April 17

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dailynebraskan.com

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 17, 2013 volume 112, issue 139

Inside Coverage

Observe & rapport

Razor sharp

Student comic hits home with stand-up routine

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Nebraska baseball shocked No. 10 Arkansas by sweeping the Razorbacks in two games Tuesday at Haymarket Park. In game one, three Husker pitchers--Kyle Kubat, Tyler Niederklein, Dylan Vogt-pitched a no-hitter, the first since 1993 for the Huskers.

LETTERS FROM WILLA

The Union deserves a revamp Proposed revamp will boost UNL recruitment

Lis Arneson Dn

preciated before working on this.” Jewell said the strength and confidence he noticed in Cather’s personality has, after “having her around” for so long, enriched and strengthened his own personality.

The Nebraska Union of the future could include a suspended multistory coffee shop. This idea, along with other renovation concepts for the union, were presented during a redesign forum in the Nebraska Union Tuesday from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. The plans were developed and presented by Workshop Architects, an architecture firm based in Milwaukee. Representatives of the firm visited campus twice to collect data before developing the three concepts. Jan Van Den Kieboom, principal architect for Workshop, said the firm wants to capture the legacy of the university and the strong spirit of innovation and entrepreneurship on campus. “We’re talking about completely shuffling the deck,” Van Den Kieboom said. “In the future, nothing will be where it is now.” One of Workshop’s goals is to make the union a comfortable, inclusive and inviting place where students want to spend all day, he said. “Right now, students come to access services, then leave,” Van Den Kieboom said. In the UNL Campus Master Plan, the union serves as a front door to the university, he said. “The vision is that this building will become a main transportation hub between City and East campus,” Van Den Kieboom said. The first renovation concept, with a price tag of $55 million to $65 million, would involve a windowed expansion to the west slightly above ground level, which would add square footage and bring daylight into the building, Van Den Kieboom said. It also entails an interior renovation of the building, including expanding “peer interaction space.” The second concept, with a project budget of $65 million to $75 million, would include a similar westward expansion at

CATHER: see page 2

union: see page 2

All alone in 2nd place in the Big Ten

9 Homemade and hand bound Student bound books on display at Love Library

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Firm proposes plans to renovate Union Workshop Architects outline goal to make Nebraska Union more inviting, comfortable

4 NU softball sweeps Minnesota

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Andrew Jewell and Janis Stout read letters from “The Selected Letters of Willa Cather” Tuesday night at the Mary Riepma Ross Media Arts Center. Willa Cather, an internationally celebrated writer, graduated from UNL in 1895.

English professors release forbidden letters S T ORY BY J AMES P ACE - COR N SILK | P H O T OS BY ALLISO N H ESS

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n her will, Willa Cather stated she never wanted her letters published. Today, they are. In a presentation held at the Mary Riepma Ross Media Arts Center Tuesday night, Janis Stout and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s own Andrew Jewell presented a book they co-authored titled “The Selected Letters of Willa Cather” featuring 566 of the letters Cather wrote throughout her life. Jewell and Stout sifted through 3,000 of Cather’s letters, struggling to decipher her handwriting, and selected those that reflect a side of Cather – a Nebraska native and UNL alumna – many are unable to pick up while reading her novels. “What a happy day this is,” said Stout, an emeritus professor of English at Texas A&M University. “And a happy occasion.” Stout said now, instead of traveling to 75 some odd archives scattered across the nation, each maybe containing two letters, the intimate life of Cather can now be contained in a single volume. Guy Reynolds, director of the Cather Project and a professor of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, explained that a volume like this has not been published in the last 40 to 50 years. “This (project) has been going on for a long, long time,” Reynolds, who delivered the introduction to the presentation, said, “and will continue to go on as well.” Considering that Cather forbid the publication of her letters, and even tried to destroy them once, this book is even more unique, according to Jewell, editor of the Willa Cather Archive and an associate professor of digital projects at UNL. He said readers will be able to see a different Cather in the letters, a Cather that dons “her prickliness, her character and her loving qualities.” In reading thousands of Cather’s letters, Jewell feels as though he, in turn, has spent time with Cather, and it’s been very enjoyable, he said. “How funny she could be, how pointed and how affectionate and open-hearted she could be,” Jewell said. “That’s not something I really ap-

Janis Stout, a professor emeritus of English at Texas A&M University, answers questions from the audience after reading selected Willa Cather letters Tuesday night at the Mary Riepma Ross Media Arts Center.

ASUN advocates for UNL students in D.C. ASUN reps speak against potential increase in Stafford Loan interest rate Conor Dunn DN

@dailyneb facebook.com/ dailynebraskan

Representatives of the Association of Students of the University of Nebraska lobbied in Washington, D.C., last week on a number of federal issues affecting students at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. The students advocated during the Big Ten on the Hill conference, an annual three-day gathering of Big Ten student governments. Before the conference begins, the student governments decide which federal issues they will lobby for as a whole to their state representa-

tives. This year, they chose to advocate for keeping Stafford Loan interest rates affordable by stopping interest rates from doubling to 6.8 percent on July 1. If Stafford Loan interest rate doubled this summer, the cost for the average student would be $2,800 more, according to the U.S. Public Interest Research Group. The Big Ten student representatives want to see “a more gradual process to any kind of raise,” said ASUN President Eric Reznicek, a junior marketing and finance major. Forty-four percent of Big Ten undergraduates receive federal student loan aid, according to statistics collected by the University of Iowa’s student government. On average, students receive $6,671 in federal aid, and the Big Ten itself re-

ceives $1.2 billion in student loans. “If it wasn’t for these loans, I wouldn’t be going to college,” Reznicek said. And so Reznicek, ASUN external vice president Jeff Story, former ASUN senate speaker Natalia Santos and former ASUN Government Liaison Committee chair Mike Wehling met with two of Nebraska’s three U.S. Representatives, Jeff Fortenberry and Adrian Smith, as well as U.S. Sen. Mike Johanns. Nebraska’s representatives were “very receptive” to their concerns, according to Reznicek. “It’s very exciting that they’re putting that amount of consideration into us as students,” said Story, a sophomore political science major. The Big Ten representatives

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COURTESY photo

ASUN President Eric Reznicek and ASUN internal vice president Jeff Story, as well as former ASUN senators Natalia Santos and Mike Wehling, meet with Rep. Adrian Smith of Nebraska during the Big Ten on the Hill conference to advocate for preventing the doubling of Stafford Loan interest rates.


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