The Miami Student Oldest university newspaper in the United States, established 1826
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2013
VOLUME 141 NO. 18
MIAMI UNIVERSITY OXFORD, OHIO
TODAY IN MIAMI HISTORY In 1980, The Miami Student reported that U.S. Press, one of several manufacturers of phony state identification cards at the time, promoted its $5 product
as “absolutely the ultimate ID card!” Unfortunately for those looking to pass them off as legitimate, many of the fake IDs had tell-tale flaws, such as card holders’ photos being placed on the wrong side.
TAYLOR WOOD THE MIAMI STUDENT
MACCRACKEN IN MIST No sun for the sun-dial as a fog settles on Miami’s campus Wednesday
MU community reflects on sophomore’s death BY CHRIS CURME COMMUNITY EDITOR
Saturday morning, Miami University sophomore Jacob Jarman was found dead on the railroad tracks between South Main Street and College Avenue. As news of Jarman’s passing spreads across campus, friends and school officials express their sorrow. This was Jarman’s first semester at Miami, having transferred from the University of Colorado. He is again in his home state, with his parents and friends. According to Jarman’s former roommate, firstyear Aaron Kahle, many of Jarman’s friends at Miami also hail from Colorado, though he had a presence in many circles. “He was a good guy,” Kahle
said. “He had a very close group of friends. I think a lot of his friends are from Colorado, [but] he had a really tight friend group here.” Miami officials expressed their sadness in the wake of Jarman’s passing. “We are deeply saddened by the untimely passing of a member of our community,” Associate Dean of Students Gwen Fears said. “Although he was not with us long, he enhanced our community and he will be remembered. Our heartfelt condolences go out to Jake’s family and many loved ones.” In a tweet, President Hodge echoed the sentiments of the Miami community. “Our hearts go out to the family in their grief,” he said. Jarman graduated from Regis
Jesuit High School in Aurora, Colo., where he played football. “Please join the entire community of Regis Jesuit in praying for the Jarman family and all who knew and loved Jake during this time of loss,” a statement on the school’s website read. The school’s statement went on to announce they had established a fund in Jarman’s memory. Miami students continue react to his untimely passing. “I think Jake would like to be remembered as a great friend; someone who always wanted to have a good time,” Kahle said. “I don’t think he treated anyone poorly. He was a good guy to everyone he met.
MOURNING, SEE PAGE 8
Condé Nast drops internship program after lawsuit over lack of compensation BY ALEXIS DEBRUNNER STAFF WRITER
After multiple lawsuits over interns’ wages, magazine conglomerate Condé Nast shut down their internship program on Oct. 23. Three Condé Nast interns sued the company after they believed they had been unfairly compensated for the work they did and wanted to see interns have the ability to unionize in the future. Condé Nast, whose brands include Vogue, Teen Vogue, Vanity Fair and GQ, responded to these demands by closing the program. “Internships are so essential at the collegiate level for students to have any hope of landing a job in the journalism field,” senior journalism lecturer Patti Newberry said. “You need to build on writing and reporting skills in order to be hirable. Students can’t learn it all in the classroom, they have to go out there and do it for themselves.” Newberry said one of the huge issues that stood out for her in this case is a trend that she has noticed for a while: the concept of not paying interns. She said unpaid internships are often written off as okay with companies because they offer school credit in exchange for the work, but what it boils down to is students paying companies to let them get the experience they need. “When I was an undergraduate student, I had four internships, all paid, and this was 30 years ago,” Newberry said. “I was paid a minimum of $300 dollars a week, I paid
bills and took care of rent, but now so few organizations pay their interns. Still some of the higher up organizations do, like The New York Times and The Washington Post, but the majority of internships today are unpaid.” Even for students in Oxford, who are offered a variety of internship opportunities through the school’s connections in the greater Cincinnati area, still face a large percentage of their options being unpaid, Newberry said. “The lack of pay and the disadvantage of our location, with having to travel to most professional internships, are large disincentives for students,” Newberry said. “There is a long list of expenses tied with being a working person, and to pay them to accept an unpaid position can be a bitter pill to swallow.” On Miami’s campus,ß there are a number of organizations that offer experience to students, Newberry said, but they cannot be a replacement for the professional experience that an internship offers. Organizations such as The Miami Student, WMSR, Miami Quarterly, and Inklings all offer a space for students to work on their skillsets, but don’t replace the spot of an internship on a resume. “Luckily, most students are still eager to land internships because they understand how essential it is to their career, so they have just accepted that they are not going to be paid,” Newberry said. “That is what has been drilled into them now since high school of how an internship works.”
Former Condé Nast intern, junior Alissa Pollack is one of those students who were willing to work unpaid in exchange for the valuable experience her internship offered. Pollack said her months at Teen Vogue this past summer were such a great opportunity that she felt being given school credit was enough compensation, but she added that anyone who is going to be unpaid needs to be benefiting in some way. “If you’re getting school credit as an intern, then you are being compensated in some way,” Pollack said. “An intern should be benefiting from the internship more than the company, the point of an internship is to be a learning opportunity and to build on your experiences. If you are just running around getting coffee, that doesn’t help with that, and so then yes you need to be getting paid.” After working for Teen Vogue this past summer, Pollack said she had hopes of interning for Vanity Fair this upcoming summer, but now is not sure where that opportunity stands. While Condé Nast said in their press statement that the end of the program would not affect current interns at any of their publications, Pollack said that her plans for this summer are unknown at this time. “It’s going to be really difficult because I loved working for them this past summer, it was an amazing experience, and I had every intention of applying to do the same this
INTERNSHIP, SEE PAGE 8
Decline of the divine: MU secularism on the rise BY EMILY C. TATE
FOR THE MIAMI STUDENT
Before fall classes begin each year, first-years across the nation take an extensive survey called the Higher Education Research Institute’s CIRP Freshman Survey. Along with questions regarding demographics, behavioral characteristics and personal strength, students are questioned about their religious preferences. In 2011, Miami’s CIRP results showed that 18.5 percent of firstyears had no religious preference – a drastic jump from just two years prior, when only 14.6 percent of students adhered to this category. Two organizations on Miami’s campus, the Secular Students of Miami (SSM) and Cru, have seen their numbers change in relation to these statistics. “A few years ago, we experienced a big jump in membership,” vice president of SSM Becca King said. “We went from having about 15 consistent members to more like 30.” SSM is an on-campus organization that provides a forum for students to discuss different religious views while also supplying an opportunity for like-minded people to get to know each other. On the other hand, one of Miami’s Christian organizations has seen its numbers drop in the past few years.
“About 10 years ago, nearly 800 students came to our weekly meetings,” Miami Cru’s president Will Adams said. “The size has declined. Now there are about 300 to 400 students each week…but I’m not sure if that’s due to a change in our generation or just a different student body.” Adams said he believes the decline in active religious participation might actually be due to the college atmosphere. “A lot of people come to college thinking it is a time to redefine yourself,” he said. “When people come to college and leave their parents for the first time, they ask themselves if what they have grown up with is really what they want for themselves. Students have the chance to either walk away from it or dig deeper.” However, national surveys show that the secular population is on the rise across all ages, not just among college students. According to an annual Gallup poll on religion, in its first year to conduct the survey (1948), only 2 percent of the U.S. population marked “none” for religious preference. Four decades later, 7 percent of Americans had no religious preference (1988), then the number doubled to 14 percent by 2012. While the religiously unaffiliated portion of the population is indeed
RELIGION, SEE PAGE 8
Search for FSB dean narrows BY VICTORIA SLATER, EMILY CRANE EDITORS
The Farmer School of Business (FSB), in the midst of its year-long search for a new dean, has narrowed down the pool of candidates to three finalists. The committee has invited these three finalists to attend on-campus open forums with students next week. According to Director of Business Student Organizations and Diversity Michelle Thomas, the open forums are meant to demonstrate student involvement and to give voice to a major portion of the future dean’s constituency. “We want the deans to understand we have a very engaged, active and robust student body,” Thomas said. Two of these candidates will attend the interviews Nov. 4 and Nov. 6. Mark Dawkins, the current Associate Dean for Academic Programs at the Terry College of Business in
the University of Georgia will join the Nov. 4 session from 5:15 – 6 p.m. in FSB 0025. He has a P.h.D. in accounting from Florida State University, and now teaches accounting as an associate professor at the University of Georgia. The Nov. 5 forum will feature Matt Myers, the Associate Dean of Executive Education at the College of Business Administration at the University of Tennessee. He received a P.h.D in marketing and international business from Michigan State University and is currently a “Nestle Professor” at the University of Tennessee. His session will be from 5-6 p.m. in FSB 0019. The third candidate is Jorge Haddock. Haddock was the Dean of the School of Management at George Mason University and prior to that, Dean of the Robins School of Business at the University of Richmond. He is currently a full professor at George Mason University. His session had yet to be determined at the time of print.