Returnina students: Better late than never
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Food variety one of the surprises
for Soviet exchange students
By Corinna Gilfillan
■ The Chronicle
Duke U.
Three students at Duke U this year
are amazed at the variety of choices
offered them in class scheduling,
extracurricular activities — and food
There is a wider variety of foods at
Duke than at Soviet universities, says
Roman Lola, one of three Soviet seniors
participating in an exchange program
sponsored by the Institute of
International Education
"It is very unusual for me to go to the
salad bar and combine a salad according
to taste. At Moscow there are already
prepared salads and you can't be a com
poser with your food,” he said
Lola, a student from Moscow State V .
is pursuing an economics major. He took
a full load of courses first semester and
began researching anti-inflation policy
this spring
“I think the economics department at
I hike has much more to do with real eco
nomics than at the department in
Moscow State U ,” I xila said "At Moscow
it is differently directed and oriented
more on the political economy ”
Students at Duke have more freedom
to choose courses they want to take than
Soviet students do. he said In the Soviet
Union, students must declare their
majors when they enter college and also
fulfill a rigid set of requirements, he said
Vitaliy Chemetstv, another student
from MSU, said he has enjoyed his first
month at Duke studying English. One
difference he has noticed between the
two schools is the role of student activi
ties, he said. In the Soviet Union, stu
dents are not as involved in activities as
they are at Duke, Chernetsty said
"In the Soviet Union, student activi
ties are formalized People became apa
thetic and not willing to get involved.
People are becoming more active now
due to the economical and political
changes in the country. We are trying to
make it less formalized but we don’t
know what we want,” he said.
Chernetsty is studying the problems
of translation between Russian and
English, and the impacts of one culture
on another at Duke, he said
The Duke MSI' exchange is one of 250
such programs administered through
HE. The other programs involve more
than 150 countries.
HE was created by a cultural agree
ment made m 1985 between former
President Ronald Reagan and Soviet
Premier Mikhail Gorbachev, said
Carlisle Harvard, director of the Duke
program.
The Institute organizes the exchange
and chooses universities in the United
States to host the Soviet students, she
said This year, 12 Soviet students
attend Duke, Harvard U., Indiana EE
and Rice U.
The 3-year-old program is funded by
the United States Information Agency,
the MacArthur Foundation and private
donors The universities hosting the
Soviet students also share some of the
costs.
Students may contact HE’s New York
office at 2121 883-8200.
By Steve Weisman
■ The UCSD Guardian
U. of California, San Diego
In 1971, Debbie Kelso attended her
first class at l' of California, San Diego.
However, her dream of an education was
a dream deferred — she wound up work
ing for 15 years as a bus driver for San
Diego Transit
During the fall of 1988, Kelso returned
to UCSD. She was 38
“I remember mv first day back." Kelso
said “1 drove up— 1 thought I could park
anywhere I got lost. The first term I got
overwhelmed bv the shock ”
Kebbecca Cobb, another non-tradi
tional student, understands these feel
ings and runs a group called Students
Returning After Time Away, which
offers support to non-traditional stu
dents Cobb said many non-traditional
students are interested only in the
schoolwork aspect of UCSD, but that
there are others who seek more involve
ment in campus activities.
STRATA has 12-15 members, who
meet weekly to discuss what is going on
in their lives, she said.
"I think some people need a little
assurance,” Cobb said. “It’s there if they
need it It's a support that needs to be
there Many students do not contact us
simply because they haven’t heard about
it, or else expect it to be some sort of com
mittee ”
Kelso said she finds more time to
spend on campus than many non-tradi
tional students because she does not
have a husband or children. She spends
six to eight hours a day at school
Through organizations such as STRA
TA and contacts with professors and
classmates, Kelso said she has built her
own support system, something she said
she didn’t do when she attended UCSD
in the early ’70s.
One of the main problems mature stu
dents face that Cobb hopes to deal with
through STRATA is communication
with the faculty. She said professors do
not know how to deal with older students
and either treat them as if they were 18
or treat them as if they should know
everything and should not be struggling
with class material.
“We hope to bring in some professors
to open the lines of communication."
Cobb said
Competing against and dealing with
“traditional’’ students also may pose
problems for older students.
“My biggest fear was how younger stu
dents would perceive me, and how I
would deal with the classes," Kelso
admits.
Despite her early apprehension, how
ever, Kelso now finds that most of her
friends are traditional students, and she
said they keep her from becoming stag
nant.
Jayn Patron, a 29-vear-old computer
science and engineering major, said she
experienced problems when she lived in
an on-campus apartment
“It’s a w'hole lifestyle. You feel
detached. You feel really different,” slu
said, adding that she moved off campus
after one month.
See RETURNING, Page 12
Struggle
Continued from page 1
mutating ideas for the book during his
senior year in high school.
After returning from summer vaca
tion. he learned that a classmate, leng
Seng, had died Farmbry was out
raged by the lack of attention Ieng's
death received in comparison to
another student who also died over
the summer.
Farmbry said it was then that he
realized how American society over
looks immigrants from Southeast
Asia, and he began to research this
group of children.
“String Bracelet" was a one-man
project.
In April of his senior year, Farmbry
began contacting programs for
refugee youths asking for essays,
poems or brief compositions written
by Southeast Asians He compiled
these works — written by children
whose ages range from 11 to 18 — and
contacted a photographer, Marcus
Halevi, who donated the photos that
document the frightful images the
children describe.
After typesetting the book on his
Macintosh computer, Farmbrv talked
with various publishers about his
work, lntercultural Productions
decided to print it, and the books were
ready to sell last September.
Farmbry spent all summer fund
raising for the project. The
Philadelphia School District agreed to
use 500 copies of the project in its
“English for Speakers of Other
Languages” program, but did not
have the money to buy them
Farmbry found a way to fund the
school district’s efforts by soliciting a
Philadelphia bank that agreed to
sponsor the purchase.
□
PHOTO COURTESY OF MARCUS HALEVI