The Miami Student Oldest university newspaper in the United States, established 1826
FRIDAY, MARCH 14, 2014
VOLUME 141 NO. 40
MIAMI UNIVERSITY OXFORD, OHIO
TODAY IN MIAMI HISTORY In 2001, The Miami Student reported City Manager Jane Howington announced at a city council meeting smoking would be banned from all Oxford
buildings as of April 1. A supporter and councilmember Ted Beerman was not surprised, saying, “The trend to no smoking is inevitable. I don’t think there’s going to be a lot of controversy about it.”
Credit union to close main Oxford branch BY CHRIS CURME COMMUNITY EDITOR
LAUREN OLSON PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR
‘SNOW’ WAY! From sunny and 70 Tuesday to 30 and snowy Wednseday, Ohio weather has students itching for spring break.
The Miami University Community Federal Credit Union (MUCFCU) will vacate the Miami University-owned Wells Mill complex, where its main branch is currently located, in a year’s time. The move comes as Miami has broken its lease with both MUCFCU and the American Classical League, the two non-Miami companies at Wells Mill, to make way for an expansion of the Demske Culinary Support Center, currently occupying roughly half of the complex. “The move kinda came as a surprise, but it will be good for us and our membership,” MUFCFU CEO Rick Parker said, adding he has no complaints. “We were given a reasonable heads up that it was likely the university was going to need our space.” Parker said the credit union will consolidate the majority of its operations into its existing community branch at 5120 College Corner Pike, first opened to serve the greater Oxford area. According to Parker, as it becomes the primary location, MUCFCU is considering seven-day-a-week operation or extended hours. “It is state-of-the-art, high tech, and it’s going to become our main office,” Parker said. “We built our community branch so we’d have a location to serve our
community as a hedge against [losing the Wells Mill lease]. That transition, in the short term, will take an adjustment.” MUCFCU currently serves about 60,000 members, according to Parker, and has roughly $58 million in assets. The credit union employs around 20 people, including full-time, part-time and student intern staff. “Are we going to keep the same number of employees? I’d say close,” Parker said. “We’re considering [opening] seven days a week. We’d certainly keep all of our employees then.” While MUCFCU caters specifically to the Miami employee, they have the right to serve the greater Oxford community: including anyone who lives, works or attends school in Butler County. However, Parker added, when dealing with Miami students, MUCFCU gives preference to First Miami Credit Union, Miami’s student run credit union. In the long term, Parker said, the entire banking and credit union industry is moving to online access. Need for physical space is reduced, but an increase in activity at the College Corner Pike branch should prevent a significant workforce reduction. “We have 40 percent of our membership using some aspect of our online services,” Parker said. “With everyone doing everything online, [the branch closing] is
probably—long term—not a bad thing.” MUCFCU, founded in 1969 with Miami’s sponsorship, has moved three times in those 45 years as they have either outgrown their space, the university has required it or both. “We knew when we entered into our lease here—the way the university was growing—we were at risk for the university needing our space,” Parker said. Then located in Gaskill Hall (now a portion of the Armstrong Student Center), MUCFCU moved into the Wells Mill complex July, 2001. “We’re very thankful to the university for having provided this space to us,” Parker said. “Since 2001, we have grown significantly.” The American Classical League, an educational nonprofit that serves the needs of Latin and Greek teachers around the world, is also vacating. The Wells Mill location is the League’s headquarters and only office, where four people are employed. “We’ve been on and off the Miami campus for 70 years,” league administrative assistant Sherwin Little said. “There’s a provision in our lease that says if Miami needs to do something that services the university’s greater good, they can break our lease.” “If there’s suitable space at a suitable price, we’d like to entertain the idea of staying in Oxford,” Little said.
Blacked out: Crossed wires cause chaos JANUS forum to debate proper role of government BY EMILY CRANE NEWS EDITOR
Classrooms, dorms and stoplights went dark as the power went out across Oxford and Miami’s campus Wednesday morning, leaving students, faculty and community members sitting in the dark for up to four hours. Director of Building Maintenance for Miami’s physical facilities department Jeremy Davis said the culprit behind the blackout was not the inclement weather but simply an old, faulty insulator on Spring Street near Irvin Drive. Insulators are pieces of hardware that attach power lines to electric poles, Davis explained. When the insulator broke, one live wire fell onto another in a grand display of sparks and hissing and then poof— lights out all over town. “When the lines got crossed, they created a short-circuit,” Davis said. “And we have a number of security
LET THERE BE LIGHT
measures in place so that it all shuts down if that happens. Everything did its job and it all tripped out, cutting power everywhere.” While students across campus reached for their smartphones to begin the barrage of #miamiblackout tweets, Miami’s physical facilities department leaped into action. Within 45 minutes, they had identified the source of the problem and developed a plan to resolve the issue in coordination with Duke Energy, Miami’s energy supplier. “The equipment that failed was on their end and they made the actual repair,” Davis said. “But we worked together collaboratively on the whole thing.” When they realized it might be as long as two hours before power could be restored, the physical facilities department decided to fire up the “peaking” generators near the steam plant on Western Campus and use them to send electricity to keep certain pieces of critical equipment operational.
“A lot of buildings have emergency generators for egress lighting and maybe elevators,” Davis said. “But we also have a few really large generators, ‘peaking’ generators on Western Campus … that we used to send power to critical buildings like Pearson where they have environmental growth chambers that can’t lose power.” Another such building where power was critical was Hughes, home to the NMR 850 mhz magnet, one of the most powerful magnets in the world. Under the supervision of eminent scholar and professor of chemistry and biochemistry Michael Kennedy, students use the two-story magnet to look for early signs of pancreatic cancer. Keeping the magnet powered despite the blackout became Hughes’ top priority. The emergency backup generators kicked in as soon as the power
BLACKOUT, SEE PAGE 5
LAUREN OLSON PHOTO EDITOR
Students Shannon Kernan and Stacey McKinney sit amongst classmates in Culler Hall. Though the lights were out, natural light through the windows in their classroom allowed class to continue.
JONAH GOLDBERG
BY LAUREN OLIVER FOR THE MIAMI STUDENT
The JANUS forum is returning for the third time to Miami University. The debate, which allows students from all over the political spectrum to engage in a constructive discussion, will be held in the Armstrong Student Center’s Wilks Theater at 6 p.m. Wednesday., March 19. The two speakers at the event, who were chosen by Miami students, will be bestselling author and columnist, Jonah Goldberg and Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Eugene Robinson. Each speaker will debate his view on the proper role of the government in a free society. According to the American Enterprise Institute, Goldberg is the founding editor of the National Review Online, and was named one of the top 50 political commentators by the Atlantic magazine. He has also written for the Los Angeles Times and contributed to Fox News, as well as USA Today.
EUGENE ROBINSON
Robinson has had a threedecade career at the Washington Post, with jobs such as city hall reporter, city editor and foreign correspondent in Buenos Aires and London, according to the Post. He has also provided political commentary on MSNBC shows such as “Hardball,” “The Rachel Maddow Show” and NBC’s “Meet the Press.” In the past, the JANUS forum has been a successful event on Miami’s campus. Patrick Haney, interim chair of the Political Science department, said he believes it is a great opportunity for students. “Not only will there be one great high-profile speaker, but there will be two, and these issues are the lifeblood of our democracy,” he said. Haney said political debates are key factors in charting the future and that it is important for students to not just stand on the sidelines.
JANUS,
SEE PAGE 5