Tag: featured

The Issue: Ottawa Terrorist Attack

A terrorist attack rocked Canada’s capital and catapulted more investigations of terrorism in Canada. On Oct. 22, Michael Zehaf-Bibeau opened fire at Canada’s National War Memorial and entered the nearby Parliament building.

Zehaf-Bibeau killed corporal Nathan Cirillo, who was guarding the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, before he was killed himself. Zehaf-Bibeau was killed by Canadian sergeant-at-arms Kevin Vickers. This was the second deadly assault on a uniformed member of Canada’s armed forces within three days, the New York Times reported. A few days before, there was a hit-and-run car crash that killed a soldier and wounded another in Quebec. Later, authorities named it an act of terror.

According to Reuters, a Canadian Parliament committee is set to hear from two top security officials about threats facing Canada. Reuters also said Zehaf-Bibeau made a video of himself “just before the attack that contained evidence that he was driven by ideological and political motives.” The BBC reports that Canadian authorities said “the gunman was radicalized but had no ties to Middle Eastern Islamist extremists.”  Zehaf-Bibeau had converted to Islam, is from suburban Montreal and has dealt with drug abuse and mental health problems, the New York Times reported. He also has a criminal history.

During the attack, Parliament was locked down, but public tours have since reopened.

The Issue: Leaving Afghanistan

Combat operations have ended in the Afghani province of Helmand. United States Marines and British troops have left, which ends a “decade-long struggle to keep a major Taliban stronghold and the region’s vast opium production in check,” the New York Times said. According to the Washington Post, the province is now “almost exclusively in the hands of Afghan security forces.”

The withdrawal and base closure is one of the largest operations in the winding down of the international combat mission in Afghanistan, according to Reuters. The Washington Post reported the withdrawal “marks another step in the wider disengagement of NATO-led forces in Afghanistan.” The Washington Post also said British forces were largely in control of Helmand in the early years of the war, but in 2008 President Obama sent tens of thousands of American Marines to the province. At the peak of U.S. deployment, about 20,000 Marines were stationed at Helmand.

About 400 British troops and more than 350 Marines have been killed in Helmand.

Ohio Wesleyan has not done a great job of keeping parents and alumni involved and connected to the university, according to the vice president for university advancement Colleen Garland.

That has to change and will change, Garland told faculty at their monthly meeting Monday, if the university is to raise an ambitious $200 million over the next seven years.

“Connect today, create tomorrow” is the newly minted logo for the fundraising campaign, which the Ohio Wesleyan Board of Trustees approved earlier this month.

Garland said Ohio Wesleyan’s fundraising  improved over the last few years. On average, the university receives about $15 million in cash yearly, but raised more than $22 million during the most recent fiscal year.

However, Garland emphasized emphasized that giving goes up and down.

“We have had a terrific couple of years,” she said. “We are working very hard to maintain this momentum.”

Prior to settling on the $200 million goal, trustees asked for a “feasibility study” by an outside consultant to examine fundraising objectives.

The consultant interviewed about 50 of OWU’s likely donors at the highest potential donation levels to “test the funding objectives as well as the overall dollar amount,” while “probing each individual they interviewed for that person’s projected donation to the campaign,” Garland said.

The consultant’s  report recommended a goal between the $180 million to $210 million. The report was presented to the trustees in May, but the $200 million campaign goal wasn’t settled on until earlier this month.

The report also suggested a split between types of donations, aiming for 75 percent in outright giving, with 25 percent coming from planned, or estate, donations. In the past, OWU heavily depended on estate gifts, Garland said, which was a reflection of the economy at the time. However, as the campaign proceeds, Garland said her office is looking “for something a little more aggressive” in terms of outright giving.

Garland also said in her report that there is no magic formula for determining a campaign goal, “but there are a few benchmarks you look at.”

One key benchmark is trustee giving as a percentage of the total. According to Garland, a minimum of 25 percent of the total goal should come from the Board, adding that at some schools that number is as high as 40 percent.

Garland said another important consideration is the wealth of the prospect pool. Reflecting on a screening of all of the alumni and parents in OWU’s “prospect pool,” Garland said the results are “very, very promising.”

“We feel very confident that we have the wealth in our prospect pool to raise this kind of money,” she said. The challenge will be to get people more involved and connected to the university.

“Most of these are people who have had almost no relationship with Ohio Wesleyan since their graduation,” she said.

Despite this, Garland said the trustees are very inspired from the campaign’s progress to date. According to Garland, “reach back gifts” from projects currently ongoing are included in the total funds raised, including the Merrick Hall and Edwards Gym projects. Consequently, OWU already has $47 million toward the $200 million dollar goal.

Additionally, Garland shared news of gifts that haven’t yet been booked. A couple, who wishes to remain anonymous, donated enough money to leverage up to 12 matching gifts of $250,000 or more. As of now, five of the 12 are already spoken for, Garland said.  Two donors who graduated in the 2000s made commitments of $200,000 each.

“I’m not sure if that’s ever been done before,” Garland said.

Going ahead with $200 million goal over seven years will result in a three-year “quiet phase” or “leadership phase” where Garland’s office focuses its efforts on gifts at the highest levels.

“When we are ready to move into the public phase [the fourth year] we want to be at around $125 million before doing so,” she said. “If we are wildly successful, which is certainly possible, then we will reexamine that $200 million number and determine if that is the best we can do or might we reconsider.”

She said the campaign will require the hiring of five additional employees for her office for at least seven years.  The university is in a hiring freeze and is even exploring whether there should cuts in the number of faculty and staff positions because of declining enrollment.

Garland said she appreciates that adding to her staff  is a sensitive issue, but said funding for these positions will come from unrestricted bequests rather than the university’s operating budget.

Also at the faculty meeting:

• The Faculty Personnel Committee provided proposed changes to the faculty handbook regarding promotions, tenure, probationary periods, merit pay and post-tenure feedback for faculty.
• President Rock Jones highlighted admissions statistics for the year saying there’s been a slight increase in visits and applications to date, as compared to a year ago.
• Jones also said newly admitted students indicated the top three categories of “most important” concern are the quality of their major, cost and outcome or job prospects of their education.
• As a result, the Office of Admissions is looking at changing visiting programs to allow for more students to meet individually with faculty to help them better understand the quality of majors. In terms of marketing, there also will be a larger push to share post-graduate success stories with admitted students.
• The faulty approved adding two courses to OWU’s catalog: a Poverty, Equity and Social Justice Course Connection capstone seminar, and Psychology and the Law.

Cheers populated Ohio Wesleyan’s campus when light returned Monday night after a power outage that put 18,050 Delaware County residents in the dark.

The blackout started at 6:33 p.m. when American Electric Power, the area’s primary electric supplier, lost a feed from FirstEnergy, another power company that feeds into its network, AEP spokesman Jeff Rennie said. The outage affected all of Delaware and an area southwest of the city.

About 12,000 customers, including OWU’s campus, had power restored around 7:40 p.m., Rennie said, but 6,000 are still without power. The county’s emergency management agency reported via Twitter that all affected customers should have power by 9 p.m.

AEP is still investigating what exactly caused the outage, the size of which is “very rare,” Rennie said.

The blackout affected all OWU buildings and halted evening dining services in Hamilton-Williams Campus Center and practices on Selby Field. Public Safety officers freed a student from the campus center’s elevator after it lost power, officer Sean Duffy said.

Students worked by the lights of their computers and cell phones on the JAYwalk and in hallways and a few lit rooms on the residential side of campus.

 

The Issue: Hong Kong Protests

The protests for democracy in Hong Kong are still alive and well. They started about three weeks ago with a student rally, and grew to mass protests for “great democracy” in Hong Kong, according to the Associated Press. Since the protests started, they have grown bigger, and dangerous, and there is no end in sight.

The protestors want fully democratic elections, and were angered that the Chinese government wanted to vet potential candidates for the 2017 polls, the BBC says. There are scheduled talks between the student protestors and the Chinese government in the coming week, but violent protests have erupted. Reuters is calling this the worst political crisis in Hong Kong “since Britain handed the free-wheeling city back to China in 1997(.)”

Now, the BBC reports there have been charges of “outside involvement” in the protests. Hong Kong’s leader, CY Leung, is accusing “external forces” of involvement, and called the protests “out of control, even for the organizers.” However, student organizers and protestors have “denied any outside involvement” in the protests. The BBC also posited that “China could be making allegations of interference to discourage foreign governments from supporting the protests.”

Authorities “have been inconsistent both in handling the students’ call for political reform and in tactics to clear the streets,” the AP reported. None of the sides are sure what will result from the protests, and there doesn’t seem to be any sort of consensus.

The Issue: Europe’s Economy

It’s been about five years since the Great Recession that decimated the financial markets, but there still hasn’t been a full recovery, particularly in Europe.

The leader of the financial sector in Europe is Germany, who was the pioneer of austerity, a policy model of reducing spending and the increase of frugality within a financial sector. Thanks to Germany, many countries in the European Union were bailed out and their economies saved.

Wolfgang Schaeuble, Germany’s finance minister, said the country must “increase its investment to improve competitiveness, but not at the expense of higher debt,” the BBC reports. Those comments came after a horrible market week, which signaled a possible weakening of the German economy.

The weakening of the German economy comes after the German government cut its economic growth forecast from 1.8 percent to 1.2 percent, the BBC said. Along with that news, a health check of Europe’s top banks by the European Central Bank (ECB) found that “in the seven months since it began, the ECB had to shoot down countless pleas from banks and national supervisors for special treatment,” Reuters reports. The health check will also say which of Europe’s 130 biggest banks have “valued their assets properly and which have not, as well as whether banks need more capital to withstand another economic crash,” Reuters said.

Over sixty students chanted and marched around the residential side of campus on Thursday for the annual SlutWalk, hosted by Sisters United.

Junior and Sisters United vice president Kaila Johnson said the SlutWalk originated in Toronto after a police officer said publicly that if women do not want to be raped, they should not dress like “sluts.” SlutWalk has since become an international movement, held in cities all over the globe.

“The purpose of SlutWalk is to march, rally, and protest against rape culture, slut-shaming, and victim-blaming,” Johnson said. “It is a walk of solidarity with those who have survived rape and sexual assault, and a way to show that a woman’s clothing is never an excuse for violence against her.”

She said the event was brought to OWU about five years ago by Nola Johnson, who graduated last year. Due to the provocative title, she had to fight the administration to gain approval for SlutWalk to be held on campus. Since then, the event has been held every year.

 SlutWalk attendees gathered in front of the Hamilton-Williams Campus Center at 6 p.m. on Thursday for the event. Posters and a sheet of chants were available to anyone who wanted them. Johnson spoke about how the event originated and called for end to victim-blaming and slut-shaming.

Student representatives from the Spectrum Resource Center, Women’s House, Pride and the Women’s Resource Center spoke about what services their organization offers and what they stand for. A staff counselor from counseling services also attended and said she was available to anyone who wanted to talk to her.

Students then walked down the JayWalk, holding up their posters and saying chants like “A little black dress does not mean yes” and “Hey hey ho ho patriarchy has got to go.” The protesters walked down Rowland Avenue, through the circle of fraternities and around House of Black Culture before heading back to Ham-Wil.

 While students were gathering back together, some members of the Board of Trustees passed on their way into Ham-Wil for a dinner reception in the Benes Room.

“I am grateful to Sisters United for their leadership in drawing attention to this important issue and to all on campus who come together to walk in solidarity with victims of rape and sexual assault, and to affirm our collective abhorrence of practices that have the effect of blaming victims,” President Rock Jones said. “Ohio Wesleyan is firmly committed to a culture that is safe for all persons and where people are free to express themselves without the risk of being violated by others. Our Board of Trustees, which is on campus this week, joins me in affirming this fundamental Ohio Wesleyan value.”

Sophomore Teona Council attended the event and said she believes “victim-blaming is one of the worst things a society can do to those who have experienced this tragic event in their life.”

“When I was in high school everyone thought I was a slut,” said junior Abby Hanson. “It was really hurtful. I think being called a slut ever is just not a good thing.”

“This walk doesn’t end now,” Johnson said. “We must continue this in our daily lives.”

A water main break on Williams Drive caused four fraternity houses to be without water for several hours on Sept. 29 while crews fixed the overflow.

The pipe burst in front of Phi Delta Theta on the morning of Sept. 28. Excess water formed a shallow pool on Williams Drive near the break, flowing down into the storm drain west of the pipe.

“Our best guess is that there were cracks around the pipe due to the stress of freezing and thawing from last winter that broke around the perimeter,” said Peter Schantz, director of physical plant for Buildings and Grounds.

Students were alerted of the problem in the afternoon and early evening after the situation had been assessed by Buildings and Grounds and Delaware City crews, said Levi Harrel, the residential life coordinator for Williams Drive houses.

Because the buildings maintained water pressure and there was still water in the pipe, residents of Williams Drive houses were able to safely continue using water for all needs on Sunday Sept. 28, said Schantz.

These residents were alerted through email and signs that water would be shut off at 8:30 a.m. on Monday Sept. 29 to allow crews to repair the break.

“This means there will be no water available for drinking, bathing, or flushing toilets until the work is complete,” said the email from the residential life office.

However, only Alpha Sigma Phi, Sigma Phi Epsilon, Phi Kappa Psi and Phi Delta Theta were affected by the shut off.

Crews had found the leak and put a cuff on the pipe by 11 a.m., Schantz said. Water pressure was restored to allow bathing and flushing toilets as well, although a 24 hour boil alert was in place for drinking the water.

The scene was taped off with yellow caution tape and orange barrels until Thursday. The dirt removed in order to reach the pipe was piled into a heap next to the road until the hole was filled Thursday morning.

However, the asphalt above the pipe has not yet been replaced. The plan is to let the fix settle and then replace the asphalt in the spring, Schantz said.

“While I would never say a water main break was a minor issue, it was something that crews were easily able to repair,” Harrel said.

 

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The Issue: Ebola

The first case of Ebola has been confirmed in the United States. A man from Liberia tested positive for the disease in Dallas, and the BBC reports that 50 people the man, Thomas Duncan, had been in contact with are being monitored for signs of the virus. The only other cases in the country were of medical professionals being flown here for treatment.

There have been other suspected cases of the disease besides Duncan. The New York Times said there was a suspected case in Washington, D.C., where a patient who had been in Nigeria was isolated at Howard University Hospital but was eventually determined to not have the virus. Another man who flew from Brussels to Newark Airport went to the hospital with Ebola-like symptoms.

With this influx of Ebola cases, the Obama administration “believe(s) that screening of passengers in the affected countries in Africa, by taking their temperature and requesting information about their activities, is the best way to prevent the virus from spreading to the United States,” the New York Times reported.

It has been rumored Duncan knew he had the disease and did not file the proper documentation while flying from Liberia. According to the BBC, Liberian officials said they would “prosecute Mr. Duncan for lying on an Ebola questionnaire form.”

The BBC reports the disease has killed an estimated 3,400 people in West Africa. There have been 7,178 confirmed cases, most in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea.

The Issue: ISIL

On Friday, ISIL released yet another video of militants apparently beheading a hostage, this time a British man named Alan Henning. This is the fourth hostage the group has killed.

Henning was a former taxi driver in Britain who was “moved by the plight of the Syrian people,” the New York Times said. The BBC reports Henning was on his fourth aid mission to Syria in December, when he was kidnapped minutes after arriving in the county.

Along with the beheading, the militants threatened American hostage Peter Kassig, whom National Security Spokesperson Caitlin Hayden confirmed the militants were holding, the Associated Press reported.

Kassig, a former Army Ranger, was travelling through Syria working for the relief organization he founded, Special Emergency Response and Assistance, when he was captured in October of 2013, the AP reports. While in captivity, Kassig converted to Islam. He now goes by Abdul-Rahman.