Thursday October 20, 2011 year: 132 No. 22
the student voice of
The Ohio State University
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Starting Thomas
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Sophomore forward Deshaun Thomas expects to step into a starting role for the upcoming basketball season.
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Chelsea castle / Managing editor for content
About 15 OSU students as part of United States Against Sweatshops lay at the entrance of the Science and Engineering Library in protest Wednesday, Oct. 19. The students protested against a deal between OSU and Dallas Cowboys Merchandising, Ltd.
Protesters lay down demands Katie Harriman Lantern reporter harriman.14@osu.edu A group of Ohio State students in United Students Against Sweatshops laid in the entrance of the Science and Engineering Library Tuesday to protest the pending apparel deal between OSU and Dallas Cowboys Merchandising, Ltd. About 15 students from the group sat and laid on the ground while chanting “We don’t give a damn for sweatshop sweatshirts” in the tune of “We Don’t Give a Damn for the Whole State of Michigan.” Campus police were called to the scene about a
Tosh.Ohio State
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Comedy Central star Daniel Tosh used OSU as a theme for an episode of his TV show that aired Tuesday night.
campus
half-hour into the protest, due to the loud chanting and blocking of the library entrance. Protesters agreed to keep their voices down as to not disturb classes in the building. Nicholas Pasquarello, a fourth-year in psychology and sociology and co-president of USAS at OSU said the demonstration was important to get the word out to students about their new petition on www.change.org. “The fact that we’re having meetings with OSU officials where we’re just talking in circles isn’t really doing anything,” Pasquarello said. “We have a goal of getting 1,000 signatures, so we’re out here to boost that number.” This is the second protest that USAS at OSU
has had on campus and is in response to a potential apparel deal between Dallas Cowboys Merchandising, Ltd. and OSU. The group demands the Cowboys’ merchandising company and its off-shoot Silver Star Merchandising be disqualified from the bidding process for an apparel deal. USAS also takes issue with Silver Star alleged use of sweatshops in several countries. University spokesman Jim Lynch said in a statement on Sept. 26 that OSU is currently talking to license apparel companies, including Silver Star Merchandising, about an exclusive apparel model. USAS, however, said that OSU has been secretly
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‘Occupy’ protests spark OSU discussion DANIELLE HYAMS Senior Lantern reporter hyams.2@osu.edu The “Occupy” protest movement is gaining momentum. The demonstrations, which started on Wall Street, have spread beyond borders with similar “Occupy” protests popping up not only in various cities across the United States, but in many European countries as well. Ohio State students are having their own protest this coming Monday, Oct. 24, which they have coined “Occupy The Oval.” Chelsea Pflum, a fourth-year in philosophy and international studies, is one of the students organizing the demonstration. “Occupy The Oval is a microcosm about students and how we’re affected by corporate greed, especially if you look at student debt,” Pflum said. “These banks were bailed out billions of dollars and students are on average, $20,000 in debt and they are having trouble finding jobs and nobody is helping them with that.” Additionally, Pflum said they will be protesting the privatization of parking at OSU. “This is about a public good from a public university being taken away by a private cooperation and President Gee is for this, even though corporations have proven that they are not looking out for the welfare of the average person,” Pflum said. “(The
privatization agreement) is a 50-year lease and they are allowed to raise the price of parking 7.5 percent every year for the next 10 years.” According to economics senior lecturer Ida Mirzaie, it is the current economic situation of the U.S. that has led to the widespread protests. “Not only is current unemployment rate high, but also it is taking a longer time for an average unemployed worker to find a new job compared to previous economic down turns. This worries both those who are unemployed and these who are still in school and will enter the job market in near future,” Mirzaie said. “Even though interest rates on many loans are low, interest rates on student loans are on their all time high.” Political science professor Thomas Nelson said people are also upset at the government’s economic policies when it comes to dealing with big corporations. “It’s the Wall Street bailouts as this example of investment bankers who got the benefit of government support in bailing them out of all these risky investments that they made, and they turned around and paid bonuses to their executives and hedge fund managers,” Nelson said. “The argument is that looser regulations have permitted this kind of thing to happen so you will hear the argument that what happens on Wall Street is they privatize the benefits and socialize the cost.”
Courtesy of MCT
OSU students have planned a protest called “Occupy the Oval,” much like this one in Raleigh, N.C.
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It’s a zoo in Zanesville
The hunt for the wild animals set loose in Zanesville, Ohio is nearly over as 50 total animals have been killed.
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Jami jurich Editor-in-chief jurich.4@osu.edu When the Ohio State Student Service Center sent an email Wednesday to students with outstanding balances on Autumn Quarter fees, an Excel sheet containing the names, student ID numbers, email addresses and the exact amount of 2,466 students’ outstanding balances was mistakenly attached. A follow-up email was later sent by the SSC with the subject line “Apologies.” The follow-up email stated, “Earlier this afternoon, we sent you an e-mail message describing an unpaid balance on your Statement of Account. Unfortunately, attached to that message is a list that we did not intend to attach. “While the substance of the email message is correct, the attachment is a mistake for which we are very sorry.” Director of communication for the Office of Enrollment Services at OSU, Allen Kraus, told The Lantern in an email that the mistake was “the result of simple human error.” Still, students do not need to be concerned with identity theft as a result of the mistaken email, Kraus said in the email. “The release of this information is embarrassing for everyone involved — for the students who are impacted and for our office — but it does not represent the kind of security risk that might result in identity theft,” Kraus said in the email.
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Kraus said the university is investigating the incident to prevent similar mistakes in the future. “We will indeed be looking very closely at how this happened and how to be sure that it won’t happen again,” Kraus said in the email. “We take student privacy very, very seriously and are hugely sorry and disappointed to have made this mistake.” Despite the SSC’s statement that students were not at risk, some students were concerned that the information had been publicized. Multiple editors of The Lantern also received the email and had their information included in the Excel sheet. Jaime Ortega-Simo, a fourth-year in journalism, is among the students who received the email. His information was also included in the Excel spreadsheet. “I could not believe that they committed the mistake of sending everybody’s information to other students just like me,” Ortega-Simo said. “I’m a little bit shocked.” Ortega-Simo said he was worried about the possibility of other students forwarding the information on to other people. “If I have any friends (who received the email), now they’re going to know what my balance is and I don’t think that’s right,” he said. “It should be private and they made it public.” Some students don’t share Ortego-Simo’s concerns, however. Alex DelPriore, a second-year in communication, who was also among those who received the emails
Source: reporting
and whose name was also included on the Excel sheet said, “It doesn’t matter too much. I wouldn’t have even opened the attachment if it weren’t for the second email.” But Ortega-Simo said he plans to speak with people at the SSC about the Excel sheet. Though he said he hasn’t had any previous problems with personal information being released, Ortega-Simo feels the university needs to be more responsible when it comes to students’ information. “If they are going to be strict with students with their deadlines, we students assume that they should be strict with themselves,” he said. “It’s just like leaving the fire in the kitchen, the gas in the kitchen. You just don’t do that.”
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