Wednesday, April 4, 2018
99th year • Issue 26
THE INDEPENDENT
COLLEGIAN Serving the University of Toledo community since 1919
INSIDE
www.IndependentCollegian.com
EDITORIAL
Our newspaper is dying By Editorial Staff
Students get down to give COMMUNITY / 5 »
Rockets struggle over Easter
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SPORTS / 6 »
“Everyone seemed to come with a different agenda, and they all had something to say. There was no order to the event and no consistency in the topic at hand. We need to talk about racism in this country.”
EDITORIAL Addressing racism OPINION / 3 »
Brown for Net Neutrality
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NEWS / 4 »
“What is more offensive, that Donald Trump and his administration embody white supremacist values or that the College Democrats had the audacity to critique it with a satirical political cartoon?”
SYDNEY JONES Letter to the Editor OPINION / 3 »
In 2000, UT threatened our journalistic freedom to report stories, prompting us to become independent. Eighteen years later, our presence to remain in print is being threatened. To put it simply, the Independent Collegian is dying. Despite the tireless efforts of our students and staff, we are not making enough money from ad revenue to survive. This is the last thing we want to happen, yet it’s the only thing that will happen if we don’t receive any support. We care about our newspaper, but more than that, we care about truth-seeking journalism, a priority in today’s era of fake news. Our staff commits to the IC week after week without any pay — something that has been sacrificed within the last semester — for nothing more, but their passion for journalism. Although this seems like it came up fast, funding has been an issue for a long time coming for the IC and other college newspapers around the country. According to the Collegian Media Foundation: Projections and Analysis for the future plan, in 2000, the Collegian’s advertising revenue was roughly $190,000 to $200,000. This doesn’t take into account how $30,000 of potential revenue went uncollected by the staff due to poor collection procedures. If the Collegian had sufficient plans to allocate their funds 18 years ago, we would not find ourselves in this place today. A place where our newspaper is dying. The decline in ad revenue has further contributed to this problem and only made our suffering worse. This is an issue campus newspapers are struggling with nationwide. The IC has personally increased our efforts to create new advertisement opportunities for local businesses and
This is us, as journalists, being very transparent with our readers. This is us, asking you to support our journalistic freedom on reporting. This is us asking for your help. while some have helped to support us, more and more businesses opt to use social media to get the word out. This has led us to find different ways to support ourselves. Our research has uncovered a startling fact: we are far from alone in this struggle. So many college newspapers have gone under from lack of funding and many more have had to cut printing. The Daily Targum at Rutgers, for example, supports its operation through student fees since the university doesn’t fund them. Every three years, the school holds a referendum in which students vote whether to keep the Targum fee on their term bills or not, business manager of the Targum Rachel DeSimone said. The fee is $11.25 per student per semester and is adjusted every year in relation to printing and delivery expenses. At the beginning of each semester students can email the business manager for a refund of the Targum fee if they don’t wish to support the paper. This is a very long tedious process that takes weeks and on average, they receive at least 800 to 900 refund requests a semester. See Struggle / 3 »
POLITICS
Election results are in By Bryce Buyakie News Editor
With the recent Student Government elections concluded, a new president and vice president are set to take office in fall of 2018. However, voter turnout was down by 500 votes from last year. Out of 23,000 students who attend UT, 434 turned out on OrgSync to vote this election – compared to the 934 voters in the 2017 election, according to statistics provided by SG. “This is a lower voter turnout than last year, which I believe is due to the election being uncontested,” said Kyle Zapadka, SG’s speaker of the House. Current Vice President Drew Williams will succeed President Jimmy Russell, and Senator Sofie Rodriguez will replace Williams as vice president. Williams and Rodriguez planned to campaign on connecting UT with downtown Toledo, improve sexual
assault awareness and education within student organizations, work to provide more funding to the Counselling Center and increased transparency, but now the incoming executives are working with the administration on all these points. “We are working with Dr. Flapp and understanding where we can allocate more resources to the Counselling Center,” Rodriguez said. “There are a lot of flaws with the Counselling Center and part of my personal mission as well as the current president’s is to improve everything.” Sixteen senators were also elected in uncontested elections, including second-year political science major Dillon Horter. “What I would like to see is though, seeing SG becoming a bigger voice on campus,” Horter said. “I would like to see students come to SG more often with their daily issues more regularly.”
PARTNERSHIP
UT joins colleges in collaboration efforts By Haris Ahmad Staff Reporter
UT recently entered a partnership with five other northwest Ohio colleges to reaffirm their commitment to educate Ohioans in the region. The Northwest Region Higher Education Compact includes UT, Bowling Green State University, Northwest State Community College, Owens State Community College, Rhodes State College and Terra State Community College. The compact allows the members to support this goal by streamlining the communication and transfer of credits between the member institutions. The schools will try to expand their capabilities by facilitating effective academic, financial and administrative operations through collaboration and outreach. The agreement is one of the ways these schools will help the Ohio Department of Higher Education’s Attainment Goal 2025.
According to the department’s website, they aim to have 65 percent of Ohioans, ages 25-64, to have a degree, certificate or other postsecondary workforce credential of value in the workplace by 2025. By 2025, an estimated 65 percent of Ohio’s workforce will be required to have a postsecondary education to meet employer demands. Current graduation rates are not high enough to meet the expected 1.7 million more degree-holders needed for the goal to be met. One of the ways the compact will work is by restructuring the transfer of credits between the schools to make the process as simple as possible, said Bill Ayres, vice provost for academic affairs. “There’s an entire section in the regional compact that talks about transfer credits,” Ayres said. “Now we have a working model in place where See Compact / 4 »
IN BRIEF
Update: Joughin trial By Samantha Gerlach Associate Community Editor
The tragic account of the July 2016 death of 20-year-old Sierah Joughin still unsettles nerves for all who hear it. After four weeks, a jury convicted James Worley, 58, of rural Delta on March 27 of aggravated murder and the kidnapping of Joughin – two accounts punishable by the death penalty. The trial began March 5 with interviews of prospective jurors,
according to a Toledo Blade article. Hundreds of jurors were questioned before a jury was sat. The sentencing phase began April 2, and if the jury doesn’t decide for Worley to receive the death penalty, he’ll be sentenced to life in prison, according to a 13abc article. Judge Jeffrey Robinson said the jury should start deliberating the case by April 4 at noon.
What were you wearing?
Photos by Emily Schnipke As April is Sexual Assault Awareness month, UT’s Title IX Office is displaying a Survivor Art Installation in Carlson Library April 2-6 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. The purpose of “What Were You Wearing?” is to provide a tangible response to our culture’s most pervasive rape myths about sexual violence only affecting someone because of how they are dressed. The exhibition offers a collection of 24 survivors’ stories along with recreations of the outfits they were wearing at the time of their assaults. Students are encouraged to take part in this discussion to provide an anonymous description of the outfit they were wearing with an explanation of what happened to them while wearing that outfit. The free event is open to the entire UT community and will be up for the rest of this week.