The Miami Student Oldest university newspaper in the United States, established 1826
TUESDAY, APRIL 8, 2014
VOLUME 141 NO. 44
MIAMI UNIVERSITY OXFORD, OHIO
TODAY IN MIAMI HISTORY In 1983, The Miami Student reported 59 eggs had been splattered across the architecture building’s floor after visiting professor Allen Chapman chal-
lenged students to build a toothpick structure capable of transporting an egg intact 20 feet down to the ground. “Up to two points could be awarded for elegance – the aesthetical appeal – of the solution,” he said.
Publisher closes book on prof research on Putin BY VICTORIA SLATER CAMPUS EDITOR
TAYLOR WOOD THE MIAMI STUDENT
FAST AND THE FURIOUS Miami junior runner Elisa Frazier leads the pack during the women’s 3000 meter steeplechase Saturday at the Miami Invitational. Frazier went on to take first place in the event. Both the men’s and women’s teams took first place in the invitational.
A book five years in the making, Miami University’s director of the Havighurst Center for Russian and Post-Soviet Studies Karen Dawisha’s research on Vladimir Putin’s links to organized crime was set to take an unprecedented glance at the criticized Russian president. However, fear of stringent British libel law has put the book back on the shelf for now. The Cambridge University Press (CUP), a 500-year-old company in Britain through which Dawisha sought publication, has decidedly pulled the plug on her book, saying some of her claims run too high of a risk of libel. Dawisha has previously published five books with the CUP. This book, however, is particularly significant, given the existing tensions between Russia and Ukraine. “When Putin came into power in 2000, he was elected, he was chosen,” Dawisha said. “He has made choices. He could choose to go in one direction or the other. He chose to go down the authoritarian road. I believe the main reason why he has done that was because he has a group
around him of what the White House calls his ‘cronies’ who have risen up with him since the 1990’s.” Dawisha’s book analyzes how Putin and these associates systematically utilized the buffer of his presidential position to deal in illegal financial exchanges. The United States and the European Union, Dawisha argues, are now targeting the regime for this particular reason. “This is why, when the U.S. decided to punish Russia, the state, for invading Crimea, they targeted this group,” she said. “The U.S. government and the EU have decided that this is how the [Russian] system works, and in order to make them hurt, they need to actually get their money. This is something quite new in international relations.” Discerning the controversial nature of her work, Dawisha and CUP sent her 500-page manuscript, a quarter of which is an accumulation of evidentiary footnotes, to a team of lawyers for review in November. Five months later, she learned the approval she garnered from CUP in 2011 was no longer valid. “Given the controversial subject matter of the book, and its basic premise that Putin’s power is founded on his links to organised
KAREN DAWISHA
crime, we are not convinced that there is a way to rewrite the book that would give us the necessary comfort,” CUP Executive Publisher John Haslam wrote to Dawisha in a March 20 email, published Thursday in the Economist. Haslam noted the decision “[had] nothing to do with the quality of [Dawisha’s] research or [her] scholarly credibility” and was simply a matter of “risk tolerance.” “… At the very time that the US and EU governments, obviously fully in possession of intelligence that points to precisely this conclusion,
DAWISHA, SEE PAGE 9
Students rev up at Boston Marathon BY OLIVIA BRAUDE STAFF WRITER
They are a different breed of people. The ones who are up before dawn, braving wind, rain, snow, heat, sun. They are the ones who push through the pain, the exhaustion, the hunger. Uphill, downhill and back up again, never stopping until they reach their destination. They are admired by a few, seen as crazy by most, but they have each other and the bond of loving something so much they are willing to put it all on the line. They are brothers, sisters, friends, students, but most of all, they are runners. Like Forrest Gump, who never thought running would take him anywhere, Miami University sophomore Addie Rupert never dreamed she’d qualify for the crown jewel of races, the Boston Marathon. “All my goal was, was to finish,” Rupert said of her first marathon. But Rupert, a member of Miami’s club running team, the Striders, did more than just finish. Running at a 7:38 minute per mile pace for 26.2 grueling miles in Columbus, she landed herself a spot in one of the most prestigious races in the world. The Boston Marathon started in 1887 with the establishment of the Boston Athletic Association, a non-profit organization committed to promoting a healthy lifestyle through sports, especially running. In its 118th year, the marathon is on Monday, April 21, Patriot’s Day in Boston. The World Marathon Majors— London, Berlin, Chicago and New York City marathons—are all races for which a runner has to qualify. According to Rupert, she had to run in a participating marathon—such as the Columbus Marathon held every October—and finish in a time faster than three hours and 35 minutes. However, Rupert never set her sights on this mark. It was, after all, her first marathon and who qualifies for Boston, the king of marathons, during their first marathon? “I never even trained below eight [minute per mile pace],” Rupert said. But she did have some helpful tricks up her sleeve come race day in Columbus.
“I remember when I was doing Columbus I saw a lot of people walking when they hit the wall,” Rupert said, “And I hit the wall, I had to slow down a little bit, but I told myself over and over again, ‘you will not walk’ and I didn’t.” Other strategies Rupert used included staying optimistic and picking a runner to try to keep up with throughout the race.
It’s great to have goals and things to strive for. That being said, marathons are the worst.They really hurt.Your mind, your body, your soul.” RYAN MOORE
SENIOR, PRESIDENT OF STRIDERS
“Some guy had really colorful shoes so I was like, ‘OK, I’m just going to stay with him.’ So I stayed with him for as long as I could,” Rupert said with a grin. Admittedly, he was too fast for Rupert, but her method must have worked because she crossed the finish line of the 2012 Columbus Marathon in three hours, 21 minutes and two seconds, beating the time she needed to qualify by more than 10 minutes. Her training for Boston has been a little more regimented this time around. Rupert has been following a schedule of runs that increases in distance every week, culminating in a final long run 22 miles in length. But Rupert fell victim to a runner’s worst nightmare: a leg injury. During her training-running 10 miles of hills-she strained her quad and the bad timing of the injury is affecting her in many ways. “On Saturday,” Rupert said, “I was supposed to do 22 [miles], but I limped through 10.” Her initial excitement has turned to nerves as the day of the Boston Marathon approaches and her injury is still not healed. “My goal now is to finish,” Rupert said, sighing. Despite the injury, Rupert is still
physically active. Preparing to teach a spinning and total body tone class at Miami’s Recreation Center, Rupert said that although running is her exercise of choice, she enjoys all types of fitness classes and is always trying new workouts. “It’s just like a part of me, fitness in general,” Rupert said. As the weather changes for the better, there is no place Rupert would rather be than outside enjoying a run. “It’s just the way I am. I have to run. If I don’t run, I’m not in a good mood,” Rupert said. As April 21 and the Boston Marathon approach, Rupert is continuing to take it easy with her quad injury and tapering her runs to shorter distances. While Rupert is shortening her runs, senior Ryan Moore, president of Striders, is beginning to strategize his training plan for the 2015 Boston Marathon, for which he qualified this past October at the 2013 Columbus Marathon. It had taken him about five marathons, but he and two other Striders ran within the qualifying parameters for their gender and age group: a taxing three hours and five seconds. Moore, along with senior Brian Breitsch and sophomore Alex Schachtel, trained together over the summer despite being located in different parts of the state. “We spent all summer training independently but we tracked our mileage online so it was a lot of ‘Hey, good job! Saw you had a good week of running!’” Moore said. The goal for the three teammates was to qualify for the Boston Marathon during the Dayton Marathon held this past September. After a late arrival set a bad tone for the race, the three decided to give qualifying for Boston one last shot and vowed to run the rapidly approaching Columbus Marathon. “That last month I don’t think any of us trained like at all, so we were really out of shape by the time and I think we all just got lucky,” Moore said. “It was a lot of motivating
BOSTON, SEE PAGE 5
AMANDA PALISWAT THE MIAMI STUDENT
LET’S TALK ABOUT SAX, BABY
The Miami University Jazz Ensemble performed on Wednesday March 19 in Hall Auditorium.
MU career services helps students pinpoint passions BY EMILY C. TATE
SENIOR STAFF WRITER
She steps into the classroom every day, five days a week, looking onto a sea of eager first-grade faces. They are sticky and silly and at times hard to control. Not everyone gets it, but these six and seven-year-olds are her true loves. She loves their unbridled curiosity and unpredictability, but perhaps most of all she loves the endless possibilities these children carry with them. She is Laura Dewire, senior and early childhood education major at Miami University, and she has found her passion. This process is unique to every student and does not always come easily. As Director of Career Services Mike Goldman said, one size does not fit all when it comes to choosing majors and eventually careers, and that is crucial for students to understand as they embark on their college years.
“Students need to remember they are attending [one of the top] public universities for undergraduate teaching,” Goldman said. “They can and should allow themselves to dream about different career options.” Junior Matthew Meeks has allowed himself to do just that. Even before college, Meeks said he knew he wanted to be a doctor, but it was not until his first semester at Miami that he discovered where he truly fit in that field. Meeks was taking an African Art course – specifically, “ART 235: The Gods are Here” with professor Dele Jegede – and the final assignment was to create a presentation relating the course materials to your own field of study. “So I studied the healthcare problems in the countries we had learned about all semester,” he said, “and I absolutely loved it.”
MAJOR,
SEE PAGE 5