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   One of the activities of the Alumni Association of the University of Nebraska is a Visiting Committee, which is composed of informed, interested and loyal alumni, one from each congressional district, and one at large. The purpose of this group is to establish one additional contact between the University and the people of the state; to bring the state sentiment regarding the University to the attenion (sic) of the Board of Regents in a reasonable and helpful way and to so acquaint themselves personally with discussed situations that they may be able to report exact and truthful conditions to the people of their districts. This committee, which spends seven days on the campus each year, was in residence at the University March 18, 10 and 20, 1925. The following is the report of their activities and conclusions.

   In groups, or as a body, we visited almost every corner of the Lincoln campuses, and talked with many faculty people and students. Mr. Wenstrand and Mr. Perkins visited the Medical College. We found authorities, faculty and students interested in our purpose, anxious to tell us all we wanted to know and show us all we wanted to see. The friendliness, which is the outstanding characteristic of Nebraska spirit, warmed our hearts anew, and added strength to the earnestness with which we urge our fellow alumni to use every bit of influence they have toward University development that will keep pace with the needs of our state.

   Of course it takes no Visiting Committee to make known the fact that the equipment at our University is inadequate for the student body. That fact is apparent to the most casual observer. If the physical facts controlled the situation, it would be desperate indeed. But we have the same loyal faculty we have always had; the same determination to do the best work that is done anywhere; the same willingness to sacrifice time and energy and money that this generation of Nebraska students may not be too much handicapped by present conditions; the same high purpose to compensate the physical lacks by the spiritual richness of their offerings. In conversation with Miss Conklin, she voiced the faculty spirit in the exclamation, "What is it that makes such willing slaves of the Nebraska faculty?"

   Before the meeting of the legislature, the regents had published a moderate program, upon which they based their request for an one-eighth mill ten-year levy. This committee endorses that program. Our visits prompt us to make some comments upon it, and a few additions.

   The most conspicuous need on the city campus is a library. With 7,000 students in residence, there is room for but 200 in the reading room. Books have had to be scattered into other temporary reading rooms. Requests have been sent to the professors to give no more outside reading in their courses than is possible. To add to the library's inadequateness, at present there is no librarian.

   The University of Nebraska's Dental College has a B rating (the lowest among recognized colleges) because of its housing. This is a matter of humiliation to the whole University and surely is not the sort of a place from which our citizens want their state-trained dentists to come.

   There is imperative need for an auditorium to accommodate student convocations. Only a small fraction of the student body can crowd into the old armory. Opportunity for great character building influences are lost because there is no place for general gathering. The same floor could also be used for extensive indoor athletics.

   The women's gymnasium is a public disgrace. All freshmen and sophomore girls are required to register for physical education. There are 2,500 girls in these classes, while there is space and sanitary arrangements for about one-third that number. The committee wishes particularly to commend this department for their fine work under difficulties.

   The University owns world-famous geological collections and possesses many objects that are rare and interesting. A few of these are crowded into the present Museum building. The rest are stored in basements. Suitable housing facilties (sic) would attract many more collections and an endowment fund. We must not long delay to provide it.

   The Engineering College is cramped and crowded beyond endurance. There should be a new Electrical Engineering Building, as the first step toward relief. In connection with this college, we ask its alumni to express their opinion on the value of a year added to its courses, which would include non-technical but related subjects, such as public speaking, English and social sciences.

   The power house is dangerously overloaded. One of the daily speculations of the winter season on the city campus is the possibility of the power house blowing up and the consequent suspension of all University work.

   The need for dormitories, particularly women's, is too well recognized and agreed upon to need emphasis. The present cottages are entriely (sic) inadequate. The committee hopes that there may be built this year one unit upon the city campus and one upon the agricultural campus, where even the girls who belong to the School of Agriculture (high school age) are forced to live in boarding houses.

   There needs to be more playing fields for intramural physical education. At present the women have no room at all. In this connection, we recommend a more equitable distribution of athletic facilites between men and women.

   And finally, on the city campus we would see an adequate broadcasting station. The citizens have a right to expect their University to furnish them with its own brand of agriculture, music, art, athletics and the discussion of public questions. All the neighboring Universities furnish such service. We feel that it would be mutually helpful, as it would interest and inform many of our taxpayers who are at present indifferent or hostile to the University.

   In the discussion of honest publicity for the University, out of which this radiocasting recommendation came, there appeared the

opinion that we were overlooking the possibilities which lay in our Board of Regents. An educational campaign by them would do much to improve the relations between the citizens and the University. Each one's election was an expression of confidence from his own district, and it would seem that he was in a particularly good position to plead the cause of the University before his constituents.

   On the agricultural campus we must have an assembly building, with a kitchen. This will not only serve all the purposes of a similar building up town, but will be available for the many state agricultural meetings which are held. There is need, too, for an agronomy buiding (sic), the activities centering in this subject being scattered all over the campus.

   At the Medical College in Omaha, we would add strength to the regents' plan to increase the hospital facilities and add room to the nurses' home, as well as provide some sort of an assembly hall.

   The committee grieves at the loss of able men from our faculty, due to our inadequate salary schedule. We hope the alumni will make it their business to so influence public opinion that our citizens will uphold the regents in their attempt to compete with other institutions for first rank educators.

   The social conditions at the University received our closest attention. We felt that this was our particular province, and we came unanimously to the conclusion that the imperative need was a dean of men. The superior organization, morale and responsiveness of the women on our campus are clearly due to the focusing of their activities in Dean Heppner's office. She has done as much as is humanly possible toward a sane social situation without the cooperation of a man in a similar position of leadership. Criticisms relating to drinking, gambling, and other conspicuously extravagant and pernicious social practices can be met with the real facts and causes for such criticism lessened or removed. A real dean of men at the University is an expressed need by parents, faculty and students.

   The general physical needs of our University are well known by our Board of Regents, and will be taken care of by them as soon as public opinion will provide them with the means to do it. The two particular needs upon which this committee would center alumni interest and pressure, are the broadcasting station and the dean of men. These two things will cost comparatively little money and we believe will add immeasurably to the usefulness of our alma mater as a social agent.

MARTHA CLINE HUFFMAN,
               Chairman,
RALPH T. WENSTRAND,
MARY CHAPIN,
FRANK PERKINS,
LUKE CHENEY,
GRACE ANDREWS AMES,

   The following letter will bring back many memories to the students of the late nineties and the early hundreds. It was so good we couldn't resist the temptation to pass it along verbatim.

            Scappoose, Oregon, April 17, '25.
Madam Alma Mater,
Lincoln, Nebr.
Dear Madam:

   Received yours of recent date asking for two dollars; aren't you getting a bit spendthrifty in your old days? It hasn't been more than three years since I sent you two dollars, what do you do with all your money anyhow?

   I wonder, dear Alma, if you haven't gotten frivolous in your declining years, and bobbed your hair, and donned short skirts to make a spectacle of your aged flanks; you should be home knitting, my dear old dame.

   Another thing, Madam, you don't know me, nor remember me; it's almost 25 years since we last clasped hands 'near learning's mellow glow, and since you heard Ma Smith declare that this young man would come to no good end.

   Almost total strangers and you ask for two dollars, you should be ashamed of yourself.

   You don't remember me, tho I planted an ivy by the stone steps of the old red brick administration building, but I bet you let the darn ivy dry up and die.

   I was the guy that played the banjo, the second from the end in the last row in the glee club, just 25 years ago.

   I was the guy that played Charon and who rode in on the wood bicycle that we stole from Prof. Davis.

   Well, drat it, haven't you placed me yet? Say I'll make you remember me, because there was one masterpiece of scholastic effort wherein I reached the high hills of fame; I was the guy that threw the brick at Tony Haar.

   You remember that night don't you, dear Alma? The last shirt tail parade, the evening of the big wind-brain storm; I guess the statute of limitations has run on this so I can tell you about it, and clear up one more little mystery that must have bothered you thru the years.

   After the parade we gathered before the police station, and in serried ranks assembled we faced the station and the pessimistic police, and Don - what was his name, came from Superior, Captain of Co. A., game guy - Adams, that's it, well Don Adams was hoisted on the shoulders of a couple of football stalwarts and called for "Three cheers for the rottenest police department on earth."

   I was in the front rank, as usual, and I saw this big sullen black Haar person draw forth his shiny locust club and swat a most inoffensive little Frosh beside me; I stood in a sort of red haze, and then I discovered that there was, most mysteriously, a fine red brick in my right hand and it took no effort of the imagination whatever to know what to do next.

   Then things sort of got all jammed up, and the next I knew was when I discovered my

self methodically plucking large cobble stones from a heap north of the police station, and with praisworthy (sic) precision heaving them thru a hole where once there had been a window earlier in the evening. Which merely shows what the good old subconscious can do if you give it a college education and let it alone.

   So now you know all about me, and here's your two dollars, and thanks for your intelligent attention, and everything.

   Also please note the address, which same you had wrong for three years or more.

Adios Madam Alma;
     DANA SLEETH, '01.

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A NEW SIGN OF SPRING

   It is no longer accurate to judge the arrival of Spring by the appearance of the first robin, the crocus, a certain blitheness on the part of the thermometer, or any of those signs which have served as seasonal indices for years. At present the only sure indication that the grim hold of winter has been broken, or at least sufficiently loosened so that it cannot regain its strangle-bold on outdoor activities is the appearance on such vacant corner lots as remain in Ann Arbor of rows of used cars -- mostly of Flivver persuasion -- presided over by a gentleman with a casual manner and a cigar in the corner of his mouth, and surrounded by students with yearning expressions and restless hands fingering their checkbooks.

   It has actually come to pass that the used car dealer divides his stock into two main classes: those which may be sold to the general public and those which nobody but an undergraduate will buy. The student purchaser is not fastidious; it matters nothing to him whether the machine he buys has been stripped of nearly every flake of paint, he cares little how many places the fenders have been rusted through and if the top resembles a hen in an active state of moulting his aesthetic sense remains unruffled. All that he asks is that when the proper ministrations are supplied the ancient vehicle will go.

   Two weeks ago this democratic vehicle was still buried in some near-limbo, today it is sputtering about the streets, tomorrow it will be sputtering louder than ever resplendent in a new coat of paint, warranted to out-dazzle any milliner's window and furnishing the final proof that the season has changed. - The Michigan Alumnus.

 

   This beautiful airplane view of the University Campus was taken during the Round-Up. A company of cadets can be seen marching into the Stadium during "compet." Much of the ground between the campus and the tracks beyond the Stadium has been purchased by the University.

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© 2001 for the NEGenWeb Project by Pam Rietsch, Ted & Carole Miller