FINE TUNING: Engineering student Chad Seymour adjusts the rear
suspension of the University of Nebraska Motorsports race car as Tom
Spilker,
director of engineering extension, looks on.
Zoom! Engineering's Race Car Laps Field, Makes Scarlet Page One
Again
By Constance Walter, Engineering and Technology
When the checkered flag came down, Chad Seymour and David Astuto
couldn't
believe their eyes. What they had just witnessed was nothing short of a
miracle the College of Engineering and Technology Motorsports car
had won the Grand National State Championship race, held Aug. 30 at the
Nebraska State Fair.
To hear them talk, you'd think it was the Indianapolis 500.
"It was one of the best experiences of my life," Astuto, a
junior said. "To be in the winners' circle at the State Fair in
front
of our fans was a dream come true."
Seymour, a senior was just as thrilled. "To beat Kyle Berck, who
has won this race year after year, was just amazing."
It's no surprise the two mechanical engineering students were so,
well,
surprised. The Motorsports program has been in place only since January.
No one, including program director Tom Spilker, expected a win in the
first
year.
"I expected to see incremental improvements," said Spilker,
director of Engineering Extension. He bought the used limited late model
race car from driver Johnny "The Jet" Saathoff of Beatrice as
a teaching and recruiting tool a way to get students excited about
engineering. Winning would come later, Spilker believed.
But it came much sooner for the fledgling program. Part of that was
being
in the right pit at the right time.
Three days before the win, the team was at Eagle Raceway, pitting next
to Ed Kosiski and his crew. The 1998 NASCAR Winston Racing Series
National
Champion had blown his engine. Dennis Smith, who has been driving the
Motorsports
car all season, suggested to Spilker they offer the car to Kosiski.
"Ed needed a vehicle, we needed some lessons that could
accelerate
our learning," Spilker said.
Kosiski accepted the offer.
"I was offered other cars," Kosiski said, "But I felt
this car was prepared pretty well." He drove and placed third. That
prompted him to drive the car in the championship race on Aug. 30.
The outcome surprised even him.
"You go into a race with the hope of winning, but I wasn't
expecting
to win with that car. I was expecting to do the best I could with it,
maybe
be in the top five."
In a close race that saw Kosiski and Berck battle for the lead,
Kosiski
finally pulled ahead and stayed. In winning, he won more than a trophy.
He also won the respect and admiration of the Motorsports crew.
"Ed is just in a league of his own for what he can do with a race
car," said Astuto.
Kosiski didn't just drive the car. He also worked with the
students.
"To work with Ed was one of the greatest learning
experiences,"
Seymour said. "He and his crew taught us more in one weekend than
we could have learned all year."
The feeling was mutual.
"It was great working with the guys and with the engineering
college,"
Kosiski said.
Would he consider working with the team again?
"If they'd like me to, yes," he said. "Racing and
engineering
go together. There's a lot of technology that goes into building and
maintaining
a race car. So we can learn from each other."
Astuto agrees wholeheartedly.
"The racing community has helped this program tremendously. They
are always willing to give advice and help us out. We owe them a
lot."
He said he also owes a lot to Spilker.
"I was really starting to stray from engineering until he came
along
and resparked my interest. I have had the time of my life so far, and
I'm
sure this is only the beginning."
Distance Ed Pedagogy Different
Smith: Distance Ed Is Everyone's Purview
By Kim Hachiya, Public Relations
Distance education must be a universitywide enterprise, and not remain
the sole province of colleges of continuing studies, said NU President
Dennis
Smith. Speaking at a Sept. 8 forum sponsored by the Teaching and Learning
Center, Smith said everyone must be involved to ensure success of NU's
distance
education efforts.
"I'm certainly not promulgating the elimination of continuing
education,"
he said. "But we need a campuswide approach." He noted UNL's
naming
of a vice chancellor for extended education as a good step toward
coordination
of efforts and setting distance education as a campuswide priority.
Smith said the growing demand among consumers for distance education
must be answered. Nebraska is part of a national
"cyber-education"
taskforce coordinated by the AAU and NASULGC to lobby Congress for a new
"land-grant" act that will fund efforts in this area, he
said.
There are several challenges, he notes. Infrastructure will be an
ongoing
expense. And faculty development must be addressed. "The culture of
an institution can either stimulate or stymie efforts in getting faculty
to adopt and adapt new technologies."
He noted that it cost $2.5 million to create the first course on
CLASS,
the interactive, on-line high-school course. It now costs about $500,000
to fully develop a CLASS course. At that price, developing all of NU's
10,000
course offerings for on-line delivery would bankrupt the state, Smith
said.
Thus the campuses must work together to share ideas and avoid
duplication.
Right now, those efforts are diffuse, he said, because statewide
coordination
is lacking. He believes there is no systemic effort to see if the courses
that are being developed are what the public needs or wants. Perhaps
rather
than creating full credit courses, partial-credit CEU-type courses or
certificate
courses would be more desirable, he said.
It's also difficult to judge quality, Smith said.
"We need to be sure that any courses we create or import have
high
quality. There is no group now evaluating quality. We need research to
back
up that what we are offering is of quality, because quality will
determine
success," he said.
Smith noted that the NU system has lost students over the past several
years and many of them are going to community colleges or other
institutions
where part-time enrollment is easier.
"The part-time market is huge. It's very competitive and we need
to be part of that market. We need a new campaign to bring in part-time
students and excellence in on-line courses will be a key to
that."
Smith noted that distance education pedagogy is different from
traditional
teaching. Campuses must look at how they reward faculty for taking on
course
development. This is the duty of faculty committees and department
chairs,
he said.
Broadcast-Quality Videoconferencing Over the New
'Net
Internet2-Based Class Links Nebraska, Oregon State, Kansas State
By David Fitzgibbon, Public Relations
For the first time ever, an experimental system using Internet2-linked
classrooms at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Oregon State and Kansas
State with live, multi-site, interactive video on Sept. 7.
Internet2 is a new high-speed computer network linking research
institutions
nationwide. The technology was unveiled last year as a way for
researchers
to bypass the original Internet, which suffers from frequent slowdowns
caused
by an explosion in users.
NU Professor Martin Dickman is collaborating with professors at Kansas
State and Oregon State to teach an advanced graduate level course in
Molecular
Plant-Microbe Interactions over the Internet2 system. The Sept. 7 class
was the first time three sites have connected using the new technology
for
live multi-site interactive classroom instruction. The class meets 10:30
a.m. to noon on Tuesdays and Thursdays this semester.
The class is different from the existing satellite-based distance
education
system because students and instructors will be able to interact in a
discussion
format via television monitors and microphones among all three sites
simultaneously.
This represents the first time very high quality broadcast standard video
signals will be delivered to multiple sites by land-based data lines
rather
than via the airwaves.
Bruce Sandhorst, instructional technology coordinator for UNL
Information
Services, says the technology being demonstrated will be important to the
future of distance education. Ultimately this technology should be as
accessible
as the Internet. This would make it more widely available and at lower
cost
than existing satellite or microwave based systems.
Advertising Effort Targets High-Risk
Behaviors
NU Co-Sponsors National High-Risk Drinking Campaign
By Tom Workman, NU Directions
The names of NU President L. Dennis Smith and UNL Chancellor James
Moeser
appear in a national advertising campaign that ran in dozens of major
newspapers
around the country Sept. 10.
The campaign, aimed at raising public awareness of the dangers of
high-risk
drinking by young people, is being launched by the National Association
of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges and the Kellogg Commission
on the Future of State and Land-Grant Universities, along with 113 of its
member institutions, including the University of Nebraska.
In addition to the advertisements, a Web site and a "best
practices"
brochure highlighting campus programs to combat binge drinking have been
created to highlight high-risk drinking as a public health issue.
UNL has been actively seeking ways to reduce the drinking problem
locally
through NU Directions, a campus-community coalition funded by the Robert
Wood Johnson Foundation. James Griesen, vice chancellor for student
affairs
and co-chair of NU Directions, helped to involve the university in the
national
ad campaign as part of the coalition's efforts.
This fall, NU Directions has already hosted a "Back to School
Bash"
for students which included midnight movies at the Star Ship 9 cinema and
a pancake breakfast from midnight to 2 a.m. served by faculty and staff
on the opening weekend of school. The group also plans on launching a Web
site during homecoming weekend in October. The Web site will feature a
searchable
database to help students choose from a wide variety of local activities
and responsible establishments.
The national campaign goal is to involve the public in solving the
problem
of binge drinking.
"Young people today are dying as a result of high-risk and binge
drinking. Others' lives are in jeopardy. We hope that by drawing
attention
to the issue, the general public will join us in looking for ways to curb
this horrible problem," said C. Peter Magrath, president of
NASULGC.
"Our campuses are working hard, but we can't solve the problem
alone.
Too many students come to us as binge drinkers. Nearly one-third of
college
students start as binge drinkers in high school, and binge drinking has
become a destructive way of life for too many college students."
Senate Affirms Stand on APC Budget Process
By Kim Hachiya, Public Relations
At its meeting Sept. 7, Academic Senate OK'd a resolution on budget
reallocations
but declined to vote on a second resolution that many felt needed more
clarification.
The accepted resolution asked that "significant"
reallocations
from academic programs be made in accordance with Academic Planning
Committee
procedures. Reallocations made last spring were not made through this
committee
because the news of the reallocation came too late for extensive review,
administrators say.
James Moeser, chancellor, told the senate that Central Administration
did not send actual budget numbers to the campus until late in the fiscal
year and decisions needed to be made quickly. CA will be sending budget
predictions to campuses much earlier this year, he said, which will allow
for adequate review.
The resolution, which was forwarded by the senate's executive
committee,
carried emergency status, allowing the senate to vote on it the day of
its
introduction. A second resolution from the executive committee lost its
emergency status, allowing it to be carried over into the next
meeting.
That resolution asked that the "full cost" of capital
construction
projects be disclosed "prior to beginning construction." The
resolution
asked that "indirect costs," such as infrastructure, operating
expenses, depreciation and the replacement of displaced parking, be
disclosed
and funding sources secured.
The issue has developed because university parking lots and playing
fields
often become the land on which new buildings are sited. In the past,
recreation
patrons and parking lot users have paid higher fees to secure replacement
property. Some also dispute the university's obligation to add faculty
when
new academic programs are launched, as has happened with the Peter Kiewit
Institute in Omaha.
Several senators said the resolution was too vague to be useful;
others
said it would hamper the university's ability to initiate any
construction.
"These people don't have a crystal ball," said Jack Morris,
biological sciences. "They can't know every detail."
Others feared the resolution could dissuade donors from endowing
buildings.
However, Z.B Mayo, entomology, said "You can't continue to cut
existing
programs to fund others. There is some money we can't afford to
take."
Because of concerns over the resolution, the group voted to remove its
emergency status to allow for more study time.
In other action, the senate heard from Moeser, who said that he hopes
the upcoming regents' plan to set criteria for academic priorities would
focus on identifying strong programs rather than ferreting out the weak.
He reiterated that salaries would remain the top priority for the
2001-2003
biennium.
In response to a question, Moeser said he did not believe that UNL is
backing away from its land-grant mission, and that the university role
and
mission statements designate UNL as the AAU, land-grant and Research I
campus
for the system.
Gail Latta, senate president, presented a list of senate priority
goals
for the year. They are: strengthening the senate's communication
networks;
restoring faculty participation in university planning and decision
making;
promoting faculty discussion on higher education issues; improving campus
environment and morale; and addressing systemic weaknesses within the
senate's
organizational structure.
Senior Vice Chancellor Rick Edwards said the deans have been asked to
provide more detailed information about the effects of the reallocation.
He said a draft from CA regarding intellectual property rights needs much
work. The goal, he said, is to create an intellectual property policy
that
carries incentives for faculty and is beneficial for the university and
faculty.
Melvin Jones, vice chancellor for business and finance, said his
division
is working to resolve a brouhaha over changes in mail services.
Chartered to Promote Effective Public Policy, Meeting
Goals
Public Policy Center Headed in Right Direction
By Tom Simons, Public Relations
After a little more than a year of existence, the University of
Nebraska
Public Policy Center seems to be on the move.
Created by the Board of Regents last year, the PPC is intended to
promote
effective public policy by using faculty and other resources from NU's
four
campuses to provide objective analyses of public issues for people and
agencies
with stakes in those issues.
Alan Tompkins, who was named the center's director shortly after it
was
created, said he felt the center had made important progress in meeting
its goals in its first year. But he said he was encouraged to get
confirmation
from an outside source, the centerís Advisory Board.
The board, composed of Gov. Mike Johanns, state court administrator
Joseph
Steele, state Sen. George Coordsen, the vice chancellors for academic
affairs
from the four NU campuses and the vice chancellor for the Institute of
Agriculture
and Natural Resources, met for the first time last week to review the
center's
progress and begin setting an agenda for its future.
"It really went quite well," said Tomkins, an assistant
professor
of psychology and law at UNL. "The center received a lot of support
and enthusiasm, and some questions. It was clear that the usefulness of
a university-based public policy center appealed to both the vice
chancellors
and the three representatives from state government."
Tomkins said the board will meet again in mid-winter to establish two
or three priority areas for the center.
"In the next few months, the board members will have an
opportunity
to evaluate policy issues that lend themselves to collaboration with the
university," Tomkins said. "Then we'll come back together to
establish
those priorities so the Public Policy Center can work with the relevant
university faculty, staff and students and the relevant governmental
stakeholders
to shape and define the issues and develop the appropriate methodologies
to study them."
The center's work, however, won't be limited only to those priority
issues.
"We will continue to play a brokering role for people accessing
policy resources within the university," said Nancy Shank, research
assistant professor in the center. "That won't change."
Among the projects completed by the center in its first year were a
national
survey, "How the Public Views the Courts," with the National
Center
for State Courts; the Model Nebraska Juvenile Code Project; a Human
Genome
Policy Seminar; a Lower Platte River request for proposals; and an
HIV/AIDS
Symposium.
"The faculty on all four campuses have been very enthusiastic and
helpful whenever weíve approached them," Tomkins said.
"In
fact, they've identified projects appropriate for the center and that's
good. We're here to harness faculty strengths as opposed to dictating the
policy agenda for the university."
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