Students find extras on special floors
By Troy Falk
Staff Reporter
It's 10 p.m., the assignment is
due tomorrow and you've run into
a problem. Where do you turn?
If you live on one of the twelve
specialized residence hall floors,
academic help can be as close as a
knock on the door of your student
assistant.
Lyn Jakobsen, assistant direc
tor of housing for residential edu
cation, said that even though each
S.A. is normally assigned a floor
relating to his or her major, the
specialized floors offer more than
SA
Continued from Page 9
"we found the same data for about
six years in a row," she said.
Survey results will be verified
in the future through sampling a
section of the students, because
"these poor people get surveyed
for everything," she said. Because
the students are demographically
similar year after year, the job of
monitoring the collective student
pulse falls to the student assis
tants.
"It's a big, big job with a tre
mendous amount of responsibil
ity," she said. "They are the ones
who can inform us about what the
students want out of their lives."
"We're actually having an
impact, which is really nice to see,"
Jakobsen said of the programming
efforts.
Evaluative analysis of the stu
dent population from the begin
ning of the school year to the end
has shown student growth in a
number of areas. These areas in
just academic support.
The modern language floor is
located in Neihardt Residence
Center. Tutors are provided in
Japanese, Russian, Spanish and
French.
Head resident Audie Keaton,
an engineering senior, helps many
of the foreign students on the inter
national floor in Piper Hall adapt
to American campus lifestyles.
Although his academic major
may not be international studies,
Keaton said that as a military
dependent, his many years of
overseas experience help m under
standing how the international
elude student feelings of belong
ing, knowledge acquisition and
value structures, including a tol
erance of diversity. An outside
research institute verified the re
sults as valid, Jakobsen said.
The residential education pro
gram at UNL functions in coop
eration with similar programs at
other state universities, including
Iowa State University and Mis
souri.
"Through S. A. conferences, we
can compare notes on an individ
ual level," Jakobsen said, "and in
an operational sense we share a lot
of numerical information.
Programmatically, we re all in
the same ballpark," Jakobsen said
of the universities.
"The breadth of w’hat we're
doing here is very large," she said.
"In terms of peers teaching other
peers, I think that's very effective.
Basically, we're looking at the
students and saying, here's your
life and anything that could possi
bly affect it, and we'll structure a
program to meet those needs."
student might feel or what his or
her needs might be.
Engineering students in Abel
Hall receive visits from professors
designed to help students feel less
anxious as finals approach.
Other academic floors include
a communication floor in Schramm,
business floors in Cather and
Pound, a health occupation floor
in Sel leek, a floor for stud en ts with
academic scholarships located in
Harper and a fine arts floor in
Schramm.
Jakobsen said other specialized
floors deal with housing students
of similar ages and needs together.
Several of these are the non
traditional student floor and the
upper-class floors in Selleck, the -
graduate floors of Selleck and
Fedde and the special needs floors .
located in Cather and Pound.
Jakobsen said that in addition
to the required accredited train
ing course, special floor S. A. salso ■
learn the art of tutoring students. ■
And they must learn to deal
with the specific problems that
might arise from having a special- .
ized floor, she said.
Skills grow with S. A. experience
By Robert Richardson
Senior Reporter
Doug Daubert is one of UNL's
finest. He's not a cop, and he's not
in the military, although some
times he has to act like he's both.
Daubert is a student assistant
in Cather Residence Hall in the
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
residential education program.
Daubert, a senior philosophy
major, said he has learned a lot of
skills from his S.A. job. Leader
ship and programming skills are
important, he said, but so is meet
ing people.
"One of the main things I take
with me is a greater anility to
communicate with people,"
Daubert said.
One of the hardest things to
make students understand is the
"big two rules to live by" in the
residence halls, Daubert said.
Students must abide by the alco
hol policy and the 12 p.m. to 2 a.m.
visitation policy.
"Because," ne said, "anytime
you have 40 guys living in such a
small area, if there were no rules,
it would be chaos."
“44 -
I try to vet them to think
a little bit about the
other side of the issue.
Daubert
student assistant
-99 _
"You've got to have rules as far
as quiet hours and stuff like that,"
Daubert said. "People need to sleep
and need to have time to study. I
mean, that's why you're here at
school, to study.'
Although Daubert said rules
were important, he said that when
things go well on his floor, he just
tries to De one of the residents.
"I try not to be a total discipli
narian. I try to be a friend and try
to explain to them what the rules
are and if they're breaking them in
any way," Daubert said.
"But when everything is going
okay, I just try and be their friend
and get along with them," he said.
If oeing a friend means some
times "just hanging out with the
guys," Daubert is tne epitome of a
friend. His floor eats together, plays
intramural sports together and
watches movies togetner.
And, Daubert said, he some
times confronts his residents with
difficult topics like sexual orienta
tion.
"I challenge them a lot. I chal
lenge them on diversity," he said.
"I challenge these guys on those
issues, and I say how do you know
these people are wrong, or how
do you know you're rignt."
*I try to get them to tnink a little
bi t abou t the other side of the issue
and make them look at it that way,"
he said.
Daubert said he agrees with
university policy requiring all
incoming freshmen to live on
campus.
"When you come in here as a
freshman, you're forced to live and
get along with 40 other people,
plus your roommate," Daubert
said. ''It makes you look at your
self and your own habits arid his
habits. You see his bad points, and
it also helps you see your bad
points."
.- - — - — ■T==T
Sweatshirt of the week.
\SALE $9.88
, ^\\ re^‘ $^5.95
l Sale price
) good while
quantities
last through
January 26.
Program
Continued from Page 8
she said.
"The job wears you down .. .
You have to know your limits of
study and social life," Jakobsen
said.
But, she said, there are numer
ous benefits to being a student
assistant.
Student assistants receive sti
pends and free room and board,
which saves them about $3,000 a
year, she said.
Being an S.A. also is beneficial
to career-oriented students, Jacob- ■
sen said.
"The job teaches them people
skills," she said. 'There are not
too many jobs that make you so
aware of naving to deal with people
non-stop."
In the end, she said, it's the
student assistants' devotion to their '
jobs that makes the program sue- ]
cessful. i
"We have a high-caliber group ;
ofstudentsdedicated to their job/' ;
Jakobsen said.
Next Week:
5. Exotic
p And 0
\ Erotic
^ Foods
