ESTABLISHED 1826 – OLDEST COLLEGE NEWSPAPER WEST OF THE ALLEGHENIES
The Miami Student TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 2015 WWW.MIAMISTUDENT.NET
VOLUME 144 NO. 10
MIAMI UNIVERSITY OXFORD, OHIO
Presidential search to be secret Miami will conduct a closed search, announce one finalist in the spring PRESIDENT
EMILY TATE
MANAGING EDITOR
If the Board of Trustees has its way, Miami’s next president will be selected in secret. This clandestine search will culminate when a lone finalist is announced in the spring. This will be the first time the Miami community will meet or even learn the name of its next president. Only the Board of Trustees,
along with executive search firm Isaacson, Miller and an unidentified university search committee, will select that finalist, chairman David Budig said at Friday’s board meeting. This announcement follows a faculty petition that asked the board to bring at least two presidential candidates to campus for public forums and evaluation, before it makes the final decision. Many of the 143 faculty members who signed the petition are
members of Miami’s American Association of University Professors (AAUP) chapter. Keith Tuma, English professor and co-president of the AAUP, said he is disappointed with the board’s decision and believes a transparent presidential search would be more effective The board, however, says an open search would jeopardize presidential candidates’ current positions, and even deter qualified candidates from applying. Therefore, the board believes confidentiality
throughout the entire application process is crucial. “So, it’s not as transparent as you might like,” said Claire Wagner, director of university communications. “But if it’s you, and you’re applying … I mean, people have lost their jobs because it’s been disclosed that they were looking at another school.” Tuma said he is skeptical of this logic. SEARCH »PAGE 8
JACKLYN HAYES THE MIAMI STUDENT
The Global Confucius Institute hosted the Chinese Festival Friday, Sept. 25. The dragon dance is traditionally performed at the beginning of festivals for good luck.
RA salaries inadequate for on-campus housing costs Resident Assistants (RAs) have many responsibilities, from being on duty certain nights of the week, to mediating roommate conflicts and planning hall activities. And most would think their pay reflects the work they perform. However, for some RAs, the job is no more financially rewarding than any traditional clock-in, clock-out position on campus. Senior Zach LeCompte resigned from his RA position in August because he felt like he wasn’t compensated well enough over the school year. He was an RA for one semester in Havighurst, a year in Etheridge and a summer in McFarland. “When I received my fall semester bill from the bursar this summer, I realized that I could not afford to be an RA,” LeCompte said. “When I looked further into the situation, I realized that it would cost me more to live on campus and work as an RA than I was being paid for the entire year.” RAs get paid based on experience. Over a 10-month period, first-year RAs get paid $8,864, second-years $9,164 and third-years $9,464.
However, RAs have to pay the price of a double room for the building they are living in and for the meal plan of their choice, including the assessment fee. RAs could be spending anywhere between $5,349 to $7,449 a semester, depending on their hall and meal plan. For some of Miami’s 246 RAs, the pay system is an issue, like it was for LeCompte, because the salary is not paid in a lump sum and therefore cannot be used easily toward tuition, housing or student loans. “Being an RA would have forced me to take out a total of $7,500 in loans for the school year,” LeCompte said. “When I turned in my resignation in August, I went from owing several thousand dollars to owing nothing and having to take out no loans this school year.” Although many other universities offer discounted housing and a small salary to their residents, assistant director of residence life Colleen Bunn said the process of giving students only a salary was decided a long time ago. The idea was to give the money directly to the RAs, rather than forwarding it straight to their bills, so students could choos how to spend their money. While Miami chooses to funnel
all compensation into a salary, other schools distribute RA benefits differently. Kaylah Crepps, an RA at the University of South Carolina (USC), receives a 50 percent discount off her housing, a discount on meal plan and a stipend of $4,300. Even though she admits her salary is not much, she still likes the mix of the two. “The salary can still cover housing, or you still have salary left over,” said Crepps. Miami uses a similar system to USC’s for its RAs over the summer. When LeCompte worked over the summer, his room and meal plan were covered and he received a small salary at the end of each month. But this option is only offered during the summer because such few RAs work during the break. Still, LeCompte would prefer a similar payment process during the school year. “I feel that system was much more fair for the RA as it benefitted me in more ways than one,” he said. Bunn said taking RAs’ opinions into consideration, there has been talk about making changes in the past, like covering housing altogether or creating a flat housing
NEWS p. 2
NEWS p. 3
CULTURE p. 4
HAMILTON HALL TO BE RENOVATED
OXFORD LANE LIBRARY OPEN
Former Hamilton Dining Hall is set to be renovated and made into new sorority suites by fall 2017
Oxford’s Lane Library opened at its new location by Kroger on Saturday
RESIDENCE LIFE
ABIGAIL KELLY SENIOR STAFF WRITER
TODAY in MIAMI HISTORY
fee for RAs. However, because the funds for paying RAs come from Housing, Dining, Recreation and Business Services, there are no plans for change in the future. “We wouldn’t be able to give students a very high stipend and they wouldn’t be able to work anywhere on campus,” Bunn said. “So they wouldn’t be getting a lot of funds, but their housing would be taken care of.” She continued by saying that although she sees the issue, it’s not something that can be easily altered. “If a group of RAs came to us and said, ‘We would like to look into changing this process,’ we would be happy to do that. It is unfortunately not a process that we can just snap our fingers and make it all happen.” LeCompte is now living off campus paying $2000 a semester and works in ticket sales for Miami Athletics. While LeCompte enjoyed his position as an RA, he said the financial burden was too much for him to handle. “I just wish that the university hadn’t put me in the situation it did, where I had to choose between being an RA and digging myself deeper into debt, or resigning and making my financial situation after school easier.”
Student group formed to protest fees Group pairs with AAUP, seeks transparency MONEY
EMILY WILLIAMS ASSISTANT NEWS EDITOR
A group of students is organizing to protest Miami’s student fees. By collaborating with faculty who have similar goals, the group hopes to promote transparency between students and the administration. Senior Jessie Motts, who is spearheading the effort, said her biggest issue is students aren’t kept informed about how the university spends money collected through student fees. Motts said she and several other students first took notice when they were charged a fee for the Armstrong Student Center. “That was the thing that really got everyone’s attention,” said Motts. Miami students will pay the $110 per semester fee until 2039. Currently, undergraduate students pay about $700 in fees per year on top of a set tuition cost. In addition to that sum, students who live on campus pay a $1,625 assessment fee for their meal plans, not including the balance added to purchase food on campus. Students in the Farmer School of Business pay an extra $100 fee per credit hour for business courses, and the College of Engineering and Computing charges its students a $300 per semester fee. A portion of the $13,533 of tuition for in-state students and $30,233 for out-of-state students also goes toward a “General Fee,” which covers services such as intercollegiate athletics, student organizations, lectures and artists, the Recreational Center and the Student Health Services center. The new advocacy group of about 10 initial members is not an official student organization and, according to Motts, will probably stay that way. “We’re still very much in the formation process,” she said. Motts and other students involved in the group are looking for students who are power players, Motts said, and represent a variety of ages, majors and interests within the Miami community. “We’re definitely looking for people who are passionate about this,” Motts said. Hearing friends and fellow classmates who seemed to share the same views on Miami’s fees helped inspire Motts to take action. She also noticed an increase in demonstrations and advocacy from student and faculty groups last year, like the formation of Miami’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) in the spring. FEES »PAGE 8
OPINION p. 6
SPORTS p. 10
NIGHT OF ONE ACTS STARTS WEDNESDAY
STUDENT STANCES DEVELOP DURING COLLEGE
REDHAWKS SURRENDER TO WKU
Writers describe the two acts, “The Last Cigarette,” and “These Seven Sicknesses”
Members of the Editorial Board consider how their political views have changed
Miami football loses 14-56 to Western Kentucky University’s Hilltoppers
This day in 1922, more than 1,413 students were enrolled at Miami University — the highest number in Miami history, at that time. This was a 12 percent increase from the year prior.