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TOPPING IT OFF A crane lifts the final steel girder to the top of the new Memorial Stadium skybox complex during a topping ceremony Tuesday. The new structure should be completed by the 1999 football opener. |
Chancellor's State of the University Address Challenges Faculty To Begin Conversations on Change
In his annual State of the University address, James Moeser, chancellor, reiterated his goals of increasing academic excellence, building a climate of inclusiveness and support and refocusing university resources on areas of strength.
Moeser announced he would appoint a blue-ribbon panel of faculty to determine the future of the university. The Future Nebraska Committee, to be chaired by the senior vice chancellor, will identify the university's greatest areas of strength or potential. This, he said, would allow the university to select programs in which investment of resources has the greatest potential.
"We must attain greater focus in our research mission without distorting the balance of our multiple missions," he said.
Faculty and their role were a recurring theme in the address. He asked faculty to begin the dialogue that will accompany change.
Moeser, speaking at the Lied Center, said the university has been successful in attracting more high ability students to its classrooms. Now focus must shift to creating an intellectual and academic climate that will challenge these students to work toward their fullest potential, he said.
"Our task is to transform the undergraduate culture on this campus," he said. "We must turn this discussion around to one of commitment to every student's success in a rigorous, challenging, but supportive environment."
Moeser said Nebraska should adopt the goal of reducing the present freshman attrition rate of 25 percent to less than 20 percent within four years. And he said Nebraska should work to ensure that 60 percent of its students graduate in four years.
The chancellor said that efforts to improve the campus climate have made headway, but they must be ongoing and continuous to truly effect change. Making reference to recent news reports regarding repatriation of Native American remains, the chancellor said, "I want to state clearly and for the record our firm commitment to returning all burial remains to their rightful tribes as quickly and respectfully as possible. We will take all appropriate steps to ameliorate past wrongs and heal our relationships with Native peoples."
The chancellor also noted that the university has received a significant grant to help address problems of student alcohol use.
Moeser said the university's major focus for the next five years is to build on existing strengths and augment existing areas of excellence. He noted conversation this summer that suggested Nebraska's status as an AAU member might be in jeopardy. He said that should the AAU move to periodic review of member status, that Nebraska could benefit by using the review process to focus energy and resources.
He said that the university is seeing benefits from the reallocation process but that in the future, "we can adopt a somewhat less invasive approach in setting our budget."
He noted that significant "imperatives" are on the horizon: costs associated with Internet 2, technology upgrade costs, merit scholarship costs, medical benefits for graduate assistants and costs to implement the diversity plan. He also said he will petition the regents and NU president to approve faculty-staff tuition waiver benefits be transferable to dependents.
And he noted that the impending farm crisis and possibility of passage of a constitutional lid, which could cut $20 million from the university budget, could significantly affect the university's financial status.
$125 Million Othmer Gift to Support Chemical Engineering, Libraries Expansion, Technology Upgrades
University of Nebraska Regents, meeting in an emergency conference call, accepted a $125 million gift to the university Aug. 18.
The gift, from the estate of Mildred Topp Othmer, had been tied up in a legal challenge by Othmer's niece. The settlement agreement is subject to approval by other beneficiaries of Othmer's will, which include the Omaha public schools and universities and hospitals in New York state, where Othmer and her late husband, Donald, lived.
James Moeser, chancellor of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, said the gift is the "most important asset" ever passed to the institution. Plans call for using a portion of the gift to build an addition to the Walter Scott Engineering Center to house chemical engineering facilities. Funds would also help build an addition to Love Library and improve a variety of academic programs.
"I see this as an excellence fund which will allow the University of Nebraska-Lincoln to rise to a whole new level of excellence, especially in the areas of research and graduate studies" Moeser said. "I want to begin to design the university of the future taking advantage of what this fund provides because I think this is probably the single most important asset that has ever come into the possession of the university and I think the impact of it will be felt 50 and 100 years from now. And I believe this university will be in many ways transformed if we use this gift intelligently and are disciplined."
The chancellor added that university officials "must guard against using (the gift) as a replacement for core state support; it needs to be an enhancement not a replacement."
Mr. Othmer, a noted chemical engineer and professor at Polytechnic Institute of New York in Brooklyn, and his wife each invested $25,000 with Omaha financier Warren Buffett in 1961. The original $50,000 grew to an estimated $570 million. Mr. Othmer died in 1993. He left $1.5 million in his will to endow a professorship in chemical engineering at Nebraska, his alma mater. Funds from Mrs. Othmer's estate would increase that endowment to $2.5 million. She also was a graduate of the University of Nebraska.
The rest of Mrs. Othmer's gift would be held in an endowment fund. Some 75 percent of the income from that fund would support chemical engineering programs at the university and help upgrade technology on the Lincoln campus. An additional 12.5 percent will be earmarked toward enhancing other academic programs. The remaining 12.5 percent is devoted to "enhancing the facilities and functions of the NU regents and university administration.
The estate has been in dispute since shortly after Mrs. Othmer's death in April. Her niece contested whether Mrs. Othmer was of sound mind in 1988 when the will was drawn. The settlement announced Aug. 17 awards the niece and her family $19.5 million after estate taxes, some $45 million before taxes.
The announcement comes soon after the receipt of a $32.2 million gift from C. Edward and Carole McVaney of Denver, Colo., to enhance computer education through the J.D. Edwards Honors Program in Computer Science and Management.
Food Industry Gain Tool To Test For Peanut Residue In Foods
By Molly Klocksin, IANR news writer
A recently commercialized test developed by University of Nebraska researchers gives the food industry a new tool for protecting consumers allergic to peanuts.
Peanut allergies are among the most common and most serious, said Steve Taylor, head of the university's Department of Food Science and Technology and co-director of the team that developed the test.
Neogen Corp. of Lansing, Mich., will begin offering the Nebraska-developed test for sale to food processors this month, said Shada Biabiani, Neogen's manager of corporate communications.
Food processors can use the new test to detect minute traces of peanut in processed foods. Cross-contamination occurs when allergenic food residue gets into another food processed on shared equipment, Taylor said.
Processing foods on the same equipment is common and economically necessary, he said.
Although processors clean equipment to avoid cross-contamination in the product and on the equipment, the peanut test is the first to give food companies a highly sensitive and reliable way to tell whether they've eliminated any trace of a peanut from the product or the shared equipment, Taylor said.
The test is the fastest and most accurate peanut allergy test available for processed food, said Sue Hefle, a food toxicologist and co-director of the food allergy research team.
The test is an Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay, or ELISA, Hefle's specialty. ELISA essentially uses antibodies to detect proteins that are the allergy troublemaker.
The test will reduce chances that a person with food allergies will have an allergic reaction to peanuts from processed food, Taylor said.
"It's a good thing for consumers," he said. About 5 percent of young children and 1 to 2 percent of adults have food allergies, which can be deadly to a small percentage of those individuals.
The peanut test is the first commercialization in ongoing research by the university's Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources food allergy team. Tests for egg and casein, a milk component, should be commercialized in 1999. Tests for soybeans and tree nuts are in the works.
People with peanut allergies still should be wary of eating homemade foods that could contain peanuts, "but they can be more confident about what's on the store shelf," Hefle said.
Eventually, companies may develop and market home allergy tests based on NU's research, she said.
"Cross-contamination has become a huge industry concern and they've had no place to turn," Taylor said. NU's program is one of the few nationwide studying food allergies from a food industry perspective.
In 1995, Taylor and Hefle launched the university's Food Allergy Research and Resource Program to work more closely with industry on food allergy issues.
"The food industry came to us," Hefle said.
Seventeen food processors help fund the program and determine which tests are highest priority for development, Taylor said.
Neogen Corp. develops and markets products and services dedicated to food and animal safety, Biabiani said. The company's diagnostic products are used by food and animal producers to test for foodborne bacteria, natural toxins, drug residues, plant diseases and quality assurance, she said.
Neogen Corp. commercialized the test under licensing agreement with the university.
This food allergy research is conducted in cooperation with IANR's
Agricultural
Research Division.
Retreats To Increase Interaction Among Faculty; First To Include 65 Faculty Members
By Kim Hachiya, Public Relations
A faculty retreat scheduled for November is intended to foster scholarly and intellectual communication across disciplines, colleges and sectors, according to Richard Edwards, senior vice chancellor for academic affairs.
Invitations will be issued next week to the first group of faculty invited to what Edwards hopes will become annual retreats. The goal is to collect about 65 faculty members who will meet off-campus Nov. 5 to 7. Faculty to be invited will be chosen on a mostly random basis, Edwards said, although efforts will be made to ensure diversity across disciplines and colleges and to include all faculty ranks.
"We hope this will become an annual event so that by rotating who is invited, over time, a large part of campus will be able to participate," he said.
The retreat is intended to be an academic and intellectual event with a goal of facilitating conversation among faculty who sometimes do not have the opportunity for intellectual exchanges with faculty from disciplines or departments far removed from their own.
The agenda, Edwards said, will consist of presentations by university faculty who will talk about recent developments in their disciplines and their own research and creative activity. Participants will receive an advance packet of readings chosen by the presenters.
Edwards said he hopes the retreat will help begin building a culture that is more celebratory of faculty accomplishments.
"I hope that featuring our own faculty will put the spotlight on the strengths and quality of our faculty. When we learn of each other's successes, it increases pride in the institution. We can all sort of bask in the reflected glow of these accomplishments."
Edwards said he hoped the retreat would further a sense of community among faculty members and that certainly it would be intellectually stimulating.
The Office of the Senior Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs will use Foundation funds to pay all costs of the retreat, he said.
Edwards said he expects some who are invited will have conflicts with the dates and no one invited should feel obligated to attend.
NU's Wilhite Applauds Efforts To Ready Nation For Drought
By Cheryl Alberts, IANR News Writer
A new national drought law designed to prepare for drought - rather than react to it - is the first step in a new federal policy regarding drought emergencies. The measure has been in the making for two years, said a University of Nebraska agricultural climatologist.
President Bill Clinton signed the National Drought Policy Act of 1998 on July 16. Don Wilhite, director of the National Drought Mitigation Center at NU's Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources, said the law will help people become more aware of drought and prepare for it.
"If you can identify where you're vulnerable, you can identify steps to reduce the impacts of future droughts," Wilhite said.
Drought is a "normal part of climate that may go on for several years," Wilhite added. Drought costs more than hurricanes and flooding-- up to $8 billion annually. Drought's economic, social and environmental hardships affect virtually all portions of the country; drought preparedness only makes sense, he said.
Typically, Wilhite noted, drought is less visible than other disasters, with less loss of life and structural damage. It also has a very slow onset in comparison to other natural hazards, such as floods. This helps explain why drought hasn't received the same level of attention as have other natural disasters, he said.
The new law establishes a commission to make recommendations to create an integrated, coordinated federal drought policy. The commission will seek public input on recommendations for legislative and administrative actions to help prepare for and alleviate drought's adverse economic, agricultural, environmental and health affects.
The commission has 18 months to complete its recommendations and is slated to terminate 90 days after submitting its report to the president and Congress. It will provide coordination with other drought management groups, such as the National Drought Mitigation Center based in Lincoln, and the Western Governors' Association's Western Drought Coordination Council based in Denver. The commission will work with the drought mitigation center to determine what needs exist at the federal, state, local and tribal levels to prepare for and respond to drought emergencies.
The commission is expected to coordinate with western council projects and activities already under way. The Western Drought Coordination Council was established more than a year ago to coordinate critical issues and mitigation of potential impacts of drought in western states. It is co-chaired by New Mexico Gov. Gary E. Johnson, on behalf of the Western Governors' Association, and U.S. Deputy Secretary of Agriculture Richard Rominger. Wilhite serves as the western council's technical adviser.
The new commission is expected to incorporate the western council's findings and successes as it considers national drought measures.
The National Drought Policy Commission will be chaired by the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture and will total 16 members from federal agencies, governors and the private sector.
For more information about the new law or any of the entities, contact
Albert Peterlin, USDA, (202)720-8651, or Wilhite at (402)472-4270.
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