Thursday October 10, 2013 year: 133 No. 84
the student voice of
The Ohio State University
www.thelantern.com
thelantern
On-campus living requirement elicits mixed responses
sports
DAN HOPE Oller reporter hope.46@osu.edu
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Buckeyes get a break
With the bye week, players like redshirt-senior running back Jordan Hall are getting a chance to rest up.
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With less than three years before second-year Ohio State students will likely be required to live on campus, the OSU community and campus area landlords are still figuring out what the implications will be. At the beginning of the 2016-17 school year, when the North Residential District Transformation is scheduled to be completed, the requirement for OSU students to live on campus for two years is set to go into effect. University officials have said they feel the Second-Year Transformational Experience Program, described by the OSU STEP website as a “continuation of the university’s effort to redefine the student experience … designed to focus on student success and development,” will be beneficial to second-year students. Undergraduate Student Government President Taylor Stepp and some property managers, however, have voiced concerns about the upcoming on-campus living requirement. STEP launched as a pilot program for the 2013-14 school year. One thousand second-year students volunteered for the program and are living in residence halls this year and engaging on a regular basis with faculty to explore opportunities including studying abroad, internships, undergraduate research, community service and leadership opportunities, according to the OSU website. Students who complete the pilot program will be eligible to receive a $2,000 fellowship to use toward educational opportunities. Executive Vice President and Provost Joseph Steinmetz said he expects there to be changes made to STEP based on the feedback OSU receives from students and faculty, but he is happy with its progress thus far.
“We’re happy so far on the smaller scale that we’ve got going with how it’s progressing,” Steinmetz said of the program during an interview with The Lantern Tuesday. OSU Interim President Joseph Alutto said in an interview with The Lantern Sept. 23, he sees the pilot program an “experiment,” but thinks the program will go “beyond (students’) limitations of just in-class learning.” As the university prepares for these changes, Alutto said he hopes the focus will be on the student experience more than the $370 million North Residential District Transformation. South Campus underwent renovations to its high rise residence halls as part of a $170.4 million project, which was completed prior to Fall Semester. “What students are getting from that secondyear experience, how they’re integrating the opportunities that will be available to them in
terms of study abroad or service learning experiences, how it’s going to be when we involve students more systematically with each other in smaller groups … we have never really been able to do for the general student population,” Alutto said. Stepp said he is concerned the construction costs of building residence halls will translate to increased housing costs for students required to live on campus, however. “Living off-campus is cheaper,” Stepp said. “Having sophomores living on for another year, it’s going to be really difficult to make sure that we’re going to make college affordable to students.” The standard room rates per semester for OSU residence halls range from $2,920-3,750 for the 2013-14 school year. Dining plans, which are
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Shaq: ‘We all come from the same place’ DAN HESSLER Lantern reporter hessler.31@osu.edu
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Return of the dead
Season 4 of ‘The Walking Dead’ is set to premiere Oct. 13. Check out our columnist’s predictions for the season ahead.
campus
SHELBY LUM / Photo editor
Four-time NBA Champion Shaquille O’Neil speaks at a Boys & Girls Club of Columbus event Oct. 9 at the Ohio Union.
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Tournament to remember
A golf tournament was held Oct. 9 in memory of an OSU student who died last September.
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Shaquille O’Neal said he used to be a bully, but he sings a different tune now — one of encouragement that he presented for at a Boys & Girls Club of Columbus event. The four-time NBA Champion spoke in Columbus to the clubs as part of a “Great Futures Start Here” event at Ohio Union Wednesday. Although O’Neal spoke to roughly 100 children at the Ohio Union, his message was meant for all in attendance. “Every youngster has had a dream and tried to make it come true, and to make sure to them that it can come true,” the former Boys & Girls Club member said. “You know, we all come from the same place and sometimes you don’t always have the necessities that you want as a child.” O’Neal discussed his upbringing and how different it was than that of his own children. He mentioned how, as a child, he rarely had a chance to celebrate Christmas, and the best birthday present he ever received was a signed
Julius Erving basketball from his father. A gift, he said, that changed his life. “I had four sisters and a younger brother and I was the third, but I was the most mature,” O’Neal said in an interview with the media. “My father used to have manly conversations with me saying, ‘Son, I’m going to take care of them and I’m going to take care of you once payday.’ A lot of times, children can relate to someone that came from the same place they came from. I want to make sure to give them the same blueprint that I followed, because if it worked for me, it can work for anybody.” This year’s event celebrated the 65th anniversary of the founding of the BGCC. O’Neal was the keynote speaker, and Columbus Mayor Michael Coleman served as the Honorary Event Chair. O’Neal also spoke on the issue of bullying, and how the topic hits close to home for him because of his youth. “I was a bully,” O’Neal said. “My thing was because I was different than everybody else. Because I was tall, I had to find ways to get people to fear me or like me. So being a bully, I beat this kid up one day and he had an epilepsy attack and that’s what stopped
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New HR policy limits retired professors DANIEL BENDTSEN Lantern reporter bendtsen.1@osu.edu Ohio State Human Resources revised a policy that limits emeritus professors to five years of teaching after retirement, a change that surprised and upset some faculty members. Blaine Lilly, an associate professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, said at a Faculty Council meeting Sept. 19 several professors emeriti in his department reapplied to continue teaching this year, but were told they had passed the limit of rehires. “We have a faculty member in mechanical engineering who is responsible for bringing in $400,000 in research funding, who has been told, ‘You can no longer teach graduate students.’ That $400,000 will go away. This makes no sense,” Lilly said. Emeritus status is a title OSU faculty can apply for when they retire. A professor emeritus receives a reduced salary while collecting retirement funds. Although they have to reapply each year, there was previously no limit to how long they could continue teaching before the policy change was made in June. Lilly said the university has done a poor job communicating the new policy, and several faculty emeriti were cut off without warning. He added that the “unintended consequences are severe.” “There are a couple of folks who would not have retired had they known this was going to happen,” Lilly said. OSU spokesman Gary Lewis said Tuesday the
There are a couple of folks who would not have retired had they known this was going to happen. Blaine Lilly Associate professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering policy was revised to prevent double-dipping, meaning the practice of receiving a pension following retirement and having a salary at the same time. Double-dipping has been a hot topic in the Ohio legislature in recent years with the introduction of several bills meant to crack down on the issue, including House Bill 388, which would limit those collecting pensions from having a salary as well. Lewis said, however, the university made this change on its own accord without any legislation prompting it. “Faculty, once tenured, don’t ever have to retire. They are guaranteed to work as long as they choose and there’s nothing that guarantees they will be rehired after they retire,” Lewis said. “We really haven’t changed the policy substantially since it was adopted.” The original policy, adopted in April 2011, stated “re-employment after retirement or separation is not an entitlement,” which Lewis said is a key
assumption of the addition in June which explicitly limits the faculty from being rehired after five years. Lilly, as well as some others, asked what the initial motivation for the change was. “We don’t know where this came from. Did it come from the provost’s office? Did it come from the legislature?” he said. Faculty Council Chair Leslie Alexander said she was unaware of the policy until Lilly brought it to her attention. Alexander said in an email last week Faculty Council members “are following up with several administrators in an effort to learn more about the situation, but we are still in the information gathering stage and do not have any details yet.” Robert Gustafson, professor of food, agricultural and biological engineering, said OSU bypassed the University Senate by formulating the policy in Human Resources. That process is a source of further concern, Gustafson said, because it seems like the university intentionally circumvented the bylaws pertaining to shared governance. According to the university’s bylaws, faculty are vested with “the legislative authority to establish educational and academic policies of the university.” Gustafson said he thinks the policy change may have been implemented because of fear of the Board of Regents looking in at further cracking down on double-dipping. Lilly said he hopes the policy will be revisited and grandfathered in so those professors who retired under the assumption they would be able to continue teaching indefinitely will be able to do so.
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