"Current" Issues

Ronald Reagan was elected president at the open of the eighties, and in 1984 it was no surprise to Nebraska, or America as a whole, that he was victorious again. Winning all, but one state, Reagan was a well supported candidate. This support was shown all throughout the United States and Nebraska was no exception, when polled, a vast majority of UNL students stated that they would vote for President Ronald Reagan, 75 percent (Mona Z. Koppelman). However strong the support for Reagan, there were also those who supported Democrat candidate, Walter Mondale, especially from the university's Young Democrat party (Paul Shavlik). Though there was support, no matter what Mondale did, if he won political debates or not, Reagan was the favorite and this was clearly proved when the two candidates debated in Kansas City, KS and Lee Atwater, an assistant press secretary for the Reagan campaign stated that No matter who teh winner was, Mondale has little chance to win the election. Atwater even went as far as to challenge the press with a $1000 bet that Reagan would carry the Midwest (Jeff Browne and Mona Z. Koppelman). This lack of confidence for Mondale was not spread across the board, in fact the Daily Nebraskan openly supported Mondale in the election (Chris Welsch). When the November 6 election was finalized, a majority of students were pleased, however, they were also intersted in learning that the Daily Nebraskan was not the only Big Eight newspaper to endorse Mondale even though the opinion did not reflect the views of the student majority. In fact no Big Eight paper endorsed Reagan, but the majority did say that they thought Reagan was the choice among students (Lisa Nutting/ Gene Gentrup).

Lied Center for Performing Arts

The Lied Center is the home of the performing arts here on the campus of the University. It was constructed in large part due to a donation from the Lied Trust Foundation, worth $10 million dollars (Knoll 177). Ernest F. Lied is whom the foundation is from. He was enrolled at NU in 1925 and received a Bachelor of Science degree in business administration in 1927. He moved to Nevada where he made a fortune in land speculation worth approximately $118 million. Along with this donation, $7 million was collected form state funds and $3 million was collected from private donations. With these funds available a building could now be constructed that could hold operas and symphonies. The University of Nebraska Foundation also collected $5 million for maintenance of the building (Michael Hopper). Construction began on October 13, 1986. The building was completed in 1990. The construction of the Lied Center came over much controversy. The architects underestimated the cost of the planned structure so an additional $6 million to $8 million was needed to be raised. This pushed the date to start building back four months. Another argument against the Lied Center was the lack of interest in the project. One regent pointed out that Kimball Hall was never full for performances and he doubted that people would travel across Nebraska to come see a performance. He continued to say that this was a complete waste of resources that could be used for research projects or maintaining some of the buildings on campus (Al J. Laukatis). Nonetheless, The Lied Center was eventually completed. The Lied Center contained a 2,300-seat concert hall, rehearsal halls, conference rooms, teaching spaces, and other facilities. The state is about 1/3 of a football field and has six separate layers, for springiness and safety for major dance troupes. The fire curtain weighs 33,000-pounds and covers an area of 160 feet by 266 feet. A brass railing was installed to the grand staircase to match with the gold-tone tubular lighting in the main hall. A large orchestra pit in front of the stage was also completed (Kennedy).