Ohio University - Athena Yearbook (Athens, OH)

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Volunteera Athens Mental Health Center By Kimberly Clawson To most students, the Athens Mental Health Center is a strange place. Few ever consider visiting the patients on the bus trips up to the center, unless of course, it ' s required for a class. Carlene Breedlove was one of the students required to visit the AMHC for her sociology class. She figured it was easier than writing a paper, which was her only alternative. The more time I spent there, the more attached I became, said Carlene. Now Carlene is a resident volunteer at the AMHC. She ' s a junior, studying criminology and psychology. Living at the mental health center gives Carlene the opportunity to inter- act with the patients on a regular basis. She feels that her close relationship with many patients will help her in her career. Carlene hopes to become a counselor in the judicial system, working mainly with the criminally in- sane. She works often with the patients in developing their social and communi- cation skills. In addition, she takes them on outings to McDonalds, bowling and field trips around the community. Although Carlene works with all types of patients at the center, she has a special interest in the younger resi- dents. She feels that it ' s important for the younger people to talk to a peer. Most of the residents and workers at the center are older. Therefore she spends some extra time being a good friend to someone her own age. The AMHC was contracted in 1868 and completed in 1874. It was originally called the Athens Lunatic Asylum. Carlene admits it ' s a little different living up on the hill as a volunteer. But after a short while she has become accustomed to the atmosphere and en- joys her work very much. It ' s not an illusion, people running around in white coats, it ' s just like an y other hospital, said Carlene. Larry Lankas, director of student volunteers at AMHC said, Carlene Breedlove is doing an excellent job. EB Tim Geo hegan Athens Mental Hospital volunteers stand outside the Class Gateway for evening com- muter buses. 26 — Campus Life

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freshmen fill out forms for meal cards as part of their pre- coJ ege orientation. FRESHMEN An ode to freshmen By Kim Walker We all have to start somewhere, and it ' s at the bottom where we build the foundation of our future. Freshmen are the novice youngsters their first quarter at OU, the people we love to pick on and joke about just for the fun of it. We laugh at their clothes, laugh at their friends, and even tease them about wearing new white sneak- ers on the first day of classes. We glare at them in the cafeteria, play Twenty Questions when we meet them at a bar, and treat them like children just to get on their nerves. A freshman is an individual, a per- son with thoughts and ideas of his or her own; someone who, like the rest of us, has a dream to fulfill. The thing that makes freshmen so different from the rest of us, however, is the excitement they feel about the future. They ' re anxious to be somebody, a desire which doesn ' t always last and is often hard to find. Nevertheless, everyone, including freshmen, has ex- perienced community showers, hall elections, weekend road trips and hangovers, ignoring quiet hours and driving their neighbors crazy. Fresh- men are people too. It ' s still easy to pick a freshman out in a crowd. First of all, they all have these silly smiles on their faces and are dressed in new school clothes. They don ' t go anywhere alone, except to the bathroom, and they don ' t skip classes, at least not in the first few weeks anyway. They sit near the front in a lecture room, gain weight on cold pizza and cry when they don ' t get mail on a holiday. Freshmen are teens. Freshmen are adults. They are people on the road to becoming whomever they are going to be. That is, if they can survive cafete- ria food, obnoxious roommates and drink- -drown. They ' ve got such a long way to go, yet they ' ve come so far. Young and inspired, they go on fantasizing, hoping someday to be a surgeon, a journalist, or maybe even a presidential candidate. Nevertheless, they are humans and should be looked at like the rest of us, for they will spend the next four years of their lives dreaming in green and white too. njn The Freshman Story 25

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Many students volunteer at the Mental Hospital for cJass extra credit or practical experience. Carlene Breed is one of the few dedicated understaff members who care for the mentally in- sane. Tim Geoghegan Tim Gcoghegan Athens Mental Hospital — 27