welcome back!
First day of classes, spring 2012
monday, january 9, 2012
volume 111, issue 076
DAILY NEBRASKAN dailynebraskan.com
The jet stream, a 140-mph current of air in the upper atmosphere, has been holding north in Canada for several weeks, contributing to the unusually warm weather in the U.S. last week. Above, a map of the jet stream on Jan. 4, a day of warm temperature records around the country. Below, the jet stream Sunday. Dipping southward into the U.S., temperatures north of the stream have fallen closer to normal levels.
The Industrail Arts Building, located on the former state fairgrounds, sees little activity on Sunday.
Industrial Arts Building saved from demolition
After renovations, structure to be first completed part of Innovation Campus story by Dan Holtmeyer | photo by Kyle Bruggeman
A
fter a century-long journey, the Industrial Arts Building closed since 2004 from disrepair and slated for destruction since 2008 - will be given new life as part of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s Innovation Campus. That project is under development on the former state fairgrounds north of City Campus and will be based on food, energy and water research. Developers and university officials announced Thursday that the building will hold sophisticated greenhouses and research labs within its original shell. Those facilities will then be home to a research collaboration between university resources and private industry that is the campus’s
hallmark. The building will join the former 4-H building as part of a four-building, interconnected complex that will be the first completed piece of Innovation Campus. For an idea of scale of this first piece, the completed campus will comprise 2 million square feet; this chunk takes care of 300,000 of that or 15 percent, said Dan Duncan, the campus’s executive director. “So it’s a significant portion of the campus we’re kicking off with,” he said in a phone interview. While the outer facade and architecture will be preserved and restored, the inside will be gutted to make way for the research space, said Duncan. “What really made it feasible for this plan is it has
two levels,” he said. “It just came along that this was something that we could make work.” The building appeared doomed to demolition in 2008, when consultants for the university recommended it be torn down and UNL couldn’t find another proposal worth the price. But last September, primary campus developer Nebraska Nova Development LLC said it might be able to save some of the building. That was a relief for several Lincoln residents and architects who rallied to preserve the structure, which is on the National Registry of Historic Places and had been in use through both world wars and the Nebraska State Fair since 1913. Diane Walkowiak, a leading member of
the Save the Industrial Arts Building effort, couldn’t be contacted by press time, but has called it a mixed victory, according to the Omaha World-Herald. “This is not so much a historic preservation as an adaptive reuse,” she told the paper in an article published Friday. “The other option for the building was that it would be demolished. This is much better.” Now, the plan for that preservation is ready. It includes building about 25,000 square feet of greenhouse space on the building’s roof, Duncan said. The space will augment the university’s current greenhouses, including the bioscience
bryan klopping | daily nebraskan
Unseasonably warm weather heats up US
building: see page 3
dan holtmeyer
Huskers help rebuild Tuscaloosa
daily nebraskan
Students dedicate break to help clean up Alabama city Conor Dunn Daily nebraskan
While most students at the University of NebraskaLincoln spent their winter breaks relaxing and diluting the stress of finals with the company of family and friends, a smaller group of students dedicated their downtime to disaster relief in Tuscaloosa, Ala. In late April 2011, a severe weather storm blew across states in the southeast for nearly three days. The most significant damage was in Alabama, where an F4 tornado paved a milewide diagonal cut through the city of Tuscaloosa, killing 60 civilians. One civilian described to Linda Moody, director of service learning with the UNL Center for Civic Engagement, that it was like a bomb had been dropped on the city. “It’s sad to say, but I look at the devastation here, and
kantack page 4
courtesy photos
I wonder how there weren’t more lives lost,” Moody said. “The damage reminds me of Hurricane Katrina.” Moody and the Center for Civic Engagement organized the trip to Tuscaloosa as a part of the alternative service breaks offered four times a year during spring, summer, fall and winter. On these service breaks, students, faculty and staff are given the opportunity to travel to different places around the United States to volunteer in places of need. The trip lasted Jan. 1 through Jan. 8, costing each volunteer $200 for housing, food, travel and a T-shirt. “All of the volunteers
have been completely selfsufficient,” Moody said. “It’s one of the many things that makes their work down here even more impressive.” The volunteers stayed at Trinity Presbyterian Church during the trip, sleeping on air mattresses in small classrooms located in the basement. Corinne McGill, a sophomore child, youth and family studies major and one of the six leaders for the trip, said that sleeping on the floor didn’t even matter. “We’re so tired from all the work by the end of the day that we’re out the second we hit the pillow,” she
Artist page 5
said. McGill said a typical work day for the volunteers started at 8 a.m. and ended at 5 p.m., with an hour-long lunch break at noon. Despite the fact the tornado occurred nearly a year ago, there are still large amounts of debris needing to be cleaned up. “I was really shocked by how much debris is still laying around and hanging from the trees,” said Taylor Vaiskunas, a junior psychology and pre-med major. Vaiskunas said he had spent an entire day with
tuscaloosa: see page 2
After glacial temperatures in early December, the new year brought temperatures across the country reminiscent of spring, not winter. Last week, Lincoln’s temperature was almost 70 degrees. “I don’t think I’ve seen a winter this mild since I moved to Nebraska,” said Daniel Baquet, a freshman international business and Spanish major at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln who moved to Lincoln 12 years ago. He began this year by driving around town with his car windows down. The warmth was hardly limited to Nebraska. Hundreds of high-temperature records were broken in dozens of states. Nearly the entire country was above freezing. In the Dakotas, some towns saw highs 40 degrees above normal. Lincoln’s temperature was the same as Miami’s. Not surprisingly, most people didn’t seem to mind. News reports showed outdoor tennis games and runners in shorts in Chicago and New York. Both cities were dealing with blizzards this time last year.
wrestling page 10
weather: see page 3
Weather | sunny
Definition doubts
All in the journey
In with a roar
term “electability” vague, confusing in gop primary race
Lincoln artist hones her style, passions with education
Huskers take down No. 6 Ohio State in first Big Ten Dual
@dailyneb | facebook.com/dailynebraskan
The explanation for the bizarre heat might stretch from Canada to the Pacific and from the ground to the upper atmosphere, said two meteorologists at the National Weather Service station in Omaha. “The pattern really switched” from early December, said Josh Boustead, who’s been working with the Omaha station for about 11 years, in a phone interview Friday. “All the Arctic air was bottled up well north into Canada.” The force holding back that Arctic air: jet streams, high-speed currents of air propelled by the Earth’s rotation that flow eastward around the northern and southern hemispheres. The northern jet stream typically meanders and shifts its way across the U.S. and Canada. It often defines a loose border between warm, southern air and cool, northern air. The storms that form where the two meet usually move along the stream like beads on a string. Lately, Boustead said, the jet stream has been over Canada for an unusually long time, what
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