UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA – When driving across the United States, Australia and many European countries, motorists oftentimes speed past a little part of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Even while watching NASCAR and Indy Racing League races, viewers are seeing the work of members of the UNL community.

No, this has nothing to do with the university sponsoring race cars; it has everything to do with safety.

UNL’s Nebraska Hall is home to one of the most internationally respected off-road collision research organizations, the Midwest Roadside Safety Facility.

The research facility has tested and designed a number of safety features, such as guardrails, for a number of states and countries including most European countries, Australia, New Zealand and Japan.

That kind of widespread exposure has made the facility one of the international leaders in the field of off-road collisions, said Dean Sicking, the facility’s director.

“Most states in the U.S. and many international countries see us as the leading authority in the world,” Sicking said. “Most products dealing with roadside safety come out of Nebraska.”

But what, exactly, does the facility do?

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“In a nutshell, we basically deal with anything you can drive off the road and hit,” Sicking said. “That includes many things like guardrails, light poles and sign supports.”

The facility, which was established in 1989 by the late UNL professor Ed Post, researches the impact and effect of various types of vehicles, which run off of various roads at various speeds.

Consequently, crash testing makes up a large part of the facility’s research, Sicking said.

The facility is currently involved with research for the Indy Racing League and NASCAR and is trying to develop a barrier for racetracks. The high-speed crash tests provide a different perspective, Sicking said.

“Everybody needs something new and different,” he said. “It’s not every day that you deal with 200-mile-per-hour crashes.”

The center is more worried about developing safety barriers for everyday crashes, Sicking said.

“Every year, 12,000 people die,” he said. “We’re trying to shave that number down.”

In one study, the facility evaluated 500 serious fatal run-off accidents and tried to figure out why the people got hurt.

Variables like the speed of the vehicle, the grade of the roadside and the construction of any sort of barriers must be looked at, Sicking said.

“There’s a lot of things we can change to help save people’s lives,” Sicking said.

For many research centers and facilities, getting money is the hard part of research. For the Midwest Roadside Safety Facility, finding enough researchers to do the jobs that bring in the money is the hard part, Sicking said.

“We have no problem getting money,” Sicking said. “That’s unusual in a university setting.”

One of the biggest providers for the research facility is the Midwest States Regional Pooled Fund Program, which is a group of 11 states that came together to fund research of “run-off road accidents,” said Ron Faller, research assistant professor for the facility.

The Midwest States Regional Polled Fund Program, along with other agencies, provides UNL’s facility with nearly a half million dollars of work, Faller said.

“If not for the commitment of the agencies that keep coming back to us, we wouldn’t be nearly as successful as we are,” Faller said.

The facility’s success is due in large part to its 36 researchers comprised of university faculty, a diverse group of engineers and technicians and graduate and undergraduate UNL students, Faller said.

“Having 35 to 36 researchers is pretty large for a research facility,” Faller said. “It’s not very much for a self-supporting company, which the facility virtually is.”

While having a small staff of highly eager and highly trained researchers helps keep the facility’s quality at the top of the world, it also keeps the facility from taking on extra work, Faller said.

“It’s a catch-22,” Faller said. “The stuff we do is really good, really high quality, but we get behind.”

The group of researchers functions as a small family, Faller said, with everyone focusing on making driving safer for Nebraskans, Americans and citizens of the world.

“There’s not many people in the world who do what we do,” he said. “You don’t become a millionaire doing safety testing, but it’s rewarding to know that we do it well, and it’s rewarding to know that we’re saving lives.”

Copyright Daily Nebraskan Online

UNIVERSITY OF OREGON – Final offers from both the Oregon Public Employees Union and the Oregon University System are now on the table in their contract renegotiation, but the two sides still seem no closer to reaching an agreement.

“We were hoping they would come through and match the proposal we had on the table,” said Kathie Best, the president of the Service Employees International Union Local 503, Oregon Public Employees Union.

SEIU and OPEU represent the 3,700 classified workers employed by the OUS. Since April, the union has been in negotiations with the OUS to redefine salary, benefits and other selected areas of the current contract the OUS has with classified employees.

Union representatives are asking for a minimum hourly wage of $9.50 for all employees, a salary increase of 3.2 percent each year for the next two years or a monthly increase of $60, whichever is greater. They are also requesting that the OUS cover the rising cost of health insurance premiums since the contract was last negotiated.

The OUS had previously delayed finalizing an offer because management was still determining how much money from the new 2001-2002 budget would be available for salary and benefit increases for classified employees, OUS spokesman Bob Bruce said.

But on Aug. 6, the union declared an impasse, which by law requires both parties to submit a final proposal to the Oregon Employment Relations Board within seven days.

According to a statement released Monday, the OUS has offered classified employees a total increase of $20.4 million in salary and benefits for 2001 through 2003. Under the OUS proposal, union members would receive a 2.2 percent salary increase in each of the next two years. The OUS would also cover all medical costs for workers making less than $30,000 a year. Those making more would receive 75 percent of the increased premium.

With the resources available, OUS representatives “have put together the best possible offer we can,” Bruce said.

Although Best said the OUS proposal is “a step in the right direction,” she maintains that, based on data from two Northwest public policy centers, an hourly wage of $9.50 is the minimum salary needed to cover workers’ cost-of-living expenses.

She added the $30,000 cut-off for receiving full medical insurance coverage penalizes higher-paid workers.

Other union members said they suspect that the OUS has another motive for offering more medical coverage to lower-paid employees. Cherie Smith, president of the University OPEU chapter, said the move is a typical “divide and conquer” strategy. The idea, she said, is to pit lower-paid workers against higher-paid employees so that not all union members will vote in favor of a strike.

While Smith said she is encouraged by some of the economic concessions the OUS has made, she is concerned that with so much of the discussion centered on salary and benefits, union members may let other aspects of the contract proposal slip by unnoticed.

For example, she said, proposed changes by OUS would create more temporary positions and allow more jobs to be “contracted out” to non-union employees, which could result in layoffs of regular classified workers.

OUS representatives would also like to change the seniority system for classified employees, Smith said, which would make it more difficult for workers to use their experience to transfer to another University department if their current position is eliminated.

She also criticized a proposed change in overtime hours that would only allow classified employees to be paid overtime wages if they work more than 40 hours a week. As it is now, workers are paid overtime for all time over eight hours a day, regardless of how many hours they work in a week.

The OUS proposal “sounds good,” Smith said. “But when you start delving deeper … there’s more to it than the economic proposals.”

Bruce, however, dismissed Smith’s argument that the OUS is using a strategy to divide union members. Lower-paid workers are being given more medical coverage because they need it more, he said.

When the OUS contracts outside workers, he added, it is for the sake of being as efficient as possible. And the change in the definition of overtime hours is consistent with how most workplaces pay their employees, he said.

“We think that we’ve put on the table a fair package and a fair offer,” he said. “We would hope that the union would move quickly and favorably toward helping us reach an agreement.”

Representatives from both sides will go back to the bargaining table on Aug. 22 and 27, when they will meet with a state mediator to continue contract renegotiations.

Copyright Oregon Daily Emerald

However, USA is requiring that all students registering this fall own a computer or have personal access to one.

Only those students enrolling in CIS 120, Problem Solving and Programming Concepts I, and graduate studies CIS 501, Accelerated Programming, are required to own a laptop.

“This is the first wave of classes that have to own laptop computers,” Dr. David Feinstein, dean of CIS, said. “In the spring we will assume that those students entering the next level of classes will own a laptop computer too.”

“None of the CIS labs are being phased out at this time,” said Feinstein. “The two labs normally used for CIS 120 and 501 are becoming wet ports.”

Wet ports are labs that enable students with laptops to plug in, log on and take off.

According to the CIS computer ownership program, www.cis.usouthal.edu/~laptop, “the purpose of the laptop initiative is to assure that all students in the School of Computer and Information Sciences have adequate access to computing resources.”

Each student should have access to e-mail and the Internet. Also, students will be able to interact with the USA library and digital learning materials.

One of the goals of CIS is to increase the opportunities for using electronic instructional technology in many of their classes. Some of these new technologies include Web-based presentations, CD-based lessons and increased dialog with instructors and lab assistants using e-mail.

The school has decided on some minimum hardware and software specifications for the laptop computers that students must purchase.

Some of the hardware requirements include an Intel Pentium processor or something compatible, a hard drive of four giga-bytes or greater and a 56k modem.

The software specifications include programs such as 98 Microsoft Windows Operating System, Word, Excel, Access, PowerPoint, World Wide Web browser and a virus checker.

The estimated cost for this computer is $1,200 to $1,500.

“We feel that this is an up front cost for a successful career,” Feinstein said.

However, the costs of the laptops have been a concern for many students.

“We have labs and at this time I don’t think it is a good idea,” Dinesh Sivasankaran, USA student and CIS major, said. “The cost is just too much.”

The university is taking steps to help students pay for the laptops.

Financial aid is available to those students who qualify at www.finaid.usouthal.edu.

The University Federal Credit Union will also make loans for the purchase. Contact the UFCU at 334-380-2851 for current plans and rates.

Also, the USA bookstore, www.southalabama.edu/bookstore, will offer laptops to meet the specifications of CIS.

Copyright USA Vanguard

After a teaching assistant found similarities in 12 papers, the university launched an investigation to see if the students plagiarized content in a paper for the class, possibly taking information from one of the many term paper databases on the Internet, vice president for university relations Al Cubbage said.

The investigation has not concluded and no action has been taken against any of the students, Cubbage said. He couldn’t comment if students had been notified of the investigation, citing the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), which allows schools to withhold information about disciplinary proceedings.

The spring quarter class met twice a week and finished finals the second week of June.

The teaching assistant reported the findings to the professor, Axel Mueller, who passed the findings to the dean of the college of arts and sciences. Both Mueller and the dean were out of the country and unavailable for comment.

“Students are finding out that while the opportunity for fraud may be greater, the opportunity to get caught can be greater,” Cubbage said.

If found guilty of plagiarism, students could face disciplinary actions as severe as suspension. In most cases, only students who have previously been found guilty of academic fraud could face expulsion, Cabbage said.

The college’s investigation comes shortly after the dean sent a letter to faculty members advising them how to use Internet search engines to determine if Internet material was used to plagiarize papers.

In May, University of Virginia physics professor Louis Bloomfield identified 122 students with the help of a program he wrote who had similar, and in some cases identical, term papers for his introductory physics class.

Copyright Reporter

DE ANZA COLLEGE – Former part-time De Anza instructor Daniel Mackay was convicted of voluntary manslaughter on April 7 by a jury in an Alameda County courthouse.

The conviction stems from the 1998 slaying of Mackay’s wife, Debby Mackay. Mackay taught Manufacturing Design at De Anza for 14 years before bludgeoning his wife to death with a baseball bat.

Mackay faces up to a maximum of 12 years in prison.

Copyright La Voz

UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN – Wisconsin officials appeared before the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s Infractions Committee on Saturday, Aug. 11, in what could be one of the final steps in an extra-benefits case involving student-athletes.

In April, the university completed a comprehensive investigation and self-report to the NCAA and Chancellor John D. Wiley issued self-imposed institutional penalties.

NCAA officials say a decision on the case is expected in six to eight weeks.

Copyright Badger Herald

UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA – After a month-long wait, the purchasing contract was signed, and with approval from the Federal Communications Commission, the University bought its first commercial television station.

The contract was signed on July 21, making WJRD News Channel 49 officially part of the Capstone.

Pamela Doyle, associate professor in the College of Communications and Information Sciences, said everyone in the college was very excited about the purchase of the news station.

“We can’t wait for it to get here,” Doyle said. “Work has already started on creating the newsroom.”

The newsroom will be located in the basement of Reese Phifer Hall.

Stan Siegall, general manager of WJRD, said the University has started taking bids on the equipment the station will need once it moves on campus some time between Nov. 1 and early January.

Students will benefit most from the purchase because it will give them a chance to see how a professional station actually works. “WJRD will be professionally operated and student assisted,” Doyle said.

The students will work in all areas of broadcasting, including anchoring, promotion, sales and production.

“We hope to have a total student newscast,” Doyle said. “We are just going to put the programming out there and see how the audience reacts.”

Currently, the University owns and operates WUAL, a student-run television station that is broadcast on campus once a week.

“The new station will be great lab experience for students. They will broadcast for more than just once a week,” Doyle said. “It will put them in holy cow mode.”

For some students, the purchase of WJRD means getting a paying job.

“We plan to have a large number of students working for us,” said Siegall. “We are going to hire them for part-time jobs as well as interns.”

Currently, no changes are going to be made to the station’s PAX affiliation.

“We are having meetings to figure out how to serve our audience as best as possible,” Doyle said.

Siegall said the current employees of WJRD will move along with the station to campus, but there could be some staff changes in the future.

“We hope to become a better station and be able to demand more advertising dollars,” Siegall said.

Siegall also said he and other station employees are looking forward to working with the University.

“We are delighted and I think working with UA will be wonderful.”

WJRD is low-powered and considered a local station, but its broadcasts can currently be seen in seven of the surrounding counties, including Green, Hale, Bibb and Pickens County.

Once WJRD moves into the bottom floor of Reese Phifer Hall, the call letters will be changed to WVUA, which stands for “Vision of the University of Alabama.”

Crimson White

UNIVERSITY OF OREGON – The University has dropped all plans to institute a new policy that would have restricted how long television news broadcasters could air footage of Duck football games.

Athletic Director Bill Moos announced Wednesday that after almost a month of public feedback and angry, critical letters from media groups nationwide, the school will keep its “open access” game day policy for television journalists.

Instead of the University implementing a policy, Moos said the industry will take responsibility and police itself. But Bill Johnstone, the CEO of the Oregon Association of Broadcasters, said his group has no plans to enact specific rules or guidelines on when highlights can be aired and for how long.

Moos said he and other members of the Athletic Department have been leaning toward dropping the policy for the past week, a decision sparked in part by the cries of First Amendment infringement from media organizations ranging from The Oregonian’s editorial board to the Society of Professional Journalists.

“It is in our best interest to go back to the original policy,” he said during a press conference call. “I don’t feel we had the arrogance to take on First Amendment rights.”

But he added that the attention created by the University’s high ranking in a number of national preseason football polls and Duck quarterback Joey Harrington’s presence on the covers of Sports Illustrated and ESPN Magazine played a major role in the final decision.

“This is a year of all years that we want the most exposure of Duck sports,” Moos said.

The issue of limiting coverage grew from a year-long dispute between ESPN Regional Sports, which allows footage to be aired on KEZI, Eugene’s ABC affiliate, and the CBS affiliate KVAL, which airs Duck football game footage on its “Inside the PAC” show.

Both ESPN and ABC are owned by the Disney Corporation.

ESPN Regional claimed “Inside the Pac” violated the rights of its five-year deal with the University, a contract KVAL held until the 1999-2000 school year.

The proposed policy would have limited broadcasters to 20 seconds of game highlights and 20 seconds of interviews during the 48 hours after any Duck game. Special shows outside a daily sports report during news broadcasts would have received 30 seconds of each.

Tim Roberts, the regional manager for ESPN, said policy implementation became difficult because the University had to make a broad policy for all television media, not one that restricted only KVAL or only “Inside the PAC.”

Roberts said if ESPN believes KVAL’s show continues to step over the boundaries of ESPN’s contract with the University during this fall’s football season, the sports network will take the issue to KVAL, not the school.

KVAL General Manager Dave Weinkauf said in a released statement that Moos’ decision correctly protects the station’s First Amendment rights, and KVAL will allow ESPN and KEZI to gain additional access to coaches and players for their highlights.

“KVAL recognizes the need to grant that accommodation to the rights holder,” Weinkauf said in a released statement. “That’s what we received in the nine years we worked with [the University of] Oregon, and that’s certainly what the current rights holder should receive.”

Moos said that like all elements of the sports program, the athletic directors will evaluate media access at the end of the year, but the open policy will stand for the rest of this school year.

“This is the direction we’re going for this year,” he said. “The last thing we want to do is deprive our fans of all the Oregon Ducks they want.”

Copyright Oregon Daily Emerald

Two students were presenting a chemistry trick to members of
Alpha Chi Sigma. The chemistry fraternity puts on a magic show
and was considering adding the students’ trick.

The students burned methanol on the end of a splint, a stick with
cotton swabs at the end. Its low flame blew out, and the students
placed the splint into an oxygen-rich atmosphere inside a beaker.

The stick ignited, and students placed methanol on the burning
flame. After a few applications, the chemicals underwent rapid
oxidation, which caused the beaker to explode.

Seven people were taken to the emergency room at Denton
Community Hospital with minor injuries.

Dr. Richard Rafes, vice provost and general counsel, said he does
not expect any lawsuits because the injuries were minor.

Copyright North Texas Daily

And the stride Steinmetz took was no baby step.

After meeting with President David Schmidly this week, the two decided to freeze ticket sales for men’s and women’s basketball games temporarily until a long-term solution to the problem is developed.

The decision leaves more than 2,000 seats unclaimed for the time being.

“It really shows that the administration really cares about the students,” Steinmetz said. “As a student I really appreciate that. I don’t know if any other president in the nation would freeze revenue like Dr. Schmidly is doing.”

The problem came about when more than 13,000 student all-sports packages were sold for next season’s men’s basketball games.

One reason for the high number might be because students living on the Tech campus during the coming year receive an all-sports package. The cost of the sports pass is included in housing and dining fees.

Because the arena only reserves 3,600 seats for Tech students, Steinmetz said it is vital that something be done in the best interest of the students.

Steinmetz said that by freezing the seats, it shows that maybe more seats will be added for the Tech student section.

“Dr. Schmidly is in support of negotiating for more student seats,” Steinmetz said. “And by freezing the seats it is a positive thing. It shows that we are moving in the right direction.”

Schmidly said the reason he wants to freeze ticket sales is because a solution has to be made before the situation gets worse.

“We have never had this problem before,” Schmidly said. “And we have to come up with a fair way to fix it.”

He said since the arena only seats 15,000 people something must be done to allow as many students as possible to attend. “We are in it for the students,” he said.

The two presidents also came to the conclusion that just all-basketball packages will not be sold anymore. The 300 students that purchased that package will have their purchase upgraded to an all-sports package.

It may not be fair to the students that paid an extra $58 for the all-sport package, but Steinmetz said everyone has to be on the same page.

“People that bought an all-basketball package might think they should get first priority into the basketball game,” he said. “We want to see every student on the same page meaning everyone has just an all-sports package,” Steinmetz said. “There is no priority.”

The all-sports package costs $88, while a pass for just basketball games was sold for $30.

Along with Tech coach Bob Knight’s son Tim and a representative from the ticket office, Steinmetz is leaving Lubbock next week for four days to research what his next step might be.

More than likely hundreds of Tech students will be unable to attend the games. In the coming weeks Steinmetz either has to decide to implement a lottery or a first-come first-serve solution to decide which students get into the games.

Schmidly said he is putting that decision on the shoulders of the SGA.

“I don’t like to make decisions for the students,” Schmidly said. “That is why we have SGA and I think together we can find the best plan.”

Steinmetz said it shows that Schmidly trusts his decisions.

“All he wants is what the students want,” he said.

Although it is Steinmetz’ decision to make, the SGA president said he will most definitely not make the decision on his own.

“I don’t have the authority to make the decision on my own,” he said. “I’m going to come back and talk with the SGA and most importantly other students. The decision shouldn’t be too hard or confusing.”

Copyright The University Daily