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The student voice of the Ohio State University
Year 138, Issue No. 53
Ohio State to host the 14th Annual Statewide Tribute to Rosa Parks
JACK WESTERHEIDE | MANAGING EDITOR FOR DESIGN
ADREYN YATES Lantern reporter yates.242@osu.edu
JERROD MOGAN John R. Oller Special Projects Editor mogan.7@osu.edu Five years ago, an Ohio State student took a beginner’s guitar course and, unfortunately, received the lowest grade in the class. That grade was an A-minus. That was the last time any of the nearly 400 students who have taken the class since 2013 would earn a grade as low. In that same span, 355 future biomedical engineers took a one-credit, 4000-level course in professional development. Every one of them received an A. The 780 students who took a 1000-level Somali language course from 2013 to 2018 also did well with more than 99 percent of students earning at least an A-minus. Grading records show Ohio State students are mastering more than just basic guitar and Somali — they’re scoring better in nearly everything. And the odds of success keep getting better. In fact, average grades for 75 percent of subjects were higher in 2018 than they were in 2013. The effects of long-term grade inflation — or grade increase — can be seen throughout Ohio State’s undergraduate programs. A Lantern analysis found the university experienced a five-year period of accelerated inflation in GPA that was four times faster than the na-
Take a
GRAPH BY JACK WESTERHEIDE | MANAGING EDITOR FOR DESIGN
Source: 10-year grade distribution dataset obtained by The Lantern.
tional average of four-year universities. The school showed no inflation in the five-year period prior to the increase. Since 2016, the median grade awarded at Ohio State has been an A-minus, higher than the school’s median for at least eight years prior which is a B-plus. The five-year rapid inflation is a schoolwide occurrence, though how much grades increased by varies between the 14 analyzed Ohio State colleges, schools and academic programs. Last academic year, the median grade in nine colleges, schools and programs was an A.
Ohio State officials said the rise in grades is not a problem, and reflects an increase in smarter, more prepared students, accompanied by a multitude of support efforts aimed at helping them succeed. “It’s to be expected, and I think we should be proud,” Beth Hume, vice provost of enrollment services, said. “It’s really showing the academic preparedness and effectiveness of many of the programs that we have put in place.” However, two of the nation’s leading experts on grade inflation said more lenient grading is partially responsible for the trend. GRADES CONTINUES ON 2
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Ohio State University and Central Ohio Transit Authority will join U.S. Rep. Joyce Beatty, Rosa Parks Day founder, to host the 14th Annual Statewide Tribute to Rosa Parks on Dec. 3 at the Fawcett Event Center. The tribute will start with Beatty leading a forum for community leaders and will continue with a panel discussion about the continuous effects of Parks’ legacy, which remembers her as “the mother of the modern civil-rights movement,” Jocelyn Armstrong, district director of Beatty’s office, said. Ginette Rhodes, a fourth-year in political science and president of Ohio State’s Chapter of NAACP, will speak on the panel and said she hopes to be able share the true story of Parks and how she sparked the civil-rights movement. “I know that a lot of people think she was just on the bus one day and then decided that she wasn’t going to give up her seat, but really it was more of a strategic effort,” Rhodes said. “Hopefully, we will be debunking some of those myths and talking about the empowerment of black women activism and activism in general.” The panel also will feature Hasan Jeffries, associate professor of history at Ohio State, and Andrea Davis Pinkney, New York Times best-selling and award-winning author. Jerry Revish, WBNS-10 TV news anchor, will be the moderator of the discussion. In 2005, which was the 50th anniversary of Parks’ refusal to give up her bus seat to a white man — initiating the Montgomery bus boycott and the modern
ROSA PARKS CONTINUES ON 3
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Counterfeit tickets nullifies ‘print-at-home’ option SHELBY METZGER Lantern reporter metzger.348@osu.edu When buying tickets for Ohio State athletic events, be careful where you’re spending your money. That’s advice roughly 300 people wish they would have known before buying tickets for the Ohio State-Michigan game on Nov. 24, when they were denied entry to the game after unknowingly using counterfeit tickets. Ohio State is now taking a step to ensure that doesn’t happen again. Due to the abundance of counterfeit “print-at-home” tickets, Ohio State’s ticket office will no longer be offering the option to print out a PDF-style ticket, effective beginning the winter sports season. “A step we’ve taken moving forward is we’re eliminating the option to print tickets to PDF, which is where industrywide a lot of the counterfeit tickets are being seen,” Kate Nushart, director of ticket operations and analytics at Ohio State, said. “What we’re doing moving forward is allowing customers to either use traditional, hard tickets that we would print or that Ticketmaster would print, or their mobile phone for entry.” Ohio State athletics encountered approximately 300 invalid tickets to the big game, from tickets previously reported lost or stolen to outright counterfeits, Brett Scarbrough, associate athletic director for Ohio
State’s ticket office, said. “What we’ve seen recently is manipulation of print-at-home style tickets. So tickets that are printed in a PDF format, printed on a home computer, those are very easy to manipulate,” Scarborough said. “Fans that don’t have a trained eye can easily get duped.” On Nov. 20, the Department of Athletics issued a press release warning fans about the abundance of fraudulent ticket sales, especially in the print-at-home format. The release suggested purchasing tickets from authorized sellers and covering their barcodes when sharing pictures of tickets on social media. Authorized sellers for game day tickets are Ticketmaster, the Ohio State ticket office and the Ohio State ticket exchange. “The problems that we see around the larger games are basically fans that purchase from unauthorized sites,” Scarbrough said. “Unauthorized sites could be StubHub, eBay, Craigslist — anywhere that’s outside of the authorized places to purchase tickets.” Every year, the athletic office utilizes many resources in an attempt to educate fans about how to reduce the possibility of purchasing fraudulent tickets. Nushart said that during the week before the game, the ticket office sends emails to ticket holders, encouraging mobile delivery. She added that the office encourages covering the barcodes when posting on so-
CASEY CASCALDO | PHOTO EDITOR
Mark Ruegsegger is a professor of practice in biomedical engineering at Ohio State, where all grades for the past five years have been A’s. GRADES FROM 1
The issue of grade inflation has been occurring nationally for decades. In many cases, inflated grades reflect looser academic standards, which decreases the amount of learning within an institution. Because an A is the highest-possible grade awarded, the talented student who aces rigorous courses could have a transcript similar to the student who skates through easy classes. “On average, a college student learns less and works less hard than they did 30 or 40 years ago,” said Stuart Rojstaczer, a former Duke professor in geophysics and manager of gradeinflation.com, a site that tracks grade increases nationally. “You have a less educated student body, which means you have a less educated citizenry, and the nation suffers when college students learn less,” he said. Significant differences in the way vari-
ous instructors and university departments grade student performance have a similar effect, according to Valen Johnson, interim dean of science at Texas A&M and author of “Grade Inflation: A Crisis in College Education.” “That impacts student enrollment decisions,” he said. “There are courses that students will not take or they’ll steer away from because they know that the instructor really grades harder.” Regardless of the cause, the result is that grades are becoming an increasingly meaningless tool to distinguish students, and the experts agreed. Rojstaczer said it was nearly impossible to distinguish students based on grades because of the narrow variance between their grades. By the numbers At Ohio State, the average GPA for undergraduates hit an all-time high of 3.3 last school year, increasing from 3.1 during the
CASEY CASCALDO | PHOTO EDITOR
Ohio State identified roughly 300 invalid tickets at the Michigan vs. Ohio State football game Nov. 24.
cial media. “We also do social media campaigns leading up to the games and the start of the season,” Nushart said. Despite the university’s best attempts to educate fans, the accidental purchasing of counterfeit tickets is an ongoing problem, especially for larger games. This issue often sparks intense emotions for fans and employees alike. Scarbrough explained that when a counterfeit ticket is
scanned at the gate, sometimes it simply doesn’t work. Other times, the barcode will be valid, but the seat information has been altered to seem more appealing, therefore increasing the price. You may think you get a spot at the 50-yard line, but in reality, your seat is up in C-deck. “It is an emotional situation, they’ve put out a lot of money, oftentimes there are little kids involved,” Scarbrough said. “It’s probably the worst part of our job.”
2013-14 school year. The average rate of inflation nationally is much different. It’s one-tenth of a grade point every 10 years. A’s have been the most commonly awarded grade at Ohio State since at least 2009, according to an Ohio State-provided grade distribution database. But they’ve increased rapidly since 2013. The percentage of A’s awarded climbed to more than 40 percent for the first time in 2018, up more than 9 percent in just five years. This was nearly four times faster than the national average of 5 to 6 percent each decade. All but three of Ohio State’s colleges, schools and programs offering undergraduate courses have shown significant inflation in the past five years. Two colleges — the College of Food, Agricultural and Environmental Sciences and College of Medicine — have shown the greatest amount of inflation. At the College of Medicine, the percentage of A’s awarded has increased by 18 percent. At Food, Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, A’s increased by 15 percent. The College of Arts and Sciences and Fisher College of Business, which awarded two-thirds of all the grades in the database, inflated at four times the national average. The Office of Academic Affairs — which includes the honors program and Department of Military Science — also increased at that rate. Six colleges — the College of Education and Human Ecology, College of Engineering, College of Pharmacy, John Glenn College of Public Affairs, College of Nursing and College of Public Health — have increased at twice the national average. Bucking the trend, the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, College of Dentistry and College of Social Work showed no grade inflation. However, this group accounted for only 3 percent of grades in 2018.
Higher-achieving students University officials said they were not aware that the average course grade awarded had increased because any reviews would occur at the department level, but were not surprised by the findings. They said enrolling higher achieving students is the main cause of the increase, but additional resources aimed at helping students succeed once they enter college programs is also a big factor. “We’re taking strong students that we expect to succeed and then making sure
“There are courses that students will not take or they’ll steer away from because they know that the instructor really grades harder.” VALEN JOHNSON Interim dean of science at Texas A&M
they succeed,” Jack Miner, university registrar, said. The academic profile of enrolling students, measured by ACT test scores and high school class rank, has steadily improved since 1987, Linda Katunich, interim director of analytics and reporting, said. Over the past 10 years, those increases have been even more dramatic, Miner said. Average ACT scores for first-year Ohio State students did go up during the inflation period from 28.1 in 2013 to 29.2 last school year. However, they went up nearly the same amount in the five-year period GRADES CONTINUES ON 3
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COURTESY OF TNS
Civil rights activist Rosa Parks waves after being honored in the U.S. Capitol with the Congressional Gold Medal in June 1999. ROSA PARKS FROM 1
civil-rights movement — Beatty, who was a state representative at the time, wrote and won unanimous support to pass legislation to make Dec. 1 Rosa Parks Day and a statewide initiative in Ohio. The theme of Rosa Parks Day is “the power of one.” “Being that voice and risking imprisonment and all of the sacrifices she made, it was power needed to act as a catalyst for a lot of civil-rights reforms. I think it was one of the most monumental moments in the civil-rights movement,” Rhodes said. “Everyone has the responsibility to make change in the world.” The community leader forum hosted by Beatty begins at 5:30 p.m., and the panel discussion will start at 7 p.m. GRADES FROM 2
before the inflation, when grades remained the same. Officials said switching from quarters to semesters in 2013 and hiring President Michael Drake in 2014 might have helped spark the quick increase. Maximizing student achievement has always been important, but under Drake, “the clarity of direction and then the underlying support to be able to reach those goals has been different,” Amy Treboni, senior director of advising, said. Treboni said one example of a successful program is in the Center for Life Sciences, which introduced new components specifically to address low grades in biology. “Students are taking another component, which is not graded, which is going to go over difficult course content,” she said. “They go over that content with a student that’s already taken the course who had mastered the content well.” Similar programs have been introduced by different departments and throughout the university, she said. Those include the Spring Forward and First Year Experience programs, which are designed to help students who might struggle in their first year
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of college. Other factors like expanding grade forgiveness in 2015 may have also played a role, Miner said. What’s driving it Rojstaczer and Texas A&M’s Johnson agree that a greater number of higher-achieving students would lead to higher grades, but
“In general, there really aren’t any incentives for faculty to assign students low grades because it tends to hurt their course evaluations.” VALEN JOHNSON Interim dean of science at Texas A&M
disagree on how much that would contribute. When asked if Ohio State enrolling better students or any other improvement in teaching or student assistance could explain most of the grade increase, Rojstaczer emphatically said, “No.” Editor in Chief Edward Sutelan Managing Editor for Content Rachel Bules Managing Editor for Design Jack Westerheide Managing Editor for Multimedia Jake Rahe Copy Chief Kaylin Hynes Campus Editor Zach Varda Assistant Campus Editor Amanda Parrish Campus News Director Joe Matts Sports Editor Colin Gay Assistant Sports Editor Wyatt Crosher Sports Director Aliyyah Jackson Assistant Sports Director Ryan Velazquez Arts & Life Editor Chase-Anthony Ray Assistant Arts & Life Editor Sydney Riddle Arts & Life Director Katie Hamilton Photo Editor Casey Cascaldo Assistant Photo Editor Amal Saeed Design Editor Kelly Meaden Assistant Design Editor Claire Kudika
“Those are dramatic increases,” he said. In general, enrolling better students can explain, “about 20 or 30 percent of grade rises at a few schools,” he said. “The rest is due to something else, and what’s it due to? Professors are grading easier than ever before.” To Valen Johnson, much of the increase could be explained by better students and programs to aid learning, but because D’s and E’s have dropped by only 2 percent, it can’t explain all of it. “It sounds to me like there’s been some grade inflation,” he said, but he defines inflation as only increases in grades that result from lower academic standards. Rojstaczer defines grade inflation as any increase in grades. The experts agreed that grade inflation — by either definition — occurs because instructors receive less complaints from students and more career benefits for grading higher. “In general, there really aren’t any incentives for faculty to assign students low grades because it tends to hurt their course evaluations,” Valen Johnson said. “The students, of course, don’t mind when faculty assign high grades. So, there’s not downward pressure being applied to grades.” Ohio State’s rapid inflation, Rojstaczer said, happened because it had been grading tougher than similar institutions in the Big Ten. “Ohio State, relative to other flagship Big Ten colleges, historically, was grading on the low side,” he said. “What typically happens is, it’s only a matter of time before they try to catch up.” It’s a phenomenon he’s seen at other schools and is a large part of what’s recently been driving grade inflation nationally, he said. “A significant amount of [national grade inflation] is influenced by schools that historically were tough-grading schools abandoning that culture,” he said. “Purdue used to be a tough-grading school relative to its selectivity. It has abandoned that culture. Georgia Tech used to be a tough-grading school relative to its selectivity. It has abandoned that culture. Southern schools used to, in general, grade lower. They’ve caught up.” However, Rojstaczer said instructors are not told by department heads to soften their grading practices. Rather, a school will collectively adjust its practices by simply being aware that similar schools have higher grades. “There’s just something in the air that makes them catch up,” he said. “Once it happens, it happens in a hurry.” In 2013 Ohio State’s average GPA was 3.1. The University of
Michigan’s was 3.3. Grade disparity Valen Johnson said grade inflation is less of an issue than it was in the 1990s. To him, grade disparity — different instructors, departments or colleges assigning different grades for the same level of student achievement — is the larger issue. “The fact that humanities — just their norms for grading — are higher than they are in the social sciences and the social sciences tend to assign more lenient grades than the natural sciences and mathematics,” he said. “[It] leads students to take fewer courses in science and mathematics, particularly as electives.” At Ohio State, that disparity can be seen within the College of Arts and Sciences, where the highest subjects had a GPA of 4.0 and the lowest had a GPA of 2.7 in 2018. There were eight subjects with a GPA below a 3.0 — all of which were science and math subjects. There were 19 above a 3.5 — all
humanities and arts subjects. The highest grading schools — College of Nursing and College of Dentistry — had 3.8 and 3.7 average GPAs, respectively, and a median grade of A. The lowest grading schools — College of Arts and Sciences and Fisher College of Business — had 3.2 and 3.3 average GPAs and a B-plus median. Officials at Ohio State do not view grade disparity as a problem and said they suspect students are more likely to select the toughest courses than avoid them. “With the change in our student demographic, one of the things that we’ve seen is that our students want to be challenged,” Miner said. When students select courses or majors to maximize their GPA, they’re ultimately harming their future careers, Valen Johnson said. “I don’t think it’s good if
they’re really reducing their marketability when they leave school and reducing the skill set that they have to offer to the job market just because of differences in how different disciplines grade,” he said. To Rojstaczer, grade disparity is a key contributor to grade inflation. When students flock to higher-grading instructors, other instructors are forced to adapt, he said. “Professors tend to be smart, but they don’t have to be Einstein to realize that in order to keep their enrollments up — which keeps their chair happy — they need to grade easier,” he said. What’s in a grade? Gerald Rankin, a 1961 Ohio State graduate and owner of an actuary business near Philadelphia before retiring in 2008, remembers an entirely different grading system than what the school currently uses. “The English department had a
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ARTS Student organization aims to inform and spread awareness of human trafficking in Ohio. | ON PAGE 5
Wexner Center for the Arts appoints Johanna Burton as new director CHASE RAY Arts & Life Editor ray.461@osu.edu AMANDA PARRISH Assistant Campus Editor parrish.272@osu.edu The Wexner Center for the Arts announced Wednesday that Johanna Burton has been appointed as its next director. Burton previously served as the Keith Haring Director and Curator of Education and Public Engagement at the New Museum in New York since 2013. Beginning in March, Burton will step into the role succeeding Sherri Geldin, who has served as Wexner Center director for the past 25 years. For this position, Burton was chosen by a 16-person selection committee, and will oversee a 70-person staff and $12 million budget. “Johanna is the perfect leader — intelligent, inquisitive, collaborative and ambitious,” Abigail Wexner, center trustee and cochair of the 16-person selection committee, said in a press release. “We couldn’t be more thrilled that she will guide the arts center into the future, while building on
the superb work of Sherri Geldin and the talented staff.” Burton will lead all aspects of the Wexner’s array of multidisciplinary arts and education programs, including the artist residency programs that is considered one of the most expansive in the country, according to the news release. “Johanna’s impressive track record of thriving simultaneously in the scholarly, artistic and educational communities will allow her to further and deepen the interdisciplinary and multilayered connections that distinguish the Wex,” Provost Bruce McPheron said in the release. Burton, who holds graduate degrees from Princeton, New York and Stony Brook universities, said that she is looking forward to joining an institution that is dedicated “to pushing boundaries.” “The Wexner Center is one of this country’s most venerable contemporary art institutions, noted for its trailblazing spirit, dedication to pushing boundaries, and engagement with leading and emerging artists alike to create new work,” Burton said. “I am excited to join the board and staff in thinking about how we best stew-
ard this incredible legacy and momentum to continue to create programs, exhibitions, publications, and communities of creatives that break ground and investigate the questions and challenges of our time.” National and local artists like Mickalene Thomas, whose exhibit “I Can’t See You Without Me” is currently on residency at the Wexner Center, and Nayland Blake had nothing but praise for Burton’s appointment. “I am thrilled that Johanna will be leading the Wex; she is a perfect fit,” Thomas said. “The Wex is a place where artists are valued, heard, supported and celebrated [and] Johanna shares this approach.” Burton’s past curations at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York and the Hammer Museum at UCLA have examined artists and movements that challenge conventions and shift the art field. “Johanna is a brilliant choice to lead the Wex through its next chapter,” Geldin said. “I can’t imagine a more perfect successor; one to whom I am both elated and deeply gratified to pass the baton after 25 years.”
COURTESY OF ERIN LELAND
Johanna Burton was just announced as the new director for the Wexner Center for the Arts.
Turning Pages: Wexner Center for the Arts brings arts experiences to Ohio high schools MICHAEL LEE Engagement Editor lee.7240@osu.edu In rural areas of Columbus, local high school students don’t always get the opportunity to express themselves in healthy ways through the arts, or get the chance to visit galleries and museums. But as a part of the Pages program, a writing program that brings high school students to the Wexner Center for the Arts to experience different art forms to help them think differently about their writing, these students get the opportunity to express themselves in ways they couldn’t before. Pages began 13 years ago when Dionne Custer Edwards, educator and manager in school partnerships, started working at the Wexner Center. As a writer, she wanted to start a program to integrate art into differCOURTESY OF KATIE SPENGLER ent high school subjects that required writing to give students an opportunity to think Dionne Custer Edwards addresses students and parents attending the Pages 2018 open mic reading. about writing in a different way. “I thought, ‘What if we could do more students can participate in an end-of-the- pating schools before and after each expearts integration in the study of writing, in year open mic reading at the arts center. rience to prepare them, as well as create an the practice of writing, and how we were This year, the visual arts experience was opportunity for the students to discuss their thinking about how we are putting ideas on a visit to the Mickalene Thomas “I Can’t thoughts. the page?’” Custer Edwards said. “Thirteen See You Without Me” exhibition, the film “We get six visits where that artist is years later, we have served hundreds and experience was a screening of “Hale Coun- completely dedicated just to this group of hundreds of students, dozens of teachers all ty This Morning, This Evening” by film- students and what they’re working on and across Central Ohio as far as urban com- maker RaMell Ross and the performing what they’re reading,” Stacey O’Reilly, an munities, suburban, rural communities.” arts experience will be the upcoming live English teacher at Big Walnut High School Custer Edwards said every academic show of Jaamil Olawale Kosoko’s perfor- whose been involved with the program for year, students are offered three contempo- mance, “Seancers.” three years, said. “We always make conrary arts experiences: a visual arts experiAlong with bringing students to the nections of what we’re seeing at the Wex to ence, a film experience and a performing Wexner Center — with free bussing and what we’re learning in class.” arts experience. At the end of the program, lunches — Custer Edwards said three difO’Reilly said many of her students don’t the Wexner Center publishes various stu- ferent artists in residence who relate to normally have the opportunity to experident writings and artwork in a book, and each experience also visit the five partici- ence something like going to a theater or
visiting an art gallery because Big Walnut is in a rural area. “To go to Ohio State University, to be on a college campus, to be in the Wex and just to get a more intimate view of that, isn’t an opportunity you would have,” O’Reilly said. Being able to experience art through Pages has allowed O’Reilly’s students to be more confident in making creative risks in writing and in-class discussion. But more importantly, she said it has allowed them to express more, including dealing with loss, in which she had a student whose best friend had passed away the summer before her first year in the Pages program. “I think the program was really cathartic for him. It gave him the opportunity to express himself in ways that he wouldn’t have otherwise and it really helped him work through the loss of his best friend,” O’Reilly said. Custer Edwards said while seeing various students and classes dealing with loss and being able to express their feelings through Pages, one thing has stuck out to her the most about them. “Resilience,” she said. “The resilience of students and teachers that are going through this program.” Custer Edwards said she hopes Pages can continue to do good work, reach out to schools such as those in rural areas or areas farther outside Columbus — like schools they’ve worked with recently that are an hour away — and allow those students to experience arts like they haven’t before. “It’s really nice to know that there are so many schools we can be in partnership with and that we can be in service to,” she said. “That is exciting to me.”
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How a student organization is helping to combat human trafficking CEIONE PAFFORD For the Lantern pafford.5@osu.edu
According to the National Human Trafficking Hotline, Ohio is ranked No. 4 in the country when it comes to reported human-trafficking cases, but Ohio State student organization Why Us? is looking to bring awareness to this. Why Us? brings attention to the alarming rise in human trafficking throughout the state. The group aims to spread awareness of human trafficking on college campuses. While it is a relatively new organization on campus, it has made early strides and hopes to make more that will leave a lasting impact at Ohio State. “We didn’t feel like there was an organization doing so,” Ray’Chel Wilson, vice president of Why Us?, said. “AlCOURTESY OF WHY US?
Ray’Chel Wilson, vice president of Why Us?, marches at a rally at Ohio State in March 2018.
though there are many great anti-human-trafficking organizations, we just wanted to be a force of our own against human trafficking.” In its short time as a student group, Why Us? was recognized at Mahogany Moments, Ohio State’s annual African American heritage festival, for outstanding student organization. Its main goal is to spread information on the rising threat, as well as help people prepare for human-trafficking-related situations, but the group is also open to collaborating with other student organizations. “We do try and obtain strategic partnerships. The group held a rally earlier this year,” Wilson said. “It was one of my favorite events with Why Us?” The organization also had Barbara Freeman, founder of The Freeman Project, a nonprofit organization that provides counsel and resources to human-trafficking victims, and Elaine Richardson, professor of literacy studies, as guest speakers, both of whom are survivors of human trafficking and have worked with the AIDS Healthcare Foundation. Wilson said the more people are aware of the problem, the more cases will be recognized and reported in the state and the more laws will be passed to criminalize human-trafficking acts, such as the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act, signed by U.S. Rep. Joyce Beatty, that lifts “barriers that prevent the federal government, states and victims of sex trafficking from pursuing justice” against human trafficking, according to Beatty’s website. Why Us? is looking to expand its group. It currently has 15 members, but is seeking more involvement, specifically from men. “Although our group is diverse in many other ways, we only have two or three guys who participate with us,” Wilson said. “We can only win this battle with solidarity and cooperation.” FOLLOW US ON INSTAGRAM
COURTESY OF WHY US?
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Students participate at a rally for the anti-human trafficking student organization at Ohio State in March 2018. GRADES FROM 3
guideline that the GPA should be 1.96 for each class,” Rankin, who wrote a July Wall Street Journal op-ed critical of grade inflation at Ohio State, said. “If a teacher gave a B, he or she would have to give a D to somebody.” That was the norm, Rojstaczer said, and the way the A-to-F, or A-to-E, grading system was designed to work. “The idea was, they were going to use statistical distributions and a curve to distinguish those who were outstanding from those who weren’t,” Rojstaczer said.
“Professors tend to be smart, but they don’t have to be Einstein to realize that in order to keep their enrollments up — which keeps their chair happy — they need to grade easier.” STUART ROJSTACZER Former Duke professor in geophysics and manager of gradeinflation.com
C’s, which originally represented the average performance of a student at the school they were attending, were reinterpreted to mean the average performance of a student nationally, and now isn’t tied to any meaning at all, he said. “Actually, a C-student for the nation would be a god-awful student right now,” he said. The change really took hold in the 1980s, Rojstaczer said, when colleges began to view students as consumers. “When a student is a consumer, instead of an acolyte in search of knowledge, you want to make sure that consumer has advantages when it comes to getting admitted into graduate school and professional
school and getting a good job,” he said. “One way to do that is to jack up their grades a bit.” But that desire might have backfired. Instead of students looking better on job applications, they all look pretty much the same, he said. Grade Compression Unlike currency inflation, grade inflation has a ceiling — 4.0. “Some schools are getting very close to hitting (the ceiling),” Rojstaczer said, “and other schools will in about 50 years.” As a result of grades trending only in an upward direction, a new problem has emerged — grade compression. When grades become so disproportionately distributed into a single category, they become less useful as a tool for evaluation and motivation. Ohio State does not consider grade compression to be an issue, Miner said, and would be glad to see an even higher percentage of students earning A’s. “I think that’s not just a great thing,” he said. “I think that’s what we’ve spent all of our energy and resources to build towards.” Rankin said college transcripts would occasionally fail to provide an accurate picture of candidates. “We hired a lot of college graduates,” he said. “There were some surprises. Some people had very good grades and they weren’t that smart.” Hume said having numerous candidates with high GPAs is a benefit to employers. “It’s a terrific problem to have,” she said. When high grades are too easily attainable, they fail to motivate students to perform at their best, Rojstaczer said. “When somebody goes into a classroom and they know by simply signing up they can get a B-plus or better — which is true of many classes even at Ohio State — a lot of students say ‘B-plus is good enough for me,’ and they don’t work,” he said. GRADES CONTINUES ON 6
U.S. Congresswoman Joyce Beatty, OH-03 U.S. , OH-03 invites youJ her B U.S. C Congresswoman ongresswoman Jtooyce oyce Beatty eatty ongresswoman oyce eatty, OH-03 OH-03 U.S. Congresswoman J oyce B eatty , OH-03 invites you to her invites you her invitesLeaders youJto to her Beatty U.S. Congresswoman oyce , OH-03 Community Forum invites you to her U.S. Congresswoman oyce , OH-03 invitesLeaders youJto her Beatty Community Forum in Honor of Rosa Parks Community Leaders Forum U.S. C ongresswoman oyce , OH-03 invitesLeaders youJto her Beatty Community Forum “Footsteps: We All Have a Role to Play” , OH-03 U.S. C ongresswoman J oyce B eatty in Honor of Rosa Parks Community Leaders Forum in Honor ofyouRosa Parks invites to her
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invites you and to her Join Congresswoman Beatty, local, national, civil rights leaders for an important “Footsteps: We All Have a Role to Play” invites you to her “Footsteps: We All Have a Role to Play” discussion on “The Power of One,” andAll its Have continuing importance to our community and “Footsteps: We a Role to Play” Join Congresswoman Beatty, local, national, andacivil rights leaders an important th to “Footsteps: We of AlltheHave Role Play”for Join Beatty, local, national, and rights leaders for an the legislative work upcoming 116 Congress. Join Congresswoman Congresswoman Beatty, local, national, and civil civil rights leaders forcommunity an important important discussion on “The Power of One,” and its continuing importance to our and “Footsteps: We All Have a Role to Play” discussion on “The Power of One,” and its continuing importance to our community and Join Congresswoman Beatty, local, national, and civil rights leaders for an important th discussion on “Thethe Power of One,” and importance to our community and legislative work ofits thecontinuing upcoming 116 Congress. th the legislative work of the upcoming 116 Congress. th Join Congresswoman Beatty, local, national, and civil rights leaders for an important discussion on “The Power of One,” and its continuing importance to our community and the legislative work of the upcoming 116 Congress. Monday, 3, th2018 “Footsteps: WeDecember All Have a Role to Play” discussion on “Thethe Power of One,” and importance to our community and legislative work ofits thecontinuing upcoming 116 Congress. Join Congresswoman Beatty, local, national, andacivil rights 5:30 to 7:00 pm “Footsteps: Wepm Allthe Have Role toleaders Play”for an important th Monday, December 3, 2018 the legislative work of upcoming 116 Congress. Monday, December 3, 2018 Monday, December 3, 2018 discussion on “The Power of One,” and its continuing importance to our and “Footsteps: We All Have a Role to Play” Join Congresswoman Congresswoman Beatty, Beatty, local, national, and civil civilpm rights leaders forcommunity an important important atto the7:00 Join local, national, and rights leaders for an 5:30 pm th Monday, December 3, 2018 the legislative work of the upcoming 116 Congress. 5:30 pm to 7:00 pm Join Congresswoman Beatty, local, national, and civil rights leaders for an important discussion on “The Power of One,” and its continuing importance to our community 5:30 pm to 7:00 pm discussion on “The Power of One,” and its continuing importance to our community and and Monday, December 3, 2018 Fawcett Event Center the th th discussion on “Thethe Power of5:30 One,” and its continuing importance to our community and pm to 7:00 pm the legislative work ofat the upcoming 116 Congress. at the legislative work of the upcoming 116 Congress. at the th 5:30 to 7:00 pm the legislative workpm ofat the upcoming 116 Congress. 2400 Olentangy River Road Monday, December 3, 2018 Fawcett Event Center the
Fawcett Event Center Fawcett Event Center at the Columbus, Ohio 43210 2400 Olentangy River Road 5:30 pm to 7:00 pm Monday, December 3, 2018 Fawcett Event Center 2400 Olentangy River Road 2400 Olentangy River Road Monday, December 3, 2018 Fawcett Event Center the Columbus, Ohio 43210 5:30 pmatto 7:00 pm 2400 Olentangy River Road Columbus, Ohio 43210 ToColumbus, RSVP, visit Ohio 43210 5:30 pmwww.beatty.house.gov to 7:00 pm 2400 Olentangy River Road Fawcett Event Center the Columbus, Ohio 43210 or call at 614-220-0003 at the ToColumbus, RSVP, visit www.beatty.house.gov Ohio 43210 Event Center To RSVP, visit www.beatty.house.gov 2400 Olentangy River Road ToFawcett RSVP, orvisit callwww.beatty.house.gov 614-220-0003 Event Center or call 614-220-0003 ToFawcett RSVP, visit www.beatty.house.gov or call 614-220-0003 2400 Olentangy River Road Columbus, Ohio 43210 To RSVP, orvisit callwww.beatty.house.gov 614-220-0003 2400 Olentangy River Road Columbus, Ohio 43210 or call 614-220-0003 ToColumbus, RSVP, visit www.beatty.house.gov Ohio 43210 or callwww.beatty.house.gov 614-220-0003 To To RSVP, RSVP, visit visit www.beatty.house.gov To RSVP,or visit www.beatty.house.gov or call call 614-220-0003 614-220-0003 or call 614-220-0003
6 | The Lantern | Thursday, November 29, 2018
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GRADES FROM 5
Mastery of content Kevin Turner — instructor for the two-credit course MUSIC 1101.35, in which all but one student earned an A in the past five years — and Mohammed Omer — instructor for all three 1000-level Somali courses, in which 99 percent of students earned an A-minus or higher in the past five years — did not reply to interview requests for this article. Mark Ruegsegger is a professor of practice in biomedical engineering at Ohio State and one of two instructors to teach BIOMEDE 4900 in the past five years — in which every student earned an A. He said the course material is valuable, but less complicated than much of what biomedical engineering students encounter earlier in their major program. He said the principles are the softer skills students don’t get in other classes, “but are things that companies want.” The class is required for every fourthyear biomedical engineering student and is meant to complement the senior design capstone courses, he said. Those design courses are worth three credits each and are taught by Ruegsegger as well. In the past five years, more than 660 grades have been issued in those two classes — 99 percent of which were an A-minus or higher. Ruegsegger said his teaching philosophy is to assign grades to students according to their progress toward meeting the learning objectives laid out in the course syllabus. “If you earn an A, you get an A,” he said. “I could just as easily give the entire class a D as give the entire class an A if they’ve earned the points for that.” Additionally, all the programs offered by the College of Engineering are subject to
review every six years by the Accreditation Board of Engineering and Technology. Ruegsegger said his courses have met the board’s standards for continuous improvement and appropriate level of difficulty. Every term, courses are also reviewed by the faculty within the Department of Biomedical Engineering, Ruegsegger said.
“They’re wasting their time. They’re not going to get a job. We should be looking at other careers for people instead of just telling everyone to go to college.” GERALD RANKIN 1961 Ohio State graduate
“Every faculty who taught a course has to give a 5- to 8-minute summary of that course,” he said. “We also, for a couple years, looked at grade distributions of the course … and we didn’t find anything out of place.” Also — with respect to Ohio State and the College of Engineering — Ruegsegger said students are entering the school more prepared and goal-oriented than ever before. Those better students are driving grades up and the university might need to tighten its academic standards to avoid grade compression.
“Maybe faculty have been slow to adjust to the knowledge base that students are at,” he said. “Maybe we need to adjust our, either, rigor or … push our students to the information that we need to bring to them so we’re challenging them more.” Solutions Inflation is now and will continue to be a fact of academic life, Rojstaczer said, and the best solution is to accept it. “Once Princeton threw in the towel, it was all over,” he said. With little fanfare, Princeton implemented a grade-deflation policy in 2004 and ended it in 2014. GPAs have increased ever since, according to The Daily Princetonian. Rojstaczer said college administrators should instead focus on the problem that grade inflation creates — grade compression. He added the easiest solution is to remove the 4.0 ceiling. “You could buy another 50 years of useful grading if you create a grade higher than an A,” he said. Students should focus on ways of boosting their transcripts other than high grades, Ruegsegger said. “[Employers] realize everyone is top 10 percent,” he said, “They’re going to make you have three co-ops or two internships or three years of research or a paper.” Rankin said students who regularly earn C’s should regard them as E’s and consider other career options. “They’re wasting their time. They’re not going to get a job,” he said. “We should be looking at other careers for people instead of just telling everyone to go to college.” How the analysis was done: GPAs are conventionally rounded to the nearest tenth and calculated as non-cumulative and unweighted from a 10-year grade
distribution dataset obtained by The Lantern. The set contained all combinations of academic year, subject and catalog number with at least 25 students. That accounts for 88-95 percent of all classes. Combinations with fewer than 25 students were excluded by the university due to FERPA regulations. We consulted a grade inflation expert regarding our calculations and the missing data. They agreed that calculating GPAs as noncumulative and unweighted is the fairest, most accurate way to measure grading patterns and that the missing data would have little to no effect on the overall results. If the data had any effect, it would be to increase the GPAs, since smaller class sizes typically result in higher grades.
AMAL SAEED | ASSSTANT SPORTS EDITOR
Jerrod A. Mogan is the John R. Oller Special Projects Editor.
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Answer Key for Nov. 27 : Across 1. WVA 4. Bama 8. Pcs 11. Chop 12. Darin 13. Lots 15. Help 16. Aging 17. Area 18. Inseam 20. Solitary 22. Als
23. Erect 24. Agreed 27. Seeps 30. Rte 31. Clomp 34. Drill 36. Alit 38. Scold 40. Skit 41. Tacos 43. Speed 45. End 46. Sound
48. Atrisk 50. Riots 53. Eng 54. Cutitout 57. Congas 61. Asis 62. Draft 64. Oars 65. Bent 66. Logos 67. Rift 68. Das 69. Ewer 70. Els
Down 1. When 2. Vols 3. Appear 4. Bag 5. Arise 6. Minor 7. Angles 8. Platters 9. Cora 10. Ster 11. Chi 12. Damsels
14. Say 19. Alec 21. Iced 24. Atlas 25. Geico 26. Docs 28. Pikes 29. Slink 30. Rat 32. Mop 33. Plea 35. Ltd 37. Tourists 39. Detects
42. Snit 44. Drno 47. Doodle 49. Ignore 51. Turow 52. Stage 54. Cab 55. Used 56. Tina 58. Gail 59. Arfs 60. Sst 63. For
Across 1. English TV network 4. Pig with tusks 8. Guy 12. 18th-century card game 13. “Marvelous” ____ Hagler 15. Navajo foe 16. Weight measure 17. Railroad locomotive 18. Take a nap 19. Beer holder 21. Compass pt. 22. “Beward the ___ of March” 23. Toddler word 26. Congers 28. Placing at intervals 31. Ceremony 35. Army officer (abbr.) 36. Comedian Kovacs 38. Subsequently 39. Dutch cheese town
41. Accumulated 43. Nature’s instant replay? 44. Philanthropist 46. Antitoxin 48. “____ Miz” 49. Symbolic device 51. Certain steaks 53. Particle 55. Isaac’s son 56. Nursery schol lesson 59. “____ Kapital” 61. Glower 65. Parker ____ (board game company) 66. Undivided 69. Tues. preceder 70. Tour de France need 72. Barnyard sound 73. Singer Ed ____ 74. Lily pad dweller 75. Green-lights
Down 1. Lunchtime orders 2. Kick 3. Geometric shape 4. Outlaw 5. Gp. 6. Hertz rival 7. Bathe 8. Julie of “Afterglow” 9. Weeded 10. Part of a church 11. Holes 13. Danger 14. More recent 20. Neighbor of Wyo. 24. Compass markings (abbr.) 25. Diva Moffo et al. 27. Fleur-de-____ 28. Sin city of the Bible 29. Alternative course of action (2 wds.) 30. Charitable one
32. Aunt’s spouse 33. Back woes 34. Tolstoy & Durocher 35. Grant by treaty 37. Causing goosebumps 40. Syrup of a type 42. Confers knighthood 45. Go on a pension (abbr.) 47. Scanty 50. Cindy Crawford, e.g. 52. Brynner of films 54. “The ____ a Thousand Faces” (2 wds.) 56. Israel’s Eban 57. Fedora’s edge 58. Popular soft drink, for short 60. Heavenly body 62. BB’s, e.g. 63. Defraud 64. Slaughter of baseball 67. Bride’s response (2 wds.) 68. Gas pump choice (abbr.)
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Thursday, November 29, 2018 | The Lantern | 7
Buckeyes suffer first loss, 72-62 to Syracuse COLIN GAY Sports Editor gay.125@osu.edu No. 16 Ohio State knew what it was in for when facing Syracuse: a 2-3 zone defense, a staple for Jim Boeheim, who is in his 43rd season as the head coach of the Orange. Syracuse knew what the zone was going to make Ohio State do: forcing them to shoot over the zone defense instead of driving to the paint, having sophomore forward Kaleb Wesson use his size to outmatch opponents. This was what Syracuse forced Ohio State to do. It worked, with No. 16 Ohio State (6-1) suffering its first loss of the season, falling to Syracuse (4-2) 72-62 on Tuesday night. Wesson struggled mightily in the paint for the Buckeyes. The sophomore connected on one of eight shot attempts from the floor, getting second chance opportunities with five offensive boards, but finding little success offensively, overpowered by the three big Orange forwards in the middle. He ended the game with 13 points, connecting on 11 of 14 from the charity stripe. Redshirt junior Elijah Hughes secured the victory for the Orange, scoring six consecutive points, leading Syracuse on a 11-0 run. During this span, the Buckeyes went more than seven minutes without a field goal. Even with a mini 5-point run by the Buckeyes near the end of
AMAL SAEED | ASSISTANT PHOTO EDITOR
Ohio State sophomore forward Kaleb Wesson (34) attempts to put up a shot in the second half of the game against Syracuse on Nov. 28. Ohio State lost 72-62.
the second half, highlighted by a 3-point make by redshirt senior guard Keyshawn Woods, Ohio State could not come back from the deficit, shooting 27.3 percent from the field in the second half while making two of eight from deep. Syracuse sophomore guard Tyus Battle, sophomore Oshae Brissett and Hughes combined for 32 points in the second half, as the Orange made five of 11 from 3-point range in the second
half, leading to the 10-point loss for Ohio State. The Orange also used physicality in its win against the Buckeyes, with three Orange players, sophomore forward Marek Dolezaj, senior guard Frank Howard and freshman forward Bourama Sidibe fouling out. Ohio State, early on, seemed to have figured out the zone. Senior guard C.J. Jackson found sophomore forward Kyle Young for an alley-oop. This helped ig-
PREVIEW FROM 8
While the Ohio State offense faces a defensive scheme it’s not used to, the Buckeye defense will face a Northwestern offense that does not exactly stand out on paper. The Wildcats hold the 23rd-worst scoring offense in the country, averaging 23.7 points per game. Northwestern has not found much success running the ball, recording only 114.8 rushing yards per game. However, it has found its signature back in freshman Isaiah Bowser after Jeremy Larkin announced in September that he had medically retired from football. Bowser, averaging 4.6 yards per carry, has recorded six touchdown runs this season. The Sidney, Ohio, native has also rushed for more than 100 yards in four of his past six games, recording two multi-touchdown contests. The passing game is led by redshirt senior quarterback Clayton Thorson, who has completed 60.3 percent of his passes for 14 touchdowns and 12 interceptions. Even with underwhelming numbers, Ohio State defensive coordinator Greg Schiano views Thorson, who threw for 256 yards and ran for 44 yards with two total touchdowns against Ohio State in 2016, as an accurate passer who understands schemes very well. “He’s an NFL quarterback,” Schiano said. “We need to make sure we understand how that all fits in their entire offense.” Prediction On paper, it’s clear who has the advantage in this game. Northwestern’s numbers do not stand out on the page and do not have any advantages personnel-wise over Ohio State. But that has not kept the Wildcats from playing these games close. Northwestern
nite the Buckeye offense, beginning the game on a 9-2 run and making their first four attempts from the field. However, the Orange solidified its defense as the first half continued and, after junior forward Andre Wesson hit a jumper with 12:58 to go, Ohio State failed to make a shot for the next six minutes. During this span, Syracuse went on a 9-2 run, tying the game at 18 after a 3 from Dolezaj. Ohio State and Syracuse con-
tinued to trade shots as the half came to a close, as the Orange continue to force the Buckeyes out of the paint, connecting on four of 12 from 3 in the first half. Jackson was the only player to make two 3s in the half, leading the team with 11 points. Late in the half, Syracuse’s 2-3 zone was matched on the other end of the court with head coach Chris Holtmann’s man defense, as Ohio State continued to switch and guard the Orange offense, forcing a shot-clock violation with 98 seconds left in the first half. After Jackson hit four free throws and Battle hit a layup, Ohio State went to the locker room with a 31-29 lead. Ohio State continued to struggle against the zone early in the second half and Syracuse took advantage, starting on a 10-2 run, taking a 39-32 lead. Woods tried to change the tide for the Ohio State offense. He hit a 3, bringing the Buckeyes to within two, with Young hitting a layup to tie the game at 41 with 14 minutes left. But the Orange continued to score, shooting 45.5 percent from the field in the second half. Luther Muhammad left the game with 66 seconds remaining after a hard fall guarding Battle on a layup. Ohio State stays at home to take on Minnesota at 7 p.m. on Sunday.
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GOOD AND BAD FROM 8
led then-No. 14 Michigan 17-0 prior to allowing 20 unanswered points to the Wolverines. Even with the collapse, Northwestern still had a very close deficit when the clock hit zero. Now, the Wildcats go into its first Big Ten Championship with something to prove: that it can overcome a ranked Ohio State team that has arguably the most momentum heading into a conference championship game than any other team in the country. But even if a loss is not in the future for Northwestern, it is likely the Wildcats will play a game similar to the other ranked opponents it has faced this season, keeping with Ohio State until the very end. The Wildcats can do this by limiting Ohio State’s success in the passing game, erasing any big-play ability for Haskins and his wide receivers by limiting the Buckeyes to short slant and crossing routes. This may not keep the Buckeyes off the scoreboard, but would take time off the clock and take away an important part of the Ohio State passing attack. Ohio State is favored and COLIN GAY likely will win Sports Editor this game. But Northwestern will not become the 59-0 example that the Buckeyes RACHEL BULES got in WisconManaging Editor for Content sin during the 2014 season.
top defenses in the country, but certainly enough to let Haskins run the offense without worry. Ryan Day, either as acting head coach or as offensive coordinator, has made his dent in these games with smart play-calling to exploit the weaknesses in the defenses. Against Michigan, crossing routes took advantage of the man defense, and in the final moments to beat Penn State, Haskins used screen routes to drive 96 yards in less than three minutes. The weaknesses against Rutgers were, well, everything, but the Scarlet Knights have played other teams close, including losses by less than one score to Northwestern and Michigan State, as well as a 13-point defeat to the Nittany Lions. Ohio State left no doubt in the 52-3 thrashing of the Scarlet Knights but left plenty in the 27-26 win against Penn State. For 52 minutes, the Buckeyes showed more weaknesses than strengths but brought it together for eight impressive minutes to overcome a 12-point WYATT CROSHER deficit and Assistant Sports Editor stay undefeated. But when looking at the competition EDWARD SUTELAN and overall Editor-in-Chief game play, Ohio State had one game to show what it is capable
Staff Predictions 30-13
42-24
34-17
54-21
of doing, and that was against Michigan. The offense showed ability both in the air and on the ground, and the defense brought the most pressure it has since junior defensive end Nick Bosa left with an injury against TCU. The linebacker play was dramatically improved, and, while 39 points is high, over half came in the fourth quarter with the game already in hand. Which Ohio State team will show up against Northwestern? Momentum would say the good one. The Michigan victory was the best Ohio State has seen all season, and the matchup against the Wildcats is of equal importance if the Buckeyes hope to make the playoff. But Northwestern’s ability to make games close could force Ohio State back into its negative tendencies, and it should not be overlooked how much the Buckeyes prepared for the Michigan matchup. Specifically, defensive coordinator Greg Schiano said 364 days of preparation go into that game. Ohio State may have moved on from being the team that lost to Purdue by 29 and took five-win Maryland to overtime. But the Buckeyes may also not be the same team that beat the Wolverines come time for the Big Ten Championship. As has been the case for every game this year, the Ohio State team that shows up on Saturday will be a toss-up. But the Buckeyes are trending up at the right time, and if they can repeat their game from this past week, they have a legitimate chance of making the playoff for the third time in program history.
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8 | Thursday, November 29, 2018
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Ohio State loses first game to Syracuse, 72-62. | ON PAGE 7
OUTSIDE LOOKING IN
No. 21 Northwestern's defense brings challenges to No. 6 Ohio State COLIN GAY Sports Editor gay.125@osu.edu After Ohio State’s 62-39 win against then-No. 4 Michigan, the Buckeyes go into the Big Ten Championship with momentum — momentum that could lead the Buckeyes into the College Football Playoff, a feat that seemed impossible just a few weeks ago. Redshirt senior Terry McLaurin has thought the committee has been pretty consistent on its view of Ohio State in the playoff rankings, something that has fueled the team as a whole. “I think up until last week, I think they thought there were some inconsistencies or they want to say our defense or our offense can’t run the ball, things like that,” McLaurin said. “We’ve heard it all and we just try and focus on getting better each and every week. At the end of the day, we’ve been winning games and that’s what really matters.” But No. 6 Ohio State remains on the outside looking in, and it needs a convincing performance against No. 21 Northwestern on Saturday to earn a place in the College Football Playoff. This is something Northwestern has prided itself on all season long: playing its opponents close. The Wildcats (8-4, 8-1 Big Ten) have been within 14 points in each game it has played this season, falling to ranked oppo-
CASEY CASCALDO | PHOTO EDITOR
Urban Meyer prepares to lead the Buckeyes onto the field prior the start of the game against Michigan on Nov. 24. Ohio State won 62-39.
nents Michigan and Notre Dame by a combined 13 points, yet narrowly defeating Nebraska in overtime and recording one-score wins against Rutgers and Illinois. This hurt Northwestern in significant ways, losing all three of its non-conference games, including a 39-34 loss to Akron. However, head coach Urban Meyer does not view the Wildcats as a team Ohio State will play down to, something, he admits, that happens in the program. “You watch them play. They're very — they're not averaging 55 points a game. But
they're very productive,” Meyer said. “So, yeah, we play at the level of competition. That happens sometimes. You'd like to not have that happen. It does. That certainly is not this case.” The Northwestern defense brings something that will not allow for the Ohio State offense to have what McLaurin refers to as a “hangover” after putting up 62 points against the Wolverines. Despite having the 20th-worst offense in the country, the Wildcats allow 21.7 points per game, tied for No. 29 in college
football. Much of this has to do with head coach Pat Fitzgerald’s pass defense strategy: perfecting the zone. “You just don't see big hits against them,” Meyer said. “They keep the ball in front of you. And sometimes that's — nowadays that's harder than a team that you know is going to be man coverage across the board.” Despite allowing 238 yards passing per game, placing near the bottom of the Big Ten in pass defense, the Wildcats have allowed only 14 passing touchdowns all season, the same as Penn State and Wisconsin, who are the No. 2 and No. 5 pass defenses in the conference, respectively. With redshirt junior defensive lineman Joe Gaziano, who was named as a second-team All Big Ten defense member, and sophomore linebacker Blake Gallagher, Ohio State will have to overcome a Northwestern defense that McLaurin says is “bend and don’t break.” Redshirt sophomore Dwayne Haskins even said his approach to the offense will have to change when facing zone coverage instead of man-to-man coverage. “With zone coverage, you have to complete 70 percent of your passes to be able to move the ball down the field against them,” Haskins said. “So you have to be able to pick them apart, dissect them and be able to see the coverages and zones and knowing that every pass is not going to be a touchdown.” PREVIEW CONTINUES ON 7
ANALYSIS
The tale of two Ohio State football teams WYATT CROSHER Assistant Sports Editor crosher.1@osu.edu There was one question left in the minds of many following Ohio State’s 62-39 win against Michigan. Where has this Ohio State team been all season? In a season that has seen the Buckeyes ranked as high as No. 2 and as low as No. 10, where they stayed for four straight weeks, most of the year has been underwhelming. But then “The Game” happened, and now the Buckeyes are potentially one big win away from sneaking into the College Football Playoff. So where has this team been? Head coach Urban Meyer has taken a similar view throughout most of the season, saying more than once that his team is nowhere close to where it needs to be on the way to an 11-1 record and a chance at the Big Ten title. But 11-1 isn’t the whole story. There have been games that made Ohio State look like it should have been kicked out of the top 25, as well as moments of hope that the Buckeyes could compete for a national title. The bad Ohio State team Purdue. Maryland. Nebraska. These are the bad times.
CASEY CASCALDO | PHOTO EDITOR
CASEY CASCALDO | PHOTO EDITOR
Ohio State junior linebacker Malik Harrison (39) and redshirt junior defensive lineman Dre’mont Jones (86) celebrate after Jones recovered a fumble in the end zone for a touchdown in the fourth quarter of the game against Michigan State on Nov. 10. Ohio State won 26-6.
Ohio State redshirt sophomore quarterback Dwayne Haskins (7) walks up the field after a Boilermaker touchdown in the second half of the game against Purdue on Oct. 20. Ohio State lost 49-20.
In this trio of games, all against opponents with six wins or less, Ohio State looked uneven, underprepared and unlikely to improve. The defense has been the biggest lapse, allowing an average of 43.7 points per game, 12 plays of 30 yards or more and at least 450 yards of total offense in the three worst games of its season. Most of the time that the de-
fense has struggled, it has been against a player on the offense who was expected to play well. Purdue freshman wide receiver Rondale Moore ran rampant against Ohio State for 170 yards and two touchdowns on 12 catches, which was plenty to take down the then-undefeated Buckeyes. Maryland redshirt freshman Anthony McFarland ran for 298
yards and scored twice in the 5251 overtime loss. McFarland was one of many Terrapins running backs, so sure, he specifically wasn’t expected to play that well. But Ohio State failed to adapt its defense at all to the run-dominant Maryland offense, and it nearly gave the Buckeyes its second loss of the season.
The defense has been a question mark, even in some of the better games Ohio State has played. But on offense, especially in lackluster play against Purdue and Nebraska, the pass and run games could not find a way to work together. The loss to the Boilermakers was the second straight game that the Buckeyes failed to run for 100 yards. In the following matchup against the Cornhuskers, redshirt sophomore quarterback Dwayne Haskins completed 56.3 percent of his passes, his lowest percentage of the season. These “bad” games all felt like Ohio State was playing down to its opponents while emphasizing the glaring issues that the team has on defense when it is exploited. The good Ohio State team Michigan. Rutgers. The final eight minutes against Penn State. Unlike the bad, Ohio State’s good side has not come out very often. The Buckeyes have played a complete game of football twice this season, once against 1-11 Rutgers and the other against the No. 1 defense in the country in Michigan. In both instances, the Ohio State defense played at a high level. Maybe not at the level of the GOOD AND BAD CONTINUES ON 7