By Sam KayEditor in Chief

Governor John Kasich unveiled his budget proposal Tuesday, includ-ing a 14.5 percent cut to the funding Miami University receives from the state of Ohio in fiscal year 2011-12. The cut, not yet approved by the Ohio General Assembly, represents about 3 percent of Miami’s overall budget, or $9.7 million, according to David Creamer, Miami’s vice president for finance and business services.

This is the kind of cut Miami had been expecting and planning for through the Strategic Priorities Task-force (SPT), Creamer said.

“When we did the planning, we said ‘use 15 percent,’ and it’s 14.5,” Creamer said. “That’s a big part of

what the SPT identified, decreasing state support, that over time there would be more financial issues for us to address.”

This is the largest cut in state fund-ing Miami has faced since the early 1990s, according to Creamer. At that time, Miami made up the budget gap primarily by raising tuition, but that is unlikely to happen this time around, Creamer said. Kasich’s proposal caps any in-state tuition increase at 3.5 percent and Creamer said Miami stu-dents might see a smaller increase.

Creamer said SPT’s recommenda-tions, which the university recently hired consulting firm Accenture to implement, will make it possible to weather the budget shortfall without a drastic tuition increase.

The tuition increase “will likely

be somewhere between 2.5-3.5 per-cent,” Creamer said. “What we’ve been in for the last few years is a slower rate of (tu-ition) increase, and we want to continue that.”

Creamer said it is possible the General Assem-bly will increase the cut in the next few months.

“The odds of it getting smaller are not very good. The odds of it in-creasing are a little bit greater, and that’s because a lot of difficult decisions were made in the governor’s budget,” Creamer said.

Miami director of institutional relations Randi Thomas said he understands the need for a cut at

some level.“Pretty much

everyone took cuts,” Thomas said. “Everyone, not just higher education, is sharing the sacri-fice … that’s not easy to take, but we understand the circumstances the state is in and we understand the shared sacri-

fice has to go on.”Student Body Vice President

Tim Hogan, whose duties include

lobbying for state funding in consulta-tion with other state universities, said it is important for Miami to adjust to the cuts without significant negative impacts on the student experience.

“When money doesn’t come in, we have to completely reevaluate what we need and how we function as a university,” Hogan said. “We should put budget cuts where they affect students least.”

The governor’s office did not pro-vide comment on specifics of the cuts, but Kasich spokesperson Con-nie Wehrkamp said the governor is concerned about Ohio’s brain drain.

“If we want Ohio to be an eco-nomic leader, we have to retain our best-educated by providing good job opportunities,” Wehrkamp said via e-mail.

By Clare KiernanFor The Miami Student

With student body elections just around the corner, Miami University’s Associated Student Government (ASG) is going to great lengths to increase stu-dent involvement. In an effort to reach the most frequently underrepresented segment of campus, ASG is turning their attention to underclassmen.

Teaming up with the Residence Hall Association (RHA), ASG is planning “meet the candidate” events in campus quads to give students a better idea of who they will be voting for in the up-coming March 24 primary elections and March 31 general elections.

According to ASG Secretary for Public Relations, David Hall, the candidates are eager to speak to resi-dents, explain their campaign plat-forms, and listen to the concerns of fellow students.

“We are adding these ‘meet the can-didate nights’ to involve more of the student body in the elections process

in the hopes of electing candidates who have a broad appeal and are aware of more Miami University issues,” Hall said.

First-year students and sophomores are some of the most important voters, said Heath Ingram, student body presi-dent. Although the current electorate is making decisions, the underclass-men will be the ones feeling the results long after present student leaders have graduated, Ingram said.

Tim Hogan, student body vice president, agrees.

“If they (students) are engaged with what ASG is doing as underclassmen, they will be more aware of how to uti-lize it as a student voice throughout the remainder of their college career,” Hogan said.

Although underclassmen participa-tion is vital, one issue ASG faces is the struggle to efficiently communicate with this sector of the student popula-tion, said Hall.

The Miami StudentFriday, March 18, 2011

Oldest university newspaper in the United States, established 1826MIAMI UNIVERSITY OXFORD, OHIOVOLUME 138 NO. 45

In 1961, The Miami Student reported the Board of Trustees had approved a $12.50 fee increase for in-state students and $25 fee increase for out-of-state students to take effect in Sept. 1962. With the increase, fees and room and board costs amounted to $1,125 a year for in-state students and $1,475 a year for out-of-state students.

FSB ranks in ‘Businessweek’ top 25 business schools

Kasich proposes $9.7 million cut for MU

Seniors Emily Wehmeier and Ryan Amos donate to the senior class gift Thursday at GradFest.

SAMANTHA LUDINGTON The Miami Student

By Garrett SmithFor The Miami Student

Bloomberg Businessweek released their 2011 Undergraduate Business School rankings March 3 and Miami University’s Farmer School of Business (FSB) landed in the top 25 for the fourth consecutive year with a ranking of 22nd.

Since ranking 35th in 2007, FSB has finished in the top 25 each year with fluc-tuating rankings of 24th in 2008, 18th in 2009 and 16th in 2010.

“I wouldn’t necessarily say [Miami] dropped off,” said Farmer School of Business Assistant Dean, Ted Pickerill. “In any ranking system like this there’s some volatility between 16 and 22. Al-though Businessweek does not share the specific score of every category or final cumulative point total, I don’t believe one will find a very significant difference between 16 and 22. We’re proud that we moved into and are now consistently in the top 25.”

First-year honors business student Ryan McHenry, who considered at-tending other highly ranked schools such as the University of Washington and Georgetown University, said under-graduate rankings like the Businessweek ranking impacted his college selection.

“It factored into my decision and I’m sure it’s factored into many other peoples’ decisions,” McHenry said. “I think it will continue to attract more talent than what it would if it wasn’t ranked as high.”

According to an explanatory piece on the rankings written by Louis Lavelle, Bloomberg Businessweek uses a plethora of data to establish their rankings includ-ing a survey of senior business students, with a weighting system that compiles surveys from this year and two previous years as well. Corporate recruiters are also polled and universities are asked for data such as average ACT/SAT scores, faculty to student ratio, and the median starting salary of graduates.

“I like the Businessweek ratings be-cause most of the metrics that they use are consistent with the things that we’re trying to do,” FSB Senior Associate Dean Tim Krehbiel said. “We’re try-ing to attract good students that study a lot, get internships, are in small classes with good faculty to student ratios and get good starting salaries. A lot of the metrics of Businessweek align with the initiatives that the Farmer School are interested in.”

Miami ranked 7th among public schools, down one slot from 6th place in 2010, giving ground to Indiana Univer-sity’s Kelley School of Business. FSB was also ranked highest among all Ohio schools, with Case Western Reserve University’s 40th ranking standing as the only other Ohio school in the top 50.

“I’m proud that my school is nation-ally recognized as one of the top in what it does,” McHenry said. “With it fluctu-ating so much, I don’t place much value in that it dropped from 16 to 22.”

By Lauren CeronieCampus Editor

With graduation just around the corner, many seniors are pre-occupied with finding jobs, in-ternships and grad schools. In this hectic time, the Office of Annual Giving and the Senior Class Gift Campaign ask seniors to keep Miami University in mind by giving to the senior class gift.

This year, the senior class gift campaign is asking seniors to donate $20.11 to the fund to commemorate their year of graduation, according to Beth Ann Gaier, senior class gift chair. The donations will go toward the Armstrong Student Center, al-though students can ask for their donation to go elsewhere in the university, Gaier said.

“The donations are going to the Armstrong Student Center so future students will have the same great experience as students so far,” Gaier said.

Donations from students can also go toward the senior class scholarship or any department within the university, according to Gaier.

For the first time, Miami is competing with Ohio University to see which school can raise the most money and have the most

participation in the senior class gift, according to Gaier. Miami and Ohio University set up the competition to encourage stu-dents to participate in the gift, Gaier said.

Seniors are not required to do-nate the $20.11, but can donate as much or as little as they want, Gaier said. However, stu-dents who give $200 or more will have their name placed in the Armstrong Student Cen-ter, according to Gaier. The senior class gift campaign does not have a spe-cific monetary goal, but aims to get seniors to participate and give back, Gaier said.

“We just want to encourage and inform students about how beneficial this gift is to the uni-versity,” Gaier said.

Andrew Bixel, assistant direc-tor of the office of annual giving, agreed that giving back to Miami is imperative to the school. The Office of Annual Giving works with the Senior Class Gift Cam-paign to build a relationship with

students that will last even after graduation, Bixel said. Dona-tions given to the Office of An-nual Giving are used to support the daily needs of the university, such as scholarships and

technological upgrades. “The idea is

to give back to Miami,” Bixel said. “Miami University has given you a great education so it’s about giv-ing back to the school you love and about giving back to future Miamians.”

Senior Steph-anie Walters said

she plans to donate to the senior class gift and have the money go toward the Armstrong Student Center. A new student center would be beneficial to students at Miami and to attract students to Miami, Walters said.

“I love Shriver but it’s not very current, people go to Farmer or King to do things instead,” Walters said.

Seniors can donate to the se-nior class gift at the campaign website, www.muohio.edu/se-niorclassgift.

ASG to host ‘Meet the Candidate Nights’

Senior gift campaign launches competition with Ohio University

“Everyone, not just higher education, is

sharing the sacrifice ... that’s not easy to take, but we understand the

circumstances the state is in.”

RANdI ThOMASdIRECTOR OF INSTITUTIONAL RELATIONS

wSee ASG, page 3

“The donations are going to the (ASC) so future students will have the same great experience as

students so far.”

BETh ANN GAIERSENIOR CLASS GIFT ChAIR

In the March 15 article “Roadrunner to discontinue services,” IT services employee Andrew Hehe was partially misquoted. Roadrunner high-speed Internet is a service offered by Time Warner Cable, it was not bought out by Time Warner Cable as the article states. The decision to discontinue Roadrunner services at a discounted price through Miami was made by Miami. Roadrunner will still be available through Time Warner Cable. Declining numbers of subscribers through Miami was the reason for this decision. IT services attributes this to cheaper bundled services of telephone, cable and Internet offered by Time Warner Cable. Current subscribers will receive a personal e-mail from IT services with suggestions for alternate Internet providers.

CORRECTIONS

EVENT

CampusNEWS

BRIEFS

2 FridayMarch 18, 2011

‘Top Model’ coming to MiamiBy Sarah SidlowStaff Writer

A number of campus organizations are hoping to send a mes-sage about beauty to Miami’s community and they plan to use the popular reality TV show, America’s Next Top Model (ANTM), as an integral part of this message.

“The events are about women’s beauty,” said Alexa Conkey, president of the Miami Club of Fashion and Design. “It is to pro-mote the idea that women’s beauty is not just one thing or one look or one race.”

Two ANTM-related events will happen on campus during di-versity week, which begins Monday, March 21.

On Tuesday, March 22, students will be given an opportunity to turn in casting applications for the next season of the show, Conkey said.

The fashion club, as well as Associated Student Government, the Residence Hall Association, the Asian American Association, the Diversity Affairs Council, the Association for Women Stu-dents, Individuals for Disordered Eating Awareness, the National Pan-Hellenic Council and the Pan-Hellenic Association have teamed up to put on this event, said Eloiza Domingo-Snyder, di-rector of diverse student development and adviser for the Diversity Affairs Council.

From 4 to 8 p.m. on Tuesday, the Shriver Heritage Room will serve as a collection site for students to turn in applications, vid-eos and photographs in hopes of being cast for the next season of ANTM said Lidija Gnjatic, the Secretary of Diversity Affairs and President of the Diversity Affairs Council. Domingo-Snyder also said the organizations in charge will be surrounding the event with educational tools centered around women’s health.

All of the student applications will be handed personally to ANTM producer Michael Carandang after he gives a talk to

Miami students 6 p.m. Monday, March 28 in Farmer School of Business room 1000, said Domingo-Snyder.

Carandang, a Filipino man who identifies as gay, will talk about the notions of identity inside the film and broadcast industry, ac-cording to Domingo-Snyder.

The event is free and ticketed. Tickets will be available at the Shriver Box Office March 21, Domingo-Snyder said.

Carandang’s talk is presented by all of the organizations that will be instrumen-tal in organizing the ANTM application-collecting event, in addition to Spectrum, the Office of Diversity Affairs and the Communication Department.

“The entire theme for Diversity Week is ‘My Miami Beautiful: Perceptions of Beau-ty,” Domingo-Snyder said. “The objective is to talk openly, and challenge openly, percep-tions of beauty at Miami University. Miami gets a certain rep about their perception of beauty – whether it’s having a certain bag, sporting a certain jacket, things like that. Within Diversity Week, we’re leveraging this very big media piece, ANTM, to ask ‘what is beauty? Who determines beauty? Who standardizes beauty and what is beauty to you?”

Marketing for these events will take place over Facebook and Twitter, as well as through listserv emails and flyers, Domingo-Snyder said.

Online program garners award for DollárBy Lauren CeronieCampus Editor

Dr. Anna Dollár, an assistant professor of mechanical and manufacturing engineer-ing at Miami University, has been awarded the University System of Ohio’s Faculty Innovator Award for creating a web-based engineering statics course.

The Faculty Innovator Award is given to 10 groups or individual university faculty mem-bers who work to reduce the costs of higher education, according to Rob Evans, Ohio Board of Regents press secretary. A board of 10 people working in higher education decide which of the nominated faculty will receive the award, Evans said. Recipients of the award receive $1,000 and are honored in the Ohio Senate, according to Evans.

“This award raises the profile of a group of faculty that make education more afford-able while keeping the quality of education,” Evans said.

Dollár said the interactive web-based en-gineering statics course she created helps make higher education more affordable for students by supplementing a textbook with a free computer program. The online course is comprehensive enough to replace the text-book, Dollár said. Dollár co-authored the program with P.S. Steif, professor of me-chanical engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. The program was developed as

part of the Carnegie Mel-lon Open Learning Initia-tive, (OLI) Dollár said. The goal of OLI is to use the web to transform instruction and improve learning outcomes, ac-cording to Dollár.

“This course is not re-placing instructors, but is

a tool for students and instructors to achieve higher learning outcomes,” Dollár said.

In the course, students learn from 18 “modules” that consist of interactive exer-cises, text, and images devoted to a specific learning concept, according to Dollár. The 18 modules contain about 300 interactive exercises, said Dollár. Students can work on the interactive exercises independently or get hints and feedback from the program that act as a personal tutor, Dollár said. Results of the on-line exercises are immediately sent to the instructor of the course for review, ac-cording to Dollár.

“Instructors can utilize this to identify stu-dent needs,” Dollár said. “The idea of an in-verted classroom is that students are assigned before class so instructors can review the re-sults and plan the lecture accordingly.”

Research on the correlation between us-age of the course and student performance has been positive, Dollár said. Student per-formance on standardized tests such as the

Statics Concept inventory has improved sig-nificantly since the implementation of the program, according to Dollár.

According to Dollár, this is the first web-based interactive engineering course being developed in the United States.

Caleb Piccou, an electrical engineering and engineering management double major at Miami, said he believes Dollár’s web-based program is beneficial for engineering students like him who could spend $500 to $600 on textbooks at Miami every semester. The program’s ability to send students’ re-sults to professors before class would also be beneficial, Piccou said.

“In my classes most students have ques-tions on the same things,” Piccou said. “If professors could see homework results we wouldn’t spend time going over things we already understand, we would be able to spend time on the things we don’t.”

Piccou said he also liked the program’s personal tutor.

“I’ve used other web-based programs where there isn’t a tutor and it’s really dis-couraging to sit there and not be able to do a problem,” Piccou said.

Dollár has also been named Outstand-ing Teacher of the Year by the North Cen-tral Section of the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE). Dollár is currently the Chair of the mechanics division of ASEE.

Taking a short spring break

SAMANTHA LUDINGTON The Miami StudentFirst-years Monica Corbett, Lara Colussi and Brandy Borders relaxed reading in Central Quad on Thursday.

EditorsLauren Ceronie

Jenni Wienercampus@miamistudent.net

Dollár

Career Services holds fine arts internship fair

Career Services is holding the first Fine Arts Internship Fair Tuesday, March 22. Employers are visiting Mi-ami University’s campus to promote internship opportunities to students. Students can also interview or talk about possibilities for full time positions.

The fair will be held in the Art Build-ing from 4 to 6 p.m. A list of employers can be found on the fine arts website, but is still growing.

The Miami Student will be one of the employers in attendance. The paper is searching for an editor and writers for a new arts section. To prepare for the fair or for interviews in general, students can participate in the Interviewing Basics Program March 17 from 5 to 6 p.m. in Hoyt Hall.

Dressing professionally, having a “30 second elevator speech” prepared and listening to the Career Services Career-Chat podcast episode Job Fair Success are encouraged for the fair.

Honors to host ‘Geek Week’

Want to test your brains and your brawn? Get ready, because the Honors and Scholars Advisory Board (HSAB) is sponsoring its first ever “Geek Week”

Geek Week 2011 will be a week of mental and physical valor in which teams of six to 10 students sign up to participate. Events of the week range from quiz bowl to a food-eating relay. To sign up, download the registration form from the Forms & Apps tab. Forms are due by Monday, March 28 at 5 p.m. Send them in via e-mail to kozlovce@muohio.edu or hand in a hard copy to the HSAB mailbox in the Honors Program Office.

ERIN

KILL

INGE

R T

he M

iami S

tuden

t

“The candidates, typically up-perclassmen, have few avenues to reach out to on-campus students,” he said.

The most effective mode of informing on-campus students is through Resident Assistants (RAs), Ingram said. RAs have been posting flyers and send-ing emails, spreading the word about these ASG “meet the

candidate nights” to their residents, said Hall.

“Ideally, each residence hall would encourage residents, espe-cially community council mem-bers, to attend,” he said.

Sophomore Julia Barrow, a resident of Minnich Hall, is look-ing forward to the March 22 South Quad event, which will be held in Tappan Hall.

“I have never really thought about voting in the student elec-tions before,” Barrow said. “I have never known enough about the candidates to have an opinion. I am excited to see what they have

to say.”Candidates will address topics

ranging from Greek life and Mi-ami budgetary concerns to student involvement. After candidates give presentations, there will be time for student questions and dis-cussion, Hall said.

Dates and locations for meeting the candidates are:

8 p.m. March 22 in Stanton Hall: South Quad Forum

8 p.m. March 23 in Tappan Hall: MET Quad Forum

11 a.m.-2 p.m. March 29 outside Stoddard and Elliot Halls: Aca-demic Quad Forum and cookout.

is looking for designers.E-mail design@miamistudent.net for more information.

Get Ahead of the Game BGSU’s Summer Session

Registration begins February 14, 2011

B O W L I N G G R E E N S T A T E U N I V E R S I T Y

EDUCATIONw o r t h C E L E B R A T ! N G

> Short. Six- and eight-week sessions> Focused. Small class sizes> Convenient. On campus. Online. Abroad. On the beach.> Undergraduate and graduate courses available> More than 1,000 classes including 300+ online

First 6-week session May 16-June 248-week session June 13-August 5Second 6-week session June 27-August 5

http://summer.bgsu.edu

2011-2012

ASGcontinued from page 1

THE MIAMI STUDENT FRIDAY, MARCH 18, 2011 ♦ 3

The Miami Student

Male threatens group, receives OVI citation

At 1:30 a.m. Wednesday, of-ficers were dispatched to Brick Street Bar and Grill to escort patrons who were reportedly scared due to threats made by suspects outside the bar as they were leaving.

When police arrived, they re-portedly found a group of males and females who said the suspects who had assaulted two of their friends had gotten into a gray Jeep parked further down High Street. Officers then reportedly saw the Jeep speed south on Main Street before it circled back and acceler-ated down High Street.

Officers on the scene report-edly called other officers in the area about the vehicle, and Miami University Police Department officers stopped the vehicle on Patterson Avenue.

When the vehicle was stopped, police reportedly witnessed pas-sengers attempting to switch seats and a female vomiting in the back seat.

Officers at Brick Street re-portedly transported the victims to Patterson, where they posi-tively identified the people in the car. One of the victims report-edly identified the driver, Brady Brewer, 20, as the male who had assaulted him.

The victim reportedly had a swollen right eye and an abrasion on his lip.

Brewer reportedly admitted he had been involved in a fight a Brick Street, but he said it was out of self-defense. He reportedly told police he was punched in the head three times, but officers reported-ly found no visible injuries.

As Brewer was talking, offi-cers reportedly detected the odor of an alcoholic beverage on his breath accompanied by slow, slurred speech.

Brewer reportedly initially de-nied that he had been driving, but the other passengers in the car said he was. Brewer then report-edly admitted he was driving but said his friend was going to drive the rest of the way home. He re-portedly told police he had con-sumed one water tower earlier in the night.

Brewer reportedly per-formed poorly on field sobri-ety tests and was taken to Ox-ford Police Department, where he was found to have a 0.13 blood-alcohol content.

Brewer reportedly told police he must have blown over the legal limit because of the Four Lokos he had drank earlier in the night.

Brewer was cited for operat-ing a vehicle while intoxicated and assault.

Community4 FridayMarch 18, 2011

By Bethany BrunerNews Editor

Oxford City Council approved a resolution at the regular Tuesday meeting that would move the improvement project at the State Route 73 and State Route 177 intersection forward.

The resolution, which passed unanimously, would allow the city to sign a contract through the Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT). The contract would allow the project to begin this summer.

Mike Dreisbach, Oxford service director, said the project is the first one to come to frui-tion from the Northwest Butler County Trans-portation Study. The project will be funded from $20 million in federal earmarks designated for these projects.

Dreisbach told council the City of Oxford will be the local sponsor for the project despite the intersection in question being outside city limits. Dreisbach also told council there is some risk in-volved in the city being the sponsor for the proj-ect. Because the project is located near the large water mane that transfers water from the Seven Mile Aquifer to Oxford, the water main may need to be moved.

Dreisbach explained that it is believed the

construction can be done without mov-ing the main, which would cost approximately $100,000.

Dreisbach did say the possibility of moving the water main still exists and told council to antici-pate a potential move of a section of the main.

Another risk the project has deals with the monetary aspect, according to Dreisbach. If the cost of the project goes over the estimates, the city will have to pay a percentage of the over-ages. Dreisbach said this could be paid for with additional earmark funding, not cash, but that this would limit the amount of earmark money avail-able for future projects.

Several council members expressed concern that Milford and Oxford Townships had not sol-idly committed to helping pay overages.

Council also passed a resolution putting a six-month moratorium on Internet or sweepstakes ca-fes. The resolution is aimed at gaming machines that are legal in Ohio through a loophole in exist-ing law. Councilman Ken Bogard had requested the moratorium at the Feb. 15 meeting so the city could wait and see what the Ohio Attorney Gen-eral does with the issue.

Bogard said other cities in the area have passed similar moratoriums.

In other action, council passed an ordinance

allowing the city to annex about a half-acre of roadway near the new Talawanda High School construction. The ordinance is necessary to add a temporary traffic signal this summer, in ac-cordance with an agreement with the Talawanda school district.

In a work session prior to the meeting, council discussed ideas about energy rates with Glen-wood Energy. No action was taken at the work session and legislation will be presented on the issue at the April 5 meeting.

City Manager Doug Elliott also mentioned the city will be monitoring the progression of Gover-nor John Kasich’s budget through the Ohio Gen-eral Assembly. Kasich’s budget calls for cuts to local governments over the next two fiscal years.

Tuesday’s meeting also featured a presentation of photos from the filming of The Ides of March from the Oxford Visitor’s and Convention Bu-reau. Talawanda Middle School student Jacob Schlichter put together the presentation.

City Council will meet again in a work ses-sion 7:30 p.m. March 22 to discuss ideas for the use of the current Talawanda High School once construction is finished on the new building. The work session is scheduled to last one hour.

The next regular meeting of the Oxford City Council will be 7:30 p.m. April 5.

Project will widen intersection

Gas prices hit local two-year highOxford residents have been feeling the spike in gas prices that has been occurring for approximately one month.According to Senior Petroleum Analyst of Gasbuddy.com Patrick Dehaan, the anxiety over the unrest in the Middle East can be credited with the steep increase. Oxford Economic Development Director Alan Kyger said residents are going to be skeptical about the change.“Residents are questioning, ‘Is this the way it’s going to be or is it a bump in the road?’,” Kyger said. “I think it has to stay above $ 3.00 a gallon, $4.00 a gallon for an extended period of time before people react to it and plan accordingly.” Lecturer Patricia Newberry said she will take the change into account when car shopping in the future.“There have been rumors that gas could get to $5 a gallon,” Newberry said. “That could be a killer for anybody that has to go any amount of distance.” However, Deehan said the recent tragedy in Japan will likely result in a decreased demand for oil and possibly a decrease in gas prices.

Reporting by Adam Giffi and Melissa Tacchi

Bill gives workers more optionsBy JD PrewittStaff Writer

The Ohio House of Representa-tives is trying to pass a bill that will give small business employees the option of choosing between over-time pay and compensatory time for work done over the regular 40-hour work week.

House Bill 61, aimed at “mom and pop” businesses which gross less than $500,000 a year, states only an em-ployee can decide whether to choose the compensatory time option. The bill will require a written agreement between employer and employee stating that negotiations regarding the use of compensatory time in-stead of overtime pay were started by the worker.

According to Cory Fleming, leg-islative aide for Representative Jarod Martin, if employees choose the op-tion of compensatory time, they are not locked into that decision for the duration of employment. If need be, one can change their stance from week to week.

Fleming said the bill will “allow small business owners to do what they do best,” by hiring employees and providing excellent services.

According to Fleming, the bill is an attempt to offer small businesses some flexibility in relation to em-ployees and worrisome payroll costs, ideally leading to expansion and job growth.

Andrew Schmidt, manager of Xtend Technologies in Oxford, sees the benefits and drawbacks to the bill.

“It’s a good idea, gives (employ-ees) a chance to have a day to them-selves,” Schmidt said. “It could also hinder by employees taking time off at the same time.”

The bill also states that if an em-ployee chooses the option of com-pensatory time, it is at the sole discre-tion of the employer as to whether or not an employee can have any given day off.

Junior Alex Krusinski finds the bill to be beneficial for employers and employees.

“(It) gives the employee the sense of choice but they have no right to take off that day without their em-ployer’s consent,” Krusinski said.

HB 61 also gives employers the right to cut off compensatory time as they see fit, given that they notify the employee 30 days ahead of time.

While HB 61 has been passed out of committee, the waiting game is on to see whether or not it makes it out of the house.

Oxford Tea Party born from Hamilton branch

EditorMelissa Tacchi

community@miamistudent.net

City Council approves contract for improvements on State Route 73

By Alexandra TirrellFor the Miami Student

With nothing more than three main values in common, 20 people gathered at Bob Evans restaurant in Hamilton, Thurs-day, March 10. Their topic: the creation of a Tea Party branch in Oxford. The three pillars that brought them together: limited government, a free market and fiscal responsibility.

“All Tea Parties adhere to those three pillars,” said Linda Keller of the Hamilton Tea Party, who is helping aid in the creation of the Oxford branch. “How each town applies these pillars to their commu-nity is specific for their issues and needs.”

Such principles inspired the 20 members who attended the initiation meeting to start an Oxford branch of the Tea Party. While Oxford residents were attending Hamilton Tea Party meetings, they realized that many of the issues discussed did not relate to their own local issues.

“Every community has its own particular challenges, so what Hamilton discusses and what our focus is in our city doesn’t par-ticularly equate to what Oxfords needs are,” Keller said. “They had asked how many people in our Hamilton group would be interested in forming an Oxford group.”

And so the creation of the

Oxford Tea Party began. The first meeting was meant

solely to establish the Oxford Tea Party and not to discuss ideals or issues.

“We’re very much in the for-mation stage right now,” Mi-ami University alumnus Mike Schnipper of the Oxford Tea Party branch said. “I don’t real-ly think we’re at a point that we can say we’re addressing single issues just yet.”

Additionally, Schnipper said reaching out to Miami students will be a significant part of their group’s mission.

“We want Miami students in-volved in this,” Schnipper said. “We recognize the importance of the Miami community as a voting base. We want to show our side of the situation.”

Despite their dedication to fiscal responsibility, Schnipper said that the party is not in favor of any and all budget cuts, but “reasonable budget cuts.”

Schnipper wanted to inform the public that although the Tea Party is nationally known it is not an official political party. Keller added that the Tea Party movement is more focused on community and local issues than any sort of national or po-litical grab for power.

“The Republicans are a politi-cal party, and we’re not,” Keller said. “We’re just people who go to work and we’re a commu-nity group. We are like-mind-ed individuals who live in the

same area.” The three conservative pil-

lars of limited government, free market and fiscal responsibility drive each Party, but how they apply them to each town can be extremely different, according to Keller.

“It is a national movement in that every state has their own Tea Party within their towns and counties and com-mon wealth,” Keller said. “But I can’t take my group and go to North Dakota and com-pare us. We’re not going to be the same.”

Whether or not she agrees with the ideals of the Tea Par-ty, first-year Shannon Ken-nedy said is hard to argue with their enthusiasm and commitment to enhancing the community.

“I think the Tea Party move-ment is more symbolic of the country needing a change,” Kennedy said. “I do not think the Tea Party values are the cor-rect change, but I do think that they’re right in showing the country we need reforms.”

The effects the Oxford Tea Party will have on Miami have yet to be decided, since the Party is still so early in its formation stages.

However, Schnipper has an-nounced the group will be meet-ing within a month and have the intention of creating a web site soon to post announcements and meeting times.

Officer notices missing stop sign

At 2:39 p.m. Wednesday, an Oxford Police Department offi-cer reportedly observed the stop sign and post from the northwest corner of North Campus Av-enue and East Sycamore Street was missing.

The officer reportedly remained at the intersection until the sign was replaced.

Junior reports laptop stolen from living room

At around 10:20 a.m. Tuesday, a Miami University junior re-ported her Apple laptop had been taken from her residence on East Withrow Street sometime during the night between March 3 and 4.

The victim reportedly told po-lice her laptop was sitting on the table in the living room and noth-ing else was taken.

The front door of the residence was reportedly left unlocked.

SAMANTHA LUDINGTON The Miami Student

THE MIAMI STUDENT FRIDAY, MARCH 18, 2011 ♦ 3

Tours offer real lookat residence hall roomsBy Chelsea DavisFor The Miami Student

Miami University, just like many other universities, offers a program for accepted students who haven’t made their final de-cision where to attend school. However, Miami presents ac-cepted students with a unique op-portunity: the chance to see what an actual college residence hall room looks like.

Students volunteer their rooms, as part of the campus tours pro-vided by the “Make it Miami” program. This program, created by the Office of Admission, is designed to give accepted students all of the informa-tion they need to choose Miami.

“This is a criti-cal time in the college decision process,” said Meredith Smith, assistant director and international student adviser for the Office of Ad-mission. “Since the residence hall experience is a huge part of the Miami experience, we want to highlight that during these special visit days for students.”

The campus tours don’t vary much from the regular campus tours. Students are still given all the same information about club life, Living Learning Communi-ties, academic advising and more. One great advantage to seeing an actual room is that “the students are usually there, so the accepted students get to ask them ques-tions,” Associate Director of Res-idence Life Robert Abowitz said.

Over the 11 event days, a different residence hall shown each time.

“The residence hall is different every time,” said Ann Bader, se-nior admission counselor for the Office of Admission. “The Resi-dence Life people don’t want to be a burden.”

Rooms being shown were vol-unteered by Miami students. In order to ensure the safety and comfort of all participants, the Miami students are told ahead of time when the room will be shown. Students have to be there to allow the tour groups to see the

room, according to Abowitz.

“We want to respect the stu-dents who live in the halls,” Smith said. “They’re excited to show off their living space.”

According to Bader, there has only been one instance where a problem arose. A student wasn’t in the residence hall to show his or

her room. However, it was quick-ly resolved when a student, sitting in the common area, volunteered his room for viewing.

The students are not paid for allowing tours of their rooms. They get to live with the satisfac-tion of knowing they’ve helped their school.

When asked why students read-ily volunteer without any com-pensation, Abowitz said, “They’re doing it because they want to help Miami recruit good students. It’s their opportunity to give back to the school.”

Communication strategies will continue following Tron departureBy Alex RogersFor The Miami Student

Preparing to depart Miami Uni-versity June 30, Associate Vice President of Communications Dionn Tron described the changes she has implemented throughout the school regarding public relations, including the necessity of creating a cohesive, respectable brand.

“Everybody has a brand,” Tron said. “Your brand is what other peo-ple think of you, not what you think of yourself.”

Tron said that upon arriving four years ago, she had a clear agenda: to implement brand-ing and to build a strategic communications organization.

According to Tron, Miami thrived on a strong reputation for years, di-minishing the need for advertising, as typified by its declared status as a “Public Ivy” in 1985. However, with an increase in competition among universities for students, Miami staff “realized that we were a little bit be-hind,” Tron said. “We were a little lost in the shuffle and we wanted to rightfully claim our place.”

She further explained how brand-ing within a university requires a proactive approach as opposed

to the previously utilized reactive approach. Tron said she wanted to begin marketing a key external au-dience, as well as enhance the direct marketing to prospective students and not rely on reputation alone.

The Miami brand centers on “ac-ademic excellence, very intensified personal experience and the success of our students,” Tron said.

Utilizing this model, Tron and her team hired 160over90 Agency to aid the university with marketing. The agency has a “structured approach,” Tron said, allowing for a thorough execution of the university market-ing goals. Those goals were to in-crease the number of applications of high quality students, to increase the general reputation of the university, and to engage the school’s alumni, according to Tron.

“We’ve begun the work for ad-missions to bring students in,” Tron said. “And we will continue to work.”

Regarding national reputation, Miami has invested in 17 billboards in areas such as Chicago, along with advertisements in the Chronicle of Higher Education, each with a unique and simple message to rep-resent Miami’s values, including “Remember What’s Important,”

and “We Love Teaching.”Tron proudly presented this

progress and pointed to the Mi-ami “viewbook,” which is sent to prospective students. Instead of a glossy, immaculate appearance, it now displays blurbs of information and snapshot photos. Essentially, Tron said she and her team hope to achieve “consistency of brand in what we’re sending out to prospec-tive students and do it in a way that appeals to them.”

She further expressed her hopes that this approach will attract more students while establishing a consis-tent brand that truthfully depicts the advantages of a Miami degree.

Claire Wagner, Associate Direc-tor of Communications, elaborated on Tron’s achievements.

“She let us revamp the univer-sity’s website,” Wagner said. “Our goal was to have a more cohesive look and make it easier for web edi-tors to update and we’re still work-ing on it. It took a strong vision to have that happen.”

Tron said the communications department is in the process of a na-tional search for Tron’s replacement. They hope to hire a new Associate Vice President of Communications by June.

Japan crisis affects students abroadBy Sylvie TurnerFor The Miami Student

On March 11, a brutal 9.0 magnitude earth-quake struck off the east coast of Japan, fol-lowed by an even fiercer and devastating tsu-nami that slammed the Touhoku region, killing hundreds of people instantly as it swept away all that was in its path. In the days after the disaster, the world will wait for a final death toll that, according to Channel News Asia, is expected to exceed 10,000 people.

Miami University currently has eight stu-dents studying in Japan at a total of three universities, according to David Keitges, Director of International Education for the school.

“Most of the students are in the Osaka area which is several hundred miles away from the affected regions,” Keitges said.

Michelle Mego, a sopho-more studying at Ritsumei-kan University in Kyoto, Ja-pan, explained that although the Kansai region where she is living was not directly af-fected, life in Japan is and will continue to be differ-ent until the situation is completely stabilized.

“We’re asked to conserve power, especially at peak times like 6 to 8 p.m.,” Mego said. “Another region is experiencing planned rolling blackouts.”

These power outages, along with incredibly jammed phone lines, have led to difficulty communicating with people in and outside of Japan.

“I was able to get in contact with my family back in the States within an hour of the time

the quake hit … getting in touch with friends in Japan took much longer,” Mego said. She said the phone systems across the country are generally unreliable and the quake made them even worse.

“When the quake hit, due to the number of people making calls … you could not reach your friends or family in the affected parts of Japan,” she said.

Due to the dire situation in Japan, the Unit-ed States is looking for any ways to aid the country. Time Warner Cable has found a way to help by offering free phone calls to Japan through the end of April to its digital cable sub-

scribers, explained a spokes-person for the company. Ac-cording to the spokesperson, along with free calls, Time Warner is dedicating an entire channel to news directly from Japan at no cost to customers. As important as it is the keep updated on the news in the United States, those living in Japan need it even more.

“One of the biggest differ-ences here (in Japan) is that we tend to keep the news on all the time now,” Mego said. NHK, the leading broadcast-ing agency in Japan, streams live broadcasts both on TV and online, Mego said.

“Everyday there is some sort of documen-tary on what has happened since the quake,” she said.

“It’s important in a time like this where a very serious fluid situation is occurring, that people are connected to their friends and fam-ilies,” said Michael Pedelty, a representative for Time Warner Cable. The live coverage will run until the end of April and can be found on channel 859 for digital cable subscribers.

By Kaler HazenFor The Miami Student

Staff members in charge of the new Armstrong Student Center (ASC) at Miami University are currently in the process of decid-ing which organizations and busi-ness entities it will accommodate once construction is complete.

According to Susie Sadler, di-rector of the ASC, the building’s intended focus is on student initia-tive and should be a showcase for student-run organizations.

One such enterprise already slotted to take up residence within the new center is the First Miami University Student and Alumni Federal Credit Union.

“There have been plans since day one for them to be in the stu-dent center,” Sadler said, empha-sizing that the organization was a standout in the kind of entrepre-neurial effort the center hopes to put on display.

The credit union already oper-ates out of a location in the Shriver center, but saw a great opportunity for expansion with the addition of a new student center.

“We want to make sure we have a good location in order to make us appealing to students,” said Shawn Hartle, Director of the Credit Division at the credit union. “We are basically an entirely stu-dent-run financial institution.”

Hartle also said a credit union

like the Miami Student and Alum-ni Federal Credit Union is typical-ly run and owned by its members, the majority of which reside on Miami’s campus.

One of the advantages the credit union has over their major com-petitors in the area is the fact that they are the only financial institu-tion on campus, Hartle said.

The credit union also promotes financial literacy, working to augment and advance students’ knowledge of finances.

“We offer 75 internships a year, and we also host basic finance seminars,” Hartle said. According to Hartle, the credit union main-tains a customer base of around 1,700 members, and faces com-petition from a few major banks located uptown including PNC, Chase, and Fifth Third Bank. While the credit union’s status as an occupant of the Armstrong Student Center is not yet finalized, they do have a spot in the current draft of the building.

The new student center and credit union look forward to cooperating with one another, Sadler said.

“The beauty of having the ser-vice is that it’s a high demand item, and the whole idea behind the student center is that it’s stu-dent-focused,” Sadler said.

The center will be constructed in two phases, with construction beginning this spring.

Armstrong center holds spot for Credit Union

“They’re doing it because they want to help Miami recruit good students. It’s their opportunity to

give back to the school.”

ROBERT ABOWITZ ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR

RESIDENTIAL LIFE

TMSONLINEwww.miamistudent.net

“It’s important in a time like this where a very serious fluid

situation is occuring that people

are connected to their friends

and families.”

MICHAEL PEDELTY REPRESENTATIVE

TIME WARNER CABLE

Nice weather brings all the boys to the yard

Sophomores Michael Derian and Juan Davalos play a pick up game of soccer in Central Quad on Thursday.

SAMANTHA LUDINGTON The Miami Student

is looking for essayists.

Email editorial@miaistudent.net for more information.

The Associated Student Govern-ment (ASG) of Miami Univer-

sity is working towards increasing student involvement for the upcom-ing student body elections. With the assistance of the Resident Hall As-sociation (RHA), ASG is aiming to reach underclassmen by planning “meet the candidate night” events in quads across campus. The intent is to give students exposure to can-didates’ platforms and to deliber-ately get students involved in the election process. Candidates will be meeting first-year and sophomore students the three Quads — South, MET and Academic — to secure student votes and hear the concerns of the Miami community.

The editorial board of The Miami Student supports the efforts ASG is making towards creating conve-nient opportunities for students to learn about the elections. Students need to learn about the issues fac-ing the university and gain insight on the platforms of candidates so

that justifiable decisions for voting can be made. These newly-instated events will actually force candi-dates to get their message out to on-campus students rather then rely on support from the student and so-cial organizations with which they are affiliated.

Ultimately, the “meet the can-didates nights” will benefit under-

classmen because they will have the op-portunity to engage with candidates on a relatable level. In addition, increasing underclassmen par-ticipation will help to establish a wider-known reputation for ASG.

ASG needs to continue to improve campus out-reach because it is important that all students know where to voice their opinions and concerns regarding Miami.

The role of ASG is to reflect the needs of students and advocate change on the behalf of students. Success will only come if both the student body and its representatives work cohesively together.

Ohio House Bill 61, if passed, will give small business em-

ployees the ability to choose be-tween overtime pay and vacation compensatory time for more than 40 hours of work per week.

The choice between overtime pay and extra vacation time is decided by the individual employee and must be validated in a writ-ten agreement be-tween the employer and employee. Em-ployees may change their overtime pay-ment choice from week to week. If the employee chooses overtime pay, the employer decides if and when employees can have time off.

The editorial board of The Mi-ami Student supports House Bill 61 and especially agrees with the flexibility of choice between extra vacation time and overtime pay the bill provides.

Having a choice between the two options and the ability to change between them ensures employees of mom-and-pop stores will not feel locked in to a choice that may or may not necessarily be the most beneficial and logical choice at

certain times. However, the board foresees a

possibility of mounting piles of pa-perwork for payroll for small busi-nesses if many of the employees switch constantly between overtime pay and vacation compensation. Al-though businesses that gross less than $500,000 usually do not have many

full-time employees that work overtime shifts, the possibil-ity of extra contract work for the busi-ness may exist, es-pecially if employees change choices on a week-to-week basis.

Although each small business is dif-ferent, if employees choose overtime pay,

not much may change in the case of scheduling and off-days. Employees may feel like they may lose some freedom in choosing free days, but in the experience of the board, em-ployers are not fond of just hand-ing out off-days to employees. Not much would change if employees would choose overtime pay.

While House Bill 61 does not lim-it any laws that are currently in place in Ohio law, it allows for relatively fluid and fair choices for both em-ployees and small business owners.

➤ EDITORIAL

HB 61 allows for flexibility, fairness

JINGHANG HUANG The Miami Student

Oldest university newspaper in the United States, established 1826

The Miami StudentEDITORIAL BOARD

Sam Kay Editor in Chief Bethany Bruner News EditorColleen Yates Managing EditorScott Allison Online EditorHunter Stenback Asst. Online EditorNoëlle Bernard Editorial EditorThomasina Johnson Editorial Editor

Lauren Ceronie Campus EditorJenni Wiener Campus Editor Melissa Tacchi Community Editor Michael Solomon Sports EditorSamantha Ludington Photo EditorAmanda Seitz Special Reports Editor

The following pieces, written by the editorial editors, reflect the majority opinion of the editorial board.

Opinion

➤ LETTERS

FridayMarch 18, 20116 Editors

Noëlle BernardThomasina Johnson

editorial@miamistudent.net

The Miami Student

House Bill 61 ... allows for

relatively fluid and fair choices for both employees

and small business owners.

Students need to learn about the issues facing the

university and gain insight on

the platforms of candidates.

ASG event improves election involvement

Laptops distract students

I read “Professors compete with laptops for students’ attention” (Student, March 15) and remembered how I used to face the back-sides of open laptops and wonder what my stu-dents were actually looking at on their screens. A year ago I found out. And I realized I’d been an idiot to think that any student with an open laptop was paying much attention to me.

This happened when I went to a lecture given by a colleague — not a dull droner but a wise and popular professor who weaves video clips into his remarks. I sat in the back behind 60 students, nearly all with open laptops. I could see every move that six students made — the four right in front of me and one to either side.

Class started with a quiz. The questions were projected on the big screen at the front of the room, and you recorded your answer with a click-er. When one of the guys in front of me cheated on the quiz by Googling each question, I got curi-ous and started taking notes. This is what I saw:

Guy 1: After cheating on the quiz, he went on Facebook for 10 minutes. I don’t mean he had Facebook open while he took notes on the lec-ture. I mean he was scrolling and reading, not looking up. Then he opened a Word document and started a paper for Political Science 101 enti-tled “Culture Wars.” He worked pretty hard on it, revising as he went along. He paused to watch a video clip that the professor was projecting on the big screen at the front of the room. At mid-video, he went back to the poli sci paper and Facebook, toggling between the two. When the professor re-sumed his lecture, he stuck with Facebook for the rest of the period.

Girl 1: During the first part of the lecture, she wrote a series of emails. Then, she opened up a MyMiami page on class schedules and studied it at length. That done, she went on Facebook for the rest of the class.

Guy 2: For a while he surfed sports websites. (I couldn’t see which ones.) Then he shifted to the Verizon website and scrolled through phones for a while. Next, he went to Google News and looked around, landing on a CBS story entitled “Thousands Gather to Promote Marijuana; Many More Just Smoke It.” From there he linked to the “60 Minutes” website and spent a long time clicking through the site’s photo collections.

Girl 2: At first she had Facebook open but took handwritten notes on the lecture in a spiral notebook. During the big-screen video clip her attention shifted to Facebook. Then she went over to the popular blog “My Life Is Average”— read and scrolled, read and scrolled. When the lecture resumed she went back to taking notes for a few minutes, then gave up and went back to the screen, alternating between Facebook and “Aver-age.” When the professor put up a transparency for the last few minutes of the lecture, she closed her laptop and her notebook and spent a few min-utes packing up.

Guy 3: During the entire first segment of the lecture, he watched skiing videos on YouTube. During the video clip, he pretty much stuck to Facebook, looking up at the video now and then. Next he opened a long PowerPoint on “energy use” and read that. Then he went back to Face-book for the rest of the period.

Of course, a laptop ban can’t make a student pay attention, as Girl 3 proved. She didn’t have a laptop. During the first part of the lecture she read and took notes on a chapter in an educa-tion textbook. During the video clip on the big screen, she alternated between watching the clip and sending a few texts on her phone. After the clip, she worked on her personal calendar and

straightened up the contents of her backpack. By the end of class she was totally ready for the rest of her day.

JAmEs TObInAssOcIATE pROfEssOR Of JOuRnALIsm

Staying financially wise during tough economic times

One of the challenges that the current General Assembly faces is overcoming the $8 billion defi-cit that we have been racking up over the past four years. We are spending too much, not saving our money and not being efficient.

It is essential that we watch what we spend and remain frugal. According to the Office of Budget Management ‘s (OBM) chart of expen-ditures from FY ’68 — FY’ 11, state spending consistently grows at around twice the rate of inflation every year. When things turn bad, we barely cut back. But when things are good, we tend to go on a spending spree of growth. Be-cause of our state’s current financial situation, my colleagues and I are taking the necessary steps to get us on the right track, revitalize this state and ensure that it is a great place to do business and raise your children. Just recently, the Ohio House passed House Bill 114, which is our state’s transportation budget.

The transportation budget is separate from our state operating budget. This budget outlines ap-propriations totaling $7 billion, including more than $2 billion per year for the construction and maintenance of the roadways that are so important to our economy and everyday life. I’m happy to report that this budget will spend $274.4 million less than what we are currently paying. Though it increases slightly the following year, it will re-main $121.4 million less than our current year’s budget. In other words, we have taken steps to save Ohio money.

The House made a spending cut of almost $15 million to the budgets of the Ohio Department of Public Safety and the Department of Trans-portation (ODOT) and made changes to reduce the total fee burden on our citizens by more than $5 million per year. Additionally, an amend-ment I introduced to include a performance audit of ODOT in House Bill 2 aims to make those savings and efficiencies even deeper and more resilient to unnecessary spending increases in the future.

With the passage of House Bill 114, we are also opting to take the important step of consoli-dating the services of the Bureau of Motor Vehi-cles. The Bureau of Motor Vehicles (BMV) will be spending less while promoting efficiency and customer service. As an example, counties with populations greater than 40,000 residents will be able to have their county clerks of courts serve as deputy registrars.Also in House Bill 114, we provided spending authority to the Public Works Commission to continue to assist local govern-ments in road and infrastructure projects. This $150 million — a $30 million increase over pre-vious years, has already been approved by Ohio voters and will help local governments to save as many as 30,000 jobs in our state.

For all of these reasons, I’m very proud of what the House has accomplished in this budget. We saw a need to cut down on spending and we took action As your family’s voice in the People’s House, I will continue to look for opportunities such as this, and I hope that you will contact me with any questions or concerns you have regard-ing the future of Ohio.

sTATE REpREsEnTATIvE cOuRTnEy cOmbs

bEvAn.schnEck@OhR.sTATE.Oh.us

On March 9, 2011 at approximately 1:08 p.m., my sister was involved in a head-on car accident.

Home for spring break at the time, I received a call from my mother telling me Stephanie had been involved in a car ac-cident and was on her way to the hos-pital. The hours that followed were filled with shock, panic, worry and fear as I

waited for news from my parents of whether she was okay.

Stephanie had been driving on a four-lane highway when a full size truck came pummeling towards her on the wrong side of the road.

She pulled off to the side, doing everything right to avoid the driver, but the truck hit her head-on, and sent her 2004 Buick Rainier fly-ing backwards across the median and two lanes of traffic before hit-ting a guardrail and coming to a stop.

Reportedly, the driver of the truck had a medical condition and did not heed the sirens of the police cars try-ing to stop him. He caused a serious accident by colliding with my 18-year-old sister.

Thankfully, Stephanie is alive and on the mend. It is a miracle that she was able to walk away from such a serious accident. The car is totaled, with the front smashed, but amaz-ingly, the driver’s compartment remained intact.

One has to wonder, how is it possi-ble to walk away from being hit head-on by a full size truck barreling down the highway? It is because engineers throughout the life of the automobile have developed designs specifically intended to save passengers involved in collisions.

If Stephanie had been driving any other vehicle, she might have been killed. Her life was saved because the car worked perfectly in its design and sacrificed itself for her.

According to the U.S. Department of Transportation and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administra-tion, there were approximately 2 mil-lion people injured or killed in car ac-cidents in 2009.

While this is a huge number, it would be much higher if it wasn’t for the work scientists, engineers and manufacturers do to develop safe vehicles.

Those individuals have made a commitment to study, test and develop ways to make highway driving as safe as possible, and it is due to their work that my sister survived her accident.

This commitment to safety is the same commitment that today’s stu-dents at Miami University and univer-sities across the country must make. Whether studying to be a teacher, doc-tor, engineer, scientist or businessper-son, we are here to learn, research and study to find ways to make the world a better place.

My hat is off to the individuals who worked to develop the automobiles of today.

Their dedication and hard work has saved many lives and prevented many tragedies. The challenge for this gen-eration of Miami students is to keep moving forward to make new strides and improvements in technology. De-sign, innovate, and dream for a better, safer world for future generations.

I can only imagine what it must be like to sit in the driver’s seat and watch as another vehicle heads straight for you. In the instant before the collision, my sister said she closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She stayed brave in a very frightening situation.

My faith in God was strengthened on that day, for I believe Stephanie was wrapped in the arms of an an-gel, and my gratitude soared for those working for safer cars.

My challenge to all Miami stu-dents: make it count. Be the genera-tion that moves forward to improve and advance the world. Whether big or small, regardless of career field, your contribution can make a dif-ference. It is your turn, our turn, to create change. And just like Steph-anie, we can certainly face that challenge head-on.

OpinionTHE MIAMI STUDENT

Face challenge of innovation head-on

➤ STRATEGICALLY SPEAKING

➤ ESSAY

➤ ESSAY

Dogs encourage creative workouts

FRIDAY, MARCH 18 2011 ♦ 7

Piracy vicitimizes Somali nation

JessicaSink

➤ ESSAY

Japan disaster teaches heavy lesson to world

Spring has finally returned to Oxford. No more ice storms, snow or bitter temperatures. It is time to bust out your fa-vorite running shorts and spend afternoons outside ex-ercising instead of being stuck on a random machine at the Recreational Center.

In a recent New York Times ar-ticle titled Forget the Treadmill. Get a Dog, Tara Parker-Hope discusses how workout ma-chines fail to offer motivation for people to workout, but dogs can. A dog might be known as a man’s best friend, but now it can be a woman’s as well. There was a study done that said peo-ple were more likely to go for walks on a regular basis if they had a canine to walk. Dogs, un-like many other household pets, have to be walked on almost a daily basis to remain healthy and happy. So if you have a dog at home or up in Oxford, it is now your new piece of workout equipment for this spring and

summer. Just like if you forget to feed or let them out, dogs will bother you till you get the hint. A study also found that those who exercise by walking their dogs are also likely to do other moderate or vigorous ac-tivities such as sports or even gardening. By walking your dog, this can be the start of a whole new work out regimen.

It is said to take around 26 days for a new habit to oc-cur. If you walk your dog for 30 minutes a day, five days a week, then by the end of the month a new workout regimen is born. Obviously, not everyone on this campus is capable of own-ing a dog, but if you establish this workout during the summer then you are set for the fall.

But, you cannot wait for sum-mer to start working out. You need to want to start working out now.

Dogs and other workouts will give you motivation and a de-

sire to work out for a while. The question is, does a treadmill provide the same satis-faction? For most people the answer is, “no.”

If you choose to go to the Rec-reational Center, try taking a class. Kickboxing is a

great class to unleash any pent up anger you have stored from a test, teacher or significant other. Pummeling a punching bag is exhilarating and rejuvenating. If kickboxing does not sound appealing, then try a yoga class. It is a perfect opposite to the heart pumping and mind numb-ing art of punching and kicking.

Instead, yoga is calm and peace-ful as it helps relax your whole body in all areas. It is another way to de-stress and relieve any tension from a stressful week.

There are numerous classes offered at the Recreational Center, but if you do not want to spend money, classic sports like basketball or running are other options. Grab a friend or a group and go play outside vol-leyball or kick around a soccer ball in your backyard or quad. Outdoor sports are simple and fun. However you choose to work out you just need to be active. Do not stare on the side-walks outside the Recreational Center watching people walk or run past. The next time you de-cide you need to burn calories, find a creative way to get your workout accomplished. You never know, you might be the next owner of a precious, little Golden Retriever.

Michelle ludwinludwinMa@Muohio.edu

Piracy is a practice that we refer to that occurred several decades ago before mod-ern industrialization. We imagine those ruthless, cutthroat and lawless individu-als that set sail in the high seas capturing defenseless commercial vessels, as seen in pirate movies. However, these are not old ideas anymore. Pirates still exist, at least in the Gulf of Aden.

The Gulf of Aden is a narrow body of wa-ter near Somalia and Ethiopia where many commercial ships pass through to reach the Suez Canal. These commercial ships have become tar-gets for piracy. The pirates capture passing ships and demand large sums of ran-som in return for the cargo, ship and even the crew. Ac-cording to the International Maritime Bureau, there are reported attacks from as early as 2003, but attacks decreased sud-denly in 2004. In 2004, the international community dispatched special taskforces to eradicate pirate and escort vessels. Unfortu-nately, despite the international cooperation, pirates still sail the narrow strait and attacks have continually increased since 2004.

Regardless of their illegal actions, these pirates regard themselves as the Somali

navy and claim they have taken up arms to protect their own seas from foreign ships. This is partly true because the lack of sov-ereignty and control of the Somali govern-ment. As a result, surrounding countries have led to several violations of its eco-nomic zone. Another issue is that foreign ships frequently devastate the local fishing industry by exploiting rich marine resourc-es or by polluting the water from dumping industrial wastes.

The rising piracy in the open seas has increased costs for many major logistics companies and other mari-time-based industries. More-over, the threat of piracy impedes trades between Af-rican countries themselves. Commercial ships now re-cruit security personnel and arm ships with equipment to prevent pirates from easily

boarding decks. Since the alarming increase in reported

pirate attacks, the international society has continually acted upon military operations in an effort to eradicate and stop further ad-vancements. However, international laws and agreements from military engagements frequently prevent warships from further pursuing pirates to the shores. This would

be an infringement on Somali sovereignty. These costly military expeditions fail at ex-hibiting long-term results because pirates are still capturing ships to this day. It is time for policy change.

We need to understand that the key to solving piracy issues is not encouraging military action. Countries must help insti-tute a strong national government in Soma-lia that can effectively control and penalize its own people. Piracy in the Gulf of Aden, in limited terms, is a form of guerilla war-fare that utilizes civilian vessels as methods of concealment. Therefore, cooperation with the local population is instrumental. In addi-tion, countries must try to provide Somalia with capital funds to help develop economic sustainability so that the Somali economy may provide minimal income to its people and prevent individuals from becoming vic-tims of piracy.

The increasing number of reported at-tacks may be a significant indication that the number of pirate organizations is in-creasing. These steadily rising numbers may act to incite people in other poverty stricken countries in Africa to imitate their actions. Therefore, it is crucial that countries take action now.

charles lee leec2@Muohio.edu

When the turmoil in the Middle East grasped most of the world’s attention, the tragic catastrophe that happened in East Asia forced every person into extreme anxi-ety. I was playing a word game named “banana grams” with sev-eral of my friends in St. Louis on spring break when I was told this piece of news. I carelessly took it for granted because at that time all of my concentration was fo-cused on the letters of the game. When the next day came, I found out more information about Ja-pan dominating websites, peo-ple’s mouths and finally the news spread to my own eyes. I was ut-terly shocked by the severe state of Japan.

March 11, 2011 is an unforget-table and miserable day for the Japanese. A massive 9.0 mag-nitude earthquake that landed on the Northeast coast changed Japan’s sky devastatingly and thoroughly. What followed was a tsunami that destroyed the city of Kesennuma. The explosion of nuclear plants exposed harm-ful radiation. People’s lives were taken and threatened by the con-tinuing earthquakes and after-shocks that happened every day over durations of a few hours. The factor of it being winter in Japan made for more difficult cir-cumstances the Japanese people as the suffered in the cold. Ac-cording to the latest updates, at least 3,570 people have died and

approximately 10,000 people are still missing.

As a result of Japan’s crisis, the entire world was affected to different degrees. The quake that rocked Japan shifted the balance of the planet. It shifted Eastern Japan towards North America by about 13 feet and also shifted the earth’s axis by 6.5 inches, which means our day was short-ened by 1.6 microseconds. As for the economy, because of the unexpected triple disasters — earthquake, tsunami and nuclear reactor crisis — being one of the world’s leading developed coun-try, Japan has shut down most of its industry. This has interrupted the availability of global supplies for individual’s daily necessities or the production and distribution of high technological products. At this point, it’s unavoidable for the world to voice concerns about global economy recovery efforts. Bad news continues everyday on the front pages of global newspa-pers, as the worse effects are said to continue for a while. However, instead of thoughts consumed by these tragedies, we need to reflect upon them and learn something educational and valuable.

When South Korea was still angry at North Korea for the bomb attack in November, it is important to heed a lesson from Japan. From these events, Japan is losing control of its nuclear reactor explosions spread in the

country. Is this profound enough to stop illegal nuclear programs taking place secretly in countries like North Korea? When some developed countries are still competing with each other in an arms race, why not take the life-threatened nuclear radiation of Japan into consideration? Japan’s crisis just sounded the horn that there is a need for taking stricter precautionary measures in any nuclear programs before a trag-edy happens again.

The painful and miserable memory left on China by Japan in World War II will never be forgotten, and many political and economical tensions between these two countries have also occurred often over the past few years. However, China gener-ously and quickly stretched out a helping hand to aid Japan after the earthquake. In the midst of disasters, sympathy overshadows hateful feelings exposing briefly relief and recovery as the only goals and interests of the coun-try. Neighboring countries sud-denly become siblings and the world joins together to support each other to go through a trag-edy. This is a good chance for not only China, but also other coun-tries to improve their relationship with Japan. Our life is so uncer-tain, fragile and delicate in the face of natural catastrophes. Why don’t we become a family while the natural monsters attacks the

world? As the earthquake leaves behind a fragmented Japan na-tion, saving life becomes the first priority, ignoring the platforms for securing the country’s inter-ests, political rights in the world and economic power competi-tion. You never know what will happen tomorrow, why not just save time to live a peaceful and friendly life?

The lessons of Japan’s crisis are beyond these explained. The disaster seemed to force people to believe that the end of the world in 2012 is true. At this time we are feeling sorry for Japan, but we need to ponder deeply about our own lives. Live every day as the last day of your life, do not be silly about wasting time on meaningless sorrows, complaints or what makes you unhappy. Stop being hateful, discriminatory and mean toward people. Try to open your heart, by welcoming people into the best part of your life. When we are praying for the families who lost loved ones people in Japan, never forget to pray for yourself and a better life tomorrow. Even if the end of the world is coming, we need to be brave and strong enough to work together to fight against it. Even if we will lose at the end, we will not have many regrets left in our life.

Qiao songsongQ@Muohio.edu

There was a study done that said

people were more likely to go for walks on a regular basis if they had a canine

to walk.

Countries must help institute a strong

national government in Somalia that can effectively control and penalize its

own people.

News 513-529-2257 Editorial 513-529-2259

Advertising 513-529-2210 Fax 513-529-1893FYI PageFriday

March 18, 20118

The Miami StudentOldest university paper in the United States, established in 1826

Website: www.miamistudent.net For advertising information: miamistudent@gmail.com

The Miami Student (Tuesday/Friday) is published during the school year by the students of Miami University, Oxford, Ohio.

The content of The Miami Student is the sole responsibility of The Miami Student staff. Opinions expressed in The Miami Student are not necessarily

those of Miami University, its students or staff.

CORRECTIONS POLICYThe Miami Student is committed to providing the Miami University community

with the most accurate information possible. Corrections may be submitted up to seven calendar days after publication.

Sam KayEditor in Chief

Joe Gioffre Business Manager

Baylor MyersAsst. Business Manager

Carly Huang Finance Director

Kendall Flynn National Advertising DirectorClassified Advertising Director

Katie NeltnerAdvertising Representative

Nina PolsonAdvertising Representative

Anna RomanoAdvertising Representative

Cox Ohio Publishing Printer

WDJ Inc. - Bill Dedden Distributor

Sacha DeVroomen Bellman Adviser

Bethany Bruner News Editor

Colleen Yates Managing Editor

Scott Allison Online Editor

Hunter Stenback Asst. Online Editor

Lauren Ceronie, Jenni Wiener, Campus Editors

Amanda SeitzSpecial Reports Editor

Melissa Tacchi Community Editor

Thomasina Johnson, Noelle BernardEditorial Editors

Michael Solomon Sports Editor

Samantha Ludington Photo Editor

Senior Staff Writers

Adam GiffiChelsea Naughton

Matt LevyShannon Pesek

Staff Writers

Mandi CardosiNatalie McKerjeeShayn CorcoranJames PrewittSarah Sidlow

Editorial Columnists

Chris DeNicolaTy Gilligan Karli Kloss

Oriana Pawlyk

Sports Staff Writers

Alex ButlerMelissa MaykutDrew McDonell

Hannah R. Miller

Designers

Nicole CrandallJulia Engelbrecht

Erin KillingerMichelle Ludwin

Abigail Offenbaker

Photography Staff

Scott AllisonAllison Backovski

Caroline BuckThomas CaldwellEmily EspositoMichael Griggs

Bloggers

Brittany DoveMcKenzie GrahamHannah Poturalski

Emily SheriffDavid Small

Garrett SmithJessica Stringfield

Cartoonists

Noah CarlAshley Ceroli

Jinghang HuangMegan Kuntz

Chad StebbinsMichael C. Carter

Notice

Live uptown this summer! A variety of Units available. Contact Red Brick at 524.9340 for more info. PLUM ST. APARTMENTS newly remodeled 2 bedroom units located across from Miami’s Rec Center. W/D, DW, air condition, carport. $2350 per person/per semester for 2 or $4000 per semester for 1. Sum-mer Move-In available for $400 per person. 513-839-0354 for more info. NEW ENGLAND SQUARE 2 bdrm units, only 1 block from Campus! Newly remodeled with stainless steel appliances, new ceramic tile/carpet, heat/air. W/D, DW in each unit. Off-street parking. $2650 per person/per semester. Summer Move-In available for $400 per person. 513-839-0354 for more info. For rent Single units available for 11-12. Roommate Matching avail-able for 11-12. 513-523-2015 or www.parkplacerealestate.net for more info. Camp Counselor! FUN and REWARDING Summer Job Op-portunities in Cincinnati! Enjoy the out-doors while leading and teaching children recreational activities as a summer day camp counselor. Weekdays 9:30-3:30 PM. Positions include: basketball, drama & singing, gymnastics, maintenance, male group counselors, nature & camping, bb air rifle, soccer, swimming instruc-tors (current life guarding required, WSI preferred), team sports and other activity leaders. Camp Ses-sion: June 20 - July 29. Pre-camp work available in May; staff training held 5/21 & 5/28 & evening 5/27. Cincinnati location near Winton Woods. Call Camp Wildbrook 513-931-2196 or email Campwildbrook@cinci.rr.com

Help WaNted

Now hiring Spring and Summer painters wanted. Contact Matt @ 513.257.7237

GeNeral

Houses of Miami Book The essential coffee table book for the Miami Student featuring 200 off-campus houses. Now for sale at www.miam-ihousebook.com

employmeNt opportuNities

Local Real Estate Company is now hiring for paid Fall Internship. Contact Sarah @ 513.257.7034 for more info.

For reNt

House for Rent 2011/12 4 Bed-rooms, 1 bath. Permit for 4. Laundry room includes W/D. Next to Ace Hardware. $10,000 per semester. 513-255-4100, www.odcproperties.com HOUSE FOR RENT 3 Bedroom House, 2 full Baths, 2 car garage, washer/dryer, full kitchen, cable and hi-speed internet in every room, large closets, all electric utilities, landlord pays water, sewer, and trash. Less than 5 years old. Call Lou @ (513) 658-2590 2 BR TOWNHOUSE NOW RENT-ING for fall 11-12. Great Location one block from campus: 22 E Cen-tral. Well maintained. Large spacious rooms. Off-street parking. Call First Financial Bank (513) 867-5576. AFFORDABLE CONDO!!! 4 BR Fully Furnished Flat for 4 people or less - Special discount for 11-12 school year. ONLY $1,125/pp/sem (based on 4 people). Summer rentals also available. Call 614-746-2582 or watros@aol.com TODAY! Nice Condo for 2011-12Lrg. 2BR, 2BA condo convien. to metro and north side of campus. 2200.per tenant per sem. or $750.mo. T. 513-255-0433 TIRED OF TOO MANY ROOM-MMATES? THE COURTYARDS OF MIAMI has your solution! We are located on E. Central Ave. We offer neat, clean, and colorful housing at affordable prices. The Courtyards has 2 bedroom apart-ments shared by just 2 people for $2300/ person - includes heat and water & 1 bedroom+ a study for 1 person for $3300. All residents enjoy off street parking, on site laundry, yard space with a shelter that has tables and grills! The MU bus stops at our front door, and all apartments have been recently renovated with several upgrades! We are just down the street from the REC and within walking distance to campus. On-site office with flexible hours and pay-ment schedules. Stop by, contact Carolyn at (513) 659-5671 or www.thecourtyardsofmiami.com for more information

For reNt

SIGN YOUR LEASE TODAY!The NEW Oxford & Miami Commons is Now Leasing for August 2011! FRESHLY renovated one, two, and four bedroom apartments within seconds of Miami University. Located on the Red & Yellow bus routes. Text COMMONS to 313131 www.oxfordcommons.net 513.523.7571 HOUSE FOR RENT or SALE! Don’t waste money living on campus! 621 S. College Ave. 2-4BR, 2BA, rear off-street parking, hardwood floors, finished basement, local landlord. $2500pp/sem. A For Sale Bargain at $160K. Must see. Call 513-503-8212

apartmeNts

SOUTH CAMPUS QUARTER OPENED August 2010 Modern Liv-ing ~ Contemporary Design -Located across from the REC Center. For more information call (513) 523-1647 or visit southcampusquarter.com Roberts Apartments2011/12. One-Bedroom Apartments. Great Location! Close to Campus. 2 Blocks from Uptown. Laundry Facilities. Off-Street Parking. Spacious and Well-Maintained. www.roberts-apts.com 513-839-1426 For Rent: Studio, 1 Bedroom, 2 Bedroom, & 4 Bedroom Apartments. Flexible lease terms.Check Us Out www.foxandhounds-apartments.com www.oxfordrents.com Call 523-2440 Text 335-7044

Houses

NEWER CONDO TRENDY 4 BEDRM~2 FULL BATH~EQUIPPED KITCHEN~LAUNDRY~OFF STREET PARKING~GARAGE~CAN HELP WITH FURNISHING. Mike 513 266-1685 m2deuce21@hotmail.com HOUSE FOR RENT 4 Bedroom House, 2 full Baths, 2 car garage, washer/dryer, full kitchen, cable and hi speed internet in every room, large closets, all electric utilities, landlord pays water, sewer, and trash. Less than 4 years old. Call Lou @ (513) 658-2590 House for rent Spacious 4 Bed-room, 3 Full Bathroom House now available for 11-12 school year. One Block from Metro Stop. $2650 pp/ per sem. For more info call 513.524.9340 or visit www.redbrickoxford.com

THE NEW STANDARD IN HOUSINGFOR YOUR NYC INTERNSHIPState-of-the-art residences.No broker fees.Summer or semester leases available.

www.studenthousing.org 800-297-4694

RESERVE NOW!

eArnenGAGeexPLore

[credits]

[your mind]

[the possibilities]

SUMMER SESSIONS2011

UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGHSCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCESCOLLEGE OF GENERAL STUDIES

SUMMER SESSIONS2011

UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGHSCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCESCOLLEGE OF GENERAL STUDIES

SUMMER SESSIONS at the University of Pittsburgh

Make the most of your summer break! Pick up some extra credits to get a head start on the fall semester. Credits are transferable to most colleges and universities around the country.

enroLL [in summer sessions]

Register today at www.summer.pitt.edu

When you’re finished reading

The Miami Student,please recycle!

By Drew McDonnellStaff Writer

The Miami University softball team finished as the runner-up in the Pepsi Malihini Kipa Aloha Tournament this past weekend in Honolulu, Hawaii.

Junior Jordan McElroy saw the tournament as a great test for the team.

“The biggest accomplishment during this tournament was seeing how different girls on the team can step up when they are needed to,” McElroy said. “Especially dealing with injuries from a few starters, we were able to see different girls take roles that they have not been asked to take yet.”

The team opened the tourna-ment up with a 4-0 win against South Dakota State University on the first day. Miami began to dominate with two runs in the bottom of the third inning. After

McElroy reached base on an error, freshman Kristy Arbour bunted for a base hit to put two on the bases. Senior Meghan Mawn came to the plate and doubled to right center, sending McElroy home. Arbour scored soon after on a wild pitch.

At the bottom of the fourth, senior Jenna McGivney led off with a sin-gle to centerfield and was replaced by freshman pinch-runner Brandi Hernandez. McElroy followed with an infield single to put two on base. A bunt by Arbour moved both into scoring position, while another bunt from Mawn brought home Hernan-dez and made it 3-0. Freshman Kay-la Ledbetter completed the scoring with a double to left field that sent McElroy home.

On day two of the tournament, the RedHawks defeated Longwood University 1-0 in the opener but fell to the University of Hawaii 5-0 in the nightcap.

The ’Hawks got the only run of

the game against Longwood right at the start in the top of the first in-ning. McElroy led off the game with a single to shortstop. Mawn singled to right field to move McElroy over to second. Ledbetter fol-lowed with a single to right field that sent McElroy home.

The Univer-sity of Hawaii dominated the Red and White with four runs in the bottom of the first inning. Three of them came off a home run to right center. After the Hawaii scored again, ju-nior Katie Osburn came in relief of freshman starter Paige Myers. Os-burn was able to stall the Hawaii at-tack, giving up no runs on six hits in

five innings of work.“We noticed that we need to get

more hits in clutch situations.” Mc-Givney said. “We are a good hitting

team and we get a lot of hits just not always in the opportune mo-ments that we need them.”

On the final day of the tour-nament, the Red-Hawks won their first game 1-0 over Longwood in the morning and held a 2-0 lead against Ha-waii in the fourth

inning before the high-powered Rainbow Wahine offense gained eight runs to win 8-2.

Miami scored its run in the first game against Longwood in the top of the first inning. McElroy led off

the game with an infield single to the shortstop. A single from Mawn to right field would move her over to second base. Ledbetter sent a single to bring McElroy home.

The RedHawks scored in the top of the first against Hawaii. McElroy started the game with a single to left field. Mawn moved her over to third base with a single to right field which soon led her to home.

Miami made it 2-0 in the top of the third. McElroy led off the frame with another single. Ledbetter brought her home with a triple to deep right field. Hawaii tied it at two in the bottom of the fourth and a two-run home run in the bottom of the fifth would give the Rainbow Wahine the lead. With the score 5-2 in the bottom of the sixth, Hawaii scored three runs on another home run to account for the 8-2 final score.

Miami is now 11-8 on the season.

weekend’s winner. Seniors Andy Miele and Carter Camper

have been recognized for individual accom-plishments throughout the season, but both players express that victories as a team are a different experience.

“As an individual you can win awards, but you’re going to share that with yourself,” Miele said. “But when you can win a Mason Cup … it’s something you can share with 24 other guys.”

“That’s said perfectly,” Camper said. “When you win a regular season championship or playoff championship, you can celebrate with the people you’re with every day and that lasts a little bit longer.”

Thursday night in Detroit, prior to the weekend games, the CCHA Awards cere-mony was held. Miami had three players se-lected to the All-CCHA First Team, including Camper, Miele and sophomore Reilly Smith. Junior Chris Wideman was selected to the Second Team.

In regards to the awards, Camper noted the depth of the Miami roster and described the sentiment of the recognition.

“It was definitely special,” Camper said. “We were fortunate enough to play on a line together at the beginning of the year and we were able to put up some pretty good numbers.”

The puck drops at 4:30 p.m. Friday. Sat-urday’s game-time will be determined by Friday’s outcome.

for his dislike of holding practices indoors no matter the weather, has yet to face any discipline, as has anyone else with the team. To Notre Dame, $77,500 is a slap on the wrist. To Kelly, it’s completely ignorable, but to Sullivan’s parents, the death of their 20-year old son can never be fixed.

Barry and Alison Sullivan issued a statement saying that, while they appreciate the thorough investiga-tion, nothing can undo what has happened to their family.

“This report is an important step in preventing future accidents, but its findings do not change the fact that Declan is not with us,” they wrote.

I can’t say that Sullivan’s death, and the subsequent lack of results from Notre Dame to punish those responsible, hasn’t angered me. In my mind, Notre Dame has yet to act because they want to avoid a bigger scandal than they already are deal-ing with. Additionally, people are reluctant to call-out people in a pro-gram as big as Notre Dame’s. How-ever, if this accident happened here, at Miami, someone would have been held responsible by now.

The fine handed down by the IOHSA is important, because at the

very least it shows someone, some-where in South Bend is responsible for Sullivan’s death. However, a fine of $77,500 is chump change when you consider that tuition for Notre Dame is $39,91 and the average cost of room and board is $10,866. Essentially, two first-year students cover the fine and then some.

What is the worth of a human life? Not to get philosophical here but isn’t that what the IOHSA just said to Notre Dame? “You are re-sponsible for a death that could have been avoided. That’ll be $77,500.”

I’d like to think Notre Dame would have done something for the Sullivan’s before now. After all, De-clan Sullivan went to work for them. Taping their team. Helping them try to win a championship which would bring Notre Dame money that Sul-livan would likely never see.

According to Forbes.com, Notre Dame stands to lose up to $80 mil-lion for Sullivan’s death and any pu-nitive damages that it brought, pro-vided that it is determined Sullivan’s death was caused by negligence or misconduct by Notre Dame officials such as Kelly or Athletic Director Jack Swarbrick. The IOHSA’s find-ings could be enough to prove that.

But it doesn’t matter really. For Barry and Alison Sullivan, no amount of money will bring their son back to life. And sadly, their last memory of him will be his final words. A tweet he sent out at 4:06 p.m. the day he died.

THE MIAMI STUDENT Sports FRIDAY, MARCH 18, 2011 ♦ 9

COLUMNcontinued from page 10

RedHawks fall short in Hawaii championship

Miami drops CBI opener to Rhode Island

Sophomore guard Allen Roberts soars to the rim for two against Kent State University Feb. 16. Roberts and the RedHawks were defeated by the University of Rhode Island 76-59 Wednesday night in the first round of the CBI.

MICHAEL GRIGGS The Miami Student

“The biggest accomplishment

during this tournament was seeing how

different girls on the team can step up when

they are needed to.”

JOrDaN McELrOyJUNiOr OUtfiELDEr

HOCKEycontinued from page 10

Red and White place ninth in FloridaBy Hannah r. MillerStaff Writer

With senior golfers Nathan Sutherland and Michael Drobnick leading the way, the Miami Uni-versity golf team teed off in the Rio Pinar Invitational in Orlando, Fla. Monday, March 14 and Tuesday, March 15.

The Red and White finished 9th out of 18 teams, with the Uni-versity of Central Florida taking the victory.

Sutherland finished tied for 10th individually, with Drobnick close behind him, tied for 14th. Suther-land shot a 73 in the first round, a 69 in the second round and a 72 in the third for a final score of 2-under par. Drobnick shot a 71 and a pair of 72s for a finish of 1-under par.

Head Coach Casey Lubahn was encouraged by Drobnick’s performance.

“We’re happy to see Michael perform like we know Michael can, and like he knows he can,” Lubahn said. “He was committed to his shots, and he built some good mo-mentum for the rest of the season.”

Lubahn was glad to see Suther-land in contention throughout the rounds as well.

“Nathan’s great week in and week out,” Lubahn said. “We never take it for granted, but I’m not surprised by his continued good play.”

Even with good scores from his seniors, Lubahn needed more from his other three golfers. Ben Peacock, Austin Kelly and Brett Tomfohrde finished at 9-over

par, 20-over par and 23-over par, respectively.

“It’s important that the other guys dig in a little and understand that we don’t get this done without them finding a way,” Lubahn said. “They’re good kids and they’re working hard, but they need to gut it out a little bit more when they’re in competition and they need to stay more positive.”

Sutherland believes his team-mates are on the brink of contribut-ing to the team score each round.

“They’re playing 14 or 15 really good holes, but we need them to put in 18 solid holes every round so that we finish the round,” Suther-land said. “They’re playing well, I think they’re close.”

With a week before their next tournament, Lubahn is ready to get his team competing against each other and working on their mental game.

“We didn’t manage our men-tal game very well,” Lubahn said. “Our strategy wasn’t on the level we need it to be and our determina-tion was not as good as it has been. This week should be good because we’ll have guys battle at home be-fore we leave.”

Sutherland sees the longer holes as the main area for improvement.

“We’ve got to play the par fives better. I don’t think we did as well this week on them as some teams that were in contention did.”

The RedHawks head back to Florida for the FAU Spring Break Classic March 25, 26 and 27 in Delray Beach.

score of 32.64 and a program component score of 32.11. Overall, they earned a season high score of 64.75.

The senior team kept their energy and momen-tum going when they skated a perfect free- skate performance to “Hypnotized in a Dream.” They re-ceived an element score of 62.84, a program com-ponent score of 67.91 and a 130.75 score overall.

With a total score of 195.50, the RedHawks placed second behind the Haydenettes, who had finished with 217.41 points.

“They went out and skated the best two perfor-mances they could,” Head Coach Carla DeGiro-lamo said. “They went in and did their job.”

The junior synchronized skating team kicked off the U.S. National Championships for Miami with its short program Friday, March 4.

The ’Hawks skated a clean short program to “Heartbreaker” and “Hit Me With Your Best Shot” by Pat Benetar on Friday. They received an element score of 24.72 and a component score of 24.73. This put the Red and White in sixth out of 11 teams with an overall short program score 49.45.

Besides one deduction, the junior team skated a solid free skate program Saturday. They earned a free skate score of 89.09, which earned them an overall score of 138.54, earning them a sixth place finish at nationals.

With Nationals behind them, the senior and col-legiate teams will continue to work on their perfor-mances and focus on improving the technical parts of their skating before competing in the World Synchronized Skating Championships April 8 and 9 in Helsinki, Finland.

SKatiNGcontinued from page 10

HOCKEY

SportsFridayMarch 18, 201110 Editor

Michael Solomonsports@miamistudent.net

Just another slap on the wrist

Adam Hainsfurther

Hainsfurther’s Holler

’Hawks aim for CCHA title

Junior Chris Wideman fires a shot from the blue line against the University of Alaska Fairbanks March 11. MICHAEL GRIGGS The Miami Student

wSee COLUMN, page 9

Collegiate Skating Team wins seventh straight National Title

NEXT GAME: 4:35 p.m. Friday vs. the University of Notre Dame

SYNCHRONIZED SKATING

October 27, 2010 4:06 PM, @DecSullivan: “Holy (blank).

Holy (blank). This is terrifying.”On Tuesday, March 15, the day that

March Madness officially kicked off, the University of Notre Dame, a two-seed in the men’s basketball tourna-ment, was no longer feeling the high that comes with being awarded a high seed. Instead, the pain felt in Octo-ber following the accidental death of Declan Sullivan was being brought back to life following the decision by the Indiana Occupational Health and Safety Administration (IOHSA) to fine the university $77,500 for ig-noring industry standards that could have helped avoid Sullivan’s death.

Sullivan, a videographer for the Fighting Irish football team, died last year after the hydraulic lift he was using to tape a team practice toppled over amid strong winds. The IOHSA found the Notre Dame had six viola-tions and fined the university for each one. The biggest fine was $55,000 for “knowingly exposing its employees to unsafe conditions by directing its untrained student videographers to use the scissor lift during a period of time when the National Weather Ser-vice issued an active wind advisory with sustained winds and guests in excess of the manufactured specifi-cations and warnings.”

For Notre Dame, Sullivan’s death was a tragedy, but no one was held accountable. Head coach Brian Kelly, who is now preparing for his second season with the Irish and is notorious

By Hannah R. Miller Staff Writer

Unbeaten in their last 11 games and coming off a sweep of the University of Alaska Fair-banks in the second round of the Central Collegiate Hockey As-sociation (CCHA) Tournament, the Miami University ice hockey team heads to Detroit, Mich. for CCHA Championship Weekend at Joe Louis Arena. The semifi-nal games will be held Friday, March 18, with the champion-ship and consolation games on Saturday, March 19.

The ’Hawks will face-off against second-seeded Uni-versity of Notre Dame in their semifinal battle. The teams split their first series of the year in

Oxford, with the Irish taking Friday’s game by a score of 5-4 and the RedHawks rallying for a 5-2 victory on Saturday. When the Red and White traveled to South Bend, Ind. in January, both games ended in ties (5-5 Friday, 2-2 Saturday), with the ’Hawks notching a shootout win Friday and the Irish winning the shootout Saturday.

Head Coach Enrico Blasi is excited for his team to be head-ed to Detroit and looks forward to a challenging game against Notre Dame.

“We have had some real good battles this year,” Blasi said. “I think both teams are real evenly matched. They have a tremendous amount of skill up front. The games we have

played against each other have gone down to the wire, all four of them.”

Notre Dame Head Coach Jeff Jackson shared similar expecta-tions for Friday’s game, noting the intensity of the previous contests between the two teams. He said the deciding factors will be the same as they have been all season.

“It’s probably going to boil down to special teams and goal-tending,” Jackson said. “I always think when you get into one-game situations in this environ-ment, goaltending always seems to be the difference, especially when the game is on the line.”

Blasi is confident in his team’s goaltending and overall defen-sive play after allowing only

one goal in each of their last five contests.

“I think it starts with our goal-tenders,” Blasi said. “Both Con-nor Knapp and Cody Reichard have been playing extremely well. With our team defense, there’s been a little more of a purpose to what we do.”

On the other side of the bracket, top-seeded University of Michi-gan takes on Western Michigan University. The winners of both Friday games will play Saturday for the CCHA Championship. Even though the Red and White won the regular-season champi-onship in the 2009-2010 CCHA season, the team has never won a Mason Cup, awarded to this

wSee HOCKEY, page 9

By Melissa MaykutStaff Writer

The Miami University Colle-giate Synchronized Skating Team made history Saturday, March 5 when they won their seventh straight national title and 12th title in school history at the Unit-ed States Synchronized Skating Championships in Ontario, Calif.

Hearts were racing as the Red-Hawks stepped onto the cold, slick ice at Citizens Business Bank Arena. Just a year ago, the collegiate team had been in this same position in Minneapolis go-ing for their sixth straight national title. As the ’Hawks glided out onto the ice and began to skate to

the rhythm of their music, bring-ing their Brazilian Carnival theme to life, they had one goal and one goal only: to come home with an-other national title.

“It went amazing,” senior Em-ily Sullivan, a co-captain of the team, said. “It was the best perfor-mance of the season. We skated with as much energy and excite-ment as ever. It’s what we have been working for all season.”

With only one shot to per-fect their program, the Red and White skated a high-energy per-formance, making the crowd and judges feel the excitement of the Brazilian party that was occurring down on the ice.

The RedHawks received an

element score of 47.13 and a pro-gram component score of 49.13, resulting in an overall score of 96.16. The “Golden Girls” of Mi-ami University beat second place Michigan State University by 11 points, clinching a seventh con-secutive national title, something no synchronized skating team has ever done before.

The same weekend, the senior team skated its best performance of its season, coming in second place behind the Haydenettes.

The Red and White skated a flawless short program to “Bridge Over Troubled Water” Saturday. The team received an element

wSee SKATING, page 9