Charlene Porsild, editor of the Great Plains Quarterly.

Canadian Government Grant Funds GP Projects

By Kevin Dugan, College of Arts and Sciences

A more comprehensive approach to interdisciplinary study of the Great Plains at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln recently received support from the Canadian government, and the broader focus comes within a year of Charlene Porsild's arrival at Nebraska.

Porsild, editor of the Great Plains Quarterly, co-chairs the Canadian Studies Committee within the College of Arts and Sciences. She was part of a team that wrote the only institutional grant application awarded this year by the Canadian government for program enhancement in the Midwest Region. The process was highly competitive with a number of other universities, including Stanford, being passed over for Nebraska.

The $6,000 grant to Nebraska, which is renewable for two more years up to $18,000, will help fund interdisciplinary exchanges from Canada during the 1999 spring semester. Future funding will be sought to provide an exchange of experts and students from Nebraska to speak, conduct research, and gather information for courses, Porsild said.

Fran Kaye, committee co-chair, former GPQ editor, and professor of English with a longtime focus on Great Plains literature, credits Porsild with making the grant possible.

"Charlene is the linchpin. She has the background and she has the contacts," said Kaye, a former Fulbright Scholar at the University of Calgary in Alberta who is scheduled to teach a history course at Calgary next summer.

Porsild, also a Fulbright Scholar, is a native of Whitehorse in the Yukon Territory of Canada. She earned a master's degree from the University of Ottawa, a doctorate from the University of Carleton in Ottawa, and she is an adjunct assistant professor in the Department of History at Nebraska.

George Wolf, a committee member, associate professor of English, and book review editor for the Great Plains Quarterly, said Porsild adds breadth at Nebraska because of her pure Canadian perspective and focus on history. He also noted she was instrumental in acquiring the grant.

"I think she saw the opportunity and acted on it in a way that perhaps the rest of us couldn't have martialed our forces to do," Wolf said. "It's not that she pulled rabbits out of the hat - the rabbits were already there - it's she was able to maybe get the right hat."

Given last spring's success of Canada as the topic drawing the largest audience ever to the Vine Church Speaker Series in Lincoln, the committee is organizing a Feb. 24 symposium featuring two speakers from Canada and two panels of regional experts addressing history, language and literature, environment, and native and ethnic studies.

A major topic of the visiting speakers and panelists will include Canada's implementation of a new law April 1 granting territory, natural resources and political sovereignty to the indigenous Inuit.

"It's the most important thing to happen in Canada probably since confederation," Porsild said. Canada was established by constitution as a country separate from England in 1867.

Other topics of the spring symposium at Nebraska will include Canada's commitment to preserve its environment and wilderness areas and Canada's use of its military as a peacekeeping and peacemaking force.

One third of the 1998 grant will help fund Nebraska's Great Plains Music and Dance Symposium in April by helping bring the Danny Grossman Dance Company from Toronto and the Canadian Indian group, the Northern Drums.

Porsild stresses the importance of providing an interdisciplinary approach to the symposium and to education in general.

"Students learn better if they can make connections between their courses," she said.

Porsild said Canadian Studies is a natural extension of Nebraska programs already in place, such as Great Plains Studies, Native American Studies, and Ethnic Studies.

She noted Nebraska also has a tremendous resource of about 1,100 books and pamphlets about the Canadian Plains housed in the Great Plains Research Collection in Love Library. The Regina Collection was acquired from a private source in Canada in 1992.

Other links in place between Nebraska and Canada include one between the Center for Great Plains Studies and the Canadian Plains Research Center at the University of Regina in Saskatchewan.

Dean Brian Foster has advanced efforts in the College of Arts and Sciences to formulate a program prospectus to weigh the potential of implementing a separate program for Canadian studies within the college.

---

Child Care Forum Uncovers High Demand

By David Fitzgibbon, Public Relations

Amy Spiegel juggled 13-month old Hanna between lap and floor during a forum on child care issues Jan. 28 at the Nebraska East Union.

It's not unusual to see Spiegel on campus with Hanna in tow. The part-time research assistant professor says finding quality part-time child care continues to be a big issue.

"Our current provider is not always available so we're still trying to come up with a more reliable solution," she said. "I was surprised . . . nothing that really fits our needs was available through the university child care system."

That concern and dozens more were discussed as about 60 university students and employees hashed out their ideal child care in a moderated brainstorming session hosted by the Chancellor's Commission on the Status of Women.

Several themes emerged: hopes of flexible hours, sick child care, a location with easy access, and affordable, high quality instruction.

Many of these ideas echo an earlier study of employee and student needs commissioned by the Department of Human Resources. Conducted last spring by the university's Bureau of Sociological Research, the survey consisted of a postcard questionnaire and focus groups.

At the time of the survey, almost one of five respondents was seeking child care. Respondents ranked paying a share of child care costs and developing a child care center at work as the most important ways the university could help. Almost half said they would strongly consider using a center on or near city campus.

Estimates are that during the year, staff missed 1,525 days of work and faculty/administration missed 464 days because of factors related to child care.

"The survey results showed this is an important issue and we are actively pursuing options," said Bruce Currin, assistant vice chancellor for human resources. "Our interest is to look at this from a very big picture-the city of Lincoln-and hopefully if we can find some common interests we can explore to help people at both the university and in the community."

Options currently offered by the university include University Child Care, with space for 96 children, Ruth Staples Lab, with space for 45, and a referral service. But the needs are greater. Tish Roland, director of University Child Care, says after her waiting list topped 100 children, she decided to limit it to 24 children-about a nine-month wait. Deanna Turner, director of Trinity Infant and Child Care, told the forum her church-based center has a two-year waiting list.

"Woefully, we don't have the kinds of facilities we need," said Barb LaCost, a member of the commission, "There's plenty of work to be done."

Lacost says the information gleaned from the forum will be incorporated with the human resources survey and presented to the chancellor. The report will emphasize the prioritization of issues that emerged at the forum, she says.

The timeline for action remains fuzzy, but Currin says he hopes to narrow the field of ideas to some specific recommendations by late this spring.

Local NASA Office to Make Four $100 Cash Awards

The NASA Nebraska Space Grant will award four $100 awards for the best vision for NASA in the next century. The initiative before the national network of Space Grant consortia is allowing citizens to make a real difference in the future of NASA. Alan Ladwig, adviser to NASA administrator Dan Goldin, has asked citizens to provide a vision for NASA in the next century through their state Space Grant Consortium.

Nebraskans can participate by responding to three questions regarding NASA's future. In return, four $100 awards will be made for the best responses. The four categories are: Faculty (any level ), college student, K-12 student and general public. The deadline for responses is Feb. 8. Awards will be made by the end of February. The four awards are for Nebraska responses only.

The three questions are: 1. Describe the aerospace world of the year 2040 in terms of aeronautics and space; 2. Describe NASA's role in that world; 3. Describe what NASA should be doing now to get there.

Responses can be bullet statements or essays to convey your narrative responses to above questions. Entries are limited to one page. Three staff members of the NASA Nebraska Space Grant will determine awards for each category. Entries should be mailed or e-mailed to Michaela Schaaf, NASA Nebraska Space Grant Consortium, UNO Allwine Hall 422, Omaha, NE 68182-0406 or nasa@unomaha.edu. Be sure the following information is on the entry: 1. Name; 2. Address, City, State, Zip; 3. Phone number; 4. Category (each person may only submit one entry; the same responses may not be entered in separate categories, and 5. If a student or faculty, please provide your school name and position or grade.

For more information, contact Mike Lempke, (402) 554-3154.

Academic Senate Learns of ASP Benefits

By Kim Hachiya, Public Relations

Administrators and deans explained to the Academic Senate some upcoming changes in business practices and procedures that will occur in the next several months at the university.

Kim Phelps, assistant vice chancellor for fiscal affairs, and Alan Moeller, assistant vice chancellor for IANR, spoke about the Administrative Systems Project and the phase in of business centers.

Phelps said the ASP has been under development for more than a year. The goal is to replace existing financial management, human resources, payroll and budget systems for all NU campuses with one integrated system. Software from a German company, SAP, was purchased and is being tailored to meet the university's needs, he said.

Among benefits for the new system are that the ASP will be year 2000 compliant, people will have immediate access to information and will be able to instantly see how budget changes affect the bottom line. The goal, he added, is to eliminate about 90 percent of paper transactions and to end the redundancies now built into the system.

Moeller said business centers allow units to use staff more efficiently. The move toward business centers is not driven by phase-in of ASP, nor is it a way to reduce staff or to isolate staff, Moeller said. Rather, it is a way allow staff to specialize, cross-train and work in teams to get work done.

Jim O'Hanlon, dean of Teachers College, and Brian Foster, dean of Arts & Sciences, spoke about their experiences with business centers. O'Hanlon said two business centers exist in his college and staff have developed ways to work cooperatively to get work done. Foster noted that support staff numbers are grossly inadequate in his college, and that business centers might be a way to equalize workloads. He said there are a number of legitimate concerns about initiating business centers, including concern over loss of program identity, worries about dual reporting lines, loss of control and confidentiality, uneasiness about how to create teams, a fear that creating a business center will be the first step in eliminating departments or programs and concerns about job loss and the changing nature of work assignments.

Moeller said there will be some pain involved in implementing a business-center system.

In other business, the senate approved two measures regarding its leadership. Since the January meeting, Pat Kennedy has resigned as senate president and Gail Latta, president-elect, assumed the president's position. The senate OK'ed measures allowing a temporary president elect to be elected in March and affirming Latta as president. A slate of candidates for president elect will be presented in March.

The group also heard from Chancellor James Moeser, who warned about upcoming budget shortfalls due in part to reduced enrollments and in part to state funding reductions. Moeser said steps are being taken to boost enrollments and he asked faculty to respond favorably to requests to help recruit undergraduate and graduate students.

Moeser said the university is very close to committing to extending health benefits to graduate students. And he said a plan that would have a separate "hooding" ceremony for doctoral candidates and their faculty mentors prior to commencement is being considered.

Noting that Gov. Mike Johanns has been invited to speak before the senate in March, Moeser said he thinks the governor is not hostile to education and is a friend of the university, but that the university will need to make a very strong case to win more funds than the austere budget recommended by Johanns.