The Miami Student Oldest university newspaper in the United States, established 1826
VOLUME 139 NO. 21
FRIDAY, November 4, 2011
TODAY IN MIAMI HISTORY
In 1989, The Miami Student reported that Miami University was going to spend $4,000 to replace goalposts which were torn down following a Miami football victory over Bowling Green State University. The university said the cost of replacing the goal posts was worth the show of school spirit.
Campus politics: where do we stand? By Lauren Ceronie Campus Editor
As the nation plunges into the 2012 presidential campaigns and the first presidential primaries loom in the not so distant future, it’s easy to forget about the elections that will take place Tuesday. When it comes to politics and elections, conventional wisdom holds that the student body at Miami University is largely conservative. This conventional wisdom isn’t unfounded, according to the Cooperative Institutional Research Program (CIRP). The data collected by CIRP shows that nearly 31 percent of the student body considers themselves “conservative” while 25 percent of the campus considers themselves “liberal.” This is in contrast to other “high selectivity” public universities where 20 percent of the student body identified themselves as “conservative” and nearly 35 percent consider themselves “liberal.” CIRP is a national survey of first-years administered annually by the Higher Education Research Institute. The survey looks at everything from political and religious beliefs to health and financial issues. The “high selectivity” public universities that CIRP compares Miami to include Ohio State University, University of Michigan, University of North Carolina and Texas A&M University. The latest data available from CIRP is from 2009. Representatives from both College Republicans and College Democrats said they weren’t surprised at the data.
Additional election coverage can be found on page 5. Full versions of candidate interviews, as well as information about Issues 2 and 3 and the Talawanda School Board are available online at www.miamistudent.net. “I think that there’s a general consensus that Miami is conservative,” said Jimmy Jordan, College Democrats president. “If you talk to students, they’ll say Miami is conservative.” College Republicans CoChair Brie Sakach said she had expected the conservative atmosphere before she came to Miami. “My mom and aunt both went here and so they told me before I came that Miami had a more conservative base,” Sakach said. Miami alumni would be correct in recalling Miami as a conservative university. CIRP data shows Miami has had a more conservative student body than other similar universities since 1971. Conservatism at Miami peaked in 2006 when more than 35 percent of the student body identified themselves as “conservative.” That same year, about 25 percent of the student bodies at comparable universities identified as “conservative.” While the terms “liberal” and “conservative” may seem pretty straightforward, political science professor Ryan Barilleaux warns against taking them at
face value. “A lot depends on how you define ‘conservative,’” Barilleaux said. “Socially? Economically? You have to be careful in how you define those terms, ‘conservative’ covers a broad category.” Traditionally, College Republicans has been a larger organization than College Democrats and Miami has fewer left-wing organizations, according to Barilleaux. The number of people on the two organizations listservs shows College Republicans as a larger organization. The College Republicans listserv hosts around 1,400 people while the College Democrats listserv has around 600 members. While the listserv members show a difference in the size of the two organizations, Jordan said he didn’t feel that was an accurate way to measure the groups. “It’s a misleading way to represent the organization,” Jordan said. “We all know anyone can join a listserv, it’s who actually comes to meetings that counts.” The CIRP survey also collects data on how students feel about specific issues. On most of the issues, such as, “There is too much concern in the courts for the rights of criminals,” “Realistically, an individual can do little to bring about changes in our society” and “Colleges have the right to ban extreme speakers from campus,” Miami was nearly identical to comparable universities. However in issues such as abortion, 55 percent of
Elections, SEE PAGE 9
Homecoming sidewalk stencil cleanup to cost CAC thousands By Taylor Dolven Asst. Campus Editor
While parades, football games and tailgates are part of homecoming business as usual, sidewalk paint is not part of Miami’s festivities — until this year. Although sidewalk paint is not allowed on campus, members of Campus Activities Council’s (CAC) Homecoming committee went ahead and painted the sidewalks anyway and are now facing fines, according to Katie Wilson, director of student activities. “We did not get permission,” said senior homecoming committee member Connor Billing. “Members of my board decided that they were going to do it anyway.” Wilson said the group is waiting for the estimate from physical facilities to see how much it will cost to have the paint removed. “The general policy for things like this is that physical facilities will charge whoever is responsible to have the paint removed,” she said. According to the manager of physical facilities, Matt Hughes, the damage is
MIAMI UNIVERSITY OXFORD, OHIO
LISA GEHRING THE MIAMI STUDENT
Cleanup of stencils, sprayed with inverted field paint by the Homecoming committee, around campus will cost thousands of dollars.The committee will have to pay for cleanup. very extensive. “We tried to power wash it off and it did not come up,” Hughes said. The group did not use sidewalk chalk, according to Hughes. Instead, they used inverted field paint, the same substance used to paint the foul lines on baseball fields. “We have to get someone who can use chemicals to clean it up,” he said. Billing was aware of this rule when the decision was made to paint the sidewalks. “You can’t paint on the sidewalks because it takes forever to get off,” Billing said. The paint can still be seen all over campus, according to Hughes. The stencils start by the Farmer School of Busi-
ness, all the way up to Campus Street and back down to the Shriver Center. “I’m not sure how much it will cost because of the sheer amount of paint on the sidewalks,” Hughes said. “It’s basically spray paint. Unless we remove it, it will not come up.” He estimates there were between 150 and 200 stencils on campus and each stencil will cost between $30 and $50 to remove. Had the group asked for permission, they wouldn’t have been granted the ability to paint the sidewalks. Advertisements have been painted on the sidewalks before and the same rules have applied in the past, according to Physical Facilities.
University officials take to the skies aboard ‘RedHawk One’
ANDREW BRAY THE MIAMI STUDENT
Miami’s airplane, RedHawk One, is housed at the Miami University Airport when it is not soaring through the skies. RedHawk One takes University President David Hodge and other university officials across the country two to three times a month.
By Hannah Stein Senior Staff Writer
Just a five-minute drive off campus is Miami University’s airport, which houses Miami’s very own, and relatively unknown, airplane. Miami’s airport, where the plane is housed, was created in 1944 during World War II. It was used as place to train students to fight in the war. “It was called Civilian Pilot Training where they would train college students to fly and then they would go off and join the military and become military pilots,” Director of Business Services for Aviation Services, Paul Allen said. He said the training ended about 1995. Unlike commercial airports like Cincinnati or Dayton, the Miami Airport’s security is not on the same level. “Unlike the Cincinnati Airport, our security is an unlocked gate,” Allen said. The gate doesn’t even encompass the entire premises. The airport does many things in order to make it cost effective, Allen said. There are a couple hundred acres of land that they rent out to a farmer. “We do a lot of different things to make the place cost effective,” he said. “Our main revenue stream out here is selling fuel, jet fuel and aviation gas.” The airport buys their fuel from BP Air and then resells it. In addition to selling fuel and renting out land, the airport also allows people to house their own private planes at the airport as well, Allen said. The university itself has had a plane since about the 1950s, Manager of Administrative Services of Finance and Business Services, Kathy Dudley, said, although the university has only had this aircraft for about six years. According to Allen, an aircraft such as this can last up to about 30 years.
“A lot of that, I think, came about just because Oxford is just a little bit isolated, where many campuses are located right in or near a major airport,” David Creamer, vice president of finance and business services, said. Miami’s little plane, sometimes referred to as RedHawk One, is a Beechcraft Kingair 90B airplane and seats a maximum of six people, plus the pilot and co-pilot. Although the plane is a little crammed, each side has five windows and cup holders. The plane is used about two or three times a month, primarily by Miami President David Hodge, according to Allen. “It’s primarily the president but it will occasionally be used by groups who might have the need for that type of transportation where we have several people going to the same location,” Creamer said. “It’s usually for fundraising efforts and he [the president] uses it primarily for day trips, usually when it’s a longer trip [by car].”
Whichever department does decide to use the plane pays for it out of that departments’ money. “The departments that use the plane, the President’s Office and other departments, are charged for the use of it, so it’s not like we’re just paying for it on airport money,” Allen said. Between fuel and maintenance, the average annual cost of the plane is around $120,000, he said. Typically, the plane will fly to places that don’t require refueling because it adds to the time and doesn’t tend to get used again soon, Creamer said. Rarely does the plane fly within Ohio, but to places like Chicago, St. Louis or Washington D.C. Usually, the plane is flown 200 miles or more, Allen said. When the university first got a plane, it had a pilot on staff, Creamer said. However, that is no longer the case. “There was a time when
Airport, SEE PAGE 9
ANDREW BRAY THE MIAMI STUDENT
In RedHawk One’s cockpit, one of several rotating pilots fly around the country.The plane typically flies to fundraiser events in places like Chicago, St. Louis and Washington, D.C.