Tag: featured

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 don’t accurately represent a student’s aptitude.

Vice President for Enrollment, Susan Dileno, said she feels standardized test scores are outdated and the process no longer treats students equally.

“It’s really not fair when you have lower income families that can’t afford expensive test prep and to take the tests multiple times,” she said. “The SAT/ACT was created to make it fair for all students applying to college, however that’s not so much the case anymore.”

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 OWU’s low enrollment problem.

“Of course, there are obvious marketing benefits to telling applicants whose GPAs are above a 3.0 that they don’t have to submit standardized test scores,” said Dileno. “But that’s not why we’re doing it.”

Couch agreed, adding the point that colleges are business as well.

“As much as we hate to think about it as a business, it is one, and so this is obviously good for marketing,” Couch said. “But it’s not the main reason we decided to not require test scores.”

Couch agreed that, statistically, lower income families don’t typically do as well on standardized tests. She believes that foregoing standardized test scores if the student’s GPA is high enough will give the university a better picture of a student’s ability to perform in college.

“More 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,” said Couch. “Denison 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,” she said.

Dileno said the standardized test scores are not a priority of OWU when looking at a prospective student’s application to OWU. The decision to waive the scores, therefore, does not complicate the admissions department’s role.

“When we’re looking at a student’s 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,” Dileno said. “It 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 they’ll do in college.”

Dileno said the lowered GPA requirement is an attempt to apply the option to submit test scores to a greater pool of applicants.

“Last year, only 100 applicants out of 4,000 met the criteria to make them exempt from the standardized test score requirement,” Dileno said.

Couch said OWU’s new semi-test optional admittance process is likely to take a while to catch on.

“It’ll 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,” 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 Wesleyan’s 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.

“I don’t think our goal would be to generate more revenue as much as make it easier for students to complete their degree in four years,” 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.

“My 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,” Steinmetz said. “This is consistent with our philosophy behind offering the summer school option.”

According to Richard Leavy, professor of psychology, this would allow students who, for a variety of reasons, cannot come to campus for classes to “benefit from our knowledge and pay for the privilege.”

Since online courses require little infrastructure from the university, “the cost of offering them may be rather little,” he said. “The 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.”

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 – 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.

“Technology has changed every aspect of the way we communicate and the way we gather information and grow our knowledge base,” he said.

Students and faculty alike seem torn between the pros and cons of online courses.

“In 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,” said Lynette Carpenter, professor of English.

“We have a strong faculty of classroom teachers, and those kinds of teaching skills don’t necessarily translate into good online teaching.”

Leavy agreed stating quality as his main concern.

“If 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,” he said.

“What I don’t know is how to insure such a level of quality.”

Ohio Wesleyan students currently have the option of taking online courses from other institutions and transferring the credits – a process junior Bridget McQuaide described as “a huge hassle.”

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.

“Some 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,” 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.

“I 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,” 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.

“I’m not motivated to transform them into online courses,” Carpenter said.

“I’m still working to improve my ability to stimulate good in-class discussions and devise good active learning opportunities, especially through group problem solving.”

While the idea of offering online courses is still in it’s infancy, Jones said he believes it deserves full consideration.

“I remain convinced that the residential liberal arts experiences finds its greatest value in the direct interaction among students and between students and their teachers,” he said.

“Technology can support that fundamental interaction, but it cannot replace it.

“Ohio 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.”

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.

“We 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,” 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.

“We also discuss current events and popular media,” French said. “This past meeting, we heard Kyle Simon speak about the scientific logistics behind ‘gaydar,’ and the role of genetics in sexuality and gender identity.”

Simon, a senior who’s 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 Women’s 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 “queer” 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.

“(SU) is a lot of reading articles and talking about them,” Bauman said. “I 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. It’s a different way to learn the issues, more personal.”

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.

“While 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,” said senior Spectrum intern Liz Dickson.

“It 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,” Dickson said.

Dickson is also a resident of the Women’s House, and they noted several ways Spectrum and PRIDE will be working together.

“Annual collaborations include our National Coming Out Day event, which provides a safe space for students to share their identities with peers, faculty and administration,” they said.

“We 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.”

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.

“During PRIDE Week, we organize ways to bring awareness and recognition to the community,” 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.

“All-gender housing would provide a safe space for trans and non-binary students,” French said.

“As 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.”

“…As members of PRIDE Exec, we have noticed and heard PRIDE members who have a huge need for gender-inclusive housing on campus.”

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 year’s PRIDE week.

The “Trans-ition Your Outlook” workshops held toward the end of last semester also promoted gender inclusivity, though in more general terms.

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 government’s 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? “The 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 city’s chief executive, beginning in 2017,” 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 “Occupy Central” 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. “Symbolically, 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,” 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.

As construction went underway for Merrick Hall and the Simpson-Querrey Fitness Center, Buildings and Grounds removed several trees and shrubs from the surrounding areas to create more space for expansion and work.

Delaware city ordinance requires that trees with a diameter of 6 caliper inches or more at chest height must be replaced. This excludes trees cut down because of disease or trees that came down on their own. .

Due to the number of trees removed, B&G needs to replace a total of 180 caliper inches, according to Peter Schantz, the director of physical plant for B&G. They plan to replant 90, 2-inch diameter trees to meet that goal.

“We are developing a plan over the next three years to monopolize on the tree planting seasons, one of which is in the fall and one in the spring, to plant 15 trees each opportunity,” Schantz said.

The lilac bushes along the path outside Merrick are not part of the replanting project. The bushes and other shrubs are not wide enough to fit the six inch rule.

“In a couple of cases there were things that were the only one on campus, such as one [shrub] by the fitness center,” David Johnson, professor of botany-microbiology, said. “We will probably look for some other way to have that return to campus outside of this project.”

A horticulturist, Mike Ecker, from Dawes Arboretum visited campus Oct. 9 to help determine locations for the replanting, according to Johnson.

“We had decided back in the summer to have a consultant come and look at the situation and what we needed to do,” Johnson said.

“We’d like to add to the diversity of tree plantings on campus through this project,” Johnson said. “Anytime you plant too many of one thing it’s a scenario for having any kind of disease or pest problem wipe them out.”

In the past, all 65 ash trees on campus became infested with Emerald Ash borer and died.

The Ohio Wesleyan campus itself is a small arboretum. It contains a collection of species of plants and trees that are labeled. The botany-microbiology department produced guides through student research for visitors to use as they explore the Jane Decker Arboretum on campus.

The Endangered Species Record Store, the self-proclaimed last record store on Earth, is moving to a new location starting Sept. 28 to 11 W. Winter St.

Endangered Species first opened its doors at the current location on 12 N. Sandusky St. in November of 2010. Pat Bailey, the owner of Endangered Species, has been in the record-selling business for at least 29 years. He cited his reasons for moving in an earlier interview with the Delaware Gazette as mainly expansion. They published the article on Sept. 4, 2014. Stacey Kess wrote.

“We’ve been bursting at the seams for two years,” Bailey told the Gazette. “When we are done with the move, we will be the largest record store in central Ohio, if not the state.”

A few weeks ago, the sale of physical album saw its worst decline to date, as only 3.97 million of them were sold according to Rolling Stone and Billboard magazines. Overall, album sales for this year are down 14.6 percent and digital albums are also declining with a drop of 11.8 percent. Many believe this is due to the affect that online streaming and free downloading sites—both legal and illegal—have on the music industry.

This doesn’t appear true for Bailey and Endangered Species, however. According to the Delaware County Auditor, the new site he is moving to has 5,324 square feet instead of the 2,483 square feet at his current location on Sandusky St.. This represents an increase of almost 3,000 square feet.

According to the Gazette, Bailey said he wants to have 30,000 albums out for customers every day. Most importantly, he noted the expansion could also bring the possibility of a few new jobs.

“The goal is to be the destination record store in Ohio—and we’re in the heart of Ohio,” he told the Delaware Gazette.

Endangered Species is moving next to Choffey’s Coffee and Confections and right across the street from Bun’s Restaurant. If you would like to help Pat Bailey move to his new location then please call the store at (740) 417-4776.