The Miami Student | March 19, 2019

ESTABLISHED 1826 — OLDEST COLLEGE NEWSPAPER WEST OF THE ALLEGHENIES

Volume 147 No. 21

Miami University — Oxford, Ohio

TUESDAY, MARCH 19, 2019

BY CONNOR WELLS

DISCIPLINE AT MIAMI Proposed changes would streamline process but reduce student involvement CÉILÍ DOYLE

NEWS EDITOR Miami University’s Student Life Council, will vote next month to approve a massive overhaul of the university’s disciplinary process.

This proposal will affect how Miami policy violations, both non-suspendable and suspendable cases (outside of Title IX infractions), are settled. The changes would streamline the process and add the opportunity for students to appeal lower-level violations, but would also reduce how much say students have in how their peers are held responsible.

The Student Life Council advises the Vice President of Student Affairs, a position currently held by Jayne Brownell. The body proposing the changes is the Office of Community Standards (OCS, and formerly known as OESCR).

OSC director Ann James believes that the

proposal will eliminate confusion about Miami’s disciplinary process and emphasize an adjudication system that is reflective of what OCS stands for: a developmental learning experience.

“There are a lot of options for hearings for students, and what I’ve heard from students is that it’s confusing,” James said. “[Depending on] whether their case is suspendable or not, they have different hearing options, and they get this really long email from us when they’re charged initially.”

In an effort to simplify that initial email next year — and the rest of the disciplinary process — OCS has proposed to eliminate Student Court, shorten the number of hearing options for non-suspendable cases, improve the University Appeals Board and rebrand the Disciplinary Board to the Love and Honor Board.

Specifically, OSC is proposing that Miami’s interconnected adjudication boards — Student Court, the University Appeals Board and the Disciplinary Board — be removed, reformatted and rebranded, respectively.

These changes will be reflected in the updated Code of Student Conduct and will be effective for the 2019-2020 academic year.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 3

This Issue

Holi

photos on page 6

Managing motherhood

Shiloh Eklund balances being a full-time student and a mom BRIAH LUMPKINS STAFF WRITER

Her days start early. Many times, she’s awake before the sun rises.

She wakes her son sleeping beside her and begins to get to ready for the day. She helps him put on his backpack before putting on her own. One is filled with kinesiology textbooks, while the other is stuffed with coloring books — each in accordance with their respective classes for the day.

Every weekday morning, she drives to the front of “Mini University” on College Drive, the daycare center on Miami’s campus. She looks at her three-year-old son, Will, in the rearview mirror, and sees his face is full of hesitation.

“If I have to go to school, you do, too,” she says to him. She walks him to his classroom, where he is greeted by all his peers.

She then makes her way toward her 8:30 a.m. class alongside hundreds of other Miami students rushing to their own classes. Although she’s tired from staying up late studying the night before, she heads to class full of determination.

To everyone else, Shiloh Eklund looks like a normal college junior: eager to learn and ready to obtain all possible opportunities. Yet, few people know that she has a three-year-old son who depends on her, and is along for the ride with her everyday while she pursues her degree.

Being a mother at 21 was not in her

CONTRIBUTED BY SHILOH EKLUND

plans, but she wouldn’t change her life for anything in the world.

Shiloh manages to balance being a mother and a full-time kinesiology student.

Shiloh became pregnant at the end of her junior year of high school. For awhile, only immediate family members and friends were aware of her pregnancy.

Eventually, she announced that she was expecting in a tweet for all her followers to see.

In her iPhone notes she typed the statement “I’m pregnant.” She took a screenshot of this message and attached it to a tweet with the caption “juicy gossip!!”

Although her pregnancy was unexpected, she was overwhelmed by support from

Being Catholic on Campus

Varsity videogaming

Miami’s Catholic community remains strong in the face of global abuse revelations.

A look at what it means to be a dedicated esports athlete in college.

News » page 5

Culture » page

CONTINUED ON PAGE 3

“Let’s get this bread.”

Have mercy, Aunt Becky!

How men’s swimming and diving captured the MAC Championship.

Lori Loughlin cheated college admissions and her daughter doesn’t care.

Sports » page 10

Opinion » page 12

This Week

2 FYI

TUESDAY, MARCH 19, 2019 Named the Best College Newspaper (Non-daily) in Ohio by the Society of Professional Journalists.

Things to do

JACK EVANS

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Kirby Davis Alison Perelman Megan Zahneis Managing Editors

Emily Brustoski Video Editor Maya Fenter Magazine Editor

Ben Smith Design Editor

Alyssa Melendez Web Designer

Samantha Brunn Ceili Doyle News Editors

Lindsay Cerio Business Manager

Emily Simanskis Sports Editor

James Tobin Faculty Adviser

Madeline Mitchell Kate Rigazio Culture Editors

Fred Reeder Business Adviser

Kelly Burns Ben Finfrock Opinion Editors

Antonio Four Tues San Armstrong 1066 3/19

This movie depicts lesbian Latina women who spent 15 years in jail for a false accusation of gang rape. The women will be available to speak with students afterwards.

6-9 p.m.

WDJ Inc. - Bill Dedden Distributor

Jugal Jain Photo Editor

Aim Media Midwest Printer

Owen Berg Connor Wells Designers

Sydney Hill Brianna Porter Copy Editors

Derek Stamberger Nikki Saraniti Video Producers

Emily Dattilo Asst. Opinion Editor

Comedy Series Tues MAP Wilks Thearer 3/19

Chris Vinel Asst. Sports Editor

Michael Serio Humor Editor Sam Keeling Entertainment Editor

Julia Arwine Rachel Berry Asst. News Editors Maia Anderson Duard Headley Asst. Culture Editors

Anna Minton Style Editor

Bo Brueck Asst. Photo Editor Advertising information: Send us a letter?

Madness Watch Party Thur March Redzone 3/21

Join fellow sports fans and watch the first round of the NCAA tournament. Food and prizes will be provided.

12-6:30 p.m.

miamistudent.net/advertise eic@miamistudent.net

The Miami Student is published on Tuesdays during the school year by the students of Miami University, Oxford, Ohio.

The content of The Miami Student is the sole responsibility of The Miami Student staff. Opinions expressed in The Miami Student are not necessarily those of Miami University, its students or staff.

CORRECTIONS POLICY

8 p.m.

Alice Wetterlund, a stand-up comedian and actress on the HBO sitcom Silicon Valley, will perform as part of the MAP comedy series.

The Miami Student is committed to providing the Miami University community with the most accurate information possible. Corrections may be submitted up to seven calendar days after publication.

Thur 3/21

War, Fiction, and the Ethics of Memory Heritage Room, Shriver Center 7-9 p.m.

Come listen to a talk by Pulitzer Prize winner Viet Thanh Nguyen, author of The Sympathizer and the short story collection The Refuges.

Courtyards of Miami is Offering a special lease option.

Only one left, get it while it lasts!

A one bedroom to lease, 2nd semester ONLY. (Jan to May 2020) Possible special rate.

Best prices on the market, With perks at signing!

Too many roommates? The Courtyards of Miami might be just what you are looking for. Located on East Central Ave., between Campus and South Main St., very close to the REC. We offer neat and clean housing at affordable prices....

2 bedroom shared by just 2 students $2700. (person) per semester. (includes Heat and water). 1 bedroom apartment with a study for 1 person $3900. All residents enjoy free off street parking, on site laundry, and yard space. On site office, flexible hours, and excellent upkeep, make the Courtyards a place worth looking at. Stop by, contact Carolyn at 513-659-5671 or Home - The Courtyards of Miami for more info. http://www.thecourtyardsofmiami.com.

Contact Carolyn at thecourtyardsofmiami@yahoo.com

No More Working Weekends Operate a Mini-Office Outlet Online Freedom.YouToBeHealthy.com

recycle this newspaper.

NEWS@MIAMISTUDENT.NET

NEWS 3

TUESDAY, MARCH 19, 2019

Miami’s proposed disciplinary process FROM FRONT

The current system Non-suspendable cases Right now, if a student violates a non-suspendable Miami policy (the most common of which include alcohol infractions) they are faced with three options: Accept responsibility for the violation without meeting with any administrators.

Sit down for a one-one-one administrative hearing with an OCS or ORL officer (the distinction between one or the other depends on where the violation took place — in or out of the residence halls).

Have their case heard in front of five to seven members of Miami’s Student Court.

Currently, students can’t appeal the outcomes of any of these three options.

Suspendable cases Students currently facing suspendable violations currently must either: Sit down for a one-one-one administrative hearing with an OCS or ORL officer.

Have their case heard by the Disciplinary Board, which comprises three OCS faculty and/or staff members and two student represen-

tatives per hearing.

If students feel as though the outcome of their case for a suspendable violation is wrong, they have the opportunity to first appeal their case to the University Appeals Board, and if they disagree again, to the Vice President of Student Affairs Jayne Brownell.

Under the current system, three main bodies supervise and ultimately decide how a student who violates the Code of Student Conduct will be held responsible: Student Court, the Disciplinary Board and the University Appeals Board.

There are 14 students on Student Court this year. They were chosen

by OCS after submitting applications and going through two rounds of interviews, junior and Student Court outreach coordinator Madeline vWitte said.

Over the last three years, the number of students who requested to have Student Court hear their case has dropped — from 109 throughout the 2016-2017 academic year to 59 requests made so far this year, according to OCS records.

Miami’s disciplinary and appeals boards each comprises a pool of 13 student representatives chosen by the Associated Student Government student body president. Currently, there are 13 students on the appeals

board, and 12 of those 13 also serve on the disciplinary board.

While the proposed system will abolish Student Court and rebrand the Disciplinary Board to the Love and Honor Board, Witte is not concerned.

“All of the people who are on court have the opportunity to move to the Love and Honor Board,” she said. “I think the Love and Honor Board is a really good thing that allows us to be reflective of OCS’ values.”

The proposed system Non-suspendable cases In the proposed new system, there will be only one option for students who commit non-suspendable offenses: Sit down for a one-one-one administrative hearing with an OCS or ORL officer.

However, students will have the option to appeal the outcome of that hearing to the University Appeals Board. But there is no opportunity to appeal the appeal, which differs from suspendable cases.

Suspendable cases Students who violate Miami policies that could carry the penalty of suspension will have two options to deal with their charges: Sit down for a one-one-one ad-

ministrative hearing with an OCS or ORL officer.

Have their case heard by the Love and Honor Board, which comprises two OCS faculty and/or staff members and one student representative per hearing.

This process is similar to the current adjudication system for suspendable cases, with two notable exceptions being the rebranding of the Disciplinary Board to the Love and Honor Board and the downsizing of five board members hearing a case to three.

Students will still have the opportunity to appeal the decisions from either of these processes to the University Appeals Board and they can appeal that appeal to Brownell.

Future of disciplinary process OCS’ Division of Student Life Assistant Director and Student Court adviser, Larissa Marple, said the main differences between the current and proposed system — when it comes to non-suspendable and suspendable cases — are threefold: here will be no more Student Court, there will no longer be an option to accept responsibility without meeting with an officer and the Disciplinary Board is being rebranded to the Love and Honor Board.

The Love and Honor Board will function similarly to the current Disciplinary Board, but there will not be as many representatives (students, faculty or staff) listening on individual hearings, Marple said.

Additionally, if Student Life Council approves the proposal, OCS will change the selection process for the University Appeals Board,, and the student members of the appeals board will also serve on the Love and Honor Board.

In this case, ASG student body presidents will no longer have the power to appoint student representatives to the University Appeals Board.

“The current system is not consistent with the educational and developmental philosophy of our process,” James wrote in an email to The Student. “So we are remedying that by ensuring that all students speak with someone about their case. Also all students will have the right to appeal the outcome and/or sanctions of their case.”

Student Life Council will vote on the proposal in April, and Miami’s general counsel office will have the final say before any changes are written into into the Code of Student Conduct. doyleca3@miamioh.edu

Motherhood at Miami and Mini U FROM FRONT

her friends and family. She most valued the support from her parents, who were willing to walk with her every step of the way.

“There is no way I could have done anything without their support,” Shiloh said.

For Shiloh, going to college was never a question, even when she found out she was pregnant. In her community (the Montgomery area of Cincinnati), everyone gets their degree, and she felt she was no exception. Shiloh applied to Miami and was accepted with enough scholarship and grant dollars that the university was basically paying her to attend.

“When I got pregnant, I thought everything was going to change, but it really didn’t because of my support system,” Shiloh said. “I was never in fear of not getting my degree.”

Shiloh’s father helps pay some of her expenses during the school year because she is not able to work as often as she’d like. He owns the home Shiloh currently lives in, and allows her and her roommates to rent it out from him.

Brett Schaff, a junior marketing major at Miami, has been living with Shiloh for two years. She has helped look after Will when he’s not with his father or when Shiloh has school related activities at night.

Brett thinks of Will as a nephew and is grateful to have he and his mother in her life.

“A lot of times in Oxford you feel like you’re only surrounded by twenty-year-olds all the time, but it’s cool to come home and find a three year old just enjoying life,” said Brett.

Shiloh’s father’s financial support allows her to have flexibility in the kind of job she takes on. Shiloh teaches fitness classes at Chestnut Field House located in Clawson Hall. Shiloh is able to work somewhere where she truly enjoys coming in for every shift.

“If I didn’t have help from my dad or from the scholarships, there

SHILOH WANTS TO SET AN EXAMPLE FOR HER SON, WILL, THAT ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE. PHOTO CONTRIBUTED BY SHILOH EKLUND

is no way I could do it,” Shiloh said.

“Because my parents are so supportive, I get to do a job that I love to do, and not one that I have to do.”

In her classes, she is up-front with her professors and classmates about her situation. If she can’t make it to class or a group project meeting, she lets them know about her son and is always met with understanding.

“I don’t want to be that person who uses the ‘kid card’ all the time,” Shiloh said. “But if he was sick or I had to stay home, they are always

super cool about it.”

Shiloh loves being a mother, but admits there are many things she has missed out on. She misses being able to do things like going to the movies, working out at the gym or having wine nights with friends.

“I’m so used to it,” Shiloh said.

“It’s weird because I’ll talk to other moms and they ask ‘Oh, you can’t go to the gym?’ But I don’t have a husband at home who can just stay at home with my kid.”

Shiloh’s life requires her to juggle multiple responsibilities while

making a multitude of sacrifices. In order to find a balance, she prioritizes to avoid being overwhelmed.

“I think half of me goes into auto-pilot and says ‘You know what? I have to do all these things, so we’re just gonna do it,”’ Shiloh said. “I’m a mom first. If school needs to come in last priority, then maybe I won’t study that night. I have had to be okay with lower grades and not spending as much time on school or with friends because I’m taking care of another human.”

Next summer, Shiloh will gradu-

Of all the money that e’er I had I’ve spent it in good company And all the harm that e’er I’ve done Alas it was to none but me And all I’ve done for want of wit To memory now I can’t recall So fill to me the parting glass good night and joy be with you all

ate from Miami, completing a task that many young mothers are not able to do. She is grateful for both the opportunity to attend Miami and the impactful learning experience she has had through being a mother.

“I’m really excited to tell Will that if I can do it, he can do it,” Shiloh said. “I wouldn’t change anything in the world. There are just countless things I have learned and would have never learned without being a mom.” lumpkibm@miamioh.edu

4 NEWS

NEWS@MIAMISTUDENT.NET

TUESDAY, MARCH 19, 2019

The ‘drunk girl’ phenomenon Why tipsy girls in bar bathrooms want to be best friends REBECCA WOLFF

THE MIAMI STUDENT

First-year Chelsea sat on her bed, scrolling through Instagram.

“Last night, I gave a drunk girl in the bathroom a hair elastic, and she invited me to her wedding in January,” one viral tweet read.

“OMG. Me,” Chelsea said aloud.

The “drunk girl in the bathroom” phenomenon has graced college campuses across the country. There are plenty of memes and videos on social media sites to prove it.

This movement — the culture of drunken camaraderie in women’s restrooms — began showing up on social media over the last few years. The social connections between drunk young women that happen on college campuses across the country express a level of blatant kindness that rarely occurs anywhere else.

But why?

This question has gained enough momentum to not only attract the attention of college girls lazily scrolling through Instagram in bed but also of academics who study this kind of social phenomenon.

Rose Marie Ward, a professor in Miami University’s Department of Kinesiology and Health and associate dean for academic affairs, first became familiar with women supporting one another while drunk when a few of her graduate research students played her video clips off YouTube.

“They’d pull up clips, and I would be like, ‘What? Girl in bathroom?’” Ward said. She thought there was no way this could be an actual thing.

Ward specializes in researching Miami’s drinking culture and was inspired to find out what goes on behind the closed bathroom doors at Brick Street after realizing this was more than just a YouTube trend.

Chelsea said the typical drunk girl bathroom interaction she’s had on a Saturday at Brick Street Bar goes something like this: You’re so beautiful, like, where did you get

ILLUSTRATION BY CONNOR WELLS

your top from? You’re, like, literally so beautiful — don’t let anyone ever tell you different.

After compiling field work, Ward and her team of graduate students discovered there are three different types of exchanges that occur between drunk college women in the bathroom: complimenting an outfit or overall appearance, consoling a crying girl and exchanging contact information.

“Several patterns of behaviors have evolved because it almost speaks to women needing a space where they are experiencing something and just want a comfort group,” Ward said.

“And it happened to evolve in a bathroom.”

Just this past weekend, Chelsea ran into a girl in a fraternity bathroom and thought she might’ve recognized her. The two started talking about the boys who invited them to the party and realized that Chelsea had hooked up with the girl’s date on a previous occasion.

After delving deeper into their history of hookups, it was revealed that they had hooked up with several of the same guys. Their uncontrollable laughter reverberated off of the faded tiled walls while they shouted, “No way!”

The two exchanged phone numbers, Snap-

ASG reforms oversight committee, amends non-discrimination statement

chat usernames and Instagram handles, and agreed to hang out the next day. They Snapchatted each other, despite failing to make plans to get together.

Drunkenly discovering new friendships isn’t new to today’s generation of college students, though.

Elizabeth Hand, an instructional coach advisor in Rockford, Illinois, public schools, was among one of the many moms in town for a sorority mom’s weekend recently.

“You should consider working in a school district, ‘cause guess what, you get to take three months off for summer,” Hand said to a drunk college girl in the Brick bathroom line.

The girl had expressed an interest in working in education, and Hand continued to give her career advice as they both sipped their drinks.

The student had just finished telling Hand about the rumored sample of STDs grown in a petri dish swiped from the dance floor of a local bar before they parted ways.

While memes depicting drunken women complementing one another are relatively new, women have been supporting one another in and out of bathroom lines and stalls for decades. Social media has simply capitalized on the phenomenon.

“People will do things on social media to get that feedback,” Ward said. “People will post a picture for that same reason, so the bathroom has become an in-person safe space to get that stranger [or] acquaintance feedback.”

“Yeah, I always give compliments in the bathroom, ‘cause I’m bored and fucking around,” Chelsea said.

Moments later, she acknowledged that she likes complimenting girls because she knows they will compliment her in return.

In short, it appears that when social barriers are lowered — due either to drunkenness or the protection of a screen and a username — people feel more comfortable approaching and talking to strangers, especially in a non-threatening environment such as a women’s restroom, or the comment section of an Instagram post.

“One of my best friends I met in the bathroom drunk,” Chelsea said. “I complimented her shirt or something, and she was like ‘Oh my god, thank you, what’s your name?’” wolffrg@miamioh.edu

SBP candidates defend platforms TIM CARLIN

STAFF WRITER

ERIN GLYNN STAFF WRITER

Associated Student Government (ASG) voted to pass two bills to change the structure and operations of its Oversight Committee and to adjust the wording of its recently drafted non-discrimination statement during senate session on Tuesday, March 12.

The new Oversight Committee will include the senate parliamentarian as a non-voting member to act as an expert on ASG’s bylaws.

Currently, the committee, which is responsible for disciplining senators, has only two punitive measures in case the senator brought before them is found guilty: censure, which is a formal way for senate to condemn a member’s actions, and dismissal. The bill adds an additional measure for cases the committee decides are less extreme.

The committee now has the option to grant a senator an “improvement period” with a predetermined length of time and course of action decided for each case for the senator to demonstrate more suitable behavior. At the end of the improvement period, the Oversight Committee votes on whether the senator has sufficiently demonstrated

correct behavior and either fully pardons or further sanctions the senator.

The Oversight Committee bill also removes all language referring to student court, as the court likely will not be in place for the 2019-2020 academic year, as reported by The Miami Student.

ASG also passed a bill that changed the language of its statement of non-discrimination, an action meant to continue its mission to make senate more inclusive, with 24 senators voting for the revision, five voting against and four abstensions. The new statement includes definitions for discrimination and harassment and a clause to ensure equal access to opportunities for all senators, meaning no senator can be barred from participating in committee programs, elections, employment and other ASG activities on a discriminatory basis.

The bill also added national origin, ancestry, political affiliation, ideology, physical condition and pregnancy to the list of aspects of a student’s identity that ASG cannot discriminate against.

An amendment was proposed by Senator Adrian Radilla to remove political affiliation and ideology from the list of protected groups, for fear that it would discourage

senators from using their political values to inform their decisions.

“It is my inherent right and part of the political process for me to vote for someone I agree with, and that is not discrimination.

This will inherently limit free speech,” Radilla said.

Other senators felt the bill was necessary to ensure they will be listened to in the senate chamber.

“In my time here, I have most certainly been discriminated against because of my political affiliation and ideology,” Senator Kyle Kufrin, who identifies as politically conservative, said. “If you don’t want to hear what anybody else has to say regardless of their political affiliation, that’s wrong; you shouldn’t be here.”

Senate passed the bill, but the amendment was rejected with 10 senators for, 26 against and one abstention.

At tonight’s meeting, senate will decide whether to add the Secretary of Diversity and Inclusion as an additional non-voting member of the Oversight Committee.

personal reasons had prevented him from attending meetings and office hours. Stidham also told the committee he would be absent from the majority of senate meetings and activities for the remainder of the semester.

“It was essentially just for personal health and academic reasons. I was definitely not keeping up with attendance,” Stidham said. “As a voting member there were never any situations where my vote in particular seemed to matter, and as a result, it just wasn’t the most logical option for me to continue.”

Senate received the articles of impeachment Monday afternoon. An hour later, Stidham sent in his resignation.

“It was clear that senate was not a priority [for Stidham] and that he had other commitments that were more important to him,” Mitsch said.

On Thursday night, student body presidential candidates took the stage in Armstrong Student Center’s Fritz Pavilion C to share their platforms and answer questions about their plans for the university, if elected.

The town hall, co-sponsored by Associated Student Government (ASG) and The Miami Student (TMS), was moderated by ASG Senator Bradley Davis and TMS Assistant News Editor Rachel Berry.

Presidential candidates Jaylen Perkins, Gabby Meissner, Shelby Frye, Jonnie Taylor and Jack Kelner gave opening statements, then answered two general questions and two pointed questions about their respective platforms.

Several candidates brought up diversity, inclusion, mental health and student drinking at different points during the town hall.

“I was one of the hard hitters in the Black Action Movement (BAM) 2.0 that took place last year. What drove me to run for this position is that the administration wants to work with us,” Perkins said.

Diversifying staff and alleviating costs at the Student Counseling Service (SCS), Perkins added, are also major focuses of his campaign.

Meissner stressed the importance of advocating for students’ mental health. “[Mental health is] involved in every single student’s life on campus. Why wouldn’t it be one of the most important things we’re running on?” she said.

Meisser said she would like to see an online appointment scheduling system implemented at SCS, so students can feel more comfortable asking for help without necessarily having to make a phone call.

Frye emphasized the need to change the drinking culture on campus in order to make every student safer.

“If we pretend that drinking does not happen, that’s bad for everyone,” she said. “We want to create a culture where students feel really comfortable stepping up for each other.”

Taylor said potentially lowering the fees students pay to attend Miami could help increase inclusivity on a socioeconomic level.

He also suggested implementing an oversight committee for ASG made up of non-members to help “solve problems” in ASG. Kelner said that alcohol abuse can be symptomatic of deeper issues. He proposed implementing telecommunication therapy in order to decrease wait times at SCS, while increasing its use by students. Telecommunication therapy is the process of students video chatting with or calling, therapists located in other cities.

Voting begins 7 a.m. today and closes at 7 p.m. tomorrow on the Hub.

glynnee@miamioh.edu

carlintm@miamioh.edu

glynnee@miamioh.edu

ASG senator resigns prior to impeachment trial ERIN GLYNN STAFF WRITER

Associate Student Government (ASG) Senator Worley Stidham resigned from his position on Monday, March 18, in light of his potential impeachment at today’s senate session.

Prior to Stidham’s resignation, ASG’s Oversight Committee announced via email that it prepared to present articles for his impeachment on the grounds that the senator’s absences from senate meetings and his required office hours constituted a failure to fill the duties of the office.

Stidham was absent from seven senate meetings since the beginning of the academic year and failed to send an alternate in his place for four of those meetings.

ASG gives points to senators who do not fulfill their duties. Senators receive three points for missing a senate session without

sending an alternate and every missed office hour block is another point. The Oversight Committee estimated that Stidham had received 25 points throughout the academic year.

At the end of the fall semester, the committee offered Stidham the opportunity to reduce his points through volunteering to staff a table in Armstrong, an ASG initiative to be more available to its constituents.

“Tabling allows senators to become more active in their community,” Speaker Pro Tempore Ben Mitsch said. “It upsets any points that they may have garnered by not being active in the community. We think that’s a fair way for senators to be accountable.”

Stidham did not staff the table, and his absences continued into the spring semester.

Stidham was called to testify in front of the Oversight Committee March 12, when he explained that theatre rehearsals and other

NEWS@MIAMISTUDENT.NET

NEWS 5

TUESDAY, MARCH 19, 2019

Miami hosts NYT ‘Caliphate’ reporter

NEW YORK TIMES JOURNALIST RUKMINI CALLIMACHI HAS REPORTED ON ISIS FOR SIX YEARS. JUGAL JAIN PHOTO EDITOR

ELENA WEINGART

THE MIAMI STUDENT

Journalist Rukmini Callimachi told her rapt audience that it’s important for people to get the full story from all sides of the War on Terror in her lecture last week titled “Speaking to the Enemy: The Making of the ‘Caliphate’ Podcast” on Wednesday, March 13.

Callimachi is an ISIS expert and correspondent for The New York Times. She has been described as “arguably the best reporter on the most important beat in the world,” according to a WIRED magazine story.

The department of comparative religion sponsored the lecture, and it was held in the Shriver Center

as part of the 2018-19 Arthur C. Wikenden Memorial Lecture Series.

“My personal journey brought me to this beat, which convinced me that the only accurate way to report on this beat is by also seeking to speak to the beat itself and speaking to its members – speaking to the enemy,” Callimachi said.

Callimachi has covered terrorism since 2013 and has been a Pulitzer Prize finalist three times over the course of her career. Her New York Times feature, “The ISIS Files,” details how and why the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria has been able to stay in power for so long. Her podcast, “Caliphate,” maps the rise and spread of ISIS. Callimachi was seen by some

as a controversial choice of lecturer. In 2017, Callimachi took a large number of files from abandoned ISIS militant buildings in the form of documents and hard drives. Rather than consult the Iraqi government for permission to remove the war documents from the country, she took them back to the United States for her reporting.

She faced criticism from academics and legal scholars who argued her actions set a “dangerous precedent for the plundering of material and cultural heritage in conflict zones.”

Callimachi has traveled to the heart of the terror conflicts to try to give the world the full story.

“I believe that the work I do is worth it, that the War on Terror is one of the most important stories

CATHOLIC STUDENTS KEEP THE FAITH DESPITE CONTROVERSY DAN WOZNIAK

THE MIAMI STUDENT

With the Roman Catholic Church’s long history of sexual abuse allegations, the recent defrocking of Cardinal Theodore McCarrick and the conviction of Cardinal George Pell for sexually abusing young children, the church has faced increased public backlash and scrutiny.

According to the Pew Research Center, Catholicism has experienced a greater net loss due to religious switching than any other religious tradition in the U.S, and many American Catholics say they want to see the church make significant changes.

Although there has been a national decline in support for the Catholic Church in light of these reports, the St. Mary’s Catholic College Ministry (CCM) at Miami University has actually seen an increase in student participation in recent years, according to officials there.

Father Jeff Silver has been the head priest at St. Mary’s for almost 12 years and has spent almost 40 percent of his lifetime in Oxford.

“I think we’re doing pretty well. It’s always been, as an academic community and as a place that does campus ministry, a church with a rather young feeling,” Silver said. “The strength [of St. Mary’s] is that when students leave here, they want to be a part of a parish.”

“There were about 1,500 registered student parishioners in 2007 when [Silver] arrived,” said Anne Frazee, a senior early childhood education major who oversees all CCM departments as the college ministry’s co-executive chair. “We now run 1,700-1,800 each registration period, generally at the beginning of each school year.”

CCM was founded after World War II and is a Miami student organization that receives funding from the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, which oversees all Catholic churches in the Cincinnati and Dayton areas.

Silver believes that the church as a whole needs to focus on “walking the walk” instead of just “talking the talk” in order to decrease the number of Catholics who are leaving the church. He said he has repeatedly addressed the need for members of the church to “come together in prayer and penance” to help resolve and prevent further scandals.

“There’s been a rise in clericalism that is dangerous, and I think what people want to see as an end to that clericalism is an increase in transparency,” Silver said.

Clericalism refers to the the hierarchical structure of the Church’s leaders.

The CCM board provides news links in their weekly emails to Catholic students that detail what is happening in the church and give CCM members a way to petition and send letters to the Vatican in light of these scandals.

“I think having frank discussions is what is best, rather than trying to shove things under the rug,” Frazee said. “You need to be talking about this stuff to help people come to a true realization of why the church believes what it believes.”

To be sure, not every Miami student raised as a Catholic remains dedicated to the faith.

Kaitlynn Dirr, a junior arts management and strategic communications major, left the Catholic Church when she was 13 because of her disagreements with the church’s stance on multiple social issues and her trepidation over the church’s history of sexual abuse.

“To be fully honest, I reached a point where reading about it was so heartbreaking that it started to affect me personally because I’m a very empathetic person,” Dirr said.

Dirr now identifies as a nondenominational Christian and tries to remain open-minded to new ideas by surrounding herself with different types of people.

She believes that issues like social drinking and the debate on abortion divide religious and secular students, especially at Miami.

“If you don’t agree with what’s going on, you’re joining an organization that is trying to combat those issues,” Dirr said. “And if you don’t see it as a problem, you’re staying with or promoting the other side of it because you feel like you’re being attacked.”

Kathryn Brooks, a sophomore marketing major, reassessed her faith when she arrived at college, but now she regularly attends St. Mary’s.

“I kind of experienced a lot of hypocrisy in the Catholic schools I went to,” Brooks said. “I came to college and decided that I needed to take a break and discern if this was actually my faith or if it was put upon me.”

After a semester away from the Catholic Church, Brooks realized that her life was “exponentially better” as a practicing Catholic and decided to return to her faith.

“I guess I am surrounded by a lot of people that are Catholic and Christian, but I know more people that have come to college and discovered faith than people that have come to college and lost their faith,” Brooks said. “I think the biggest misconception and the reason people leave the church is because they don’t realize that the church as an institution is run by people that are destined to sin.”

Many young Catholics also find it hard to remain involved in the church due to the church’s traditional views on social issues like gay marriage, divorce and birth control.

A study conducted by the University of Loyola Chicago concluded that “the majority of young Catholics are accepting of homosexuality and inclined to question Church teaching and Church authority.”

Frazee and Julia Demagall, a junior English education major and the co-chair of the CCM’s Faith Sharing Team, fully support the Catholic Church’s stance on these controversial social issues.

“The dogma of the Church does not and cannot change,” Demagall said. “The Church can come to a further understanding, which can maybe make the understanding more nuanced or advanced over time, but the fundamental dogma surrounding things like birth control and women becoming priests will not change.” wozniad2@miamioh.edu

of our age,” Callimachi said.

She seeks to find the most information by reporting on the “other side”— the other side being ISIS. “Most of the coverage of ISIS doesn’t even try to reach the other side,” she said. “That’s because [ISIS] is what we as a society see as the worst people in the world...

Speaking to the other side is essentially speaking to the boogie man.”

Callimachi talked about her personal experiences reporting on ISIS and described the dark subject matter she has reported on. She played an audio recording of her conversation with an ISIS member, in which they talked about the first murder he committed for the terror group.

“What I’ve learned on this beat, which I’ve now been covering for seven years, is that there is an unbelievable amount of misinformation surrounding this group,” Callimachi said. “In my opinion, [that’s] because this is the only beat I can think of in the journalism realm where reporters routinely only speak to one side.”

After the lecture, there was a panel discussion where attendees were able to discuss the topic with Callimachi.

Inaara Ladha, a sophomore international studies and comparative religion major, said she enjoyed hearing Callimachi speak.

“I thought this was a really nice non-academic perspective on working in the Middle East,” Ladha said. “I think a lot of times ...

We can get locked into just talking to professors, and a lot of lectures are professors – which is very important – but I thought it was really nice to have a non-professor speak to us.” weingaeg@miamioh.edu

Miami student assaulted at Brick Street CÉILÍ DOYLE NEWS EDITOR

A female Miami University student reported to the Oxford Police Department (OPD) two weeks ago that she was sexually assaulted by a man she didn’t know at the Brick Street Bar and Grill.

Officer Anthony Jones had driven to Miami Valley Hospital South in Centerville, Ohio, to pick up the survivor’s sexual assault nurse examination (SANE) kit. Jones wrote in the incident report that he discovered through SANE paperwork that the student was assaulted around 1 a.m. on Friday, March 8. The student had reported the assault the following day.

However, the student was unable to provide a description of the suspect or any additional information.

This incident marks the eighteenth sexual assault reported to OPD or the Miami University Police Department (MUPD) during the 2018-2019 school year. So far there have been 15 cases reported to OPD and three cases reported to MUPD in the last seven months.

Miami students who want to report a sexual assault can make their report to any campus security authority, including Miami University Police (513-529-2222), Oxford Police (513-523-4321), the Office of Community Standards (513-5291417), student organization advisers and athletic coaches.

Survivors can also receive confidential support from Katy Clover (513-431-1111), Miami’s campus-based support specialist from the Butler County office of Women Helping Women. Clover is not a mandatory reporter. doyleca3@miamioh.edu

Fear not, first-years: Don’t rush to sign leases MAIA ANDERSON

ASST. CULTURE EDITOR

Miami University’s Off-Campus Outreach department reports an excess of student apartments in Oxford available for lease. Yet, many students are told by their peers that, in order to secure a space, they need to sign a lease up to two years in advance.

According to the Off-Campus Outreach department’s website, there are over 17,000 beds off campus available for Miami students to rent. As of October 2018, there were just under 20,000 total students enrolled at Oxford’s campus.

Miami requires students to live on campus for their first two years. Taking this into account, as well as students who commute, there is an excess of beds for all students who want to live off-campus.

According to Sam Perry, Oxford’s community development director, there are about 5,000 houses and apartments approved for occupancy in Oxford, but bedroom space in many homes is underutilized because bedrooms were designed for more than one person.

“A lot of the rooms that the city has on register as rentable are not fully occupied because they’re [meant to be] shared bedrooms,” Perry said. “The apartments may have been built at a time where occupants would have shared bedrooms, and now they’re less willing.”

Perry said bedrooms are required to be at least 70 square feet per person and that many bedrooms in Oxford homes are 140 square feet.

Though there are many off-campus apartments available, many students feel pressure to sign a lease as early as two years before their planned move-in date. Charles Kennick, ASG’s Secretary for Off-Campus Affairs, thinks the pressure may be a lasting effect from past years, when housing options were more scarce.

“Off-campus housing is slightly glorified, especially at various high-profile houses that I think get freshman and other underclass students worried and stressed about finding that ideal place to spend the ‘best years of their life,’” Kennick said.

According to Oxford landlord Tony Miller, pressure to have leases signed so early is caused by the influx of student apartment complexes built in recent years.

“All these new buildings Uptown, they wanted to show that they had leases so they could get their construction loans,” Miller said. “Banks started tightening up and they started pushing it real hard to get tenants so they could show they had occupancy.”

Miller says most of his tenants signing leases this semester are sophomores in the class of 2021, signing on houses for their senior year.

However, signing a lease too far in advance can hurt students whose circumstances change.

According to the Off-Campus Outreach website, 58 percent of Miami students study abroad or away during their undergraduate career. Signing a lease before deciding to study abroad could require a student to find a subleaser or force them to pay rent on a space they do not live in.

Other unexpected situations, such as health problems, could arise in the years between a student signing a premature lease.

According to the Off-Campus Outreach department’s website, the average monthly rent in Oxford is $503 for a room in an apartment and $584 for a room in a house.

The site also includes a link to the U.S. Department of Education’s Federal Student Aid site that gives budgeting tips to college students. The site says to afford a monthly rent of $500, a student should be making $1,200 per month in income.

Oxford residents have expressed concern that student housing is unnecessarily taking up too much space in Oxford. According to Perry, this concern has been around for more than 40 years.

Mile Square, the name given to an area in Oxford dominated by student housing, used to be traditional family homes occupied

by Oxford residents. Citizens are concerned student housing will keep extending to outlying areas, but Kennick said it is unclear if Miami’s enrollment numbers will increase enough for this to happen. According to Kennick, increasing enrollment is currently “almost physically — and, allegedly, fiscally — impossible for the school to do academically.”

According to Perry, the main concern Oxford residents have is off campus students’ level of cleanliness.

“Students aren’t the best about picking up trash,” Perry said. “They get together and just leave beer cans on the front porch.”

Perry said the city zoning board is concerned there could be a domino effect in converting houses to be rentals. According to Perry, if one house on a street converts to become a rental, the likelihood of other houses doing the same rises.

Nevertheless, real estate companies continue to develop new housing complexes in Oxford. CKC Rental Agency, LLC is plans to build a new set of brownstone apartments called Gaslight Avenue in Stewart Square, set to open for the 2019-2020 school year. Their site advertises both four-bedroom townhouses and two-bedroom flats.

ander198@miamioh.edu

6 NEWS

NEWS@MIAMISTUDENT.NET

TUESDAY, MARCH 19, 2019

Miami learns to map police violence across the U.S.

SINYANGWE SPOKE LAST TUESDAY IN WILKS THEATER. JUGAL JAIN PHOTO EDITOR

RESEARCHER SAMUEL SINYANGWE STUDIED EXTENSIVE DATA ON POLICE VIOLENCE. JUGAL JAIN PHOTO EDITOR

MADELINE PHABY THE MIAMI STUDENT

Just over four years ago, 18-yearold Michael Brown was shot and killed by white police officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri.

While Brown was not the first black teenager to be killed by a police officer, for much of black America, his death was the last straw.

Brown’s death was the impetus for the first national protest of the Black Lives Matter movement. The movement has taken the nation by storm since its founding in 2013, and Brown’s shooting inspired a new wave of young activists to seek solutions to the issue of police brutality. This wave included a Stanford graduate named Samuel Sinyangwe.

Sinyangwe gave a lecture, “Using Data to End Police Violence,”

on March 12 at the Harry T. Wilks Theater in the Armstrong Student Center. It was hosted by Miami’s geography department as part of its McConnell Lecture Series.

After graduating from Stanford University with a degree in political science, Sinyangwe worked at a think tank called PolicyLink. However, after Brown’s death, he felt compelled to shift his focus towards investigating police violence.

“My life changed on August 9, 2014. That was the day that Mike Brown was shot and killed in Ferguson, Missouri, by Officer Darren Wilson,” Sinyangwe said.

Sinyangwe said that, while some communities had been experiencing police violence for years before Brown’s death, nothing was being done about it because people in power doubted the credibility of the claims.

“We heard challenges from people in power,” Sinyangwe said. “We heard skepticism, and we heard doubt. We heard from policymakers, academics and data scientists a skepticism that lived experiences weren’t enough — that they needed to be validated by something called data to be taken seriously.”

The federal government does not keep track of the number of people killed by police officers each year but, due to the painstaking efforts of independent researchers, the data exists in the form of online databases. In an audit, FiveThirtyEight found accurate the researchers’ estimate that 1,200 people are killed by police every year.

However, Sinyangwe felt that this data was deficient, as many entries did not identify the victims’ race, and none of them indicated whether the victim was armed. To

Festival of Colors Photos by Bo Brueck and Matt Heckert

On Saturday morning, the Indian Student Association put on its annual Holi celebration. Holi is a traditional Indian festival marking the end of winter and coming of spring. It’s known as the “festival of colors” and the “festival of love.” The iconic celebration of throwing colored powder makes this festival one of the most exciting and colorful times of the year and an excellent opportunity for individuals to celebrate their culture. Students drenched in a wide range of brightly colored powders walked around and happily chatted with other participants, showcasing this festivity and adding a vibrant flair to campus.

fill in these gaps, he began further researching these deaths.

“Every single day, what I would do is work through this data tediously — finding data from obituaries, from criminal records databases, from social media, from official records, from police departments — combine it with what was available through those databases, and together that produced Mapping Police Violence,” Sinyangwe said.

Mapping Police Violence uses interactive graphics and maps to present various data sets related to police violence, including a map that pinpoints every victim in the past year and a chart demonstrating national trends in police killings. It was launched in 2015 with a single map, but has since grown to include a much wider range of information.

“The reason we decided to visualize this was because we wanted to make it clear that Ferguson is everywhere,” Sinyangwe said.

Indeed, a quick look at the map reveals that in 2018, police deaths occurred across the country, from Eugene, Oregon, to Oakfield, Maine.

After introducing the data on police violence in his lecture, Sinyangwe discussed possible methods of solving this nationwide epidemic.

Some of those solutions come by way of Sinyangwe’s other online project, Campaign Zero, which digs

deeper into the data in search of factors that may explain the higher prevalence of police violence in certain cities and areas.

Such factors include differences in “use of force” policies, the extent to which officers are held accountable for their actions and whether civilian complaints are given any weight in determining an officer’s fate.

According to Sinyangwe’s data, only 3 percent of officers involved in fatal incidents are charged with a crime, and only 1 percent of those are convicted. Furthermore, those who are convicted receive lesser sentences than civilians who are charged with the same crimes.

Finally, Sinyangwe stressed that the majority of the work for both of his projects is done by volunteers, and that they are continuously seeking people with all different skill sets to push the movement forward toward increased innovation and effectiveness.

“There are 104 million Americans who support the Black Lives Matter movement,” Sinyangwe said.

“That is more than the 60 million people who voted for Trump. If we could just figure out how to get to that 104 million, that’s where we’d create transformational change.” phabymr@miamioh.edu

Miami University and Community Federal Credit Union Looking for a New or Used car? Check out EasyWheels, our Vehicle purchasing service by visiting www.muccu.org

Wheels

New & Used Vehicle Purchasing Service

Powered by TRUECar

Enjoy a Hassle-Free Vehicle Buying Experience Guaranteed Purchase Pricing and Lowest Rates

Open a New Account and we’ll deposit the first $10.00 into your account!

5120 College Corner Pike • (513)523-8888 • www.muccu.org MUCFCU is not a legal entity of the University

CAMPUS COMMONS • CAMPUS COURTS • BERN ST APTS

SPRING LEASING SPECIAL FOR 2019-2020

$3 , 55 0 + / P E R S O N / S E M E S T E R *

Campus Commons • 3-4 bedroom Units • Located on Campus Ave, by Rec Center

Uptown

HIGH STREET

* Limited Time Only/Call Office for Details

S. CAMPUS AVENUE

King Library

E. SPRING ST.

CAB

Miami University

Health Services

Goggin Rec Center

FA M I LY- O W N E D S T U D E N T R E N TA L S FOR MIAMI UNIVERSITY

(513) 523-1647 INDIVIDUAL, 2, 3, & 4 PERSON LEASES AVAILABLE SINGLE SEMESTER OR SCHOOL YEAR OPTIONS AVAILABLE

8 CULTURE

TUESDAY, MARCH 19, 2019

MITCHE49@MIAMIOH.EDU

Alex and Alex

Two-man band performs Oxford house shows

KELLY MCKEWIN

THE MIAMI STUDENT

It’s only 9 p.m. but the two-man band 3:30, comprised of Alex Erisey and Alex McPherson, is already taking the stage. Crushed beer cans and an old Starbucks cup litter the floor around the stage — a raised wooden platform in the basement of a house called Secret Garden. On it, Erisey sits behind a sleek black drum set, while McPherson sets up his guitar and takes his place at the microphone.

Thirty minutes of pop punk tunes follow, featuring both covers and original songs, most of which McPherson wrote. Erisey plays the drums so quickly his drumsticks blur, while McPherson engages with the crowd between numbers, laughing as he introduces them as “Alex, and that’s also Alex.”

The Alex’s have an easy rapport with one another, on-stage and off. Though their band is only five months old, the pair has been playing music together for years in their hometown of Akron, OH. The band name itself is an homage to their roots—330 is Akron’s main area code.

“As we were thinking, we were like, ‘Well, what’s something we have in common?’ Akron. So we went with 3:30,” Erisey said.

3:30 first performed at a fraternity charity event in October at Ohio Wesleyan University, where McPherson is a junior. Erisey, a junior at Miami, wanted to bring their talents to Oxford and booked their first house show this past weekend with the help of some friends.

“I’ve been itching to do one of these for a

DUARD HEADLEY

ASST. CULTURE EDITOR

Among the silent studiers and book-laden shelves of King Library, the esports arena, tucked just to the right of the library’s main entrance, is a world of its own. The neon red lights from the PC towers bathe the floor in an intimidating glow, and the walls are painted black and red, giving the room a more intense tone than the rest of the library. Rows of sleek monitors and elaborate red-and-black gaming chairs fill the space, providing the members of Miami’s various esports teams with a wellequipped space to practice and play.

It’s here, among the computers and competitors, that Sean Mullee spends much of his time. He’s a junior business economics major working toward his master’s degree, thanks to the AP credits he brought in from high school.

He’s also a member of Miami’s Sketched Out improv team and a varsity athlete for Miami’s Overwatch team. He thinks that’s a pretty good mix of things to be involved in.

“I think I got really lucky,” Mullee said.

“I see it as sort of the perfect triangle. I have school where I’m working on my master’s thesis, I’ve got esports to be competitive and Sketched Out to just be stupid and goofy.”

Overwatch, the game Mullee plays, is a multiplayer first-person shooter game that requires six people to work as a team to defeat their opponents. Players fill one of three roles: offense-based damage dealers, “tanks” meant to soak up enemy damage and attention or support characters who seek to heal and assist their team from the rear.

Mullee plays support for the team and says that learning to work with his teammates to play competitively took some effort.

“We have to practice four to five nights a week and play games on those nights or on separate nights,” Mullee said. “But I wouldn’t trade it because it’s similar to what I’d be doing anyways, and I get to do it with my friends and do it competitively.”

Mullee said his involvement with the esports team didn’t originate from any lifelong goal to play, but that he’s glad he decided to try it out.

“After my freshman year, I was looking for something else to do and I found out the team existed,” Mullee said. “I thought, ‘Hey, this would be fun to do. I’m not that good, but why not.’ I wasn’t expecting how big of a commitment or how much of a driving factor it would

THEY DON’T CARE WHERE THE STAGE IS, ALEX AND ALEX JUST LOVE PLAYING TOGETHER. THE MIAMI STUDENT SABIK AKAND

while, but didn’t know how to do it,” Erisey said. “It kind of came out of nowhere, but we’re trying to do a lot more now. It just feels so good to be up there playing.”

Though they only had four opportunities to practice together in person between October and their house performance, both Erisey and McPherson believe their set was a success.

Erisey has been playing drums for most of his life, and though McPherson is the lead guitarist in 3:30, he admits that Erisey plays the instrument better, as McPherson grew up playing the trumpet and only recently learned guitar. However, as a music education major,

McPherson relishes any opportunity to get up on stage and perform music that he loves.

“It’s just more opportunities to perform. I don’t deal with stage fright too much at this point, but it’s still a thing and the more you perform, the less you’re going to deal with stage fright,” McPherson said. “Plus, it’s nice to be able to perform music that wasn’t written by some white dude 300 years ago.”

Michael DePiero, a longtime friend of both McPherson and Erisey, believes the duo’s passion for music and performing comes through in every one of their performances.

“I’ve known these guys since 6th grade, and when I see them play, I know that there’s nothing that makes them happier,” DePiero said. “They are just purely in love on that stage.”

McPherson says the band takes much of their musical inspiration from his and Erisey’s favorite artists: The Front Bottoms, Modern Baseball and Microwave. For their original songs, McPherson writes lyrics based on personal experiences.

“The word stuff is basically just me being emo about not being in a relationship,” McPherson said.

The future is still not entirely set for 3:30, but Erisey knows he wants to perform as much as he can before he graduates next year. He plans to book more house shows in Oxford, particularly during the fall semester, and has made tentative plans to perform more at Ohio Wesleyan, as well as Akron over the summer when he and McPherson are home.

“We’re both about to graduate soonish, and who knows what happens then, so I just want to play as much as we can while we have the opportunity,” Erisey said. “Better late than never.”

In the meantime, the duo uses their band as a way to continue their longtime friendship, even when they’re arguing over whether to include the colon in “3:30.”

“We bicker all the time,” Erisey said.

“But it’s out of love. At least, like, maybe,” McPherson added. mckewikm@miamioh.edu

VARSITY VIDEO GAMES A look at a Miami esports athlete

SEAN’S FELLOW ATHLETES MAKE USE OF KING’S ESPORTS ARENA. THE MIAMI STUDENT ZAIM HAQ

end up being.”

Although esports players put in a similar amount of time to conventional athletes, the non-physical nature of video games makes a direct comparison to other sports tricky. Despite the fact that Forbes predicts the market value of the esports industry to cross into the billions this year, and that the Overwatch League streams pulled in 10 million viewers in 2018 alone, comparing video gaming to football or basketball remains a point of contention.

There are some, like former ESPN president John Skipper, who simply think that esports players aren’t athletes and that the sport isn’t legitimate. Mullee respectfully disagrees.

“If you want to think it isn’t a sport because you don’t put your full body into it, I understand that,” he said. “But, like, I wouldn’t

agree because there’s so much that goes into it. Players put as much time in, there’s coaching and recruitment and infrastructure involved just like with other sports.”

Miami caught on to the rise of esports early on, establishing the nation’s first Division 1 varsity esports team in 2016. Across the country, other colleges are following in Miami’s footsteps, and there’s little indication that the increasing popularity of digital sports will cease any time soon.

“Recently, more and more people are recognizing the value of esports,” Mullee said.

“They’re recognizing that it’s an actual passion for the sport.”

Ultimately, Mullee said that while he’d love to work for companies that analyze or are involved with esports, he doesn’t think he’ll want to make a career out of playing the

games themselves. Despite that, he said playing for the team has been an incredibly impactful experience.

“I definitely think it’s changed who I am,” Mullee said. “It’s taught me to be more confident, more competitive. It’s taught me to strive to be better than I was, and it’s made me a better person just because of the people I got to be around.”

The varsity Overwatch team is currently competing in a 64-team, bracket-style tournament with other teams across the country.

They beat Temple University last night to move on to the top 32, and they will compete against either Orange Coast College or Western Washington University sometime next week. headledd@miamioh.edu

MITCHE49@MIAMIOH.EDU

TUESDAY, MARCH 19, 2019

Humans of Oxford

Quiet kid finds confidence in comedy ZOEY BECKER

“I think being able to be captivating on stage and getting people to pay attention to you is amazing.” they’ll sit far away or be reluctant to laugh,” he said. “At the bar, you can see everyone, they’re right in your face.”

Along with comedy clubs, Harold is also a member of the boxing club. While the clubs may not seem to have much crossover, Harold describes his headspace before a comedy set as similar to before a fight.

“I’m fighting with the crowd,” he said. “I got

to beat them, and enforce my will on them.”

He’s fighting to be able to feel the crowd’s energy, for just between five to 15 minutes.

He’s not always a crowd pleaser. On his third time doing stand up, Not Very Funny went to an open mic event at Crossroads Church. The event mostly featured live musicians, so the audience wasn’t very happy when Harold interrupted the music the crowd was enjoying with shocking, reaction-inducing material that he says was “not very funny.”

“One person. One person in the whole room was laughing.” Harold said with a laugh of his own. “Everyone else was just kind of looking at me with pity.”

Harold is a philosophy major and will graduate in the spring. He’s trying to get a non-comedy related job for next year. For now, performing comedy for a living doesn’t seem feasible to him.

Being a comedian has helped Harold socially; he now finds he has a better sense of what to say and what not to say in conversations.

“A lot of times when someone’s talking to you and you’re just like, ‘Why are they talking? Why are they saying this out loud?’” he said. “I generally keep those thoughts to myself now.” beckerzf@miamioh.edu

New competitionfocused app built for the fans, by the fans MILO LAM

THE MIAMI STUDENT

With less than one month to the season eight premiere, avid “Game of Thrones” fans from all around the world eagerly wait with plenty of predictions: Who will kill the Night King? How many times will Tyrion and Cersei Lannister sip wine on the first episode? If their predictions are right, Emily Dones and Daniel Weintraub want to reward them.

Dones is a Miami alum working to tackle one specific question as the chief design director of Let’s Pick!, a new mobile app: What if there was a way to cast predictions and win prizes on TV show-themed questions and more in a competition with friends and family?

Inspired by the games Weintraub’s college friend group used to play at the University of Maryland, Let’s Pick! gives players the ability to build their own contests about anything they want.

Weintraub, Let’s Pick! CMO, founded the company with Nick Pagliarulo, CEO, and Jason Fleischer, CFO, a week after their college graduation in 2016.

“We were big sports fans and started out creating these games on Google Sheets and Google Docs, starting with March Madness,” Weintraub said. “We were creating these really intricate games that weren’t available online, customizing our own scoring and creating our own rules. We did it for four years and have had so much joy from it and so we realized,‘Why end there?’”

Weintraub and his friends noticed a major opportunity in the saturated fantasy gaming industry: almost 99 percent of platforms were focused on sports. The team built Let’s Pick! with the desire to break from existing fantasy gaming platforms by not restricting users to any one topic or activity.

Let’s Pick! users can either play for free or compete for prizes on the app. For example, if five friends each enter $5 worth of tokens for a Game of Thrones competition, the winner would receive $25 worth of tokens. They can then trade those tokens in for small prizes at the Let’s Pick!

Marketplace, such as a waffle maker or outdoor tennis set, or save up in hopes of accumulating enough tokens to win a bigger prize, such as a pool table, as they continue to play in future contests.

Dones graduated from Miami in 2016 with a degree in architecture and minor in entrepreneurship. She says she’s always had an eye for design and is leaning on her Miami experiences to help build their platform.

“I did multiple startup weekends, designed business models and financial projections,” Dones said. “The professors were amazing and they really drill everything into you, even as far as pitching ideas to real investors.”

Dones was introduced to Weintraub by a fellow Miami alum in 2018. She and Jack Amend, chief development officer, joined the company in the summer of 2018. The whole Let’s Pick! team works to develop their app while also working full-time jobs.

“We all have day jobs,” Weintraub said. “I’m in medical sales, Emily is an engineer, Nick is a production assistant at ESPN, Jason is a CPA in New York City and Jack is a college student double majoring in computer science and mathematics while minoring in dance.”

Weintraub says he is most eager about the impact and potential reach of Let’s Pick! on communities like Miami.

“Let’s Pick! gives everyone the chance to compete, connect and win at their own pace and maybe even just over the dinner table,” he said.

Weintraub believes the potential of Let’s Pick! could impact not only the fantasy gaming and entertainment industry, but also follow the path of platforms like Kahoot, which allows users to implement games into a school’s curriculum to increase student engagement.

Let’s Pick! is currently available on iOS and users can expect updates over the next couple months, in time for the return of shows like American Idol and RuPaul’s Drag Race.

THE MIAMI STUDENT

Before the question of what spirit animal he resonates with was even finished being asked, Harold answered “pelican” enthusiastically.

“They’re goofy looking,” he said. “They can be fun. They can also attack people.”

Harold Rogers is a senior member of Sketch Writing and Acting Group, or S.W.A.G, as well as Not Very Funny, a comedy performance club on campus. If you watch him on stage or listen to his sets, you would never know he’s only been doing stand-up for two years.

Harold’s interest in stand-up was sparked when he was a sophomore at Miami and attended a comedy show put on by Not Very Funny. Harold was intrigued by the club and went home to work on his own material. By the time of Not Very Funny’s spring show, he was performing with them.

Growing up, Harold always liked stand-up and comedies, but he never thought he could perform comedy himself. In school, he would often get in trouble for making jokes during class.

His favorite comedians are Chris Rock, Jerrod Carmichael and Maria Bamford, but when it comes to influences, he wants to have a stage presence like Bernie Mac. “I think being able to be captivating on stage and getting people to pay attention to you is amazing,” Harold said.

Another thing he aims to do during every set is get people to laugh at things that they think they shouldn’t laugh at. He describes his sense of humor as “a little dark” — he thinks sad and terrible things are a little funny, and during his sets, he tries to get other people to think they’re funny, too.

One of his recent jokes he’s been performing is about his grandfather’s recent stroke.

Harold thought his grandpa was just joking, and didn’t do anything to help. His reaction to the emergency now makes him laugh.

Sometimes when he performs, someone from one of his classes will be in the audience.

They’re always surprised to find out that the quiet guy from class is on-stage doing comedy.

“Someone from class will see me perform and be like, ‘You’re funny!’” Harold said.

“They’ll say, ‘You’re not like that in class,’ and I’m like, ‘I know! It’s not the place for it.’”

He performs stand-up once or twice a month at Bar 1868 or Wilks Theater with Not Very Funny. He prefers the bar sets because there are more opportunities for interaction with the crowd.

“At Wilks, if there’s not a lot of people,

CULTURE 9

HAROLD PREFERS AN INTIMATE BAR SCENE TO CONNECT WITH HIS AUDIENCE. THE MIAMI STUDENT SARAH BROSSART

lamvg@miamioh.edu

More than green outfits and alcohol What St. Patrick’s Day is really about MAIA ANDERSON

ASST. CULTURE EDITOR

When many Americans think of St. Patrick’s day, they think of wearing green shirts that say “Kiss me, I’m Irish” and drinking beer. But the holiday is a Catholic tradition in Ireland with a long history that means much more than partying.

Cassidy Steele, a 2018 Miami alum and professional Irish dancer, says that while making and enjoying beer is definitely a part of Irish culture, alcohol does not play as big a role in the holiday as people may think.

“They really don’t drink as much as Americans think,” Steele said. “It became more Americanized and way bigger here to drink all day.”

St. Patrick’s Day came to America along with Irish immigrants and American cities

with large Irish populations began celebrating with parties and parades. Boston, New York City and Chicago have been holding annual parades on March 17, the day St. Patrick is believed to have died, since the 18th century.

Despite the popularity of the holiday in America and countries across the globe, the history and meaning behind it are not widely known outside of Ireland.

St. Patrick is the patron saint of Ireland, who is credited with bringing Christianity to the country in the fifth century. In Ireland, the day is meant to honor St. Patrick and is traditionally celebrated by dancing, drinking and feasting on traditional Irish meals, such as bacon and cabbage.

Steele says that dancing is an integral part of the celebration for St. Patrick’s Day, and of Irish culture in general.

“For some people, it’s just a day they think they can go get plastered, but for us it’s a cel-

ebration of how our art form came to be,” Steele said.

Steele, from an Irish family, says she was “basically dancing out of the womb.” Her mother and siblings are also dancers, and every St. Patrick’s day Steele and her family spend the day performing traditional Irish dance around Cincinnati in bars, schools, nursing homes and community centers, as well as in Cincinnati’s annual St. Patrick’s Day parade.

Steele says celebrations like Green Beer Day don’t generally bother her, but she wishes people were less focused on the stereotypes of Irish culture.

“People should look more into Irish culture so much more than what they are celebrating,” Steele said. “It’s so much more than drinking and wearing green.”

Miami first-year Tati Klinkenbergh also comes from an Irish family with a love for Irish dance. She dances in the St. Patrick’s Day parade every year in Washington D.C., where her family lives.

Klinkenbergh says dance is what excites Irish people on the holiday more than a desire to drink.

“Irish people enjoy watching Irish dancing, and that’s what riles them up, not the drinking,” Klinkenbergh said. “It’s just something they do while they’re watching dancing.

I think others are just blind to other parts of [the holiday].”

For Klinkenbergh, Irish dance serves as a way to express her family’s heritage as well as a reprieve from stresses of everyday life.

“It’s my break and my stress reliever,” Klinkenbergh said. “I just enjoy it because I’m good at it and people like watching me and it makes me happy.”

Steele says the holiday is a day that brings her and her family together to celebrate with one of their favorite activities.

“Irish dancing and music unites people,” she said. ander198@miamioh.edu

Sports

10

SIMANSEC@MIAMIOH.EDU

TUESDAY, MARCH 19, 2019

For men’s swimming and diving, the bakery was open

MEN’S SWIMMING AND DIVING HOISTS THE MID-AMERICAN CONFERENCE TROPHY ON MARCH 7. THE TEAM WON ITS FIRST TITLE IN 13 YEARS THANKS TO ITS TWO MOTTOS. PHOTOS ABOVE AND BELOW COURTESY OF MIAMI ATHLETICS

EMILY SIMANSKIS SPORTS EDITOR

Hollie Bonewit-Cron wanted it to happen, but was still surprised when Miami men’s swimming and diving doused her with ice water to celebrate their Mid-American Conference Championship on Thursday, March 7.

“It was just kind of a nice pat on the back, honestly, just to know we were all in this together,” said Bonewit-Cron, the head coach of both the men’s and the women’s swimming and diving teams.

The MAC Championship was the team’s first since 2006, and the end-of-season celebration was a long time coming. The swimmers’ whoops of joy had been building in their chests since the start of the season – their smiles blooming since the team’s first practice in the fall.

On the first day of the MAC Championship meet, senior swimmer Nikola Andjelic reminded the team of what they had been work-

ing toward and yelled their adopted motto: “The bakery is open.”

The bakery had been open since September, when Andjelic had motivated his teammates with the now-clichéd phrase, “Let’s get this bread.”

“Swimming is such a mental sport, so practices get really grueling and hard,” Andjelic said. “I was always the type of kid who loved having fun at practice. I made up those sayings as kind of a funny way to get my friends and teammates to laugh to get through practice.

“That just turned into, one day, me yelling, ‘Let’s get this bread,’ to the whole team, yelling it to Hollie, mentioning it in some of our meetings like, ‘The bakery was open today, guys.’ That just shot off.”

And when he yelled, “our year,” that phrase stuck, too.

While “the bakery is open” punctuated the team’s excitement, “our year” grounded the RedHawks and lived on their homemade trophy. After the team found an empty plaque, they wrote “2019 MAC

MEN’S CHAMPIONSHIP, ‘OUR YEAR’” and mounted it in the locker room.

The healthy mix of work and play propelled the RedHawks to finish their season 7-2.

“You don’t just come to work, work, work,” Bonewit-Cron said.

“You want to enjoy what you’re doing, so that’s where I found that [the men] really thrive. They practice that in practice. They worked hard every day, but then they found the joy. They would support each other.

They cheer each other on. They banter with each other. They pick on each other in a fun way.”

And the dynamic fueled men’s swimming and diving’s success at the MAC Championships.

The RedHawks finished the first day of the meet ahead of the second-placed Missouri State but built their lead over the next couple of days, finishing first with 326 total points through Tuesday and 623.5 total points through Wednesday.

When they held a 24.5-point lead over Missouri State on Thurs-

day, the RedHawks still needed to “open the bakery” on day four. The divers took it upon themselves to secure the victory.

Senior Harrison Moncino had a feeling he and senior Ryan Nash would out-dive their competitors.

Moncino’s feeling started in his toes and stemmed from his socks.

A sport judged on precision and conformity, diving leaves little room for creativity, but Moncino managed to capture his personality through his socks.

“I would say it’s kind of routine that I like to be somewhat flamboyant and I like to have fun,” Moncino said. “And that’s my way of having fun when we all have to dress the same and look the same. If I can change a little bit of it and show a little bit of my personality, that’s what I like to do.”

So Moncino’s margarita-patterned socks fueled his first-place dives on Tuesday and Thursday, just as the RedHawks’ mottos fueled the team to dominant performances and a sure victory heading into the

last race of the meet – the 400 meter freestyle relay.

“Oh my god,” junior Iago Moussalem said. “I was the last guy in the relay, and when I did the last turn, I knew we were going to win the last relay, and I knew we were winning the meet [...] During the last 25 [meters], everything came to my mind that happened during the year and when we started saying it was ‘our year.’”

After junior Diego Valentim, freshman Nic Wamsley, junior Nick Ward and Moussalem won the relay, the celebration six months in the works exploded from the ’Hawks.

A yelled (instead of sung) version of Miami’s fight song rang out moments before the MAC Championship trophy presentation.

With the team’s season-long dynamic and work ethic, the victory wasn’t shocking to the team or their coach, but Bonewit-Cron’s swimmers and divers had a surprise for her.

They brought out the makeshift plaque, the one made back in September, and gave it to her: “2019 MAC MEN’S CHAMPIONSHIP, ‘OUR YEAR.’” The MAC Championship trophy came out minutes later. Senior swimmers and divers hoisted the trophy above their heads, the team packed the podium and Bonewit-Cron stood to the far left watching her team celebrate as the first female coach in the MAC to coach a men’s team to a championship.

“It feels great,” Bonewit-Cron said. “It also feels rewarding, not only for what I’ve accomplished but who has helped me along the way.

I think that’s what’s most important. I couldn’t be in this position if I didn’t have the mentors or coaching staff that I have now, that can help me along the way to have that type of role.”

The tradition of jumping fully clothed into the pool followed and, when everyone had climbed out, seniors Jake Precious and James Wray bathed Bonewit-Cron with ice water.

Twelve days later, their clothes have dried, mandatory practices have stopped for all except those competing in voluntary national and international meets and championship rings have been ordered.

For now, the bakery is closed until next season. simansec@miamioh.edu @emilysimanskis

NO. 1 ST. CLOUD STATE KICKS MIAMI HOCKEY FROM NCHC TOURNAMENT EMILY SIMANSKIS SPORTS EDITOR

“We’re the eighth-placed team.

There’s no pressure on us,” Miami head coach Enrico Blasi said last Monday. “We’re expected to lose, right? We’ve got to go and play our A-game.”

Though the RedHawks were expected to lose to No. 1 St. Cloud State, spurts of their A-game gave the Huskies trouble this weekend.

“I don’t think [the losses were] from lack of effort – a couple of plays that we might have wanted to execute a little bit differently – but other than that, I thought we were right there with them,” Blasi said.

But, ultimately, SCSU kicked Miami hockey from the National Collegiate Hockey Conference Tournament, handed the RedHawks their seventh series sweep and their 22nd and 23rd losses.

By way of those 5-2 and 6-1 losses, the RedHawks’ postseason run ended less than 24 hours after it started. The weekend, which was marked by an unsuccessful power play and a slew of shots allowed, looked like much of Miami’s (11-234, 5-17-2 NCHC) season — its fourth consecutive season under .500.

“As a team, we came out and battled hard,” junior forward Karch Bachman said. “We gave ourselves

a chance both nights. We were in both of those games. We had a couple mistakes that cost us, and, at this point in the season, against a team like that, every mistake hurts you. Every play counts. It was just a tough weekend for us.”

The RedHawks and the Huskies (29-4-3, 19-2-3 NCHC) are no stranger to postseason matchups, as SCSU ended the ’Hawks’ season last year in game three of the bestof-three series.

This year, the Huskies took game one, and Miami surrendered three goals in the third period on Saturday night, failing to force a decisive game three.

“At the end of the day, we weren’t getting the job done in the third period,” Blasi said.

The third period decided both games this weekend, as it has all season. Friday and Saturday were the 21st and 22nd games this season when the RedHawks started the third period either tied or playing with a one-goal differential.

Entering the third period on Friday night, the RedHawks faced only a 3-2 deficit before the Huskies added two goals to secure the victory.

And starting the final 20 minutes of play on Saturday, Miami and St. Cloud were tied 2-2 before SCSU outscored MU 4-1 in the final frame.

The ’Hawks only took two penalties on Friday against St. Cloud’s

nationally-ranked No. 9 power play, killing one of them. And Miami gave itself a chance to complete the comeback with a perfect 5-for-5 on the penalty kill on Saturday.

But the RedHawks’ lack of success on their own power play during the weekend (0-for-5) failed to provide much needed goals against the No. 1 team in the country. MU’s man-advantage finishes with a 15.6 percent success rate on the year.

“I thought our PK did a great job against the top power play in the country and our power play had some really good looks, but we just weren’t able to capitalize,” Blasi said.

Further stunting Miami’s offense, the Huskies outshot the ’Hawks 37-25 on Friday night and 45-21 on Saturday night. Of the RedHawks’ last 29 games, they have allowed at least 30 shots in 24 of them.

Junior goaltender Ryan Larkin stopped 32 pucks on Friday and 39 on Saturday.

Other heroes from the weekend include senior defenseman River Rymsha, who finished Friday with one goal and one assist, and junior forward Karch Bachman, who had two goals on Saturday for his second career two-goal game.

“In terms of Saturday, yeah, it was nice that I found my offensive touch a little bit there, but at the end

JUNIOR GOALTENDER RYAN LARKIN STOPPED 71 SHOTS AGAINST ST. CLOUD STATE THIS WEEKEND. SCSU ATHLETICS MADDIE MACFARLANE

of the day, that’s not something you focus on,” Bachman said. “When you lose and the season’s over, there’s really nothing to do with your individual game.”

Sophomore forward Ben Lown tallied one goal and one assist over the two games, while sophomore defenseman Alec Mahalak had two assists.

Rymsha, forwards Josh Melnick and Ryan Siroky and defenseman Grant Hutton all skated in their final collegiate hockey games in the Red and White jersey. Goaltender Jordan Uhelski and forward Zach LaValle will also hang up their colle-

giate hockey skates after the weekend.

“It’s not the weekend we were looking for,” Bachman said. “It’s not the way that we wanted to send out our senior class. This is the first class in a while that hasn’t won a championship at Miami. So, it’s frustrating for us, but it’s not something we can dwell on. For the rest of us here, we’re already forward looking and try to see what we can do next year.” simansec@miamioh.edu @emilysimanskis

SIMANSEC@MIAMIOH.EDU

SPORTS 11

TUESDAY, MARCH 19, 2019

MEN’S BASKETBALL ‘RIGHT ON PAR’ AFTER OWENS’ SECOND SEASON

JUNIOR FORWARD BAM BOWMAN ATTEMPTS A LAYUP AGAINST OHIO. BOWMAN WAS AN INTEGRAL PART OF THE REDHAWKS’ SEASON. THE MIAMI STUDENT MATT HECKERT

CHRIS VINEL

ASST. SPORTS EDITOR

The Miami RedHawks endured a blowout defeat to end their season, but that shouldn’t define the year as a whole, head coach Jack Owens said.

With the 80-51 loss to the Akron Zips in the first round of the Mid-American Conference Tournament on March 11, the season didn’t finish where the RedHawks had hoped.

They won’t go to a postseason invitational tournament.

“We could’ve done those things, but we’re too banged up right now,” Owens said. “We have back issues from a couple guys. Obviously, if you’re going to the NCAA Tourna-

ment or the NIT (National Invitation Tournament), you’d do it. But, we’re banged up.”

Regardless of the final landing spot, Owens’ players made strides throughout the year.

“I think we were right on par,” Owens said. “With the injury to [sophomore guard Isaiah Coleman-Lands] and things like that, once the season got going, we knew it was going to be a challenge because of our lack of depth at the guard and shooting.”

Coleman-Lands, an integral part of Miami’s 2017-2018 squad, played just five games due to a leg injury. As the RedHawks’ top returning 3-point shooter, he was sorely missed, as their shooting percentage from deep fell to 32.3 percent from 34.3 percent a season ago.

“I do [think a healthy Coleman-Lands would’ve given the team a boost],” Owens said. “He’s a guy that some people might look and say, ‘He’s not a starter or this and that.’ But he’s a big piece to what we had going on because he can play multiple positions, and he shoots 40 percent from three. But he also knows the game and has that understanding.”

The minutes vacated by Coleman-Lands were picked up by a host of other Miami guards. Redshirt senior Abdoulaye Harouna, redshirt sophomore Milos Jovic and freshman Mekhi Lairy were the main beneficiaries, with all three averaging over 10 minutes a game.

None of them played a single minute for the RedHawks last season.

When Coleman-Lands went down for good right before the start of MAC play, Miami was trending in a positive direction. The RedHawks finished their out-of-conference schedule with eight wins for the first time since 1995-1996.

After his injury, they struggled.

Miami lost its first four MAC games before finally pulling out a victory over Akron.

“I thought we were giving up — I know we were giving up a lot of points, 80-plus points,” Owens said.

“I think the stretch after that, we really bought in, and the guys really defended well.”

The RedHawks finished the season as the fourth-best defensive team in their league, allowing 69.8 points per game.

Including the Akron victory, Miami rattled off three consecutive victories to leap back into contention. At the start of the run, Owens inserted Harouna into the starting lineup and made sophomore guard Jalen Adaway the sixth man — typically Coleman-Lands’ role.

Adaway’s minutes dropped by almost four minutes a contest, and his points declined by a point a game.

He took 33 less shots than his freshman campaign.

On Friday, Adaway announced on social media that he will transfer this offseason.

Aside from Adaway’s slight dropoff, many of the other RedHawks struggled with consistency.

The team went 4-8 after the threegame win streak and lost their last four games, including the MAC Tournament matchup with Akron.

“Overall, we have to become more

Women’s basketball receives WNIT bid

consistent,” Owens said. “I think we’ll get that. We have a mixture of young guys and some older guys, but our young guys have been the core since we’ve gotten here. Hopefully, those guys, who are becoming juniors, will be able to provide the leadership and things we’ve talked about and tried to establish right away.”

Two of the rising juniors Owens referenced were guard Nike Sibande and forward Dalonte Brown.

Both faced up-and-down periods throughout the season but finished as Miami’s two leading scorers and two of the top three rebounders.

But if one player’s refinement defined the season and gave hope for the future, it was Bam Bowman’s. The junior forward paced the team in rebounding and was its third-leading scorer. Other than his last two games, when he scored a combined three points, Bowman became a go-to offensive weapon in the post.

“I thought Bam was the most improved guy in our league, if you ask me,” Owens said. “I know his last two games didn’t go the way he’d probably like, but Bam improved more than anyone as a complete player. Offensively and defensively, I just thought he got better and better.”

Owens says he expects this season to help the RedHawks’ devel-

opment going forward. His teams’ records have both been two games below .500 in each of his first two seasons in Oxford.

“I think our team will definitely learn from this year,” Owens said.

“Hopefully, it’ll help us in the future because the league was older and things like that.” vinelca@miamioh.edu @ChrisAVine

REDSHIRT SENIOR GUARD ABDOULAYE HAROUNA BECAME A STARTER IN JANUARY. THE MIAMI STUDENT MACY WHITAKER

WEDNESDAY

WOMEN’S BASKETBALL Toledo ………………………. 54 Miami …………………..….. 72 FRIDAY

WOMEN’S BASKETBALL Miami ……….…..……...… 48 Ohio ……………………..…. 74

SOFTBALL Austin Peay ……………….. 4 Miami ……………….……… 1

BASEBALL St. Bonaventure …..…....... 10 Miami ………………...……. 18

The RedHawks’ season isn’t over.

SATURDAY

After accepting an invitation to play in the Women’s National Invitation Tournament, they are set to host Western Kentucky on Thursday. Tipoff time will be announced tonight.

BASEBALL St. Bonaventure …….……. 6 Miami …………………...…. 7

SOFTBALL Michigan State …..……….. 12 Miami ………………......… 2

SOFTBALL Austin Peay ……………….. 2 Miami ……………….……… 6

’Hawks Talk “Obviously, Melnick and Hutton are looking to move on and play pro hockey this year. I think those guys are focused on that now that the season is over. I think Melnick’s really close to signing with an NHL team [...] and I think Hutton is as well.” ⁃⁃ head coach Enrico Blasi predicting Miami hockey’s Josh Melnick and Grant Hutton will soon play professional hockey.

TENNIS Wright State …....…..….... 1 Miami …………………..….. 6 SUNDAY

BASEBALL St. Bonaventure …..….…. 0 Miami ……………….……. 8

SOFTBALL Dayton ……….……….….. 0 Miami …………….….…… 8

Opinion

12

BURNSKL2@MIAMIOH.EDU

TUESDAY, MARCH 19, 2019 STAFF EDITORIAL

A new disciplinary system needs student representation A jury of your peers cannot be relegated to just a phrase The following reflects the majority opinion of the editorial board.

There are major changes being proposed to Miami University’s disciplinary system that, if they are approved in April, will impact the way students are punished for their actions.

The university is currently rewriting major portions of the Code of Student Conduct in order to reshape the structure of the disciplinary system. Starting next year, Miami’s Student Court will be abolished. The disciplinary board will be rebranded as a new “Love and Honor Board,” and there will be a new process for handling cases not punishable by suspension.

For more information about how this new system will work, flip to the front page and check out our news coverage.

While this proposed system could make the disciplinary process a lot simpler and allow students to appeal low-

er-level violations (something we cannot do under the current system), it’s not without its flaws. Namely, the planned recruitment efforts for the University Appeals Board and the Love and Honor Board reduce student representation. Before the Office of Community Standards (OCS) determines whether or not to appoint student representatives or require an application, we suggest they implement a system where students are allowed to openly elect justices.

While the traditional process may work for OCS, it does not work for the students who will be tried before these boards. Students deserve a say in the justices who will be appointed to the courts that will ultimately determine how they are disciplined.

We want to have a say in who is appointed to these boards because we deserve an empathetic and responsible disciplinary process that includes the voices of our peers.

This would encourage a more transparent vetting process of the justices, as they would face an election process similar to students running for Associated Student Government (ASG). Electing justices also gives them legitimacy because it says that their judgement and authority is valued by the student body who will be brought before them.

The second issue with the system is that students facing non-suspendable violations, such as alcohol infractions, have only one option, which is a one-on-one meeting with

Living well is the best revenge

BEN FINFROCK OPINION EDITOR

I am obsessed with the concept of revenge.

Not the type of revenge you see in westerns, where someone ends up injured or killed for their actions, or the “Mean Girls” idea of revenge, where Regina George exposes Cady Heron to their entire school for all the mean things she said. I’m obsessed with a different kind of revenge, and this kind is a lot more fun.

In her 2016 hit “Formation,” Beyoncé sang, “Always stay gracious/best revenge is your paper.” She meant that it is better to be gracious then catty, and that revenge is better when you become more successful than those who hurt you. For the past three years, this has been my life motto, because this type of revenge is always better than the kind where someone ends up hurt or embarrassed.

This type of revenge is amazing because as you thrive and live your best life, you get to watch those who hurt you stay the same raggedy people who are ugly inside and out.

You never have to lift a finger to be petty.

Rather, you get to watch as karma does its thing. It’s knowing that you’re doing great, and they cannot stand it.

Allow me to offer an example of how I have tried to practice this kind of revenge in my own life.

A few days before my senior prom, I had an embarrassing interaction with one of the faculty members at my high school (I am not going to say their name or position because I know they keep tabs on former students).

This person came up to me and said that I was “looking a little thin.” They expressed their concern for my appearance and started asking questions about my workout habits and diet.

The truth was that I had lost a significant amount of weight, but not from starvation.

I was keeping a consistent workout schedule, had gone vegetarian and was eating healthier than before. But when I tried to explain myself, they did not believe me and advised me to stop or control what I was doing — which is what made their comments so hurtful and embarrassing. They were expressing concern over an appearance that I felt confident about.

So, here’s how I got revenge. That night I had to go pick up my tux for prom, and I knew that they would be one of the chaper-

grad

FEST

Hosted by Brick & Ivy Campus Stores & Herff Jones

ones. As I was getting fitted in my navy-blue Calvin Klein tux, I asked the tailor to tighten it as much as possible and replaced the blue vest I was going to wear with suspenders and a bow tie.

When I walked into prom the following Saturday night, I felt confident as hell. Some of their colleagues even complimented my look. I even caught the person I had a crush on at the time checking me out. I know this particular faculty member noticed me, and they did not need to say anything, because I got my very subtle revenge through looking my best. I felt good about myself, and I did not need their approval.

To this day, I always advise my friends to ignore those who hurt them because revenge is so much sweeter when they just live their best lives. Instead of writing a mean text to the guy who treated you like crap last year, or flipping out at the girl who slut-shamed you, just ignore them because they are not worth your breath.

Put on a cute outfit, hit the town with your best friends and make them jealous because they are probably sitting at home anyway.

Live your life, get good grades, acquire lots of money and succeed in spite of them. Because when you get where you’re going, it will be because of the people who loved and

We have to focus on bettering ourselves and becoming kinder and more successful people. supported you through thick and thin.

We, as a culture, are too obsessed with the “Mean Girls” kind of revenge, because in the age of Twitter clapbacks, we glorify being petty as it gives us more immediate satisfaction. But while that petty clapback may be funny on Twitter and make you feel good in the moment, in the long run you just look like you’re stooping down to their level.

We need to stop responding to these people’s hurtful comments, because all we are doing is giving them the satisfaction that their words and actions bothered us and got under our skin. We have to focus on bettering ourselves and becoming kinder and more successful people.

In the moment, it might not feel like the best option. But when you’re scrolling through Instagram one day and you find a picture of them looking bad and still making mean remarks, you will get the satisfaction that you did indeed win. finfrobd@miamioh.edu

a staff member of OCS or the Office of Residence Life (ORL). They are not allowed a meeting and/or hearing with student input unless they appeal that staff member’s decision to the University Appeals Board.

The proposed system needs to have an option for students facing non-suspendable offenses that includes representation from their peers before they reach an appeal process. It is only fair that a student being charged with a Code of Student Conduct violation have a fellow peer, who understands the student experience, be involved in the adjudication system from the onset.

Finally, the Office of Community Standards must be more open with students about disciplinary changes that could have serious effect on their lives. While it’s good that OCS involved focus groups and sought student input, most of the student body is unaware of the proposed system.

Making these changes to the new system, as well as incorporating more transparency from OCS, will allow the student body to be more informed about these changes and a disciplinary system which works for the student body.

The old system was needlessly complicated and difficult to understand, and in order to prevent the new system from becoming as flawed, more changes need to be made.

Wealthy parents need to Cut. It. Out. ANNA MINTON STYLE EDITOR

Everyday, when I wake up and look at Twitter, it gives me a massive headache.

Shane Dawson just got in trouble for humping his cat, people don’t think that Cassie is really in love with Colton and Donald Trump thought Tim Cook’s name was Tim Apple.

Conflict and petty drama saturate social media and the news cycle everyday. It makes me wonder, where did the simple life go?

Whatever happened to predictability? The milkman, the paperboy, the evening TV? They probably all disappeared when Aunt Becky poured out half a million dollars to get her daughters on a fake boat club so that they could get into college.

Lori Loughlin, best known for her role as Aunt Becky on the shows “Full House” and the reboot “Fuller House,” was recently charged for bribing the University of Southern California to get her children into college. She allegedly paid $500,000 for her children to be admitted as rowing crew recruits, when neither one of them ever participated in the sport.

This bribe itself is over twice the amount that out-of-state tuition would cost to go to USC for four years.

According to a release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Boston, Massachusetts, over 50 people were involved in this cheating and bribery scandal worldwide. Some of the colleges involved include Yale, Stanford, Wake Forest and Georgetown, just to name a few.

What people are even more upset about — other than the cheating and lying — is that Loughlin’s daughter, Youtuber Olivia Jade, has said many times on her Youtube channel that she isn’t really interested in her academics. She stated that she wanted to get the “college experience,” which, to her, included football games and parties, while focusing on her videos and brands. She claimed that she “didn’t really want to go to class,” and often joked about never going to class in high school either.

All I can say is, “How rude.” Does she realize what opportunity she has received?

College admissions is one of the most stressful processes that young people can go through. There are students that alter their entire life, just to join one club that might make them a more viable candidate for a particular university. Then, waiting months on end to find out whether or not you have

been accepted. And then determining where you are going to spend the next four, and arguably the most important, years of your adult life.

It’s an anxiety-filled process, and Olivia Jade just got a free fast pass out of the stress, and she can’t even comprehend it. She has 1.9 million subscribers on Youtube, multiple brand deals and has collaborated with Sephora on creating her own makeup products. She is a celebrity in every right, but she still does not comprehend that her life and lack of struggles are not the norm.

However, not all the blame should fall on Olivia’s ingratitude. Her mother often talked about Olivia’s attitude toward her schoolwork, joking about “all the money” she paid for her daughter’s education. Loughlin was completely aware of her daughter’s attitude and priorities, and still decided to force her way into the university, taking someone’s spot who might have actually wanted to be there.

One easy way this could have been avoided was if Olivia had not gone to USC at all. She could have taken online classes and lived close to USC’s campus. This way, she could have gotten her “college experience” that she dreamed of, and not have taken away the college dream from another hopeful student. And don’t say her mother couldn’t have afforded it, since she did pay half a million dollars for the opportunity to pay for a tiny room in a residence hall.

Regardless, this scandal brings up an important discussion about the outlook on wealth in society. It specifically brings up an issue of wealthy parents trying to help their children cheat the system. Lori Loughlin could have spent that $500,000 on SAT or ACT prep classes or tutors to help her daughter get into college. Olivia could have actually joined the crew team, and the money could have gone for a coach or private lessons.

All of these are perfectly legitimate options, but Loughlin and her daughter decided they weren’t already fortunate enough, and had to get even more ahead of the system.

Instead of working hard, the two of them decided to skip the line, and pay their way into a position they didn’t deserve.

Because of their selfish choices, Lori Loughlin was dropped by both Fuller House and the Hallmark Channel, and a judge recently set her bail at $1 million. She is blacklisted in Hollywood and Loughlin and her husband could both face time in prison.

Have mercy, indeed. mintona2@miamioh.edu

Check out Miami Catering's

OXFORD CAMPUS

GradtoGo Packages at GradFest!

Cel eb rate, Lea r n , and SAV E at G ra d Fest

Miami Catering is offering 15% off GradtoGo orders if you chose pick-up instead of delivery!

Dolibois Room | Shriver Center April 2 & 3 from 10:00AM–6:00PM

Fo o d • G i ve aways 2 0 % off D ip lo m a Fra m e s & C a p s & G ow ns !