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bEN SIMON'S
Beauty Salon
The Atrium, Lincoln
University blackmails students,
records holds jeopardize future
By Jim Hanna
Staff Reporter
This is the first sentence of the
most pointless column I will ever
write.
It’s more pointless than asking Jesse
Helms over to see the slides you took
at the Robert Mapplethorpe exhibit.
It’s more pointless than a commercial
for Levi’s cotton Dockers. Why, it’s
even more pointless than an ASUN
resolution.
The point of this column is not
even worth the free newspaper it’s
printed in. It transcends pointlcssness
to a level that makes it even more
pointless than something that is to
tally without a point. Follow me?
And just to warn you, this will also
be the most humorless column I’ve
ever written. The topic I’m writing
about is really very unfunny and I’m
really very mad.
The point of this column is to ask
the university to quit placing holds on
student records. Since that is a more
than unreasonable request, this col
umn will be a waste of all of our lime.
Records holds will never die.
In case you haven’t been victim
ized by this nasty form of reprehen
sible blackmail, let me fill you in.
Knowing full well that the stu
dents at UNL have no recourse, this
university can, and at every opportu
nity will, place a hold on your records
that makes it impossible to register
for classes, mail out transcripts or
receive your diploma.
A hold on your records is always
prompted by money. From personal
experience, I can tell you the offenses
that will get you a hold include failing
to repay every cent of a short-term
loan on time, delinquent charge ac
counts at the University Bookstore,
unpaid parking violations and the
unforgivable crime of having more
than $10 in library lines. This list is
not exhaustive.
For these egregious violations, you
may be forced to drop out of school,
lose your degree or forego advanced
degree work at another university.
I think it's significant that all of
these sins involve money owed to
UNL. For a student to receive an
academic dismissal or to be suspended
for cheating, there arc scads of hear
ings and conferences and committee
meetings to make a huge, very sig
nificant decision regarding a student’s
future.
But to be barred from school by a
record hold, one only need lose a
library book or fail to plug a parking
meter.
Records holds are swift and non
negotiable. The student has no input,
and personal circumstances never are
considered. Apparently a student who
owes the university money is a bigger
criminal than a student who cheats
and is thus less deserving of a hear
ing- .
And if you’re wondering if my
disgust with the holds system is in
spired by sour grapes, please be as
sured that it is. The venomous de
mons, who gleefully dole out holds to
get their grubby little hands on every
cent they can, have hit me with sev
eral holds during my university ca
reer.
I am especially bitter now because
I plan to graduate in the spring. The
same day I picked up my packet to
Jim
Hanna
register for my last semester of study
at UNL, I found that a hold was going
onto my records for a delinquent short
term loan.
The loan was originally taken to
help cover expenses last spring, one
of which was paying the library for a
lost book so that they would remove
another hold. It’s a vicious cycle.
I didn’t have the money to pay
back my loan, so I went in to refi
nance it. I was unable to do that
because I was three weeks late on
repaying the loan. The analysis here
is that, since 1 was apparently too
poor to pay on time, they’re going to
punish me by not letting me refinance
and pay when I do have the money.
Either way, 1 don’t have the money
right now.
No doubt, I’m a fool for getting
myself into this mess, but it would
nice if the university would be a little
more cooperative about helping me
get out. Something tells me the uni
versity could swallow the money I
owe more easily than I can come up
with it.
I’m on a monthly payment plan for
the loan now, but the university won ’ t
lift the hold. 1 can’t register for classes
until 1 pay UNL back in full, which 1
can't do until February when it will
be too late to register.
But methinks the columnist doth
whine loo much. Part of the twisted
nature of the holds system is that the
university kiiuw,> iuum muuuus wm
somehow come up with the money so
that they can pay back their debt. This
is what I’ll have to do. I may com
plain, but soon I’ll pawn something
or I’ll borrow more money some
place else and my little pity party will
be over.
Still, it is disturbing to me that the
university so willingly employs this
brutal incentive program. They know
the system works and that seerns to be
the best justification the university
has for the system. One way or an
other, regardless of the hardship, the
university gets its money.
But effectiveness should not be
the only consideration. It would proba
bly also be effective if the university
held public executions on the Union
Plaza to punish those who owe them
dough, but I like to think officials
won ’t turn to that. My guess is that the
only thing stopping the university from
killing us deadbeats is that it couldn’t
get its money from a corpse.
So do I have a better plan? Not
really, but then that’s not my job. I
may not know what would be a fair
system, but I know the current system
isn’t even close.
One suggestion I would make is
that the holds system be more flex
ible. Allow students who arc making
an honest effort to pay the chance to
escape the prison of a hold.
Maybe we could make it so the
hold takes effect at the end of the
following semester, assuming the
debtors arc making the attempt to
repay. As it is now, a student could go
over the S10 fine limit at the library
during the last week of the semester
and find themselves without a class
schedule at the start o! the next se
mester.
But to change the system would
mean extra effort, and as long as the
current system is effectively extort
ing money forUNL.lherc’sno reason
for it to change.
Yeah, I’m angry, I’m irrational.
I’m a blubbering little baby, but the
latest hold I’ve received could seri
ously screw up my graduation and my
post-graduate studies.
Callous university officials can sit
back in their cushy leather chairs,
smoke their big pipes and giggle as I
scramble to gel them the money. They
will read my pointless little column,
sm ilc that their holds system works so
well and loss my piffle into the trash.
And me? I’ll sec you all next fall.
Hanna is a senior theater major and a
Daily Nehra'&an staff reporter and colum
nist
Mill foreman Warwick (Stephen Macht), left, and workers Danson (Andrew Divoff), center, and
Carmichael (Jimmy Woodward) in “Graveyard Shift."
Grave
Continued from Page 12
fact that he’s trying to escape his past.
Hall works the “picker” machine,
an old fashioned device used to comb
and separate wtx)l before it is made
into yam. He works somewhat alone
in a secluded part of Bachman Mills.
That is, he’s the only human down
there — thus the horror and premise
behind “Graveyard Shift.” Something
is lurking in the depths of the base
mert, as the cleanup crew soon will
discover.
However, before the crew can go
into the basement, Warrick has hired
“The Exterminator” (Brad Dourif) to
eliminate the learning rat problem of
the mill.
This character is one of the most
annoying aspects of the film. Dourif
is a gifted actor who was nominated
for an Academy Award for "One Flew
Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” but his
character in this movie is pathetic. He
plays a Vietnam veteran obsessed with
killing rats. He’s border-line psychotic,
while claiming to have not been af
fected by what he saw in Vietnam, as
he raves about his war experiences
and relates them to his line of work.
He never docs much about the rat
problem, but he docs run around act
ing foolish.
And so Hall and his crew, includ
ing a group of red-necks who once
harassed and cajoled him in the town’s
diner, go into the basement and start
the cleanup. They soon discover that
there is more to the basement than
junk. However, this doesn’t take place
until the movie is two-thirds finished.
Until this point, there has been little
horror and little to keep the viewer
interested. After this, it doesn’t gel
much better.
“Graveyard Shift" is not simply a
bad horror movie, it’s just a had movie,
period. There is little in it to classify
it as a horror movie. A few minutes
into this movie, the audience becomes
bored, not afraid. At the end, after
learning what has been lurking in the
dark and sprawling basement of tfach
man Mills, it all seems like a bad
nightmare just because we actually
sat through the entire show.