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Alcohol ceases to How at ‘Animal House
By Matthew Waite
Staff Reporter
Animal House isn’t the crazed
party fraternity the movie
made it out to be.
In fact, it has banned alcohol in the
house and cleaned up its act.
Sigma Chi Fraternity at the Uni
versity of Maine in Orono, whose
house was the setting for the movie
“Animal House,” has barred all alco
hol from the house and all fraternity
functions in the house.
The policy, which reduced the
house membership to one, has caught
on at Orono. All but one member de
activated when the policy first went
into effect, but the house has since
grown to 18 members with a 14
member pledge class.
The policy is not unique to the
University of Maine. Farmhouse Fra
ternity at the University of Nebraska
Lincoln also does not allow alcohol in
its house or on fraternity property,
Farmhouse President Lee Thurber
said.
Although UNL is a “dry campus,”
which means alcohol is banned from
university property, many fraternities
still have parties with alcohol in their
houses, Thurber said.
But not at Farmhouse Fraternity.
“If men want to drink, it occurs out
of the house and the properties,”
Thurber said. Members of Farmhouse
take pride in their policy, he said.
“The absence of alcohol contrib
utes to an environment of strong broth
erhood that’s not based on social ac
tivities,” Thurber said. Since he has
been in the house, Thurber said, Farm
house has not had an incident involv
ing alcohol.
Thurber said the house did have
off-campus parties that included al
cohol.
Thurber said he did not look down
upon fraternities that did have alcohol
in their houses. He said Farmhouse
chose not to run the risks involved
with alcohol consumption in the house.
Blake Fryer, a senior speech com
munications major at the University
of Maine at Orono, said his SigmaChi
chapter re-thought other house poli
cies after the fraternity decided to ban
alcohol in the house.
“We restructured our ideas and our
rush practices,” Fryer said. “It was
basically a revamping of our atmo
sphere.”
But Fryer said the decision to ban
alcohol was not one that would work
for all fraternities.
“For us it was a voluntary choice,
and we have no second thoughts about
doing it,” Fryer said. “There are fra
ternities out there that are centered on
alcohol — that’s not for us here.”
Thurber said alcohol was not the
focus of Farmhouse.
“It’s best for us that we don’t have
alcohol in the house,” he said.
The risks of having alcohol in the
house were too great, he said. Dan
gers exist in fraternities even when
See CLEAN on 6
Life 101 taught with care in Spanish 102
Optimism, compassion
complete lesson plan
By Corey Russman
Staff Reporter
Haydce Ayal a- R i c hards bel ie ves 1 ife ’ s
lessons have a place in her classroom
lesson book.
“Don’t push yourself. Have goals, but
realize that you must sacrifice sometimes in
order to achieve them... Love yourself first,
and then you can love others ... Try to do
your best at whatever you do, and enjoy
life.”
When she was 22, Ayala-Richards, a
graduate teaching assistant student from
Puerto Rico, began a 30
year journey that would
lead her through nine sur
geries and many months
in the hospital.
Between ages 22 and
31, Ayala-Richards went
through seven surgeries
to remove numerous
non-cancerous tumors,
resulting in the loss of
ner ovaries ano uterus.
Now, she is struggling with a hole in her
pancreas that is leaking pancreatic acids into
a balloon cyst.
But Ayala-Richards, 52, has emerged
optimistic about life and ready to bring that
optimism to her Spanish 102 classroom.
One way she brings that to her classroom
is by listening to what her students have to
say.
“If someone is feeling pain or loneliness,
I can sit down and talk with them and can feel
for them because I have been through it,”
Ayala-Richards said.
Ayala-Richards said she always was will
ing to help others and listen to their prob
lems.
“If I can help someone to be better tomor
row, 1 will do it,” she said.
Ayala-Richards also said this outlook
had changed her approach to teaching.
Teaching, like parenting, involves help
ing others see their problems and providing
them with a lifetime of knowledge and
wisdom, she said.
Part of that responsibility is making her
students realize learning is important.
The function of a teacher is not only to
teach, but also to make students love what
they are doing, she said.
“If students love to learn, then they are
going to learn anything," she said.
Ayala-Richards said learned that from
Staci McKee/DN
Haydee Avala-Richards, a graduate student and Spanish teacher at
UNL, has nad nine surgeries in the past 20 years.
experience, being a student herself. She
hopes to graduate in December 1994 with a
doctorate in Spanish.
“I want students to be learning with joy,
not with an obligation of having to be there,”
she said.
But her experiences as a teacher and a
student may be limited prematurely.
Ayala-Richards said she was developing
a new tumor in her stomach, but was too
weak to have it removed. She also fears
pancreatic acids again are leaking in her
body.
“1 know it is not the end,” Ayala-Richards
said. “(A pancreatic cyst) is a cyst that lasts
forever. I know I am going to die because of
it, I just don’t know when.”
“I ask God every day to let me finish my
Ph.D. and to let me write and publish books
and short stories once I graduate,” she said.
UNL homecoming not what it used to be
Editors’ Note: College heritage is an impor
tant part of student life. UNL students today,
however, don’t have the chance to take part
in many long-standing campus traditions.
This is the third in a week-long series of
stories about UNL's forgotten traditions.
By Dionne Searcey
Senior Reporter
Cricket Simmons walked with other roy
alty candidates onto the stage at the
homecoming dance and waited for the
1968 queen to be announced.
“The whole dance stopped,” she said. The
speaker announccu
Simmons, who was then
Cricket Black, as the new
queen.
“I wish I would have en
joyed it more," Black said.
"I was a 1 ittle self-conscious
to be in the spotlight."
Simmons, class of ’70,
said homecoming was a big
deal in the late 1960s to
stuucnts at me university oi neuiasKa-uincuin.
The 76-year-old tradition has decreased in
size and glamour since its Nov. 12,1912, start
at UNL.
In Simmons’ day, she said, homecoming
week was full of activities that included a
bonfire, dance and yard-decorating parties.
Greek houses and student groups had their
own dances and events throughout the year,
Simmons said, but homecoming was a time that
brought the campus together.
Andrew Loudon, homecoming royalty co
ordinator of the 1993 UNL Homecoming Com
mittee, said this year’s events included a pep
See HOMECOMING on 6
New guidelines
for financial aid
shorten process
By Mark Baldridge
Senior Reporter
This fall it will be easier for many univer
sity students to reapply for federal fi
nancial aid.
John beacon, director ot admissions, schol
arships and financial aid for the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln, said new guidelines for re
application for federal aid had streamlined the
process greatly.
“The government has extracted about 75
percent of all information from last year’s
application,” he said. “All a student has to do is
update the information and answer a few ques
tions.”
To make applying easier, the government
will assume much of the information on a
student’s application this year hasn’t changed
from last year.
Rather than asking for information already
on file, the federal government will issue an
application directly to the student with most of
the answers already filled in, Beacon said.
The government has known about the idea
for a few years but has waited until this year to
implement it. Beacon said.
“ACT came up with the idea a few years
ago,” Beacon said, “But it took until now for the
idea to be accepted.
The government also stalled in implement
ing the simplified process because computer
support to issue the pre-printed applications
was unavailable, he said.
And a number of catches still exist, Beacon
said.
“The letters will be sent directly to the
student’s permanent address,” Beacon said.
See AID on 6
Student leaders:
UNL should get
back to basics
By Steve Smith
Senior Reporter__
Two University of Nebraska College of
Law students said Tuesday UNL must
focus on education, not topics like pink
triangles and green space.
Former UNL Student Regent Andrew
Sigerson and Robert Caldwell, former UNK
student president, told about 100 Downtown
Lincoln Rotary Club members that the Univer
sity of Nebraska-Lincoln needed to change its
priorities.
“Let’s get back to the basics. Let’s get back
to academics,” Caldwell said.
The first-year law students’ presentation,
titled “Education? Who Cares?,” centered on
one common theme: Getting social issues out of
the classrooms.
Sigerson said UNL had the wrong priorities
when it focused on:
• The 110-space parking lot north of the
NebraskaUnion that will be replaced by a park.
• The controversial “pink triangle” shelters,
which Eric Jolly, director of affirmative action
See EDUCATION on 2
