Allwine Prairie: Natural heritage
Twelve-thousand to 14,000 years ago, when the
last continental glacier receded north, it left behind vast, largely treeless
prairies — grazing ground for immense herds of bison. To the Indians who
followed the bison, Mother Earth provided the bounty of the grasslands, as
well, the plants providing herbs for healing, tannin for tanning hides,
berries, coneflower and sumac stems for baskets
Early settlers were
similarly bound to the land, out of which they built their homes and lives.
Today, only 2
percent of Nebraska's prairie land survives in small parcels guarded by 
scientists and environmentalists.
"This land is our
natural heritage," explains Tom Bragg, Professor of Biology and Dean of
Graduate Studies at UNO.
For the last 30
years Bragg has devoted himself to the preservation of UNO's Allwine Prairie.
Spreading north and west from 144th and State Streets in Omaha, the virgin
prairie hosts more than 109 species of birds, 12 species of amphibians and
reptiles, 24 species of mammals and more than 250 species of woody and
herbaceous plants on 160 acres.
Bragg's efforts
extend well beyond prescribed burning and preserve management. To fully protect
and complete the prairie, he has worked for years with local, regional and
federal government agencies and with private citizens to fund the purchase of
surrounding land. The intention is to protect the prairie from the effects of
urban development by isolating the entire watershed.
Toward that end,
Bragg recently has been awarded a $1 million grant from the Nebraska
Environmental Trust to help purchase 126 acres that would join the existing
prairie with Big Papillion Creek (see schematic at top left).
According to Bragg,
"This initiative will also preserve the Glacier Creek corridor, from its source
on Allwine Prairie downstream to the riparian habitat of the Big Papillion
Creek, and improve the environmental quality of the site by restoring natural
features, such as the addition of a large wetland/lowland prairie habitat
complex." The inclusion of the entire array of prairie and related wetland
habitats will make this preserve unique in this region.
For more
information, visit the prairie website at www.unomaha.edu/prairie
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Allwine Prairie: Cultural heritage
Antonietta Allwine's work lives on
In 1880, Rochus
Koehneman purchased today's Allwine Prairie from O. B. Selden, one of Omaha's
early settlers.
Selden told
Koehneman about the important role this piece of land played in westward
expansion. Travelers crossing the Missouri by ferry from Council Bluffs would
settle by the creek and wait until enough families had gathered for a safe
journey west.
Koehneman's
daughter, Antonietta, grew up with a love for the prairie much as her
contemporary Willa Cather did.
In 1942, with her
husband Arthur Allwine, Antonietta dedicated the land as a wildlife preserve
and began her work to cultivate and protect the native flora and fauna.
The Wilderness
Society in the early 1950s honored her for such efforts. In 1959, with her
health failing, Antonietta decided the time had come to pass on her precious
charge to the keeping of the Biology faculty at UNO, assured that her work
would be continued.
Research, Education facility among plans
Because of its location within 30 minutes of the Omaha
metropolitan area, the existing preserve provides a unique educational setting
for hands-on environmental experience for area schools and for a variety of
individuals and organizations.
Raising funds for a
research and education facility to make the prairie accessible to the general
public (architect's rendering above) is high on Bragg's list of priorities. He
has applied for federal funding but also has high hopes for private donations.
The 10,000-square-foot facility will include a lab to accommodate 10 to 15
researchers or students and classroom space for 30. The educational center will
offer informative activities for visitors and a permanent residence for an
on-site caretaker.
Graphic courtesy
Randy Brown Architects
High Season
"On Sunday morning I rose early and got out
of Black Hawk while the dew was still heavy on the long meadow grasses. It was
the high season for summer flowers. The pink bee-bush stood tall along the
sandy roadsides, and the cone-flowers and rose mallow grew everywhere. Across
the wire fence, in the long grass, I saw a clump of flaming orange-coloured
milkweed, rare in that part of the state. I left the road and went around
through a stretch of pasture that was always cropped short in summer, where the
gaillardia came up year after year and matted over the ground with the deep,
velvety red that is in Bokhara carpets. The country was empty and solitary
except for the larks that Sunday morning, and it seemed to lift itself up to me
and to come very close."
Willa Cather, "My
Antonia"
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Stover Scholarship honors 30-year career
Albert Schweitzer
wrote, "At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from
another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who
have lighted the flame within us."
Former students, family and friends of Professor Dale Stover have
worked together to establish a scholarship in his name, showing their gratitude
for the flames he lit and honoring a teaching career that spans more than 30
years.
Each spring, a
sophomore in the Religious Studies program will be awarded the Stover
Scholarship and $1,000 to put toward educational costs. This year's recipient
is Blythe Fox.
"Blythe is a very
bright and promising student," Professor Guy Matalon says. "She distinguished
herself by being able to interpret a variety of medieval mystical and
philosophical Jewish texts. Moreover, her analytical skills made discussions in
the Jewish Ethics course much more lively."
In addition to excelling
in classes, according to Stover, students who compete for the scholarship
compose an essay on one of a variety of topics "dear to my heart." Each essay
addresses religion and one of the following: healing, gender, oral narrative,
dreaming, plant and animal kinship.
In part, the essay
topics reflect Stover's own search.
"I came of age
during the McCarthy era, which taught me to mistrust the political processes of
mainstream American culture," Stover explains. "I went looking for answers in
religious studies that might offer meanings that transcended political and
cultural borders. Early in my academic career, I focused on hermeneutical
theory as the key to understanding the sacred texts that seemed to underly all
cultures. Eventually, I shifted to a more empirical and experiential approach,
including immersion in religious traditions and practices outside my own
cultural experience. For example, I changed my research focus to Islamic
studies after 1976, and I changed again after 1986 to focus on indigenous
religions, especially North American.
"While I made
changes, the search for meanings from beyond my own cultural and intellectual
base in the European Enlightenment remained much the same as the original
impulse."
Born on a farm in
Cerro Gordo County, Iowa, in 1935, Stover received his BA from Washington
University in St. Louis in 1957, a bachelor of divinity (1961) and a master's
(1964) in sacred theology from Andover Newton Theological School in Boston, and
a Ph.D. from the Faculty of Religious Studies at McGill University, Montreal,
in 1967.
In 1968 Stover
accepted an assistant professorship at UNO. He was promoted to associate
professor in 1971 and to professor in 1979. In 1981 he accepted an adjunct
professorship with the Department of Preventive and Societal Medicine at the
University of Nebraska Medical Center. He became a member of the Women's
Studies Faculty in 1988, the Native American Studies Faculty in 1992, and a
Fellow of the Center for Great Plains Studies in 1992. Stover also has been active
in administrative roles. He served as chair of the Department of Philosophy and
Religion from 1976 to 1979. He was the first coordinator of the Native American
Studies program from 1992 to 1995.
Stover delayed his
retirement until this May out of a commitment to the Religious Studies program.
He explains, "In my program, the way things happened, all the sudden we lost a
lot of senior professors. I was the only senior professor for the last five
years. The workload was intense."
Now, however, he is
looking forward to his retirement and "slowing down." "It's OK now," he says.
"We've recruited for Native American religious studies and Islamic studies. The
program is in good shape."
Photo by Tim Fitzgerald, University Affairs
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Neathery-Castro, Reiter-Palmon honored at Faculty Convocation
As usual, College of
Arts and Sciences faculty were well-represented at UNO's annual Faculty Honors
Convocation held April 12. Jody Neathery-Castro, political science, was
presented with the University Excellence in Teaching Award and Roni
Reiter-Palmon, psychology, received the Faculty Award for Outstanding Graduate
Mentor.
Jody Neathery-Castro: University Excellence in Teaching
Jody Neathery-Castro practices what she teaches: "Get involved."
Nominators wrote that Neathery-Castro's teaching displays a unique combination
of personal involvement with students while upholding a rigorous model of
liberal arts education. She served as the First Year Experience academic
advisor from 2002 through 2006, helped coordinate and lead American Democracy
Project events at UNO, and has sponsored a two-week student study trip to
Britain since 2004.
Her goal as a
professor has been to make her subjects accessible and politics exciting.
Neathery-Castro joined
the Political Science Department in 1998 with specializations in West European
politics, decentralization, and subnational politics. She also is a faculty
member in the Women's Studies and International Studies programs. Her
bachelor's degree is from Texas Christian University and her master's and Ph.D.
degrees are from Rice University. Neathery-Castro received UNO's Outstanding
Faculty in Service Learning Award in 2001.
Photo by Tim
Fitzgerald, University Affairs
Roni Reiter-Palmon: Outstanding Graduate Mentor
It only makes sense that a nationally ranked graduate program such
as the Industrial Organizational Psychology Program at UNO would be directed by
a faculty member devoted to mentoring.
Roni Reiter-Palmon's
nominators described her as a strong believer in and an advocate for her
graduate students, helping them in the pursuit of internships, academic
publication and contact work. She routinely involves students in her research
and has co-authored 40 articles with students or former students. One student
nominator wrote that Reiter-Palmon, "places her students first and defines her
success through the career accomplishments of her students."
Reiter-Palmon
accepted her first position with UNO in 1993, the same year she earned her
Ph.D. from George Mason University. As with her Ph.D., her master's from George
Mason also was in industrial/organizational psychology. She completed her BA at
Tel-Aviv University.
Four years after
Reiter-Palmon accepted the role of Director of the I/O program, the program
received national recognition. The Industrial-Organizational Psychologist
published a ranking of programs in its July 2004 issue, ranking UNO's program
No. 6 among more than 100 similar programs. The ranking was based on a survey
of students in such programs.
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Lamanna fund to aid visiting speakers
Doctor Mary Ann
Lamanna touched countless lives as a sociology teacher and continues to do so
now as a University of Nebraska Foundation donor.
Lamanna began teaching at UNO in 1977 and retired as a full
professor 24 years later. Throughout her tenure, Lamanna was frustrated by a
lack of department funds available to offer even a small stipend to notable
scholars who might otherwise have visited campus.
Thus she recently
has established the Mary Ann Lamanna Lectureship in Sociology/ Anthropology
endowment fund. The fund eventually will be used to host academics from other
institutions to speak to faculty and students in the areas of sociology and/or
anthropology.
It's no surprise
that Lamanna's fund supports dialogue. Discussion in the classroom always was
her favorite part of teaching, she says, and UNO's diversity of students
enhanced those discussions.
She also enjoyed
working one-on-one with students.
"I tried to see
students as individuals — each with personal interests and lives — and always
strived to be respectful of all points of view," she says.
Lamanna received her
doctorate in sociology from the University of Notre Dame in 1977 and her
master's from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
Her most notable
publication, "Marriages and Families: Making Choices in a Diverse Society," now
is in its 10th edition and continues to be the most widely used sociological
textbook about marriage and families in the United States.
Those interested in
making a contribution to the Mary Ann Lamanna Lectureship in Sociology/
Anthropology fund — or who want to learn more about establishing a fund to
support UNO — should contact Mary Bernier, director of development for the
University of Nebraska Foundation, at (402) 502-4108.
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