Wednesday February 5, 2014 year: 134 No. 18
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Tennis sweeps home matches
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JK Rowling sparks debate
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Textbook prices up 82%
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OSU upsets Iowa Other B1G schools also ban smoking michele theodore Copy chief theodore.13@osu.edu
Courtesy of The Daily Iowan / Alyssa Hitchock
Junior center Amir Williams (23) dunks the ball during a game against Iowa Feb. 4 at Carver-Hawkeye Arena. OSU won, 76-69.
eric seger Sports editor seger.25@osu.edu When a team is on the road in a hostile environment, college basketball coaches typically look to their seniors to lead the way. That was the case Tuesday night in Iowa City, Iowa, as Ohio State senior guard Aaron Craft did a little bit of everything to help lead his team to its second straight road win, defeating No. 17 Iowa, 76-69. Craft finished with a game-high 17 points, recorded six steals, dished out six assists and delivered a crucial driving layup with
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More than half of the Big Ten schools are saying no to tobacco. When Ohio State implemented an enforced campus-wide tobacco ban Jan. 1, the university joined six other Big Ten schools that have implemented or plan to implement university-wide smoking bans in some manner. The University of Illinois, Indiana University, University of Iowa, University of Michigan and Purdue University also have campus smoking bans, and the University of Minnesota has a smoking ban set to take effect July 1. Some campus bans restrict smoking only, while others extend to all tobacco products, as OSU’s does. Besides cigarettes, OSU’s tobacco ban includes tobacco chew, e-cigarettes, snuff and snus, which is a “spitless,” moist powder tobacco pouch, according to the American Cancer Society. Schools without bans include Michigan State University, the University of Nebraska, University of Wisconsin, Northwestern University and Penn State University all prohibit smoking indoors but allow smoking on university property outdoors. These smoking policies typically exclude smoking within, at most, 25 feet of doors, windows or ventilation systems, as was OSU’s previous policy. “The trend is growing in the Big Ten, but we still have a long way to go,” said Cliff Douglas, director of the TobaccoFree College Campus Initiative and faculty member at the University of Michigan School of Public Health. “We still have a number of our campuses in the Big Ten that have yet to take this step.” University of Michigan The University of Michigan implemented a smoke-free policy July 2011. According to Michigan’s smoke-free policy, “smoking is prohibited in all university buildings, facilities, grounds, and universityowned vehicles.” “It was popular with a strong
majority favoring it,” Douglas said of the ban. “Certainly some people were skeptical or uncomfortable and you’ll never get total unanimity on … almost anything. But there was a lot of support.” While Michigan’s ban is currently only a smoke-free policy, Douglas said feels “confident” the university will revisit the policy with the intention of banning all tobacco products. “It was far from the first school to do this, but the trend has accelerated so rapidly that it wasn’t yet necessarily the norm to include all tobacco products,” Douglas said of Michigan’s ban. He added that it’s more than just universities where people aren’t smoking. “People don’t smoke in airplanes, they don’t smoke in movies — there are very few indoor places where people smoke. Smoking is really becoming unacceptable in so many places … that it’s rapidly becoming part of the norm in many places. That’s a cultural shift but I think people are becoming much more aware of the severe health impact,” he said.
University of Illinois The University of Illinois implemented a “smoke-free campus policy” Jan. 1. The policy states “smoking is prohibited on all campus property … both indoors and outdoors, in university-owned vehicles and in privately-owned vehicles parked on campus property.” Michele Guerra, director of the Wellness Center at Illinois, said the policy was a “student-led effort” and approximately 70 percent of students voted on a 2011 fall referendum in favor of the university becoming a smoke-free campus. The chancellor announced in October 2012 that the campus would become smoke-free in approximately a year. “Everyone has the right and now the ability to breathe smoke-free air,” she said. “I’ve heard lots and lots of ‘thank yous’ from people … particularly from people with allergies.” She added that the implementation of the policy hasn’t been without problems, however.
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OSU-Newark closes for 4th time OSU International students
struggle with post-grad visas Alex Drummer Lantern reporter drummer.18@osu.edu
shelby lum / Photo editor
Students walk across a snowy Oval Feb. 4. Classes were canceled at OSU’s main and branch campuses Jan. 6, 7 and 28 because of cold weather. OSU officials later announced professors would have the option of making up missed classes.
Liz Young Campus editor young.1693@osu.edu One Ohio State campus closed its classroom doors for the fourth time Wednesday. OSU’s Newark campus closed at 9 p.m. Tuesday and is set to remain closed through Wednesday because of weather conditions. Wednesday’s forecast predicted a high of 33 degrees and a low of 8 as of Tuesday evening, according to the Weather Channel. Temperatures are set to fall as low as 27 Tuesday night in Newark and an inch of snow is expected, according to The Weather Channel. Wednesday’s forecast predicted a high of 33 degrees and a low of 8 as of Tuesday evening. As of Tuesday evening, there was a winter storm warning in effect for the area, including Newark and Columbus, that was set to last until Wednesday morning, with 2 to 6 inches of snow and sleet accumulation expected.
Wednesday February 5, 2014
The decision of whether to cancel classes at OSU’s Columbus campus was set to be made Wednesday morning after weather conditions are evaluated, according to the OSU Emergency Management Twitter account, @OSU_EMFP. Wednesday’s forecast predicted temperatures up to 33 and as low as 10 in Columbus, with 4 to 6 inches of snow expected overnight as of Tuesday evening. Classes were canceled at OSU’s main and branch campuses Jan. 6, 7 and 28 because of cold weather. Temperatures fell to minus 14 degrees Jan. 28 and as low as minus 7 Jan. 6 and 7. Those cancellations could lead to makeup days – Executive Vice President and Provost Joseph Steinmetz sent an email to faculty and students Jan. 29 announcing professors would have the option of making up missed classes. “The university is making available to instructors the option of using Tuesday, April 22,
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The biggest issue some Ohio State international students said they face doesn’t have to do with their time enrolled at the university. Devon Zhao, a fourth-year undergraduate studying human resources who transferred to OSU two years ago from a Chinese school, has big plans for the future, but those plans could be shattered if she cannot obtain the necessary visa to work in the United States post-graduation. “I feel like it is the biggest problem international students face,” she said. There were 6,039 international students enrolled at OSU this past fall, out of a total 63,964 students enrolled at all levels and all campuses, according to the student enrollment report. Gifty Ako-Adounvo, OSU international students and scholar services director, said the process to obtain a worker’s visa isn’t one students can typically embark on alone. “The H1-B is a specialty worker visa, and there is a specific number that the U.S. citizenship and immigration services through the government has available each year. There is a cap of 65,000 H1-Bs each year,” Ako-Adounvo said. “The H1-B is an employer-sponsored visa, so it is not something a student that graduates from here who gets a job can apply for. It has to be done by the employer.” The other temporary worker visas the U.S government grants mostly cover specific occupations, including agricultural workers, athletes and entertainers, as well as intracompany transfers and participants in an international cultural exchange program, according to the U.S. Department of State’s visas website. With the cap on how many are distributed per fiscal year and a graduate’s inability to apply themselves, the visas can be hard to come by for students. That can in turn cause students to worry — something Zhao has experienced since she looks to graduate in spring 2015. “I feel like for most of the international students, we’re really stressed out,” Zhao said. Zhao wants to stay in the U.S. after graduating, although she knows it might not be easy. “I know it’s really hard, but you have to just go for it and really be patient and just keep trying,”
she said. “I think (my reason for wanting to stay in the U.S.) is really related to my major, because my major is human resources, and there’s a lot of things about law and everything’s different since you learned all the HR system here … If I go back to China, I have to learn the whole thing again.” Obtaining an H1-B visa might be difficult, but there is one tool built into students’ F-1 visas to help them stay in the U.S. and work temporarily. “One of the benefits of the F-1 status is that they are able to work in a job related to their field of study for up to 12 months after they graduate,” Ako-Adounvo said. That aspect of the visa is called Optional Practical Training. “Students who are (employed) in certain (STEM) fields can actually get an additional 17 months,” Ako-Adounvo added. Science, technology, engineering and
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