More and more women age 30 and older are attending NIU, yet many feel alone on campus.

The Office of University Resources for Women, located in the Wirtz House, opposite the Holmes Student Center, is just one NIU program to help these women cope.

One of the main functions of the office is to remind the women that “they’re not alone,” said Judy Lynn Skorek, O.U.R. Women research associate. The office provided direct services to nearly 700 women during 1986-87, she said.

The office offers counseling, information about NIU and the weekly Brown Bag Lunch discussion series. Topics range from assertiveness training to careers.

The office’s two full-time and one half-time staffers have accompanied women to meetings with advisers, and to NIU departments such as admissions and financial aid. “Sometimes all it takes is a beginning,” Skorek said.

The office was created in 1979 as a support service for women. However, all ages and sexes are welcome.

Some older students feel “out of place in classes, especially if they’re taking lower level classes,” said Kathy Hotelling, director of NIU’s Counseling and Student Development office.

“Some of them feel alone, even on a campus this size,” Skorek said. “Students don’t normally have a tendency to converse with older students. These aren’t the kind of people who go to frats or bars.”

Dawn Scheffner is a career planning and placement counselor working on her doctorate in the adult education program. She agrees that older students often feel cut off from campus because so many attend school part-time or in the evening.

“They feel different also, because if they are in a class where most of the students are traditional-age students, they feel awkward, they feel old, they could feel very conspicuous.

“It calls for a restructuring of a person’s life. Some people are just not used to having to do this, and don’t know how to begin.”

Problems can be multi-faceted for the older woman who enters or re-enters college. “Coming back to school, if there is a family, creates new stresses for everyone. They (the older women students) also come into an environment that is set up for traditional students and they are basically non-traditional students. Some are gutsy enough to come back full-time,” Skorek said.

Child care is one problem that older men usually don’t need to deal with when they attend college, she said. “I have never had one man ask me about child care facilities. I’m not saying that doesn’t happen.

“Some (problems) are personal. Some people can handle the bureaucratic scene but it’s more personal issues that are more difficult for them to deal with,” Skorek said.