Tuesday November 12, 2013 year: 133 No. 103
the student voice of
The Ohio State University
www.thelantern.com
thelantern Program aims to diminish student housing problems
sports
CAITLIN ESSIG Managing editor for content essig.21@osu.edu
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No. 3 OSU confident in ability Several OSU players, including Evan Spencer, expressed that the Buckeyes are ready to take on any opponent.
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“If we’d known how bad our landlord was going to be, we would’ve never signed the lease, and if we’d known there was a bug problem, we never would have lived there.” Matt Schmitz, a fourth-year in welding engineering at Ohio State, has had more than a little bad luck when it comes to renting in the off-campus area. His dissatisfaction with his experience is shared among many students who choose to live off-campus, but OSU is working to implement a program that aims to help students avoid situations like Schmitz’s. “Last year when we moved in, there were still couches left behind and a load of dirty dishes in the sink,” Schmitz said. “We didn’t have running water or (smoke detectors) for the first few weeks.” After his landlord was unresponsive about fixing the problems, Schmitz and his roommates met with OSU Student Legal Services, a law office that provides legal advice to students, and decided to put their rent in escrow, meaning have a third-party service hold the money, rather than paying their landlord until the issues were addressed. Schmitz and his roommates are still in the process of trying to collect all the court-ordered money their former landlord owes them, although they moved out of the residence in August when their one-year lease was up. In Schmitz’s current off-campus home, his roommates are dealing with another kind of pest — a cockroach infestation. Schmitz said, however, his new landlord has had an exterminator come to combat the problem.
Last year when we moved in, there were still couches behind and a load of dirty dishes in the sink. We didn’t have running water or (smoke detectors) for the first few weeks. Matt Schmitz Fourth-year in welding engineering “At least my landlord is doing something about it,” he said. “But how were we supposed to know about this when we signed the lease?” The Off-Campus Housing Excellence Program was recently established by the Office of Student Life as a response to “landlord requests for increased collaboration with the university, and parent and student requests for additional information about off-campus housing and off-campus living,” said Neighborhood Services and Collaboration program coordinator Alex Sanchez. Undergraduate Student Government President Taylor Stepp said all students should know what they’re getting into before they sign a lease, part of the goal driving OSU’s new program. “My goal is, if you’re a student like me who wants to live in a cheap property off-campus, now you’re going to be able to do that still, but at least you’ll know what you’re getting yourself into,” Stepp said. “If you want to invest a great deal of money into a nice property, if you can afford that, you’re going to know what you’re getting in both capacities.” Stepp, a fourth-year in public affairs, has had his own issues during his off-campus living experience. “When I lived off-campus my sophomore
year, my ceiling in my closet fell in,” Stepp said. “My landlord didn’t repair it for something like six months. I didn’t have the proper information about a recourse to take, I didn’t have the proper information on my landlord, and if I would have, then perhaps I wouldn’t have been in that situation.” Stepp said hearing situations of students being taken advantage of by landlords led him to envision what OSU could do to help. “USG puts out a renter’s guide every year … and it details student perspectives on landlords, but we wanted some sort of stamp of approval by the university,” Stepp said. “Then we also kind of separately wanted to make sure that we weren’t having these slumlords off campus that were taking advantage of students, having them live in houses that weren’t up to code, so then those two ideas kind of merged in together to the housing standards of excellence which we have right now.” The new OSU program consists of three components: home visits, education, and eventually, enhanced rental property information. Sanchez said the education component has already been implemented through outreach programs like the first-year success series and Second-year Transformational Experience Program safety workshop, and home visits should start within the next few weeks. “It’s a Student Life initiative, but we’re partnering with the (Columbus Division of Fire) to do the home visits,” Sanchez said. “So we’re focusing on safety, security and environmental sustainability, because those are the — based on responses and requests from students — those are those issues that they are most interested (in).” Landlords can elect to participate in the home visits, which entail Sanchez and a representative
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OSU transfer students can face academic, social setbacks KATHLEEN MARTINI Lantern reporter martini.35@osu.edu
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Singer to add selfies, fun to show
Matt Nathanson is set to perform in Columbus this week and is known for having fun with his audience.
campus
After her freshman year at Eastern Michigan University, Lindsay Crockett wanted more from her college experience. “There was absolutely no sense of community at Eastern,” said Crockett, a fourth-year in Spanish and human development and family sciences. “This included sporting events and the dorms. Everyone in my dorm kept their doors closed at all times.” Crockett left the school and is now one of 2,513 undergraduate transfer students at Ohio State’s main campus, according to a report by the Office of Enrollment Services Analysis and Reporting. There are more than 44,200 undergraduate students enrolled at OSU’s Columbus campus for Fall Semester 2013, according to the OSU Statistics website. Some of those transfer students said they’re dealing with heavier course loads to make up for lost credits because of their transition, while others said they have had to get creative to get involved around campus. Crockett, who transferred to OSU partially with hopes of regaining a sense of school pride, ended up paying for the switch in part with academic credits, keeping credit for general education courses but not for her lower level Spanish classes, which she said has caught up to her. “It just sucks that a lot of the people in my Spanish classes are either freshmen or sophomores, which makes me feel kind of dumb,” Crockett said.
OSU staff members did their best to help Crockett’s academic transition, even though not all credits transferred, she said. “My advisers worked hard to make sure my classes transferred, which was very helpful,” she said. Whether or not transfer credits are accepted by OSU is based on a standard policy, OSU spokesman Gary Lewis said. “Ohio State University has established a transfer credit policy which is consistent with the Ohio Articulation and Transfer Policy of the Ohio Board of Regents,” Lewis said in an email. He said the policy is designed to help transfer students’ credits from one college or university to another in a way that aims to maximize what they’ve already learned. For some students coming to OSU after their freshman year, the adjustment to the university can be somewhat jarring, from counting credits to making friends. “I wish there was a way to meet people,” Crockett said, “because not living in the dorms really put a hold on making friends.” The Transfer Student Activities Board was created to ease the transition, Tura Magley, a graduate administrative associate with OSU First Year Experience, said in an email. “The upperclass transfer students involved with TSAB plan, coordinate and facilitate FYE programs and efforts that specifically serve transfer students including educational and social events, keeping in mind that transfer students have different needs than first-year students coming to college for the first time,” Magley said. TSAB is set to host several events, including a
2,513 Undergraduate transfer students
44,201 Undergraduate students
source: reporting
KAYLA ZAMARY / Design editor
Beat Michigan event and a finals week study event, in the upcoming months, Magley said. Mid-year transfers can have a rough time acclimating after the school year has already started, said John Mercurio, a fourth-year in economics who transferred from Miami University for Winter Quarter 2011 during his freshman year. “My Winter and Spring Quarter, I didn’t know what was going on,” Mercurio said. “(OSU has) a huge campus, obviously.” Mercurio spent his first two quarters at OSU hanging out with high school friends. The following
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2A @LastTimeOSULost scores with OSU students
A race to the 50-yard line
The first OSU Four-Miler race was held Nov. 10 to celebrate ‘football and fitness.’
@LastTimeOSULost
When Ohio State Lost @LastTimeOSULost Nov. 9 Michigan has lost 8 times since the last time Ohio State lost. When Ohio State Lost @LastTimeOSULost Nov. 8 According to the Mayans, we had 12 months to live.
weather
When Ohio State Lost @LastTimeOSULost Nov. 7 No one knew who Florida Georgia Line was.
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When Ohio State Lost @LastTimeOSULost Nov. 6 The Avengers hadn’t met.
snow showers
When Ohio State Lost @LastTimeOSULost Nov. 4 Peyton Manning played for the Colts.
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When Ohio State Lost @LastTimeOSULost Nov. 4 .@KingJames has worn 51 different pairs of shoes in a basketball game since Ohio State’s last loss.
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sunny
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mostly sunny
50/37
partly cloudy
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mostly sunny
When Ohio State Lost @LastTimeOSULost Oct. 30 Winter quarter started the next day.
Tweets from the account @LastTimeOSULost KAYLA BYLER / Managing editor of design
www.weather.com
CHELSEA SPEARS Asst. multimedia editor spears.116@osu.edu
It’s been almost 700 days since the Ohio State football team last lost a game, but who’s counting? Apparently Marcus Otte, a second-year in exercise science and the man behind @LastTimeOSULost, a new trending Twitter account that emphasizes the amount of time the Buckeyes have gone undefeated. The team’s most recent loss was Jan. 2, 2012, against Florida in the Gator Bowl. OSU lost, 24-17. Otte opened the account leading up to this year’s game against Pennsylvania State University Oct. 26. After about three weeks and more than 70 tweets, the page has gained more than 8,900 followers. “It took one tweet — one good tweet — and then the next morning, I woke up with like a thousand followers,” Otte said. That tweet pointed out that the last time OSU lost, Snapchat, a smartphone picture app, wasn’t popular yet. It was retweeted more than 2,500 times. Though Snapchat was released in September 2011, it didn’t gain traction until later in 2012. Eric Damian, a fifth-year in civil engineering, said that was the tweet that made him take notice of the account. “I think they had roughly 50 tweets at that time and I read through every single one and I just knew I had to follow them,” Damian said. “They’ve definitely turned into my favorite follow on Twitter.” Students aren’t the only ones following the account. @LastTimeOSULost has also gained follows from
accounts such as the official Brutus Buckeye Twitter account, Otte said. The increased popularity of the page has led to some pressure for Otte. “All day I have to think of a tweet about something that happened back in January of 2012. It’s tough,” Otte said. “I’ll just be sitting around trying to think of some ideas some days, and then other days an idea will just pop into my head when I’m not even thinking about it.” Out of all the tweets, Otte said he is most proud of one that chronicles the change in Miley Cyrus’s physical appearance, from a brunette with long hair to a blonde with a partially shaved head. It was retweeted more than 3,000 times. “Miley Cyrus actually looked like a normal person the last time Ohio State lost and I had a picture of her,” Otte said. “A lot of people liked that one.” For some students, it’s the humor of the page that keeps them hooked. “It’s pretty witty and funny,” said Julia Jordan, a thirdyear in hospitality management. “It’s all in good fun.” Though @LastTimeOSULost runs on the success of the football team, if the Buckeyes lost, Otte said he would probably tweet something along the lines of “Whoops” and continue tweeting from the account in case the Buckeyes had another winning streak. Still, Otte said he’s confident the team will keep succeeding. “People will say, ‘Oh, this is a jinx,’” Otte said. “But it doesn’t seem like a jinx so far.” Mark Batke contributed to this article.
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