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