September 2, 2016 | The Miami Student

ESTABLISHED 1826 — OLDEST COLLEGE NEWSPAPER WEST OF THE ALLEGHENIES

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 2016

Volume 145 №2

MU PASSES NEW POLICY

‘Don’t make me cry’

CHANGES AFFECT TUITION PROMISE, MOTHERS, WEED

For parents of first-years, a sad goodbye

ADMINISTRATION

LIFE

JACK EVANS

Miami University — Oxford, Ohio

ALISON PERELMAN

NEWS EDITOR

ASST. CULTURE EDITOR

Coinciding with the legalization of medical marijuana in Ohio on Sept. 8, Miami University has clarified its pot policy.

Even though medical marijuana will be legalized on a state level, it is still classified as a schedule one substance and illegal according to federal law. As a public university that receives federal funding accepts federal loans, Miami is obligated to follow the Drug Free Schools and Communities Act. This means that the “manufacture, dispensation, possession, use, or distribution of marijuana in any form on any University-owned property, in the conduct of University business or as part of any University activity” is still very much prohibited by the university and punishable as a crime, according to Miami University Policy and Information Manual 3.18.C. However, the new policy does allow for marijuanarelated research to take place on campus under the approval of several government organizations including the United States Department of Defense, The Drug Enforcement Administration and The National Institutes of Health, among others.

The marijuana policy joins several other new universitywide policies that recently kicked into effect for the 2016-2017 school year, including policies on nursing mothers and Miami’s Tuition Promise program.

The creation of designated nursing areas for mothers on the Oxford and regional campuses marks another policy update for the school year. Though Miami human resources departments have been historically supportive and flexible of nursing mothers, this year the policy has been officially uploaded to the Miami University Policy Library, said director of university news and communications Claire Wagner.

The designated “mother” rooms on the Oxford Campus are Upham Hall room 52A, Cole Services Building room 144 and Health Services Center room 160, according to MUPIM 4.14.

An extension appeals committee for Miami’s Tuition Promise policy was also created this year.

The committee offers a way for students who are covered by the Cohort Tuition Promise to extend their promise past the guaranteed four years. Extensions are considered for reasons like lack of availability in classes, serious injury or illness or enrollment in a program that requires more than 128 hours to graduate. The first class to be affected by the Miami Tuition Promise, and therefore the appeals committee, is this year’s freshman class of 2020.

The full versions of these policies, along with hundreds of other administrative policies and procedures, can be reviewed online at Miami’s policy library.

Half of room 369 in Havighurst Hall is already moved in and set up. Lauren Stifelman moves around the other half, making sure the bed is made and in the best spot. Her husband, Glen, and son, Matthew shuffle around, finding other productive things to do.

“This is our last one and we’re probably gonna have to peel her off of him when we leave,” Glen explains with a chuckle.

“He’s our youngest. It’s very, very difficult. He’s ultra-independent, so — excuse me,” Lauren interrupts herself and Matthew moves out of the way. “Although, I am doing this for him ‘cause I’m very anal. So it’s even harder ‘cause he can do it on his own.”

She continues to make the bed — one last motherly act.

The Stifelmans are from Long Island, New York, an 11-hour drive. Their older daughter went to college much closer to home, so this is a whole new experience.

“We knew we had somebody at home, so we still had another child, you know,” Lauren says. “So it’s kinda different. You knew you were coming home and you still had a full house.

But I always knew I had Matthew at home and now there’s nobody else.”

“Excuse me, there’s still somebody else at home,” Glen says, offended.

Leaving Matthew and going home to an empty nest will be the hardest part.

“Don’t make me cry now,” Lauren says, trying not to think of the moment when she’ll have to say goodbye.

But they know he chose a good school and are excited for what’s to come.

“I think he picked the right school for himself. I think he’ll be very happy here,” Glen says. “There will always be times when he has trouble. Maybe if he was a little closer I’d feel a little bit better, but I don’t feel uncomfortable leaving him here.”

“I am so super excited for him and I think this is gonna be like the start of all new wonderful things for him,” Lauren says proudly. “But I will miss him, a lot. So he’s gotta call a lot, or Facetime, something — text! But I’m excited for him and I can’t wait to hear all the great things he’s doing.”

Julia Burkholder moved in to Emerson Hall on Wednesday, August 26. Her roommate’s parents helped unload, but then left her

ELIZABETH HANSEN ASST. CULTURE EDITOR

Miami Student staff members spent part of their summer in Cuba, where farmers have spent the last 50 years working without machinery. Some want to maintain this historic rural lifestyle. See Pg. 2 for the full story.

Miami Middletown celebrates 50th REGIONALS

MEGAN ZAHNEIS NEWS EDITOR

On the heels of a restructuring campaign that brought in five new bachelor’s degree programs and its first master’s degree offering, Miami University’s Middletown campus will celebrate its 50th anniversary next week with a full slate of celebratory activities.

Monday will mark the date in 1966 when Miami University Middletown (MUM) opened its doors, becoming the first permanent university branch campus in Ohio.

But the festivities will kick off Saturday, with an official ceremony, live music, food trucks and an on-site remote broadcast by local radio station K 99.1 FM. Organizers have been preparing for the anniversary

Humans of Oxford

MEGAN ZAHNEIS NEWS EDITOR

It was a roundabout journey, one that started in Turkey in the 1960s, winding its way through Greece, an Army base near the Panama Canal, southern Florida, New York City, Italy, Philadelphia and Baltimore.

But it’s the journey that brought Gael Montgomery to a small, secluded college town in southwestern Ohio

GOODBYE »PAGE 4

to teach Italian.

Yet Montgomery didn’t start learning in earnest the language she’s now paid to teach until she was in her early thirties.

That’s because, at one point or another, Montgomery worked as a legal secretary, waitress, freelance writer and maid, all while harboring passions for art, music, dance and theater.

She’s a cultured woman, a PROFILE »PAGE 4

MEGAN ZAHNEIS NEWS EDITOR

Italian professor Gael Montgomery puts on her game face before waltzing into the classroom.

lasting physical impact on the Middletown campus.

Funds are being solicited to retrofit its basketball court in honor of widely respected former athletic director and men’s basketball coach Lynn Darbyshire. A local foundation has pledged to cover half the cost of the renovations — $75,000 — provided donors and the university can raise MIDDLETOWN »PAGE 4

Altman series to bridge medicine, the humanities

The free-spirited teacher PROFILE

since the beginning of the year by featuring Middletown alumni success stories and a series of written historical vignettes on a dedicated webpage. They’ve staged monthly themed “Sweet MUMories” events as a means of compiling an oral history of the campus from its alumni, with the help of a professional videographer.

The university hopes one legacy project will have a

LECTURE

BONNIE MEIBERS

SENIOR STAFF WRITER

at complex medical issues through a holistic humanist lens could help doctors make sense of some ethical decisions they frequently face.

“Medicine definitely needs a softer side to it,” Ellie Sidler, a junior biology major who attended the lecture, said. “One

Miami’s 2016-17 Altman Lecture series, sponsored by the Humanities Center, kicked off Thursday evening with John McGowan as its first speaker.

McGowan, professor of English and comparative literature at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, discussed the medical humanities with students, faculty and community members in the Dolibois Room in Shriver Center.

Conversations and collaborations are the idea behind UNIVERSITY COMMUNICATIONS the Altman Fellows Program, John McGowan which produces the Altman Lecture Series. Named for of the biggest apprehensions John W. Altman, a graduate that I have going into medical of Miami University who was school is how I am going to the first person to be inducted feel as a doctor.” into the Miami University To that end, McGowan said Academy of Entrepreneurs, that many medical schools the recurring lecture series is have started to recognize the the Humanities Center’s sig- importance of the medical hunature program. manities by adding literature The medical humanities, and sociology sections to their he said, are essentially a mar- entrance exams. riage of the “hard” sciences “The medical humanities that come with medical edu- depend on conversations and cation and an understanding collaborations across disciof “soft” science. Balancing plines,” McGowan said. the two, McGowan said, can Other topics discussed help medical students foster throughout this year’s lecture better bedside manners and series will deal with how the improve empathy.

He also said that looking ALTMAN »PAGE 4

NEWS p. 2

CULTURE p. 3

OPINION p. 7

SPORTS p. 8

CAFE CUBANO: A TASTE OF CUBAN COFFEE

CONQUERING VERMONT’S LONG TRAIL

BREXIT BRINGS UNCERTAINTY FOR STUDENTS

BEER EXPECTED TO BE SOLD AT FIRST HOME GAME

Despite embargo, government allows Cuban coffee to be sold in the U.S.

Culture editor recalls his harrowing three weeks on Vermont’s famous footpath.

Great Britain’s exit from the EU causes concern for British college students.

Starting with the ‘Hawks game against Eastern Illinois, beer could be sold at Yager Stadium.

2 NEWS

NEWS@MIAMISTUDENT.NET

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 2016

Normalizing relations brings Cuban coffee to U.S. INTERNATIONAL

EMILY WILLIAMS MANAGING EDITOR

In another step toward rebuilding diplomatic relations with Cuba, coffee grown on independently owned farms can now be exported to the United States.

Nespresso, a Swiss coffee company owned by Nestle Group, announced last month that they will be selling Cuban coffee in the United States. The product, Cafecito de Cuba, is currently being sold as a limited edition product.

On April 22, the U.S. State Department added coffee to a list of products entrepreneurs within the Republic of Cuba are permitted to export to the United States. According to the U.S. State Department, those who can prove that they operate a business outside of the state sector, as well as meet a variety of other requirements pertaining to the business and its product, can sell their goods to American companies.

However, Cuban policies on the exportation of goods are making it difficult for Cuban coffee farmers to utilize this change in policy.

“There is no way,” said Karell Acosta Gonzalez, professor for the Center for Hemispheric and U.S. Studies at the University of Havana.

“All exports must go through stateowned companies. It’s in the Constitution.”

The United States’ embargo on Cuba, put in place during John F. Kennedy’s presidency, restricts trade with Cuban state-owned and operated businesses. These sanctions were initiated when Fidel Castro, who seized power in 1959, publicized private land and companies, imposed heavy taxes on U.S. imports and nationalized $1 billion in American assets.

“We cannot predict what the Cuban government will or will not allow, but we hope that it makes this and other new opportunities available to Cuba’s nascent private sector,” reads a summary and explanation of the decision on the U.S. State Department’s website.

Since the State Department announced this change in April, the National Bureau of Small Farmers Association (ANAP), a group of government officials who represent Cuba’s farmers, published a statement about the updated policy last month.

“Next to the workers and our en-

EMILY WILLIAMS MANAGING EDITOR

KYLE HAYDEN DESIGN EDITOR

Guide Anais Tomayo serves Cuban coffee in a cafe in Las Terrazas, an eco-community and UNESCO designated biosphere just an hour outside Havana, Cuba.

tire people, we are facing up to the intentions of imperialist policy, to bring about division and disintegration in Cuban society, which is what they would seek with the recently announced measure,” ANAP wrote in their statement.

As a Swiss company, Nespresso is able to buy coffee in Europe that has been produced by Cuban coffee farmers. After the policy change by the U.S. State Department in April, Nespresso USA was able to apply for a license from the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and receive approval from the OFAC to import Cuban coffee products to the U.S. In the future, Nespresso and TechnoServe, a nonprofit that works to form competitive businesses in impoverished countries, intend to assist Cuban coffee farmers in improving their business and farming practices.

From plantation to collaboration: Cuba’s coffee history Cuba has one of the best coffeegrowing climates in the world. Conditions for growing coffee are best in warm tropical climates with rich soil and limited pests, according to the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration. Cuba and other equatorial nations like Costa

Rica, Brazil, Ethiopia and Indonesia fall within what is referred to as the “Bean Belt.”

Cuba’s coffee history goes back to the late 18th century, when hundreds of French plantation owners fled to eastern Cuba during the Haitian revolution.

Las Terrazas, now a designated UNESCO biosphere located about an hour outside of Havana, used to be one of the areas with the highest coffee production on the island.

According to Anais Tomayo, a guide at the park, there are 70 ruins of coffee plantations in the 5,000 hectares that make up the park.

Only one has been restored for use as a museum and restaurant, the Buenavista plantation.

On the plantation, the ripe coffee beans would be picked by hand and set out to dry on circles marked on slabs of concrete. Every half hour, the beans would be turned from side to side and, once dry, covered with palm fronds. After 30 days, the beans were layered 30 centimeters deep in a mill where the wooden wheel was used to crack the shells of the beans.

Until 1850, when the slaves started to escape, coffee was exported by the tons to the United states. After

EMILY WILLIAMS MANAGING EDITOR

hurricanes from 1844 to 1846 nearly halted production, most plantations sold their slaves back to the Spanish and ceased operations.

Today, the coffee beans brewed in the village come from coffee trees that line the winding roads of the village.

“They harvest it themselves in their own version of the French method,” Tomayo said.

Instead of circles marked on slabs of concrete on a plantation, the coffee beans are strewn throughout the mountainous streets of Las Terrazas to dry in the sun.

After the revolution in 1959, the Cuban government seized all privately-owned coffee farms for oper-

ation through the state. This change saw a dramatic decrease in production, and, starting in the 1990s, the government moved toward moving coffee farming from the state to the private sector. Today, Cuban coffee farms are operated as collectives — everyone who works on the farm owns and controls its operations.

A taste for Cuban coffee Although coffee production has increased in the past several years, international demand for Cuban beans forces most coffee farmers to export much of their harvest. Many Cuban restaurants and coffeehouses, though serving coffee in the CuCOFFEE » PAGE 4

Both stories on this page were previously published in The Miami Herald’s In Cuba Today and can be found at www.incubatoday.com

TOURISM BRINGS INCOME TO CUBAN FARMS ENVIRONMENT

ELIZABETH HANSEN

ASSISTANT CULTURE EDITOR

ELIZABETH HANSEN ASSISTANT CULTURE EDITOR

Plant engineer Norma Romero Castillo walks through the fields of crops at Organoponico Vivero Alamar, an urban farm in the Havana suburb of Alamar.

HAVANA — Fields of fresh oregano, mint and garlic surround plant engineer Norma Romero Castillo as she speaks about the farming methods at Organopónico Vivero Alamar —an urban farm located in the heart of the Havana suburb Alamar. Behind her are bulls, getting prepared to carry a load of recently harvested crops. There is no buzzing of machines or rumbling of tractors — only the sound of the breeze and bulls clumping down the red dirt road.

“I’m not afraid of mud, I’m not afraid of rain,” said Romero Castillo. “I am trained to face everything.”

An hour west of Vivero Alamar sits the quaint eco-village of Las Terrazas in the Sierra del Rosario Mountains. Most of its inhabitants have been here their whole lives as the only way into Las Terrazas is through marriage. But now, Las Terrazas is experiencing some new traffic in the area: tourists.

Since 2015, tourism in Cuba has increased 17 percent. Much of this is due to the improved U.S.-Cuban relations. Of the three and a half million tourists received in 2015, 161,000 were Americans — a 77 percent increase from 2014, according to reports.

But even with the increase of tourists and U.S. tractor company,

Cleber, set to open a factory in Cuba, both Organopónico Vivero Alamar and Las Terrazas won’t be sacrificing their environmental values. Vivero Alamar is sticking to its all-manual and organic labor methods, while Las Terrazas has set a 400-per-month limit on the amount of tourists allowed. This will ensure pollution levels from buses aren’t hurting the environment.

said. “Otherwise, we’ll plant more.”

Last year alone, over 10,000 tourists came to visit Vivero Alamar, bringing with them over 40,000 CUC (about $40,000), Romero Castillo said. Of these tourists, 70 percent were from the U.S. “This income source permits us to use that money in producing more and buying more water pipe irrigation systems which are very very expensive,” she said. “We are

“It moves with you. We’re just catching up to your schedule.”

Whether or not Cuba is ready for the increase still remains a question. But as for Romero Castillo, she’s ready.

More tourists mean the need for more hotels, more food and — of course — more mojitos.

Clients come daily to Vivero Alamar to purchase bundles of mint for mojitos.

Although the influx of tourists is good for the struggling Cuban economy, the question is Cuba’s capability to sustain this steady increase. But Romero Castillo does not see the farm struggling to reach demand.

“We’ve got enough mint,” she

constantly going up and we wish to keep on growing.”

Up in the mountains of Las Terrazas, tourism began in 1994 to provide jobs. The market succeeded with over 70 percent of the village population working in tourism. Back in 2007, Anais Tomayo was studying to be a teacher. Now, she’s a Las Terrazas tour guide.

The recent tourism spike has also been beneficial for artists. That’s the case of Ariel Gato, whose main income comes from the tourists visiting the village.

“Last year at this time, no one was here. And now, you are here,” Gato said.

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CULTURE 3

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 2016

The Long Trail: Conquering Vermont’s famous footpath TRAVEL

DEVON SHUMAN CULTURE EDITOR

The worst part was the dread.

I could cope with the rest of it — the sharp, stinging hail that was pelting my face at a seemingly horizontal angle, the sour mix of precipitation and perspiration that was dripping into my eyes and clouding my vision, the relentless wind that was repeatedly pushing me over onto my side like a weighted punching bag. That I could deal with.

But the dread, that nauseating sense of impending doom, that horrible feeling that we had screwed up to a point where making it off of this mountain ridge was no longer a guarantee — that was unbearable.

As the wind threw me down once again onto the wet, rocky ridge, I glanced up and saw two of my friends continuing to scramble up the rocks ahead, slowly disappearing into the fog. As I lay there and began to contemplate if getting up was worth it — a thought that was immediately frightening to me — my other friend came up behind me.

“We should keep moving,” he said. His tone was polite, but the true message was clear — we need to get off of this fucking mountain. Now. While this may sound like a harrowing adventure of ambitious Himalayan mountaineers, the embarrassing truth is that it actually took place on Mount Mansfield, amid the Green Mountains of Vermont.

While Mansfield may hold the title of Vermont’s highest peak, it still only clocks in at a measly 4,393 feet.

For comparison, you could stack six Mansfields on top of each other and you’d still be 2,671 feet below the summit of Everest.

The four of us found ourselves trapped in a storm atop that sur-

DEVON SHUMAN THE MIAMI STUDENT

A hiker gazes north toward Mount Mansfield on the Long Trail, a path that traverses Vermont from south to north. prisingly perilous peak during week three of our journey across Vermont’s Long Trail, the oldest longdistance hiking trail in the US. Spanning 273 miles from end to end, the LT traverses the Green Mountains from Vermont’s southern border with Massachusetts to its northern border with Canada. Although we had no prior experience with longdistance hiking, we are all avid backpackers and had set out from the trailhead in Williamstown, MA with the goal of reaching Canada in four weeks.

In the introduction to his bestselling “Into Thin Air,” Jon Krakauer notes that climbing Mount Everest is “an intrinsically irrational act — a triumph of desire over sensibility.”

When I read this line to my friends early on in our hike, one was quick to point out that the Long Trail is similarly irrational.

“I mean we’re probably not going

to die,” he said. “But we’re putting ourselves through all of this for no real reason.”

As we continued trudging on in silence (if nothing else, hiking for such an extended period of time involves plenty of opportunity for self-reflection), I pondered this idea.

Why were we doing this? Longdistance backpacking is an excruciating process. While one might picture an epic montage of picturesque views, the reality is much more underwhelming — long climbs that put your lungs and your legs through the ringer, equally long descents that threaten to shatter your knees and brutal periods of ennui in between. All of this is complemented by a constant barrage of pains and problems — hunger, thirst, sore legs, sore shoulders, blisters, heavy packs, broken equipment and so on. Sure, many climbs afforded us gorgeous views of Vermont’s beautiful coun-

“Suicide Squad” fails to live up to the hype FILM

KIRBY DAVIS

THE MIAMI STUDENT

“Suicide Squad” is the first-ever comic book adaptation to feature an entirely villainous main cast. It boasts the talents of three Academy Award winners and two nominees.

The film shattered August box office opening records.

It was also one of the most widely detested films released this summer.

“Genre expectations can kill creativity,” the film’s writer and director, David Ayer, told the website Film School Rejects in an interview four years ago. He couldn’t have been more correct.

While fans’ reviews of the film on Rotten Tomatoes are cumulatively more than double the critics’, still only 68 percent deemed it “fresh” rather than “rotten.” Critics aren’t the only ones that have succumbed to these sinister “expectations” Ayer warned of in 2012. Audiences, too, believe that comic book adaptations should have it all — stunning visual effects, quality acting and decent storytelling — and “Suicide Squad” doesn’t.

Picking up where last spring’s “Batman v Superman” left off, “Suicide Squad” opens with government agent Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) developing a plan to combat future supernatural powers with supernatural villains.

She gathers the “worst of the worst,” including former psychiatrist Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), pyrokinetic El Diablo (Jay Hernandez), skilled thief Boomerang (Jai Courtney), half-possessed archaeologist Dr. June Moone

(Cara Delevingne) and notorious hit man Deadshot (Will Smith), releasing them from their maximumsecurity prisons in the hopes that they’ll comply with her demands to protect the country.

Shockingly, unleashing these mega-villains does not go according to plan. Waller’s mission falls apart when Dr. Moone becomes fully possessed by an ancient evil spirit called the Enchantress, who wreaks havoc on Midway City with the goal of ruling the world, and can only be stopped by this ragtag clique of wretched antiheroes.

Comic book adaptations have to accomplish something very difficult — create relatable, human stories under chaotic, incomprehensible circumstances. They also have to satisfy pre-existing fans’ expectations. This is something that’s damn near impossible for a film like “Suicide Squad,” which features more than a dozen DC Comics characters, all with their own individual fan bases.

After an exhaustive marketing campaign that primarily featured Jared Leto’s Joker, a character who only appeared in about fifteen minutes of the two-hour film, “Suicide Squad” is an overhyped disappointment.

Even with commandeering scene-stealers like Viola Davis and Margot Robbie, the film is an overwhelming, unimpressive jumble of excessive backstories, dialogue that panders for cheap laughs and action sequences too chaotic to follow.

The film also slows down after the initial introduction of its esteemed villains. The first half is a fun, rapid-fire parade of unapologetic crime and sin, while the sec-

ond suddenly shifts to a darker tale of what the villains are battling with internally–not that this changes the cringe-inducing dialogue or muddled pacing.

Take a scene near the climax of the film, for example, in which the villains take a timeout at a bar and discuss how “ugly” they are on the inside.

“Except for him,” Harley Quinn says of mutant Killer Croc. “He’s ugly on the outside, too.”

“Not me, shorty. I’m beautiful,” he grunts. The two continue to flirt.

It’s scenes like this that make anything else in the film impossible to take seriously — every potentially redeeming quality is marred by twelve other deplorable ones.

Plus, the stakes just don’t seem high enough during “Suicide Squad’s” never-ending series of outlandish circumstances. It’s impossible to decide who to truly root for, or why you should care about the fate of the film’s universe when DC has eight other films lined up for the next four years. If everything ends in “Suicide Squad,” that means no future solo flicks for its stars, and next year’s “Justice League” will be pretty boring.

I will give it this: the film is entertaining in the way that a late-summer blockbuster should be. It’s entertaining in the way Michael Bay’s apocalyptic thrill ride, “Armageddon,” is entertaining. The action, poorly written or not, is ubiquitous, and there are some sparks of genuine talent among the mostly unremarkable cast.

“Suicide Squad” is terrible, but at the very least, it’s entertainingly terrible.

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tryside, and at the end we’d be able to celebrate and say, “We did it!” But was that worth four weeks of agony?

Apart from my general passion for the outdoors, the Long Trail’s allure for me was its simplicity, its promise of a tangible goal and a straightforward means of acquiring it. There were logistics to be figured out, such as how much food to buy to make it to the next stop in town, and there were new, frightening skills to be learned, such as how to hitch a ride with a stranger without getting kidnapped. But for the most part, the LT offers an easy routine — get up, hike, camp, repeat. As long as you keep moving, you’ll reach the end.

In contrast with the chaotic world of college, this predictable process is oddly comfortable.

However, comfort and predictability do not guarantee easiness, and the hike was still a struggle.

On one particularly vicious day,

we had 16 miles to cover (our longest single day), and we were greeted with an apocalyptic downpour. The daylong torrential rainfall drenched everything we had. Even our high quality rain gear was soaked through, leaving us utterly waterlogged. Before long, the once well-defined trail had turned into a deep, muddy flow of water. “Difficult” wouldn’t even come close to describing this section.

This was pure misery.

While the hike was physically grueling, its mental obstacles became the most impossible to overcome.

Every step into ankle-deep sludge made me more aware of how pointless this hike was. Every slip down a muddy slope brought that horrible voice back into my mind, the voice that, back at school, would tell me not to get out of bed on particularly bad days, or would tell me my writing was garbage. The voice that would tell me to just give up. It had returned and it was rearing its ugly head, forcing tears into my eyes, which, luckily, were masked by the constant downpour.

With everything going against me, I had every reason to quit that day.

And yet, around five o’clock that afternoon, my friends and I rolled into camp, having successfully reached our destination. The next morning, we got up, were greeted by a dry and sunny day, and got ready to keep hiking, to keep plodding along toward Canada.

“What?” I yelled, projecting my voice over the howling wind and rain.

“I said we need to keep moving!”

I looked up at him and sensed the grim urgency in his expression. I turned back down the trail and saw our other friends continuing to disappear in the distance.

And then I stood up, braced myself against the wind and kept hiking.

In “Stranger Things,” Netflix harnesses the power of nostalgia TELEVISION

DEVON SHUMAN CULTURE EDITOR

It would be difficult to pinpoint exactly what genre Netflix’s summer hit, “Stranger Things,” falls under.

It’s equal parts emotional, humorous and downright frightening.

It has intriguing mystery, brilliant special effects and a fantastic look at growing up and coming of age.

It’s probably the only show to ever include government conspiracies, Dungeons and Dragons and Eggo waffles — all in only eight episodes.

So I won’t try to slap any label on this unique miniseries. The best way to describe it is this — utterly spectacular.

“Stranger Things,” which was recently renewed for a second season, centers on the disappearance of Will Byers (Noah Schnapp), a young boy in Hawkins, Indiana in 1983. Around the same time he goes missing, his three friends, Mike (Finn Wolfhard), Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo) and Lucas (Caleb McLaughlin) find a young girl (Millie Bobby Brown) with a shaved head who refuses to speak. They name her Eleven, based on the digits tattooed onto her wrist. As the show progresses, creators Matt and Ross Duffer gradually and methodically reveal more and more about Eleven’s backstory and how her sudden arrival is connected to Will’s disappearance.

Other key players include Will’s mother Joyce Byers (Winona Ryder), and Jim Hopper (David Harbour), the police chief who leads the hunt for the missing boy. Additionally, there is Nancy Wheeler (Natalia Dyer), Mike’s older sister who finds herself falling for cool guy Steve Harrington (Joe Keery).

Shows with so much going on often become too cluttered and unfocused, but the Duffer brothers deftly find a way to tie it all together. The plot is rich and complex, but not so sprawling as to lose the viewer’s interest.

Immediately noticeable in “Stranger Things” is the quality of the acting. Everybody steps up to the plate here, even the young actors.

Wolfhard, Matarazzo and McLaugh-

lin each develop unique personalities and create a true sense of youthful camaraderie and excitement. Ryder and Harbour play off of each other perfectly in their search for Will.

Her frantic concern as Will’s worried mother is brilliantly complemented by his composed yet firm determination as Detective Hopper. Even Dyer and Keery, who could have easily withdrawn into the overdone “good girl falls for bad boy” trope, bring emotional depth to their characters.

But the true breakout star is Millie Bobby Brown as the mysterious Eleven. It can often be misguided to call a child actor’s performance fantastic, but Brown truly deserves an Emmy nomination for her performance. Eleven is equally curious of and frightened by the world around her. She is wary of new people, but once they earn her trust, she is capable of terrific empathy. Despite her tiny figure, she is incredibly powerful, and she uses her power to protect those she cares for.

Not only does Brown capture all of this, but she does so while barely ever speaking a word. There is rarely a dull moment when Eleven is on the screen.

While many shows in this Golden Age of television have brilliant acting and plot structure, what sets “Stranger Things” apart is its use of nostalgia. Nostalgia is a powerful draw for audiences, and television’s attempt to capitalize on that can be seen in the atrocious number of reboots currently on the air (“Lethal Weapon,” “The Exorcist,” “Fuller House,” “MacGyver,” and so on, and so on).

“Stranger Things” shows us that there is a more effective way to harness nostalgia than simply remaking old classics. The show is chock full of references to popular 80s movies, but these references are subtle. This creates a richer viewing experience for fans of those films without distracting from the original story the writers are crafting.

Fans of “E.T.” will recognize Eleven’s exploration of the empty house and her fascination with the television. Stephen King diehards will be STRANGER »PAGE 4

4 FYI

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 2016

FROM PROFILE » PAGE 1

thinker and philosopher and activist whose understanding of the world derives from her unique experiences.

These days, Montgomery is comfortable in the classroom, and her course evaluations indicate as much. As she leads a dozen or so Italian 101 students in an exercise — dissecting whether to use molto or troppo in a series of sentences — she switches seamlessly between Italian and English, guiding them toward the correct answer.

Quasi corretta, she says. Almost correct. The abstract concept of how to express “much” or “many” becomes concrete, and the students — all of whom Montgomery knows by name — nod as Montgomery’s blue Expo marker forms phrases on the whiteboard. She pauses as she writes, making eye contact with students to gauge their comprehension. When a few stragglers still look confused at the end of the exercise, she assures them that the concept is “easy, but bizarre.”

But before any of that — before her visiting assistant professorship at Miami and before the manuscript of a book examining the history of sexual violence in Renaissance Italian literature, before the Ph.D from Johns Hopkins University, before the master’s degree obtained through Middlebury College in Florence and the bachelor’s degree at The New School in Greenwich Village, N.Y. — before any of it, Gael Montgomery was a college dropout.

After completing high school in Florida — her father’s government job situated the family overseas during Montgomery’s preteen years — Montgomery had enrolled at Barnard College.

Her father had encouraged her to attend college. Never having completed his own schooling, it was important to him that young Gael and her brother, a year older than Gael, continue their education at a “good school.”

To Gael, Barnard seemed as good as a choice as any. It was near her brother, who was studying at Columbia, and offered programs in theater and modern Greek.

So she went, despite being un-

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FROM ALTMAN » PAGE 1

humanities, like philosophy, literature and art, impact health.

Various speakers in the lecture series will answer questions like, “What does it mean to live and die well?” said Tim Melley, director of the Humanities Center.

As director of the Humanities Center, Melley plays a large role in the planning of the lecture series and helps to ensure the events run smoothly. Those efforts began last winter during brainstorm-

FROM STRANGER »PAGE 3

delighted by the shot of the four kids walking along the railroad tracks. And anyone who’s seen the works of John Carpenter will immediately feel his presence in the brilliant, synth-laden opening theme.

ing sessions to identify potential speakers. Faculty members were also invited to submit theme ideas in teams of two.

The Humanities Center staff requires that the faculty members submitting ideas jointly be from different departments of study, which, Melley said, ensures the interdisciplinary nature of the proposals. This year’s theme came from Cynthia Klestinec, associate professor of English, and Kimberly Hamlin, associate professor of American Studies and

History.

“I think [the Altman Lecture Series] sets Miami apart [from other universities],” Klestinec said.

For Melley, the Lecture Series represents an opportunity to examine societal issues as a community.

“The Altman program represents the pinnacle of the college experience,” Melley said. “It asks the entire community to come together to wrestle with complex, meaningful problems.”

There are enough references in the show to fill three whole articles, but the point is that “Stranger Things” is still its own show. It’s influenced by myriad 80s movies, and it pays homage to them, but it never loses sight of the story it’s trying to tell. The nostalgic references aren’t there to define

the show, but to strengthen it.

In a television landscape that is becoming increasingly cluttered with lazy reboots, producers can take a lesson from “Stranger Things.”

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sure of her purpose in a college environment. Then, her father passed away. At 19, Montgomery was anchorless in the Big Apple.

“Even now, I try to reconstruct what I was experiencing or thinking or feeling. I can’t. That whole time is a sort of blur,” Montgomery recalled. “It was really important to him that we were in college — he hadn’t finished college — and when he died, I realized, ‘I don’t have to stay here.’”

Feeling out of place at Barnard, and having already taken a semester off prior to her father’s passing, Montgomery changed her major three times before finally dropping out.

But the seed had been planted.

Montgomery’s time as a music major saw her enrolled in theory and composition courses and granted her her first exposure to the language she would eventually spin into a career.

That, though, would have to wait until she re-enrolled in college at age 32, after 12 years in the working world. She held a well-paying part-time gig as a legal secretary, but never saw it as much more than a way of financing her creative endeavors: painting, writing, composing music.

Montgomery prefers not to dwell on her onetime creative aspirations, but lights up at any mention of her beloved languages.

Amongst her ASPCA calendar and a repurposed coffeemug-turned-pencil-cup that she snagged on a dumpster diving excursion Uptown a few years back, Montgomery does keep one of her final painting projects — a coaster tile, on which is painted a young woman with voluminous black hair — on her desk.

It’s a reminder of the life she once wanted: the life of fame and fortune and acclaim as some sort of creative virtuoso.

“I would have liked that,” she admitted. “Or I thought I would have liked it. Who knows.”

Yet she always knew, she said, that she didn’t have the talent nor the ambition to make it big-time.

“I have a lot of skills, but I don’t, as far as we can see, honestly have a great talent — the kind of talent that is clear,” Montgomery said.

“Ultimately, there’s some lack of

ambition in me. I think, to want to be a star … some part of me knew that that was miserable.”

If she does have one exceptional talent, Montgomery decided, it’s for languages — for learning and absorbing and conversing in a tongue foreign to her ears. Even now, her eyes light up at the mention of languages, a craving she sates by watching American television with French subtitles and picking up People magazine en español.

“Oh, it’s great,” Montgomery said with a laugh. “I read about all of these stars that I never heard of who are on Spanish channels and what they wear and their boyfriends and their wives. At some point when I really want to learn Spanish, it won’t be completely alien to me. I’ll be able to say things like … what the stars are wearing on the red carpet. I can talk about that in Spanish.”

But Montgomery’s love of languages all started with Greek. She spent most of her first decade of life in Greece, and, despite the fact that living in an American enclave didn’t lend itself to learning much of the local language, she was fascinated by modern Greek. She took up the language at Barnard and, she discovered, she was good at it.

Italian came even more easily.

And so, her post-graduation time in New York was punctuated by jaunts to Italy to immerse herself in the culture.

“I would work at the law firm, earn money, quit, go to Italy, come back, get my job back — because I was very good at it — save up some money, go to Italy again … because you can’t really learn a language and a culture unless you go to that country,” Montgomery said.

Her enrollment in the New School formalized her knowledge of Italian. Then came her master’s degree (during which time she studied in Italy), and then her Ph.D at Johns Hopkins. Finally, a series of teaching jobs led her to Oxford, Ohio.

Now, she is Dr. Gael Montgomery of 214 Irvin Hall, who teaches an upper-level course on Dante’s “Divine Comedy” and specializes in Ovid and Ariosto.

Not bad for a former college dropout.

FROM MIDDLETOWN » PAGE 1

Cathy Bishop-Clark, who is interim dean of Miami’s regional campuses and has been with Miami Middletown for 27 years.

While the complex has since expanded to include a handful of buildings, an athletic program and a variety of degree programs, according to Bishop-Clark, its goals have remained constant.

“We still offer that same quality Miami liberal education and that’s always been the hallmark of what we do,” Bishop-Clark said. “No matter what, students are students and learning is learning. That part has remained the same, and our commitment to our communities has remained the same.”

the remaining funds.

The Middletown campus, which enrolled about 1,880 students last fall, can trace its origins back to 1959, when Miami University first began hosting courses in local high school classrooms. When the makeshift nature of this “Academic Center” proved too inflexible for the community’s growing demand for education, city officials broke ground in 1965 on a dedicated branch campus.

“The governor at that time wanted a higher education to be accessible to all students within so many miles of where they lived,” said

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miamistudent.net FROM COFFEE» PAGE 2

ban style, are brewing with beans from other countries.

Similarly, many cafes, coffeehouses and restaurants in Miami and other areas of Florida with large populations of Cuban Americans serve “Cuban coffee” on their menus. However, due to the embargo, these establishments are serving coffee beans from other countries that is prepared in the Cuban style.

Cafe Bustelo, a popular brand among Cuban Americans, is advertised as a “Cuban-style” espresso since its beans, too, are not harvested on the island. The company, founded in 1931 by two Cu-

ban Americans in East Harlem, is owned by Rowland Coffee Roasters, a Miami-based corporation that was acquired by J.M. Smucker Co. in 2011.

The way coffee is served in Cuba, usually called café Cubano, a strong shot of espresso sweetened with sugar as it is brewed, originated when Italian espresso makers were first imported there.

According to Robert Thurston, a former history professor at Miami University and managing partner of the Oxford Coffee Company, the Cuban style of serving coffee is more similar to that of European than Latin American countries.

“In Latin America, you find less preference for espresso whereas

in Europe you’ll find a huge preference for espresso and espressobased drinks,” said Thurston.

In other countries, though, authentic Cuban beans are starting to find a place in the market. One British company, Alma de Cuba, exclusively sells Cuban brew. In a deal made in 2014, the company pledged to invest $4 million into coffee farming in the southeastern part of the island over the next five years.

According to its website, the primary goal of their fair-trade business is to “help restore Cuba’s coffee crops to their former glory.”

This article is part of the series Stories from Cuba, produced by students from Miami University.

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6 OPINION

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EDITORIAL@MIAMISTUDENT.NET

Incoming freshmen: Keep an eye on your mental health The following piece, written by the editorial editors, reflects the majority opinion of the editorial board.

W

elcome! The beginning of each year is always filled with an abundance of anticipation and excitement. Matching this excitement is the flurry of lectures given to ensure that no first year student drinks alcohol, plagiarizes, etc. After a while, the lectures become trivial, blending together into a big “Don’t mess up!” message for all to heed. Yet one thing that cannot (and indeed should not) be discussed enough is the ubiquitous threat of mental health, something that seems to thrive in the breeding grounds of college.

According to a Psychology Today, one in four college students have reported suicidal thoughts or feelings, while one in three students reported prolonged periods of depression. Worse still, bestcolleges.com reports that 40 percent of afflicted students do not seek help.

So why are college students so prone to succumb to mental ill-

ness? Reasons vary, of course, but likely factors include the change in environment. That is, incoming students are no longer protected by the safety nets offered by home life.

On the contrary, they are tossed out into the sea of college life, asked to stay afloat while clinging to new friends, a new schedule and a new home. Social pressures like fitting in arise and add to the unease. All of this is typical for most students, however, so it goes without saying that these factors alone do not cause mental health difficulties. It’s normal to feel like you can’t quite keep up at first, because everything will be coming at you so fast. It becomes a problem when it becomes distracting.

The reality is that according to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, 62 percent of the students who withdraw from college withdraw because of mental health issues. What’s more, out of the 40 million U.S. adults that currently suffer from an anxiety

disorder, 75 percent of them experience their first episode by the age of 22. It’s a real problem, and it’s more common than you think.

The stigma behind mental illness and mental health difficulties can make you want to hide what you are feeling. That’s normal, but it’s not helpful. The truth is, solving mental health problems is the same thing as fixing a broken leg or stitching up a cut to let it heal.

Good or bad mental health is just a result of certain bodily functions.

That’s good news for us students, who work hard to make our brain better. This means, if we do the right things, our brain can work to make us better, too.

So catch it early. The key is to recognize the dip in mood first, then attack the problem with the correct coping mechanisms. This is exactly why colleges have student counseling services. The best thing to do when you find yourself in a crisis is talk it out. For some, this can be managed by talking to

At the intersection of roadkill and coffee LIFE

GRAHAM von CARLOWITZ OPINION EDITOR

I was racing along route 84 the other day — one of the roads I frequent when cruising about in my hometown — all the while considering how many times I’ve driven the road.

At the ripe old age of 15, I learned to drive suspiciously slowly through Kirtland Hills, right where the cop hides behind the water tower. I learned to stop looking for the house I lived in when I was born, as a) it is hidden behind a thick canopy of houses, hidden for none to see and b) the fruitless search will inevitably lead to a crash, so stop while you’re ahead, man.

I learned to accelerate around the bend that passes Zappy’s gas station in order to catch the light by the Woodstock (á la Charlie Brown) doghouse — though I have yet to regret the 20 seconds I get to spend at the red light, looking for any sign of a dog (i.e. stray bones, poop piles, halfchewed balls or lamp shades and the like, none of which have been sighted to date).

That day I was driving, my foot propelled me past the gas station and doghouse with ease.

Then I killed a squirrel. A real, buck-toothed rodent. We caught each other’s glances for a second before he crossed the doublestriped yellow line, signing his death contract in the process.

After being mangled underneath my car, his carcass shot out like it had escaped a pinball machine. My eyes darted to the rear-view mirror in terror, catching the final moments of his dying twitch.

“Oh God! It happened!” I yelled to the passengers — my brother Winston and my friend Joe. It was my way of begging for some pity and one of those uplifting, “Graham, man, it’s fine. He was at fault, not you.”

No feelings were spared.

“He’s dead, dude. You just murdered him,” Winston said.

He was right. What’s more, I could have avoided the catastrophe.

Roadkill really comes down to the split-second you have before the ensuing death, during which you are given a choice: You can slam on your brakes and maybe build a lasting friendship with an unlikely candidate who, let’s face it, literally owes you his life; or speed through the little bastard, telling yourself that the rattling

under your car is due to that muffler you totally forgot to tape up.

Only, I am superconscious of everything I do, from the way I sit on a couch to how many lines on the sidewalk I step on. Forgetting a killing like that? For a guy like me? It’s hopeless. Besides, my muffler is in great shape.

The only hope I had of absolving my guilt, then, was to blame Al (I named the dead squirrel) for causing the accident.

Good luck on the hopeful front came just two days after Al had died in the shape of another tumultuous run-in (or drive-in) with my car. That morning, as I inched forward out of my driveway with Kerrigan, my younger sister riding shotgun, I could not help but feel a little tired — dazed, almost.

“It’s too late! There’s no way that’s gonna brew in 2 minutes,” Kerrigan had said on our way out the door. To my utter dismay, she

drive.

My front bumper shattered into 63 pieces like a Lego tower might if it was hit by a 2015 Dodge Caravan, and just like that I found a way to blame Al. “Oh shit,” I thought to myself, “I didn’t have any coffee.” I also checked to see if Kerrigan was all right. But then I returned to lamenting my foggy-head status, one cup away from avoiding the aforementioned disaster.

I don’t know if squirrels drink coffee or not, but I would imagine that the acorn addict Al would have been much more alert that morning had he, too, not been robbed of some morning glory coffee.

Sure, he might have tightroped a phone line on one paw in a flurry of misplaced, caffeine-induced energy, but worst case scenario you have an unintentionally flying squirrel land on a windshield — way better than turning into a

Forgetting a killing like that? For a guy like me? It’s hopeless. Besides, my muffler is in great shape.

was right.

The coffee grounds in the coffee drip had not been properly drowned in the boiling water that transforms them into the miraculous cup of Joe I need every morning. Someone was at fault, but like Kerrigan urged, we were in a hurry and the blame game was (momentarily) cancelled.

So there I sat in my driveway, perched forward on my steering wheel, trying to spot the last car in a parade of drivers, who really had no business driving out on our streets anyhow. We live adjacent to Amish Country, so you’d expect there to be an absence of cars as a token of living so far from civilization.

“Do you think the Amish will ever upgrade their buggies to be, I don’t know, four-wheel drive?”

I wanted to ask Kerrigan. But the question was tabled. A royal blue Jeep Liberty caboosed the parade and, as I usually do when I see the last cart of a 20-minute train passing, I fist-pumped and pulled out into the world.

Then we were struck from the left side by what I assumed was the Amish’s answer to four-wheel

pavement pancake.

Roadkill is one of those omnipresent problems in our world — street cleaners and road scientists alike have spent decades looking for the perfect solution.

I imagine life-saving distractions for potential “pancakes” have been discussed, including but not limited to a fun variety of massage furniture (available in squirrel and deer sizes), almost guaranteed to keep the animals off the street and their feet.

Realistically, though, the project would prove to be too costly, especially considering the lofty task of assembling mini massage chairs (not to mention the unproven theory that animals would even consider sitting upright).

What needs no proof is that all animals drink, regardless of their seating preferences. So instead of forcing innocent people like me to paint an evil portrait of Al the Asshole Squirrel, what’s holding us back from approaching roadside wildlife with a warm smile and refreshing pot of coffee?

VONCARGH@MIAMIOH.EDU

a close friend or to a parent. For others, discussing a mental illness with someone so close can seem embarrassing and only be a source for more anxiety: thus the counseling service.

A healthy diet and plenty of exercise is actually scientifically proven to improve your mental health, too, so skip the Taco Bell and go for the Farmer salad.

And bad news for tired students: drinking coffee is directly associated with overstimulation of the nervous system and an increased heart rate, which happens to be a recipe for anxiety. Skip the caffeine and drink water instead.

There are, no doubt, wrong ways to cope with stress and potential mental illness. Ignoring the fact that problems exist is not a good idea, although it seems to be a popular one. Other popular coping strategies include turning to drugs and alcohol, the clichéd evils of our day. So make sure you are aware of how you are feeling

before you decide to deal with it in a way that will be detrimental to your health.

Miami has built-in facilities designed to help students with virtually any personal issues. If you ever need to talk to someone, the Student Counseling Services are just across the campus.

Resources: An initial consultation at Student Counseling Services is free, and the next three sessions are funded by general student fees.

Anything above four is only $25 for each session. Check out Student Counseling Services for more information.

For additional resources: Miami University Psychology Clinic: (513) 529-2423 Women Helping Women/ 24 hr Rape Crisis: 1-877-889-5610 National Suicide Prevention Hotline: 1-800-273-TALK (8255) Crisis Text Line: Text “hello” to 741-741

The Miami Plan: critical thinking … but not too critical

CONTRIBUTED BY KYLE HAYDEN

ENVIRONMENT

KYLE HAYDEN

GUEST COLUMNIST

When I walk into a room at Miami University I do not light it up.

This is no mistake. I can see the light switch. I know what it does.

I also happen to know what’s on the other end of the light switches.

But this does nothing. It gives me no respite. I take no moral “high ground” in my reluctance to turn the lights on.

Adorono has quoted Fabian Freyenhagen on the topic: “In a wrong world, no one can be healthy, live well or even rightly.

Also, in such an ill state of affairs, reacting as if everything were normal is pathological and can only be upheld by inner or outer repression.”

Here, we use coal-fired electricity. This electricity is generated from coal that comes from the mountains of West Virginia through a technique known as “mountaintop removal mining.”

The university does not care: they continue to act with impunity and are in their conscience guilty of no atrocity.

After our reporting last year, nothing was said or done by administration about the switch to any sort of reduced-energy plan, a divestment from coal or fossil fuels, or even a switch to electricity generated from “renewable energy.”

Yes, before you send a letter or write a little comment, I already know of the university’s “Sustainability Commitments and Goals.”

Rather, we perpetuate the blind arrogance of a rich civilization drunk on luxury with no regard for the negative consequences.

Humans lived without electricity before and we will be able to get along with less of it.

Elitist visions of sustainability are not slowing down the murder of the planet. They speed it up.

These “techno-fixes” (as author Michael Huesemann calls them) give this murder space to expand, they justify it. They give us something to point to and say: “look, but it’s green.”

Corporate accounting does not include the biosphere. It does not acknowledge our “ecological debt” (See the Andrew Simms: “Ecological Debt: The health of the planet and the wealth of nations”).

They benefit from the omission of responsibility. Some might call this “freedom.”

These “resources” are in a sense gifted to us by the “inanimate” world’s inability to defend itself.

However, we are encouraged to be critical. Professors repeat this ad nauseam at syllabus time: critical thinking … but not too much critical thinking, right? Too much critical thinking will make a traitor.

No organization that does the work of “resource management”, chemical production, marketing, public relations, development, banking or finance wants to employ someone who is sincerely critical. That would be against their interest.

We are complicit in an energy system that gives Appalachian children cancer so we can have lectures about “sustainability” under artificial light.

Meanwhile, the university releases another set of “Sustainability Commitments and Goals.”

Meanwhile, we have more signs on campus telling us why butterfly gardens are important.

Meanwhile, a majority of my peers will go on to pay fealty to the corporations and ideologies that condone and practice what we could call “Earth Murder”.

We have silence on meaningful (read: critical) visions of sustainability.

We are sick to the core.

HAYDENKA@MIAMIOH.EDU

The opinion section wants you … to be a columnist or essayist. Email editorial@miamistudent.net

EDITORIAL@MIAMISTUDENT.NET

OPINION 7

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 2016

Brexit leaves college students in the UK, EU uncertain INTERNATIONAL

her I was fine.

In hindsight, I was fine. Emotionally I was disappointed and indeed disgusted with the results, but I would not be as affected as my fellow interns, Isla and Will.

Students from nations across the EU benefit from paying equal tuition fees regardless of the country they come from, as long as both their country and the country in which they attend school are both members of the EU. When Great Britain officially ‘Brexits,’ that luxury will no longer apply to EU students studying in Great Britain or British students studying elsewhere in the EU.

they graduate, they could see their tuition increase over 400 percent.

TESS SOHNGEN Lucky for them, their university emailed COLUMNIST every current and 2016 prospective student Everyone in London went to bed that Thursassuring them that their promised tuition fee day, June 23, knowing the votes to remain in would not change for the duration of their the European Union (EU) were in the lead. courses. Students of 2017 might not be so Amid the political turmoil, everything would lucky. return to normalcy by the weekend. Great Other colleges in the EU said their tuition Britain would still be in the EU. fees could rise for British students. The MaasFriday morning I did not check my phone tricht University in the Netherlands encourfor the news — I thought I did not have to. It aged their 500 British students to apply as was an uncommonly sunny day in London, soon as possible to obtain the £1,600 yearly England; I was still rolling off my home city’s tuition, which could increase to almost £8,360 NBA championship and imagining after the Brexit. what would happen to my city in the Beyond tuition, students are raisupcoming Republican Presidential ing questions about changes to their Election. scholarships, student loans, research I was not present, I would argue, in funding and student or work visas. this old city until I received a Group For currently enrolled students, Me message from a student in my their scholarships and loan access If the Brexit occurs before they graduate, they program. will not change for the duration of “Well, it might be a good time their courses, but this is not promcould see their tuition increase over 400 percent. to grab a couple pounds today, the ised to next year’s students and those pound fell quite a bit compared to the of future generations. dollar in the reaction to the referenCollege for students both in the dum.”

States and across the pond brings My heart dropped. enough uncertainties in the experi“Scotland’s next! You know they’re ence alone. Will I have a job when I going to call another referendum. graduate? What job would I want?

You know it!” the man in front of me said to Imagine you are an out-of-state student at Where am I going to be after these three or the barista at Caffè Nero. The barista shook his Miami, but tuition cost for in- and out-of-state four years? The Brexit has only exacerbated head and stared at the counter before handing students was the same, $26,247, and this rule this. the man his coffee. applied to all 50 states. But, when your senior I think about Isla and Will and how their I ordered my “coffee soup” (just a medium year of college rolls around, the rule is abol- election has wounded — and will continue to coffee, but my coworker Roxy would tease me ished, and now your tuition costs $43,552. wound — European students. I wonder if my for the amount of coffee I could put away each This is the reality British and EU students face. country’s election this November could do the morning), and hurried to work. It was 9:15 Isla and Will both attend the University of same. a.m., and Roxy was the only one in the office. St. Andrews in Fife, Scotland, but neither have She asked me how I was, and I lied and told Scottish citizenship. If the Brexit occurs before SOHNGETM@MIAMIOH.EDU

Real great tips SATIRE

JOEY HART

ASST. OPINION EDITOR

Here at The Miami Student, it’s an important job of ours to make sure that the entirety of the student populace is well informed of its environment, including firstyears. Keeping this duty in mind, we submit to you, freshmen, the following 12 tips to help make your first year a swooping success: - Want to immediately make a name for yourself on campus?

Skip out on all the opening week activities to make sure everyone knows you’re a badass.

- Diversity is one of the most important aspects of any college campus. Show you have a diverse opinion on college sports by wearing an Ohio Bobcats sweatshirt to class.

- Bond with dorm mates by making betting pools over who will contract HPV first.

- Don’t let others push you around just because you are the youngest group here. Walk up to a bouncer at a bar and say, “No, YOU aren’t allowed in here unless you’re 21.”

- Start stocking up on canned corn and cornmeal now in preparation for Cornfest.

- Recognize that it’s your first year of college and you never want things to get too serious too quickly with anyone. Practice saying “Like & Honor” instead of “Love & Honor” for now.

- The football and basketball games will likely all have sellout crowds, so make sure to purchase your tickets as soon as possible before there aren’t any left.

- Everyone knows that it’s good luck to rub the turtle heads under the sundial, but not every one knows that it’s even better luck to lick them. Consider Frenching those babies before your first exam.

- Comically suggest bunking beds with your roommate just like in the movie “Step Brothers,” because no one else in the world has thought of that joke already.

- Just because Brick Street isn’t really a street doesn’t mean you can’t get wrecked there.

- Start getting to know people involved in Greek life now so that come rush they know you’re really weird.

- Break the ice with other students you meet by talking about what you have in common, like the fact that you’re wearing khakis.

HARTJT@MIAMIOH.EDU

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A.J. NEWBERRY NEWBERAJ@MIAMIOH.EDU

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8 SPORTS

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 2016

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PENDING LICENSE ARRIVAL, ALCOHOL WILL BE SERVERD AT YAGER Students can expect beer at Miami’s first home game vs. Eastern Illinois ALCOHOL

BEN BLANCHARD SPORTS EDITOR

Following Saturday’s game at Big 10 powerhouse Iowa, Miami University will host Eastern Illinois on September 10, and college football will not be the only thing on tap that Saturday at Yager.

Pending the arrival of the required liquor license, Miami is prepared to start serving beer at its home games. The license has been granted, but the university has not yet received it.

The decision to sell alcohol comes after the university sold beer at the club level of hockey games this past season to test viability at other venues. In a memo sent to university officials, former President David Hodge said that the trial run “was well received and there were absolutely no issues regarding responsible consumption.”

Hodge referred to this success as a first step for Miami in gaining the experience and confidence necessary to provide responsible service with responsible behavior.

Additionally, Hodge cited that six other Mid-American Conference schools (Akron, Bowling Green, Eastern Michigan, Kent State, Northern Illinois and Toledo) offer beer at football games in general areas. All 12 MAC schools offer beer in premium locations.

Beer will only be sold within Yager Stadium’s gates and is primarily targeted at alumni and older students.

The area selling beer will be staffed by a mix of volunteers and workers certified through the Training for Intervention Procedures program. Students and adults will be required to show

ANGELO GELFUSO THE MIAMI STUDENT

Yager Stadium and the Cradle of Coaches will host alcohol as well as football this fall. government issued identification to prevent underage drinking. After presenting ID, attendees will receive a wristband indicating that they are of legal drinking age.

Hodge argued that beer at football games “would provide an appropriate alternative for students of legal age to the excessive drinking uptown, and, importantly, also model responsible consumption of alcohol.”

To prevent overconsumption, vendors will sell a maximum of two beers at one time. No beer will be sold after five game minutes have passed in the third quarter. Servers and ushers will also monitor the stadium to prevent overconsumption and un-

derage drinking.

Students will not be allowed to use their meal plan (declining balance or otherwise) to pay for beer. Fans will not be allowed to take beer in or out of the stadium.

These guidelines were developed by the Alcohol Coordinating Committee and are similar to steps taken at other MAC schools.

Miami University Director of Communications Claire Wagner said the training the servers received will ensure that underage drinking will be prevented to the best of the university’s ability.

Attendance at Yager has been a serious problem for Miami, even putting its Division 1 status into question. The NCAA requires a

minimum attendance of 15,000 for Division 1 programs, and Miami has barely surpassed that mark in recent years.

Alcohol sales had been prohibited at Miami athletic events

since 2006, when the university decided that the cost of increased security to deal with altercations was not worth the profit and increased attendance provided by beer sales.

RedHawks face major obstacle, opportunity in Iowa Miami to play Big 10 runner-up in season opener FOOTBALL

COBURN GILLIES

ASSISTANT SPORTS EDITOR

For a program like Miami Football -- one that hasn’t produced a winning season since 2010 -- optimism can be hard to come by.

However, some positivity arose once Head Coach Chuck Martin took the podium for his first press conference in his third season as coach.

“Fall camp went excellent. The kids have been a lot of fun to be around and have worked hard on both sides of the ball and on special teams. Physically and mentally -probably mentally has been the biggest difference in how much they’re willing to expend energy to learn,” said Martin.

This should serve as encouragement for a program that is just three seasons removed from a winless season -- a season that was seemingly one of the factors in the decision to hire Martin, who has improved

ANGELO GELFUSO THE MIAMI STUDENT

Sophomore Sawyer Dean bats down a pass during the football team’s practice on Monday. Originally published on August 25, 2015

Miami’s record each year under his tenure.

The onus of Coach Martin’s group seems to be to get better at the game of football each and every day. By playing a Big Ten program like Iowa, the RedHawks get a chance to test themselves against the nation’s best.

“For our kids, the opportunity of going in a Big Ten venue in front of a lot of people with that pink locker

room, the long-term success of Iowa in terms of how physical they are; we’re trying to become a physical football team in our own right,” said Martin.

Martin emphasized the developmental opportunity provided by competing against an elite team such as Iowa.

“It’s a good barometer for us as we put our hands on their guys to feel

Headlines beyond Oxford: The Minnesota Vikings suffered a major blow Tuesday when quarterback Teddy Bridgewater suffered a dislocated knee and complete ACL tear during the team’s final preseason practice.

The Vikings are the reigning NFC North champions, and their hopes of repeating will now even more heavily lie on the shoulders of running back Adrian Peterson. Backup Shaun Hill will start in place of Bridgewater.

what physical football at the highest level feels like.”

Miami entered its offseason on a high note, coming off a victory over the University of Massachusetts to end their last season at 3-9.

With 17 starters coming back -- 10 on offense and seven on defense -and another year under Coach Martin’s belt, this young team expects to show real improvement from last year.

The ‘Hawks offense features sophomore quarterback Billy Bahl, as well as wide receivers junior Sam Martin and redshirt sophomore Rokeem Williams.

On the defensive side of the ball, Martin has an idea of how the inside linebacker situation is going to play out.

“Junior [McCullen], Brad [Earnest] and Paul [Moses] are our starting inside backers.”

For Martin, however, how his team responds when they enter Kinnick Stadium will be a key factor.

“Just to see how the kids respond

TODAY IN HISTORY

2006

Roger Goodell began his tenure as NFL Commissioner on this date in 2006. Goodell has been a controversial commissioner, most recently suspending Tom Brady for four games.

FALL INTRAMURALS BROOMBALL & ICE HOCKEY Registration August 30–September 7 Visit MiamiOH.edu/ICE for league details Questions? Contact Ben 513-529-9800

to the excitement and the nervousness and you’re going into a hostile environment against great players and you’re up against it. How are you going to respond?”

Iowa, on the other hand, enters this tilt looking to move past a disappointing finish to its 2015 campaign.

Kirk Ferentz’s team enters the contest on the heels of two consecutive losses -- to Michigan State in the Big Ten Championship and Stanford in the Rose Bowl -- at the end of last season. Before those losses, Iowa was undefeated and eyeing a spot in the College Football Playoff.

The Hawkeyes’ offense is led by returning senior quarterback C.J. Beathard, who threw for 2,809 yards, 17 touchdowns and five interceptions. On the defensive side of the ball, All-American senior cornerback Desmond King leads the Hawkeyes after snagging eight interceptions last season.

Saturday’s game will take place in Iowa City. Kickoff is at 3:30 p.m., and the game will air on ESPNU.