The Miami Student Oldest university newspaper in the United States, established 1826
VOLUME 140 NO. 07
TUESday, SEPTEMBER 11, 2012
MIAMI UNIVERSITY OXFORD, OHIO
TODAY IN MIAMI HISTORY In 1950, The Miami Student reported that students wishing to have or drive cars in Oxford must apply for a parking permit. The permits were available to students with business purposes, who commuted, were married, were Oxford residents, had physical disailities or were 25 years of age or older.
University covers student veterans during GI bill delay By Libby Mueller Senior Staff Writer
Student veterans at Miami University are under pressure to pay their tuition and fees as the Department of Veterans Affairs was delayed in distributing Government Issue (GI) benefits to student veterans. The delay was caused by a transfer of records within the department. In the meantime, Miami is offering student veterans a nointerest loan until the GI benefits come through. The post-9/11 GI Bill gives financial support for housing and education to students with at least 90 days of service after Sept. 10, 2001, according to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Director of Student Financial Assistance Brent Shock said for Miami student veterans, this means part of their education is paid by the GI Bill and then depending on individual situations, they may also receive a monthly stipend for housing or student fees. Brendan Gillespie is a student veteran peer advisor and also holds the position of president of the Student Veterans Association. He said an internal error with the Department of Veterans Affairs caused GI benefits to student veterans to be delayed. “The regional Department of Veterans Affairs that handles Miami moved records from Buffalo, N.Y. to St. Louis, Mo. and in that process, they lost some data,” Gillespie said. “The delay in benefits only affected a limited number of Miami veterans: about 70.” Gillespie said student vets will have to wait for paperwork to be redone before they receive their benefits. “All the delay really means for those students, me actually being one of them, is that the paperwork has to be re-processed, so we’ll get our payments later than expected,” Gillespie said. The delay specifically pertained to student vets in Ohio and West Virginia, Shock said. He also said Miami was not required to support student vets while they awaited their benefits, but chose to reach out to affected students and
VICTORY DANCE
come up with a solution. “When we found out about this on Friday (Sept. 7), we quickly met to figure out what we should do,” Shock said. “The Bursar office decided it would make sure that those veterans’ classes were intact and because these students do rely on a stipend from the VA, the university decided to offer a no-interest loan to veterans until they get their stipend.” Shock said the students were notified about the loan. “We then emailed those students who we thought were probably impacted and we let them know about the loan option to help them,” Shock said. The number of students impacted had to be estimated by the university, as the Department of Veterans Affairs did not tell the university which students would be affected, Shock said. Director of University Communication Claire Wagner said Miami has opted to provide for its student veterans while GI payments were en route in the past. “Historically, we have worked in previous years to hold classes for veteran students while the university waited for their VA payments and we also have extended no-interest loans to students while they wait for their VA benefits as well,” Wagner said. Gillespie said Miami’s response to the delay in GI benefits was impressive considering the circumstances. “Miami is offering a zero percent interest short term loan, but it’s a 60-day loan, a pretty sizable length of time, Gillespie said. “Miami said they would offer the loan for up to $1,500 for the veterans to cover their expenses.” Gillespie also said that he was impressed by Miami’s selflessness. “The payments being delayed are not necessarily tuition payments,” Gillespie said. “They’re monthly housing stipends, so the fact that Miami is offering up this loan for a delay in housing as opposed to tuition, which would affect them directly, I think is really amazing. I’m really proud of Miami. It’s awesome that they’re stepping up.”
LAUREN OLSON PHOTO EDITOR
RedHawk players celebrate the first home touchdown of the football season. The ’Hawks won their season opener against Southern Illinois University Saturday.
MU honors 9/11 victims
RICHARD MANDIMIKA THE MIAMI STUDENT
Navy ROTC members lower the American flag to half-mast in reverence of Sept. 11, 2001.
By Jenn Smola Campus Editor
Eleven years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the Miami University community is coming together to remember and honor the fallen. The Arnold Air Society, a community service organization within the Air Force ROTC, will host its third annual 9/11 Memorial Run at the flagpole at Millett Hall to remember the events of that day and those who died. According to Cadet Cher Ron McLemore, Arnold Air Society’s director of support, the event began with an area joint project. “We basically had to hit an objective to somehow honor those who were lost in the 9/11 attacks,” McLemore said. The result was the 9/11 Memorial Run. The run consists of students and organizations running or walking laps around the flagpole at Millett, McLemore said. According to McLemore, the event consists of 2,977 laps, and for a special reason.
“We start at the flagpole, and then at 9:18, right when the attacks started, we start running laps and we run a lap for each life lost,” McLemore said. Major Michael Thomas, Air Force ROTC director of operations and unit admissions officer, said the memorial run is completely a studentrun project. “It was their choice, their decision, their project,” Thomas said. Thomas said the memorial run is a good way to remember the events of 9/11. “Absolutely we should remember the loss,” Thomas said. “It’s definitely a good thing.” McLemore said the memorial run is a unique way of remembering 9/11. “People can give monetary donations, materialistic donations, but [the memorial run] is more of a humbling experience of remembering,” McLemore said. “And just the impact from the community, the cohesiveness, the camaraderie, the unity, the patriotism in running the laps together—it has more of an
impact than giving an actual donation of some sort.” Miami first-year Claire Hardwick said she thinks it’s important to remember the events of 9/11 and things the 9/11 Memorial Run is a good way of doing so. “I think that it’s important to respect the people that have died and everything that happened, and it’s good to remember it,” Hardwick said. According to McLemore, Arnold Air Society is striving for a higher goal of laps this year: 4,000. “Last year when we hit 2,977, we actually had runners keep going and we hit about 3,500 laps, so we just wanted to surpass our lap count that we did last year. In addition to the 9/11 Memorial Run, the Miami regional campuses will also be hosting events and projects to honor 9/11. The Miami Hamilton Student Government Association will hold a silent auction and a presentation to the Hamilton mayor, and students at the Middletown campus will be doing a service learning project.
Fraternity suspensions overcrowd housing By JM Rieger Senior Editor
An influx of 34 sophomore Phi Kappa Tau and Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity members into the Miami University housing system, resulting from summary suspensions issued by the university Aug. 23, has further hampered an already overcrowded housing system. Because Miami’s housing is at 103 percent capacity, resident assistants (RAs) have housed 13 fraternity members in their rooms, according to the Director of Housing Options, Meals and Events (HOME), Brian Woodruff. Woodruff said the RAs are receiving a $200 stipend per week for taking on a roommate, which was done on a voluntary basis. Woodruff said HOME communicated the new fraternity member living assignments to hall directors and hall advisors, and they communicated these assignments to their RAs. “[The RAs] had all been prepared and informed that they may be receiving another roommate,” Woodruff said. “That was because a residence life staff [member] spoke with them and shared the information about what would be happening with the fraternity men.” However, according to one junior RA who asked not to be named for this article and who volunteered during the summer to take a roommate due to Miami’s housing shortage, he was “forced” to accept a sophomore fraternity member two weeks ago. “I was told by my supervisor literally the night before my current roommate moved in that I would be getting another roommate,” the junior RA said. “Part of the reason why I was so distraught over the decision of housing to put someone in my room was that I was never, ever contacted.” Neither the “Job Description for Resident Assistant” nor the
“Resident Assistant Position Terms of Employment 2012-2013” documents detail the university policy for contacting RAs about taking on roommates should there be overcrowding in the housing system. A sophomore RA, who also asked to remain anonymous for this article, was one of the 13 who took on a fraternity member as a roommate. “I wouldn’t say it was like [Miami] forced it down our throats, but
teering to take on roommates due to overcrowding in the university housing system. However, Olson said the determination of what was done was not absolutely based on what happened in 2009. “We felt there was a need to compensate the RAs in some way,” Olson said. In addition to the 13 fraternity members who have been placed with RAs in upperclassmen halls,
If I had been told that I would be taking on a second roommate at the university’s will and the office of housing’s will, I would have never accepted the student, never. MIAMI JUNIOR RESIDENCE ASSISTANT just the way they approached [me, they said]: ‘We were told your name is on the list of RAs [to contact]; you’ll find out who is getting placed [in your room] later this week,’” the resident assistant said. He also said he and other RAs felt the way the university phrased the request was unfair and that no next steps nor timeline were given, other than the new roommate would remain in the room until the investigation was complete. Depending on the results of the investigations, fraternity members could remain on campus for two weeks to several months, according to Woodruff. The $200 weekly RA stipend is funded through the office of Housing, Dining, Recreation & Business Services (HDRBS). The stipend was determined at a meeting between the Director of the Office of Residence Life (ORL), Jerry Olson and HDRBS and later approved by the university. Olson said this seemed like reasonable compensation. According to Olson, in 2009 some RAs received a stipend for volun-
seven have been placed in permanent rooms and 14 have been placed in an “extended housing space,” which is a single large space, according to Woodruff. “The extended housing is adapted space that has been used in the past in a lower-level of a residence hall for male students,” Claire Wagner, associate director of University Communications and Marketing, said. Wagner also said the housing is intended to be temporary and said since the fraternity investigations are still underway, the fraternity members’ move to campus is not permanent. The Office of Ethics and Student Conflict Resolution will determine whether each fraternity will receive a permanent suspension. According to Susan Vaughn, the director of Ethics and Student Conflict Resolution, the university investigation is complete, but final university action will not be administered until the appeals process is complete,
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