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MONDAY, AUGUST 23, 2021 ‘Most things will look more like pre-COVID’:
Miami plans for fall semester
CONTINUED FROM FRONT
Rivinius said the university hopes the incentive program will drive the Miami community to get vaccinated.
“We are hoping [the program] further incentivizes people who were on the fence or just hadn’t gotten around to it to just go ahead and get vaccinated,” Rivinius said. “We think vaccination [is] the most efective way to fght COVID.”
Miami, following CDC recommendations, is also encouraging students, faculty or staf who travel to the U.S. from international travel, regardless of vaccination status, to get tested within 3-5 days after travel. Unvaccinated individuals who traveled internationally are also encouraged to self-quarantine for 7 days after travel.
Individuals who have received at least one dose of a two-dose COVID vaccine that is not approved by the FDA or WHO must also quarantine after international travel, as Miami is not recognizing vaccines not authorized by the FDA or WHO. Receiving a vaccine after international travel to the U.S. does not exempt individuals from protocol recommendations.
COVID-19 tests will be given at the Health Services building. Students who have uploaded their vaccination records to MedProctor or have shown proof of a positive COVID-19 test in the last 90 days are exempt from testing.
At-home antigen tests will also be available for students at various locations on campus, including Armstrong Student Center and King Library.
Move-in & residence halls
Last year, move-in for underclassmen took place over the course of one week to allow for social distancing. This year, it took place over two days, beginning Aug. 19. Upperclassmen and student organizations signed up to help students move in, a service that was not available last year.
Any students that did not upload their vaccination records were required to go to Millett Hall before arriving at their residence hall to get tested or show proof of vaccination or a positive COVID test within the last 90 days. Students could also opt to get the frst dose of their vaccine at Millett during move-in.
Students who were vaccinated and moving onto campus could forgo move-in testing and go directly to their residence hall to move in as long as they uploaded their vaccine records to MedProctor.
Robert Abowitz, associate director of residence life, said Miami will continue to keep an eye on COVID in the residence halls and try to minimize cases.
“Based on testing, we are likely to continue to have the color coding of the residence halls,” Abowitz said, “so that we can publicly acknowledge where we see outbreaks, and we can react so we can reduce those outbreaks.”
Along with the color-coding system, which identifes how many students in a residence hall have tested positive for COVID-19, Miami will also set aside space for on-campus students to isolate or quarantine. It hasn’t been confrmed which buildings will be used.
Abowitz said he is anticipating full occupancy in the residence halls, compared to only 60% occupancy in the 2020-2021 school year.
The Ofce of Residence Life is planning to hold more events in person, such as corridor meetings, the fre safety fair and other hall programs.
“Most things will look more like pre-COVID than they [did] last year,” Abowitz said.
COVID guidelines in the residence halls will follow what’s set by Miami University, Butler County Health Department and the CDC.
Masks will be required in public areas of residence halls, however, there will not be any capacity limits for public areas or student rooms.
Dining
Dining halls will also return to full capacity, according to an email sent to students by Campus Services on Aug. 6. Other than that, most aspects of dining halls will be similar to the past school year.
“All commons locations will have full seating capacity,” the email read, “and food will be served in compostable, to-go containers at the start of school with the hopes to return to china plates and cutlery as the semester progresses.”
Along with using to-go containers, dining halls will also be closed for portions of the day. Unlike last year, however, they will operate on a staggered schedule. On weekdays, there will always be at least one dining hall open.
Dining hall hours of operation can be found on the dining services website.
“Unemployment, supply chain, product availability and operational changes in the food and beverage industry are challenges seen nationwide and are afecting us,” the email read.
According to the dining services website, Cafe Lux will be open this fall, but Bell Tower Commons will remain closed.
Student life
As Miami begins a new semester, Abowitz said outreach to sophomores, who haven’t had the normal college experience yet, is important.
“There’s a small committee right now that is planning the ‘second-year surge,’” Abowitz said. “These will be events and programs directed towards second-year students. I think we’re going to be doing some encouraging of second-year students to attend some of what we consider the traditional frst-year programs.”
Mega Fair is scheduled to take place in person on Sunday, Aug. 29. Art After Dark, another popular event, will return as well.
Armstrong Student Center will take event reservations for the fall semester with no capacity limits. Study rooms in Armstrong also no longer have capacity limits, and all the furniture in Armstrong’s Shade Family Room has returned.
Katie Wilson, director of Armstrong, said she is excited to have more students and events in Armstrong this year.
“We’re looking forward to seeing a more vibrant student center next semester and having everybody back and creating the kind of Miami experience that we’re known for,” Wilson said.
Kimberly Vance, director of Student Activities and Fraternity and Sorority Life, said even though student organizations are able to host meetings and events indoors with masks, they are encouraging largescale events to be held outside when possible.
“What we’ve advised organizations to do is, yes, you can host an event … and if that is an event that will work outside, where people can naturally distance from each other a little bit or they’re just not all closed up in a room — if you can do your event that way, great,” Vance said. “It’s a recommendation, it’s not a requirement.”
Vance said she plans to send out an email to student organization leaders so that they can stay up to date and plan their meetings and events this fall.
“We know that what we’re probably dealing with is, we went so long without typical functions of student organizations, that there’s an inevitable loss of information on how to do
AS STUDENTS BEGIN MOVING BACK TO CAMPUS, MANY COVID POLICIES REMAIN UP IN THE AIR. PHOTO BY CAROLINE BARTOSZEK
certain things,” Vance said. “So we’re trying to be very diligent and deliberate on creating some feld workshops and other things that we probably normally wouldn’t have to bring student leaders up to speed.”
Vance said the only restriction student organizations need to worry about is the indoor mask requirement for right now.
Vance also noted that guidelines for fraternities and sororities largely depend upon national chapter rules, as well as the City of Oxford’s decision on mask mandates and/or gathering limits.
As student organizations return to meeting in-person, Wilson thinks it’s important to ease into it and to accommodate those who may not be comfortable being back in-person yet.
“Maybe you set up chairs three feet apart instead of right next to each other, just giving people a little fexibility to create six feet around them if they need to do that in order to keep compliant with the university guidelines of maintaining distance indoors if you’re unvaccinated,” Wilson said. “Just giving people that option as they transition back into going to events.”
As shown by the return of masks while indoors, COVID-19 is unpredictable, and all current policies are subject to change.
“If the university changes requirements, or the CDC or Butler County, then we could possibly have to adapt accordingly,” Wilson said. “Be ready to be fexible if we need to change what the parameters are.”
@cosettegunter guntercr@miamioh.edu @nwlexi whitehan@miamioh.edu
Oxford divided on masks as City Council fails to vote on mask mandate
SEAN SCOTT
ASST. CAMPUS & COMMUNITY EDITOR
By the end of the Aug. 17, Oxford City Council meeting, an ordinance mandating masks within the city was neither passed nor denied. The meeting was standing room only as residents showed up to speak both for and against the proposed mask mandate.
Council was set to decide whether to pass an emergency measure requiring masks to be worn indoors and on public transportation in response to the rapid spread of the delta variant of COVID-19 across the United States.
However, emergency ordinances require a supermajority of six out of seven councilors to vote in favor to pass. Councilors Chantel Raghu and Jason Bracken were not present Tuesday night, forcing the measure to be tabled.
Raghu sent a letter to City Manager Doug Elliott explaining her absence from the meeting and ofering support for the mask mandate.
Raghu’s parents, who live in Texas, were both infected with COVID-19 despite being vaccinated. Her father remained in the hospital for eight days on oxygen before returning home to continue oxygen therapy. Days later, her mother was rushed to the hospital.
“I have watched my normally chatty dad gasp for air as he tries to tell me his wishes for after he passes,” Raghu wrote.
Raghu compared the situation in Texas, where COVID cases have skyrocketed and the governor has avoided passing mask legislation, to the situation in Oxford, where cases remain low but could soon be impacted by the return of Miami students to campus from around the country.
“While the governor of Texas plays games,” Raghu wrote, “people will continue to die and hospitals will continue to be overrun.”
Because both Raghu and Bracken weren’t present, any vote on the mask mandate would have been as a regular ordinance rather than an emergency measure, meaning it would need to be revisited at the next meeting before going into efect.
City Attorney Chris Conard said Council could also call a special meeting to vote on the measure when six or more councilors would be present.
Even though the ordinance wasn’t voted on, Council still heard comments from the public and ofered their own opinions on whether a mask mandate would be necessary.
Resident Kathie Brinkman spoke in support of the mask mandate, saying she worried for the health of her grandchildren who are not yet old enough to receive the vaccine. For them, she said, masks are their only line of defense.
“We’re not asking people to be mandated to receive the vaccine,” Brinkman said. “We’re asking people to put a cloth over their face.”
Nadia Hofman, an Oxford resident since 1983, said a mask ordinance was in the best interest of the community, even if some individuals disagreed with it.
“With individual rights also come responsibilities, and that includes responsibilities to the common good,” Hofman said.
Other residents disagreed with the mask mandate, however.
Dana Dunnegan said she accepted the personal risk of not wearing a mask and that others should be free to do so as well.
“If we look around the room, those who want to have a mask on have a mask on,” Dunnegan said. “If you don’t want to risk your life — I see many of you have your masks on — that’s your choice.”
For Eric England, changing guidance from scientifc experts made it hard to accept a mask mandate. While he might wear one in crowded rooms out of common courtesy, he said, he was against an ofcial mandate.
“Science has data, and it’s an opinion for a moment, until it changes,” England said. “The world’s fat until it’s not. The vaccines are efective until they’re not … No one chooses when and where [to die], and I appreciate that we may want to consider the other person’s well-being, but to mandate that, I think, is overstepping bounds.”
Vice-mayor Bill Snavely said individual freedoms ended when their choices had a direct negative impact on others.
“I think for example that I have the freedom to swing my arms, but that freedom stops when I hit my neighbor’s nose,” Snavely said.
Councilor Glenn Ellerbe agreed with Snavely and compared the pandemic to the angel of death in Exodus. Vaccines and masks, he said, are like the mark that protected Jewish households when the angel came to Egypt.
While Ellerbe supported having a mask mandate on hand, he didn’t think it should be enforced until Butler County’s healthcare system says rising COVID cases warrant its implementation.
“I believe that a mask mandate needs to exist on paper,” Ellerbe said. “I do not believe that it needs to be enforced today, but the moment that our healthcare system says the needle has moved and we need it … zero issue, pass the mandate.”
Council will meet again at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 7, in the Oxford Courthouse unless councilors decide to call a special meeting to vote on the mask mandate before that point.
DICK FARMER, MIAMI ALUMNUS AND NAMESAKE OF THE FARMER SCHOOL OF BUSINESS, DIED AUG. 4. PROVIDED BY FARMER SCHOOL OF BUSINESS
SEAN SCOTT
ASST. CAMPUS & COMMUNITY EDITOR
Businessman and philanthropist Richard “Dick” Farmer, namesake of Miami University’s Farmer School of Business, died Aug. 4 at 86 years old. An alumnus of Miami, Farmer donated frequently after graduating in 1956, providing the cornerstone gift to the school of business in 1992. Farmer and his wife, Joyce, donated an additional $30 million through the Farmer Family Foundation in 2005 to fund construction of the building and support faculty.
Before the physical building to house the school of business was completed in 2009, Farmer signed the inside of the cupola that now sits on top of the building.
In 2016, Farmer gave $40 million to the school of business, the largest single donation in Miami’s history at the time.
During his college years, Farmer met Joyce at Miami. He graduated with a degree in marketing and went on a tour with the Marine Corps while she fnished her education and graduated in 1957.
They married the day after his discharge.
Farmer came back to his alma mater often to visit his fraternity brothers, the Delta Tau Deltas. Through them, he met John Altman, a 1960 graduate who would become a lifelong friend.
“Us young guys, we looked up to Dick,” Altman said. “He joined the Marine Corps and went through Offcers Candidate School … The guys always looked up to him. He was a tall, good looking, smart guy, and we were young kids.”
The pair wouldn’t stay kids forever, though.
Farmer joined his family business, Acme Wiper and Industrial Laundry Co. After a decade of work, he left to found his own company, Cintas, to test new ideas in business.
Two years later, Cintas was successful enough that Farmer was able to buy his family business. Now a Fortune 500 company that employs 40,000 people, Cintas supplies uniforms, frst aid and cleaning products to businesses around the globe.
When Tim Holcomb, associate professor and chair of entrepreneurship at Miami, met Farmer in 2014, he said he didn’t give the impression of a high-strung businessman.
“I’ve had the opportunity and fortune of meeting and talking to quite a few Fortune 500 CEOs,” Holcomb said. “Most of them are incredibly busy, under a lot of stress. If Dick was feeling stress and anxiety at the moment he sure didn’t show it.”
Holcomb had only been teaching at Miami for a few months when he met Farmer. At the time, he was the Cintas Chair in Entrepreneurship — one of the only chair positions at the university named after a business.
“He took time to get to know me and get to know a little bit about what I was doing at Miami,” Holcomb said. “Although I’d been there just a few months when we frst met.”
Through every interaction, Holcomb said Farmer maintained an air of graciousness and humility, a description Altman agreed with.
Farmer owned property in Arkansas and took Altman duck hunting with him once. At the dinner table, he asked Altman to ofer a blessing. Despite the short notice, Altman said when Dick Farmer asked you to do something, you did it.
“Here’s a guy that was certainly connected to the spiritual world, as well as to the real world, a so-called foot in each camp,” Altman said. “The bridge was humility.”
Along with humility, Farmer’s ability to delegate brought him far in both business and life.
When FSB’s Board of Visitors, a network of successful alumni founded by Farmer to advise the school’s administration and staf on curriculum and resources, came across a task at one of their meetings, Farmer sent everyone on their way in groups of two to get the job done.
“There’s a lot of people competing with each other to take credit, and Dick wasn’t that kind of guy,” Altman said. “He wanted to bring out the best in all of us … like the Marine Ofcer he was. We all understood we had a job to do, but it was just the way he handled everything.”
Farmer was inducted into the Greater Cincinnati Business Hall of Fame in 1996. In 2010, he received the key to the city of Mason. His foundation donated over $27 million in 2019, and throughout his life Farmer donated to over 200 nonproft organizations, including the Ronald McDonald House and the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center.
Farmer leaves behind his wife and son, Scott D. Farmer, who retired as CEO of Cintas this summer, as well as two daughters, Brynne Coletti and Amy Joseph.
He leaves behind friends and colleagues like Altman, relationships which spanned decades, and he leaves behind innumerable memories of the ways he laughed with, served, learned from and taught others.
“Like all long term relationships, there are a lot of stories I can’t tell for The Miami Student,” Altman said. “But I tell these stories in private to a lot of people. [Dick’s life] had all the colors of every pallet known to man.” scottsr2@miamioh.edu
Miami University to increase salaries, pay bonuses afer year in pandemic
DESIGNER SOREN MELBYE
JAKE RUFFER
ASST. MAGAZINE EDITOR
Miami University faculty and staf will receive increased salaries and fnancial bonuses for the 20212022 academic year, as announced by university President Gregory Crawford in June.
Miami’s salary pool will increase by 2% this year, and full-time employees in an annual pay bracket above $75,000 will earn an additional 0ne-time payment equal to 1% of their salary. Bonuses for employees below that bracket will be $750. Crawford said part-time employees would also receive bonuses.
The payments are a reward for “the extraordinary work and tireless eforts of Miami’s employees throughout the pandemic,” Crawford wrote in his announcement.
The bonuses follow an especially trying year for Miami employees, who taught and worked in difcult circumstances without the help of colleagues who were let go in anticipation of the COVID-19 pandemic’s fnancial toll.
In March 2020, Miami refunded tens of millions of dollars to students for unrealized services like housing and meal plans at the start of the pandemic.
Over a year later, Crawford reported that the university is now “in a much stronger fnancial position.”
This is due in part to what Crawford called “difcult steps,” including layofs of visiting assistant professors and other employees.
Miami also had additional sources of funding including federal assistance from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act and other emergency relief funding.
Ohio Governor Mike DeWine told universities to expect a 20% reduction in state funding due to the pandemic, but by the end of the year, he only cut funds by 4.5%.
Miami’s Senior Vice President for Finance and Business Services David Creamer said DeWine’s aid didn’t stop there.
“Before we ended the year, [DeWine] actually, through some of the CARES Act money, restored almost all of that cut,” Creamer said.
Unexpected rounds of funding were approved by Congress in December 2020 and March 2021.
Creamer said those funds helped patch losses caused by refunds and cover costs to test, quarantine, isolate and vaccinate students for COVID-19.
Crawford also credited the university’s fnancial position to “unexpectedly strong returns on [its] investments.”
“We had one of the strongest fnancial market performances this past year that we’ve seen in the last 30 years,” Creamer said.
He and Crawford credit those three pieces — investments, federal and state funding — with Miami’s ability to provide honorary payments.
Creamer said the university is still watching the virus closely in Oxford before expecting fnances to make a full recovery.
“The year is so far of to a pretty good start,” Creamer said, “but we all remain concerned about the number of positive cases … We’re trying to prepare in case we see some outbreaks on campus to make sure we can manage that, but we’re certainly hopeful it’s going to be a more normal-looking year.” @jakerufer ruferjm@miamioh.edu
BRIAH LUMPKINS
MANAGING EDITOR
Although Miami University has mandated masks to be worn indoors on campus, student organizations will have more opportunities to meet in person this semester.
Armstrong Student Center (ASC), an on-campus hub for many student organizations, will continue to mandate masks within the building unless actively eating or drinking. Katie Wilson, director of ASC says they have, however, dropped the occupancy limits in-
side student org offices.
Wilson also said the staff urges student orgs to maintain social distancing as much as possible.
“We’re encouraging people to do room setups that would allow for a little more distance and to spread out a little bit,” Wilson said. “If that means using a larger space, that may be exactly what you need.”
The same rules apply to fraternities and sororities, said Kimberly Vance, director of Student Activities and Fraternity and Sorority Life. Members will still be required to wear masks indoors on campus, including in sisterhood and chapter suites.
Vance said the main questions she’s heard from Greek affiliated students are about the potential return of the 10-person limit on social gatherings instituted by Oxford City Council last year. The mandate allowed for no more than 10 people to be in an enclosed space at one time, which made it difficult for these students to conduct in-person activities.
Although Vance said she doubts the mass gathering ban will be reinstated, her office will continue to follow the guidance of state and federal officials.
“I am not in charge of Oxford City Council,” Vance said. “I don’t know what might be coming down the pipe, but as of right now we’re following CDC guidance and [guidance from the] state of Ohio Department of Public Health.” Associated Student Government’s (ASG) Secretary for On-Campus Affairs Becca Pallant said she’s happy to be able to meet in person while also having the mask mandate. “I think it really is the safest way to protect our unvaccinated students, and our at-risk students, the most,” Pallant said. In addition to ASG, Pallant is also the president of the National Residence Hall Honorary. After a year of virtual connection in both orgs, Pallant said she is looking for ways to overcome the “awkwardness” being in person could bring.
“I know we’re struggling with coming up with ideas because our org members haven’t seen each other in over a year in person, and that’s kind of awkward. Like you don’t see somebody for a year, but you have on Zoom, so it’s just a weird experience to go back to in person, but I think it’ll be really good for students.”
@briah_lumpkins lumpkibm@miamioh.edu
Talawanda School District votes to mandate masks
MADELINE PHABY
CAMPUS & COMMUNITY EDITOR
Oxford’s Talawanda School Board voted 4-1 in favor of instating an indoor mask mandate for all students and staf regardless of vaccination status at its Aug. 16 meeting.
Previously, at its July 8 meeting, the board passed a resolution stating that elementary school students and all visitors would be required to wear a mask, while masks will be optional for middle and high school students.
However, the new resolution extends the requirement to all students.
Before the vote, a number of community members came forward to express their thoughts about the potential mandate.
Summer Garland, a parent from Hanover Township, spoke in opposition to the mandate because it would take away personal choice from parents.
“I believe that every parent here wants what is best for their child, but … there is a diference in our opinions on what is best, which is why I am asking you to give families a choice in whether to mask our children,” Garland said. “We are not going to change each other’s minds on this issue, so I am asking for a compromise.”
Dr. Jim Davis, a pediatrician in Oxford for the last 39 years, was one of only a few community members who spoke in favor of the mandate.
“Last year in my ofce, I saw less strep throat, less ear infections, less pneumonia [and] the least number of respiratory infections that I’ve seen in my entire career,” David said. “Masking clearly decreased the spread of all those respiratory infections … I don’t understand why people wouldn’t want to do the best possible thing to protect our teachers and our children.”
Ron Siliko, a parent of two sons in the district, started a petition to make masks optional for Talawanda School District students, which has received more than 500 signatures as of Aug. 17.
Siliko spoke on behalf of all the petition’s signers at the meeting, citing COVID-19’s relatively low death rate among children.
“There have only been 15 [COVID-related] hospitalizations ages 0 through 19 in Butler County in the past 16 months,” Siliko said. “In making this request, we are asking the board to look at our local situation rather than engaging in medical nationalism.”
Amy Shaiman, a parent of a child at Kramer Elementary, also presented a petition at the meeting. Her petition, signed by more than 245 people at the time of the meeting, called for a continuation of TSD’s mask requirement.
Shaiman also criticized TSD for not requiring masks at events in district buildings, such as during teacher training, and said she felt the district was not taking COVID seriously enough.
“We do not tell kids allergic to peanuts and tree nuts that their allergies are optional and a matter of free choice … we take it seriously, and those around that child avoid peanuts and tree nuts,” Shaiman said. “We take care of each other.”
Before the vote on the mandate took place, Partick Meade, a member of the board, expressed support for masking and urged the audience to look to health experts for guidance.
“When there’s something wrong with my car, I take it to a mechanic,” Meade said. “The Ohio Department of Health recommends masks in schools K-12. I don’t know medicine, but I know those people know more than I know.”
The resolution passed, with board member Rebecca Howard as the only “no” vote. The board said it will revisit the mandate when Butler County’s vaccination rate increases but did not give an exact date.
Students both protest and praise university mask mandate
MIAMI UNIVERSITY HAS ANNOUNCED IT WILL REQUIRE MASKS DURING ITS FALL SEMESTER, BUT SOME STUDENTS BELIEVE THE POLICY WAS NOT THE RIGHT CALL. PHOTO EDITOR ZACH REICHMAN
CLAIRE LORDAN
ASST. MAGAZINE EDITOR
Miami University will require face coverings indoors for the fall semester regardless of vaccination status. Students have expressed both opposition to and support for the decision.
The same day the mandate was announced, Miami University College Republicans (CRs) created a petition urging the university to end the mask mandate.
The CRs petition currently sits at 1,071 signatures at the time of publication. The organization released a statement shortly after the announcement expressing their disapproval of the mandate, calling the move “unnecessary from a scientific standpoint” despite the Butler County Health General Health District’s recommendation of wearing a mask indoors, regardless of vaccination status.
“This requirement is not based in science,” the CRs statement reads. “Young people are not vulnerable to serious harm from COVID-19, making this virus a low risk to Miami’s community.”
Madeline Whistler, a junior East Asian languages and culture and international studies co-major, said that type of rhetoric erases the effect students have on the Oxford community.
“People forget that Oxford isn’t just full of college students,” Whistler commented on the university announcement via Instagram. “People of all ages call it home. As students who have had the privilege to choose Oxford to attend college, it’s also our job to protect those who live in the town we enjoy.”
CR Chairman Collin Finn said he also believes the mandate will decrease vaccination rates among students.
“We know that the vaccine is the best tool we have to protect ourselves from the virus,” Finn said. “By continuing to enforce masks on campus, we’re weakening the credibility of the vaccine to those on the fence about it to begin with. It makes the messaging pretty foggy.”
Despite the university offering on-campus vaccinations to all students and various prizes through the “Your Shot to Win” lottery program, no vaccine requirement has been put in place for the fall semester.
In Butler County, 43.84% of all residents have received a full dose of the COVID-19 vaccine — well below the national average of 57% — according to the Ohio Department of Health COVID-19 vaccination dashboard.
With 83 new cases reported on Aug. 5, the number of active cases countywide currently sits at 625.
Dylan Sexton, a sophomore finance major, worries the university will continue to change its COVID-19 protocol without warning throughout the fall semester.
“Of course the mandate was frustrating to hear about,” Sexton said. “But the thing that’s even more frustrating than the mandate itself is the complete lack of communication from the university. Why wait to give us this information two weeks prior to moving in? What does this mean for classes returning to in-person?”
But Carole Johnson, associate director of university news and communications, wrote in an email to The Miami Student the university has no plans to return to remote learning for the fall semester.
“The university is planning a robust return to in-person classes and operations for the fall,” Johnson wrote. “While there might be some remote components of classes, most instruction will be faceto-face.”
Evan Gates, a sophomore business economics major, believes the backlash to the return of masks exemplifies a level of privilege among the student body.
“I understand being frustrated,” Gates said, “but when you make it clear that the thing you care more about than your friends and family’s health is a piece of fabric on your face, that really tells me everything I need to know.”
The university’s indoor mask mandate went into effect Aug. 9.
The CRs are hosting a press conference at 4 p.m. today, Wednesday, Aug. 11, outside Roudebush Hall in opposition to the mask mandate. It will feature Republican legislators from across Southwest Ohio. lordance@miamioh.edu
MONDAY, AUGUST 23, 2021
REAGAN RUDE
THE MIAMI STUDENT
For some Miami University students eager to make up for the past year and a half of college life during the pandemic, Oxford’s many bars are the perfect place to be. But some uncertainties linger as the delta variant and unvaccinated populations remain an issue.
Chi Pham, a senior strategic communication major, said she is looking forward to returning to bars but remains apprehensive about them as well.
“It’s my senior year, so I do want to have fun, but I want to stay cautious as well … With the delta variant, I’m not super comfortable going all out,” said Pham.
While many bars and restaurants across the state have dropped intense COVID-19 measures, there are some that have taken a new stance.
Brick Street Bar & Grill, Oxford’s most popular bar, recently announced it would require patrons to provide proof of vaccination or a negative COVID test for entry. Some students supported the measure, while others remained hesitant.
Faith Baxter, a senior chemistry major, said Brick’s requirement could help keep underage students out of the bar as well as limit the spread of COVID-19.
“I think some bars should be limited to exclusively vaccinated students just for the safety of people who are vaccinated,” Baxter said. “It would also [help with] underage drinking at Miami.”
Dornu Biragbara, a senior psychology and pre-medical studies double major, said she supports the elimination of COVID-related restrictions in bars and restaurants.
“I think we should go back to [full] capacity … If you’re at Brick, you’re already putting yourself at that risk so the precautions don’t matter as much,” Biragbara said.
Baxter prefers that some precautions, such as limited capacity or mask requirements, still be taken.
“I think there should be a mask mandate at unvaccinated bars, and maybe an optional one at vaccinated [bars],” Baxter said.
Pham said she would like for vaccination requirements or limited capacities to be implemented, but for the dance foor to return.
“I want [some] precautions, but I don’t want the table,” Pham said. “The tables are super boring.”
Pham also stressed the importance of having bars and their customers combine their attempts to minimize the spread of COVID.
“I think both sides need to have some eforts into protecting the community, because if the restaurant doesn’t do anything, all my efort will [go to] waste,” Pham said.
Even though bars and restaurants can implement some safety measures, students are showing an understanding that there is always some risk in entering them.
“I feel like the most bars and restaurants can do is keep it clean, sanitize everything … After that it’s up to you to stay six feet apart, etc,” said Biragbara. “If you’re scared of COVID, you probably shouldn’t be at Brick.”
STUDENTS HAVE MIXED EMOTIONS ABOUT RETURNING TO UPTOWN BARS THIS FALL AS THE DELTA VARIANT OF COVID-19 RIPS THROUGH THE COUNTRY. PHOTOGRAPHER CAROLINE BARTOSZEK
rudere@miamioh.edu
Gone but not forgotten:
The life cycle of a major
SEAN SCOTT
ASST. CAMPUS & COMMUNITY EDITOR
Real estate.
Sports leadership and management.
Data analytics.
When Miami University launches a new major, it’s greeted with press releases, articles and speeches from alumni about how excited they are for their alma mater’s new direction.
But when a major leaves the catalog forever, its death is marked with little fanfare.
Liren Wu graduated this August with a degree in interactive media studies (IMS) and a co-major in comparative media studies (CMS). She will be the last graduate the CMS program ever has.
“When I took the basic course of CMS, I could use this knowledge in my other IMS courses,” Wu said. “That’s super helpful, and it’s like, you do learn something, not just to write a paper.”
Throughout her time at Miami, Wu was able to apply what she learned in CMS to aspects of IMS. She learned about media production and analysis and carried that knowledge back to her production classes in the College of Creative Arts, where IMS is housed.
“I just don’t understand why they’re going to phase out this co-major,” Wu said.
But the death of the CMS co-major was a long time coming.
Even before the pandemic, Mack Hagood, an associate professor in the Department of Media, Journalism and Film, said CMS was a difcult program to execute.
The co-major was designed to be highly interdisciplinary, with students focusing on how media impacted various industries. Studying in areas like politics and science became difcult, however, when CMS students encountered seat limits and classes required for other majors.
“It just becomes really difcult to choose your own adventure in the way the university is structured,” Hagood said. “Interdisciplinarity is something we really desire, and a buzzword at universities for years, and we’ve just found that it can be difcult to implement.”
The death of CMS won’t result in any lost classes or faculty. Hagood, the only full-time faculty member of CMS, will move to media communication, a new major forming from the combination of CMS and the media and culture (MAC) major. Andy Rice, an associate professor who split his time between flm studies and CMS, will join him as an instructor for the new major.
“In a way, it’s great for the new media communication program,” Hagood said. “If you think of it that way, it adds one and a half faculty members.”
CMS is only the most recent in a long string of majors that have seen their last graduates at Miami.
In 1983, photographer Ron Stevens was hired by Miami to teach classes in industrial art, a major which housed photography, woodworking and metalworking.
Soon after Stevens arrived at the university, the industrial arts program dissolved. Woodshop classes were picked up by the architecture department and photography by educational media.
Stevens stayed on as an instructor, teaching photography in a department that boasted other classes on how to use overhead projectors and VCRs.
Technologies that rose to prominence in the 1980s and 1990s were soon replaced by even newer gadgets. The educational media program — created to prepare students for modern classrooms, — quickly became obsolete.
“Educational media morphed into the educational leadership [program],” Stevens said. “When that occurred, photography … moved to the art department.”
More recently, programs that still have undergraduates on campus have stopped accepting new students as they prepare to shut down.
John Forren is chair of the Department of Justice and Community Studies, which ofers a variety of majors at Miami’s regional campuses. Starting this fall, however, forensic investigation won’t be one of them.
Two years ago, Forren’s department went through an academic program review. Professors and faculty studied the substance of their majors and classes, how enrollment had shifted in the past few years and student outcomes for each major. After a team of reviewers looked at more than 100 pages of documents, they made their recommendations.
“One of the pieces of feedback we got from the external reviewers, which was something that sort of matched our own impressions, too, is that basically, ‘Gee, this major is very similar to your criminal justice major,” Forren said.
While some of the 40 students still majoring in forensic investigation were upset after receiving an email in February 2021 saying the major would no longer be advertised to prospective students, Forren said the content isn’t going away for good.
“We’re developing what is essentially a forensic investigation track within the criminal justice major,” Forren said. “This was not a situation where the university said, ‘We’re cutting things, [and] you’re next on the chopping block,’ or anything like that. This is a response to substantive concerns about whether the major was serving its purpose.”
The department is also saying goodbye to its forensic science and nonproft and community studies (NCS) majors. While forensic science was cut due to its heavy focus on physical sciences like chemistry which led to stafng concerns, Forren said it hurt to get rid of NCS.
“[NCS] has been a major that’s been very successful in its mission, and we’ve been very pleased with the outcomes,” Forren said. “This was not a concern about the substance of it at all. This was a concern about … can we sustain it with the numbers of students we were getting.”
Like prospective CMS majors who can redirect their attention to the media communication major, though, not all hope is lost for Miami’s regional students who wanted to major in NCS. Forren said the department is always exploring new options for education, and NCS may become a minor or career path within a diferent major.
“It’s a tough process any time a large organization pauses and says, ‘We’re going to revisit everything we do,’ because there will be some things that you conclude, ‘We shouldn’t be doing that,’” Forren said. “But that’s a healthy process, I would argue, and just because something goes away, that in some circumstances opens up new ground for something better.” scottsr2@miamioh.edu
Student Counseling Services accommodates for COVID-19 restrictions with new policies
MEGHNA SANTRA
STAFF WRITER
Miami University’s Student Counseling Services (SCS) have undergone a number of changes to accommodate the rapid efects of COVID-19 on its patients and ofce since March 2020.
While students used to sign up for in-person appointments, the pandemic forced the ofce to shift to virtual meetings.
Dr. John Ward, a clinical psychologist at SCS, said the virtual counselling sessions were particularly unfamiliar.
“Historically, if you think about the way any sort of counselling sessions had been done, it had always been primarily face-to-face, and there were very few folks that did it in a virtual format,” Ward said. “Our ofce, along with countless other mental health agencies across the country … had to do a complete shift of how we had done things for hundreds of years and learn how to do it in a diferent way.”
To prepare for this change in practice, the staf had to be retrained. The technology required updates in order to accommodate for the telehealth format.
“Most [staf] took to it rather quickly,” Ward said. “I would say those that probably struggled a little more were those that don’t consider themselves to be rather tech savvy. I think that’s a natural thing to happen. But overall people went in with a really willing attitude, ‘Alright we gotta make this change, we’ve got to do this diferently now.’ It was like all hands on deck to make the shift.”
Ward said students adapted to telehealth better than SCS anticipated.
“I thought that folks were going to struggle with the technology, or the virtual format,” Ward said. “It was like it came second nature to so many people that we’ve worked with. So that was just pleasing to know that it wasn’t too difcult or hard on the student end.”
There wasn’t a noticeable change in the quality of counseling from the student side. For one second-year student, who wished to remain anonymous, the biggest diference was a gap in communication before appointments got started.
“When we frst went into lockdown, there was a period where nothing happened which was a bit weird,” she said. “I think it was two or three weeks because I know that they were trying to get everything ready.”
Once everything was arranged, she received a message that the service was up and running again.
One new aspect of virtual appointments was the handling of appointments through her counselors rather than the front desk.
However, the student found that the quality of her appointments meant she could go for longer without visiting again. This allowed for other students who needed appointments more urgently to get them while the ofce was still working on getting back on their normal pacing.
“I think after the frst month, maybe two, they kind of fgured things out and maybe got some students who needed more urgent sessions in and got a better schedule,” she said.
While Ward said many students did adjust well to virtual appointments, some still felt more comfortable with someone seeing them face-toface and reading nonverbal cues. He noted that the loss of physical cues in virtual appointments was one of the biggest factors in adjusting his approach to counseling.
“There are things that intuitively we’d know before the session would start with someone when it was face-to-face,” Ward said, “because maybe they’re already tearing up in the waiting room, teary-eyed, and as they’re walking down the hallway, we’d catch that before the session even started. Maybe the gait with which they walk, something is of about that.
He also said some students also struggled with fnding a safe, private space for virtual sessions.
“Say [students] were at home with everyone else in the house and the walls were thin, and they didn’t necessarily want their parents to overhear their session,” Ward said. “Students had to get creative in terms of where they would go to have their sessions.”
This year, SCS will begin to re-integrate in-person appointments. Ward said the ofce will start the semester splitting their time between virtual and face-to-face counseling.
To best accommodate the needs of students, Ward believes that maintaining an overall balance is necessary.
“We will continually try to work on that ratio as we go throughout the course of the semester,” Ward said.
LAURA GIAQUINTO
STAFF WRITER
Despite the indication from Miami University that Bell Tower Commons would reopen this fall, the dining hall will remain closed indefnitely for the upcoming semester.
Haines, Spring Street Market, Dorsey Market and the Starbucks at Withrow Hall will also remain closed for the time being.
In an email to The Miami Student, Executive Director of Food and Beverage Geno Svec wrote that Miami dining is currently understafed.
“Unfortunately we are dealing with a staf shortage, and we are working hard to recruit the best talent that we can to fll our roster,” Svec wrote.
As the dining halls add staf throughout the semester, Svec wrote they may expand hours.
“We are also hopeful that the student body will be interested in working with the Food & Beverage locations,” Svec wrote. “We have a new pay structure in place for students with the potential of making $13 per hour.”
For now, the dining hall options will remain similar to last semester.
“We will have to start the semester with to-go containers and move towards china service as we increase stafng,” Svec wrote. “As we add staf to our roster we will open more stations.”
In addition to the dining options in Armstrong that will not be open, Cafe Lux, Sundial Pizza, Curve and The Toasted Bagel will be closed on Saturdays and Sundays.
Sophomore political science major Ethan Chiapelli started the petition to reopen Bell last year, and Miami had later confrmed that Bell would be open for Fall 2021.
“There’s a lot of things going on right now that the school has said are going to happen, and didn’t happen, you know, that we would be fully back to normal this semester,” Chiapelli said, “and that’s not true anymore.”
Chiapelli lived in Ogden Hall last year and said he was disappointed to not have the convenience of Bell’s proximity.
“The way my schedule worked is that on Tuesdays and Thursdays I would only have 30 minutes to get food,” Chiapelli said. “I’d either have to walk all the way to Garden, wait in line for stir fry for 30 minutes and then try to make it back before class, or I just went to Uptown which was much closer for me, and ate there, but then I ended up barely using my meal plan, which I paid $5,000 for.”
Although Chiapelli is commuting this year, he said students this year living in Ogden could have similar issues.
“It’s not as bad for most students, but for the kids that live near Ogden or in Ogden, their best options are going to be the food in Armstrong,or the food uptown,” Chiapelli said. “So I think that it’d be good of Miami to either make the food in Armstrong part of the meal swipes or at least discount it instead of having to pay $8 for a hamburger at Pulley’s.”
The full list of dining option hours can be found online. giaquiln@miamioh.edu
DESIGNER SOREN MELBYE
Afrmation, education and advocacy:
LEXI WHITEHEAD
ASST. CAMPUS & COMMUNITY EDITOR
In May, April Callis began working at Miami University as its new associate director of LGBTQ+ Initiatives in the Center for Student Diversity and Inclusion (CSDI).
Callis said her responsibilities lie in three diferent categories: programming, education and advocacy.
The frst category – programming – entails planning events to build
a new year for LGBTQ+ initiatives
ics. One of her goals is to revamp Safe Zone, a program that already exists at Miami but has not been active for the past few years.
“What it’s going to be is a threehour initial training for people to learn about the language around the LGBTQ community and go through scenarios to talk about what it means to be an ally,” Callis said. “Because being an ally is something that’s active. It’s not just going to this training; the training should be the start.”
She also wants to set up contin-
ued education trainings to talk about particular identities in the LGBTQ+ community, such as asexuality and nonbinary identities.
Previously, Callis received her masters from the University of Kentucky in 2004 and her PhD from Purdue University in 2011. Both degrees are in cultural anthropology with a focus on gender and sexuality.
While teaching at NKU, Callis also worked part-time for GLSEN, visiting middle and high schools in Kentucky and Ohio to facilitate training. She also worked with an LGBTQ+ youth group, and decided she wanted to do LGBTQ+ work full time. In 2017, she became the associate director of the LGBTQ+ Center at University of North Carolina Chapel Hill (UNC).
“What I found when I was at NKU, I was really gravitating toward supporting queer students, toward teaching classes around gender and sexuality. This was my passion,” Callis said. “And I decided to look for a job that was really specifcally focused around LGBTQ students.”
At UNC, her job focused primarily on programming and education
“This policy piece, this advocacy piece I wasn’t working on as much,” she said. “It’s something I was really interested in. So, … I saw this job open up at Miami, and I was really excited.”
- April Callis
community and raise awareness. Callis is currently planning CSDI’s Rainbow Reception, an annual event that welcomes new and returning LGBTQ+ students back to campus.
The second category – education – is one Callis has experience in. From 2012 to 2017, she worked as a faculty member at Northern Kentucky University (NKU) teaching classes in gender and sexuality.
At Miami, Callis is focused on creating training around LGBTQ+ top-
The advocacy portion of her job is Callis’s favorite. To her, advocacy can mean having one-on-one meetings with students or looking at Miami policies to see how they can be improved.
“Yes, we need afrming events very much. And yes, there needs to be an educational program … but there also needs to be afrming policies in place,” she said. “Nobody is going to feel like they can be who they are if they are somewhere where there are not policies that afrm them.”
Another one of Callis’s goals she’d like to accomplish this year is to get Miami ranked on the Campus Pride Index, a website that rates universities on how welcoming and afrming they are to LGBTQ+ students. Miami is currently not listed on the website, but Callis is working on getting answers to the questionnaire.
“[It’s] going to allow us to see where Miami ranks, but also it’s going to give me a really great idea of where are the places Miami is doing really well right now and then where are the places of potential future growth,” Callis said. “So that will kind of allow me to see where I need to put some of my energy in the next few years.”
Once she began working at Miami, she started by talking to diferent people to get to know the university.
“I didn’t want to come in and assume, ‘This is what I should do here,’” she said. “I really wanted to organically fgure that out from talking to people.”
One group Callis has started to build a relationship with is Spectrum, a student-led LGBTQ+ organization on campus.
Megan Jordan Kridli, a junior computer science major and co-president of Spectrum, said she thinks Callis is a perfect ft for the job.
“It is very good to have someone like April who is sociable as well,” Kridli said. “I think that she’s a lot more sociable than she lets on which is very good for her interaction with students in the sense that she’s somebody we can actually get to know, get to understand and work alongside when we have something we want to do.”
APRIL CALLIS, MIAMI’S NEW DIRECTOR OF LGBTQ+ INITIATIVES, HOPES TO ADVOCATE FOR STUDENTS ACROSS CAMPUS IN HER NEW POSITION. PHOTO EDITOR ZACH REICHMAN Callis’s position has had a high turnover rate in the past, and Kridli’s biggest hope is that Callis continues to build relationships with students and do meaningful work. “I think that having somebody who knows the ins and outs of Miami and can consistently interact with students and have things ongoing, for a very long time, have a long term project, or keep pushing for something to get done in a certain way, is very useful,” Kridli said. Callis is excited to be on campus this fall and work with students. “The thing I’m looking forward to is getting to meet students here and getting to be the afrming presence in their life,” Callis said. “Getting to create these educational and social and cultural programs that are going to make them feel seen and valued.” @nwlexi whitehan@miamioh.edu
Changes coming to Miami Plan next school year
LEXI WHITEHEAD
ASST. CAMPUS & COMMUNITY EDITOR
Starting in Fall 2022, the Global Miami Plan, the set of classes required for all Miami University students, will be replaced by the Miami Global Plan. Revisions were made by the Liberal Education Committee, which started working on the new plan in 2019.
Both plans share the same amount of credit hours, and most of the requirements for students will remain the same, but revisions were made to clarify the plan for students and faculty.
Provost Jason Osborne said that changes were made to continue pushing Miami forward.
“It wasn’t really that anything was wrong, it’s just that we want to keep improving and streamlining where possible,” Osborne said.
Current students, including this year’s incoming frst-years, will continue taking classes under the Global Miami Plan. Incoming students beginning in fall 2022 will have to complete the Miami Global Plan requirements.
“This year is an implementation year,” Osborne said. “Which means we’ve got the framework, but now we’re working with departments, and we’re trying to make sure that we’re ready to implement it.”
After fall 2022, all students will have the option to switch to the new plan if they decide it works better for them.
The current plan requires students to take classes in fve foundations: English Composition, Creative Arts, Humanities and Social Science, Global Perspectives, Natural Science, and Mathematics, Formal Reasoning and Technology.
It also includes a thematic sequence, which requires students to take 9 credit hours in a major outside of their department.
Instead of fve foundations, the Miami Global Plan will consist of four perspective areas: Formal Reasoning and Communication, Science and Society, Arts and Humanities, and Global Citizenship.
The main diference between the Global Miami Plan and the new Miami Global Plan is that the thematic sequence will be replaced by Signature Inquiries.
Leighton Peterson, interim director or liberal education and member of the Liberal Education Committee, said Signature Inquiry courses will be more interactive.
“One of the requirements in the Signature Inquiry courses is that it’s not just that you sit there and listen to a lecture – that it is hands-on, and students have opportunities to investigate, to research, to test hypotheses … so it’s a diferent kind of introductory class,” Peterson said.
In their Signature Inquiry, students will take classes in diferent departments that address similar real-world issues. For example, students can choose Equity, Justice and Diversity or Global Health and Wellness as their Signature Inquiry concentration.
Peterson said these Signature Inquiries will highlight “Miami Moments,” an experience students may have in class when they make connections to another class in a diferent discipline.
“It’s where you’re sitting in a class and you’re like, ‘Oh my god, I’m sitting in this English class, but that’s what my physics professor said,’ and it all kind of clicks,” Peterson said. “It’s those ‘Miami Moments’ that we’re trying to build on and facilitate.”
Shelley Bromberg, director of the ofce of liberal education and chair of the Liberal Education Council, said thematic sequences confused both students and faculty. The Signature Inquiries will hopefully be less confusing and
DESIGNER MACEY CHAMBERLIN
more fexible.
“It’s not just one set of courses like the thematic sequences – a lot of times students couldn’t get those courses, these are much more,” Bromberg said. “You’ve got many more options.”
Students can also “double-dip,” and earn credit for perspective-area courses while completing their Signature Inquiries, which was not possible with thematic sequences.
Both plans account for the requirements set by the Ohio Department of Higher Education (ODHE), which dictates the general education requirements for public Ohio universities. One new requirement is diversity, equity and inclusion, which will be covered by the plan’s Global Citizenship perspective area.
The plans also align with Miami’s value of liberal education, where students gain a broad width of knowledge, something employers also value.
“At a university like Miami, a liberal education says, ‘We want you to explore your major, but we also want you to be able to understand how a large variety of things may interact and [we want to] provide you with additional resources for your future,’” Bromberg said.
One of the main purposes of the new Miami Global Plan is to be more benefcial for students.
“A lot of things don’t have to change,” Peterson said. “Social sciences courses will still be social science. Humanities courses will still be humanities. What will change is how we look at them together.”
MONDAY, AUGUST 23, 2021
College republicans oppose mask mandate, fnd few supporters at press conference
COLLEGE REPUBLICANS (CRS) HELD A PRESS CONFERENCE TO PROTEST MIAMI’S INDOOR MASK MANDATE. PHOTOS BY CAROLINE BARTOSZEK
ABBY BAMMERLIN
CAMPUS & COMMUNITY EDITOR
Miami University’s College Republicans (CRs) hosted a press conference in opposition of Miami’s new mask policy, which requires masks to be worn indoors on campus regardless of vaccination status.
The conference, which took place Aug. 11 at 4 p.m. in front of Roudebush Hall, included speeches from Ohio State Senator George Lang, Ohio Representative Thomas Hall, political candidates and CR representatives.
The audience was small, only a handful of people in addition to the speakers that were featured in the event.
Senior political science major Collin Finn, CR Chairman, helped organize the event after he and other CRs voiced their opposition to the mandate on social media. He said CRs reached out to politicians in hopes that they’d join the press conference and spread awareness about their cause.
Finn said the mask requirement may create a lull in vaccination rates.
“I think that reinstituting the mask requirement, it really undermines confdence in the vaccine,” Finn said, “I think the vaccine is the best weapon we have to fght this pandemic.”
Mark Pukita, a candidate for US Senate and one of the speakers, said he stands for “personal liberty.”
“We need to get back to living our lives,” Pukita said. “We need to have the ability and the freedom to make our own choices.”
Counter protesters were present at the event to show support for the university administration’s decision. Alden Trotter, a senior environmental earth science major, was at the press conference to oppose CRs.
“As far as choices go, you really either mandate vaccines or mandate masks, and that’s the one (Miami) chose,” Trotter said.
CRs had previously published a statement explaining its opposition to Miami’s mask policy, writing the decision was not based in science.
“Young people are not vulnerable to serious harm from COVID-19, making this virus a low risk to Miami’s community compared to other risks that the university has not addressed with such urgency,” the statement read.
While fully-vaccinated adults are at low risk of requiring hospitalization or dying from COVID-19, the CDC recommends wearing masks for fully-vaccinated adults indoors when in an area of substantial or high transmission environments.
Butler County is currently labelled as a high transmission environment by the CDC.
Trotter said the university isn’t just considering Miami’s students, but the surrounding Oxford community as well.
“I mean, we have an aging population,” Trotter said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if the majority of Oxford residents were above, like 40 or 45.”
In an email sent to The Miami Student on Aug. 11, Jessica Rivinius, director of news and media relations, wrote that Miami is joining universities across the country in implementing a mask mandate regardless of vaccination status.
“We do this to protect the students who live in congregate housing, the faculty who teach our classes, the staf who serve our students, and individuals with children under the age of 12,” Rivinius wrote. “We recognize that there are a broad range of opinions on how to combat the pandemic; however, we do believe that face coverings play a critical role in that efort.”
Rivinius said Miami still sees COVID-19 and the delta variant as a danger to vaccinated individuals.
“While vaccinated people remain highly protected from the most severe outcomes of COVID-19, the unfortunate reality is that the delta variant has been shown to be highly contagious,” the statement read. “Even those who are vaccinated may become ill and may be capable of passing the virus to others.”
Finn said due to the mask requirements, he believes there will be no incentive for students to get vaccinated because they can’t go maskless.
“I think everybody had the choice whether or not to wear a mask,” Finn said. “At the very least they should let vaccinated individuals make that choice for themselves.”
In Miami’s statement in an Instagram post released Aug. 6, it cited the rising cases of the delta variant and CDC guidelines as one of its motivators for moving forward with the new policy.
“Public health ofcials have advised us that the safest course of action for the successful completion of a robust, in-person semester is to take preventative actions now,” the statement read.
Currently, Miami has not announced if or when it will require vaccines in the future.
Kit Gladieux, a junior arts management and individualized studies double major, was at the press conference to protest it. They said mandating vaccines at Miami would be in the students’ best interests.
“I do understand that people do have free will and free choice,” Gladieux said, “but I want the safety of our community in our school over anything.”
Rather than mandating vaccines, Finn thinks Miami should continue to encourage students to get the shot.
“I encourage everybody to send in their vaccination status because I think when the university fnds out that the vaccination rate is really high here on campus, they might reconsider the decision,” Finn said.
CRs created a petition on Aug. 5 in an efort to reverse Miami’s mask policy. At the time of publication, the petition had garnered 1,073 signatures.
Gladieux said her view on Miami’s mandates is simple.
“My stance on it is if you do not want to comply with the rules that Miami has laid out to keep us safe,” Gladieux said, “then do not come to Miami.”
Photographer Caroline Bartoszek contributed reporting to this story.
@abby_bammerlin bammeraj@miamioh.edu
AMY BERGERSON HOPES TO SUPPORT STUDENTS AND STAFF IN HER NEW ROLE AS ASSOCIATE PROVOST PROVIDED BY MIAMI UNIVERSITY
CLAIRE LORDAN
ASST. MAGAZINE EDITOR
Miami University Provost Jason Osborne announced that Amy Bergerson will serve as the university’s frst associate provost and dean for Undergraduate Education.
The announcement came on June 3, nearly two weeks after the search had narrowed down to three potential candidates, including Bergerson.
Bergerson will support undergraduate students and faculty and will also assume responsibility for student success within academic divisions across campus, including diversity and inclusion and global initiatives.
Before coming to Miami, Bergerson served as senior associate dean for undergraduate studies at the University of Utah for fve years.
“Dr. Bergerson brings extensive experience, scholarship, and expertise to our new position of associate provost and dean of undergraduate education,” Osbourne said in a June 3 press release. “Her depth really showed throughout her extensive interview process.”
After receiving her doctorate from the University of Utah, Bergerson held multiple positions within the university’s ofce of undergraduate studies and led student support eforts focused on individual success and retention rates.
“Her primary job is to ensure our undergraduate students are as successful as possible, our faculty are well supported in serving this important mission, our policies and practices are leading-edge and our curriculum diferentiates us from other institutions,” Osborne said.
As the frst to fll the role of associate provost, Bergerson hopes to address needs specifc to Miami students while becoming part of the campus community.
“Miami really appealed to me because everyone there is so focused on undergraduate education,” Bergerson said. “Everything is centered around the undergraduate community, which creates so many more opportunities to develop an amazing college experience.”
Bergerson’s starting work will center around the development of the new Honors College and implementing the revised Global Miami Plan.
“Developing new roles is something that I’ve focused on a lot in my career, and it’s something that I really enjoy doing,” Bergerson said. “Part of what drew me to the position in the frst place was its new role on campus.”
With a passion for undergraduate education, Bergerson believes her position will allow her to assist students in making the most of their four years at Miami both in and out of the classroom.
“College is such a terrifc time,” Bergerson said. “There’s just such an amazing transformation that happens for people in college, but it can also be a really difcult time. I feel like there’s so much potential to change people’s lives for the better while they’re college students.”
Bergerson will ofcially begin her new role as associate provost on Aug. 1. lordance@miamioh.edu
History in the making
ALICE MOMANY
THE MIAMI STUDENT
In March 2020, Miami University’s archives launched “Documenting the COVID-19 Pandemic,” a collection focused on life during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The project, which is not yet published, is currently composed of about 30 entries documenting the feelings and emotions of everyday life while quarantined during a pandemic.
Rachel Makarowski, a special collections librarian at Miami, pitched the idea after refecting on her own journal from the pandemic. Faculty, staf, students, alumni, parents and even spouses have all sent in materials documenting their experience during the global lockdown.
“I think that it was a kind of motivation of just wanting to help people because journaling is such a good way to kind of help to process what it is that you’re experiencing,” Makarawoski said.
Makarawoski also found inspiration from other institutions such as Indiana University and Harvard University, who created similar archive collections, but this project difers because of its focus on Miami.
“We wanted to capture this moment for what it’s like as someone either in Oxford or connected to Miami University because everyone was experiencing the pandemic in a similar, but also diferent way,” Makarowski said.
Grace Berry, a junior zoology major, discovered the project through Miami’s Honors Program. Berry wrote in her journal on Google Docs three times a week during the Fall 2020 semester. Because her classes were online, Berry stayed at home during the fall semester and flled her journal with stories of studying remotely, seeing an albino squirrel and wrestling a snake out of her dog’s mouth.
While Berry sees the pandemic as a dark time in history, she enjoyed having a space of her own to let out her frustrations.
“It was defnitely interesting because I’m writing things as I’m seeing it on the news,” Berry said. “I remember writing about the election and diferent stances on the pandemic, and I’m just expressing my opinion on that, but it’s kind of hard to take a step back and look at it when you’re living through it.”
In addition to journals, the archive also includes a documentary created in associate professor Andy Rice’s documentary production class.
The documentary titled “Generation COVID: Coming of Age While Six Feet Apart” follows the lives of eight students during the spring 2020 semester. Currently, it is the only video submission in the archive.
“I suppose a default for most people when they think about an archive and contributing to it, is text-based documents and materials, but we certainly don’t live in a world anymore where that’s the only way we consume media,” Rice said.
Rice hopes the documentary will spark questions and conversations for future historians.
“If somebody watches this 15 or 20 years from now, there’ll be a lot of things that we don’t even notice that they’ll have lots of questions about,” Rice said. “The more forward you go, the stranger history gets.”
Also submitted to the archive is “Through It All,” a play anthology created in professor Katie Johnson’s spring 2020 studies in drama and performance class about the COVID-19 pandemic.
Set in the U.S., the anthology comprises 21 short plays and two
songs that highlight the misinformation and uncertainty in the beginning, the isolation and loneliness throughout, and the established new normal. Johnson and her students unanimously decided to donate it to the archives. “It seemed like housing as part of the COVID archive project would be a perfect way for it to be somewhere, and then whoever wants to take it up and do something with it, I think that would be really wonderful,” Johnson said. Johnson hopes the anthology will give an insight into a signifcant moment in history for future generations. “I hope it ofers a glimpse of the humanity of the writers and a snapshot of us going into it,” Johnson said. “The pandemic will get much worse, and yet, it’s this in“We wanted to capture this moment for what [the pandemic] is like as someone either in Oxford or connected to Miami University.” - Rachel Makarowski sight right at the beginning that offers perspective and understanding and compassion.” Almost a year and a half later, the archive project is still accepting submissions. The project, set to be published at the end of this year, will be accessible online. Some of the entries are embargoed and will not be released to the public right away, but Berry’s journal, Rice’s video and Johnson’s anthology will all be available. Students and faculty can submit materials for the COVID-19 archive through the form located on the “Documenting the COVID-19 Pandemic” library page or by contacting Rachel Makarowski at makarorm@miamioh.edu. @alicemomany momanyaj@miamioh.edu
ABBY BAMMERLIN
CAMPUS & COMMUNITY EDITOR
Oxford’s Brick Street Bar and Grill announced the bar will now require proof of COVID-19 vaccination, a negative COVID-19 test within 72 hours or evidence of a positive COVID antibody test before allowing entry. The announcement came in an Instagram post Thursday, July 29.
The statement also explained Brick Street hopes to host vaccine clinics on the premises during the day Monday through Thursday. The statement did not include when when those clinics would begin or at what times they would be held.
Brick Street will be providing incentives for guests to get vaccinated including drawings to win one of 50 VIP passes, as well as having the bar’s cover charge waived.
“We fully respect a person’s right to make their own decision about getting vaccinated,” the statement read. “At the same time, we hope that all of you respect our right to take precautions that we believe are in the best interest of our customers, employees and community.”
Mark Weisman, Brick Street’s co-owner, could not be immediately reached for comment.
So far, the post’s comments have been mostly positive.
Emerson Day, a senior public administration major, said he is glad to see Brick Street’s new policies.
“They’re literally just asking the bare minimum,” Day said. “Just like asking people to get vaccinated – I think all bars should honestly be following suit.”
As of July 29, no other Oxford bar has released a statement explicitly requiring proof of vaccination before entry.
Day said he’ll be going back to Brick to support a business with this kind of policy.
“Seeing that they actively care about not only their workers, but about the community as well, I think that makes me excited,” Day said.
Dillon Canter, a senior kinesiology and premedical studies double major, also supports Brick Street’s new policy.
But Canter also said this policy might help the university in its eforts to encourage vaccination. The COVID vaccine has not yet been fully approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), so Miami University can not require students to get vaccinated, despite its incentives.
“I imagine it encourages a lot of people to get the vaccine, they pretty much require it to go out which is smart, because it gets the campus vaccinated quicker,” Canter said. “Whereas the school, I don’t think the school is actually allowed to require it.”
The policy may also afect another problem of accidentally serving alcohol to minors in a college town. Day said because vaccine cards have guests’ names and birthdays on it, it will be harder for customers to lie about their ages.
“It is our hope that we will quickly get to the point where these added safety measures are no longer necessary,” the statement read. “Until that time, we greatly appreciate your understanding and support! Let’s have a great year! It’s time to move forward!”
In its post, Brick Street’s account mentions the rise of the Delta variant as being an important factor in its decision to change its policy.
Day hopes Brick Street’s policy will become a role model for the rest of the community.
“Good for them for setting an example of how we can move forward,” Day said, “how bars should be moving forward in addressing the new rise of Delta.”
BRICK STREET OPTED TO REQUIRE PROOF OF COVID-19 VACCINATION OR A NEGATIVE COVID TEST FOR ALL PATRONS UPON ENTRY THIS YEAR. PHOTO BY WILL GORMAN
@abby_bammerlin bammeraj@miamioh.edu
Oxford comic shop thrives, looks toward the future
FUTURE GREAT COMICS, WHICH OPENED AT THE END OF LAST SEMESTER, IS ANTICIPATING CONTINUED SUCCESS AS STUDENTS RETURN TO CAMPUS. PHOTO BY CAROLINE BARTOSZEK
SHR-HUA MOORE
ASST. CAMPUS & COMMUNITY EDITOR
While the summer usually takes students away from Oxford’s local establishments, one Uptown business has weathered the quiet storm.
Future Great Comics opened this past May and sells comics, records, collectible card games and board games, along with other products related to games and hobbies.
Brian LeVick, Future Great Comics owner, said despite the reduced number of students during the summer, the store has been doing well.
“[Oxford] hasn’t been a ghost town like people have warned me — I’ve definitely had a pretty good turnout from the people that stuck around,” he said. “I’ve been so busy [at the store] this summer that I haven’t had much time to do much other than stay in Oxford, so it’s been a happy surprise for me.”
LeVick also said he was happy to see people of all ages stopping by the store this summer, a marked difference from the lecting comics. It’s something that I think any comic book store owner wants to see — a wide variety of people enjoying comics.”
While the shop has done well this summer, many customers are predicting it will do even better once the student population returns this fall.
JS Bragg is the assistant director of Student Activities at Miami University and a regular customer at Future Great. He thinks based on student interest last May, the shop will explode in popularity once more students come back to campus.
“I am absolutely happy [for the shop], and I think that the best is yet to come,” he said. “We saw that at the open in the spring — during the launch, he sold out of almost the whole store.
It’s just going to be a steady flow once the students get there again, and it’ll be nice to see how the place will continue to grow.”
In addition to students coming back to campus, some student organizations are already looking to partner with the shop to host novel events.
Isaac Nelson is a senior computer sciing out what [the League of Geeks] could do to support and coordinate with him on different events as well as about things that people are interested in in the community,” Nelson said. “We’re figuring out what sort of things he can sell so he makes money and people get the things they are interested in.”
Like Bragg, Nelson also thought the shop would do even better once students came back.
“I think it’s been doing well so far, and I certainly think it’s going to do well in the future, especially as people come back to campus,” Nelson said. “All my friends are like, ‘Oh, it’s really nice there’s a game store in town now to buy small things that are annoying to buy online,’ or they’ll stop in there for five minutes, or maybe plan to have a game night in a place that isn’t subject to all campus rules or regulations.”
The shop has an appeal to more than just student organizations, too — students like M. Bea Hosenfeld have quickly turned the comic shop into a regular hangout. A senior art education major, Hosenfeld said she liked the shop for both its products and layout.
“You can go through and browse easily, and I get manga, Pokémon cards and sometimes dice there,” Hosenfeld said. “The shop is well organized, but just chaotic enough where you can explore and find something new — it’s kind of like a happy medium between super neat and super messy.”
Hosenfeld is also looking forward to the shop’s growth once the fall semester starts this year.
“I think that when the other students come back, people will start to notice the shop more,” she said. “Word will spread that it exists, people will go in casually, and I think that eventually it could be a place where students could meet and play games and be this comic store community type thing.”
“Sometimes I see kids roll up to the shop on their bikes, and I’ll sometimes get a 78-year-old person that got back into collecting comics.” - Brian LeVick Cristina Alcalde named vice president for institutional diversity and inclusion
CRISTINA ALCALDE BEGAN HER NEW POSITION AS VP FOR INSTITUTIONAL DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION ON JULY 1.. PROVIDED BY CRISTINA ALCALDE
JARRED WATKINS
THE MIAMI STUDENT
Miami University President Greg Crawford announced M. Cristina Alcalde will serve as the new vice president for institutional diversity and inclusion on Thursday, June 3. She assumed her new position July 1.
Alcalde is originally from Peru and immigrated to the US when she was 7-years-old. Since a young age, she has been interested in learning about people and their cultures.
“I was so curious to understand people who were diferent from myself; that’s what led me to anthropology,” Alcalde said. “I love talking to people, relating to people, learning languages and how people behave and interact. Anthropology was the one discipline that tied all those things together.”
Alcalde earned her bachelor’s degree in anthropology at the University of Louisville. She then earned her master’s degree in Latin American studies and her doctorate in anthropology from Indiana University.
Alcalde is currently a professor of Gender and Women’s Studies at the University of Kentucky (UK) and a Marie Rich Endowed Professor – a position established by the Marie Rich family to support the research and teaching of one faculty member. She is also the associate dean of Inclusion and Nationalization in the College of Arts and Sciences at UK and the director of the university’s online graduate certificate for diversity and inclusion.
Alcalde noticed the hierarchies and structures of power that surrounded her as a child, but it wasn’t until she got to college that she developed a deeper understanding of those structures.
Alcalde has done research on racism and structures of power. She recognizes these structures can deeply afect people in negative ways and said she wants to help change that.
“If we listen to everyone in a society, or in a group, or in a population, we hear all sorts of diferent voices,” Alcalde said. “So I am interested in hearing and including people whose voices do not necessarily get heard.”
At Miami, Alcalde wants to learn from students, staf, alumni and the broader Oxford community. She wants to collaborate with each of those groups to bring about positive change.
“I think there is no one person who can do anything,” Alcalde said, “so my role and my goal is to support everyone and support processes and work together.”
Alcalde noted that diversity and inclusion work is constantly evolving and changing.
“This work never ends,” Alcalde said. “I want to make sure that we’re constantly changing and adapting so that we can truly be inclusive.”
MONDAY, AUGUST 23, 2021 Skyline Chili is an acquired taste that I will likely never acquire
MADELINE PHABY
CAMPUS & COMMUNITY EDITOR
Being from Chicago, a place with iconic regional food, I love trying “specialty” foods whenever I visit other cities and states. From Michigan cherries to Nashville hot chicken to Florida grouper, I’ve had some really amazing food during my travels around the U.S.
When I found out Cincinnati’s signature dish was chili, though … I was less than enthusiastic about trying it.
It’s not that I dislike chili – in fact, my dad, the best cook I know, makes amazing chili. His recipe includes three types of meat (ground beef, ground bison and beef chuck roast), tomatoes, beans, red pepper and jalapeños. My dad loves to cook for others, and his chili is universally regarded as one of his finest dishes.
“In all fairness and humbleness,” my dad said while discussing his chili recipe, “I’ve been told by many people that my chili is far and away the best they’ve ever had.”
So, yeah. That explains my hesitation to try fast food chili.
Despite my reservations, my good friend and co-editor, Abby Bammerlin, a Cincinnati-area native, finally convinced me to give the iconic Skyline Chili a shot.
One of the first things I noted when we walked into Skyline was how amazing the interior was – genuinely, no sarcasm. It gave similar vibes as the old-fashioned McDonald’s and Taco Bell designs before they made them look all fancy and gentrified. It was my first time at Skyline, but it still felt like a throwback to my childhood.
Abby advised me to order the three-way, and I resisted the urge to giggle at the name because I’m far too mature for that. She also suggested I try a Coney, but hot dogs are sacred to me as a Chicagoan, so I decided against that.
Our food came concerningly quickly after we ordered, and it quickly became apparent what the three “ways” represented: chili, spaghetti and fluorescent orange cheese.
I asked Abby if I was supposed to mix all the ingredients together, and she looked at me like I was an idiot.
“No,” she said, “you just cut it with your fork and eat it.”
Not wanting to look like a tourist, I cut into my noodles the way she suggested. Abby filmed my reaction as I tried my first bite, and it went like this:
“And?” Abby said, as I pensively chewed my threeway.
“It’s just like … wet,” I replied.
Describing a soupy food like chili as “wet” may sound dumb, but it’s the only word I could think of that suited the strange bite I’d just taken.
Compared to other chili I’ve had, Skyline’s chili is indeed wet. It’s basically just ground beef and broth, unless you splurge for a four-way, which adds either beans or onions. If you’re feeling really wild, you can even get a five-way, which adds both beans and onions.
Even more interesting to me than the wetness, though, was the actual flavor of the chili. It was slightly sweet, apparently because Skyline’s recipe includes chocolate and cinnamon. While I guess I understand the appeal of the subtle sweetness, the chili I’m used to is purely savory – even a bit spicy.
Amid the texture and strange flavors was the strangest part of the entire experience: the concept of pouring chili over spaghetti.
What makes Skyline chili different from spaghetti with meat sauce?
Why is a three-way considered a chili dish rather than a pasta dish?
Honestly, is it still chili if it’s nothing more than ground beef and broth?
These questions floated through my mind as I took a few more bites of my three-way. Once I finished about a quarter of my dish, I decided I was done. I had seen (or tasted, I guess) enough.
I’m sorry, Cincinnatians, but I just wasn’t a fan.
Now, let me assure you that my dislike for Skyline does not come from a place of snobbery. Yes, I said earlier that I’m used to my dad’s amazing chili, but having a dad who’s a great cook doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate fast food. Hell, he makes great burgers too, but I still eat McDonald’s on the regular.
I can’t put my finger on what exactly I didn’t like about it – I think it was a combination of the sweetness and the weird energy of the spaghetti. Or perhaps you just need to be a Cincinnatian to fully appreciate the enigma that is Skyline Chili.
Maybe I’d have better luck if I tried a five-way.
OUR CHICAGOAN FOOD EDITOR TRIED SKYLINE CHILI FOR THE FIRST TIME, AND SHE WAS LESS THAN IMPRESSED. PHOTO BY CAROLINE BARTOSZEK @madphabes phabymr@miamioh.edu
Oxford’s cofee shops, ranked
MADELINE PHABY
CAMPUS & COMMUNITY EDITOR
For better or worse, cofee is an essential part of the college experience, and like most college towns, Oxford has no shortage of options for those looking to get cafeinated.
Of course, not all cofee shops are created equal. As a senior who has spent huge sums of money on cofee during my time at Miami, I feel I’m qualifed to rank all the shops in Oxford to help others decide where to get their cafeine fx.
Note that I’ve only included places whose primary specialty is cofee in this ranking.
5. King Cafe
I actually worked at King Cafe for a semester, which is part of the reason it’s ranked dead last. Nothing against the job – it was actually pretty fun. But I can personally attest that the cofee isn’t that good.
For one, it’s pretty low-quality stuf to begin with, so it’s not going to taste great no matter how well it’s brewed. I don’t know much about cofee beans and what determines their quality, but Miami obviously isn’t about to invest in anything too expensive or fancy.
That low-quality cofee is also brewed by student employees who receive very minimal training and don’t get paid a whole lot. I think this point speaks for itself.
Despite the cofee’s quality, though, the prices at King rival those at Starbucks. While I’d argue Starbucks isn’t that great either (I’ll address that later in this article), it’s easily better than King.
As if there wasn’t enough material for a last-place ranking already, King also only has one non-dairy milk option. And it’s soy. My fellow lactose intolerant baddies – avoid this place.
Most people who go to King Cafe only go because they’re already in King and are desperate for cofee, so unless you’re in that situation, go somewhere else.
Overall score: 4/10
4. Cafe Lux
Cafe Lux, located in Armstrong, was closed last semester, and I’m honestly not sure whether it’ll be open this year. I do hope it reopens because it’s good to have as many options as possible, but if it remains closed, we won’t be missing a whole lot. does have a couple major diferences that make it a slightly better option than King.
First, many of the workers at Lux are full-time employees of Miami rather than students. Now, I mean no disrespect to student employees – I have been one myself for three years. But I speak from personal experience when I say many of them don’t care a whole lot.
Second, Lux is in a much more central location than King. Sure, the cafe is a great option if you’re already studying in the library, but Lux is very conveniently located in Armstrong for students who are on their way to class or just out and about.
Overall, Lux isn’t great, but it’s probably the place on this list with the best location.
Overall score: 5/10
3. Starbucks
Now, this is where I may lose some people.
In my humble opinion, Starbucks sucks. I know a lot of people hate it just because other people love it, but I hate it because the cofee is not good enough to justify the high prices, it’s always absurdly crowded and I actually don’t think it’s a very good study location.
The worst thing about Starbucks as a Miami student, though, is that you can’t really avoid it (unless you want to go to King or Lux, which you probably don’t).
If you drink cofee every day and buy it rather than making your own, Starbucks is your best option unless you have a car – and even then, you can’t really drive somewhere if you need to quickly grab a cofee before class.
As for my study location comment, I have plenty of friends who love studying there. But as someone who is very easily distracted, the huge crowds of people and chaotic vibe make for a less-than-optimal workspace.
Will I continue to spend half my meal plan at Starbucks even though I don’t like it? Yes. Will I still audibly sigh every time I enter the jampacked cofee joint 10 minutes before my class starts? Also yes. Overall score: 6.5/10
2. Dunkin’ Donuts
I am a well-known Dunkin’ loyalist. Few things in life make me happier than a medium caramel iced cofee with oat milk.
Dunkin’ can defnitely vary by location in terms of quality, but as someone who has been to many of them, trust me when I say the one in Oxford is amazing. It’s always fast, the employees are sweet and my coffee is consistently great.
Do I think Dunkin’s cofee is wildly superior in quality to Starbucks’? No. But Dunkin’s sizes are bigger (compare a Dunkin’ medium to a Starbucks grande, and you’ll see what I mean) and cheaper.
More cofee for less money is a no-brainer in my opinion.
Dunkin’ is also very no-frills compared to Starbucks. It may be slightly less customizable, but they still have plenty of favor and milk options. They also have cheap, unpretentious breakfast food that is delicious, flling and barely worse for you than Starbucks’ “healthy” options.
Dunkin’ is my ride or die cofee place, but it’s ranked second because it’s still a chain, and I’m hugely in favor of supporting local businesses. Still, it’s a damn good chain and worth the drive up to Locust.
Overall score: 9/10 1. Kofenya
Think of the coffee shops you see in TV shows and movies. Cozy vibes, lots of comfortable seating, tons of people sitting around doing homework or on dates or just chatting with friends.
That’s Kofenya.
There’s a reason so many people swear by this place. Firstly, and most importantly, they have great cofee. Pretty much any favor combination or milk you could want is available, and it’s made by people who love working there and know what they’re doing.
My personal favorite is a Milky Way iced cofee with macadamia milk. Chef’s kiss.
I don’t drink tea, but my mom and best friend do, and they both have good things to say about Kofenya’s tea selection. They also have great food that pairs well with cofee: pastries, toasts and bagels, among other things.
Kofenya is at the very end of High Street, so it’s a bit of a hike, but I promise it’s worth it if you’re looking for a good study spot. It’s far more inviting and less crowded than Starbucks, and the seating is comfortable enough to chill in for hours. The only drawback is that seating is limited and flls up very fast, but if you know when to get there, you can snag a seat.
Many people who have been around Oxford a while will tell you Kofenya is the best cofee shop in town, and I wholeheartedly agree. Make Kofenya part of your life during your time at Miami – you’ll thank yourself later. Overall score: 9.5/10
KOFENYA IS THE BEST COFFEE SHOP IN TOWN, PERIOD. THE MIAMI STUDENT “Think of the cofee shops you see in TV shows and movies. That’s Kofenya.” @madphabes phabymr@miamioh.edu
