The Miami Student Oldest university newspaper in the United States, established 1826
VOLUME 140 NO. 08
FRIday, SEPTEMBER 14, 2012
MIAMI UNIVERSITY OXFORD, OHIO
TODAY IN MIAMI HISTORY In 1920, The Miami Student reported that plans were the works for a new girls’ gymnasium. The story read, “Girls! do you realize that some day we are going to have a reular girls’ gym all for our own? Of course you are thinking, ‘Oh, that’s an old story. Our grandchildren may see that gym, but we don’t expect to live to see that distant day.’”
’Hawks, get ready for Homecoming Week
KIM PARENT THE MIAMI STUDENT
Miami University students donate blood to the Community Blood Center Friday in Shriver’s Heritage Room.
Absence policies conflict with health services code By Amanda Hancock
Senior Staff Writer
With the cold season beginning and trips to Student Health Services soon to follow, Miami University students will have to decide whether their sneezing, coughing and sore throat symptoms constitute missing classes. It’s up to faculty members to set an attendance policy for their courses, according to the Miami University Student Handbook, so each professor handles the “I was sick” excuse in slightly different ways. Although Kelly Abshire, a Miami microbiology lecturer, said she tries to work with students one-onone, she said determining whether the excuse was legitimate is a complicated call. “We understand that we can’t have students coming to class with an illness getting others sick,” Abshire said. However, when a student misses several classes with the same excuse, it gets tricky. “It certainly carries a lot more weight when students let us know before they are going to be absent rather than three hours after they miss a test,” Abshire said. Although she said she takes students’ word most of the time, like many Miami professors, she requires some sort of written verification for being excused from an exam.
Miami’s Student Health Services provides students with documentation of being at the clinic and being seen by a physician, however, it is against their policy to write any type of excuse notes for students, according to Gail Walenga, assistant vice president of Student Health Services. “Our policy and our practice has always been that if a student is ill they contact the faculty and they negotiate with them about how the faculty wants to deal with their illness,” Walenga said. Walenga said students should take the responsibility of their absences upon themselves. “Once you hit the university you get to act as an adult and take on some adult responsibilities and the negotiate those with your faculty,” Walenga said. First-year Matt DeMaro said he missed a geography 101 class due to a fever. DeMaro said he went to Student Health Services and they told him he could not go to class that day but they did not give him an excuse note. DeMaro said several of his professors counted his absence as excused but he was not allowed to make up class work for one of his classes. “For one of the classes actually, I missed a quiz during the class and I wasn’t allowed to make it up, but he said at the beginning of the year if you miss class you won’t be able to make stuff up,” DeMaro said. Since Health Services does not provide written notes for students,
professors then cannot ask for them, according to Steve Wyatt, a professor and chair of the finance department. Wyatt noted that because of the HIPPA Privacy Rule, which protects the privacy of individually identifiable health information, doctors’ notes detailing any health issues are not allowed. “So a professor can’t demand that,” Wyatt said. However, students can always volunteer health information, which can be beneficial according to Wyatt. “The problem is that some students abuse [the policy] and the rest of students that don’t abuse [it] that pay the price,” Wyatt said. How do professors decide which students are really sick? “That’s where trust comes in,” Wyatt said. If students establish they are honest people, there is less reason to question them, according to Wyatt. However, he has another solution to negate any ambiguity; he doesn’t allow make-ups, so when students are absent for exams he counts their next exam as double the points. “I make my policy so we never have to get into the issue of ‘why’— it doesn’t matter,” Wyatt said. David Pennock, interim zoology department chair, said he does not normally encounter conflicts when dealing with absence matters.
ABSENCE, SEE PAGE 9
KIM PARENT THE MIAMI STUDENT
Sophomore Nicole Smith gives a thumbs up while she donates blood.The blood drive was sponsored by faculty, staff and the 2012 Homecoming Committee.
Greek community revisits, revises disciplinary program By Jenn Smola Campus Editor
After nearly three years of task force and committee meetings and recommendations, Miami University’s Greek community is setting out to raise its standards with the implementation of its new Community Advancement Program. According to Jennifer Levering, director of the Cliff Alexander Office of Fraternity and Sorority Life, the Fraternity and Sorority Coalition Assessment Project came to campus in 2009, and recommended that Miami’s Greek community develop shared community standards. Several committees were formed following those recommendations, and the Cliff Alexander office took recommendations from these various task forces and merged them with the Miami’s already-existing Greek awards program to develop the Community Advancement Program. Levering said the new program more clearly defines standards that Greek chapters have already had in place, as well as implements new higher expectations. “We just tried to create programs that chapters are already doing so that they would get current recognition…and also set some higher expectations to raise the bar of what we hope fraternities and sororities will do on our campus,” Levering said. According to Levering, the new
program establishes set guidelines for the various fraternities and sororities at Miami to all follow and will act as an assessment tool. “It allows students and chapters to have a roadmap for what the expectations are to be a fraternity or sorority on campus,” Levering said. “They get guidelines and road maps form their national organizations but this gives us a way as a campus to say ‘if you’re a fraternity or a sorority, this is what we hope you will do.’” According to senior Alanah Raykovich, vice president of public relations of Miami’s Panhellenic Association, the new program is made up of chapter plans, chapter programs, and data collection. Data collection consists of keeping updated rosters and records, chapter programs consist of programs and events the chapters are required to put on and chapter plans are individualized strategies for chapters to hold themselves accountable to certain standards, Raykovich said. According to Raykovich, the chapter plan is an important aspect of the new program. “[The chapter plan is] individualized within the chapter, but they have to let us know that they’ve thought about this and they’ve thought about accountability on an individual basis.” While there have been other standards laid out for Miami’s Greek
GREEK,
SEE PAGE 9
How do I handle an emergency situation? By Emily Glaser Senior Staff Writer
Students come to college to learn about their passion, whether it be business, politics, or chemistry. Despite the great amount of knowledge they gain in the classroom, they may not know the right thing to do in common college emergency situations. John McCandless, chief of the Miami University Police Department (MUPD), and Rebecca Young, Director of Student Wellness, have answers to some common “what if” situations. WHAT SHOULD I DO IF I SEE SOMEONE PASSED OUT ON THE GROUND?
TYLER GRAVES THE MIAMI STUDENT
REDHAWKS ON A ROLL
Miami’s volleyball team goes to Bloomington, Ind. to compete in the Hoosier Classic this weekend.
Both McCandless and Young agree that the most important thing to do is call for help. In these situations, McCandless said people can either call 911 or MUPD emergency dispatchers at 513-529-2222. “You’re going to want to do an assessment on the person,” Young
said. “See if they are able to be awakened, check their breathing and stay with them until help arrives.” First-year Melina Hazzard said she knows the right thing to do would be call an ambulance and try to wake the person up. “It’s hard because if someone is drunk and passed out, you don’t want them to get in trouble, but you also don’t want them to have serious alcohol poisoning or die,” Hazzard said. WHAT SHOULD I DO IF I WITNESS A FIGHT OR DOMESTIC VIOLENCE?
McCandless and Young emphasized that calling for help is the most important thing to do. Both also agree that students should not intervene in a dangerous situation. “I think people are good-hearted and want to help when they see violence happening, but they need to be cautious,” McCandless said. “These situations are so unpredictable, it’s better to be the eyes of the police
until they can get there.” Hazzard said she thinks it depends on the situation. “If it was someone I knew I would step in and try to resolve the situation,” Hazzard said. “I’d try to get the girl to talk to the police about it. If it was someone I didn’t know at all and was I just witnessing, I would call the police right away.” WHAT SHOULD I DO IF SOMEONE IS TRYING TO DRIVE DRUNK?
McCandless and Young both said if a friend is trying to drive drunk, students should do everything within reason to take their keys away from them. If the friend cannot be dissuaded, they encourage students to call the police. Hazzard was unsure what she would do if she could not get her friend to give up their keys. “Again, it’s rough because you don’t want to get them in trouble,”
EMERGENCIES, SEE PAGE 9