Author: Gopika Nair

President’s Club to host trilogy event with Jason Barger

By Gopika Nair, Editor-in-Chief

Author, keynote speaker and leadership consultant Jason Barger will speak at Ohio Wesleyan at 8 p.m. on March 2 about his experiences as a CEO and the inspiration for his work.

The event is hosted by President’s Club and will be held in the Benes rooms in Ham-Will. The Leadership Committee created a list of potential speakers in fall 2016 and considered a diverse list of people, said sophomore Addison Stern, leadership director of the committee.

“Our quest was to engage and secure a keynote speaker who would enrich the OhioWesleyan community with impressive personal stories relating to persistence, creativity and a desire to lead through integrity, character and in the spirit of giving back,” Stern said.

Barger led more than 1,700 people to construct 125 houses internationally for families living in poverty, according to his website. In 2004, Barger was one of five people in Columbus, Ohio, to receive a Jefferson Award, a national award given to “ordinary people doing extraordinary things.”

Stern said he read about Barger’s success story in Columbus CEO, where he was recognized as a “Small Business CEO” and got in touch with him.

In addition to the talk, President’s Club will host a reception with Barger at 7 p.m. in the lower Zook Nook. The event is also a trilogy event for men who are affiliated with Greek life, said senior Lee LeBeouf, president of President’s Club.

According to Stern, a trilogy event is one where a certain percentage of Greek men from each house are expected to attend.

“[Barger] graduated from Denison, is a well respected servant leader, who is passionate about culture change, leadership development and service—definitely relatable to the Greek community and OWU community at large,” Stern said.

Stern also said the power in Barger’s message stems from the number of participants who can hear the message and spread it across campus.

Faculty Meeting: Faculty vote to approve changes to curriculum

By Gopika Nair, Editor-in-Chief

Faculty voted to allow Human Anatomy (ZOOL 329) for permanent addition to the zoology program and also approved changes to the curriculum for music majors at the faculty meeting Feb. 20.

Ohio Wesleyan’s music department requested “alterations to music courses, the addition of specified general education distributions and adding a foreign language requirement,” according to the meeting agenda.

The changes will give students a greater opportunity to take courses across the curriculum, said Provost Chuck Stinemetz.

“I don’t think it’s a net increase in the number of courses they have to take as much as creating space for them to potentially take courses outside of music,” Stinemetz said.

At the meeting, President Rock Jones said Kathy Boles Smith ‘71, a member of the Board of Trustees since 2011, and her husband Alton Smith have funded $500,000 for faculty support. The Smiths had also created a faculty support fund in 2014.

According to an email Jones sent to faculty Feb. 21, “The creation of Kathy and Alton Smith Endowed Fund for Scholarly Leave will allow the selected faculty member a semester away from classroom responsibilities to complete work on an established significant professional project.”

Jones also said some international students are concerned about going home for the summer, according to Tom Wolber, associate professor of modern foreign languages.

“[They are] worried about what will happen once they go home … What if they can’t come back? What if they are stopped at the border?” Wolber said. “We don’t know what [Donald] Trump and his administration will bring, but things could be much worse months from now.”

OWU doesn’t currently offer provisions for housing or food specially for international students during breaks. But Jones said he would look into housing concerned international students on campus over the summer, according to Wolber.

Additionally, six professors who started teaching at OWU in 2011 were granted tenure at the faculty meeting.

The professors included Sarah Bunnell, assistant professor of psychology; Sally Livingston, assistant professor of comparative literature; Scott Kelly, assistant professor of zoology; Glenda Nieto Cuebas, assistant professor of modern foreign languages; David Eastman, associate professor of religion; and Katherine Glenn-Applegate, assistant professor of education.

During the Board of Trustees’ retreat in Florida, the board and the eight faculty members who attended discussed OWU’s 2,020 by 2020 plan in more detail. Wolber said the board is enthusiastic, but some members of the faculty are unsure about achieving the 2,020 goal in the next three years.

Wolber said the admissions report, given by Susan Dileno, vice president for enrollment, was similar to last year’s, but OWU has seen a growth in the number of international student applicants.

Come October, OWU will also celebrate its 175th anniversary. The state of Ohio originally awarded OWU its charter on March 7, but festivities won’t take place until October during homecoming weekend.

The next faculty meeting will be held March 27.

*This story was updated on March 7, 2017 at 2:06 p.m.

Third OWU SLUplex construction underway

By Gopika Nair, Editor-in-Chief

Come fall semester, a new Small Living Unit (SLU) will emerge on the block.

The third SLUplex is going to be located at 110 Rowland Ave. between 94 and 118 Rowland, according to an email from Wendy Piper, assistant dean of student af- fairs and director of residential life at Ohio Wesleyan University.

Members of House of Spiritual Athletes and Tree House will reside in the new SLU-plex when it opens in fall 2017, said Dwayne Todd, vice president for student engagement and success.

“The SLUs are an important part of our campus, and with the continued decline of the condition of many previous SLU homes, it was time to relocate them to new facilities,” Todd said. “We plan to build four SLU buildings, each one housing two SLU communities, and are constructing them as funding becomes available.”

Todd said the funding for the third SLU-plex came from “a generous donor who will be named publicly soon.”

In Piper’s email to members residing in Inter-Faith House, Sexuality and Gender Equality House, Peace and Justice House and House of Linguistic Diversity, she said the new SLUplex will be similar in size and features to the current SLUplexes, but will have a slightly modified designed and a different color palette.

All the SLUs share similar features and will house 12 students, but each will have design aspects that are distinctive from the other SLUs, Todd said.

“Just as our SLU communities are all unique, we wanted to be sure to preserve some unique features to each SLU building that houses them,” he said.

The timing of the fourth SLU’s construction is yet to be determined.

WCSA Today: Senate passes a bill to appoint archivist

By Gopika Nair, Editor-in-Chief

The Wesleyan Council on Student Affairs (WCSA) passed a bill to appoint an archivist at its full senate meeting on Feb. 13.

Though the archivist would be a part of WCSA, the position is a separate entity from the student government, said WCSA President Chris Dobeck, Ohio Wesleyan junior.

“Any self-respecting institution has a way to keep track of its history,” Dobeck said at the full senate meeting on Feb. 6, when he introduced the possibility of assigning an archivist.

“Unfortunately, one of the big problems we’ve discovered in this administration and administrations prior is that we can only remember what happened in WCSA as far back as we have a connection to somebody who is in WCSA,” Dobeck said.

Dobeck drafted the bill to appoint someone who would “drudge through OWU’s history” to research what WCSA has done in the past, he said.

The archivist won’t have voting powers, but can attend Executive Committee meetings. An archivist will be chosen from a pool of applicants in the near future.

Additionally, revisions were made to the Budget Committee’s budgetary guidelines to fund new uniforms for the men’s rugby team.

The rugby team requested $1,342.50 for uniforms.

Treasurer Kristen Nooney, junior, said the guidelines had to be amended because the wording stated that clubs and sports can only receive funding for new uniforms every four years.

But club sports that are defined as contact sports, like rugby, can receive uniforms after six active seasons, Nooney said.

Since the rugby team played six seasons in three years, 95 percent of the team’s requested amount was funded.

The next full senate meeting will be Monday, Feb. 20 in the Crider Lounge in Ham-Will.

Lessons in raspberry puff pastries and journalism

By Gopika Nair, Editor-in-Chief

Alongside an Everest of newspapers sits a magenta booklet on my parents’ coffee table back home. The booklet is a compilation of articles my dad wrote for his weekly column “Puff Pastry” when he was a 30-something, mustache-sporting journalist with a Walkman.

The booklet emerges only when my parents are in the middle of a spring cleaning extravaganza. Perhaps to abate my cleaning-induced griping, my mom would hand me the collection of articles when I was younger, often accompanied by the words, “Your father writes about you in many of his stories.”

Either I was too young to understand my dad’s words or too trapped in a solipsistic teenage bubble to appreciate it, because I don’t remember the stories having an impact on me until recently.

As my mom was heading to bed a little after midnight on New Year’s, she found the booklet in a box she’d unpacked. “You can get inspired,” she said this time.

Indeed, poring over my dad’s words as a listless 20-year-old at 3 a.m. sparked something that wasn’t just inspiration but also a renewed fervor for journalism.

The Transcript staff expends a considerable amount of energy and time on this publication, even though we, frankly, miss the mark sometimes (actually, according to Paul Kostyu’s critiques of our print editions, we miss the mark a lot).

So, it’s pretty easy to feel drained.

Ask any editor who was a part of The Transcript in 2016 and they’ll probably tell you this paper has been their greatest source of frustration. But maybe, they’ll also tell you it’s been a great source of joy.

We’ve designed pages until 5 a.m., written stories long after our brains had turned into mush, neglected schoolwork, fallen asleep in The Transcript office and we continued to do it all over again every other week.

I’m not going to pretend our commitment to the paper was born solely out of our passion for journalism; we’ve all thought about quitting at one point or another and sometimes, the only thing that kept us in The Transcript office until the wee hours of the morning was our obligations.

But ultimately, all those sleepless nights spent working in The Transcript office proved to be rewarding. The field of journalism isn’t a platform for self-indulgent writers (barring op-eds and columns), and that’s exactly why I respect it.

We, as editors, can (and do often) grumble about the hours we spend designing pages and writing stories only to yield mediocre results in the end. But journalism supersedes us and our petty complaints. We don’t matter; what we do is about everyone else.

The Transcript, in particular, has been memorializing the Ohio Wesleyan community since 1867 through news articles that pertains to the campus.

Over the years, we’ve covered theatre and dance productions, lectures sponsored by various departments, club events, notable achievements, the student government and faculty meetings to bridge any gap that might be created by lack of transparency. We continue to devote our energy to exactly that.

The Transcript will celebrate its 150th anniversary Oct. 1, 2017. Before then, my aim is to improve the overall quality of The Transcript. I’m prepared for the all-nighters ahead of me and the gray hairs I’m inevitably going to find by the end of my term as editor-in-chief. I’m prepared for the highs of working with and learning from the new editorial staff and the lows of egregious typos we won’t catch. I’m prepared for failures and successes and more failures. I’m prepared for everything that might come The Transcript’s way because as much as this paper has been the greatest source of frustration in my life, it’s also given me the most joy.

Trump’s immigration ban

By Gopika Nair, Editor-in-Chief

President Donald Trump’s executive order on immigration could affect international student enrollment at Ohio Wesleyan, especially among Muslim applicants.

The number of Pakistani applicants is up by 78 percent for fall 2017, according to an enrollment update by Susan Dileno, vice president for enrollment at OWU. The update was sent as an email to faculty on Jan. 19. Trump signed an executive order Jan. 27, barring citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the U.S. for 90 days.

The ban extends to students and visitors with valid visas as well as green-card holders. The seven countries include Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.

When Sean Spicer, White House press secretary, was asked why Pakistan and Saudi Arabia weren’t included in Trump’s order, he suggested it could be included at a later date, according to ABC News.

“We are communicating with our admitted international students and telling them that OWU is a welcoming and safe place,” Dileno said. “We intend on organizing a chat for applicants and we will be creating a video that features a recent graduate from Pakistan.”

Dorota Kendrick, assistant director of the International and Off-Campus Programs office, said no current OWU student is a citizen of any of the seven banned countries, according to the IOCP’s service list.

In response to Trump’s order, President Rock Jones sent an email to the campus community on Jan. 30, writing that “a diverse student body adds to the breadth and depth of all learning and is vital to our collective efforts to understand and address the world’s most pressing issues.”

Twice during Jones’ tenure, the president of the Wesleyan Council on Student Affairs has been Muslim, he said. The two most recent additions to the Board of Trustees are also from Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Sophomore Ali Chaudhary, a U.S. citizen who was born in Pakistan, said he is worried about what this ban will mean for international students who are in the U.S. on student visas.

“Hopefully, the ban is only temporary and it results in making the country safer,” Chaudhary said. “However, America has a history of being accepting to immigrants and that’s what made it so special to a lot of people in the world and I hope this ban doesn’t signal the end of that.”

Ji Young Choi, associate professor of politics and government at OWU, said the possibility of Trump’s immigration ban being ruled illegal by the courts is low because legal disputes will arise and that would be time consuming.

“I think the U.S. government has a right to determine who can get in and get out across the American border,” Choi said. “But what is problematic is President Trump’s executive order is based on a specific religion and particularly national origins … It is legally very controversial and definitely goes against American values like openness, freedom, diversity and tolerance embedded in the U.S. Constitution.”

Trump’s executive order could also incite anti-Americanism feelings in many Middle Eastern countries and terrorists groups might take advantage of that, according to Choi.

Junior Jannat Mazari said the order could make international students rethink their post-graduation plans, especially if they had intended to stay in the U.S.

“It’ll put them on edge not knowing if their country will be next,” Mazari said.

Protests haven’t taken place on OWU’s campus, but senior Emma Nuiry, a member of the Peace and Justice House (P&J), said she knew of members from the P&J house who went to protests held at John Glenn Columbus International Airport.

“It’s hard not to feel hopeless and scared, but I think resistance involves persistence,” Nuiry said. “It will get worse before it gets better … [Change] can be institutional like [Trump] is doing, but I believe that massive change happens on the individual, interactional and collective level, where smaller groups get together and create relationships across differences and build coalitions of solidarity.

“I find comfort in the groups he is uniting by trying to demonize and oppress them. The key is to show that when some of us don’t have power, none of us do.”

WCSA Today: Spring budgets funded

By Gopika Nair, Copy Editor

Ohio Wesleyan’s Campus Programming Board (CPB) requested $200,000 for Bishop Bash 2017, but was granted $25,000 at the Wesleyan Council on Student Affairs’ (WCSA) last full senate meeting.

CPB intended to have Twenty One Pilots, a band from Ohio, perform at Bishop Bash. WCSA’s Budget Committee initially funded the programming board $45,000.

At the Dec. 5 senate meeting, Treasurer Daud Baz said though CPB planned on hosting a “big Bishop Bash,” the Budget Committee decided to grant $45,000 because that gave CPB enough funds to host a good event despite the fact that Twenty One Pilots was “completely off the table.”

Sen. Ryan Bishop argued that $45,000 was a large sum for an event that students might not even attend. Following more discussion, members moved to lower the funded amount to $25,000 and the amendment passed.

President’s Club also requested $60,760 to invite either J.K. Rowling or Evan Spiegel, the CEO of Snapchat, to speak at OWU. The Budget Committee funded the club $24,218.

Baz acknowledged that the granted funds wouldn’t be sufficient for President’s Club to bring Rowling or Spiegel, but it was enough money to fund another “big speaker.”

Overall, clubs requested $471,645 for spring 2017 and total funds approved by Budget Committee was $199,668.

At the meeting, WCSA’s executive of officers also addressed that CPB would receive $40,000 for general programming funds as opposed to $25,000. This allocation amount is based on past figures CPB has requested.

“While WCSA is dedicated to quality programming on campus and recognized CPB as a crucial element of campus life, all funds requested beyond the guaranteed $40,000 … per semester are to be distributed at the discretion of WCSA Budget Committee and the WCSA Full Senate,” said a revised copy of the Campus Programming Board Agreement Terms Resolution.

As per the new agreement terms, CPB is exempt from standard rollover procedures. Unspent money will remain in CPB’s account until the board decides how to spend it.

WCSA’s Budget Committee will have $168,664 left for clubs and organizations next semester after recently funding spring budget requests.

Pres Ball celebrates 31 years

By Gopika Nair, Chief Copy Editor

Over the last 31 years, Ohio Wesleyan underwent several changes, but President’s Ball remains an unchanged, annual holiday tradition at the university.

President’s Ball is a formal dance event attended by students, faculty and staff, and is typically held the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Since the ball’s inception in 1985, the only differences are the addition of a late-night DJ and the location.

Originally, the event was held in Slocum Hall, but relocated to Schimmel-Conrades Science Center because moving the tables in Slocum to make space for the ball was inconvenient, said Nancy Rutkowski, director of student leadership and involvement at OWU.

However, many aspects of President’s Ball have stayed the same over the years.

“It has always been sponsored by the President’s Club, the Jazz Band plays, there is great food and the price has stayed the same ($5 per person) for [31] years,” Rutkowski said.

The ball was created at the suggestion of then sophomore Gay Grossman ’88. Former OWU President David Warren wanted a spirited, holiday event, so he encouraged the idea, Rutkowski said.  

In 1985, Grossman planned the first President’s Ball and eventually married her date, Steve Grossman ’87, according to the OWU website. Now, the gala is organized by the President’s Club and features a cocktail hour for the senior class.

The ball’s directors choose the theme every year in conjunction with the committee and the President’s Club, Rutkowksi said. One of the themes she said she liked best was “Celebrate Colorfully.”

“Everyone was encouraged to wear bright colors and it turned out great,” Rutkowski said.

The theme for the 2016 President’s Ball is “Take Flight for the Night” and will be held from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m. Saturday, Dec. 3 in the atrium of the Schimmel-Conrades Science Center. The event will feature music provided by DJ Matt Ryan and OWU’s Park Avenue Jazz Band.

President Rock Jones said he and his wife Melissa enjoy attending the ball every year and appreciate the work put forth by the President’s Club who planned the event.

“We enjoy the cocktail reception with seniors prior to the ball, the music of the Park Avenue Jazz Ensemble, the dancing of students alongside emeriti faculty and staff and the enormous energy and holiday spirit that fills the hall,” Jones said. “President’s Ball is a special OWU tradition that attracts a large portion of the OWU family. We are looking forward to Saturday evening.”

How to get away with not doing homework

By Gopika Nair, Chief Copy Editor

Sometimes students catch a cold and have to miss class. Sometimes they don’t hand in assignments because of a spontaneous printer malfunction. And sometimes, students just can’t attend required events because they’re behind bars.

Bonnie Gardner, former professor of theatre at Ohio Wesleyan University, said a student told her he couldn’t attend a performance because he was serving time in jail all weekend.

Though surprising, the excuse was true. The student received a traffic ticket and was required to serve jail time. Since he was an OWU student, the judge let him do his time during the weekends so his grades wouldn’t suffer.

“He was a decent student,” Gardner said. “He was very straight with me and gave me all the details, so I had no reason not to believe him.”

Other outlandish excuses have also proven legitimate. Carol Neuman de Vegvar, a ne arts professor, said a student approached her holding a damp, damaged paper with tooth marks.

“The dog really did eat it,” the student said, sounding sad, according to Neuman de Vegvar.

She said she believed the story because she trusted the student.

Some professors received excuses that were more vivid than needed. John Stone-Mediatore, a lecturer in the department of comparative literature, said one student told him he couldn’t make it to class because he had a bad case of explosive diarrhea.

“I just couldn’t believe that a student was giving me that information,” Stone said. “But on the other hand, assuming that it was honestwhich I don’t always assumeI appreciated the student’s honesty.”

Another student told Stone he had to miss class because he had been arrested for underage drinking in public and had to go to court.

Conversely, Erin Flynn, associate philosophy professor, said he once sent a drunk student home from a morning class. One of the oddest excuses Flynn received involved a student who went home, which was out-of-state, because her dog had died, he said.

“This was like a mixture of  ‘my grandmother died’ and ‘my dog ate my homework,’” Flynn said.

Technology seems to be a culprit for many missed classes and assignments.

Joe Musser, professor emeritus of English, said he has not been skeptical of such excuses, given his own problems with technology.

But Elane Denny-Todd, a theatre professor, said most of her students tend to rely on technological-related excuses, such as an inkless printer or crashed computer.

“It’s as if students know that there is a set vocabulary for selling excuses,” she said in an email.

Some students are more creative than others and have provided outrageous excuses to earn a better grade. Bob Gitter, an economics professor, said a student from Libya had received a C plus in one of his classes.

He told Gitter that if he didn’t get a B minus, he would lose his scholarship and get deported to Libya, where the followers of Muammar Gadda , former “Revolutionary Chairman and Brotherly Leader” of Libya, would kill him.

“It was the only time in 40 years at OWU I changed a grade that was not due to a clerical error,” Gitter said.

Students make excuses that are believable, shocking and unoriginal. But after many years teaching, the excuses are often professors’ favorite stories to tell.

WCSA Today: Senate passes amendment to close meetings

By Gopika Nair, Copy Editor
Election season is forthcoming both in the U.S. and Ohio Wesleyan’s student government.
The Wesleyan Council on Student Affairs (WCSA) is currently accepting applications for executive positions, including president, vice president and secretary, for the 2017 calendar year.
Senior Caroline Anderson, secretary, said WCSA hadn’t received many applications for the positions thus far and urged current members to spread the word about available positions at the Oct. 31 meeting.
Election for executive and senator positions will be held Nov. 11 and 18 respectively.
WCSA also recently passed an amendment to its constitution to allow closed meetings. For the first time at its Oct. 31 meeting, WCSA advisers, those unaffiliated with WCSA and The Transcript were asked to leave while the student government discussed a budget.
Following the closed session, junior Ryan Bishop of the Public Relations Committee, proposed including members from Student Inclusion Advocacy Committee (SIAC) to OWU’s Search Committee.
Two members from SIAC should be included in the search for high-ranking positions such as vice president, dean and director of administrative division, while one member should be included in the search for at least two faculty searches per year, Bishop said.
Bishop’s proposal passed.
At WCSA’s Oct. 24 meeting, senior Diana Muzina of the Student Life Committee said the committee had arranged to meet with Chartwells and OWU’s vegetarian club to discuss including more vegetarian options for students.
Muzina also said the green containers in Hamilton-Williams Campus Center are only getting a 3 percent usage and encouraged other members to spread the word about using it more.
Toward the end of the meeting, Dwayne Todd, vice president for student engagement and success and one of the WCSA advisers, said the administration has been discussing residential fees for students who stay over breaks, but nothing has been finalized yet.