United without the
mainstream
The Nontraditional Student Union hosts activities
year round such as family friendly game nights
BY SUSAN GOODWIN
FREELANCE REPORTER
“Nontraditional student” is a self
identified label used by students from
a variety of backgrounds.
“Nontraditional is anything not
thought of as typically mainstream.
So there is huge room for interpreta
tion,” 21-year-old Richard Pryor said.
He came to the University immedi
ately after high school and studies
creative writing and English litera
ture, but self-identifies as a nontradi
tional student.
Pryor serves on the Student Recre
ation Center Advisory Board as the
nontraditional student liaison.
“I was referred to the co-director
who invited me to participate in the
union. From there, I’ve just been try
ing to get involved as much as possi
ble, pitch in and lend a helping
hand,” he said.
Nontraditional students who have
a family or full-time job do not have
as much time as traditional students
to socialize.
“You can only fill your life with so
many extra-curriculars and relation
ships, so you prioritize the ones that
are important to you,” said Michael
Creech, a 45-year-old geophysics and
mathematics major. Creech spends
his free time with his children and
grandchildren or in his wood shop at
home.
Director Kyna Langhorne, 30, is a
second-year transfer student studying
mathematics and Spanish. She re
turned to school after moving from
Virginia and taking time off to raise
her daughter.
“Nontrads are more at risk than
traditional students because they
have so much riding on this. In their
day, they have to get schoolwork
done and then go home and cook
dinner, then pick up the kids and do
the kids’ homework and somehow fit
in their own studying. If they have a
partner, spend a few minutes with
their partner to keep everything going
well. ... Nontrads are at risk for feel
ing isolated on campus if they didn’t
have a place to come, or don’t know
about this place,” Langhorne said.
Not all nontraditional students
have families or full-time jobs. Some,
like Nontraditional Student Union co
director Shimeon Greenwood, identi
fy as nontraditional students because
they transferred after taking a hiatus
from school.
Greenwood, a 23-year-old business
major, has two groups of friends he
socializes with on a regular basis.
One is fellow nontraditional students
and the other is “students who have
more free time to hang out.”
“After last year’s Spring Potluck
where we elected this year’s officials,
I had a cocktail party for everyone.
Only two nontraditional students
were able to attend because of prior
obligations. So I had to fill my house
with other students who had never
heard of the Nontraditional Student
Union,” Greenwood said.
Suite 20A, a small office with five
computers and hot coffee next to The
Break Pool Hall and Arcade and the
Campus Copy Center in the base
ment of the EMU is a meeting place
for nontraditional students on cam
pus. Nontraditional students go there
to relax and chat with fellow nontra
ditional students who experience the
stress of student life while also par
enting or working.
“Every student has difficulties on a
daily basis,” said Pryor. “But non
trads have different difficulties to face
in addition to the typical student
challenges, like a family or full-time
job, so they understand what each
other is going through. Even if they
don’t understand another nontrad’s
specific conflict, they understand go
ing through a conflict that challenges
their success as a student. The office
is a place for nontrads to relax and
support each other.”
The NSU organizes events to fur
ther build the nontraditional student
community. This year the NSU plans
to host a family-friendly game night
once a month beginning Nov. 4.
Game nights are evenings of board
games, eating, and socializing in the
River Rooms of the EMU.
The NSU has two annual parties
during spring term, the spring
Potluck and the Nontrad Grad. These
parties are for nontraditional students
and their families to celebrate the end
of the year and elect new officers for
the coming school year.
North Country disappoints
Star appeal and promising premise can't raise
movie above made-for-TV melodrama
BY CHRISTY LEMIRE
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Charlize Theron doesn’t stand on
a table in the middle of a factory
holding up a cardboard sign in
“North Country,” but you suspect
that she could at any moment.
The film from “Whale Rider” di
rector Niki Caro, about one woman
who fought the horrors of sexual ha
rassment at a northern Minnesota
iron mine by filing an unprecedented
class-action lawsuit, definitely has
that inspirational “Norma Rae” feel
to it. It also feels like a glorified TV
movie, with its topical subject matter,
well-timed emotional turnarounds
and corny courtroom ending.
What elevates the film above the
frequent two-dimensionality of
Michael Seitzman’s script are the
performances from an esteemed
cast — especially from Theron,
powerfully reserved but still radiant
beneath her stripped-down exterior.
Frances McDormand has a no-non
sense likability as the friend who
encourages her to take a job at the
mine, Sissy Spacek is quietly mov
ing as Theron’s disapproving moth
er, and Thomas Curtis has some
wrenching moments as Theron’s
unsympathetic teenage son.
But for a movie about sexual harass
ment — which can be a gray area in
terms of interpretation and can be hard
to prove even at its most offensively
obvious — nearly everyone and every
thing about “North Country” is paint
ed in didactic black and white.
Inspired by a true story, the film
stars Theron as Josey Aimes, a single
mother of two who returns to her
hometown after leaving her abusive
husband. In need of work, she ap
plies for a job at the local mine on the
urging of her old friend Glory (Mc
Dormand), who drives a truck there
and is a union leader.
One of only a handful of female
employees, Glory warns Josey that
the work can be tough and the treat
ment from male colleagues can be
tougher. But the money is good,
which is Josey’s primary concern as
she struggles alone to support son
Sammy (Curtis) and daughter Karen
(Elle Peterson). She can’t count on
help from her parents — her father
(Richard Jenkins from “Six Feet Un
der”) is a longtime mine worker
who resents his daughter for taking
a job he believes a man should
have; her old-fashioned mother du
tifully, silently agrees.
Even before Josey starts, her boss
warns her that the job will require
her to do “all sorts of things a woman
shouldn’t be doing,” and urges all the
female employees to have a “sense of
humor, ladies — rule numero uno.”
A sex toy hidden in a young
woman’s lunch box eventually gives
way to unwanted physical contact in
dark corners and dirty words
smeared in feces on the walls of the
women’s locker room. (Caro and cin
ematographer Chris Menges evoke a
sense of their isolation through beau
tifully bleak wide shots of the smoky
mines and the cold, vast terrain.)
The men are unrelentingly cruel —
even Josey’s father looks the other
way at the treatment his daughter en
dures. The leader of the bullies, Bob
by Sharp (Jeremy Renner), happens
to be someone Josey was involved
with back in high school, who still
NORTH, page 14B
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