Thursday March 7, 2013 year: 133 No. 35
the student voice of
The Ohio State University
www.thelantern.com
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sports
OSU set to enact social media policy # dan hope Oller reporter hope.46@osu.edu
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‘The Chase’ begins
The OSU football team is trying to chase down its lofty goals for the 2013 season.
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A proposed policy by University Communications would set new regulations on social media at Ohio State, including a requirement for two or more administrators to be assigned to each official university account. The Institutional Social Media Accounts Policy, which would be the university’s first set of official guidelines regulating social media, is being reviewed by OSU’s University Policy Review Committee. The proposal focuses on Facebook, Twitter and other social media accounts directly affiliated with the university. The policy is in its second draft after the committee received feedback from faculty and staff during Fall Semester 2012. Faculty and staff have been solicited by the University Policy Process to provide further feedback on the re-drafted policy by April 9. Eunice Hornsby, who works in OSU’s Office of Human Resources and coordinates the University
Policy Process along with Sandra Anderson, the assistant vice president and deputy general counsel for OSU’s Office of Legal Affairs, said the feedback received after the first draft shifted the focus of the policy to regulating the university’s official social media accounts. “We got feedback from lots of different folks,” Hornsby said. “(The feedback) focused it more on institutional social media accounts, rather than just the use of social media in general.” The proposed policy states that all institutional social media accounts must have multiple administrators responsible for posting to and managing the account. If a department is unable to assign multiple administrators to an account, that department would be required to coordinate with someone from University Communications as a second administrator. Ted Hattemer, OSU’s assistant vice president of interactive communications, said this provision in the policy is designed as a “safeguard” to protect university accounts should an account administrator leave the university. “Having two people on a social media account helps us prevent accounts from being abandoned
Parking charges spark petition from residents hailey fairchild Lantern reporter fairchild.84@osu.edu
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A German journey
Our reporter samples the dining, shopping and more of German Village.
campus
Parking spaces at Buckeye Village that were once free will cost more than $600 next year, and some residents aren’t happy. Some residents of Buckeye Village, located across the Olentangy River on Defiance Drive near Jesse Owens Memorial Stadium, gathered Tuesday to protest the charge and sign a petition. CampusParc, the company that has been handling OSU’s daily parking operation since September, informed residents in a Monday email that its previously free parking spaces are now going to cost a total of $620.25 per year starting on July 31, when university parking passes are scheduled to expire before renewed passes become active on Aug. 1. However, a prorated cost will start in May and residents must purchase their new “CP” parking permits by May 16. Residents received a second email from OSU Housing on Tuesday, stating that they only had two more weeks to decide if they were going to renew their lease.
weather high 37 low 33 partly cloudy
F 43/29 partly cloudy SA 53/43 mostly sunny SU 59/49 cloudy M 42/39 showers www.weather.com
Snow blankets campus Wednesday Nearly 7 inches of snow reportedly fell in the Columbus area on the evening of March 5 into March 6.
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Ally Marotti Editor-in-chief marotti.5@osu.edu
Wanted in several states and fleeing west, the man who calls himself Bigggggg Mike, was finally arrested in Council Bluffs, Iowa, Tuesday — while allegedly attempting to steal gas to fuel the stolen car he was driving. “Bigggggg Mike’s in custody,” said Brad Fleming, Deputy U.S. Marshal at the U.S. Marshals Service for the Southern District of Ohio. “He was arrested (Tuesday), he’s in custody now in Iowa.” The 23-year-old Michael Moses Tarpeh was wanted in three states, and when he came to the Ohio State campus area last week, several more law enforcement agencies joined the manhunt. The Iowa State Patrol apprehended Tarpeh after he allegedly attempted to steal gas near Council Bluffs, Iowa, according to a press release from the U.S. Marshal Service. The Pottawattamie County Sheriff’s Office in Iowa has him in custody.
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According to OSU’s University and Residences Dining Services website, Buckeye Village leases expire on May 15. “CP” passes allow students living in residence halls to park on campus overnight. Suzi Yee, a second-year graduate student in the College of Nursing, is a Buckeye Village resident. Yee said the perks of living in Buckeye Village were important factors in her and husband’s decision to move to Columbus in order for her to enter graduate school. “I came here on a graduate fellowship where they give you a stipend that covers your tuition, but another big selling point for me and my husband was knowing we could live at Buckeye Village,” Yee said. “So, we took the leap and sold our house in Coshocton (about an hour and a half northeast of Columbus).” Yee said the residents of Buckeye Village put together the petition because they had concerns about the transparency of the transition. The residents were not a part of the
USG releases off-campus Big Mike arrested, report in custody in Iowa
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or unreachable,” Hattemer said. “If there’s only one person associated with the administration … and that person leaves the university, it becomes increasingly difficult to reclaim that page and all of the fans of that page. If we have two people, the chances are greatly reduced that both of them leave at the exact same time.” Jay Hansen, communications director of the OSU Alumni Association, said the association’s official social media accounts already have multiple administrators, and he believes that provision belongs in the university-wide policy. “In terms of having multiple administrators on the account, I feel like it’s really essential,” Hansen said. “It’s really easy to set up a Twitter account or a Facebook page, but it’s not easy to maintain it and make it something that a reader wants to see every single day.” The policy also states that “inappropriate or illegal content shall not be posted by anyone acting on behalf of OSU to any institutional social media account.” Hattemer said there is no set definition of what constitutes inappropriate content.
cody cousino / Multimedia editor
OSU communications restructures around Church Ally Marotti Editor-in-chief marotti.5@osu.edu
Courtesy of OSU Police
Michael Moses Tarpeh, aka Bigggggg Mike, was arrested in Iowa on March 6. Tarpeh is wanted by the Morgantown, W.Va., Police Department for aggravated assault and attempted sexual assault. The Massachusetts State Police also wants Tarpeh for an armed carjacking, robbery and assault and battery of a motorist in Lee, Mass., according to the original OSU public safety notification. He was also wanted by the Troy City (New York)
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University Communications has been restructured, and Melinda Church is the umbrella over it all. Church, whose role as the sole vice president of University Communications was recently expanded, recognized that the department’s structure couldn’t stay the same forever, and she was going to be the one to change it. “We need to be controlling our own destiny,” she said. “The organizational model that made sense 10 years ago isn’t the best way to be moving forward.” So Church has been working since last summer — with the help of other university officials — to restructure University Communications, and on March 1, the new layout became official. University Communications is now divided into five main units, four of which are led by someone who was already in the department, and all of which answer to Church. - Brand and Marketing — Assistant Vice President for Brand and Marketing Jacquie Aberegg is in charge of this unit that deals with the designers and visual identity at the university. - Interactive Communications — Assistant Vice President for
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