NEBRASKA LOSES TO NORTHWESTERN 28-25 By-the-numbers PAGE 10 More than 60 photos online at facebook.com/dailynebraskan www.dailynebraskan.com MONDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 2011
VOLUME 111, ISSUE 053
DAILY NEBRASKAN DAILYNEBRASKAN.COM
NCAA reforms raise questions about grad rates, aid RILEY JOHNSON DAILY NEBRASKAN
Student athletes at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and across the country will now have the opportunity to receive additional financial support after an Oct. 27 approval by the NCAA. The Division I Board of Directors approved an initiative that would provide full-scholarship athletes an opportunity to receive a stipend worth up to $2,000 or the full cost of attendance, whichever is less, according to an NCAA press release. The measure will also apply to athletes on partial scholarship who receive other financial aid with athletic aid. Nebraska Athletic Director Tom Osborne told the Daily Nebraskan he welcomes the new student-athlete aid. “It’s something that’s been overdue,” Osborne said. Osborne remembers a day when student athletes received a monthly stipend on top of
their athletic scholarships for miscellaneous expenses. As the intercollegiate athletics business has boomed, pressure on student athletes has also increased while aid has stayed the same, according to Osborne and UNL Chancellor Harvey Perlman. For UNL’s 443 student athletes on scholarship, Perlman and Osborne said this stipend is a chance to lighten the load. “Limitations on athletic assistance have been in place for a long time,” Perlman said. Student athletes do not have the same college experience as they did in the past, he said. Now, intercollegiate athletics has grown into a high-revenue, high-expectation business centered around students and coaches, Perlman said. Just as coaches see added pressure to perform, student athletes are much more visible on campus
GRADUATION BY THE NUMBERS In 2010-2011, the six-year graduation rate for University of Nebraska-Lincoln student-athletes hit 74 percent, according to the NCAA. With the Division I average climbing to 82 percent, Nebraska Athletic director Tom Osborne said NU needs to improve and could receive help from new NCAA transfer rules and a continued focus inside the athletic department.
100
96%
89%
88%
86%
83%
82%
80
81%
80%
77%
77%
Indiana
Purdue
74%
60
40
20
0
GRADUATION: SEE PAGE 3
Northwestern
Illinois
Penn State
Iowa
Ohio State
Michigan State
Wisconsin Minnesota
Nebraska SOURCE: NCAA
LPD arrests Occupy protesters UNL ‘plus one’ future awaits Regents’ vote
ACTIVISTS FACE LEGAL CONSEQUENCES AFTER SILENT PROTEST IN BANK
FRANNIE SPROULS DAILY NEBRASKAN
MATT MASIN | DAILY NEBRASKAN
From left, Kathryn Lewandowski, Justin Tolston, Devin Greggs and Tyler Mcintosh are escorted by Lincoln Police officers in the lobby of Wells Fargo bank Saturday. The four took a seat inside the O Street entrance of the bank and peacefully refused to leave as the weekly Occupy Lincoln march chanted outside.
DAN HOLTMEYER DAILY NEBRASKAN
Taking a page from the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s, four Lincoln residents, including a student at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, were arrested Saturday afternoon for trespassing and failure to disperse after refusing to leave the lobby of the downtown Wells Fargo building. Justin Tolston, Kathryn Lewandowski, Devin Greggs and Tyler McIntosh are members of Occupy Lincoln, the city’s offshoot of the Occupy Wall Street movement that began in New York City seven weeks ago. They are the city’s first arrests connected to the movement. Two of them stressed, however, that they acted independently of Occupy Lincoln, which camps on Centennial Mall and held its fourth march, 150 strong, through downtown at the same time. Occupy Wall Street coalesced from JON AUGUSTINE | DAILY NEBRASKAN economic and political frustration, most consistently centered around the nation’s Kathryn Lewandowski, a Southeast Community College student in Lincoln, is seated in the back of a Lincoln police cruiser after being arrested in downtown Lincoln on Saturday. Lewandowski was demonstrating with three others by refusing to leave the bank’s OCCUPY: SEE PAGE 2 lobby. The four were arrested for trespassing and failure to disperse.
LAZARO PAGE 4
ARTS & LITERATURE PAGE 5
The future of “employee plus one” benefits rests in the hands of the University of Nebraska Board of Regents. Plus One was presented to the board at its Oct. 28 meeting. The earliest the plan could be voted on is the Dec. 8 meeting, and the plan would be implemented July 1, 2012. Employee plus one benefits would allow employees to enroll dependents beyond spouses and children on their benefits packages. In the benefit proposal, an estimated 240 employees in the NU system would enroll a dependent in the plan. The University of Nebraska-Lincoln is the only school in the Big Ten Conference without some sort of plusone or domestic partner package. The benefits package affects faculty and staff directly, but it would also affect students, according to Robin Whisman, assistant director of Campus Recreation administration and staff chair of the Committee for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Concerns. Students would be affected by the recruitment and retention of faculty and staff. Whisman explained that when faculty and staff are looking for jobs, they put a lot of weight into the benefits package that’s being offered. When they are applying to UNL and other universities, it makes it hard for UNL to compete, she said. “I think students will feel
FOOTBALL PAGE 8
PLUS ONE: SEE PAGE 3
WEATHER | RAINY
Growing up is hard to do
True blue
A losing blueprint
FACING CHALLENGES IN AGING AND REFLECTING ON CHILDHOOD
BOOKSTORE OFFERS LINCOLN READERS TIMELESS, RARE TEXTS
TURNOVERS TOO MUCH TO OVERCOME FOR HUSKERS SATURDAY
@dailyneb | facebook.com/dailynebraskan
the difference,” Whisman said. “They’ll know that the university is handicapping itself when it comes to recruitment and retention of faculty and staff members.” Pat Tetreault, director of the LGBTQA Resource Center and treasurer of the Committee for LGBT Concerns, said it’s in the students’ interest to support employee plus one. “I do think that any student interested in issues of fairness and social justice should be aware of this,” Tetreault said. Tetreault said there is one other thing students might not be aware of: students have the option of having a domestic partner with the University Health Insurance Plan. As listed on the University Health Center website, students have the option of adding a spouse or domestic partner on their insurance plans, along with children. Students have gotten involved in the employee plus one campaign too. Emily Schlichting, a senior communications and political science major, is a student leader for the campaign. Schlichting is also the Association of Students of the University of Nebraska speaker of the senate. Schlichting said she first heard of the issue when she ran for ASUN senate as a sophomore. “It’s something that really interests me,” Schlichting said. “Equality is really
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