September 16, 2021

How vaccination rates compare at Ohio colleges...PG 6 Swarm of Dykes' lasting impact on OU...PG 8-9 Your most-needed sorority recruitment tips...PG 21 THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 2021

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FROM THE EDITOR’S DESK

Athens is ready for you, fall

ABBY MILLER EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

It’s the fourth week of the semester, and things are slowly falling into place. Students are getting used to balancing their school and social lives, living away from home and trekking up Jeff Hill — the last of which most of us are doing while working up a sweat.

While fall doesn’t officially start until later this month, I — and many others — have been finding myself longing for my favorite season in Athens. While warm, sunshine-filled days in Athens are great, not worrying about your uphill hike resulting in pit stains every day is a relief. Plus, there’s only so many warm-weathered outfits you can repeat without growing eager for flannels, fuzzy socks and sweaters.

Different aspects of Athens’ beauty are brought into the spotlight with each season, but fall is arguably Athens at its peak. Ohio University is home to one of the most beautiful college quads in the nation, and the many trees throughout campus begin to burst with color around this time of year. Walking across College Green when there’s a brisk breeze and fallen leaves truly feels like you’re in a movie.

OU’s campus is already charming with its

brick roads and white-trimmed buildings, but the warm tones of leaves bring the small-town aesthetic to another level. Any campus location looks like it could be on a postcard. Other Athens attractions, like Stroud’s Run and Libby’s Pumpkin Patch, are popular among OU students during this time of year for their beauty and opportunities for fall-centric fun.

Aside from the obvious beauty that’s found within the rolling hills and swaths of trees in Athens, fall rings in numerous traditions for every Bobcat to take part in. Soon, alumni will flood back into Athens for Homecoming, which will take place from Oct. 4-9. Events will include the beloved Yell Like Hell Pep Rally and Homecoming Parade.

As a senior, I’m incredibly excited and grateful I’ll have the chance to participate in one last Homecoming — especially since it was canceled last year. Handing out copies of The Post to those lining Court Street during the parade and watching the Marching 110 at the pep rally one last time will undoubtedly be bittersweet, but even having the opportunity to do those things again is priceless.

Athens is also well-known for its annual Halloween block party, which was canceled last year due to the pandemic. City officials are still discussing the fate of festivities this year, with a recommendation to make a final decision Oct. 1. The concerns over holding a block party are understandable, but I do hope all current Bobcats will be fortunate enough to experience at least one safe Halloween weekend during their time at OU. I love Athens and all of its beauty throughout the year, but I’d be lying if I said fall wasn’t my favorite. I’m itching to drink chai lattes from Donkey Coffee while taking in all that Athens has to offer during one last fall.

Abby Miller is a senior studying journalism and political science at Ohio University and the editor-in-chief of The Post. Have questions?

Email Abby at am166317@ohio.edu or tweet her @abblawrence.

COVER DESIGN BY OLIVIA JUENGER

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Abby Miller MANAGING EDITOR Bre Offenberger DIGITAL MANAGING EDITOR Matthew Geiger EDITORIAL NEWS EDITORS Emma Skidmore, Ryan Maxin ASST. NEWS EDITOR Molly Wilson PROJECTS EDITOR Taylor Burnette SPORTS EDITOR Jack Gleckler ASST. SPORTS EDITOR Eli Feazell CULTURE EDITOR Riley Runnells ASST. CULTURE EDITOR Kayla Bennett OPINION EDITOR Mikayla Rochelle ASST. OPINION EDITOR Hannah Campbell THE BEAT EDITOR Madyson Lewellyn ASST. THE BEAT EDITOR Emma Dollenmayer COPY CHIEF Anna Garnai SLOT EDITORS Anastasia Carter, Ashley Beach, Bekah Bostick, Isabel Nissley ART ART DIRECTOR Mary Berger ASST. ART DIRECTOR Olivia Juenger DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY Nate Swanson PHOTO EDITOR Jesse Jarrold-Grapes DIGITAL WEB DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR Brianna Lender AUDIENCE ENGAGEMENT EDITOR Jack Hiltner DIRECTOR OF MULTIMEDIA Noah DeSantis BUSINESS STUDENT MEDIA SALES INTERNSHIP MANAGER Andrea Lewis MEDIA SALES Grace Vannan 2 / SEPT 16, 2021

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ISSUE 4, VOLUME 112

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Ohio University organizations advocate for ‘red zone’ education ANNA MILLAR FOR THE POST The “red zone,” a period of increased sexual assaults on university campuses across the country, has been a topic of focus for various organizations at Ohio University.

Kim Rouse, director of OU’s Survivor Advocacy Program, or SAP, said it is hard to predict what the red zone time period will look like for Fall Semester, given the unique circumstances over the past year.

“Some people say we kind of have two and a half first year classes, not in terms of academic stature, but in terms of their experience on college campus,” Rouse said. “When you think about that piece alone, we have a lot of students who don’t have a lot of experience with the college environment and the resources available to them, which is why we have really been trying to push out information about SAP.” She expects SAP to see more clients than fall 2020, due to excitement to go out and about again after a year of isolation. That is not a problem only at OU,

she said. It is a national issue, and SAP attends conferences and works with similar programs across the country to help combat it.

Ashleigh Clabaugh, a sophomore studying chemical engineering, said she received emails from the university about the red zone. She feels aware of the issue, despite not being entirely up to date with the terminology, she said.

At OU, the university’s Office of Health Promotion and SAP are working together to help spread awareness of the subject.

Ann Brandon, associate director of prevention and education within the Office of Health Promotion, emphasized the lack of in-person programming about the red zone issue during COVID-19 and said she is excited to be rebuilding the programs.

“For the Office of Health Promotion, we’re really lucky that we have peer educators here, (like) POWER/GAMMA,” Brandon said. “We also have peer educators that are bystanders who are really focusing on power based violence as a whole.”

y k S

15

POWER/GAMMA, which stands for Promoting Ohio University Wellness, Education and Responsibility/Greeks Advocating the Mature Management of Alcohol, is a “leadership program for students who agree to be advocates for health-related issues on campus,” according to OU’s website.

CHOICES is another program put into effect Fall Semester and combines alcohol, consent and sexual violence education. All first-year students in learning communities will go through the program, she said.

On the flip side of the issue, SAP works with victims of sexual assault after an event has occurred. SAP’s services are available to all students, regardless of when or where an assault occurred, Rouse said.

“We are confidential, which means that clients can come to us and get services without it triggering a mandatory report through Title IX, or through law enforcement,” Rouse said.

She said primarily what her office does is help clients work through the processes following an assault. The processes can include finding a therapist and moving forward, filing charges or any combination thereof.

Rouse highlighted the implementation of a program in which workers from SAP are able to accompany clients

%

to the hospital, should it be desired. She said that program was unable to occur during the pandemic, but SAP is now working to put it in place.

Other programs, including a victim support group, will be implemented as well, Rouse said. Additionally, multiple educational programs are being worked on and will be announced to students as they become available.

“My wish is that there was no such thing as a red zone and that my job didn’t exist,” Rouse said. “I’m probably the only person on campus that will say, ‘I wish that I can work myself out of the job.’”

If you are looking for survivor resources, you can visit the SAP website for further information.

Claire Schiopota contributed to this report.

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NEWS BRIEFS

Athens County reaches 1,000 active cases; some study abroad programs resume at OU ABBY MILLER EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Athens County hits over 1,000 active coronavirus cases

Athens County reached 1,003 active cases of COVID-19 on Monday, and over 1,000 cases remain active as of Tuesday, according to the Athens City-County Health Department, or ACCHD. ACCHD tweeted Tuesday it will return to reporting daily case counts and vaccination numbers due to an increase in community spread. Its reports will reflect Ohio Department of Health numbers from 2 p.m. the previous day.

As of Tuesday, there are 1,004 active cases of COVID-19 in Athens County, according to the ACCHD report. Of those cases, 45 were new.

There have been 63 deaths in Athens County due to COVID-19. The county remains at level three, or red, which indicates very high exposure and spread.

The department also reported that 42.72% of Athens County residents are fully vaccinated, and 45.93% have started the vaccination process.

Greater Athens Area Health Systems representatives released a statement Monday urging individuals to wear a mask and get vaccinated as the case count continues to climb.

City Council discusses Halloween plans, new vehicle contracts

Athens City Council discussed Monday the fate of Halloween festivities in Athens amid the COVID-19 pandemic and rising county case numbers.

The city has currently not suspended any Halloween activities, and Council has authorized street closures for events like the annual Halloween block party.

Athens Mayor Steve Patterson and Service Safety Director Andrew Stone are keeping watch on COVID-19 cases in the county. Stone said his current recommendation would be to cancel festivities. However, he also said he fears canceling Halloween events and having the city “crash” into Halloween rather than hosting and having control over the festivities.

Stone ultimately recommended the city wait until Oct. 1 to decide the fate of Halloween events.

Council also discussed a new contract with Enterprise Management, a car rental company, for vehicle leasing.

The new contract would facilitate the replacement of some of the city’s vehicles and help to lower maintenance costs on those vehicles.

Patterson’s goal is to have more hybrid and electric cars in the city, he said.

back out with COVID-19 precautions in place.

Kirsten Dabelko, assistant director of global security, health and safety, said all local and international guidelines regarding travel must be followed by those traveling. That includes guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and of the destination country.

There are also travel guidelines for those engaging in university-sponsored travel, Dabelko said. Students in international programs must request permission from the university. For domestic trips, students must request permission from the dean of their college or other organizations, like the Campus Involvement Center.

Dabelko said not all travel is approved by the university, and students demonstrating that they have a plan is crucial.

If a student is approved for travel, they assume any risk associated with it.

The Office of Global Opportunities is expecting about 11 to 15 students to travel internationally, Dabelko said. Those small numbers are fairly normal, she said, and no programs for fall 2021 were canceled.

@ABBLAWRENCE AM166317@OHIO.EDU

Some study abroad programs resume with precautions

Study abroad programs at Ohio University are rolling

POLICE BLOTTER

Gunshots reported; woman reports rocks thrown through window ANNA MILLAR FOR THE POST IT’S NOT THAT LOUD

The Athens County Sheriff’s Office responded to Glouster regarding a noise complaint. The caller said their neighbors were playing music too loudly.

When deputies arrived, they heard noise coming from the residence but determined it was not loud enough to make contact with the residents.

MOVE YOUR CAR

The Sheriff’s Office responded to Buck’s Lake Road in Guysville regarding a parking complaint. The caller said a former tenant of their rental property left a vehicle in the parking lot and refused to retrieve it.

Deputies tagged the vehicle for removal, allowing the caller to have the vehicle removed by a private towing company.

4 / SEPT. 16, 2021

MYSTERIOUS SHOTS

A caller reported sounds of gunshots on South Canaanville Road in Guysville, according to the Sheriff’s Office.

The caller said they believed birdshot may have landed on their deck.

When deputies arrived there were no further shots, and they did not find any birdshot on the deck. The origin of the shots is unknown.

FLYING ROCKS

The Sheriff’s Office responded to Main Street in Glouster regarding a property damage complaint. The caller said her two front windows had been broken by an individual throwing rocks.

Deputies patroled the area but were unable to locate the suspect. This case will be referred to the Glouster Police Department.

GO AWAY

A Dollar General manager in The Plains requested a deputy in regards to a man they said was trespassing. When the deputies arrived, they spoke with the man and requested he leave the store.

The man left without incident.

@ANNAMILLAR16 AM157219@OHIO.EDU

Vault COVID-19 testing center located in Shively Hall. (TRE SPENCER | FOR THE POST)

Health officials discuss importance of asymptomatic testing for vaccinated individuals amid rising cases LYDIA COLVIN FOR THE POST Ohio University is gathering data from its asymptomatic COVID-19 testing program for vaccinated students, faculty and staff in order to estimate the prevalence of breakthrough cases on campus as positive coronavirus rates continue to rise in Athens County.

The vaccine mitigates the effects of COVID-19, showing a strong efficacy against hospitalization and death, Gillian Ice, special assistant to the president for Public Health Operations, said. There is also a higher risk of contracting the virus for those unvaccinated than vaccinated.

However, the vaccine is not 100% effective.

OU has many different asymptomatic programs for vaccinated students, who are not required to test weekly unlike unvaccinated students. The programs include testing by choice, surveillance testing in which students are invited via random email to get tested voluntarily and wide net testing in which students get tested after a known or possible exposure.

The university has about 10% participation in the surveillance program and about 50% who are called for wide net testing follow through, Ice said.

The Women’s Panhellenic Association used asymptomatic testing at the university in order to mitigate a po-

tential exposure during one of its events the week before Fall Semester began. All the women at the event had to get tested, whether or not they were vaccinated.

“A woman who ended up testing positive was at the event, and we just wanted to be extra cautious to ensure that all of our women were safe and that there was no possibility of spread, so we did do a large net testing.”

Ariel Tarosky, director of Sorority and Fraternity Life at OU, said. “Making sure we were super cautious to ensure the health and safety of all the women in our panhellenic community.”

Cases have been rising in Athens County, with over 1,000 cases reported as active, according to a previous Post report. Jack Pepper, administrator at the Athens City-County Health Department, said the ability of asymptomatic individuals to spread COVID-19 shows the importance of identifying asymptomatic positive cases.

“Asymptomatic people are of particular interest, because if they are asymptomatic, they wouldn’t otherwise change their behavior, because they don’t know that they’re sick,” Pepper said.

At OU, breakthrough cases continue to be reported.

Vaccinated people make up about half of the positive cases, Ice said, but because 70% of the population is vaccinated, the risk is much higher for the unvaccinated.

In addition to students, OU’s COVID-19 testing pro-

grams also have an effect on the local community’s health.

However, there is a concern about a shortage of tests in the Athens community as cases rise.

“I do think that it is important that we carefully evaluate where we put priority when it comes to testing,” Pepper said. “We are seeing, with the current push or the current surge in cases, that tests are becoming scarce in the community. They’re not as easy to come by as they were a month ago. So I do think that it’s really important that we continue to prioritize how we are using tests, depending on test availability, because … it would certainly make sense if we have a shortage of tests to test those that are symptomatic before we would test those are vaccinated and not showing any symptoms for COVID.” All individuals who take a COVID-19 saliva test, whether or not they are vaccinated, get the same test, which tests for the presence of the live virus, Kate Brickman, communications director for Vault Health, said.

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Counting COVID-19

Ohio colleges, universities gather COVID-19 vaccine data ABBY NEFF FOR THE POST

Ohio University’s COVID-19 dashboard provides coronavirus updates, including vaccination rates and positive cases. Other colleges and universities in Ohio have similar methods of COVID-19 reporting, yet some don’t report at all.

At the beginning of the Fall Semester, OU, along with several institutions of higher education, issued COVID-19 vaccine mandates. OU students, faculty and staff are required to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 by Nov. 15.

Like OU, Bowling Green State University, Kenyon College, Mount Saint Joseph University, Case Western Reserve University and Oberlin College use the dashboard method of reporting COVID-19 information, but others don’t know the number of vaccinations among their campus population. Cristine Boyd, senior director of external communications for the University of Akron, said in an email the university’s COVID-19 response team has “not yet assembled a progress report” on campus vaccination data.

Some colleges don’t require the vaccine at all. Seth Bauguess, director of the office of communications at Wright State University, or WSU, said the university doesn’t require the vaccine because its student population does not have as many positive coronavirus cases as other colleges. Additionally, Bauguess said almost 75% of the 4,000-plus students and employees who participated in a fall survey were vaccinated.

Youngstown State University, or YSU, is another college that does not mandate a COVID-19 vaccine. Shannon Tirone, associate vice president for university relations at YSU, said the university is still assessing the situation. “(We are) watching numbers, talking to constituents across campus, and if (we) need to pivot and do something different or move in a different direction, that we would definitely do so,” Tirone said.

Dan Skinner, an associate professor of health policy in OU’s Heritage Col-

6 / SEPT. 16, 2021

lege of Osteopathic Medicine, explained how Ohio’s regional and cultural diversity affects an area’s vaccination rate.

Skinner said factors like religion or socioeconomic status can affect vaccination rates.

Additionally, vaccination rates vary because of the ways information spreads locally.

In April, Cleveland State University, or CSU, required all students living on campus during the Fall Semester to get vaccinated.

It was the first public university in Ohio to announce a vaccine mandate. However, on Sept. 3, CSU revoked its vaccine mandate.

Forrest Faison, CSU’s chief of health strategy, announced in a video the university would reevaluate its vaccine policies Oct. 19. “(Cleveland State) is a largely commuter school, so it’s a very different dynamic … you can’t really put that up against OU with its residential culture or OSU with its residential culture,” Skinner said. “I think that’s one important thing to note is that the context of the school is going to matter a lot.”

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine Aug. 23. The next day, the Ohio House Health Committee held a hearing for a bill that sought to ban all vaccine mandates in the state.

“Ohio’s public schools are really afraid of the legislature. I think that’s the story,” Skinner said. “Each school is differently afraid of the legislature, they have different stakes.

That’s one of the reasons why OU clearly waited for OSU to make the move.”

Ohio State University, or OSU, mandated COVID-19 vaccinations for its students, staff and faculty Aug. 24. Miami University and OU released statements Aug. 31 requiring their campus communities to get vaccinated.

“Once OSU made a move, that provides cover … or establishes a new norm,” Skinner said. “But the state legislature, as currently composed, holds a lot of power, even though Ohio’s public schools are not getting a ton of money from the state anymore, because we’re a pretty underfunded state.”

Skinner said as soon as OSU mandated the vaccine, the decision provided cover for other universities and colleges to do the same. Despite that precedent, the state legislature still controls how much funding each school receives, which gives the legislature power to “mess with” Ohio’s public colleges if it wants to, Skinner said.

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“A lot of people in the state legislature know OSU, they cheer for OSU. … It is one of the largest employers in central Ohio,” Skinner said. “Institutions with a lot of power are going to give people pause in taking them on. But also, those institutions, when they do act, tend to act very intentionally because they understand their position within the state.”

College leadership across Ohio has pivoted its coronavirus guidelines several times during 2020 and 2021. Skinner believes the institutions are more concerned about doing the right thing than the state legislature.

“They’ve been dealt a terrible hand, and they’re playing it the best they can,” Skinner said.

Antioch College, the University of Cincinnati, the Columbus College of Art and Design, Denison University, Kent State University, the College of Wooster, the University of Toledo and Xavier University did not respond to requests for comment at the time of publication.

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GAMES

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Swarm of Dykes’ activism influenced LGBTQ+ resources today LAUREN SERGE STAFF WRITER In 1997, a group of progressive lesbian and queer individuals banded together to fight for visibility on Ohio University’s campus. It called itself the Swarm of Dykes, or SOD. With the name’s shock value and its fiery personalities to match, the group was a force to be reckoned with on campus, protesting for equality among all in the LGBTQ+ community.

Today at OU, there are numerous organizations offered to queer people, with the LGBT Center located at Baker University Center at the center of it all. Back in 1997, however, the LGBT Center did not even exist. The SOD sought to establish a place for queer people to gather, connect and protest.

Caitlin Sweet, who graduated in 2000, was a member of SOD when it formed.

Sweet said the majority of the queer students on campus used to gather at Open Doors, an LGBT group that met at United Campus Ministry. At these meetings, the women-identifying and men-identifying people would have breakout sessions in which they could each talk about their respective issues.

Sweet said it was at these breakout sessions that the idea for SOD was sparked.

“I just remember us being in the basement and being like, ‘This is super unsatisfying for us,’” Sweet said. “None of us were in a place of our queerness where we felt sad about being gay or needing support or a place to process. What we really wanted was something political. (We thought), ‘What if we were to start our own group?

And what is the collective term for a group of dykes?’ And the joke was, it would be a swarm. We wanted to form a direct action, non-hierarchical, political, queer organization. And so Swarm of Dykes was born.”

Heather Moyer, who graduated in 8 / SEPT. 16, 2021

2000, was also a member of SOD during her time at OU. Moyer said the decision to use the word “dyke” in the name of the organization was to disassociate the power it held within homophobic discourse and, to instead, reclaim it as part of the community, as the term “dyke” is widely known as a slur used against masculine or an-

drogynous women and lesbians.

“We wanted the shock value of it and reclaiming that word for ourselves,” Moyer said. “There were a couple of LGBT groups on campus, but there were none that did any radical action. And so we decided that we would want to do one that was a little more confrontational, just to make you think about what we were saying.”

Betsy McCann, who graduated in 2000, was also a member of SOD. McCann emphasized that the attention the name garnered greatly influenced the message of the organization as a whole.

“The whole point was that the word dyke was this very taboo, off-subject word that got people’s attention and made people very uncomfortable,” McCann said. “A swarm seems like something aggressive.

And it seems like there’s a thickness to the concept of a swarm, that there’s a lot, so a swarm of dykes seems so intimidating and big. And so I think the name was definitely picked to get the reaction. And I do think we got it because even just becoming a registered organization on campus was a big step for us because I’m sure there were some phone calls or some meetings that were like, ‘Can the group be called this?’”

Though SOD did become a registered

student organization, there was frequent pushback on campus. According to The Post’s archives from 2003, the graffiti wall was defaced and slandered with homophobic slurs. The Swarm took a direct and combative approach to this act of hate, and The Post stated that “members of the Swarm confronted the group and persuaded them to stop defacing the wall.”

Aside from other students, SOD also faced conflict with OU administration over the name.

Mickey Hart, the first director of the LGBT Center, said the Swarm did not take this pushback lightly.

“At the university, there were certain words and phrases that couldn’t be on the wall, not looking at context,” Hart said.

“The facilities folks who monitored the wall painted over the word dyke because that was one of the words that couldn’t be on the wall. In response to that, (the SOD) painted that entire long wall black, and much like you would on a chalkboard, they wrote the phrase, ‘I will not write dyke on the wall. I will not write dyke on the wall. I will not write dyke on the wall’ repeatedly.”

SOD’s bold responses to its criticism, Sweet said, allowed for its voices to be heard and the issues it raised to be prop-

erly addressed.

“As an official organization, you can paint the graffiti wall with your group’s name, which we did, which then the university immediately covered up (even though) we had rights to be using that,” Sweet said. “So, we had a lot of back and forth with them. We would literally be painting the wall, and they would show up to cover that. So, we’d have a lot of issues around censorship, but we pretty much had this agenda of being as loud as possible and taking up as much as space. And I think we really freaked a lot of people out and the administration, which meant that they would then take (our) concerns more seriously.”

While the boldness of the name was certainly a topic of conversation, McCann said the activism of the group was much more significant.

“I think that the name being such a lightning rod gave us so much room to operate,” McCann said. “But also, at the end of the day, we really tried to start some different types of conversations on campus.”

The Athena yearbook archives from 1999 outlined a particular conflict present for the Swarm — its debate with Brother Jed. Jed would often visit OU and other college campuses to preach his conservative Christian values, including his opposition toward homosexuality.

The Athena yearbook states that when the debate was set to begin between SOD and Jed, “two Swarm of Dykes members, Heather Moyer and Tyle Fernandez went to the front of the room to begin the debate, they immediately turned around, and about 20 other members got up to stand behind them with their backs to the audience. Taped to the back of their shirts were fliers that read ‘Our vulnerability in this culture will not be exploited for your entertainment.’”

Moyer said her experience with protests like the one with Jed were impactful in that they helped to address the systemic issues for marginalized people.

“There were still a lot of people around that would insult us or that sort of thing,” Moyer said. “It was a safe space for us to be a little more radical by confronting the patriarchy and white supremacy and endemic issues in our society.”

An important aspect of SOD, Sweet said, was it was not merely focused on the lesbian experience. Instead, it took a holistic approach to issues happening to disenfranchised individuals.

“I think it was before intersectionality was like a buzz word, and we were practicing that,” Sweet said. “We had trans members. We had people of color in our group.

We had poor people, people from middle class backgrounds. So, we had as much as you can for a place like OU that isn’t a super diverse group of demographic. We don’t live a singular life. For a lot of us, be-

ing gay wasn’t the only thing impacting us.

So, we wanted to make sure our activism wasn’t just about that singular thing.”

McCann said the lack of resources and representation on campus was greatly challenged in the efforts made by SOD. “There was no campus education happening,” McCann said. “There was no presence. In the mid ‘90s, the world wasn’t accepting of a queer presence. It was still a place where you were expected to fit in and comply. And I think Swarm of Dykes is such a middle finger to that. And what it did is it blew up the space that was accessible to queer people on campus.”

Hart, who worked with members of SOD to eventually establish what OU students now know to be the current LGBT Center, said the extremist styles of SOD helped to amplify the needs of smaller, less vocal groups on campus fighting for visibility.

“At that time, where we were in the LGBT rights movement, it seemed kind of like an extreme group,” Hart said. “The great thing that I think, impact-wise, that Swarm of Dykes did as a very extreme group, it made (spaces like) Open Doors a safe place for people to work. So, I learned from that to sometimes move what may seem like the margins to the middle. You need a group that’s a little more radical in that approach. And so I think that it really was one of those times where it woke up the campus community about LGBT issues.”

Micah McCarey, the current director of the LGBT Center, was a student at OU during SOD’s time on campus. McCarey said the unique tactics SOD used to get its messages across were essential in the progress made on campus today.

“It takes different forms of activism, different styles in order to really impact

“

We wanted the shock value of it and reclaiming that word for ourselves. There were a couple of LGBT groups on campus, but there were none that did any radical action.

And so we decided that we would want to do one that was a little more confrontational, just to make you think about what we were saying.”

- Heather Moyer, a member of SOD who graduated in 2000

change,” McCarey said. “Because you have those who will respond very positively to the aggressive activism that perhaps comes to mind when you hear of a student group named something like Swarm of Dykes, but then there are people who are more permissive that they prefer to have quieter, controlled forms of communication and advocacy. But I think there’s both presences at work today.”

One of the opposite approaches to activism on campus in the late ‘90s and early 2000s was Delta Lambda Phi, a fraternity specific for progressive and sexually diverse men. Dale Edwards, a founding member of the fraternity and the LGBT Student Senator, described the differing approaches that often occurred between the two groups.

“I really saw Delta Lambda Phi and Swarm of Dykes as like the opposite ends of the political spectrum — as super progressive to mainstream progressive — and it was great that we had those different points of view and ways of tackling some of the issues and subjects,” Edwards said.

“Because, ultimately, we were all bringing up issues that the administration needed to deal with.”

Ultimately, McCann said the changes that SOD helped to inspire allowed for significant progress in the way LGBTQ+ issues were recognized, even in her time as a student.

“I think about how much better those conversations were by the time I was a senior from the time I was a freshman,” McCann said. “And it was simply because they just gave a different voice. Instead of being one voice for all the LGBTQIA students at OU, there were six voices now. So, I do think there’s a huge legacy there.”

For Sweet, the legacy resides in her personal growth throughout her time at

OU as a member of SOD: particularly, in the ability for its members to embrace their identities loudly and confidently.

“It was really amazing to be able to be completely uncensored about your queerness, your gender identity or sexuality and then your political beliefs,” Sweet said.

“And a lot has changed. I was in a dorm, (and) it was really super uncomfortable for me. We were all dealing with homophobia in the classrooms, from our teachers, from the administration, from our classmates. So it was, I think, a really vital thing for us to have each other and for all of us who were various shades of freaks, various shades of left-leaning politics to have a space where we could be very unapologetically ourselves. I’m not necessarily an activist anymore, but I do think that period of time in my life was pretty crucial for crystallizing some stuff about who I am.

And we found a really sweet community as well.”

With the numerous resources and student organizations currently available at OU, McCann said it is an emotional revelation to witness the progress over the years.

“I mean, on Instagram or the alumni newsletters, when I see the resources (at OU now), it just makes me want to cry,” McCann said. “It’s just incredible what the experience is now versus what it was, and it’s great to think that in our drunk Court Street years, we did some work that made it possible.”

@LAURENESERGE LS351117@OHIO.EDU

THEPOSTATHENS.COM / 9

Danny Gray adjusts his mask, taking a small break from checking his emails while in his dorm room in Tiffin Hall. (NATE SWANSON | DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY)

COVID-19 presents resident assistants with new, unique challenges ANNA MILLAR FOR THE POST The responsibilities of resident assistants at Ohio University have increased since the COVID-19 pandemic began and, despite OU reopening its campus to students, this semester is no different.

According to a previous Post report, all students, staff and faculty are required to wear masks indoors, regardless of vaccination status, including in the hallways and bathrooms of residence halls. RAs are expected to enforce the mask mandate as part of their job.

“Most people came into this year thinking that, ‘Hey, it’s gonna be no mask mandate anymore, everybody now has the vaccine who wants to vaccine, it’s just gonna be an easier time,’” Sedric Granger, a sophomore studying journalism and an RA in Bryan Hall, said. “But when we got that mask mandate, it was 10 / SEPT. 16, 2021

already like, ‘Oh my gosh, our challenge is going to get a lot more difficult.’”

Granger emphasized the warnings of upperclassmen who had worked as RAs previously. They told him and others to be prepared to “really enforce” a mask mandate, he said. Additionally, Granger said he has been impressed by his section of Bryan Hall, stating there has been a low number of COVID-19 cases.

However, that is not the experience for other buildings and RAs. Ben Chupp, a senior studying aviation flight and an RA in Sowle Hall, said he and other RAs in the building are tired of warning residents to wear masks and have started to write up students who do not follow the mask guidelines.

“Lately, after the emails warning people that we’re going to start writing people up, they have been doing better,” Chupp said.

Due to a high number of residents

neglecting to wear masks in common areas since the semester began, multiple halls have received emails stating residents will be written up without warning should they be caught without a mask.

According to an email a Senior RA sent to residents living in Boyd and Treudley Halls, students were told they would be reported to the Office of Community Standards if they did not respect the guidelines. The email also stated, due to mask requirements having been in place for over a year, “wearing a mask is not a new concept, and therefore excuses as to not doing so are slowly becoming null and void.”

Tara Theaker, a sophomore studying psychology and an RA in Jefferson Hall, cited similar issues within her building. There are often people not wearing masks, she said.

Theaker tells residents to either put a

mask on or pull their mask up, and some listen while others ignore the request altogether. She added when a resident is written up in violation of the mask mandate, it is a COVID-19 incident report.

Wearing a mask is not the only COVID-19 related rule campus residents must respect. Residents must also abide by rules regarding the number of guests allowed in their room.

“If you have two people in a room, they have two beds, they can have four people come and visit,” Granger said. “If you’re only in one single room, you only have one bed in the room … you’re only allowed to have two guests.”

Granger said that rule can be an unfortunate rule for those with large friend groups, but he believes it plays an important role in helping prevent the spread of COVID-19.

Guests have not been an issue thus far in Sowle Hall, Chupp said. However, he acknowledged it is still early in the semester and said should any issues arise in the future, they will be addressed.

“We’ve had normal amounts of people … in other people’s rooms. The only issue is, a lot of the time, they like to gather in the hallway,” Theaker said.

“Sometimes I’ll be going in the hallway, and there’s a group of ten people just crammed in the hallway and they’re not wearing their mask. And I’m like, ‘Either go to your room or put your mask on,’ and they usually have an attitude.”

With the announcement of OU’s COVID-19 vaccination requirement, there is a possibility for these policies to shift. Thus far, RAs have not been told of any upcoming changes.

“I feel with the vaccination requirement now being a part of campus, I feel that I can really help decrease the spread of COVID, and then also just lower the cases to a point where … we can be able to be back to almost normal or what we were before,” Granger said. “I’m really hoping to see that from a personal standpoint, and just for our residents too. I know everybody wants to have face-to-face interaction and a lot of people want to have that in-person class experience.”

@ANNAMILLAR16 AM157219@OHIO.EDU

Court Street Coffee and The Little Professor undergo summer, Fall Semester renovation CLAIRE SCHIOPOTA FOR THE POST Extended construction on Court Street Coffee and The Little Professor is expected to come to a close in September following months of renovations.

The two stores sit side by side at 67 and 65 S. Court St., respectively, next to Copeland Hall. Court Street Coffee has been operating since 2009 as a family-owned coffee shop, and The Little Professor is a general bookstore that’s had various owners for about 45 years.

In November 2020, Bryan Wharton and his brother bought the building where the two stores reside. Along with Court Street Coffee and The Little Professor, there are apartments located above the stores in the top part of the building. Wharton said the apartments are where the construction began.

“I just thought it needed a little facelift. So, the apartments inside were needing updated, and so it’s just snowballed into the outside,” Wharton said.

Wharton said the construction began at the beginning of May 2021, with a goal of wrapping up by the end of the summer months.

The summer construction project extended into the fall as Ohio University students began to arrive on campus due to a hard time getting supplies, Wharton said.

Charlie Fulks, the manager of Court Street Coffee, and Nicholas Polsinelli, the owner of The Little Professor, both expressed gratitude for Wharton in how he has handled the

difficult situation for the businesses.

“The building owner has been great. He’s been very transparent with everything, to the best of his ability,” Fulks said. “It’s just the nature of construction. You have a timeline, but it doesn’t always get met because, especially right now, supply chain issues and being able to find people to do the work during that timeline is really difficult.”

Fulks said it’s hard to say how much the construction has affected Court Street Coffee’s business.

“It’s so many different things that have impacted our business between Starbucks, and the construction and the pandemic and students having online classes,” Fulks said. “I would assume that any new students or returning students that are coming back, they don’t know if we’re open or not. … If someone chooses to go to Brenen’s or Donkey or Starbucks that first week, often that becomes their coffee house of choice.”

Polsinelli said another local business lent them a sandwich board because they wanted to help increase the businesses’ visibility.

Mary McGuigan, a freshman studying business, walks

by Court Street Coffee every day on the way to class and will often stop inside. She said she doesn’t really notice the construction.

“I’m from Cleveland, so there’s always construction,” McGuigan said. “I just look past it.”

Ultimately, Polsinelli said renovation is important to The Little Professor, as they don’t have much of an online presence, and they hope it will bring in more business. Court

Street Coffee and The Little Professor both look forward to the results of the renovation.

“It’s been nice because it opens up, gives us some more space out front as well, so we can increase the outdoor seating,” Fulks said. “We’re looking forward to when it’s all done.

I think it’s gonna look really nice and just have a new kind of fresh feel to it.”

@CSCHIOPOTA CS123719@OHIO.EDU

A William and Sons Construction worker measures wire to cut for the construction of The Little Professor.

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Differences and Disconnect

How miscommunication led to disconnect: Looking at the tension between OU administration and OU students and faculty CLAIRE SCHIOPOTA FOR THE POST Ohio University has been faced with intense scrutiny over the last few years regarding an alleged budget crisis and inclusion of minority groups on campus.

Disconnect can be defined as a severing of connection between two entities. At OU, the students and faculty, as one entity, are severed from the administration, the other.

When asked if they believed there was a disconnect between the two entities, there was an overwhelming “yes” from faculty and students. When administrators were asked the same question, the answer was “no.”

So where does this idea of a disconnect lie, and why does only one entity believe in it?

The root of a lot of issues for the university has been OU’s alleged budget crisis. According to previous Post reports, the university has been addressing money issues since 2019.

OU Fun Facts, a student group that shared flyers of OU budget fun facts in fall of 2019, began a movement against administrative budget cuts through protests and community roundtables.

In May 2020, the budget dilemma led to the elimination of 53 faculty positions at OU, along with cutting an additional 81 positions other than faculty. Following those layoffs, tensions grew between OU administration and the rest of the OU community.

Save OUr Profs picked up where OU Fun Facts left off in defending the OU faculty through social media and attending protests to support faculty and other staff members who lost their jobs.

Joe McLaughlin, an associate professor of English and the vice president of OU’s American Association for University Professors, said the overriding issue has been those layoffs and how money has been handled by the university.

“I’d say most people are not 12 / SEPT. 16, 2021

convinced that that was something that the administration had to do, and that there were other options that could have been discussed,” McLaughlin said. “It’s not like we didn’t speak up proactively to try to change the course of events … I don’t think there’s a sense that the university made a serious attempt to engage faculty in that dialogue.”

Since those protests to the layoffs, McLaughlin said he’s only seen the administration defend high administrator salaries and continue an audit culture of expensive data collection.

“It’s very upsetting that the message from Cutler Hall seems to continue to be that the faculty … are not being sufficiently strategic,” McLaughlin said. “What nobody ever seems to step back and say is that it costs a lot of money to create, to collect, to curate, to distribute, to analyze data. And I think that the university can save a lot of money if it was less obsessed with spreadsheets and measuring things.”

This administrative bloat has been recognized by students as well as faculty.

Becky “Eliza” Ivan, a fifth year student studying political science and the president of OU’s Student Senate, said she took the budget cuts in the Center for Law, Justice and Culture hard. Ivan said she had to reconsider pursuing a graduate degree from OU. Luvina Cooley, a junior studying anthropology, has similar concerns, as she worried the anthropology department would be so cut down that her degree would lose its value.

On top of this, Cooley is the LGBTQIA+ affairs commissioner for Senate, president of Allies, a student staff member at OU’s LGBT Center and a student staff member with the Diversity Leadership Ambassadors.

She has known many students who distrust the university due to their treatment of issues affecting the LGBTQ+ community.

“I have a lot of friends who knew the previous director of the LGBT Center who was then let go,” Cooley said. “I think it damaged a lot of trust because there wasn’t a lot of open communication about it. For a lot of

ILLUSTRATION BY OLIVIA JUENGER

them, they felt very targeted by it.”

The theme of miscommunication has also carried over into the Division of Diversity and Inclusion with the inclusive excellence strategic plan. According to a previous Post report, the plan was presented to the Board of Trustees in the 2021 Spring Semester. At the time, students had generally negative comments on the plan.

“In comparison to other schools, like if you look up diversity inclusion plan for any other school, there’s like an index of 40 plus pages. Our is just 15,” Ivan said. “I really want to work with other commissioners in the Senate that represent diverse communities to work on it.”

The Visible Campaign was also part of the inclusive excellence strategic plan. The goal of the plan was to express diversity and inclusion values throughout OU. Lauren Brown, a junior studying chemistry pre-pharmacy, the president of the Black Student Union and treasurer of the Unified Sisters, said she believes the campaign is lacking.

“I think the idea was there … but I can also tell, and I think students can also tell, that something is lacking,” Brown said. “I truly do not think the university cares … I really only think the university cares about the money. I think they’re gonna do whatever makes them look good.”

Additionally, Brown said she doesn’t feel like she can rely on the university. She believes that

students must create their own change in order for it to happen.

Around the same time the university announced a scholarship named for George Floyd during the summer of 2020, the Black Student Union met with Gigi Secuban, the vice president of the Division of Diversity and Inclusion; Jenny Hall-Jones, the interim vice president for student affairs; and former OU President Duane Nellis. Brown said they were told by Nellis to not expect anything to come out of the conversation.

“We had a good two hour conversation with them … giving them suggestions and telling them how everybody in the community is feeling,” Brown said. “And basically from that conversation, all they really did was give us excuses and reasons why they can’t do what we suggested. It stuck with me ever since because literally nothing has came about that conversation … They continue to do nothing about it.”

Jake Boyk is a senior studying communication studies and integrated media, the secretary and co-founder of the Asian American and Pacific Islanders Student Union, or AAPISU, and a diversity leadership ambassador for the Division of Diversity and Inclusion. Unlike Brown’s experiences, he said the administration has been very supportive in their creation of the AAPISU earlier this year.

“The OU administration has helped us with the founding of this new organization … They’ve been nothing but helpful,” Boyk said. “I’d like to see more administration get on this side of diversity and inclusion here at the university … We’re making progress slowly but surely, but there’s always more to be done.”

However, the frequent lack of communication between the two entities has been repeatedly noticed by students and faculty. Administration members, including Hall-Jones; Duane Bruce, the interim assistant director of the Multicultural Center; and Micah McCarey, the director of the LGBT Center, all recognize this problem.

“Because of our lack of ability to share broadly on some of these topics, especially around employment and conduct, it seems like there’s a lack of transparency,” Bruce said. “There is a process and that this is what we do, and that we’re kind of bound by some things to not share specifics, but we can share in generalities what’s going on and how the university responds when things happen.”

Carly Leatherwood, a university spokesperson, emphasized that many petitions made on change.org by students often go unnoticed by the administration because they are not directly approached by them.

“Once you get a mass of people that have signed onto these petitions or that you’re excited about, you should actually send that to somebody,” Hall-Jones said. “Because sometimes they’re in the ether and we don’t know about them.”

When it comes to the inclusive excellence strategic plan and the Visible Campaign, Bruce acknowledges the slow movement but encourages OU students and faculty to see the potential in the plan.

“We can’t do everything at once … What I’ve figured out over time is that oftentimes, and particularly when it comes to diversity, equity, inclusion work, these things happen in phases, stages and steps because it’s a complicated systemic issue,” Bruce said. “If you do that without taking the time to help people reflect and to get into the hearts and mind changing process, then it doesn’t become transformative change.”

Relating to budget concerns, Robin Oliver, the vice president for Communications and Marketing at OU, said the administration plans to make the adjustments necessary to balance revenues and expenses as it looks ahead to Fiscal Year 2023, but said it has been operating with more money being spent than money coming in, in part because the university has seen a decline in money from enrollment.

Rather than seeing a disconnect, administrators see a tension between the two entities. Bruce said the tension he sees has been at every school he’s worked at previously, and the tension is needed to hold institutions accountable.

McCarey said the idea of that tension is supported by the idea of “the man” and imagining a group of people to be in opposition of.

On both sides, people have been hurt. Whether it be from a lack of communication or understanding, a disconnect or a tension, students, faculty and administrators have experienced a lot of pain associated with their issues.

“Sometimes we have to make tough decisions that we know aren’t going to be popular, but it’s because it’s the right thing to do for the good of the organization and for the good of people who belong to the organization, and it’s hard for me to see my friends and colleagues getting beat up unnecessarily about decisions that people don’t agree with,” Leatherwood said. “Everybody (Hall-Jones, Bruce and McCarey) has put their heart and soul into ev-

erything that they’re doing, and I mean for me, knowing them and knowing how much they care, it’s hard sometimes.”

Faculty have felt the same way, especially when reflecting on the friends they lost due to the layoffs. McLaughlin said he lost close friends from the university due to the cuts made last year.

“They were good teachers. They were contributing to the mission of the department,” McLaughlin said. “I want to get up in the morning, and I want to spend my day thinking about my teaching, thinking about 19th century British literature. I don’t want to spend my time thinking about what we do. I don’t want to spend my time watching and criticizing the administration.”

Students similarly have also felt hurt by the university.

Brown doesn’t feel like the university has done anything to change this.

“It’s the lack of communication — or the lack of doing anything — that has really opened my eyes to how universities work,” Brown said. “It’s sad, and it’s disappointing, but it’s also not surprising … I’m still upset about this, and I wish it wasn’t this way, but also, it’s the reality.”

One thing that all those students, faculty and administrators agree on is that there must be more work toward creating change at the university. An increase in transparency and communication is important on all sides.

“I don’t think there’s one way to get to a solution on several of the things that we’re talking about, particularly around diversity, equity, inclusion,” Bruce said. “We’re always open for feedback … We really care deeply about this stuff, and we want to be responsive.”

McLaughlin said the faculty wants to be involved in decision-making more in the future.

“The administration needs to engage faculty more fully. Not simply in consultation, but in the decision making process,” McLaughlin said. “What they never seem to want to talk with faculty about is how decisions get made with the money within a university, how it gets distributed, how it gets allocated, how the university goes about making decisions.”

Ivan emphasizes the importance of getting involved with student issues through Senate.

“It’s intimidating to go to administrators as a student and speak up, but we do have those students speak out at general body meetings that people can come to,” Ivan said.

With these new ideas to bridge the disconnect, the two entities will continue to address the issues faced by every student, faculty and administrator at OU. “I think through active community participation we can start to see progress when it comes to the relationship between the administration and the students,” Boyk said. “I think it will take time, but it’s definitely worth our time and effort, because we want to be a community in a culture where everybody feels like they belong and they know what’s happening and acknowledged, and right now, it’s the fact that not all students feel like that.”

@CSCHIOPOTA CS123719@OHIO.EDU

THEPOSTATHENS.COM / 13

SayHerName events bring awareness, togetherness OU’s Women’s Center has been gearing up for an in-person school year full of events. The SayHerName events hold much significance and will continue to be hosted this year KAYLA BENNETT ASST. CULTURE EDITOR The Ohio University Women’s Center has been gearing up for an in-person school year full of events. Finding ways to engage and educate, the Women’s Center released its calendar full of the events happening this fall.

The SayHerName events hold much significance and will continue to be hosted this year. The birth of the SayHerName events occurred after a session tied in with the Division of Diversity and Inclusion in response to the murder of Breonna Taylor. The Women’s Center has had a history of collaborating with other organizations, individuals and groups to support SayHerName programming for a number of years now.

Geneva Murray, director of OU’s Women’s Center, has worked with others to make sure the SayHerName events, which are intended to have space to talk about current and past issues safely, can be as impactful as possible.

“SayHerName events existed as a movement,” Murray said. “Typically when we talk about police violence against Black communities, we don’t always think about the Black women who have been killed by police.

It’s about making sure that we’re amplifying their voices and names as well, so it’s not in competition with Black Lives Matter, but it’s an addition.”

Murray said the reason for the events is to continue the heightened conversation for Black Lives Matter and SayHerName as well as keep it from losing momentum.

“We want there to be an intentional, action-oriented process for the remaining issues that are still very existent,” Murray said.

The SayHerName events are not only to speak on police brutality but emphasize and remember the mortality rate for women of color, particularly Black women, in the U.S. It’s also meant to highlight the inequities that have been institutionalized 14 / SEPT. 16, 2021

within education, the prison system, health care and more.

Kristyn Neckles, psychologist for the Division of Diversity and Inclusion, said the SayHerName events provide a space for courageous, difficult conversation around race and the struggle Black women face in terms of police brutality and anything that exists within.

“It provides a space to get context from the experiences of others,” Neckles said. “It’s the impact of, especially for women of color like me, being able to discuss the impact and seeing the disparities and the injustice.”

Neckles said the space provides a way to cope and gather perspective after seeing the news or experiencing something that causes distress. It’s a way for those who are passionate to share and gather thoughts with others who are passionate.

The topics for the events are responsive to what is happening in present time and what students feel need to be talked about.

This fall, there are three SayHerName events scheduled.

One occurred Sept. 7, when there was a focus of recogniz-

ing student need, preparing for the school year and reflecting on the time away.

The next event will be on Oct. 12, 12 p.m. to 1 p.m., in Baker University Center room 403 or virtually. This session will involve writing letters to incarcerated women and may focus on discussing interpersonal violence and drug use.

On Nov. 9, 12 p.m. to 1 p.m., in Baker room 403 or virtually, the meeting will revolve around the needs and wishes of the participants. These events revolve heavily around the attendees and their needs. Everyone is to be recognized on what they need to talk or reflect on.

For some, like Nadia Niamke, a junior studying psychology, these events have become an important way to talk about experiences and be with others who are possibly going through the same thing or something similar.

“I am a Black woman, so it’s like they’re talking about things that I can understand and relate to,” Niamke said.

“It’s good to see other people being interested and invested and wanting to learn more so they can be more involved in understanding.”

Niamke believes it’s important to have these conversations and to become aware because understanding is difficult if you have not experienced the issues firsthand.

Murray said it’s important to be an ally and a co-conspirator. Murray encourages those who are to view a video linked on the Women’s Center website on how to be an ally and co-conspirator before attending the events. People are encouraged to come with an open mind and preparation to explore topics that may have not been discussed before.

“SayHerName programs are for everyone,” Murray said. “We can also think during this, ‘What can I as an individual do now?’ and those changes that we can make a lot sooner, and there’s space for that for everyone.”

@KKAYYBEN KB084519@OHIO.EDU ILLUSTRATION BY MALAYA TINDONGAN

New suicide prevention app aims to reduce stigma surrounding mental illness LAUREN SERGE STAFF WRITER Ohio University’s Counseling and Psychological Services, or CPS, has implemented a new, interactive mental health-centered app called Kognito. The app, which is available for students and faculty to register, is a suicide prevention program aimed to educate users on the various signs of mental illness through informative modules.

Paul Castelino, director of CPS, said the idea for Kognito was sparked through an ongoing project CPS and the Division of Student Affairs have taken part in since 2014 called “Bobcats Who Care.” This initial project, Castelino said, serves as a “suicide gate keeper training program.”

“This program was modelled after (the) ‘Campus Connect’ program developed at Syracuse University and has been widely used in other university campuses,” Castelino said in an email.

“It is a three-hour interactive program that is comprised of experiential training components, for example, how to respond when someone is in crisis, as

A P P LY

well as awareness of various resources available to students on campus.”

The reason for the shift to Kognito, Castelino said, was widely due to the COVID-19 pandemic, as the time commitments required for the old system could no longer be met.

Paige Klatt, mental health support coordinator at CPS, described the various modules and resources that Kognito has to offer.

“Kognito Suicide Prevention is a webbased program that provides Students, Faculty and Staff self-guided simulation modules that are brief and interactive,” Klatt said in an email. “There is a separate module for students and faculty/staff. The student simulation module is designed to help students recognize signs of distress in their peers and learn how to engage in difficult conversations. Whereas the faculty/staff module is designed to recognize signs of distress primarily in students.

Both with the outcome of preparing others to have difficult conversations surrounding suicide and how to best support others. Although it is brief, with only three different simulations you have the option to play around with selecting a variety of

TO DAY

responses to see how they might play out.

This is a great opportunity to become more comfortable talking about suicide and learning what is and is not helpful.”

Since its debut for students this fall, Klatt said there has been an increase in the number of users who have chosen to partake in the application. Klatt hopes that these numbers will only increase as the year goes on.

Emily Squance, a junior studying journalism, is a member of OU Active Minds, a mental health promotion group on campus.

Squance said the integration of apps like Kognito can help to reduce the connotation associated with mental illness.

“I feel like mental health has such a big stigma, but I feel like this could help maybe end that stigma and open up a conversation amongst college students especially, for mental health, just to be a normal thing to be talked about,” Squance said. “You don’t always know who’s struggling with mental health issues because it seems like it’s a very private thing. But maybe, having an app like that could make it a more public thing, if people wanted it to be that way and a way for people to build connections and build that bridge between each other.”

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Klatt stressed the importance of Kognito is to open the door to difficult conversations regarding suicide and mental health to ultimately enable students and faculty to be better equipped with resources.

“We all need to practice having difficult conversations and learning how to recognize signs of suicide,” Klatt said in an email.

“Talking about suicide is never easy, but the more we learn and practice doing it will help us feel prepared if we need to ask someone if they are thinking about suicide.

We all encounter struggles in our lives and it’s important that we learn how to take care of one another, especially when it’s uncomfortable. It’s my hope that our campus, by having access to Kognito, will encourage all of us to be proactive versus reactive when it comes to helping others.”

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HOCKEY

VOLLEYBALL

Ohio promotes assistant Lionel Mauron to coach for 2021-22 season

What to know for the WKU Invitational ASHLEY BEACH SLOT EDITOR Ohio is still on the hunt for its first win, this time in Kentucky.

It will be traveling to Bowling Green, Kentucky, for the WKU Invitational on Friday and Saturday. Ohio will face Western Kentucky, Lipscomb and Austin Peay in its final week of nonconference play.

Here’s what to know for the weekend:

FRIDAY

WILL CUNNINGHAM FOR THE POST Ohio announced on Twitter on Tuesday evening that Lionel Mauron has been promoted to coach for the 2021-22 season.

Mauron signed a one-year contract and takes the reins from former coach Cole Bell.

He will be the 15th coach in program history and Ohio’s third coach in four seasons.

Mauron served as a graduate assistant for the Bobcats last season. Prior to joining the Bobcats, Mauron played for the Knoxville Ice Bears in the Southern Professional Hockey League. Mauron also appeared in four games for the Jacksonville Icemen in

16 / SEPT. 16, 2021

the East Coast Hockey League during the 2018-19 season.

Ohio has announced a new coach just before a new season is set to begin. It struggled in 2020-21 with a difficult schedule and finished with its first losing record since 1986-87. Mauron enters his new role with the task of turning that record around.

The Bobcats kick off their season with their annual Green and White Scrimmage on Sept. 18 in Bird Arena. Their first game of the regular season will be against John Carroll on Sept. 24.

The Bobcats will get to ease into the weekend with a single match on Friday.

They will take on the Hilltoppers at 1 p.m.

The match can be viewed on the Hilltopper Sports Satellite Network, and live stats can be followed on Western Kentucky’s website.

No. 23 Western Kentucky (8-1) has had a strong start to its season. It swept its opponents in six of its eight wins. Most notably, it tied then-No. 3 Kentucky 2-2 in a preseason exhibition.

Last weekend, the Hilltoppers took part in the Holiday Inn - University Plaza Invitational. They defeated Samford and UT Martin 3-0 but lost to Ole Miss 1-3.

Ohio can gauge where it stands compared to Western Kentucky due to both of them having played Loyola Chicago already this season. Western Kentucky defeated Loyola 3-1 in close sets unlike Ohio, who lost to them in spaced sets.

Historically speaking, the Hilltoppers have an edge against the Bobcats. They defeated the Bobcats two of the three times they have met. The last time the two faced off was at The Convo Aug. 26, 2016, when the Bobcats lost 3-1.

Keep an eye open for middle hitter Lauren Matthews. Matthews leads Western Kentucky in both kills and blocks. The senior was an American Volleyball Coaches Association Second Team All-American in the 2020-21 season and a member of the Conference USA First Team All-Conference squad.

SATURDAY

@WILLOCUNNINGHAM WC425318@OHIO.EDU

Endurance will come into play on Saturday when the Bobcats face two opponents.

They will play Lipscomb at 10:30 a.m. and Austin Peay at 3:30 p.m.

Lipscomb (2-6) has had a slow start to its season. Last weekend, it went 1-2 in the Xavier Invitational. It lost a close match to Xavier and was swept by No. 6 Purdue, but it defeated Belmont 3-0.

The Bison and Bobcats have not faced each other in recent history, however, coach Geoff Carlston has experience against the Bison. Carlston led Ohio State to three victories against Lipscomb in 2010, 2014 and 2017.

Keep an eye out for the two Delaneys on Lipscomb’s roster. Delaney Dilfer leads Lipscomb in assists at 308 and is second in service aces, with 12. Delaney Smith tops the service aces category at 13 and also has the most digs, with 102.

Ohio’s second opponent of the day, Austin Peay, will help the Bobcats measure how they will perform against Mid-American Conference opponents this season. Austin Peay (5-4) defeated Miami 3-2 at the Marshall Invitational and lost to Western Michigan 3-0 at the Indiana State Invitational.

The Bobcats last saw the Governors Aug. 28, 2015 at the Mortar Board Premier, where the Bobcats won 3-0. The two have not faced each other since.

Watch out for Brooke Moore, Austin Peay’s leader in kills at 107, service aces, with 12, and digs, with 98. Moore is a staple in the front row. The outside hitter played in all 49 sets of the 2020-21 season.

@ASHLEYBEACHY_ AB026319@OHIO.EDU

Ohio celebrates a point after a long volley against Eastern Michigan, which the Bobcats won 3-1. (SETH ARCHER | FOR THE POST)

FOOTBALL

Bryce Houston has climbed through adversity to become a leader ELI FEAZELL ASST. SPORTS EDITOR Bryce Houston enjoys being a leader for Ohio.

The redshirt junior likes to set the example for his teammates. He pours himself into his work on the field and doesn’t cut himself any slack when he makes a mistake in practices or in games.

“I don’t really give myself a lot of excuses,” Houston said. “I honestly feel like me having this opportunity to be able to slow down and step back, it gave me more time to focus on film, focus on my upper body, making sure that I’m just as fast on the field, looking at the

sideline point of view, as I am making tackles and making plays.”

Houston works hard because he’s had to work even harder to end up where he is now.

Prior to his career at Ohio, Houston had compiled an impressive resume playing for Olentangy Orange High School in Lewis Center. He had committed to Ohio and earned All-State, All-Ohio Capital Conference, All-District and Super 25 Team recognition as a junior. For two straight seasons, he served as team captain. Houston was on top of the world.

Then it all came crashing down.

In October 2017, midway through his senior year, Houston tore his right ACL and

meniscus and was forced to sit out the rest of the season. He had racked up 81 tackles, seven sacks and two interceptions before his injury, and now, it was cut short.

The recovery was long, and Houston had to make sacrifices in order to recover properly. He missed out on the remainder of his senior year of football and was forced to miss his final year of his second love — wrestling.

Houston has a soft spot for his days as a wrestler. He fell in love with the sport when he was younger and said the challenges presented to him through wrestling made him better not only as a wrestler but also as a football player. Houston underwent a strenuous conditioning process every season

for wrestling, and he believes it helped his skills on the football field. He became faster, stronger and more disciplined.

“I feel like wrestlers do take that type of mentality of, you know, they don’t care,” Houston said. “They’re going to be stronger than you. They’re trying to be faster than you in every single type of possibility.”

Houston’s tackling, leverage and overall toughness also improved from wrestling. Not only did the sport help him physically, but it also taught him how to deal with adversity.

In his freshman year with the Bobcats in 2018, Houston appeared in only two games after redshirting and recorded just one tackle. The previous injury from high school and a lack of play time might demoralize any other player. Houston, however, used that adversity as a stepping stool to improve himself both mentally and physically.

“It’s weird to say,” Houston said. “But I’m thankful for those opportunities because they made me the man I am today.”

He took the strengths gained from his previous experiences — both good and bad — and is now applying them to the gridiron.

Linebackers coach Nate Faanes praised Houston for his communication, mentorship and coaching ability by always watching his fellow players’ reps, even when they’re not on the field.

“On the field, he’s physical,” Faanes said. “(He) can run, does all the things right. He’s smart. He’s got good instincts.”

Prior to his redshirt junior season, Houston had 10 total tackles to his name. Just two games into 2021, he’s already recorded twice that total. Even if his time at Ohio got off to a rocky start, Houston climbed from the bottom to become a leader for the Bobcats.

“He’s had a lot of adversity,” Faanes said. “I think he’s done a great job of handling that, and a lot of growth came out of that. I’m really proud of him for that, because of how frustrating it is.”

@ELIFEAZ EF195418@OHIO.EDU

Ohio’s Bryce Houston (#32) tackles Duquesne’s Max Baker (#75) at the Ohio versus Duquesne match in Peden Stadium.

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Ohio’s Ella Bianco (#14) kicks the ball during the Ohio versus Northern Kentucky match at Chessa Field on Thursday, Sept. 9, 2021. Ohio lost 1-0.

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NICHOLAS WHITE FOR THE POST

After starting the season off 3-0, the Bobcats recovered from their two-match losing streak with a 3-1 win over Cleveland State on Sunday afternoon at Krenzler Field.

Both teams started out strong defensively, as neither Ohio nor Cleveland State found any solid looks on goal. Ohio’s persistence on offense eventually led to a goal later in the first period, as Isabella Ginocchi landed one over Annie Jackson to chalk up her first goal of the season.

Ohio came out of the first half with the same energy, leading Abby Townsend to sneak one right above Miranda Thomas to increase the lead to 2-0. Cleveland State felt the pressure and began to play more aggressively on offense.

Ja’Maya Ward ended up landing a goal for Cleveland State in the bottom left corner to shorten Ohio’s lead to 2-1 in the 59th minute.

After battling back-and-forth in the second half, Ohio sealed the match with a goal from Haley Miller to increase the lead to 3-1.

The goal was her first of the season as well.

Coach Aaron Rodgers and his squad made a statement Sunday after falling short in their two previous matchups. Cleveland State looked outmatched offensively throughout the contest, as it only mustered up four shots on goal compared to Ohio’s 11.

Ohio controlled the tempo for the majority of the match while not allowing Cleveland State to find any rhythm. Ohio’s strikers, led by Townsend with three shots on goal, proved to be too much for Cleveland State’s defense to keep up with.

The Bobcats improved their record to 4-2 and will look to capitalize off this win.

Ohio will make a seven-hour road trip next Sunday to North Carolina as it faces 4-3-1 Western Carolina.

@NICHOLASWHIITE NW163519@OHIO.EDU

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

It’s time to come together to end COVID-19 Your community needs your help!

For the first time, the local health systems across Athens, Fairfield, Gallia, Hocking, Jackson, Madison, Mason (WV), Meigs, Noble, Pickaway, Ross, Scioto, Vinton and Washington counties are coming together to ask for your help.

With the latest surge in COVID-19 cases, our hospitals, emergency departments and urgent cares are hitting record numbers. Many of the patients requiring hospitalization are experiencing a higher degree of illness than we have seen in the past, and this is taking a toll on our associates. We are concerned with what the coming weeks will bring, and we want to continue to provide the care our patients need, when and where they need it.

What we are experiencing is very real. It isn’t a political issue; it’s a medical issue. When we look at our patient data, a vast majority of hospitalized COVID-19 patients have not received the COVID-19 vaccine.

COVID-19 does not discriminate. It impacts all ages, races and sexes. The virus will spread – even to those who are healthy. We do have ways to reduce exposure to COVID-19 and brace against a full-blown infection. You CAN use a mask AND, if you are 12 and

older, get VACCINATED.

We need your help to protect yourself and your loved ones.

At times, we are all asked to put others before ourselves. During the pandemic, our call is no different.

Using our knowledge of science and compassion to help others, we ask that you act soon. Help us change the trajectory of COVID-19 for our communities by protecting yourself and your loved ones.

By masking and becoming fully vaccinated, we will be able to drastically slow down the rate of spread and ultimately, COVID-19’s potential exposure to you.

Our communities have experienced so much loss due to COVID-19. As our teams console families who have lost loved ones, we have heard many say – “we never expected COVID to create such heartache and loss.” Sadly, this loss has moved some to become vaccinated themselves.

Historically our respective county residents have banned together during times of struggle. That’s what we love about the resilience and grit. Whether it was a fire, tornado or flood, you have stepped up to support one another in times of crisis. We ask that you do that again. Our communities are in crisis. We

ask that you rally together and extend grace instead of being divided. The leaders of your community hospital are joining hands to fight for our community’s health.

Please join us for the betterment of your loved ones and our communities.

Jeff Graham, President & CEO, Adena Health System J. Scott Cantley, President & CEO, Memorial Health System John R. “Jack” Janoso, President & CEO, Fairfield Medical Center Tim Colburn President & CEO, OhioHealth Berger Hospital Stacey Gabriel, President & CEO, Hocking Valley Community Hospital LeeAnn Helber, President, OhioHealth O’Bleness Hospital Michael Canady, President & CEO, Holzer Health System Ben Gill, President & CEO, Southern Ohio Medical Center Dana Engle, CEO, Madison Health

PONDERING WITH PATTERSON

The magic of concert returns LAUREN PATTERSON is a junior studying journalism at Ohio University In 2020, many events set to take place were postponed or canceled altogether to ensure safety and overall feasibility. Anniversaries or commemorations factored around dates would be recelebrated, which can certainly be unfortunate in terms of sentimentality but lucky, in general, for those events able to be rescheduled. Concerts fell victim to this event grouping, such as Alanis Morisette’s Jagged Little Pill 25 Year Anniversary Tour, initially set to kick off in June 2020 in Portland, Oregon.

The 31-date North American tour, initially set to be accompanied by Liz Phair and Garbage, was postponed May 8, 2020. In June 2021, new rescheduled and added dates were released with the tour beginning Aug. 12, 2021 in Texas. In July 2021, Liz Phair announced that she will not be joining the tour and that Cat Power would accompany in her place. The Jagged Little Pill “26th Anniversary Tour” would go on, and having been in possession of tickets since 2019, I was more than thrilled

and grateful to attend in Cuyahoga Falls last Wednesday.

Cuyahoga Falls’ Blossom Music Center, an amphitheater venue with plenty of undercover seating alongside a large lawn seating area, hosted the show. The lawn packed up quickly, as did the GA area and regular, standard seats. Tickets for the initial Cuyahoga Falls show from July 23, 2020 were honored at the event, as were the later released mobile tickets. Regardless of the purchasing time frame for tickets, one thing that every single person there shared was the anticipation of live music.

Alanis opened the set with “All I Really Want,” coexisting with her harmonica, armed and ready. To say that it was perfect would be an immense understatement: opening the show with the album’s opening guitar riff.

Concert magic at it’s finest, everyone in the audience screamed right along with her. It was a phenomenon I was grateful to feel again. The first four songs were from Jagged Little Pill, and the 23-track setlist included not only the album played in its entirety but also other new and old tracks. Jagged Little Pill’s anniversary was commemorated beautifully, as was the magic of live music.

There were no real crowd favorites of the evening.

The classics like “Ironic” and “Hand in My Pocket” sparked a lot of attention, but every song was appre-

ciated and adored. The crowd remained lively all evening, amping up in energy following Garbage’s set and carrying through Alanis’ encore. While the show was a little different than a usual concert due to pandemic restrictions, one thing that did not change was those prepared to split before the encore to avoid traffic. A fair amount of people employed this tactic, with a majority of us riding it out until the end.

Even with missing out on the exact anniversary date, the celebration of Jagged Little Pill lived on. It was an incredible feeling to see a show again and to be able to safely reschedule and put on the tour is a process not without gratitude and appreciation for every person involved. Live music is a gift, and this show captured that perfectly.

Lauren Patterson is a junior studying journalism.

Please note that the views and ideas of columnists do not reflect those of The Post. Want to talk to Lauren? Tweet her @lpaatt.

THEPOSTATHENS.COM / 19

5 tips for better skin care in college HANNAH CAMPBELL ASST. OPINION EDITOR College is stressful enough. We are constantly on the go with classes, extracurriculars and social lives. Add in the Athens water quality, and it’s a recipe for disaster when it comes to skin care.

Before coming to Athens, I never really struggled with skin care problems; that all changed when I came to campus. Since then, I’ve had to re-evaluate my routine and adapt to both the water quality and the chaos that is college.

Whether you need a new product to moisturize with or an entirely new routine, here are five tips for better skin care:

GET BACK TO BASICS

It’s easy to have a huge skin care routine, considering the wide variety of products out there. However, it may overwhelm your skin and irritate it even more. While your skin is adjusting to the Athens water or even just stress, ditch the 12-step skin care routine, and opt for more basic products.

A simple skin care routine to start with is a cleanser, toner and moisturizer. Cleansers like Clinique and Cetaphil are great examples because they have mild, non-irritating formulas and are great for sensitive skin. As your skin becomes used to its surroundings, whether it be the Athens water or stress in general, then you can gradually add more products to your routine.

SPRAY AND SET

I originally had oily skin, but ever since I moved to Athens, my skin has become extremely dry. I could apply moisturizer in the morning and by afternoon my skin is dry again. If you have the same problem, facial sprays are a perfect skin pick-me-up whenever you need extra moisture.

Sprays like thermal spring water calm and soothe the skin after setting, without completely drying out your skin. For specific times throughout the day, I use the Mario Badescu facial spray collection. Each spray in the set can be used for a specific time of day to help boost your skin.

MASK UP

Once you’ve established a solid skin care routine, it’s time to add in some more products.

Take 20 minutes a week to do a replenishing face mask. Face masks can

20 / SEPT. 16, 2021

ILLUSTRATION BY MALAYA TINDONGAN

increase hydration to the skin, calm inflammation and help with dark spots.

The mask that’s best for you depends on your type of skin. If you have dry skin, exfoliating masks will help remove dead skin and soothe your skin. If you have oily skin, clay masks remove excess oil and help with acne. Whatever mask you pick, make sure you don’t do it too often. Otherwise, you will end up making your skin worse.

TAKING OFF YOUR FACE

This next tip seems like an easy one, but it’s probably the most important. It can be hard to remember after a long day or night of going out, but taking your makeup off at night is essential to prevent clogged pores and acne breakouts.

Makeup wipes and towels should be

used for facial makeup, as they won’t leave excess residue on your face. For eye makeup, use a strong liquid remover to get off that stubborn mascara. Your face will thank you in the morning for doing so.

EAT YOUR GREENS

It’s easy to fall into the habit of unhealthy eating in college, but eating junk food like pizza and deep-fried items can actually cause excess oil production on your skin. Keeping a healthy diet can help with skin care immensely.

Eating more fruits and vegetables can improve skin tone, protect skin from damage and contribute to collagen production. Some of the best items to eat include berries, spinach, carrots and tomatoes. It’s a simple and inexpensive

way to keep your skin glowing.

@HANNAHCMPBELL HC895819@OHIO.EDU

will be so evident which chapters you’re most compatible with based on both you and the current members’ similar personalities, values and life experiences.

During preference round, take a look around the room and ask yourself if you could see yourself not only laughing but also crying with and sharing your most embarrassing moments with the girls surrounding you — because it will happen. If the answer is no, that chapter is not for you.

4. DON’T JUST FOLLOW YOUR ROOMMATE

It’s typical to want to join a chapter just because your roommate does. A lot of time, this is for familiarity reasons and so it’s not as awkward to branch out and make other friends once you’re initiated. The best advice to follow, though, is to not talk about your feelings regarding recruitment with your roommate.

The two of you may be destined to join other chapters, and that’s OK. Greek life is a community, meaning just because your best friend or roommate is in another chapter doesn’t mean you can’t remain close. In this situation, the only person you need to be thinking about is yourself, and there is no shame in that.

5. TAKE GOOD NOTES

ILLUSTRATION BY MARY BERGER

7 sorority rush tips to calm your nerves EMMA DOLLENMAYER ASST. BEAT EDITOR Girls, it’s rush season, meaning nerves are escalated, questions are rising and doubts are setting in. Recruitment is not intended to bring feelings of anxiety, though.

The rush process is intended to be enjoyable and the beginning of a new chapter in one’s college career.

With that being said, it’s completely normal to be nervous and ask questions such as, “Will the girls like me?”

“Will I like them?” “Am I going to find my home?” and “Is this journey even worth it?”

The answer to all of these questions is yes, if you trust the process, be true to your values and remind yourself of all the wonderful benefits of being in a sorority. Don’t fret: OU rush is nothing like Alabama RushTok. Here, it’s a lot less intense but still tiring nonetheless, as it is a four-day, all-day venture. With the right mindset and some ample advice, you will be set and ready to take on each house with confidence and elation. Here are seven tips to remember when going through recruitment:

1. HAVE AN OPEN MIND

Before even beginning the recruitment process, a lot of girls will think they know which house they want to call home on Bid Day. There is nothing worse than beginning

Welcome Day believing you know which house you want to rush.

It’s important to walk into each chapter reminding yourself that the girls inside could be your potential sisters. With an open mind, you allow yourself to connect more deeply with others and be unbiased throughout the process. Each chapter brings a unique perspective and personality to the Greek community as a whole. Therefore, while going through recruitment, it’s valuable to be open to what each house has to offer.

2. DRESS FOR SUCCESS

When you look good, you feel good, and being confident during recruitment is key. When exuberating self-esteem, you are likely to be more reassured in your conversations and, through those meaningful discussions, you will find which house best fits you.

A lot of newcomers will mistake “dressing for success” as an equivalent to dressing expensively and extravagantly when, in fact, it just means looking presentable, as one would do for work or an interview and, ultimately, wearing what permits you to feel most comfortable.

3. BE YOURSELF

This tip may seem unusual at first, but it will be your saving grace. On the first day of recruitment, you will be given a booklet including all of the houses and some information and fun facts about each.

The days are long, so after visiting the last house on day one, you might not quite remember how you felt after visiting the first house earlier that morning. Hence, taking notes on how you felt after the round, describing what you liked, what you didn’t and what kind of conversations you had will help you when it comes time to rank your favorite chapters.

6. DON’T BE DISCOURAGED

Recruitment is a mutual selection process. However, you obviously can’t join every chapter, and every chapter doesn’t have room to take all 300 girls, meaning when you get your list back each morning of rush, don’t be discouraged or drop out of the process just because you don’t get to revisit a house you really liked. Everything happens for a reason, so stay positive, know you are right where you’re supposed to be and that the end result will be well worth it.

7. BE KIND

Lastly, and most importantly, be kind. For starters, the current members recruiting are just as nervous as you are and will be searching for those effortless conversations to ease their nerves as well.

Give every member your undivided attention and act engaged, even if the house might not be your top pick. All of these girls have put in so much preparation time to be ready to meet you, so make both of your times worthwhile.

If you are interested in rushing this weekend, beginning Sept. 18, visit OU’s CampusDirector website to sign up.

@EMMADOLLENMAYER ED569918@OHIO.EDU

As cliche as it sounds, it’s true. Being fake and pretending to be someone you’re not is only going to hurt you in the end. Let your true self shine through, and it THEPOSTATHENS.COM / 21

the weekender Ohio Pawpaw Festival celebrates local ecology, promotes sustainability ISABEL NISSLEY SLOT EDITOR

The 23rd annual Ohio Pawpaw Festival will be held at Lake Snowden in Albany on Friday through Sunday As a celebration of the local pawpaw trees and fruit, the festival incorporates pawpaws into almost all of its events – from a pawpaw cook-off to a pawpaw beer tasting.

Chris Chmiel founded the Pawpaw Festival to “educate people and get people excited” about pawpaws. It began as the Albany Pawpaw Festival, then evolved to become the Ohio Pawpaw Festival. Although a number of other communities host pawpaw festivals as well, the Ohio Pawpaw Fest is one of the larger, older events.

“I think it’s a unique draw,” Chmiel said. “I mean, a lot of people have never had a pawpaw. They don’t know what a pawpaw is, so it’s a unique reason to travel somewhere.”

In 2019, around 10,000 people attended the Pawpaw Festival, Chmiel said. In 2020, the festival did not happen, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This year, with the pandemic still occurring, organizers have had to adapt festival plans to incorporate coronavirus safety procedures. Although the event is outside, the Pawpaw Fest recommends that everyone wear a face mask.

The festival has changed in many ways over the years, but one aspect that has remained consistent is the Pawpaw Festival’s commitment to sustainability.

Through a partnership with Zero Waste Event Productions, the Pawpaw Festival is working to send no waste to the landfill this year. “(The Pawpaw Festival is) one of the events that is pretty wholeheartedly committed to doing all that they can to reduce waste,” Tyler Bonner, CEO of Zero Waste Event Productions, said.

In the past, the Pawpaw Festi22 / SEPT. 16, 2021

val incorporated a solar-powered stage and reusable beer glasses into its eco-friendly efforts. Expanding on those initiatives, food vendors at the 2021 Ohio Pawpaw Festival will utilize compostable plates, utensils and lids.

There will also be resource recovery stations located throughout the festival. At the stations, volunteers will sort waste, deciding whether the discarded goods should be composted, recycled or put in the garbage. Chmiel hopes that this year, the festival is able to operate without sending any waste to a landfill.

“It’s important to me, and I think it’s important to the tribe of people that come to the Pawpaw Fest as well,” Chmiel said.

Because of the pawpaw’s regional prevalence, many Ohio University students are familiar with the trees. Aimee Chambers, a junior studying communication studies, is from West Virginia.

She remembers learning what pawpaws were when she was young. Now, Chambers associates them with home.

“I have a plethora of pawpaw trees in my backyard and scattered over our property,” Chambers said in a message.

“Since pawpaw trees are native, almost everyone I know from my hometown can recognize them.”

Chambers has never been to the Ohio Pawpaw Festival, but she was interested in the idea of it.

OU students can take a free shuttle from Baker University Center to the Pawpaw Festival all weekend. The first bus departs from the bottom of Baker at 5:30 p.m. on Friday, and the final bus leaves the Pawpaw Fest at 3 p.m. on Sunday.

The Ohio Pawpaw Festival begins Friday at 4 p.m. and ends Sunday at 5 p.m. Admission to the festival for the weekend is $40. Day passes for Friday or Sunday can be purchased for $15, and a day pass for Saturday can be purchased for $20. Tickets can be found online.

Valerie Garrett embraces the heat and sweat as she sets up her Pawpaw Tree vendor tent at the Pawpaw Festival in Albany, Ohio, on Friday, Sept. 13, 2019.

(NATE SWANSON | DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY)

IF YOU GO WHAT: The Ohio Pawpaw Festival WHEN: Friday, 4 p.m., through Sunday, 5 p.m.

WHERE: Lake Snowden, Albany, Ohio ADMISSION: Weekend pass is $40.

Friday-only pass is $15. Saturday-only pass is $20. Sunday-only pass is $15. Kids aged 12 and under are free. Parking is free.

@ISABELNISSLEY IN566119@OHIO.EDU

WHAT’S GOING ON?

Get COVID-19 vaccine at Heritage Hall; view OU student-produced play ANASTASIA CARTER SLOT EDITOR

FRIDAY, SEPT. 17 Mass Vaccination Clinic at Heritage Hall at 8:30 a.m., hosted by Ohio University, 191 W. Union St. Get vaccinated against COVID-19. To make an appointment to get the vaccine, visit gettheshot.coronavirus.ohio. gov, use Access Code B4P8PAQMNO, search for ZIP code 45701 and select an available appointment slot. Walk-ins are welcome, but making an appointment in advance will reduce wait times at the clinic.

Admission: Free “In This Space: Disrupted” at 12 p.m., hosted by OU’s Women’s Center and Division of Diversity and Inclusion, Trisolini Gallery, Baker 405. View a survivor-centered art exhibit. Fabric panels, created by survivors, hang from the ceiling of Trisolini Gallery, making visible the often-anonymous spaces in which interpersonal violence occurs. Featuring 14 contributors, “In This Space: Disrupted” names locations of both violence and healing space.

Admission: Free Campfire Madness at 11 p.m., hosted by OU’s College of Fine Arts, 7 S. College St. Explore otherworldliness and reality in Eryn McVay’s play, Campfire Madness. Although the play starts at 11 p.m., attendees are advised to arrive in Hahne Theater’s Kantner Lobby around 9:30 p.m. or 10 p.m., to increase the likelihood of getting a seat. Masks are required in the theater.

and goods at the farmers’ market.

The market accepts SNAP, credit cards and wholesome wave. Masks are recommended, and social distancing protocols are in place.

Admission: Free Passion Works Pop-up Shop at 12 p.m., hosted by Passion Works Studio, 20 E. State St. Shop a variety of local art and view the Passion Works Studio gallery. The parking lot, where the event will be hosted, is accessible. Attendees must wear masks. Refreshments and snacks will be available for purchase nearby at the Ornery Vet Cafe.

Admission: Free ACC Offroad Park Open Ride at 12 p.m., hosted by Athens County Crawlers/ACC Offroad Park, 4751 Gun Club Rd. Come to the ACC Offroad Park for an open ride. Participants can bring Jeeps, trucks, buggies and SxS’s. Motorcycles and four-wheelers are not permitted.

Admission: $20 per rig, $5 per passenger

SUNDAY, SEPT. 19 “One in/ and Seven” at 12 p.m., hosted by Majestic Galleries, 20 Public Square, Nelsonville. Engage with art that takes many different forms, from ceramics to photography. The OU School of Art and Design and the Majestic Galleries in Nelsonville are hosting “One in/and Seven,” an exhibition that brings together seven adjunct faculty from OU who are also alumni of the School of Art and Design. Artists include Terry Kolb Davis, April Felipe, Cassidy Brauner Jarrahi, Mateo Galvano, Courtney Kessel, Elisa G. Smith and Basil Masri Zada.

@ACARTER3602 AC732319@OHIO.EDU

Scripps Ampitheater ACOUSTIC SHOWCASE

MEGAN BEE

Tea with the VP from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., Athens Farmers Market at 9 a.m., hosted by the Athens Farmers Market, 1002 E. State St. Shop for locally grown and locally made foods

SUPERHERO 5K

This is a hybrid event. You Ohio LIVE & the Campus can complete your 5k in any Involvement Center are fashion, anytime from Sept pleased to present a free 17 through Sept 19 and post outdoor music series Acoustic Showcase, curated your pictures online using the hashtag #AthensCASA5k.

by Bruce Dalzell.

In-person run Sept 18 at the With support from Richland Avenue Park.Check The Ohio Arts Council in 8am. Race at 9am. & Jackie O’s $35.00 Race Fee + $3.03 Thursday Sep. 16th SignUp Fee

6:30 pm

Free & Open to the Public

IN THIS SPACE: DISRUPTED

THE BAND OF ASSES: A DONKEY BARISTA SHOWCASE

Friday, Sep. 17th 8-9:30 pm donkeycoffee.com FREE SHOW

Organized and sponsored by the Women’s Center, Survivor Advocacy Program, Health Promotion, Ohio University Art Galleries, Ohio University Alumni Association, Department of Geography. With support from Counseling & Psychological Services.

Through Sep. 18th The Market on State

Tues. & Sat. 12-4 Thurs. 3-7 Free & Open to the Public

ART MARKET

at the Athens Farmer’s Market Find hand-crafted jewelry, pottery, paintings and prints, yarn, lotions, quilts, eco-printed clothing, silkscreened t-shirts, wooden tables, boxes, bowls and more!

Locally made by members of the Athens Art Guild.

Saturday, Sep. 18th 9 am - 12 pm Masks required

ADVERTISE SMALL BOX 15 per week

$ $

200 per semester messaging can be updated weekly, TEXT ONLY

LARGE BOX

$25

per week

$300

per semester

text can be updated weekly, logos, specialty https://runsignup.com/Race/ fonts and spot color OH/Athens/AthensCASA5k IS INCLUDED Trisolini Gallery Baker University Center

Admission: Free

SATURDAY, SEPT. 18

HYBRID EVENT

FRIENDS OF ATHENS CASA

ADVERTISE

20 S.Court St. 740.594.7382 NOW SHOWING SHANG-CHI

CANDYMAN THE LOST LEONARDO SWAN SONG

▸ showtimes change daily ◂ Tue - Fri: 4:00 til 8:00 Sat - Sun: 2:30 til 8:00

check the website for showtimes, to purchase tickets, and for UPCOMING EVENTS & SERIES

athenacinema.com

College Green - West Portico

OHIO BRASS Concerts on the Green are presented by the OHIO Performing Arts Series, OHIO College of Fine Arts, OHIO School of Music, and the Division of Student Affairs with support from The Ohio Arts Council and Envisage Wealth.

Wednesday, Sep. 22nd 6:30 pm Free & Open to the Public

Kennedy Museum of Art

LACUNA

This exhibition is an intermedia collaboration between Mateo Galvano, a multimedia conceptual artist, and C. David Russell, whose practice includes performing objects as well as scenic and costume design for theater.

Through Mar. 6th

FREE ADMISSION check the website for a schedule of virtual opportunities

ohio.edu/museum

Find More News, Sports, Culture @ thepostathens.com

THEPOSTATHENS.COM / 23

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