Author: TheTranscript

Swim & dive win boosts morale before conference

By Jesse Sailer, Sports Editor

Ohio Wesleyan men and women’s swim & dive came out on top at their final triangle meet before conference starts.

OWU men’s swim & dive ended the meet with a total of 796 1/2 points compared to Oberlin College’s 432 and Notre Dame College’s 293 1/2. With the women finishing with 740 points over Obelin’s 277 and Notre Dame’s 195.

Junior Ben Whitbourn and sophomore Colin Hawes led men’s swim & dive with three event wins each and key performances in two relays.

Whitbourn won the 100 backstroke in :56.10, the 50 freestyle in :22.14 and the 100 IM in :56.71. He also finished second in the 50 backstroke.

“We had come off of lots of tough training the previous weeks but despite this the team performed well,” Whitbourn said.

Hawes won the 1000 freestyle in 10:32.00, the 500 freestyle in 5:03.38 and the 400 IM in 4:35.49

Both Hawes and Whitbourn along with junior Chris Ruiyantoro and sophomore Aman Ngqakayi won the 200 medley relay in 1:39.01 and the 800 freestyle relay in 7:23.96.

Multiple wins for OWU also came from Ruiyantoro in his :24.15 50 butterfly and :25.63 50 backstroke as well as a second place 50 breaststroke.

Ngqakayi won the 100 breaststroke with a time of 1:01.21and won the 200 breaststroke in 2:18.01. He also finished third in the 100 butterfly.

Freshman Trey Serbin gave a diving performance that accumulated him a total of 220.58 points off the one-meter board and 237.75 off the three-meter board.

“It was good to bring the regular season to a close on a high note entering a critical point in the season prior to conference,” Whitbourn said.

Sophmore Ty Mansfield and junior Alicia Margello each won two events and helped the relay team towards a first place finish of 1:54.04.with fellow swimmers sophmore Liz Mayio and freshman Emily Fulmer.

Margello won the 50 breaststroke in :32.21 and the 100 breaststroke in 1:10.55 while Mansfield took first in the 50 backstroke with a time of :28.44 and first in the 100 IM with a time of 1:03.43

“Everyone produced really good times and had some really close races, we performed really well for the end of the season,” junior Alicia Margello said.

Multiple wins came from freshman Abby Culbertson who won 100 and 200 backstroke with times of 1:04.76 and 2:19.50. She also finished third in the 50 backstroke.

Other standout performances came from junior Shannon Bermingham who won the 200 breaststroke in 2:38.47, junior Allie Niemeyer who won the 1000 freestyle in 11:51.48 and sophmore Qiukui Moutvic who won the one-meter diving competition with a score of 191.40 points

Train crashes continue to increase at rapid pace

By Kienan O’Doherty, Editor-In-Chief

Believe it or not, some modes of transportation need to slow down.

Earlier this week, Sunday at 2:35 a.m., an Amtrak operated train transporting passengers from New York City to Miami crashed into a unmanned freight train, killing two people and injuring over 100. This has been the latest in a series of crashes on the tracks.

The crash was caused by a CSX Transportation freight railroad crew failed to flip a switch back to the mainline setting after pulling its freight train onto the side track. They then reported that they had in fact switched it, which didn’t turn out to be the case.

From 1996-2018, there have been seventeen train related crashes. Nine of those have been by an Amtrak-operated train. The most recent crash before this was in Tacoma, Washington, where a train careened of the track on Amtrak’s inaugural run on a new route for its Cascades service. The crash killed three people and injured 70 others.

The worst part is, according to an article written by Teddy Kulmala and Sammy Fetwell at The State, the crash could have been avoided.

“[Robert Sumwalt, chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board] said the accident could have been avoided if a federal safety system, under consideration for years, had been in place. The system is supposed to slow down trains when a problem lies ahead on a track. He called the damage to the trains “catastrophic.”

This incident however, doesn’t call for a federal safety system. Instead it calls for Amtrak to reconsider their safety culture. According to a National Public Radio article: Last November, at an NTSB meeting to announce the results of the investigation into a fatal Amtrak crash outside Philadelphia in April 2016, Sumwalt blasted the railroad for its “lax” attitude, saying “Amtrak’s safety culture is failing, and is primed to fail again.”

As the culture of transportation is becoming more and more important and widely viewed, both companies and crews alike must work together to examine every aspect of safety they can. If they don’t, these terrible and fatal crashes will continue, and they will have no one to blame but themselves.

Bishops victorious in duel against Lords

By Kienan O’Doherty, Editor-In-Chief

The Ohio Wesleyan men’s basketball team is back on track after a victory over Kenyon College last Saturday at Branch Rickey Arena.

The game started tight, with only one instance where a team lead by more than 4 points during the first 10 minutes of play, Sophomore guard Jared Gerber broke that stretch, connecting on one of his five 3-pointers, giving the Battling Bishops a seven-point lead around the halfway mark of the first half.

The Lords clawed back and cut the lead down to three before senior guard Seth Clark sank in a 3-pointer, followed by a pair of free throws by senior post Adam O’Brien. Clark would also connect on free throws and scored a lay-in, and senior guard Nate Axelrod layed one in to extend the margin to eleven.

The Bishops was as many as 15, but the Lords wouldn’t go away. A Ben Stern 3-pointer cut the lead to 46-37 late in the first half, but the Bishops again countered on 3-pointers by senior guard Will Orr and Clark, stretching the lead to 58-39.

The lead would remain no less than 17 points throughout the rest of the contest, with the final score 108-82. Axelrod led all scorers with 28 points while collecting 9 assists, tying the school record for most assists with 616. Clark finished with 15 points and 7 rebounds.

Senior guard Law Jones saw a lot of positives the Bishops could expand on during the victory.

“Our energy and effort showed a lot of improvement, [and] we are realizing that we are going to have to play a lot harder to reach our common goals,” Jones said.

Orr believes that there is still a lot of work to be done based on team expectations.

“Our expectations for the rest of the season is to take care of our own business, don’t worry about anyone else and just focus on ourselves,” Orr said. “We are still in decent enough shape to accomplish our preseason goals if we buckle down and do the dirty work.”

The Bishops travel to Wooster on Saturday, Feb. 10 in a rematch of last-year’s conference tournament final. The game is slated to start at 4 p.m.

Jenner shocks public with baby announcement

By Maddie Matos, A&E Editor

Part of the world was shocked, while others felt they knew it all along.

Kylie Jenner had her baby.

The announcement came on Saturday afternoon, with a tweet of a video, and following up with a second tweet with an image explaining why Jenner hid the pregnancy.

The video documented Jenner’s pregnancy journey, with footage of doctor appointments and the baby shower. The video also had clips of different friends and family members telling the baby many positive encouragements about themselves and their mother.

The video also announced that the baby is a girl, with rapper Travis Scott being the father. The name was not revealed, only the birthdate and gender.

The second tweet from Jenner explained the reasoning for keeping her pregnancy private.

“I knew for myself I needed to prepare for this role of a lifetime in the most positive, stress free, and healthy way I knew how,” Jenner said.

The decision to hide the pregnancy from the world was met with an outcry of support from many people. Millions of people tweeted the news and offered their congratulations and respect for the new mother.

There were people who did not respect the decision, leaving negative comments about the pregnancy, saying it is a poor decision for someone so young to have a child, or that she should have shared this with the world.

I find that Jenner did what any young mother would want. She kept her pregnancy to herself and allowed everyone in her life to enjoy the experience with her. Pregnancy is a personal and powerful experience, one that is also individualized for people as well. Every pregnant woman has the right to handle it how she wants, and Jenner is entitled to that treatment.

By keeping herself out of the spotlight, she gained the respect of mothers everywhere, who want to shield their children from the world for as long as possible, and to enjoy this time in their lives. This baby has every right to lead a private life with its parents until they decide what is best for the child. No one should impose on that or even question that right.

The birth of this child has brought to life the privacy and humanity that celebrities have, and it is something I respect and admire Jenner for.

 

 

Professor of comparative literature honors grandfather

By Kienan O’Doherty, A&E Editor 

Kicked out of Russia, thrown on a train to China are just two of the many events in the life of George Sokolsky Sr..

As part of Ohio Wesleyan University’s Commemoration of the 100 year anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution, Anne Sokolsky,  chair of the department of comparative literature, discussed her grandfather and his travels through China as well as his experience in print journalism. She also discussed how each chapter of his life was by force, and not by choice.

George wrote a column titled “These Days,” which was syndicated in more than 300 U.S. newspapers. But he wasn’t the most popular man among NYC intellectuals who tended to be socialists. He supported controversial politician Joe McCarthy, and was the only journalist who did at the time. His friends called him a genius, but his enemies preferred to call him the “Jewish Rasputin of China” because his relentless foe of communism.

Anne Sokolsky said she understood why he supported such a controversial politician.

“My grandfather, who worked as a journalist witnessed first hand the Bolshevik take over of Russia and then the rise of Communism in China, by the time my grandfather returned to the U.S. (He had to return. Someone tried to kill him),  he was convinced of two things. 1) Communism was awful. 2) Americans were too naïve about it,” Sokolsky said. “My grandfather felt that the Americans in the U.S. who believed in Communism were “armchair” Communists who had no understanding of Stalin’s real motives.”

George Sr. started his career as a journalism student at Columbia University in New York, in which later he got thrown out. He also was a ghostwriter for Herbert Hoover (who also spoke at OWU).

His granddaughter, Anne, is now writing a book about him and his exploits.

“The working title of the manuscript is “They Called Him Sok: A Granddaughter’s Search for Her Grandfather Journalist George E. Sokolsky Through Archives, Memorabilia, and Family Lore.” At this point, I envision the book to be a biography of my grandfather told through the third person,” Sokolosky said. “The introduction and epilogue will be told through my voice (first person) and I will begin each chapter with a vignette in which I write in my voice in a semi poetic-creative style about an object of my grandfather’s that ties in with the point of each chapter.”

Additionally, George was also involved in Sino-Japanese relations from the late 1910s to 1931, Sokolsky said. He worked for Sun Yat-sen and knew Chiang Kai-shek.

“As a child, my dad remembers playing chess with Madame Chiang,” Sokolsky said. “The big question seems to be whose side was my grandfather working for? Was he a Chinese sympathizer, Japanese sympathizer, or both? Different scholars have different opinions on this matter. I am trying to figure this out a bit more.”

Game shows ugly side of football

By Kienan O’Doherty, A&E Editor 

Targeting in football is a penalty given to someone who hits a defenseless player above the shoulders. But after last night’s game, it is more than just a yellow flag thrown on the field.

Monday night, the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Cincinnati Bengals, longtime conference and division rivals, battled to a 23-20 Steelers win. And while the score is important, it’s what happened during the game that caught people’s attention.

Now, the Steelers-Bengals rivalry spans decades. It always is a hard fought, very physical game. But this time around, it turned one of the National Football League’s most underrated rivalries into a war decided by who would get the biggest headshot. In an article written by Sean Wagner-McGough on cbssports.com, he said this isn’t what football is about.

“What matters is that a Steelers-Bengals game once again devolved into the kind of game that shouldn’t exist in today’s NFL,” Wagner-McGough wrote. “It was the kind of game that made loving football difficult.”

With the Steelers mounting a comeback in the fourth quarter, receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster hit Bengals linebacker Vontaze Burfict with a head shot that technically served as a block. While Burfict is usually the one that delivers dirty and controversial hits, on Monday night, he was the victim of a hit so dirty, it won’t be considered controversial. It was a hit that knocked Burfict out of the game

To make matters worse, Smith-Schuster was only flagged, but not ejected.

But the game went on. The drive continued and it ended with a Steelers touchdown, when Brown came down with a six-yard catch that tied the game. But it wasn’t a normal touchdown. Not just because of the catch that Brown made, but also because of the hit he suffered as he came down with the football when Bengals safety George Iloka hit Brown—a defenseless receiver—hard and high.

Sporting News writer Vinnie Iyer believes that the NFL has cracked down on these instances, but the Steelers and Bengals are two teams that haven’t adjusted well.

“At a time when the NFL needs to reduce dirty hits and headhunting for the sake of its perceived sputtering, harder-to-watch product, those teams continue to stand in defiance, which created an even worse look in one of the league’s prime-time television showcases,” Iyer wrote.

Safety should be the highest priority in any sport, and when the most physical American sport has this much bad-blood and teams try to handle it this way, this raises concern for both fans and future players alike.

Music professor performs with “Queen of Soul”

By Kienan O’Doherty, A&E Editor 

When the opportunity to perform with a music legend comes along, it’s difficult to pass up.

Such was the case with Ohio Wesleyan professor and trumpeter Larry Griffin, who had the opportunity to perform with singer Aretha Franklin at the Elton John AIDS Foundation’s annual New York Fall Gala last month.

The gala came at an opportune time because Griffin had seen Aretha perform earlier in the fall.

“This year, in June, I had tickets to hear Aretha perform in Chicago, but she cancelled because she was ill,” Griffin said, “So I was able to see her in September, as well as go backstage and do a little meet-and-greet, which was fantastic.”

Franklin had also mentioned to Griffin that Chicago would be her last performance. But musician Elton John convinced her to come back and perform once more.

“Aretha said she would do one more, but she wanted it in a small setting, and wanted all the musicians that she wanted to have,” Griffin said. “She wanted to handpick them.”

Griffin’s close friend, Marshall Seele, got the contract and called Griffin, asking if he wanted to do it, and with some persuading by his wife, packed his bags to New York.

“I was very happy to receive the call,” Griffin said.

Griffin’s track record reveals he has the skills to perform at an event of this magnitude. He has performed all over the world, featuring three European solo tours and two Chinese solo tours, as well as in 42 states and Australia.

What amazed Griffin the most was how many celebrities were in attendance.

“Sting was there, Bill Clinton was there as well and he spoke,” Griffin said. “He’s super laid-back. The room was just filled with celebrities that were in support of Aretha and the foundation.”

The foundation held the gala at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City, and it raised more than $4.4 million to support HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment, supporting services, and advocacy programs across the United States, the Americas and the Caribbean.

Griffin said he would play for Franklin again in a heartbeat, and that she certainly has earned the respect of the music community.

“She did her thing, and she loves to perform. Everybody certainly knew the Queen was there,” Griffin said. “But you have to respect her and what she has accomplished in her career, and how many people she has touched, she truly is the Queen of Soul.”

Financial deficit imminent for 2018-19 academic year

By Reilly Wright, Photo Editor 

Current financial projections for the 2018-19 Ohio Wesleyan school year predict a deficit of $3 million that will cause expenses to be decreased or revenue to be increased.

From 2016-17 and 2017-18, OWU’s Board of Trustees approved endowment draws of more than $3 million to balance the projected budgets, but they expect the estimated $6.5 million total drawn to be paid back.

The fiscal 2018-19 does not anticipate an endowment draw. Thus, the current budget for the coming year currently forecasts a deficit of approximately $3 million. Lauri Strimkovsky, the vice president for finance and administration and treasurer, leads the budget projection and said balanced budget comes to either increasing the revenue or reducing expenses.

“Vice President Strimkovsky is leading us in a review of various options available to increase revenue and reduce expenses in order to achieve a balanced budget,” President Rock Jones said. “This will be an ongoing process over the coming weeks and months.”

Strimkovsky’s assessments show an expected focus on expenses including outsourced services and high-spending areas, including investigating health care for potential savings. Compensation-related elements such as salary and benefits will be examined while non-compensation expenditures such as major contracts and spending patterns will be reviewed.

Strimkovsky said this process of expenditure evaluations will involve large investigations as well as collaboration across OWU in coming months. While income items will be reviewed, such as accuracy in financial aid projections and growth in summer school enrollment, so will outcome items with housekeeping, Anthem Blue Cross and food services.

“This will not be a painless process as budgets at the individual department level will have to be reduced,” Strimkovsky said.

Strimkovsky said this budget process is in the beginning stages and a projected deficit so early is not unusual, but this large of a gap should be addressed now.

“Good stewardship and a commitment to financial sustainability dictate that we have a balanced budget; no institution can sustain deficit budgets over the long term,” Strimkovsky said.

The largest area for compensation is health insurance with an Insurance Committee currently looking into various plans that still provide good service with lower costs. The OWU health plan is self-funded up to $110,000 with no effort to develop a profit with the process.

Strimkovsky said Ohio Wesleyan’s budget is often observed by other institutions, banks and the U.S. Department of Education as a measure for financial health. Donors, students and parents use a balanced budget to determine their decisions in contributing to OWU.

 “Our goal will be to implement reductions, while maintaining the high quality education and student life that is expected by our students and their families,” Strimkovsky said. “Again, this won’t be easy, but I am certain that, through collaboration, we can develop a realistic balanced budget.”

New dining service may be introduced

By Kienan O’Doherty, A&E Editor 

With Ohio Wesleyan growing bigger by the day, meeting student needs becomes more of a challenge.

Chartwells, which has been Ohio Wesleyan’s main food vendor since 2011, has been getting negative reviews from students and faculty alike, and soon may be out of another client, although nothing is certain yet.

The decision to put OWU’s dining program out for proposals has been in the works for a while and there are a lot of factors behind this decision, said Lauri Strimkovsky, vice president for finance and administration and treasurer.

“We made the decision to put our dining program out for proposals based on negative student feedback about the dining program, as well as the results of a study conducted by campus dining,” Strimkovsky said.

Senior Paul Heithaus, who has witnessed Chartwells change throughout his years at OWU, has seen little improvement, but said that food solutions are different for this generation of incoming students.

“I’ve seen a slow level of improvement in Chartwells during my time here,” Heithaus said. “With that said, I believe it’s time for Ohio Wesleyan to go in a different direction. The profile of the incoming student at OWU is evolving and the food solutions should naturally do the same.”

Junior Austin Strauss said he believes the diversity of food isn’t as big of a factor as it should be.

“To be honest, in the beginning it really wasn’t too great, then they made a few changes and it got a tiny bit better,” Strauss said. “Hamilton-Williams Marketplace (Ham-Will) has always had good food just not much diversity,and they seem to serve almost always the same thing. This year, for the omelettes, they don’t cook them in front of you either, which leads to the decline of student interaction with employees. Smith Hall for me just never seems to have high quality food, but the best part is when they cook food in front of you.

But he added that he thought there were some positives.

“The one thing I will say is Bishop Cafe has some of the best food on campus, with a decent selection, and daily changes in the special of the day,” Strauss said. “But overall, the food here has been very generic, and the food selection is pretty repetitive.”

Multiple administrators from OWU recently visited schools with top 10 dining programs to determine their decisions. Dwayne Todd, vice president for student engagement and success, saw many changes while visiting, particularly at schools he saw were similar to OWU.

“At two of the campuses, which are much like OWU, we observed that their main focus was on quality over quantity in terms of the menu offerings and amount of food on the line,” Todd said. “Dishes are chef-inspired and innovative. They are purchasing much of their ingredients from local suppliers and build the menu around what items are available at the time. A third campus we visited is a large state institution that is consistently ranked as the top program in the country, and while they also emphasize quality, they also pride themselves on variety and convenience.”

Strimkovsky also visited the top 10 schools with Todd and saw more students involved in the dining service as well.

“​We saw more made from scratch cooking, more use of locally sourced foods, higher quality of food offered, more students employed by the operation, meal plans that better met the student needs and hours of operation that better met the student needs,” Strimkovsky said.

Chartwells is still allowed to bid during the process, and Steve Ishmael, senior director of dining for Chartwells, said he fully believes in the relationship between the program and school.

“Chartwells is proud of our relationship with Ohio Wesleyan University and very much looks forward to being part of the bid process,” Ishamel said. “The University is making a smart business decision in ensuring they have the right partner for the future of dining at OWU.  We welcome the opportunity to tell our story and working to continue our partnership.”

Ishmael said he also believes that the some of the changes made this year have been a success.

“It is a continual process,” Ishmael said. “You can look around all of the facilities to see some of the physical changes we have made this year from painting, pictures and menu boards in Bishop CafĂ©, to the upgrades in Smith, plus the big efforts on social media to continue to keep students informed about what is happening in dining services.”

Chartwells has increased their salary every year since 2011, going from $4,956,674 that year to$6,163,317 in 2015.

“If Chartwells isn’t chosen in the bidding process, the school could lose money,” President Rock Jones said.

An in-house dining service could be a possibility to look into, but Strimkovsky said she believes it would be better long-term.

“​An in house dining program could be a possibility in the future, but not in the short term,” Strimkovsky said. “Running a food service operation of this size is complicated and would need extensive strategic planning to bring on line. Our plan is put out the Request for Proposals, select a food service provider that is able to provide the quality food service program we want to offer to students.  We will then assess, down the road a year or so, whether we want to consider a self operating dining service.”

Career Services offer after hours help

By Meghann Dunning, Transcript Correspondent 

Students of Ohio Wesleyan University are now being offered career help . . . after hours.

With students having busy schedules during this time of the year, the Career Services office is offering help 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Tuesdays in either Beeghly Library or Stuyvesant Hall.

Regular office hours for Career Services are still from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Hamilton-Williams Campus Center in Room 324.

Career Services “provides career development, planning and job search assistance to students and alumni,” according to the Office of Career Services’ mission statement.

“Through individual counseling, creative programming and technological services, we help students to identify and enhance networks and skills necessary to achieve career goals and to become actively engaged in a global society.”

Career Services has been offering help to students for many years. Career help after hours gives members of Career Services a chance to connect and implement services to meet the needs of the campus.

“We decided to bring back career help after hours as we have in previous years as an opportunity to meet students and provide assistance during times they may be more available,” said Joshua Lisko, OWU’s career coach.

“We know that office hours work for many students, but some just cannot make it in during the time frame we have now, so we are doing more to come to students.”

The student staff members of Career Services have been trained to supply a high level of career related services sothey can assist in meeting the needs of their fellow classmates.

“I think it is very helpful and useful,” Kayla Richard, a senior at OWU, said. “I have classes all day and play two sports; I don’t really have enough time to get the career help I need, but now that it is later, I can finally go.”

Richard went to Career Services for her resume. They helped her update it with correct content, articulation and better structure. She learned on to how to best present herself to an employer.

As a result of adding more hours for career help, career services are hoping to connect to more students and provide them with assistance.