Christensen: 'I couldn't be happier' about past, future of UNO campus

When the Gateway sat down with then-Interim Chancellor John Christensen last year, the exhaustion from burning the midnight oil was evident on his face.Christensen had just recently become the leader of a university in crisis after a series of scandals erupted over UNO's botched handling of the athletic department budget. That poor management resulted in the loss of five jobs, including that of the associate athletic director. The fallout, including discoveries of questionable expenditures by senior UNO officials, eventually claimed the jobs of then-Vice Chancellor for Administration Jim Buck, then-Athletic Director David Herbster and former Chancellor Nancy Belck.

After Belck stepped down in September 2006, Christensen was offered the job. When the Gateway spoke to him last year, the big question we had was whether he would throw his name in the hat for the selection committee charged with finding a permanent replacement for Belck.

He eventually did, and Christensen was installed as 14th chancellor of UNO on Oct. 9.

Sitting down with the chancellor earlier this week, Christensen seems like a new man. The signs of exhaustion have left him, only to be replaced by a renewed and heightened excitement about the university. No longer struggling with scandals or crisis management, Christensen, with a smile on his face, looked back at the last year and reflected on the campus' accomplishments so far during his tenure as chancellor.

"First of all," Christensen said. "I'm pleased that our enrollments are up. We've been rather stable, and that's a good thing."

According to numbers published by the UNO Office of Institutional Research, the campus saw a 1.9 percent increase in head count enrollment this fall.

Christensen next mentioned the development of the new Maverick Village dorms on north campus. Part of that project includes a parking garage for University Village and Maverick Village residents, which UNO hopes will improve the parking situation on campus.

"You can walk over and see incredible progress, and I am very excited about that being open for next fall," Christensen said. "It's just going to be a great addition to the campus."

Second, Christensen cited the improvements made to the Criss Library, which have resulted in a tripling of daily turnstile counts in a time when most students can do their research with a few mouse-clicks rather than hours pouring over library stacks.

"I think it says something about the receptivity and the expert support that the library staff provides, the environment that is available there for study, and I think that it is a great series of events that have occurred with respect to the library," Christensen said.

Christensen went on to comment about the progress made in the Engineering Building and Health, Physical Education and Recreation Building projects.

Engineering is being renovated and converted into the new home for the College of Public Affairs and Community Service, and HPER is undergoing an expansion to add more workout space, a new home for Student Health Services, an additional 110 parking spaces and more.

"I would say that [the HPER expansion] is one of the more important initiatives to take place on our campus in some time," Christensen said. "The reason I believe that is such an important hallmark event is that that says something about the campus life, it says something about students spending more time on campus, students being here, or students identifying with this as their institution, not just stopping by to take a class."

In his hallmark plain language and simple assessments, Christensen said the CPACS Building would be "spectacular," and the HPER Building would be "fabulous" after the three-year project is complete.

As important as brick-and-mortar development is to the university, Christensen also said he has noticed a more important development recently: The perception of the community is changing, and UNO is becoming a destination for prospective and current students alike.

One aspect of UNO's thriving campus life and newfound identity is athletics. Christensen cited the new student organization The Bullpen and its achievements at increasing student engagement in sports.

"At football games, we've seen more students, more excitement, than in any time in my memory," Christensen said. "Same is true in hockey, basketball - I mean, students have really taken it upon itself to take the bull by the horn, so to say, to say 'This is our place, and we want it. We want to build that campus spirit.'"

In addition to athletics, Christensen said he believed students were becoming more involved in campus organizations, clubs and service activities. Citing student engagement in the community, Christensen said last year UNO students logged more than 300,000 hours participating in internships, student teaching, volunteer work, service learning and similar activities.

"The message that sends is that this is a campus that is vital to the community, it's involved in the community, but, on another level, it's exposing the community that doesn't get exposed to the type of student that's here at UNO, and it's a very positive exposure," Christensen said. "I mean, we have a great student body, and the community is now learning about that first-hand."

Of course, students aren't the only people leading the shift in perspective regarding UNO in the local community. The university administration has been hard at work creating initiatives like the Metropolitan Advantage Program, which offers reduced out-of-state tuition rates to students admitted to UNO from Pottawattamie, Mills and Harrison counties in Iowa.

"For several years, I've believed, as have many others, if we're a metropolitan institution, we should be serving our metropolitan area. And we do that well, with one exception, and that is, 'Oh, by the way, if you live across the bridge, you can't come here unless you pay three times the rate,'" Christensen said. "I don't think that's right. I don't think it's appropriate. I don't think it made sense. So I'm very, very happy that we now have this program."