October 25, 1996




Parting Shot

Cheryl Bomberger, maintenance mechanic with UNL's Facilities Management Maintenance Division, cleans Broyhill Fountain as it serves out its last days as a campus landmark and gathering place.

According to Richard Hoback, manager of the maintenance division, the fountain will continue to run as long as weather conditions permit. He said daytime temperatures remain high enough that a little freezing at night won't damage the fountain.

"We want to keep it running at least through the next home game, or until temperatures become consistently cold," said Hoback. "Since it's the fountain's last go around there's not much damage we can do now."

Dedicated in 1970, the Broyhill Fountain is scheduled for demolition to make way for the Nebraska Union expansion project, slated to begin next year. The fountain will be relocated about 50 feet north of its present site to the Green Space. (Photo by Richard Wright)

Report Gives Low Marks to Courts in Child Abuse Cases


By Peggy Strain
News and Information

Lengthy court delays often prevent abused and neglected children in Nebraska from receiving permanent home placement and attorneys representing them are frequently neither skilled nor committed and often don't even meet with their clients, according to a 16-month review of Nebraska court handling of maltreated children.

The report also says judges lack education regarding child maltreatment and many court hearings are perfunctory - more form than substance - often lasting just a few minutes. But many of the same problems exist in other states and the report shows Nebraska has done a commendable job implementing new federal mandates for oversight of children who are abused or neglected.

The Nebraska State Court Improvement Project from the UNL Center on Children, Families and the Law and the Nebraska Supreme Court's Administrative Office also shows most judges and attorneys are inexperienced and uneducated about special protections and provisions required for Native American Children by the Indian Child Welfare Act.

In general, petitions to terminate parental rights are not filed in a timely fashion in most cases, partially due to lack of attorneys. Nebraska also does not have a special permanency planning hearing that would require abandonment of a reunification plan if children are not returned to their parents within 18 months. Instead, the state relies on six-month dispositional review hearings to address permanency planning.

"Court delays can be a major obstacle to achieving permanency for abused and neglected children. Even where the pace of litigation is tightly managed, decision-making in child abuse and neglect cases can extend for many months. When juvenile or family court proceedings are allowed to proceed at the pace of other civil litigation, children spend years of their childhood awaiting agency and court decisions concerning their future," the report states.

Known as Guardians ad Litem, attorneys who represent children often merely rubber-stamp investigative reports rather than performing their own research about what might be best for the clients the government pays them to represent, the report states, adding that one-third of the children removed from homes weren't represented by an attorney at their first hearing, which usually occurs two weeks after their removal.

The report also stated that a large number of Guardians ad Litem never even meet with their clients. "While our assessment did not focus on determining the frequency of this kind of gross incompetence or inactivity, the above survey results and the statements from our interview participants suggest that it is a far too common occurrence, and is, in fact, the norm in some parts of the state," the report stated.

Regarding the Indian Child Welfare Act, the report said few judges make inquiries into children's Indian status at early stages of child abuse and neglect proceedings, resulting in later problems. One of the provisions of that act requires early notification of tribal officials, which is more likely to result in the tribe having input into where an Indian child might be placed.

The court assessment was conducted from April 1, 1995 to Aug. 1, 1996 through a statewide survey of judges, attorneys, court clerks, Department of Social Service workers, Foster Care Review Board members and in-depth interviews of key personnel in three judicial districts and review of 88 case files from 10 Nebraska districts. Funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, it is the first phase of a four-year improvement plan within nearly all 50 states.

The Adoption Assistance and Child Welfare Act of 1980 gave juvenile and family courts oversight responsibilities for children who are abused or neglected. Courts are now required to ensure that children have safe, permanent and stable homes and that reasonable services are provided to families so they can be preserved, if possible. The purpose of the assessment is to evaluate the extent to which Nebraska courts are fulfilling their expanded role.

Vicky Weisz, a UNL research assistant professor of psychology at the Center on Children, Families and the Law, said the study "was not to point the finger of blame but to assess problem areas and target them for the next three years of the study." She added, "I suspect these problems are occurring all over the country. In fact, Nebraska is probably not as bad as many other places."

Public Relations, 'Scarlet' Offices Relocate

The section of UNL Public Relations located in Nebraska Hall has moved to 321 Canfield Administration Building, effective Oct. 25. Included in this move are staffers associated with the Scarlet and Nebraska Magazine as well as news and information and broadcast services. The director, Phyllis Larsen, remains in 204 Canfield Administration.

Telephone numbers for all Public Relations and Scarlet staff remain the same. The main office number is 472-2211 and the fax for the Scarlet is 472-7825. Please check the 1996-97 Centrex, yellow page 85, for more information.

Staff members will be moving their belongings and equipment Oct. 25 and 28. Public Relations and Scarlet functions continue those days but with limited availability. The staff thanks you for your patience on those days.

Make A Difference on Nov. 1

In recognition of the nationwide community service program, "Make a Difference Day," UNL is planning its own day of service on Friday, Nov. 1.

According to a letter from Chancellor James Moeser, students, faculty and staff volunteers will work together on campus-wide service projects.

There are many ways volunteers can help improve UNL's campus community. "Make a Difference Day" projects may include service to University Child Care, Landscape Services, Facilities Management, Students with Disabilities, East Campus Greenhouses and many other areas. Projects will include everything from raking leaves and painting windows to cleaning bulletin boards, winterizing campus facilities and reading textbooks on tape for students with disabilities, to name a few examples.

Projects are available from noon to 6 p.m. on Nov. 1. Students, student groups, faculty and staff who are interested in volunteering some of their time should contact Student Involvement at 472-2454.

New projects are being sent to the Student Involvement Office daily, so the university will need a lot of helping hands in this united effort to show campus pride and make a difference for the UNL community.

Genetics Conference to Examine Genome Project Implications


By Peggy Strain
News & Information

School administrators will sift through the ethical and legal implications of genetics research and its possible effects upon school policies when national experts debate the issues at a Nov. 8 conference at UNL.

"Preparing Schools for the Genetic Revolution" is an attempt to get ahead of the coming fallout from identification of all 200,000 human genes expected to be completed in the next 10 to 15 years, said Gregg Wright of UNL's Center on Children, Families and the Law.

"Every gene in every child and every teacher is knowable and running a school will be significantly different because administrators will be challenged to use or not to use the information available," Wright said of the Human Genome Initiative, the coordinated global research to identify all human genes within the next 15 years.

The conference will include genetics experts such as Dr. Shelley Smith of Indiana University, who has researched identification of genes for reading disability and the dilemma posed by availability of such information. For example, conference participants might examine what the existence of a diagnostic test for gene-influenced treatable dyslexia might mean for schools.

Those studying genetics believe the answers will be applicable to many genes that now are found to carry susceptibility to common conditions such as attention deficit disorder or anti-social behavior. As these genes are mapped and testing becomes available, it will raise questions about how much information about students and employees schools will want access to, Wright warned.

Other conference speakers include New York University Professor Dorothy Nelkin, author of a ground-breaking book about the power of biological information; Rebecca Anderson, Omaha attorney and former genetics counselor and nationally known speaker on legal and ethical issues in human genetics, and Norman Krivosha, former chief justice of the Nebraska Supreme Court.

The conference will be at the Ramada Hotel and Conference Center and is sponsored by the Center on Children, Families and the Law, the Center for Biotechnology and Teachers College at UNL, the University of Nebraska Medical Center and the Cooper Foundation. It is oriented toward school administrators, educators, parents, researchers and costs $55 or $20 for students. For registration information, telephone 472-0212.

Grant Prompts 'Statewide Interactive' Service

A $20,000 grant from the Woods Charitable Fund Inc., has enabled Nebraska Educational Telecommunications to develop Statewide Interactive - a news-on-demand service for Nebraska students, teachers and the general public - on the World Wide Web.

Internet users will find news and perspective about Nebraska public policy issues, lifestyles, sports and the arts from stories appearing on Statewide, a weekly news journal broadcast Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays on the Nebraska ETV Network.

Nebraska Educational Telecommunications received the Woods grant to develop Statewide Interactive's (SWI's) potential as a resource for students and teachers across Nebraska. For example, social studies teachers will find suggestions to help them use an SWI story about the reunification of the northern and southern Ponca Indian tribes to teach students about cultural identity and ethnicity. Art teachers will find suggestions for using a story about Lincoln's new "Torn Notebook" sculpture to discuss the creative process, while their colleagues teaching government may use the story to discuss public funding of the arts. New suggested activities will be posted on Statewide Interactive each month.

"We're very excited about this opportunity to extend a broadcast news program into the classroom," said Bill Ganzel, project director and senior producer for public affairs at NET. "Statewide is a wonderful way for us to cover the most important stories of the week from regions around the state, and now we have a way to make it available to teachers and citizens in a powerful new medium."

The grant will enable NET to hire a "navigation editor" to develop the SWI Web site and a curriculum consultant to develop "Curriculum Connections," the suggested classroom activities. NET is also collaborating with consultants from the Nebraska Department of Education, Lincoln Public Schools and NETCHE, a consortium of Nebraska colleges that share educational media and resources.

Initially, the stories on SWI will come from the weekly "Perspective" segments produced by Statewide. Later, NET will add stories from the Nebraska Public Radio Network's Nebraska Nightly news series and-as agreements can be worked out-from commercial newspapers and radio and television stations. Those new agreements involving Statewide Interactive will build on existing agreements that allow STATEWIDE to broadcast stories reported by leading Nebraska newspapers and television and radio stations, according to Ganzel.

"Our vision is to develop a powerful news-on-demand service that provides citizens a wide range of Nebraska news from a diverse group of news providers," Ganzel said.
Statewide is a production of the Public Affairs Unit of University of Nebraska-Lincoln Television for broadcast on the statewide Nebraska ETV Network. The series also is carried on Sundays at 3 p.m. (2 MT) by EduCable, the cable television service of Nebraska ETV.

Engineers Develop Fast, Economical Bridge System

UNL engineers have developed a speedy and inexpensive system for constructing the type of bridges most commonly found in the state. The system may save highway departments thousands of dollars in construction costs, the engineers said.

The Nebraska Inverted Tee system uses precast, prestressed concrete to build the superstructure of short to medium span bridges. The system consists of adjacent precast concrete sections in the shape of an upside-down T, topped with cast-in-place concrete slab. The system spans up to 100 feet while maintaining a thin structural depth, particularly desirable for flood-prone and low-clearance crossings.

No other comparable system is as economical or easy to build, according to UNL engineers.

"The inverted tee is cost-competitive with cast-in-place slabs," said Mounir Kamel, research assistant professor on the University of Nebraska at Omaha campus. Kamel developed the system through a research fellowship awarded by the Precast/Prestressed Concrete Institute under the supervision of Maher Tadros, Cheryl Prewett professor of civil engineering at UNL.

Kamel said the system will save contractors time - and headaches - in assembling bridges on site. The system members are light and can be easily delivered to the job site, where the contractor can use smaller cranes for installation. For example, Kamel said a 100-foot IT900 inverted tee beam weighs 16 tons, while a 100-foot I girder can weigh 38 tons.

The simplicity and light weight of the system makes small precast producers and contractors more competitive, Tadros said. "This feature will help rural areas which have large needs and limited resources."

Nebraska engineers won't have to wait long to see the promised benefits of the system firsthand. Three inverted tee bridges designed by the Nebraska Department of Roads will be built in 1997. State bridge designers Sam Fallaha and Omar Qudus said they believe the new design is a good alternative to concrete slab bridges.

After the first bridge is built and monitored, engineers will be able to determine just how competitive the system is, said Mike Beacham, Department of Roads bridge research and development engineer.

Lamp, Rynearson and Associates of Omaha is using the system to design the Dahlman Avenue bridge for the city of Omaha. John Hill, the company's senior project manager in bridge engineering, said the system is ideal for the project. He said the precast girders speed erection time and eliminate most form work while the thin superstructure reduces the required amount of right-of-way.

Kamel said highway departments in several states are interested in the system. The Nebraska Department of Roads gave UNL a two-year grant to study other aspects of the system, including alternates to plastic foam blocks and post-tensioning of system members. Kamel and UNL engineering professors Gary Krause and Mantu Baishya will conduct the study.

UNL's Center for Infrastructure Research is helping fund the research through the Nebraska Research Initiative.

"We are pleased to support this project under the NRI program, which benefits Nebraska industry and taxpayers," said Samy Elias, associate dean for research in the UNL College of Engineering and Technology. "This project shows that our research pays off for Nebraska."

Back to menu

For questions regarding these Scarlet pages, contact:
dtaurins@unlinfo.unl.edu
(402) 472-8518, Fax: (402) 472-7825