2 NEWS
TUESDAY, JANURARY 31, 2017
Erica Buschick: Bubbling with energy, vibrant source of optimism IN MEMORIAM
CEILI DOYLE EMMA KINGHORN THE MIAMI STUDENT
Erica Buschick was a vibrant source of light and laughter to her friends, family and the Miami community. She was the type of girl who could turn any negative situation around with a positive attitude and a friendly smile, and offer her friends a piece of advice when they needed it most. Erica, 18, was from Gurnee, Ill. and graduated from Warren Township High School last June. A lot of her time at college was spent making others laugh and being silly around the friends she made in Morris Hall. “I saw her in the bathroom brushing her teeth and that was almost the best time, because she was just so goofy and so full of life,” said first-year Lauren Brennan. “She was always energetic even if it was at nine in the morning.” There was never a dull moment with Erica, first-year Brooke Waid said. First-year Piper Fries agreed, and remembered knocking on Erica’s door before sprinting down the hallway or ducking into a bathroom as part of their year-long ding dong ditch game. She was constantly bubbling with energy, but when it mattered, Erica could be counted on to lend her ear to her friends’ problems and was a very understanding and charismatic person. “Everyone loved her, I mean everyone,” said Piper, “She loved life, and the world.” “I never had to hide the struggles of
freshman year around Erica,” Lauren said. “She was always there to comfort me and offer great advice whenever I needed it.” Above all SOURCE: FACEBOOK else, Erica cherished her family. She was extremely close with her two older sisters, Loren and Danielle, as well as her mom and dad. “One of my favorite memories is sitting on the porch with [Erica’s] family listening to music, going in the pool and her dad always cooked dinner almost every night,” said Julienne Egofske, a freshman at Bucknell University who was Erica’s best friend from home. As a special education major, Erica hated when others used the “r-word” in a derogatory fashion. She was also very passionate about the Best Buddies program at Miami, which she was also heavily involved with in high school. “She rubbed everyone the right way,” Julienne said. “One thing I will never forget about Erica was our [weekend] breakfasts. It was our thing and all of our girl friends loved doing that, every time I’m out to breakfast I will think of her.” “She created her own path for herself,” said Piper, “[she taught me] to be more of myself.”
Rinella moves to Shriver ACADEMICS
BONNIE MEIBERS
SENIOR STAFF WRITER
Miami’s Student Disability Services (SDS) and Rinella Learning Center have new homes this semester as part of upgrades to Shriver Center. Since the 1990s, SDS and Rinella had been located in the basement of the Campus Avenue Building (CAB), a locale SDS director Andrew Zeisler said had its disadvantages. “CAB was a nice space and it served its purpose at the time, but we were in the basement,” Zeisler said. “Philosophically, that’s not a good place for disability services to be.” Now, SDS is more accessible than ever, thanks to $25,000 in accessibility upgrades to the elevator already existing in Shriver. The elevator is now equipped with a button one can press with their foot and horizontal buttons inside the elevator. Also inside is an evacuation chair, to get someone in a wheelchair out of the building in case of an emergency. SDS and Rinella have always had a partnership, but in CAB, they occupied adjacent office spaces. Now, the two share an entire floor of Shriver, with no walls or barriers separating them. That, said Rinella director Christina Carrubba-Whetstine, makes their collaboration more efficient. “With no physical walls between Rinella and [SDS], we are able to move seamlessly together, whereas before I think
there was a little bit more of a dichotomy between the work that we did,” CarrubbaWhetstine said. Shriver’s central location is an advantage for Rinella because it is closer to most academic buildings than CAB, in addition to being more visible, Rinella student tutor Taylor Bussell said. “I think that the new space is better than the old location because we now have more tutoring stations, which allows for more students to be accommodated,” Bussell said. “I think the CAB building is less well-known on campus, and that caused some people not to utilize Rinella.” There are some drawbacks to the new location, however. Though the old space in CAB only had nine makeshift testing areas, there was plenty of room for overflow test takers. In Shriver, there are 20 testing rooms, but less space for overflow test takers. To solve this problem, Rinella is hoping to expand testing hours after spring break so that students in evening classes could take tests after those classes. To do this, Carrubba-Whetstine would have to hire more staff to work those evening hours. For now, though, Rinella’s hours of service will remain 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. “I’m hoping that it works, but anytime you have these situations, it’s a, ‘Let’s try it out and see,’” Carrubba-Whetstine said. Despite the obstacles that come with a move, Carrubba-Whetstine and Zeisler agree they are happy in the new space. “It’s been the best thing for the office and I’m excited about it,” Zeisler said.
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Erin Rodriguez: An infectious smile, an aspiring student athlete IN MEMORIAM
EMILY SIMANSKIS SPORTS EDITOR
Erin Rodriguez’s infectious smile will be missed by her peers. Her humor will be missed by her best friend and teammate, Hannah Shteyn. Her quiet strength and determination will be missed by the tennis program. Her kindness will be missed by her family. And her constant positivity will be missed by Miami University. Erin, a junior, was 20-years-old when she passed away on Jan. 10 in her sleep, without pain. A sudden drop in her potassium levels led to ventricular fibrillation and instant death. She died after a full night spent with friends and family, who are now coping with the loss of a friend, daughter and student-athlete. “I don’t even know where to start,” Erin’s mom, Judi Rodriguez says. “She was beyond anything a mother could ask for — she was brilliant. She was funny. She was sweet. She was kind. Always made me laugh. I can’t even remember that much she did wrong —she was just an overachiever.” Erin was majoring in Political Science with a co-Major in Business Legal Studies. She dreamt of being a prosecuting attorney and was a student ambassador for the College of Arts and Sciences, a position held by less than 1.5 percent of the student body. Mark Morris, a political science professor who taught Erin, nominated her for the position. He never saw her without a smile on her face, never received a late assignment and never heard complaints from her peers about working with her. He’d take a whole classroom of students like her. “I think she really appreciated the fact that tennis was the ticket to play a sport that she loved, but also to get a really good education. I really expected the effort and the energy that she put into being a true student-athlete,” Morris says. “She understood both those roles and did them very well.” Craig Bennett worked with Erin as an Assistant Athletic Director and Director of Academic services. He saw Erin discover her desire to go to law school, a moment that he describes as special. He remembers Erin as hardworking — as someone who didn’t effortlessly succeed academically, but as someone who worked diligently to get the respectable grades that she had. “She just brought a unique energy and she would come in and she would light up the room,” Bennett says. “Just a very unique energy of goodness.” Erin experienced the challenges of being a student-athlete. She balanced workouts, practices, classes and friends. Paul Becker, a business legal studies professor who taught Erin, noted how she usually came to class a few minutes late because she was coming from the other side of campus. He noticed that she was always out of breath because she was hurrying to get there, but she was always prepared and she always participated. “I’m not just making this up. I have a lot of wonderful students. She’s not the only wonderful student I’ve ever had,” Becker says. “But she was just a great, great person. She was just a really good, sincere person.” Erin played tennis since she was 11 and captained the RedHawks this year. She threw herself into the sport when she started her freshman year of high school. Her passion led her to convince her parents and younger brother Matthew to relocate from
New York to Florida. Ricardo Rosas, Miami’s associate head coach, recruited Erin during her time as a junior player. “We were drawn to her CONTRIBUTED BY JORGE RODRIGUEZ determination and her ability to fight, and her ability to compete,” says Rosas. Erin loved CrossFit, was a quick learner on the tennis courts and was mentally tough, according to her coaches. She also had an ability to make other people laugh, either inadvertently (when forgetting to bring her tennis racquets to practice) or intentionally (when singing “Can’t Stop Dancing” to her 10-person team on a bus on the way back from a match in Buffalo, NY). Erin laughed the most with Hannah. They communicated in a language laced with a different accent each week. Some accents would mimic their coaches but Hannah’s favorite was one that sounded like Gru from “Despicable Me.” “As a teammate, she was always steady. She was always there, you know?” Shteyn says. “She was my rock on the team. She was always so kind to everyone, so I’ll miss that. And as a friend — I don’t think anyone understood my humor as well as she did.” Erin was kind and never judgmental, wanting to individually help everyone she could. She loved Lululemon. She wore sweatpants and sweatshirts like any other college kid, but she stood out to her coaches as someone who emanated quiet strength. “We’re going to miss her a lot. She’s the person that the team relied on emotionally, whenever we went through the hard moments and she was there for everyone,” says head coach of Miami tennis, Yana Carollo. “It’s not the same anymore, and it’s affecting the team and we’re just going to miss her dearly and her attitude — her strength that she always showed up with.” When Erin wasn’t playing tennis or getting a head start on studying for the LSAT, she could be found watching “Modern Family” with her mom during breaks, moming her brother, loving Cristina Yang on “Grey’s Anatomy,” or cooking in her apartment. “She lived life,” Judi Rodriguez says. “She had a lot of fun.” Jorge and Judi thank those who knew Erin, and those who didn’t, for their overwhelming outpouring of love and support. A picture Carollo took at Erin’s small memorial service at Miami shows rows of people. People from all over the country attended Erin’s celebration of life. At the tennis team’s match on Saturday, the University of Cincinnati gifted Ricardo with red Underarmour sweatbands that read “Erin Strong” in precise Sharpie letters. “The story is best told by what others say,” Jorge Rodriguez says. And others cannot stop saying how much they will miss the always smiling, constantly laughing, fiercely compassionate girl that Erin Rodriguez was. A scholarship fund has been established at Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, in Erin’s memory. Contributions can be made out to the Erin Rodriguez Memorial Scholarship, and mailed to Miami University, 725 East Chestnut Street, Oxford, Ohio 45056, or visit www.forloveandhonor.org/givetomu
Admissions visit center moves to Shriver Center, spurs parking change CAMPUS
TESS SOHNGEN NEWS EDITOR
New visitor parking spaces this semester around Shriver Center displaced 150 parking spaces previously metered and used by students, faculty and staff. The change occurred in conjunction with the university’s Admission Visit Center’s move to Shriver Center. Marked with Miami’s red and white “M,” the parking spaces along Maple Street and the MacMillan and Shriver Center west parking lots are reserved for visitors with an admission office parking permit from 7:00 a.m. to 6 p.m. every day; only those with a Miami University parking permit are permitted to park in the Shriver Center and MacMillan parking lot outside of that time. Susan Schaurer, assistant vice
president and director of admission, said the Office of Admission is excited to have available spaces for guests near Shriver Center. “We worked closely with the university to make sure we have available parking for our guests because it really impacts the students’ visit,” said Schaurer. “Those first moments really set the stage for their campus visit experience.” The new location allows the Admission Visit Center to hold 1,000 more guests per week for their twice daily tours Monday through Saturday. Schaurer added that the university’s research showed that applications to the university increased when more students visited the university. The heavy foot traffic, proximity to the Armstrong Student Center, and visitors’ ease in finding the Admission Visit Center were among
We worked closely with the university to make sure we have available parking. SUSAN SCHAURER ASSISTANT VP AND DIRECTOR OF ADMISSION
the reasons why the university supported the move and parking changes, according to Schaurer and Capt. Benjamin Spilman, Director of Parking and Transportation Services. Capt. Spilman said that the new center for visitors is “leaps and bounds ahead of where they were in the Campus Avenue Building. “[The Admission Visit Center]
needed to be sure they had a place for visitors to park, not that they were hunting around campus looking for an available spot and then have to find their way back to the Admission’s Welcome Center,” said Spilman. “We’re optimistic that this is going to meet their need.” Some students are not happy about the cut in available parking
for students in that part of campus. “I think that the new parking locations make sense considering admissions in now located in Shriver, but I think they changed too much of the parking on Maple Street,” said Sabina Bashir, an RA in Minnich Hall. Students who previously parked near Shriver Center have had to park near Pulley Tower, including Integrated Environmental Science graduate students Anna Jean Petroff and Michael Browne. “It’s already surprisingly hard to find a parking spot after 9:30 a.m., and it seems like the university keeps taking more away… without adding new spots,” said Petroff. Browne said that he has to find parking at Pulley Tower’s parking lot before 9:30 a.m. or else he won’t ADMISSIONS »PAGE 5