VOL. CXXXIII ISSUE XVII • FREE-ADDITIONAL COPIES $1
THE NEWS RECORD THE UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI’S INDEPENDENT, STUDENT-RUN NEWS ORGANIZATION / THURSDAY, NOV. 14, 2013
‘OF MICE PACIFIC DISASTER AND MEN’
UC INDIAN STUDENT GROUP CELEBRATES TRADITION
DIWALI CELEBRATION
RELIEF SLOW AFTER DEADLY TYPHOON HITS PHILLIPINES
PAGE 4
PAGE 3
CATS BEST WOLFPACK
PAGE 5
PAGE 6
New UC insurance center to address growing industry needs Education, industry officials meet to commemorate opening of new center in UC College of Business RYAN HOFFMAN NEWS EDITOR
MADISON SCHMIDT CHIEF PHOTOGRAPHER Director of the new Center for Insurance and Risk Management Steve Slezak.
Researchers talk breast cancer treatment with community
A collaborative effort and resulting new center in the University of Cincinnati College of Business is aiming to combat an approaching shortage in the insurance industry. “Our goal is to make insurance a destined career. Our goal is to make the University of Cincinnati the path to that desired career,” said Steve Slezak, director of the new Insurance and Risk Management Center in the College of Business. Slezak, university officials and members of the private sector commemorated the opening of the Insurance and Risk Management Center Wednesday in the College of Business.
“In my view this is a historic day for the Linder College of Business and the University of Cincinnati,” said UC President Santa Ono. The new center will allow students to not only take courses, which will all be available at the start of the 2014 Spring semester, but also network with members of the private sector on a deeper level. “We are really thrilled to be here,” said Timothy Timmel, chief operating officer and senior vice president of operations for Cincinnati Insurance Group. “We are targeting the most qualified students and actively recruiting at UC.” Working with actual insurance agencies will also allow the center to focus on the needs of the industry, which are expected to grow as more and more baby boomers retire. “It’s exciting,” said Ben VanSwearingen, a finance student seeking his master’s degree. “It seems like they SEE INSURANCE PG 2
A&S DEAN RESIGNS
JAMIE MAIER STAFF REPORTER
In one of its first community-geared events, researchers at the University of Cincinnati Cancer Institute’s Comprehensive Breast Cancer Center presented new breast cancer research and future diagnostic and treatment options. “We’ve seen an explosion of new information in recent years and feel it is important for the patients to know where we are today and where we will be in the future,” said Elyse Lower, director of the UCCI Comprehensive Breast Cancer Center Program. The Meet the Breast Cancer Team conference was hosted Saturday at the Vontz Center for Molecular Studies and included presentations about ongoing UC research and interactive discussions between researchers and attendees. This is the first year UCCI hosted an event to share recent discoveries that was geared toward the community and not just patients and other professionals. “And that’s what’s so exciting to me, it’s just the beginning of the cycle,” Lower said. Lower opened the event by explaining the center’s purpose, which is to bring discoveries from bench to bedside by taking research from the basic science level to clinical trials and then to treatments. The research is ongoing and 20 UC labs are working toward discoveries that could improve future treatments, said Susan Waltz, professor of cancer and cell biology. “Research is moving to try to individualize and understand the basics of breast cancer,” Waltz said. “We try to SEE CANCER PG 2
Suspect in shooting near campus arrested BRYAN SHUPE CHIEF REPORTER
An arrest has been made following a shooting that occurred Oct. 28 in the 300 block of Warner Street in the University of Cincinnati uptown campus area. District Five detectives charged a seventeen-year-old male from Northside with two counts of aggravated robbery and one count of felonious assault. The male victim, who is not a student, suffered a gunshot wound to his abdomen during an aggravated robbery. The male was taken to University of Cincinnati Medical Center with non-life threatening injuries. A female UC student’s purse and wallet stolen in the incident. It is believed that there are more possible suspects involved in the shooting and the investigation is ongoing.
MADISON SCHMIDT CHIEF PHOTOGRAPHER Provost Beverly Davenport Sypher hosted a town hall to explain former A&S Dean Ronald Jackson’s resignation Wednesday, but the conversation focused heavily on diversity issues.
Provost talks A&S dean’s departure; conversation focuses on race, diversity BRYAN SHUPE CHIEF REPORTER
University of Cincinnati Provost Beverly Davenport Sypher urged more than 100 students, faculty and staff members to look forward rather than dwell in the past as the crowd fired questions at her about the resignation of former Arts & Sciences Dean Ronald Jackson. “It’s a new day,” she said. “We are moving forward.” Davenport hosted a town hall forum Wednesday to discuss the future of the McMicken College of Arts and Sciences following the sudden resignation of Jackson. The announcement of a new interim dean was overshadowed when the crowd shifted the conversation to racial injustice on campus. In an email Tuesday, Davenport reported Jackson had relieved himself of his duties as dean and named Kristi Nelson, senior vice provost for academic affairs, the new interim dean of A&S. A whirlwind of decisions affecting the largest college at the university were made Tuesday night after his resignation; the provost called a meeting with the A&S department heads and Nelson was swiftly appointed. But the crowd at the town hall meeting wasn’t interested in new leadership, or even the specifics of the budgetary turmoil the college faces. A barrage of
questions about how race played a factor in Jackson’s leadership dominated the conversation. In September, a cartoon derogatorily depicting Jackson and Carol Tonge Mack, A&S Recruitment and Retention Initiatives assistant dean, was posted around campus and circulated via email, and Davenport urged community members not to view the cartoon as definitional. “Don’t make the mistake by letting an incident define who we are,” Davenport said. “It was a ... cowardice, indefensible act.” Davenport said the cartoon served as a catalyst for learning the importance of addressing and embracing differences as a UC community, but students at the forum were skeptical of the steps being taken to combat inequality at the university. “I think students are done talking,”Tonge said. “They’re frustrated. They want action.” UC investigated the origin of the drawing in attempts to apprehend whoever was responsible for its creation and distribution. After presenting the cartoon to Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine, the university was told the cartoon isn’t punishable by law under First Amendment rights. Jackson addressed the cartoon in an email explaining his resignation and said it was “especially hurtful and shameful in an educational [environment] designed to train the next generation.” While his resignation aroused controversy given its context, so did Jackson’s nearly year and a half tenure.
The college is currently running a deficit that Jackson said he wasn’t aware of when he was originally interviewed for the position. “Although I was told the college had a $1.2 [million] surplus when I interviewed, after I arrived I found myself presented with the largest budget deficit the college has ever seen, and my colleagues and I worked arduously to turn things around,” Jackson said. “The college is now twothirds of the way out of a deficit that could take years to emerge from. We should all be proud of our efforts so far.” During the 2012-13 Spring semester, former A&S assistant dean Jana Braziel resigned, citing Jackson’s failed leadership in the college as a reason for her departure. “I am, as you must also now surmise, decidedly not a supporter of you Ron, and I unequivocally feel that you have failed as the leader of the McMicken College,” Braziel wrote in an April email obtained by The News Record. “In short, I believe that you lack the character and the leadership to remain in this position.” Braziel’s resignation sparked follow-up emails of a similar nature to university administration from other A&S faculty members. Despite his disputed past, Jackson garnered support from some UC community members who attended Davenport’s open forum. Gika Okonji, a second-year accounting SEE DEAN PG 2
Students propose campus sustainability initiatives at student government Campus groups work to enact green policies on campus before 2019 ALEXIS O’BRIEN NEWS EDITOR
LAUREN KREMER STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER Charles Marxen and Ryan Ponti-Zins present the top five sustainability initiatives they want to see on campus.
Members of multiple sustainability student groups at the University of Cincinnati took the next step Wednesday in implementing campus sustainability initiatives by UC’s bicentennial anniversary in 2019. The initiatives — developed at a sustainability summer in October — include UC’s commitment to the real-food challenge, required sustainability literacy for all students, energy utilization from workout equipment, an increased amount of native landscapes on campus and the placement of recycling bins next to oncampus trash cans. “There needs to become ownership of these projects, whether it happens through
CHIEF.NEWSRECORD@GMAIL.COM / 513.556.5908
the university or a student group,” said Charles Marxen, a fifth-year chemical engineering student and sustainability codirector for student government. Engineers without Boarders, Leaders for Environmental Awareness and Protection, Students for Ecological Design, DAAP Cares, UC Mountaineering Club and a contingent of fraternity members and unassociated students attended the October summit to be trained as leaders and create sustainability project ideas that can be implemented at UC. Marxen, with sustainability codirector Ryan Ponti-Zins, worked with the President’s Advisory Council on Environment and Sustainability to garner support for the projects. “If we can show PACES that this initiative, above others, is worth their time, focus and money, they will definitely SEE SUSTAINABILITY PG 2