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KAROLINA ULASEVICHTHE MIAMI STUDENT

MARY SCHROTTNEWS EDITOR

Saturday afternoon, on the corner of Campus Av-enue and High Street, ap-proximately 15 Miami stu-dents and faculty members stood in protest of an open carry march directed by Jef-fry Smith, a firearm instruc-

tor and concealed carry ac-tivist from Cincinnati.

The counter protesters stood in the rain under um-brellas, holding signs with messages of opposition and playing Bob Dylan songs on guitar. Some were even wearing homemade T-shirts reading “Don’t Shoot” with a bullseye drawing.

“There was music,

MAGGIE CALLAGHANSENIOR STAFF WRITER

On April 15, the Miami University Mock Trial team travelled to Greenville, South Carolina to compete in the National Champion-ship Tournament. This was the team’s ninth consecu-tive appearance for the Na-tional title.

“This year was different than the other years,” said Miami senior and co-cap-tain, Najeeb Ahmed. “We only had three weeks to pre-pare for a new case.”

Ahmed explained that in past years, the case for Na-tionals would be released much further ahead of time. However, the team worked diligently before heading to Greenville, spending four

TESS SOHNGENSENIOR STAFF WRITER

A number of housing and dining employees at Miami say the university falls short in the compensation and treat-ment of its workers.

The mean starting salary for Miami janitorial staff and cleaners in 2015, $10.16 per hour, falls within the lowest 10th percentile among na-

tional averages for the profes-sion — $13.97 per hour — ac-cording to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Food preparation and serv-ing-related occupations at col-leges, universities and profes-sional schools have an average wage of $15.57 per hour and $32,380 annually, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

MEGAN ZAHNEISNEWS EDITOR

In late April, Miami Univer-sity hosted educational con-sulting firm EducationCounsel for a series of sessions on di-versity issues at Miami. More than 200 students, faculty and

staff attended over four days of meetings with 15 campus organizations and committees.

The conversations have been a long time coming, said campus officials, and, once EducationCounsel issues a formal report of its findings,

JACK EVANSNEWS EDITOR

OLIVIA LEWISTHE MIAMI STUDENT

When faced with some-times inflexible or insufficient hours and comparatively low pay at on-campus jobs, many international students are left

with a difficult decision to make: break the law and put your visa on the line, or con-tinue to work at a job that may not deliver.

The F-1 visa is the standard academic visa provided to international university stu-dents, according to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services website (USCIS). The

visa tightly controls an inter-national student’s ability to seek employment outside of the university that the student attends.

The standard penalty for breaking the F-1 working reg-ulations is to have your visa revoked by USCIS. Students may apply for reinstatement, but that process is not a sure bet. If they are denied, the student will often face depor-tation.

In regards to on-campus

employment, there are a number of work obstacles that only international stu-dents face, such as restrictions outlined in Title 8 of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Code of Federal Reg-ulations, said Molly Heide-mann, assistant director of International Student and Scholar Services.

International students can’t work for an organization other

MU students seek better hours, higher pay and familiar community off-campus

On Saturday, MAP held “Springfest,” where The All American Rejects rocked Millett Hall. The show ended with their hit song “Gives You Hell,” a Miami hockey jersey and a stray bra, thrown at lead vocalist Tyson Ritter.

On Saturday afternoon, Jeffry Smith, a gun rights advocate and activist, led an open carry walk. Smith performed the walk in order to raise awareness about the right of citizens to openly carry firearms.

Visa laws restrict international labor

RENEE FARRELL PHOTO EDITOR

RENEE FARRELL PHOTO EDITOR

GLOBAL

GUNS

COMPETITION

WORKERS

DIVERSITY

INTERNATIONAL » PAGE 3

OPEN CARRY » PAGE 3

CONSULTANT » PAGE 9 DEBATE » PAGE 5

MEGAN ZAHNEISNEWS EDITOR

Miami students pay more for their education than nearly any other public-university students in the U.S., yet they are increas-ingly taught by faculty who enjoy neither the job security nor the academic freedom of tenured college professors.

That has subtle but signifi-cant effects in the classroom, according to both tenured

professors and faculty mem-bers called “contingent”—those who work on part-time or short-term contracts who can never be sure how long their jobs will last.

The contingent class — which includes visiting as-sistant professors, who sign annually renewable con-tracts with five-year caps; instructors, who are hired year-to-year; and per-credit-hour, or adjunct, faculty — comprised 26.1 percent of Miami’s total instructional staff in fall 2015.

This reliance on

CONTINGENT » PAGE 5

Contingents’ status impacts quality of education

GUN WALK PROMPTS COUNTER-PROTESTS

Mock Trial takes 3rd

at Nationals

Miami workers lament low wages, clique culture

EducationCounsel meetings continue diversity discussion

Lack of job security, academic freedom to blame

FACULTY

MIAMI ENDS WINNING STREAK

AT MAC

RedHawks fell to Western Michigan University 4-2 in

semifinals

FSB PROFESSOR WEIGHS IN ON

LAWSUIT

Daniel Herron deconstructs the events that culminated in a

gender-discrimination case

PAST CULTURE EDITOR SAYS HER

GOODBYES

Through the lens of “The Office,” Britton Pereleman reflects on her time at MU

CONSTRUCTION TO CONTINUE OVER

SUMMER

North Quad, Martin Dining Hall renovations to be

completed for fall semester

ODA CONTINUES SEARCH FOR NEW

DIRECTOR

Yvania Garcia-Pusateri, Kelley Camille Kimple and

Sherlonda Clarke hold forums

SPORTS p. 10OPINION p. 6CULTURE p. 4NEWS p. 2NEWS p. 2

Professor,second class

Second in a series

AFSCME » PAGE 3

PARIS FRANZSENIOR STAFF WRITER

The construction at Armstrong and other sites will continue throughout the summer.

Over the summer, several con-struction projects will be underway including the completion of the North Quad Residence halls and Martin Dining Hall, continued con-struction on the second phase of the Armstrong Student Center and the Gunlock Family Athletic Center, the demolition of Withrow Court and the commencement of construction for a new residence hall.

The North Quad residence halls and Martin Dining Hall will be com-pleted over the summer and open for operation in the fall, said Ted Christian, project manager for the North Quad renovations. Resident directors will move into the newly renovated North Quad halls - Bran-don Hall, Flower Hall, Hahne Hall and Hepburn Hall - in mid-July.

Martin Dining Hall is to be com-pleted by August 1. In addition to a new, airy, modern feel, the hall will now feature a fitness center on the lower level with weights, cardio equipment and a multipurpose ex-ercise studio, said Christian.

Culler is being renovated as an extension of the Armstrong Student Center. Construction of Armstrong was planned in two phases, said

David Creamer, Miami University senior vice president of finance and business services.

The current construction is part of phase two. The construction that has already taken place this semes-ter was mainly focused on the interi-or of Culler Hall. Over the summer, construction will take place to con-nect the buildings. Eventually, the Career Services Offices will be relo-cated to the completed facility. The finished Armstrong Student Cen-ter will also have student govern-ment chambers, additional meeting rooms, recreational areas and a cof-fee bar.

The addition to the Armstrong Student Center will not be com-pleted until after the 2017 spring semester.

Junior Julia Walton is displeased with the construction at Armstrong and Culler. The construction blocks the path between the two buildings,

which she used to take to her classes from the Shriver bus stop and back.

“I live off campus so I take the bus every day, so having to take de-tours around the construction and through different buildings adds maybe five minutes or so to my walk time, making it very inconvenient,” said Walton, who has missed the bus several times this semester.

Walton is also baffled by the tim-ing of the construction. While she believes there was some monetary consideration behind the decision to build Armstrong in two phases, she cannot believe that splitting the construction was the best option available.

“When I first started here, Arm-strong wasn’t even open, so to think in the course of my four years here that it’s been finished and they’re al-ready re-doing construction on it – I find it ridiculous,” said Walton. “I do think that some of the amenities that

they’re adding are probably going to be beneficial and nice, but the in-conveniences slightly outweigh the benefits.”

The North Quad residence halls were renovated in part to address the increase in student enrollment. In addition to the renovations, Hahne Hall has an entirely new wing that will add about 110 beds to the build-ing. Miami requires full-time first year and second year students to live on-campus, and the growing enroll-ment creates a greater demand for on-campus beds.

This academic year, approximate-ly 7,900 students lived in university housing, both on and off campus. It is expected that roughly 8,000 stu-dents will need university housing for the upcoming academic year, a growth of slightly over 12 percent since the fall of 2009 when there were about 7,100 students living in university housing.

“We obviously are enrolling more students today than has been his-torically the case,” said Creamer. “That’s why we have been looking at some options to not just renovate existing buildings, but to apply some additional beds to be able to fully respond to student demand for resi-dence hall beds on campus.”

To address the growth, construc-tion for a new residence hall will also begin this summer at what is cur-rently the Hepburn Varsity Tennis Courts near the baseball field. The tennis courts are being relocated to the outside of Yager Stadium, and will be operational in August.

Anastasiia Vasiukhina, varsity tennis player, is looking forward to the move.

ANGELA HATCERNEWS EDITOR

This week, the division of Student Affairs is inviting all students to attend forums for the election of a new Director of Multicultural Affairs position.

The candidates include: Yva-nia Garcia-Pusateri, Assistant Director of Diversity Affairs and Coordinator of Diverse Student Development; Kelley Camille Kimple, Associate Director of Multicultural Affairs at Bay-lor University; and Sherlonda Clarke, Director of Diversity and Inclusion at University of Min-nesota School of Public Health (SPH).

Garcia-Pusateri held a forum from 1:30 to 2:30 p.m. Monday. Kimple’s forum is from 1:30 to 2:30 p.m. Wednesday. Clarke’s forum is from 1:30 to 2:30 p.m. on Thursday, May 5. All forums will be held in Armstrong Stu-dent Center Community Lounge Room 2048.

The forums and open posi-tions are a direct result of new changes to facing the Office of Diversity Affairs (ODA).

In late February, a student forum was held in the ODA by Scott Walter, assistant vice president of student affairs, and Jane Brownell, vice president of student affairs, to discuss the changes that will occur at the ODA for the coming 2016-2017 academic year.

Primarily, the new ODA will combine three different, cur-rently separate centers — The Women’s Center, the current ODA and the LGBTQ Center. The goal is to promote intersec-tionality and increased interac-tion for all diverse students on campus.

The new model forces the centers to function as a cohesive unit with one presiding director while allowing current directors of each center to maintain their positions.

The new model was was spurred by the retirements of Juanita Tate, director of divisional initiatives in the current ODA, and Ger-ald Yearwood, its senior administrative director.

2 NEWS NEWS@MIAMISTUDENT.NETTUESDAY, MAY 3, 2016

CONSTRUCTION »PAGE 9

AWARDS »PAGE 9

CAMPUS

ODA director forums

continue

RYAN TERHUNE THE MIAMI STUDENT

Students move to Armstrong Student Center’s outdoors patio to study in the warm spring weather.

BETH PFOHL THE MIAMI STUDENT

Campus construction to make progress over summer break

CONSTRUCTION

HANNAH JOLLYTHE MIAMI STUDENT

Spring has sprung and so have engagement proposals on Miami’s campus. For many Miami Univer-sity seniors, thoughts of their fu-ture are on the mind, along with whom they want to spend it with.

Many of these newly engaged Miami seniors will be Miami Mergers. A Miami saying is, “When two hearts beat as one and both attended Miami, it’s a Miami Merger.”

Maddie Ermlich, a fifth-year senior at Miami, will be mar-ried before most graduates land their first job. Her fiancé, Thom-as Lawson, proposed to her on September 15 of 2015, and the two will be married within the next six months.

Lawson is an air force cadet of Miami’s ROTC Program and will be off to basic training a week af-ter graduation. The two plan to get married in a small, courthouse wedding either before he leaves for basic training or in November when he returns. Later, they plan to have a larger ceremony with all of their family members.

Ermlich is not feeling the fear that typically comes to many stu-dents around graduation.

“It makes graduating less scary knowing I’ll have Thomas as my partner in life, and I’ll always have him even though he’ll be gone for a while,” said Ermlich.

Ermlich and Lawson are tying the knot earlier than the average American. According to Today’s Bride, the median age in the U.S. to get engaged is 26 years old, and the average age of a student fin-ishing their senior year of college is 22.

Ermlich is 23 years old and Lawson is 22, so they are ahead of the national average. The couple has been dating for five years. Due to their long courtship, Erm-lich said that she partially antici-pated the proposal.

The couple was on vacation with Lawson’s family in Disney World in September. While in line to get a picture with Cruella Deville, Ermlich’s favorite charac-ter, Lawson got down on one knee and popped the question.

“The whole crowd was cheering ‘Say yes!’ I don’t remember the cheering though. I started crying and was so silly. It was all so sur-real,” Ermlich said.

Lawson, her fiancé, felt an array of emotions, including anticipa-tion, leading up to the proposal.

“That was the longest line at Disney that I’ve ever waited in,”

Lawson said. According to a Facebook Data

Sciences study, about 28 percent of married graduates attended the same college as their spouse. According to Miami University’s data, 14 percent of Miami alumni are married to another alum.

Not only are Ermlich and Lawson Miami Mergers, they are also high school sweet-hearts. The couple even attended the same preschool.

The same Facebook Data Sci-ence Study found that there was a significant correlation by how religious the school is and the rate of married college-graduates. With 23 campus ministries and area churches, Oxford, Ohio is very accommodating for religious students.

There is also a high correla-tion between military involve-ment and young marriage ages, as well. According to the Depart-ment of Defense Demograph-ics Report, 43 percent of active duty members are 25 or younger. Sixty percent of people in the Army are married.

With many Miami seniors sporting diamond rings and kiss-ing under the Upham Arch at midnight, love is in the air on campus and Miami is ready to ring in spring.

Miami students seal the dealSpring engagements bloom on campus

LOVE

HAILEY MALLENDICKSENIOR STAFF WRITER

At Miami’s annual Student En-gagement and Leadership (SEAL) Celebration, Project You took home honors as the best new stu-dent organization on campus. The empowerment-based initiative was founded in the fall of 2014 by stu-dents who wanted to instill a great-er sense of belonging in Miami’s growing student population.

Senior Ashton Spann, one of Project You’s founders, said the formation of her organization ad-dressed what she saw as an unwel-coming campus culture.

“I felt that students felt that they had to look a certain way just to fit in,” said Spann.

What began as Spann’s idea to start a committee within the Na-tional Residence Hall Honorary (NRHH) to bolster self-confidence in first-years has branched out to being recognized as this year’s “Best New Student Organization” at the SEAL awards.

“That was so exciting, because of how much work we have put in,” said Spann. “It felt really awesome to see how much we have accom-plished and how we have grown.”

Project You became an official organization in the spring of 2015. It currently has eight members on the executive board and ten general members. They host weekly meet-

ings for the organization and have put on several events this year, in-cluding a silent disco and a “Cel-ebration of You.”

The silent disco was a dance in which the participants were given headphones to listen to the music being played, rather than hearing it aloud.

Senior Alyssa Zediker, who helped coordinate the silent disco, said the event was a success.

“It raised money to promote mental health awareness and a pos-itive message to seeking help since it can get a negative stigma,” said Zediker. “It was funny: I was stand-ing there watching the event and took off my headphones, and just watched them dance to silence.”

Project You’s second marquee event of the year was its “Celebra-tion of You”, which saw the orga-nization partner with F-WORD, Spectrum, To Write Love on Her Arms and others for a festival on MEET quad last week.

At the event, Project You and the other organizations put up their own individual tables. Each table had their own interactive activity, Project You did origami stars with words of affirmation on them. In addition to the various activities for the attendees, there was a keynote presentation on authenticity and self love.

“I think that Celebration You

Project You wins honorAWARDS

NEWS 3NEWS@MIAMISTUDENT.NET TUESDAY, MAY 3, 2016

RENNEE FARRELL PHOTO EDITOR

Billy Simms and presidential candidate Billy the Sperm hold a sign during the “Open Carry” walk counter-protest. Simms advocated for “carrying puppets, not guns.” and Billy the Sperm said “I’m the only candidate America can swallow.”

signs, an informative teach in and an opportunity to distribute information to dozens of interested people passing by,” said first-year Nick Froehlich, who counter-pro-tested.

Close to 70 people, the majority of whom were not Miami students, walked with Smith through cam-pus and Oxford’s Uptown openly carrying firearms in an effort to ed-ucate college students on the right to bear and keep arms.

The two groups met in front of the Phi Delta Theta Headquarters on Campus Avenue where a dis-cussion ensued.

Froehlich said there were three open carriers who were polite and open to a discussion with his group, but overall the open carry walk was intimidating and uncom-fortable.

“I’ve never seen dozens of peo-ple armed with rifles before,” said Froehlich. “Several of them yelled and laughed at us.”

However, Froehlich said what made him the most uncomfortable was hearing that some of the open carriers had referred to the counter protestors as ‘sitting ducks’ a few days before the rally.

“I have no clue why they would want to carry a gun through our campus,” said Froehlich. “Maybe to somehow make us safe.”

According the Open Carry/Fire-arm Education Walk Facebook event page, “The purpose of the Walk is to inform and engage col-lege students and the public about the right to keep and bear arms, including discussing how those rights are diminished by various laws, for instance by making col-lege campuses Criminal Empower-ment Zones.”

The page also asked participants to be willing to engage with people like the counter protesters in con-versation. However, it did ask open carriers to refrain from telling people “It’s my right” and wearing clothes that read “Don’t Tread on Me,” “From My Cold Dead Hands” and “Three Percent.”

The open carry group demon-strated on other Ohio campuses earlier this year like Bowling Green State University, The University of Cincinnati and The Ohio State Uni-versity. The walk at Miami was the 5th organized open carry campus event the group has done.

Ohio law allows people to carry firearms on public property, yet it’s illegal to carry a concealed weapon on campuses. Miami’s Code of Conduct doesn’t allow students to carry on campus, however, prior to the walk Miami said it would not discipline the students who partici-pated.

Graduate student Evan Fackler, who has spoken out against the walk before, said he simply does not agree that guns should be apart of campus culture.

“I certainly don’t want guns in the classroom because when I at-tend a lecture on campus, I don’t want to be wondering how many people are carrying concealed weapons,” said Fackler.

While some of the open carriers spoke with the counter protesters,

FROM OPEN CARRY » PAGE 1

RENNEE FARRELL PHOTO EDITOR

Jeffry Smith leads a group of gun-toting activists up Campus Ave. through the cold rain. Counter-protestors waited to confront Smith at the corner of Campus and High.

Fackler said many of them weren’t interested in engaging with some of the intersectional issues the counter protestors brought up.

“That was essentially [the counter protesters] move,” said Fackler, “to complicate the issue, not in the ser-vice of unnecessary obfuscation, but because it really is complicated.”

Though Fackler was in attendance, some students like Kenny Halt, who planned to protest, opted out as to diminish attention.

“We want to help make it known that we don’t think [the open carri-ers] should be here,” said Halt. “But we didn’t really want the rally to get a lot of attention.”

than the university that they at-tend unless they complete require-ments for Curricular Practical Training (CPT), Optional Practical Training (OPT) or Severe Economic Hardship permits.

The criteria for these options are hard to meet. Economic hardship permits are often approved only for severe economic crisis or natural disaster in the student’s home coun-try. It takes about three months to be processed and if it’s approved, inter-national students are only granted authorization to work off-campus 20 hours a week for one academic year. To apply for OPT and CPT, the work has to be directly related to the student’s major. There is also a $380 fee to apply for an economic hardship permit, said Heidemann.

2121 graduate and undergradu-ate international students attend Miami’s Oxford campus, according to statistics from ISSS. A common stereotype at Miami is that of the rich Chinese international student with an expensive car. While some international students do come from wealth, just like with domestic fami-lies, the families of many interna-tional students give up a lot to send their kids to school here.

“I wouldn’t say every Chinese student here doesn’t care about money,” said Johnny Liu, a recent Indiana University graduate and the owner of Tang Dynasty restaurant. “Some of them really need the mon-ey — not every family is super rich.”

Stringent exception guidelines, inflexible or insufficient hours and comparatively lower pay are factors that push international students to seek off-campus employment.

One of the most obvious benefits to working off-campus is increased pay, said one Chinese international student with off-campus employ-ment, who was willing to speak on condition of anonymity.

The student said that at their place of work, employees can earn $100 or even up to $250 a day de-pending on the position. This level of pay is significantly higher than the standard $8.10 to $10 an hour offered by many Miami University entry-level positions.

A major boon to off-campus work for international students is the sense of comfort and familiarity they feel when working with along-side other students who share their culture and country of origin.

“From our culture and educa-tion in China, what all the Chinese people do in China is group up,” said the student. “It gets even easier [and becomes] sort of common sense here. You’re in America, you’re in a unique place and nobody knows you. It’s going to be easier if you can group up with your friends or if you are in a group.”

They went on talk about the social benefits of working off-campus and interacting with other international students on a regular basis.

“There are like 2000 chinese stu-dents here, and I know like 1000 of them,” said the student. “Last time I was at a [festival], I was like, ‘I know all of these people.’ That made me feel amazing, I have never known so

many people and now I know every-one here. It feels very good.”

While off-campus hourly employ-ment can make up for some of the shortcomings of on-campus hourly employment, most international students are looking for a higher level of employment.

“On campus you can’t get any sense of the real working situation in America. After graduating you’re gonna work — In this country, you can’t work in a restaurant after you graduate,” said the student. “You can be in some sort of a company or some other place that relates to your major, or you’re wasting your col-lege. But you have never been in that place because you’ve spent all your time in a restaurant. You can’t work elsewhere. The only place you can go to is to work in the restaurant.”

There are also inherent disadvan-tages to being an unlicensed worker.

“If you work off campus, you are not protected,” said Liu. “Like if you’re working at a restaurant you have no job insurance or [worker’s compensation]. I know the govern-ment wants every student to be pro-tected by the college or something. You work on campus, you are very well protected.”

In the realm of graduate studies, some of the struggles experienced by international students can be mag-nified by having a nuclear family.

“A lot of us have families that come over to the U.S. on an F-1 visa,” said Ancilleno Davis, a 34-year-old Ph.D. candidate in Miami’s Ecol-ogy, Evolution and Environmental Biology graduate program. “It’s not just you that’s restricted in where you work, but your spouse won’t be allowed to work at all. Not on-campus and not off-campus.” Going from two full-time profes-sional wages in your home country to one student income in the U.S. can be a massive blow, said Davis. Even graduate students are held to the 20 hours per week F-1 restric-tion.

Additionally, because of the in-terdisciplinary nature of Davis’ pro-gram, it was difficult for him to ini-tially land a research assistantship.

“I think I’ve worked in six or seven different jobs on this campus and in Hamilton. So, as you can imagine, the toll that takes on someone who’s writing a dissertation,” said Davis. “The maximum you can work is 20 hours a week, and so you have five hours in this position on one side of campus and five hours in that po-sition on another side of campus. You’re working hourly wage jobs in different departments, so there’s also a mental toll because you have to switch gears whenever you switch departments. Then, even one of the positions that I got was on the Ham-ilton campus, so I’d have to take buses to work.”

Regardless of employment, inter-national students are here for the same reasons most domestic stu-dents are.

“We’re here because we want to get an education, but then we also want to be able to survive day-to-day,” said Davis. “We want to be able to have enough to eat, we want to be able to socialize and have enough time to do our academics.”

FROM INTERNATIONAL » PAGE 1

Miami University’s aver-age gross pay for Food Service Assistants, calculated by the Dayton Business Journal, was $15,486.28, ranging from $78.74 to $37,439.82.

Members of Miami’s local American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employ-ees (AFSCME) chapter, a branch of the national public service em-ployee union, are currently ne-gotiating with the university on a new contract. The most recent negotiations were three years ago.

“Both sides have agreed not to discuss matters during the ne-gotiation,” said Claire Wagner, Director of University News and Communications.

Dustin Jones, the AFSCME Lo-cal 209 President, said he was un-able to comment because of a gag rule on the ongoing negotiation.

Low wages are not the only is-sue Miami workers want to ad-dress. Mistreatment of employees, especially in Housing and Dining Services, is a common concern of many long-time employees.

“[Everyone] wants out of dining because they’re treated poorly,” said Joanne, a Miami employee who spent the first 17 of her 18 years at Miami working in dining services and agreed to talk under terms of anonymity. “It’s better for me because I got out of Hous-ing and Dining.”

After 16 years at Miami, Joanne

was told by her new manager to assist in training a new, younger employee how to set up the salad bar and carts for the morning shift. Joanne happily helped the new employee, but soon after, her manager gave the new employee Joanne’s early shift and switched Joanne to the late shift.

Joanne went to AFSCME for help getting her shift back, but her faith in how Miami treats its employees was broken.

“I’m the first person they did it to,” Joanne said. “Now watch them do it to others.”

She said that a friend working in dining was recently that she could be called in for any shift on any day.

“They treat their employees bad,” said Joanne.

Joanne makes $12.48 an hour. The national average for hourly income for her job is $13.30 an hour.

“They used to call it Mother Miami because they took care of you,” said Michael, a maintenance employee at Miami whose name was also changed. Now, he says Miami is all about the money.

“For every raise they give us, they find a way to get it back,” said Michael. “They seem to think of every spot to raise revenue.”

Miami dining employees used to receive two meals for the price of three or four dollars. Now, they are allowed only one meal for the same price. Michael added that prices for health insurance and

parking have also increased, mak-ing the wage increases Miami em-ployees receive seem futile.

When Joanne started working at Miami in 1998, she didn’t have to pay for health insurance and parking. Now, a parking pass split between two carpooling employ-ees costs $30 for the school year — a special carpooling alternative to the $75 parking pass for an in-dividual. Insurance still costs less than $100 per month, which is the main reason why Joanne con-tinues to work at Miami.

Michael continues to work at Miami so his children can afford to attend Miami, but he nearly lost his job two years ago.

“They wanted to fire me two years ago, but the union stopped it,” he said.

Meanwhile, Michael was look-ing for another job in Hamilton City Schools, where the starting salary was 10 cents more than what Miami was paying him.

Another dining employee who agreed to speak on terms of ano-nymity, David, said that most of the incidents of mistreatment he experienced have been from his coworkers.

“If you don’t fit the bill, the full-time employees will treat you like shit,” said David, who has worked in three different dining centers at Miami.

Other cooks would spread ru-mors about David to student em-ployees and sometimes shout at him in front of students. A past boss tried to “set him up for fail-ure” several times and became rude toward David after David would fix the situation he was meant to fail.

When they discovered the mis-treatment, dining management often reassigned the co-worker.

When David had to go to Roudebush Hall after a complaint was filed against him, Miami’s union was there to help. Although thankful for the union’s help, Da-vid said he disliked the methods it took to defend him at the hearing and would ultimately not join a union.

David said that a lot of employ-ee dissatisfaction stems from the clique-like atmosphere in dining services, union tension and low wages.

“There is a lot of frustration in dining.”

FROM AFSCME » PAGE 1

KELLY BURNSTHE MIAMI STUDENT

Starlings, warblers and a multi-tude of other birds will fill the sky. Their songs will ring through the air as they return from their win-ter migration.

May 6 through 15 has been de-clared the Biggest Week in Ameri-can Birding .

During this week, many of the migratory birds will pass through Ohio and surrounding areas, al-lowing birders the chance to see more species at one time than thought possible.

According to the event’s web-site, birders can expect to see around 20 species of warblers a day, in addition to all of the other birds.

For the last few years, Black Swamp Bird Observatory has sponsored a festival to celebrate this week. Birders from around the country flock to Ohio in order to see the birds.

For Miami students, going to the festival is not an incredibly vi-able option. Senior Garrett Gust has always considered attending, but has never been able to.

“I’ve always wanted to go,” Gust said. “But it’s always a rough

time with finals and everything.” However, Miami birders are not completely left out of the festivities. Dr. David E. Russell, a senior lecturer in the biology department, and his ornithol-ogy class make the trip up to the Magee Marsh Wildlife Area. They usually go two weekends before finals week.

The group stops at Hueston Woods to bird before continuing up to Black Swamp Bird Obser-vatory near Lake Erie. Their trip takes place at the beginning of the spring migration season of warblers, said Carly Hamilton, a senior zoology and Western pro-

gram environmental education major.

Ian Anderson, a senior biology major, also participated in Dr. Russell’s trip. Anderson said that the group stops at several loca-tions before reaching their des-tination of Lake Erie to see the warblers.

“They all have to stop on the shores of Lake Erie before they cross over,” Anderson said. “So that means that there’s just an in-credible density and biodiversity of birds there.”

While the Biggest Week is a big

KAITLIN PEFFER THE MIAMI STUDENT

True ’90s kids won’t be able to resist the nostalgia at hand with Disney’s newest recreation, “The Jungle Book.” This fresh version of Rudyard Kipling’s original 1894 publication of fictional short stories rivals as a modern master-piece.

While revisiting the original 1967 cartoon for comparison, a flashback of watching “The Jungle Book” on VHS with my younger sister at my grandmother’s house hit me like one of those swing-ing tree branches that knock over Mowgli the “man-cub” in the film. A 20-year-old sitting in an off-campus college apartment and, suddenly, I had the biggest taste for a peanut butter and grape jelly sandwich, cut in neat, diagonal halves like my mom always made for school lunches.

Sitting in the movie theater, I

had the same feeling — nostalgia. Forget Disney’s 1994 live-action

adaptation. The 2016 version is leaps and bounds above the rest.

A combination of Kipling’s sto-ries and the original cartoon, “The Jungle Book’s” classic storyline

prevails, including loveable char-acters such as Mowgli, Baloo the bear and Bagheera the black pan-ther.

But this time around, some noteworthy actors — Bill Murray,

Christopher Walken and Scarlett Johansson — lend their voices for the animals.

Bagheera sees it as his personal mission to take the feral child out of the forest and return him to the village where he belongs. How-

ever, the two encounter several animals along the way — vultures, elephants and monkeys — all of which try to prevent Mowgli from reaching the safety of the village.

Bagheera’s stark, Type-A per-

sonality contrasts sharply against Baloo’s carefree attitude, adding another layer of humor to the film. Once he realizes the impend-ing danger of Mowgli’s situation and the threats he faces against Shere Khan the tiger, Baloo joins Bagheera’s mission.

Disney ups the ante in this re-make. Director Jon Favreau’s 2016 version will have you hang-ing on the edge of your seat as the man-cub fends for his life during heart-pounding wolf pack chases, water buffalo stampedes and ter-rifying encounters with Shere Khan and Kaa, the manipulative python.

Initially, the film mimics the stories by relying heavily on the man-cub’s backstory — even in-cluding a clip of Mowgli as a baby. Footage of the wolf pack that rais-es the man-cub is more promi-nent in this film as well, introduc-ing us to Raksha, the mother wolf.

BRITTON PERELMANMANAGING EDITOR

You can’t keep reading and say I didn’t warn you that this article contains spoilers of the series fi-nale of “The Office.”

I never wanted to like “The Of-fice.”

I was late — very late — to the bandwagon when I watched the first episode in the summer of 2013. The show had already end-ed that May.

My boyfriend, Luke, got me hooked on it. After telling me the plot of the first two seasons, in uncharacteristic excruciating detail on a road trip to go white-water rafting in Pennsylvania, we started the first episode on Netflix that night.

Though I enjoyed the first sea-son, I wasn’t sure about the series for a long time. I developed a love/hate relationship with Michael, the office manager, which still endures to this day. The middle seasons were filled with stretches

of episodes I didn’t like at all. And Angela, one of the Dunder Mifflin accountants, annoyed me to no end.

If I’m being honest, I kept watching the first time around be-cause of Jim and Pam. I watched for the little moments — the air high-fives, the rooftop picnic, the Halloween costumes, that gas sta-tion proposal. Luke and I both de-

veloped minor-league crushes on Jim and Pam, in the harmless way we all fall in love with TV charac-ters that remind us of real people.

It took me a long time to fin-ish the series — almost a year and a half — because I kept taking

breaks and then coming back. But I remember the day I finally

made it to the series finale. Luke and I watched it over dinner one night during the fall semester of my junior year. For whatever rea-son, the finale snuck up on me — I thought there were more episodes or another season, and I wasn’t expecting it when the title flashed on the screen and it said, “Finale.”

As far as series finales go, “The Office’s” is perfect. It doesn’t stray from what made it great for the other 187 episodes, and it skill-fully completes the arcs for every one of the major characters. It’s funny and bittersweet in all the

right ways. Luke and I started watching

“The Office” again this year, for the third time. It’s just about the only TV show we can agree on.

We would turn it on while doing homework, or late at night before we went to sleep. For a while, one of his roommates, Dave, who lived in the upstairs bedroom, watched it too — but we were never in sync with him, so every 15 minutes or so, the theme song would play throughout the house.

A few days ago, with graduation in sight, we made it to the ending again. The real-life irony is almost too much.

We’re about to graduate and the Dunder Mifflin Paper Co. employ-ees are about to go their separate ways. The PBS documentary final-ly aired and we finally attended our last college classes. Jim and Pam are about to leave Scranton and we’re about to leave Oxford.

One of the many things I love about the series finale is that it both subtly and blatantly reminds

4 CULTURE SHUMANDB@MIAMIOH.EDU TUESDAY, MAY 3, 2016

TELEVISION

I know that these days, these years at Miami, will be the good old days I talk about for a long time after graduation.

BRITTON PERELMANGRADUATING SENIOR

Miami students plan on enjoying the biggest week in American Birding next week, as migratory birds return north after the long winter. Above: a Cardinal, Ohio’s state bird.

The good old days: A college series finale

NATURE

MOVIES

RENEE FARRELL PHOTO EDITOR

Oxford celebrates American birding

“The Jungle Book” reboot thrives on nostalgia

Things we watched, lis-tened to and streamed as we prepared for our final week of classes

BEYONCÉ’S “LEMONADE”Beyonce described

the debut of her self-titled visual album — “Changed the game with that digital drop / Know where you was when that digital popped / I stopped the world.” For some fans like myself, the world did stop. It was my fresh-man year and I stayed up all night watching the album. Fast forward to last Saturday and she did it again with her feature film/new album, “Lemonade,” which aired on HBO. Once again I stayed up all night watching the hour-long film in awe of the golden goddess. The 12 tracks take you through a period of infidelity in Beyonce’s life, but don’t worry — you end up with forgiveness. The film is avant-garde and features spoken po-etry, powerful images and songs that are not typical to Beyonce’s hip-hop/R&B style. I applaud Beyonce for her innovation and dedication to experiencing music in an immersive, analytical and artistic way. She has taught me what it means to appreciate an album — not just a single — and fully digest an artist’s vision. (Mary Schrott, news editor)

“HORACE AND PETE”I’m only seven epi-

sodes in, but I can confidently say that Louis C.K.’s self-pro-duced “Horace and Pete” is the most depressing thing I’ve ever watched. Following the owners and patrons of a 100-year-old Brooklyn bar, the series covers the same bleak and tragic themes as “Louie” but doesn’t offer up the same sorts of silver linings. That being said, it’s 100 percent worth it. “Horace and Pete” feels more like live theater than TV, and C.K.’s scripts are genuine, compelling and eye opening. The show truly taps into the human condition and forces you to reconsider the way you look at life. And with a dream cast that includes Alan Alda, Edie Falco, Jessica Lange and Steve Bus-cemi, the lengthy episodes have a tendency to fly by. The show also left C.K. in debt, so if you’re a fan of his, feel free to lend a hand by purchasing the ten-episode series through his website. (Devon Shuman, culture editor)

“SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE” This year’s presiden-tial election follows

the shittiest of shitty candidates running to rule our nation. Every debate and every forum has been so dramatic, unpredictable and entertaining that it’s almost like watching a comedy show with some politics thrown in. Natu-rally, Saturday Night Live has fol-lowed along for comedic content for their sketches like they do every election year. But this year — between Trump, Sanders and Clinton — SNL has had some special ammunition to work with. SNL regulars Beck Bennett and Taran Killam play CNN’s hunky host Jake Tapper and a hysterical Ted Cruz, respectively, and the up-and-coming comic Kate McKinnon takes on an iconic role as former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Famous faces are sprinkled in, such as Darrell Hammond as Donald Trump and the legendary Larry David as Sen. Bernie Sanders. The SNL Democratic and GOP debate cold opens, as well as the numerous politically themed sketches, are must-sees on YouTube — each is a six-minute delight, ridiculing the animos-ity between candidates and the absurd, surreal nature of the political scene in America today. (Angela Hatcher, news editor)

Editors’ pop culture picks

RECOMMENDATIONS

OFFICE »PAGE 9

BIRDING »PAGE 9

Director Jon Favreau’s 2016 version will have you hanging on the edge of your seat as the man-cub fends for his life during heart-pounding wolf pack chases, water buffalo stampedes and terrifying encounters.

KAITLIN PEFFERMOVIE REVIEWER

JUNGLE »PAGE 9

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On Saturday, MAP held “Springfest”, where The All American Rejects rocked out Millett Hall. The group played popular hits like “Dirty Little Secret”, “Move Along” and “Mona Lisa”.

RENEE FARRELL PHOTO EDITOR

contingent faculty has trans-formed the professoriate as a work-force, said Cathy Wagner, profes-sor of English and director of her department’s creative writing pro-gram.

“I think people have an old-fash-ioned idea of what a professor is and who might be teaching under-graduates,” Wagner said. “A faculty member at a university these days is very likely to be either a part-timer making just a few thousand dollars per class with no benefits or somebody who’s on a five-year contract and will never get tenure and might not be renewed year to year. So, it’s really not the ivory tower situation that one might have imagined of old.”

Though students may not know the academic rank of the person standing in front of the class, a fac-ulty member’s status may be affect-ing them more than they think. It’s an equation with many variables, including academic freedom, job safety and transiency.

With some 40 percent of all credit hours accounted for by con-tingent faculty, some see a disinte-gration of a model traditionally re-lied upon in the American higher education system. It’s known as the “teacher-scholar” model, which holds that faculty are most effec-tive when they create as well as dis-seminate knowledge. Conducting research of their own helps faculty members to stay at the cutting edge of knowledge in their disciplines, which in turns makes them better teachers in the classroom.

It’s a theory with a long pedigree in American higher education, and critics say it’s endangered by eco-nomic pressures to hire more part-time and short-term faculty.

“You have to be able to adjust to new ways, to new influences, to new phenomena,” one VAP in lan-guages explained. “And you can only do that if you do research.”

Peter Williams, a professor emeritus of comparative religion who taught at Miami for over 40

years, said that contingent faculty are often pulled in two directions.

“[Faculty] have a double com-mitment, both to their field and their research and to their stu-dents,” Williams said. “If you have just one or the other, it distorts the whole interplay that makes people stay engaged and have lively minds and are eager to create as well as just transmit knowledge.”

According to Williams, the teacher-scholar model is under-mined by contingent faculty being overworked.

“I think students can tell that — when a teacher is intellectually engaged and when they’re trying to stay afloat by teaching too many courses and don’t have time to keep up with what’s going on to make their own contributions to stay ac-tive in the profession, to have a na-tional net worth of associations of people who share their interests,” Williams said. “If they’re simply re-duced to teaching machines, then they’re just going to be very hard for them to sustain their enthusi-asm and their engagement.”

Granting tenure solves that problem by allowing faculty mem-bers the spare time and security to develop new and innovative teach-ing methods. Dr. Glenn Platt, di-rector of Miami’s Armstrong Insti-tute for Interactive Media Studies, is a case in point.

Along with two others, Platt pio-neered the “inverted classroom” technique, in which students listen to lectures outside of class and have the chance to work one-on-one with teachers during class time. It’s a concept that has garnered inter-national renown. Platt said it never would have come to fruition had he not had tenure.

Non-tenure track faculty don’t have the time in the day to devote to innovative research due to being overburdened with teaching, and often lack the professional and fi-nancial resources to pursue such a project, said Platt.

Platt added that the system for evaluating contingents’ job perfor-mance is not designed to recognize

the type of outside research the teacher-scholar model operates on. “The contingent faculty rewards system doesn’t at all value that type of innovation,” Platt explained. “It’s just not the way it’s set up. If you look at the ways in which we evalu-ate those faculty, it is pretty singu-larly focused on their classroom performance. But if you want your contingent faculty to be involved in that kind of innovation you’re go-ing to have to come up with some kind of rewards system for that to work, and we just don’t have that.”

It’s also been shown that many contingent faculty play it safe in the classroom, according to a re-port released by the American As-sociation of University Professors (AAUP).

AAUP’s research, drawn from a representative survey of over 2,200 full- and part-time U.S. faculty, showed that full-time faculty were significantly more likely than part-timers to try new teaching methods and course materials. They were also more likely to “challenge stu-dents’ understanding of the social world” and to give students critical feedback on their work.

And part-timers were 30 percent less likely to pursue high-risk, high-reward propositions like Platt’s in-verted classroom, according to the same survey.

Wagner said she experienced that phenomenon upon her pro-motion to tenure.

“I think any professor who gets tenure will have had the experi-ence of realizing that they are a bit freer than they were before even if they didn’t realize it,” Wagner said. “That certainly was the case for me, where I didn’t realize how I’d been more cautious.

“Academia is a very, very special kind of place. We are supposed to be thinking and doing research and that sort of thinking and research. We need to be able to do it without a sense that we will be wasting our jobs if we say something unpopular or if we research something un-popular.”

Adrianna Kezar, a professor of

higher education at the Univer-sity of Southern California and co-director of the Pullias Center for Higher Education, says the com-bination of academic freedom and job security are keys to a successful classroom experience.

“There could be political con-cerns that come in to hamper the learning environment because faculty members don’t have the protections to teach what might be the most important knowledge.,” Kezar said. “Tenure is important to the attracting people to the profes-sion. You may not attract the same caliber of people. It’s important to the institution’s stability in terms of having individuals that are com-mitted over time.”

Many argue that contingent fac-ulty are inevitably less committed to their institutions because they lack job security. Visiting assistant professors (VAPs), for instance, are hired with a five-year term limit and must have their contracts re-newed annually.

That translates to bad news for students, said professor of classics Deborah Lyons.

“The students can’t really know who to expect to find in a classroom from one year, or even one semes-ter, to the next,” Lyons said. “It’s hard to develop strong connections with faculty if they’re coming and going. It’s hard for departments to plan. It breaks down the sense of a community if people are constantly leaving and if people are constantly arriving. Obviously it’s good to have some new blood, but the de-gree of transients in the academic population has really risen and it’s not a positive thing for the institu-tion.”

And while that “new blood” can be a boon for students — con-tingents are known to inject up-to-date thinking from their field of study into their classrooms — many believe the overall effect is disengagement.

Lilian Mina, a VAP of English, acknowledged that it can be diffi-cult to motivate herself to go above and beyond the teaching required

by her job description.“It’s like, ‘All I have to do is

just go into the classroom, do my teaching, leave the classroom, I’m done,’” Mina said of the mindset many contingent faculty adopt. “Some of us don’t even think about getting involved in any activity out-side the classroom that has to do with the students because it’s like, ‘Why should I? I don’t get com-pensated. I don’t get appreciated. I don’t get recognized for that, so why should I do it?’”

One VAP in the languages told of having to reject mentorships with students because of her pre-carious job status. She asked not to be identified for fear of the re-percussions on her job security. “A few years back an honor student wanted me to be her advisor. I po-litely declined by saying, ‘I am a vis-iting person; I do not know when I will leave Miami, so that is why I do not want to take on this responsi-bility. Because if I suddenly leave, I’m not responsible to you,’” the VAP explained. “I disappointed the student. Just simply because of the extra work that would have caused me and also I still feel not commit-ted. Because of the nature of the position, I cannot be committed.”

Peter Williams said Miami’s reli-ance on contingent faculty has per-nicious effects across the board.

“There’s no incentive for [contin-gents] to develop much loyalty to the institution or invest much time or effort into it since they’re not go-ing to be here very long. Some peo-ple do it, I think, because it’s in their nature to want to help students and do the best they can,” Williams said. “But if they’re being exploited by enormous teaching loads and no sense of loyalty to the institution, and you lose institutional memory, you have a shortage of people who are available for advising. You just have a very weakened institution because if it operates on a corpo-rate basis, there’s no sense of per-sonal belonging or allegiance or ob-ligation. And people are just going to do what they have to do and look for something better.”

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SEBASTIAN ORLANDERGUEST COLUMNIST

As an alumnus, I do not read the Miami Student as often as I used to, but every now and again I am led back to the paper through my face-book feed to see what is happening in Oxford. I remember complain-ing to friends about how bad the writing of the Student could be, but overall I felt some kind of obliga-tion to keep reading so that I would be at least somewhat informed about campus goings-on.

Today, I read a piece by Andrea Slater on why ‘Conservatism’ is right, and I found myself experienc-ing bewilderment and annoyance at both the triteness of the gener-alizations and the obvious lack of self-reflection in explaining what conservatism is actually supposed to amount to. Before I continue, I should note that I certainly do not self-identify as conservative, and my experience at Miami was that most students held beliefs far to the right of my own, even though, I certainly am not one of the ‘liberals’ Slater identifies as having more fun than conservatives (King Library was my regular hideout). That uni-versities get labelled as ‘bastions of Liberalism’ is unfortunate, but that is one generalization that I won’t address here.

Slater claims that conservatives are distinguished from liberals by being risk-averse, thrifty, valuing tradition and rule of law and worry-ing about clear and present dangers — the main reason for this being that conservatives aim at long-term happiness. I think any of these claims are easily shown to be false by looking at how conservatives present an immense opportunism in when they choose to invoke these values and attitudes and when they actually act on them.

It is easy to claim aversion to risk and spend-thrift when we look to our distinguished alumnus Paul Ryan, current Speaker of the House (of whom it could also be said that he turns these virtues into vices), but when we look at the current Re-publican frontrunners, this seems to be plainly false. Both Trump and Cruz are not what I would call risk-averse (it should be remembered that Cruz almost single-handedly (if memory serves right) shut down the government almost three years ago, the cost of which I can only measure anecdotally from a friend losing his private sector job during

that time. As for valuing tradition and rule

of law, the debacle in Oregon ear-lier this year, as well as the current Senate majority’s unwillingness to carry out their duty to appoint a new Supreme Court Justice, flies in the face of what most people with common sense might call ‘respect-ing the impersonal authority of the law,’ even though these two exam-ples stand out in encompassing the range of people that can be ascribed as holding ‘conservative beliefs.’

I do not want to belabor the de-tails here, and my cultural memory only goes so far in pointing out when conservatives acted with a political opportunism worthy only of the name ‘hypocrisy.’

Of course this does not absolve liberals from criticism or their own guilt of the same charge. I simply wanted to point out that trite gen-eralizations and cultural ignorance does not have any purchase in dis-cussing what sorts of values one has or what sorts of politics one promotes. And of course there are many good things that one can say about conservatism, as Marxist phi-losopher G.A. Cohen did once in a public lecture, the gist of which was that ‘conservatism, with a small “c,” insofar as it wants to preserve those things that have value, is a good

thing. But when Conservatism acts in such a way as to cause injustice, it cannot be right.’

When I am in the twilight of my years, I hope that there will be things that I had a part in creat-ing, which will also survive me. Of course, I can only hope that what I wish to be preserved should also be the right thing to be preserved, rather than those attitudes and val-ues which conservatives invoke to-day without standing on the moral ground that could support it.

BRETT MILAMCOLUMNIST

If a drunk student’s head bounces off of the brick street, and everyone around is drunk, does anyone remember?

My ride-along with MUPD, see-ing student after student blacked out on the sidewalk or at McCullough-Hyde, had a profound effect on me.

As a commuter student to Mi-ami, I hadn’t seen the seedier side of campus life up close until that ride-along.

As I mentioned in the column I did about the ride-along, I’m not casting stones here. I’ve done my fair share of drinking and party-ing with a close group of friends, although I like to think I was more cognizant of my limits than the stu-dents I witnessed.

I’m not here to spill my ink preaching against responsible drinking. Rather, my concern is more with the underlying causes of drinking, i.e., the culture that simul-taneously encourages and ignores it and the causes that can give rise to it, like drinking to self-medicate.

As the former crime reporter, I was privy to the MUPD incident re-ports, replete with myriad records of students experiencing a “psycho-logical emergency.”

A psychological emergency is classified as such when “someone makes threatening comments of self-harm, as well as other incidents of mental health issues of depres-sion, stress, etc.”

So I know there are people suffer-ing — and most likely silently — on a campus, and I hope in reading this they realize that I know their pain and that there are people willing and ready to help (see the end of this column for a list of resources).

Often these types of psychological emergencies were precipitated by drinking.

At Miami in particular, a lot of ink is used to discuss the drinking

culture and these psychological emergencies of depression, anxiety and suicidal ideation.

However, one of the most baffling aspects of such discussions are the parents who chime in with a head-in-the-sand approach to this issue.

As in, these parents who brush aside any concern about binge drinking and its underlying causes with toxic notions like, “That’s what young people do. It’s the college ex-perience, after all.”

I just finished Sue Klebold’s, “A Mother’s Reckoning: Living in the Aftermath of Tragedy,” and it helped to illuminate why such a parental approach, especially in the context of college, is short-sighted.

Sue Klebold is the mother of Dylan Klebold, one of the shooters, along with Eric Harris, in the 1999 Columbine school shooting, who killed 12 students and one teacher and injured 21 others.

Then, both shooters committed suicide.

Klebold spends much of the book trying to understand how her son not only committed such unspeak-able harm upon others, but also himself via suicide.

But there are two takeaways I had from the book with larger implica-tions beyond the Columbine trag-edy.

First, that there is an inherent chasm in the parent-child relation-ship, wherein the parent can never truly know what’s going on in their child’s head.

This is the singular tragedy con-veyed in “A Mother’s Reckoning.” Trained professionals and parents are no better able to detect deceit in children than the mere chance from flipping a coin (see: Dr. Adrian Raine’s book, “Anatomy of Vio-lence”).

Second, brain health and brain illness needs to be taken more seri-ously, given how prevalent suicide is in the United States. For instance, the second leading cause of death in youth between the ages of 15-24 is suicide, according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI).

A brain health checkup should be as routine and normalized as a physical checkup.

We know it as prima facie, but

also with evidence, that parents are incapable, to a large extent, of truly knowing what’s going on in their child’s mind, if the child is conceal-ing it.

We also ought to know the con-text with which the aforementioned is placed at Miami or any university in the country: a 17 or 18-year old kid away from home for the first time in a town designed for drinking and encouraged to drink by a this-is-the-college-experience culture.

So, why would parents be so blasé about this?

I can tell you from my own expe-rience that my parents have no idea what’s going on in my head unless I tell them, and I often don’t tell them.

The fact that people, including parents, aren’t mind-readers seems obvious, but, like Sue with her son, parents have a belief that if some-thing is wrong with their child, they would just intuit it.

And sure, NAMI tells parents to notice the warning signs: prolonged sadness (more than two weeks), severe mood swings, changes in be-havior and yes, repeat use of drugs or alcohol, among other indicators.

Yet, as the singular tragedy in Kle-bold’s book reminds us: discerning these warning signs from so-called “typical” adolescent, youthful be-havior is devastatingly difficult.

Parents need to at least be cogni-zant of the true college reality and of these brain illnesses and be more active and proactive, if possible.

I have no more prescriptions for a solution than to implore better awareness.

Moreover, to my fellow students and readers, if there’s anything you ever take away from these mus-ings, make it this: if you’re suffering through college, seek help early.

I made the same mistake Sue did when she developed severe anxiety and PTSD after Columbine: think-ing I could “think” my way through a brain illness.

Most of the seven years I’ve been at Miami, I’ve spent it trying to “think” my way through issues of depression and anxiety while simul-taneously carrying the load of school and work.

ith the arrival of the end of the year comes the beginning of exam week. And with exam week comes

the climax of the continued struggle for sleep that college students all over the country face. According to the University of Georgia, most college students get six to seven hours of sleep per night, much less than the recom-mended eight hours that healthy adults are supposed to have.

As students, we have an increasingly di-verse workload and multiple subjects to tackle each week, creating stress, anxiety and time constraints.

Sleep, though, allows us to better handle stress, form memory to retain informa-tion and gives us energy to work and study throughout the day. Therefore, it is imperative that all students attempt to get an adequate amount of sleep.

Unfortunately, sleep deprivation seems to be the norm on this campus and at universities ev-erywhere, as evidenced by a simple conversation with any number of students. However, with the following suggestions, hopefully you will be able to get the amount of sleep you need to make this exam week a roaring (or should we say “snoring”) success.

According to the Huffington Post, a sleep routine that you follow every night or most nights before bed can greatly improve the chances of being able to fall asleep fast at a more desirable time. As children, these rou-tines, implemented by parents (think put-ting on your pajamas, brushing your teeth, being tucked in, etc.), helped most of us hit the hay by signaling to the body that it was time to rest. As adults, the same principle can apply to help your circadian rhythm when it’s needed most.

A great way to start such a routine would be

to set a time, perhaps an hour or so before your desired sleep time, to stop or limit the amount of time spend looking at a lit screen. Light from cell phones or laptops is known

to keep the brain up past the time that it nor-mally would be as it tricks the brain into think-ing that it is still daytime.

In place of electronic activities, you can read a book, shower or do any number of tasks that won’t keep your brain awake. What is important is that you are consistent, as the repetition of such tasks will signal to your body that it is time to go to bed.

Additionally, the curbing of bad habits during the day can help students fall asleep

at night faster so they can take on a college workload. The heavy use of caffeine is rampant

on college campuses. As easy as this substance is to consume, the reliance on it is destructive to your circadian rhythm or sleep cycle. Try to use caffeine only when necessary and don’t make it a large part of your routine.

Furthermore, long naps during the day can affect your ability to fall asleep at night. It may feel better to sleep during the afternoon in the moment, but it probably won’t benefit you in the long run. Try cutting out naps and limiting the naps you do take to a half hour or less.

It is important to note that not everyone has the exact same daily schedule or ideal time to sleep. Some people work better at night while others work better during the morning or afternoon. In any case, it is im-portant to know your own body and adjust your day accordingly.

However, the bottom line is clear that everyone needs an adequate amount of sleep to be productive in school. Anyone can have a great exam week if you simply put the situation of sleep to bed first.

6 OPINION EDITORIAL@MIAMISTUDENT.NET

Tips on how to get more sleep are key to success during exam week

The following piece, written by the editorial editors, reflects the majority opinion of the editorial board.

TUESDAY, MAY 3, 2016

MILAM’S MUSINGS

I simply wanted to point out that trite generalizations and cultural ignorance does not have any purchase in discussing ... what sorts of politics one promotes.

SEBASTIAN ORLANDERCLASS OF 2013

MIAMISTUDENT.NET

DRINKING »PAGE 7

POLITICS

MENTAL HEALTH

Conservatives and liberals cannot be simply labeled

College drinking culture should warrant more parental awareness for psychological issues

W

KYLE HAYDENHAYDENKA@MIAMIOH.EDU

TO THE EDITOR:I recently read the story “Miami

employees turn to food pantry” in the April 29 issue of The Student and was rightly horrified. The university and our community should be working to ensure that we take care of all our employees. At a time when the university is ostensibly making millions in internal revenue, (how else can we afford all the new parking lots, ath-letic facilities, among many other things,) but not afford to pay the people who make sure this univer-sity looks and functions properly? Why are we parsing preferential golden eggs to certain areas of the university while simultaneously letting the workers suffer wage austerity? It should be a shame on this

university and its administration. We have an outgoing presi-dent who made a yearly salary more than that of the President of the United States, and an in-coming university president who will make over 500 thousand dol-lars after all “perks” are included. We have to ask: where are you on this issue? Why are your employees going to the food pantry? Why is Miami’s start-ing wage for cleaning staff in the bottom 10th percentile in the United States for cleaning and service workers (according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics)? We await the University’s (PR drivel) response to the condition of workers on the edge of starvation.

COMMUNITY

Workers not paid enough

MAGGIE CALLAGHAN GUEST COLUMNIST

Dear President Crawford,It creeps up on you. At first, you

think the irritability will go away with a good night’s rest. You say to yourself that “you’re just in a mood.” But after a while you no-tice it. There is a slight change in your personality. You don’t want to be around people as much any-more. The tiniest mistakes upset you. Maybe you can’t focus as well, your eating habits change, or all you want to do is sleep. Then all of sudden, when you least expect it, it cascades over you. You feel completely alone when you’re sur-rounded by people. Every day is a marathon and every failure is such an earth-shattering experience that you start to forget the purpose of life. You constantly feel anxious, losing all confidence and happiness in what you’re doing. It dominates everything. You’re drowning within yourself. This is what it can feel like to experience depression.

Two weeks ago, a female student committed suicide at the University of Pennsylvania and became the 10th student to take his or her own life in three years at that institution. On April 13, a University of Texas student killed himself by inhaling gasoline. An Oberlin College, only a couple hours from Oxford, a trans-gender student took her own life, on her 21st birthday, last month. All three had expressed feelings of over-stress, depression, or other signs of mental illness.

According to research conducted by Emory University, there are more than 1,000 college student

suicides each year in the U.S. The National Alliance on Mental Illness reports that 7 percent of college students consider taking their life and that one in four people from the age of 18 to 24 have a diagnos-able mental illness. In 2012, Miami University Student Health Services conducted a study and found that 20 percent of Miami students had signs of depression and another 14 percent had signs of anxiety.

But this is about more than just facts and figures; this is about hu-man life.

Last October, The Miami Student published a story about sophomore Jack Yungblut, who attempted sui-cide the first week of classes and, luckily, did not succeed in ending his life.

“But I don’t want other people to have to rely on luck. I should’ve gotten help a long time ago, and I didn’t…so my life for the foresee-able future is hard because of it,” said Yungblut in an interview with Emily Tate, a Student staffer.

This semester, the Miami com-munity lost two students. MinGi Kang died March 25 after he climbed the tower behind Williams Hall. Tim Fresch, whose friends said he had dealt with depression, died April 13 after being found un-conscious in his home. I can’t pre-tend to know about Yungblut’s life or whether mental health issues played directly into the more recent deaths. (The official cause of death in the latter two cases has yet to be released.) But I do know that some students at Miami are in distress. And they need attention. And peo-ple seem to be scared to talk about

DANIEL HERRON GUEST COLUMNIST

In my senior level capstone course, “Ethics, Law and Business,” I emphasize the three C’s: Courage, Compassion and Creativity. I ar-gue that these three characteristics make for proactive, ethical manag-ers in any kind of organization. A failure to let these three characteris-tics guide one’s decisions is sadly a failure of leadership. This is the situ-ation we currently have with a very serious matter at Miami University.

For whatever reasons (personal animus, ignorance, secret agendas, sexism), in late February 2015, all the tenured male members of the Finance Department except for my-self voted to characterize the only junior female un-tenured faculty member as “failing to meet expecta-tions in collegiality” because she had missed three departmental Friday afternoon seminars.

Regardless of the fact that she had documented excuses (a family issue, a wedding in which she was a mem-ber of the bridal party and another required university function), these tenured males, over the objection of the two female tenured faculty members and myself, as chair of the committee, specifically articulated, in the letter that goes in her file, that she was not collegial. An untenured male faculty member also missed the same number of these seminars and was not called to task on the is-sue.

As chairperson of this committee, I immediately went to the School of Business dean and associate deans with my concern (we had an absen-tee-lame duck finance department chair at the time). I asked the deans to step in and remedy this since it smacked of gender discrimination and violated our university defini-tion of “collegiality.” The school of business dean summoned me into his office. His only response to me was to chastise me for demonstrat-ing a ‘lack of leadership’ and said that because of my actions, the mat-ter would have to go to our EEO of-fice. In fact, the very first question he asked me in our “meeting” was, “do you see yourself as a leader?”

At this point, the untenured facul-ty member in question, the two ten-ured women faculty and I went to the provost. The provost appeared to be genuinely concerned and sym-pathetic. In fact, she told the unten-ured faculty member that she would

not sign any acknowledgment of receipt of such a letter and that the university would protect her.

Now, here is what I teach my class about good management lead-ership. You follow the prescribed procedures, but you always try to creatively ameliorate the situation before it gets out of hand. You step in proactively and, indeed, coura-geously and try to solve the prob-lem. You don’t “do nothing.”

How could that have been ac-complished here. Either the dean or his associates or the provost could have called a meeting of the department tenure and promotion committee; informed the commit-tee that they were misapplying the concept of “collegiality”; and asked if there were an issue that needed

to be vetted and solved. I’d wager, at that point, the issue would have been resolved, or, at the very least, on the road to resolution. The only thing, after all, that makes the no-tion of “Courage, Compassion, Cre-ativity” work is the environment of transparency and openness, not se-cretiveness.

Instead, the University hunkered down into a defensive posture and refused to do anything other than the narrowly-described legal proce-dures: review committees, appeals committees, etc. The University’s EEO officer refused to investigate claiming too heavy a workload. The matter got sent to an outside lawyer who has no experience in gender discrimination claims, according to his website. Nearly eight months later, in November 2015, the Uni-versity surprisingly withdrew the offending letter from the untenured faculty member’s file and gave the untenured faculty member another year on her tenure clock, this, of course, coming from a University claiming no wrong-doing at all for eight months.

The University’s intransience, failure to address the situation head-on and hiding behind legal-istic procedures, opened up a Pan-

dora box. Clearly upset by how the entire matter was handled by the university, the two tenured women launched charges of hostile work environment, gender discrimina-tion and equal pay violation against the University. The facts regarding pay equality show, at the very least, a disparity that is worth judicial re-view. Again, instead of dealing with this issue head on, reviewing the facts and attempting to resolve it, the University, again, hunkered down, and claimed no liability. Who wants to lay odds that the University will try to settle, negotiate for a non-dis-closure and hope that the issues qui-etly go away. Now, a federal lawsuit is filed and the news media is pick-ing up the situation. It does not cast Miami University in a good light.

How does all of this show a cata-strophic failure of leadership at Miami: 1) the lack of courage to em-brace immediately a serious claim of gender discrimination; 2) the lack of creativity on how to deal with the issue other than through narrowly-prescribed channels designed to protect the university from liability at all cost rather than doing what is right or ethical; 3) the lack of com-passion for those victimized in ways that have a history at the institution.

I am not only a Miami faculty member but also a Miami alumnus, as is my wife and two children and their spouses. This has been a very difficult letter for me to write, but it is a letter that needed to be written.

Miami is paradoxically a pro-gressive institution but also one where change is viewed with suspi-cion. Innovative, progressive ways to handle serious issues seem anath-ema to this University. “Letting the lawyers handle such things” is a sure-fire way that nothing will ever change and that ill-will continues to fester. It is this failure of leadership that brings us to where we are today.

TO THE EDITOR:I consider myself a fairly creative

person. I think in different ways, and can often spot the logical flaws in a situation and metally illustrate them with ease.

What I can’t do is create a tangi-ble illustration- I can’t draw worth a damn. Stick figures prove a chal-lenge at times.

So I’m left with only my words, and my ability to be creative- thus I give you, the written cartoon.

Picture a scene on campus. It’s a cool, overcast spring day (April 30th perhaps?). Susy Sophomore is walking uptown to join her Sis-ters of Gamma Delta Iota for lunch, when her path crosses that of Jeff, Don and Bill. Jeff has a rifle slung across his back. Don and Bill each have handguns holstered on their waists.

Susy is initially surprised to see these three men, openly carrying firearms on campus. They don’t appear to be police officers? But soon curiosity surpasses surprise and Susy begins a conversation with the group. They explain that they are here to inform students of the laws surrounding owning and carrying a firearm, and the right we have to use them to defend our-selves. They also explain that they hope to encourage lawmakers and administrators to stop restricting these rights to law-abiding students simply because they’ve entered a public university campus.

Meanwhile, a few other charac-ters lurk about. Patrick is walking, keeping to himself and seeming in-nocent enough, but Patrick is also carrying something of interest. Pat-rick is carrying a secret- that during his freshman year, he drugged and raped his downstairs neighbor.

Bob is not too far away, and Bob also has a gun in his possession to-day. Only Bob was once convicted of a domestic violence charge and therefore cannot legally own a fire-arm. Yet he has one on his person, and concealed- even with the prop-er license (which Bob could never get with his record), it is not cur-rently legal to carry concealed on

an Ohio campus.And finally Jim. Jim has fallen

on hard times. He’s struggled with drugs and lost his job. Unfortu-nately Jim has chosen a less-than-desirable means to support himself and his habit. With his dark hoodie and folding knife, he anxiously awaits the late night hours, when defenseless students, possibly im-paired following a night of drink-ing, will come right to him, carrying their wallets and pricey posses-sions.

Susy is completely unaware of these other three men. She remains engaged in her chat with Jeff, Don and Bill. By now she has learned

that each of them hold a license to carry a concealed firearm- they’ve undergone rigorous criminal back-ground checks, firearm safety train-ing and registered fingerprints with authorities. Jeff is a firearm safety instructor with 20 years experi-ence. Don and Bill, though young-er have a few years each as well. None of the three have ever fired their weapons outside of a shooting range, and each hopes they never have to.

Anxious to join her friends, Susy excuses herself and everyone heads off on their way. She still is not aware, and will all luck will never be, of Patrick, Bob or Jim.

But one question remains- of these two groups of men, which are the real threat? Who should Susy truly be scared of?

OPINION 7EDITORIAL@MIAMISTUDENT.NET TUESDAY, MAY 3, 2016

LETTERS »PAGE 8

They are here to inform students of the laws surrounding owning and carrying a firearm, and the right we have to use them to defend ourselves.

HERRONDJ@MIAMIOH.EDU

MILAMBC@MIAMIOH.EDU

DONOVAN CORCORANCORCORDP@MIAMIOH.EDU

Now, a federal lawsuit is filed and the news media is picking up the situation. It does not cast Miami University in a good light.

LAWSUIT

In FSB, a failure of leadership is behind recent gender-discrimination lawsuit

A.J. NEWBERRY NEWBERAJ@MIAMIOH.EDU

GUNS

MENTAL HEALTH

“Written cartoon” calls attention to campus dangers

An open letter to President Crawford about depression

When you add in the act of con-cealing it from others, it’s an ex-hausting endeavor.

I also began to notice when my own drinking seemed to turn into self-medication. And yes, there were times I had suicide ideation, but no-body in my life sphere was any the wiser.

How many students on campus are dealing with these issues in the same way and doing so within a cli-mate where binge drinking is seen by parents, fellow students and alumni as what young people do?

Combing that toxic thought with the ignorance and stigma around brain illnesses is a clear, continued and present recipe for disaster.

Student death due to the con-fluence of reckless binge drinking and brain illnesses doesn’t have to seem so intractable a problem, even though it can.

It just takes real, honest discus-sions and not chalking all of this up to “that is what happens at college.”

Resources: An initial consultation at Stu-

dents Counseling Services is free and the next three sessions are funded by general student fees.

Anything above four is only $25 for each session. Check out http://miamioh.edu/student-life/student-counseling-service/index.html for more information.

For additional resources:Miami University Psychology

Clinic: (513) 529-2423Women Helping Women/ 24 hr

Rape Crisis: 1-877-889-5610National Suicide Prevention Ho-

tline: 1-800-273-TALK (8255)Crisis Text Line: Text “hello” to

741-741

FROM DRINKING »PAGE 7

8 FYI WWW.MIAMISTUDENT.NETTUESDAY, MAY 3, 2016

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FROM letters »PAGe 7

CartoonistA.J. Newberry

Crime Beat WriterBrett Milam

DesignersWill FaganJulie NorehadKatie Hinh

Opinion ColumnistsBrett Milam Greta Hallberg Madeleine LaPlante-DubeGraham von Carlowitz

Senior Staff Writers Maggie CallaghanLaura FitzgeraldAngela HatcherHailey MallendickBonnie MeibersMorgan NguyenMary SchrottTess Sohngen

Sports ColumnistsJack ReyeringRyan McSheffery

Photography Staff Jalen WalkerAngelo GelfusoIan MarkerJing LongAmanda WangJennifer MillsTyler PistorBeth PfohlConnor MoriartyBrianna Nixon

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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.

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first-years Jake Owens and Aar-on Mursean.

Owens and Bodrick each took individual titles of their own, with Owens winning the 400m in 49.15 and Bodrick the 200m dash in 22.80.

In the women’s 400m hurdles, senior Kathie Wollney won the race in 1:01.17. Sophomore Morgan Rice was third in 1:04.20 and junior Alexus-Jimson Miller was fifth in 1:06.18.

Wollney, Jimson-Miller, Beaver and first-year Kalliopi Kountorui teamed up in the women’s 4x400m relay for a winning time of 3:50.42.

Junior Arionna Darling took the women’s shot put title in 48-7.5, while junior Ashley Frahm was sec-ond in 44-2.

Sophomore Kenny Glenn won the long jump in 22-8, then took second in the 100m in 11.20. Junior Grant Cole was second in the long jump in 22-0.25.

In high jump action, senior Jess Baker took the women’s title with a leap of 5-6, and first-year Molly Balcer was second in 5-2.5. On the men’s side, senior Peter Stefanski took second with a jump of 6-6.75.

First-year Matt Owens won the pole vault title in 15-9.

136-9 was first-year Danielle Col-lier’s winning toss in the javelin, while sophomore Aaryn Grey fin-ished second in 129-3.

The Red and White return to ac-tion next weekend at the Kentucky Relays, before competing in the Mid-American Conference Out-door Championships the weekend of May 13.

toward next season.”Singles play commenced with a

win from freshman Emily Struble who defeated junior Meika Ashby 7-5, 6-2. The next Miami win would come from Shapovalova who de-feated Eristavi 7-6, 6-4. Ponoma-reva’s match went unfinished.

Struble finished her impressive first season with a record of 29-8. She was 18-3 in dual matches, 11-5 in away matches, and undefeated, 9-0, against MAC players. Struble ended on a nine match winning streak. She was disappointed that her team lost but is optimistic about the future.

I wasn’t expecting to have so much success as far as wins and losses coming into my first season but overall I am really happy that I could contribute to team wins,” said Struble. “Even when we didn’t win it was always nice to at least get my team on the scoreboard. Obviously this is not how we wanted our sea-son to end, but we are just starting to look towards next season. We will be keeping our consistency drills going because we feel that those helped us the most in MAC play and we will be working a little more on our net game to secure doubles a little bit more.”

The team will be losing one se-nior, Ana Rajkovic, from Belgrade, Serbia, next season. Miami ended their season 12-10, 7-1 MAC

FROM TRACK»PAGE 10 FROM TENNIS»PAGE 10

mental illness on our campus, including the administration. Why? Are we scared to admit, that even here at Miami, people are un-happy? The silence is deafening.

Experts constantly talk about the warning signs of mental ill-nesses. But understanding the signs doesn’t necessarily compel a person to seek help. Maybe they feel ashamed to admit something is wrong, that maybe they need help. Maybe they feel owning up to a mental health issue reflects a weakness or that no one will un-derstand. Maybe they are worried others will just think they are cra-zy. That’s what I thought too. Until October when I reached a breaking point and decided to get help.

In the earlier Miami study, re-searchers found that Miami stu-dents were much more aware of the public stigma around mental health compared to the national average. That helps explain a cul-

ture on campus where people seem embarrassed to admit that some-thing is wrong and fearful they’ll be labeled weak or crazy. This is what keeps people from getting the treatment they need. We, as a com-munity, need to decide that this is not OK.

It shouldn’t take student death to generate a thoughtful and seri-ous conversation about mental health. By the time someone takes his or her own life, it is too late.

President Crawford, I ask that within your first year as president, you create a committee tasked with finding ways to better support mental health. People may expect for you to focus on other issues first, but this is a very relevant and serious problem on our campus that needs to be addressed before more tragedies occur. It cannot be ignored anymore.

Sincerely,

MAGGIE CALLAGHANCALLAGM2@MIAMIOH.EDU

FrOM DeBAte » PAGe 1

to five hours every day and scrim-maging against the University of Cincinnati to prepare each member adequately. This year the team had to prepare a criminal case.

“It separates the really good teams that can work on their feet from teams that just know the cases really well,” said Ahmed.

Miami’s mock trial team received 3rd place in the overall tournament,

behind Yale University and only a point and a half behind the Univer-sity of Virginia. This is the team’s ninth consecutive top ten finish at Nationals. The Mock Trial Team also holds the longest streak of ap-pearances at Nationals.

“Over the last three years I’ve been at nationals, my teams fin-ished 7th, 3rd, and now 2nd in our division to finish my career ranked 3rd nationally,” said Miami senior co-captain Ben Sandlin. “That’s a

phenomenal finish I couldn’t be happier with.”

The team argued through four rounds, competing against Har-vard, Northern Illinois University, Duke University and Georgia Tech University. Ahmed said each round has five judges who judge based on how well each member can portray their role and convince their audi-ence. The rankings are then based on how many points are given out by the judges.

“Think about it like a competi-tive episode of law and order,” said Ahmed

Ahmed and Sandlin both credit their finish on the hard work and dedication by all of the members. The co-captains said all of their members understood what it would take to get to the level they wanted to perform at.

“It’s about ensuring that everyone is on the same page,” said Ahmed.

The co-captains also work on

keeping the intensity up, which can be difficult for students who are spending a large sum of time with the team when they have other academic obligations. But the co-captains worked on motivation and remember each member why they were there.

“We all knew we wanted to suc-cess and we never had to sit down with anyone and say ‘this part of your performance isn’t up to snuff’,” said Sandlin.

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9WWW.MIAMISTUDENT.NET TUESDAY, MAY 3, 2016

event for birders, it is not a holi-day for them, Anderson said. In-stead, the spring migration is an opportunity for birders to go out and see as many birds as possible when they come through this spe-cific region.

Oxford is also a good location for birding, Gust said. He plans to go out to his professor’s preserved land and bird right here in town.

“We’re having a birding event one morning,” Gust said. “We’re gonna go out there and hit it pret-ty hard.”

Even outside of the Biggest Week, Miami birders are quite ac-tive.

Gust got into birding in Costa Rica. When he returned to Ox-ford, he brought his journal, bin-oculars and love of birds with him.

“I have been doing it around campus as the birds have been coming out,” he said. “I can bird on my way to class.”

Hamilton came to Miami with the intent to study and research birds. She found her current major in the Western program after meeting Dr. Russell and beginning to volunteer at his bird-banding station at Hueston Woods. As the spring migration season has begun, she has spent as much time as possible birding there.

Anderson volunteered at Black Swamp for over 15 years. He is studying biology with an environ-mental studies co-major and is currently in Dr. Russell’s ornithol-ogy class here at Miami.

“Really any facet about life and the environment interests me.” Anderson said. “Ornithology is something I’ve had a lot of back-ground in and it’s nice to get more formal training in it.”

Spring, and in particular the Biggest Week, has given birders the opportunity to enjoy their hobby once again. Whether it is at the big event or here in Oxford, birders look forward to seeing all the different species of birds once more.

“There’s so much diversity of birds.” Gust said, “I’ve seen a hummingbird that weighs less than a penny and I’ve seen a jabi-ru which is like 5 feet tall. And we can look for that — different col-ors, different songs and it’s really cool.”

FROM BIRDING »PAGE 4

you that the show was never about the paper company.

During the final stretch of the episode, the Dunder Mifflin em-ployees each take time for their last sit-down interview. Creed, oddly enough, pulls out a guitar and sings a song that plays while each person sits down to tape their final thoughts.

“I wish there was a way to know you’re in the good old days before you’ve actually left them,” Andy says.

“How did you capture what it was really like?” wonders Erin. “How we felt and how we made each other laugh and how we got through the day.”

“Every day when I came into work, all I wanted to do was leave. So why in the world does it feel so hard to leave right now?” Darrell says.

“Even if I didn’t love every minute of it, everything I have, I owe to this job. This stupid, won-derful, boring, amazing job,” Jim says.

It’s funny. I know these are the lines that are coming, but I’m not ready to hear them yet.

Because I know that these days, these years at Miami, will be the good old days I talk about for a long time after graduation.

Because sometimes I forget what it was really like — Tuesday night dinners at Harris, the arti-cles and videos and projects, the walks across campus, the laugh-ter — and I wish I had a docu-mentary that had been capturing it all for me to look back on now.

Because for so long all I thought about was what was next, what was after graduation. And now that I’m here, it feels so hard to imagine driving out of Oxford.

Because even if I didn’t love every minute of it, I owe every-thing I have to these four years.

I’m sure this isn’t the last time we’ll reach the finale. But I’m not sure it’ll ever line up so perfectly with our lives again.

“There is a lot of beauty in or-dinary things,” Pam says as “The Office” ends. “Isn’t that kind of the point?”

Luke and I have two episodes left and I’m putting them off for just a little while longer. We both know what’s coming, after all.

FROM OFFICE »PAGE 4

The original cartoon ver-sion included an array of classic Sherman Brothers songs such as “That’s What Friends Are For” and “Colonel Hathi’s March.” However, the new version strays away from musicality, though we do get to enjoy the classic “Bare Necessities,” sung by Murray and Neel Sethi, the boy actor who por-trays Mowgli.

The songs are not the only things that the 2016 version cuts out. The film also lacks love in-terest between Mowgli and “the

girl.” This time around, the man-cub has no one to pine for in the forest.

However, with today’s contro-versial gender standards in the film industry, this isn’t surpris-ing. Lately, Disney has been shy-ing away from boy-girl romance tales (see “Frozen,” “Maleficent” and “Inside Out”). “The Jungle Book” tells only of the man-cub’s quest for acceptance and survival among animals in the wild, allow-ing the audience to focus solely on the protagonist instead of getting caught up in the romance.

Live-action filming, computer-

generated images (CGI) and an intense musical score heighten the plot’s tension by sparking imagination and environmental appreciation in the audience’s eyes. Almost everyone who views the beautiful scenery of majestic waterfalls, wild animals and lush forest frameworks is left in awe after watching this action-packed hero’s journey.

Need a two-hour break from studying? Grab a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and embrace the “bare necessities of life.”

FROM JUNGLE »PAGE 4

went really well,” said senior Valerie Westin, a general member of the organization.

This year, Project You also host-ed the Instagram campaign #mu-100happydays, which encouraged students to post a positive thought each day, and a compliment booth was a tabling event where mem-bers passed out flowers and com-pliments.

Zediker said participating in Project You has changed her ca-reer aspirations.

“I was a pre-med major until last semester. I decided I want to go into student affairs,” said Ze-diker. “I found how I love helping others find their passions.”

The original founders of the organization, who are graduating this year, hope that Project You continues to gain steam on cam-pus and beyond.

“It’s been a great time with a lot of laughs,” said Spann. “It is a very positive environment and it has given me my voice. It is really [about] helping people figure out that belong here as a part of this campus community.”

FROM CONSTRUCTION » PAGE 2 FROM AWARDS » PAGE 2

“I’m pretty excited because it’s going to be a brand new facility and we’re going to get a new lock-er,” said Vasiukhina. “It’s going to be a further walk than it is right now, because obviously, you have to walk to Yager. But hopefully, we will get some fans to come watch our matches after the football games.”

The Mid-American Conference tournament held last weekend was the last varsity tournament that will be held at the Hepburn Varsity Tennis Courts.

Additionally, Withrow Court will be demolished this summer. The Board of Trustees has not de-cided what will replace Withrow, but the construction of another residence hall is being considered.

Construction will continue on the Gunlock Family Athletic Per-formance Center over the sum-mer. The center will connect to Yager Stadium and provide train-ing facilities including a weight room, lockers and offices for Miami’s football program. It is scheduled to be completed near the end of 2016.

changes may be implemented at the university level.

Michael Kabbaz, vice president of enrollment management and student success, said that Miami’s relationship with EducationCounsel came about from its participation in the College Board’s Access and Di-versity Collaborative (ADC).

Founded in June 2004 as a re-sponse to a 2003 Supreme Court decision on the University of Michi-gan’s race-related admissions poli-cies, the ADC is a think tank consist-ing of 45 educational institutions and a dozen sponsoring organizations.

“We’re looking at best practices research,” Kabbaz said. “[We’re] looking at the policy implications underlying legal impact and discuss-ing how we can work together to ad-vance diversity inclusion efforts.”

ODA’s executive team is com-prised mostly of EducationCounsel staff, including managing partner and co-founder Art Coleman and policy and legal advisor Terri Taylor, both of whom made the trip to Ox-ford in April.

Given the history between Mi-ami and EducationCounsel, Provost Phyllis Callahan said, the decision to hire the firm to consult on diversity at Miami was an easy one.

“I think it came about because we had conversations over time — particularly, I think, in this last year — about our diversity and inclusion goals,” Callahan said. “This is a firm that has experience in those areas — in policy, in law, in advocacy, in help-ing institutions to develop strategies to meeting their diversity goals.”

An investigation into diversity is-sues at Miami seems predicated by a recent number of events on and around campus: the defacing of a pro-LGBTQ mural in the Women’s Center; the homophobic, anti-Se-metic and racist graphiti that stained a bulletin board in Wells Hall last year; an incident in Thompson Hall earlier this semester; and homo-phobic and racist remarks directed toward students marching Uptown for Unity Day.

In response, incoming president Gregory Crawford has stated that diversity will be a priority upon his arrival in office July 1.

The national conversation on di-versity — especially on race — has been spurred by a more recent Su-preme Court case, brought by a stu-dent alleging she was denied admis-sion to the University of Texas on the basis of race.

Art Coleman, of EducationCoun-sel, said that the time is ripe for Mi-ami to address such matters.

“There’s a lot of energy around these issues. There is a lot of passion around these issues,” Coleman said. “[At Miami,] we addressed chal-lenges as well as opportunities. We addressed gaps as well as strengths.

“Our effort was to try to get as much of a balanced picture of where Miami is and where it might be in the future on this front and our principle role was to likely facilitate but fun-damentally listen. So we were there through bringing our knowledge of this work and this space nationally, but really to understand the dimen-sions of the challenges, the oppor-tunities, the strengths, the gaps at Miami so that we can give Miami’s leadership an honest, balanced pic-ture of what we saw and heard.”

Coleman said that his firm con-sults broadly with dozens of institu-tions on policy each year, and direct-ly with a handful each year. Miami’s situation, he and his colleague Terri Taylor explained, is not a unique one.

“There is a heightened awareness on college campuses that talking about diversity and inclusion is re-ally important,” Taylor said. “The students, in particular, are quite well organized across the country. And so, I think there’s a broader national context of different movements that are happening that I think are going

to keep focus on this. It’s really like a key to the success of higher educa-tion in the 21st century we think.”

Kabbaz thinks Miami does face some institutionally specific chal-lenges, including its situation in a relatively isolated environment.

“We think, once we get students here, we can show them that we provide a great educational and sup-portive environment. But certainly, location tends to be an impediment often,” Kabbaz said. “When you talk to diverse students, however, it is de-fined is that it is critical that we con-tinue to diversify the campus. A lot of diverse students want to be around diverse students.

“Great institutions are diverse places … geographic, ethnic, racial, international, you know, all sorts of diversity make up an excellent insti-tution and a premier institution. I think it’s a moral imperative that the classroom be a diverse educational experience.”

Callahan said that based on con-versations she’s had with students, the primary obstacle Miami faces in alleviating ostracism of diverse stu-dents is a subtle one.

“Some of the things that came up [were] the way we interact with each other, the inadvertent things we may do or say that could be construed or are construed as not being inclu-

sive,” Callahan said. “I’ve heard is-sues around or concerns around our curriculum being inclusive enough across a broad range of difference.”

Kabbaz said that the Education-Counsel visit served as a crucial first step in advancing the university’s di-versity agenda.

“It’’s not a destination, It’s a jour-ney that you’ll continue to make gains on,” Kabbaz said. “We’ve made some gains. We have a lot more work to do on this front, and I think just the engagement of the univer-sity campus [with EducationCoun-sel] was really energizing. I think it gets people excited. I think it rallies around what are the most important goals Miami’s going to focus in on.”

And while direct consequences of Miami’s collaboration with Educa-tionCounsel remain to be seen, for Kabbaz, the dialogue brings a sense of urgency to promises made as part of Miami’s 2020 Plan.

“I think we saw an opportunity on campus to expand that conver-sation,” Kabbaz said. “It’s great that you can continue to make advances on the diversity of the campus, but are we providing an inclusive envi-ronment? You can’t do either one by themselves. You can have diversity on campus, but if it’s not an inclusive environment, that’s not doing what we want to accomplish.”

CONSULTANT » PAGE 1

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10 SPORTS SPORTS@MIAMISTUDENT.NETTUESDAY, MAY 3, 2016

Miami University baseball — in what was possibly their biggest series of the season to this point — surrendered two of three games to Kent State University this weekend.

The scores against the Golden Flashes were a 10-3 loss, a 5-2 Red-Hawks victory and a nail-biting 4-3 loss.

In game one, the ’Hawks fell behind early, to the tune of an 8-1 deficit by the top of the 4th inning. While MU tried its best to come from be-hind, it appeared to be knocked out of the bout and possibly even the series.

The tables were turned in the middle game of the set, as the Red-Hawks pulled ahead to a 3-0 lead and never looked back, knotting the series up at one game a piece.

The finale of the series saw the ’Hawks take a 3-2 lead into the bottom of the 6th. Unfortunately for Miami, Golden Flashes sophomore third baseman Dylan Rosa sent a pitch by freshman Zach Spears into the left-field bleachers for a 2-run home run, and KSU never looked back from there.

Losing this series for Miami will certainly be a blow in the MAC East division standings, as they find themselves still stuck in 2nd place be-hind the Flashes. Luckily, it wasn’t all bad for the RedHawks.

Senior Gary Russo and redshirt sophomore Ross Haffey each per-formed offensively. The duo combined to go 9 for 24 with 3 homers, 2 doubles and 4 RBI’s, which was half of MU’s run output during the series.

The ‘Hawks look to redeem themselves when they take the field 6 p.m Wednesday against Morehead State University.

MIAMI DROPS TWO OF THREE TO KENT STATECOBURN GILLIES, ASSISTANT SPORTS EDITOR

BRIEFS

Bryson Albright, former standout of the Miami University football team, has signed a free agent deal with the Buffalo Bills. Albright, a defensive end, earned second-team All-MAC recognition last season after recording 51 tackles, seven sacks, and 12.5 tackles for loss.

Albright played in 48 career games as a RedHawk, with 35 starts at defensive end. Albright finished his career with 180 tackles, 19 sacks, and 33.5 tackles for loss.

In his last game as a RedHawk, Albright lead Miami to victory over UMass with seven tackles, 2.0 sacks and an interception on the final play of the his career.

ALBRIGHT SIGNS FREE AGENT DEAL WITH BUFFALO

BEN BLANCHARDSPORTS EDITOR

The Miami University track and field program hosted and dominated the rainy RedHawk Invite this week-end, winning 15 of 38 events.

The RedHawks first win of the day came in the men’s 5000m thanks to senior Zack McBride, who finished in 14:44.12. Senior Matt Stewart was second in 14:45.21, and junior Stephen Biebelhausen was third in 14:46.49.

In the women’s 5000m, sopho-more Sarah Starrett set a personal best by 21 seconds with her second place finish of 17:38.98.

“With how wet and gross the con-ditions were, I’m really happy to set a

personal best,” Starrett said. “Hope-fully I can carry this momentum into the postseason.”

Senior Joe Stewart stepped down from his typical 5000m and 10,000m races to race the 1500m in his final home meet as a RedHawk, finishing third in 3:53.70.

On the women’s side, first-year Kelsey Kohls took second in 4:42.42.

Miami got its next win from senior Joey Comisford in the men’s 800m, as Comisford’s time of 1:55.03 nar-rowly edged junior Andrew Dusing’s finish of 1:55.72.

“It’s always great competing at home, even if the conditions weren’t what we were looking for. This was a great chance to have fun on our home track before we really gear up for the next two weeks” Dusing said.

MU picked up another victory in the women’s 800m, as first-year Alexis Szivan crossed the line first in 2:13.56. Senior Megan Beaver was second in 2:14.31.

The RedHawks swept second through fourth places in the wom-en’s 3000m steeplechase, thanks to the first-year trio of Maria Weis-gerber, Haley Sandvick and Kirsten Petrosky.

On the men’s side, sophomore Matt Bromley took second in a per-sonal best of 9:20.53.

Junior Vinnie Minosky won the 400m hurdles in 53.74, then was a part of the winning 4x400m men’s relay team for Miami. The team also included senior Adam Bodrick and

Miami wins 15 events in final home meet

SCOTT SUTTONTHE MIAMI STUDENT

The Miami University tennis team (12-10) fell to Western Michigan University (19-7) 4-2 in the semifi-nals of the Mid-American-Confer-ence championship.

The match began with doubles play. The ’Hawks won the first match, 6-3, by solid playing by first-year An-zhelika Shapovalova and junior An-dreea Badileanu. The pair defeated first-year Katja Fevralev and junior Barbare Eristavi. The duo of sopho-more Hannah Shteyn and senior Ana Rajkovic lost their match 7-5, as well as sophomores Nelli Ponomare-va and Anastasiia Vasiukhina. These losses resulted in the Broncos taking a 1-0 lead.

Coach Carollo was unhappy with the result but believes that her team

fought very hard.“The team has been playing very

good tennis going into this semi-final match,” said Carollo. “I think we played a very good team. Western

Michigan exposed our weaknesses and they got the best of us. All we can do now is stay healthy and look

Tennis loses in MAC semifinals

TODAY IN HISTORY

1936New York Yankees centerfielder Joe DiMaggio makes his major league debut against the St. Louis Cardinals. DiMaggio finished with three hits in the Yankees’ 14-5 victory, and went on to record 2,214 hits. He finished his career with a

batting average of .325.

TRACK

TENNIS

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The United States Second Cir-cuit Court of Appeals has reinstat-ed the four-game suspension of New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady imposed by National Football League commissioner Roger Goodell. The court ruled 2-1 in favor of the NFL, overturning last year’s ruling by U.S. District Judge Richard Berman that re-pealed Brady’s suspension.

The court ruled not on Brady’s innocence or guilt, but rather on Goodell’s power. Article 46 of the collective-bargaining agreement between players and the league states that Goodell is empowered to take disciplinary action against a player whom he “reasonably judges” to have engaged in “con-duct detrimental the integrity of, or public confidence in the game of professional football.”

The players association issued a statement, standing by Brady: “The NFLPA is disappointed in the decision by the Second Cir-cuit. We fought Roger Goodell’s suspension of Tom Brady because we know he did not serve as a fair arbitrator and that players’ rights were violated under our collective bargaining agreement. Our Union will carefully review the decision, consider all of our options and continue to fight for players’ rights and for the integrity of the game.”

Amidst all the deflate-gate drama, it’s important to note that Goodell didn’t follow the proper procedure to punish Brady. Rath-er than follow the NFL rulebook, specifically the section “Other Uniform/Equipment Violations,” Goodell found Brady guilty of something that’s the equivalent to the use of performance-enhancing drugs. Brady argued that the vio-lation was the same as using stic-kum on gloves, for example.

The punishment for using stic-kum is a fine of $8,268. If you get caught a second time, it jumps to $16,537. Not a suspension of a game, let alone four. Goodell’s de-cision to go from a relatively low-level fine for what is football’s ver-sion of a minor misdemeanor to a serious felony and a quarter-sea-son suspension is mystifying. The Patriots are a hated team because of all their success, and seeing Brady sit for a few games brings me happiness. However, it’s sim-ply not fair. Now that Goodell’s power has been affirmed, he has complete power to unfairly disci-pline players.

Goodell could issue a fine in-stead of the suspension. However, he declined to say last week if he’d enforce Brady’s suspension this season if the appeal was won. After all this time, I would be shocked to see him rescind the suspension.

The Return of Deflate-Gate: Federal Court Rules Against Tom Brady

COLUMN

JULIA RIVERA

Headlines beyond Oxford: Leicester City, 5,000-1 preseason underdogs, have officially won the British Premier League following Tottenham’s tie with Chelsea. This is Leicester’s first title in its 132-year history, and came after a 14th place finish last season. Striker Jamie Vardy and midfielder Riyad Mahrez have fueled the Foxes’ unlikely championship run.

BRIANNA NIXON THE MIAMI STUDENT

Sophomore Nelli Ponomareva prepares to strike against Western Michigan this weekend. Ponomareva finished the year with an overall record of 21-15.

The Miami University softball team defeated the Akron Zips 4-1 Saturday afternoon, before falling 8-7 in the nightcap. Junior catcher Lauren Anderson powered the RedHawks to victory in the opener with a solo home run in the top of the second inning, followed by a two-run blast in the top of the seventh.

Senior pitcher Amber Logemann earned her 17th victory of the season with the win. Miami is now 27-21 overall and 12-7 in the Mid-American Conference.

SOFTBALL SPLITS DOUBLEHEADER AGAINST AKRON

RIVERAJL@MIAMIOH.EDU

BEN TAYLOR THE MIAMI STUDENT

The Miami University track and field program hosted the RedHawk Invite at the Rider Track this past weekend. Miami won 15 of 38 events.TRACK »PAGE 8

TENNIS »PAGE 8

MiamiOH.edu/Bookstore

Cash for Textbooks!

Slant Walk MacCracken Market Western CampusOpen Finals Week Monday-Friday 11am-4pm

Or bring books to ShriverMonday-Thursday 8:30am-7pm Friday 9am-5pm

In addition to the Shriver Bookstore, we will have three trailers acrosscampus to sell books or return rental books during finals week