, News & Information
The university's payouts for Workers' Compensation claims dropped by 13.7 percent in the fiscal year that ended June 30, 1995.
In FY94-95, 564 incident reports were filed and $674,700 was paid out. In FY93-94, 479 incident reports were filed and $782,200 was paid out the largest payout in 10 years. Of the 94-95 figures, 67 were received due to "sick building syndrome" problems at the Alexander Building.
Del Weed, manager of environmental health and safety, cautioned that comparisons between years is difficult because payouts can rise considerably should one or two major expensive accidents, such as a fire, occur.
Weed thanked UNL employees for their diligence and attributed the decrease to increased awareness on the part of employees as they work to reduce accidents. Weed said UNL has done extensive training to make all workers aware that safety is a high priority.
The results of falls are the No. 1 cause of injuries, Weed said, closely followed by back injuries and repetitive motion injuries. He cautioned that the number of falls increases in winter as people try to negotiate icy sidewalks and steps.
Weed said UNL has stressed accident prevention for a number of years, instituting worksite audits to look for ways to prevent injuries and emphasizing training and wearing of safety equipment. A pilot program started three years ago with Housing, Facilities Management, Agronomy, Animal Science and the U.S. Meat Animal Research Center has been helpful, he said. Currently, 35 departments have safety committees.
Weed said UNL has a responsibility to be an educational role model and for safety procedures. A safety policy was introduced in 1994, the first in the history of the institution.
Greg Clayton, director of risk management and benefits, said the decrease in workers' compensation payouts means the cost of unit overhead might decrease slightly. The university pays 2/3 of a 10th of a percent of payroll to the state's workers' compensation pool, he said. That rate
By Kim Hachiya, Nis calculated based on past years' history. Should
UNL show a pattern of decreasing costs, Clayton said, the amount that
must be paid to the state will decrease proportionately.
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