Student Council Formed

From UNO Professor Tommy Thompson's A History of the University of Nebraska at Omaha, 1908-1983

 

Student government was another activity at the early University of Omaha.

 

Those students who were juniors urged the creation of a student government during the 1911-12 school year, but a majority of the students voted against the idea. However, in June 1912, the faculty decided there would be a Student Cabinet of ten members "to cooperate with the faculty of this institution in an advisory capacity," and in September of that year President Jenkins announced that a Student Cabinet would be organized.

 

Although the editor of The Yellow Sheet protested that the students did not want a student government and that its creation might be an attempt by the faculty to rid themselves of some disagreeable work, such as disciplining students when they skipped the daily convocation, the students did elect representatives to the Cabinet and it went into effect.

 

Almost nothing is known of the activities of this first effort at student government or how long it existed.

 

By the fall of 1916 there was a new Student Council in operation, created primarily to help handle the problem of students who disturbed classes in Redick Hall by making too much noise in the corridors. This body lasted through the 1917-18 school year and then it faded from existence.

 

As the first decade ended, the Student Council appeared once more. Some students in the fall of 1919 "demanded" a voice in government themselves, although the editor of The Gateway felt this group was acting arbitrarily and stung them with a biting editorial ditty:

 

The Student Council

The classes met one winter's day,

And elected Councillors,

Who were to be the school police

And save the Dean his labors.

The first they did was bring us in

To camouflaged Chapel - then

They told us all our faults and sins

We were never to do again.

Eat not in he rooms nor any place else

Except in our new lunch room!

George Eychaner has washed the windows clean,

Marguerite Carnal has used the broom.

The next they did that brought us woe,

And put us "in a pickle!"

Was lock up our books which we left 'round

And for which they charged us a nickel.

So this is the end of our story true,

Of our Student Council's work

What next they'll do - no one knows

But beware! - in corners they lurk.

 

However, as the editor of The Gateway noted, this Student Council did succeed in establishing a lunch room, with hot lunches served on cold winter days, a very significant accomplishment.