Chicago Tribune (CT) - MONDAY November 8, 1993 Edition: DU PAGE SPORTS FINAL Section: DU PAGE Page: 1 Word Count: 949
Jerry Thomas, Tribune Staff Writer

But there she was last week, one of about 50 students sitting nervously on wooden chairs in the cozy Coffee House on the North Shore campus-waiting to be tested for the HIV virus.

She was there because in August she had a "tweety bird" drawn on one of her ankles. The virus, she was later told, could be spread through the needles used by the tattoo artist if they were contaminated.

"I know I don't have it," said Klancir, speaking optimistically. "But it is so scary. You have to be careful nowadays. It is spreading so fast."

Allen Willoughby, of Kentucky, a freshman defensive lineman for the college's football team, also was in the room with Klancir.

"I am pretty sure I don't have the disease, or I am hoping I don't," said Willoughby, who has been previously tested. "I usually use protection in my extracurricular activities."

Whether they're afraid or simply seeking reassurance, students are flocking to the free HIV tests being offered at the college. At a similar session offered by the Lake County Health Department two weeks ago, the demand was so high that the agency was asked to come back. In all, about a tenth of the school's 1,000 students were tested.

Several years ago, many students might have been too embarrassed or frightened to seek an HIV test, health officials said. But the testing has now become mainstream at many college campuses.

At Northwestern University in Evanston the number of students getting tested on campus for HIV has more than tripled in the past eight years, school officials say. "We used to average about 130 students a year," said Chuck Loebbaka, a university spokesman. "We now give about 500 a year."

He was referring to tests that are not free. Northwestern students have protested the $27 fee college officials charged for the test. Last month, Loebbaka said, the fee was reduced to $16.

Students at other schools, like Lake Forest and Chicago State University, meanwhile, are turning out in large numbers when free testing is provided.

"The students asked when were we doing it again," said Sandra Westbrook, Chicago State's assistant provost and dean of student development, who said 100 students responded when a free testing program was offered there this year.

Donald C. Peters, president of the American College Health Association and the vice-chancellor for student affairs at the University of Mississippi in Oxford, said students appear to be more receptive to on-campus testing programs, feeling the results are more likely to be kept confidential. AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome), in which the body's immunity system breaks down, leading to fatal illnesses, is caused by the HIV virus. The virus can be transmitted by the exchange of fluids during sexual intercourse, and by exchanges of contaminated blood in transfusions or the shared use of contaminated hypodermic needles. Infected mothers can also transmit the virus to their fetuses.

There is no known cure for the disease, but some drugs have prolonged the lives of some infected people.

"We are seeing some change of behavior," Peters said of the trend among many college students to seek HIV tests. "We have educated students to be more responsive. If you are HIV positive, you can infect more people. And with the treatment on the market, if they find out earlier they have HIV, they might be able to prolong their lives."

As of the end of October, 2,041 people between the ages of 20 and 29 had been diagnosed with full-blown AIDS in Illinois, since the state Department of Public Health began keeping statistics in 1981. The number of people known to be HIV stands at 3,318, state health officials say.

But there are exceptions to what is an otherwise positive trend among college students.

Early last month, officials from the Lake County Health Department also offered free testing at the College of Lake County in Grayslake and less than a dozen of the school's 16,000 students signed up.

Thomas Newberry III, a 23-year-old counselor and outreach worker for the health department, walked through the busy corridors of the school with pamphlets about AIDS, hoping his smile and small talk about the disease would encourage students to go to the nurse's office for a 30-minute seminar with experts and a visit with a nurse who would conduct the test.

For the most part, he acknowledged, "They looked at me like I was crazy. Basically, it's just that first fear. I had one guy throw my brochure at my feet."

Minutes later, however, a 20-year-old female student from Waukegan did appear at the nurse's office.

"I have a steady boyfriend, but I don't know who he has been with in the past, and I don't know if who I was with in the past will come back to haunt me," she said. Health officials say testing is more successful at Lake Forest College than at CLC, a commuter college, because most of the Lake Forest students live on campus and its student leaders took an active role in promoting the testing.

The college is nestled between some of the North Shore's most exclusive mansions, and attracts many students from upper-income families.

Emily Berkeley, a member of the student group called SHELF (Sexual Health Educators of Lake Forest College) that took part in spreading the word about the free testing, said, "Lake Forest thinks it is immune to AIDS, because it is a small wealthy school, but it is so easy to get AIDS."

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