Author: Phoebe Christine Bush

By Margaret Bagnell
Transcript Reporter

On Aug. 31, Ohio became the 36th state to ban texting while driving.

The law states it illegal to send, write or read a text message, talk on a cell phone, use Bluetooth, or other hands free devices, or handle a GPS (it must be hands free), while driving, even if the driver is stopped.

Law enforcement stated they will pay more attention to drivers and will watch for those violating the new law.

They will issue warnings to those who are caught using a cell phone or wireless device while driving for the next six months. Offenders caught after the six months or over will be fined and will have a license suspension placed.

Drivers under the age of 18 found using any electronic device will be fined $150 and receive a 60 day suspension of their license for a primary offense.

Minors caught a second time will then be charged $300 and have their license suspended for a year. Adult drivers caught using any electronic devices will be pulled over for a secondary offense and will be fined $150 for a misdemeanor.

The ban was enacted to make roads safer. But some students said the punishment for texting while driving is harsh.

“I think it is harsh because just looking at your phone and getting pulled over is still considered texting while driving even if you hadn’t sent a message,” junior Brad Ingles said.

Technology continues to advance and its consumers cannot keep their hands off electronic devices.

“Phones have changed so much that it is easier to text while driving,” Ingles said. “Also, people are so addicted to their phones and technological devices we have to know everything exactly when it happens.”

However, students said they are pleased with this new law to make the roads a safer place. Senior David Soohoo said he avoids cell phone use while driving.

“I think we’re crazy to trust people to drive cars going 60 to 70 miles (while texting). The chances of crashing are pretty high. I typically try not to text while I drive, I think it’s dumb to put my life and others at risk because I want to respond to a message that was probably only two words,” Soohoo said.

September 3-9, 2012

9/4/12 5:37 p.m. – Public Safety and Delaware Fire Department EMS were dispatched to Selby Stadium on a report of an injured student. Student was treated on site and did not require transport.

9/4/12 9:05 p.m. – Public Safety and Delaware City Police officers were dispatched to Welch Hall on a report of two suspicious persons in the Belt Fitness Center. The individuals, who were not affiliated with OWU, were cited for trespassing.

9/5/12 1:53 p.m. – Public Safety and DFD EMS units were dispatched to Sanborn Hall on a report of an unconscious person. The individual was transported to Grady Hospital for further evaluation and treatment.

9/5/12 6:36 p.m. – Public Safety responded to Bashford Hall on a report of telephone harassment of an OWU female student.

9/5/12 7:47 p.m. – Public Safety responded to an elevator entrapment in Smith Hall West. Maintenance personnel were called and the elevator was restored to fully operable status.

9/5/12 11:35 p.m. – Public Safety and DPD officers responded to a suspicious person at 10 Williams Drive. The suspect was charged with criminal trespass by DPD. The individual was later found outside Smith Hall and placed under arrest for trespassing.

9/6/12 1:45 p.m. – A report was filed on damage to an OWU student’s vehicle while parked in the Welch lot.

9/6/12 5:28 p.m. – a Bashford Hall resident was transported to Grady ER by Public Safety.

9/6/12 11:30 p.m. – a Stuyvesant Hall resident reported the theft of prescription medication from their room.

9/7/12 11:05 a.m. – Public Safety dispatched to Bashford Hall on a fire alarm. Cause of alarm was burnt food.

9/8/12 12:13 a.m. – Public Safety officers were dispatched to Bashford Hall on a report of a broken window on the ground floor. Witnesses reported seeing an individual kick out the window. An OWU student contacted PS and accepted responsibility for the damage.

9/8/12 2:42 a.m. – Public Safety and the Delaware Fire Department responded to a fire alarm and building evacuation at 30 Williams Drive. The alarm was caused by a closed flue in the fireplace chimney.

9/8/12 8:23 p.m. – Public Safety and the Delaware Fire Department responded to a fire alarm at Hayes Hall. Cause of alarm was burnt food.

9/9/12 8:35 a.m. – a report was filed with Public Safety and the Delaware City Police Department after dining services reported the theft of a cash box from the Smith Hall dining area. Investigation is ongoing.

By Emily Hostetler
Transcript Reporter

Multi-cultural student organizations will mix fashion and fundraising to support Save a Child’s Heart (SACH) at an international fashion show during Family Weekend.

Senior Tammy Winkler, president of Hillel, traveled to Israel this summer on a TIPIT grant to volunteer with SACH, an Israeli-based humanitarian project dedicated to giving children the best cardiac care possible regardless of the child’s nationality, religion, color, gender or financial situation, according to the SACH website.

SACH’s mission of equality influenced Winkler to create a fashion show fundraiser that unites the students, faculty and families of Ohio Wesleyan through culture.

“This is something really exciting that has not been done before and it’s a great way to help other people learn about other cultures,” Winkler said.

Many of the culture and religion-based groups on campus including Tauheed, Horizons International, Rafiki wa Afrika and Hillel are helping to plan, organize and gather clothes for the fashion show.

“The show is international themed with clothes from around the world as well as local fashions,” Winkler said. “People from the Greek community will be modeling clothes for fall formals and there will be students showing their own clothes from where they are from like Vietnam, Nigeria, Pakistan, India, Ghana, Myanmar and Brazil.”

Horizons International recently extended group membership to domestic students and is looking forward to displaying the diversity of not only their newly organized group, but the diversity of the Ohio Wesleyan campus.

“The fashion show is interactive and everyone has a chance to intermingle,” senior Mahnoor Wali, president of Horizons International, said. “International diversity is not as exposed as it could be on campus. We can benefit from international students sharing what they know.”

Although the fashion show is the main event, there will also be a date auction and raffles to raise money for SACH.

Junior Maria Jafri, president of Tauheed, heard about the upcoming show through OWU’s interfaith group, Better Together.

She wanted to get her group involved because it is part of Islamic culture to give to charity.

“Tauheed usually does events that benefit our group, but we want to do more projects that are a way of giving back,” Jafri said. “It is nice to see people coming together as a community for such a good cause.”

Winkler planned the event for Family Weekend to extend the audience beyond OWU students and faculty, although she encourages students and faculty to attend as well.

Senior Yelena Coulibaly, president of Rafiki wa Afrika said the event will benefit from being on Family Weekend.

“It is important for people to be aware and educated about what’s happening all over the world. Having the event during Family Weekend should ensure an amazing turnout,” Coulibaly said.

She also said that Rafiki wanted to participate to showcase their culture while helping a great cause.

“The organization called Save A Child’s Heart is self-explanatory, and it is our duty to make sure that every child has a chance to live,” she said.

SACH is based in Israel at the Wolfson Medical Center where doctors perform examinations and surgeries for children around the world in need of cardiac care.
Typically, children will stay in special recovery houses for three months where volunteers help them stay comfortable and happy after surgery.

According to the SACH website, it costs $10,000 to treat one child at SACH, and nearly 30 children can be in treatment at a time.

The fashion show will not only focus on bringing cultures together at OWU for a greater cause, but how bringing people together at SACH saved over 250 children in just one year.

The fashion show is Sept. 29 in the Benes rooms and costs $3 for OWU students, $5 for general admission.

All proceeds collected at the event will go to the SACH organization.

“Doing anything that benefits anyone but you is a good thing,” Wali said. “There is no greater gift than giving a child a chance at life.”

By Spenser Hickey
Transcript Correspondent

Senior Anthony McGuire, president of the Wesleyan Council on Student Affairs, was quick to lay the groundwork for WCSA activities this semester.

“I want [each executive committee chair] to have a set of goals for the year,” McGuire said at the start of the meeting, adding that he wanted them by week’s end.

According to its website, WCSA’s goals from last year included “[To] improve transparency and communication” between the student body and the administration. Student involvement in residential life policies and an improvement in the relationship between students and Public Safety were emphasized.

McGuire and senior Carly Hallal, vice president of WCSA, said “we definitely succeeded in accomplishing some of our goals,” particularly in improving communication between students and the administration. They also acknowledged they were not able to do everything they had hoped, such as putting parking meters in the Hamilton-Williams lot to reduce ticketing, which was not completed.

McGuire listed several activities he worked on over the summer and wanted to put into practice. First among these was a partnership with the Student Involvement Office and Politics and Government faculty members to increase voting on campus.

“We all come together to coordinate our efforts for registration and the elections in general,” McGuire said about the planned Voter Registration Task Force.

The task force will hold events such as National Voter Registration Day on September 25th and a visit from members of the Delaware Board of Elections later in the fall.

The WCSA also plans to work with the President’s Sustainability Task Force to increase the number of Hydration Stations on campus. Currently only Hamilton-Williams Campus Center has one, but they are considering installing them in the dorms and Edwards Hall.

Junior Tim O’Keeffe, co-chair of the Residential Life committee, said he was looking into Chartwells’ increase in meal prices. He and fellow chair Lauren Holler, a sophomore, are also working with Chartwells’ to increase diversity of food options, particularly vegetarian and Chinese courses. O’Keeffe and Holler are also generating cooperation between Chartwells’ and local businesses in Delaware, such as Mean Bean.

Public Safety Director Robert Wood delivered a report on the new card readers for the dorms, saying that they plan to have replaced the old ones within two to four weeks, and acknowledged that they couldn’t read all student IDs. He said that some IDs “weren’t very good quality” and that they were being replaced at no charge to students.

Last the council passed a revised sexual misconduct policy, which WCSA worked on throughout last year. The revisions were passed unanimously and were sent to the Faculty Committee for final voting.

Senior Kamila Goldin, a Small Living Unit Representative, said the revision represents “great moves” by the administration to protect students.

By Carly Shields
Transcript Correspondent

This year’s Sagan National Colloquium encourages students to bite into the culture of food and how it affects world perspective.

Christopher Fink, OWU professor of health and human kinetics, will be directing fall 2012’s National Colloquium on food. “Bite!” is the name of the lecture series this year, and it not only includes topics of food based off of health and nutrition but also how food relates to a global, economic and environmental perspective.

National Colloquium at Ohio Wesleyan was established in 1984 and was created to look at a variety of diverse topics, debates, ideas and issues from both national and international perspectives.

National Colloquium was originally created so that all students were required to attend each lecture.

Since 1999 OWU has brought many well-known speakers to the university including Bill Nye the “Science Guy” in 2001, Michael Pollan, a pronounced writer for the New Yorker, in 2003 and Brian Green, a theoretical physicist, in 2004.

“I chose the name ‘Bite!’ not only to be catchy but I also would like students to look at the diverse side of food,” Fink said. “As soon as we take a bite of food it changes us and we can also change it. Its both scientific and cultural.”

The 2011 Sagan National Colloquium’s theme, “Africa: Governance, Equity, & Global Citizenship,” was run by Quaye, professor and director of the black world studies program.

It took a deeper look into the roots of African history, global issues, poverty and Africa’s dependence on foreign trade.

“One can not talk about the continent of Africa without some general discussion of food security, which is based off climatic conditions,” Quaye said. “Food can be a source of war, source of cash crops, to some extent and it can be a source of gender relations…But poverty, starvation and draught are also true in this country. Food is an international issue. It is not localized and restricted to geographical regions.”

Fink has had the great pleasure of traveling to Italy and saw the relationship the Italian people had with food and decided he wanted to do more with his profession of nutrition and health. So he immediately started taking Italian classes at Ohio Wesleyan and in spring 2010 taught a travel-learning course to Italy where students would study the relationship of food and culture. Students also studied and compared obesity rates in Italy versus the United States.

“We don’t spend enough time as a collective whole understanding the core roots of food. Food is our interaction with the environment, family, esthetics etc,” Fink said. “Food is not always a health related issue as well and I really wanted to be someone who looks at those issues.”

Fink has also been involved in working with different groups in Columbus who look at the interaction of food from an ecological standpoint. He is bringing in a couple of local Ohio speakers as part of the panel called “Making Local Work in Ohio: Production, Promotion and Entrepreneurship in the Local Food System.” These local business owners and local farmers will discuss their experiences.

The owner and co-founder of Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams in Columbus, Ohio, Jeni Britton-Bauer, is an example of one local speaker coming to talk about her experience as a business owner. But Britton-Bauer will also be speaking about how most of her ingredients for her well-known ice creams are local to Ohio and will discuss Fink’s theme, how food changes us and how we change it.

Abram Kaplan, an environmental studies professor at Denison University, will be coming to speak for “Bite!” about how people interact with food from an environmental aspect.

Not only is Kaplan the founder and director of Denison’s environmental science program, but he is also an artist. He has created a 3-D exhibit called, “Fine Grain: Visual Immersion in the American Food System” that will be displayed on campus for “Bite!” An example of Kaplan’s 3-D art is a sixteen-foot silo that is wrapped with photographs of agriculture in the U.S., which will be on display in the Hamilton Williams Campus Center along with other pieces in the library and the science center.

“Kaplan wants people to touch and interact with the art,” Fink said.

One of the key parts to “Bite!” this fall is that there is a greater picture to the lecture series than just academic for OWU students. Fink has created a fundraiser that will sell t-shirts; the money is raised will go to the Early Childhood Center.

Fink’s goal is to put in a learning garden for the children so they learn about math, science and nutrition in a fun, engaging way. The money raised from the t-shirts will go to help put in the garden and to help maintain it during summer and school breaks.

The lectures, food tastings and activities this fall are open and available to not just OWU students, but also to local residents of Delaware and Columbus. Fink describes food as something that can integrate people and connect us without us realizing it.

“Food is a real area of scholarship and academics but it is also fun,” Fink said. “Food makes us happy and I hope the students and local community members enjoy it and it helps broaden their horizons.”

Photos by Samanta Samin

On Tuesday September 4th students gathered at the Dance Studio to learn how to Hula dance led by Rachel Vinciguerra. Vinciguerra traveled to Hawaii this past July and brought back a modern hula dance called “Keep your Eyes on the Hands.” Vinciguerra mentioned that the lyrics were a little raunchy, but it was all in good fun.

By Jenna Rodcay
Trancript Correspondent

The Hamilton Williams Campus Center received a number of improvements this summer.

Dean of Students Kimberlie Goldsberry, has been a major part of the improvements that span the building and said more “are likely to happen as the year progresses.”

The Benes Rooms received the replacement and replenishment of chairs, allowing for seating of more than 600 people.

Most conference rooms in the building were refurnished and a new conference room, room 233, was added.

According to Goldsberry, rooms are set up in a variety of ways and now offer more than the standard board room style set up.

These conference rooms have also been equipped with additional signage that allows people to easily identify which events are scheduled that day.

“[The improvements] provide a more professional and inviting atmosphere for employers and recruiters,” said Leslie Melton, Director of Career Services. “It makes them want to come back. And when they are impressed [with the facilities] they will be more likely to recruit and hire our students.”

The atrium has also seen improvements. It will feature an up-to-date sound system that will be available for programs and events held at noon, in the evenings and on weekends.

“Student organizations will be more likely to use the atrium because the sound improvement will enhance their programming,” said Nancy Rutkowski, assistant director of Student Involvement for Leadership.

Senior Clare Whitaker, president of the Spirit and Homecoming Organization, said she agreed the new sound system makes the atrium more attractive for programming but finds the conference rooms to be one of the more important improvements.

“I think it’s a great way for clubs and organizations to improve their meetings,” Whitaker said. “You are in a comfortable and professional space, making it more official and the space is more suitable for the necessary projects clubs and organizations will embark upon.”

The end tables and study tables on the first and second floor atrium areas were replaced, as well as some of the benches in those areas.
The benches on the lower level of HamWil were replaced with high-top cabaret tables.

Goldsberry said these tables allow more functional use of the space and has already noticed students taking advantage of them.

Many students were unaware of the changes but said they were pleased after being told about the improvements.

Freshman Matt Sapp said he finds the new furniture to be a lot more comfortable and functional.

Junior Nick Ehlers said the old benches were awkward and the “new tables are good for small study sessions.”

According to Goldsberry, all furnishings that were removed were either “repurposed in other locations on the OWU campus or donated to the local Habitat for Humanity Store.”

Ashel G. Bryant (’47), was a member of the OWU Tower Society, a group for donors who leave their estates to the University.

Bryant passed away in September of 2010, leaving a donation that led to the improvements throughout the building.

According to Craig Ullom, vice president for student affairs, gifts such as Bryant’s allow the university to make improvements without putting them off or spending tuition money.

By Sadie Slager
Transcript Reporter

After the initial H1N1 or swine flu outbreak of 2009, the virus has returned and affected Ohio residents. The Ohio Department of Health has recognized a new strain of the virus, and it is being referred to as H3N2v.

According to the Center for Disease Control’s Nancy Cox, the first onset of swine flu in the United States was March 28, 2009. President Obama declared the 2009 outbreak a national emergency, MSNBC states, as cases occurred in all 50 states and 2,837 deaths were reported.

CNN reported that the H3N2v strain developed as a “matrix gene” as H1N1 and H3N2 occurred simultaneously in a mammal. Hagan said the virus is spread between humans through sneezing, coughing and contact with infected surfaces.

The first fatality from the H3N2v strain was that of a 61-year-old Cincinnati woman, CBS News reports.

CBS News said this death, as well as other cases of the virus, was caused by contact with pigs at county fairs.

According to the CDC, Indiana has the highest number of reported cases of the virus in 2012 while Ohio has the second highest number as of Aug. 31.

In addition to Ohio and Indiana, swine flu has been reported in Penn., Wis. and Minn. with mre than 289 infections. As of Aug. 31, 101 cases were discovered in Ohio alone. These numbers show a large increase in swine flu cases as compared to the 12 reported cases in 2011, the New York Times reported.

Dr. Joseph Bresee, an expert in the CDC’s Influenza Division, said that cases result from exposure to pigs, either directly or indirectly, and that veterinarians and farmers have been exposed as well. According to CNN, Bresee also said steps are being taken to create a vaccine for the new strain of virus.
Ted Wymyslo, the director of the Ohio Department of Health, said certain groups of people should take extra precautions to avoid the virus. These groups include those with compromised immune systems, pregnant women, those with ongoing medical conditions and young children.

People at a higher risk should particularly avoid contact with pigs, according to CBS News. Cases could become more serious and life threatening for people in these risk groups, according to Lynn Finelli of the CDC.

Signs of H3N2v include a headache, cough, soreness throughout the body, fever, runny nose or excessive fatigue. Anyone with these symptoms should report to a health facility.