December 9, 2016 | The Miami Student

ESTABLISHED 1826 — OLDEST COLLEGE NEWSPAPER WEST OF THE ALLEGHENIES

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 9, 2016

Volume 145 №26

Miami’s endowment sees $12 million loss

Dear World offers speechless inspiration

Negative investment returns affect scholarships

DIVERSITY

ANNA BOLONE

MONEY

THE MIAMI STUDENT

Dear World, the interactive portrait project aimed at uniting people through pictures in a message-onskin style, came to Miami University on Dec. 8 for portraits and live storytelling.

The event is one that interactively approaches reflections such as, “Who am I?” or “Who do I want to be?” and in particular, “How is this seen at Miami University?”

The social project started in New Orleans in 2009 and has expanded its platform all around the world.

Dear World is touring at colleges and universities such as Miami so that students can consider their personal stories but also so that they can become more unified with other students on campus through sharing story messages.

People were encouraged to tell a story through their pictures by writing on their skin the words they felt best defined their individual narrative.

Ellie Witter, the assistant director of the Performing Arts Service, said Dear World was not just about embracing short messages written on the body, though.

“It also seeks the story behind the story — the lived life that informs a line scrawled on a face, palm or forearm,” Witter said.

“Come celebrate individuals and their stories in all of their diversity and learn something about a friend, colleague, or stranger who in a small way is no longer a stranger for having told their story.”

While talking about personal backgrounds is one of the highlights of Dear World, there is also a component of embracing uniqueness and diversity at Miami.

Messages of Dear World are often inspirational, hopeful and show growth and perception. Scott Walter, Miami’s assistant vice president of student affairs, is hoping that #DearMiamiOH, the hashtag used when sharing these portraits, will show not only the identity of Miami and Oxford, but also how that looks on a grand scale.

“As part of the Performing Arts Series, Dear World is one of many venues for students, staff, faculty and the Oxford community to experience the arts,” Walter said. “Dear World offers participants a unique way to express and celebrate their message and hopefully expand conversation on campus around issues.”

The portrait session took place in the Shade Family

Miami University — Oxford, Ohio

JAMES STEINBAUER EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

HEATHER MCCOWAN THE MIAMI STUDENT

Katie Greenman, the manager of Dear World’s College Tour, shoots a portrait of a Miami student at Thursday’s event. where upwards of 400 students posed for photos.

The investment returns on Miami University’s endowment pools lost an estimated $12 million dollars for the 2016 fiscal year, according to a report from the Board of Trustees Finance and Audit Committee.

“There will be a small number of endowed funds where this diminishes what they will do,” Miami’s Vice President of Finance and Business Services David Creamer said. “There won’t be normal

distributions occurring from those endowments.”

The loss will affect five major endowments that would have distributed about $193,000 for faculty development and more than $291,000 in scholarships.

Unlike a gift, which can be used all at once or until the money runs out, an endowment allows the university to provide benefits for students in perpetuity.

So when Miami receives money to create an endowment for a scholarship, it never taps in to that money.

ENDOWMENT »PAGE 2

MU Board of Trustees meets this morning GOVERNANCE

MEGAN ZAHNEIS NEWS EDITOR

RYAN TERHUNE PHOTO EDITOR

First-year Heather McCowan poses with her message, “be YOU. echo YOU,” at the Dear World portrait shoot in the Armstrong Student Center.

Faculty reflects on Fidel’s death INTERNATIONAL

EMILY WILLIAMS

MANAGING EDITOR

On Sunday, Dec. 4, the remains of Fidel Castro were placed into a crevice in a large, boulder-like crypt. The structure was unadorned except for a single sign — a metal plate that reads, “FIDEL.” The final resting place of Castro, who stood at the helm of the first communist state in the Western hemi-

sphere for almost 50 years, is in Santiago de Cuba, the same city where the Cuban Revolution began in 1959.

His crypt sits in the shadow of an 85-foot mausoleum dedicated to the “Prophet of the Cuban Revolution,” poet, journalist and revolutionary Jose Marti.

The death of the 90-yearold former leader has prompted a wave of mixed reactions, from celebratory parades in Miami, Florida to a somber tribute in Havana’s

WORLD »PAGE 2

Revolution Square.

Gerardo Brown-Manrique, an architecture professor and coordinator for the Urban Design minor at Miami University, lived in Cuba for part of his childhood.

Brown-Manrique’s father worked for the Cuban government as part of Castro’s treasury department.

He disagreed with Castro’s nationalization of housing and, eventually, was sent as CASTRO »PAGE 2

JACK EVANS NEWS EDITOR

Miami University’s Board of Trustees is expected to approve $13 million in funding for renovations to Shriver Center and the Campus Avenue Building (CAB) during its meeting Friday morning. Also on the docket is a proposed 2 to 3.5 percent increase in room and board charges that would apply to current sophomores and juniors as well as the Class of 2021. $9.5 million in construction costs will be allocated to Shriver Center, which has been undergoing an initial round of renovations this

semester that will allow Student Disability Services and the Rinella Learning Center to move in, relocating from the lower level of CAB, in January 2017.

The Board of Trustees will vote to approve the $9.5 million budget for the second and final stage of Shriver renovations, set to take place from August 2017 to May 2018. That project will see Shriver house a new, centralized mail center that will support an online book-buying model, as well as modifications to the university bookstore and facelifts for several individual rooms.

Work on the CAB basement is estimated to cost the TRUSTEES »PAGE 2

ASG blocks bill to limit audio, video recording

MU veterans’ memorial to be built on campus

ASG

CAMPUS

SARAH CAMINO

GRACE MOODY

THE MIAMI STUDENT

SENIOR STAFF WRITER

The Miami Associated Student Government (ASG) held its final meeting of the year Thursday, Dec. 8, voting on bills to limit audio and video recording during Senate meetings and to replace Columbus Day with Indigenous People’s Day. There has always been an implicit understanding of courtesy surrounding audio and video recording, but the bylaws had never clarified the precise nature of this expectation, said Parliamentarian and co-author of the recording bill, Trevor Snyder. Nevertheless, Snyder assured the legislative body that the written permission required by the bill would nearly always be granted.

Nearly 200 years ago, a group of Miami students in the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) received uniforms to go fight in the U.S. Civil War. Together, these students walked to the Oxford train station. From there, they took the train to Cincinnati to split up: some going to the north and some the south.

Miami has approximately 8,000 graduates who are military veterans, 2,200 living graduates of the Naval ROTC program and more involved in the current ROTC program.

To recognize and honor these veterans – past, present and future – the ROTC Alumni Organization is creating the Miami University

ASG »PAGE 5

MEMORIAL »PAGE 2

CULTURE p. 3

EDITORIAL p. 6

OP-ED p. 7

SPORTS p. 8

ONLINE

CHILDISH GAMBINO DITCHES RAP

A LOOK BACK AT 2016

THE AGE OF THE LAPTOP: A REPRISE

HOCKEY RETURNS TO OXFORD

WHAT IF DAR NOW OPEN TO STUDENTS

On “Awaken My Love!”

Donald Glover’s skill is finally realized.

If people can rally around these goals, we can all start the new year fresh.

“It is already too late, and it will go on getting even later.”

Winless since October, the ’Hawks face Colorado College at home.

The tool, formerly only open to advisers, is ready for use.

RE CY CLE

2 NEWS

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 9, 2016

FROM WORLD »PAGE 1

Room in Armstrong on Thursday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Upwards of 400 portraits were taken, a number that is well above the norm for Dear World’s collegiate events. The Keynote Portrait Reveal took place in Wilks Theater later that evening.

I attended the Dear World Portrait shoot early Thursday morning, expecting to talk to some students about what words they were thinking of choosing for their photoshoot. But then, I decided to go through the process myself.

There weren’t too many people at 9:30 in the morning, but as I stayed longer at the event, more people came by.

There were tables set up with dry-erase markers for skin-style writing, little pieces of paper with keywords to help people think of a story and example images of what people in the past have done. In front of the tables was the ongoing photoshoot, complete with stools, black screens and even specific markings for where to stand in the picture.

At first, I was nervous. How could I think of something to define the story of my life? What was one story that best defined me?

There are lots of stories that define me. It turns out, I was not the only one caught in this predicament.

Many people were openly considering what phrase best captured their character.

And where would I write this phrase? On my arm, hands, or even my face? I opted for hands because I felt like they would be able to present something bold in front of the camera.

While thinking about what to write on my hands, I met senior Ellen O’Neill.

“I think at Miami as a whole you see what the surface holds, but you never know what is beneath,” O’Neill said.

She proceeded to her photoshoot after I helped write “NOT MY PAST” on her arm.

When I finally decided what to write on my hands after talking to some of the hosts of the program, I came across Elly Cross, a freshman.

“I think it definitely lets people open up and share their stories and be comfortable sharing their stories without feeling judged,” Cross said.

We talked about being freshmen at Miami and dealing with the transition between highschool and college. She helped me write down my own words on my hands with a dry-erase marker. “BE FREE.” I walked to where the photoshoot was taking place, folding my hands into a bird-like shape. The camera flashed, and my message was captured.

Later that night, I attended the Dear World Live Storytelling Event and Portrait Reveal in Wilks Theater.

The presentation started with a look at impactful pictures from around the world and in the United States, including children in refugee camps and runners in the Boston Marathon. They were stories of hope that captured people of all ages.

As the presentation went on, stories from Miami became more evident. Certain individuals got on stage and presented the meaning behind their skin-style phrases.

They were stories that got to the heart of truly being an inclusive college community. At the end of the presentation, we were able to see the product of this community: a 15-minute montage reveal of the collective stories photographed throughout the past two days.

As I saw my own picture flash across the screen during the montage, I realized that being a freshman at college or simply a person in a new place is something that was shared by many of the students, faculty and community members in the audience. Every picture had a unique and essential narrative to go along with it, and Miami wouldn’t be the same without them.

FROM CASTRO »PAGE 1

a diplomat to Indonesia — far from Havana — too far to contradict Castro and his ideas. Exiled, Brown-Manrique’s father moved to the United States to be with his family.

“He was better off sent away than to prison,” Brown-Manrique said.

His father passed away this year, in January, at the age of 99.

“We’ve talked about this irony of both of them dying in the same calendar year.”

Juan Carlos Albarran, a lecturer for Miami’s Global and Intercultural Studies Department, collected an oral history from Brown-Manrique’s father about his years in Cuba. Albarran was born and raised in the Chinatown area of Havana, right in the core of the city, a working-class neighborhood.

Albarran noted a generational divide in how Cubans perceive Castro and the Cuban government.

Albarran’s grandfather died believing in the revolution, even though, at the time, he was living off of remittances sent from his family living in the United States.

“My dad, educated on the Revolution, believed in it, but died very disappointed,” Albarran said. “My generation, while we understand education and health care, also wanted to be individuals.”

He moved to the United States to join his family when he was in his twenties, during the Special Period — a time of economic crisis in Cuba following the dissolve of the Soviet Union.

“I wanted to build a future for my own,” Albarran said.

He wanted to go back to school and open his own business, but after moving to Tucson, Ariz., he started volunteering in Latin American communities and went on to earn a graduate degree in Latin American studies.

Albarran found that after he was physically separated from his country, he became more engaged in its music, literature and history than he ever had before. When he was in Cuba, Albarran said, he wanted to read and learn about everything outside of Cuba, but, since leaving, he’s always felt himself trapped between two worlds.

“I always put all things in the context of me being a Cuban,” Albarran said.

Albarran has played an integral

FROM MEMORIAL »PAGE 1

Alumni Veteran’s Tribute to be installed on Miami’s Oxford campus.

The tribute will be built between Campus Avenue Building and Wells Hall. It will recognize and honor between 8,000 and 9,000 Miami alumni who have served in all five branches of military service. Of those thousands, approximately 160 were either killed in action (KIA) or missing in action (MIA), according to David Lawrence, a 1964 Miami graduate and Navy veteran.

Lawrence and fellow Miami graduate and Navy veteran Dave Miller have been working together, along with a committee of fellow alumni veterans, to plan the tribute.

The initial idea, Miller said, stemmed from four years ago when he brought it up to the ROTC Alumni Organization.

“We delved into the history of Miami University and found that we didn’t have anything instrumental in recognizing the history of our country, both in veterans’ service, as well as their own sacrifices of lives to our country,” Miller said.

The tribute will serve as a focal point of Miami’s campus, Miller said.

“These people have served our country to make Miami an idyllic place that we all enjoy but we really don’t recognize, perhaps, what it takes to make that happen,” Miller said.

The project was truly energized when Rowan Hall, a 1946 building that housed the Navy ROTC program, was repurposed as the Shade Family Room in the Armstrong Student Center, Lawrence said.

Two anchors, currently placed on the front of the Armstrong Student Center, create a small memorial to

NEWS@MIAMISTUDENT.NET

role, along with professor Melanie Ziegler, in developing Miami’s “Cuba in Transition” study abroad trip. The inaugural trip was held in January 2014.

Albarran has since led multiple trips and said he has seen a noticeable change in the students’ attitudes, especially after President Obama and Raul Castro, who took his older brother’s position as president in 2008, announced that the United States intended to start normalizing relations with the island nation in December 2014.

“Students were very apprehensive in the beginning,” Albarran said. “But, increasingly, as they saw other universities go there, they have felt more comfortable. There isn’t that element of fear anymore.”

The Cuba Albarran sees with his students is very different, though, from the Cuba he sees on personal trips to visit relatives.

“As a tourist it removes you from the daily aspects of the Cuban people,” he said. “For me now with students, I go as a tourist. I see a Cuba that is very sanitized.”

Ziegler, a senior lecturer in Miami’s Global and Intercultural Studies department, has traveled to Cuba 10 times. Her first trip was in 1995, during Bill Clinton’s presidency when citizens were permitted travel to Cuba for “people-to-people” excursions for educational or religious purposes.

At that time, it was assumed by many that Cuba was about to collapse, and Ziegler had to have a chance to see it.

Ziegler’s fixation on Cuba started when her family bought their first television set. On that television set, she saw two very different Cuban men — actor Ricky Ricardo, her first crush, the “Babalu”-singing, joke-cracking star of the sitcom “I Love Lucy,” and Fidel Castro, a stern, bearded figure, angrily pointing his finger at America through its television sets.

The contrast fascinated her.

“Cuba was always on my mind,” Ziegler said. “It’s always been about Cuba.”

Ziegler said throughout the years, she has seen an ebb and flow of hope, fear, uncertainty and progress on the island. There was fear when Castro’s health was declining, hope when the United States elected Barack Obama, progress in the improvements made to the tourism infrastructure after Ameri-

cans started to make the 45-minute flight from Miami to Havana again.

Since 1962, the United States has maintained a comprehensive embargo on Cuba. Recently, the push to normalize relations with Cuba has increased hope that there could be an eventual end to the embargo.

In the course of a month, though, the Cuban people saw the death of the leader of the Cuban Revolution and the election of Donald Trump.

President-elect Trump stated in a tweet that, if Cuba did not make a “better deal,” he would “terminate” the current arrangement.

Cuban American Mauricio Claver Carone, a harsh critic of President Obama’s efforts to normalize relations with Cuba and a staunch supporter of the United States’ embargo on Cuba has also joined Trump’s administration. That, Ziegler said, is an unquestionable recipe for uncertainty for the Cuban people.

One thing that surprised Ziegler, she said, was the news coverage she saw after Castro’s death on November 25.

“I was surprised how quickly the television coverage seemed like 1962 again,” Ziegler said. “Fidel Castro was shown as a caricature — a brutal dictator, a thug. ‘How many decades has this been?’ I thought.”

Most Americans lack an understanding of Cuban history, Ziegler said, and the United States’ role in that narrative — a history that is necessary to understand the contradictions wrapped up in Castro’s Cuba.

“There’s an element of nostalgia there, a preconceived notion of old cars and cigars. It’s more complex than that, a challenge to understand, like any other society,” Albarran said.

Brown-Manrique had a friend while he was growing up in Cuba who wouldn’t say Castro’s name.

Instead, she would call him “the bearded one.”

“Yes Fidel was a terrible person, a dictator, an autocrat. He oppressed [Cubans] and kept them from leaving,” Brown-Manrique said. “But he gave them free education, free healthcare.”

How Castro will ultimately be remembered, by Cubans and by the rest of the world, will depend on perspective, Brown-Manrique said.

“It will depend on who writes the history.”

alumni graduates who were KIA or MIA. “From that impetus it said, ‘Why just do this for the navy?’” Lawrence said. “‘Why not do this for all Miami alumni veterans?’”

Miller and Lawrence’s goal is to create a tribute for not just those veterans who were KIA or MIA, but all Miami alumni veterans, living and dead, past, present and future.

“The fundamental purpose of the idea, since it has grown from a simple memorial, is the fact that over the centuries, Miami graduates have made a significant contribution through years of service,” Lawrence said. “And this is a way to acknowledge that and honor the service of 200 and some years of Miami alumni who have served and will serve.”

First-year Joshua Smith said the tribute will serve as a thank-you to the Miami alumni veterans for their military service. Smith joined the army in 2010 after he graduated high school.

“I think the tribute is a great idea,” Smith said. “It’s nice to see that Miami is taking a recognition to those students.”

Robert Keller, a recently retired architect for Miami, created the concept for the tribute’s design.

The tribute will consist of a flag at the center and a design at the bottom that will incorporate a spiral to encircle the flagpole. Certain charters of freedom, such as the Constitution, Declaration of Independence, Bill of Rights and the military oath, will be displayed on plaques, according to Lawrence.

“All Miami alumni will be recognized on the kiosk, but there will be a special area on the tribute that will recognize those who were KIA or MIA – those that have given the ultimate

sacrifice for our country,” Miller said.

The footprint will include a fivepointed star, each representing one of the five branches of the U.S. Armed Forces: Air Force, Army, Coast Guard, Marine Corps and Navy.

The tribute will also feature electronic kiosks with a computer database to list all the known names of Miami alumni veterans. Guests of the tribute will be able to find each veteran’s name in the kiosks. The number of veterans included in the kiosk is projected to be between 8,000 and 9,000.

A group of graduate students in the History Department is working to find all Miami alumni veterans and determine the exact number. In addition, the alumni association is working to have people self-identify themselves, parents, grandparents, or any other relatives who served in the war, Lawrence said.

The tribute is privately-funded by donations from Miami families, volunteers and Oxford community members.

Senior Director of Development for the College of Arts and Science Evan Lichtenstein is leading the initiative to help raise money. The projected cost of the tribute is $650,000.

Lichtenstein said half of the money has already been raised through direct mail, individual solicitations and volunteers.

The goal is to dedicate and unveil the tribute on Veterans Day – November 11, 2017, Lichtenstein said.

“I think the fact that it is past, present and future incorporated makes it an ongoing thing that has vitality and relevance both looking backwards and current and forward,” Lawrence said. “Not many things seem to do that.”

FROM ENDOWMENT »PAGE 1

never taps in to that money. Instead, it invests it.

The university anticipates that the average rate of return for its investment will be about eight percent, Creamer said. It will distribute around five percent of that and, over time, the three percent that is left over causes the endowment to grow even larger.

“The assumption is that overtime you have growth from the investment activities that exceed the distributions, plus you have new money coming in,” Creamer said.

When the return on the university’s investments is in the negatives, like it was this year, it doesn’t distribute anything. Once these endowments have accumulated investment earnings again, Creamer said, the distributions will be resumed.

“This is pretty consistent with what you would find at some of the largest institutions,” Creamer said.

“What distinguishes us from, say, a Harvard, is that Harvard more actively manages their investment funds.”

Miami’s Foundation investment committee invests the university’s endowments in a blend of things throughout the world, including equities, private equities, stocks and bonds in many different industries, sectors and commodities.

“The strategy is to build a diverse pool and not put all your eggs in one basket,” Creamer said.

“Putting all your eggs in one basket can provide huge rewards, but it can also provide huge losses.”

Most of the time, a global strategy will outperform a domestic strategy. This year, in the United States, large cap stocks — stocks in big companies worth more than $5 billion — had a positive return.

However, Creamer said the negative performance of the global economy was the major contributing factor to the investment loss for the year.

Though the future, he said, could hold a shift back to positive returns.

“You may not have supported the new president, but apparently the markets have liked him,” Creamer said. “For whatever reason, the markets are anticipating that Washington will be more business friendly. So stocks have done very well.”

FROM TRUSTEES »PAGE 1

university $3.5 million and will allow University News and Communications to occupy the space left by Student Disability Services and Rinella Learning Center.

University News and Communications, which is currently split between MacMillan and Williams halls and the Glos Center, will share space and resources with Miami’s HOME Office in CAB. And pending approval today, the Class of 2021 will face steeper room and board fees than their peers in the Class of 2020, Miami’s current first-years, who are protected by the Tuition Promise Guarantee that began this fall. And since current sophomores and juniors aren’t covered under the guarantee, they’ll be paying more for their on-campus housing as well.

Under the new pricing plan, incoming first-years would be billed $6,931 per semester for a double, a price inclusive of a meal plan and housing fee, up 1.93 percent from the current rate for first-years. For a non-renovated double, that price would drop to $6,243, constituting a 3.53 percent increase.

And for current sophomores and juniors, a renovated double with meal plan fee would cost $6,765, up 1.73 percent from this year’s figure, while those opting for a non-renovated double would be charged $6,105, which is a 3.47 percent markup.

Miami’s’ final Board of Trustees meeting of 2016 will be held at 9 a.m. in room 180-6 of the Marcum Center and is open to the public.

GO TO YOUR LOCAL PUBLIC LIBRARY OVER BREAK.

SHUMANDB@MIAMIOH.EDU

3 CULTURE

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 9, 2016

Smiles in the midst of stress STUDENT LIFE

ALISON PERELMAN

ASSISTANT CULTURE EDITOR

Somehow I managed to accidentally leave all three tubes of chapstick that I own back in my dorm room. And it was chilly with a slight breeze. It didn’t take long before I could feel my lips turning bright red.

Emporium probably has some, Devon said in response to my complaining.

But I don’t want to buy new chapstick when I have enough, just not with me.

I had resigned myself to stinging lips for the rest of the night when Devon came back a few minutes later and threw something on the table in front of me. A small pink package of Cherry Chap Stick.

A smile instantly spread across my face.

Last weekend, colorful postit notes popped up on the walls around King library. They all contained the same message: “Good

luck on your exams!”

With finals upon us — the stress building, visible with each furiously typing, overeating student — colliding with the holiday season, these simple reminders and random acts of kindness mean even more.

Alex Muni was walking on campus when the person he was passing said, “Have a good day,” out of nowhere.

His day was pretty average. But whether it was a good day or bad day, it still made him feel nice. Alex doesn’t get that a lot.

“I think it’s nice to have people do something for you,” Alex said.

“I think if everybody does it — like somebody does something nice for you and then you do something nice for somebody else and then they do something nice for somebody else — I think it can really make a difference.”

That same day, Alex was doing his dishes and decided to clean his housemates’ too. They were just sitting there, so he figured why not.

His housemate didn’t even notice,

but it didn’t matter.

“I think since we’re approaching finals week and since everybody is really stressed out, everybody’s thinking about homework and projects and exams and stuff, I think it would be especially nice if somebody did something helpful for somebody else,” Alex said. “When it’s stressful like this, I think an act of kindness, a random act of kindness will go farther.”

Earl Marshall, a server at Bob Evans, decided to give a woman free biscuits.

“I was just feeling good,” he said.

And she returned the favor — tipping him $10 with a “Merry Christmas.”

It made Earl feel good, both to give and to get, and it was a nice reminder — it might be rare, but there are good people in the world and it does happen.

“I think you’d be surprised at how nice strangers can be, actually,” Earl said. “People like to be generous KINDNESS »PAGE 5

Humans oƒ Oxford ANGELO GELFUSO THE MIAMI STUDENT

Brandon Pugh: Commuter blues

Miami’s Dance Theatre held its Winter Concert last weekend in Wilks Theater.

PEOPLE

ALYSSA MELENDEZ

Pitt and Cotillard breathe life into spy thriller ‘Allied’

THE MIAMI STUDENT

Brandon Pugh sat in the abandoned hallway, huddled in a ball against the wall, rocking back and forth.

“I thought college was supposed to be fun.”

But Brandon wasn’t having fun.

In fact, he hadn’t had fun at all in the past five weeks.

Because he had to drive 30 minutes everyday to a campus that everyone else could call home.

Because even when he was on campus, he didn’t have a single

FILM

KIRBY DAVIS

THE MIAMI STUDENT

ALYSSA MELENDEZ THE MIAMI STUDENT

COMMUTER »PAGE 5

Monnett Hamilton: The American meat-eating Australian Vegan PEOPLE

ELIZABETH HANSEN

ASSISTANT CULTURE EDITOR

Monnett Hamilton likes to try new things — she does it all the time. For one month straight, she tried a new thing every day. Some days were as simple as switching up her coffee order. Other days she explored the world outside the socalled “Oxford Bubble.”

Although that month has ended, her spontaneity is far from over.

Her new goal? Become an Instagram-famous, Australian vegan blogger.

VEGAN »PAGE 5 CONTRIBUTED BY MONNETT HAMILTON

‘Awaken, My Love!’: Childish Gambino ditches rap on his strongest release yet MUSIC

SAM KEELING

THE MIAMI STUDENT

It’s impossible to discuss Donald Glover, the musician, without bringing up Donald Glover, the actor/writer. Although he likes to tell interviewers that his career on the screen and his rap persona, Childish Gambino, are different entities tackling separate issues and ideas, the fact is that there are clear parallels between the two. And that doesn’t change with his third major release, “Awaken, My Love!”

Glover made a name for himself in 2009 when he began his role as the lovable goof, Troy Barnes, on NBC’s cult comedy, “Community.”

Around that same time, he began releasing mixtapes under the stage name Childish Gambino. Just as his onscreen presence was quirkily humorous, Gambino’s early releases, culminating in the major debut “Camp” tried very hard to be funny. The fact that his rap name came from a Wu-Tang Name Gen-

It’s very easy to see Glover, sitting in the studio and digging through records from Parliament-Funkadelic, Jimi Hendrix and André 3000’s half of OutKast, searching for inspiration.

erator shows how whimsical Glover strived to be. He succeeded only if you find such puns as “I made the beat retarded, so I’m callin’ it a slow jam” to be clever and not at all tasteless.

After 2012, Glover left “Community” and set out to portray himself as an outsider, the kind that seemingly dislikes Hollywood and goes on existential rants about social media. The resulting Gambino album “Because the Internet” was an obvious improvement over “Camp,” but it still felt odd. It’s hard to believe that Glover wanted to be an outsider when he signed on

for roles in blockbusters like “The Martian,” as well as upcoming films such as “Spiderman: Homecoming” and the Han Solo spinoff. Similarly, “Because the Internet” was far too sonically indebted to other popular hip-hop artists to be considered convincingly outsider.

Now, in 2016, it feels like the real Donald Glover has shown himself.

As the creator/writer/star/director of FX’s “Atlanta,” he proves to be a creative force to be reckoned with.

The critically acclaimed comedy is daring and eccentric, and its surGAMBINO »PAGE 5

“Allied” is a war and spy film for people who don’t really like war and spy films. It’s the smoothest, glitziest war-torn love story I’ve ever seen, made watchable by Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard’s untouchable chemistry.

Pitt plays Max Vatan, a stoic, smart-mouthed Canadian spy who arrives in Casablanca in 1942 to take out the German ambassador at a dinner party. He and French resistance fighter Marianne Beauséjour (Cotillard) masquerade as a Parisian husband and wife to gain the Germans’ trust. Naturally this fabricated love story quickly becomes reality, and the most beautiful French-Canadian spy couple ever to grace the big screen is born.

Less than two years later, they’re married and raising an infant daughter on the outskirts of London, where Max is stationed. But this brief reprieve of domestic bliss dissolves when Max learns that Marianne might be a German spy.

He must wait 72 hours for his superiors to investigate the situation, and if their suspicions are correct, he’ll be forced to assassinate her himself.

“Allied,” brought to you by director Robert Zemeckis (“Forrest Gump,” “Back to the Future”), is not subtle. Much like “Forrest Gump” is an impossibly all-encompassing romp through decades of American history, “Allied” is overly ambitious in its attempt to cover all of World War II’s bases using only Pitt’s and Cotillard’s characters.

The story begins in French-controlled Morocco, where Max and Marianne brush shoulders with powerful Nazis. She gives birth quite literally in the middle of a brutal London air raid. Max is in talks to participate in the impending D-Day invasion. Then, at one point, a German plane crashes in their backyard. “Allied” suffers from an entirely predictable plot that leaves little (if anything) to the imagination.

This may have even worked as two separate films — not in a backto-back scenario, à la 2013’s “The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby” and its 2014 sequel, but perhaps chronicling either Max and Marianne’s wartime spying missions or his strained descent into paranoia, not both.

The first half of the film is supposed to make us feel for the couple and empathize with Max when his seemingly settled life is in danger of

being ripped from him, but they fall in love nauseatingly quickly. Despite Pitt and Cotillard’s dynamic, which could probably breathe racy, sensuous life into a documentary about paint drying, I’m not buying anything more than surface-level attraction borne of wartime desperation here.

Other than some obvious computer-generated imagery, the film is polished and easy to watch. Its costumes in particular are sensational. Designer Joanna Johnston, who also collaborated with Zemeckis on “Forrest Gump” and “Cast Away,” has ensured that the fashion of “Allied” is not only historically accurate but also, in the case of Marianne’s wardrobe, absolutely stunning.

The film has been a magnet for “Casablanca” comparisons, and Johnston drew from the classic, as well as legendary 1940s actresses like Lauren Bacall and Katharine Hepburn, for inspiration. The result is a seemingly never-ending parade of captivating ensembles worn by Cotillard with effortless grace and subtle self-assurance.

“Allied” could benefit from fewer comparisons to aging film noirs and more to contemporary World War II flicks, like 2007’s “Atonement.” It’s not necessarily fair to pit it against “Casablanca” — the 1942 cultural staple is one of my all-time favorites — but “Allied” is catering to a completely different audience.

“Allied” is not Humphrey Bogart brooding around a smoky nightclub while he and Ingrid Bergman quietly lust after each other. It’s Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard having sex in the desert while a wild sandstorm rages around their car, a not-so-subtle metaphor for the war trying to tear them apart.

But maybe the latter’s heavyhandedness and sugarcoated depiction of the war is more suitable for this generation. Blockbusters like “The Force Awakens” and “Jurassic World” of last year are steadily numbing us to special effects and sacrificing more intimate, introspective stories for dazzling, action-packed ones.

“Allied” is not terrible. It’s a glossy, reasonably tense film that requires minimal effort to keep up with. Again, if you’re like me and are not generally a proponent of gritty war and convoluted spy films, go see it. Don’t expect a complex and nuanced thriller, but expect to be entertained.

4 FYI

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 9, 2016

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FROM LARKIN »PAGE 8

tems and play Miami hockey, the games will come. I know we’ll be where we need to come April.”

While the RedHawks haven’t gotten their desired results of late, Larkin has not been the problem.

Starting 14 of 15 games, Ryan has a .910 save percentage and 2.71 goals against average. In two key ties at No. 1 Denver, Ryan stopped 87 shots while only allowing three goals. He attributes much of his success as a goalie to being the youngest member of the Larkin clan.

“The funny thing is, I was the youngest of the four of us,” Ryan said. “I couldn’t skate when we were really little, so they ended up just throwing me in net. I guess it worked out for the best.”

Following back-to-back road series, Ryan and the Miami University hockey team return to Oxford looking for their first win in ten games and first NCHC victory this weekend against Colorado College.

The puck drops in the Goggin Ice Center 7:35 p.m. Friday and 7:05 p.m. Saturday.

FROM HOCKEY »PAGE 8

ute against the Tigers. Fourteen of MU’s 26 players are firstyears, including starters goaltender Ryan Larkin, forward Carson Meyer and defenseman Jared Brandt.

Meyer will look to continue an exceptional rookie season, as he has the third-most points (12) of any Miami skater, including the first goal last Friday and only tally Saturday.

Starting senior forward Anthony Louis will also be key to MU’s chances this weekend, as the Chicago Blackhawks prospect leads Miami with 18 points (9g, 9a) through 15 games.

“If we focus on executing and competing for those 60 minutes, we should be able to finish teams off,” Melnick said. “If we focus on execution and finishing chances, bearing down in the paint and committing ourselves to the process, this team will be successful.”

The puck drops in the Goggin Ice Center 7:35 p.m. Friday and 7:05 p.m. Saturday. Friday’s tilt will be broadcast on the Fox College Sports network, and both games will be livestreamed at NCHC.tv and aired on 1490-AM and 100.9-FM WKBV.

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FROM BASKETBALL»PAGE 8

take the ones that are wide open and the shot that’s best for you, depending on who it may be.”

Junior forward Logan McLane and freshman guard Michael Weathers topped the scoresheet with 12 points each. Freshman forwards Bruno Solomun and Marcus Weathers tallied 11 apiece.

McLane began the game with an easy layup, but the RedHawks’ offense was silenced for the next 10 minutes. Mizzou took advantage and pulled ahead to a 16-2 lead before Michael Weathers hit a threepointer to jump start his team.

Redshirt sophomore guard Jake Wright helped the RedHawks rebound with several more threes, and Marcus Weathers added points from the free throw line.

Mizzou’s offense seemed to stall when Miami answered the Tigers’ early momentum to pull ahead 24-23 with two minutes left in the game. Redshirt junior guard Dion Wade made a free throw in the final minute, only to have Mizzou make a three-pointer and enter halftime with a 26-25 lead.

A series of Mizzou offensive runs in the second half allowed the Tigers to ultimately pull ahead to win convincingly.

“We let their shooters get going, they hit a couple and we didn’t come down and execute on offense like we were doing in the first half,” junior forward Rod Mills said. “That piled on and ended up becoming too much to come back from.”

Michael Weathers scored early, but Mizzou scored 24 points to Miami’s five to push its lead to 50-30 with 13 minutes remaining. MU rallied for the next seven minutes with help from Solomun and the Weathers brothers attempting to answer Mizzou’s offense, eventually cutting the deficit to 12 with six minutes left.

The Tigers answered with a 10-0 run and held Miami to two baskets in the final four minutes.

“We’ve got to slow down. At times we’re out there and we think we’re going to get 15 points for one shot and we’re trying to get a 10-point shot,” Cooper said.

Sophomore forward Kevin Puryear had 19 points for Mizzou, se-

FROM FOOTBALL »PAGE 8

93 tackles, four for a loss, and 1.5 sacks this season.

“We’ll be challenged at every position, on every play,” Martin said.

Miami is riding a six-game win streak entering the matchup. MSU is coming off of a 55-20 victory over in-state rival Ole Miss.

While the prospect of playing an SEC team is daunting, Martin and

nior forward Russell Woods had 15, sophomore guard Cullen Vanleer had 14 and freshman guard Frankie Hughes had 13 — all more than Miami’s top four scorers.

Overall, Mizzou kept Miami from the free throw line. The Tigers fouled 19 times during the entire game whereas the RedHawks committed 28 personal fouls. The RedHawks went 68.4 percent while the Tigers shot 71 percent from the line.

The ‘Hawks look to Saturday to get a win versus Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis at 3:30 pm at Millett Hall.

“We have to share the ball more, make sure everyone’s getting their touches and getting back to getting stops and making sure that we’re winning the battle on the boards,” Mills said.

IUPUI is 3-6 overall with all of its losses coming on the road. The Jaguars also played on Tuesday and lost to Illinois 85-77.

Last time these two teams met, Miami travelled to Indianapolis and lost 78-64.

Cooper expects more of his team’s offense but also looks to his team’s defense to keep games closer.

“One, we had some breakdowns defensively and we’ve got to do a better job boxing out on the defensive end — it starts there. And then we’ve got to get a little more ball movement before we shoot.”

Over winter break, Miami will play at home five times and on the road four times. Mid-American Conference play starts for the RedHawks on January 3 when they face Northern Illinois. They’ll play six conference games before spring semester starts.

“I think once you get to conference hopefully you’ve done a good enough job with your team that you’re hoping you’re starting to settle with the guys,” Cooper said.

“More importantly that they’re experienced — we’ve had different lineups in and guys know what to expect from each other and then we get off to a good start in conference play. Conference play is a grind.

Everyone’s familiar with each other, but we’ve got to get better defensively. We’ve got to rebound the ball better and, certainly, we’ve got to play better offensively.”

the ‘Hawks aren’t too upset with the bowl location.

“The venue there, being in St. Petersburg in December doesn’t seem like a bad idea to pretty much anyone and just the excitement of playing an SEC team,” Martin said.

The ninth edition of the St. Petersburg Bowl will take place on Dec. 26 at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Fla. Kickoff is scheduled for 11:00 a.m.

RECYCLE THIS NEWSPAPER WHEN FINISHED

WWW.MIAMISTUDENT.NET FROM GAMBINO »PAGE 3

real, absurd humor serves to demonstrate the strange realities that accompany black lives in America. The show’s identity rests on this black culture in a way that most other TV programs don’t.

Like “Atlanta,” “Awaken, My Love!” is steeped in the history of black music. Childish Gambino ditches rap beats and entrenches the tracks in 70s funk. The influences of funk mastermind George Clinton are clearly felt, but there are also hints of psychedelic blues and even some prog rock. It’s very easy to see Glover, sitting in the studio and digging through records from Parliament-Funkadelic, Jimi Hendrix and André 3000’s half of OutKast, searching for inspiration.

Instead of feeling derivative, most of the tracks on “Awaken, My Love!” authentically capture the spirit of these past genres. “Redbone,” the album’s high point, puts Glover’s falsetto over a delectable guitar line, complete with slap bass and a booming chorus in which a troupe of background singers shout, “Now stay woke.”

It’s the type of lightheartedness that Glover has utilized his entire career, but this album, alongside “Atlanta,” utilizes that patented Glover humor in a way that feels honest and unforced.

Of course, not every risk on “Awaken, My Love!” pays off. A Childish Gambino album without rapping is a bold new direction, and diehard fans of his prior hiphop releases will likely be disappointed. Fortunately, he has a surprisingly pleasant singing voice that works best when he uses a Prince-esque falsetto. But sometimes his experimental singing doesn’t work out. For example, “California” features obnoxious vocals over equally obnoxious instrumentation with faux-beach vibes. While this is easily the low point, there are still a few other tracks that don’t pack the same punch as standouts such as “Redbone,” “Me and Your Mama” or “Baby Boy.” All the same, it’s refreshing to see Glover realize his potential as a creative force to be reckoned with.

“Awaken, My Love!” creates a singular voice that doesn’t shy away from the artistic legacy of the black community. For Childish Gambino to go from novelty rapper to rising hip-hop star to audacious funk artist is a testament to Donald Glover’s skill finally being fully realized.

5

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 9, 2016 FROM KINDNESS »PAGE 3

when people don’t know that it’s them. It happens all the time at my job. People pay for other people’s meals, and they’ll never say anything.”

Will Ziegert was at Chipotle for the Engineers Without Borders fundraiser when he decided he wanted something sweet to eat. He headed to Insomnia.

Greg and Renate Crawford love to walk around Uptown and go to Insomnia — Renate may or may not have a large addiction to their cookies.

Will and the Crawfords ended up waiting at the same crosswalk, and Will wasn’t about to jaywalk in front of the president, so they started talking.

Greg asked about Will’s major and how the semester was going.

They wound up in line together, and the Crawfords offered to buy Will some cookies. They will often buy a box to pass out to students on the walk back. Because who doesn’t love cookies?

He politely declined at first. No, no. It’s fine.

But eventually he accepted the offer.

“I’m sure to them it didn’t seem like much because it was three cookies, but as a college student, I guess you can take what you get,” Will said. “They didn’t have to do that. And it just kinda goes to show that them being here this semester is really cool and what they’re doing for Miami is really cool.”

Being a former professor, Renate knows what the stress of finals can do to students. And being a mother, she tries to do everything she can.

“I look at it like, at least in some ways, all of you are my kids,” Renate said. “That’s why I give out my unsolicited motherly advice.”

She recently reminded more than a dozen students in Armstrong to eat well and make sure to get sleep.

Greg wished Will luck on his exams and told him that they’ll be glad to have the students back after break.

“It’s helpful to know that in the midst of everyone being stressed and worried about all these finals that there are people who care about you,” Will said.

And that’s exactly what Renate wanted — to give students confidence, make them feel good about themselves and know they’re appreciated.

“It’s these little things. And sometimes you don’t know what people are going through.”

FROM VEGAN »PAGE 3

FROM COMMUTER »PAGE 3

“My friend Ali and I always joke about her excessive vegetable consumption,” said Monnett. “So we started joking around and ranting about how all vegan Australian bloggers are Instagram-famous.”

The two sat there conspiring.

Could Monnett become Instagram-famous too? There was only one way to find out.

It sounds ridiculous, especially considering she is neither Australian, nor vegan. But she is already making it happen.

She began by changing her Instagram biography to convince the famous Australian vegans that she was, in fact, one of them.

Next, she populated her feed with posts that declared her veganism. The first included a picture of a coconut — a vegan staple. The caption read: “Here’s a picture of a coconut because I was vegan ALL DAY today for @nataliewink’s birthday #vegan #itsahardBROClife #1800plants #checkoutmyshrubs #plantsRlyfe #justveganlife #weeatplants #australia #getitbecausenatalieisavegan” Within two days, Monnett had gained 32 new Instagram followers — all vegans, and mostly Australian.

“I found that if you #vegan on food pictures it gets more likes — especially from vegan accounts.”

Friends around campus who didn’t know of Monnett’s quest to become an Instagram-famous, Australian vegan thought she was changing her meat-eating ways.

“Are you a vegan now?” people would ask her.

And she would share her experiment.

Her faux-veganism even scored her an invite to a vegan and vegetarian dinner.

“Safe to say, it was tasty,” said Monnett.

moment to spare.

Because he was taking a 17 credit hour workload with tough classes like calculus and chemistry.

Because his grades weren’t as he expected they’d be.

Because his mom said he had to work 12 hours a week at Emporium and he wasn’t allowed to question her decisions.

Because he was an adult now, but he couldn’t make any of his own choices.

Because he felt like everything was piling up on him and what he wished for most was time simply to do nothing.

Because he was seeing people ev-

FROM ASG »PAGE 1

In the the view of the bill’s authors, audio and video recording differs from the senate’s self-produced minutes in that minutes reflect only the official business of the senate, while technology has the ability to pick up private conversations. ASG has not published minutes since Sept. 27.

Numerous senators expressed concern that this bill would impugn ASG’s efforts to be more transparent, citing a clause requiring written consent a week in advance to record Senate meetings as particularly onerous. Eventually, amendments passed that shortened the time frame to obtain written permission, but co-author Max Leveridge struck his name from his legislation

ery day, but he had no time to actually see them.

Because he was constantly receiving messages in a group chat about people hanging out, while he was sitting in his bed 30 minutes away.

Because all of the clubs he wanted to join had their meetings when he had to be home.

Because he was lonely.

Because every day, he drove back home after a long day on campus and still felt lost.

Because he had lost himself.

Because having autism made it that much more difficult.

People would look at him and never know what he was going through.

in objection, and the bill ultimately failed to pass.

ASG also voted down a bill to celebrate Indigenous People’s Day rather than Columbus Day on Monday, Oct. 9.

However, the senate unanimously passed a bill to work with IT services to implement office hours in residence halls for the convenience of students.

In concluding business, Brandon Fogel was elected Parliamentarian for the coming semester.

Some the initiatives ASG hopes to address during his term include moving the drop date for courses beyond Sept. 16, implementing a recycling program Uptown, and beginning a Green Room initiative to certify the sustainability of student lifestyles.

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6 OPINION

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 9, 2016

EDITORIAL@MIAMISTUDENT.NET

2016 in review: Looking back in order to look forward The following piece, written by the editorial editors, reflects the majority opinion of the editorial board.

T

he year 2016 will go down in Internet history as one of the most intensely split years in American history.

In the same year that news organizations broadcast Omran Daqneesh’s stunned figure in the back of an Aleppo ambulance, Men’s Fitness released “The Ultimate Training Guide for Pokemon GO Players.” In the same year that police sprayed Standing Rock protesters with fire hoses for protecting their land, the enduring effort was rewarded in the end, as pipeline plans were halted by the federal government.

After becoming a meme sensation, “Damn Daniel” was given a lifetime supply of Vans, which he donated.

Then there are the just-plainweird parts of 2016. The Cubs AND the Cavs won, breaking droughts of 108 and 52 years, respectively. The world’s first hedgehog cafe opened in Japan.

Brexit passed at 52 percent.

At Miami, Greg and Renate Crawford joined the the family and immediately began proposing changes to promote diversity, energy efficiency and inclusivity.

That doesn’t mean, however, that we shouldn’t try to hear out the opposition, to — at the very least — start a dialogue.

We swapped one active president for another, switching out Hodge’s morning runs for Crawford’s daily bike rides. Fake news and conspiracy theories led Edgar Welch to barging into Comet Ping Pong with an assault-style rifle to rescue children allegedly trapped in the back of the pizza place, ready to be sold into the sex trade by Hillary Clinton.

And, of course, the same year Miami got a new president, America elected a new one.

Perhaps the most defining aspect of this year was the presidential race, with both candidates lighting a fire beneath the American people, igniting a kind of desperation that America has never seen. President-elect Trump sur-

prised everyone except himself when he won the election, Hillary Clinton’s campaign marked the closest a woman has ever gotten to the Oval Office and now, in the final days of what millennials naively call the craziest year ever, 2017 looms as one of the more unpredictable years in recent memory.

When we return to campus at the end of January, Barack Obama will have lost his lameduck status and surrendered his eight-year run as POTUS to President-elect Trump. By then, Trump will have assembled his cabinet. Whether he will have permanently altered our country remains to be seen.

A lot remains to be seen. With

RULE OF THUMB - 2016 EDITION

this dumbfounding year coming to a close, we can’t really rule anything out. We can’t be sure that a relative of Harambe won’t be killed. We can’t predict the next sports drought that will come to an end. Hell, we can’t even be certain that Bernie Sanders won’t run again for the presidency.

Yet, by embracing Obama’s old campaign slogan, we can cross our fingers and hope for the best in 2017. We can hope for the further success of animal species threatened by human activity, such as the tiger, whose world population is on the rise. We can hope for more medical advances as we await to see the first ever head transplant to be performed

by Italian surgeon Sergio Canav-

Stop blaming voters for the election: Instead, look ahead POLITICS

BREAKTHROUGH IN ALS RESEARCH Thanks to the Ice Bucket Challenge and persistent research, the gene connected to ALS was discovered and scientists are one step closer to curing the disease.

EMMA KINGHORN

THE MIAMI STUDENT

MIAMI FREEZES TUITION Starting this academic year, Miami announced that all first-time undergraduates will not have to pay increased tuition over the four years that they study here. The new initiative is called Miami’s Tuition Promise.

2016 LIKELY TO BE HOTTEST YEAR ON RECORD The hot days that we experienced this fall were not just a coincidence. 2016 will almost certainly break the record for hottest recorded year in human history, breaking the previous record of the hottest year...

2015.

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era in 2017. And we can hope for even more women to join Tammy Duckworth, Mazie Hirono, Kamala Harris and Catherine Cortez Masto to represent women of color in politics.

More than hope, though, we can act. Of course, it’s all too naive to hope that our community unites and comes together amid polarizing beliefs. That doesn’t mean, however, that we shouldn’t try to hear out the opposition, to — at the very least — start a dialogue.

This year has seen issues with media outlets accused of being out of touch with millions of working-class Americans. In perhaps the oddest election in recent memory, the issue of how politics is covered has become almost as big of an issue as politics itself.

These topics suggest deep divisions within the American electorate, but this is a problem that can only be resolved with increased understanding. It is still good to talk, but we have to make sure that we listen as well.

If people can rally around these goals, we can all start the new year fresh.

The 2016 presidential election has been unprecedentedly scandalous, tumultuous and divisive. Few people could have predicted this election cycle, and, in response, the whole of America seems to be dead set on assigning a “blame” for its results.

It’s the media’s fault.

It’s the electoral college’s fault.

It’s uneducated voters’ fault.

It’s white males’ fault.

It’s the basket of deplorables’ fault.

It’s Russia’s fault.

How can this be someone’s, or something’s, fault?

Journalists have come under fire post-election for not covering enough, doing enough or for perpetuating the Trump phenomenon.

According to the Los Angeles Times, the media coverage was identical for both candidatwes: 87 percent negative vs. 13 percent positive. While ideally the country wouldn’t be faced with candidates that warrant so much negative coverage, this balance is correct.

One candidate shouldn’t have been scrutinized more carefully than another.

Both candidates endured attacks coming from their own parties, with the likes of Paul Ryan and Bernie Sanders taking sides, as well as the expected mud slung from the opposite side of the aisle. The media, while wholly negative and apocalyptic, did its job. How can you blame the voting of the American electorate on journalists? Since when is it their responsibility to influence rather than inform voters?

You can’t, and it isn’t.

In numbers released by the nonpartisan analytical service The Cook Report Wednesday morning, Hillary Clinton led Donald Trump in the popular vote by 2,676,189 votes. This is 1 percent of the eligible voting population. 1 percent.

Despite the marginal difference in the general electorate, and the precedence for elections where the Electoral College diverted from popular consensus, it has now been faced with multiple calls for its abolition.

The Electoral College isn’t broken, it isn’t rigged, it isn’t geared to undermine one social group more than any other.

Originally it was founded to ensure the preservation of our nation.

Alexander Hamilton distrusted the electorate and wrote in the Federalist No. 68 that the election of our president “should be made by the men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station.”

While the Electoral College’s original intention has been questionable at best since the beginning, the safety it ensures fly-over states now outweighs its dubious beginning. If the popular vote alone selected the presidency, there would arise a chance for corruption because of the urban sprawl expansion that our nation has seen in the last 50 years.

Predictably so, candidates would focus all campaign funds, efforts and promises towards those votes that reside in large, urban cities, much as they do today in swing states. The beauty of the swing states, however, is that they are not ones that typically come to mind as key demographics. They force candidates to address issues and appeal to voting blocks that reside in Iowa, Minnesota or Nevada. This prevents the pushing aside of fly over states, and as seen in this election, the voters in these states and the Rust Belt have a lot to say about the state and path of our nation.

Possibly the favorite scapegoat of this election has been the voting group labelled as “uneducated voters.” The primary fault of this blame is that a voter could never be “at fault.” It goes against the premise of voting: vote for the option that best represents your opinions.

By trying to put blame on such voters is like saying, “You can vote, but only in a way that agrees with me.”

College-educated Americans are a minority. It may not feel like it, especially on a college campus, but we are outnumbered on a 3:2 ratio. Their votes represent the majority of Americans because they are the majority of Americans. We shouldn’t be blaming a voting block for voting, especially when this blame is being cast by the minority of college degree-holding analysts and political powerhouses.

A vote is a vote. It may not be your vote, it may not be my vote, but it is someone’s vote. We as a country need to stop trying to change things that can’t be changed by us.

We cannot blame or excuse an election away, because the fact of the matter is that Donald Trump won the presidency. No matter how outrageous, absurd or great you may find this, it’s a fact, it’s happening and we need to stop trying to explain the past.

Instead, put that time and effort into preserving our nation, a nation that is heading into a dangerous and murky future.

KINGHOEC@MIAMIOH.EDU

EDITORIAL@MIAMISTUDENT.NET

What The Student

Take article-sharing

missed about

one step further:

Miami’s choirs

Start a dialogue

CAMPUS

POLITICS

TO THE EDITOR: On the morning of Dec. 6, I was pleasantly surprised to read Kaitlin Peffer’s article “Glee Club, Collegiate Chorale host Winter Concert.” As a member of Collegiate Chorale, it was nice to see the two choirs’ musical efforts recognized in print.

While I enjoyed the article’s play-by-play recap of Glee Club’s performance, along with its oddly top-heavy rundown of the choir’s history and fame, I was disappointed by the omission of several details that made this particular winter concert, for lack of a better word, unique.

The article does not mention how Dr. Jeremy Jones struggled to bring an organ to Hall Auditorium. The organ he acquired was handcrafted by Miami alumnus Michael Rathke and was played by Bruce Murray, the chair of the music department.

The article does not mention that Jones shared the stage with seniors Tommy Wessendarp, Alex French and Colleen Hickey, who conducted their respective choirs on select pieces. This honor served as a final sendoff to their Miami choral careers, as they will each be student teaching next semester.

The article does not mention the breathtaking arias performed

by Colleen Hickey, Andrea Davies, CarolineGrace Williams, Abbey Keith, Malory Owen and Kayla Kramer throughout Vivaldi’s “Gloria” and Handel’s “Messiah.”

The article does not mention Collegiate Chorale’s history or national reputation, nor the group’s plans to tour Philadelphia and Washington D.C. over spring break.

Finally, the article does not mention that Chorale and Glee Club competed to collect the most donations for the Oxford Community Choice Pantry. The annual food drive, organized by Sarah Mattina, broke its donation record thanks to generous concert-goers bringing plastic bags full of canned goods.

The friendly rivalry between the two choirs meant competition was tight. Collegiate Chorale won by just over 100 cans.

After knocking on apartment doors and collecting cans outside of Walmart, the choirs raised over $800 and 600 lbs of food. When Mattina dropped off all seven tubs of cans, she said the volunteers “could not believe their eyes.”

It is my hope going forward that President Crawford and other members of the Miami community will continue to enjoy the performances of Miami’s four choirs and that future coverage of concerts will extend beyond what is printed on the program.

KEVIN VESTAL VESTALKC@MIAMIOH.EDU

Annnnnnd

we’re done for the year see you in the Spring!

OPINION 7

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 9, 2016

A reprise for “The Age of The Laptop”

TO THE EDITOR: Many people believe that the prerequisite to enjoying human rights is to be human. But this isn’t the case — those rights are not delivered and protected on the basis of being a person, but rather being a citizen.

When citizenship is stripped because of racial, ethnic, gendered or religious motives, a person finds themselves stateless: officially unrecognized by any state or nation.

Precluded from registering children at birth, enrolling in schools and universities, participating in the formal economy or traveling without the risk of deportation, the stateless live as “ghost citizens” in their communities.

This phenomenon is unfolding in the Dominican Republic, to Haitian descendants. Prior to a landmark court case in 2013, anyone born on Dominican soil was considered a citizen. Now, due to a racially-charged ruling that wiped away a citizenship clause in their constitution, hundreds of thousands of Dominican-born Haitian descendants are left stateless.

Throughout my Latin American studies capstone, I’ve been researching the implications of this case by examining how the population is belittled by both their own government and third-party organizations.

But I write to The Student today for a reason other than sharing my findings.

At the conclusion of my essay, I wanted to include recommendations for potential positive action to approach what’s happening in the Dominican Republic.

I was at a loss. What can we do to draw attention to this human rights violation, or any issue that someone feels passionate about, in a meaningful way?

Over the course of my research, countless articles had links to online petitions that were open to the public to “sign” (e-submit a name).

This type of online-activism has come to be known as “slacktivism” — a lazy way to make yourself feel as though you’re making a difference. Thousands submit their name, maybe share the link on Facebook and don’t think twice about the issue after that.

But isn’t it better than nothing?

I would argue it is. However, my letter today serves the purpose of urging my fellow peers to think more critically about their online activism, if that’s how they choose to participate in the broader discussion.

Sign the petition, even share it — but attempt to start a conversation, too. Reach out directly to friends, family and professors.

See what their thoughts are. Do a follow-up with the organization offering the petition: how many signatures does it need? Who will it be sent to? When? Start a club and brainstorm with other people that are interested in the topic.

As both a student of Miami University and a member of the Oxford community, I’m thankful to be surrounded by such intelligent people that challenge my ideas and perceptions. The Miami Student is one of the great vehicles of information and opinion that we have access to, and I hope that it will continue to be utilized as a catalyst for discussion.

We certainly won’t solve all the world’s problems, but we can expand our horizons and learn so much more from each other just by engaging critically and taking our article-sharing habits one step further.

MEGAN SQUARE SQUAREMA@MIAMIOH.EDU

recycle please!

KYLE HAYDEN HAYDENKA@MIAMIOH.EDU

Getting beyond techno-optimism for a simple future ENVIRONMENT

KYLE HAYDEN COLUMNIST

First off, I’d like to acknowledge that we made many errors in the writing of “The Age of the Laptop” (published December 2 in The Student, page 7) — spelling and mechanical errors, mostly. We stand by what we said. But we have received comments indicating the readers want more. What are the solutions?

Where to go from here?

My primary question going forward is: can you resist if it seems our entire culture is headed in the same direction? That is, our schools and institutions are symptoms of the values retained by a dominant culture.

That is, one of speed, effeciency, rationalization and standardization. How can we resist effectively if meaningful action requires not only dissent but also a refusal to use the tools offered by our dominant culture? How do these big systems inevitably leave people behind and impose unintended consequences?

Second, some background: we noticed The Student had reported the goings-on at the library, and hardly anyone has done a bit about it! The AAUP planned a “read in” or some kind of non-disruptive protest to bring attention to the fact that books are being starved, while the technoculture, IMS and computer fantasy lands recieve bags of cash from the state and laudations from the Board of Trustees.

Our libraries are losing funding.

A report to the Board claims, “Flat is the new up” in terms of fiscal support. This is a tragedy. Especially considering the context: more money for “luxury” housing and more money for athletics. Libraries are being sacked in a sense and what we hear is that everything is fine.

The report indicates book purchasing has gone down steadily in the preceding years. The libraries have purchased only 6,000 new books for fiscal year 2017. What happens when all the books are gone? What is the library system going to look like with zero book purchases per year if we follow the trend to its logical conclusion?

Additionally, it has been brought to my attention that emphasis on eliminating or lessening the reach of technology from not only the classroom but also society generally would present issues for disabled persons of all kinds.

I cannot speak for that community alone. I will say, however, the current speed and excess in the classroom is limiting in a few apparent senses. The first is a disregard of class. Not everyone can buy a laptop or a translation device. The second is learning inclination. Not every-

one is an image-based learner; some people are blind and some are deaf; many have learning disabilities.

This institution makes accommodations but generally our classrooms are tilted in the direction of ablebodied persons. In my view, eliminating technology would decrease the speed attached as a condition of their use, thereby having an equalizing effect (to start) on classroom instruction and access to and digestion of information.

Most people, having lied to themselves their whole lives, reject this information since it doesn’t jibe with their worldview of technological and deity-like human specialness. Nietzsche said: “The most common lie is the lie one tells oneself.” The same is true for people who think computers and technological systems are going to be bigger, brighter and faster in the coming decades and centuries.

It is time for a new paradigm emphasizing a downshift in the scale and reach of these features.

That is, we cannot live as if these electronic hallucinations are permanent. They are not and cannot be permanent. These technologies infantilize us. It’s the worst way to be “schooled” if there ever was a good one. Not that I am here to preach solutions; I am writing a defense of our article only to offer a (perfunctory) challenge to widespread preconceptions.

The scale at which our society operates requires the importation of resources at entirely unimaginable levels, thereby making the “global economy” a necessity rather than a set of voluntary economic interactions where things are exchanged because they are made well and desired by people who value their material environments.

Once there is no longer a steady supply of cheap and free-flowing electricity, we are going to be depending a lot less on computers, but everyone today seems to think we are going to power everything with solar panels, wind farms or hydrogen (or something magical yet to be invented). People worship at the heels of people like Elon Musk, who promises a future glory of space colonies and never-ending material expansion and accumulation.

This keeps the members of this culture from realizing that the state of affairs today is really an aberration, that is, a bump in the sensible and sane functioning of a civil society.

The university (and the larger culture) needs a plan for the future and we have barely even begun thinking about how differently things need to be done.

This means moving away from the need and dependence on these luxuries (as it were) as soon

as possible. I do not want to look back on these decades in my life and think, “Well, they ignored confronting this in the first decade of the 21st century, and the second, and the third…” and so on until it became too late.

It is already too late and it will go on getting even later.

Once we have these technologies: the Internet, electricity, gas heating, mechanical cooling, interstate highways, international logistics enterprises (and mind you, not everyone in the United States, much less the rest of the world HAS these things or access to them), they become “necessities” and even basic elements of our cities (sanitation, water, healthcare, shelter) cannot function without their constant maintenance. I consider this a problem.

Putting us in danger at the present moment is fairly profitable and I think it will continue for some time if our institutions continue to be politically gridlocked and incapable of reform.

Remember when people died in hospitals in California in 2000 and 2001 when ENRON was causing artificial blackouts to increase holdings in the area? Just as back then, people would die if today something “tragic” were to happen to the electrical grid, but I wouldn’t put it past the corporations or their executives to care.

I see this as a sustainability problem. Hospitals and other places surely have emergency scenario response plans, backup generators (powered by gasoline no less) and so on. But they have no serious long-term consideration or plans for grappling with the fact that electricity has only been in use for about 100 years at the present scale and cannot and should not continue forever.

However, the solution to this culture is: “How to keep the grid running indefinitely?” My question is, “Couldn’t we find ways to do without it? Wouldn’t this be a safer way to live?” It’s going to be up to everyone in a particular area, not external, massive entities to take care of each other as the curtain over the era of super-cheap and abundant energy closes.

Bear in mind additionally the corporations (like Kroger or WalMart) are under no humanitarian contract to keep feeding our communities. As soon as it becomes economically unfeasible to transport cheap processed food across the country in large quantities (i.e. when oil becomes expensive) they will go bust and we will have to figure something else out.

Our current state of affairs needs to be seen for the aberration it truly is.

HAYDENKA@MIAMIOH.EDU

Ask Angela is BACK! send your questions and concerns to TMSaskangela@gmail.com

8 SPORTS

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 9, 2016

SPORTS@MIAMISTUDENT.NET

Ragland carries MU to St. Petersburg Bowl FOOTBALL

COBURN GILLIES

ASSISTANT SPORTS EDITOR

BRIANNA NIXON THE MIAMI STUDENT

Junior forward Conor Lemirande carries the puck against Bowling Green.The Janesville,WI native has a goal and assist this season.

RedHawks return to Oxford HOCKEY

BEN BLANCHARD SPORTS EDITOR

Last weekend, desperate for its first win since late October, the Miami University hockey team (38-4 overall, 0-4-2 NCHC) seemed on the verge of breaking its sevengame winless skid. Leading Cornell 2-0 late in the second period Friday, the ‘Hawks seemed to be well on their way to victory. Four periods later, however, MU was swept by the Big Red, both losses (Friday 4-3 and Saturday 2-1) coming by agonizing one-goal margins.

“We’ve had some close games,” sophomore forward Josh Melnick said. “I think a full 60-minute team game is what we need. Friday’s game, we came out strong, had a

good first and second period, then in the third we got away from our game and let them come back. Saturday was the opposite. We came out flat for the first two periods, then in the third, we battled hard, but you can’t wait until the third period to play the right way.”

Still without a win in National Collegiate Hockey Conference play and in the months of November and December, this weekend’s home series against NCHC opponent Colorado College (3-11 overall, 1-5 NCHC) is pivotal to Miami’s hopes of turning the campaign around.

Against CC, a familiar conference opponent, head coach Enrico Blasi knows what his team should expect this weekend.

“Their speed has always been really good. They skate and play

hard,” Blasi said. “Their offense is really, really good. Their rush tactics and the way they create in transition and the offensive zone is something we have to be aware of and pay special attention to. We know how our league is. You have to be ready to play and play your best.”

While the Tigers, like all teams in the ultra-competitive NCHC, are talented, their recent results have been similar to the RedHawks, as CC has lost seven straight.

Last season, MU fell twice at Colorado before sweeping the Tigers in Oxford, 3-0 and 4-0, the last time the teams faced.

The majority of the RedHawks, however, have never played a min-

Larkin continues family legacy at Miami HOCKEY

BEN BLANCHARD SPORTS EDITOR

In the Larkin household, being a hockey prodigy is more standard than surprising. Miami hockey’s starting goaltender, first-year Ryan Larkin, has followed in the footsteps of his cousins and older brother, hoping to be the next Larkin to have a lasting impact on the hockey world.

Ryan’s cousin, Dylan Larkin, is one of the National Hockey League’s brightest young stars.

Drafted 15th overall by the Detroit Red Wings in 2014, Dylan was a standout for the University of Michigan in his one and only season with the Wolverines.

After going pro and becoming the first 19-year-old to debut on opening night since Mike Sillinger in 1990–91, Dylan led the Wings with 23 goals last season.

At the NHL All-Star game SuperSkills competition, he set the NHL record for fastest skater with a time of 13.172 seconds, breaking Mike Gartner’s 1996 record of 13.386.

“It’s been awesome to watch Dylan and all the success he had last year,” Ryan said. “We’re really close, so it was hard that I wasn’t able to be there for a lot of his big

HOCKEY »PAGE 4

The Miami University football team (6-6) is looking to wrap up the 2016 campaign with a victory over Mississippi State University in its first bowl appearance since 2010. This time, the RedHawks will make the trip to St. Petersburg, Fla. to play in the St. Petersburg Bowl.

Returning to postseason play following a six-year hiatus, for any team, is an exciting time. Throw in the opportunity to match up with a team from the vaunted Southeastern Conference, and the ante is upped even more.

“I’m excited about the bowl we’re going to, to be honest. I had time to digest and get over the initial shock of playing an SEC team, which, obviously, that’s the first thing you see,” head coach Chuck Martin said.

This will be MU’s ninth bowl appearance in program history as the ‘Hawks look to improve upon their 5-3 mark in postseason play.

Mississippi State (5-7) hails from the West Division of the SEC, where it finished in sixth place. The Bulldogs are bowl eligible despite their losing record because of a lack of eligible teams and their high NCAA Academic Progress Rate.

This will be MU’s first matchup against an SEC opponent since falling short on the road, 17-6, against the University of Missouri in 2011.

“I know a lot of people on their roster. I know the players they have. Obviously they played their best football in the last game of the year against Mississippi. They’re a very talented team,” Martin said.

“So we know there’s a daunting task ahead of us. We told the kids that.”

In past bowl play, the RedHawks have had no problem dealing with the SEC, as they boast a perfect 3-0 record against the conference that produced last season’s national champion.

Coach Martin was expecting the date of their bowl game to be in the December 17 and December 22

range. Much to Coach Martin’s delight, MU managed to avoid a trip to a bowl that fell on any of those dates.

“We get to finals. You know, we’re going to have to have a little bit of bowl practice during finals.

We’re not going to be leaving in the middle of finals week, which we may have had to do, or really practice, it would almost be game week of finals week.”

On the offensive end, redshirt junior quarterback Gus Ragland has been outstanding in his six starts.

The Cincinnati Moeller graduate ignited MU’s current six-game win streak, throwing for 1,274 yards, 15 touchdowns and zero interceptions in the process.

Defensively, Chuck Martin’s Mid-American Conference leading squad will be led by the dynamic defensive back duo of redshirt junior Heath Harding and sophomore De’Andre Montgomery.

Harding was selected to the AllMAC first team defense following a 65-tackle and four-interception season. Montgomery was named to the All-MAC third team defense after a campaign in which he also picked off four passes and made 61 tackles.

Dan Mullen and the Bulldogs’ offensive efforts will be spearheaded by sophomore quarterback Nick Fitzgerald. Trying to fill the shoes of Dak Prescott, who left MSU last season and is now a Rookie of the Year and MVP candidate for the Dallas Cowboys, the dual-threat signal caller has completed 54 percent of his passes for 2287 yards and 21 touchdowns.

“Explosive athletes at every single position on the field. Just the speed of the game will be something that we certainly couldn’t replicate in practice, and it will take a little bit of getting used to,” Martin said. “Obviously huge dual-threat quarterback. Their quarterback rushed for over 1,000 yards.”

On the defensive end, the Bulldogs will be supported by Richie Brown. The senior linebacker has FOOTBALL »PAGE 4

Basketball falls at Mizzou, set to host IUPUI

moments. He wanted me to go to the All Star game but I couldn’t make it.”

Ryan and Dylan aren’t the only Larkins to have found success on the ice, as Dylan’s older brother Colin led UMass-Boston to last year’s Division III Frozen Four, and Ryan’s older brother Adam is a junior defenseman at Yale.

“It’s a huge honor to be a part of such a hockey family. It definitely shaped me as a player,” Ryan said.

“Being the youngest, being a step behind, I was always following in their footsteps. They were able to tell me what to look out for and what to be ready for. They were all leaders for me in life and helped guide me along the way.”

One of 14 Miami hockey firstyears, Ryan has had to backstop a very young team through its fair share of growing pains. MU (3-8-4 overall, 0-4-2 National Collegiate Hockey Conference) had a great start to the season, starting 3-1-2 in spite of its youth. Since an Oct. 28 win over Bowling Green, however, the ‘Hawks have been unable to pick up another victory.

“We’ve had a tough stretch, but we haven’t lost our confidence,” Ryan said. “If we stick to our sys-

The Miami University men’s basketball team’s offensive production didn’t make the trip to Columbia, Missouri when Miami played the University of Missouri on Tuesday, as the ‘Hawks lost 8155.

Miami drops to 4-5 overall and remains winless on the road. Mizzou improves to 5-3 overall and 4-1 at home.

Both teams made less than 40 percent of the shots they took, with Miami making 30.5 percent and Mizzou scoring 37.3 percent of their attempts.

“Well, we haven’t taken good shots — we’ve had some streaks where we haven’t taken good shots,” head coach John Cooper said. “Then we’ve had plenty of opportunities, and we’ve missed shots. You’ve got to continue to

LARKIN »PAGE 4

BASKETBALL »PAGE 4

MEN’S BASKETBALL

EMILY SIMANSKIS THE MIAMI STUDENT

BRIANNA NIXON THE MIAMI STUDENT

Junior guard Kayla Brown makes a move past two IUPUI defenders. Brown is averaging 7.8 points per game, the second most of any RedHawk this season.

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