The Miami Student Oldest university newspaper in the United States, established 1826
VOLUME 139 NO. 55
TUESDAY, APRIL 17, 2012
MIAMI UNIVERSITY OXFORD, OHIO
TODAY IN MIAMI HISTORY In 1999, The Miami Student reported the city of Oxford would limit uptown parking for the maximum two-hour time limit through strict enforcement
from the Oxford Police Department. Prior to this, The Student reported “meter-feeding” was prevalent, where individuals would deposit additional money to prolong the use of a parking space.
MU implements grade forgiveness By Kaler Hazen Staff Writer
Many students have a class they wish could be wiped from their transcript, an academic stain from their first year they wish would cease to weigh down an otherwise healthy grade point average. A change in university policy makes that wish a possibility, allowing students to retake up to eight credit hours within their first 64 attempted at Miami University. The new policy states for classes in which a student received a grade of C- or lower, the class can be retaken and the new grade will be factored into the grade
point average (GPA), while the old grade is voided from GPA calculation. A student’s official transcript will still show both grades however, so the class will not be entirely cleaned from official record. If students receive an incomplete in a class or withdraw from a class, they cannot retake that class and reattempted classes cannot be taken as credit/no credit. The university’s old retake policy allowed students to retake only one class and the grades from both attempts would be averaged together and then reported on the transcript. Students who have passed the 64 credit hour
GRADES, SEE PAGE 8
LAUREN OLSON THE MIAMI STUDENT
RELAY FOR LIFE
Cancer survivors lead Miami University students in the first lap of Relay for Life Friday evening at Millett Hall. Proceeds from Relay For Life go to the American Cancer Society.
Honors program revamps campus tour for prospective students
CONTRIBUTED BY ANDREW HAYES THE MIAMI STUDENT
The Miami University Honors Program created a self-guided tour using Quick Response Codes. Scan the code above with your smart phone for a surprise.
By Katie M. Taylor For The Miami Student
They can be found on the tables of restaurants across America. Black and white checkered boxes, known as Quick Response Codes, appear on the backs of Heinz Ketchup bottles and in many other locations
across the country — now including the Miami University campus. These often overlooked Quick Response codes, commonly known as QR codes, contain encoded information that can be read by most smart phones. When detected in camera mode, QR codes serve as a link, taking the user of the device to
a webpage. This year David Sheehan, assistant director of the Miami Honors Program, and junior Andrew Hayes, a student recruitment coordinator for the program, worked together to incorporate QR codes into the scavenger hunt put on for perspective students during Honors Overnight events on the first three Sundays of April. According to Sheehan, the scavenger hunt involves a group of prospective honors students solving clues placed around campus to figure out where they must go next. “It’s a slightly different route than what they would do on a campus tour,” Sheehan said. The scavenger hunt aims to help students engage with the campus, Sheehan said. In the past, envelopes containing written clues led students on the scavenger hunt. On occasion, those envelopes would get pulled down or blown away by the wind. According to Sheehan, that was not the only flaw with the old system. “After about the second [location] you go to you realize there’s a group ahead of you going to the exact same place and you don’t have to figure out the clues, you just have to follow them,” Sheehan said.
“So it kind of took out the competition-like ‘Amazing Race’ sort of element.” Sheehan first thought of the idea to replace the envelopes with QR codes so students could access clues using their smart phones, and Hayes put the idea to work creating video, image and text clues and linking them to the codes. A few other changes have been made to enhance the event. For two of the three overnight events, there is only one route for the scavenger hunt, but for the second of the three there are various themed routes — such as sports and scenic — that take students to specific parts of campus. Though this means not every student will see all of campus, an aspect was added to the event to provide a solution, Sheehan said. “We actually asked [students] throughout the event to then take the things that they learned at each location and create a miniature presentation that they gave to their peers later in the evening,” Sheehan said. “So basically, as a whole, their entire group got to bond by discovering kind of the entire campus.” The events double as a research project for Hayes, with the single route scavenger hunt acting as the
control group and the themedroute, along with presentations, the experiment. Emails are sent out to gather feedback from members in each of the groups from the three different event dates. This data is then compared with feedback from past years. According to Hayes, though the data from the third event which took place this past Sunday is not in yet, the results seem to show participants felt creating presentations and themed tours enhanced their experience. Deepika Hebbalalu, prospective honors student, encountered QR codes for the first time when she went on the scavenger hunt. Hebbalalu said the video and image clues made the scavenger hunt stand out. “I don’t even know how [QR codes] work, so it was really cool how you could take a picture of it and it links you to somewhere else,” Hebbalalu said. The week after her visit to Miami she noticed codes being used in a Chicago museum. According to Hebbalalu, their use would be valuable for other purposes.
QR CODES, SEE PAGE 8
Professor, NASA launches plants into space By Allison McGillivray Campus Editor
Not so long ago in a Miami University lab not so far, far away, one botany professor completed research to one day grow plants … in space! John Kiss, professor of botany, will get the chance again to send plants into space for at least three space-flight experiments starting December 2012. According to Kiss, National Aeronautics Space Administration (NASA) supports these experiments. Kiss has completed a total of six space flight experiments with NASA’s support, the first in 1997 and the most recent in 2010. Kiss’ research is on the sensory physiology of plants, specifically, how plants perceive and respond to gravity and light, Kiss said. NASA’s interest in Kiss’ research comes from the long-term desire to develop food and oxygen sources for space travel and colonization of
other planets. “The reason NASA supports my research is they will support basic research with the ultimate goal of application toward plant growth in space,” Kiss said. “If we are going to be going to Mars or creating
It was the best thing I’ve done in college for sure.” MAGGIE BROWN
MIAMI UNIVERSITY SENIOR
colonies on the moon, plants are going to be an important part of that for two reasons, one is for food and the other reason is that plants generate oxygen.” NASA gave Kiss a $449,000 research grant for his most recent experiment, which he uses for travel, equipment, supplies and to support the personnel who work on his
research projects, including students. “One of the things I’ve been really proud of is that students have been involved in all aspects of all of my six space projects,” Kiss said. Students work with Kiss at his Miami lab for pre- and post-flight experiment research and data analysis but also at a lab at Kennedy Space Center and other NASA and European locations to prepare and process samples, according to Kiss. Kiss said he is proud to have worked with 42 undergraduate students on his projects. “For most scientists and most of the people in my department, we really believe in engaging students directly in our research,” Kiss said. “When students come back a lot of times they will say that their most enriching educational experience has been working one-on-one with faculty.” Senior Maggie Brown has assisted Kiss with his research since the fall 2010 semester.
SPAcE PLANTS, SEE PAGE 8
RICHARD MANDIMIKA THE MIAMI STUDENT
GLIDING WITH GRACE
Dancers from Miami University’s Dance Theater annual spring concert perform Saturday evening in Hall Auditorium.