Tuesday February 21, 2012 year: 132 No. 28
the student voice of
The Ohio State University
www.thelantern.com
BRANDON ROSIN Lantern reporter rosin.7@osu.edu
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Putting all balls in one basket The No. 8 OSU men’s basketball team faces unranked Illinois Tuesday at 7 p.m. at the Schottenstein Center.
Fifty years ago Monday, former Sen. John Glenn became the first American to orbit the earth, beginning a legacy of flight and research at NASA. On this anniversary, Glenn offered golden nuggets about the past and future of space flight. Speaking at a news conference in promotion of the NASA Future Forum, Glenn was more interested in the future than his past. “I’m more interested in a liveacy than a legacy,” Glenn said. “You use the past to step forward to the future.” Throughout the conference, Glenn emphasized the importance of research, such as that done aboard the international space
JOHN GLENN
station. Glenn called the cancellation of NASA’s space shuttle program a “drastic error.” Without a means to deliver our own men to the station, Glenn said we’ve lost many research opportunities. NASA astronauts use the Russian Soyuz spacecraft to get to the International Space Station.
Landlords criticize proposed 2-year residence hall plan
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ALLI MURPHY Senior Lantern reporter murphy.840@osu.edu
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Drumming up classical music The OSU Percussion Ensemble event Drums Downtown is scheduled for the Riffe Center on Friday and Saturday.
campus
Illini Media faces debt trouble
Some landlords for properties in off-campus areas surrounding Ohio State are taking issue with President E. Gordon Gee’s proposal to require students to live in on-campus dorms for their second-year. Brian Grim, managing partner for University Manors, said he believes the current housing structure should remain as is. “The off-campus, on-campus dynamic, it works, it works well,” he said. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. I don’t believe that tampering with the dynamic that exists right now is smart at all.” Campus Partners for Community Urban Redevelopment, an OSU affiliate formed in 1995 to help revitalize the University District, approached off-campus landlords in 2008 after initial discussion of the two-year dorm residence policy to conduct a study to better understand student residency in the off-campus area. The participating landlords funded the study, said Richard Talbott, president of Inn-Town Homes and Apartments. Doug Aschenbach, president of Campus Partners, discussed the objectives of the study with The Lantern. “(We wanted) to understand who was living off campus. How many sophomores, what the rents are, what the amenities are, why people choose or don’t choose to live off campus,” Aschenbach said. “(The study) really helped inventory and quantify the number of sophomores off campus. It concluded that there were about 3,000 sophomores living in the off-campus neighborhoods.” The 3,000 sophomores is estimated to be about 20 percent of all OSU students living in the off-campus area, according to the study.
“I just hope every day that the Soyuz keep functioning well, because that’s our only way of getting up,” Glenn said. NASA administrator Charles Bolden agreed, saying he hopes that private commercial space programs can get America back on track in space. He said plans are set to have a new U.S. space vehicle by 2017. “We need to get back to using our own resources to get to space,” Bolden said. An interesting aspect of the day was a social media project through the John Glenn School of Public Affairs’ twitter account, @ GlennSchool, was to live tweet Glenn’s 1962 mission, as if it were happening today. With tweets scheduled down to the second of Glenn’s orbit of the Earth, the project tweeted details of the mission and conversation between Glenn and NASA from the start of the mission to the end of the threeorbit endeavor. Both men heavily emphasized the importance of education to our nation and the future of NASA’s flight and research. “The most strident battle that the nation has right now, in my mind, is educating our kids,” Bolden said. Bolden called the International Space Station the “most incredible national laboratory right now,” and said, “We need to be proud of it.” Part of being proud of the station is teaching our kids to take the hard courses in math and science, Bolden said. “We lead the world in higher education — that’s a fact,” Glenn said. The issue, he said, lies in kindergarten through high school. “Unless we correct our K-12 education system, we are in trouble for the long haul,” Glenn said. Glenn and Bolden spoke about how important commemorative days like Monday are to promoting education. We can use the past to encourage kids to work in science, Glenn said. “If there’s no one to follow, then it’s lost,” Bolden said. He wants to make “hundreds, thousands” more John Glenns.
Courtesy of MCT CHRISTOPHER SCHWARTZ / Managing editor
John Glenn takes steps ‘forward to the future’
sports
2A Social media aids Med Center name change
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ALLY MAROTTI Copy chief marotti.5@osu.edu
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Popular culture in Columbus, Ohio, links the Wexner name to the arts, not medicine, and some experts said changing the way the community thinks is not going to be easy or without hiccups. Feb. 10, the Ohio State University Medical Center was renamed The Wexner Medical Center at The Ohio State University to honor OSU alumnus and Limited Brands Inc. CEO Leslie H. Wexner, for his leadership and service to the university. But the Wexner Center for the Arts, named for Wexner’s father, was opened in 1989 and has gained international recognition. It is the Wexner Center’s more than 20-year presence in the community that poses a problem, said Jesse Fox, assistant professor of communication. “It’s going to be a hard road to change all that,” Fox said. “When people think of the Wexner, they think of the Wexner Center, they think of the arts. So I don’t know how they’re going to change that.” One of the first steps after the initial name change notification was changing the medical center’s Twitter handle.
Gina Bericchia, public affairs and media relations coordinator at the medical center, said her department and the university had the community in mind when they created the medical center’s new Twitter handle, @OSUWexMed. “I want to look at the community as they look at us,” Bericchia said. “I really want our social media to be patient- and employee-driven.” Bericchia said the new handle needs to make it clear that the content being posted is medical. “We’re still very much the Ohio State University’s Wexner Medical Center,” she said. “And I wanted to keep that as part of our identity.” Fox agreed. She said “heaven forbid” someone would tweet about being at the Wexner Center, and a follower would happily reply about an art exhibit and the original tweeter would respond, “What do you mean? I’m at the hospital.” But Beth NeCamp, associate vice president and chief communications officer for OSU’s Health Sciences Administration, said she wouldn’t classify these potential hiccups as a problem. “It’s really not that big of a change for folks,” she said. “We’re still calling ourselves Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center.” Although some don’t consider the change to be that big, Mindset Digital, a Columbus-based social media
and digital consulting firm, helped with the preparation of and changes involved with the name change. Ted Hattemer, senior director for university marketing and communications, said changing the way the Columbus community thinks isn’t the only hurdle yet to be cleared. “Changing the Facebook page is an interesting thing, because if you have over 100 fans on Facebook, they don’t let you change your name,” Hattemer said. “The med center has maybe 6,000 fans, so one option would be to just start over and try to send them to another page. The other option would just be to contact Facebook.” NeCamp said her office had yet to make a decision on how to act on the Facebook issue. Experts on several fronts said there are many factors to still consider as the newly-named medical center moves forward. “Nowadays, we have to think about everything from the search perspective,” Fox said. Hattemer agreed and said it’s important for people to find the things they want as the medical center moves forward with its new branding. “We need to put some time and energy into optimizing search engine results,” he said.
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Job: 1149 SF8 Lantern 11x2 Newprint Ad Due: 2/3
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