The Lantern 04.21.10

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Wednesday April 21, 2010 year: 130 No. 94 the student voice of

The Ohio State University

www.thelantern.com sports

Titus: Shark Week, part 3

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campus

Thompson purse crook caught

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arts & life

thelantern Pretty painting, but ugly fight LEAH WYNALEK Copy Chief wynalek.2@osu.edu President E. Gordon Gee participated in an entertaining arm-wrestling stunt last month over a painting that years ago provoked an acrimonious battle between Ohio State and a Columbus art dealer. The oil painting, “Children at the Beach,” by Columbus artist Alice Schille, was a gift from the freshman class of 1911. Until 1997, the painting hung in the old Ohio Union, where Columbus art dealer Lynda Dickson saw it. In June 1999, OSU sold the painting to Dickson for $50,000 based on a 13-year-old appraisal that noted that the piece was a gift from the freshman class of 1911. Dickson, now 73, was a member of the President’s Club, which honors OSU donors who give gifts of $2,500 or more. Dickson’s letter from the President’s Club states that she donated $4,000 to the university before her acceptance to the club in October 1998. Dickson

donated one print from her art collection to Gee and nine to Dodd Hall, where she was treated for a brain injury in 1997. When Dickson saw Schille’s “Children at the Beach” at the previous Ohio Union, it was hanging in a “poorly lit area,” was unclean and had surface flaws, including a minor tear, Dickson said. Despite its condition, she said she “just loved the children” in the painting. Dickson made a request to buy the painting at the Finance Office of the Ohio Union. In August 1997, associate director of the Ohio Union, Franklin Gencur, wrote to Dickson asking if she was still interested in purchasing the painting. Dickson sent OSU a $1,000 check as a down payment and asked that the work be appraised. She later received a copy of an appraisal of $30,000 from OSU. The document was from 1986. Dickson made an offer of $50,000 for the painting. The sale was arranged over the next two years and in June 1999, OSU finally sold it to Dickson. In August 1999, Dickson purchased the copyrights to the painting from Schille’s family for $5,000.

Go to thelantern.com to read the documents related to this story She placed ads for prints of the painting in the New York Times. The ads stated that the painting was previously owned by OSU. “A number of OSU alumni saw that ad … and were absolutely livid that OSU had sold the painting. And because they were angry, I was supposed to just give it back,” Dickson said. Legal Affairs offered to buy the painting back for the price she bought it for, but she refused, she said. In a Columbus Dispatch story from 2000 about the sale of the painting, OSU spokesman David Ferguson said, “No one knew it was a class gift. If people would have been aware it was a class gift, no one would have sold the darn thing.”

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Lead oboist gives Gee personal recital MOLLY GRAY Graphics Editor gray.557@osu.edu

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Festival of the Finest

Ohio Staters, Inc. will host the second annual Festival of the Finest from noon to 5 p.m. Friday at the Ohio Union.

When Stephanie Tobin was younger, she was always told to find what she loved and then make that her career. For Tobin, that thing was the oboe, an instrument that she began playing when she was 6 years old. Less that two decades later, Tobin, a master of fine arts student and the principle oboist of the Wind Symphony, found herself sitting in a lavishly furnished room in the new Ohio Union. She had just taken one of a couple oral examinations required for graduation with a master’s of music degree in oboe performance from Ohio State, and she was now waiting for President E. Gordon Gee, who was hoping for a personal recital from the musician. Two weeks prior, Gee told a room of Lantern reporters that star basketball player Evan Turner was no more important to the university than the lead oboist of the university’s wind symphony after he was asked about the distribution of financial support to athletes as opposed to other students who contribute to the university. Although he had never met Tobin, Gee seemed to

ANDY GOTTESMAN / Lantern photographer

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Stephanie Tobin, a master’s in music student, plays the oboe for President E. Gordon Gee in the Union April 14.

thelantern.com

Video of oboe Donors, longtime ticket buyers examined Ticket breakdown for two 2008 football games performance for Gee arts & life

Angels and Airwaves to play LC weather

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high 71 low 44 partly cloudy

TH FR SA SU

67/44 mostly sunny 67/52 mostly cloudy 71/60 few showers 69/55 t-storms www.weather.com

After four months of debate about more than a dozen proposals, the university Athletic Council will vote early next month on a proposed reallocation of football tickets after Ohio State switches to semesters in 2012. The Finance and Facilities subcommittee of the council presented its recommendation April 6, but before the full council votes to accept or reject the subcommittee’s recommendation, other issues are quickly filling up the agenda. In the second of three parts, The Lantern will explore some of the issues related to football ticket redistribution that the council might take up. Today’s article explores the donors and longtime ticket purchasers, two groups with many seats at football games, but for whom the Athletic Council does not distribute tickets.

JACK MOORE Lantern reporter moore.1732@osu.edu The Athletic Council is grappling with the best way to allocate faculty, staff, student and alumni tickets after the semester switch. But even after distributing all those tickets, the Ohio Stadium would still be a sad sight on game day: half-empty. “There are a lot of other bodies in the stadium,” said Karen Mancl, chair of the Finance and Facilities subcommittee. They include the visiting team, its marching band and fans, public officials, media and people whose football tickets come by way of the size of their wallets — big donors. The council is not tasked with supplying donor tickets. The authority for those tickets and the eclectic mix of others lies with the Athletic Department. During the 2008 season, the donors’ share of tickets was nearly 22,000 a game. They came from two groups: the President’s Club, a group of donors that contributes at least $2,500 a year to the university, and the Buckeye Club, the Athletic Department booster program. Members of the Buckeye Club earn the opportunity

Other*

Students

Ohio University Non conference

Faculty/staff

Long-time purchasers Former varsity athletes Michigan

Alumni

Big Ten

President's Club 0

20000

40000

60000

80000

100000

Buckeye Club

* Other includes: athletic committeemen, club seats, media, public officials, sponsorships, suites, university and stadium employee seating. Source: Bill Jones, Associate Athletic Director, external relations

MOLLY GRAY / Lantern designer

Football tickets change

Part two

to buy season tickets with a $1,500 annual donation. Peter Koltak, a student representative on the council, said the high number of donors at football games is essential for the Athletic Department. “The department has to remain a solvent organization. It has to keep the money coming in, in order to pay its own bills,” he said. None of the groups on the council had the desire or willingness to reduce donor tickets, Koltak said. After donors, the second largest group not allocated by the Athletic Council was longtime ticket purchasers, with almost 15,000 tickets per game. This is a unique group of alumni who have the ability to purchase season tickets every year. Most alumni are eligible to purchase a pair of

tickets to one home game each football season only after applying for a lottery with a 90 percent chance of receiving tickets. Like the faculty and staff point system, the origin of the longtime ticket purchasers program dates to the 1980s. In 1986, the Athletic Department, the Athletic Council and the Alumni Association created the one-time program that granted alumni who had purchased tickets for 15 consecutive years the ability to buy season tickets for the rest of their lives. The program requires no donation and is based on the buyers’ loyalty to OSU football, Mancl said. The only requirement is that they continue to purchase their season tickets every year or lose their buying privileges. Mancl said the program was instituted at a time when the stadium didn’t always sell out, and the program “promised” these deserving fans their tickets. “These are very loyal fans,” she said, “and as long as they’re alive and as long as their spouse is alive, they will have the opportunity to purchase tickets.”

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