Monday April 14, 2014 year: 134 No. 54
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The interim: Ohio State sails on in year of transition KRISTEN MITCHELL Editor-in-chief mitchell.935@osu.edu Ohio State is in some ways like a ship: the president is the captain, administrators are the crew and students are the passengers, along for the ride. And for a ship the size of OSU, the direction can’t be changed overnight. The past year at OSU can be considered a turning point. The era of former university President E. Gordon Gee has ended, and the time of Dr. Michael Drake has yet to begin. The ship is veering, preparing for a turn, but it hasn’t quite made it yet. OSU is in transition, with Interim President Joseph Alutto at the helm. OSU spent several months over the last academic year searching for its new president, and found that leader in Drake, the current chancellor at the University of California Irvine. While the official changing of the guard won’t take place until July 1, OSU has spent all year preparing for the new president’s arrival. During this time of transition, public attention has been centered around the announcement of the new president, though university officials have been going through their regular routines. The Lantern has obtained records that detail what exactly what those routines entail — documenting travel expenses and performance reviews of members of OSU’s top administrators over the past two years. Performance reviews outlined the work that
officials have done — and ways others needed to improve. Travel expenses documented millions of dollars spent on trips to conferences, overseas visits and attempts at spreading the OSU brand. The day-to-day operations of the university have marched on in this period of limbo — keep in mind, Alutto stepped in as interim president before Gee began his second term in office in 2007 — and Alutto, who had announced in November 2012 his intent to retire by the summer, has aimed to keep the parade moving. “There is no such thing as an interim president, there’s just a president and, so if you look at what we’ve been able to do since I’ve been there, it’s all the things the president would do,” Alutto said in a Feb. 11 interview with The Lantern. “We’ve made tough decisions, we’ve expanded some operations, we’ve SHELBY LUM / Photo editor made Dr. Michael Drake
decisions not to go into other areas, we’ve implemented the strategic plan and ultimately that’s what a president winds up doing.” Keeping forward motion has been the mantra of Alutto’s term in office, which will come to exactly one year when Drake takes over. In that time, there have been several administrative changes. CEO of the Wexner Medical Center Dr. Steven Gabbe is set to
step down in December or sooner if a successor is appointed, as Geoff Chatas, former OSU chief financial officer and senior vice president of business and finance, moved into the role of senior vice president for optimization and integration and Medical Center chief transformation officer as of March 1.
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RITIKA SHAH / Asst. photo editor
Interim President Joseph Alutto
SHELBY LUM / Photo editor
E. Gordon Gee
OSU Nurseline Meyer focuses on individuals in Spring Game receiving calls about mumps ERIC SEGER Sports editor seger.25@osu.edu
Increase in calls to the 24/7 Nurseline
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An extra 2 calls a day on top of 50 is an increase of
4% source: reporting
MADISON CURTIS / Design editor
REGINA BONFIGLIO Lantern reporter bonfiglio.20@osu.edu A few Ohio State faculty and staff members per day have been calling into a hotline to seek nurses’ advice on whether they have the mumps. The OSU 24/7 Nurseline, run by HealthFitness, is a service available to faculty and staff who have the OSU Health Plan that allows them to call a registered nurse at any time during the day or night to ask health-related questions. Representatives from the program have received more calls because of the mumps outbreak, with many calls focused on various questions about mumps, Jane Ferris, the clinical supervisor for the 24/7 Nurseline, said in an email. In addition to the average 50 calls per day, the line has been receiving an additional one or two calls per day about the outbreak, Ferris said. As of Friday afternoon, 199 mumps cases had been reported in Franklin and Delaware counties, up 10 from Thursday. Of those cases, 126 of were linked to the OSU outbreak, an increase of six cases from Thursday, according to a Columbus Public Health release. The onset of the first case connected to the Franklin County outbreak was Jan. 7, while the first case connected to OSU was Feb. 10. Mumps is a viral infection of the salivary glands, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website. It can spread through coughing, sneezing or contact with saliva or mucus. According to the CDC website, the disease can be carried without any symptoms. Those who are affected by mumps might have swollen and tender salivary glands under the ears or jaw on the side of the face, fever, headache, muscle aches, tiredness, loss of appetite and inflammation
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To Urban Meyer, the 2014 Ohio State Spring Game wasn’t about statistics, which intrasquad team won or lost, or which side played better as a unit. “It’s more of an individual — I’m not trying to evaluate an offense because who cares?” Meyer said after the Gray team defeated Scarlet, 17-7, Saturday at Ohio Stadium. “There are guys out there that will either never play or they’re not ready to play now.” With players like starting senior quarterback Braxton Miller, senior tight end Jeff Heuerman, a skill guy like sophomore H-Back Dontre Wilson and even starting offensive lineman junior Taylor Decker not seeing a single snap during the game, it was clear Meyer was more interested in how much he was going to get out of some inexperienced players. “I’m not evaluating — like (OSU spokesman) Jerry (Emig) hands me stats and I’m not sure what to do with these. I don’t care,” Meyer said. Individually, the final stats for those players who actually saw time Saturday weren’t exactly impressive. The two quarterbacks who started and played the majority of the game — redshirt-sophomore Cardale Jones, who Meyer named backup to Miller after the game, and redshirt-freshman J.T. Barrett — combined to throw for just 277 yards and no passing touchdowns. No ball carrier had more than 55 yards on the ground, but redshirt-sophomore running backs Warren Ball and Bri’onte Dunn both managed to find the end zone for the Gray team. “I was just talking with Cardale out there and you are so used to 14 practices playing with the same guys and that chemistry started through spring and there were a lot of new faces,” Decker said after the game about playing with players who might not see time this fall. “You start to develop a lot of chemistry and there were guys flipping sides, playing both ways so that makes it a little difficult when you are
MARK BATKE / For The Lantern
Redshirt-sophomore running back Bri’onte Dunn (25), who was on the Gray team, attempts to run past Scarlet defenders. Gray beat Scarlet at the Spring Game April 12 at Ohio Stadium, 17-7. not used to playing with somebody, but that’s not excuse. You still have to go out there and execute and do your job at the highest level.” After having a solid Spring Game a year ago, redshirt-sophomore wide receiver Michael Thomas performed well again and led Gray with six receptions and 64 yards, while redshirt-junior receiver Corey Smith snagged five passes from Jones for 72 yards. Senior wide receivers Devin Smith and Evan Spencer hardly saw the field at all — Spencer is still rehabbing from an injury suffered in the 2014 Discover Orange Bowl, and Smith played sparingly — but Meyer still wasn’t pleased with what he saw from the unit specifically. “Not enough,” Meyer said of the wide receivers’ efforts Saturday. “Without a doubt with what we expect, we’re not where we need to be. We’re better than we were two years ago … (a) notch (better) than we were last year. We got a ways to go.”
Another question mark for the Buckeyes was what the pecking order will be at running back next season after losing Carlos Hyde, who in the 2013 season became the first running back under Meyer to eclipse the 1,000-yard plateau. The expected favorite before spring practice was sophomore Ezekiel Elliott, who often came in to let Hyde rest last year. Other candidates include Dunn and Ball as well redshirt-senior Rod Smith. Smith sat out the last half of spring practice — including the Spring Game — as Meyer said “he’s focusing on academics.” “We have some depth there right now,” Meyer said. “But still it’s pretty much … I’m not ready to name a starter yet.” Dunn said after the game no matter who is at the
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Students compete to code new health software programs KHALID MOALIM Lantern reporter moalim.2@osu.edu As Ohio State students glued themselves to computers for 24 hours to create programs that would address health and wellness issues, some found themselves wishing OSU’s curriculum was focused more on what they could use in the real world. “Four of us learned how to do Ruby on the fly tonight,” said Lakshmana Mukkapati, a second-year in computer science and engineering. Only one of Mukkapati’s four teammates knew how to code with Ruby, a computer programming language. “I was the only one who knew how to do it,” said Paul Breuler, a fourth-year in computer science and engineering. Fourteen groups of students took on a 24-hour Codefest challenge hosted by Cardinal Health, in partnership with OSU and TechColumbus, to fix
real-world health and wellness problems. The event was held at 1275 Kinnear Road, Columbus-based start-up incubator TechColumbus’ office. Codefest is a competition held for programmers and web developers to showcase their creativity by creating usable software for phones or computers with limited amount of time. Several participants said OSU doesn’t offer much practice in the field of computer science other than practicing theory. “A lot of real world applications stuff we learn outside the classroom. They don’t really teach that at OSU,” said Daniel Brown, a fourth-year in computer science and engineering. “It’s more program theory and you learn how to test which code works faster, and ultimately the theory behind code and why code works. But a lot of the real practical applications you only get if you go out on your own and seek it. “What would be nice is if OSU offered more classes or made it possible for part of its curriculum for computer science majors to do real world projects so they can build their portfolio outside just their senior project.”
Brown and his partner Natenon Tongtae, a fourthyear in biomedical engineering, were one of five groups that won Amazon gift cards worth $400 per group and the top prize of GoPro cameras. Each member of the duo took home a GoPro. Awards like most innovative, most impactful, best demo and people’s choice were also given out to teams. Brown and Tongtae created software to help reduce the amount of time it takes patients and nurses to fill out paperwork. The patient, before showing up to the hospital, would fill out the information so any doctor they visit would have access to their data. Brown and Tongtae said they found a study suggesting that on average, health care providers only see patients for nine minutes, and six go toward filling out paperwork. “One of the things we wanted to do was expedite how fast they could do forms so that they could have more time to actually be a health care provider,
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