The Miami Student Oldest university newspaper in the United States, established 1826
VOLUME 139 NO. 54
FRIDAY, APRIL 13, 2012
MIAMI UNIVERSITY OXFORD, OHIO
TODAY IN MIAMI HISTORY In 1970, The Miami Student reported approximately 150 students stormed Rowan Hall, home of the Naval ROTC building, protesting the program and racial tensions on campus. The Student reported police, including the Ohio State Highway Patrol, were called to disperse the crowd, using Mace and police dogs. Later, The Student reported about 3,000 students protested the Miami University administration in front of Roudebush Hall.
Health Services lowers STI testing cost By JM Rieger News Editor
A blood and urine test. This was all that was required for Miami University’s first-ever “Get Yourself Tested” (GYT) day 9:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. Wednesday in the Student Health Services (SHS) building. The event, sponsored by SHS, offered students non-invasive asymptomatic screening for $55, meaning only urine and blood tests would be used. SHS Nurse Practitioner Amanda LaManna got the idea for the event through MTV’s “It’s Your (Sex) Life” campaign, which began in 1997 through a partnership with the Kaiser Family Foundation and MTV. “I just had the idea one day that it would be really great as an outreach event to have this GYT event and promote it across campus and break down some barriers about testing,” LaManna said. “There’s a need for it. Miami isn’t really protected from infections.” MTV allows health centers to customize the events for their campus through free materials available on their website, according to LaManna. Every year 19 million new sexually transmitted infections (STIs) occur in the United States, more than the diagnosis for cancer, heart disease and diabetes combined. However, most STIs go
undiagnosed every year, according to the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Gail Walenga, assistant vice president for SHS, said LaManna championed and helped organize the event. “This is part of the fun, if you will, of working in a college health environment: you get to do things that are different than working in regular health care,” Walenga said. “When we first talked about it, I knew that if we were going to offer the testing, we had to make the cost reasonable.” The reduced screening price could be paid in cash, with a credit card or through students’ Bursar, where it would be listed as a miscellaneous charge, according to LaManna. “If you pay out of pocket for the visit and all of the tests it can add up to over $150,” LaManna said. “We take for granted how much insurance covers that for us. So we decided to offer something at a discounted rate so that students who were most concerned about confidentiality between them and their parents or them and their insurance companies could have something that was appropriate for them.” LaManna said SHS absorbed the cost of office visits for the event. According to Walenga, SHS lost money on each visit, but the lost revenue will not significantly impact SHS and will be made up in other ways.
Miami honors professor’s memory
“I thought it was important enough to offer the service,” Walenga said. “If you are sexually active, it pays to get tested. You never know where your partner has been, and you want to be sure that you’re not infecting someone else.” Junior Jake Westfall agreed. “It’s really great the cost was that much cheaper than the [original estimate],” Westfall said. “Getting tested [for STIs] is very important. Hopefully [this event] improves people’s awareness of what they have and what they’ve encountered.” Walenga said 15 students were tested Wednesday. “We had hoped for a number around 30, but I’m happy we had 15,” Walenga said. “These programs take time to build. It takes word-of-mouth to get those messages out.” SHS targeted a variety of groups for the event, including residence life, Spectrum and Greek life. LaManna said this was an important event because of the recent trends on campus. According to LaManna, 4-5 percent of all Chlamydia tests performed in 2009 came back positive, making it the most prevalent STI at Miami. “We thought a testing campaign would be helpful, particularly because there are a lot of infections that don’t have symptoms,”
STI,
SEE PAGE 3
Staff Writer
Campus Editor
Alfred Joseph, 56, associate professor of social work and family studies at Miami University, died April 1. William Gracie, retired professor of English who spoke at Joseph’s funeral, said Joseph was always focused on his students. “I think what always impressed me about him is that he was always thinking about them first,” Gracie said. “I never heard him talk about his scholarship or his interest in being promoted to full professor; it was always, ‘what can I do for students to open their minds to the variety of societies and cultures that are out there?’” Joseph’s goal, according to Gracie, was to create open-minded students. “That interest in putting students’ learning, students’ expansion and students’ understanding of the variety of cultures and races and populations that are out there that you never see in southwest Ohio, that’s the kind of guy he was,” Gracie said. According to Gracie, Joseph was diagnosed with lymphoma, a cancer of the lymphocytes, while teaching at the Miami University John E. Dolibois Center (MUDEC) in Luxembourg. Gracie said Joseph was interested in giving his students new experiences while teaching in MUDEC. “He wanted to take his students
to England on a field trip to the east end of London so they would meet with social workers,” Gracie said. “They would in many ways experience a part of the world that most Miami students are unaware of and as a consequence I think those students’ lives were profoundly changed.” Both Gracie and Carla Pestana, professor of history, said Joseph’s funeral in Kumler Chapel was filled with faculty and other members of the Oxford community. According to Pestana, the Joseph family played an integral part in the Oxford community with each of the Joseph sons attending Talawanda [School District] schools and the family’s involvement in Oxford Citizens for Peace and Justice. “The Kumler Chapel was full and there were people standing in the back,” Pestana said. “It was a very nice mix of faculty and a lot of people from the Oxford community. They’re a really wonderful family that a lot of people feel close to.” Gracie was impressed with the show of emotion at Joseph’s funeral. “There was more than one person weeping, which is always a tribute,” Gracie said. Pestana said Gracie gave a “beautiful speech about Alfred.”
ARIANNE KREKELER THE MIAMI STUDENT
John Foster, Hulu senior vice president and Miami alum, discusses the development of Internet and entertainment with AIMS students.
RIKKI TEETERS THE MIAMI STUDENT
MEETING OF THE MINDS
President David Hodge joins TED Talks speaker Fabian Teeters Monday.
Businesses turn to unpaid internships By Kaitlin Schroeder
By Allison McGillivray
HULU. ENJOY.
Internships are a rite of passage into certain fields of work, but as the economy continues to struggle, previously paid internship positions in other businesses are turning into unpaid positions. However, interns for for-profit businesses legally must be paid in most circumstances, according the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division’s website. Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, interns at for-profits qualify as “employees” and must be paid minimum wage and overtime provisions unless the main purpose of the internship is for teaching the intern. Nick Cattin, director of career education for Miami University’s Farmer School of Business (FSB), said in most scenarios, Miami students working for for-profits should be getting a paycheck. “Most people in Career Services would say that for a for-profit industry, you really should get paid,” Cattin said. “Ideally would everybody pay? Yes definitely.” In New York, two unpaid interns are suing for pay in a highprofile case, but Cattin said until the court rules on the case, Miami students hoping to break into certain industries can expect to take unpaid internships. “This is going to be really decided by what the court rules in October,” Cattin said. “At this point, without the legal deciding factors, a student should ask ‘How will this benefit my education?’ Currently, as things stand, in some fields you have to have the experience.”
According to the National Association of Colleges and Employers, the two unpaid interns have filed a class-action lawsuit in the U.S. District Court Southern District of New York against Fox Searchlight Pictures for their unpaid work done on the set of Black Swan and for all unpaid wages allegedly owed to all other Fox Searchlight interns since 2005. The Fair Labor Standards Act defines an intern can only legally be unpaid if the intern is not doing necessary work for the company. The unpaid intern must not be an employer’s budget solution for not being able to afford a paid staff member. The intern must also not be working unpaid because of a guarantee of a job at the end of the internship. According to the act, unpaid internships are supposed to be, “for the benefit of the intern” and, “similar to training which would be given in an educational environment.” Robin Parker, general counsel for Miami, said students are not legally required to get academic credit for an unpaid internship. She said employers will sometimes require students get credit for their internship or register it as an independent study in order to create proof the unpaid internship was for educational purposes. “But that’s the employer’s decision because they’re the ones who would have to demonstrate that their internship met the requirements of the law,” Parker said. Jeff Billiel, executive editor of the Sidney Daily News said his paper used to offer paid summer internships but now offers only
unpaid internships because of the company’s financial hardship. “When the economy went south we no longer had the resources,” Billiel said. “If I had my choice I would still offer paid internships, because it allows us to draw [interns] from a broader geographic range.” Billiel said his last two interns have been Miami students. Interns were given real world experience under the supervision of the staff and helped cover employee assignments when the regular staff members are on vacation, according to Billiel. “We need real reporters,” Billiel said. “We don’t bring people in for filing and making coffee.” This type of experience is needed to get a job in this competitive job market he said. While the paper cannot afford to pay, Billiel said they try to show their interns they appreciate them in other ways. “We try to include them,” he said. “We always offer to give them references when they are seeking jobs.” According to Cattin, unpaid internships can lead to great job offers but can create a disadvantage for poorer students. He said he knew a former Miami student who took out $12,000 in loans as an undergraduate to take an unpaid internship with Katie Couric. “When he graduated he literally had job offers from five different
INTERNSHIPS, SEE PAGE 8