REBECCA HUFFFOR THE MIAMI STUDENT

Criminal Justice and Business student Derek Huffman died Sun-day, Jan. 25, 2015 at 3:15 a.m. Only 35 years old, he left behind a wife and four children, two of which were his step children.

Huffman’s body was found in the Cove Motel on 2800 Dixie Highway in Hamilton. The cause of death is not confirmed, but police are inves-tigating it as a drug overdose.

“There’s no confirmation on the drug that was used,” Detec-tive Mark Nichols said. “We are still waiting on toxicology and other lab reports.”

Huffman’s wife, Anessa, re-leased a statement following her husband’s death.

“I’m certain now that you found the peace you were searching for,” she said.

Robert Rusbosin, Regional Se-nior Associate Dean of Students, expressed his condolences.

“The entire campus is very sad

[about the death of] Derek Huff-man, and our counseling services are available for any student who needs to meet with a professional counselor to assist in their loss,” he said.

The Student Government As-sociation (SGA) honored Huffman with a moment of silence. SGA will also be sending a signed card to the Huffman family.

“I think the family is coming to-gether and dealing with it the best way possible or the best way they can,” Rusbosin said.

REIS THEBAULTNEWS EDITOR

Since Larry E. Tipton II shot and killed junior Rebecca El-demire, then himself, on Sunday morning, OPD’s investigation and subsequent silence has raised more questions than it has answered.

The first, and most prominent, is: what happened Saturday night?

At a press conference Monday, OPD’s spokesman Sgt. Jon Varley gave reporters a basic account of the apparent murder-suicide.

But, when pressed for details, he said he had planned to tell report-ers more, but the City of Oxford’s law director Stephen McHugh in-structed him against it. McHugh did not return calls requesting more information.

Then, when asked for details again on Thursday, Varley said he had nothing more to add.

That leaves troubling gaps in the community’s understanding of the tragedy. Here’s what is known and not known, based on police re-cords and Varley’s account.

At 9:56 p.m. Saturday, Eldemire called 911 from the apartment she shared with three roommates at Level 27, a mile south of campus. She told the dispatcher that her ex-boyfriend was coming to see her and that she was nervous.

Eldemire said Tipton was 15-20 minutes away.

“He’s coming in from out of town and he wants to talk to me,” she said to the dispatcher. “He obviously knows where I live and I’m just a little nervous about the situation.”

Eldemire told the dispatcher that Tipton didn’t say anything about coming there to hurt her and that he had no history of being violent.

“Have you guys been fighting or, why are you nervous?” the dis-patcher asked.

“Well, yeah, I broke up with him today,” Eldemire responded.

She said she drove to Columbus to talk to him that morning and, during the encounter, he was “a little violent.”

“He was just throwing things around,” she said.

Then, the dispatcher asked, “Do you know if he has any weapons or anything?”

“He does own guns, but I don’t think he would bring any with him,” Eldemire said.

At this point, it is unclear exact-ly how many guns Tipton owned, or if he owned any at all.

According to OPD documents, officers who searched Tipton’s apartment recovered a “bag with

misc. live rounds” and a “bag with misc. gun manuals and receipts.”

“I was just wondering if I could get a police officer here, just to make sure everything’s okay,” Eldemire said.

When officers arrived at El-demire’s apartment, they waited for Tipton in the parking lot, ac-cording to OPD records.

It is not clear whether or not the responding officers knew El-demire told the dispatcher that Tipton owned guns.

When he arrived, Eldemire asked the officers to escort her and Tipton to her apartment. Once in the apartment, Eldemire, Tipton and the officers had a “brief con-versation,” an OPD press release said. Eldemire then told the offi-cers they were no longer needed and they could leave.

OPD has not said whether of-ficers searched Tipton or his car for weapons.

That night, before leaving for Oxford, Tipton had left a sui-cide note in his Columbus-area apartment, a search warrant inventory said.

What this suicide note said is also unknown.

At 8:52 the next morning, OPD received another 911 call — this time from Eldemire’s roommates.

“My friend and her boyfriend were having some issues last night and then he ended up spending the night,” one roommate said to the dispatcher. “And then, about 10 minutes ago, we heard a bunch of really loud noises from her room and then an alarm went off in our apartment.”

It’s not clear what exactly set the smoke alarms off, whether it was the smoke from or the blast of a gun.

“It scared the living daylights out of us,” the roommate said.

The roommate said the bangs sounded “like they were taking a fire extinguisher to a wall.”

Either way, Eldemire’s door was locked and no one was answering, her roommates said.

When OPD officers entered the room, they found Eldemire dead from multiple gunshot wounds and Tipton dead from a single gun-shot wound. The officers found a revolver next to Tipton. The gun had a capacity of seven rounds. Just two rounds remained unfired.

When police searched Tip-ton’s apartment in Taylor Sta-tion, Ohio, they found an empty Smith & Wesson gun case and the suicide note.

OPD is continuing to investi-gate the case as a murder-suicide, Varley said.

VICTORIA SLATERABBEY GINGRAS

AMANDA HANCOCKEDITORS

Most Miami students aspire to be business people, lawyers, doc-tors, scientists or authors. But not junior Rebecca Eldemire — she had something different in mind.

“One time, Becca knocked on my door, and told me that she just really wanted to be a farmer,” said junior Jacqueline Morgan, Becca’s close friend. “I said, ‘No, Becca, you’re not going to be a farmer!’ But that’s always what she wanted.”

As the community — friends, family and strangers alike — copes with the untimely death of 21-year-old Becca, her love for Earth and the environment, her passion for learning and her effer-vescent nature, carries on.

Love for peopleBecca grew up in the outdoors

of New Albany, Ohio, where her desire to protect the environment took root. She spent her childhood fishing and hiking by her brother’s side, and her love of nature only grew as she got older.

“She would always bring home stray animals, birds, squirrels, cats, dogs,” Marlene Eldemire, Becca’s mom, said. “And she loved flowers. She would always bring me flowers. And I made sure to put them in a vase every time.”

Becca always carried an animal bed in her car, said Marlene, in case she came across a stray cat or dog that needed help finding its way back home.

Becca had a soft spot for the environment and anything living, said Jacqueline.

“It didn’t matter what it was

— an animal, a vegetable — if it was living, she loved it,” Jacqueline said.

Becca and Jacqueline were neighbors in Peabody Hall their first year, and quickly became close friends, the first Jacqueline made at Miami. Becca’s genuine, forthcoming and lively personal-ity could have a lasting impact on anyone, Jacqueline said.

Becca’s mom echoed this sen-timent, emphasizing Becca’s rare ability to make a place in her life for everyone she met.

“You didn’t befriend Becca — you became a part of her life,” Marlene said.

Becca had a unique relation-ship with her older brother Josh, who graduated from Miami in 2014. They fought as siblings do, and Josh protected her like an older brother would, but what made their relationship special was the way in which Becca supported him.

“Josh has always been shy, and

when they were little, he would be afraid to ask for things like a drink refill,” Marlene said. “When-ever we went to McDonalds, she would go up to the counter, her head barely reaching above it, and would say so loudly, ‘Can I please have a refill for my brother?’”

Junior Jenna Nicholson, one of Becca’s roommates at Level 27 Apartments, recalled the friend-ship they shared.

“She was really easy to talk to, and she never judged you,” Nich-olson said. “She always had some-thing to say, and it was always the right thing to say.”

You can’t talk about Becca without mentioning the word pas-sion, said her grand-big from Phi Sigma Pi Honor Fraternity, senior Julianne Ballog.

“People say this about people, how they walk into a room and they light it up,” Julianne said. “But, Becca really did that.”

MEMORIAL »PAGE 9

Family and friends celebrate “the girl who could light up a room”

Questions, few answers in police investigation

MEMORIAL

DEATH

CRIME

The Becca we remember

The Miami StudentEstablished 1826

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2015WWW.MIAMISTUDENT.NET MIAMI UNIVERSITY OXFORD, OHIOVOLUME 142 NO. 32

HALAL MEAT AT WALMART

CAUSES CONTROVERSY

“GAME OF THRONES” HITS

BIG SCREEN

THE IMPORTANCE

OF REPORTING SIGNING DAY

In 1988, The Miami Student reported the Oxford City Council lifted the town’s emergency water supply status, though there was disagreement over the decision. Councilman Alan Kyger said the emergency status should be lifted since it was already being disregarded. “Our residents don’t even know it’s going on.”

TODAY IN MIAMI HISTORY

UNIVERSITY CULTURECOMMUNITY OPINION SPORTS

»PAGE 6 »PAGE 10»PAGE 3 »ONLINE»PAGE 2

ALCOHOL TASK FORCE

COLLECTS DATA

LIVE UPTOWN! NOW SIGNING LEASES FOR 2016-2017CALL RED BRICK PROPERTY MGMT

513-524-9340www.redbrickmiami.com

Husband, father, regional student dies

LAURA FITZGERALDFOR THE MIAMI STUDENT

The alcohol task force, named last fall by President David Hodge, has been hard at work collecting data in order to un-derstand students’ high-risk alcohol consumption.

The task force’s first step was to meet with multiple Miami University organizations and the Oxford community, includ-ing the Greek Tricouncil, the Oxford Chamber of Commerce, the Oxford City Council, the Oxford Liquor Permit Hold-ers, the Parents Council and the Redhawk Council for student athletes, among others.

They discussed the issues sur-rounding alcohol in the Oxford community, Director of Student Wellness and chair of the task force, Rebecca Baudry, said.

“[Solving the problem] starts by building the bridge between the university and the commu-nity,” she said.

The task force also gained in-sight from outside consultation with Thomas Workman, Princi-pal Communication Researcher and Evaluator in the Health & Social Development Pro-gram at the American Institutes for Research.

The study focused mostly on high-risk drinkers, or anyone whose drinking habits put them-selves or others’ safety at risk, Baudry said.

The consultation, she said, yielded three main points: Miami needs to maintain a supportive environment for low-risk drink-ers, data concerning alcohol needs to be transparent and read-ily accessible and there has to be intervention and treatment for heavy episodic drinkers.

However, students remain skeptical about the impact the task force will have.

“I don’t think it works because nobody cares, and people look at the statistics and they don’t think it could happen to them,” first-year Mattie Carter said.

Some students say the pres-ence of alcohol has changed their original perceptions of it since ar-riving at Miami.

“I never thought [drinking] would be this prominent,” first-year Lindsey Detamore said.

Detamore said she believes high-risk alcohol consumption can be curbed in other ways, with stricter punishments and policing measures.

The task force also looked at national data and analyzed how it compares to Miami.

“Our students engaged in more high-risk behaviors than students do nationally,” Baudry said.

However, Miami is not alone in the fight against high-risk alco-hol consumption. The task force looked at what other schools have done to create safe environments for student drinking, Baudry said.

The task force will release its data in a report mid-month that will go to President Hodge and all communities involved in the focus groups. The organizations will then decide how to move forward with the provided data.

“Ultimately, the long term goal is to make Miami and Oxford a safer environment so students can make smart decisions about their behavior,” Baudry said.

BONNIE MEIBERSFOR THE MIAMI STUDENT

“We don’t stop, we don’t move backwards. We move forward onto the next movement,” Marian Wright Edelman said, talking about a new civil rights movement that would fight child poverty in America.

Edelman spoke in Hall Audito-rium Thursday, Feb. 5. She is the first guest speaker to visit Miami this spring in the “Celebrating Social Jus-tice Milestones” lecture series.

Susan Mosley-Howard, Interim Dean of the College of Education, Health and Society (EHS), detailed why Edelman was invited to speak in this lecture series.

“Marian Edelman is a big advo-cate of education and social work and is well known by many of us here in the College [of Education, Health and Society],” Mosley-Howard said.

Mosley-Howard was the catalyst for this lecture series and has brought various speakers to Miami in the past. Deepa Willingham, founder of Promise of Assurance to Chil-dren Everywhere Universal school (PACE), and Kevin Kumashiro, au-thor of “Bad Teacher!: How Blam-ing Teachers Distorts the Bigger

Picture,” are just a few of the speak-ers she brought to Miami as part of the lecture series in the fall.

Mosley-Howard could not com-ment on other speakers coming to Miami following Edelman as a part of the “Celebrating Social Justice Milestones” lecture series because they currently have not signed con-tracts with the University.

The purpose of “Celebrating So-cial Justice Milestones” is to honor the social justice and civil rights movements. It is significant this year because it is the 25th anniversary of the drafting of the Americans with Disabilities Act, the 50th anniver-sary of Freedom Summer and the signing of the Civil Rights Act and the 60th anniversary of the Brown vs. Board of Education decision, which outlawed “separate but equal” schooling.

Mosley-Howard hopes that

through this lecture series, students and community members who at-tend will become aware of the im-portance of history.

“History is present, not just events from the past,” she said.

Mosley-Howard also said she wanted students to leave the lecture inspired, knowing their own life journey can be just as important and inspiring as Edelman’s.

“Each speaker brings another piece of the puzzle,” she said.

Edelman did just that. She enlight-ened the audience on her life’s work.

“If society cares about children, it should act on it. You can do better, and you must do better,” Edelman urged audience members last night.

Edelman began her speech last night by passing out sign up sheets so that she could stay in contact with audience members who wished get involved with the next movement. She asked her audience not to for-get that ordinary people started the civil rights movement, and to use their votes and voices to stand up for America’s children.

“Remember that Noah’s arc was built by amateurs. The Titanic was built by professionals.”

Marian Wright Edelman was born in 1939 in Bennettsville, South Caro-lina. She is the daughter of a Baptist

preacher who stressed the impor-tance of education to his children. The author and social rights activist has been fighting for the rights of impoverished children, children of color and children with disabilities for over 40 years.

Edelman has accomplished much in her life. Among these accomplish-ments are graduating Spelman Col-lege in Atlanta, Georgia, and later Yale Law School, becoming the first African American woman to be ad-mitted to the Mississippi bar, and founding the Children’s Defense Fund. After being admitted to the bar, Edelman began practicing law with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Some of her first work involved representing activists dur-ing Freedom Summer (1964), train-ing for which took place on Miami University’s own Western campus when it was still the Western College for Women.

“It’s neat to think that her life’s work really began with defending those activists who trained on West-ern [campus],” Mosley-Howard said.

During her talk, Edelman stated that it would take approximately $77 billion, or two percent of the nation’s

JEFFREY SADOWNICKFOR THE MIAMI STUDNET

Miami University’s co-major option, which falls somewhere in between a full major and a minor, has begun to grow in popularity, since the first was introduced in 2002.

Co-majors are majors that must be earned in conjunction with another primary major. They are intended to complement, enhance or specialize one’s primary major. For example, a business major interested in working at a com-pany that specializes in green energy might be interested in the Energy co-major.

“The idea is that they add in-terdisciplinary breadth to disci-plinary depth,” Director of the Institute for the Environment and Sustainability Thomas Crist said.

Co-majors help students be-come more competitive in seek-ing job placement because they provide the opportunity for specialization.

Miami currently offers nine co-majors, spanning a wide vari-ety of topics. Co-majors include Energy, Environmental Sci-ence, Sustainability, Pre-medical Studies, Interactive Media Stud-ies, Environmental Principles and Practices, Critical and Clas-sical Languages and Cultures,

Analytics and Comparative Media Studies.

Students might think of co-majors as a compromise between double majoring and minoring in an area of study: generally, earn-ing a co-major has fewer require-ments than double majoring but more requirements than a minor. A typical major may require about 36 credit hours and a typical minor

may require about 18 credit hours, but some co-majors can be com-pleted in 18-24 credit hours.

“With a co-major, as opposed to a major, you do not have to sat-isfy the divisional requirements in another division,” Margaret Ziolkowski, department chair and professor of Russian, said.

Returning to the previous ex-ample, the business major with the Energy co-major would only have to complete the core require-ments of the Farmer School of Business (FSB) and the specific requirements of the co-major. He or she would not have to com-plete the core requirements of the

College of Arts and Scienc-es (CAS), even though CAS is the division offering the Energy co-major.

The crucial difference between the co-major and a double major is that double majors must complete core requirements from both aca-demic divisions. The main perk of the co-major is it skips that step.

“It helps you get all the required

classes in four years,” first-year Katy Kowalski, a Pre-medical Studies co-major, said.

Some of the co-majors have been offered for years, including the Environmental Science co-ma-jor, which was the first co-major offered at Miami.

Other programs have devel-oped more recently. The Criti-cal and Classical Languages and Cultures co-major program is not up and running yet, but it will be within the next semester or two, Ziolkowski said.

No matter what a student’s pri-mary major is, Miami students can take any co-major. However, some

co-majors such as the Interactive Media Studies require an applica-tion for admittance.

Several different academic de-partments offer co-majors. For example, FSB offers the Analyt-ics co-major, which is designed to teach business students how to use data to make evidence-based decisions. However, any major, business-related or otherwise, can benefit from this co-major.

Some co-majors provide op-portunities for even more spe-cialization in the form of differ-ent “tracks.” These tracks allow students to focus the co-major on a specific aspect. For example, the Analytics co-major offers the choice between the business anal-ysis and predictive analysis tracks. Students can choose one of the two, depending on the field he or she plans to pursue.

“We feel like there’s value in having a specific area of expertise,” Crist said.

Co-majors prepare students not only for getting jobs but also for graduate or professional schools. The Pre-medical Studies co-major prepares students for getting into medical school and other health professional schools.

“The PMD 101 class was help-ful,” first-year Coleton Towles, a Pre-medical studies co-major, said. “It made me realize what classes I needed to take. It made me more aware.”

ACTIVISTS »PAGE 9

Our students engaged in more high-risk alcohol behavior than students do nation-ally.”

REBECCA BAUDRYDIRECTOR OF STUDENT

WELLNESS

History is present, not just events from the past.”

SUSAN MOSLEY-HOWARDINTERIM DEAN OF EHS

Miami co-majors strike balance

KATHERINE HOGGETT THE MIAMI STUDENT

RUSH Junior Cameron Herring and senior Aaron Meekins (L-R) sit inside Armstrong Student Center promoting events for their fraternity, Alpha Phi Alpha.

2 UNIVERSITY CAMPUS@MIAMISTUDENT.NETFRIDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2015

Children’s activist speaks on importance of education

EVENT

ACADEMIC

The idea is that they add interdisciplinary breadth to disciplinary depth.”

THOMAS CRISTDIRECTOR OF IES

Alcohol task force continues research

ALCOHOL

Marian Wright Edelman spoke to students as part of university lecture series

MADDIE WOODFOR THE MIAMI STUDENT

Three people were arrested and placed in Butler County Jail on Friday, Jan. 30 after a six-month drug trafficking investigation in Hamilton.

The case started with a tip to the Butler County Regional Narcot-ics (B.U.R.N.) taskforce, that lead the investigation and issued two search warrants last week.

Five grams of heroin as well as a pistol, pharmaceutical drugs and drug paraphernalia were found at 824 Gordon Smith Blvd., where the first search warrant was issued, said deputies.

Erica Buchanan, 28, was ar-rested and charged with traffick-ing and possession of drugs, and Eduardo Vela, 23, was arrested and charged with having weapons under disability.

The other search warrant was served at 872 Gordon Smith Blvd., where James Abner, 35, was ar-rested and charged with trafficking and possession of cocaine. Officers on the scene found over 10 grams of cocaine, as well as drug para-phernalia and about $700 in cash.

The B.U.R.N. taskforce was behind this investigation and they have been hard at work fighting increased drug trafficking, spe-cifically heroin, over the past year.

The taskforce is made up of offi-cers from the Butler County Adult Probation, Butler County Prosecu-tor’s Office, Butler County Sher-iff’s office, Fairfield Township PD, Monroe PD, Oxford PD and West Chester Township PD.

“I have agents working around the clock to stay on top of this is-sue and it keeps working in my favor. These agents continue to impress me with their quick action and dedication on getting these criminals and their illegal drugs off the Butler County streets.” Sheriff Richard K. Jones said in a press release. “Keep those tips com-ing in, and we will keep arresting these people and end their illegal drug business.”

Butler County had 137 total drug overdose deaths in 2014 alone, and 75.9 percent of those deaths were heroin related, according to the Butler County Coroner’s office.

Data from the Butler County Sheriff’s office shows B.U.R.N. investigated 238 drug cases in 2012, 25 percent of the cases deal-ing with heroin. Between 2012 and 2013, there was a 65 percent increase in drug cases.

2013 had 542 investigations, 28 percent regarding heroin.

The Sheriff’s office continues to encourage civilians to submit drug-related tips in hopes of get-ting these drugs off the streets of Butler County.

SAMMIE MILLER COMMUNITY EDITOR

Walmart agreed to start selling halal meat in their Oxford loca-tion in November after receiving a number of requests from Muslim students at Miami University.

Since, the store has kept the Crescent-brand halal meat stocked for its Muslim customers, but has experienced backlash. The news of the store’s decision to sell ha-lal products was shared on many anti-Islamic blogs and gener-ated hundreds of comments from people who felt outraged by the store’s decision.

According to Dean Garrison, a contributor for D.C. Clothesline — a blog that describes its purpose as a place to “air out America’s dirty laundry,” — Walmart’s decision to sell halal meat is proof of the exis-tence of what he calls a politically

correct culture that is continually determined to meet the demands of the Muslim community.

“We are forced to please every single minority, at least those sup-ported by the left,” Garrison said. “No matter how the majority feels or how it may tread on the rights of that majority. This is just one more reason to boycott Walmart.”

Garrison does not stand alone in that opinion.

Oxford local Jane Gou-let expressed deep discontent at Walmart’s decision to pro-vide halal meat for the local Muslim community.

“I will not be shopping at [Walmart] stores anymore,” she said in an online comment. “They are bowing down to the Muslim. I will start shopping at other stores.”

On his website, Garrison said that Walmart’s decision is a direct result of the government’s attempt to equalize the Muslim and non-Muslim communities.

“I don’t know about you, but I am growing tired of having Islam shoved down my throat,” he said. “Barack Obama is a Muslim who is interested in turning America into a

Muslim nation.”According to the Quranic defi-

nition, halal livestock should be slaughtered by slitting the throat of the beast, bleeding the animal out by the throat, all while invoking the name of Allah in prayer. The dis-crepancy lays between those who believe this slaughtering method to be humane and those who do not.

Although Walmart has opted

to offer halal meat in their Oxford store, it appears it is making such decisions on a case-by-case basis rather than instituting a country-wide policy to that effect.

According to store manager Elijah Woodard, he has received several phone calls from people who dis-agree with his decision to offer halal meat. Many of the callers voiced their objections to the way in which halal meat is slaughtered. Woodard di-rected these complaints to Walmart’s corporate headquarters.

“No one is being forced to pur-chase the meat,” Woodard said.

The local Muslim community has benefited from the presence of halal meat in stores, saying that it has made grocery shopping more convenient.

“It’s good that there are more places selling halal food now,” Kevin Dunphy, who is Muslim, said. “We are having an influence here. How dare [Muslims] try to assert their rights and participate in this society like everyone else?”

Six-month heroine investigation leads to arrests

Drug bust, three arrested

Blood runs hot over halal offering

SAMMIE MILLER COMMUNITY EDITOR

COMMUNITY 3COMMUNITY@MIAMISTUDENT.NET FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2015

IN THE NEWSLOCAL NATIONALCINCINNATI INTERNATIONAL

Australian journalist freed from Egyptian jail

After spending nearly 400 days in a box, Peter Greste has been released to go home. –CNN

Pope to address Congress

John Boehner announced Thursday that Pope Francis agreed to speak to Congress on Sept. 24.–CNN

PETA protests nude at Fountain Square

The banners held by the nude PETA protesters read “we’d rather go naked than wear wool.”–The Enquirer

Vulgar messages spray painted on church

Police are currently searching for the persons responsible for vandalizing the Middletown church.–Journal-News

MACKENZIE CLUNEFOR THE MIAMI STUDENT

Increase in local demand for mental health services at Beckett Springs Hospital has been constant since its opening in 2013. This con-tinuous demand prompted the But-ler County Mental Health Board to request a tax levy renewal in order to accommodate the demand.

According to Scott Rasmus, the Mental Health Board Executive Director, the construction is under-way and is projected to be complete within the next year.

Beckett Springs, located in West Chester, is a part of a for-profit hospital network owned by Springstone Inc. Their mission is to provide an effective treatment ex-perience to those pursuing mental wellness and sobriety.

Construction to expand the Beck-ett Springs Wellness Center began in October and will cost roughly $4 million. The hospital plans on a 24-bed expansion due to the consistent increase in demand.

Last year was the first full year of operations after opening in 2013. On any given day the hospital can run at over 90 percent capacity.

A recent study conducted by Envision, a service provider for local individuals seeking treat-ment, indicated that the incidents of mental illness are higher in Butler County in comparison to the region as a whole.

Since the decision to reconstruct the hospital, demand for mental health care services have not sub-sided. According to Rasmus, the reason behind this spike is the result of multiple contributing factors.

“Over the past few years, most all areas in Ohio have been im-pacted by the heroin epidemic — regardless of the magnitude,” Rasmus said.

In order to resolve the current influx of mental illness within the community, Butler County is working on several new out-lets to give affected locals the necessaties to rehabilitate.

New programs are being im-plemented along with the en-hancement of crisis response and prevention, and the new countywide hotline.

The Mental Health Board is dedicating a great deal of time to participation in health expositions and speeches in areas outside of Butler County as well. One of their main focuses is emphasizing those who have recovered from their ill-nesses and will speak out against the stigmas.

“We are trying to be as aproactive as possible,” Rasmus said. “I would be happy to work together with or-ganizations at Miami University, as we share a common goal.”

Rasmus encourages students to become involved in Miami Univer-sity’s National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) organization to ad-vocate for the millions of people af-fected by mental illness.

Spike in Mental Health

FULLY STOCKED Walmart agreed in November to sell halal meat at its Oxford location due to a number of requests made by Miami University students. Since that decision, community members and others have reacted in anger, spreading anti-Muslim mes-sages. The grocery store continues to sell the meat despite the outcry.

I will not be shopping at [Walmart] stores anymore.”

JANE GOULETOXFORD RESIDENT

HEALTH

CRIME

BUSINESS

POLICE BEATIntoxicated male

found by train tracks

Trailer park owner receives death threat

McCullough-Hyde Memorial fraternity

At 2:30 a.m. on Jan. 28, of-ficers were dispatched on report of a male subject passed out near the railroad tracks between South College Avenue and West Spring Street. The male sub-ject was lying near the tracks face down. When the officers approached him, he was moan-ing and making unintelligible remarks. The officers noticed the subject not only possessed a strong odor of alcohol, but also had urinated himself. It was approximately 11 degrees at the time of the call and it was unknown how long the subject had been outside. Upon pulling the subject’s ID from his wal-let, the officers learned that he was only eighteen years old. The Oxford life squad was dis-patched to the scene. While at-tempting to carry the subject to the ambulance, the subject began to vomit. He was trans-ported to McCullough-Hyde, where he was charged with underage intoxication and disorderly conduct.

At 8:57 a.m. on Jan. 28, of-ficers were dispatched to 5201 College Corner Pike regarding property damage. When they arrived they met with the resi-dents, one of whom manages Miami Mobile Home Park. He described that he came outside at 8:30 a.m. and noticed the word “dead” scrawled across his front door in black marker. His wife stated to the officers she had heard someone on the front porch sometime between 1:30 and 3 a.m. and had heard the screen door open. She stated she was very concerned for her safety. The manager stated that he had no suspects in mind, however, the trailer park had undergone many new changes since the park had changed own-ership. He had been the one to disperse the new rules to the ten-ants, many of which were not happy. The officers checked se-curity footage and did not spot anything suspicious. The inves-tigation is ongoing.

At 2:30 a.m. on Jan. 30, an officer observed a white male walking north on the 0 block of N. Main St. The male was wear-ing a distinctive hockey jersey that caught the officer’s eye and was holding a red plastic cup. The officer proceeded to fol-low the male who continued to walk back by the delivery area of McCullough-Hyde hospital. The officer watched the male pull on a door of the hospital. After pulling on the door, the male climbed onto a railing to get to the other side where there was a set of concrete stairs. The officer noticed the male seemed unsteady as he climbed up onto the rail. He advised the male to step down from the rail to which the male mumbled some-thing about a fraternity house. Upon questioning him further, the male insisted that he was at his fraternity house and not the hospital. The officer noticed he had slurred speech, smelled strongly of alcohol and appeared to be heavily intoxicated. Upon discovering the male was car-rying a false ID, the officers transported him to the police station where he was charged with disorderly conduct and underage intoxication.

4 MIAMISTUDENT.NET

LAUREN OLSON PHOTOGRAPHY EDITORDRIBBLE-DRIVE Guard Zach McCormink (top left) dribbles between his legs, forward Logan McLane (top right) throws down a dunk and head coach John Cooper argues with officals during Miami’s 69-67 loss to Northern Illinois. A recap is available online at miamistudent.net.

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2015

multiple, meaning Miami will eventually be able to use 3-4 and 4-3 looks on defense.

The RedHawks signed four run-ning backs, including a local prod-uct from Talawanda High School. Maurice Thomas, a 3-star recruit whose twin brother is a preferred walk-on, who Martin said might not have been as highly recruit-ed because of where he went to school.

“I think his skill set is pretty incredible,” Martin said. “We’ll see if we are right or wrong, but I think he could play at a really, re-ally high level … I think we got a kid who has a chance to be re-ally special and who, maybe, was a little bit a victim of where he was at.”

Martin expects some of the re-cruits to play right away, but he

doesn’t know which ones yet.“I’d say 25 to 30 percent of

these kids will impact us in some fashion [next year],” Martin said. “I don’t know which. The raw ma-terials you know, but the adjust-ment time you don’t.”

Unlike last season, Martin and his staff weren’t scrambling to get a class together.

“We had three weeks to do probably two years worth of work,” Martin said. “Even this class, we tried to do one year work that really takes two years. We were still behind on the class that we just signed, because we got started late.”

The extra time also helped Martin and his assistants know how to pitch Miami to high school athletes.

“The biggest difference is that we know this place better,” Martin said. “Last year, it was just ‘Hey

we’re a good school, we have good tradition, we have some good coaches here, you know who Ben Roethlisberger is?’ We had the cliff’s notes version of Miami. Now that we’re here for a year, we can really sell Miami.”

Martin said he wants to recruit the whole midwest hard, not just Southwest Ohio. That’s evident by Miami’s approach to next year’s class, which the RedHawks have already started targeting.

“The Midwest [high school] coaches recognize that Miami football is working their tail off, not working harder than anyone, but working as hard as any D-I program to recruit the Midwest …” Martin said. “We’ve of-fered 50-some juniors who are all in the Midwest.”

For more information on each individual recruit, visit miamistudent.net.

a message. In essence, a fax.Even if we look at the “mod-

ern” fax machine, you have to look all the way back to 1947 when Alexander Muirhead pat-ented his machine.

I’m sure Bain and Muirhead thought their invention would be used to change lives decades, even centuries, later.

Just as sure as I am that we should render this piece of ma-chinery obsolete. We have e-mail, cell phones, wireless printing, scanners and e-signatures now.

Yet we still use this 19th century technology.

Why?Well, it’s not mandated. The

National College Athletic Associ-ation allows scanned signatures. Which may be the first thing the NCAA has ever done right.

But universities across the United States still refuse to budge.

The only sensible thing one can conclude is simply tradition.

Some people still prefer the pony express instead of e-mail. Some still have a home phone, I think, and some still use a cell phone with actual buttons!

That the fax machine still stands firm is amazing in itself.

We live in the age of futuristic uniforms and training. From the University of Oregon’s insane uniforms to Marshawn Lynch and his bizarre oxygen mask; the fax machine is the only thing left standing.

Even crazier than the use of the fax machine, is some schools set-ting up webcams that record ev-ery long, drawn-out second of fax coverage. Alabama did it in 2011.

And the fax machine is one of the most imperfect machines in the tech field. It has created some awfully weird situations.

Rich Rodriguez, current Arizo-na head coach, was at West Vir-ginia and trying to land a Florida

recruit who was having a tough time deciding on his school.

He had until midnight to de-cide. And he finally did, choosing West Virginia. The only problem, was his National Letter of Intent (the sheet prospects fax) had ex-pired. Rodriguez instructed him to go to a kinko’s and luckily sent it in at 11:15 p.m.

Another story, not directly be-cause of our friend the fax ma-chine, happened in 2013.

Alex Collins, then a four-star recruit, chose to go to the Univer-sity of Arkansas. His mom was not a bit happy about that.

So, of course, she refused to sign his NLI, rendering it abso-lutely useless unless the recruit is over 21-years of age. Collins was not. However it all worked out, as he was able to get his fa-ther to sign it. Collins now plays for the Razorbacks.

And maybe the craziest of all fax-related incidents occurred in 2011.

Floyd Raven, a corner, wanted to go to Texas A&M University.

His mother did not want him to.

So, she forged his sig-nature and faxed it to the University of Mississippi.

He would ultimately get his way and all was right in the world.

So every February we pay homage to the past.

We dust off the old fax ma-chine and bring it out for another fun-filled day.

It may not make the most sense. But it does create some insanity. And that is the core of college football.

Just like the zaniness that plays out on the field, National Signing Day creates its own magical memories.

Nixon Aquatic Center, the Red-Hawks came away with a 186-111 victory.

Sophomore Julia Campbell be-lieves the rivalry will bring out the best in her teammates, and has faith the hot streak will continue.

“Definitely an important meet being our last home meet and an-other MAC meet,” Campbell said. “We want to go out with a win,

and try and beat them by a lot in their home pool. It’s a big rivalry, especially with football and other sports like that. We want to keep it up for the swimmers who swam before us.”

The men’s swimming and div-ing team is staying in Oxford this week, as they take on Ball State University 1 p.m. Saturday in the Nixon Aquatic Center. The men’s team has dropped meets recently but hope to bounce back against

Ball State heading into the MAC Championships. Ball State has had a solid year, but will have to overcome Miami to break its .500 duel meet record (2-2). With a win over the Cardinals, the RedHawks would improve their record to 3-4.

Both meets mark the final step before the MAC Championship meets. The women’s will be held at in Ypsilanti, Michigan from Feb. 25-28. The men’s will be held in Genvea, Ohio from March 5-7.

FROM COLUMN »PAGE 10

DANIEL TAYLORTAYLO149@MIAMIOH.EDU

FROM SIGNING DAY »PAGE 10

FROM SWIMMING »PAGE 10

regulation. “Every game we play seems to

be a one-goal game, right down to the wire,” Blasi said. “It’s a battle out there for every inch of ice.”

Despite having seen Western Michigan’s play three times this year, the team approaches the game as if it were any other.

“We are going to play it like any other game,” sophomore forward Anthony Louis said in an email.

“We have a job to do and we are going in the game to win, not just for the experience.”

Soldier Field brings a tougher outdoor atmosphere that the team has seen only once before. In the 2012-13 season, Miami fell 2-1 to the University of Notre Dame in the Hockey City Classic. Fourteen players who dressed in that game return for this year’s contest. The lone goal scorer for Miami was forward Kevin Morris, who is now a junior.

Blasi said the main issue play-ing outdoors is adapting to the differences in surroundings and depth perception.

“The problem is your ice condi-tions on Friday might not be the same on Saturday,” Blasi said. “Certainly that was the case last time we played there. We had real good ice on the practice day, and then the sun came out and slushed everything up.”

Puck drop is set for 4 p.m. EST Saturday in Chicago, Illinois.

FROM HOCKEY »PAGE 8

5WWW.MIAMISTUDENT.NET FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2015

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Sponsored by the Robert E. Strippel Memorial Continuing Dialogue for Justice and Human Rights, and the Center for American and World Cultures, with support from the American Studies Program, the Department of Geography, the Department of Sociology and Gerontology, the Oxford Citizens for Peace and Justice, the Oxford Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, and the Western Program.

Please contact the Office of Disability Resources, (513) 529-1541, at least one week prior to the event to request accommodations such as real-time captioning or sign language interpreters. .

Greg Coleridge, Director, Justice and Empowerment Program, Northeast Ohio American Friends Service Committee

We the people. What can we become if ‘who is the we’ is

still a problem? Abraham Lincoln’s conundrum of ‘who is the we’ is the same conundrum we face today. We the people.

We have to own it.–Bob Moses

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news@miamistudent.net

President Obama’s budget pro-posal for the year rolled out this week. This year’s proposal, like the rest have been, is, as the New York Times termed it, “more utopian vi-sion than pragmatic blueprint.” But area where the president is clearly interested in engaging the Hill for a deal is tax policy.

Don’t let the top lines fool you. Yes, his budget proposes a $1.5 trillion increase in taxes over the next 10 years. When you look par-ticularly in the area of corporate taxes, the White House has set down their initial markers to get a deal done.

Even with the White House’s apparent interest in working, does it really even make sense for Re-publicans in Congress to work with the president on this?

Consider the president and his party’s extreme position of po-litical weakness currently. As the excellent Politico Capitol Hill re-porter David Rogers wrote in his piece on the budget, this plan “is best understood as the opening bid in hostage negotiations with the Republican Congress.”

The Republican party, with its control over both Houses of Con-gress and an increasingly lame duck president, may never be in a better position to actually sit at the table and hammer out a tax deal.

There has been talk of rehabbing our increasingly complex and in-efficient tax code for much of the current administration. Instead of actually getting a deal done, both parties — though mostly Republi-cans — have been waiting for the perfect time to consider negotia-tions. Before the 2012 election, Re-publicans wanted to wait and see if Mitt Romney would be president (you would think a review of every poll but Romney’s own internals could have told you, but I digress) to get an advantageous deal.

The politics of tax policy is simply always going to be a huge political loser. In fact, if Republi-cans are to wait until 2017 to do a tax deal — holding out for a GOP administration — they will get killed for it politically, no matter how it washes out. Big tax and budget deals have ruined presi-dencies (see Bush, George H.W.) and, since they’re always going to make someone mad, they can lead

to serious political retribution from the voters unless it’s just a giant unpaid-for tax cut.

We don’t get enough revenue to cover our expenditures, but we also collect far too much of our revenue from small business. Our last major tax code clean up hap-pened almost 30 years ago at the end of the Reagan administration. Since then, all kinds of goodies have popped up to ensure that cor-porations, with all of their political influence, pay an effective corpo-rate tax rate of around 12 percent, per a 2010 GAO study.

Small businesses tend to file their taxes somewhat similarly to an individual and have less politi-cal influence. They pay an average rate of around 30 percent. The dif-ference here is striking and prob-lematic. People love to talk about how our corporate tax rate is the least competitive in the world at 39.1 percent, but notice nobody re-

ally ends up paying that.Much of our political debate

over taxes is also deeply depress-ing. One side obsesses over mar-ginal rates while the other thinks about ways to raise them. It would be smart for Capitol Hill to oper-ate as a true, unified front against a White House on the other side and try to get at least corporate taxes off the table.

Tax deals have been done before and they’ll be done again. All it will require is a collective willing-ness in Washington to step it up and get it done.

Sure, it appears unlikely, but when it comes to taxes, it always does. The GOP should be smart enough to see the political state of play for what it is and try to get a big tax deal done, and soon.

There are a lot of emotions pulsing through the Miami com-munity right now. As we attempt to deal with the loss of Rebecca Eldemire, there’s a whirling blend of sadness, confusion, frustration and anger in all cor-ners of our campus.

The same emotions have been circling around The Miami Stu-dent newsroom the last couple days as we attempt to tell the sto-ry of Rebecca’s life, and untime-ly death. As student-journalists, we are often split between the human tendency to leave things alone and the important instinct to gather facts and seek truths. In this situation, those two sides mold together. We have a job to do; and yet, we write, report and talk about this with heaviness.

Eldemire’s death was tragic and unsettling, not only for her friends and family, but also for the entire community. We have an obligation as Miami and

Oxford’s news source to report on these happenings. We have an obligation to search for in-formation about the crime and Rebecca’s life, to have hard conversations with people who knew her. This doesn’t mean we are exempt from the emotions that come with this, the pain of losing a young woman who also called Miami home.

In our reporting so far, many of us on the Editorial Board have gathered fragments of Becca’s bright personality. From talking to her roommates, professors, friends and mom, we’ve gotten a glimpse of a girl whose story is worth telling and remembering.

Becca was more than just the girl in the police report written on Sunday. She was a girl who once nervously moved into a tiny dorm in Peabody Hall. She wanted to change the world, in one way or another. She was 21. She laughed a lot. She posted

photos on Instagram. She liked Bagel and Deli and she went to Starbucks. She was one of us. And we need to know, we need

to come as close as possible to finding out, what happened.

The more we uncover, the more we are impacted by her death. We are stunned by it, but that shouldn’t stop us from pur-suing the facts — if anything that should light a fire in us to keep going.

At the beginning of this week, we were all left with questions about what happened at Level

27. Rumors were flying on so-cial media and through whis-pers across campus. What if we just let those rumors spiral and ultimately decide the fate of Becca’s story?

If we didn’t do our job, it would be a disservice to the stu-dent we lost and to our commu-nity. If we left this issue alone because it’s sensitive and com-plex and troubling, we wouldn’t move forward. Unless we search for answers, unless we seek in-terviews with her loved ones, unless we make those difficult phone calls and analyze records, Becca’s story will be stuck. So as we continue reporting and investigating, we know we may draw criticism from people who think we are doing too much and those who think we’re doing too little. But, no matter the feed-back, we are certain about our mission. We need to make sense of what happened.

There are questions linger-ing in our minds that we have a responsibility to answer. What really happened? How can we, as a community, move on from this tragedy, but keep Becca’s memory going?

These aren’t easy details to flesh out, or to be found at the end of Google searches, but they are important. These questions mean something, they will influ-ence a person’s legacy and they will inform a community.

We’re not chasing a headline or the buzz or simple answers.We’re invested in the realness, the facts, the genuine story of what happened. Our reporting is a way of bringing light to this situation, and attempting to re-member Becca in the right way.

This means we have a lot of work to do. Each person on The Editorial Board is on a mission, and it’s all in the aim of the truth.

Like my 500 peers who stud-ied abroad during Miami Uni-versity’s winter term, I got the chance to escape the Midwest’s cold in order to experience a new region. Although I wasn’t for-mally studying and I didn’t have to leave the country, my time in Miami, Florida, on the Office of Diversity Affairs’ immersion trip into Latin fusion culture was an experience like none other.

Besides spending some time in South Beach and Little Havana, we had the pleasure of visiting the “other” Miami.

Yes, this is the one that all our relatives and friends thought we were going to when we told them, “I’m attending Miami Uni-versity.” And, yes, this is the one with the good football team and the warm weather.

So, while walking around The University of Miami, or col-loquially known as “The U,” I wondered what kind of similari-ties and differences existed be-tween the two prestigious uni-versities (besides an ongoing verbal jest about which school is the true Miami).

Without having to use Google images, I can tell you from my brief visit that no red brick build-ings or pine trees exist anywhere on its campus. In fact, the mod-ern style white stucco buildings against a Spanish moss and palm tree façade reminded me that not all academic buildings have to re-semble a 19th century mansion.

Here’s what I learned. The Redhawks’ home is a

public university with close to 16,000 undergraduate students. The Canes’ home is a private uni-versity with a little over 11,000 undergraduate students.

From an academic standpoint, U.S. College & News ranks Mi-ami (OH) at #76 in the National

Universities category while The U comes in at #48. At Miami (OH), 39 percent of the under-graduate student body was in the top 10 percent of their high school class. With an acceptance rate of 38 percent, compared to Miami’s (OH) 67 percent, it’s no wonder that 66 percent of The U’s undergraduate student body was in the top 10 percent of their high school class.

Though Miami (OH) may fall behind in these categories, we achieve at the highest-level pos-sible when considering our an-nual endowment and our status as a public university. With an en-dowment $200 million less than The U and an annual budget of which the Ohio state government funds only 9.2 percent, Miami (OH) must uphold its prestigious reputation without raising tuition to The U’s $44,350 a year price

tag. Considering our ranking as the most efficient university in the country and the best under-graduate education at a public university, you could say we’re ballin’ on a budget.

From a purely academic level, we’re more similar than I thought. However, The U has succeeded in something we haven’t. Like the city of Miami, The U is one of the most racially and economi-cally diverse universities in the country. While their white stu-dent population is half of ours, 73 percent of all students receive some type of financial aid, incidi-cating class and racial interaction that lacks at Miami (OH).

In the past 25 years, The U has rebranded their image of a “thuggish” football school in a crime-ridden city to become a mecca for high achieving stu-dents of all backgrounds. Since 1993, The U has seen the number of freshman applications explode from 7,122 to 31,607. In these same 25 years, The U drastically

increased its diversity and rank in national publications.

As the U.S. workforce becomes more diverse, a more diverse Mi-ami (OH) only prepares students for working with people of all backgrounds on a daily basis.

Coming from a predominantly white middle-class suburb of Pittsburgh, no one had ever heard of Miami (OH) when I told them where I was going to school. If I did meet someone who recog-nized the name, I usually heard “Oh, that’s where Big Ben went!”

I never thought about it until now, but exactly where and how are we finding our prospective students? Is our name known in all neighborhoods, regardless of race or class? Or have we allowed our image to be one that attracts affluent students from the sub-urbs of Chicago who come here to party?

Yes, I know we don’t have any-thing close to the city of Miami’s ethnic diversity in Ohio, but we should let our impressive rank-ings speak for themselves. To tru-ly increase diversity while main-taining academic excellence, our name must be in the minds of every high achieving student of color in the Midwest.

Once our name is out there, we must create an image that attracts students of all back-grounds and makes them feel as if Miami (OH) could become a second home.

Racist reactions on social me-dia to student protests and a xe-nophobic attitude towards our international students is not the image we want. However, with support from faculty, the student body and administration, we can combat hate and create an image that is inclusive and supportive.

As our namesake in Flori-da has exemplified, it is pos-sible to create a name and es-tablish a new image within a couple of decades.

Above all, The U teaches us that academic excellence and racial diversity can be achieved simultaneously.

What’s in a name: We can learn something from that other Miami school

Should the GOP reach a tax deal with Obama?

When you look par-ticularly in the area of corporate taxes, the White House has set down their initial markers to get a deal done.”

Once our name is out there, we must create an image that attracts students of all backgrounds and makes them feel as if Miami (OH) could become a second home.”

6 OPINION EDITORIAL@MIAMISTUDENT.NETFRIDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2015

The importance of searching for and telling Rebecca’s real story The following piece, written by the editorial editors, reflects the majority opinion of the editorial board.EDITORIAL

DAVID SHOEMAKER SHOEMADF@MIAMIOH.EDU

EDUCATION

POLITICS

These questions mean something, they will determine a person’s legacy and they will inform a community.”

THE MIAMI STUDENTTHE EDITORIAL BOARD

ANDREW GEISLERGEISLEAJ@MIAMIOH.EDU

WHEN YOU’RE FINISHED READING The MiamiStudent PLEASE RECYCLE

My home state – Massachu-setts, the birthplace of America – was the first state in the U.S. to legalize and legitimize gay mar-riage in 2007. And yes, of

course I am bragging. It was the start of an on-going revo-lution in the practice of t o l e r ance , acceptance

and the recognition of basic hu-man rights. As with every revolu-tion, however, it has encountered enormous and disappointing set-backs, many of which have reveal the ugly side of America and its micro-institutions, like Miami.

In November of 2014, the US Court of Appeals for the 6th Cir-cuit (a federal court that governs parts of Tennessee, Michigan, Kentucky, and, you guessed it, Ohio) upheld the bans on gay marriage in this particular district of the United States. This means that even a decade and a half into the 21st century, certain citizens

of the United States are still en-tirely barred from the legal rec-ognition, financial benefits, and basic right of marriage.

The Cincinnati-based court’s decision, according to the Huffington Post, “marked the first time a federal appeals court backed a same-sex mar-riage ban after other appel-late courts had found similar bans unconstitutional.”

Look at that, Ohio is making history.

This discrepancy is apparently what caused the Supreme Court to decide to intervene. Until this decision, the fight for gay mar-riage rights was forward-moving. Here, we see one of those inevi-table setbacks characteristic to every revolution. Ironically, this setback may actually push the is-sue forward as the Supreme Court takes it in this coming June.

Mixed reactions met the 6th Circuit ruling last year, most of them homophobic but disguised as concern for states’ rights.

The Columbus Dispatch quot-ed Phil Burress, head of Citizens for Community Values, an orga-nization that supports marriage as an act meant solely for a man and a woman, on the ruling.

He says, “I’m not surprised at all. They got it right. It’s a states’ rights issue.”

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee thinks the new idea of a Supreme Court ruling will be pointless, saying “one branch of government does not overrule the

other two,” speaking up on his anger about the “notion of judi-cial supremacy.”

He then, of course, goes on to talk about what marriage should be, in the “biblical…historical” sense.

You’ve heard the phrase, “Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” That’s what all the opponents of the gay rights revolution are do-ing; repeating history, going in obscene circles.

The arguments against gay marriage are all the same tired excuses we have been hearing for the last decade, even cen-tury; ones based out of certain lenses of religion, history, ig-norance, what has always been done. Even better is that these homophobic excuses for court rulings are veiled in the premise of states’ rights.

But this is not a states’ rights issue. It’s a human rights issue.

And for those who have been avoiding confronting this is-sue, especially here in Ohio, at Miami, it’s become too close to home to ignore anymore.

It’s no mystery that Miami is a primarily conservative school. That conservatism is not ex-actly the most welcoming envi-ronment for those members of the gay community searching for their niche.

And as rush comes to a close and fraternity pledges undergo hazing, we are reminded that the Miami Greek life population, an unusually large one, is now tak-ing part in some extremely hyper-masculine rituals, a mindset that can be dangerous and hostile to-wards the gay and lesbian com-munity, and gay men especially.

“People will stay closeted,” says Luke, a sophomore Political Science major at Miami. “It’s a stigma. When I came out to my friends back home, my one friend who joined a frat acts different around me [now]. We still hang out and stuff, but whenever he says specific things he always has to [follow it with] ‘no homo.’”

Luke describes the gay community at Miami as almost “underground.”

Of course, with progressive campus organizations like Spec-trum, it’s hard to deny that the gay community on college cam-puses and at Miami especially are making strides in becoming strong campus forces. But there has to be more support.

That support, hopefully, may arrive this coming sum-mer, as the Supreme Court considers questions involving the kinds of rights a body of government has to uphold the essentially-unconstitutional.

If all goes well, this ruling will stop history in its tracks, never to repeat itself again. As a former Bostonian and current Miamian, it would give me great pride to know that both my homes are tol-erant and rational ones. May the revolution live on.

OPINION 7

That conservatism is not exactly the most welcom-ing environment for those members of the gay com-munity searching for their niche.”

EDITORIAL@MIAMISTUDENT.NET FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2015

The fight for gay rights lives on, across the country Friend, fraternity big looks back on memories of

Rebecca with pride and gratitude

LETTER

MADDIE LAPLANTE-DUBELAPLANMM@MIAMIOH.EDU

EQUALITY

MADDIE’SMATTERS

ALICIA AUHAGENAUHAGEAC@MIAMIOH.EDU

SIDEWALK SALTERSIt’s icy out there and we have you to thank for our survival. The black ice would’ve gotten us if it weren’t for you. Keep doing your job, and doing it well.

FEBRUARY BLUES Isn’t there something dreary about this middle-child month? It’s cold and dark, and we all wouldn’t mind hitting fast-forward to Spring.

HARPER LEE’S BOOK To a To Kill a Mockingbird sequel, we say heck yes! But it’s a little sketchy that no one knows for sure if the 88-year-old is fully on board with the book’s release.

RULE OF THUMB

SIGNING DAY Plenty of athletic high schoolers practiced their signatures on Wednesday as Miami got a glimpse of its new class of student athletes for nex year.

MOTHER KNOWS BESTAccording to a AP Poll, six in 10 women think their mother’s opinion on their relationship is “extremely important.” Take notes, gentlemen, and wow a girl’s mom first.

Thirty-two years ago, my dad walked into a crowded restaurant and his eyes zeroed in on a girl sitting in a far corner – and, as they say, he knew. He just knew.

If I’ve ever had this feeling, it was the moment I first tried peanut butter.

I smell a jar of peanut butter like a bouquet of flowers, the scent tak-ing me to third grade lunches and

whispering in the kitchen at midnight. In every scoop, I feel the rush of giggles and ziploc bags and the dirt on baseball fields. I see my grand-ma’s purple living room chair, salty crackers and lined notebook paper used for math homework. The taste is almost the least inter-esting quality.

There’s a JIF factory in my hometown and on certain morn-ings, the wide city streets fill up with those memories, a slumber party sandwiched be-tween a spoonful dropped in cookie dough.

I feel attached to peanut butter, in a big way. And I am in no way at a point in my life where I feel that way about a boy.

I say this because it’s a week before Valentine’s Day and my mind just kind of went there.

Brains have a habit of do-ing this, don’t they? Of work-ing like shaky light switches. They turn off and on, off and on, but not always in pattern that we can control.

In regard to Valentine’s Day, it’s a day that can haunt us a little bit if we let it. When we focus on

the existence or absence of one form of love, at our age... Yikes.

I love plenty of things, like road trips, strong cups of dark coffee, good books and good friends.

There are a few, select things in our lives that spur a line of fuzzy feelings and that send us on a spontaneous highlight reel of happy memories.

Let’s give over Valentine’s Day to those things. If we don’t get roses, let’s make our own bou-quet. If our status happens to be single, let’s not feel bad about that.

Let’s give this day over to long

car rides and conversations with best friends. To things we know with certainty, with gusto, that we do love.

Let’s not fake it with the blurry lines of talking, snapchatting, tinder-ing, picture-liking. Let’s not call love the ambiguous back and forth that happens at Brick Street or anything along the lines of “are we more than friends”?

I know love is hard for us col-lege kids to define, but I’ve seen it and it’s not only in fiction. Real love, in the cheesy Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan kind of way, isn’t as temporary as we make it out to be. It’s not flippant or easy. I’m tired of the noncommittal ver-sions of boy-girl relationships that pass themselves off as love. I certainly don’t want that.

I look at the way my dad gen-tly reaches for my mom’s frag-ile hand as they sit next to each other at the movies. I watch the

intertwining knuckles as they spill bits of popcorn and I see the years of movie dates in their smiles. I want that.

But until then, until the real thing comes along, I’m good with peanut butter. Nothing can come close to or substitute the sweet-ness and realness of love, but I don’t want to settle for an artifi-cial brand. I’m good with a love of something that lasts beyond a weekend, something I can hold and return to.

I seek a sense of permanence that I get from peanut butter, the assurance that it can be restocked

at Kroger at a moment’s notice. For me, a good relationship will resemble a long grocery aisle that never runs out of essentials. That person will make me remember a million happy moments, with just the touch of a hand — that’s how Ed Sheeran says it anyway.

So maybe on Valentine’s Day, I’ll lean against my counter and follow the peanut-scented trail back as far as my mind will go. I’ll let my brain do the switching off and on.

I’ll turn the lid off of a fresh jar and breathe in the fullness of the substance and once again get lost. A few seconds later, and the room could be filled with a thousand yellow flowers.

Dear peanut butter, will you be my Valentine?

AMANDA HANCOCKHANCOCAE@MIAMIOH.EDU

LIFEAMANDA’S APPROACH

There are a few, select things in our lives that spur a line of fuzzy feelings and that send us on a spontaneous high-light reel of happy memories. Let’s give Valentine’s Day over to those things.”

I remember the first conversa-tion we ever had at Phi Sigma Pi’s speed dating recruitment event. We talked about her pas-sion for the environment. Trav-eling to Africa. The woes of hav-ing untamable, frizzy hair.

Yep, I thought. There’s my Little.

Becca and I got to know each other over weekly dinners at Martin Dining Hall and the oc-casional weekend Bagel and Deli run. Always a Miami bagel for me; always a healthy portion of sprouts on hers.

She was a girl with an incred-ible breadth of talent—from event planning, working with others, cooking, making beauti-ful clothes… She was the one of the most motivating individu-als I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing. She had so much go-ing for her.

Becca talked about wanting to open a restaurant one day that

only served food that was raised and cultivated responsibly. She would handle the food and I the restaurant design.

She graciously planned a trip to That Guy’s Farm last fall so our fraternity could learn more about the work—and the place— she loved so much. We all came away with a new appreciation for our food and for the amazing young lady in our organization.

She filled our chapter and our university with laughter and smiles that were hard to not be affected by. She will al-ways be the only person I know who can rock ducky pajama pants uptown.

Which is why I can’t even be-gin to wrap my head around the idea that this remarkable girl has been killed. That word makes me shudder and my insides scrunch up in convoluted knots. It doesn’t belong in this world—in my world.

Because Becca was so much more than that. She was passion-ate. She was dedicated. She was downright joyous. And I refuse to let that foul word claim her.

I am proud to call this girl my Little, but I am even more hon-ored to call her my friend.

“Brothers are we” in life and beyond.

Love always,Your Big <3

Phi Sigma Pi will be hosting a fundraiser at Insomnia Cook-ies Feb. 17 in her honor. All pro-ceeds will go to the Rebecca C. Eldemire BEEPS foundation

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FROM MEMORIAL »PAGE 1 FROM ACTIVISTS »PAGE 9

budget, to make a dent in stopping child poverty.

“It was eye opening how many of America’s children are living in poverty and how little of the na-tional budget it would take to get 60% of those kids out of poverty,” Miami University student, Colin

McDonough, said when asked what he gained from attending the lecture.

Mosely-Howard said Edelman has continued what this lecture series started in the fall, which is to inspire.

“All of us want to feel that we can make big changes. But we don’t have to be a big dog. Sometimes we just need to be a persistent, strategic little flea,” said Edelman.

She remembers getting to know Becca, a quirky, artsy, creative type of girl, over trips to Panera, and how their conversations eas-ily ranged from serious to silly.

“She’s one of those people you could sit down and talk to about anything, she was so down to earth,” said Julianne, who was one of around 60 members of Phi Sigma Pi who attended Wednes-day’s memorial.

Julianne talked about the way Becca’s deep, chuckle-filled laugh couldn’t help but make ev-eryone in the room crack a smile.

“She had one of those really bright personalities that made everyone feel special and happy no matter what,” said Julianne. “Becca was a fighter who would stand up for what’s right.”

Love for the Earth Whether it was her love of ani-

mals, recycling, her studies or a good dinner recipe, Becca threw herself into everything that she did.

At Miami, Becca chose a double major in geography and geographic information systems, with a focus on sustainability. Geography professor David Pry-therch, who was Becca’s adviser, said he remembers the day Becca decided on her major, and how re-warding it was to see her choose that path.

“She was one of the bright-est and most engaged students I have ever worked with. She is the kind of student you hope to be in your class,” he said. “We were so proud she wanted to be part of our community.”

Fellow geography professor Kim Medley added Becca was one of the top students in her class.

“Becca was especially sensi-tive to different views, different ways of thinking and the different perspectives of all the class mem-bers,” she said. “I especially con-nected with Becca because she so paralleled my own passions—for the environment and for explor-ing new places … I will remem-ber her always as one of my fa-vorite students.”

An interest in sustainability

took Becca to That Guy’s Family Farm in Clifton County, Ohio for a summer internship. Guy Ash-more, who owns the small family farm, spoke of Becca’s work ethic and her curiosity as she helped raise produce, cut flowers and move livestock. She also learned how to can enough food to make it through winter.

“Becca was a delight to have here; she was self-assured and enthusiastic about the work we were doing,” he said, adding that Becca was a trooper amidst long days spent working in the July heat. “Our whole family really cherished the time we spent with her.”

Marlene Eldemire said her daughter continued canning food throughout this past semester, ris-ing early on Saturday mornings to attend Oxford’s Farmer’s Market to ensure she had all the fresh fruit and vegetables she would need.

Jacqueline said that Becca was always eager to try new things, to take any opportunity that would force her out of her comfort zone.

“She tried to learn everything, and was always so excited to share what she learned,” Jacque-line said.

Becca also dabbled in journal-ism, writing a front page article for The Miami Student. Jenna said Becca grabbed fifteen copies of the paper when her article got published and was so excited to show everyone she knew. Emily Crane, Becca’s undergraduate as-sistant in JRN 101, saw that same enthusiasm in class.

“She was sharp. Journalistic writing can take a while to learn and she picked up on it quickly,” Emily said. “It was clear to me from one semester with her that she was going places.”

And going places she was. Bec-ca was involved all over campus from her job at B.E.S.T. Library to her work with Green Oxford and Phi Sigma Pi. She hoped to travel the world in the future, per-haps open a restaurant or run her own farm, and she was already making plans.

“She had seen this trip to Ice-land and she got so excited,” said Jenna. “She called her mom and said, ‘Hey mom, I’ve got this whole entire plan.’ She really

wanted to see the ice caps before they melted.”

Another roommate, Brittany Shelton, also described Becca’s sense of wanderlust.

“Her life dream was going to see polar bears in the wild,” said Brittany. “Well, she had a lot of life dreams, but that was her most recent one.”

Previously, Becca traveled to Arusha, Tanzania where she taught English to school children. Every day she would walk four miles each way along dusty roads to share lessons and her own posi-tivity with her students.

Love for life While Becca’s life came to a

sudden end, her memory will live on through the foundation her family set up in her name: Re-becca C. Eldemire Betterment for Environmental and Earth Protec-tion (BEEP).

“Her nickname since she was a baby was Beep,” Marlene said. “I used to sing ‘The Wheels on the Bus’ to her, and whenever I got to beep part, she would giggle hys-terically. And the name stuck.”

The foundation is meant to con-tinue the work that Becca never got to finish — to help and protect the Earth, the greatest love of her life.

Pi Sigma Phi plans to use the BEEP foundation as their philan-thropy from now on, according to Alicia Auhagen, Becca’s big in the fraternity.

Prytherch, Becca’s geography adviser, said he hopes to incorpo-rate a memorial to Becca into the renovations to Shideler Hall.

“We want to keep her memory alive, but she’s certainly already made her mark,” Prytherch said.

To Becca’s friends, she was the girl full of drive, full of spirit and a zest for life. To her family, she was the little girl with a heart of gold who grew up wanting to make a difference using every-thing she learned along the way. They hope that this is how she is always remembered.

“We don’t want her to be re-membered just as the girl who died,” said Alicia. “We want her to be known as the girl who lived; a girl who had a strong spirit and loved everything on the earth.”

TMSONLINEM I A M I S T U D E N T . N E T

VIDEOGRAPHERSeic@miamistudent.net

BEN VANDERTILLFOR THE MIAMI STUDENT

The Miami University women’s swimming and diving team trav-els to take on Ohio University 1 p.m. Saturday in Miami’s final Mid-American Conference regular season meet.

The Ohio-Miami rivalry has brewed for more than 200 years. For Miami head coach Mark Davis, the Ohio rivalry stands as a great

task ahead for his team. “It is the big rivalry meet,” Davis

said. “If you go back to the olden days they would do all kinds of crazy stuff for the Ohio meet. Ohio-Miami is a great tradition, and al-ways an exciting one, too.”

The RedHawks have stayed red-hot through January, and into February, winning six of their last seven duel meets for a 6-2 duel meet record.

The Bobcats hold a 2-6 duel meet record and are coming off two very close losses. Ohio lost

heartbreakers to University of To-ledo (151-147) and West Virginia University (155-143).

Even with their inferior record, Davis is not over looking the Bobcats’ talent.

“They’ve improved a lot over the course of the year,” Davis said. “They’ve gotten pretty strong so it will be a great meet.”

Last season’s matchup turned out well for the RedHawks. Deliver-ing a powerful performance in the

GRACE REMINGTONSTAFF WRITER

For the second time in three years, the Miami University men’s hockey team returns to Soldier Field for the Hockey City Classic. The game concludes the regular season series between Miami (15-9-1, 8-6-1-1 National Collegiate Hockey Conference) and Western Michigan University (11-10-4, 4-7-4-3 NCHC).

The RedHawks are 59-56-11 all-time against the Broncos, and 2-0-1 this season. The series is

Miami’s longest-running confer-ence series.

“When you play teams that many times, it really becomes a rivalry,” head coach En-rico Blasi said in his weekly press conference.

The ’Hawks swept WMU at home in November with 1-0 and 5-2 wins. Their most recent meet-ing was Saturday at the Lawson Arena in Kalamazoo, Michi-gan. In a game that came down to the last seconds, Miami de-feated the Broncos 2-1 in a four-round shootout after a 3-3 tie in

TOM DOWNEYSPORTS EDITOR

At its core, National Signing Day is about hope.

For the athletes committing to schools around the nation, the day represents the hope of getting a col-lege degree and maybe, just maybe, being among the select few to make it as a professional athlete. For the fans and schools themselves, the day represents the hope of better days ahead.

For Miami University, the hope is that the days of winless and 2-10 seasons are a thing of the past. Based on the 26-player class head coach Chuck Martin and his staff brought in, that hope seems well placed.

“I think we’re going to continue to get better,” Martin said. “I think when this class are juniors, we’re go-ing to be really good.”

According to Scout.com, Miami’s class ranks third in the Mid-Ameri-can Conference and 72nd in the na-tion. The RedHawks signed 14 3-star recruits. It is the highest Miami has been ranked nationally and the most 3-star recruits they have signed since 2002, which is as far back as Scout.com’s rankings date.

Miami put together that class de-spite having verbal commitments switch to Power 5 schools. But for Martin, that’s a testament to the qual-ity of player Miami is targeting.

“I think we lost seven kids to BCS schools that we had committed here,” Martin said. “Everyone says ‘well doesn’t that suck,’ and I think not re-ally. We’re recruiting great kids.”

The greatest of those kids might end up being quarterback Billy Bahl,

a 3-star recruit who verbally com-mitted back in June. Martin said he woke up Wednesday morning thinking “I might actually be able to tell the world what I really think of Billy Bahl.”

“I love Billy,” Martin said. “All the video you’ve seen is his junior year, because we didn’t let Billy put any of his senior video out anywhere known to man. We basically had him on lockdown … he’s got all the tools … I would have recruited him at my last job [Notre Dame]. I think he’s that caliber of talent. Now, how he pans out here, we’ll see. He’s gonna have to do it. He’s gonna have some other good competition. He has a huge, huge ceiling potential.”

While Bahl was described by most recruiting sites as a pocket passer, Martin said he can run as well. Bahl currently checks in at 6-foot-4, 214-pounds, but Martin expects him

to eventually get up to 235-pounds.Bahl had offers from eight other

Mid-American Conference schools, but Miami held onto him. That’s par for the course for Martin and his staff.

“We have not lost a kid to a team

in our league that’s visited our school,” Martin said. “We’ve lost lots of kids to teams in our league that have never visited here … we are knocking it dead and a lot of it has to do with our [staff’s] reputa-tion of winning and our reputation of

developing kids at a high level. We’ve got some things that we can say that other people can’t say. We had over 35 kids at Grand Valley make an NFL camp. That’s pretty powerful when you’re talking to high school kids and parents.”

While Miami didn’t lose any ath-letes to MAC schools, they did swipe a few away.

Linebacker Junior McMullen, a 3-star recruit and the 14th-ranked middle linebacker in the nation, was committed to Western Michigan University until a week before sign-ing day. McMullen and Western parted ways, prompting a battle be-tween Northern Illinois University and Miami.

“I hadn’t talked to the kid since last May,” Martin said. “We pulled a rab-bit out of the hat and got him to com-mit. We got a really good player.”

Tight end Alexx Zielinski, a 2-star

recruit, changed his commitment from Central Michigan University to Miami. Central is currently operat-ing with an interim head coach after Dan Enos left for the offensive coor-dinator position at the University of Arkansas Jan. 22, but Martin thinks Miami would have snagged Zielinski even without the coaching change.

“I’m sure the coaching change had something to do with it, but I think he was waiting for us to have a spot, “ Martin said. “I think we would have gotten that kid regardless of what happened at Central.”

Martin said the ’Hawks still have needs across the board, but Miami paid special attention to the trenches. The RedHawks signed five offensive lineman and five defensive lineman.

“Our offensive line is long and big …” Martin said. “You look at our o-line last spring, and the kids we’re bringing in would have been bigger than the o-line we lined up last spring ball.”

The biggest lineman Miami signed is Ian Leever, a 3-star recruit who checks in at 6-foot-6, 295-pounds. Martin doesn’t have to wait for Leev-er to get on campus like the rest of the recruits, because Leever is already enrolled at Miami. Martin said he felt bad for Leever because he didn’t have the type of signing day most re-cruits get to have.

“Ian was in the weight room at 7:30, grinding through a college workout, which he is still getting used to,” Martin said. “I [told him] ‘I feel bad for you big fella.’ He made that sacrifice to get ahead academi-cally and get ahead in football.”

Defensively, Martin signed line-men who have the potential to be

I would have recruited [Billy Bahl] at my last job [Notre Dame]. I think he’s that caliber of talent.”

CHUCK MARTINHEAD COACH

RedHawk recruiting report: Martin adds 26

10 SPORTS SPORTS@MIAMISTUDENT.NETFRIDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2015

FOOTBALL signingDAYAll over the U.S., high school athletes signed with college sports teams. Miami added 26 football players, with an emphasis on the Midwest.

Five players

Four playersTwo players

Two players

National Signing Day has passed us once again. High school athletes

have now made their college choices known. Fan bases cel-ebrate or retreat to the bars to sip their tear-soaked beer, all

because of what some high school kid decided.

But there is still something crazier about National Signing Day.

The fax machine. High school football players

make the biggest decision of their

life. They have worked hard, prac-ticed hard, endured injuries and so much more.

And it comes down to this mo-ment: The pick of a hat and the send-ing of a fax.

Wait, what?Yes, you know, the piece of ma-

chinery that was forgotten in 2003. The machine that was invented in

the 1800s is now used to transmit the most important piece of data in this athlete’s life.

Let’s start at the beginning, in 1843, with Alexander Bain, a Scot-tish inventor. He developed a ma-chine that sent electric currents through cable and was transmit-ted at the opposite end, replicating

COLUMNTAYLORMADE

DANIEL TAYLORFOR THE MIAMI STUDENT

The Miami University Red-Hawks women’s basketball team dropped its 10th con-secutive contest Wednesday night to the Northern Illinois University, 60-49.

Miami (3-18, 0-10 Mid-Ameri-can Conference) has been unable to end the streak since conference play started. It looked like the RedHawks’ luck might be chang-ing when they went into half with a seven-point lead, 29-22.

Head coach Cleve Wright was relived to have a lead going into the break.

“I think we felt good where we were at in the first half,” Wright said.

But the second half was a com-pletely different story. The Hus-kies (9-10, 5-4 MAC) were able to score 38 points and limited Mi-ami to scored 20.

The RedHawks were able to cut

the lead to four with five minutes left. But the Huskies opened up another run, outscoring the Red-Hawks 11-2 over the next four minutes to put the game on ice.

A big part of the outcome came from rebounding. The Hus-kies won that battle 45-29 and dominated the offensive glass with 16 boards.

Wright said he was not happy with the rebounding performance from his team.

Despite the rebounding woes and difficult loss, there were bright spots for the Red and White.

Freshman guard Kayla Brown put up a career high 21 points in the contest.

“Our team came out strong at-tacking the rim,” Brown said. “My teammates did a great job of giving me the opportunity to score.”

Wright was happy to see Brown have her first big college game.

“She was a big part of our of-fense,” Wright said. “Really did a good job of attacking the basket.”

Despite the career night, Brown is focused on getting better.

“We know we’re getting bet-ter,” Brown said. “Next year will definitely be fun.”

The team also held the Huskies leading scorer, senior Amanda guard Corral, to only six points. She averaged 15.4 per game coming in, the only Huskie in double-figures.

The RedHawks have an extend-ed break this weekend.

They were supposed to battle Eastern Michigan University this weekend, but the game has been postponed until Tuesday, Feb. 17.

The game was pushed back due to the tragic loss of EMU’s Shan-nise Heady who died in a car ac-cident Jan. 25.

Wright plans to give the team a few off days over the break in preparation for the final stretch of the 2015 season.

The ’Hawks are back in action next Wednesday. They travel to Kent State University to play the Golden Flashes.

Miami losing streak reaches 10 gamesWOMEN’S BASKETBALL

COLUMN »PAGE 4

HOCKEY »PAGE 4

DINING COMMONSW E S T E R N

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’Hawks hit road to face rival OhioSWIMMING

SWIMMING »PAGE 4

RedHawks return to Hockey City Classsic

MEN’S HOCKEY

The fax is in for National Signing Day

SIGNING DAY »PAGE 4