The Miami Student | October 27, 2022

LUKE MACY ASST. CAMPUS & COMMUNITY EDITOR

At roughly 2 a.m. on Oct. 15, three unidentified men jumped Miami University’s Hillel center’s fence at 11 E Walnut St and toppled a sukkah, destroying the inside. The three individuals have since come forward claiming responsibility.

Hillel is an international Jewish campus organization that aims to create a community for Jewish students.

The sukkah is a hut used to celebrate the Jewish holiday Sukkot and

represents the same huts used by Israelites as they wandered the Egyptian desert for 40 years. Sukkot is a weeklong celebration where a large amount of time is spent in the sukkah. This year’s Sukkot started Oct. 9 and ended Oct. 16.

Whitney Fisch, executive director of Miami University’s Hillel branch, wrote about the incident in an email to Hillel members on Oct. 21.

“The desecration and vandalization of this ritual item and the damage done to our Sukkah is distressing enough,” Fisch wrote. “While (thankfully) we have an extra Sukkah, what has shaken our students and staff to the core and left me with a pit at the

bottom of my stomach is the complete violation of our property and of our sacred space.”

Hillel uploaded two videos of the security footage from the night. Originally, the three men could not be identified, but Fisch wrote in an email that after a large community response to the incident, the men came forward and claimed responsibility on the night of Oct. 21.

Due to two ongoing investigations between the university and the Oxford Police Department, no more information on the individuals was given.

Students involved with Hillel were shaken by the incident. Matt

Seifert, a first-year accounting major, said the incident made him rethink his safety at Miami.

“It's definitely frightening because I've seen this on other bigger campuses and more urban campuses and normally I think of Miami as a safe and inclusive place,” Seifert said, “but seeing something like that is definitely an eye opener.”

Grant Titlebaum, a first-year mechanical engineering major, said antisemitism was already present in the U.S., but this act brings the problem closer to the local community.

Miami tribe and university relationship turns 50

LUKE MACY ASST. CAMPUS & COMMUNITY EDITOR

In 1972, Forest Olds, then chief of the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma, visited Miami University, laying the grounds for a relationship with the name-sharing university. This year, the tribe and university’s relationship turned 50, and the partnership has grown since Olds’ visit to include a dedicated center at the university.

A brief history of the Miami Tribe

The Myaamiaki “Miami people” first came in contact with Europeans in 1665 when Nicolas Perrot met them in a shared southern Wisconsin village with the Inohka (Illinois), Kickapoo and Mascouten tribes.

Bert Anson, author of “The Miami Indians,” writes that the tribe had no legends about migration before the 1700s, which was emphasized by a frequently repeated statement from Little Turtle, a Myaamiaki war chief in the late 1700s.

“My fathers kindled the first fire at Detroit; thence they extended their lines to the headwaters of the Scioto; thence to its mouth; thence down the Ohio to the mouth of the Wabash and thence to Chicago over Lake Michigan,” Little Turtle would say.

Despite cold from the surrounding lakes, the Myaamiaki typically wore only skin shirts, leggings and moccasins which allowed them to display their tattoos. They grew soft white corn, melons, squash and beans, and they would celebrate their harvests with dancing, games and music.

At the beginning of the 16th century, the Myaamiaki moved east and would continue to migrate through-

JACK SCHMELZINGER SPORTS EDITOR

Through six games this season, Miami hockey has only allowed 11 goals.

That’s a big change. Last season, the RedHawks were second-worst in Division I for goals allowed per game with 4.3, only better than St. Thomas, who was playing its first year above Division III.

Miami only gave up three goals in its most recent series, a resounding road sweep of Canisius.

The RedHawks won 5-3 on Friday and 2-0 on Saturday. Two of Canisius’s goals on Friday were scored in garbage time too, after Miami had already put five on the board.

But fourth-year Head Coach Chris Bergeron still isn’t quite satisfied.

“I think overall our defensive play has been better,” Bergeron said after Saturday’s shutout. “I think overall our penalty kill is better … I like our defensive plan. I like our level of commitment to keeping pucks out of our net. But again, we’re going to get a whole another set of problems next weekend when we face Denver.”

But before we move on to the reigning national champion No. 3 Denver, the RedHawks deserve some love for how they played in Buffalo.

National circles have taken notice.

Miami received five votes in the US College Hockey Online poll this week, something that hasn’t happened in years. According to the pairwise, a metric that tries to rank Division I teams based on win-loss record and strength of schedule, Miami is fifth best in the country. Now take this with a grain of salt — the pairwise rankings don’t mean much this early in the season. But it’s still fun.

The star of the show in Buffalo, as usual, was junior goalie Ludvig Persson.

Persson made 18 saves in the 5-3 win on Friday. The second goal he allowed wasn’t his fault. He stopped the first shot off a Canisius rush and made a lunging save on the second one. He ended up on his stomach after that, and the RedHawk defense couldn’t clear the net. He had no chance to make the third.

SOUTHARD STAFF WRITER

Taylor Swift sent the world into a frenzy when she announced her tenth album, “Midnights,” would be released Oct. 21.

As the album approached, Swift dropped several short videos on TikTok about it in a series called “Midnights Mayhem with Me.” In the videos, she used a bingo wheel to determine which song title she would reveal.

Swift also took to billboards to tease lyrics and promote the album. A trailer for “Midnights” even premiered during “Thursday Night Football.”

Anticipation was so high, in fact, that Spotify crashed upon the record’s release. Despite this glitch, Swift broke Spotify’s record for most-streamed album and artist in a single day.

Like many others, I stayed up until midnight (haha, get it) in anticipation of the album. And I have to say, it was worth the wait.

“Midnights” is completely different from Swift’s recent studio albums “folklore” and “evermore.” It’s much more reminiscent of her pop records “1989,” “Reputation” and “Lover.”

Rolling Stone has labeled “Midnights” an instant classic, and rightfully so.

“Midnights” is refreshing; it’s synthy, poppy and electronic. On this record, Swift is vengeful and gives us a glimpse into her deepest, darkest thoughts. I just can’t get enough of it.

The album opens with “Lavender Haze,” a danceable track that’s been stuck in my head since I first heard the chorus. In this song, Swift addresses tabloid rumors about her and Joe Alwyn’s relationship. She also tackles her desire to defy gender roles, singing, “I’m damned if I do give a damn what people say / No deal / The 1950s shit they want from me / I just wanna stay in that lavender haze.”

“Maroon” is next, and it’s one of the stand-out songs. It feels ethereal, with Swift’s beautiful vocals echoing over an electronic beat. The bridge for this track was one of my favorites as well.

Following “Maroon” is “Anti-Hero,” a poppy song in which Swift acknowledges that she is in fact the problem. This song’s strikingly relatable; all I’ve gotta say is Swift knows her audience very well.

RedHawks roll to sweep over Canisius in Buffalo, up next: the reigning champs

‘Midnights’ have become Taylor Swift’s afternoons

‘It’s definitely frightening’: Miami Jewish holiday hut destroyed, prompting investigation

CHLOE

LUDVIG PERSSON FIGHTS TRAFFIC IN MIAMI'S FIRST SERIES AGAINST FERRIS STATE PHOTO BY CAROLINE BARTOSZEK

THE THREE MEN TOPPLED A JEWISH HOLIDAY HUT AT ROUGHLY 2 A.M. ON OCT. 15 AT HILLEL MIAMI'S PROPERTY. PHOTO PROVIDED BY HILLEL

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Jessica

Sarah

Hannah

Skyler

Devin

Fred

Sacha

Costume Sale

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Miami Tribe and university relationship turns 50

out the Great Lakes region to different river valleys until the early 1800s, when the tribe was in its homelands of the Wabash River Valley.

In 1830, Congress passed the Indian Removal Act, forcibly removing Native American tribes from their homelands to areas west of the Mississippi River.

The Myaamiaki were not so willing to move after having settled in the Wabash River Valley. In an 1840 treaty ratified by the Senate, the tribe agreed to move within five years.

The treaty, however, did not go according to plan, and the tribe did not move in the timespan. Anson wrote that dispersed members refused to assemble, and the tribe’s debts in the region had not been paid.

In June 1846, Chief Francis La Fontaine met with President James Polk at the White House to appeal the delay from 1845.

The appeal was denied.

The tribe was forced to begin emigration on Oct. 6, 1846, starting at Peru, Indianapolis, and traveling by river to Kanza Landing in today’s Kansas City, Missouri, on Nov. 1, 1846. The tribe then traveled 50 miles on land to a reservation in Kansas.

In 1867, the tribe was once again moved, this time to Indian Territory in Oklahoma, where the tribe still resides, going by the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma, deriving from the Myaamia name. The tribe’s current chief is Douglas Lankford.

neepwaantiinki: Miami, the tribe, and Miami, the university Miami University was founded in 1809 in the Miami Valley, a term referring to the lands surrounding the Miami River. The region draws its name from the Miami Tribe’s time in the area, which William Kubiak, author of “Great Lakes Indians: a pictorial guide,” estimates to have been from 1720 to 1763.

The university did not have a prominent relationship with the tribe from which its name comes until Chief Olds’ visit in 1972.

One of the first steps Miami took to maintain this relationship was creating a scholarship program hoping to help Miami Tribe members attend the university.

In February of 1974, Miami released a description of the scholarship, which was preferred to be given to a Native American, particularly of the Miami Tribe. The scholarship

would cover the costs of college not already covered by financial aid.

The university gave the scholarship information to the Miami Tribe, which shared it with other Oklahoma tribes. However, no Native Americans applied for the scholarship until 1978, when a member of the Wampanoag Tribe from Massachusetts became the first to receive the scholarship.

In 1990, Myrtis Powell, who was the vice president for student affairs, sent a letter to Miami’s Chief Floyd Leonard, promising to provide tuition waivers to any Miami Tribe members who were accepted to the university. The waiver became part of the Myaamia Heritage Award Program, and the first students enrolled for the 1991-92 academic year.

Currently, members of the program are also required to take one-credit Heritage courses spread across eight semesters, which focus on themes about the Miami Tribe.

“The Heritage class meets weekly, providing an opportunity for Myaamia students to maintain their connection with one another,” the program’s website says. “Although the total membership of the Miami Tribe community is small (around 6,000 people) and dispersed throughout the United States, Heritage classes allow Myaamia students to learn about the ways in which they are related to each other and develop a small Tribal community on campus.”

According to the Miami Tribe Relations website, more than 100 Myaamia students have graduated from the university since 1991, with a 92% graduation rate for the program.

In 2001, Miami Tribal leaders’ interests in language and cultural ed-

ucation grew. They prompted the university to create the Myaamia Project, led by Daryl Baldwin, a member of the Miami Tribe.

With its success, the project became the Myaamia Center in 2013. The center is located on campus at Bonham House and focuses on research, which it presents every other year at the Myaamiaki Conference, the most recent one held on April 9, 2022.

The university uses the term neepwaantiinki, which means “learning from each other,” to describe its relationship with the tribe.

In 2017, Miami introduced a Myaamia Heritage Logo, which symbolizes the tribe’s relationship with the university. The university has also created a land acknowledgement, honoring the traditional homelands of the Myaamia people, along with the Shawnee people, which were ceded to the U.S. in 1975 with the Treaty of Greeneville.

Currently, Miami’s King Library has an exhibit about Myaamiaki on display in the Walter Havighurst Special Collections on the third floor of the library. The exhibit is open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays through Fridays.

On Oct. 21, Baldwin attended an event where people could talk to the curators of the exhibition. During the event, Baldwin expressed joy with the university’s relationship with the tribe.

“Nobody could’ve imagined that it would grow into what it is today,” Baldwin said.

@lukejmacy macylj@miamioh.edu

Miami student arrested for Family Weekend shooting threat

REAGAN RUDE ASST. CAMPUS & COMMUNITY EDITOR

A Miami University student was arrested for threatening to go on a “parents shooting spree” during Miami’s Family Weekend.

Paul Walker Jr., a junior music education major at Miami, posted the threat on YikYak on Oct. 22 from his residence hall room. The FBI informed the university about the post. Court records show he was arrested later that day. No weapons were found.

According to court documents, Walker Jr. mentioned feeling frustrated over the campus being crowded due to the amount of parents present for Family Weekend.

Kimberly Moore, the dean of students at Miami, said in a university-wide email that her office has seen an increase in social media posts, specifically anonymous ones, posing health and safety concerns for the Miami community. She wrote that the university, local, state and federal law enforcement agencies take these posts seriously.

“It is important that you understand that platforms like Yik Yak are not truly anonymous,” the Oct. 26 email read. “Reported threats,

whether for self-harm or harm toward others, are taken seriously and swiftly addressed.”

A Butler County judge set Walker Jr.’s bond at $10,000. He was charged with a third degree felony for making terrorist threats. After being held by the Butler County Jail, he will be allowed to attend classes and go to work.

The judge also requires him to wear an electronic monitoring device, and he is not allowed to post on social media.

Jessica Rivinius, interm vice president and chief communications and marketing officer, wrote in an email to The Miami Student that the Butler County judge’s ruling that the individual be allowed to attend class does not limit the university’s ability to take action under its Code of Student Conduct.

Due to student privacy laws the university will not provide the current whereabouts of Walker Jr. Walker Jr.’s next court date is Oct. 27.

rudere@miamioh.edu

Ten classes to consider for your spring 2023 schedule

ANNA REIER THE MIAMI STUDENT

With registration season upon us, it is time for everyone’s favorite part of the year: crafting the perfect semester schedule. No classes before 8 a.m., on Fridays, and really, does anyone want to take more than three classes on the same day?

Whether it be for a Miami Plan requirement or because you just need a couple more credit hours, chances are you will end up having to take some sort of non-major, slightly random course. I’ve pulled together 10 of the coolest courses Miami has to offer, so when the time comes, you can pay more attention to securing the 12 p.m. Monday/Wednesday class instead of scouring the course list.

SLM 140M: Broomball Could there be a better class for Miami students to take? I think not.

SLM 140 might be Miami University all wrapped up in one class. The best part? This course is specifically designed for those new to the sport, so no experience is required!

HST 355:

History of Modern Sports

Calling all sports fanatics! This class looks carefully at the relationship between sports and one’s national identity, as well as the evolution and spread of various sports. Specific topics include The Olympic Games, The World Cup and baseball and basketball as a whole.

REL 360D: Catholic Social Thought

“We’ve seen lots of hatred to Jews, especially recently,” Titlebaum said. “Some of it has to do with Kanye [West, now known as Ye], but a lot of it has to do with the High Holy Days in general, but we usually see our fair share. So this is, it’s more that it’s getting close to a place I thought it wouldn’t happen, rather than it’s happening.”

Because the situation is still under investigation, Oxford police do not know if the act was done with antisemitic motives. However, Lauren Somers, a junior business analytics and fashion corporate business co-major as well as the president of Hillel, said the situation can help educate students about antisemitism.

“In so many areas of the world with everything going on with [Ye] and antisemitism on other campuses, antisemitism is a huge rise right now,” Somers said. “It’s so important that we have the goal of educating and bringing light to situations. I think building a community of Jewish allies on campus, I think it has been huge getting that support from non-Jewish students.”

Rabbi Yossi Greenberg, who works with Chabad at Miami, said despite the incident, Oxford is a safe and wonderful community.

“Obviously, watching the footage is troubling,” Greenberg said. “My response to everyone asking is that we feel safe. I want to thank the Ox-

ford Police Department and Miami University for making Miami such a welcoming and safe space for Jewish students to be proud and openly Jewish.”

Titlebaum also hoped the university would support Jewish students in response to the destruction of the sukkah by working with them in discussions of diversity and inclusion.

“Miami tries to include everybody and a tendency with people with that ideal is Jews get left out,” Titlebaum said. “So [I’m] hoping that Miami kind of includes that because not only are we a religion, but we’re also an ethnicity. We’re also a culture because the religion part, not every Jewish person believes in the religion side, but they believe that Judaism is also a culture and an ethnicity.”

Somers said even though Hillel is waiting for the results from the investigation, the organization has appreciated the support from the community.

“I think there’s a lot of uncertainty right now,” Somers said. “But our response to the situation was what was so meaningful. I think to us as an organization, seeing so many Jewish students, Jewish allies, other organizations come and support us has just been incredible.”

In a joint statement on Oct. 21, Miami President Greg Crawford, vice president for Institutional Diversity and Inclusion Cristina Alcalde and interim provost Elizabeth Mullenix condemned the incident, while also

showing support for Jewish students at Miami.

“Many Miami community members, particularly Jewish community members, may be understandably distressed and feel unsafe after learning about this incident,” the email read. “We are committed to every Jewish student, faculty, and staff feeling welcome and included as part of the Miami community.”

Crawford, Alcalde and Mullenix invited students to attend The Shabbat of Love and Honor event in response to the incident, hosted by Hillel and the Office for Institutional Diversity and Inclusion from 6 to 8 p.m. on Oct. 28 at Hillel. The event, which required people to RSVP, has already had all its slots filled.

“We’ve never really had an event that big before,” Somers said. “I think people in the community are so willing to show up, and that’s been really speaking volumes to Hillel and to the Jewish community for sure.”

In her follow-up email, Fisch wrote that despite the destruction of its sukkah, Hillel would continue in its typical ways.

“This is what we do,” Fisch wrote. “We’re Jewish and no matter what happens, we will always be here to celebrate our community, our culture, our religion, and as always, our Jewish students.”

@lukejmacy macylj@miamioh.edu

The best part? None of them require any prerequisites.

HST 236: Medicine & Disease in Modern History

Given the fact that within the last two years our world has been completely dominated by a global pandemic, there seems to be no better time to learn about diseases within our modern history.

ENG

356: Women and Gender in Film

This course is said to “critically examine how women are portrayed throughout the twentieth century in various genres.’’ Watching a bunch of powerful women in some iconic movies? Sign me up!

ART 131: 3D Printing

This course is all about the basics involved with 3D printing; the design of the objects, the software used and the practical societal uses for 3D printers. There is an additional $55 fee involved, but for semester-long access to 3D printers, I’d say that’s a steal!

MAC 202: The Smartphone and Society

This class is an in-depth look at those things that seem to be constantly glued to our hands. Specifically, how these media and communication technologies impact the life of the individual user, as well the wider societal practices.

Personally, I love taking classes that directly relate to the current societal climate, and well, Catholic Social Thought checks all my boxes. This class focuses on some of the most prominent “traditional” opinions of the catholic church in connection with current society. While maybe not the most “fun” class on this list, it did strike me as one of the most interesting options in the entirety of the Spring Bulletin.

THE 111: Ballroom Dance

This course is listed as a foundational course that will include the framework for competitive ballroom styles. You also get to attend three different evening dances. It’s like “Dancing With the Stars,” but you know, in Oxford.

FAS 101:

Intro to Fashion Industry

If you find yourself particularly interested in the clothes you wear everyday, why not take Fashion 101?

Part of this course is looking at different positions within the industry, and who knows, maybe you will find your dream career. But at the very least, you will walk out with a better understanding of what the most “in” jeans for next fall will be.

SLM120I: Power-Walking for Fitness

I mean … come on. No explanation required. Why not get credit hours for power walking across Oxford? You would be doing it anyway!

@AnnaReier reieram@miamioh.edu

‘It’s definitely frightening’: Miami Jewish holiday hut destroyed, prompting investigation

THIS YEAR MARKS 50 YEARS OF THE PARTNERSHIP BETWEEN THE MIAMI TRIBE AND MIAMI UNIVERSITY. PHOTO BY ZACH REICHMAN

New Miami task force works to localize mental health conversations

more broadly about the community as a whole,” Brownell said. “Not just the mental health fee and what we do in terms of money and resources and hiring, but let’s look at the whole culture of Miami.”

Brownell and Flinders oversee the task force, leading biweekly meetings discussing its findings and communicating directly with Crawford about its process. A major goal of the task force is to look at Miami’s mental health problems holistically, focusing not just on students but on faculty, staff and the wider communities Miami touches.

“We know that faculty and staff have also been dealing with their own mental health and well-being,” Brownell said. “There is more awareness that you have to keep the people who provide the support well, or they are not going to have the capacity to help students.”

Miami.

One thing Ward attributes to the increase in requests for student counseling is a higher awareness of the importance of mental health, as well as a destigmatization of conversations surrounding the subject.

“When I first got into this, I would always have a conversation with students about, ‘Hey, if you happen to see me on campus I’m not going to out you, that you’re a client or things like that,’” Ward said. “In recent years, I’ve had instances where students had been walking with a group of friends, have seen me, and said, ‘Hey, that’s my therapist,’ and kept going.”

A focus on faculty

GRAPHIC BY ERIN MCGOVERN

REECE HOLLOWELL ASST. ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR

In January 2021, the American Psychological Association, in response to numerous reports of declining emotional health across the country, declared a “National Mental Health Crisis.”

To combat this, Miami University has established the Institutional Task Force on Student, Faculty, and Staff Mental Health and Well-being, a group dedicated to researching the mental health conditions at Miami and finding potential solutions to combat them.

Miami has been investing in student and faculty mental health for some time now, including a new mental health fee for students that directly funds prevention, treatment and response initiatives.

Demand for mental health services has increased alongside new

resources.

Miami’s annual Student Health Survey showed a significant rise in feelings of anxiety, depression and suicidal thought in the 2021-22 school year. Additionally, the usage of clinical services at Miami’s Student Counseling Center (SCS) increased by 17% between the academic years of 2020-21 and 2021-22.

Establishing leadership Under direction from Miami President Greg Crawford, a team was assembled to investigate the current state of mental health at Miami. The group was hand-picked for their experience and interest in the subject, and consists of faculty and staff from both Miami’s Oxford campus and its regionals.

Jayne Brownell, vice president for Student Life, is co-chair of the task force alongside Brooke Flinders, interim regional associate dean.

“As we came into this year, President Crawford charged us to think

Along with Brownell and Flinders, three workgroups were established within the task force, each with their own co-chairs and focusing on a specific population within Miami. These workgroups each have their own individual meetings featuring discussions with members of the Miami community about their area of interest.

A focus on students

The first workgroup, “Student emotional health and well-being,” is dually led by John Ward, director of SCS, and Claire Ruberg, senior regional director of Clinical Services.

“My role is to help facilitate the dialogue around helping us think specifically for students,” Ward said. “It’s for me to help get this group of students, faculty and staff thinking about, ‘How do we advance this for students?’”

Ward’s decades of experience in student mental health studies have allowed him to observe a rise in the mental health services requested at

Miami receives largest individual gift in its history

to strategically leverage this gift to increase the enrollments of Federal Pell Grant eligible students,” Shock said. “[Also] to help ensure their success all along the way for their four years at Miami.”

Salama Sarfino, a junior biology major at Miami, said she is very happy about the scholarship fund from Metz and Khan because she has a Pell Grant.

GRAPHIC BY HANNAH POTTS

MADI JEROME STAFF WRITER

Miami University received a pledge for the largest individual gift in its history: a scholarship fund of $46 million for students eligible for Pell Grants.

The gift is from Miami alumnus John Metz ‘57 and his husband, Ali Khan. They made a commitment to bequeath Miami University $46 million upon their passing.

Brad Bundy, vice president for University Advancement, said this gift is important for the future of Miami.

“First of all, I think it’s really important to recognize the transformational impact that this gift will eventually have on the university,” Bundy said. “All of us feel that students for generations to come will benefit from their philanthropy. Second of all, I think it’s important because we hope that it will inspire other alumni to consider including Miami in their estate plans and giving back to their alma mater.”

In 2018, about 13% of Miami students received Pell Grants. Brent Shock, vice president for Enrollment Management and Student Success at Miami, said there is a process to be eligible for a Federal Pell Grant.

“You have to fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or the FAFSA, and that information is pushed through a formula set up by Congress,” Shock said. “The outcome of that formula is something called the EFC, or Expected Family Contribution, and it’s the Expected Family Contribution that determines Federal Pell Grant eligibility. Miami does not actually determine final eligibility.”

For the EFC, Shock said the lower number will have a higher award.

“The lower the number, the greater the Pell Grant,” Shock said. “So, obviously if the federal formula says you can only expect to pay $100 towards educational costs, you’re gonna have a higher Pell Grant than someone where it might say they could pay $3,000.”

As for the future of students eligible for Pell Grants, Shock said this scholarship fund will help them significantly. Shock said Miami plans to increase enrollment of eligible Federal Pell Grant students.

“What we hope at Miami, and what we know will happen at Miami, is that we’ll be able

“As a student who’s a Pell Grant recipient, I am thankful that I do get it,” Sarfino said. “To know that there’s going to be even more help for students who come after me later on is amazing. It is very inspirational. If I graduate, I do want to also work hard, so that one day I can also contribute to the future too.”

Sarfino said getting through college can be a struggle financially, so this gift will help students tremendously.

“Sometimes it feels like you’re going through college alone,” Sarfino said. “I’ve seen other people who are willing to donate and it’s kind of like a reminder like, ‘Hey there actually are other people out there who understand there is a struggle.’”

Shock said the money from Metz and Khan will be invested by Miami, and it distributes a certain amount every year based on earnings of that investment. They then will award the distribution of earnings and there will be around a 4% distribution rate.

Shock said this would then put the annual distribution at about $1.8 million, but that could fluctuate. The reason annual distribution could change is because every year a portion of the gift will be reinvested.

“Every year a certain portion of that gift gets reinvested, so the balance grows,” Shock said. “It will grow from $46 million over time, so there will be a larger distribution … We’d roll it out over the course of four years. It would start with the first-year student and then that would track with them as long as they retained eligibility for the Federal Pell Grant. It would track with them into their sophomore, junior and senior year until graduation.”

Bundy said Metz and Khan have always held Miami close to their hearts.

“I’ve had the pleasure of knowing John and Ali for over 15 years,” Bundy said. “Throughout that time, they have consistently seen Miami as a place that is near and dear to them … and a place where they want their philanthropy to have an impact and be transformative in terms of the kind of experience that they are able to provide students.”

Metz and Khan were unavailable for comment.

@Madijeromee jeromemt@miamioh.edu

The second workgroup, “Faculty and staff emotional health well-being,” is headed by Cricket Meehan, director of the Center for SchoolBased Mental Health Programs, and Sharon Custer, research scientist for the College of Education, Health and Society.

“Last year … in our president’s cabinet meetings, we were having more and more conversations about faculty and staff turnover, and morale and people being stretched by what was going on with COVID and in the world, at home and at work,” Brownell said.

Academic research into university employee well-being from 2021 indicates that academic faculty are uniquely susceptible to work-related stress, burnout and mental health issues compared to other professional positions. Much of this has been exacerbated by the pandemic.

Brownell said she hopes the task force’s work in this area sheds some light on what may be causing these problems within Miami’s staff and what can be done to improve them.

“Part of what I’m looking forward to is changing the conversation, to broaden it to all members of our community,” Brownell said. “To increase

the openness of faculty and staff to talk about this so that they are allowed to be emotionally well, as well as talk about their mental health.”

A focus on community

The final workgroup is “Community well-being,” co-chaired by Steve Large, assistant vice president of Student Life for Health and Wellness, and Dee Kinney, assistant professor in the Department of Education and Society.

“The community workgroup is looking at the overall Miami community, inclusive of regional campuses, Oxford [and] online,” Large said. “It’s also looking at the near neighboring communities as well, and our relationship with them.”

Large said identifying the culture of Miami and its surrounding communities is key to understanding mental health in its residents. This involves hearing the perspectives of everyone who falls in its vicinity.

“We have representation from all those groups, from faculty, staff, students and from folks that are from Oxford and regionals,” Large said. “There was an intentional effort to make sure that the workgroup was representative of the community that we were serving.”

The task force will continue to meet regularly until April of next year, by which time they will have put together a report recommending next steps to be reviewed by Crawford and his executive cabinet.

Though the task force is still in its early stages of planning, Large believes its existence at all speaks volumes.

“This task force is such a strong testament to the reality that mental health is a lived value here,” Large said. “To have a task force charged by the president is no small feat.”

@HollowCentral

hollowrr@miamioh.edu

META HOGE SENIOR STAFF WRITER EVAN STEFANIK STAFF WRITER

On Oct. 31, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear two cases on the use of affirmative action in university admission processes, “Students for Fair Admissions versus Harvard University and Students for Fair Admissions versus University of North Carolina (UNC).”

According to the Legal Information Institute, affirmative action is “a set of procedures designed to; eliminate unlawful discrimination among applicants, remedy the results of such prior discrimination and prevent such discrimination in the future.”

Supporters of affirmative action in university admissions argue that it promotes diversity and equity, especially on campuses where students of color are underrepresented. Those against affirmative action say it can lead to “reverse discrimination” and admitting students who are underqualified.

Miami University’s Office of Equity and Equal Opportunity (OEEO) facilitates an affirmative action plan for women, minority and/ or disabled students and employees. The policy strictly prohibits discrimination.

Though Miami uses the practice, affirmative action is still a divisive issue on its campus. Organization response

Grant Balzer, sophomore political science major and a member of Miami’s College Republicans’ fundraising committee, said his organization hopes the Supreme Court will prevent affirmative action in public universities.

“Institutions of education should focus on other aspects of the student, such as their merit or financial situation, rather than base admission and financial aid on race,” Balzer said. “Affirmative action completely defies the principles of an equal, fair and unbiased society and leaves room for a slippery slope that could very well lead to racism against a particular group.”

Harper Sutton, president of Feminists Working On Revolutionary Democracy (FWORD), said she and her organization believe affirmative action is necessary to make reparations toward groups that have previously been excluded from or hurt by the higher education system.

“I think that having affirmative action makes it sort of help atone for that,” Sutton said. “And also make sure that we don’t continue on this cycle of excluding marginalized communities from higher education because their perspectives are necessary, and they deserve to be included just as much as any other group in our higher education system.”

Sutton said these Supreme Court cases are important for Miami because it is a predominantly white institution. For undergraduate student enrollment in 2020 for the Oxford campus, 75% of students were white.

“I anticipate that Miami will always be a predominantly white institution, but I think that racially conscious admissions processes make it so that we can have more diversity in our admissions and that those perspectives can

be incorporated into our campus culture as a whole,” Sutton said. “I fear that if affirmative action is deemed unconstitutional, any minute progress we’ve made will be thrown out the window.”

Balzer disagrees.

“Education and other institutions should adopt principles that do not view race in any circumstance,” Balzer said. “There are many alternatives to affirmative action that could benefit students of all colors and creeds.”

Jared Perkins, junior psychology major and political action chair for the Black Student Action Association, only contributed his personal opinion but guesses that the rest of the organization shares it.

“I support it,” Perkins said. “You don’t want too much of one race at one school and having students of another race feel like they don’t belong.”

Student response

Ryan Rosu, a junior English literature, philosophy and film studies triple major, supports affirmative action and agreed with Sutton.

“It’s a form of reparations,” Rosu said. “It fights injustice.”

Katie Barton, first-year media and communications major, said affirmative action is a good way to avoid prejudice.

“It’s a really good guideline to make sure that people who are less fortunate or maybe not the first to be considered are actually able to get into Ivy League universities, because as much as we’d like to say we’ve changed, there are underlying biases,” Barton said. “I think it’s a good way to set up a system of checks and balances.”

Molly Rial, a senior zoology major, said she supports affirmative action because it can be helpful to students.

“Especially [for students who] are underrepresented, especially at a place like Miami,” Rial said.

James Mageolske, a high school senior who plans to commit to Miami, opposes affirmative action.

“Anyone can be low income, so giving someone scholarship money solely based on race might take away from a non-minority student who actually needs the money,” Mageolske said. “I think doing away with the race question on applications is best.”

Some Miami students are on the fence about affirmative action, like Ava Cristall, a sophomore public health major.

“It has a lot of different values to it,” Cristall said. “It wouldn’t be fair to pick an exact stance on it. It depends on the college and whatever you’re studying.”

Maddy Evans, a junior creative and professional writing double major, is neutral about it.

“I feel like universities shouldn’t have a requirement to admit minority students. They should already be doing that,” Evans said. “And the way people talk about it blows it out of proportion. No one is losing their spot.”

Miami students consider affirmative action in the wake of Supreme Court cases

Miami professor raises millions of dollars for K-12 mental health services

RAQUEL HIRSCH THE MIAMI STUDENT

In the fall of 2019, Cricket Meehan, a Miami University psychology professor, received an unexpected text from a colleague.

Meehan and her colleagues were selected to receive a portion of Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine’s emergency education relief funds set aside to address student mental health crises in 2020. Because of the strong reputation she had built from her previous three projects, Meehan was chosen to receive funds to head a program that would address the mental health crises occurring in schools.

“I’m just holding my phone and it’s a text and I think I read it about 20 times,” Meehan said.

Little did Meehan know, this text would be the catalyst for a million-dollar mental health program based out of Miami, which would grow to help Ohio students and faculty members state-wide.

Mental health background

Meehan’s career in mental health outreach began in 2006 when she began working with the Center for School-Based Mental Health Program (CSBMHP), which was established in 1998. With CSBMHP, Meehan worked on Interact for Health, formerly known as Health Foundation of Greater Cincinnati.

This project continued through 2014, where it expanded into three state-wide projects: the Ohio’s Project Advancing Wellness and Resiliency in Education (AWARE), the Ohio School Climate Transformation Project and the Positive Behavioral Interventions and Support Initiative, all partners with the Ohio Department of Education and the Ohio Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services (OhioMHAS).

“We’ve been developing and building our reputation to do really good school mental health work in Ohio for a long time,” Meehan said.

It was the combination of these

three projects that led to the formation of the Ohio School Wellness Initiative in 2019. The Ohio School Wellness Initiative is a Miami-based project that provides mental health and substance abuse support to surrounding K-12 students and staff in the Ohio area.

The Ohio School Wellness Initiative

The Ohio School Wellness Initiative provides schools with a model for a Student Assistance Program (SAP), “a comprehensive, schoolbased framework designed to provide these services by preventing and supporting K-12 students experiencing non-academic barriers to learning.”

The SAP outlines an educational curriculum for all students, as well as a model for supporting at-risk students. The other half of the initiative revolves around staff wellness.

Schools across the state are able to access the SAP and apply it to their own district. Each region of Ohio has a representative lead from the Ohio Mental Health Network for School Success, who helps facilitate and support the program within schools.

“Really that’s all about having a team in place and then having a referral process so people can identify students with mental health or behavioral health concerns, refer them to the team,” Meehan said. “... The work that we do is meant to be adoptable and adaptable.”

The project also provides funds to hire staff members who focus on the quality of mental health support and fosters connections between those who are seeking support and those who can provide it.

“It’s a person who really can focus on ensuring that … the machine is working well,” Meehan said. Center of Excellence and grant funding

In January 2021, about a year after the project took off, Miami received more than $6 million from Ohio’s Governor’s Emergency Education Relief Fund (GEER) in order

to further develop the Ohio Wellness Initiative, led by Meehan.

Since the Ohio GEER funding, the Ohio School Wellness Initiative has grown to be named a Center of Excellence — the only school-based center in Ohio — and has received an additional $5 million grant from OhioMHAS. As a designated Center of Excellence, Miami is responsible for continuing the Ohio Wellness Initiative, in addition to guiding schools who adopted the program.

“[The Ohio State Department] identified that the way to keep all this work functioning would be to stand up a Center of Excellence in Ohio,” Meehan said. “It’s almost like all of the work that was done in different projects, it comes together now.”

Meehan describes it as a “hub,” combining all of her team’s work and resources into one place which focuses on prevention and early intervention of mental illness in schools.

In addition to its recent recognition as a Center of Excellence, the Ohio School Wellness Initiative also received two additional grants: one from a partnership with the federal department of Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) and one from OhioMHAS.

SAMHSA provided a federal grant called Project Aware, a partner with the Ohio School Wellness Initiative, which qualifies more than 10 counties in Ohio to receive support over the next five years.

“If the school district is in that county, they would qualify for support from that particular project … bringing even more behavioral health and wellness coordinators into our school settings,” Meehan said.

The second grant, OhioMHAS, gave the team $5 million to use on the Ohio School Wellness Initiative.

With the additional grant funding, Meehan and her team have been able to emphasize working with young adults who are going through life transitions such as starting college

or a professional job. Connecting with this age demographic ensures the ability to access help, though it may be more difficult to find beyond high school and college.

“We’ve been doing work with [OhioMHAS] on our youth and young adult early intervention work,” Meehan said. “So it goes beyond our normal high school age at 18 … so all the way from [ages] 10 to 24, ensuring that they have access to whatever it is they may need.”

Collaboration at the state level with Ohio Mental Health Network for School Success involves work with Director Kathleen Oberlin, who has worked on Meehan’s team since the beginning. Oberlin’s work is focused on outreach to Ohio schools in order to provide training regarding school mental health.

“The biggest struggle as well has been the schools being overwhelmed to begin with … and what they’re seeing with students with anxiety and depression as they’re coming back into school,” Oberlin said. Looking forward

Together, Meehan and Oberlin are looking to the future of the Ohio School Wellness Initiative. They are currently working to launch the Online Marketplace of Prevention and Early Intervention Resources, a database that will provide resources for students, families, teachers and healthcare providers.

“It’s almost a one-stop-shop,” Meehan said. The database includes “resource informed strategies” which are then combined “into one portal … [users] can search for whatever it is they’re looking for.”

In addition to the resource-based portal, Meehan and Oberlin have developed a Continuum of Services, which allows users to select the specific Ohio county they reside in, and then find a list of mental health providers in their area.

“We have the crisis lines down there as well,” Meehan said. “If people are in a suicidal crisis or any other kind of crisis, they can call the numbers.”

Meehan and her team have been able to expand their outreach over the past few years, but they do not plan to stop there. Going forward, Meehan hopes to hear directly from students regarding their perspective on mental health.

“We often don’t have the voices of the people who are most important,” Meehan said.

“If anyone wants to connect with our team and share or bring ideas to us … we certainly would love to invite [them].”

The Ohio School Wellness Initiative plans to remain functioning out of Miami and hopes to expand its influence online to become even more accessible outside of the school building.

“Bringing everyone together … start helping others understand school mental health,” Meehan said. “[Everyone] speaking the same language and supporting students in the best way that we possibly can, while also ensuring that we’re staying well ourselves … I think that’s the ultimate goal.”

hirschr2@miamioh.edu

The first of its kind: How the library’s new MyGuide system benefits students

TAYLOR STUMBAUGH THE MIAMI STUDENT

It’s Thursday night, and students have been stuck in King Library all day trying to write an essay that’s due the next day. Burnt out and tired, they need a resource to help. Where do they turn? MyGuide, a web portal created to make the library’s content more accessible and easily available to students.

This site is not a way to find books in the library; instead, it is a starting point for research within disciplines. Within MyGuide, students will find specific resources based on their major and course list, as well as faculty in those departments who can help with answering questions.

Ken Irwin, one of the web service librarians at Miami, said the large amount of resources online

and in person can be overwhelming, so MyGuide was created as an entry point.

While a tool for research, MyGuide also helps students access librarians. It tells who the librarian is for every subject a student has and how to get in contact with them.

“The library isn’t just a building,” Irwin said. “I think one of the most crucial things in the library is the people who are there to help.”

Irwin said it alleviates the students of the burden of having to populate their own content. MyGuide has three different categories to help students: librarians, databases and research guides.

Not every major at Miami has its own librarian, but one librarian can have expertise in many different areas. For example, a science librarian can help biology, chemistry and biochemistry students.

MyGuide also features a list of databases that are personalized to a student’s subject area. The system is personalized to the student because of the login process using your unique ID. The databases are chosen by the librarian associated with that topic.

“As far as we know, there aren’t any other schools that are using that kind of login information to steer students and other users toward the discipline specific content of that sort,” Irwin said.

The librarians also curated research guides. These guides are a deeper dive into places students can look for more information for their research. That could include pointing them toward books in the library that could help, different databases or other research approaches.

Irwin said the research guides have different names to help students narrow down a search. For example,

Miami University alum donates $2 million to support engineering and computing

ALICE MOMANY ASST. CAMPUS & COMMUNITY EDITOR

Dinesh Paliwal and his wife, ILA, are giving back to his alma mater, Miami University, by donating $2 million to the College of Engineering and Computing (CEC). The donation will endow the deanship in the college and create student scholarships.

“It was something we’ve been thinking through for quite some time,” Dinesh said.

Dinesh, who is originally from Agra, India, graduated from Miami on a full-ride scholarship in 1983 with a master’s degree in applied science and engineering. In 1985, he graduated with his MBA in finance and paid his tuition by teaching as a graduate assistant in the physics department.

“I think he got the full-ride to come to study, and he understood coming from no resources, if he didn’t get that full-ride, he wouldn’t be here, so I think it’s very important to pay it forward to the people who are really deserving,” ILA said.

The Paliwals’ donation will primarily go toward the endowment of the current dean, Beena Sukumaran. This is the first endowed position in CEC. To endow a position, a donor grants money to a dean, chair or professor they want to support, and the money is used for financing academic initiatives such conducting research or developing learning programs. The position is typically named in honor of the donor, and that title is permanent.

According to Dinesh, about twothirds of the $2 million donation will go towards the endowed deanship.

For endowments, David Creamer, senior vice president for finance and business services at Miami, said gift agreements typically outline specific guidelines for deans to adhere to, but the Paliwals’ donation was flexible.

“A lot of it is in discretion for the dean,” Creamer said. “Part of it will enhance what could be compensated to the dean in a future period, but it’s mostly for their professional development and other priorities that they may have.”

Dinesh said the idea to endow the deanship came after Sukumaran took on the role in 2020. In 2018, The Paliwals’ endowed an innovation chair position, currently held by Arthur Carvalho, in the Farmer School of Business (FSB). Sukumara mentioned to Dinesh that FSB had many endowed positions, yet CEC had none.

“I spoke to the chair of Miami’s Board of Trustees, Mary Schell, and Mary said, ‘First of all this is great, but I think you should make your money work for the university. That means you should challenge the university,’” Dinesh said.

Dinesh agreed and evaluated how CEC could improve with his donation.

“I said absolutely,” Dinesh said. “This is not ‘I give it and forget,’ I want [CEC] to bring in some complimentary, forward looking curriculum programs to Miami University.”

Some of the areas that the Pali-

wals hope to see CEC branch into include cybersecurity, artificial intelligence and blockchain technology.

The remaining funds will go toward student scholarships on a financial need basis, with a preference toward women engineers. Both will be named in honor of the Paliwals.

“The university did not want us to name too many specifics, in the end it is up to the admissions committee, but we said [financially] needy, meritorious women are our preference [for scholarships],” Dinesh said.

The donation is a part of Miami’s Match the Promise initiative that provides endowed scholarships to students who fit criteria based on need, merit or diversity.

Will Landman, a senior engineering management major, appreciates the Paliwals’ gift and is excited for the advancement of programs within CEC.

“I feel like giving back is very important to help the program continue to grow and have the current students be able to have the same opportunity [to grow],” Landman said.

Landman said the Paliwals’ donation exemplifies the strong graduate connections within CEC.

“I think it’s awesome, especially being an out-of-state student and relying on scholarships to be able to bring [tuition] down to a reasonable

if a student is a history major and needs to write a paper about American history, MyGuide will help them specify what type of history they need to search for: ancient history, current events, etc.

At a glance, the MyGuide system can be confusing. Many students haven’t even heard of the site, including Madalyn Isbell, a junior finance major. One of the first things she noticed when she first got onto the portal was the subject guide.

“I feel a little bit directionally confused,” said Isbell. “Nothing I couldn’t learn within a few days [though]. I think I would have to come here for a specific purpose.”

When students were asked if they knew what MyGuide was or how it worked, the usual answer was “no, I have no idea.” To get this resource more known to the students, the librarians have been including it in

instruction sessions with classes doing research. They have also had an advertising campaign putting flyers around campus, some social media posts and there is a story about MyGuide on the library website.

The resource was not made by one person. Some web service librarians who helped create it are Meng Qu, who designed it, and Jerry Yarnetsky, who transferred the content from LibGuides, a system that helps build civic library websites, to MyGuide.

“I think there’s more to learn, too. Is this the way of the future?” said Irwin. “ In the future is every library going to have a feature like this? It would be cool if they did.”

@TaylorStumbaugh stumbata@miamioh.edu

cost,” Landman said. “And to be able to have an extensive alumni network that’s able to donate and provide some scholarships to students is extremely important.”

Kelton French, a senior computer science major, agreed with Landman that it is encouraging to see graduates concerned with the success of current students.

“Alumni [that] care about furthering our education is really nice, and somewhat comforting to know that there are other people who are there and want you to succeed,” French said.

French said the Paliwals’ donation inspires him, and hopes he can give back to CEC one day.

“I figure that people have done it for me, so why not help others?” French said.

Creamer said the $2 million is broken down evenly into six yearly installments. The first installment has already been allocated.

The Paliwals’ donation also supports Miami’s fundraising campaign, For love. For honor. For those who will. The campaign aims to raise $1 billion to expand the university’s en-

dowment. The endowment will create educational programs and fund scholarships for students.

Creamer said the purpose of the university’s endowment is to benefit current students just like the Paliwals’ donation intends to do.

“This came through the generosity of the Paliwal family, and the important part of the gift is that they feel they have received the benefits in their life, and they want to share those with other students,” Creamer said.

Although the donation has six installments, Dinesh believes the work will not be completed by then. In ten years, the Paliwals hope their donation will support prepared undergraduate students for the workforce, drive more revenue to Miami and improve rankings in CEC.

“A lot depends on the university, and they’re doing a great job in general,” Dinesh said. “This is a small piece of the success that the university is going to do.”

THE DONATION WILL ENDOW THE DEAN POSITION AND CREATE STUDENT SCHOLARSHIPS. PHOTO BY ALICE MOMANY

CRICKET MEEHAN RUNS MIAMI’S OHIO SCHOOL WELLNESS INITIATIVE. PHOTO BY MIAMI UNIVERSITY

have become Taylor

“Snow On the Beach” features Lana Del Rey, my favorite artist of all time. When Swift announced this collaboration, I was elated. I was slightly disappointed upon listening to “Snow On the Beach” once I realized Del Rey didn’t have a verse, but it’s still my favorite song from “Midnights.”

Del Rey’s backing vocals are simply perfect, and I love the way she sounds with Swift. Once I finished listening to “Midnights” the first time, I played this song on loop, and I’ve had it on loop since. I’m not the only one who loves this track — “Snow On the Beach” broke Spotify’s record for biggest debut for a female collaboration.

“You’re On Your Own, Kid” is beautifully bittersweet. I like to imagine it as a song meant for Swift’s younger self. She gets extremely personal here, revealing, “I gave my blood, sweat and tears for this / I hosted parties and starved my body / Like I’d be saved by a perfect kiss.”

The beginning of “Midnight Rain” was a bit of a jumpscare. The shift from “You’re On Your Own, Kid,” to distorted, deep vocals was jolting and completely unexpected. I’m not really a fan of the distorted effect, and I think I’d like this track better without it.

On “Question…?” Swift seems to be reflecting on a failed relationship. She wants closure, and asks a former lover if he wished he fought more for her, if he could still touch her and so on. She drives home the fact that her ex lover will never have such a special relationship again.

“Vigilante Shit” is exactly what it sounds like it’d be: a girlboss anthem. It’s very reminiscent of Swift’s “Reputation” era and fits the vengeful tone of “Midnights” very well.

“I don’t start shit, but I can tell you how it ends / Don’t get sad, get even / So on the weekends / I don’t dress for friends / Lately I’ve been dressin’ for revenge,” Swift sings.

I’d also classify “Bejeweled” as a girlboss anthem, and it shows us that Swift knows her worth. She considers herself a jewel that doesn’t sparkle for others, but for herself.

“Labyrinth” is one of the most beautiful tracks from “Midnights.” It’s simply divine, and I found myself absorbed in Swift’s vocals and stunning instrumentals. This is certainly a love song; a nice, sweet break between themes of vengeance.

“Karma” picks up the pace as Swift celebrates her foes – those who’ve done her wrong – getting a taste of their own medicine. “Sweet Nothing” follows “Karma,” and it’s another love song. It’s mellow, and the lyrics are very cute.

Swift closes the album with “Mastermind,” a song in which she reveals that she came up with a scheme to make her long-time relationship successful. The bridge in “Mastermind”

has some of my favorite lyrics from the album: “No one wanted to play with me as a little kid / So I’ve been scheming like a criminal ever since / To make them love me and make it seem effortless.”

So, after finishing “Midnights” and listening to “Snow On the Beach” a few more times, I went to sleep feeling happy. I loved the album, and I was excited to listen to it the following day.

Imagine my surprise when I woke up to seven more songs.

Yes, Swift dropped an additional seven tracks to the album at three in the morning.

ABBEY ELIZONDO STAFF WRITER

This may be the first and last time I give a show a perfect score.

“The Midnight Club” is a masterpiece of a series created by the same man who directed the popular Netflix original “Midnight Mass,” Mike Flanagan. I haven’t seen that show, but my mom loved the mystery and horror atmosphere. My roommate actually talked me into watching his new show — and I couldn’t be more thankful.

For context, I watched this ten-episode se-

with his identity as a young Black gay teen. I could tell Spence and Ilonka would become quick friends once he appeared in the house. He’s my second favorite.

Anya, a wheelchair-bound osteosarcoma patient, is Ilonka’s roommate at Brightcliffe. She rubbed me the wrong way at first, tormenting Ilonka since she’s new and naive to the struggles of the other patients. But, after seeing her struggles and how much care she devotes to everyone at this place of hospice, she became my underdog.

Then there’s Amesh who has glioblastoma, Natsuki who has ovarian cancer, Sandra who has lymphoma and Cheri, a pathological liar who hides her true diagnoses behind many, many stories.

These young adults have gone through so much already, dealing with their families’ reactions to their diagnoses, undergoing experimental treatments and accepting the fact that they will lose their battle against their diseases.

But the owner of Brightcliffe, Dr. Georgina Stanton, talks about how the language around cancer treatment specifically is always oriented around battles and fighting. She wants to give these kids permission to step away from the battlefield on their own time. This hit home hard for me.

I’ve never known a terminal cancer patient, but I’ve heard the “battle” rhetoric endless times throughout treatment and even years after. This show made me realize how valuable medical representation is in media.

They’re on a separate record titled “Midnights (3am Edition).” Swift revealed on Twitter that these additional songs were written during the production of “Midnights.”

These tracks included some of my favorites.“Bigger Than the Whole Sky,” a solemn track about bidding someone goodbye, made me emotional to say the least, and it gave me some serious chills. In “Would’ve, Could’ve, Should’ve,” Swift sings of a relationship she had with an older man at age 19. This song feels like a punch to the gut in the best way.

And now, the line that gave me full body goosebumps: “Give me back my girlhood, it was mine first.”

Ouch.

“Dear Reader” concludes the additional tracks. Here, Swift is giving us advice, but she warns us to “never take advice from someone who’s falling apart.” So what do you want us to do, Taylor? Do we take your advice or not?

I guess that’s up to the listener.

Rating: 10/10

@_chloebowie_ southacr@miamioh.edu

ries in two days. Each one is an hour long.

Ilonka, the protagonist, discovers she has terminal thyroid cancer (papillary thyroid carcinoma, with lung metastasis) and searches for a miracle solution after trying three rounds of chemo. She finds a youth hospice care facility called Brightcliffe where a young girl with the same diagnosis was suddenly cured under strange circumstances.

Having no other options but to live out the rest of her life in the hospital, she makes the journey with her foster dad, Tim, to Brightcliffe, where she meets the family she never knew she needed.

The characters in this show are phenomenal.

First up there’s Kevin, a teenage boy with terminal leukemia who’s the golden child of his family. He clicks instantly with Ilonka, making me root for them to get together the whole season.

I resonated with Kevin’s struggles more than any other character. While they don’t go into depth about his treatment, as a survivor of leukemia I could piece together why they chose to leave those details out.

Spence is an HIV-AIDS-positive patient who has a hilarious personality but struggles

The subtle references to how these characters’ families act, the daily medical check-ups and the IV Amesh has for his infusions felt extremely real. So real that it made me research what kind of port he had since it looked different from mine. And yes, they got the kind he had correct.

And I know what you’re thinking: is there anything not medical in this show? The main angle for Ilonka is to discover the cult called the Paragon that used to operate out of the same house as Brightcliffe and perform a miracle ritual to cure all of her friends.

The mystery element is there, the show production is amazing; the spooky vibes are immaculate. I got attached to almost every character in this show. It felt predictable at times, but that was my only criticism.

“The Midnight Club” isn’t about the miracle cure for a bunch of terminal kids or a secret advocacy show for naturopathic medicine — it’s about keeping their story alive when they’re gone. Regardless of what has happened in their lives and with their medical history, they can live on in the legends told during the midnight meetings in the library of Brightcliffe.

Have a box of tissues when you watch this show. Trust me, you’ll need it.

Rating: 10/10

@earlgreyincense elizonar@miamioh.edu

Halloween specials: An entertainment section collab

frustrating line between childhood and teenagedom. Between showing up to high school fully decked out as the “Ghostbusters” and getting made fun of while trick-or-treating, this episode develops the characters while advancing Will’s connection to the Mind Flayer. It’s a fun episode to watch even without rewatching the rest of the series! - Lily Wahl, The Miami Student

lighthearted and funny throughout and will be sure to put you in the Halloween spirit! - Jane McKinley, The Miami Student

“Hocus Pocus”

STAFF REPORT

Each year, media companies compete to outdo one another with various holiday-centered movies and shows.

This Halloween, our entertainment writers put together a list of their favorite Halloween films and TV specials, from spooky to silly to heartfelt. Whether you’re in the mood for horror or comedy this Oct. 31, this list has something for you.

“Boy Meets World” Season 5, Episode 17 — “And Then

There Was Shawn”

My favorite horror movie is “Scream,” so It Follows (ha, see what I did there?) that my favorite Halloween special is an episode of “Boy Meets World” dedicated to parodying classic slasher films. The episode is riddled with references, even starting with the title — a spoof of mystery writer Agatha Christie’s “And Then There Were None.” As they’re stalked during detention in an empty school, each character takes on a slasher film archetype: the virgin, the final girl, the scream queen and the film bro. It’s a perfect episode if you need a quick fix of slasher vibes. - Maggie Peña, Entertainment Editor / Asst. Campus

and Community Editor

“The Conjuring”

Is “The Conjuring” technically a Halloween special? No, but it is quintessential fall horror. This one’s got all the tropes — new house, young kids, ghosts, dead dog, an exorcism — and it pulls them off beautifully. If you’re in the mood for a scare this Spooky Season, any entry in “The Conjuring” franchise has my pick, but especially the first and second movies. And if you’re in the mood to make the experience even more fun, I recommend playing hide and clap immediately after you finish watching it. - Sean Scott Entertainment Editor / Campus & Community Editor

“The Simpsons” Season 6, Episode 6 — “Treehouse of Horror V”

While the yearly Halloween episodes of “The Simpsons” are always highlights of their respective seasons, they’ve never been better than “Treehouse of Horror V.” The three stories each embody a different genre of horror perfectly — psychological manipulation and clever parody in “The Shinning,” science fiction experimentation in “Time and Punishment” and straight slasher terror in “Nightmare Cafeteria.” There’s no weak link, with

unique visual compositions and injokes throughout each segment that build on horror conventions in fun ways. And as is the case with much early “Simpsons,” it’s all absolutely hilarious. “No beer and no TV make Homer … something, something.” - Reece Hollowell Asst. Entertainment Editor

“The Fairly OddParents” Season 2, Episode 12 — “Scary Godparents”

What I love about this episode is the absolute nostalgia it invokes for me. I vividly remember watching this special every Halloween with my mom. The plot is fun, and I’ll always love the animation style. Plus, there’s an awesome musical number that still gets stuck in my head to this day. Forget the new “Fairly OddParents,” this is where it’s at. The only “real & scary” thing in my life is navigating adulthood, but watching “Scary Godparents” will always take me back to simpler times. - Chloe Southard, Staff Writer

“Stranger Things” Season 2, Episode 2 — “Trick or Treat, Freak”

This is a really fun episode that helps add definition to how the main cast of characters walk the awkward,

“It’s The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown” Who doesn’t love the time of year when the Charlie Brown specials appear on our TV screens while celebrating with family? I have fond memories of this playing in the background while I’m sorting my candy, trading the ones I dislike with my friends. No one can convince me that Vince Guaraldi’s piano music isn’t immaculate. And I know Maggie will agree with me from her piece: “Good Grief, I miss Charlie Brown Halloween Dates with My Mom.” - Abbey Elizondo, Staff Writer

“Modern Family” Season 2, Episode 6 — “Halloween”

If there’s one thing Modern Family does best, it’s Halloween. This episode in particular is one of my personal favorites of their Halloween specials because it introduces Claire’s iconic obsession with the holiday and the classic Dunphy haunted house. You don’t even have to watch Modern Family to enjoy this episode. - Emily Siderits, The Miami Student “Clue”

This film, based off of the classic family board game, feels like a close cousin to “Knives Out.” It also falls directly behind “Beetlejuice” on its level of camp. Not only do the characters endure various twists and turns inside a mysterious mansion on a stormy night, but the film also has alternate endings. Come on. What’s more “extra” than extra endings? It’s the perfect not scary, scary Halloween movie. Murder and mystery linger around every corner as the classic board game characters frantically navigate through a murder scene. It’s

This movie brings back the childhood excitement of trick-or-treating and watching Halloween movies with your candy. It has all the best aspects of the holiday, with a sweet story and a hilarious plot. The magic and the hysterical spooky aspect of the movie was always my favorite as a kid. It reminds me of hanging out with my family and it always gets me in the mood for Halloween every year.Chelsea Fall, The Miami Student

“Superstore” Season 3, Episode 5 — “Sal’s Dead”

“Superstore” is one of my favorite NBC comedies, and “Sal’s Dead” is not only a great episode overall but also a good example of a sitcom incorporating Halloween into its story and setting. In the episode, the employees find a dead body in the store’s walls and try to keep shoppers from noticing it. The show’s background gags are also top-tier in this episode, using costumes and decorations to full advantage of the holiday. - Luke Macy, Asst. Campus & Community Editor

“Bob’s Burgers” Season 3, Episode 2 — “Full Bars”

“Bob’s Burgers” always nails their Halloween episodes, whether spooky or not, but Season 3, Episode 2: “Full Bars” comes in first for being the most creative. This episode sends the kids on the perfect mission to rob the rich of their candy, taking them off the mainland and introducing a new location in the Bob’s Burgers world. It also pulls together the funniest voices in its cast at an adult costume party the parents go to, highlighting the writers’ strengths in adapting their average situations and characters to seasonal themes. “Full Bars” celebrates adventure and friendship, but mostly, all the elements of the uncanny which founded the show. - Evan Stefanik, Staff Writer

‘Midnights’

‘The Midnight Club’ addresses cancer and terminal illness in the best way

MIDNIGHTS ARE TAKING OVER HALLOWEEN SEASON WITH TAYLOR SWIFT’S (LEFT) ALBUM “MIDNIGHTS” AND MIKE FLANAGAN’S NEW SHOW

“THE MIDNIGHT CLUB,” STARRING IMAN BENSON (RIGHT). GRAPHIC BY SEAN SCOTT

GRAPHIC BY EMILY HOGAN

CONTINUED FROM FRONT

REECE HOLLOWELL ASST. ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR

In 2000, American author Joyce Carol Oates released her novel “Blonde,” a fictionalized account of the life and struggles of Norma Jeane Mortenson, a.k.a. Marilyn Monroe. The book was well-received in its time, viewed not as a biography of Monroe’s life but a manifestation of the way people saw her as both a personality and an object.

Two decades later, its adaptation has not been given the same leeway.

“Blonde” (the film), released by Netflix and directed by Andrew Dominik, is in many ways the definitive showcase for the transformation of media discourse in the age of social media.

Courting controversy for seemingly every aspect of its production, from its rating to its director to its story and imagery, the film has experienced a prolonged discussion cycle over topics ranging from its depiction of Monroe to the ethics of including scenes of sexual assault.

Of course, “Blonde” isn’t the first film to be treated this way. But with the prominence of its discourse, it brings the conversation around how social media has changed the ways people engage with media to the forefront — especially when that media contains elements often considered taboo.

In order for a subject to go viral, there needs to be a spark, said Jacob Lassin, a visiting assistant professor who teaches social media cultures (COM 325) in Miami University’s Department of Media, Journalism and Film.

“These things often snowball,” Lassin said. “The way the algorithms work are, when somebody starts getting a little bit of attention, it starts to get a little bit more attention. And

that can grow and grow and grow from there.”

With “Blonde,” that spark came in the form of its trailer and the announcement that the film would be rated NC-17.

In the 2010s, only eight films were assigned the rating, which is the highest that can be given by the Motion Picture Association (MPA). Filmmakers are usually told by studios to avoid content that would garner an NC-17, due to both a public stigma against it and the fact that many major theatrical distributors refuse to show films with the rating.

“Blonde” was assigned NC-17 for “some sexual content,” a vague descriptor that mainfests in the finished film as several topless and a few full-frontal scenes of Monroe (played by Ana de Armas) and three scenes involving abuse and rape.

Dominik defended the film in interviews leading up to its release, while also offering his own interpretation for the film’s rating.

“That’s just the ratings board being political,” Dominik said in an interview with Screen Daily. “If I look at an episode of ‘Euphoria’, it’s far more graphic than anything going on in ‘Blonde’.”

These statements didn’t help things — in fact, they only made it worse.

“If certain groups or individuals want a story told a certain way, they’re able to kind of get that initial momentum going,” Lassin said. “They can really steer the way that people view things because there isn’t really the kind of oversight that you see from more traditional media outlets.”

Discussion over the film’s content continued to spread, with speculation over what could have caused the film to be given an NC-17 rating. Even with Dominik’s attempts to clarify, people across social media didn’t hesitate to

call the film exploitative, disgusting and an affront to Monroe — all without having seen a single scene.

Lassin said this kind of sensationalizing happens often with trending topics on social media.

“It’s really now a system based off of, are you able to generate sensation and outreach in a lot of cases,” Lassin said. “And so even if there’s no real content there, it’s really about what you were able to get people arguing about whatever you said.”

The Venice Film Festival gave people the chance to actually see “Blonde,” garnering mixed reactions.

Sitting at a 42% on Rotten Tomatoes and earning a critic score of 50 on Metacritic, reviewers were uni-

versally favorable toward technical aspects of the film, such as the score and de Armas’s performance, but found the film’s treatment of Monroe much harder to stomach.

Reviewing the film for Arizona Republic, entertainment journalist Bill Goodykoontz summed up the critical consensus.

“It’s exceptionally well made, daring and experimental, with a powerful performance from Ana de Armas at its center. At its everything, really — she dominates the film, as well she should,” Goodykoontz said. “But the film is also too long, too self-indulgent, just too much. It is a marathon of misery.”

At the same time, a narrative

began developing that it was morally wrong to like, or even watch, “Blonde.” Supporting the film meant supporting the continuing abuse of Monroe’s legacy, and by extension, the exploitation of all women in film.

People took to user review sites like Rotten Tomatoes and Letterboxd to review bomb the film — a phenomenon in which media is given a disproportionate amount of low user scores with the intent of showing their disapproval with something about it.

While sites like this have some moderation features that can curtail this from happening, it still colors people’s impressions and may keep them from watching a film for themselves.

By the time “Blonde” was released on Netflix on Wednesday, Sept. 28, the controversy had reached a fever pitch. But with the film out and nothing new to gain from discussions about it, it quickly faded away as users moved onto the next trending topic.

So … where does this leave “Blonde?”

Given the current cultural climate, it’s unlikely the film could possibly win everyone over. Even if it had been pulled off with perfect finesse — which it certainly was not — there would still be people who found it at best morally questionable and at worst reprehensible.

That said, as an avid media consumer, it’s disheartening to see people so quick to disengage from a film and refuse to even try and watch it for themselves.

“Blonde” and its discourse is the perfect representation of the current social media landscape: one more interested in delivering “hot takes” and feeling morally superior than actually engaging in legitimate conversation.

@HollowCentral hollowrr@miamioh.edu

The new ‘Halloween Wars’ strays too far from what made it great

LEXI WHITEHEAD SENIOR CAMPUS & COMMUNITY EDITOR

During my freshman year at Miami University, I gathered all my friends in the projection room of Thomson Hall and forced them to watch the season premiere of my favorite show, “Halloween Wars.”

The show, a seasonal competition special on Food Network, featured teams made up of a pumpkin carver, cake sculptor and sugar artist. The teams worked together to create spooky displays that seamlessly combine their three mediums.

In each episode, there were two rounds: the Small Scare and the Spine Chiller. For the Small Scare, teams created smaller displays to compete for an advantage in the second round. In the Spine Chiller, they created larger-than-life displays.

All the rounds had a spooky theme, such as “Monster Road Trip,” “Trapped in a Nightmare” or “Outbreak.” Along with the Spine Chiller, teams were required to make a small tasting element, usually making small desserts like bonbons and cream puffs.

At the end of every episode, the team who performed the worst in the Spine Chiller was eliminated, until only one team was left standing.

“Halloween Wars” was my favorite show … until they changed just about everything.

In 2021, the show didn’t feature pumpkin carvers at all, due to the COVID-19 pandemic which forced them to film earlier in the year, when pumpkins weren’t in season. “Halloween Wars” had become all cake, which seemed redundant when Food Network already had “Halloween Baking Championship.”

That wasn’t the only change the show went through last year, though.

It also got a new host, complete with a whole rebrand of the show. Suddenly, it was “Zak Bagans’ Halloween Wars.”

The lack of pumpkins last year disinterested me, so I didn’t watch past the first two episodes, despite my weekly watch parties in my residence hall just a couple years ear-

lier. I’ve been watching this year’s season, though, and although the pumpkins and sugar are back, it’s still disappointing.

First, there’s no longer two rounds, just one. Not only does this take away the opportunity for a team to win an advantage, it significantly slows down the pace. I’m sure the intensity and urgency of past seasons is still present for the competitors, but it doesn’t come through on screen.

The pacing issue is also highlighted by a lack of “confessional interviews,” as the show instead opts for the contestants explaining things as they work, as well as the judges going around and talking to the contestants during competition. While this works for some shows, it doesn’t work here.

Along with longtime “Halloween Wars” judge Shinmin Li, Food Network legends Aarti Sequiera and Eddie Jackson have been the judges for the show the last two seasons. Although I love both Sequiera and Jackson on other shows, here they feel out of place. Plus, one of the most fun parts of “Halloween Wars” was the iconic guest judges in each episode, often horror/Halloween icons like Elvira and some of the stars of “Stranger Things.”

From season six to season 10, “Halloween Wars” was hosted by Jonathan Bennett (aka Aaron Samuels from “Mean Girls”). Before that, the host was Justin Willman. They were both great hosts, full of charisma and corny puns, always bringing fun to the show.

The show’s new host, Bagans of “Ghost Adventures” fame, lacks the charm required to be a host, and he’s not even there in person with the

contestants and judges. He pops up in projections to give the teams their themes, which are based off his previous ghost adventures.

Some of the themes this season have included New Orleans voodoo, London’s Hellfire Caves and Alcatraz, which are so specific they stifle the team’s creativity. Personally, I’m just not interested in Bagans’ ghost stories, and I much prefer previous years’ unique, sometimes spooky, sometimes kooky themes.

My biggest qualm with the new “Halloween Wars” format, however, is its focus on cake that has carried over from last year when there were no pumpkins.

In the past, the cake sculptor’s job wasn’t necessarily to bake a good-tasting cake, or even to bake at all. Their job was to sculpt with premade cakes, rice cereal treats or modeling chocolate. This year, however, teams are required to bake their own cakes, with specific flavor profiles based on the challenge.

Although the teams have seven hours to complete their displays, more than the five hours allotted to teams in the past, the focus on the cake itself has led to far smaller and less impressive displays. As I watched through “Halloween Wars,” I noticed the displays becoming more impressive as the show progressed, but this season feels like a step back.

The most important part of the show is the displays, and the displays this season are not on par with what I expect from “Halloween Wars.”

Another change I dislike is the show’s new set. Previously, the show was filmed in the same iconic kitchen as “Cake Wars” and “Cupcake Wars,”

decked out with Halloween decorations. This, along with Bennett’s antics, gave the show an air of humility. The new “Halloween Wars” instead opted for a darker, spookier set. While I understand the change, combined with Bagans’ hosting and ghost story themes, the show seems to take itself too seriously now. It just doesn’t feel fun anymore.

There was one change that I did like, however: the inclusion of a mid-competition twist. As a fan of “Guy’s Grocery Games,” I really do love a twist, and this is the one change that fits with “Halloween Wars.”

About halfway through the competition, the judges announce a new element the contestants must include in their display. In one episode, they had to include a mask, and in another, they had to make a spooky cocktail. This is fun, unexpected and makes the teams scramble to figure out how to fit a new element into their plans.

But overall, with its slow pace, focus on cake, half-host and too specific themes, “Halloween Wars,” a show I was once extremely excited for, has lost my interest.

Maybe “Halloween Wars” has just been my favorite show for years, and maybe I’m just scared of change, but multiple other fans of the show agree with me. We don’t care about the cake (like I said, there’s “Halloween Baking Championship” for that), we don’t particularly enjoy Bagans as a host and we want the old “Halloween Wars” back.

@nwlexi whitehan@miamioh.edu

‘Black Adam’ helps Warner Bros. but destroys DC

LUKE MACY ASST. CAMPUS & COMMUNITY EDITOR

Although his newest character is an anti-hero, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson might just have what it takes to save Warner Bros. (WB) with “Black Adam.”

That’s not to say “Black Adam” is a great film, but the film has quality parts that make it stand out from WB’s previous film, “Don’t Worry Darling.”

WB merged with Discovery, Inc. in April and has faced multiple troubles under the reign of new CEO David Zaslav.

On Aug. 2, the company announced it would scrap the nearly-completed “Batgirl” film in anticipation of modest reception, opting to use it for tax write-offs instead. Zaslav also said DC will focus on a new 10year plan for its films, despite not canceling the upcoming “Flash” film with its problematic star, Ezra Miller.

The company also delayed multiple films, choosing to rely on only “Don’t Worry Darling” and “Black Adam” for profits from theaters for the remainder of 2022.

If WB is so focused on the quality of DC movies now, it’s baffling to

see the studio release “Black Adam,” a film that with a little more work, especially on the script’s dialogue, could have lived up to this standard they’re aiming for.

In the film, Johnson plays the titular character Black Adam, who goes by his birth name Teth-Adam for the majority of the movie.

The film begins with a brief explanation of how Black Adam acquired his powers, the brief part being a rarity for most comic book movies. He comes from the regionally-ambiguous Kahndaq, which in ancient times enslaved its citizens to build the city and in present times looks like a middle-eastern country with bits of Spanish thrown into the dialogue.

In order to avoid the risk of spoiling Black Adam’s origin, which is one of the film’s most interesting parts, I’ll just say that Black Adam is granted powers by wizards in reward of a revolution against an oppressive king before being sealed away for thousands of years.

In the present day, Kahndaq is still oppressed, this time under the crime organization Intergang. An archeologist, Adrianna Tomaz, played by Sarah Shahi, awakens Black Adam to save her from the Intergang while she tries to obtain the Crown of Sabbac, a relic from Kahndaq’s old king.

In Kahndaq, Shahi’s skateboarding and comic-book-loving son, Amon, played by Bodhi Sabongui, tries to convince Black Adam to rid Kahndaq of the Intergang. However, a superhero team called the Justice Society of America (JSA) notices the potential threat of Black Adam and heads to Kahndaq to stop him.

The JSA is led by Hawkman, played by Aldis Hodge, who has powers of flight and a stubborn ego, and it’s nice to see his introduction to the big screen. Pierce Brosnan plays JSA member Doctor Fate, a sorcerer who draws power from his helmet and is my favorite character in the movie.

Cyclone, played by Quintessa Swindell, is a supergenius with the power to control the wind. Noah Centineo steps away from being a typical Netflix heart-throb to play Atom Smasher whose suit — given to him by his uncle played by Henry Winkler in a very short cameo — allows him to grow gigantic.

The JSA tries to eliminate Black Adam as a threat, but when the Crown of Sabbac falls into the wrong hands, Black Adam and the JSA are forced to work together to save Kahndaq.

The initial few cuts of “Black Adam” were rated R for violence, and it’s apparent in some of the film’s fight scenes. At one point, Black Adam dis-

integrates a person’s flesh, revealing his skeleton. It’s not the first time a superhero movie has tried to be dark and gritty, but it does work well here. Unfortunately, these scenes are also ruined by an excessive amount of slow-motion.

Additionally, the fact that Black Adam is viewed as such a large threat in the movie illustrates a larger problem with superheroes, particularly in DC movies.

Johnson has a large amount of passion for this character, and he demonstrates it through his Tweets, particularly one that says, “The hierarchy of power in the DC UNIVERSE is about to change.”

Black Adam seemingly has no weaknesses, with the JSA trying to convince him to say “Shazam,” the name of the wizard who gave him his powers, which will transform him back into a powerless human. By logic of the members of the Shazam family also receiving their powers from the same wizard, all six of them should rank equally on the hierarchy with Black Adam.

Johnson was likely also referring to Superman with his Tweet, who seems to have an unlimited amount of powers, only held back by Kryptonite. It’s less interesting to have characters whose powers make them

near invincible and whose weaknesses make their films’ plot points anticlimactic.

It’s unclear what exactly is being changed in this so-called hierarchy, especially because a battle’s outcome would be based upon what a writer wants for it. Even if a film decided to use a fight between Black Adam and Superman, it would probably turn out to be pointless because they’re both protagonists, and the filmmakers would opt to have them fight a shared antagonist instead (I’m looking at you, “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice”).

Although it has its flaws and falls near the middle of my ranking of DC movies, “Black Adam” still proves a strong choice for WB. The film has already been Johnson’s highest opening as a leading man with $67 million in its opening weekend, while also being positively reviewed by fans with a Rotten Tomatoes audience score of 90%.

It seems WB has taken one of the film’s frequently repeated lines to heart: “a bad plan is better than no plan.” Rating: 5.5/10

GRAPHIC BY MAGGIE PEÑA

“HALLOWEEN WARS” PREMIERED SEPT. 18, 2022. PHOTO BY LEXI WHITEHEAD

AMES RADWAN FOOD EDITOR

Ever since I found out why Miami University is named Miami, after the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma whose land the school is built on, I have wanted to learn more about the Myaamia people; luckily for me, one of my roommates this year is Myaamia.

Her name is Abby Strack, and she is a senior primary education major, as well as a wonderful friend and a fantastic cook.

When I asked if Abby would be willing to teach me a traditional Myaamia recipe for the return of the Weekly Veg column, she was happy to do so!

And so, I present to you the recipe she sho-

wed to me: pawpaw bread.

Pawpaws are a green-skinned fruit with large black seeds and a mushy yellowish inside texture similar to a soft banana, and though I had never heard of them before making pawpaw bread, the Myaamia people have historically used them to eat raw and to cook in many different recipes.

They can be a little hard to get in your typical grocery store, since they’re not stocked at Kroger, but Abby managed to procure some pawpaws for the bread, which is similar to banana bread but not as powerful of a taste, allegedly.

I’m allergic to bananas, so this was my first time ever trying some kind of fruit-bread, and I was hyped!

The recipe we followed was from a blog called Alexandra’s Kitchen, with a few changes suggested by a Myaamia friend of Abby’s with whom she had first baked the bread. For instance, instead of the called-for 2 cups of sugar, we only used 1 cup so as not to overpower the bread with sweet; we also increased the vanilla measurement from ½ of a teaspoon to 1 full teaspoon.

Overall, the recipe was ridiculously easy and made two of our small loaf pans’ worth of perfectly browned and risen pawpaw bread.

The hardest part, in my opinion, was just getting the mushy inside out of the pawpaw and sorting out the seeds — but that wasn’t too difficult. The seeds are coated in some kind of skin, so once you really get your nails into it, the fruit will slip completely off the seed in one piece. It’s a fun texture to play with, too — squishy, but not gross.

Best of all, we saved the seeds and Abby is going to try to plant them somewhere and grow her own pawpaws. They’re currently sitting in a bag on top of our fridge, wrapped in a wet pa-

per towel, as we try to get them to sprout.

Other than the pawpaw preparation, it’s a pretty normal bread recipe, and most of the hour-orso that this recipe takes is just waiting for the bread to bake in the oven.

I tend to shy away from longer recipes for the Weekly Veg normally, but time in the oven for your food is a great time for you to be productive — do some homework, clean your room or just watch the bread slowly rise through the glass door. It’s up to you.

Once the bread was done, Abby and I gave it some time to cool before tearing in. She suggested we each cut a thick slice and butter it before eating, and I followed her recommendation — thankfully, because it was delicious.

The bread itself was sweet, but not overpoweringly so, and slightly tangy from the pawpaws. The buttery spread added a perfectly complementary lilt of salt. And while the inner part of the bread was soft and moist, the outside had crusted and caramelized to what was easily my favorite bread crust ever.

The only bad thing: it turns out that I am mildly allergic to pawpaws, so I did have a mild allergic reaction after eating the slice. But it was so good that that did not stop me from popping a Benadryl and going back for a second slice.

(I do not recommend eating things you are

Phenomenal pumpkin pie

To sum all that up, a list:

• 1 can pumpkin purée ¾ cup granulated sugar

• 1 can evaporated milk

Halloween is just around the corner, and with pumpkins and skulls everywhere, it’s hard to miss. Halloween may not be as important to me as when I was a kid, but I still wanted to show some seasonal spirit. For a while now, I have had a craving for pie, so I decided to be festive and make a pumpkin pie this past week.

Baking and cooking can be hard in a residence hall, but this is one of the easiest recipes I’ve ever made, with very few issues encountered along the way. Funnily enough, getting the canned pumpkin open was the hardest part. I was able to get the pie into the oven in a matter of minutes.

As for the ingredients, there aren’t very many. You’ll need a can of pumpkin purée, with Libby’s being the best choice by far. You will also need a can of evaporated milk, two eggs and granulated sugar.

The last ingredients are pumpkin pie spice and a 9-inch pie crust. You can skip out on the pumpkin pie spice if you have cinnamon and either ginger, nutmeg or both. If you only have one, simply use ¾ part cinnamon and ¼ part of ginger or nutmeg. If you have both ginger and nutmeg, use ½ part cinnamon and ¼ part of each other spice.

2 eggs 9-inch pie crust

• 1 tbsp pumpkin pie spice (or substitute)

Before starting, make sure to preheat your oven to 420 F. Begin by mixing ¾ cup sugar and 1 tbsp spice. You will then beat in 2 eggs. (These are important as they give the pie moisture.) You can now add your can of pumpkin purée. Be sure to scoop out as much of the pumpkin out of the can as possible.

Finally, gradually stir in your can of evaporated milk. This will complete the filling. Your filling should be runny, but not watery. If it is too thin, you can beat in another egg.

Pour your filling into the pie crust, ensuring that it is even, and put it in your preheated 420 F oven for 15 minutes. You will then turn the oven down to 350 F and continue baking for another 40 to 50 minutes.

Oftentimes, you’ll know your pie is done by inserting a knife into the center and seeing if it comes out clean.

However, I believe in another way. You simply give the pie a light shake and see how it reacts. If the whole pie wobbles, your pie needs

more time. If the entire pie is too firm, remove it immediately.

The perfect pie should have a soft, slightly wobbly center with firm edges.

This is the ideal consistency. It will finish baking outside of the oven.

Be sure to let it cool for two hours, then serve or refrigerate for later. Congratulations, you now have a pumpkin pie!

This recipe was exciting for me, as it was my first time making a pumpkin pie. Nonetheless, I loved it. The pie had a rich, soft consistency with a nice crunch in the crust. I do think a thicker crust would’ve made the recipe better, which is probably what I would opt for next time.

But overall, this served as a perfect fall rec-

allergic to, by the way. Don’t try that at home.)

All in all, I wholly recommend pawpaw bread to anyone who can get their hands on some pawpaw fruit. This was a fantastic recipe — easy, quick and mouth-wateringly good — and I will definitely be making it for friends and family when next I can find some pawpaws.

Even better, it’s a great way to celebrate Myaamia culture and food, especially now, in our 50th anniversary of collaborating with the Myaamia Center.

Rating: 10/10

Have a recipe you’d like to see on The Weekly Veg? Email it to me and I’ll be happy to test and rate it.

radwanat@miamioh.edu

MAGGIE PEÑA

One of my biggest pet peeves is being sticky. I hate the feeling of stickiness on my hands. I was never a “put glue on my hands and then peel it off” kid. I’ll only eat an orange if I’m going to immediately shower afterward. Even when it comes to my favorite people — my niece and nephews — I stand my ground; I refuse to pick up a sticky-tablet three year old (sorry Lucy, your Aunt Maggie still loves you).

Knowing that fact about me, it’s pretty strange to learn my job at home: I work in a caramel apple shop.

Heather’s Gourmet Caramel Apples has the single best caramel apples I have ever had in my life. They are huge honeycrisp apples with delectable caramel covered in an array of toppings — there’s something for everyone.

Working there, I learned more than a few tricks of the trade. I learned from the best caramel apple maker — Heather herself — and I have brought my dipping and topping skills

with me to college.

I don’t have as much free time as I would like to make desserts, but with Halloween upon us, I thought it would be fitting to treat my friends to some delicious caramel apples. Plus, I just miss dipping apples everyday.

So, I present to you a very easy, cheap, residence-hall friendly recipe for caramel apples.

*Note: these do not compare even slightly to Heather’s caramel apples. Hers are much better. Take the hour drive to Springboro, Ohio to grab a couple. You won’t regret it.

1. These are all the ingredients you’ll need (you can adjust amounts for however many caramel apples you’d like to make): apples, heavy whipping cream, chewy caramel candies (I used Werther’s), sticks (ideally sticks with a pointy end, but popsicle sticks work fine enough) and then whatever toppings you want (I used Oreos, mini M&Ms and Butterfingers).

2. Prepare a baking sheet or tray, ideally with parchment paper. I did not have any and I was fine; parchment paper just makes the process a bit cleaner. Once you

have a tray, stab the apples. Importantly, if you don’t want the apples to go bad in one day, make sure you don’t stab all the way through the bottom of the apple. About ¾ of the way through is ideal.

3. Next, I’d recommend preparing your toppings. In theory, the next step is melting the caramel, but you’ll want your toppings ready to go so the caramel doesn’t harden before you can apply them. For my toppings, I put some mini M&Ms in a bowl, then crushed up around six Oreos (for one apple) and about six fun-size Butterfinger bars (for one apple). There will be too much topping, but you want more than you need, otherwise dipping the apples in the topping will be more difficult and messier than it needs to be.

4. Melt the caramel. For five apples, I would recommend around 30-40 caramels (depending on the size of the apples and the size of the caramels). I added about 5 tablespoons of heavy whipping cream. I cannot stress enough: these measurements are very approximate. You might find the consistency is too thick or too thin — that’s okay, just add more caramels or more cream until you find a good viscosity.

5. Microwave the mixture in intervals of 30 seconds for a total of around two minutes. In between each round in the microwave, make sure to give it a good stir. When you’re done, you should have caramel that runs off the spoon, but not too quickly (my mistake was making the caramel too thin, which makes the toppings slide down).

6. Now we’re getting into my craft. For this part, take your apple and submerge it in caramel until the caramel just barely touches the stick where it meets the apple at the top. Spoon the caramel over the

top all around the apple to make sure it’s covered, then lift the apple to let some of the excess drip off.

7. We’re still in the dipping zone on step seven, but this is a crucial part. Make sure you scrape most of the caramel off the bottom 1/3 of the apple. If you ignore this step, you will have a big pile of caramel at the bottom of your apple, which sounds nice until you have no caramel at the top of the apple because it all slid down.

8. Finally! It’s time to add the toppings. My technique: lay one side of the apple in the bowl, then turn it over a couple times to make sure it’s covered. Then, go back in either with your hands or with a spoon (my preferred tool) and spoon some on the top where it’s likely not covered. Push the toppings onto the apple pretty hard (something I forgot to do, which is partly why they are a little ugly).

9. Put your apples back on your preparation tray (ideally with parchment paper so they don’t stick) and leave the apples to set. You can leave them out for a couple hours, or put them in the fridge for a shorter wait time.

10. Voila! You now have irresistible, easy-tomake caramel apples for your fall festivities. And you can be proud you actually “cooked” for once (I was, anyway).

CO-ENTERTAINMENT EDITOR

ISAIAH DURAN THE MIAMI STUDENT

ipe, and I would definitely recommend it for a Halloween treat — no tricks involved!

Rating: 8/10

NO HOUSE? NO PROBLEM! PUMPKIN PIE CAN EASILY BE BAKED IN YOUR RESIDENCE HALL.

PHOTO BY ISAIAH DURAN

A PAWPAW BREAD LOAF.

PHOTO BY AMES RADWAN

A BUTTERED SLICE OF PAWPAW BREAD --- 10/10! PHOTO BY AMES RADWAN

TEDDY JOHNSON CO-HUMOR EDITOR

With the coming of Halloween only days away, it is only fitting that the scariest places on Miami’s campus are identified. You need to know the locations to avoid when the goblins and ghouls come out to play.

Any Fraternity Basement Fraternity basements are the place of nightmares. Once you enter a frat basement, you rarely come out with all your senses intact.

The darkness throws off your sense of sight, making it nearly impossible to see the person next to you or the alcoholic poison that seeps into your brain.

Sweat and boozed caked floors stick to the feet of anyone who dares step foot inside. The stickiness aims to slow one down and make the escape from the brother trying to add your Snapchat even more difficult.

Furthermore, fraternity basements are filled with all kinds of creepy crawlies that never see the light of day. Reports from numerous sources claim that bird flu, pink eye, and even deadly COVID-19 strains

originated in frat basements.

Visit a fraternity basement for one of the scariest experiences on Miami’s campus.

Office of Community Standards

If you are sent to a hearing at the Office of Community Standards, you committed some kind of action that was not very Love and Honor of you.

Very Scary.

Community Standards will dole out a torturous punishment to compel you to be more Love and Honor again. Also, Very Scary.

Caught drinking in your room? Time for you to attend a class about the dangers of drinking. Scream.

Cheated on a test? Now you are on academic probation. Gasp.

Caught knocking down an exit sign? Funny, but you still get a $200 fine. Zoinks.

Moral of the story? Adhere better to the Code of Love and Honor or Community Standards will hunt you down.

Dining Halls

The food on this campus sucks.

There may be nothing scarier than having to go to a dining hall and eat food that you know will

make you shit your guts out in less than an hour.

But what makes each dining hall scary is the people that eat there.

At Martin Dining Hall, athletes all wearing the same Miami sweatshirt and riding around on scooters inhabit the premises.

Western has Honors College kids.

Garden has Farmer boys.

Most frightening of all, Maplestreet feeds the hordes of sorority girls from sorority quad.

Miami needs a way to make dining halls less scary. The Rec

As an avid gym goer, I do not find the Rec to be scary. However, for someone new to going jim being an outsider can be very intimidating.

Gym

Biceps the size of small children pour out of fraternity cut off shirts all while testosterone can be smelled in the air.

Cardio junkies in their Lululemon spandex run rampant on the

john1595@miamioh.edu

Student sprayed to death by “evil” sprinkler

that Brad.”

A Miami student was apparently so sweet that she did, indeed, melt upon making contact with water from a rogue sprinkler.

The scene proves to be fairly common: a student walks out of class, heads down Maple Street and is met with an obstacle: a line of sprinklers.

Rarely over three inches off the ground, these tiny metal monsters create an imposing foe for the fresh-

man girl who fears getting her four thousand dollar water-resistant fireproof bomb-safe Lululemon armor wet.

Thus, a hydrophobic student is met with two choices: turn and run in fear, like the coward they are, or confront the toxic dihydrogen oxide lazers head-on.

It was this bravery that led to the untimely passing of Katie, a sophomore associated with Alpha Beta Gamma.

“Katie sacrificed herself for the good of Miamians everywhere. She should be remembered as a hero,” said an anonymous witness, who wished to remain unnamed due to fear of retribution.

“Those evil sprinklers aren’t acting alone. They’re an arm of the cyber-state, which is obviously controlled by geese and also Joe Biden,” said Katie’s grieving ex-boyfriend, Brad.

“If only she hadn’t been wearing polyester,” lamented Emilie, her roommate, also a member of Alpha Beta Gamma Delta Epsilon.

However, not all involved parties believe the act to be solely perpetrated by the sprinkler state.

“Brad pushed her! I know he did!” said MacKenzie, another one of Katie’s sorority sisters. “Everyone in Alpha Beta Gamma Delta Epsilon Zeta Eta knows they broke up right before Katie went to class!”

MUPD has not taken on the case, citing the lack of alcohol involved.

The Miami Student spoke to Katie’s grieving family via Zoom.

“I never liked that Brad,” her father said.

“Katie was just such a good, kind girl. But so fragile. She knew to stay clear of the sprinklers- she was so sweet, she’d melt.” Her mother said, holding up a “#JusticeForKatie” sign with a link to their GoFundMe.

“I never liked that Brad,” repeated Katie’s father.

“The grief we are going through right now is so, so painful. I can only imagine what Katie’s real sisters in Alpha Beta Gamma Delta Epsilon Zeta Eta Theta Iota are going through right now,” said Claire, Katie’s biological sister. She held up a small pink sign that read “Follow me on TikTok!”

When asked whether he suspected Brad of being involved in Katie’s death, Katie’s dad repeated to The Miami Student that he “Never liked

Similar concerns have arisen about the goose state’s control of microwaves. Chad, a freshman living in Morris Hall, was hospitalized over the weekend after an incident involving canned ravioli, a microwave explosion, and all of the fire alarms on campus going off simultaneously.

His family declined to comment. His roommate, who was unharmed, told The Miami Student that he “wasn’t a snitch and wouldn’t talk to cops.”

MUPD has taken on the case, citing the alcohol involved.

This was one of many instances of what MUPD referred to as a “fire alarm epidemic.” Citing near daily evacuations in residence halls across campus, MUPD advises students to continue microwaving cans, stating that it is “survival of the fittest.”

Katie’s parents would once again like to remind readers to donate to their GoFundMe, promising that the money will not be used for a vacation in Aruba.

wahllm@miamioh.edu

rats cracked out on pre-workout are basically climbing over the weight machines, grunting wildly like the animals they are.

treadmills, stair machines, and ellipticals on the first floor. If you are not scared or overstimulated by the description I just gave, you are a gym rat like me.

College Republicans/College Democrats Office Shared Space Need I even elaborate?

LILY WAHL THE MIAMI STUDENT

GRAPHIC BY HANNAH POTTS

Miami football falls to Western Michigan

three catches. Junior receiver Miles Marshall had a career day with seven catches for 94 yards.

Gabbert has been out since week one when he suffered a left shoulder injury late in Miami’s 37-13 loss to No. 19 Kentucky. On Sept. 5, Miami Head Coach Chuck Martin said Gabbert was unlikely to return this season.

After the game, Martin explained Gabbert’s situation.

“He’s been practicing for a couple of weeks, and then he talked to his doctor again this week. The doctor said ‘hey, I’m good if you continue to feel good all week.’ And he felt good all week.”

MAC championship hopes are all but zero.

This week though, they continue their schedule against Akron, the worst team in the MAC and one of the worst in college football. If nothing else, RedHawk fans can expect Gabbert to put up some big numbers

against the lowly Zips. Miami and Akron hit the gridiron this Saturday at 12 p.m. in Akron. You can watch the game on ESPN+ or listen on the Miami Radio Network.

@jackschmelznger schmelj2@miamioh.edu

JACK SCHMELZINGER SPORTS EDITOR

spoiled it though. The Broncos beat Miami 16-10.

Gabbert scored Miami’s only touchdown early in the fourth quarter with a 9-yard rush. He had 222 passing yards and no interceptions, but he took seven sacks. Gabbert spread the ball around well; four different receivers finished with more than

Miami’s defense had a decent day on Saturday. The RedHawks held WMU to just over 300 total yards of offense, but they couldn’t force a single turnover. They only got to the Bronco quarterback two times.

Gabbert’s return came a little too late to save Miami’s season. Even if the RedHawks had won on Friday, they would’ve been two games back of Buffalo, the current Mid-American Conference (MAC) East leader. Now that they’re three games back, their

How Miami plans to commemorate 50 years of Miami Tribe relations through athletic events

RAQUEL HIRSCH

THE MIAMI STUDENT

This November is no ordinary month at Miami University; it marks the 50-year anniversary of relations with the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma. The week of Nov. 6-13 is filled with events from keynote speakers to art exhibitions. Most notably are the several sporting events scheduled for the week. Miami’s men’s and women’s basketball, football and hockey teams will be playing throughout the week as part of the celebration.

“We’re always honored and thrilled to be a part of celebrations with the Myaamia tribe when they come back to campus and engage,” said David Sayler, director of athletics at Miami.

“Specifically at games we try to recognize the members that are there.”

At each athletic event, Miami has an opening ceremony unique to the university which includes the reading of a land acknowledgement, a pledge to “Lead. Impact. Change,” and then the national anthem. These procedures are another step Miami takes to maintain its relationship with the Miami Tribe.

“We do different things at timeouts where we acknowledge that they’re [Myaamia tribe members] there and … some facts about the relationship and the history together [appear] on the scoreboard,” Sayler said. “And the team will always wear a special jersey for that game … that has the heritage logo incorporated.”

A large piece of Miami’s relationship with the Miami Tribe is the continuation of education about the tribe on campus.

“... Representatives of the Myaamia Center have met with every single team … and so all the student athletes have gotten a lesson on what the relationship is, what it means, and also what the history of the Myaamia Center is and the land that they now walk on,” Sayler said. While there are many aspects of the Myaamia culture that are being celebrated, athletics is purposefully serving as a large portion of the events during the anniversary week.

“ … Sports has always seemed to have a role in the relationship [between Miami and the Miami Tribe],”

Sayler said. “ … and I know Chief Lankford has been an amazing supporter of our athletic program.”

In addition to acknowledging the beginning of relations with the Miami Tribe, the university has hosted events teaching Stomp Dance, a call-and-response dance traditional to the tribe, and a walk of the traditional homelands to commemorate initial land removal of the tribe.

“Everything we can do when [the tribe] come[s] back to campus that we participate in, I urge my staff to do it because every time you do, you learn something new,” Sayler said.

The variety of athletic events throughout the week is an extension of the work Miami has put in to educate about and collaborate with the Miami

Tribe. The atmosphere of the games is expected to be lively and supportive, bringing together all of Miami’s campus with present tribe members.

“ … I’m proud of how far we’ve come in terms of building the relationship together, and I have a deep appreciation for everything associated with the tribe and how they work with us collaboratively,” Sayler said. “And that’s really what I hope the students can take from learning more about the relationship … and providing a resource for them to engage and see it in action at a sporting event.”

A comprehensive schedule of the week can be found on miamiredhawks.com.

A brief story about Miami’s change to RedHawks

Miami University a resolution that said “the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma can no longer support the use of the nickname [a derogatory term for Native Americans] and suggest that the Board of Trustees discontinue the use of [a derogatory term for Native Americans] and other Indian related names…”

Miami didn’t end up officially changing its teams’ names to RedHawks until May 2, 1997. In an interview with The Student, Snavely said his name idea didn’t come from nowhere.

“At the time, we had a red hawk as our mascot,” Snavely said. “It seemed easy. It had the same number of syllables so all of our cheers would work. It seemed like a logical suggestion.

He also got input from a colleague in the management department, Professor Joseph Leonard. Leonard’s father was the chief of the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma.

SCHMELZINGER SPORTS EDITOR

editor:

“I suggest we move the discussion to what the change will be rather than if we should change. To begin that discussion, consider changing to the ‘Redhawks.’”

Snavely was years ahead of his time.

In 1996, the Miami Tribe sent

“I chatted with him about it, and he was for the change,” Snavely said. “I mentioned RedHawks and he said ‘Red hawks are endemic to this area. And hawks are a powerful animal in the lore of Miami people.’”

Years later, Snavely was teaching a class in Laws Hall when he noticed some of his students getting distracted by something outside.

It was a red hawk chasing a squir-

rel. Nothing out of the ordinary, except on this day, the group that was going to decide on the new name was meeting at Roudebush Hall just next door. The selection committee was made up of the chief of the Miami Tribe Floyd Leonard, then Miami President James Garland and a select few others.

Snavely found Joseph Leonard after class let out and told him what had happened. Leonard called his father and relayed the story.

Soon after, Miami’s Board of

Trustees unanimously voted to change the logo of the sports teams from a derogatory term for Native Americans to “RedHawks.”

Snavely’s foresight was honored when he got a spot on the committee that decided Miami’s new logo and wordmark. Miami was years ahead of some other teams like Washington’s NFL team, which held on to the moniker until July 2020.

@jackschmelznger schmelj2@miamioh.edu

The last goal was a fluky shot from around the top of the right circle that it looked like he didn’t see. It looked like the shooter used Miami’s 6-4 senior captain Jack Clement as a screen, so it’s easy to forgive Persson for losing track of the puck.

On Saturday, Persson was magnificent. Miami scored 6:38 into the first period when senior forward Ryan Savage tapped home a beautiful feed from junior forward Matt Barbolini. After that, Miami couldn’t get much going offensively. For the next two-and-a-half periods, and especially in the third, Persson made acrobatic save after acrobatic save to preserve Miami’s lead. By the time star sophomore center Red Savage guided the game-sealing goal into Canisius’s empty net, Persson had made 25 saves to win the game for Miami.

“It was a big time performance from a big time player,” Bergeron said after Saturday’s game. It sure was.

Persson has been Miami’s best

player for the past two years. In his first year, Persson finished with a .925 save percentage even though Miami allowed the sixth most shots in the country. For a first-year player, Persson’s performance was almost hard to believe. Last year, he was merely good, but he still kept Miami in a lot of games that probably should’ve been blowouts.

So far this year, Ludvig is back to first-year form. He’s been better, actually. Through six games he has a .938 save percentage. A ridiculous number. Probably not sustainable, but come on. It’s Ludvig Persson we’re talking about.

Persson hasn’t been the only standout RedHawk this year.

Red Savage was great last year. He’s always been a slick skater with superb stick skills. This year though, he’s been much more creative in the neutral and offensive zones. He looks more confident. He’s shown off a searing slap shot (which he never used last year), and he looks much improved defensively. You better watch him while you can; it’s hard to imagine

he won’t jump to the pro ranks next year with how he’s been playing. To make it even more impressive: even as a sophomore he’s still the youngest player on Miami’s roster.

Red has been skating on the first line with his brother Ryan and PJ Fletcher, a junior. Ryan has a great shot and a nose for the net, and the chemistry between the brothers is obvious. Fletcher is a ferocious forechecker who will go in the corners while the Savages find space. The first line didn’t produce a ton this weekend, but if they get going: watch out.

Senior center Joey Casetti has looked like an offensive force so far, with four goals and three assists in the six games. Barbolini has been incredibly fun to watch this year. He’s from the Buffalo, N.Y. area and had a large cheering section on hand to see him score a goal on Friday.

First-year Max Dukovac has made an immediate impact playing on the second line, and he’s one off the team lead in points. Fellow firstyears Artur Turansky, William Hallén and John Waldron made up the third

line against Canisius. They brought constant energy and were great on the forecheck.

On defense, first-years Zane Demsey and Michael Feenstra make crisp passes and use their long reaches well on defense. Clement is a big, physical presence and a well-rounded defensive defenseman. Junior Hampus Rydqvist has three assists so far, and he’s done a good job as the distributor on Miami’s first power play unit. He already has 12 shots on goal this year, so it’s just a matter of time before he starts scoring.

The vibes around this RedHawk team are exponentially better than they’ve been in my two years here. On paper, this is Miami’s best team in years. They’re deep up front and seem to have a top six that could produce offense. They have capable puck movers on the back end who will do their best each week to slow down the high-powered offenses of the NCHC. And when you have Ludvig Persson, you have a chance. The real test though comes this weekend against No. 3 Denver.

This series, we’re really going to see how good this Miami team can be. The RedHawks play in the National Collegiate Hockey Conference (NCHC). The best conference in college hockey is colloquially referred to as “Hockey’s SEC.”

Five of the NCHC’s eight teams were ranked in the top 20 according to USCHO this week. Three of them are in the top six. The conference schedule will be a tough test for this fun young Miami team. It all starts this week against Denver.

Last week, Denver had 10 NHL draft picks in its lineup. Miami has one.

That’s all you need to hear to know that on paper, this matchup favors the Pioneers. It’s going to be a familiar theme for the RedHawks this conference season.

JACK

The name “RedHawks” was first mentioned in The Miami Student in the Feb. 23, 1992 edition. William Snavely, then an associate professor of management and now the mayor of Oxford, wrote this in a letter to the

MIAMI’S MASCOT AT A BASKETBALL GAME DURING THE 1998 SCHOOL YEAR, MIAMI’S FIRST FULL YEAR AS THE REDHAWKS. PHOTO FROM MIAMI UNIVERSITY DIGITAL ARCHIVES

MINUTES FROM THE APRIL 18, 1997 MIAMI BOARD OF TRUSTEES MEETING WHERE MIAMI OFFICIALLY CHANGED ITS MASCOT TO REDHAWKS PHOTO BY JESSICA MONAHAN

RedHawk fans were gifted an October surprise Sunday afternoon when Brett Gabbert was announced as starter over the loudspeaker at Yager Stadium about thirty minutes before kickoff.

Western Michigan University

MIAMI FANS ENJOYED BEAUTIFUL WEATHER FOR SATURDAY’S

GAME AT YAGER STADIUM

PHOTO BY JESSICA MONAHAN

STAR JUNIOR QUARTERBACK

BRETT GABBERT

RETURNED TO ACTION THIS WEEK

PHOTO BY JESSICA MONAHAN

Three years of suffering – and a magical thirty minutes

MICHAEL VESTEY SENIOR STAFF WRITER

There are few things in sports more fulfilling than a playoff win.

Especially when it’s for a team that, prior to this season, had never finished higher than bottom of the league.

I couldn’t travel to “New York City” (actually Harrison, New Jersey) for the game, but that didn’t stop me from crowding into a bar with friends at noon on a Saturday, which happens to be the time when bars are the least busy, luckily.

I didn’t really sleep the night before — I was simply too nervous to function like an actual human being. It’s easy to be grateful for McDonald’s breakfast at such times.

I am, of course, talking about FC Cincinnati, the local metro area’s professional soccer team.

The top seven teams in each conference of Major League Soccer (MLS) make the playoffs, with the top team receiving a bye through the first round. In the three seasons prior to this one — FC Cincinnati’s only three in MLS — the club finished bottom of the 14-team Eastern Conference. This year, they finished fifth. That meant a date with the fourth-

placed New York Red Bulls, assigned to kick off at noon last Saturday.

I know people that made the journey, and they have all their own minor stories of the trip — but that’s for a different article for a different outlet. I, however, stood in the corner of a bar that was relatively full of fellow FC Cincinnati supporters and watched it on a projector.

Despite all the nerves in the days leading up to the game, it didn’t really hit until the referee blew the whistle to start the game.

Three years of genuine emotional suffering, for the sake of a soccer team, leading up to a rollercoaster 2022 with some of the highest heights us fans had ever seen. And here we were, at the highest height so far — a playoff game.

I really hoped for an early goal — something to ease the nerves, at the very least — but it never came. The first half came and went without a goal, though not without lots of yelling at Red Bulls players and their insistence on reacting as if someone had taken a baseball bat to their leg whenever one of our guys would get near them.

And then began what we thought was a nightmare — the ball fell to the Red Bulls’ Lewis Morgan

at the edge of the 18-yard box, and with FC Cincinnati players slow to close him down he struck an excellent shot into the top corner of the goal. 1-0, Red Bulls, with 40 minutes left in the game. A massive advantage for a team notorious in the league for (normally effectively) doing everything except playing the game of soccer.

And then I got a text message from a friend. “dont panic,” it read. “y’all got them right where you want em. this game so far has all the makings of a patented ‘thats so metro’ exit. equalizer in the 70th, heart breaker in the 90th.”

Few messages I have ever received have been so prescient about future events.

“That’s So Metro” is a reference to the Red Bulls’ status as the franchise of the former New York MetroStars, and that franchise’s history of absolutely blowing it in spectacular fashion in the playoffs. The franchise has made the playoffs 23 times in their 27-year history — including a current streak of 13 times in a row.

They’ve reached MLS Cup, the playoff final between the Eastern and Western Conferences, just once — where they lost 3-1 to the Columbus Crew. (New York was the Western Con-

ference representative that year — the old MLS playoff formats were weird.)

And, in true “That’s So Metro” fashion, everything came true.

The timestamps weren’t quite right, but by god they were close enough. With just over 71 minutes on the clock, FC Cincinnati wingback Alvaro Barreal was fouled in the box, and the referee blew for a penalty, which captain Luciano “Lucho” Acosta duly converted to level the game. And in the dying minutes of the game, substitute Sergio Santos used his pace to get in behind the New York defense, and star striker Brandon Vazquez slotted the ball home to give FC Cincinnati the lead.

Over 100 minutes would eventually be played — 12 minutes of added time, something that essentially never happens in soccer — but the result was never in doubt after that defining Vazquez goal. Yet another chapter in the “That’s So Metro” story was destined to be written, and it was.

And I had a great day.

vesteymjmiamioh.edu @VesteyTMS

Rival high school football players become close teammates

STEVEN PEPPER STAFF WRITER

When you think about Cincinnati high school football, two rival schools immediately come to mind: Archbishop Moeller and St. Xavier. This year, Miami has managed to recruit a freshman from each of the Greater Catholic League schools.

Grant Lyons was a 3-star linebacker at St. Xavier. In his senior season, the Bombers’ captain won his conference’s defensive player of the year award, after tallying eight sacks and three interceptions. In his last game against Moeller, Lyons had a sack and a pick.

Danny Dunlop was a 6.8-yard-percarry running back at Moeller. Dunlop, in his second year at Miami, joined the squad this season.

Despite St. Xavier being the oldest high school in the Cincinnati area, Moeller’s reign on the gridiron started decades before its rival’s. From 1975, the Crusaders have claimed nine state and five national titles.

However, St. Xavier has had the edge since 2004, adding four state and two national championships to its trophy case. In the last 24 matchups, the Bombers recorded 14 victories, including blowing out the Crusaders twice on their way to their 2020 state title.

When the rivals battle, it is a huge event in Cincinnati, featuring famous athletes in attendance. When the #2

For

“Knowing that you’re playing for the Long Blue Line, it means more than playing for yourself,” Lyons said.

“You are playing for the guys around you and the guys who came before you.”

Before becoming teammates, Dunlop knew the type of player Lyons was.

“He’s a great player,” Dunlop said. “I was always aware of where he was on the field when I was playing him.”

Although they come from rival schools, their relationship is the opposite. The friends credit their southwestern Ohio Catholic schooling for allowing them to click so well.

“I think that Danny and I have a special GCL connection,” Lyons said.

“I think all the guys that played in that league have a connection of some sort.”

Lyons and Dunlop laugh with each other, whether it’s in the locker room or hanging out on the weekends. A common conversation they have revolves around their high schools.

“We talk about the games,” Lyons said. “I kinda have the upper hand

because we won both years I was there, but Danny and I have good fun with it.”

Moeller and St. Xavier wouldn’t be a real rivalry without any chirping involved when the pair is together. However, their trash talk does not have bad intentions; it is just how they get along.

“We’ll talk a little good natured smack every now and then,” Lyons said. “I’d be lying if I said we didn’t.” Dunlop especially enjoys joking with Lyons.

“You know the classic: you’re from St. X, you’re a pretty boy, you don’t know what it’s like,” Dunlop humorously said.

As first-years, Lyons and Dunlop have a small role on Miami’s team this year. Currently, they serve as scout team players to help the starters prepare for the upcoming opponent.

“When the defense is doing well out there, I like to think I played a part in that,” Dunlop said.

The two will travel upstate with the RedHawks to Akron (1-7) this Saturday, October 29, to watch Miami (3-5) try to regain some conference control. Kickoff is scheduled for noon on ESPN+.

Mid-American conference football standings

Mid-American Conference football standings

EAST Conf Overall

Buffalo 4-0 5-3

Ohio 3-1 5-3

BGSU 3-1 4-4

Kent St. 2-2 3-5

Miami 1-3 3-5

Akron 0-4 1-7

WEST Conf Overall

Toledo 3-1 5-3

Eastern Mich. 2-2 5-3

Western Mich. 2-2 3-5

Ball St. 2-2 4-4

Central Mich. 1-3 2-6

Northern Ill. 1-3 2-6

Miami football stats leaders: Passing Aveon Smith (64/123, 735 yards, 7 touchdowns, 4 interceptions)

Brett Gabbert (41/66, 388 yards)

Rushing

Keyon Mozee (87 rushes, 392 yards, 1 touchdown)

Aveon Smith (63 rushes, 386 yards, 3 touchdowns)

Tyre Shelton (42 rushes, 203 yards, 3 touchdowns)

Kevin Davis (39 rushes, 204 yards, 1 touchdowns)

Receiving

Mac Hippenhammer (29 receptions, 360 yards, 4 touchdowns)

Miles Marshall (13 receptions, 232 yards, 1 touchdown)

Jack Coldiron (17 receptions, 177 yards, 1 touchdown)

Defense

Interceptions: Yahsyn McKee(2), Ryan McWood, John Saunders Jr., Jacquez Warren, Eli Blakely

Sacks: Corey Suttle (3.5), Matt Salopek (3.0), Caiden Woullard (3.0), Ty Wise (2.0)

Tackles for loss: Salopeck (5.5), Wise (4.5), Woullard (4), McWood (4)

Tackles: McWood (71), Salopek (65), Michael Dowell (41), Warren (36), Saunders (33)

Miami hockey stats leaders (all through six games)

Player Goals Assists

#29 Matt Barbolini 3 4

#22 Joe Casetti 4 3

#13 Max Dukovac 1 5

#19 Red Savage 2 4 #21 Ryan Savage 3 1

#32 Ludvig Persson, goalie (4 wins, .938 save percentage, 1.83 goals against average)

Mid-American Conference field hockey standings (one game to play)

Conf Overall Miami 5-1 10-6 Kent St. 5-1 7-8 Appalachian St. 4-2 11-5 Ball St. 4-2 7-9 Ohio 3-3 8-8 Bellarmine 2-4 4-13 Longwood 1-5 4-12

Central Michigan 0-6 2-15

Miami field hockey stats leaders (all through 16 games)

Player goals assists

#9 Claudia Negrete Garcia 11 3

#13 Paula Peña Martinez 11 0

#18 Luli Rosso 4 7

#55 Macy Mchale 1 11 #16 Katherine Groff 2 2 #28 Isabelle Perese, goalie (10 wins, 147 shots faced, 16 goals allowed, .99 goals per game (6th NCAA))

Miami soccer stats leaders

Player games goals assists #11 Camber Hayes 17 1 8

#22 Makenna Morrison 16 5 0

#33 Madeline Schlecht 16 4 0

#15 Norah Roush 17 3 0

#32 Taylor Hamlett 10 2 0

#1 Izzie Vaccari, goalie (13 games, 54 shots faced, 10 goals allowed, .77 goals per game)

Miami volleyball stats leaders (through 16 games)

Kills: Allyson Severance (238), Ellie Hanson (200), Abby Stratford (115)

Assists: Hayden Hicks (458), Lydia Harper (196), Gracie Norris (90)

Digs: Ellie Hanson (196), Brooke Jackson (190), Allyson Severance (158)

Blocks: Maggie McCrary (9), Gentry Warrick (6), two tied (3)

state-ranked Moeller beat St. Xavier 20-17 this September, Bengals running back Joe Mixon and head coach Zach Taylor were in attendance.

the two Miami players, they deeply love their alma matters because of how special the programs are. For example, St. Xavier produced former NFL Defensive Player of the Year Luke Kuechly.

F.C. CINCINNATI FANS CROWD THE AREA AROUND TQL STADIUM IN CINCINNATI EARLIER THIS YEAR PHOTO BY MICHAEL VESTEY

Let me have my childlike Halloween

AMES RADWAN OPINION EDITOR

I hate Hallmark holidays, but man, I love a good Halloween. In my mind, Halloween defines what a perfect holiday should be. Here’s why:

1. Free candy. ‘Nuff said.

2. There’s no religion involved, or, at least, no one in my life puts a particularly religious spin on Halloween; everyone can celebrate, and just for a night, everyone gets to have fun together.

3. Free. Candy.

4. I LOVE dressing up; I think that all of the effort of putting together the perfect Halloween costume culminates in the payoff of even one person telling me they love my outfit or recognizing my costume on the spot. I have always gone all out for every spirit day or dress-up day, so Halloween is the perfect time to let that love for costuming shine.

5. Have I mentioned the candy yet?

There are fun “aesthetic” traditions like pumpkin carving and house decorating, there are delicious food traditions such as bowls of candy and roasted pumpkin seeds and, of course, there are those costumes I love so much. Really, Halloween has it all.

But recently, I’ve seen a rise in Halloween-haters among the people I know: folks who would rather do homework at King Library than go out on Halloween night, coworkers who don’t jump at the offer my bosses made to let us wear costumes to work on Monday, etc. People are beginning to complain that Halloween is being Hallmark-ified, much like Valentine’s Day, and so why should we keep throwing so much effort into celebrating it?

Well, I’m no stranger to hating on Hallmark holidays. I’ve done it three years in a row through my “Love, Ames” columns, actually: in 2020, 2021 (ish) and 2022. I’m sure I’ll hate on it again this coming Feb. 2023.

Halloween is different to me, though, no matter how much money we spend on it. And the reason for that is only one word.

Nostalgia.

As children, we don’t really celebrate Valentine’s Day. Sure, we buy $1 carnations in our school cafeteria to send to our friends and hand out cartoon- or comic-themed valentines to our classmates. Maybe we watch one parent hand roses to the other and

watch cheesy rom-coms at night. If you’re me as a child, your mom makes you heart-shaped pancakes in the morning for breakfast, topped with strawberries and whipped cream in the shape of a smiley face.

But Valentine’s Day is really for the teenagers and adults — the people who are actually using it to celebrate romantic love, not kiddie puppy crushes in the third grade.

Halloween, however, is for everyone.

Kids and adults alike dress up. There’s a social system of children asking for candy and grown-ups giving it to them. (Then eating the leftovers.) Anyone can enjoy a good pumpkin carving event or spooky movie night. There’s no limits, no restrictions. Even babies look super cute in a little Halloween costume.

(See the above photo of me at one-and-a-half. I went as a Hershey’s kiss that year, and I think I have yet to beat that costume now, at twenty-one-and-a-half.)

College is really the last place that we can pretend to be kids. Next year, I’ll have graduated, and who knows what comes after that? A job, more school or something different? The unknown is terrifying, and I doubt I’ll have time to pretend to be a kid anymore. (Not to mention the social judgements one gets from having “not grown up.”)

But here, while I’m still bachelor’s-less, I can still tap into that childhood nostalgia that seems to run rampant at colleges across the nation.

I can watch “Big Time Rush” with my friends. I can screamsing the lyrical and musical masterpiece “Man or Muppet” in the car. I can show up to work dressed as a minion on Halloween.

I’m technically still able to do all of that next year, but the need for nostalgia right now is overwhelming. I want to hang on to my childhood, and the Halloweens that peppered it with laughter and costumes and candy, for as long as I can.

So I’ll gladly spew vitriol against any other Hallmark holiday, but hey, leave my Halloweens alone. Let me be dramatic about how much I love Oct. 31; let me have my childhood Halloween one last time before I have to grow up and leave my youth behind.

By the way, I’m going as Annabeth Chase, Scout Finch, Shaggy Rogers and a monarch butterfly this Halloween. I may also throw in a Cheryl Blossom costume, for I am a firm believer in the fact that no one can have enough Halloween costumes. So don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

Happy Halloween to you, Oxford, and especially to the class of 2023. Let’s get that bread — or, really, candy — and enjoy our last college Halloween!

radwanat@miamioh.edu

Happy Hallmark-oween!

DEVIN ANKENEY ASST. OPINION EDITOR

We’ve all heard the complaints about Valentine’s Day: “Hallmark ruined it and now it’s a big gimmick just to make money off making people feel bad.” I am here today to say that I consider Halloween to be an endangered holiday — because Halloween is getting Hallmark-ified.

Halloween, or All Hallow’s Eve, was once a day to celebrate those that passed on or to remember lost loved ones. Much like the Day of the Dead, it wasn’t necessarily a sad holiday. In fact, it was often celebrated in a lighthearted way.

Now, I have nothing against eating candy, watching scary movies and dressing up for the holiday (though I can’t say I’m a big fan of the latter), but why is that all Halloween is these days?

Why can’t we curl up under a warm blanket enjoying autumn while watching Halloween classics and also spend the day in remembrance of those before us?

I’ll tell you why.

There’s no money in it.

Nobody profits off people spending the day celebrating the dead and the lives they lived. What they do profit from, however, is a holiday-turned-holiweekend full of multiple costumes, mountains of uneaten candy and single-use decorations coating the fronts of homes.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not railing against the holiday as a whole. I’m not trying to convince you to boycott Spirit Halloween and spend the day sobbing.

What I really want is for Halloween to be just a little bit more thoughtful and a little less like Valentine’s Day.

Here are a few tips from a self-identified pretentious jackass on how to make Halloween just a little bit better for everyone:

Maybe… just maybe… pick one costume. I know you’re worried about being judged for not being something different for each of the several days of Halloweekend, but the waste involved with buying several costumes is immense, and I am sure there aren’t that many people that genuinely enjoy going through all that work.

Buy reusable decorations and save them! Too many single-use, made-of-plastic and wrapped-in-plastic items adorn houses and apartments this time of year, all to get tossed in the trash by Nov. 1. It’s wasteful and bad for both the environment and your wallet.

Spend some time remembering those we have lost. Tell stories of someone no longer with us or make a special meal in remembrance of them, but use at least some of your weekend with the original purpose of Halloween in mind.

And finally, please, please, please, please: enjoy yourself. Halloween can often be thought of as a “go big or go home” three-day event of nonstop partying. If that’s what you’re into, then by all means, have a great time. But, for those of us who maybe can’t make it past the stretch in outfits not designed for warmth, make sure you’re putting yourself first. Spend a night in with friends watching scary movies and eating candy, and don’t let Halloween peer pressure you into doing more than with what you’re comfortable.

Put simply: don’t overdo it. I hate seeing piles of Halloween trash in the weeks following

Oct. 31, and I can’t imagine you love it either.

I know that for my Halloween (when I’m not catching up on homework), I’ll be watching The Shining and thinking about those no longer with us that made my life possible.

Don’t let Hallmark and other companies

Halloween by making it a gimmick from what it once was.

Let’s make Halloween a holiday again.

ankenedw@miamioh.edu

Education is for everyone

The in-state tuition at this university is $17,354 for the 2022-2023 academic year and more than twice that for out-of-state students. And I’m sure every student is aware of how much room and board costs. Those who don’t earn merit scholarships are already at a disadvantage compared to those whose high school grades or testing scores qualified them for merit aid.

In a recent study done by the University of Chicago, researchers found that 75% of students who didn’t attend college listed the high cost of attendance as the primary reason.

Education is already inaccessible for many students just because it’s expensive. Why add difficulty of acceptance as another barrier to entry?

I’ve heard others argue that low-performing students aren’t going to be prepared for the academic rigor at Miami. They raise their eyebrows, saying, “She got into Miami?”

portunities and access to resources that they didn’t have before.

Some argue that it tarnishes the prestige of their degree if anyone can get into the university, but let me just say, Miami was never Harvard. When an employer’s first thought is that you went to a school in Florida, a high acceptance rate should not be your biggest concern.

And I understand the fear. We’ve been pushed our whole lives to turn our education into a competition. We need to get the highest GPAs, go to the best ranked schools and pad our resumes with extracurriculars.

But that’s not really what our education system should be.

Miami hasn’t changed its emphasis on undergraduate education. It still attracts some of the top faculty in the country and produces incredible students who go off to do some really impactful things.

ABBY BAMMERLIN MANAGING EDITOR

Recently there’s been a lot of talk around Miami University’s acceptance rate. And yeah, the rate is increasing.

I’ve heard arguments that students admitted now may be more unqualified, undeserving and unworthy of an education at Miami. Many would argue Miami should hold itself to a higher standard and that its place as a Public Ivy would be compromised if the acceptance rate gets any higher.

But what it comes down to is privilege.

As students, almost all of us value the im-

portance of education. For many students, their education at Miami is life-changing. From networking to career opportunities to just getting a damn piece of paper, a college degree is the key to opening a lot of doors that would otherwise not even exist.

So why are we gatekeeping such a vital resource?

The acceptance rate at Miami is 92%. What that means is 92% of people that apply are accepted, but that doesn’t mean they end up at Miami. I assure you, there are far more barriers to coming here than just getting an acceptance letter.

But there’s more to a student than their academic performance. Some students have jobs outside of their academics to support themselves or their families. Some came from schools that were too overwhelmed to really support them in the ways they needed. And still others have not been able to find a way to connect with academia, whether because of learning disabilities, inability to choose a major or plenty of other reasons.

These students shouldn’t be cast aside and told they are undeserving of a Miami education just because there’s something that makes them “different.” We should allow all students the chance to excel.

Miami has a self-regulating system and professors aren’t stupid. Students who don’t care or don’t wish to put the effort in will have that mindset reflected in their GPAs and transcripts. But for those who want to be at Miami and want to succeed, those students will have more op-

The only difference is more students get to benefit from a Miami education, instead of being turned away despite having the drive to learn. Is that really a bad thing?

When you look at Miami, don’t ask about their acceptance rate. Ask what Miami is doing to support students who may be struggling to perform academically. Is my degree program giving me the tools I need to be successful? How can I engage with my program better and learn more than just what’s being taught in class?

Focus on how you can make your time at Miami worth those tuition dollars. And understand that it is a privilege to be here. Worry about your own grades, not those of others.

As a nation, for so long we have closed the door in the faces of under-served students. It doesn’t have to be that way at Miami.

Let’s leave the door open.

OPINION EDITOR AMES RADWAN WENT AS A HERSHEY’S KISS FOR HALLOWEEN TWENTY YEARS AGO, IN 2002.

PHOTO BY AMES RADWAN

ruin

GRAPHIC BY HANNAH POTTS.

GRAPHIC BY HANNAH POTTS.

THE MIAMI STUDENT EDITORIAL BOARD

Miami University’s new Institutional Task Force on Student, Faculty, and Staff Mental Health and Well-being aims to “[research] the mental health conditions at Miami and [find] potential solutions to combat them.”

The task force is an acknowledgement by Miami that mental health is something that needs serious attention among the Miami community members.

On the surface, it may seem that mental health is a taboo topic, one about which no one is willing to talk. It is simultaneously the most difficult topic to discuss and the easiest. People often think, “What if I am a burden to the people around me by telling them about my problems?”

But the second you get someone talking about their problems, many people will open up. In our Editorial Board discussion this week, a majority of our Editorial Board members shared our own personal struggles with mental health and with receiving aid for mental health on campus.

We as an Editorial Board believe there are plenty of aspects of life which may cause students to struggle with their mental well-being. We hope to contribute to the task force’s cause by opening up ourselves, starting collaborative conversation and setting an example for others to do the same.

Academic work was the number one

aspect suggested as a reason for these struggles in a variety of manners. We are a burnt-out generation, with the word “burnout” only being invented in the 1970s and spiking in usage recently to describe academic exhaustion. There is also a general lack of tools for dealing with the amount of college work, especially if you’re unused to the workload — and procrastination, plus the added stress of having procrastinated in the first place, are big factors of spiraling mental health for our staff.

Finally, college is always going to be hard — we feel the expectation as students, to figure out our entire lives in four years, and that in and of itself is plain terrifying. But it’s even harder in today’s golden age of social media, where everyone else’s every achievement is plastered across your social media feed for you to behold. With scholarships, internships, jobs and awards being given out left and right online, it’s not unheard of for students to look at others getting those and ask, “Why am I not good enough?”

Navigating relationships, whether romantic or platonic, are always another big one for the late teens and early twenties — rejection, loneliness and the like.

Our generation is also finding it difficult to find motivation to care about school because of what has happened during the formative years of our late teenhood and early adulthood. It’s hard to actually care about that math assignment, poem or lab report when the news reminds us we don’t have much time left.

Our lives have also been put into per-

spective with the recent pandemic, the uptick in school shootings, the uncertainty of worldwide politics and the impending and occurring climate change crisis. We are facing a world that is on the verge of chaos in a bunch of different ways, and we aren’t prepared. With social media, you can’t escape thinking about all the negative things in the world — and our generation has it worst, because we’ll have to deal with it all for much longer.

Older generations simply won’t.

Our generation is more open about mental health because it plagues us so much, as shown by our Editorial Board discussion. Older generations may not be as open to mental health discussions, and the disconnect makes it hard to receive help. Many of us had our own individual stories of this being true, although, of course, not all older people will be this way.

The Institutional Task Force on Student, Faculty, and Staff Mental Health and Well-being is a strong step forward for mental health advocacy on Miami’s campus and its community. The community’s mental well-being has deteriorated, and we need all the support we can get.

With this task force, Miami is acknowledging the problem on its campus, which is a promising prospect. Both acknowledging the problem and acting swiftly to understand it is a new tone for the administration, and a welcome change at that.

Ensuring a report be completed as soon as mid-Spring semester displays

clearly that Miami wants a solution and it wants one quickly. The only fact holding this new task force back is the lack of codified student representation among its committees.

With a workgroup focusing on the students, the community and the faculty, direct student voices are absolutely crucial to understanding declining mental health in recent years. It’s also crucial to ensuring trust between this new task force and the community it seeks to help.

If our generation is more open, willing and able to talk about mental health both personally and at large, Miami must take advantage of our voices in order to find the most effective solution for Miami at-large.

And we’re willing to talk, but barriers to mental health resources come at a cost to morale, and our Editorial Board cited several experiences with unacceptably-long wait times for on-campus and telehealth therapy.

We need to be heard both on the personal level and the institutional level for trust to be established.

If our voices are equitably heard, the Editorial Board views this task force as a successful first step toward mental health solutions. If Miami fails to listen to its student body, this task force will fall into the abyss of committees that promise to enact change then fade into irrelevance.

Don’t leave us out of the conversation, or no one will benefit from the task force’s pursuit.

GRAPHIC BY MACEY CHAMBERLIN

PHOTO