Jan. 11, 2016 -- Welcome Back

pg. 3 Student debt exceeds $1.3 trillion pg. 5 $87 million Fifth Third revamp pg. 6 Education gap favors women January 2016 | Welcome Back

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JAN. 11, 2016

Seven local, national stories you may have missed during winter break HUY NGUYEN | NEWS EDITOR

Let me be the first to say “Welcome back to school!”

If you were enjoying family and friends, engaging in holiday activities and lounging around this December, it is likely you have lost track of time and the world around you.

The News Record has compiled a list of seven news developments you might have missed over winter break.

1. Cincinnati banned homosexual conversion therapy in a Dec. 9 ordinance vote at city council.

The ordinance will prohibit the use of treatment from medical professionals that aims to control sexual orientation or gender identity.

“Leelah Alcorn, almost a year ago in our region, committed suicide citing this exact type of therapy — it lead her to take her own life,” said Cincinnati City Council Member Chris Seelbach, who submitted the ordinance.

“She challenged us to make her life mean something, and I think we’re doing just that today.”

Despite worries about First Amendment violations, the ordinance only applies to mental health professionals who are licensed in Ohio.

The law will not create any freedom of religion intrusions or stop health professionals from providing client coping therapy, social support or identity exploration.

2. Democratic presidential candidate and former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley did not qualify for the Ohio primary ballot in March.

Candidates are required to have a minimum of 1,000 signatures to participate. O’Malley’s

campaign submitted 1,175 signatures to the Ohio Board of Elections, but only 772 were valid, according to Josh Eck, spokesman for Ohio Secretary of State Jon A. Husted.

Dec. 16 was the deadline to be on the ballot.

Hillary Clinton, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I, Vt.) and Roque “Rocky” De La Fuente will be on the ballot for the Democratic primary in March.

3. The new Amazon store opened Jan. 7 and will allow students to order anything and have free shipping to the location through Amazon Student.

The UC Amazon store is the third location in the nation that has the campus pick up points program.

4. The Southwest Ohio Regional Transit Authority released its recommended schedule for the Cincinnati streetcar on Jan. 5.: • Sunday and holidays: 9 a.m. - 11 p.m.

• Monday-Thursday: 6:30 a.m. - midnight • Friday: 6:30 a.m. - 1 a.m.

• Saturday: 8 a.m. - 1 a.m.

The streetcar is expected to have a base frequency of every 15 minutes, but is expected to go down to 12 minutes during peak weekday hours.

The streetcar is not expected to run after 1 a.m. on weekends in order to avoid being a delivery system for people drinking.

“This is not, for a lack of a better word, the drunk bus”, said City Council Member Yvette Simpson.

5. No criminal charges were brought up Dec. 28 against Cleveland police officers Timothy Loehmann and Frank Garmback for the shooting of 12-year-old Tamir Rice.

Rice was shot by the police officers on Nov. 22,

2014, when his airsoft gun was mistaken for a real firearm. Loehmann and Garmback arrived on the scene and Loehmann fired within two seconds of seeing Rice reach for the toy in his waistband.

The grand jury reviewed three months of evidence from police experts and testimony from the police and relatives of Rice.

“Given this perfect storm of human error, mistakes and communications by all involved that day, the evidence did not indicate criminal conduct by police,” said Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Timothy McGinty at a press conference following the decision.

6. In response to the mass-shooting crisis in the United States, President Barack Obama initiated several executive orders Jan. 5 to increase regulation in firearm sales.

“We’ve created a system in which dangerous people are allowed to play by a different set of rules than a responsible gun owner who buys his or her gun the right way and subjects themselves to a background check,” Obama said at his announcement speech.

The executive order is intended to increase the effectiveness of background checks for firearm businesses and buyers. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and FBI are overhauling their background check polices and requiring licenses for firearm sellers.

In addition, funding will be used to increase ATF regulation and invest in mental health care. Obama also urged the Departments of Defense, Justice, and Homeland Security to put more effort into researching gun safety technologies.

7. Chipotle Mexican Grill now prepares for a

criminal investigation with its connection in over 200 cases of illness from contaminated food between August and December 2015.

Chipotle received their court order on Jan. 6 and said the company is cooperating fully with the investigation.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Office of Criminal Investigations and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California are leading the investigation.

Steve Ells, Chipotle founder and chairman, released a letter of apology to customers and promised to further enhance the restaurant chain’s food safety programs.

“The last 22 years have been an incredible journey and we are not going to shy away from this new challenge,” said Ells.

“I’d like to take this opportunity to apologize on behalf of all of us at Chipotle, and to thank our loyal customers who have stood by us through this difficult time.”

CORRECTION On Dec. 2, The News Record incorrectly stated that free Uber will soon be available to students. The collaboration is still under discussion.

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US government profits as college student debt exceeds $1.3 trillion STEVE BEYNON | MANAGING EDITOR

Student debt in the United States has grown many times faster than inflation and family incomes.

The total national college loan debt exceeds $1.3 trillion, doubling since 2007 due to consistently rising tuition costs, with students having difficulty getting low interest loans due to their normally low-paying jobs.

In 2015, the average undergraduate paid 5.72 percent to borrow from the federal government, according to the Congressional Budget Office. This increases to 7.27 percent for graduate students.

According to the Department of Education, the average University of Cincinnati undergraduate left school with $28,228 of debt in 2015, which is roughly average compared to other schools in the country.

Massive student debt is a relatively new issue

in America’s economy, starting in the 1980s when the government made massive cuts to education investment and shifted the burden onto students.

Some also put shared blame on the universities for spending millions on lavish infrastructure and athletic programs in an effort to recruit students, and those costs inevitably trickling down to the student’s tuition.

“States invest a far lower percentage of their revenues in higher education today than they did a generation ago,” said David Niven, assistant professor of political science at UC. “As a consequence, student tuition went from one-quarter of a state university’s revenues to one-half. In other words, students today are hit twice as hard as their parents were for the same education.

“All three Democrats running for president have made a commitment to dramatically

reducing the cost of going to college. Neither the Republicans running for president nor the Republicans in Congress have made this a priority.”

Niven added that the states have invested more on prisons than education, but cutting prison spending can be tricky for a politician that could be labeled as “soft on crime.”

Ohio has some of the most expensive universities in the country. The Department of Education ranks UC as the 15th most expensive public university in the country.

Since 2003, in-state tuition has increased 116 percent.

Without taking taxes into account, a student working a minimum wage job full time in Ohio makes about $5,200 per semester, which is roughly how much an undergraduate main campus semester costs at UC before including books, commuting or any other charges. The system doesn’t allow most students to finish school without debt unless they are a veteran or good at football.

Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) met with several presidents of state schools last February and threatened to axe state funding to schools if they failed to keep their tuitions prices under control and cut costs.

Several Ohio schools agreed with Gov. Kasich, including UC, freezing tuition hikes through 2016. UC President Santa Ono said in a conversation with The News Record last October, “Tuition has actually been frozen two out of the three years of my presidency.

It will also be frozen next year.”

While tuition has frozen, student fees have continued to rise. For example, the cost of

attending the college of business increased 2.3 percent in the same time frame.

In 2014, 66 percent of UC’s main campus undergraduates left school with $28,228 of debt.

“My daddy had a heart attack and we nearly lost our home,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said during an interview on HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher.” “My chance was a commuter college that cost $50 a semester, and it opened a million doors for me. Today, that opportunity is just not there.”

Over the next decade, the government is expected to make $127 billion in profit off of interest rates on federal student loans according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Sen. Warren’s Bank on Students Emergency Loan Refinancing Act (S. 2432) was defeated in a 46-53 vote. The bill would have allowed people to refinance their student debt to 2013 federal standards of 3.86 percent. Older student loans can be as high as 10 percent.

This proposal would have left a huge hole in the government’s budget and the Republicans blocked it due to the bill compensating with a minimum 30 percent tax on incomes between $1 million and $2 million.

The bill’s co-sponsors included Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and presidential hopeful Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said over 40 million Americans have some student debt and that it is the only consumer debt not going down.

GRAPHIC BY RUSSELL HAUSFELD

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Recap: A look at DuBose’s link to past, present issues AMIR SAMARGHANDI | NEWS EDITOR

University of Cincinnati police officer Ray Tensing shot Samuel DuBose in the head during a traffic stop for a missing license plate in Mount Auburn On July 21, 2015 – news that reverberated past city limits and placed Cincinnati back in the forefront of a race discussion and its own not-too-distant past.

The history of racial tension in Cincinnati is indeed long and layered but the definitive modern demarcation for the Queen City would be the April 2001 slaying of Timothy Thomas.

Thomas was a 19-year-old unarmed black man shot and killed by white Cincinnati police officer Stephen Roach.

The ensuing riots that broke out in neighborhoods from Norwood to a pre-gentrified Over-the-Rhine drew a state of emergency, a citywide curfew and much national attention.

Officer Roach was exonerated of any wrongdoing for Thomas’ death— a pattern that would repeat itself nationwide for the cops who killed Michael Brown (Ferguson, Missouri), Eric Garner (New York City), Freddy Gray (Baltimore) and Tamir Rice (Cleveland) since 2013.

The deaths of Brown, Garner, Rice and dozens of other black men and women who were killed during police interactions became the center of a hashtag and then a social movement.

Black Lives Matter started following the death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in 2012 and the acquittal of his killer, George Zimmerman, after a highly publicized and controversial trial.

DuBose’s grizzly, point-blank head shot by Tensing was repeatedly looped online and by national media outlets from Tensing’s body cam, which provided a graphic close-up of police brutality. Officer Tensing is facing murder and voluntary manslaughter charges in DuBose’s death.

According to the Kroll Report, an independent UC investigation released Sept. 14, the incident was “entirely preventable” and one where “Tensing set in motion the fatal chain of events that led to the death of DuBose”.

The Kroll report also found that “any car movement before the moment Tensing fired his weapon appears to have been minimal,” contradicting Tensing’s statement after the incident about how DuBose was dragging him with his car and that he fired in self defense.

A Cincinnati Enquirer analysis found Tensing gave 81 percent of the tickets he wrote to blacks, compared to 62 percent for other officers.

DuBose marks the fifteenth black male killed by police in Cincinnati since Thomas’ death in April 2001, according to a WCPO story.

The other two UC officers who appeared on the scene, Philip Kidd and David Lindenschmidt, were initially placed on administrative leave. However, the Kroll Report cleared them and UC placed them back on duty, despite repeatedly corroborating Tensing’s statements that were “plainly contradicted by the video and audio

recording of the incident.”

“Knowing that you have two officers that aided in a murder, still working as UC employees… That’s scary,” said Christopher Steward, a fourth-year mechanical engineering student. “You go to school thinking that, you know, everything is going to be OK, that you’re going to get an education but the people who are sworn to protect you could take your life in the blink of an eye.”

“I felt disgusted, and scared for my life” said Brittany Bibb, who graduated from UC last fall in marketing, in reaction to the DuBose’s killing. “Knowing that it could have ‘gone left’ for anyone I know.”

Steward, Bibb and other black students formed the Irate 8, a name that stems from “the fact that black students comprise 8 percent of UC and the frustration we have about our quality of life on this campus,” according to the group’s official website.

“We’re all leaders of the black community and we saw a need for a change on campus with the results of the shooting and how the university didn’t really do anything about it,” Steward said.

The Irate 8 held a Samuel Dubose Week in September that included a forum on UC’s response, wearing ribbons to honor DuBose and other victims of excessive policing, a privilege walk, a Q&A about knowing your rights and a fish fry fundraiser for DuBose’s family which included his 12 children.

On Oct. 15, the Irate 8 presented the university with a list of 10 demands to be answered by Oct. 28, with the immediate banishment of officers Kidd and Lindenschmidt heading the list.

The demands include a comprehensive racial awareness program, backgrounds checks and mental evaluations for all faculty and police, allocating voting student senate seats from underrepresented communities, and efforts to substantively increase the number of black faculty and students at UC. The building of a stand-alone African American Cultural Resource Center, something promised in 1991, is another demand that Bibb said “is very important to us. No matter how long ago they said that, they said it was going to be stand-alone.”

UC President Santa Ono met the Irate 8’s Oct. 28 deadline for response and offered a broad commitment to these issues and a response to some of the demands.

The Irate 8 characterized Ono’s response as “university talking points” and “remain critical of the lack of concrete timetables, transparent planning and lack of immediacy” as well as the university’s unwillingness to negotiate on the reinstatement of Kidd and Lindenschmidt.

Yik-Yak, an anonymous, location-based message board app, saw other responses to the Irate 8 and their demands that ranged from racist trolling to calls for “white education programs” to not-too-subtle lynching references.

Because of the app’s nature, the posts are only visible from a short distance, meaning they were created by UC students, which concerned Ono enough to write an email condemning the behavior.

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White student union Facebook page sparks concern SOPHIA GAINES | COLLEGE LIFE EDITOR

The emergence of an enigmatic Facebook group at the University of Cincinnati, and around the country, has kept racial issues and tensions in the limelight.

Numerous “White Student Union” Facebook pages were created at various colleges nationwide – including UC, Ohio State University and Oberlin College in Ohio – in a period of a few days in November.

The pages were made in response to protests and racial tensions on campuses, the Black Lives Matter movement and the prediction that the percentage of whites in the U.S. will decrease and even become a minority within the next few decades.

The Union of White UC Students focuses on students of European descent and was inspired to assemble by the White Student Union at the University of Illinois.

The organizer of the Union of White UC Students said in an email to Fox19 Now that the group was formed because whites will become a minority in European countries as “we go into our multicultural future” and they want white students to have a space to talk about issues significant to them.

When contacted by The News Record, the

Union of White UC Students agreed only to communicate via email and under the name “Wojak” meaning “soldier” or “warrior” in Polish.

The group said most people believe a white student group is unacceptable because of political correctness, which the group claims is mostly directed at white people and runs rampant in society.

“Our university system in this nation is literally indoctrinating everyone to hate white people,” Wojak said. “Universities are endorsing this type of thought, so it is no surprise that white groups are not allowed to exist on campus.”

The UC group has a president, a few officers, 8-10 students and alumni in the Cincinnati area and expects to become a presence outside of the Internet.

Most pages note they are not yet official student organizations, but are indeed real and not spam.

Universities have stated that the unions are not recognized campus organizations and have no affiliation with the schools.

Members of the groups have not come forward with their true identities, as they fear for their safety. The group has received threats on Facebook from “anti-fascist”

accounts posting pictures of firearms and slogans that say “good night white pride.”

The union’s posts include sharing of online articles about equal rights, white privilege, oppression and the Black Lives Matter movement on a national and local level.

The Union of White UC Students posted an article from Breitbart about the Supreme Court on the verge of banning Affirmative Action, with the description, “This would be fantastic.”

Another post was of a National Review article about a petition demanding Adele admits she’s only successful because she is white and gives away her money.

The union’s thoughts on the article were, “A glimpse into the future where white people will be demonized for their successes just because they’re white.”

On Christmas Eve the group posted an article from CNN about a Black Lives Matter protest blocking an airport road in Minneapolis, adding “Merry Christmas.”

The union pages share the common creed, “We affirm the dignity and ancestry of our proud people who have gifted the world… and are committed to promoting a dialogue and political resistance that will secure a future for our posterity…”

Although groups say they do not want to denigrate other ethnicities, they have faced heavy criticism of being racist and hateful.

The Irate 8 responded to the appearance of the union’s page in a Twitter post that said the group is “nothing more than a distraction from efforts to address racism…”

While some universities have gotten Facebook to take down the pages because the universities’ trademarks were being used without permission, the pages continue to pop up.

Some unions now use pictures of buildings or statues on their campuses as profile pictures rather than university trademarks or logos.

In a university-wide email in response the Union of White UC Students, President Santa Ono and Chief Diversity Officer Bleuzette Marshall said that while UC must protect freedom of speech, they “encourage members of our UC community to exercise their rights to foster understanding and respect and to develop a welcoming, safe and inclusive environment for all.”

A statement by Student Body President Andrew Naab concurred the page was not affiliated with UC and that the university wants to preserve First Amendment rights.

$87 million Fifth Third Arena renovation approved by trustees DANIEL DEITSCH | STAFF REPORTER

University of Cincinnati’s Board of Trustees have approved a privately-funded $87 million renovation of Fifth Third Arena.

The renovation to the home of Bearcat basketball and volleyball teams is scheduled to begin in April 2017 and be completed by the fall of 2018.

Before approving the renovation funding Dec. 15, the board had required the athletic department to raise at least half the money needed. The athletic department raised over $20 million dollars all from private donors thus far.

“Our entire university has grown and transformed into one of the best in the country over the past 15 years, both academically and aesthetically,” said Mick Cronin, head men’s basketball coach. “This arena will be awesome. The planning has been meticulous and the first-class, new design is as good as I’ve seen across all of college basketball.”

The board had previously approved a $2.2 million for completion of the design phase, which resulted in the detailed and aggressive timeline.

“We’ve learned our lesson from Nippert.,” said Athletic Director Mike Bohn, referring to the degree of planning mistakes made while renovating football’s Nippert Stadium.

“We have strong commitments through the silent giving phase, including long-term suite agreements,” Bohn said.

Several new features will be built according to the proposal, including an HD scoreboard, sound system, ribbon boards, an LED lighting system that will allow for enhanced presentation, an upper-level concourse with fan amenities, and a 360-degree seating bowl with expanded premium seating options.

The proposal would also create a new main entrance as well as new restrooms, concession facilities, locker rooms and a plaza with ticketing and guest services.

PROVIDED BY UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI

Rendering of the $87 million Fifth Third Arena renovations set to begin April 2017.

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Educational gender gap persists, universally favors females SOPHIA GAINES | COLLEGE LIFE EDITOR

In the United States and across the globe, females have been found to perform better in school than males, from kindergarten all the way to university.

Although boys score higher on math and science in achievement tests, girls have an overall advantage in school grades, according to a 2014 New Brunswick University study on gender differences in scholastic achievement.

There are many possible reasons for the disparity in academic success between the genders.

These include more disciplinary problems for boys, lowering labor market barriers for women, parents encouraging girls more because they assume boys are already good at math and science, boys being more susceptible to adverse situations and more.

Research from 1914 through 2011 in over 30 countries showed that grade differences between girls and boys were smallest for math and science and largest for language.

These grade distinctions increased from elementary to middle school and decreased between high school and college.

However, girls in all age groups have continued outperform boys in school over the years.

According to the Pew Research Center, in 2012 the biggest gender gap in college enrollment was in Hispanics, where women had a 13 percent graduation lead over men.

The smallest gender gap is with Asian women only graduating at a three percent higher rate than Asian men.

For all races, from 1994 to 2012, the percent of female high school graduates that went to college increased by nine percent while that percentage did not shift for males.

Christina Hoff Sommers, former philosophy professor and author of “The War Against Boys: How Misguided Feminism is Harming Our Young Men,” said in an Atlantic article that to make school better for boys, “we must acknowledge that boys and girls are different…In the current environment, to speak of difference invites opprobrium, and to advocate for male-specific interventions invites passionate and organized opposition.”

Some fiction reading material, such as Little House on the Prairie for example, may interest girls and not interest boys as much as a comic book.

“Every teacher should have an up-to-date knowledge of reading material that will appeal to disengaged boys,” said the British Parliamentary Boys’ Reading Commission.

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, in 2013 the six-year graduation rate for first-time, full-time undergraduate students beginning school in 2007 seeking a bachelor’s degree was 59 percent.

It was 56 percent for males and 62 percent for females.

For the University of Cincinnati’s 2009 cohort group of students seeking bachelor’s degrees, the six-year graduation rate was 65.8 percent total, according to UC’s Student Right-To-Know Statistics reports.

The rate was 63.2 percent for men and 68.9 for women.

For black men specifically, the graduation rate was 52.8 percent and 53.2 percent for black women.

Asian men had a 61.5 percent rate while Asian women were at 75 percent.

Hispanic women also had a higher graduation rate than their male counterparts at 67.9 percent versus 59.4 percent.

However, the gender gap varies in certain study programs.

As of Fall 2015, undergraduates in Engineering and Applied Science was made up of 83.1 percent males while Nursing was female dominated by 86.3 percent.

On a national level in 2011-2012, according to the NCES, males dominated bachelor’s degrees in engineering technologies and engineering-related fields at about 89 percent.

Bachelor’s degrees in registered nursing were about 88 percent female.

At UC, the colleges with the most equal undergraduate gender percentages were medicine at 51.2 percent female and the College Conservatory of Music at 54.9 percent male.

For graduate students, nursing was still female dominated at 87.6 percent and males made up most of Engineering and Applied Science at 75.4 percent.

This holds about true nationally, where 91 percent of graduate nursing degrees were earned by women and 76 percent of graduate engineering degrees were earned by males.

Some popular areas of study made up of mostly women are education, social work, art, communications and psychology, most of which bring lower salaries than areas of study more popular to men.

Social workers have a median average salary of $45,000 and the median salary for media and communications occupations was about $52,000 in 2014, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Nursing is one exception to the trend of female dominated majors with lower salaries, where median earnings are about $66,000.

Computer science and engineering are both mostly men and yield median earnings of over $100,000 per year.

Although the gender pay gap still exists, a 2015 study by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York published on Liberty Street Economics showed that recent female college graduates make as much or even more than males of the same major in the same job.

ILLUSTRATION BY RUSSELL HAUSFELD

Alcohol, drugs still factor in college student assaults; UC stats decline SOPHIA GAINES | COLLEGE LIFE EDITOR

Alcohol and drug use among college students today can be quite common in the social scene, but also comes with negative effects.

According to a 2015 report by the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, over 600,000 assaults on college students aged 18 to 24 are by another student who had been drinking.

The Council also reported that 95 percent of all violent crime on campuses involved alcohol as well as 90 percent of sexual assaults.

From 2011 to 2013, arrests related to alcohol and drugs declined slightly at University of Cincinnati’s main campus, according to the school’s Crime Safety Report.

In 2011, there were 20 arrests for drug law violations and 11 for liquor law violations, compared to 13 drug arrests and eight liquor arrests in 2013.

In on-campus residence halls, drug related arrests declined from 16 to 13 and liquor related arrests declined from eight to three.

On-campus disciplinary actions regarding

drugs and alcohol decreased from about 65 percent to 57 percent from 2011 to 2013.

In 2011, there were 41 drug violations, which decreased to 24 in 2013.

Alcohol violations went from 268 to 176 in the same two-year period.

According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, students who live on campus are more likely to drink than commuters.

Schools with higher presences of a Greek system and more prevalent sports programs tend to have more drinking.

For individual students, different factors can describe why and how much one drinks.

These can include genetic vulnerability, family factors, personality, religiosity and beliefs about alcohol.

Statistics from a 2010 College Health Assessment conducted at UC said that 77 percent of UC students use a designated driver and one out of 5 students have never used alcohol.

In 2013, alcohol-impaired driving caused about 30 percent of driving fatalities, said the NIAAA. According to the Center for Disease Control

and Prevention, excessive alcohol use is responsible for approximately 88,000 deaths per year and $249 billion in economic costs 2010.

Excessive alcohol use includes drinking by pregnant women and people under 21 as well as binge and heavy drinking.

For men, binge drinking is usually defined as having five or more drinks per occasion and for women it is 4 or more.

Heavy drinking for men can be having 15 or more drinks a week or eight a week for women.

The Student Wellness Center says that a standard drink is 12 ounces of beer, five ounces of wine, or a 1.5 ounce shot of 80-proof spirits.

To ensure these negative effects do not happen, it is important for students to know their limits, refer to the U.S. Dietary Guidelines on moderate alcohol consumption and use resources at their disposal at the Student Wellness Center.

UC Health’s Psychiatry program features addiction Sciences and substance use disorder treatments. They offer an opioid treatment program, medically managed outpatient

treatment services, and have experts in addiction research.

UC Health can be contacted at 513-585-6000 and the Counseling Center can be contacted at 513-556-0648, where a counselor is available 24/7, according to UC’s Counseling & Psychological Services website.

PHOTO ILLUSTRATION

From 2011 to 2013 arrests on main campus related to alcohol and drugs has declined.

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DAAP, CCM plan full slate of galleries, performances for spring RUSSEL HAUSFELD | ARTS EDITOR

Faculty and students within the School of Design, Architecture, Art and Planning and the College Conservatory of Music prepare to resume the school year with brand new galleries and theatrical performances.

DAAP Galleries will kick off their spring season of exhibits Jan. 21 with a juried exhibit of 15 undergraduate students.

The exhibit will be followed Jan. 28 with the display of UC professor Carol Tyler’s work.

Along with teaching at the University of Cincinnati, Tyler is a painter, comedian and Eisner Award-nominated cartoonist. “It’s the Political Economy, Stupid,� an exhibit that showcases a wide array of politically inspired artwork, will come to Reed Gallery Feb. 15.

DAAP Galleries then gets meta with an exhibit dedicated to planning and designing art exhibits March 13. Finally, the season will

close out April 16 with DAAPworks 2016, showcasing works of DAAP’s graduating class.

Over the summer, an exhibit to be decided by the gallery director Aaron Cowan will be on display.

CCM returns spring semester with a new series of MainStage productions. Their first performance will be “AH! Wilderness,� a drama written by Eugene O’Neill running Feb. 11-14.

The first musical theatre production of spring semester will be March 3-6 and March 10-13, when CCM gets angsty with “American Idiot.�This will be followed by the opera “The Cunning Little Vixen,� which runs April 8-10.

The MainStage season at CCM will conclude April 22-24 with Tchaikovsky’s crowd-pleasing dance performance “Swan Lake.�

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Hoverboard popularity surges despite dangers, concerns ISABEL JANSEN | CONTRIBUTOR

One of the hottest gifts this holiday season was the Hoverboard, a two-wheeled board that allows an individual to travel from place to place without ever touching their feet on the ground.

A Hoverboard was bought every twelve seconds from eBay on Cyber Monday, according to Fortune Magazine. Despite the popularity of Hoverboards, a board can cost anywhere from $200 to $700.

As the popularity continues to grow, many concerns pertaining to the hoverboards follow. There have been many cases where Hoverboards have spontaneously combusted.

Patty Davis, a spokeswoman for the Consumer Product Safety Commission,

reported at least 11 fires in 10 states due to spontaneous combustion.

Though it is not known for sure where this problem is stemming from, it is believed to originate from the battery pack.

With Hoverboards being so expensive, buyers may opt for alternative brands that are less pricey. In doing so, they are purchasing products that may use cheaper batteries susceptible to malfunctions.

To avoid the batteries from overheating and combusting, Hoverboards should not be charged overnight or when the house is empty. Consumers should also look for brands that use lithium batteries when shopping.

With the rise of malfunctions with the Hoverboard, some universities such as American University and George Washington

University have banned them from their campuses.

While UC has not yet prohibited the use of Hoverboards on campus, they have limited where they can be used and stored.

The Public Safety Office sent out a correspondence to all residence halls stating, “the university is prohibiting Hoverboard devices from being in any residence halls.”The policy will be in place until more research is done.

The many injuries Hoverboards have caused should also be considered before purchase.

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission has received 50 reports of injuries with the devices as of Dec. 10, 2015.

These injuries range from falls and collisionrelated accidents.

There have also been accidents that have resulted in fractures and strains, as well as contusions and abrasions to the brain.

Kelsey Kurzhals, a first-year radiation therapy student, thinks Hoverboards are too expensive for their purpose.

“Has our word really come to this, where it is too difficult to walk from class to class?” she said.

Many University of Cincinnati athletes can be seen gliding from class to class on Hoverboards.

“They ride Hoverboards so they can save their legs for practice instead of wasting them on walking from class to class,” said Alessandra Jansen, a student athlete leadership assistant at UC.

On screen or on page? The peculiar predicament of ‘Game of Thrones’ CARLY SMITH | STAFF REPORTER

“Game of Thrones” — possibly the biggest book series and screen adaptation duo since “Harry Potter” — faces a strange predicament. It appears that the show has caught up to the books.

Unlike most screen adaptations of a series, the “Game of Thrones” HBO show was started while the “Song of Fire and Ice” book series that it is based on was still in the progress of being written.

Starting way back in the 1990s, the first books in the “Song of Fire and Ice” series were released to critical acclaim, gaining a large

following over the years. But when HBO picked up the series in 2011, it completely blew up.

Those who had read the books and then watched the show always had an inkling of what was going to happen next. Fans would also frequently complain when the show’s writers went in a different direction than the books.

HBO is now getting ready to release season six of “Game of Thrones.”The company has churned out five seasons in five years, compared to author George R.R. Martin’s five books since 1996.

In the beginning, Martin was not worried because he had thousands of pages of content released and thought he could produce quickly enough to stay ahead of the show.

However, on Jan. 2, Martin wrote a surprising and possibly horrifying blog post for readers of the “Song of Fire and Ice” series.

In it, he repeatedly apologizes to

fans, stating he would not have the newest book, “The Winds of Winter,” finished before the sixth season aired on HBO. He was selfdeprecating in his post, showing he was truly angry he could not finish the book in time. “‘The Winds of Winter’ is not finished,” Martin wrote. “Believe me, it gave me no pleasure to type those words. You’re disappointed, and you’re not alone.”

In fairness to him, the amount of detail and thought put into creating this world is maddening. He has so many plots going on at the same time and they all have to be interwoven to create a storyline that always keeps the reader guessing what will happen next.

Season six being aired before the book has caused a lot of drama for many dedicated fans. They are worried season six will release spoilers for the book.

While that is an understandable point, for those of us who have only dabbled in the books, but avidly watch the show, you could just as easily say that the books are spoilers for the show.

It may be a stretch, but some people may have friends that have read the books and

then gone on to reveal something that has not been on television yet.

The writers for the television series do not always follow the books, either. They could diverge from what Martin plans on writing.

The creativity of the show series could be greatly increased and have more surprises for everyone.

Martin even goes on in his post to point out tons of characters who are alive in the books, but dead in the show, and vice versa.

“Many more [characters] have never been part of the show, yet remain characters in the books,” Martin wrote. “Several are viewpoint characters, and even those who are not may have significant roles in the story to come in ‘The Winds of Winter’ and ‘A Dream of Spring.’”

If Martin has given show runners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss permission to continue on with show, then we should trust that it will still be as captivating as the last five seasons.

“You might prefer one or the other, but you can still enjoy the hell out of both,” Martin wrote in his fateful blog post.

GRAPHIC BY RUSSELL HAUSFELD

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Opinion: More complicated than Darth Vader, Kylo Ren’s conflict of character might make him a hero STEVE BEYNON | MANAGING EDITOR

Warning: This piece contains major spoilers for “Star Wars: The Force Awakens.”

Thankfully J.J. Abrams’ reinvigoration of a seemingly dead franchise worked – I no longer feel like a battered housewife with half-a-decade’s worth of awful prequel movies.

“Star Wars: The Force Awakens” adds a lot to the franchise.

We got BB-8, the adorable wingman of the year, as well as TR-8R, the surprise breakout character you probably saw in lots of memes over winter break (you know, the stormtrooper who challenged Finn.) We also got my new celebrity crush, Daisy Ridley, who plays the trilogy’s heroine Rey. Kylo Ren probably takes the crown as this entry’s most interesting character. He is a conflicted dark side warrior that was once an apprentice to Luke Skywalker. Ren killed his fellow Jedi students and drove Skywalker into exile, becoming a First Order warlord and servant of Supreme Leader Snoke.

We can talk about all the things this new Sith Lord is, but what makes him interesting is everything he is not. Unlike Darth Vader, Kylo Ren is not all-powerful or in control of his actions. He throws temper-tantrums when things do not go his way and is extremely self-conscious of his ability to be a warlord.

His anger management issues, coupled with his backstory, make him an especially volatile character. It is refreshing to see a male villain that is so emotionally complex. All other characters easily pick sides in “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” but Ren’s positioning is up in the air.

Rey even challenges Kylo Ren’s powers and self-doubt. Once it is revealed that our new Sith does not require his mask to survive like Darth Vader, it is clear Kylo Ren just wants to look scary and compensate for weakness. Even his father, Han Solo, calls out the mask being ridiculous.

The mask symbolizes Kylo Ren’s two different sides. When masked, we see the young villain commit mass murder, genocide and torture. Without the mask, he is crying, talking to people like a normal person and expressing a lack of confidence.

Both Vader and Ren had their encounters with disrespect within their ranks. In “A New Hope,” Leia makes fun of Vader to his face. We all remember when General Motti said to Vader, “Don’t try to frighten us with your sorcerer’s ways, Lord Vader. Your sad devotion to that ancient religion has not helped you conjure up the stolen data tapes, or given you clairvoyance enough to find the rebels.”

Our new villain takes a lot of disrespect from

General Hux, who even talks to Snoke when Ren is not around. We never saw military personnel consult Emperor Palpatine alone. Unlike our new villain, Vader almost killed Motti, finding his “lack of faith disturbing.”

Ren never threatens violence and only stands up for himself once he shows discontent for the performance of Hux’s troops. He seems less like anyone with military command and more of a Nazi SS officer that just goes in with the troops to smash things up.

Ren might even be this story’s hero. After the defeat of the Empire, new democracies started developing until the emergence of Snoke. An interesting fan theory is that Kylo Ren is pretending to be a part of the dark side to eventually topple the galactic totalitarianism from within.

This is prevalent in Han Solo’s conversation with his son immediately before Solo’s death. An emotional Ren tells his father he must do something he doesn’t want to do and that he is being “torn apart.” Ren asks Han to help him, to die for him, so that he can eventually take down the Sith. Ren’s promise to finish what Vader started could be a reference to Vader’s redemption.

Darth Vader was only able to destroy the Sith with his own death and the death of Emperor Palpatine. But, instead of Anakin Skywalker’s tragedy of character, Ren might have immersed himself in the dark side for a greater good. He would be this trilogy’s tragic figure.

Ren might not end up being this story’s hero. There is a chance he is just a wannabe sociopath, and his only ticket to evil is murdering his father.

However, he was horrified with stabbing Han Solo. Ren was in tears and heavily conflicted with what he had to do. The novelization of “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” takes this scene a step further, saying Ren fell to his knees in grief.

His acts of humanity are juxtaposed with his horrible acts and if he does end up being the bad guy, “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” ultimately leaves its audience as conflicted about Ren’s allegiance as the character is.

GRAPHIC BY RUSSELL HAUSFELD

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UC Athletic teams remained busy during winter break JASON SZELEST | STAFF REPORTER

Bearcats can look forward to a plethora of athletic events during the spring semester, as the basketball, swimming and diving teams will be continuing the seasons they started in the fall.

The University of Cincinnati’s lacrosse, track and field and baseball teams will also begin their season in the spring.

The men’s basketball team started the season 11-5. While their record is impressive, the team may be better than the record suggests, as three of their five losses have come in the final minute of the game.

“We have to eliminate mistakes,” said head coach Mick Cronin.“We have too many mistakes that shouldn’t happen.”

The Bearcats will continue their season 7 p.m.

Wednesday against the University of Houston Cougars at Fifth Third Arena.

The women’s basketball team is off to a 5-9 start. They have lost nine of their last 11 games after winning the first three of the season.

They will be taking on the University of Tulsa for their next game 8 p.m. Jan. 13 in Oklahoma.

Both the men’s and women’s swimming and

diving teams are well into their seasons with the men out to a 4-3 record and the women at 4-5.

Both earned wins against Xavier University Oct. 16 but lost to the University of Louisville Oct. 24.

The next meet for both squads will be 6 p.m.

Wednesday against the Miami University in Oxford.

The baseball team will face a tough challenge this season as they replace star player Ian Happ who is now a member of the Chicago Cubs organization after being selected with the ninth overall pick in the MLB draft last summer.

In addition to losing a key player they also are attempting to improve on a 15-41 record last season.

One player who will be relied upon to help turn things around is redshirt sophomore shortstop Connor McVey. “I think the team is pretty good this year,” McVey said.“People are going to be really surprised by what we are able to do this year.

We’ve got some stuff to improve on, but overall we are coming together as a unit.”

The team will be tested right off the bat, as they open their season with a three-game series against national powerhouse Louisiana State

University. The series begins 9 p.m. Feb. 19 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

The lacrosse team will also be looking to right the ship on a team that has not experienced success the past few years. The team has not had a winning season in the past eight years, failing to total more than seven wins in a season.

Last year was especially rough, as the women’s team finished with a record of 2-15.

They will open up their season 6 p.m. Feb. 19 in Deland, Florida against Stetson University.

The men and women’s track and field teams will look to improve on last year’s results of last, where the men finished seventh in the American Athletic Conference and the women finished ninth.

“This year, again, we are bringing back several All-Americans for indoor track,” said the director of track and field/cross country Susan Saton.“Erica Hurd and Adrian Valles were AllAmericans last year, so we hope they can repeat that and even maybe improve on how they finished at the national championships.”

Their first meet will be the UK Invitational Jan. 15 in Lexington, Kentucky.

NICK BROWN | CHIEF PHOTOGRAPHER

Troy Caupain (10) hits a deep three to take the lead late in the game against Iowa State.

Baseball’s McVey learns from injury, looks ahead to new season ADAM KING | CONTRIBUTOR

DAVID WYSONG | SPORTS EDITOR

While the University of Cincinnati’s baseball team had a disappointing 2015 season, redshirt sophomore shortstop Connor McVey had to watch from the sidelines as he was injured after playing just 13 games.

Before his shoulder injury, McVey was a key contributor for the team his freshmen year with national hitter of the week honors and a .267 batting average.

Sitting out due to injury is not the most ideal scenario for any athlete, but McVey learned from the experience.

“It gives you mental reps, being able to see what needs to be done, what needs to be fixed,” McVey said. “Gives you a chance to win the game from a different perspective of actually playing.”

The season will start in a little over a month and McVey is working on strengthening his arm and other parts of his game.

“I’m always working on my hitting game and also my mental approach,” McVey said. “Being able to think mentally along the lines about what’s happening in the game, it moves pretty fast, so I just try to stay a step ahead of the game.”

Going into the year McVey’s personal goals are to embrace his role as a teammate and to push his teammates to become

NICK BROWN | PHOTO EDITOR

Connor McVey hopes to jump back from his season-ending injury last year to lead the Bearcats baseball team to a winning season

better.

“Overall helping this team win is my ultimate goal,” McVey said. “Also giving the program everything I got.”

While many players’ favorite memories are a certain play they made or a big game they won McVey’s favorite memory as a Bearcats is hanging out with his teammates.

“You don’t get to get those memories back being able to hang out with the guys on the road,” McVey said. “I think hanging out with the guys and building that strong connection and bond between teammates, you won’t get that back.”

McVey went to high school in Mason so it only makes sense that his favorite professional baseball team is the Cincinnati Reds.

“I don’t know what they’re doing with their trades but I really hope the best for them and that they can be a playoff contender soon,” McVey said.

McVey is going to school at UC for accounting and he said that his plan right now is to maybe eventually go to law school.

McVey and the Bearcats open up their season 9 p.m. Feb. 19 against Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

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Spring sports give Bearcats reasons to continue cheering JASON SZELEST | STAFF REPORTER

Bearcats can look forward to a plethora of athletic events during the spring semester, as the basketball, swimming and diving teams will be continuing the seasons they started in the fall.

The University of Cincinnati’s lacrosse, track and field and baseball teams will also begin their season in the spring.

The men’s basketball team started the season 11-5. While their record is impressive, the team may be better than the record suggests, as three of their five losses have come in the final minute of the game.

“We have to eliminate mistakes,” said head coach Mick Cronin. “We have too many mistakes that shouldn’t happen.”

The Bearcats will continue their season 7 p.m. Wednesday against the University of Houston Cougars at Fifth Third Arena.

The women’s basketball team is off to a 5-9 start. They have lost nine of their last 11 games after winning the first three of the season.

They will be taking on the University of Tulsa for their next game 8 p.m. Jan. 13 in Oklahoma.

Both the men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams are well into their seasons with the men out to a 4-3 record and the women at 4-5.

Both earned wins against Xavier University Oct. 16 but lost to the University of Louisville

Oct. 24.

The next meet for both squads will be 6 p.m.

Wednesday against the Miami University in Oxford.

The baseball team will face a tough challenge this season as they replace star player Ian Happ who is now a member of the Chicago Cubs organization after being selected with the ninth overall pick in the MLB draft last summer.

In addition to losing a key player they also are attempting to improve on a 15-41 record last season.

One player who will be relied upon to help turn things around is redshirt sophomore shortstop Connor McVey. “I think the team is pretty good this year,” McVey said. “People are going to be really surprised by what we are able to do this year. We’ve got some stuff to improve on, but overall we are coming together as a unit.”

The team will be tested right off the bat, as they open their season with a threegame series against national powerhouse Louisiana State University. The series begins 9 p.m. Feb. 19 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

The lacrosse team will also be looking to right the ship on a team that has not experienced success the past few years. The team has not had a winning season in the past eight years, failing to total more than seven wins in a season.

Last year was especially rough, as the women’s team finished with a record of 2-15.

They will open up their season 6 p.m.

Feb. 19 in Deland, Florida against Stetson University.

The men and women’s track and field teams will look to improve on last year’s results of last, where the men finished seventh in the American Athletic Conference and the women finished ninth.

“This year, again, we are bringing back

several All-Americans for indoor track,” said the director of track and field/cross country Susan Saton. “Erica Hurd and Adrian Valles were All-Americans last year, so we hope they can repeat that and even maybe improve on how they finished at the national championships.”

Their first meet will be the UK Invitational Jan. 15 in Lexington, Kentucky.

FILE ART

Humbling bowl game loss leaves students doubting football team’s future CLAUDE THOMPSON | STAFF REPORTER

The University of Cincinnati football team ended another disappointing season, finishing 7-6 and losing its third-straight bowl game.

Head coach Tommy Tuberville remains

NICK BROWN | CHIEF PHOTOGRAPHER

Tion Green (7) hurdles over an Alabama A&M defender in the season opener.

and is in the hunt of a contract extension, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer.

After suffering an overwhelming 42-7 loss in the Hawai’i Bowl against the San Diego State University Aztecs, some fans have raised concern over his ability to put the team in a position to succeed.

“I think one of the most important things you have to be able to do as a head coach is get your team up for games, especially the big ones,” said second-year social work student Drew Jennings. “Tuberville is 0-3 in bowl appearances. This past one was embarrassing, to say the least. I think I speak for a lot of Cincinnati Bearcat fans when I say that I have very little confidence in Tuberville at this point. He was our guy once upon a time, but I don’t believe he is anymore.”

In addition to big loss in the Hawai’i bowl, fans are also worried about the program recently losing recruits to other schools and the loss of their offensive coordinator Eddie Gran Dec. 29 to the University of Kentucky.

“I think you have to be disappointed in

the [team’s] current position,” said UC alumni Ross Martin. “The season finished with no division or conference title and an embarrassing bowl loss to a non-Power 5 opponent. Add in that a few recruits have recommitted, specifically running back Jeremy Larkin, and it feels like a tipping point.”

“Tommy Tuberville will ensure that your program is always relevant and competing for bowl eligibility, but the question is if he can take Cincinnati football and make them a threat to win the American Athletic Conference on a regular basis and compete for New Year’s Six bowl games.”

Along with Larkin recommitting elsewhere, the Bearcats have also lost offensive lineman recruit Liam O’Sullivan to Syracuse and wide receiver recruit Andrew Parchment.

This compounds the confusion over the starting quarterback position between Gunner Kiel and Hayden Moore.

The often-injured Kiel would seemingly lose his job to Moore one week, only to get it back the next. Kiel did not make the trip with the

team to Hawai’i for the bowl game.

Despite Tuberville’s questionable decisions, Martin does not think he should leave the program just yet.

“There’s certainly more risk in making a change and attempting to find the next Mark Dantonio or Brian Kelly or Butch Jones and it is an even bigger challenge in keeping that hot coaching candidate happy in Cincinnati,” Martin said. “So I think that all depends on your expectation.”

Fans are also raising concerns over players who are still here, as well as how the coaching staff intends to improve the current product on the field when multiple recruits have left for greener pastures.

“I think this offseason, the defense needs to work on learning how to wrap up and tackle,” said second-year information systems student Drew Contini. “They need to figure out how to play with more intensity.”

The Bearcats will try to begin righting the ship when spring training. They open the 2016 season Sept. 3 against the University of Tennessee at Martin.

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Opinion: UC needs to divest itself from fossil fuel industry SARAH BARYLUK | CONTRIBUTOR

What have you done so far today?

Probably turned on the lights when you woke up, took a hot shower and made yourself breakfast and maybe coffee or tea.

Then you probably went to class, where your professor had materials projected onto a screen and you took notes on your laptop, your phone on the table beside you.

What do each of those actions have in common? Right now, they all rely on the burning of fossil fuels – coal, oil and natural gas.

Burning fossil fuels for most of our daily activities releases unprecedented quantities of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which in turn makes large contributions to global warming. The overwhelming majority of climate scientists agree that anthropogenic, or human-caused, climate change is real and is happening now at exceptional rates, in large part because of our fossil fuel consumption.

Here in Midwestern America, the largest risks increased global temperatures pose are more extreme temperature differences and more rain than usual. But around the country and the world, the picture climate change is painting for low-income communities, urban

slums and rural farms is much more severe.

In Syria, a multi-year, nationwide drought, due primarily to rising temperatures as a result of climate change, catalyzed the migration of millions of rural farmers to cities hoping to escape extreme poverty. This large movement of people made already crowded cities even more dense, which has been a large factor in the ensuing civil war and refugee crisis we see today.

Island and coastal regions around the world, such as the Maldives in the Pacific, or Florida here in the United States, are already seeing the effects of rising sea levels, as the surface area of their land decreases with each increase in temperature.

Throughout the United States, communities are facing more severe weather events with each year, threatening lives, property and livelihoods. Coastal storms, flooding and wildfires are decimating this country’s infrastructure and are becoming more expensive with each year.

These types of problems will only continue to worsen with the burning of fossil fuels for cheap energy consumption.

According to the Worldwatch Institute, the United States, which accounts for five percent of the world’s population,

CECH Graduate Fair

contributes 25 percent of the carbon dioxide pollution. Not surprisingly, climate change disproportionately affects the poorest and most vulnerable communities, but they aren’t the ones contributing heavily to the problem – we are.

This discord between contribution and consequence is why Fossil Free UC has been advocating for fossil fuel divestment since Feb. 2015, joining a worldwide fight against the greatest issue of our generation.

Divestment calls for institutions to withdraw endowment fund holdings invested in fossil fuel companies in order to make a statement about that institution’s commitment to a sustainable future and to stigmatize the fossil fuel industry.

While divestment directly involves actual money, that’s not the point. The amount of funds invested in the fossil fuel industry by UC are negligible when compared to how much money the industry makes even in a single day. Divestment will never financially bankrupt the fossil fuel industry.

What it will do, however, is politically bankrupt the fossil fuel industry. Much like the divestment campaign against South African apartheid in the 1980’s and the fight against the tobacco industry in the 1990s,

fossil fuel divestment marks the industry as an entity that we demand act more responsibly in how it extracts fossil fuels while urging them to take steps towards more renewable and efficient energy systems.

Climate change is a systemic issue, brought on not by one individual or one company, but by an entire society. As such, the solution to climate change needs to be systemic change.

In divesting, not only will UC further its own reputation as a sustainable leader, but it will join a growing and diverse group of divested institutions, inspiring deeper, broader change.

That is why we, Fossil Free UC, ask for the support of the student body in asking the UC Board of Trustees to make this decision.

Having collected more than 1,800 petition signatures and hosting multiple events on campus, we know that the more voices join us, the stronger we are.

For the sake of people suffering here and around the world, whether it be in Syria, the Maldives, California or New York, for the sake of my future and yours, we need to act now.

Join Fossil Free UC in calling for the systemic change that this campus, city, country and world so desperately needs.

Come and learn about graduate programs in the College of Education, Criminal Justice, & Human Services by meeting with faculty, staff, and students in the following programs: Criminal Justice

Literacy and Second Language Studies

Mental Health Counseling

Educational Studies

School Counseling

Special Education

School Psychology

Information Technology

Health Promotion & Education

This event is open to all UC students.

There will be a drawing for a Kindle Fire HD as well!

Sport Administration Foundations in Behavior Analysis Curriculum and Instruction Educational Leadership

Wednesday, January 20th 10:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.

TUC Atrium 15

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