Wednesday February 20, 2013 year: 133 No. 26
the student voice of
The Ohio State University
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thelantern After former OSU Council of Graduate Students president Allen Cochran stepped down from his position, there was controversy about who should replace him and how the replacing should be handled.
jan. 17 Cochran steps down, vice president Allison Sturm takes over soon after.
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Preparing for ‘war’
jan. 21 Email sent about CGS’s legislation procedures.
jan. 25 CGS meeting held to approve new vice president. The position’s jan. 31 responsibilities were divided James McMillan, a CGS physics between two CGS members. delegate, sent an email to 1,942 graduate students asking for a call to action about CGS Feb. 3 election procedures. McMillan creates a website organizing his opinions and providing an easily accessible version of Feb. 5 CGS’ constitution. McMillan sends email to another 1,800 grad students. Feb. 6 Doug Koyle, assistant vice president of Student Life, sent an email to McMillan demanding a meeting.
The OSU men’s basketball team is scheduled to play Minnesota at 7 p.m. in the Schottenstein Center.
Feb. 13 Meeting between McMillan and Koyle held to discuss whether McMillan was a threat to the university, said McMillan.
Source: reporting jackie sTorer / Managing editor of design
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CGS leadership change sparks heated disagreement Officials ‘demoralize,’ ‘intimidate’ grad student john wernecke Lantern reporter wernecke.5@osu.edu A student said Ohio State officials tried to “demoralize” and “intimidate” him after he publicly disagreed with a Council of Graduate Students decision about the transfer of leadership positions and the salary that comes with it. When health reasons forced president Allen Cochran to step down from his position at CGS — the only official branch of student government for graduate students — Allison Sturm, who was serving as vice president, assumed the president position, leaving her position empty. The way CGS addressed that vacancy is what caused the disagreement. To fill the newly vacant vice president position, the CGS executive committee, composed of Sturm as president, Zach Kenitzer as secretary and Porsha Smith as treasurer, proposed having Kenitzer and Smith split the vice presidential duties for the remainder of Spring Semester.
Kenitzer and Smith would also split the vicepresident’s graduate administrative associate appointment to receive $725 per month for less than two months of work, said Dave Isaacs, Office of Student Life spokesman. The secretary and treasurer previously received free parking but no monetary stipend. The president and vice-president of CGS are the only delegates who receive such a stipend, provided by the Office of Student Life. The proposed legislation was brought to a vote before CGS delegates at its scheduled meeting on Jan. 25. It passed near-unanimously among the 48 of 70 delegates who were present to vote in secret ballot. But James McMillan, a CGS physics delegate, took issue with the short time period between the introduction of the proposed legislation and its vote. McMillan said he ran to many delegates before the meeting and told them, “This is a problem.”
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Park-Stradley goes viral with ‘Harlem Shake’ caroline keyes Lantern reporter keyes.64@osu.edu
5 bands fighting
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5 bands are set to compete in Romophos’ 15th annual Battle of the Bands Friday at Newport Music Hall at 7 p.m.
campus
Carmen to get new look
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Park-Stradley Hall residents can “do the Harlem Shake” and more than 88,000 people have seen it. Residents recently created a “Harlem Shake” video, a viral fad that includes people dancing in assorted and obscure costumes to American DJ Baauer’s song, “Harlem Shake.” The video, posted to YouTube on Feb. 13, has since reached more than 88,000 views Tuesday evening. Park-Stradley Hall director Paul Wojdacz said the idea to create the video came on Feb. 12 when some of the hall’s staff members were discussing the latest Internet trend at the front desk. “I’ve always wanted to organize a flash mob for the building, and I love social media and viral videos, so I thought it would be an exciting opportunity,” said Wojdacz in an email. “Social media trends catch on quick and lose popularity fast … so we made the decision to do it and film it all in the same day.” Wojdacz said the approximately one-and-a-half minute video features between 100 and 130 students dancing in four separate locations: the lobby of ParkStradley, inside the Ohio Union, the Ohio Union bus stop and Mirror Lake. The last three locations were all filmed without any music. “We wanted to make the video almost like an ‘eye-spy’ of people doing random unique things, which I think makes the video more unique than any of the videos out there,” Wojdacz said. The video begins with a masked Wojdacz dancing in the hall’s lobby as students walk and sit casually nearby, paying him no attention. As the music builds, the lyrics “Do the Harlem Shake” mark a scene switch, and suddenly, viewers are watching a packed lobby full of dancing bodies with quirky costumes and props. Among the dancers are a panda, a hobbling old man and a unicorn in an orange tutu, but Wojdacz said “the clear star of the video” is Park-Stradley resident manager Ashlei Logan, a fourth-year in international business and German. Logan is positioned in the center of the crowd, and as all the other participants dance wildly around her, she stands completely still, draped in an OSU blanket and impassively eating out of a jar of peanut butter.
Screen shot of ‘Harlem Shake Park-Stradley Hall’ YouTube video
Residents of Park-Stradley Hall doing the ‘Harlem Shake,’ a viral dance craze that has inspired YouTube videos. Logan said as the video has gained popularity online, some fellow students have been reaching out to her on Twitter and even stopping her on the street. “The other day, I was on the bus and a random stranger came up to me and asked if I was the girl eating peanut butter in the ‘Harlem Shake’ video,” said Logan. “We never expected this response and it’s a great feeling, but the coolest part is the fact that such a big community did come out and was a part of it, despite not much planning going into it.” Jordan Ehrenberg, a first-year in business and a Park-Stradley resident, said she received an email letting her know about the filming a couple hours before, but was not able to attend because she was studying for a midterm. “I had no idea what the ‘Harlem Shake’ videos were before,” Ehrenberg said. “But now after seeing the ParkStradley one and some others, I definitely think ours is one of the best I’ve seen.”
The video ends with a message saying, “Everyone is a little weird and quirky. You are never alone in this world. There is a place for everyone at Ohio State. Go Bucks!” Wojdacz said seeing and hearing all the responses to the video has been “amazing.” “It shows you that even though OSU is big, we are one big family,” Wojdacz said. “It also shows if you give people the opportunity to dress funny and dance with a vacuum, people will show up.” Other “Harlem Shake” videos staged at OSU have been popping up as well. One featuring the OSU wrestling team has more than 82,000 views and another that displays a red Teletubby dancing in front of William Oxley Thompson Memorial Library has almost 2,000 views. OSU running back Carlos Hyde tweeted Monday evening that an OSU football “Harlem Shake” video was in the works.
Kasich: ‘We want our kids to graduate’
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Kristen mitchell Campus editor mitchell.935@osu.edu
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Courtesy of MCT
Ohio Gov. John Kasich delivered his State of the State address Feb. 19 in Lima, Ohio.
Not resting “on our laurels” was the theme of Ohio Gov. John Kasich’s State of the State speech. During his Tuesday address in Lima, Ohio, Kasich highlighted his plan to set state funding for Ohio’s four-year and two-year public colleges on graduation rates in place of enrollment rates and called university presidents who have worked on this plan “heroes.” “We want kids to graduate, that is something they stuck their necks out on,” he said. The higher education reforms were announced in Kasich’s two-year budget released earlier this month. The higher education changes were
recommended by the Higher Education Funding Commission, which is chaired by OSU President E. Gordon Gee. “A lot of places in this country, they cut this higher education. We love higher education,” he said. The plan presented will award 50 percent of state funds to universities based upon the percentage of students who complete degrees, with 28.2 percent for course completion. Under the current formula, 20 percent of funds are awarded for degree completion and 58.2 are for course completion. A 2 percent per-year tuition cap for Ohio’s public colleges was also instated. OSU Media Relations released a statement on the State of the State address Tuesday evening,
continued as Kasich on 3A
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