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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,”
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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
