The Miami Student Oldest university newspaper in the United States, established 1826
VOLUME 139 NO. 51
TUESDAY, APRIL 3, 2012
MIAMI UNIVERSITY OXFORD, OHIO
TODAY IN MIAMI HISTORY In 1992, The Miami Student reported that 13 Miami University undergraduate and graduate programs would be terminated following budget cuts as the university prepared for additional reductions in state subsidies. The Student reported this was the first time the university’s budget tightening had gone down to the instructional level.
Miami says no to ‘pink slime’ By Michael Belden and Michelle Rowley For The Miami Student
Miami University students have no reason to worry about pink slime in their food, at least in dining halls and several uptown restaurants. “Pink slime” is a name for the product that uses ammonia and comes from meat producers attempting to use every last bit of meat on the bone of an animal, according to John Brubacher, manager of purchasing and operations analysis in Miami’s Culinary Support Center (CSC). “Pink slime is not on campus and has never been on campus,” Brubacher said. Miami receives its meat from Advance Pierre and Ellenbee Leggett, two Ohio-based companies. Both companies stated their meat did not have pink slime in letters to Brubacher. Brubacher said if there was something wrong with the meat in the dining halls, the meat would immediately be recalled. “If there is any FDA recalls, I get an alert,” Brubacher said. “All products recalled would be out of the serving lines and out of the halls.” Miami serves an average of 20,000 meals a day. “We take samples of all of the dishes offered, so in case somebody gets sick we know exactly where it came from,” Brubacher said. “If there is a question regarding a food’s safety, we always air on the side of caution.” According to Brubacher, pink slime was initially put into meats in the 1990s in response to a health concern over E. coli. Companies did not have to label products that included pink slime because it was already part of the beef. In March 2012, ABC News reported pink slime was added into many meat products, catching the public’s attention. “After the ABC [News] reports, people started becoming concerned with pink slime,” Brubacher said. “Fast food companies like Burger King, McDonald’s and Taco Bell immediately stopped putting pink slime into their meats.” According to Brubacher, the reason people are worried about pink slime is the process used to produce it involves ammonia.
“People don’t want ammonia in their foods,” Brubacher said. First-year Andrew Kozlove said food safety is important to him. “I don’t want to get sick, so food safety is important to me,” Kozlove said. “I think Miami has done a pretty good job with keeping the food safe.” First-year Tyler Kvach agreed. “I care about what I eat,” Kvach said. “As long as there isn’t anything that would get me sick in my food, I’m fine with the food here.” First-year Mike Maude said he saw a report about pink slime on television. “It looked pretty gross,” Maude said “But I’m not worried about the food safety at Miami; I believe they have it handled pretty well.” Brubacher said safety is CSC’s number one concern. Food suppliers in the Oxford community have also been avoiding the pink slime. The Kroger Company is one business in the growing trend boycotting pink slime, according to James Avant, a public relations representative of Kroger’s Cincinnati/Dayton Division. “It was definitely the concern that our customers had,” Avant said. “The product met standards of the United States Department of Agriculture. However, our customers have lost confidence in the product and because of the diminished confidence in the product we decided to no longer contain the lean finely textured beef.” The topic became an issue with consumer confidence, not necessarily one regarding safety, which was the tipping point to motivate the company to make the decision. Uptown restaurants Quarter Barrel Brewery & Pub and La Bodega Delicatessen both said their beef does not contain the additive. “We buy our beef from a local farm and it’s organic,” Assistant Manager of Quarter Barrel Theresa Tilton said. “Our burgers are a little bit more expensive than they would be from another distributor, but there are no additives and no fillers.” According to La Bodega Owner and Manager Diana DiPaolo, her restaurant never uses meat with the additive. The Miami alum also
pink slime, SEE PAGE 5
Students participate in Antartica research
COLLEEN YATES THE MIAMI STUDENT
Miami University seniors Nathan Arnett and Bridgette Rawlins research single-celled organisms called protists from Antarctic lake water samples brought back by Assistant Professor of Microbiology Rachael Morgan-Kiss.
By Kaler Hazen and Jenn Smola Staff Writer and Campus Editor
The Miami University Department of Microbiology has high hopes for samples of Antarctic lake water brought back for analysis by Assistant Professor of Microbiology Rachael Morgan-Kiss. The primary reason for the trip was to investigate microbe-dominated bodies of water in hopes of shedding light on the activity and ecological role of single-celled organisms called protists. Students in Morgan-Kiss’ laboratories have been given the opportunity to perform analysis on the samples of lake water from Antarctica over the past several weeks. Morgan-Kiss said the experience is, “another outlet for students to get real research experience.” Morgan-Kiss is excited with the work and findings of students who have been working with the samples, according to senior microbiology major Austin Duprey, a student in Morgan-Kiss’ class. Duprey said working with the samples has been a rewarding opportunity. “I think it’s pretty neat because we’re working with stuff that’s relatively new,” Duprey said. According to Morgan-Kiss, using small and relatively isolated Antarctic lakes to study the function of these microbes could help
researchers understand the role similar microbes play in larger, more complex bodies of water. “These organisms are really, really abundant in all aquatic systems all over the world,” Morgan-Kiss said. “In these other systems, they are a lot more complex than our lakes. It’s been known that these organisms are abundant, but it has been very difficult to understand what they’re doing. When organisms are important on such a huge scale they have a big impact, even though they’re microbes.” The nature of protists and their role in both large and small ecosystems is complex due to the fact that they are able to play two very different roles within their food web. According to Morgan-Kiss, protists have the ability not only to carry out photosynthesis and fix carbon, like plants, but also to be predatory organisms despite the fact that they are single-celled. Morgan-Kiss said Miami is specially suited to the kind of work necessary to determine the roles these organisms play in global ecosystems because of its use of a technology called chlorophyll fluorescence, which analyzes in real time the types of algae living in the Antarctic lakes. This can then be used to make hypothesis about the organism’s role in the carbon cycle. Morgan-Kiss said although the Antarctic lakes are isolated bodies of water, their location on the globe plays an important role in
determining the role of microorganisms in larger bodies of water. In addition to researching what roles the protists in these icy bodies of water are currently playing, Morgan-Kiss and her fellow researchers are concerned with the effects of climate change on photosynthetic protists. According to Morgan-Kiss, the main environmental factors key to the daily operations of protists include temperature, lights and nutrient availability; all of which could be impacted by climate change. “The lakes we’re studying have a higher and higher water flow all the time because of climate change and glacial melting,” Morgan-Kiss said. “We know that every year there’s a trend. This environment that we work in has a huge group of investigators that have been studying the environment for 30-plus years, so there’s a great long-term data set. We know that there’s absolutely more water flow into the lakes and it’s coming from more glacial melt.” According to Morgan-Kiss, the research students are working on is significant because they are working on independent research projects with samples from external environments that have not been sampled nor cultured very often. “[Students] get to work with novel samples,” Morgan-Kiss said. “They’re getting both cutting-edge training in new methods but then they’re applying these methods to independent research projects.”
Student Loan Forgiveness Act aims to reduce increasing student debt By Kaitlin Schroeder Staff Writer
Miami University has seen a 3 percent increase in students taking out loans and a 9 percent increase in studedents filing the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) compared to two years ago, according to the Director of Financial Aid Brent Shock. All students who file a FAFSA are eligible for a loan. In addition, The Washington Post reported Sunday Americans 60 and older still owe approximately $36 billion in student loans. In light of this increasing student loan debt, Representative Hansen Clarke (D-Mich.) introduced the Student Loan Forgiveness Act of 2012 to the United States House of Representatives March 8, hoping to stimulate the economy by decreasing high student loan debt. The bill’s main feature is a loan repayment plan for federal loans. After 10 years of repaying student loans on
this plan, excess loan debt is excused or “forgiven.” The repayment plan is called the “10/10” repayment plan because for 10 years the borrower makes monthly payments of 10 percent of their discretionary income, which is savings remaining after taxes and necessities like food and shelter are paid for. The borrower can also have a monthly payment excused due to an economic hardship and still count that month as a 10/10 payment. However, the bill caps forgiveness at $45,520 in principal, fees and interest for student loans taken out after the bill is passed. The bill would provide people with immediate student loan debt forgiveness if they have already paid 10 years of payments greater or equal to the “10/10” payments. Other features include capping federal loan interest rates at 3.4 percent and enabling certain students with private loans to convert them to
federal loans, which, unlike private loans, are eligible for forgiveness. It also would reduce the amount of payments required for eligibility for Public Service Loan Forgiveness, which is a similar plan already enacted for public service employees with loans. Chair of the Department of Economics in the Farmer School of Business George Davis, said he feels the Student Loan Forgiveness Act could increase the amount of student loans taken out and worsen the amount of student loan debt in the United States. “There is going to be more people who make poor decisions because the penalty for poor decisions has gone down,” Davis said. When forming opinions, students should also consider where the money to pay for the loan forgiveness will come from, according to Davis. “At the federal level, it’s hard to imagine your personal connection to the spending,” Davis said. “If you
have student loans it’s easy to see the benefit side. It’s a little harder to visualize the costs.” Davis said he thinks people should turn to a different solution for student loan debt. “Some people made decisions that weren’t the best decisions,” he said. “Some because they weren’t thoughtful; some of them because they didn’t know any better; some of them because of just bad luck. Hopefully people can turn to other places to try to help them out of that situation.” Rep. Clarke explained to U.S. News and World Report how the nearly $1 trillion of student loan debt has surpassed credit debt in the U.S. “Because of soaring tuition costs, students often have no choice but to amass significant debt to obtain an education that is widely considered a prerequisite for earning a living wage,” Clarke said. Shock said he does not think this comparison of student loan and credit
debt gives an accurate perspective. “I think that’s an unfair comparison between student loan debt and credit card debt, because credit card debt is consumer debt,” Shock said. “Student loan debt I think is better viewed really as an investment in your future … I would say that investing in your education is probably a safer bet than owning a home.” Before Miami students can finalize their loan, Shock said all students are required to take an entrance interview, which is an online tutorial explaining when the loan has to be paid back, what a loan is and the implications of the decision to take out a loan. When students leave Miami, they also attend an exit counseling session for loans where they are given a list of loans they have borrowed from Miami and more information about the loan. “We’re always trying to get the
loans,
SEE PAGE 5