Contrary to popular belief, the “messier” a river is, the better its health, fluvial geomorphologist Ellen Wohl, Ph.D. said in her Sagan National Colloquium lecture Tuesday.
âPeople often think that a messy river, one with downed trees, beaver dams, and all kinds of brush in them are bad, but in fact they are the healthiest kind of river,â she said.
Logjams, Wohl explains, are man made obstructions in rivers or streams to control or manipulate the flow of water or species.
âIâve been camping and hiking along the rivers in Colorado, and this lecture taught me a lot of things that I had never even thought of,â said Delaware resident Bob Tannehill. âI never knew that logjams could actually benefit a river system,â he added.
Wohl said she hoped that her next project would be to study the river deltas in central Alaska on the Yukon River. However, she said that she was still waiting to find out if she would have funding from the National Science Foundation to fund her research.
âMy most rewarding experience is when I go out in the field with a new group of grad students, because I get to collaborate with them to help them to use what they have learned in the classroom in the real world for the first time,â Wohl said in an interview after the lecture.
OWU history professor Ellen Arnold, organizer of this yearâs colloquium, said she hopes Tuesdayâs lecture gave students and Delaware residents some insight into what an in depth scientific lecture was like.
âSince this is a liberal arts school, I wanted to invite speakers from different disciplines to speak on a variety of different topics, all of which tie back to water,â she said.
According to the colloquium’s website, âOhio Wesleyan Universityâs Sagan National Colloquium annually explores an issue of national and international significance from multiple educational angles. The Colloquium forges links between liberal arts learning and the lifelong civic art of informed, involved citizenship.â
The next speaker will be Sharon Day, who will be speakon the use of water in religion and ritual on October 21.
Ohio Wesleyan University is allowing prospective students who have above a 3.0 grade point average apply without submitting ACT or SAT scores. Director of admission, Alisha Couch, said this is the second year OWU has had this policy in place, but this year the GPA requirement is dropping from 3.5 to 3.0.
One argument in favor of forgoing test scores is that standardized tests donât accurately represent a studentâs aptitude.
Vice President for Enrollment, Susan Dileno, said she feels standardized test scores are outdated and the process no longer treats students equally.
âItâs really not fair when you have lower income families that canât afford expensive test prep and to take the tests multiple times,â she said. âThe SAT/ACT was created to make it fair for all students applying to college, however thatâs not so much the case anymore.â
While the new admissions process is aimed at providing applicants with a fairer shot of acceptance, the move to test optional is also an attempt to help with OWUâs low enrollment problem.
âOf course, there are obvious marketing benefits to telling applicants whose GPAs are above a 3.0 that they donât have to submit standardized test scores,â said Dileno. âBut thatâs not why weâre doing it.â
Couch agreed, adding the point that colleges are business as well.
âAs much as we hate to think about it as a business, it is one, and so this is obviously good for marketing,â Couch said. âBut itâs not the main reason we decided to not require test scores.â
Couch agreed that, statistically, lower income families donât typically do as well on standardized tests. She believes that foregoing standardized test scores if the studentâs GPA is high enough will give the university a better picture of a studentâs ability to perform in college.
âMore and more schools are realizing that foregoing the test scores for applicants with high GPAs is actually improving the diversity of the student body without sacrificing the quality of the students,â said Couch. âDenison University has been doing this successfully for years, so that gave us confidence that, if we did it, we would still be admitting quality students,â she said.
Dileno said the standardized test scores are not a priority of OWU when looking at a prospective studentâs application to OWU. The decision to waive the scores, therefore, does not complicate the admissions departmentâs role.
âWhen weâre looking at a studentâs application, the high school GPA is the thing we look at most to tell us how a student will perform their first year in college,â Dileno said. âIt shows how hard they worked, their motivation, and the types of classes they chose to take, which gives us a pretty good idea of how theyâll do in college.â
Dileno said the lowered GPA requirement is an attempt to apply the option to submit test scores to a greater pool of applicants.
âLast year, only 100 applicants out of 4,000 met the criteria to make them exempt from the standardized test score requirement,â Dileno said.
Couch said OWUâs new semi-test optional admittance process is likely to take a while to catch on.
âItâll probably be a couple years until guidance counselors in high schools, and college guide books are made aware of the fact that we’re test optional,â she said.
As Ohio Wesleyan administrators discuss several large projects to rebound from this year’s enrollment decline, the university’s Board of Trustees largely deferred to them on how to move forward at its full body meeting Friday.
The trustees took one vote after two days of discussing salient campus issues in committee meetings, but that vote was a concrete step toward funding some of those big projects, such as the Student Housing Master Plan. It set a $200 million goal for the university’s seven-year capital campaign.
About $50 million of that has been raised so far in the campaign’s three-year “quiet phase,” during which administrators are soliciting donations but not publicly advertising it, according to Board chairperson Thomas Tritton. He said that number includes the combined $16 million in donations funding the Merrick Hall renovation and the forthcoming Simpson-Querry Fitness Center.
The largest portion of that money would go toward financial aid to make OWU more accessible to prospective students,  Tritton ’69 said. The rest would fund building projects such as Merrick and Simpson-Querry and student housing improvements, as well as academic goals such as hiring new faculty and supporting curricular initiatives such as Course Connections.
“It’s really student-oriented,” Tritton said.
What those student housing projects will look like, though, is still uncertain. OWU administrators have not yet told the Board what the Student Housing Master Plan, which has been in the works since 2011, should prioritize or set a timeline for its component projects.
The Board’s Student Affairs Committee wants to move forward “prudently but quickly” on student housing, committee chair Ed Haddock said. In his report, Haddock mentioned some results from a student housing survey that indicated students care as much about the facilities they live in later in their time at OWU as they do about where they live the first year.
The forward motion on the capital campaign comes at the same time as a smaller freshman class than last year (484 students versus 569) and as a 1.2-percent drop in the percentage of students staying at OWU after their first year, according to a Sept. 4 email from University President Rock Jones to the faculty. Those issues make this fiscal year “more of a challenge” than the last, which ended with a small surplus and with the endowment at an all-time high of $215 million, according to Finance Committee chair Jeff Benton’s report.
“We are at a time when we have challenges, but we have extraodinary momentum and strength to address those challenges,” Jones said in his report to the Board.
Online courses could be the future of Ohio Wesleyanâs curriculum. This month, a faculty focus group assembled to assess the idea, focusing on the fact that offering this additional course structure could provide revenue for the university.
The ability to take courses online would only apply to the summer school sessions. According to Provost Chuck Steinmetz, the principle advantage in online summer courses is that OWU could take them without the additional cost of housing and loss of income from a summer job.
âI donât think our goal would be to generate more revenue as much as make it easier for students to complete their degree in four years,â he said.
Steinmetz said there is interest among the faculty on hybrid learning, which would allow classes to incorporate both online and in-class participation, and some professors on campus have already begun offering hybrid classes during the academic year. Online summer courses are designed to enhance the experience of OWU students needing to catch up on course work.
âMy goal in offering on-line courses in the summer would be to help students who have fallen behind in their academic plan and allow students to complete more than one major during their four year period,â Steinmetz said. âThis is consistent with our philosophy behind offering the summer school option.â
According to Richard Leavy, professor of psychology, this would allow students who, for a variety of reasons, cannot come to campus for classes to âbenefit from our knowledge and pay for the privilege.â
Since online courses require little infrastructure from the university, âthe cost of offering them may be rather little,â he said. âThe number of people registering for an online course could conceivably be greater than in one of our classroom courses, so on balance, it would be financially beneficial, although it depends on how much the student pays and how many enroll.â
Online classes are not unique, but they would usher in a new era for the university. Large state schools have been offering internet-based distance learning as an education option for years. In fact, beginning in the early 2000s, it was possible to earn an entire degree online. However, Denison, Oberlin, Wittenberg, Kenyon, Wooster â have yet to incorporate these types of classes into their program.
However, according to President Rock Jones, technology is reshaping much of American higher education.
âTechnology has changed every aspect of the way we communicate and the way we gather information and grow our knowledge base,â he said.
Students and faculty alike seem torn between the pros and cons of online courses.
âIn general, I agree with those who say that we should focus on doing what we do best: provide an excellent educational experience in the classroom,â said Lynette Carpenter, professor of English.
âWe have a strong faculty of classroom teachers, and those kinds of teaching skills donât necessarily translate into good online teaching.â
Leavy agreed stating quality as his main concern.
âIf the knowledge gained by students is the same, if faculty members derive the same outcomes including: pay, student relationships, and their own intellectual growth from offering online courses, there is no appreciable downside,â he said.
âWhat I donât know is how to insure such a level of quality.â
Ohio Wesleyan students currently have the option of taking online courses from other institutions and transferring the credits â a process junior Bridget McQuaide described as âa huge hassle.â
In this respect, students would benefit from having the option to take OWU sanctioned online courses. According to Jones, introducing online courses as an option for students wishing to take classes over the summer is also an option.
âSome have suggested the benefit of summer course offerings utilizing technology so that students can complete OWU coursework while participating in internships, completing undergraduate research, offering volunteer service, or engaged in other important activities while scattered across the country and around the world in the summer,â he said.
McQuaide added she believes this option would provide opportunities for students to take courses over the summer who are at risk of not graduating on time and need to re-take a class from home.
The main concern related to online courses is that the format could detract from the OWU experience.
âI believe that the OWU experience includes the personal treatment with faculty, the residential halls communities and other aspects that would be missed through online classes,â said junior Lautaro Cabrera, who has taken online courses in the past and said he had difficulty finding them engaging.
Both Leavy and Carpenter said, while they believe their courses could be translated to the online platform, they are hesitant to do so.
âIâm not motivated to transform them into online courses,â Carpenter said.
âIâm still working to improve my ability to stimulate good in-class discussions and devise good active learning opportunities, especially through group problem solving.â
While the idea of offering online courses is still in itâs infancy, Jones said he believes it deserves full consideration.
âI remain convinced that the residential liberal arts experiences finds its greatest value in the direct interaction among students and between students and their teachers,â he said.
âTechnology can support that fundamental interaction, but it cannot replace it.
âOhio Wesleyan has the opportunity to explore innovative ways for utilizing technology to enhance teaching and learning on our campus, and I am eager to see where the conversation leads.â
Director and Founder of the Global Water Policy Project Sandra Postel urged communities and individuals to reconsider their relationship with water systems in their area.
The Freshwater Fellow of the National Geographic Society discussed several solutions to the ways human have mismanaged the water supply. Her talk on took place on Tuesday Sept. 23, Â as part of the Sagan National Colloquiumâs H2OWU: Water in Our World lecture series.
Postel began by addressing the difference between the amount of water covering the planet and the amount of fresh water available for humans to actually make use of.
âWe are lucky to live on a water wealthy planet, but only 2.5 percent is freshwater and most of that is locked underground,â Postel said. âThat is a finite supply for increasing worldwide demand.â
The raise in demand, Postel explained, is linked to emerging economies where more people are entering the middle class. Finite water sources are being stretched thin to meet the demands associated with the growing population, and not just for uses that are immediately apparent such as drinking.
The use of water for agriculture makes up about fifty percent of all consumption, and those plants are used for much more than eating.
âIf we think about how many gallons of water it takes to make a simple cotton shirt,â Postel said. âItâs 700 gallons, most of that is to grow the cotton in the field. A typical hamburger takes about 600 gallons…the average American uses about 600 gallons a week.â
Postel described the way we use and manage water as âunsustainableâ. Â She noted groundwater depletion – the water most often used for drinking and other domestic consumption – has âmore than doubledâ since 1960. Many of the government’s choices in regards to their water supply have focused mainly on serving the needs of people, while the value of water left in its environment has been largely overlooked.
Postel used examples of governments who chose to disrupt water systems, most jarringly the case of the Aral Sea. The Aral Sea was once the fourth largest lake in the world, until Soviet planners in the 1960s diverted the two rivers which fed the body of water to aid crop irrigation efforts. Today, the lake is all but gone, its total volume decreased by roughly 80 percent according to Postel. Fisheries that used to line the Aral dried up as the lake did, leaving those communities with no livelihood, and pollution caused by fertilisers used in the irrigated farmlands polluted the sediment and caused disease among the people who stayed there.
Another example would be the missing 35 million acres of wetlands in the upper Mississippi River. The loss of this natural flood mitigating resource has led to erratic flooding and droughts along that stretch of the river, most notably in 2011 where the largest flood in a century took place followed by a summer of drought so severe that levyâs along the river had to be raised in order for commerce to continue as planned. According to Postel, a 3-5% restoration of those wetlands would have helped mitigate the floods and kept the water flow more normally the following summer.
To mitigate all of this, Postel said we have to make the most out of the water around us and leave as much in place as we can. Citing new agricultural innovations such as âDripâ or âMicro Irrigationâ that delivers water directly to the roots of plants without wasting as much water as traditional irrigation, and sensors that can monitor soil saturation, Postel asserted that we can be smarter about the ways we use and manage water supplies.
Strategic removal of obsolete dams and investment of watershed services that use natural means such as incentivising farmers to keep runoff out of rivers to keep reservoirs clean in place of water treatment plants were other tested solutions that Postel offered.
Finally, Postel introduced her âChanging the Courseâ program that seeks to unite businesses, conservation groups and the public in communities on the ground in an effort to shrink the water footprint and raise productivity. A big victory for the project, which also seeks to get universities involved in their efforts in the near future, came when the U.S. and Mexican governments negotiated a temporary amendment to an existing water usage treaty to allow water to flow back into the Colorado River Delta. The five year pilot program led the Colorado river reaching the Sea of Cortez for the first time since drying up.
Students skip rocks into the Olentangy River on a river exploration trip for students in the American Landscape Course Connection. Photo by Alex Gross
Next to a bustling highway, Ohio Wesleyan students and faculty explored the tranquil biodiversity of the Olentangy River.
While exploring, students took samples of foliage, poured weak acid on rocks, ventured into the water and even tasted wild carrots.
The event, Walk on the Wild Side, was hosted by the American Landscape Course Connection (ALCC), which sponsors a landscape-based event every semester. It took place on Sept. 23 from 5-7 p.m.
Geology Professor Karen Fryer said she liked the âjuxtaposition of the natural and the human contribution.â The most beautiful thing Fryer said she saw was a blue heron in flight.
Students participating were split up into groups of eight, given instructions, a sheet to identify plants, and binoculars before setting out. Along the river, areas roughly 100 yards long were marked for students to observe.
Several classes participated and therefore were looking at the land in a truly interdisciplinary way.
âWell, with the help of the botany majors I was able to identify pretty much all the plants,â said junior Scott Woodward. He said that he would have only been able to identify a few without them.
Junior Daisy Von Glaeser is in Professor David Johnsonâs Biodiversity of Flowering Plants course and said her group âonly saw one or two native plantsâ.
One of the groups saw a few historical markers, one marking a place the Underground Railroad passed through. Another marked the site of Ohioâs Worst Natural Disaster, a 1913 flood where about 20,000 homes were destroyed and more than 400 people died.
One student even found a stone with a âWâ etched into it as the masonâs mark.
Freshman Sharon Hayes, who is taking Geology 110, said that she was able to identify a few rock specimens. âWe found calcite, we got a weak acid from Fryer, poured it on the rock and it reacted,â she said. A few people in her group ventured into the water and saw minnows, freshwater clam shells and some crawfish, she said.
One group saw a single person tent and realized they were no longer surveying âthe wildâ but also someoneâs makeshift home.
Planning for the event took place at a meeting of ALCC faculty in August said coordinator English Professoor Lynette Carpenter. âWe started with the bioblitz concept of recording every species and expanded it to include, for example, geological concerns and cultural artifacts, as well as sound and touch and feelings.â said Carpenter.
The eventâs aim was to promote course connections and âto let students experience a multidisciplinary approach to the landscape and have fun doing it,â said Carpenter.
After groups spent roughly 45 minutes exploring their segment of land, they returned to the Science Center Atrium for snacks and refreshments.
Each of the six groups sent pictures to professor of music Nancy Gamso, who put together presentations on site.
âI thought students seemed interested, and invested in their presentations, which went very well, so I was quite pleased with the event,â said Carpenter
âAn interesting take-away was that there were both commonalities and distinct differences along different stretches of the river,â said Fryer.
Overall, the event was positively received.
âI got to walk outside, I got to identify plants with my friends, and I got to eat some snacks,â said Woodward.
Sophomore Lisette Gonzalez draws a self-portrait at the Spectrum Resource Center’s Queer Artist of the Month event spotlighting 20th-century painter Frida Kahlo. Photo by Spenser Hickey
Club often works with Spectrum Resource Center
By Spenser Hickey and Jamell Brown-Smith Managing Editor and Transcript Reporter
With more than thirty consistent members at each meeting, PRIDE has become one of the largest non-Greek organizations on campus this year.
Coming together each Thursday night, the group provides a safe space for members of marginalized sexual orientations and gender identities, as well as their supporters.
âWe try to discuss as many different identities as possible, in order to bring awareness to those identities, and in order to create a safe space for people with identities that might be less understood,â said sophomore Natalie French, president, in an email.
As an example, French listed asexuality as a sexual orientation and nonbinary – not male or female – as a gender identity.
As a safe space, the discussions at each meeting are very private; officers caution all members not to discuss anything mentioned there outside the meeting unless explicit permission is given.
At the start, members regularly introduce themselves with their name, class year, preferred gender pronouns and answer to a question of the week, such as favorite ice cream flavor.
âWe also discuss current events and popular media,â French said. âThis past meeting, we heard Kyle Simon speak about the scientific logistics behind âgaydar,â and the role of genetics in sexuality and gender identity.â
Simon, a senior whoâs co-teaching a course on the biological foundations of sexuality this semester, described how research shows humans can unconsciously distinguish whether someone is heterosexual or non-heterosexual – though this includes a wide range of identities – even if they’ve only seen a cutout of their face or just their eyes.
In general, women are better at this than men, Simon said. Due to issues in finding a large enough sample, participants who identify as nonbinary were not included.
French, who joined PRIDE last year and is also a resident of the Womenâs House (WoHo), got involved after her experiences as a member of the queer community at a high school she considers conservative.
When referring to either orientation or identity, members use the term âqueerâ as a reclaimed slur that has been redefined as a more inclusive term.
Fellow WoHo resident Claudia Bauman, a junior, joined PRIDE this year and compared the experience to her membership in Sisters United (SU), a club that focus on issues affecting women of color.
â(SU) is a lot of reading articles and talking about them,â Bauman said. âI really enjoyed that, I learned a lot about certain authors and journalists and ideas, but PRIDE is more about talking to people about their personal stories. Itâs a different way to learn the issues, more personal.â
Partnering with Spectrum Resource Center
In addition to regular meetings, PRIDE also works closely with the Spectrum Resource Center, an office in Hamilton-Williams Campus Center that provides information and programming to the OWU community.
âWhile I cannot speak for the entire resource center, as an intern I can say that I personally am excited about the growing number of visible queer students on Ohio Wesleyan’s campus, particularly the number of first year students who identify on the queer spectrum,â said senior Spectrum intern Liz Dickson.
âIt is also encouraging to see such enthusiastic attendance from first year students as a senior because it means that there will be a significant number of queer student leaders on this campus after I graduate,â Dickson said.
Dickson is also a resident of the Womenâs House, and they noted several ways Spectrum and PRIDE will be working together.
âAnnual collaborations include our National Coming Out Day event, which provides a safe space for students to share their identities with peers, faculty and administration,â they said.
âWe also jointly fund a group of students to go to MBLGTACC (the Midwestern Bisexual Lesbian Gay Transgender Ally College Conference) every year in February. This semester, the Spectrum Resource Center and PRIDE are teaming up to bring a disabled transgender Filipino martial artist to campus to do a poetry performance and self defense workshop for the queer community.â
Junior Zoe Morris, a WoHo resident as well, is another Spectrum intern and leads the Queer Artist of the Month events. For September, she selected Frida Kahlo, a famous Mexican painter who was bisexual and open about her relationships both with women and her husband Diego Rivera.
Kahlo, who lived from 1907 to 1954, was also a strong Mexican nationalist who resisted traditional European styles despite criticism from artistic elites.
“(Kahlo) said that she would be better off essentially selling tortillas in a market than in this culture,” Morris said. “She is most famous for her self-portraits.”
During the event, students were invited to create their own self-portraits, often featuring flowers in Kahlo’s style – and many did.
PRIDE Week
So far, PRIDE hasn’t made their presence felt on the campus-wide stage, but that will change next week with PRIDE week, which takes place from Monday Oct. 6 to Friday Oct. 10; National Coming Out Day is Oct. 11.
âDuring PRIDE Week, we organize ways to bring awareness and recognition to the community,â French said.
They will be tabling throughout the week; events include a performance by spoken word artist J Mase III, a queer trans person of color on Oct. 7. This event was organized by PRIDE Treasurer Alicia Brown, a senior and WoHo resident.
The week closes with PRIDE Prom on Friday, October 10. Other events for PRIDE members specifically will be held during the week.
Beyond PRIDE Week, the club is also focused on increasing membership and discussion of issues in the short term, and an eventual goal of achieving all-gender housing.
âAll-gender housing would provide a safe space for trans and non-binary students,â French said.
âAs of right now, incoming trans students are placed in medical singles, as the school does not allow them to room with others who share their gender identity.â
â…As members of PRIDE Exec, we have noticed and heard PRIDE members who have a huge need for gender-inclusive housing on campus.â
Past events aimed at raising awareness of the need for gender inclusivity in campus housing have included a presentation on all-gender housing by Rebecca Mosely, then-Assistant Director of Residential Education at Oberlin College, which has all-gender housing options. Her presentation and a following discussion were held at last yearâs PRIDE week.
The âTrans-ition Your Outlookâ workshops held toward the end of last semester also promoted gender inclusivity, though in more general terms.
On Sept. 13, Public Safety transported two Ohio Wesleyan students to Grady Memorial Hospital. OWU typically sends around 5 to 10 students to the hospital per year, making the number unusually high for so early in the academic year.
One student was reportedly admitted for a welfare concern regarding an unspecified illness. However, the other was for “acute alcohol poisoning.”
Typically, if PS encounters a student showing symptoms of acute alcohol poisoning, they will transport that individual to a hospital for medical attention.
PS officer Christopher Mickens said that when a student is clearly unable to take care of his or herself, then overconsumption of alcohol is the probable cause, if not the worst-case scenario of alcohol poisoning.
Mickens added that he uses several questions in order to gauge how much a student has had to drink. Incorrectly answering questions such as oneâs name, the date or day of the week, current location, and an inability to locate friends are potential indicators for Mickens.
Symptoms of alcohol poisoning as summarized from awarealertalive.com including mental confusion, unresponsive, snoring or gasping for air, throwing up and loss of consciousness.
And incidents like this arenât just happening at OWU.
The statistics are taken from a 2009 study published in from the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs titled âMagnitude of and trends in alcohol-related mortality and morbidity among U.S. college students ages 18-24, 1998-2005.â
The NIAAA also states that âan estimated 1,825 college students between the ages of 18 and 24 die from alcohol-related unintentional injuries, including motor vehicle crashes.â
Commonly, OWU students fear receiving a violation or a fine for contacting PS in an emergency. Even knowing these fears, PS highly encourages students to call.
Director of Public Safety Bob Wood said, âitâs a violation, but itâs better than getting hurt or losing your life.â
While on night shifts in previous years, Mickens and other officers have noted that there are intoxicated students being dropped off at their dorms, or even the emergency room without ever contacting PS. This led to the addition of the medical amnesty policy, which is meant to be âan educational process, not a punitive one,â said Mickens.
âStudents who seek medical attention for themselves or others because of the over-consumption of alcohol or other drugs will not be charged with violations of the alcohol or illegal drugs policies through the Office of Student Conduct.â
But Mickens cautions students that there arenât an unlimited number of âfree passesâ and a conversation will likely take place in an attempt to prevent any situation from escalating to this level.
Public Safety is also considered the first responders to the scene of a medical emergency if they arrive before an ambulance. But often, the Delaware City Police comes with ambulances and they arenât as likely to give a pass.
Mickens stated that he doesnât think that there is a large increase in the number of incidents from years past. He said that several factors contribute to these statistics. The circumstances: who you decide to surround yourself with when you drink, how attentive those people are and the location.
He dismisses the common scapegoat of blaming the newest freshman class. And the numbers back it up.
According to Public safety, there were 33 reports of alcohol-related concerns in 2011, 22 in 2012, 26 in 2013 and 14 so far in 2014. These figures are calculated by calendar year and they represent all alcohol-related issues, not just alcohol poisoning incidents.
In his 15 years at OWU, Mickens feels he has noticed a shift toward health-conscientiousness in the younger generations.
âI think that you all are more in tune with âWhat it is to be healthy?’ Iâve noticed less of our students smoking and less true binge drinking, â said Mickens.
As a parent himself, Mickens wants students to keep future goals and loved ones in mind when making decisions about their safety and health.
âThe best Motherâs day gift you can give is to walk across that stage,” he said.
Tear gas hits Occupy Central protestors in Hong Kong. Image: Wikimedia
The Issue: Hong Kong
What started off as peaceful protests in Hong Kong escalated to involve tear gas and riot police on Sunday. Occupy Central with Love and Peace (Occupy Central, for short), a civil disobedience movement proposed by democracy activists in Hong Kong, organized the protests, according to the BBC. They want political reform and democratic elections and plan on protesting the Chinese governmentâs ruling against open elections in 2017. The BBC reported the group took its name from the 2011 Occupy Wall Street Protests.
The protests turned violent on Sunday when another group, the Hong Kong Federation of Students, organized a sit-in urging students to boycott classes and workers to strike, said the New York Times. Their main reason for the protesting? âThe protestors focused their anger at a plan for electoral changes introduced by Beijing last month for the first time would let the public vote for the cityâs chief executive, beginning in 2017,â the Times reported.
According to Reuters, Communist Party leaders in Beijing are concerned about these calls for democracy spreading to mainland China. That led to the phrase âOccupy Centralâ being blocked on Weibo, a Chinese social network. So far, there have been 78 arrests in the protests
The Issue: ISIL
The New York Times reported the Pentagon confirmed it had conducted its first strikes against ISIL targets in Syria, along the Turkish border. âSymbolically, though, the modest strikes around Kobani (the area that was targeted) demonstrated some American and Arab commitment to the direct defense of the Kurds in an area that, village by village, has been falling to Islamic State forces,â the Times reported.
The BBC reports United States-led coalition aircraft have targeted four makeshift ISIL-controlled oil refineries. Along with the U.S., countries such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates participated in the attacks. There are approximately 40 countries in the coalition, including five Arab states.
On Friday Great Britain, Belgium and Denmark joined the coalition and committed warplanes to its efforts, the Associated Press reported. Denmark is planning on sending seven F-16 fighter jets, plus four operational planes and three reserve jets, along with 250 pilots and support staff for 12 months, according to the AP. Lawmakers there have yet to approve this measure, but it is expected to pass.
You can now order anything from any restaurant in Delaware, and have it delivered to your door. Â
James Encracion, the founder of Delaware Delivered, said he has seven drivers who will pick up food from any restaurant in the city of Delaware and deliver it anywhere within city limits.
âMy wife and I came up with the idea when we were trying to decide what to order for dinner,â said Encracion. âThe only options for delivery were either Chinese or pizza.â
Encracion also said that he has spoken to several restaurants in town and has their menus available on the Delaware Delivered website for consumer convenience.
Junior Ruchi Kansal said she definitely plans on using the service to order food.
âChipotle is so far away, and for people who donât have cars, this will be a game changer,â Kansal said.
Kansal said there is nothing like the business in her home in Dubai, so the idea of the business model coming to small town Ohio “is pretty cool.”
There are several businesses around the country whose sole purpose is to deliver foods from restaurants that donât typically deliver. One such business is BringMeThat.com, which serves several cities in Ohio.
However, the national site does not accommodate Delaware, giving Delaware Delivered a competitive advantage. They have a monopoly over the delivery industry.
âAs a college student, and to be on a budget, it will be very helpful to have someone deliver food that isnât pizza or campus food,â said freshman Brooke Butterworth.
âComing from California to a more suburban neighborhood, the biggest change was adapting to the very different food scene in Delaware,â Butterworth said. âIt has been challenging finding healthy, affordable food anywhere near campus.”
Anyone can order food by going to Delaware Delivered’s website. Their hours of operation are 10 a.m. until 10 p.m., and they will be able to take orders over the phone beginning at 9 a.m. Orders must be a minimum of $10, and a delivery fee is $3.95 plus gratuity. Customers will also be subject to a minimum of one hour’s wait time.
