February 14, 1997



Looking for Answers

Clerical assistant Darlene Harris assists a student with paperwork Monday at the records service counter in the Canfield Administration Building. The office handles transcript orders, change of address forms, degree applications and answers "all kinds of questions," Harris said. (Photo by Richard Wright)



University Developing 'Second Internet'

By Kim Hachiya
News & Information

The University of Nebraska is one of 98 institutions working toward development of a second Internet to handle high-speed transmissions of scientific and research data.

Called Internet2, the system would increase the speed and bandwidth over that provided by the current Internet, said Kent Hendrickson, associate vice chancellor for information services.

As the Internet has become more popular and used by the general public, the ability to move large packets of data, such as computational figures, has decreased substantially, he said.

Last spring, officials from about 15 institutions met to kick around the idea of developing a parallel Internet, Hendrickson said. While NU was not one of those institutions, when the chance came to sign onto a draft proposal to move ahead, Hendrickson said, NU President L. Dennis Smith signed the university on.

Hendrickson said Internet2 would involve high-speed regional networks that would connect to a "gigapop," a shared piece of Internet2 infrastructure. Gigapop is an acronym for Gigabit Capacity Point of Presence, and the gigapop would offer speeds 100 times as fast as current Internet connections.

Hendrickson said the regional gigapop for this area probably would be in Kansas City. The gigapop, most likely managed by a non-academic vendor, would guarantee and provide high quality service. It would also act as a "traffic cop" to control access and limit use of Internet2 only to its members.

Material on Internet2 would not be the typical e-mail banter or commercial World Wide Web traffic, Hendrickson said, but would be scientific in nature.

For instance, a group at UNL is working with the EPSCoR regional group to win a $1.5 million NSF grant to create a computer application to run biospheric modeling over Internet2. This data requires an extremely wide bandwidth, Hendrickson said, to guarantee that data is not lost in transmission to and from supercomputer sites which do the computations.

Hendrickson said Internet2 could take some pressure off the current Internet, but it's expected to open a whole new arena for technology in research because it will allow huge amounts of data to be routed quickly.

While few dispute the need for a parallel Internet, the costs are high, Hendrickson admits. According to an article in the Feb. 7 Chronicle of Higher Education, some are estimating it will cost a minimum of $50 million to get the project up and running. Others say the costs will be far higher. While President Clinton has asked for $100 million in federal money to support Internet2, the bulk of funds will come from participating colleges and universities, at a rate of $500,000 annually from each institution for the next three years.

That money would pay for the high speed connections between regional gigapops, between universities and the gigapops and in updating the speed of computers and wiring now in place. There also would be costs such as staff training and support, Hendrickson said.

If UNL wins the NSF grant, UNL is committed to matching $150,000 of the grant, Hendrickson said.

"Presumably all of the university would have some contribution but UNL will probably pay the largest share," Hendrickson said. "And we are committed to that."

He predicted that the Internet2 project will move forward quickly.

"By late this year or early next year, Internet2 will be part of the regular vocabulary," he said. "How much will be actually used by Nebraska is unknown but the high-speed line to Kansas City will be in place by the end of this calendar year, depending on the grant."

Arts Dean to Coordinate University's Arts Outreach

By Tom Simons
News & Information

Chancellor James Moeser has announced that Dick Durst, dean of the College of Fine and Performing Arts, will take on added duties as assistant to the chancellor for the arts.

As assistant to the chancellor, Durst will report directly to Moeser and will serve as his liaison to the university's three arts units that report to the chancellor - the Lied Center for Performing Arts, the Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery and Sculpture Garden and the Lentz Center for Asian Culture.

Moeser said the reorganization will benefit all of the units involved, but emphasized that it does not move any of the three arts units into the college and that the three units' budgets would remain under the direct control of the chancellor. He said Durst will work closely with Herb Howe, associate to the chancellor, who he said "has provided excellent leadership and coordination for the arts units reporting directly to the chancellor. Herb will continue to be the key associate and adviser to the chancellor.

"This restructuring will provide closer coordination between the College of Fine and Performing Arts and the world-class arts units we have on campus. The college, the Lied Center, the Sheldon and the Lentz Center will be able to draw more readily on each other's strengths while maintaining their unique identities as well as their close relationships to the chancellor's office."

"This will not be an operational change for the Lied Center, the Sheldon Gallery or the Lentz Center," Durst said. "We have outstanding directors in each of those units with far greater experience in the operation of their facilities than I have.

"I see my role in the coordination of the arts education components on campus. The College of Fine and Performing Arts has a strong outreach component and each of the other units does too. I want to pull those efforts into a stronger focus that will benefit the University of Nebraska and the state of Nebraska as a whole."

Durst will retain all of his duties at the College of Fine and Performing Arts. The college was formed in 1993 when the departments of Art and Art History and Theatre Arts and Dance and the School of Music were split off from the College of Arts and Sciences.

Portraits of Jefferson during different periods of his life (clockwise from upper left) include a 1791 likeness by Charles Wilson Peale, a painting from 1800 by Rembrandt Peale, an 1805 likeness by Gilbert Stuart, and a 1856 copy by Thomas Sully after an 1821 original life portrait by Sully.

Portrait of Thomas Jefferson Presented in New Ken Burns Series

Thomas Jefferson, an elegant portrait of America's third president, will be broadcast from 8-9:30 p.m. Feb. 18 and 19 on the Nebraska ETV Network. Ken Burns serves as director, producer and executive producer of the two-part, three-hour documentary series, with Camilla Rockwell as co-producer.

"Life" and "Liberty: Our Sacred Honor" will air Feb. 18. The first half of this episode looks at Jefferson's youth, when the bookish student from the Virginia wilderness is transformed by the philosophic fire of the American Revolution into the country's most articulate voice for human liberty. The second half traces Jefferson's early political career as author of the Declaration of Independence, war governor of Virginia, and minister to France and explores his provocative views on slavery, race and religion.

The second half of the program, "Liberty: The Age of Experiments" and "The Pursuit of Happiness," conclude the documentary series Feb. 19. The first half of this episode follows Jefferson's tumultuous terms as secretary of state and vice president, and the bitter political battle with Alexander Hamilton and the Federalists that culminates in the revolution of 1800 and Jefferson's dramatic election to the presidency. The second half provides a bittersweet overview of the retirement years of the "sage of Monticello"-a time devoted to grandchildren, books, the founding of the University of Virginia and a rich legacy of correspondence, while the comfort of his lifestyle is gradually eroded by personal bankruptcy.

"In many ways, this series is the prequel to our Civil War series," Burns said. "All of the contradictions in Thomas Jefferson's life and times - about race, about the role of government in our lives, about the meaning of freedom in America - are played out again and again in our late 20th century national life. In a sense, Jefferson helps to create the fault lines of our republic, which eventually bring on the cataclysm which was the Civil War, and he also helps define the issues which will animate our national discourse right up to the present."

Four years in production, the series delves into Jefferson's enigmatic character, exploring his ideas, his passions and the remarkable home he spent his life building and refining but never finishing - a perfect metaphor for the nation he helped found and for his own multi-faceted persona.

Thomas Jefferson explores the contradictions of the man whose longing for privacy, study and the domestic peace of family life was always in opposition to his role as statesman for the new country he helped create; whose intellectual commitment to freedom and equality stood in painful contrast to his lifelong ownership of slaves, and whose optimism and faith in the future remained undiminished by the loss of nearly everything he held dear.

As in all of Burn's productions, extensive use is made of rare archives. Original architectural drawings of Monticello and excerpts from Jefferson's journals, letters, scientific papers and political writings reveal the breathtaking range of his achievements and challenging paradoxes in his character. In addition, special platinum palladium prints were made by photographer Robert C. Lautman, to create a kind of "virtual reality" of Monticello, bringing alive, as Jefferson might have seen it, the interior of the magnificent residence, which predated the advent of photography.

Among the historians and writers whose perspectives help focus the film's exploration are George Will, Gore Vidal, John Hope Franklin, Garry Wills, Daniel Boorstin, Clay Jenkinson, Joseph Ellis, Andrew Burstein, Daniel Jordan, Natalie Bober and Paul Finkelman.

The film is narrated by Ossie Davis. Sam Waterston provides the voice of Jefferson, with Philip Bosco as John Adams, Blythe Danner as Jefferson's wife, Martha, and Amy Madigan as his daughter Patsy. Other voices are provided by Michael Potts, Julie Harris, Derek Jacobi, Arthur Miller, George Plimpton, Adam Arkin and Gwyneth Paltrow.

Global View

Professors are Key to Helping Fulbright Change Lives

By Renae Wotipka
International Affairs Office

Wondering if she would starve to death on a diet of fish, fruits, and vegetables out in the middle of nowhere, Jennifer Galindo did not get what she bargained for in the Australian outback. She got more.

Galindo, a 1995 Fulbright recipient and graduate student in anthropology at UNL, will be the first to say the program changed her life. But she gives all of the credit to her professors.

"With all the work they did, getting the Fulbright was easy for me," she said.

Galindo studied aboriginal rock art in Australia from June 1995 to June 1996. This is the only place in the world where native people still paint and carve pictures on rock walls. She had been studying Native American rock art for almost 10 years, but she lacked the resources to conduct research outside of the United States. Nor was she aware that the Fulbright Program existed for the purpose of providing students like herself with the opportunity to pursue research projects abroad.

Professors play a pivotal role in making students aware of the Fulbright Program and the opportunities it provides. "After class one day, Dr. Joseph Stimpfl came up to me and suggested that I might apply for a Fulbright. I would never have even thought about it unless he had brought it up to me."

Securing Fulbright funds to pursue research abroad involves drafting a proposal, providing biographical information, and submitting reference letters. Here, too, professors facilitate a student's success in preparing a competitive application.

According to Galindo, her success depended on her professors' experience in writing effective proposals and their willingness to provide excellent reference letters.

"I gave Dr. Stimpfl and Dr. LuAnn Wandsnider my proposal, and they must have edited it at least 10 times," she said. "They wrote incredible references for me. It was the efforts of my professors that got the Fulbright for me."

Fulbright grant recipients receive funding for travel to their selected site of study, in addition to a monthly stipend and insurance coverage. This allows students to pursue academic endeavors while learning about a foreign culture. For many, this is an opportunity which would have been unthinkable without the Fulbright Program's resources.

"The Fulbright folks were incredible. They make it possible for students to get in there and do what they really want to do. An opportunity doesn't often come around like that, so you make the best of it," Galindo said.

The benefits of the Fulbright Program extend beyond the time spent studying or conducting research abroad. Spending up to a year in another cultural setting allows for a greater understanding of and respect for people of other countries. It also furthers career aspirations.

Galindo was accompanied to Australia by her two children. She says they all benefited by the experience. She was able to meet and spend time with prominent Australian archeologists, making connections she hopes to use as an archeologist. Her children were able to gain a greater appreciation for people who are not like them, making them more tolerant of differences on their return to the United States.

Galindo said she is grateful for the opportunities afforded by the Fulbright Program and the role of her professors in making them a reality. To show her appreciation, she plans to give her future students the same assistance she received. "As a professor, I'll have connections I can pass on to my students."

According to Stimpfl, UNL campus Fulbright coordinator, there are many UNL students like Galindo who miss out on this opportunity to pursue specialized research outside the United States because they never realize they are qualified to apply.

The Fulbright Exchange Program offers students the resources to study and experience life in a foreign country, but it is the efforts of professors that make the difference in ensuring qualified students take advantage of this valuable opportunity.

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