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U. THE NATIONAL COLLEGE NEWSPAPER 21
4 U. THE NATIONAL COLLEGE NEWSPAPER
EPTEMBER 1988 Student Body
News Features SEPTEMBER 1988
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Alcoholics teach children hard lesson
IN THE FACE OF
Twenty years after the civil
rights battle was won, cam-
puses across the country are
reeling under a rising tide of
discrimination, racial inci-
dents, low minority enroll-
ment and low faculty repre-
sentation. The following
three perspectives explore
this multi-faceted threat to
our culturally diverse
society.
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Campuses severed by segregation
By James Geshwiler
The Daily Texan
U. of Texas, Austin
After almost 30 years of legal and so-
cial activism against segregation,
blacks and whites are segregating
themselves voluntarily, surrendering
in the fight for social equity and accept-
ance.
Reports of racial conflict have surged
around the country. And even in Atlan-
ta, a typically progressive city, black
and white still choose to stay on oppo-
site sides of the fence.
At one suburban Atlanta high
school's baccalaureate service, the
school administration reserved the
front rows for the students in the top 10
percent and after them, they had no
planned order. The students queued up
as they pleased - racially separate.
Worse incidents have occurred in the
past year on and off university cam-
puses nationwide.
In February, white student staffers of
the ultra-conservative Dartmouth Re-
view harassed a black professor of
music over his "Negro" style of lec-
turing.
In April, protests erupted at four
campuses over racial incidents. At the
U. of California, Berkeley, and Denison
U., Ohio, students staged sit-ins and
boycotted classes to protest insufficient
disciplinary actions against white stu-
dents who made racial slurs and van-
dalized black students' possessions.
At the U. of Kentucky and Pennsylva-
nia State U., students protested the fai-
lure of school officials to respect minor-
ity concerns.
In Austin, two Ronald Reagan-
masked, gun-toting students reportedly
invaded the dorm room of former Black
Student Alliance President Randy Bow-
man and attempted to throw him out a
window for his support of U. of Texas
(UT) divestment from South Africa.
UT police never charged anyone with
the attack on Bowman, further separat-
ing blacks and whites on campus.
The racial mistrust has caused Black
Student Alliance members to oust white
students (attending in good faith) from
their meetings.
For the past several years, Texas and
other state governments have tried to
boost minority status on campus.
Almost all of these programs have failed
to achieve their own goals.
Unfortunately, voluntary segrega-
tion only fulfills the wishes of the true
racists by removing blacks and whites
from each other's society. Members of
both races need to cross lines of mistrust
and attempt to heal these new wounds.
Outreach and open-heartedness on
both sides may be an inglorious solution
and one that requires no funding, politi-
cians or press coverage - but it is the
only one guaranteed to work.
Speaking of pap smears ... While a
pap smear is not something that comes up in every-
day conversation, Northern Arizona U.'s Fronske
Health Center officials said they believe it should be
a topic of concern to all women who are sexually
active. A number of abnormal pap smears have been
caused by the Human Papilloma or HPZ virus, which
leads to genital warts, said Dr. Donald Allred, physi-
cian at.the health center. If left untreated, the virus
may develop into cancer of the cervix. High risk
behavior encompasses thse who are sexually active
before the age of 18, those who engage in sexual
intercourse with three or more partners, or those who
are sexually involved with one partner who has had
previous involvement with three or more partners.
Through pap smear testing, the virus can usually be
found in its earliest stage and treated quickly and
easily. Corrie O'Connor, The Lumber-
jack, Northern Arizona U.
U..
The morning after .. An accidental pre-
gnancy is not something many students want to deal
with. The answer for some California State U., Chico,
students is found in the form of a "morning-after
pill." The pill is a form of post-coital contraception
available at the Student Health Center. The most
common use for the morning-after pill is for inter-
course occuring without any contraception, accord-
ing to a 1986 Health Center brochure, and treatment
must begin within 72 hours after unprotected inter-
course. The morning-after pill contains a higher-
than-usual estrogen and progesterone dose, found
in the birth control pill Ovral 28. The pill has yet to
receive approval from the Food and Drug Adminis-
tration, but if "it has been approved for one particular
use, any medication can be prescribed for other
uses, as long as it hasn't been disapproved for that
purpose," said Tom Beckman, director of the Health
Center. Renee Rasmussen, The Orion,
California State U., Chico
U..
What a headache ... Over-the-counter
drug abuse has some university health officials
worried. "Students overuse and abuse over-the-
counter drugs without knowing the physical con-
sequences that are caused by them," said David F.
Duncan, professor of health education at Southern
Illinois U., Carbondale. In a campus study of drugs
most commonly used by students, Duncan found the
statistics on aspirin use frightening. The study, taken
from a random sample of about 223 students enrol-
led in undergraduate and graduate classes, revealed
that about 12 percent of those surveyed took aspirin
with other drugs, 6 percent used aspirin daily, 3
percent reported taking at least 12 aspirin a day and
the same percent said they experienced abdominal
pain, rectal bleeding or frequent vomiting. "Far more
people die from aspirin abuse than heroin or
cocaine," Duncan said.. Holly J. Corrington,
Daily Egyptian, Southern Illinois U.,
Carbondale
U..
Cocaine
Continued From Page 19
documented in an anonymous question-
naire completed by 1,389 students last
February.
The campus statistics, which have a 3
percent margin of error, were compared
with U. of Michigan statistics on drug
use among college students nationwide.
Twelve percent of the students sur-
veyed said they had used cocaine, which
fell below the national average of 16
percent. The campus results reflect a 20
percent drop from the 1986 survey.
But 97 percent of the students here
had used alcohol, which was 6 percent
above the national average and 4 per-
cent above the previous year's figure.
Marijuana use here declined 12 percent
last year, while other illicit drug use fell
20 percent.
Student Affairs Vice Chancellor Wil-
liam Thomas said he was pleased by the
decline in illegal drug use, but
cautioned that too much education
could make the problem trivial to stu-
dents.
"There is a growing awareness about
the insidious outcome that the use of
drugs provides," Thomas said. "There is
a possibility of overdosing the popula-
tion on drug education."
By Jacki Hampton
The Breeze
James Madison U., VA
Many homesick students long for
their parents to call them on a regular
basis. Yet some would do anything to
avoid it. Janet receives a drunken
phone call from her father every
Sunday.
"He'd keep me on the phone haras-
sing me until 2 a.m. every Sunday.
Finally, I told him, 'I love you, but you're
hurting me. I'm hanging up now,' and I
felt guilty afterwards. He's 'the one
doing something wrong, but I feel guilty
... It's getting worse and I don't know
how to handle it anymore."
"Save yourself first," comes Mark's
gentle advice from across the room. His
soothing voice calms the girl, who has
been twisting her hair around her fin-
ger faster and faster and raising her
voice until it is high and shrill.
Although Mark often seems to have all
the answers because he has attended
similar groups for nine years, he stres-
ses that he is a member of a peer group,
not a certified counselor.
"Save yourself first" is almost law to
these students, who meet weekly as
part of Adult Children of Alcoholics
(ACOA). The Harrisonburg chapter,
which Mark co-founded with another
student last September, is one of 1,100
such groups around the country. They
help an estimated 28 million children
across the United States.
The rapid expansion of this program,
up from only 14 groups that met in the
early 1980s, parallels the widespread
growth in the movement to recognize
alcoholism as a disease that affects en-
tire families.
Children who dreaded coming home
from school, knowing mommy or daddy
would be passed out on the floor, carry
that fear and others into adulthood.
ACOA reaches out to these victims,
assuring them they are not alone with
their memories.
This bond allows Michael, a local high
school student, to talk freely to the other
three young people at this week's meet-
ing about his father's recent return to
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daddy anymore."
Mark reaches for Janet's slumped
shoulder and speaks slowly, "You've got
to remember that your father was che-
ated, he lost a large part of his life when
your mother became an alcoholic."
Karen, a silent member of the group
until now, shows her sudden anger. "It's
so unfair," she says, "I hadn't thought
that he'd lost part of himself, too. I
understand what you're saying, but I
still get so mad. How could he do that to
her?"
Mark again stresses the importance
of self-help for the parent, and the ob-
vious unconditional acceptance of
ACOA is what compels these ACOAs
and 20 others to attend the meetings.
Janet, an ACOA regular, will look for
a similar program after graduation. She
does, however, see some hope. "We're
going to get a lot better, but there will
always be memories. There will always
be things that make us different."
She is referring to a list of 13 charac-
teristics of ACOAs that counselor Janet
Geringer Woititz compiled in her book,
The Adult Children ofAlcoholics. These
traits, which include difficulty forming
intimate relationships and an inability
to recognize normal behavior, can pose
life-long problems, although they often
do not surface until the ACOAs reach
their 20s or 30s.
According to researchers, ACOAs are
almost four times more likely to develop
alcoholic tendencies than their peers.
Those who do not become alcoholics
themselves are prone to marry them.
Because they grew up taking care of
their parents, ACOAs naturally are
drawn to the submissive personality of
the alcoholic.
The key to defeating these problems,
as the group's opening reading states, is
to stop being "imprisoned" by their pa-
rents' disease and concentrate on be-
coming loving parents themselves.
"I guess I can't give up because I just
keep hoping that somehow my dad will
become my parent again," Janet says. "I
want him to be there for me."
The names of group members have
been changed because of the story's
sensitive nature.
White student pledges black fraternity
Universities struggling to recruit
higher number of minority faculty
By Lori Thomas
a Collegiate Times
Virginia Polytechnic and State U.
Mark Eisenhour went through a
pledging period as any fraternity
member would, learning the his-
tory and ideas of the fraternity,
while developing an intense loyalty
common to most pledges.
Eisenhour's pledging was diffe-
rent, however, because he was the
first white male to join the Virginia
Polytechnic Theta Psi chapter of
Kappa Alpha Psi, a predominantly
black fraternity.
"I went to a lot of other rushes for
other fraternities," he said. "In the
photograph books all of the pictures
were of guys holding beers, and
that's not me."
While in the Marine Corps Re-
serve, Eisenhour met Lamont
Green, a Kappa who graduated
from Tech in 1987.
"He invited me to one of the so-
cials," Eisenhour said. "I learned
what they were about and became
interested."
"The brothers reacted favorably
to Mark; he has just as much a right
to pledge as anyone," said Merv
Alphonso, the chapter polemarch
(president). "They saw that he was
very interested and very enthu-
siastic."
Eisenhour said, "The fraternity
sees itself as being three or four
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levels above the fact that I am
white. They didn't see color as
much as the interest in the
fraternity."
"The main thing I got from
(pledging) was that you work so
closely together and become one
that you don't see color differ-
ences," Eisenhour said.
Eisenhour and Alphonso said
neither believes this will cause a
great number of white students to
pledge the fraternities in the fu-
ture.
"I might have woken a few people
up, but they will already have to
want to join, and do it for the right
reason," he said.
By Rebecca J. Cisek
The University Daily Kansan
U. of Kansas
Although most job opening adver-
tisements carry the words "equal
opportunity employer" to encourage
minorities to apply, most universities,
including U. of Kansas (KU), haven't
been able to hire as many black faculty
members as they would like.
Currently, 20 of 1,042 faculty mem-
bers at KU are black.
KU administrators and black facul-
ty agree that there are many reasons
why blacks are hesitant to teach at
predominantly white universities.
The problems are varied and com-
plicated:
Low minority pools: The num-
ber of blacks earning doctorate de-
grees from 1976 to 1986 has decreased
by more than 26 percent, according to
the National Research Council in
Washington D.C. "Out of 100 to 120
applicants there might be one black
who applies," said Harold Rosson, KU
associate dean of engineering. And be-
cause of high national demand, salar-
ies at schools such as KU are often not
large enough to make faculty positions
attractive to blacks.
Location: Dorothy Pennington,
KU associate professor of communica-
tion studies and African studies, said
the number of black faculty members
at black colleges indicates their desire
to be with their peers, and many black
faculty members are looking for a cri-
tical mass of people with the same so-
cial and cultural interests which ex-
tend beyond the workplace.
Commitment: Sadye Logan, KU
associate professor of social welfare,
said the commitment to recruit and to
keep black faculty members was wide-
spread. "It's simply an attitude that is
entrenched in the system. There is a
lack of commitment to motivate
beyond recruitment and recruitment
is at a minimum," she said.
Affirmative Action: William
Harvey, associate professor of educa-
tion at North Carolina State U.,
Raleigh, said that Affirmative Action
offices are monitoring devices, more
concerned with due process than the
hiring of blacks. Also, most of the hir-
ing power rests with faculty members
- who are usually white - who make
up the majority on search committees.
Pennington said the "wave effect," a
fluctuation in the emphasis of hiring
blacks, is part of the problem.
The late'60s and early'70s were the
period of the black revolution, where
black studies departments were
started and more emphasis was put on
hiring black professors, she said.
"The movement is no longer active
and the wave has died down. It's no
longer on the forefront of people's
minds," Pennington said.
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