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dailynebraskan.com
wednesday, november 13, 2013 volume 113, issue 055
Inside Coverage
The next generation
Behind the others
Sexual health Video game consoles prepare report gives UNL low marks to face off
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Miles reaches 300th victory
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The Nebraska men’s basketball team beat Western Illinois on Tuesday 62-47 to improve to 2-0 on the season. photo by andrew barry
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part 3 in campaign platforms series
ASUN focuses on international student success Reece Ristau DN
Katelyn McCullough builds a Lego robot at a station for Discover Engineering Days in the Nebraska Union. The three-day event involves different schools and students participating in each session.
building the future p h o t o s
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After running on a platform to build connections between international and domestic students last spring, the Association of Students of the University of Nebraska is working on various projects to increase these connections and make international students’ transitions to a new country easier. One of these projects is to create a guide for international students to help them navigate life at a new university and in a new culture. ASUN executives planned to create a guide themselves but then discovered that other departments currently make guides similar to what they were planning. They are now working with University Housing, which already puts out a publication for international students, to make the existing guide more comprehensive and informative. “We’re going to work with housing to see if there are things we should be adding into their book,” said Kaitlin Coziahr, internal vice president of ASUN and a senior economics,
finance and marketing major. “Sometimes, departments put things in (the guide) that students may or may not agree is most important.” Coziahr said the guide will focus on the little things that are often overlooked when trying to help international students adapt, like where fun restaurants to eat are located and whether tipping is normal. Additionally, ASUN has put its support behind a class called Conversation Partners, offered each semester through the honors program. The class pairs American students and international students and encourages the discussion in a variety of languages. “A lot of times we have many international students signing up for things like this but not enough American ones,” Coziahr said. “There’s no reason international students shouldn’t be able to participate due to this. We’re trying to create a big push for the class.” ASUN executives are also in the
asun: see page 2
Class evaluations prove ineffective, researcher says Sam Egan DN
A student from Seward Middle School builds a robot out of Legos in an activity for Discover Engineering Days in the Nebraska Union. The three days of engineering activities are coordinated by the College of Engineering at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
A n d r e w
B a r r y
End-of-semester course evaluations are, for the most part, an inaccurate way to predict how students will rate a professor, according to Chuck Dziuban, an educational researcher and professor emeritus at the University of Central Florida. “Are there better ways to evaluate instruction?” Dziuban asked as he presented 20 years of data he collected researching student course evaluations to an audience of about 30 in the Jackie Gaughan Multicultural Center on Tuesday morning. Of all the questions on an endof-semester evaluation, only three
factors can effectively predict how a student will rate the professor, Dziuban said. The research showed that if a student gave an instructor excellent ratings in the categories respect and concern for students, communication of ideas and facilitation of learning, then that student also rated the instructor as excellent overall 99 percent of the time. The inverse was also true. If teachers received low marks in those three areas, then chances were astronomically high that they received poor overall ratings, Dziuban said. His research also showed that questions that had to do with
perception: see page 2
New course unveils truths about world of espionage Colleen Fell DN The real world of spies isn’t about fancy cars or traveling the globe. But it’s an important part of world history, and according to University of Nebraska-Lincoln assistant history professor Gerald Steinacher, it’s often overlooked. Steinacher decided to develop his own course this fall on the history of spies and espionage. The 300-level course, which covers intelligence history from World War I to the present, is the only course of its kind offered at UNL. The course covers the beginnings of modern secret services from both World Wars, as well as the developing of modern associations like the Central Intelli-
gence Agency. Another important part of the class is examining pop culture’s image of spies and how it is represented in fiction and film. Steinacher said this method helps him to relate the subject to students. “I always try to pick up students from where they are,” Steinacher said, as students usually have a glamorized image of the world of intelligence. “It’s less exciting, less spectacular and less adventurous,” Steinacher said. “It’s many academia who do the intelligence work.” William McLaughlin, a senior history major at UNL and a student in the class, said this is one of the more important aspects that he is taking from the class. He said he initially signed up
because he was attracted by the name of the course and he was curious about espionage. “Everyone’s seen James Bond and other spy movies,” McLaughlin said. “It’s not as romanticized as Hollywood makes it. It’s actually a lot of hard work by people who are good at analyzing information.” Chance Counts, a senior history major at UNL and another student in the class, said that Steinacher stresses that spy and espionage work isn’t always as exciting as some may think. “It’s a lot of research and writing reports,” Counts said. “It’s not James Bond super-secret spy stuff.” Steinacher, who is originally from Austria, said he wanted to offer the course because he’s al-
It’s a lot of research and writing reports. It’s not James Bond supersecret spy stuff.” chance counts senior history major
ways had an interest in espionage history. He did espionage research in Austria and Italy, where the subject isn’t as well studied as in the U.S. Much of the history learned in the class isn’t generally known by the public, McLaughlin said. Steinacher said he uses moral and legal questions to help students make their own decisions
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on the course’s topics. “I generally ask them questions and don’t give them the answer,” he said. The course is currently open to any student with at least sophomore standing. While many of the students in his class are political science, history or journalism majors, he encourages all students to take the course to gain a basic un-
derstanding of the role of espionage in world history. He said his current class has an approximate 50/50 male-to-female ratio. “It helps students to have an informed opinion and to think critically,” Steinacher said. The course won’t be offered in the spring, as Steinacher will be teaching his course on Holocaust history. Steinacher said he hopes that he will be able to expand the course into two sections in the future because of high demand for the class. He said there are about 40 students in his class and there was a waiting list. He was not able to offer more spots in the class because of limited classroom space. news@ dailynebraskan.com