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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (June 3, 1993)
- • i Special Edition: New Student Enrollment Freshman year brings freedom By Jean DeShazer Qtaft Ohe increased amount of freedom freshmen have when they arrive on campus can have both positive and negative effects on their first year at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, a university official said. The difficulties that freshmen usually experience stem from not being able to deal with the responsibilities that come from liv ing away from home, said Vernon Williams, Career Counseling coordinator at UNL. “Freshmen experience everything from not being able to keep their clothes clean because their parents aren’t there to help them, to problems with alcohol experimenta _ tirvn amt romantic involvements onne awry," Williams said classes werem'area where many freshmen were unprepared for the dif ferences in course loads and class require Sv. ments. He said lack of adequate study time was the simple-downfall for freshmen in most cases. “A lot of students are unprepared for the difference between high school and college, and they do not spend enough time or ana lyze the task properly to fulfill the require ments of the course,” Williams said. “W$ also find that students are used to their parents urging them t their homework lack that particular moti The type of work in . also requires students to think differ*^ than they did to their high school classes^ “The student who memorized in high school is going to havl trouble adjusting when asked to think analytically in classes,” See FRESHMEN on 3 r,,,,,,,,.. J t D,mon L“'T ii ZivVi/i . Sophomores Jen Carlson and Rob Harshbarger sit against the glow of Broyhlll Fountain on a late May evening. UNL seeks diversity By Shane Tucker - Staff Reoorter 7’.. -• ncreasing enrollment figures, but low retention of minority students has prompted university officials to pro vide more programs for increased campus diversity. In the last four years, the number of American racial minority students at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln has increased 24 percent, from 891 students in 1989 to 1171 in 1992, according to UNL’s Office of Institutional Planning and Research. Vice ChancclldT for Student Affairs James Griesen said all student growth, since 1989, P had occurred in American minority and tnter dents at UNL is significantly lower than that of non-minority students, he said. To help deal with this problem, Griesen’s office will be initiating the Summer Institute for Promising Scholars, an eight-week resi dential program for Nebraska high school graduates who are members of the underrep resented minority populations at UNL, which include African-American, Latino and American Indian students. The program, which has a $105,000 bud get, has received 43 applications for its 30 available seats in the fall. Minority students at UNL can also receive financial support through the Davis, Gupta and Larson scholarship programs. „ N The Office of Multicultural Affairs offers five major programs to minority students, Z See MINORITY on 4 Education key to alcohol awareness By DsDra Janssen Staff Reporter_ I ||dducation about the effects of I Qlalcohol abuse is the key to h&lcombatting alcohol-related problems of students, particularly freshmen, at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, a university health specialist said. David Bower, a prevention spe cialist at the University Health Center, said he wants to inform all groups on campus about alcohol related issues ranging from MIP to DWI, from vandalism to date rape and from vomiting to death. “Be educated. Know what can happen and how that can happen, Bower said. Bower said that 80 percent of col lege students in the nation drink, and UNL fits that statistic. “That’s frightening in itself, but even more frightening is that 47 percent of college students get intoxicated on a regular basis, like once a week,” he said. This percentage is a little higher at UNL, he said. “It’s a rural campus. Students think there’s nothing to do; that drinking is the thing to do. It’s part of the norm, but as behavior, it’s not healthy,” he said. “That has all kinds of negative consequences on campus. Incoming freshmen, in particular, get caught up in the social scene and alcohol abuse on and off campus, Bower said. “They’re not used to having that much alcohol around,” he said. “They don’t know what drinking that much can do to their bodies.” He said the best way to prevent freshmen and other students from getting caught up in the conse quences of alrohol abuse is to edu cate them. Bower is doing just that. Bower, who has been working as See ALCOHOL on 3
