Thursday May 31, 2012 year: 132 No. 78
the student voice of
The Ohio State University
www.thelantern.com
thelantern OSU action expected on parking deal bids
sports
thomas Bradley Campus editor bradley.321@osu.edu
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PGA pros invade Dublin
Jack Nicklaus, an OSU alumnus, spoke about the Memorial Tournament that begins Thursday in Dublin, Ohio.
Companies interested in taking over Ohio State’s parking business submitted bids to the university’s Office of Business and Finance Wednesday. Since the idea was proposed almost a year ago, uproar from faculty, staff and students about the deal has been loud and persistent. The plan, if approved by President E. Gordon Gee, provost Joseph Alutto and chief financial officer Geoff Chatas, would turn over operations of all permit sales, parking lots and parking garages to an outside vendor for up to a 50-year period. The minimum bid the university would accept is a lump-sum of $375 million paid up front, to be put into the university endowment. Gee said he expects the bids to be much higher.
Thomas BRadley / Campus editor
Bids for the proposed privatization of the university’s parking assets were due to the Office of Business Wednesday. “If we don’t get at least $375 million and then all the other bells and whistles to protect ourselves — the university, the students and the faculty — then we’re just not going to do it,” Gee told The Lantern in April.
Gee said in April he hopes to at least get $400 million. “I think we put together a strong case and a strong proposal, and I think there is a great deal of interest in this,” Gee told The Lantern. “I hope we get more than $500 million.”
Chatas said the time frame going forward could play out three different ways. If two or more bids are within 10 percent of each other, the university will then send back the bids to the companies for a “best-andfinal-offer round” to raise their bids, Chatas said. He said if this process is entered, the second bids would be due back Monday. The second result is if none of the bids meet the Board of Trustees set minimum, and the process ends right there. Chatas said the final option is if one bid far exceeds any of the others, then there would be a no “best-andfinal-offer” process. “We would begin sharing that number with all of those groups starting (Thursday),” Chatas said. In a university-wide email sent
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Ayan Sheikh / Senior Lantern reporter
Anderson Cooper stopped by OSU Wednesday as part of OUAB’s ‘An evening with Anderson Cooper’ at the Mershon Auditorium May 30. Cooper discussed his journey to his career as a journalist and TV host on CNN’s ‘Anderson Cooper 360.’
Lawyer turned hip-hop artist
OSU alumnus Emeka Onyejekwe abandoned his law career to pursue a music career under the name Mekka Don.
campus
Ayan Sheikh Senior Lantern reporter sheikh.51@osu.edu Anderson Cooper, anchor of CNN’S “Anderson Cooper 360” and star of his own daytime talk show, visited Ohio State’s campus Wednesday to share insight on his journey to becoming a reporter. With his degree in Liberal Arts from Yale University, Cooper sought out to find his purpose in life.
“I didn’t set out to be a TV anchor. I graduated college not knowing what I wanted to do with my life, I really had no idea,” Cooper explained. Cooper said he found himself drawn to hard news, particularly as a war correspondent; he described his early travel to Sub-Saharan Africa as eye-opening. “It was the first time I had to talk myself out of a roadblock, it was the first time I had somebody point a gun at me in anger,” Cooper said. Wanting to pursue a career as a foreign correspondent, Cooper began applying for entry-level positions at television stations like ABC. But he said
he wasn’t very successful. Unable to find someone to give him a chance, Cooper then created his own opportunity. “My thinking was, I should go places that are really dangerous and pretend to be a reporter and there won’t be a lot of people there,” Cooper said. With a fake press pass his friend made and a borrowed video camera, Cooper embarked on his journey as a reporter. During his two-hour talk at OSU, Cooper shared news clips of his reporting in Somalia, Rwanda, and
Cultural center exalts history Students clash on Digital First initiative
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Andrew Keller Lantern reporter keller.600@osu.edu
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Anna Duee / Lantern photographer
Rebecca Wade-Mdivanian, senior research associate at the College of Social Work, uses her OSU-issued iPad on May 21.
As Ohio State tries to expand wireless access on campus and incorporate technology like iPads into the classroom with its Digital First initiative, not everyone is happy with the changes. Some OSU students and professors expressed ambivalence toward Digital First and the idea of incorporating even more technology into the classroom. While they acknowledged the benefits of technology, the consensus seemed to be that the initiative can only do so much. Digital First began as a partnership between OSU and Apple Inc., and is intended to keep the university up to speed with expanded wireless access and emerging technologies, including various Apple products such as the iPad and iTunes. Some students, such as Emily Webster, a first-year in evolution and ecology, said broader wireless access and new technologies makes learning easier. “In my experience, I’ve been through maybe 20 classes here, and in classes where I had better technology, and more importantly where we knew how to use it, I felt like I learned more,” Webster said. But Jennifer Semple, a second-year in welding
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engineering, said more technology could lead to a greater learning curve and more room for error. “Most professors can’t use what we have, and those who can don’t know how to use it well enough to make it useful,” Semple said. “We already have technical issues sometimes, and we have to wait for technicians to come fix it from time to time, which eats away at lecture.” Semple said it is sometimes easier to do things without technology, and that incorporating things like iPads can needlessly complicate things. “It’s easier to take notes by hand, especially with math, because it’s too cumbersome to type it,” Semple said. “And a laptop is just a distraction.” Matthew Long, a first-year in aerospace engineering, said the more technology that is incorporated into classrooms, the more distractions there will be for students to face. “I think it has benefits, but the potential distractions could potentially outweigh it,” Long said. “If people are like me, a lot of people will get more distracted by stuff in the classroom than they would benefit from it.” Webster disagreed, technology could enable students who are more visual or tactile learners to experience the subject material in a different manner than they normally would in a typical lecture.
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