The Miami Student Oldest university newspaper in the United States, established 1826
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 2013
VOLUME 141 NO. 2
MIAMI UNIVERSITY OXFORD, OHIO
TODAY IN MIAMI HISTORY In 1981, The Miami Student wrote an article on former Miami University pitcher Bill Long, a second round draft pick of the San Diego Padres that same year. The story detailed Long’s goal of making it to the Major Leagues. Long later would, but as a member of the Chicago White Sox.
Miami mystery: $8,000 in artifacts stolen BY EMILY CRANE CAMPUS EDITOR
Administrative assistant for the anthropology department, Kathy Erbaugh, came in for work over the summer only to discover there had been a burglary in Upham Hall. That day, on June 28, the overnight maintenance staff ushered her to room 180 where the door had been pried open using a paint grouting tool, and several of the artifacts on display inside it had been taken. Anthropology chair Mark Peterson estimated the dollar value of the stolen items to be between $8,000 and $10,000, but, due to their unique nature, the items are considered priceless. “They took an antique painted clay disk from West Bengal that was a personal gift to me,” Peterson said. “It’s not antique enough to be valuable, but it can’t be replaced.” Many of the stolen items were part of the archeological artifact collection that students had chosen to research for their final project for an introductory archaeology course taught by professor Jeb Card. “This is very discouraging for the students,” Card said. Junior Anthropology major Clair Meyer spent many long hours researching her artifact – a pipe from the Civil War era – only to be told this summer that it would no longer be on display. “It was a lot of work and research,” Meyer said. “To have something you spent that much time on is pretty great. So to get the email that it had been stolen, it’s irritating. That was my time and effort, just to have it taken for no good reason.” The loss of unique educational materials pains Peterson
more than the dollar value of the items themselves. “The rich range of artifacts that students will get to work with has been diminished,” Peterson said. “That’s far more sad.” Erbaugh immediately notified the police, who have opened an investigation, but there have yet to be any leads, according to Lt. Ben Spilman of the Miami University Police. “There’s no new developments,” Spilman said. “But it’s something we’ll keep looking into.” All the artifacts were put on the Interpol stolen art list. An eye is being kept on various internet sites in case anything should turn up. In addition, Peterson said the department has repaired the doors and cabinets, and has increased the number of security cameras in the hallway to prevent this sort of incident from occurring again. The mystery remains as to why these items in particular were stolen. It is unlikely that the thief had much knowledge of the items’ values because some of the artifacts they chose to leave behind were of a much greater dollar worth than the ones they chose to take, according to Peterson. In addition, the desktop computers in the adjacent lab were of far more expensive than the artifacts on display. “It kind of seems as though they just took things that look cool,” Peterson said. “It’s hard to imagine what the motive could be. It’s a pretty hefty charge of breaking and entering.” Card has requested that anyone who may have information as to the whereabouts of these artifacts come forward. All the pictures of the stolen items can be found on The Miami Student website.
STUDENTS OF ATH 212 THE MIAMI STUDENT
Above are a few of the unique artifacts that were stolen from Upham Hall over the past summer. Anthropology professor Jeb Card urges students with any information to contact the university.
Officials predict high university rating under federal financial aid criteria BY VICTORIA SLATER CAMPUS EDITOR
In order to decrease skyrocketing student debt and provide incentive for universities to boost graduation and employment rates, President Barak Obama proposed a new system to allocate federal financial aid to higher education institutions. According to director of the Office of Student Financial Assistance Brent Shock, the new method, which was proposed Aug. 22 and is still in the works, will
controlled by the House of Representatives, which controls the money.” Shock explained that Obama crafted the system as a means for universities to improve on overall student success. “He is very interested in seeing schools on a process of performance and improvement, being innovative,” Shock said. “He wants students to be aware of loan repayment available as well.” As a whole, Shock said he expects Miami to rank well under the criteria the president has put forth.
“[President Obama] is very interested in seeing schools on a process of performance and improvement, being innovative.” BRENT SHOCK
DIRECTOR OF OFFICE OF STUDENT FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE
function by rating universities based on four general criteria: average tuition, amount of lowincome students enrolled, how many students graduate each year and rate of employment for each class post-graduation. The federal government will then distribute financial aid to each university consistent with its ratings under the criteria. “Obama has directed the Department of Education to develop a new ranking system, which will tie in the types of financial aid institutions receive,” Shock said. “That takes an act of Congress to change that because it is federally
Shock noted that each year, on average, 76 percent of Miami students receive some sort of federal financial aid, and 24 percent of all campuses receive pell grants, or a kind of federal scholarship that doesn’t need to be repaid. $20 million in pell grants are awarded to students and $1.5 million in campus based aid, such as work study. While such a large percentage of Miami students receive financial aid, vice president for Finance and Business Services David Creamer said the amount of lowincome students that the university enrolls is low.
“We are a more expensive institution, so we tend to have students that are better prepared and they tend to have fewer financial issues,” he said. As far as graduation rates go, Shock noted that 79 percent of Miami students graduate. According to director of University News and Communications Claire Wagner, that percentage places the university as the 19th highest in four-year graduation rates amongst public universities. “The plan is to reward a university that actually graduates its students and teaches them and allows them to succeed and go on to have meaningful careers,” she said. “We shine for our retention and therefore our graduation.” Shock added that 95 percent of graduated students will be employed or attending grad school in one year and will be able to pay back any financial aid received in a timely fashion. For these reasons, Creamer said he believes Miami will profit from the proposal, if it does go into effect. “We want to be successful and we will benefit from these changes,” he said. “We are committed to good outcomes for our students.” However, he said issues with federal financial aid allocation and the rising student debt will always remain. “The hard part to overcome is that there is never any new money, so we are trying to package the same dollars in different ways to produce better to results,” he said. “Can we have some success that way? I think so. Can we overcome all the obstacles? I don’t think so.”
RYAN HOLTZ THE MIAMI STUDENT
STAY ON TARGET, STAY ON TARGET! First-year Andrew Garcia shoots an opponent in a game of laser tag put on by Student Activities, MEGA and the Parents’ Office.
Fluke causes campuswide Internet outage BY KATIE TAYLOR
ACTING EDITOR IN CHIEF
Miami University experienced an Internet service outage last week that lasted nearly three hours. The outage, which began at 10 a.m. Aug 29, prevented oncampus users from accessing external websites, and prevented off-campus users from reaching university Internet services. At approximately 12:40 p.m., the connection was restored, although only allowing for limited Internet access. Senior director for IT Communication and Relationship Management Cathy McVey confirmed the cause of the outage was a cut OARNET fiber between Oxford and Columbus. The cause of the
cut fiber has not been reported. OARNET is a division of the Ohio Board of Regents Ohio Technology Consortium that provides the fiber-optic backbone throughout much of the state. This fiber damage, combined with a simultaneous service outage of Miami’s Cincinnati Bell Technology Solutions (CBTS) connection, caused the loss of Internet, according to McVey. She said the fact both systems were down at the same time is puzzling. “We’re scratching our heads about how it could have possibly happened,” she said. “We’re waiting to hear from the two services to understand.” McVey said she believes the chances of another incident occurring are minimal.