Thursday October 17, 2013 year: 133 No. 88
the student voice of
The Ohio State University
www.thelantern.com
thelantern US Congress passes bill to end shutdown
sports
MiChelle FuGate Lantern reporter fugate.38@osu.edu
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hyde ready to run
OSU is set to face off against Iowa Saturday, and senior running back Carlos Hyde said running the ball will be key.
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Some Ohio State students and faculty members breathed a sigh of relief Wednesday when it seemed the government shutdown was coming to a close. While an agreement reached by Congress seemed to be the end of the situation, though, some said there is still work to be done in America’s political sphere. The 16-day government shutdown was set to come to an end Wednesday night with the signature of President Barack Obama on a budget agreement reached by the House of Representatives and the Senate. Senate leaders Democrat Harry Reid of Nevada and Republican Mitch McConnell of Kentucky announced a bipartisan agreement to raise the U.S. debt ceiling through February. Obama was expected to receive the deal Wednesday night, shortly before the U.S. would reach the Thursday deadline for its $16.7 trillion borrowing limit. Wednesday evening, Obama gave a televised press conference on the state of the government shutdown and disagreement in Congress. “One of the things that I said throughout this process is we’ve got to get out of the habit of governing by crisis,” he said. “And my hope and expectation is everybody has learned that there is no reason why we can’t work on the issues at hand, why we can’t disagree between the parties while still being agreeable, and make sure that we’re not inflicting harm on the American people when we do have disagreements.” The shutdown began Oct. 1 as a result of Congress’ failure to pass a federal budget for the fiscal year before its deadline. The controversy surrounding the budget was largely a result of a debate about how the government would be funding the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Obama’s health care initiative, which went into effect Oct. 1 as well. The version of the budget some members of the House was pushing would not have
funded Obamacare, delaying its enactment, while the Senate budget proposal included funding for the legislation. Republican Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio released a statement Wednesday evening and called the progress a “win for the American people” but noted his desire to avoid Washington’s pattern of “overpromising and overspending.” “Lurching from crisis to crisis is no way to rejuvenate America’s economy, and unfortunately, we do not have a long-term fix that will prevent another shutdown in January,” Portman said in a statement posted on his website. Some students at Ohio State were happy Wednesday to hear the shutdown seemed on its way to ending. “It’s great. The debt ceiling is something we need to deal with, but it shouldn’t be dealt with through holding the government hostage,” said Mark Gramila, a thirdyear in accounting. Others said there need to be changes made in
Congress to prevent future shutdowns. “Honestly, (the shutdown) should have never happened in the first place,” said J.C. Reyes, a fourth-year in international studies. “Our political parties should be working together … or at least compromising.” Congress’ agreement was set to reopen the government, ending the furlough of federal employees who had left work or gone without pay during the past two weeks. The agreement was made to fund the government through the start of 2014, at which point officials must determine a federal budget to avoid another shutdown. Reid said on the Senate floor Wednesday representatives would be chosen by the House and Senate as part of the deal to create “a budget conference committee that will set our country on a long-term
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Maymester’s future murky beyond 2014
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Buckeyes band together
The Dan White Sextet, a local band, is in the process of developing a new album.
campus
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Rooftop garden with a purpose A recently-created ‘green roof’ adorning a campus building has positive environmental effects.
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Ohio State students can expect to once again have the option of taking up to three credit hours of class in May 2014 without paying tuition, but the future of OSU’s May Session remains uncertain for 2015 and beyond. Executive Vice President and Provost Joseph Steinmetz told The Lantern Oct. 8 the structure of OSU’s four-week May Session, which began in 2013 as part of OSU’s conversion to semesters, would remain the same for the 2014 Summer Term. “As was the case this past spring, no tuition will be charged for up to three credit hours taken during the May Session,” Steinmetz wrote in a memo sent to students, faculty and staff Oct. 10. “The Office of Academic Affairs will assess the relative success of the May session at the conclusion of the 2014 session.” Steinmetz told The Lantern he did not believe OSU learned enough from just one year of the May Session to draw conclusions about the future of the term’s structure and availability. “We don’t have enough data from one year’s run to tell us what that semester is going to actually look like,” Steinmetz said. “We’ll continue to evaluate it and look at it.” Combined with the seven-week Summer Session, May Session is one of two parts of OSU’s Summer Term. Under the term’s existing structure, students enrolled in classes during Spring 2014 who do not graduate at the end of the semester are eligible to take a three-credit class with no additional tuition payment. Students enrolled in May Session are still required to pay Summer Term fees, including fees for student activities and Central Ohio Transit Authority bus services. J. Richard Dietrich, the chair of the University
To some extent, you can view (the May Session classes) as having been subsidized by the students who didn’t take class during the May. J. Richard Dietrich Chair of the University Senate Fiscal Committee and a professor in the Fisher College of Business Senate Fiscal Committee and a professor at the Fisher College of Business, said OSU could have collected an estimated $6 million in tuition, not including scholarships or additional financial aid, had a regular rate been charged in May 2013. Dietrich said that estimate is comparable to a 1 percent increase in undergraduate tuition. As a result, collecting tuition for May Session classes could offset a future tuition increase. “Let’s suppose next year, we want to raise $6 million more in revenue. One way to do that is a 1 percent tuition increase, another way to do that is to push on tuition charges for May,” Dietrich said. “Either one gets the same result, at least with first approximation, and so, we may say, ‘Look, we can increase tuition by 1 percent next year instead of two if we charge May tuition.’” OSU spokeswoman Amy Murray said in an email there were nearly 9,400 total students enrolled in May Session 2013, including more than 9,100 students on the Columbus campus. Murray said 90 percent of those students finished their courses to completion. Another concern the fiscal committee has with May Session being free, Dietrich said, is that some
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feel it creates a sort of inequality between students who take a May class and those who do not. “To some extent, you can view (the May Session classes) as having been subsidized by the students who didn’t take class during the May, because they paid the same tuition (during Spring Semester), they got one fewer class,” Dietrich said. “That’s an issue that I think we’re going to have to address again going forward in senate fiscal.” Aside from the financial concerns surrounding May Session, another issue for students could be the limited amount of class options available during the four-week period. Although there were more than 200 total classes offered during May Session, the courses available were “totally useless” to some students like Kyle Bergman, a third-year in science and mathematics education. “For the math majors, it doesn’t help, because you can’t condense a math class in four weeks,” Bergman said. “If there was something like a longer, cheaper Summer Term instead of a free Maymester, I’d rather have that.” Undergraduate Student Government President Taylor Stepp said more classes should be offered during May Session if the term continues to be in place beyond 2014, whether the three credit hours are offered tuition-free or not. “(A lack of available classes) was one of the hindrances with the plan,” Stepp said. Stepp said OSU needs to take a “hard look” at the future of the May Session, but he felt another year was needed before that evaluation. “Whether that means we keep it or not, it just needs to be evaluated,” Stepp said. “I’m not saying the May Session currently does or doesn’t (work), I’m just saying we don’t know yet. But whatever we do, we’re going to make sure that it works for students in the best capacity possible.”
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Bicyclist hospitalized after nearly colliding with car kayla ByleR Managing editor of design byler.18@osu.edu
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Dan hOPe Oller reporter hope.46@osu.edu
A bicyclist was in stable condition at the Wexner Medical Center as of Wednesday night after nearly colliding with a car. A 39-year-old male graduate teaching associate in the College of Public Health at Ohio State was biking on Woody Hayes Drive Tuesday at about 9:30 a.m. when he almost collided with a compact car turning left onto the road. The driver of the car, a 53-year-old female OSU employee, was leaving Blankenship Hall and attempting to turn past two stopped buses when she saw the biker. Both parties slammed on their brakes, and the biker fell forward over his handlebars. No contact was made between the bike and the car, according to a University Police report. Failure to yield on the part of the car’s driver was listed as a contributing circumstance on the report. Witnesses helped the biker out of the road to a bench until emergency medical service arrived and transferred him to the Medical Center, the report said. The biker was in stable condition as of Wednesday
at about 10:15 p.m., according to a Medical Center nurse. The incident was one of six traffic crashes reported on OSU’s campus this week from Oct. 9 to Oct. 16. The other five incidents involved property damage but no reported injuries. Other incident reports on campus this week included 36 thefts. Five of these incidents were thefts of bicycles. A 32-year-old male non-affiliate was arrested for attempted theft from the Scarlet Ribbon Gift Shop at the Medical Center Monday. The incident followed the arrest of a 33-year-old man for attempted theft from the same location last month. There were also five reports of disorderly conduct on campus and five reports of offenses involving underage persons, three of which resulted in arrests, this week. In the first incident resulting in arrest, a 20-year-old male not affiliated with OSU was arrested at Barrett House Saturday shortly after midnight. Sunday, a 19-year-old male student was arrested at the Ohio Union at about 2 a.m. A few hours later, at about 4 a.m., an 18-year-old male non-affiliate and an 18-year-old male student were arrested at Siebert Hall.
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