Newspapers / North Carolina Wesleyan University … / Feb. 26, 1993, edition 1 / Page 6
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PAGE 6 — THE DECREE — FEBRUARY 26,1993 II ENJOYING TRIP TO FRANCE — The 1992 Summer NCWC Sorbonne Study Abroad Pr(^ram students visited the Vaux-le-Vicomte Chateau in France on a tour included as part of the program. Plans have already been announced for this summer’s trip. (Contributed photo by Karine Sparrow- Ginter.) Broken homes put burden on many college students By KAREN NEUSTADT (CPS) — Sorry, Dan Quayle, but the “Leave it to Beaver” tra ditional family fantasy doesn’t exist in the ‘90s, and college stu dents, many of them coping with complicated stepfamilies or ex tended families, don’t compre hend the concept By the time a teen reaches col lege, his or her parents may have divorced at least once, tied the knot twice, and some have said “I do” three times. Stepmoms, stepdads, and stepsiblings are a growing part of college life, and some mental health experts say students are paying an emotional price for their parents’ lifestyles. “I observe that there is a great deal of pain in people who come from divided and blended fami lies,” said Jeane B. Lee, a mental health counselor at Mississippi State University near Starkville. “They sense that their parents’ allegiance is divided, and they are dangling without a good support system.” Lee said college-age stodents often feel betrayed by divorced parents and complain that they are caught in the cross-fire of a relationship that is never peace ful. “People who share children are never really divorced,” Lee said. “Children in college have not out grown their need for supporting parents, and they grieve their losses.” Often a second marriage can become more strenuous than the first. “I see many new stepmothers who are jealous of college-age daughters who are close to their dads,” she said. “And I often see the natural parent under a great deal of stress and anxiety because they are trying to make everyone happy.” While some college students have been dealing with stepfamilies for years, others have to face the breakup of their fami lies while they are in school. “Often students go into a tail- spin, and feel helpless to deal with the situation,” said Joyce Broth ers, a nationally known psycholo gist who studies family and mar riage issues. “You would think it would not affect them much, because they have started independent lives, but this is just not the case,” she said. She described the dilemma of the college student caught up in a family breakup as having “one foot at home and one foot in the world.” Students can feel deep anger at parents who use them as pawns against their partners. Brothers suggested that students take ad vantage of campus counseling centers as a source of temporary support. “It’s a very unexpectedly dif ficult time. It blind-sides you.” she said, noting that people are more concerned with the younger children in the family and don’t think about the emotional needs of the coUege-age children. The psychologist recommends that students caU home frequently during divorce to reassure them selves that family members are doing well. Brothers also said college-age children often do not feel love toward a new stepmother or step father, and the best they can ex pect is to establish a friendship. - College students siiffei* enough stress without the additional bur den of parental divorce and fam-^ ily problems, said Joseph Sun- dram, project director at the In stitute of HeartMath, an indepen dent research center in Torrance, Calif. “Young people out of broken families need to understand that, at the beginning of their adult lives, maturity is about emotional and mental self-management, and without that, no external success will ever offer balance, fiin, or fulfillmenC he said. Wesleyan offers students chance to study abroad This spring and summer bring exciting opportunities for Wes leyan students to expand their ho rizons by traveling and studymg abroad. Karine Sparrow-Ginter, coor dinator of foreign languages and study abroad, announced an eight- day trip May 8-15 highlighting the cultural heritage of Mexico. She will also conduct the second annual N.C. Wesleyan Summer Study at the Sorbonne in Paris, France, from June 29 until Aug. 10. While the programs are espe cially enticing for foreign lan guage students, there are no pre requisites and no minimum lan guage ability, nor do students have to be currenfly enrolled in a language class at Wesleyan. Free tutoring will be provided for be ginning French students who par ticipate in the program in Paris. The program in Mexico will include three nights of hotel ac commodations in Mexico City, one night in Taxco, and three nights in Acapulco. Special ex- cu sions will include a sightseeing tour of Mexico City, an excur sion to the pyramids of Teotihuacan, a visit to the basilica of Guadalupe, and a panoramic tour of Cuernavaca and Taxco. Students will also have sufficient free time to enjoy the beaches of Acapulco. Students who participate in the Sorbonne program will enjoy five days of orientation to Paris be fore they begin their language classes at the Sorboime. After tak ing a placement test, students will be placed into a class at their own level of ability in French, from absolute beginning to advanced. Students will attend class at the Sorbonne for two hours each morning for four weeks in addi tion to ten extra hours of phonet ics classes. The course earns three hours of Wesleyan credit in addi tion to a certificate from the Sorbonne, one of the oldest and most prestigious universities in the world. Students in the Sorbonne pro gram may also register for up to six additional hours of credit. While the course at the Sorbonne is taughttoySorbonne professors, Sparrow-Ginter will teach a French civilization course and a French theatre course. The civilization course empha sizes the liistory of France along with its art, architecture, and deco rative arts. An important part of the course is visiting the muse ums, monuments, and chateaux of the Paris region. Students in the theatre course will attend approximately 10 plays at the famous Com^die Francaise and at other theatres of Paris. Plays wUl be selected which give a representative sampling of different periods of French the atre, from classical to modem. Discussions of the plays wiU take place before and after each per formance. Last year 17 students partici pated in tiie first Wesleyan pro gram in Paris. Students from UNC-Chapel Hill, the College of William and Mary, Meredith Col lege, and Barton College enrolled in Wesleyan as visiting students in order to participate in the pro gram. They were joined by NCWC students Levent Adam, Paul Batigne, Muriel Damiani, Debbie Oster, and Christy Skojec. This year Wesleyan students will be joined by visiting students from American University, Will iam and Mary, UNC-CH, N.C. State University, UNC-Greens- boro, and East Carolina Univer sity. Students in the French pro gram will reside in a student Foyer in the Latin Quarter of Paris, a short walk from the Sorbonne and across the street from the beautiful Luxembourg Gardens. The building mcludes a roof top terrace with a beautiful view of Paris, a party room,a music room, a piano room, a cafeteria where breakfast is served, class rooms where the civilization and theatre classes will meet, and ho tel services. Two optional excursions will be offered for students in France; a weekend in Normandy and a week-long tour of the south of France, Italy, and Switzerland. Interested students should in quire at the Foreign Language Center, Pearsall 272, or call Pro fessor Sparrow-Ginter at 985- 5186. Deposits on both programs should be made by March 26, she said.
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Feb. 26, 1993, edition 1
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