April 29, 2011 | The Miami Student

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The Miami Student VOLUME 138 NO. 56

Oldest university newspaper in the United States, established 1826

Friday, April 29, 2011

MIAMI UNIVERSITY OXFORD, OHIO

In 1996, The Miami Student reported the Miami University Board of Trustees approved James Garland as the 20th president of the University. Garland had previously been the executive dean of the college of arts and sciences at Ohio State University. Garland was expected to earn $195,000 for the 1997-1998 academic year.

ASG: off-campus election results valid By Adam Giffi Senior Staff Writer

The Associated Student Government (ASG) off-campus senator election held Thursday, April 21, has been marked with controversy as concerns have been raised that many people, some completely unauthorized, were voting early and voting often. Nick Huber, incoming student body president, fielded some of these concerns. “The day of the election I got a few people sending me emails concerned with people’s ability to vote who may have either voted before or weren’t supposed to be allowed to vote,” Huber said. “One of the emails I received was a friendly notice that there may have been some voting fraud, one was an urgent call to action from a candidate concerned about the alleged voter fraud and another was a request that we make sure this confusion doesn’t happen in future years.” According to Huber, only students currently living off campus can vote in the election. Nevertheless, individuals that did not

fall under this classification have made claims their votes were counted, others feared that votes were counted multiples times and a link to voting, accessible to anyone, made its way to Facebook and through email. Despite this, Huber said the voting process was conducted fairly. “IT services has basically given ASG officials their word that people could not vote multiple times and the votes of unauthorized individuals were not counted,” Huber said. Tim Hogan, current vice president of the student body, reiterated Huber’s statement. According to Hogan, unique IP addresses are used to ensure that only qualified votes are counted. “Typically what will happen is that it will look like you can vote, but the system reconciles this eventually and make all the numbers correct,” Hogan said. “It looks like you can vote, it looks like you do vote, but these votes are not reflected in the final numbers.” Hogan said this is not the first time voting fraud claims have

been made post-election; similar concerns delayed the results of the general body election. Scott Walter, vice president of student affairs, worked directly with Hogan to ensure the results were accurate. “People had concerns. With any election you do there are concerns about something,” Walter said. “Tim and I heard those concerns and we verified that they were not true. The system is set up to take your first vote, with your unique ID and count that. If you go in and vote a second time, that vote won’t be registered. If you click on the link but are not logged in with a unique ID, your

vote won’t be counted.” According to Walter, higher turnouts for this election and for the general body election are not sinister but rather natural. “It’s the first year in a long time where we’ve had people outside of the circle of current ASG running for positions,” Walter said. “These people brought a whole new faction of students to vote. For the off campus student elections this year, we had 56 people running for 24 slots. For the same election last year we had 24 people running for 24 slots.” Both Hogan and Huber said alternatives are being evaluated to ensure similar concerns are not

raised again in future elections. “Whether or not students actually were able to vote in the election, I don’t want them to even be able to think that they did,” Hogan said. “Granted, yes, the numbers get reconciled. But it engages mass confusion. The system really needs more clarity and we hope we are moving towards this.” Until then, Hogan said the newly-elected senators and Miami University students alike can feel confident about the results. “The victories of candidates who won are perfectly legitimate,” Hogan said. “The numbers are very, very valid.”

It’s cramming time

Site enables students to grade their landlords By Jacie Nowland

we were doing and it was very difficult to find a good realtor that would work with us and also that we Another new social networking could trust.” site is making its way to college After Smith found out about campuses across the nation. Grade the new website and all it had My Landlord was co-created by to offer she said she definitely Michael Montesano and Jorge Gal- would have taken advantage indez in order to ease the stress on of it. students entering the off-campus “I am mad I didn’t know sooner,” renting process. The two came up she said. “It probably could have with the idea in college after having saved us from dealing with a couple of a couple of negative landlord expe- awful landlords.” riences of their own. Montesano is very excited about “We wanted the success of the site to create an aveand would like to see nue for students it continue to grow na“We wanted to to voice their create an avenue tionwide. opinions on “We are trying to for students to their landlord promote the site so that and or property voice their opinions all colleges across the experience,” on their landlord.” country can join and Montesano enjoy the benefits from said. “I think the such a unique service,” MICHAEL MONTESANO site is important Montesano said. CREATOR OF GRADE MY LANDLORD WEBSITE for college stuSmith said she indents because tends on using the many times site prior to her sethey go into the nior year to look renting process not knowing what for properties. they are getting themselves into “It is nice to know that such a and it’s common for landlords to thing exists,” Smith said. “Although try and cheat or take advantage of I will check out what other students this inexperience.” have to say I don’t think I would According to Montesano, the personally post anything unless I website currently has up to 40 had a terrible experience.” participating colleges around the This issue of predominantly negacountry including Miami Univer- tive comments on the site frustrates sity. A student can log into the site many landlords, Montesano said. “Some landlords are hesitant to and rate their landlord on a traditional “A” to “F” grading scale join the site because they think all in six different categories: party college students are going to do is tolerance, security deposit return, bash them and ruin their reputacontract, timeliness, kindness tion,” he said. “We are trying to change this and give students the and maintenance. Montesano said the site also in- incentive to leave both positive and cludes listings and images of vari- negative remarks, this way it is fair ous rental properties around the for both the landlord’s and the procampus that can be rated on a one spective buyers.” Oxford Real Estate and Rentto five star scale. He said the site has a place where students can al, a local real estate company voice their opinion and leave their not listed on the site, said that own personal comments about the website is “definitely something they are interested in their experience. Miami sophomore Jackie Smith looking into.” A representative from another faced some serious obstacles last semester as she and her three friends real estate business on campus, Coltried to find a place to rent on off lege Property Management, said that, “joining the site is something campus for the next year. “Trying to find a place was so that they are unable to afford finanhectic,” Smith said. “We were on a cially right now but who knows for time crunch, we didn’t know what the future.” For The Miami Student

JULIA ENGLEBRECHT The Miami Student

Students prepare for finals week with marathon study sessions in King Café Thursday evening.

Suspected Morris Hall mold ‘just mildew’ By Matt Levy Senior Staff Writer

Something was growing in Morris Hall and it wasn’t just the budding academic careers of some of Miami University’s firstyear students. A black substance was found growing on a water pipe in a shower stall in a firstfloor men’s bathroom, leading to speculation it was black mold, a fatal substance when exposed to in large amounts. According to a Resident Assistant (RA) in Morris, around the time of winter break, a resident began exhibiting signs of suffering from allergies when he would go into the bathroom, which was concerning because Morris Hall benefits from central air conditioning. It was then the growth was discovered in the shower stall. “We tried resolve the issue on our own,” the RA said. “We talked

wSee MILDEW, page 8

JULIA ENGLEBRECHT The Miami Student

Have a great summer!

This is the last print edition of The Miami Student for the 2010-11 school year. Check out our summer issues online June 1, July 1 and August 1, and sign up for our e-mail newsletter at www.miamistudent.net to receive breaking news alerts.


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