Wednesday April 25, 2012 year: 132 No. 58
the student voice of
The Ohio State University
www.thelantern.com
thelantern
sports
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Painting the black
OSU’s baseball team might have found its ace pitcher in sophomore Jaron Long, who transferred from Arizona. PAT BRENNAN Sports editor brennan.164@osu.edu
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“‘Sporting News,’ ‘Sports Illustrated,’ a lot of them I don’t read. It’s bad journalism. And, so, why buy them?” The “bad journalism” in question was President E. Gordon Gee’s assessment of “Sporting News”’ April 9 article titled “From champs to chomped: How Urban Meyer broke Florida football,” which reported on an “out-of-control” culture left behind by Ohio State football coach Urban Meyer when he departed the University of Florida’s program in January 2011. The article also reported widespread drug use among his former players.
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Bowling into Columbus
Bowling For Soup is scheduled to perform for their 11th album “Fishin’ for Woos” at A&R Music Bar Sunday.
campus
Gee also voiced concern about “Sports Illustrated,” which published an investigative report on OSU football and former Buckeye coach Jim Tressel in May. Tressel was forced to resign from his post May 30. In discussing the “Sporting News” story, Gee defended Meyer. “One doesn’t hire a coach without talking with all the right people,” he said. “One doesn’t hire a coach without understanding exactly what his values are.” Gee said someone in Meyer’s position is always going to be subject to criticism, but that much of it is not concerning to him. everyone’s going to nip at him,” Gee said. “Not having fully read the story, but having read portions of it, it is what it is. I would hope that at our institution we teach a higher quality of journalism.”
“Sporting News” president and publisher Jeff Price stood behind the “From champs to chomped” story, which was written by Matt Hayes. Price told The Lantern, “There were no correcHayes’ story on Meyer. “The ‘Sporting News’ has been practicing quality journalism for more than 125 years and during that span, has held itself to the highest standards each and every day,” Price said in an email to The Lantern. “The basic tenets of our craft — sports journalism — are executed thoroughly on a daily basis in our newsroom, especially regarding the importance of source and fact checking.
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Students unhappy with OSU crime response ANDREW KELLER Lantern reporter keller.600@osu.edu The new Public Safety Hate Crime email alerts, Ohio State’s effort to inform students of hate crimes on and near campus, might have students pushing delete sooner than the university intended. Some OSU students remain skeptical about the university’s efforts to combat the recent slew of hate crimes around campus, and even the most visible demonstration of university effort, the email alert system, has been met with ambivalence. “I’m disappointed with the response, honestly,” said N. Michael Goecke, a Ph.D. candidate in ethnomusicology and a Master of Arts candidate in African-American and African studies. “Much more needs to be done.” The string of hate crimes began April 5 when “Long Live Zimmerman” was spray-painted on the west wall of Hall Hale, home to Frank W. Hale Jr. Black Cultural Center. Police said the vandalism referred to George Zimmerman, the neighborhood watch leader who killed 17-year-old African-American Trayvon Martin on Feb. 26, telling police it was an act of self-defense. Two acts of vandalism were then discovered April 16, including the writing of the word “n----r” and a swastika on a door in Baker Hall East, and the appearance of “Hang n-----s” spraypainted on a dumpster behind Formaggio Pizza at 20 E. 13th Ave., according to OSU Police. President E. Gordon Gee also defended the email alerts at a meeting with The Lantern staff Monday.
We’re going to do it when there are serious issues. But it is substantive in terms of wanting to make sure people are aware of what is happening and to show that together we do care about what people are saying.” President E. Gordon Gee
“Now, we’re not going to do that every time,” Gee said. “We’re going to do it when there are serious issues. But it is substantive in terms of wanting to make sure people are aware of what is happening and to show that together we do care about what people are saying.” The university enacted the alert system in response to sit-ins by students who demanded accounting. She said student groups, such as OSU Stand Your Ground, initially pushed for the alerts to shed light on the scope of intolerance around campus. “If we do put enough light on what’s going on, then we may discourage those crimes,” Watkins said. However, some students have criticized the new system as being ineffective or, at worst, completely irrelevant. One criticism of the new system that many
students echoed was that, unlike the alert system for other crimes, the hate crime alert system does not warn students of any impending danger. “It’s kind of weird that the hate crimes are on there because they don’t pose an immediate threat aerospace engineering. “I don’t see what purpose it serves. They can do the same thing by putting a bulletin up on the Ohio State website. It’s not like an emergency situation that people need to know about right away.” Watkins, however, said there was value in quickly letting campus know when and where a hate crime occurred. “I don’t want anything to seem small, because any hate crime isn’t fair,” she said. Watkins, however, criticized the alerts in another way: she said they don’t do the job they were intended to do. “I feel that the emails are very vague and they really don’t tell you what’s going on,” she said. “OK, a hate crime happened, but they don’t actually tell you what happened, so you don’t know what to look out for. Was someone attacked, or was it just a note on the wall?” But despite the varying opinions on the email alert system, a common theme students expressed was that the university had not done all it could to deal with the recent hate crimes. “I think they can do more,” Simmerer said. “I don’t think the emergency alert system helps in any
2A Faculty insistent about parking concerns
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“Thank an Adviser” week
Adviser Appreciation Week was hosted April 16-20 for students to recognize and thank OSU academic advisers.
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Ninety Ohio State faculty members have spoken out against the administration for sending out
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companies interested in managing campus parking operations. Faculty members from 44 different departments ranging from political sciences and geography to history signed a letter crafted by Enrico Bonello, professor of plant pathology, Paul Beck, professor of political sciences and Linda Lobao, professor of rural sociology and geography. All three are members of University Faculty Council. The letter was in response to President E. Gordon Gee’s email sent out Monday evening to students and faculty members, describing the RFP and its processes. “We strongly disagree with this interpretation, because parking services are essential for student access to classes, faculty access to students and staff access to work,” the letter states. “But even if we agreed, we believe this proposal is not in the best interest of OSU for several reasons.” The faculty members compared the one-time payment the private parking company would give to OSU to a loan.
“This deal is equivalent to a loan to OSU, repaid for the next 50 years with the foregone revenue that OSU would have received if it retained control of parking. Instead, that money would go to the private operator, in addition to whatever additional amount the operator could raise from higher prices or greater volume,” the faculty members said in the letter. “This loan would be repaid by a captive market of students, their parents, staff, faculty and alumni, at fee levels that the parking operator would be permitted to raise well above the average increases of the recent past.” Gee said the review process will begin when the proposals are received. “Once we get (the RFP) back, we’ll have discussions with the student leadership, with the staff leadership, with the faculty leadership and we’ll explain exactly what we have,” Gee said. “And then we’ll make a decision.” Under the proposed parking privatization plan, the operator would be required to maintain, not improve service levels, the faculty members argue in the letter. “Meanwhile, OSU would retain responsibility for many of the expenses now paid for with parking revenues. It would also acquire unknown new compliance monitoring and, possibly, litigation costs. When this revenue source now
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ABBY SWEET / Lantern photographer
More than 90 faculty members responded to President E. Gordon Gee’s RFP for parking privatization.
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