The Wesleyan Council on Student Affairs (WCSA) considered the benefits of increasing the student activity fee at their March 16 full senate meeting.
The fee is a component of the Ohio Wesleyan tuition statement. It has not been increased since 2011.
Citing OWUâs current deficit, WCSA president Jerry Lherisson, a junior, told the senators that the administration âneeds to make $4 million in cuts in order to have the exact same quality of things we have now.â
In an effort to decrease the financial burden on faculty and staff, whose salaries, health benefits and retirement plans are at stake, WCSA is proposing to cost share with the student affairs division.
This division includes the community service office, the office of multicultural student affairs, Residential Life, the student involvement office, Public Safety, Counseling Services and Health Services.
According to junior Emma Drongowski, vice president of WCSA, âif WCSA were to give some funds to student affairs less cuts would have to be madeâ across the board.
The money for cost sharing would come from WCSAâs budget, funded by the student activity fee. The options presented on March 16 were to raise the $130 student activity fee to $160 or to $170. The senators could also vote to keep it as is.
According to Lherisson, if the activity fee were increased and money was allocated to the student affairs offices, it would âsoften the blowâ to the people that make âintegral, day to day campus life what it is.â Without an increase, this wonât happen.
Because the budget for the 2015-2016 year will not be finalized until class of 2019 enrollment is set, neither the administration nor WCSA knows how dire the financial picture will be. âOur top four officers are just as frustrated that we canât give exact numbers and say what is going to be cut,â said Drongowski. But Dean of Students Kimberlie Goldsberry reinforced the point that âwhether student government will be able to assist student activity or not…there are going to be cuts.â
WCSA leadership emphasized that these options are being discussed, and that nothing will be decided without the full consent of the senate.
Also mentioned at the full senate meeting were the Golden Bishop winners for the categories of friend of WCSA, best new member and best overall member. Craig Ullom, vice president for student affairs, sophomore Sam Schurer and sophomore Jess Choate won the titles respectively.
Many great things come from athletics, but hazing is not one of them. Ohio Wesleyan menâs soccer coach and health and human kinetics professor Jay Martin is looking to address this problem.
âHazing has always been an interest to me,â Martin said. âWhen I first got to Ohio Wesleyan I was the soccer and lacrosse coach and both teams were really into hazing.â
Simon Clements of the Chicago-based EXACT Sports research group will be working alongside Martin on his project.
The two sent a grant proposal to the NCAA Innovations in Research and Practice Grant Program stating that âhazing prevalence is as high as 79 percentâ and that âa more recent study of 53 colleges involving 11,000 students indicate that over 50 percent have experienced hazing.â
Martin and his research team received a $10,000 grant and will use the money to conduct studies that will attempt to identify teams and players who suffer from hazing tendencies.
Martin and his team will begin their research by identifying 10 coaches throughout all NCAA divisions to send a questionnaire on hazing to.
Then they will do the same thing, but anonymously, with 300 freshman student athletes. This sample will consist of 150 males and 150 females.
âWhat we are eventually trying to do is to identify teams, players and coaches that have a tendency to haze,â Martin said.
Martin continued by saying they will develop another questionnaire that will be put online so coaches and athletic directors can identify potential hazing situations at their institutions.
All of this will be done by January of 2016.
âWe want to be done with part one – thatâs identification of the coaches – by April 30, we want to do part two by Aug. 15 and then get the entire study put together to be presented at the NCAA convention next January in San Antonio,â Martin said.
Martin specified that ultimately they are trying to develop an online tool the NCAA can use to pick out hazing teams, coaches, and players.
âWe believe that there are certain behaviors exhibited by coaches and players who haze,â Martin said. âSo we are trying to identify those behaviors so we can stop hazing and make a more positive environment.â
At the start of each spring semester, OWUâs Small Living Units seek new members â but theyâre running into increased competition with fraternities, most often for male candidates.
âI think that the fraternity system here at OWU, the fact that itâs residential, is why the gender ratios are so skewed in the SLUs,â said Citizens of the World (COW) House moderator Kerrigan Boyd, a senior.
â…In some ways itâs kind of cool that the SLU community is primarily driven by women, just because I feel like there are so…few things in society that are, but I feel like we strive for a community thatâs inclusive of a variety of diverse backgrounds, including gender diversity.â
In terms of gender, OWUâs student body as a whole is 54 percent female and 46 percent male, according to the OWU website; data on non-binary students was not available and is not recorded by the University.
Non-binary, as described by sophomore Womenâs House (WoHo) resident Rowan Hannan, refers to a gender identity that is different from the one assigned at birth; this includes a wide variety of genders beyond assigned and self-identified male or female.
A survey of SLU gender demographics finds that there are more than four times more women in SLUs than men and at least three non-binary students, including Hannan, who live in WoHo.
These statistics were provided by SLU moderators and some residents; there may be additional non-binary SLU residents whose identities arenât fully known or realized, and were not counted accurately as a result.
Senior Meredith Harrison, WoHo moderator, said the SLU community tends to be fairly homogenous as a whole.
âWe have a lot of cisgender, heterosexual white people; itâs predominantly female,â she said.
Low male participation – and a new exception
âThere are absolutely less men who go through that (SLUsh) process, but I think at the end of the day that is a choice that our male students have to make (between fraternities or SLUs),â said Levi Harrel, residential life coordinator for the SLU community.
The Memorandums of Understanding (MOUs) between Ohio Wesleyan and the seven residential fraternities currently on campus require all fraternity members to live in their houses, unless they work for Residential Life or the houses are above capacity.
âI can understand why the university wants to fill all the (fraternity) houses, because itâs more efficient that way,â said senior Brian Cook, president of the Inter-Fraternity Council (IFC).
âAt the same time, I think I can understand why SLUs might be frustrated with that process.â
The MoUs make it rare for active fraternity members to live in SLUs, although there are some ways they can do both at the same time.
The most likely way for active fraternity members to live in a SLU would be if their organization is non-residential â such as Phi Gamma Delta (FIJI) or one of the National Pan-Hellenic Council groups, nine traditionally African-American Greek organizations. Currently, no one is using this option, however there will be a member of FIJI in the House of Spiritual Athletes next year.
While FIJI will be a residential fraternity again starting next semester, the chapter will be above occupancy due to increased recruiting in the past. Itâs not known yet whether HSA will have a house or if itâs members will be living in other housing, though.
With ten members, HSAâs residents will make up half the male population of next yearâs SLU community, but they plan to recruit women in the future.
âWe had interest from some women, but there were a lot more guys interested and we didnât want to have an awkward guy to girl ratio,â said freshman Conner Brown, one of two candidates to be HSA moderator.
âWe do plan to offer and integrate women into the SLU in the future but we knew we may not even have a house this next year.â
The second most likely exception is if they are the moderator â equivalent to a resident assistant for dormitory life, thus exempting them from the Greek residency requirement.
There is one actively Greek male moderator, senior Noah Manskar, whoâs also the only male moderator this year. To do this, he had to join his SLU, become moderator and then go Greek â then be selected as moderator again to remain in the house.
The structure of this yearâs fraternity rush and SLU rush (SLUsh) processes also required potential new fraternity members to make a decision on their bids before receiving SLU interview results, leading several male students to opt out of SLUsh entirely.
Challenges with fraternity recruitment
âIâve heard of a lot of men who drop out – they do start slushing and then they drop out because they get bids,â said senior Meredith Harrison, moderator of the Womenâs House.
The House of Peace and Justice (P&J) was hit particularly hard by this â originally four men signed up for interviews, but three received fraternity bids and withdrew from the SLUsh process to accept them.
âWe had one (man), out of 21 people (who applied),â said Manskar, P&Jâs moderator.
âI think we have definitely noticed a decrease in the amount of men who have applied to houses this year,â said junior Reilly Reynolds. âI think all the members of the SLUs have.â
Reynolds is moderator of Tree House, which had 17 students apply during this SLUsh season. None of them were men.
âI really donât think itâs fair to the guys, because they have to make a decision on Greek life before they make a decision about SLU life,â she said.
Sophomore Cindy Hastings, also a Tree House resident, added that the low gender ratios can also deter some non-Greek men from the SLUsh process, as they may not be as comfortable applying and interviewing at an all or mostly-female house.
The Womenâs House encounters this in more than most; Harrison said the current name may discourage some men from applying. This year they had two men apply, which she said is âreally good for us.â
While itâs rare for men to be involved in SLU and fraternity life simultaneously, students can do both over their four years at Ohio Wesleyan, and several have. In most cases, though, they leave their SLU to go Greek, rather than the other way around.
Senior Kyle Simon is one of those whoâve done both â he lived in the Womenâs House (WoHo) his sophomore year before moving into Chi Phi last year.
âIt was really, really wonderful,â Simon said about his time in WoHo.
While he enjoyed the experience, he found Greek life offered a different type of community that appealed more; close personal friendships with future fellow members also led him to Chi Phi.
Simon remains active in some SLU programs, and credits his dual experience of SLU and Greek perspectives as being really helpful.
âI think theyâre really good options for people, but theyâre completely different types of structures,â he said.
âEvery SLU and every Greek organizationâs so different that itâs not really the same decision (to join one or the other.)â
Harrison said Simonâs done a lot to connect her house and his fraternity after leaving, though the two organizations already had a strong connection.
During Take Back the Night, an annual Womenâs House event, members of Chi Phi will guard WoHo in its residentsâ absence. This safety measure is due to a 1984 incident where two male students threw a smoke bomb into the house and nearly burned it down.
âI feel like, as far as fraternities go, weâve always had a really good relationship with Chi Phi,â Harrison said.
Benefits of Greek and SLU overlap
Alpha Sigma Phi also has a former SLU resident, junior Scott Woodward, and current SLU resident Noah Manskar.
Woodward lived in the House of Thought (HoT) last year and moved into Alpha Sig this year after accepting a bid.
âDeciding to slush and live at (HoT) was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made in college,â Woodward said.
He decided to rush to learn more about the Greek community, something he hadnât considered joining before coming to college.
âLeaving House of Thought for Alpha Sig was the definition of bittersweet,â he said, but the commitments of both would have been too much to handle on top of academics and clubs.
Brian Cook, president of the Inter-Fraternity Council, is also a member of Alpha Sig and he described the benefits the chapter has received from having SLU members.
âThe people that tend to join SLUs, at least in our example, (have) a different way of thinking about things than people who may be prone to join a fraternity so itâs good to have that kind of diversity of thought flowing around,â Cook said.
In particular, he discussed how Manskar has integrated one of his Peace and Justice house projects into Alpha Sigâs OWU chapter community.
Two years ago, Manskar hosted a V-Men workshop for the campus, but had a small turnout of 15 participants.
V-Men is a program created by the V-Day organization, which also created the Vagina Monologues, to bring men together around the issue of violence against women and girls.
After joining Alpha Sig last spring, partly to integrate SLU ideals into the fraternity community, Manskar held the workshop within his new chapter.
âAll of our guys loved it and we really appreciate him doing that,â Cook said; the chapter is now making it part of their new member education process.
âAt least in our example those guys (Manskar and Woodward) were willing to take the charge on that, because of their experience with holding those kinds of programs in their own SLUs,â he added.
While Meredith Harrison said she hopes for more fraternity-SLU outreach, she sees a lot of positives in the relationship between SLUs and OWUâs sororities.
âFor Womenâs Week, a lot of sororities support it and I think that is because we have so much Greek representation in our house,â she said.
This year, the Womenâs House has had one member from Kappa Alpha Theta, one from Kappa Kappa Gamma and two from Delta Zeta, though one of them withdrew from the university after the fall semester.
â(SLU membership) does impact (the sorority community), but in a natural way because theyâre living with different people, so they get to share those things that theyâre learning with different people,â said sophomore Jocelyne Muñoz.
âThey get to get other perspectives, so (itâs) definitely a positive.â
Muñoz is community development director of OWUâs Panhellenic Council, the sorority equivalent of IFC, and a member of Delta Gamma.
Strong bonds between SLUs and sororities
Unlike fraternity members, sorority members cannot live in their houses at Ohio Wesleyan, and so a sizeable percentage of the female SLU community are also sorority members.
Of the six female SLU moderators this year, for example, four are in sororities.
“(SLU life) encourages more active members in the OWU community,â said junior Natalie Geer, president of OWUâs Panhellenic Council.
Muñoz added that living in the same SLU âabsolutelyâ connects members of different sororities, and that the presence of sorority members in SLUs âdefinitelyâ brings their non-SLU members to events.
âThere is (an) impact from having your sisters in (SLUs) so more of those sisters will attend those events because theyâre involved,â she said. âBut I donât think it should stop others from attending those events, just because theyâre getting that (sorority) support anyways.â
At the Citizens of the World (COW) House around half the female residents are in sororities but this doesnât have a significant impact on the House culture, according to moderator Kerrigan Boyd.
âI think that people who are involved in SLUs and Greek life a lot of times are leaders and people that really strive to be deeply involved in the OWU community,â said Boyd, also a member of Kappa Kappa Gamma.
â…I think that having people who are leaders in multiple settings, not just SLUs, doesnât isolate us; I think that thatâs been a strength.â
âI think my experience with all the Greek women Iâve lived with is they are fully part of both,â said Noah Manskar, Peace & Justice House moderator.
âThey hold officer positions in the sororities and they put on great house projects here. I think itâs good that the SLUs are kind of integrated with the sororitiesâŠ(they) seem to mesh very well.â
In P&J thereâs an even split this year: six affiliated women, six unaffiliated women, and five men. Among the sorority women of P&J, there is one Kappa, two Tri-Deltas and three Kappa Alpha Thetas.
Kappa Alpha Theta has the highest number of sorority SLU residents, with eleven.
A safe space for other gender minorities
Each year, SLUs must go through a renewal process; this year the Womenâs House requested to change their name to the Sexual and Gender Equality (SAGE) House after lengthy discussion among current and potential new members.
The change was part of a deliberate strategy by moderator Meredith Harrison to make the house more queer-inclusive. Queer, used as a positive term by Harrison, refers to non-heterosexual sexual and romantic orientations and non-binary gender identities.
âThis year, we started having conversations about the house name and how it could be really alienating to our non-binary housemates or trans men on this campus,â she said. â…Iâm really proud of my community for wanting to become more inclusive.â
Hannan, who joined the house at the start of this year, said theyâve been able to better understand their gender identity because of their time in the house and the supportive environment itâs residents provide.
âBecause we continually work to create a safe space, it has allowed me to explore my gender as well as the way I perceive others,â Hannan said.
âI often forget that when leaving the SLU bubble that people will not ask for my pronouns, will assume my gender based on the way I present, and will often not acknowledge the existence of non-binary genders.â
While they could only speak from their own experience, Hannan said they thought the SLU community can be more comfortable than Greek life for non-binary students.
âFraternities and sororities literally represent the gender binary,â they said. â…However there are trans and non-binary people who are happy in fraternities, and I think it isn’t something to necessarily be generalized.â
The number of non-binary SLU residents for next year will increase from at least three to at least five, and not all of them will live in the SAGE House.
âI have only experienced one slush with the house so I can’t speak to a trend, but there were several non-binary applicants this year, and I know there have been in the past,â Hannan said.
âI wouldn’t say there is more, but I feel that PRIDE and SAGE have both done very well this year in creating an atmosphere of acceptance and safety, and allowed people to explore and come out in their identities.â
Harrison added that the houseâs name change reflects a growing trend in the feminist movements that SAGE reflects.
âWomen are not the only gender minorities – the trans community, non binary people, you canât ignore that and you canât ignore that in feminism, you canât ignore that in the queer movement,â she said. âSo I think changing the name and the mission statement is absolutely necessary for how gender politics are going.â
Hannan said they want to create more safe spaces for non-binary students, but also âbrave spacesâ where students can âchallenge what people say and try to educate others and create a genuine dialogue.â
âThe best way to be an ally to people of other identities is to listen, and to use your privileges to challenge ignorance, and empower others,â they said.
With graduation looming, seniors are beginning to feel the pressure of uncertain post-grad plans. International studentsâif they wish to stay in the countryâmust find a job within three to five months of graduation, adding extra stress to this already tumultuous transitory period.
According to the Institute of International Education, a non-profit that releases an annual âopen doorsâ report, the number of international students at colleges and universities in the U.S. has increased by 8 percent âto a record high of 886,052 student in the 2013/14 academic year.â
âI decided to go to school in the U.S. because I believed that this country has the best higher education in the world,â said Ibrahim Saeed, a senior from Karachi, Pakistan. âHowever, thereâs a cliff for [international students] after graduation.â
According to current U.S. immigration policy, international students studying in the United States on an F1âor studentâvisa have three to five months after graduation to find a job under their student visa. This work authorization under the student visa category is referred to as âoptional practical trainingâ (OPT), which allows them to stay in the U.S. for 12 months, with the possibility of an additional 17 months after graduation if their major was in STEM (science, technology, engineering or math) fields.
According to Dorota Kendrick, OWUâs assistant director of International and Off Campus Programming (IOCP), âOPT serves as a great opportunity for students to gain practical experience in the field that they have just invested the last four years of their life studying.â
âImmigration permits them to do this on a student visa without having to worry about obtaining a work visa,â she said.
Adding another obstacle to employment, international students must find a job directly related to their major. This can pose a problem for students with liberal arts degrees.
âStudents from the U.S. can take any job that they are offered, and while that might not be ideal they are not restricted to certain kinds of jobs that relate to their majors,â senior Megan Buys said. âInternational students have extra laws that they have to follow, and I think trying to color within those lines creates a different kind of pressure for many students.â
Buys hails from Pretoria, South Africa and said she has applied to several graduate schools, hoping to extend her student status. However, Buys also has applied to several jobs as back up options, but has run into issues finding jobs directly related to her history and psychology majors.
âEven though I have a lead about a writing job with a publishing house, I might not be able to take it because creative writing is my minor, not my major,â she said. âI think this is extraordinarily unfair given the fact that I have eight writing credits on my transcript that are from all three of my focus areas, not just English.â
Kendrick also shares Buysâ discontent with the current system.
âIn the decade or so I have been doing this, it has been frustrating to see some students struggle with the major specific limitation to their job search or even the limitation of not surpassing the accrual of more than 90 days of unemployment,â she said. âThe transition from college life to work life is stressful on its own, and it seems unfair that additional limitations are placed on international students in this already stressful time in their lives.â
For other international seniors however, these limitations have served as motivation to begin the job search early.
Mainza Moono came to Ohio Wesleyan from Lusaka, Zambia and will be graduating with an economics major and management minor. Moono said he already has an investment banking position lined up post-graduation, thanks to an internship in wealth management he had last summer. Moono said he received this internship with the help of the economics departmentâs internship coordinator.
âPersonally, I donât feel the pressure,â he said. âThe finance industry is very competitive, and the job application process happens very early, and very fast. The best, and most competitive positions are already filled by December, of which half were filled early in October. I got my job offer in early October 2014.â
Moono said he views the restrictions on major related positions fair.
âWe spend four years studying something we think we are passionate about,â he said. âThatâs a lot of time to spend on something you donât want to eventually pursue a career in. The policy is competitive, and forces graduates to focus on a career they have the most experience in from an education standpoint.â
Similarly, Saeedâa computer science and economics double majorâhas accepted a technology analyst position with JP Morgan Chase, who will sponsor his work visa. Saeed attributes the experience he gained through his Summer on the Cuyahoga internship last summer with his procurement of this position.
Other seniors though, are still in the process of looking for jobs.
âThere is more pressure on me to find a job than the average graduating senior because even to spend more time in this country after graduation, I need to have a job,â said senior Zain Kahn, who wants to work in the U.S. before obtaining his Master in Business Administration and returning to Kiratchi, Pakistan to start his own company.
âI do have the option of going home and working [after graduation] but the professionalism and opportunities found in this country are hard to match in Pakistan,â he said.
Ohio Wesleyan does provide resources to help international students prepare for their postgraduate plans.
International students are automatically enrolled in a mandatory course (worth .25 units) UC 99, or international student success, taught by Kendrick. Two of the seven sessions of this course are specific to F1 regulations.
âIÂ cover, in very thorough detail, all the work authorization options including OPT,â she said. âOnce per term I also hold work authorization options for F1 student workshops for those students that need a refresher or have questions. I also hold another meeting for seniors, called senior transitions, where among other topics, I discuss OPT requirements and application procedures.â
While IOCP works with international studentsâ visa concerns, the Office of Career Service (OCS) helps students with their job search.
Nancy Westfield, assistant director of OCS, said on a whole, international students utilize the resources OCS offers earlier in their college careers than the average student.
âSince their job search is inherently a little different, [international students] do start thinking about what they are going to be doing with their major and building up their resumes sooner than the average student,â she said.
Despite these resources, the underlying frustration with the system remains.
âAs a university we are so accommodating but with Immigration it is very black and white and life isnât black and white,â Kendrick said. âFrom my perspective, one of the many advantages of a liberal arts education is that it allows students to gain valuable skills and a greater depth of knowledge from multiple disciplines that will lead them to excel in an array of different fields after graduation. The major specific limitations that Immigration imposes seems counter intuitive to that purpose.â
Just like us, youâve probably been celebrating St. Patrickâs Day your whole life. And even though youâre not quite sure why itâs a holiday, dressing like leprechauns, pinching people and day-drinking is more than enough to jump on the Pattyâs bandwagon.
But just with anything else, no one likes fair-weather fans. Listen up to gain some St. Pattyâs cred for this yearâs festivities.
What you should know:
Saint Patrickâs Day, or the Feast of Saint Patrick, commemorates the arrival of Christianity in Ireland and Saint Patrick himself. The holiday always falls on March 17, the day Saint Patrick died. Apparently he was a pretty cool dude.
He was born in the fourth century to a wealthy family in Roman Britain. He was kidnapped at the age of 16 by Irish raiders and taken as a slave to Gaelic Ireland. Just imagine that for a second. Irish raiders! Well, turns out he spent six years with the raiders, found God and went back home where he became a priest and converted Irish pagans to Christianity.
There you have it, a little more about the exciting day.
What you need to know:
In my book, Saint Pattyâs day represents the coming of spring. Believe it or not, the weather is warming up, grass is visible and the sun is kind of shining. Enjoy the day outside drinking liquids and soaking up the rays of sun. Just like Patty would have wanted.
Green beer tastes the same as normal beer. The dyed liquid is a festive treat and before long you will found out the only addition to the colored beer is that your mouth will be dyed as well. Youâll look like one big Saint Pattyâs day monstah that likes those green marshmallows from Lucky Charms a little too much.
If youâre like us, green is not a prominent color of your existing wardrobe. The last minute $5 Walmart purchase is always an option. That is, if you want to be wearing the same corny shirt as three other guys at the same party as you (You donât want that, trust us). Instead, get a plain green shirt and come up with your own St. Pattyâs Day slogan to write on.
Disclaimer: If youâre stumped with coming up with any good original slogans like we are right now, let us know, maybe we can help each other out. And weâre supposed to be the writers. I know, right?
So, we think you are now ready to have a great Saint Patrickâs Day. Go make your bro Patrick proud. And always remember: Keep calm and leprechaun. Weâre hilarious.
By many measures, this winter has been a pain in areas where the sun rarely reaches.
Dreadful weather is bad enough on its own, but it can also be a real boon for the radical element that deny the existence of climate change.
The cold, snow and ice morph into a convenient prop for these folks and their head-in-the-sand outlook that says changes in climate are not fueled by the worldâs booming population and the ever increasing numbers of people driving fuel-burning vehicles.
Forget that in 2013 a United Nations panel, which includes thousands of scientists from around the world, said it is a 95 percent certainty that humans are the âdominant causeâ behind the monumental changes to our climate.
Theyâre not alone. NASA, the National Academy of Sciences, the U.S. Department of Defense, the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Meteorological Society agree, as noted recently in The Columbus Dispatch.
Scientists seem unequivocal in their reasoning, so whoâs to argue?
Send in the clowns.
At the end of February, Sen. James Inhofe, an Oklahoma Republican and well-known denier, packed snow into a large ball and lugged it into the Senate chambers. âDo you know what this is? Itâs a snowball,â Inhofe said.
Not getting anything past this Congress.
Inhofe explained he had made the snowball outside and that it was very cold, âvery unseasonable.â Really? Snow in February, who knew.
Thereâs more. Earlier this month employees of Floridaâs Department of Environmental Protection revealed that they are forbidden to use phrases like âglobal warmingâ and âclimate changeâ in official communications.
Soon after that news broke a former staffer from the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources said they had been âexplicitly orderedâ to remove all references to climate change from the organizationâs website.
And the North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources also deleted links and documents related to climate change from its website. Not to be outdone, 39 Republican U.S. senators opposed an amendment that blamed human activity for climate shifts.
Playing politics with this somber and factual meteorological phenomena is a very dangerous game. Last year, that same U.N. panel of global scientists issued a report that said greenhouse gas emissions are the highest in history. The gasses come from a variety of sources, especially from the burning of fossil fuels for electricity, heat and transportation, and can trap and hold heat in the atmosphere. Globally, the ten hottest years on record have occurred since 1998.
In 2008, I spent six months helping climate change scientists develop multimedia content for their website. Frankly, I was startled by what I learned and that was seven years ago.
Glaciers and ice packs in mountain regions are in full retreat. Melting ice is expected to contribute to a continuing rise in sea levels, threatening many costal cities and potentially displacing millions. Global sea levels rose a little more than 6 œ inches in the last century and the rate in the last decade is nearly double that, according to NASA. Small Pacific islands are sinking.
The changing climate is likely to fuel more violent and costly storms, create regional droughts and threaten the natural habitat of animal and plant life. The Nature Conservancy predicts that if the changes continue to occur rapidly, one-fourth of Earthâs species could be headed toward extinction by 2050.
Superstorm Sandy, which plowed into New Jersey in 2012, cost at least $65 billion in damages, making it the second most costly storm since Katrina wiped out the New Orleans region, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Sobering stuff, but thatâs simply a big-picture scan of the potential danger and damage. Deeper evidence abounds should one look, and I strongly urge the students on this campus to get engaged.
The deniers like to claim that this is all a liberal media hoax and that little if any proof exists. Guess what drives that view? Money.
It will cost many industries real cash to clean up and reduce carbon emissions and many of those organizations and their political allies have said, âNo thanks, not enough proof.â
Helen Keller, the deaf and blind author, political activist and lecturer once said, âThe only thing worse than being blind is having sight but not vision.â
The scientific jury is still out on whether it is too late for us to do anything to reverse these processes. Itâs clear we all need to at least try. But this country, in fact the entire planet, needs vision regarding climate change and how we as a human race might diminish these looming dangers. Politically motivated denial simply digs a deeper hole for everyone.
Iâve heard the denierâs arguments that the changes now underway have occurred on the Earth before. Certainly true, but the planet was not home to 7 billion people at the time. Thatâs where the dangers lie.
Itâs going to take personal and even global energy to try to turn the direction in which we are headed. Itâs a vital calling, if for nothing else, one simple fact â the wellbeing of future generations. Itâs time to stop the political gamesmanship and act.
If we donât, the kids will pay the real price.
TC Brown is an adjunct instructor of journalism at Ohio Wesleyan, an author, and a journalist of 25 years. His work has been featured in many publications, including The New York Times and Cleveland’s The Plain Dealer.
I consider myself to be a fairly smart person. I read The New York Times every day, I understand world politics and I can hold my own in just about any conversation. But my ultimate guilty pleasure is reality television. And by reality TV, I mean the trashiest television possible. Keeping Up with the Kardashians, check. The Real Housewives of wherever, check. Any random television marathon that I stumble upon, Iâll definitely watch it.
I canât help but like the outlandish drama that unfolds before my eyes. Maybe because my life is so boring, the only drama I can get is on television. But maybe thatâs not the worst thing. As Iâm writing this, Iâm watching a Keeping Up with the Kardashians marathon in preparation for the new season premiere.
People like to make fun of me for my guilty pleasure. I mean, itâs not so much a guilty pleasure because Iâm very vocal about my love of trash TV. But I see the scowl on some peopleâs faces whenever I bring up the Kardashian family in conversation. The disdain is apparent. I used to feel like I had to justify myself in my television habits. But I donât do that anymore. Why do I have to justify what television shows I like? So what if I like to unwind while watching old seasons of Keeping Up with the Kardashians? There are definitely television shows that people watch that I turn my nose to, but I definitely donât say anything to them. Well, except now.
Letâs be real: different people have different television preferences. And thatâs completely normal. I try not to judge peopleâs television habits, but when they criticize mine, I canât help but bite back. I get defensive and pull out the whole âsmartâ card. But why do I have to say Iâm smart in order to watch trashy television? Watching trashy television doesnât diminish my academic achievements or my political knowledge. It adds another facet to me; it adds to my popular culture knowledge. And thatâs not necessarily a bad thing.
You never know how people unwind or what their secret television habits are. Now Iâm not saying everyone watches trashy television like I do, but they could be watching something you may not want to watch. But hey, you could be watching something people may normally never turn on.
So letâs stop shaming people based on the television shows they watch. People are entitled to watch anything they want without judgment. Everyone has their guilty pleasures, be it television, music or movies. And who am I to judge your favorite show? If you donât judge me, I wonât judge you.
Part-time faculty positions are being cut across many disciplines, but some departments are facing greater challenges than others.
Provost Chuck Stinemetz said departments request part-time faculty each year, and 88 percent of requests for next year were granted. Reductions were made in 12 of the 26 programs and departments that applied for part-time staff.
Stinemetz said the decisions regarding what and how much to cut were based off enrollment in courses and overall institutional enrollments in different areas. Maintaining existing majors was a priority.
âThere was no effort to try to make them (the cuts) equal between the divisions,â Stinemetz said.
He said the cuts will save about $200,000 next year, but there had not been a target amount of money to be saved.
In the past, classes have been cut because not enough students registered. To avoid this, Stinemetz said he and his colleagues tried to be âconservativeâ in deciding how much to cut.
He said if there is a large freshman class next year, sections of classes may be re-added.
Stinemetz said part-time positions are based on need and the professors in the positions being cut do not have to accept the reduced units they are being offered.
There are many parts of OWUâs budget that need to be considered when making cuts, he said.
âFor instance, we could reduce financial aid, but then we got a different issue,â Stinemetz said. ââŠWeâd all love to have more money and not have to go through this exercise, but thatâs not the situation weâre in right now.â
Some of the departments losing the most in these cuts are the languages, classics, religion and black world studies departments.
Lee Fratantuono, director of classics and the only full-time classics professor, said the classics major is âokay for another yearâ because of Stinemetz.
Greek was almost reduced to being offered every other year, but that possibility was decided against.
âIt was the first time in my ten years it was called into question,â Fratantuono said. âThe price is that we will not be able to offer two electives that we would normally offer, unless thereâs a larger incoming class.â
Fratantuono said enrollment in classics has gone up âappreciablyâ in the past ten years, and Greek and Latin are subjects of the oldest department at OWU.
He said one effect of the part-time faculty positions changing so much is a lack of continuity for students.
âWe have students now who have literally had a different professor every year because weâve had three people cycle through,â Fratantuono said.
David Eastman, assistant professor of religion, said the religion department requested three part-time teaching positions, but all were denied.
Because of the cuts, the department will no longer be able to offer courses in Judaism or the Hebrew bible, even though the latter is an introductory course OWU was founded on, said Eastman.
Fewer introductory courses hurts enrollment in upper division courses, he said.
âIâve been told that one student would like to major in religion, but because of this personâs schedule, canât get enough upper division classes,â Eastman said. âSo thatâs our loss.â
Randolph Quaye, the only full-time professor in the BWS department, said about 60 percent of the departmentâs courses are taught by part-time faculty.
âI think these cuts are a crisis that we have to deal with and I hope and I pray that whatever the final decision is, it will take into account the academic programs and the staffing positions,â Quaye said.
An album was brought to my attention a couple weeks ago, and I havenât been able to stop listening to it since.
The album is called These Things Happen by G-Eazy. The hip-hop artist has become a well-known name around many college campuses and his hits have gone viral.
G-Eazy was born in Oakland, California and knew he wanted to become a musician in 9th grade geometry class. Upon realizing he couldnât focus during class he turned to music. He wrote music to express himself, which soon lead him to become a rapper, songwriter and producer.
The musician has released many albums and mix tapes. Â Of all of his music, These Things Happen easily is the one album that people should be listening to.
Many singles were released from the album before it dropped in July 2014. The songs that I would suggest off the album are: I Mean It, an anthem to a carefree lifestyle of unabashed luxury and Almost Famous, a jaded song about enjoying the perks of fame before the limelight inevitably fades. Although I enjoy every song on the album, these two are definitely the jams that I listen to the most.
The album will appeal to any person who chooses to listen, which is why it has made its way high on various charts including number three on the Billboard 200 list. In July 2014 MTV placed the young rapper on the Artists To Watch list. Go and listen to it for yourself, it wonât disappoint.