It's for Cash, Cash, CashIt's a bounce marathon that hopes to get folks to spring for big bucks. Members of Gamma Phi Beta and Lambda Chi Alpha have been bouncing non-stop on a trampoline at 14th and R streets since Tuesday afternoon as a fund-raiser for the American Lung Association. The greeks are jumping for 101.9 hours (not coincidentally the frequency of a radio station co-sponsoring the event) and plan to stop hopping at 5:56 p.m. Saturday. The goal: $20,000 for the Nebraska Asthma Busters Club, an organization that helps children with asthma learn to manage their disease. (Photo by Tom Slocum) |
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A group of 21 university faculty has called a town hall meeting from 10 a.m. to noon Nov. 21 in the East Union to discuss diversity issues and concerns.
Gargi Roysircar Sodowsky, educational psychology, said the group will meet to discuss possible responses to the Nov. 4 vote of the Academic Senate that placed the senate on record as opposing a no-classes observance of Martin Luther King Day. All faculty and interested people are invited to attend.
"We are taking the philosophical stance that we must have a holiday for the entire University of Nebraska-Lincoln community to honor Dr. King's national and international message to achieve racial equality through Gandhian peaceful protest and nonviolence," she said.
"A lot of us see this as bigger than just a black-white issue," she said. For instance, Roysircar Sodowsky said that as a teen-ager, she learned more about her native country, India, and was introduced to writings by Mahatma Gandhi after first reading works by King.
The town hall group also will discuss whether a "faculty diversity watch" is needed, she said. This will be a team of faculty members who will volunteer to address "publicly and swiftly campus occurrences that threaten the pluralistic co-existence of our academic community."
Roysircar Sodowsky acknowledged concerns by some faculty that creating the King holiday will shorten the academic year and pose a hardship on those teaching labs and other classes that meet once a week.
"But teaching is just one aspect of academic life. There is a bigger picture. We don't know how to resolve the calendar and that is not our issue. Our issue is to discuss a way to honor Martin Luther King and what he stands for."
She added that the group believes the all faculty, staff and students should have the day off to properly recognize the holiday.
Faculty who have organized the meeting are: Robert Benford, sociology; Christina Brantner, modern languages; Miles Bryant, educational administration; Miguel Carranza, sociology and ethnic studies, Rodrigo Canterero, community and regional planning; Barbara DiBernard, English and women's studies; Robert Hitchcock, anthropology; Venita Kelley, communications; Dane Kennedy, history; Jennifer Lehmann, sociology; Ann Mari May, economics; Allan McCutcheon, sociology; Helen Moore, sociology; Suzanne Ortega, sociology; Fernando Osorio, veterinary and biomedical sciences; Barbara Plake, educational psychology; Sheila Scheideler, animal science; Roysircar Sodowsky; Ana Wahl, sociology; Allen Williams, sociology; Cynthia Willis-Esqueda, psychology; Hugh Whitt, sociology; and John Wunder, history.
A partnership of universities and research facilities has received more than $2.5 million to develop a scientific computer network to strengthen scientific research in the Great Plains region.
The National Science Foundation has awarded a two-year grant of $1,479,980 to an alliance of six Midwestern states, called the Great Plains Network, to be matched with $1,277,118 from the states - North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and Arkansas.
The proposal was initiated and funded by the NSF EPSCoR project (Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research) in Nebraska and by the EPSCoR projects in the other six states.
The Great Plains Network aims at bridging the "virtual distance between our respective states," said Jerry Niebaum, director of information technology services at the University of Kansas and the principal investigator for the network at KU. The program seeks to develop a north-south communications corridor for scientific collaboration among states that have historically been disadvantaged by being geographically separated from major research concentrations on the East and West Coasts.
"The idea for the network is built around an initiative in Earth system science that uses geographic information systems, satellite imaging and high-speed computations for GIS modeling, but the network would be available to researchers in all disciplines needing its capabilities," said Royce Ballinger, director of Nebraska EPSCoR and associate vice chancellor for research at UNL. "The network is especially for scientists who need to exchange or share large databases. It will eventually connect to Internet 2 to provide a high-speed, high-capacity, high-technology communications and research tool."
Nebraska is one of more than 100 institutions nationwide developing Internet 2, which will largely replace the original Internet in the nation's research community.
"The reason we're developing the next level of the Internet is because the Internet in some parts of the country is over-trafficked," said Kent Hendrickson, associate vice chancellor for information services at UNL. "Because of delays, parts of messages being dropped and other problems, the Internet is not nearly as reliable as researchers need it to be."
The Great Plains Network is expected to meet the needs of scientists while facing the challenges of national communications and computing initiatives by increasing network capacity among the states; providing high-capacity access to the national computer grid and thereby to national supercomputing facilities; and maximizing use of the telecommunications network and supercomputing resources through training, consultation and software services.
"Because the Great Plains states have small populations and large land areas, the major telecommunications companies are not competing vigorously to bring advanced services to the region," Niebaum said. "By aggregating their purchasing power, the alliance states can develop a high-capacity, interstate backbone network for the entire region."
Without the network, each state would have to purchase access to the national grid at a cost of as much as $500,000 per state per year, or more than $3 million for the region. Shared access is expected to reduce the yearly costs to $500,000 for the entire area.
The network in Nebraska is funded by the NSF with state matching funds provided by the university.
-Tom Simons
The late October snowstorm damaged between 90 percent and 95 percent of trees in the 18 hardest hit Nebraska counties, and caused between $37 million and nearly $54 million in tree damage, according to preliminary Nebraska Forest Service estimates.
"It's the worst damage I've ever seen," said Gary Hergenrader, who has been state forester with the Nebraska Forest Service at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln for 16 years.
Trees in 38 Nebraska counties suffered storm damage, he said. However, public and private trees in the 18 eastern and south central Nebraska counties suffered the greatest damage.
The 18 counties are: Adams, Butler, Cass, Clay, Dodge, Douglas, Fillmore, Gage, Jefferson, Lancaster, Nuckolls, Saline, Sarpy, Saunders, Seward, Thayer, Webster and York.
The Nebraska Forest Service estimates damage to between 711,000 and 750,0000 of the roughly 790,000 trees in the 18-county area's 169 communities, Hergenrader said.
The forest service last week estimated total tree damage in the 18-county area would range from $37.1 million to $53.7 million. Here's a breakdown of the costs:
These estimates do not include the cost of removing, repairing or replacing smaller trees -- under 17 inches in diameter, Hergenrader said. Smaller trees were damaged, but they are more likely to recover because they are typically more flexible, he said.
Generally, larger trees also suffered the most damage, he said. Although the formal definition of a large tree is one that measures at least 17 inches in diameter, "anything you can't get your arms around is a large tree," Hergenrader said.
Nearly half -- 43 percent -- of the trees damaged in the 18-county area's towns and cities were large trees, he said.
"Large trees give a neighborhood character," Hergenrader said. "When you lose that many, it changes the neighborhood's landscape, at least in the near term."
The severely damaged area includes Lincoln and Omaha. Trees in urban areas tended to suffer greater damage in this storm than in rural areas, Hergenrader said.
"The damage in rural areas was nothing like the damage in towns," he said.
Trees in some western Nebraska communities also suffered damage, but estimates from those areas are not yet available.
The Nebraska Forest Service developed the estimates using figures from clean-up following an October 1991 Nebraska snowstorm, the so-called Halloween freeze, Hergenrader said. Unlike last month's storm, when heavy snow damaged trees, the 1991 storm damaged trees with unseasonably low temperatures, he said.
Some trees escaped damage from last month's storm, Hergenrader said. Trees that were less affected include most evergreens and many trees that lose leaves early in fall such as cottonwood, green ash and walnut. Although some trees of these species were damaged, most were essentially unharmed, he said.
For large trees in the 18-county area, the forest service estimates:
Hergenrader urges Nebraskans not to be in a rush to cut down damaged trees in their yards. If a tree is still able to perform the function it was planted for, such as breaking the wind or providing shade, there's no need to cut it down, he said. Corrective pruning and the passage of time can restore a misshapen tree.
"Look beyond the broken limbs," Hergenrader said.
-Molly Klocksin, IANR news writer
Many trees damaged by the late October snowstorm need some tender loving care.
But the care homeowners provide should be appropriate -- enough to avoid hazards without causing trees additional harm, said Gary Hergenrader, state forester with the Nebraska Forest Service at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
"Don't think you have to do something immediately, unless trees are hanging on power lines or have broken limbs that could fall and hurt somebody," he said.
Trees with split trunks pose hazards and only professional arborists should prune or remove them, Hergenrader said.
Likewise, homeowners should call their local power company or an arborist trained in clearing electrical lines to handle branches dangling over power lines.
Only pruning to remove broken branches should be done now -- leave the fine pruning and finishing cuts until late winter or early spring, he said.
These and other tips for immediate care are included in Immediate Care for Storm-Damaged Trees, the first in a series of free storm damage bulletins the forest service is providing as a public service, Hergenrader said.
"We want to help Nebraskans take care of their damaged trees safely and to help them save as many trees as possible," he said.
To order a bulletin, send a stamped, self-addressed envelope to the Nebraska Forest Service, 101 Plant Industry Building, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, Neb., 68583-0814. The bulletins also will be posted on the World Wide Web at http://ianrwww.unl .edu/ianr/douglas/cfintro.htm.
-Molly Klocksin, IANR news writer
College students in Nebraska will be able to translate their community service activities into more than just a good feeling with a grant to the university from the Corporation for National and Community Service.
The one-year, $300,000 Learn and Serve America Higher Education Grant will allow students to incorporate service activities into their course work and indirectly earn academic credit for it.
Marilyn Bugenhagen, who will oversee implementation of the grant through the Nebraska Consortium for Service-Learning in Higher Education, said that while elementary and secondary schools have a long history of promoting community service, there has not been a developed educational track for post-secondary students in service-learning.
Bugenhagen, director of student involvement at UNL, said many Nebraska college students already have a strong background in service in their home communities when they arrive on campus. The grant will allow them to extend that service ethic while being exposed to people of diverse social, racial, ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds.
"An example of how we want to relate service-learning to the classroom would be a faculty member incorporating service-learning into the curriculum," Bugenhagen said. "Students would perform community service, then write about what they learned and how it contributed to their own life or the community. This challenges students to think critically about their experiences and takes community service one step further. If students develop these skills at the college level, they're likely to continue to serve throughout their professional lives and become even more highly productive citizens."
Bugenhagen said 20 colleges and universities have committed to collaborate on developing service-learning in higher education in the state. She said the consortium will hire a director to coordinate the statewide effort.
The university's partners are Central Community College and College Park in Grand Island, Chadron State College, Clarkson College, College of St. Mary, Concordia Teachers College, Creighton University, Dana College, Doane College, Hastings College, Metropolitan Community College, Midland Lutheran College, Nebraska Methodist College of Nursing and Allied Health, Nebraska Wesleyan University, Northeast Community College, Southeast Community College-Lincoln, University of Nebraska at Kearney, University of Nebraska at Omaha and Western Nebraska Community College.
Learn and Serve America promotes service-learning initiatives in schools, universities and communities. Through its programs, Learn and Serve America provides opportunities for more than 750,000 young people to connect community service experience with academic learning, personal growth and civic responsibility. Administered by the Corporation for National Service, Learn and Serve America funds schools, colleges and community organizations that use these resources to create new service-learning programs, replicate existing service-learning programs or provide training and development to staff, faculty and volunteers. Specific programs address local needs in at least one of the following areas: education, public safety, human services and the environment.
-Tom Simons
Honors students chosen for a new University of Nebraska program will design and conduct their own original research from start to finish before earning their undergraduate degrees.
The university's Agricultural Research Division's Undergraduate Honors Student Research Program will match qualified juniors and seniors with experienced research faculty mentors. Students will work with Agricultural Research Division faculty on a research project addressing issues in agriculture, biology, human resources and natural resources. ARD is a unit of NU's Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources.
The ARD program meets Chancellor James Moeser's goal of recruiting and instructing high-ability students, said Steve Waller, assistant dean of ARD.
Undergraduates already conduct research with some IANR faculty, Waller said. However, the new program integrates research into their college course work, making the students undergraduate scientists responsible for conducting an entire, graded research project, he said.
"If it's their own research project, they get a stronger sense of accomplishment from it," Waller said.
The program will acquaint students with scientific methods, stimulate interest in teaching and research careers and encourage students to pursue graduate study.
Among other factors, students will be selected based on the originality of their proposed research, its potential for faculty collaboration and its potential contribution to their career goals.
Whether they conduct research as an independent study course or write an undergraduate thesis, participants will have a jump on their future, Waller said. They'll demonstrate their initiative, develop problem-solving skills and practice working collaboratively, he said.
"Employers want employees who can work as a team," Waller said.
The program will identify exceptionally talented students early in their careers and value the contributions young scientists can make, he said.
The program also provides a model for other UNL academic units to follow in developing programs for honors students, said Patrice Berger, director of the UNL Honors Program.
"This initiative addresses a very important need in the program and I hope that it will serve as a model for other units since it is exceptionally well crafted," Berger said. "It opens up tremendous opportunities for our students."
Funds are available to support about 10 students in the ARD program this fiscal year and 20-25 students in subsequent years. Students interested in applying should call Waller at (402)472-2201 for an application. Applications are due Dec. 1 for students seeking to conduct research during spring and summer 1998. The program receives financial support from funds designated by the UNL Reallocation Plan and matching funds from departments.
-Molly Klocksin, IANR news writer
It takes more than love to be successful in a multi-generational business, a University of Nebraska programs coordinator said.
"Returning to the Farm," a University of Nebraska Cooperative Extension workshop, can help families look at the agricultural operation as a business.
The workshops, which span two weekends, will be Dec. 5-6 and Jan. 16-17 in Lincoln and Dec. 12-13 and Jan. 30-31 at the Nebraska College of Technical Agriculture in Curtis.
"When loved ones enter the operation, it will change the relationship in the family as well as that of the business," said Deb Rood, programs coordinator in UNL's agricultural economics department.
Farm and ranch family members who plan to work together after a son or daughter graduates will benefit from the workshops as will ag families already working together, she said.
Treating everyone with respect is important and can be difficult because of emotional baggage each person carries, Rood said. The workshops give everyone equal footing to express their thoughts and desires.
Family members must ask the important questions: Are children committed to the operation? Will parents give children a chance to try out new responsibilities? The workshops set aside time for participants to sort out these answers and see the "bigger picture." Farming and ranching are so demanding that getting beyond what needs to be done immediately is often difficult, Rood said.
Participants will complete balance sheets, trend sheets, establish short- and long-term goals, recognize personality differences, analyze financial performance and operating alternatives. The workshops conclude with an on-site visit.
Presenters from NU's Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources are Wade Nutzman, farm management assistant, and Larry Bitney, farm management specialist, both of whom have
expertise in agriculture finance and farm management; and Rood, whose expertise is in family relationships and who coordinates the annual Women in Agriculture conference.
Returning to the Farm workshop registration is $150 per operating unit plus $10 for each family member. This cost covers materials, meeting room, breaks and one meal.
For more information, contact Rood at (402) 472-1771 or (800) 535-3456.
- Cheryl Alberts, IANR news writer
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