The Miami Student Oldest university newspaper in the United States, established 1826
FRIDay, JANUARY 18, 2013
VOLUME 140 NO. 30
MIAMI UNIVERSITY OXFORD, OHIO
TODAY IN MIAMI HISTORY In 1950 The Miami Student reported that Bruce Kesler, a Phi Kappa Tau fraternity member became “Mr. Mustache of 1950,” after winning the mustache –growing contest at the Barber’s Hop, the annual Women’s League dance. Kesler’s prizes were a free shave and a haircut as well as a Lenthergic shave kit donated by the John Minnis drugstore.
Campus housing shortage balances itself out, for now By Katie M. Taylor Campus Editor
Miami University’s housing shortage has begun to balance itself out after disciplinary action last semester relocated 43 fraternity members to on-campus living and made the situation critical. While overcrowding in residence halls may be solved for this semester, current on-campus construction projects will not yield an increase in student beds on campus. According to Brian Woodruff, director of Housing Options, Meals and Events (HOME), he has yet to calculate the Miami residence halls’ exact capacity, but he believes it to be much closer to 100 percent than the 103 percent Miami was at in October. “From my quick estimation, and looking at what right now I think to be true, we’re looking like we’re right around 7,140 or so [students] with us on campus,” Woodruff said. “That’s right about at our capacity, so we’re looking really good on that.” Woodruff credited time, and various uncontrollable factors for solving the housing crisis. “We always have fewer people on campus in spring than we do in fall,” Woodruff said. “A lot of people study abroad, they might
transfer out—different reasons.” According to him, all of the 14 fraternity members that remained in temporary housing in October have been assigned permanent rooms, though a few spring semester transfer students took their place. One of those transfer students, junior Ross Paisley, was happy to say he received an email on Wednesday, Jan. 16 assigning him a permanent living arrangement. “I ended up in temporary housing because I registered far later than I should have,” Paisley said. “So, I get thrown into temporary housing, but it really wasn’t all too bad because there only ended up being three people in my room.” According to Paisley, Miami’s typical temporary living spaces hold 14 people in a single, ‘barracksstyle’ room comprised of seven semi-private ‘pods’ with two people in each. Paisley said he got lucky. “It was just me and a couple other guys and we got along well, but I can imagine though, say if it was a month scenario and we were at full capacity,” Paisley said. “If fourteen people were living in there—everybody has music, alarms, computers—it would get aggravating.” To avoid forcing others into Miami’s temporary housing in the future, Woodruff said certain
preventative measures are taken. “We’re taking lots of historical information, what we’ve learned this year and the years prior, really to be as prepared as possible for next year to prevent the overcrowding situation,” Woodruff said. “The way we do that is that we limit the number of juniors and seniors who we allow to choose rooms [on campus].” According to Woodruff, Miami is currently in the process of establishing several new residence halls as part of a preconceived construction plan. Though the number of residence halls will increase, renovations on older buildings will increase the room size and decrease the number of rooms, keeping capacity approximately the same even after all construction is complete “We have flexibility built into the program, so it could change along the way, but at this point we are planning ultimately to maintain the same capacity that we have today,” Woodruff said. Matt Frericks, Director of Auxiliary Construction and Services, said though it will not increase Miami’s capacity, construction will better students’ lifestyles.
HOUSING, SEE PAGE 10
FRANKIE ROSKAM THE MIAMI STUDENT
SPRING IS IN THE AIR Members of Spring Awakening prepare for rehersal Monday. The show began yesterday and performances will run through Sunday at the Oxford Community Arts Center.
Miami graduate prepares Instructors race time to record final grades to compete on Survivor BY Amanda Hancock Senior Staff Writer
By Emily Glaser Senior Staff Writer
TOEPFER
From cbs.com
Students planning to watch the upcoming season of CBS’s Survivor now have someone to root for. Miami University graduate Reynold Toepfer has been selected to compete on the 26th season the hit show. Toepfer, who graduated in 2005 with a finance degree, will join nine other castaways in the Gota Tribe to compete against Bikal Tribe, made up of 10 castaways from previous seasons. Claire Wagner, director of News and Public Information at Miami, said Miami is excited to see one of Miami’s own compete. “It’s fun to root for somebody in the Miami community,” Wagner said. “We wish him well and hope he represents Miami well.” Sophomore Erica Bodenbender does not watch the show, but shares Wagner’s excitement for Toepfer and Miami. “It’s always good to see Miami represented other places,”
Bodenbender said. “Everyone always assumes we are Miami, Florida, so it’s exciting to see a graduate on a national show.” Toepfer is not the only member of the Miami community to appear on reality television. Susan Vaughn, director of Ethics and Student Conflict Resolution starred with her son Patrick on the seventh season of CBS’s The Amazing Race. Once Vaughn and her son were selected, she could not even tell her colleagues at Miami the news. “I took a leave from work,” Vaughn said. “A lot of people speculated I was seriously ill. Nobody knew where I was. My husband was making up stories like I’d gone to Mexico to do Habitat for Humanity.” According to Vaughn, the audition process and secrecy are true for Survivor as well. “My son had applied for Survivor before and made it through a prep round and was cut out,” Vaughn said. “When he was going through the audition process he couldn’t tell us anything.” Vaughn and her son were the first mother-son team on the show, something she thinks may have helped them stand out among the 25,000 other applicants. According to Vaughn, the hardest thing to get used to was that she had a camera and audio person with her everywhere she went. She has advice for reality TV show stars. “Just be yourself,” Vaughn said. “Don’t do anything out of character. And never say never.”
WE’RE HIRING!
The all-nighters and cramming may be a faint memory, but the effects of final exams are still being felt. Students may expect a subpar grade, but what if a grade is simply not reported at all? When Miami University students put down their pencils after their last exam in December, they stopped all thoughts of grades and classes. At that point though, the stress was just beginning for many professors as they began the race to record grades accurately and on time. Final grades were due Dec. 18 at noon, which gave professors roughly three days to tidy up their grade books. As the deadline approached, many professors may have felt the heat to accurately record and report students’ grades. Microbiology professor Kelly Abshire said while there is some tension, she avoids getting overly stressed about getting grades in on time. “I plan for [it] and usually am fine, unless for some reason I’ve really got behind in my grading of class assignments,” she said. If work does pile up though, she said she has to put all other tasks aside and get the remaining student assignments graded during the last week of classes, so that the only thing left to deal with are the final exams. University Registrar David
Sauter said there have been several situations where professors have not turned in grades by the deadline. He said most of those happen because of unforeseen circumstances such as the volume of grades that are essays or projects, technical difficulties or situations where the class is ongoing, such as workshops. Sauter also said many of the missing grades file under independent work, such as when one or two students are assigned to a faculty member. In other cases, adjunct faculty across all Miami campuses may have missing grades. “So [they’re] not part of the typical ‘final exam grading’ protocol for faculty,” Sauter said of the many circumstances that account for a missing grade. In any case, when a grade is missing, an “N” grade, or no grade reported, is appropriate especially to ensure students are aware their grade is missing Sauter said. Last semester, there were 980 grades missing out of the 104,000 expected. This rounds out to less than 1 percent, according to Sauter. There are approximately 45 outstanding grades remaining from last semester. If a professor fails to turn grades in by the deadline, Provost Bobby Gempesaw sends a note reminding professors of how important prompt grade submission is, according to Sauter. Gempesaw cites how the
grades impact the need for academic action determinations, financial aid or scholarship issues and graduation. Sauter said his office sends several reminders of the deadline and after the deadline we send notices to faculty/chair and eventually the dean’s office is copied if grades remain outstanding. Junior David Beeder has had a few grades recorded incorrectly on BannerWeb. He said the mistakes come from professors having hundreds of students and grades to record. “The pressure isn’t necessary in many ways,” Beeder said, adding that because of the deadline, professors and students may both dread Friday finals. “If I have a final on Friday it increases the pressure somewhat,” Abshire said. Abshire said the stress level is much better than it has been in the past when the deadline was noon on Monday following finals week. “Having one more day made a big difference, especially for Friday finals,” she said. Despite the potential complications, Beeder said he is not concerned about his grades being affected. “The system has always been able to check itself and it works out,” he said, adding that he could easily contact his teachers to fix a wrong score. Beeder said his instructors have appeared stressed or
GRADES,
SEE PAGE 10
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