THE 132-YEAR-OLD AWARD-WINNING INDEPENDENT STUDENT-RUN NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI
VOL. CXXXIII ISSUE LVVVVVVVIII
Professors recognized statewide
The News Record THURSDAY | FEBRUARY 14 | 2013
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Six UC educators ranked high by online education resource in Ohio BRYAN SHUPE SENIOR REPORTER NEWSRECORDNEWS@GMAIL.COM The higher education resource organization Online Schools Ohio recognized six University of Cincinnati professors as top educators in the state. The organization compiled three separate lists to showcase the top 22 educators — not ranked in order — in education, law and business. UC, along with Ohio State University and Toledo University made all three lists. “One of our primary missions is to be great teachers and ensure our students have great experiences,” said Larry Johnson, interim provost. “I’m looking for more ways to recognize teaching scholarship.” Johnson said he put together a committee, the Provost Committee on Teaching Excellence, to ensure students get the best educators the university can offer. Two professors in the College of Business — Charles Matthews and David Rogers — and three professors in the College of Law — Emily Houh, Janet Moore and Sean Mangan — were acknowledged as skilled professors in their respective fields. “I am proud to be included in such a distinguished group of colleagues from UC and around the great State of Ohio,” Matthews said. Janet Moore, professor in the College of Law, said acknowledging professors for their achievements can help students decide which school best suits their academic needs. “I consider it a tremendous honor.” Moore said. “To have a warm response from the students and the faculty as well is a great deal to me.” Moore helped start the Indigent Defense Clinic in 2007, a program where third-year law students are given the opportunity to represent real clients in Hamilton County. The intensive program added a tremendous practical component to the curriculum, Moore said. Ohio ranks seventh nationwide in the number of lawyers and has three nationally recognized law schools in Ohio State University, the University of Cincinnati and Case Western Reserve University, according to Online Schools Ohio. Carla Johnson, an associate professor of science education, is the only UC professor from College of Education Criminal Justice and Human Services to make a list. Johnson — who has been involved at UC for five years — shares the honor with her students and fellow faculty members.
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PUTTING IN PERSPECTIVE Lane Hart and Maesa Idries, the student body president and vice president, discussed their accomplishments during the 2012-13 academic year. The pair tackled student-based issues such as public safety and transportation.
PROGRESS REPORT Hart, Idries discuss achievements relating to platform BENJAMIN GOLDSCHMIDT CHIEF REPORTER NEWSRECORDNEWS@GMAIL.COM Uncertainty and instability led to progress for the University of Cincinnati Undergraduate Student Government in more ways than one. As Lane Hart reflected on his tenure as student body president at the University of Cincinnati, he admitted that he was apprehensive about running for student office in the first place. Maesa Idries, student body vice president, convinced Hart he was the best candidate for the job, and the team began their pursuit to accomplish a list of student-based goals. During the 2012-13 academic year, Hart and Idries attempted to tackle the initiatives on their platform while leading the UC Undergraduate Student Government in a productive direction. Amidst a slew of changes throughout the university, SG affected change in areas previously set in gridlock. The changes in administration — especially the resignation of former UC President Gregory Williams and the appointment of UC President Santa Ono — posed a challenge for SG, but also provided opportunities to work with new faculty and influence the way the university operates, Hart said. “[Ono] is absolutely about putting students first, and for our goals at student government — you know, he’s the kind of
person who always says, how can we make this work, instead of here’s why it doesn’t work, which is a huge change for us,” Hart said. Although Hart and Idries didn’t accomplish all of their campaign goals, when opportunities to work on previously untouchable issues arose, they took full advantage of them. Greg Hand, UC spokesperson, said the progress in those issues — especially student safety — wouldn’t have happened without help from SG. “Lane and Maesa are working on [issues] students have always been interested in, but they have done a good job selling those ideas to the administration,” Hand said. “The change at the top of the administration helped them out in that regard, but I can’t discount their ability to sell those ideas.” Idries said key players in the UC administration — especially Ono and UC Police Chief Michael Cureton — recognized off-campus safety as a concern for students. Administration offered help and provided funding for safety initiatives this year more than ever. “[Safety] is something, quite frankly, we thought about not putting on our platform because student government didn’t have cooperation of the administration and the community officials to get that done before,” Hart said. “But now we have an administration that is willing to pull everybody to the table and say this is a priority, we need to get this done.”
During their campaign, Hart and Idries emphasized their vision of improving offcampus lighting, and even though the issue appeared on multiple campaign platforms before, it never progressed beyond that. Now, Duke Energy has committed to putting up 60 new lights around campus. The UC administration’s concern for student safety also allowed SG to change the way the Nixle emergency text messaging system operates by changing it from an “opt-in” system to an “opt-out,” Hart said. “We saw that people were finding out what was going on from each other on Twitter before they were finding out through UC,” Hart said. “We didn’t want to be the last ones telling people, especially when there’s an emergency going on in real time.” On campus, the emergency alert system goes off in buildings, but off-campus, students might be left in danger. During one of the lockdowns, Hart drove around campus picking students up and returning them to their homes. That experience brought about the idea to change the emergency system, he said. SG also worked heavily with the Bearcat Transportation System to keep students traveling to and from campus safe. The Presidential Safety Summit Committee enlisted the help of SG to survey students about optimizing the BTS. Hart said SG received a lot of positive SEE SG | 2
Foreign policy expert hosts discussion at UC CATO Institute visits campus, explains nuclear proliferation BRYAN SHUPE SENIOR REPORTER NEWSRECORDNEWS@GMAIL.COM
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FOREIGN POLICY Christopher Preble, vice president for defense and foreign policy at the CATO Institute, discussed nuclear proliferation at the University of Cincinnati Tuesday.
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The University of Cincinnati welcomed Christopher Preble, vice president for defense and foreign policy studies at the CATO Institute in Washington D.C, Tuesday to discuss nuclear proliferation. Preble and his colleagues are working on a project called “From Triad to Diad,” which examines the potential of changing United States nuclear weapon positioning around the world from a wide array of platforms to strategic placement on platforms like nuclear submarines to protect US interests instead of posturing in ally nations. The project has been ongoing for a little more than a year, and focuses on the development of nuclear armament of the middle-to-late 20th century. “We think when people understand better, how it is [the US] developed a triad in the first place, we think that some of the political support, and even the cultural attachment to the nuclear triad will fall away,” Preble said.
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The US nuclear arsenal has been reduced dramatically — 1/10th of its original size — and the strategic justification for the force structure no longer exists, Preble said, which means the there are favorable circumstances for a cultural shift on the nuclear armament and strategic placement discussion. At the center of Preble’s argument is the idea of finite deterrence, which means a limited number of nuclear arms to be used as a second-strike deterrent. This form of deterrence is also known as mutually assured destruction, meaning if one country fires a nuclear weapon at another, there will be nuclear weapons coming back destroying both nations. “Our commitment to defend certain allies has deterred them from acquiring nuclear weapons,” Preble said of deterrence. Preble believes in nuclear deterrence, but also said President Barack Obama is moving in the right direction on deterrence and disarmament and that there are bigger threats like cyber sensitivity and global warming to contend with.