Nov. 30

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dailynebraskan.com

friday, november 30, 2012 volume 112, issue 068

Inside Coverage

Hi-Way Patrol All-night stint at 24-hour diner yields tall tales

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Starting Out the Right Way

Nebraska volleyball kicked off its NCAA tournament run with a 3-0 sweep over Maryland Eastern Shore at the NU Coliseum. The Huskers will take on UNI in the next round Friday. Nebraska lost in the second round of the tournament last year to Kansas State.

10

lonely few

the

story and photos by Dan Holtmeyer

Native students confront economic obstacles, invisibility at UNL

The Big Showdown The Huskers vie for Big Ten title on Satruday

10 Approaching the fiscal cliff How should the tax system be reformed?

4 online

Nothing could keep us apart Lincoln’s The Millions reunites two decades later

O

ne Tuesday evening this month, the University of Nebraska InterTribal Exchange – a group for Native American students – gathered in a kitchen full of stainless steel appliances, wooden cabinets, fluorescent lighting and conversation. Kendra Haag, her long, dark hair in a loose braid, kneaded a basketball-sized blob of gooey dough in a black tub – destined to become Indian tacos for a fundraiser the next day. Six other UNITE members pressed and folded their own dough-blobs, while two more chopped lettuce and tomatoes. Ashley Fast Horse and Chandler Hunter, freshmen from Omaha working on the same dough, chatted together on one side of the room, frequently bursting out with laughter. Haag, UNITE’s president, asked the group at large if her dough needed more flour – she’d never made a batch this big. Zach Watson, a sophomore marketing major, nonchalantly tested the group’s dough consistency with his little finger, prompting more laughs. Then the subject of other Native American students at UNL – those not in the room – came up. Tewentenhawihtha Aldrich, a Winnebago from the reservation north of Omaha whose friends call her Wihtha, spoke up from her chopped tomatoes. “Where are they?” the freshman general studies major asked bluntly – most of the others she had met at UNL were standing in the room. “I want to know.” For almost all of Nebraska’s Native college-aged people, the answer is simple: not here. Among the more than 24,000 students currently enrolled at UNL, 266 – about 1 percent – identify themselves as at least partly Native American, according to Institutional Research and Planning Associate Director Mary Werner. Only 74 – 0.3 percent, or onefourth of their proportion of the state’s population – identify as Native American only. UNL is home to twice as many students from both India and Malaysia. Almost 1,000 others are from China. A comparison to past numbers of Native students is impossible, Werner said, because the university changed the way it counted students by ethnicity in 2010 to match new federal guidelines. Many agree the number is too low. “That’s pretty depressing,” said Fran Kaye, an English profes-

Kendra Haag (center), president of UNL’s Native American group UNITE, stands flanked by other group members for a portrait. Native students make up a fraction of UNL’s enrollment – the university is home to more students from China than from the United States’ first nations. sor who teaches Native American literature and maintains connections with several Native students. “This is a landgrant university. Whose land was granted?” For the Native students who are here, attending UNL requires navigating a cultural and economic obstacle course that they say predominantly explains why their numbers are so low here. Even after arriving, the university proved a lonely place for several Native students, and many said they rely on whatever others they could find as family.

Quarters for Laundry

Haag, a Kickapoo and a senior biology and sociology major, left her home in Kansas to come to UNL. Her family and many others can’t contribute much to her schooling,

she said, but after arriving she ran into an unexpected problem. “I couldn’t afford to do laundry,” Haag said, laughing at the memory. “All my friends felt bad and gave me quarters.” Money is a big concern for any low-income college student, but Native students and their families in particular often have a hard time covering higher education’s ever-rising costs – a wall that rises before college is even in the picture. Half of Nebraska’s Native households make less than $27,000 a year – a median income almost $25,000 less than that of the state’s white households, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, and lower than any other ethnic group, except blacks. The story of why that’s the

natives: see page 3

Kendra Haag (right) inspects the texture of her frybread dough for Indian tacos on Tuesday evening in the Jackie Gaughan Multicultural Center’s kitchen. The taco fundraiser was one of the group’s final events marking Native American Heritage Month in November.

Regents approve budget for cancer research center At Thursday meeting, board also approves name of athletic complex @dailyneb facebook.com/ dailynebraskan

LIS ARNESON DN In Thursday’s five-minute meeting, the University of Nebraska Board of Regents approved the program statement and budget

for the construction of a $370 million cancer research center at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. The center will include a hospital tower, research space, an outpatient cancer clinic and an inpatient cancer unit. A new ambulatory care clinic will provide additional space for outpatient care. A $110 million cancer research tower portion of the venture will receive $50 million from the Nebraska Legislature. Lincoln Regent Tim Clare, the

Board’s Business Affairs Committee chairman, approved of the research center ’s statement and budget. “There was unanimous approval and excitement about this project, and what not only it will do for the University of Nebraska, but what it will do for health care in Nebraska,” Clare said. Construction on the center, which will be located opposite the Durham Research Centers at UNMC in Omaha, will begin in November 2013 and is scheduled

There was unanimous approval and excitement about this project and … what it will do for health care in Nebraska.”

Tim Clare

nu regent

to be mostly complete by April 2016, according to the meeting agenda. The project will displace Swanson Hall, which is currently used for research labs and clinical faculty office space. According to the Oct. 22 pro-

gram statement, the center is “proposed to increase the health of Nebraskans by providing additional infrastructure for cancer research, cancer drug discovery,

regents: see page 2


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Nov. 30 by Daily Nebraskan - Issuu