Wesleyan Players produces six plays in 23 hours

By Liz Hardaway, Arts & Entertainment Editor

In the span of 24 hours, six plays were written, directed and performed at the Studio Theater in Chappelear Drama Center Saturday, Oct. 29.

With six playwrights, six directors and 12 actors, six plays were created out of thin air 23 hours before the curtain rose. The only direction the group was given was a specific line, a gesture and a prop they had to include in their performances.

The event was held to preview the work of a possible new Ohio Wesleyan club Wesleyan Players.

“[The Wesleyan Players] are exploring different kinds of alternative forms of theater we don’t get a chance to work with usually,” said junior Hailey LaRoe, the president of Wesleyan Players.

One form of the alternative art form was an impromptu 23-hour play festival called Instant Theatre, suggested by junior Rachel Scherrer.

Directors and playwrights were paired together at 9 p.m.on Friday night, and actors were given their scripts the next morning. The rest of the day included directing, organizing and figuring out the technical aspects of each of six plays.

Even though the playwrights had a little bit of direction, themes ranged from a mutual boyfriend of siblings, millennial aliens, a woman obsessed with gummy bears and even a play about writing a 23-hour play.

For such a short time-frame, overall the event went smoothly, said junior Audrey Castañeda Walker, an officer of the club.

They are hoping to make this event an annual tradition to give even more students the opportunity to enhance their skills outside the classroom, as well as give more and more students performance opportunities.

Wesleyan Players was a performing arts group on cam- pus nine years ago, rebooting this year to give students the opportunity to bring people in the theater department who may not be able to fully commit to the department, while also experimenting with different types of theater in a fun setting, said LaRoe.

The prop used for these instant plays was a blue, light-up handheld gummi bear, which Lennon used as the end of the fairy-godmother’s wand to grant Cinderella’s wishes.

Debt-free plan proposed could affect students

By Liz Hardaway, Arts & Entertainment Editor

Hillary Clinton’s debt-free college plan could be detrimental to Ohio Wesleyan’s future.

Clinton proposed a “New College Compact” plan, a guaranteed debt-free college experience influenced by the platform of former Democratic nominee Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Va).

Not only is this beneficial for future students “to pursue their dreams,” but Clinton also plans to offer immediate relief to current student debt, which nationally exceeds $1 trillion, according to “The New College Compact” briefing on Clinton’s website.

For public university students, the plan assures a future where students will not have the need to take out loans to fund their education. This includes free tuition and fees at four-year schools for students coming from families who earn up to $125,000, as well as free tuition for anyone, at all income levels, for community colleges.

As for private school students, interest rates in student loans will be significantly lowered so “the government no longer profits from college students,” the plan said.

The cost of this program is estimated at $500 billion over 10 years, paid by “those at the top” by closing tax loopholes and expenditures, said the plan.

What does this mean for private schools?

A study conducted by the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce concluded that enrollment at private colleges would drop by an estimate of 11 percent.

With the enrollment dropping from 1,717 to 1,650 students since the 2013-14 school year, OWU has made great strides to improve enrollment and retention of students. In February 2016, OWU’s Board of Trustees passed the resolution to support the enrollment growing to 2,020 students by 2020.

But if the “New College Compact” plan passes, enrollment could drop by 117 to 250 students.

“There isn’t any doubt in my mind that if we’re going to drop another 11 percent, it would mean wholesale, big changes at the university,” said Susan Dileno, the vice president of enrollment. “There’s no other place to build revenue, since you’re not getting tuition revenue and the only thing you can do is cut.”

This would mean cutting programs, selling physical assets as well as letting go of staff and faculty.

“I don’t know if there would be any other way to address it,” Dileno said. “It would be pretty drastic.”

For public schools, the opposite would happen.

“Given the lack of analogous cases and the lack of legislative and regulatory specificity in the Clinton proposal, our best informed guess is that the overall impact would be a 9-22 percent increase in enrollment at public colleges and universities,” according to the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce.

Chelsea Clinton, pushing politics since Trump paid taxes

By Liz Hardaway, Arts & Entertainment Editor

Growing up in the White House has a lot of perks, including train- ing Chelsea Clinton to be a political mule.

September 27, National Voter Registration Day, Courtney Dunne, editor-and-chief, and I were con- tacted by Wyatt Ronan, the regional press secretary of Hillary for Ohio, to participate in a press call with Chelsea Clinton. This being a great opportunity, we jumped at the idea.

Little did we know what scarce information this would provide.

Of course, this is politics. Before callers could ask questions to the daughter of presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, Chelsea boasted how proud of her mother she is. The main points she brought up were debt-free college, criminal justice reform and climate change.

Yet, their biggest push right now is in voter registration. Hillary is promoting a robust campaign on college campuses in swing-states.

When talking about debt-free college, Chelsea informed the students on the press call that her mother would enable people who engage in public services, like teachers and firefighters, a three-year grace period before paying back loans, and Hillary is working toward making community colleges completely tuition-free.

“Anyone should be able to go to community college tuition free… anyone should be able to go to public university or college…and graduate debt free,” said Chelsea Clinton.

When students from various colleges started asking questions, Chelsea would relate their names to a family member, or talk about how she had visited their home states, an unnecessary waste of time.

Only five soft-ball questions were answered by the daughter, such as how to get students motivated to vote, policy differences between Obama and her mother (which she only touched on one issue) and how climate change is, spoiler alert, real.

Chelsea even included that every home will be powered by renewable energy by the time her mom hits her second term. I commend her for wishful thinking, but let’s get past this first election.

Though the call ended before I could ask how Hillary planned to pay for debt-free college, Hillary did articulate this plan at a North Carolina rally on September 27.

“We’re going to go where the money is and the money’s at the top”,” said Clinton.

The estimated cost for this initiative is $500 billion over ten years, according to the “New College Compact Breifing” on Clin- ton’s homepage. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget found this is possible through closing loopholes for high-income earners and businesses.

Let’s hope so, Secretary Clinton.

Team OWU wins big at fundraising

By Liz Hardaway, Arts & Entertainment Editor

Team OWU has raised $167,000 more than last year.

The total amount of donations received for Team OWU for the 2014-15 school year was $348,682. This raised the 2015-16 goal to $320,000, compared to the $200,000 goal set five years ago, according to Colleen Garland, the vice president for university advancement.

This was exceeded by a surplus of donations and the fund received $516,000 total in donations, according to the 2015-16 Annual Giving Summary.

“The University is funding about 65 percent of our operating costs in athletics, and the rest is coming from fundraising,” said Roger Ingles, the director of athletics.

Team OWU is the largest source for fundraising for athletics, along with restricted gifts, which is a one-time gift, such as the new tarp given to women’s softball or the new baseball outfield fence. Many coaches run summer camps to raise money and team members participate as well.

“We feel like we’re staffed at the level we need to be staffed … When I first took over, I asked [the coaches] if we want to invest in staffing or the budget … we can fundraise the budget, you can’t hire a coach that easy,” Ingles said.

Team OWU also has two different types of gifts: designated and undesignated. The designated funds go to whichever team or project the donor desires. Undesignated funds are just as important, raising money that may not have access to the alumni connections that longer established teams have, said Ingles.

Athletes work to raise funds as well, such as holding a raffle each year. Each player was required to sell roughly 15 tickets for $10 each to help pay for the football gear, and in turn, that ticket would enter the buyer in a chance to win a prize for each home game of the season, said Evan Guein, a former wide receiver and Jermaine Frazer-Phillips, a current defensive end.

“There’s a high chance you could win,” Guein said.

There is also a 48-hour city challenge held in the spring, an online giving challenge that had alumni from different cities competing to see which city could raise the most money for the Ohio Wesleyan Fund, the overall donation funds for operating the university, said Garland.

Clinton caged in cutout

By Liz Hardaway, A&E Editor

The Delaware County Republican Party headquarters has one message for people window shopping on Sandusky Street: Hillary Clinton is for sale and should be imprisoned.

Before entering the doors of the downtown Republican location, a cutout of Hillary Clinton in a cage is displayed, with a for sale sign plastered on the window, right across the street from their democratic counterpart the Ohio Together office.

“It’s the classic representation of what a lot of republicans think about Hillary Clinton,” said Alex Lutz, a junior and avid republican on campus.  

Holly Adams, an Ohio woman who supports Donald Trump and volunteer, agreed with the sign, stating how Clinton was not an appropriate role-model for young girls. Showing a chart, Adams pointed out the four factors that voters from both sides care about most: jobs, economy, terrorism, national security and healthcare.

Starting with jobs, Adams stated that Trump has created 200,000 jobs across the globe for over 50 years. According to an analysis conducted by CNN Money and PrivCo, which researches private companies such as the one run by Trump, there are only 34,000 jobs attributed to Donald Trump.

Adams also admired Trump for not owing other companies or big-business favors, compared to Clinton who asks her friends for money and uses ten percent of this money for charitable work and “takes the other 90 percent and she and her family and friends fly around the world,” said Adams. The American Institute of Philanthropy concluded, however that 88% of the funds are used for programs and charity.

“We think it’s really important as women that are raising smart, strong nice daughters to understand what kind of role model we want for her and Hillary Clinton is not it,” said Adams.

“She’s the only candidate that stands for access to women’s health care, closing the wage gap and confronting the issue of violence against women” disagrees Sarah Foster, a junior and volunteer for Ohio Together.

“[Clinton] even has a plan for addressing specifically campus-based sexual assault. She’s been a lifelong fighter for women’s rights as well as children’s,” Foster said. “And Donald Trump…has never been anything close to a fighter, for anything other than his own wealth…he runs a campaign based in bigotry and misogyny.”

Republicans, such as Lutz and Adams, admire Trump’s business ethic and think that is a strong asset for his campaign. For small-business owners especially, the re-negotiations of trade deals are believed to bring a lot money into the economy.

“When [Trump] first started running, I was excited that he was not a politician. He tapped into the frustration of the American people…everybody’s bought out by special interest groups” said Lutz.

Republicans are skeptical of Clinton’s involvement with Benghazi and her e-mail scandal.

“The conclusion that I’ve come to is that she was irresponsible with that information. That’s not a virtue of a president, not to mention her liberal policies do not align with how I think,” said Lutz.

WCSA talks budgets at meeting

By Liz Hardaway, A&E Editor

The Wesleyan Student Council of Affairs discussed reducing the student activity fee, proposed updating the furniture in residential halls and revealed their budget plans during their meetings on Sept. 12 and 19.

On Sept. 12, Sam Schurer, vice president of WCSA, informed the council of the budgets for their four accounts: rollback, operating, initiatives and an allocation account. The allocation account is intended to account for 85 percent of the funds. The budgets are $80,000, $4,000, $45,000 and $60,000 respectively.

Schurer also said that the WCSA has a lot more funds than budgeted for.

The rollback account contains $201,995, which was money intended to be pulled out, but wasn’t until this year. This was simply because of miscommunication between WCSA and the accounting department.

The operating account has $61,540, and the initiatives account holds $93,508. Finally, the allocation account used for clubs and organizations on campus has $335,438 more than the $275,000 that the budget entails.

“We didn’t realize where the money was going each year,” said Jess Choate, the president of WCSA.

Each account has its own function within WCSA and the campus. The operating account is used for WCSA elections and advertising campus activities, whereas initiatives provide income for mission trips and campus counseling services.

The allocation funds are used for funding clubs, organizations and budget requests. The rollback account is all the money budgeted that wasn’t used the preceding year. In the past, they’ve used the latter for new hydration stations and the recent ColumBus.

Dwayne Todd, vice president of student engagement and success, also proposed installing new study tables, chairs and soft seating in Welch and Smith Halls.

No new furniture will be added in Stuyvesant Hall because it was renovated recently. New furniture for the Small Living Units (SLUs) are part of the construction budget.

Furniture in fraternities also need to be replaced, but housing agreements for fraternities have to be negotiated, Todd said.

The cost for the installation of new furniture will amount to $164,000.

When a student asked why WCSA should fund the replacement of furniture, Todd said it was because the university does not have the money, but WCSA does.

Schurer said the committee could restructure the budget as they see fit, and he wants to start normalizing the budget to prevent the accumulation of funds from being a pattern.

At the Sept. 19 meeting, the Student Life Committee informed the council that they heard students’ concerns about the Wi-Fi, and are constructing a resolution acknowledging these concerns.

Despite having a surplus of funds, the Budget Committee presented no budget requests, due to the lack of clubs requests for funds.

“Put in requests, as many as you can … speakers, performances, anything. We need to spend that money so it doesn’t go into rollover again,” Daud Baz, treasurer, said.

Mapping history at Stratford Cemetery

By Liz Hardaway, Arts & Entertainment Editor

After closing the plots 128 years ago, the Stratford Eco-logical Center’s cemetery is being restored.

Come spring and fall, busloads of elementary school students are shuttled to the Stratford Ecological

Center to explore the farm. With ample gardens and animals, volunteers guide students through 236 acres to learn about plant life and agriculture. Students might also get a chance to feed the chickens.

At lunchtime, John Tetz, a volunteer, took the kids to Stratford’s cemetery so the kids could eat beside a tombstone put in 200 years ago.

“This is an old pioneers’ cemetery,” Tetz said over an overgrown knoll, splattered with patches of wildflowers and various stones askew.

In October 2013, Stratford started working toward restoring this cemetery and finding out as much as possible about who and what is buried there.

Tetz contacted Liz Barker, a retired librarian from Ashley Library, to begin researching. Some notable names include the original owner of the land, Col.

Forrest Meeker and Capt. James Kooken, both of whom fought in the War of 1812.

The Ecological Center also recruited volunteers to clear out tall trees and overgrown grass, uncovering the private cemetery.

Jeff Dickinson, the executive director/farmer, described the knoll to Tetz as “the cemetery [taking] a life of its own.”

Though volunteers believe most of the cemetery is located on the hill, they aren’t certain. This is where Jarrod Burks, Ph.D., the director of archaeological geophysics at Ohio Valley Archeology Inc., comes into play.

Burks used a transit to map what’s visible above ground, including headstones and footstones.

Along with the help of Bruce Reynard and Jamie Davis, Burks operated a magnetometer and ground penetrating radar to scan what’s below ground.

Switching between above ground and below ground, Burks started this process on Aug. 30, but is topping off the data collection on Thursday with a drone to conduct 3D mapping.

“I have to download the data and make maps of it,” Burks said, whose research should be finalized in four weeks.

With 59 known bodies recorded since the cemetery’s 1816 debut, Tetz said he is skeptical about how many bodies are actually buried.

“I think we’re going to come up with a lot more than that, but who knows,” Tetz said.

Donna Meyer, an avid genealogist and the executive director of the Delaware Historical Society asked Tetz, “So where is Michael Bauder buried? He’s my ancestor.”

Meyer explained how the restoration of the cemetery would help the community learn more about private family farms. Though all buried weren’t related, the deceased had common ground in the paper mill, which started in the 1840s.

“I think anything that makes people excited about history is certainly worth talking about,” Meyer said.

The restoration would also help the Delaware County Historical Society, said Susan Logan, the head researcher at the society. The society only gets a few queries a year about ancestors buried in Stratford, but Logan said she would still like to know.

“We love to know exactly who is buried here and where,” Logan said. “But I don’t know if we’ll find the answers to those questions. We’ll just have to wait and see.”

Authors tells his journey

   Shaka Senghor. Photo courtesy of livingcivil.com.

Liz Hardaway, Transcript Reporter

It’s the 90s, the era of Walkmans and hammer pants. A 19-year-old honor student from East Detroit was just sentenced to 17-40 years in prison for murdering a man in an argument over a drug deal.

Shaka Senghor had “assumed” that his life was over.

After serving 19 years in prison, Senghor is now a New York Times best-selling author, with six books under his belt, including his latest “Writing My Wrongs.” Senghor has appeared on “Super Soul Sunday” and led three TED talks.

Senghor brought his story to the Benes Room in Ham-Will on March 30, pointing out the flaws of the modern prison system in the U.S.

“We live in a society that is very slow to think about what it means to give second chances,” Senghor said.

With more money being poured into prison upkeep rather than the education system, and the U.S. containing 25 percent of the total world’s prison population with a 70 percent return rate after release, Senghor challenged attendees to pay attention to the tax investment Americans make on their prison system.

“If you treat a person barbaric, animalistic, abuse them, degrade them and dehumanize them, the logical outcome is that they are going to get out and do the same to someone else,” Senghor said.

Senghor ran away from his abusive mother when he was 14. As a young honor roll student, he said he hoped that someone would see the smart kid that he was. Soon, a local drug dealer approached Senghor and introduced him to the world of dealing crack cocaine.

“I was way in over my head … Within the first six months, my childhood friend was murdered, my older brother was stabbed, I was robbed at gunpoint, and then I was beat nearly to death and left on a cold bathroom floor … thinking to myself where is my mother, where is my father, and how could somebody allow their child to be gone for so long and not seek them out,” Senghor said.

After getting shot, Senghor started carrying a pistol, determined that the next time he got into a conflict, he would not hesitate to pull the trigger.

On March 8, 1990 the opportunity arose when Senghor refused to sell crack to a stranger. When the argument escalated Senghor shot and killed the man.

After the first five years Senghor was in prison, he had accumulated 25 misconducts and was placed in a maximum-security prison.

Surrounded by inmates who were for the most part serving life sentences, Senghor said he found brilliant life mentors who gave him books and encouraged him to keep learning.

With the high rate of mental illness, minimal recreational hours and seven years of solitary confinement, Senghor attributes his success and sanity in prison to these men.

Senghor wrote his first book in 30 days in solitary confinement, and used a fish line of underwear and socks to send it over to the inmate across the hall to read. After receiving copious amounts of praise for this book, he challenged himself to write his second book in 30 days as well.

Upon realizing his dream to become a writer, Senghor was depressed as he wrote  his third book. His freedom was even more important if he wanted to make his dream a reality.

After Senghor got out of solitary confinement, he found a word processor and would type his first four books 13 pages at a time.

These books were published while Senghor was still in prison, but after three parole hearings, Senghor was released on June 22, 2010. Upon leaving, a guard told Senghor that he would be back.

“There are families being broken … there are human beings that are being thrown away that have real value … if we give them a chance,” said Senghor.

Black Men of the Future (BMF) organized the event, and even made Senghor an honorary member of the organization.

“Our goal is to raise awareness and begin harder conversations that a lot of people are afraid to have,” said senior Aaron Cameron, vice president of BMF.

Lecture series covers the rise of ISIS

Liz Hardaway, Transcript Reporter

When the Taliban launched the 9/11 attacks, the United States’ main goal at the time was to eliminate al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden.

This tunnel vision prevented the recognition of an even more extremist jihadi group expanding in the shadows.

“We have just decided to go beyond crimes against humanity and label ISIS as genocidal,” said Michael Houlahan, a retired foreign services officer and the final lecturer at the Great Decisions lecture series held on March 18 in William Street United Methodist Church.

More than 75 community members gathered to discuss the origins and dynamics of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), with many wondering what the U.S. plans on doing to stop the violent group.

Houlahan emphasized that Arab countries need to put Muslim Arab troops on the ground, but if the U.S. pulled out altogether, ISIS could run rampant.

“There’s no clear road to … protect the country,” he said. “It is a patchwork.”

Due to the unsuccessful efforts of the Arab Spring (democratic uprisings that took place in several Arab nations in 2011), the appeal to join ISIS has grown.

Many longtime rulers were removed from power, such as leaders in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt and Yemen, and citizens were hoping this would lead to improvement.

As time passed and violence increased, however, citizens have become increasingly drawn to the idealistic Islamic State that ISIS promises them.

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi formed the first of many militant groups called Army of al-Sham in the late 1980s under the vision that ISIS has today, according to Houlahan.

The group was disbanded and Zarqawi was imprisoned in 1992, where he began attracting and leading other inmates.

When Zarqawi was pardoned, he came into contact with al-Qaida, which was initially wary and distrustful of Zarqawi. But the two cooperated so Zarqawi could form a training camp in Afghanistan to recruit new members.

Upon establishing a second group, Zarqawi ordered the bombing of the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad as well as a dual car bombing outside of the Imam Ali Mosque in Najaf, one of the holiest sites in Shia Islam, sparking a civil war between the country’s Shia and Sunni populations.

Zarqawi was killed by a U.S. airstrike in 2006, but his vision remained very much alive, Houlahan said. As the new commander, Abu Omar al-Baghdadi announced the establishment of an Islamic State.

Followers wanted to establish the state because they believed the apocalypse was imminent, but both Baghdadi and his head of state Hamid al-Zawi were killed in 2010.

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who claims to be a direct descendent of the Prophet Muhammad became the new head of the Islamic State and continues to lead ISIS today.

“It is true that we have to finish off ISIS,” said Hatim Taj, a Shiite man who attended the lecture. “They won’t listen … but after that … you have to find people who are willing to sit down and have a political discussion or it will just get worse.”