Category: News

Delaware County is getting a new outlet mall, but the impact it will have for the city and Ohio Wesleyan University community seems underwhelming.

Jointly controlled by Tanger Outlets and Simon Property Group, the new mall is tentatively set to open beginning in 2016. The Simon-Tanger outlet mall will be placed on the east side of the interchange between Rts. 36/37 and I-71. The addition of this outlet mall would be halfway between the existing ones located in Lodi, Ohio, and Jeffersonville, Ohio. All the required zoning proposals for construction and implementation have been approved, but what does this mean for the county, the city, and the OWU community?

Once construction is complete, the outlet mall will be a new and increased means of tax revenue for Delaware County and its residents.

“Broadly I think what it’s doing is helping make Delaware County a destination location for shopping,” said Delaware County auditor George Kaitsa. “We collect sales tax so that would be additional revenue to the county and the outlet mall brings a different product line to the area.”

Kaitsa emphasized how the outlet mall is a welcome addition that would not hamper business from either Polaris Fashion Place or the city of Delaware.

According to the Economic Development Director for Delaware City Sean Hughes, the outlet mall has potential to increase economic awareness and profit to the city.

“A lot of people get scared when you have a mall come to your community because they think that’s going to draw potential customers away from my business,” said Hughes. “With this situation, because it is an outlet mall, I foresee that it will do the opposite. It will bring attention to our community as those customers are coming for a very specific purpose: to shop. While they’re here, it is our responsibility to market ourselves as a place where they can continue their shopping experience and have a great entertainment experience in addition.”

The challenge that Hughes admitted to is getting those coming from the south in Columbus or from east of the location to bring them the extra miles over to downtown. “One way or the other, they’re going to be coming through the area spending money,” Hughes said, “You are going to be bringing people with disposable income to the area period and the outlet mall folks project that 9% of the traffic that goes to the mall will be coming through the city.”

Hughes also noted that the city would not be receiving much of the tax revenue profit associated with this profit. To understand this, consider that the city derives its revenue from income tax while the county derives its revenue through sales tax. “Will any of that money trickle down in terms of programming for us for the city? Probably not,” Hughes noted. These funds are mainly directed towards developing infrastructure usually around the district associated with the tax according to him.

For OWU students though, the impact of the outlet mall seems minimal. Professor of Economics Bob Gitter noted that the mall would create a lot of jobs and increase revenue, however there still would not be much of an impact.

“I don’t think it’s going to effect students in terms of job opportunities. I don’t think that students are going to be looking for something in retail at that level. Since we’re not a public university, it’s not that we’re going to get tax dollars out of it. I just don’t see it having that much of an impact in terms of finances, in terms of jobs, and in terms of revenue for Ohio Wesleyan.”

Public Safety officers at Ohio Wesleyan are currently bucking a trend occurring at other Ohio colleges – they are not armed.

Although PS has three officers licensed to carry a weapon, they do not while they are on duty for OWU. Those officers are PS Director Bob Wood, investigator Richard Morman, and officer Andrew Roy.

“Absolutely there is a trend moving towards arming campus safety,” Wood said. “Three to five colleges a year are going from unarmed security to armed police officer departments.”

Officers are permitted to carry weapons only after receiving accreditation through the Ohio Attorney General’s Peace Officer Training Academy (POTA). Rick Amweg, executive director of the Center for P-20 Safety & Security at the Ohio Board of Regents, said the number is close for the past couple of years but is unsure if the current trend will continue.

“In Ohio, there is a slight trend in the same direction, primarily in the private college area,” he said.

Amweg cited Otterbein University, whose police department became fully commissioned by the state in 2012, “a good example of an institution that just recently changed from unarmed security to armed police on their campus.”

Wood said he is unsure if his officers will one day carry weapons. College police departments are looking to the International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators for guidance, he said. “This is one of the top things on the burner.”

Many campuses have blended forces of some officers who are qualified to carry weapons and others who are not, he said.

Those sorts of departments have budgetary implications as well, according to Amweg.

“A blended force is the way many institutions are going, primarily for budgetary reasons,” he said. “Police officers are typically more expensive than security officers. For that reason, many institutions with police also have security officers to take care of security and safety matters that do not require law enforcement.”

Neither Denison University, the College of Wooster, Kenyon College nor Oberlin College have fully commissioned or armed departments, although Wooster’s chief is licensed.

Denison and OWU have commissioned but unarmed directors of campus safety. Oberlin and Kenyon are also unarmed units.

“The main reason (to reconsider arming campus police forces) is that the incidents occur so quickly that a matter of ten or fifteen or thirty seconds means lives that can be saved or lost,” Wood said.

Incidents like Columbine and the Virginia Tech shootings give pause, Wood said.

“Do we wait outside while he’s stabbing our students in a building?” Wood said. “Do we go in and attack a guy with a knife with a can of mace? I think we’re compromising safety by not at least exploring the need of being armed.”

Toby Hoover, the founder of the Ohio Coalition Against Gun Violence, said the organization believes guns on campuses will “continue to build a culture of violence and fear.”

“People have choices to decide the kind of world we want to live in and guns provide a false sense of security,” he said. “It’s not a proven fact that more guns is safer.”

Verne Edwards, the Ohio Wesleyan journalism professor who mentored many of the department’s most successful graduates in his 34-year career, died Wednesday.

Edwards joined the faculty in 1952, teaching and advising The Transcript, according to a statement from University President Rock Jones. He taught students who went on to win Pulitzer Prizes and Emmy awards before retiring in 1986.

“If we judge educators by the success of their former students, then Verne Edwards stood at the top of his profession,” Jones wrote in the statement.

Details for Edwards’ memorial service are forthcoming. Read Jones’s full release below.

Dear OWU Community,

I am writing to share the sad news that Professor Emeritus of Journalism Verne Edwards, a legendary member of the Ohio Wesleyan faculty, passed away yesterday. His daughter tells me his family spent time together during his final hours reading his favorite pieces, including tributes from his beloved students.

Verne joined Ohio Wesleyan in 1952, and he served as the Journalism chair and advisor to The Transcript for more than 30 years before retiring in 1986. His students remember Verne as their mentor and expert teacher who held them to the highest standards of journalistic excellence and moral integrity. He received the Bishop Herbert Welch Meritorious Teaching Award in 1972.

It is no exaggeration to say that Verne Edwards helped to shape the face of American journalism by training an all-star team of some of the nation’s finest and most prominent journalists. His students have won Pulitzer Prizes and Emmy Awards and have held positions of leadership at many of America’s major newspapers, news magazines, and television news outlets, as well as leading corporations, nonprofits, and universities. If we judge educators by the success of their former students, then Verne Edwards stood at the top of his profession.

A memorial service is being planned for a later date.

Please join me in sending our deepest sympathies to Verne’s widow, Dolores, and their entire family. Verne will be deeply missed, but his influence will live on through his students, his colleagues, and all the lives he touched.

Rock

 

Students and faculty evacuated the Schimmel-Conrades Science Center on the afternoon of Oct. 27 due to an overheated drying oven in a botany-microbiology department lab.

There were never any flames, just a lot smoke, according to David Johnson, professor of botany-microbiology.

The smoke set off the fire alarms throughout the building which led to the evacuation and the arrival of Public Safety and the Delaware City Fire Department. Faculty and students remained outside for about 45 minutes until the problem was cleared.

“I think we all knew it wasn’t a very big incident but it did cause quite a large commotion,” said junior Brenna Peterson, a student in the Organisms and their Environment class that was using the oven at the time.

The class could not resume after re-entering the building due to the volume of smoke that still remained in the room, but senior Nick Fowler said Johnson led them on an impromptu hike to salvage some of the lessons.

The lab had been using the oven to dry out soybeans when they became aware of a scorch smell and turned off the oven Johnson said.

However, later in the afternoon smoke began to come out of the exhaust hole, filling the classroom with smoke and setting off the alarms.

“I think what seems to have happened was there was a short in the electrical system so the thermostat wasn’t working anymore,” Johnson said.

After the fire department arrived and contained the situation, the drying oven which resembles a giant box, was placed on a cart and wheeled out of the building.

Johnson said the department will most likely replace the oven, as this one was 10 years old and blackened on the inside. He said it cost $1,000 when the department bought it and he expects a new one to be around the same price.

If a new oven is acquired, it will probably not arrive until next semester, which could disrupt several labs this semester.

There had been no issue with the oven in the past, Johnson said.

 

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“Poetry and the problem of politics seem to have an affinity,” said poet and essayist Adam Kirsch, who spoke to about ninety students and staff about the intersection of poetry and politics on Tuesday, Nov. 3 in the Benes Room.

However, there are important differences. “Poetry can be absolute, while politics is the art of compromise,” Kirsch said to an audience of about 90 in the Hamilton-Williams Campus Center Benes rooms on Tuesday.

The timeline of Kirsch’s lecture spanned from Plato to Percy Shelley to the Nazis. In Plato’s time, he said, poetry was highly regulated by the government because it was believed to have the same influence violent video games are believed to have nowadays.

But people do not think of poetry this way anymore, Kirsch said. “Literature is no longer a cutting edge entertainment technology.”

He said the Nazis performed book burnings because they believed books shaped the minds of citizens, so only “the right books” can be allowed into the country.

“Literature becomes freer as it becomes less dangerous, and it becomes less dangerous when it becomes less powerful,” Kirsch said.

Junior Hannah Simpson said she particularly enjoyed Kirsch’s references to well-known literary works and how his presentation was structured.

“I like how he explained various trends in poetry, basically starting in ancient Greece all the way to modernism,” she said.

Junior Joe Pileski said what most stood out to him was Kirsch’s comments about poetry’s role in the world and about the Romantics claiming Milton was “of the devil.”

“The most energetic parts of a poem — what makes a great poem the greatest — is not the moral center of the poem necessarily,” Pileski said. “I think the Romantics kind of missed the point a little bit.”

Kirsch’s latest book, “Rocket and Lightship: Essays on Literature and Ideas,” comes out Nov. 17.

In recent weeks, Ebola has gone from an unknown disease, to an epidemic, to a disease better understood and controlled. Although the only three official Ebola hotspots are halfway across the world, it still has the potential to affect the U.S., including Delaware, Ohio.

Senior MbaMemme Onwudie has a family member in Nigeria. Although not one of the hotspots for Ebola, there have been reported cases in Lagos. However, Onwudiwe does not seem concerned:

“I am honestly more concerned for my family in the U.S.,” he said. “There has only been one case in Nigeria. The virus is known to have travelled across the US, and in Nigeria it was one isolated case.”

The CDC has confirmed three cases of Ebola in the U.S. Most recently there has been one in New York City, where a member of Doctors Without Borders who had just returned from Guinea has already been put into a 21-day quarantine.

One of those cases is of particular interest to Ohio Wesleyan students because the patient is from Akron, and attended Kent State University. Amber Vinson is a nurse in Dallas who treated one of the previous Ebola cases in the U.S. She has since been quarantined, treated, and cleared on Oct. 28.

There were follow-up tests made with people she came in contact with, especially around the Akron-Canton-Cleveland area. So far, no tests have come back positive.

There have been no confirmed cases of Ebola in Ohio. Two weeks ago, however, the State Panel of Ohio voted and approved a motion to spend about $800,000 on Ebola prevention and treatment.

$800,000 might seem like a large sum of money, but that is not the case, once the costs of treating the disease are understood. For example, the insulated suits health care officials use to treat patients with Ebola costs around $7,000 dollars. Expensive, yes, but what makes it even more expensive is the fact that these suits can only be worn once.

After an official wears one of those suits, it is immediately discarded to minimize contamination risks. Considering that nurses, doctors, and officials probably check in on patients more than once a day, it is easy to see how quickly the $800,000 can be spent – especially if there are multiple patients.

While the CDC and the World Health Organization both state that contracting Ebola in the U.S. is a “low possibility,” they still affirm that citizens should stay alert, and wash their hands/use hand sanitizer as often as possible.

Ohio Wesleyan students gathered last week to show their support for those affected by ebola around the world by having a candlelight vigil.

Greek organizations may have a harder time recruiting new members due to the low enrollment of this year’s freshman class.

On average, Ohio Wesleyan University admissions have a goal of 600 new students each year that is usually met or exceeded. This year only 490 freshmen arrived on campus in August.

OWU is 40 percent Greek, which means in a normal recruitment season there would be about 240 new members spread throughout the Greek community. However, if only 40 percent of this year’s freshman class plans on going through spring recruitment there will only be 196 new members.

“I think that the number of new members each fraternity will sign will certainly be down due to the smaller class size, but overall I do not think the quality of men signed by each fraternity will change at all,” Dan Kasian, VP of Recruitment Events for the Inter Fraternity Counsel (IFC), said.

OWU’s Panhellenic Counsel and IFC have been working hard to make sure this year’s recruitment is well advertised and marketed. According to Assistant Director of Student Involvement for Fraternity and Sorority Life, Dana Behum, there aren’t going to be many changes to how the Greek system approaches spring recruitment, however, more upperclassman are expected to go through formal recruitment.

“Over the past three years the average spring new member class for women’s organizations has been 16, while the average new member class for men’s organizations has been 13,” Behum said. “My hope is that this year rather than focusing solely on the number of new members, that our focus may continue to be about finding the right fit for each person who wants to serve as a leader in the Greek community.”

On Nov. 6, at 12 p.m. there will be an informational session in the Benes rooms for women interested in going through with spring recruitment.

“We are really excited to meet new girls and introduce them to Greek life,” said Carly Zalenski, Vice President of Recruitment for Panhellenic Counsel.

WCSA held an academic forum on Wednesday, Oct. 22 to discuss some of the current credit requirements. The forum was held over several tables in the Benes Rooms, each with a faculty representative, at least one current WCSA member, and a number of students from different classes.

Barbara Andereck, a physics and astronomy professor, was one of the faculty members present at the forum. Andereck had never “attended a student/faculty/administrative discussion about academics hosted by any group” before, but said she was attracted by the premise of this forum.

“I was very interested in the topic of general education requirements and wanted to hear what students’ views were on the subject,” she said.

Discussions included, but were not limited to, the current diversity credit requirements, requirements for non-majors, and writing requirements.

The general consensus was that the diversity requirements should be increased. The students and faculty believed that while Ohio Wesleyan promotes a cultured and broad stance to education, a single diversity course requirement was too little.

“Most students complete more than one diversity requirement anyway, so this change wouldn’t affect much,” said sophomore Sam Schurer, WCSA treasurer.

While the changes for the diversity credits would be relatively simple, the group discussed more complex changes to the same discipline requirements. A proposed idea was to change the three classes in two disciplines requirement to three classes and in three different disciplines.

This change would allow non-majors to broaden their horizons without having to go in depth into a subject that might not be of interest.

Finally, the group discussed writing requirements and how more options should be offered within the students’ majors. For example, a chemistry major needing to take an English course about British literature would certainly be out of his element. It was said however,  if a chemistry class with an R credit was offered, the student would most likely be more successful and engaged.

“We heard a very wide range of potential changes,”  Andereck said. “I would think that some of the ideas suggested could be implemented.”

While WCSA representatives were not clear as to which ideas will be proposed to the school, the purpose of discussing the credit requirements was achieved.