Section B · Page 6
The University Daily Kansan
Thursday, January 15, 1998
Wake-up call in the mail box
Students find switch to college can be a challenge
Many freshmen entering college are shocked when they receive their first report card. Photo illustration by Steve Purpe/KANSAN
By Carrie Patton Special to the Kansan
By Carrie Patton
Chad Horsley spent his first semester at the University of Kansas slacking. He didn't care about his academic performance until his grades and a strong dose of reality arrived in the mail.
"When I saw that my grade point average was under 2.0, after having a 3.8 in high school, I said to myself, "This is impossible," recalled Horsley, now a Toppea graduate student. "I didn't care until it was too late."
The first semester at the University can be a wake-up call for many students who coast through high school. Picking up the pieces after a bad start requires a strategy for academic success, say those who have been there.
Most college students discover that they need to study more than they did in high school, said Kathryn Nemeth Tuttle, director of the Freshman-Sophomore Advising Center.
"A lot of high-ability students have been able to succeed in high school without needing much study time, and when they come to KU it can be a shock," she said.
Students who were high achievers in high school sometimes start questioning their own abilities when they come to the University and compare themselves to other students, Nemeth Tuttle said.
"For the first time, some of the students are in classes with a large number of students who are as smart or smarter than they are," she said. "Here you're a fish in a very big fish bowl, and it can be intimidating to see how many very bright students are out there."
Horsley said his poor grades freshman year initially made him question his own intelligence.
"I said to myself, Maybe this is what you're destined to live with. Maybe you're just not cut out for college," he said.
In addition to the shock of coming to college, many freshmen don't have social relationships with other students, faculty and staff, Nemeth Tuttle said.
"Feeling connected to the University and finding a place here is a key issue," she said.
Nemeth Tuttle urged struggling students to develop strategies for using campus resources. This way they can change the issues or behaviors that cause the initial academic problems, she said.
One way to alleviate these problems is to visit with a professor outside of class, she
said.
"It is absolutely essential to make the connection with the faculty member," she said. "At the very least the student can make the connection with that faculty member and show that they care."
After his initial problems, Horsley discovered the importance of talking with professors.
"If you go to a professor and tell them flat-out that you're having a hard time in their class, they are usually more than willing to help," he said.
Horsley also advised freshmen to seek help from other sources.
"Find a mentor — an older student, a professor, an RA, anyone you see as a role model—and ask them how they succeeded, and then pattern yourself after them," Horsley said. "Make those steps, because if people know how hard you're trying to do better, then you will be surprised how often those people are there to back you up."
Another strategy for succeeding at the University is to utilize academic supportive services.
"We have a lot of resources at KU that students are either unaware of or just don't use," Nemeth Tuttle said.
Such resources include the Freshman Sophomore Advising Center, the Student Development Center and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Undergraduate Advising Services.
Mary Myers, assistant director of the Student Development Center, said her office conducted academic success workshops throughout the school year. It offers programs on study skills, time management, memory and note taking, and exam preparation, as well as workshops for learning foreign languages and calculus.
But hard work does not automatically equal success, Horsley said. Students must realize the purpose of being in college.
"People often call it the moment of clarity, when you suddenly realize that there is more than just you to think about," Horsley said. "I'm the first person in my family to go to college. It wasn't just about me anymore. It was about my family, the future, everything." he said.
Nemeth Tuttle stressed the importance of having a sense of direction or purpose to motivate one's studies.
"It's fine to be undecided in your major, but when you have direction, it helps a great deal," Nemeth Tuttle said.
"Motivation is one key thing that's not very teachable. Somewhere, deep inside, a student needs to find the guts to say that 'this does matter to me.'" Nemeth Turtle said.
Horsley said students find that college is about much more than studying and partying.
"Find a focus, something that you enjoy
doing, whether it's academic or not. To have a well-rounded education means to experience a wide variety of things, from going to museums to attending plays to just drinking coffee at Perkins. Simple things like that can expand your horizons," he said.
For Horsley, extracurricular activities during his second semester helped him pull himself out of his academic trench.
"That definitely boosted my interest in
school," he said. "I felt like a role model to the other people in my organizations. We all tried to do well in our classes because we felt we owed it to the group," he said.
both Nemeth Tuttle and Myers stressed that academic success is attainable for anyone who is committed to getting a degree.
"All students, if they put their minds to it, can succeed at KU or at other schools," Myers said.
Publicity leads to growth in removing hair
Violet Mulford, an Epilaser technician at the University of Kansas Medical Center, aims a beam of light from a laser hair-removal system at another technician, Carol Brown. Each beam of the ruby laser light covers an area about the size of a pencil eraser and destroys the follicles of at least a dozen hair shafts. Photo by Lisa Stevens John/KANSAN
Med Center busy using EpiLaser
By Lisa Stevens John
Kansan staff writer
A ruby laser light treatment at the University of Kansas Medical Center has made unwanted body hair a thing of the past.
"Men, as well as women, are using our treatment," Mulford said. "Men usually come in to have hair removed from their backs. Women are interested in having hair removed from their faces, underarms, bikini area or legs."
Since publicity last fall about the Med Center's hair removal system, Violet Mulford, an EpiLaser technician, said the Med Center had been swamped with requests for the treatment.
EpiLaser targets the pigment and melanin in the hair and follows it down the root, destroying the follicle.
Anne Cramer, plastic surgeon in charge of the Epilaser program the Med Center, said there were times when hair removal was medically necessary.
Cramer said that a health-insurance company had agreed to pay for hair removal on a female patient diagnosed with hirsutism, which is the presence of excessive body and facial hair.
"Also, we have some post-mastectomy patients whose underarm areas wind up being too irregularly-contoured to be shaved." Cramer said. "Not only are these women dealing with the emotional and physical trauma of cancer and surgery, but they're having to put up with hairy armpits as well."
Cramer said it had been an eye-opening experience to see how hair removal positively could affect peoples' lives.
cian at the Med Center. Brown said the EpiLaser system could zap a dozen hairs with a single beam of light. This is faster than electrolysis, which targets one hair follicle at a time.
"The laser uses the hair as a wick to get into the follicle," Mulford said.
It takes 15 minutes for an EpiLaser technician to remove all the hair from a woman's upper lip. Two follow-up appointments made at eight-week intervals finalize the procedure.
"Having unwanted body hair is a much bigger problem than most people imagine," Cramer said. "If you don't have the problem, it's hard to take it as seriously as it really is."
The cost for removal of hair from the upper lip is $500. If done by electrolysis, the process could cost from $500 to $1,000, and it could take from one to two years to complete, Brown said.
For men, the cost of using Epi-
Laser to remove hair from their backs and shoulders ranges from
$550 to $1,000. Brown said.
"A lot of the men who have come in for treatment were embarrassed to go to the swimming pool because of all the hair on their backs," Brown said. "From what we're hearing, they've been very happy with our treatment."
EpiLaser is not only for the young. 1 Mulford said she treats people of all ages, the oldest so far being an 83-year-old grandmother.
Carol Brown, a licensed Lawrence electrologist for 20 years, is also an Epilaser techni-
The addition of several new members could help resurrect an old sorority and begin a new fraternity.
Students try to establish breathe life into chapters
Members of Sigma Gamma Rho, which is historically an AfricanAmerican sorority, are trying to rejuvenate the chapter at the University of Kansas. Members of Iota Phi Theta, a historically African-American fraternity that has been active for a little more than a semester, are attempting to get their fraternity on its feet.
By Carl Kaminski
Kansan staff writer
"There is a seven-year period where if it is not restarted, you have to start over," she said.
Stacy Yeager, president of the Sigma Gamma Rho sorority at Kansas State University, said that she had made progress reviving the chapter at the University of Kansas. The chapter almost dissolved two years ago when all of its members graduated.
There are at least four women at the University who have expressed interest in starting a chapter.
There are eight historically African-American fraternities and sororities at the University.
Yeager, who plans to attend graduate school at the University next fall, said she wanted to have the chapter back on its feet in February.
Chris Simkulet, Port Crane, N.Y., junior, has been working to jump start Sigma Gamma Rho.
The Iota Phi Theta fraternity has initiated two members. It needs five members to have an official chapter.
"That looks very promising to happen by the end of the semester," said Dion Jones, St. Croix, Virgin Islands, junior, founder of the University's iota Phi Theta chapter.
Jones said he took steps to start the new Iota Phi Theta fraternity at the University because he believed in what the fraternity stood for.
Simkulet said she wanted to help restart the chapter because there were so few African-American Greek organizations.
"We can't really do much more than just find other people," she said.
Website http://www.geocieties.com/CollegePark/Campus@6332
Iota Phi Theta
CHAPTER INFORMATION
Kansas State University 1-888
362-4563, then press 2*744219212
Sigma Gamma Rho
Dion Jones 842-3540
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To The Men of Kappa Sigma,
Thanks for all your hard work for Rock Chalk Revue.
-The women of Alpha Gamma Delta
.