Thursday February 5, 2015 year: 135 No. 9
@TheLantern weather high 15 low 10 sunny
thelantern
OSU falls to Purdue, 60-58
An Instagram art exhibit
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Hashtag for complaints
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CFO Geoff Chatas: Higher ed adapting slower than financial climate DANIEL BENDTSEN AND KHALID MOALIM Asst. arts editor and Asst. multimedia editor bendtsen.1@osu.edu and moalim.2@osu.edu State support for higher education has been declining for decades, but the federal government released a study in December with a new find: As of 2012, funding for
universities now comes more from tuition than it does from state funding. This “inflection point” happened much earlier in Ohio, though. It was 2003 when tuition passed state funding at Ohio State, and the margin has only increased since. The federal study done by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, showed
that in 2003, about 32 percent of public colleges’ revenue was from state funding, while tuition made up 17 percent. In 2012, however, tuition increased to 25 percent, surpassing state funding, which was at 23 percent. In contrast, shares of federal, local and other revenue sources remained relatively stable.
Tuition surpassing state funding comes as public college enrollment is at its highest peak. Enrollment at public colleges increased by 20 percent from school years 2002-03 through 2011-12, while median state funding per student
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OSU signs 27 new football recruits 12 RECRUITS HAIL FROM THE STATE OF OHIO TIM MOODY Sports editor moody.178@osu.edu
MARK BATKE / Photo editor
A Shamrock Towing Inc. tow truck pulls into a vehicle storage location on Feb. 4 at 1145 Hamlet St. in Columbus.
TOWING COMPANIES TOLD TO PAY CUSTOMERS BACK Shamrock, Camcar had charged unlawful administrative fees for towing ALEX DRUMMER AND SARAH MIKATI Oller reporter and Lantern reporter drummer.18@osu.edu and mikati.2@osu.edu For some students who have been towed by Shamrock Towing Inc. or Camcar Inc., it’s now payback time — literally. Shamrock Towing and Camcar, two Central Ohio towing companies, have reached a settlement with some Ohio drivers for charging unlawful “administrative fees.” Drivers towed between Sept. 1, 2008, and July 17 can now potentially receive $23 to $28 back from the $30 to $35 they were unlawfully charged. According to the class action lawsuit, these companies charged drivers towed in private tow-away zones an extra fee beyond what the state law allows, which is $90 for the tow and $12 per day for storage. “From the tow truck companies’ perspective, their argument was there are additional costs that go into towing people,” said Molly Philipps, an attorney at Student Legal Services at Ohio State. She said paying for staff and paperwork were a few examples of potential additional costs. But, “the judge wrote a pretty strong opinion and didn’t agree with them,” said Fred Gittes, an attorney representing the group of drivers in the class action suit with Columbus-based The Gittes Law Group. “Even the signs that these companies put up said what would be charged according to the law.”
Joshua Bills of Pelini, Campbell and Williams, representing Shamrock Towing, and Erica Probst of Kemp, Schaeffer and Williams, LLC., representing Shamrock and Camcar, both declined to comment about the settlement. The class action settlement required that the companies stop charging the fee, as well as hire third-party administrators to reimburse drivers who were charged the fee, Gittes said. Class action settlements are brought about when it doesn’t make financial sense for a single person to pursue the matter, because of the typically lower dollar amount involved, Philipps said. “So you get into this situation where people are just stuck and they’re complacent and they just let it happen, and the reason is that they don’t have access to a legal services organization or some other attorney who is going to pursue their rights,” she said. “However, there are arguably a lot of people who are similarly situated,” and thus a class action lawsuit might take place. Gittes estimated that as many as 40,000 to 50,000 drivers are affected by this class action. “This means for many students, staff and faculty, a chance to get money back through a very simple process that’s easy
$90 for tow
$12 per day for storage
The state issues the tow-away zone fees, seen above. Shamrock Towing Inc. and Camcar Inc. charged drivers towed in private tow-away zones an extra fee beyond the state-allowed amount.
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Going into national signing day, Ohio State already had four recruits signed and enrolled in classes. Coach Urban Meyer and the Buckeyes were confident of landing another 18 recruits who were already verbally committed. That adds up to just 22, yet when the fax machines stopped running at the Woody Hayes Athletic Center on Wednesday, there were 27 new Buckeyes. “We had five at 11 o’clock last night where (we were) TIM MOODY / Sports editor unsure of where Coach Urban Meyer they were going,” Meyer said Wednesday afternoon. “And that makes for a bad night for myself and for our coaches.” But that bad night turned into a good morning, as OSU received letters of intent from all five of those players who were certain. Defensive lineman Joshua Alabi and wide receiver K.J. Hill both chose OSU on Wednesday, before the school officially announced commitments from offensive lineman Isaiah Prince and quarterback Torrance Gibson. The last decision Meyer and his staff were waiting on was that of running back Mike Weber, a Detroit native and former Michigan verbal commit. “I looked at my clock one time and it was 12:10 (a.m.) and I was talking to Stan Drayton about Mike Weber,” Meyer said. “And we were trying to get a hold of him, so it was a very eventful night.” Drayton, OSU’s running backs coach, said he was never in a similar position, but stressed the pressure recruits like Weber are under when signing day approaches. “I wasn’t good enough to go through what these kids have to go through on the signing day, but I can’t imagine the pressure they must feel, especially coming from a rival state like he (Weber) is,” Drayton said Wednesday. While some cases — like Weber and Gibson, who were both verbally committed
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“I gave them each (the dancers) a sketchbook and we drew in those sketchbooks every rehearsal.” -Megan Davis
Master’s students draw from collaborations for contemporary show TAYLOR FERRELL Lantern reporter ferrell.178@osu.edu One typically thinks of an art gallery as a house of stationary art work — but in downtown Columbus, art comes to life. Megan Davis and Ani Javian, two Ohio State MFA dance students, will showcase contemporary choreography Thursday through Saturday at the Urban Arts Space. The showing on Thursday will include a reception from 6 to 8 p.m. and a performance at 7 p.m. Another showing will go on Friday from 6 to 7 p.m. and Saturday from 1 to 2 p.m. Admission to the “Watch From Here: Department of Dance Master of Fine Arts Thesis Concert” at the Urban Arts Space is free. The live performances will include “Trace Forms,” a performance by Davis, a third-year MFA, and “Elsewhere,” a performance by Javian, another third-year MFA. “Trace Forms” originated during Davis’ undergraduate studies when she majored in art therapy
and found an interest in a process that connected mind and body. She said she found that connection through drawing and moving. Davis said “Trace Forms” is a work about process and collaboration — meaning what happened with her dancers during rehearsal behind closed doors. “I gave them (the dancers) each a sketchbook and we drew in those sketchbooks every rehearsal,” Davis said. She said she would often give them a prompt to draw from. The dancers would improvise and then later discuss the prompt. She said she and the dancers would invent movement based off of these drawings. “Trace Forms” will not only involve dancers moving in present time, but also TV screens and two-dimensional artwork mounted to the walls displaying the dancers’ personal narrations and creations during the process. Davis also created a sound score to “Trace Courtesy of Megan Davis
‘Trace Forms’ by Megan Davis
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