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Issue 4091st year

The

Holliday, Thomas out for year as Toledo loses 75-58 to EIU

Sports, B1

Game on!UT hosts gaming convention

Arts & Life, B4

Monday, February 21, 2011

Toledo holds Law Symposium

Photos by Jason Mack / IC

Above, Marc Levin, director of the Center for Effective Justice at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, gives the keynote speech Friday dur-ing a symposium in the UT College of Law auditorium. Below, a panel discusses alternatives for change. Users reading the digital edi-tion at Issuu.com/Independent_Collegian can click either photo to link to different videos from the symposium.

By Jaimee HiltonIC Staff Writer

Legislators, public officials and other elected officials gathered at the University of Toledo to discuss Ohio’s sen-tencing policies Friday.

The goal of this year’s Law Symposium, hosted by the Toledo Law Review, was to address questions about the pros and cons of the state’s prior and current sentencing policies and how spending less on sentencing inmates could be accomplished while still keeping the community safe.

More than 50,000 inmates are incarcerated in more than 30 penal institutions in Ohio.

On average, Ohio spends more than $25,000 on each inmate annually.

According to Chief Coun-sel of Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correc-tions Greg Trout, Ohio, which

has the sixth largest state prison system, exceeds the top 35 European countries in the number of incarcerated residents.

In Fiscal Year 2009, Ohio s p e n t $1,798,374,334 on housing inmates.

There are many other costs associat-ed with the pris-on system be-yond housing inmates.

These include c o n s t r u c t i o n costs, the cost of new prisons – which is about $100,000 – as well as utilities, language barriers, clothing, medical needs, education and visitation.

The cost of staff, including police departments, sheriffs

and courts, makes up ap-proximately 55 percent of the budget.

“Our first goal is to have people realize that we can’t

afford to continue to do what we’re do-ing,” said Mike Beaz-ley, a city administra-tor from Or-egon, Ohio.

According to Beazley, the United States incar-cerates a

higher percentage of the pop-ulation than any other coun-try in the world.

He said as the economy changes, people have to un-derstand there’s not going to be enough money to continue housing inmates at this rate.

“We’re going to have to change and get people as in-formed as possible about op-tions that are out there,” Bea-zley said.

The Columbus prison sys-tem costs the city $70 per day to keep each inmate, which is much more than Lucas Coun-ty, according to Ted Barrows, a municipal court judge in Franklin County, Ohio.

One of the panels discussed the chances of taking the is-sue to the Ohio General Assembly.

State Rep. Dennis Murray discussed a list of factors he came up with.

Murray said the first factor is the work done by groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union, who argue the current system is unfair, ineffective and as others have told Murray, “we are sitting on a time bomb.”

Rebranding SGBy Casey CheapIC Staff Writer

After last year’s UT Student Government President Krys-tal Weaver broke the rules by peeking at the 2009 election results before they were re-leased, SG struggled to re-form their reputation on campus.

“We were doing positive things, but they were over-shadowed by all the bad things,” said SG President Matt Rubin.

Last year’s SG tried to im-peach Weaver after finding out she used her former posi-tion as 2008 election commit-tee chair to access the results for the election in which she

won presidency. Weaver accessed the votes

four times before they were made public.

Weaver was not able to change any voting results and apologized for her actions.

SG failed to impeach Weav-er after she vetoed her own impeachment and the Latino Student Union protested her remaining in office.

Since then, the new SG leadership has been working to get students to take them seriously again.

“We want to highlight some of the positive things we have done, such as broadcasting S t u d e n t S e n a t e

MLK scholarships awardedBy Vincent J. CurkovIC Staff Writer

A $1,000 scholarship was awarded to Ashley Phillips as part of the 42nd annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Scholarship Ban-quet Friday.

“No matter how hard it gets, [I] keep on trying,” Phillips said.

Despite having a physi-cal disability and a six-month-old son, the sopho-more majoring in speech language pathology is a member of the University of Toledo track and field team and the Health and Human Serv ice Committee.

“Life has not always been easy for Ms. Philips: she is deaf in one ear and suffers from a condition that cause a ringing or roaring in one’s ears,” said Beverly Schmoll, Dean of Judith Herb College of Ed-ucation, Health and Hu-man Service.

Phillips was one of four students who received a scholarship.

The scholarship was es-tablished one year after King’s assassination in 1968.

“This has been a long-standing event and I would like to continue seeing it that way,” said Terrina White, chair of the MLK Scholarship Selection Committee.

Other recipients includ-ed David Grant, a sopho-more majoring in psychol-ogy and Jimmy Rigsby, a

senior majoring in exer-cise science. Both students received awards totaling $4,000 each.

Despite being two years out of high school, Rigsby is a peer mentor for Rock-et2Rocket and works at the UT Medical Center.

He attributes his success to his organizational skills.

“If anything falls out of place and I don’t put it back, I fall out of place,” he said.

Grant is focusing his ed-ucation on family and mar-riage counseling and plans on using his education to help the city of Toledo.

“I would want to go and start my career some-where else, but eventually make it back home to To-ledo,” he said.

The MLK Scholarship had 20 applicants this year.

The judges examined how well the candidates related to King in choosing the scholarship recipients.

“He is someone I aspire to be,” Grant said, “and [like King] I hope to take a proactive approach to the problems in our communi-ty today.”

The first annual United Way African American Ini-tiative Outstanding Black Male Scholarship was also awarded.

The $1,500 scholarship was presented to Joseph Martin, a junior majoring in early childhood education.

“My endeavor is to work

— Symposium, Page A4

— SG, Page A4

Photos by Kevin Sohnly / IC

Junior Joseph Martin (above) and sophomore Ashley Phillips (below) receive scholarships on Friday night as part of the 42nd annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Scholarship Banquet.

— MLK, Page A4

Nick Kneer / IC

University of Toledo Student Government President Matt Rubin will conduct a presentation Saturday at Texas A&M during the Conference on Student Government Associations on “how to re-brand yourself after a down year.”

Our first goal is to have people re-

alize that we can’t af-ford to continue to do what we’re doing.

Mike BeazleyCity Administrator,Oregon, Ohio ”

“

The recent budget “crisis” in Wiscon-sin proves a pervasive and relevant fact often ignored in the American po-litical discourse on the economy: that there is more than enough money in this country to end the budget deficits used as arguments against social pro-grams. The problem is simply that the vast majority of this money is con-trolled and fiercely protected by a tiny minority of elites.

The prosperous and politically-en-trenched use their huge influence to frame the public discussion and push their economic agenda. A tactic that has seen tremendous success in re-cent years is politicians’ exaggeration of budget shortfalls into stories of cataclysmic, imminent collapse.

Once it has become accepted that “government spending” is the out-of-control cause of impending doom, the ulterior motive is revealed: to use hard-working Americans as a scapegoat for the fiscal irresponsibility and corpo-rate greed that pervade, finance and define the agents of the political right.

Republican Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin entered office with a siz-able but long-term budget deficit, which he quickly spun as a matter of urgent attention, pushing through two tax breaks for businesses in the state as well as a conservative and experi-mental healthcare policy.

On Feb. 15, an estimated 15,000 citi-zens surrounded the state capitol to oppose Walker’s latest plan to use his “crisis” as a reason to accelerate the movement of wealth and power from workers to the wealthy elites.

The targets of Walker’s new ploy are the quality of life and rights of all pub-lic workers except state troopers, po-lice and firefighters. Having invented a crisis from a manageable situation, Walker’s plan would take away nearly all collective bargaining rights from

Wisconsin’s 175,000 public employees, as well as force these workers to pay a great deal more into their pension and health insurance funds.

These benefits are terms of contracts made by workers with their employers. To reduce or remove these rewards for years of labor is to break those con-tracts and should be called exactly what it is — selfish and dishonest abuse of power by politicians who cater to their campaign financiers at the ex-pense of those whom they represent.

If there is not enough money to make payouts for pensions and retiree benefits, it is because conservative decision-makers have redistributed the agreed-upon money to corpora-tions and wealthy individuals instead of those who worked to earn it.

Such deceptive political moves sug-gest that budget crises are only a pre-tense used to legitimize the more ex-treme elements of the conservative agenda. Debates about which services to cut and which group of people to exclude from safety, comfort and hap-piness have already admitted defeat by denying any responsibility for the fellow members of our democracy.

The conservative ideology hinges upon the primacy of personal over so-cial responsibility, allowing individu-als to live in extravagant comfort and waste while writing policies that cut off thousands of people from their only sources of food, shelter and life-saving medical treatment. One’s in-ability to afford a second home or re-tire early are lamented, while growing masses of unemployed and homeless families fill our streets.

What does it mean to you to “be an American”? Are there factors of empa-thy, compassion and equality, or is yours an America of isolated individu-als struggling to get ahead and leave others to suffer?

The current leadership of UT’s Stu-dent Government has had impressive success in correcting some mistakes of the previous administration and bring-ing a degree of respect and dignity to the organization, but their success at re-branding SG is more dubious. While it was necessary to restore some re-spect for SG lost by last year’s presi-dent, Krystal Weaver, simply rebuilding relationships with student groups and administrators is a small first step.

Why has no SG administration ever prioritized something other than the vague, catch-all term “school spirit”? While it seems an obvious means of gaining approval, is it not also obvious that the administration who finally worked toward something other than “spirit” would be praised at the very least for originality and honesty?

Obviously, SG wants to create tangi-ble, visible improvements that can be photographed and emblazoned with their seal. A certain amount of overt ac-complishment helps SG claim its own

effectiveness, but there are many other less obvious issues in which they can and should be working on for all stu-dents’ interest.

The most notable and recent failure of this category is the near silence from Rubin, Maddocks and other SG leaders in the debate over academic restructur-ing that raged and largely concluded last semester. While bicycle facilities and student resource rooms are clearly helpful for many students, major chang-es to the academic structure and pro-cesses are relevant to all students.

SG should have used its voice to prop-erly inform students where the UT ad-ministration failed to do so and ensure that students were represented in the process. However, they did not and critical, lasting decisions were made with hardly any input from students.

While this year’s SG can easily claim improvement over last year’s in terms of pride and accountability, it remains to be seen whether or not they have re-branded the organization.

- in our opinion -

Re-branding Student Government means more than just ‘improving school spirit’

Manufactured crisis

- in Your opinion -Forum A2Monday, February 21, 2011

Jason MackEditor in Chief Business Manager

Elizabeth Majoy

Forum EditorEthan Keating

Independent Collegian Staff

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The editorials contained on this page represent the opinions of the student editors or the column’s listed author and not those of the Collegian Media Foundation.

News EditorRandiah Green

Features EditorVincent D. Scebbi

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Samir Deeb

This past Friday I had a nice adventure down to Kent State University to look into their graduate programs. If you recall, last Friday was a

very lovely day — it must have been 58 or so with plenty of sunshine.

So after my visit with a cou-ple of pro-fessors I went for a stroll and

pretended that I was a real graduate student on-campus.

The students at KSU were smoking like chimneys —that’s for darn sure — but it didn’t bother me one bit. Would you care to know why? Because I was out-side! When people smoke outside, it diffuses into the air. When the smoke diffus-es — and likely rises be-cause it’s hot — it doesn’t really bother anyone.

Oh, but Anthony, what about if you’re walking right behind someone who is smoking? Here’s the sim-ple solution for the college-educated populous: don’t walk directly behind some-one who is smoking. Why would you be following someone that closely to be-gin with?

You could take a quick step to the side or speed up and pass the person. Heck, you could even stop for ten seconds and then keep walk-ing so the smoker gets ahead of you further. And for the record, I don’t even smoke.

The way I see it, smokers already pay very high taxes on the cigarettes they pur-chase. Whether or not they’re enough is debatable. Howev-er, the one thing that should not be done is to ban smok-ing altogether on this cam-pus, or any college campus.

Look, I enjoy smoke-free bars, restaurants and other public places. The idea of smoking indoors in a public

building now seems so odd. But we’re talking about be-ing outside, where bystand-ers aren’t being forced to inhale smoke.

Furthermore, smoking is prohibited within 30 feet of the entrances of public buildings. This makes sense. So just paint a nice yellow line on the sidewalk — a ra-dius if you will — so it’s clearer to smokers. Don’t treat them as outcasts; they too are members of the UT community. We don’t have to celebrate smokers, but we also shouldn’t treat them like lepers.

UT promotes healthiness. This is a big thing for colleg-es and universities — we all need to be healthy. I believe that we should all strive to be healthier, but there is an assault on smokers that isn’t being carried out on others who also engage in un-healthy activities.

UT offers busing service around a campus where no two buildings are more than

a 15-minute walk apart. Should we really be discour-aging walking by doing this? Think of all the lost calories that could be burned by a quick jaunt across campus.

Also, I’m pretty sure that we serve KFC in our Union. Maybe Pizza Hut is healthi-er. But I kid, I kid. These foods are fattening and very unhealthy. In my capacity as a bus driver, I see a lot of the same people who refuse to walk regularly consum-ing these foods, as well as gigantic cups of pop.

A lot of people are against fast food taxes because they claim such taxes are regressive, that most of the

tax is being paid by those who can least afford to pay. That may be true — I haven’t read enough analy-sis of such a tax — but what is certain is that smokers are at least paying some sort of tax on the externali-ties they produce.

The point is that being overweight is an unhealthy lifestyle choice. I’m not Mr. Fitness, USA, but I try to keep in good enough shape to be healthy. This isn’t an attack on those who are overweight because I un-derstand how difficult it is to find time to exercise and cook healthy meals. In-stead, I want people to think about whether smok-ing is really that much more unhealthy than being over-weight or obese.

If we’re going to ban smoking on college campus-es, perhaps we should look into banning sodas and fast food as well. Oh, but that would reduce UT’s revenue. Smokers make a much easi-er target and many people feel that they are “harmed” more by smokers than the obese.

But if you take a look at rising healthcare costs, you can see that those who are overweight create externali-ties in much the same way. Take a look at the Emory University study, “The Fu-ture Costs of Obesity: Na-tional and State Estimates of the Impact of Obesity on Di-rect Health Care Expenses.”

If you smoke or engage in any unhealthy practice, there are going to be exter-nalities. But so long as we can identify, measure and place corrective taxes on these externalities, society can function like a well-oiled machine. Compared to the healthcare costs obe-sity is creating, having to yield to a smoker isn’t all that bad.

—Anthony Russo is an IC columnist and a senior majoring in economics.

Lesser of two evils

Think of all the lost calories that

could be burned by a quick jaunt

across campus.

”

“

Managing EditorRandiah Green

I would like to inform you that our administration, admis-sions, staff, faculty, and sup-port services helped us have a very successful recruiting year. It was a total team effort.

I was extremely pleased with the campus-wide support and cooperation we received. Many people gave their own

time and efforts to make each weekend successful.

As we brought each pro-spective student-athlete on our campus, we really felt it was important to show each indi-vidual and their parents the warmth and friendliness of UT.

We also wanted each pros-pect to be exposed to all facets of our great university. Upon my final exit interviews with each family it was especially gratifying to hear their positive

remarks in regard to everyone’s commitment to our students here. They left Toledo with an extremely positive impression.

On behalf of our staff, I would like to thank everyone that assisted in our recruiting. Their efforts are what make this fine university the “Class of College Football.”

Tim Beckman,Head Football Coach

Successful recruiting year

Anthony Russo

“O na na, what’s my name?” “Umbrella-ella-ella-eh-eh-eh,” “Please don’t stop the music,” are just a few of the song phrases singer Rihanna has made famous throughout her ca-reer. With her upbeat rhythm and catchy lyrics, one can-not help but to get up and dance every time one of her songs comes on the radio.

She regularly debuts new material and nearly every one of her songs makes it to the Top 40 charts. Not to mention, her music videos are frequently featured on VH1’s Top 20 Countdown.

So naturally, when the thumbnail for her newest music video, “S&M” popped up on YouTube, many clicked on it, assuming the fresh-out-of-the-box tune would make them want to dance. For many, it made them sit back in their chair, shocked.

S&M, an abbreviation of the term “sadomasochism,” is “sexual activity in which one person enjoys inflict-ing physical or mental suf-fering on another person and derives pleasure from it.” This is the theme of Ri-hanna’s new song/video in which she features herself

flaunting gossip guru Perez Hilton on a leash as he pre-tends to relieve himself on a fire hydrant.

In other scenes, she is seen participating in impris-oning acts such as being taped against a wall, whip-ping and beating people af-ter strapping them against mattresses and walls and being entangled in a rope.

Other activities include her deep-throating a banana, dry-humping other people and objects, and lyrics such as “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but chains and whips excite me.”

Overall, “S&M” shows sa-domasochism as a fun, en-joyable activity. But is that what we should be encour-aging in today’s society? Should we really embrace pain as the new pleasure?

With thousands of domes-tic abuse cases being re-ported each year and thou-sands more being kept be-hind closed doors, sadomas-ochism should not be con-sidered in society as an ev-eryday norm. It will only blur the line between what is abuse and playfulness.

What makes Rihanna’s message worse is that less than three years ago, her

then-boyfriend singer Chris Brown was charged for al-legedly beating her up. Pho-tos soon surfaced on the in-ternet of a battered Rihanna, with black eyes and marks on her face. She did not ap-pear to be enjoying the im-pact of “chains and whips” as much then.

I am not implying that the beat and energy of the song itself is not good; perhaps the lyrics could be changed into something a little less violent and the video could instead feature people danc-ing and partying it up.

Sexual relations are — or are supposed to be anyway — a way of two people ex-pressing love and affection for one another, not a battle between people trying to in-flict pain upon one another.

There is nothing fun or enjoyable about being abused. Perhaps those who abuse should take part in therapy and learn what love is really all about. It is about passion and respect, not chains and whips. Love should never hurt.

—Written for the IC by

Sarah Fatemi.

S&M in the main

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Independent CollegianTheMonday, February 21, 2011A4

“We are at 133 percent ca-pacity on its way to 150 per-cent of capacity if nothing changes,” he said. “We will have some very serious con-sequences if we don’t act on this very soon.”

The second factor is the reduction of crime rates and the public’s perception.

He compared it to the stock market saying if people wait for it to get high before they rush in, they make a mistake.

“Public opinion is shifting,” Murray said. “We have 52,000 people in some form of incar-ceration or probation or pa-role and people understand that we have quadrupled the number of people in prison. We now spend three and a half to four percent of our budget on just prisons. I think people understand that we are out of step in the rest of the world with our incarceration rate.”

The third factor deals with term limits in the state gov-ernment. There are 33 brand new legislatures out of 99 people in the state House.

Murray, who is in his sec-ond term, said there is no institutional knowledge of the issues.

meetings [suspended for now], building relation-ships with administrators, and running ads in the stu-dent newspaper,” Rubin said.

UT’s SG will conduct a national presentation at Texas A&M on “how to re-brand yourself after a down year” at the Conference on Student Government Asso-ciations on Saturday.

“UT has been present at COSGA for the past 15 years but will be presenting our first workshop in over 10 years,” Rubin said.

Rubin said under his leadership this year’s SG has been working to bring several new projects, initia-tives and resources to the university to overshadow last year’s scandal.

He said the B.G. Ball Run and opening the Student Organization Resource Room are two things SG has done to reach out and revamp school spirit at UT.

“At the beginning of our term, [SG Vice President Jordan Maddocks] and I met with 30 to 40 student organizations to start build-ing relationships damaged by the last SG President,” Rubin said. “A year ago, SG

was a joke.”Rubin said bringing cred-

ibility back to SG was a high priority for the new leadership.

“There will be about 150 schools from across the country there,” Maddocks said. “We want to get our name out there and spread our name to other parts of the region and state.”

Maddocks said net-w o r k i n g with the stu-dent govern-ments at other uni-versities will help UT in the long run and bring some credi-bility back to the group.

“We have a lot of stuff to present to them, and they have a lot of things to pres-ent to us. It will be mutu-ally beneficial,” he said.

SG is also modifying their election process to ensure another incident cannot happen and make the elec-tions go smoother.

“In the past, it’s been a pretty difficult and dramat-ic process,” Rubin said.

The new election process will be cutting out the “middle man” by handing the responsibilities of the

election board to the Stu-dent Judicial Council, ac-cording to a press release.

“It works out better this way because these people have already been reviewed and appointed by the Stu-dent Senate once as SJC members,” Rubin said.

Some of the responsibili-ties of the SJC will be writ-ing the election’s rules

m a n u a l , holding cam-paign com-plaint hear-ings and pe-n a l i z i n g c a m p a i g n s not comply-ing with rules.

Rubin said in years past, the SG

President would appoint a separate election board that was approved by the Student Senate. This led to less transparency and slowed down the election process.

“The election board pro-cess has been messy the past few years,” Rubin said. “This year, we’re about three weeks ahead of where we were a year ago. When the idea came up, everyone was really recep-tive to it, and I think it will be a positive change.”

Because the SG

Constitution cannot be amended during a one-year time period, this will serve as a “dry run” until the pol-icy can be officially changed.

Rubin said he is trying hard to make the elections a big deal this year.

The SG Constitution al-lows for a maximum of 50 Senators, but last year only 17 students ran for those seats.

This year, SG assembled a public relations commit-tee to get the word out about the elections.

“It is a reformation that needed to be done a long time ago,” Maddocks said. “SJC is a non-partisan body. Why not dissolve one into another?”

Both Rubin and Mad-docks are urging students to run for president and vice president as well as a seat on the senate.

They are hoping to have as many competitive races as possible this year.

“All potential senators are required to have 10 signa-tures from students in his or her own respective college,” Rubin said. “All presidential and vice presidential candi-dates must have 200 univer-sity-wide signatures. The sig-natures will be due March 2 at the candidate meetings.”

SGFrom Page A1

SymposiumFrom Page A1

WPI Brown Bag Seminar

There will be a brown bag seminar tomorrow from noon to 1 p.m. at the Mulford Li-brary Garden Café located on the Health Science Campus. Mary Kay Smith, assistant professor of psychiatry, will present on HIV/AIDS and women in Sub-Saharan Afri-ca. For more information, contact Rebecca Diaz at 419-383-6133.

Black Student UnionBSU will host a discussion

on the successful and nega-tive stories of blacks in the media Wednesday from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. in the Student Union Building Room 2592. For more information, con-tact Victoria Delly at Victoria.Delly@rockets.utoledo.edu.

BSU will also host its an-nual fashion show Friday from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. Its lo-cation is yet to be determined. For more information, con-tact Victoria Delly at Victoria.Delly@rockets.utoledo.edu.

Department of Theatre

Performances of “The Hot-house” this week will be Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 7:30 p.m. in the Center for Performing Arts Center Theatre. There will also be a performance on Sunday at 2 p.m. Tickets cost $9 for students, $11 for UT faculty, staff, alumni and se-niors and $13 for general ad-mission. For more informa-tion, contact Angela Riddel at 419-530-2452 or send an e-mail to TheArts@utoledo.edu.

College of Engineering

UT’s College of Engineer-ing is hosting engineer/come-dian Don McMillan Thursday at noon at Nitschke Auditori-um. Pizza will be served 30 minutes before the show. For more information, contact Jon Wimer at Jon.Wimer@rockets.utoledo.edu.

Alpha Omicron PiThe ladies of Alpha Omi-

cron Pi are hosting a volley-ball tournament Friday from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the Health Education Gym. The cost is $30 per team and it is best of three games. Proceeds will go to arthritis research. For more information, e-mail Bvore@rockets.utoledo.edu.

Alpha Zeta OmegaAZO will host Bowl-a-Thon

Saturday from 9:30 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. at the New Glass Bowl Lanes located at 5133 Telegraph Road. Tickets are $12 with a donation of two canned goods or $15 at the door without canned goods. Two delivery pizzas will be provided for each lane. For more information, contact Adam Mierzwa at Adam.Mier-zwa@rockets.utoledo.edu.

CampusBriefly

in the educational field and [press] for equality of educa-tion for children,” Martin said.

Martin did not start college right out of high school; in-stead he spent time working with children in ministries.

“If I could do anything for free, I would work with chil-dren,” he said.

UT Board of Trustees mem-ber Joseph High and his wife donated $4,000 to the King scholarship.

“What is this scholarship for? $4,000? Tell you what, my wife is going to write a check for $4,000 cause we believe in this cause,” High said.

High said it is important for UT to work alongside organi-zations such as the United Way.

“When we look at the chal-lenges we are facing, none of us are great enough [alone] but together we are,” he said.

High reminded the winners they received scholarships be-cause the university expects great things from them.

“To whom much is given, much is required,” he told the recipients.

Paramount Advantage was a major contributor to the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Scholar-ship. UT President Lloyd Ja-cobs said they have been very kind to continue to donate in these tough economic times.

MLKFrom Page A1

Kevin Sohnly / IC

Joseph High, a UT Board of Trustees member, speaks at the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Scholarship Benefit Reception on Friday.

Kevin Sohnly / IC

BashConTim Peasley of Ashland, Ohio examines a playset yesterday during the BASH-Con held in the Student Union.

File photo by Dean Mohr / IC

Last year, UT Student Government attempted to impeach then president Krystal Weaver, but she vetoed her own impeachment.

Jason Mack / IC

Levin discusses Ohio’s probation rate during his keynote speach at the law symposium on Friday.

Jason Mack / IC

John Murphy, executive director for the Ohio Prosecuting At-torneys Association, talks about alternatives for change at Friday’s symposium at the UT College of Law auditorium.

In the past, it’s been a pretty diffi-

cult and dramatic process

Matt RubinPresident,Student Government ”“

SportsMonday, February 21, 2011Section B Page1

www.IndependentCollegian.com Zach Davis – Editor

Without Reese we physically just got

pushed around and out-toughedTod KowalczykUT Men’s Basketball Coach ”“

Holliday, Thomas out for year as Toledo loses 75-58 to EIUBy Zach Davis Sports Editor

Without the help of fresh-man forward Reese Holliday, Toledo fell 75-58 on Saturday to Eastern Illinois at Savage Arena.

“Without Reese we physi-cally just got pushed around and out-toughed,” Toledo head coach Tod Kowalczyk said. “We are already outmanned in every game we have been in – [the players] know that. We start-ed two walk-ons to-night. Find another team in the country that started walk-ons tonight. I guarantee you there isn’t another team that started two walk-ons.

“Anybody that says we didn’t compete tonight would be crazy. Anybody that thinks that or says that is dead wrong. Our guys played hard, we are just not a very good team right now. We are down to five scholarship guys. We are asking some guys to step up and play roles that maybe they are not capable of play-ing right now but it is a good experience for them.”

Kowalczyk told the Inde-pendent Collegian on Friday that Holliday would miss the remainder of the sea-son with a stress frac-ture in his foot. He had not practiced over the past two weeks and the injury had worsened over time.

Holliday leads the team in rebounding (5.5 rpg) and is sec-ond in scoring (10.5 ppg) and assists (2.33 apg). He leads the Mid-American Conference in offensive rebounds (55) and has played a team-high 35.23 minutes per contest on the year.

“Reese brings that grit and toughness to the team,” junior guard Jay Shunnar said. “He’s 6-1 and leading the MAC in offensive rebounds. He keeps possessions alive. We need possessions and that’s some-thing we were missing tonight.”

Kowalczyk also told the IC

on Friday that J.T. Thomas, who had missed the last four games, would be sidelined for the remainder of the year. The freshman point guard rein-jured the fifth metatarsal in his foot. He averaged 4.5 points, 1.5 assists and 1.7 re-bounds on the season.

“It’s hard,” Shunnar said. “You see one kid go down and

then another go down and it takes a toll on the team. Guys have to step up. We are not go-ing to put our heads down and stop fighting.”

The Rockets (4-23, 1-11 MAC) had just five scholarship players, and nine players overall, available against Eastern Illinois (9-18, 4-12 Ohio Valley Conference).

Sophomore guard Malcolm Griffin (3 of 10) had seven points and a game-high eight assists with two steals against the Panthers.

“We don’t have anybody right now that can step up consistently and help Mal-colm and that’s why we are struggling right now,” Kow-alczyk said. “We don’t have anybody that can consistent-ly step up and help him. We are standing around looking for him to make too many

plays.”Shunnar (5 of 8)

had a team-high 16 points, including three triples on the night. He has aver-aged 11 points in 32 minutes the last four games.

“Jay was good to-night,” Kowalczyk said. “He just needs to do it every day. The

only one that is really consis-tent offensively is Malcolm. Jay needs to have energy and enthusiasm every day. To-night, particularly in the sec-ond half, he did.”

Justin Anyijong scored 12 points on 5-of-13 shooting. The senior forward has scored in double-figures in three of the last four games.

EIU had four players score in double-digits, led by

E. Illinois Toledo

7558

Holliday

Wally Skalij/Los Angeles Times/MCT

Slam Dunk ChampLos Angeles Clippers forward Blake Griffin won the NBA Slam Dunk contest after leaping over a car in the final round.

Jason Mack / IC

Eastern Illinois forward Curry McKinney dunks in the 75-58 victory over the Rockets on Saturday night at Savage Arena.

Rockets clinch a share of MAC Title in win over Ball StateBy Nate PentecostIC Staff Writer

The Rockets women’s bas-ketball team won their eighth straight contest with a 67-49 victory over Ball State and secured themselves a share of the Mid-American Conference West Division Title. Toledo will have a first round bye in the upcoming MAC Tournament.

“That’s going to be key going into the tournament with a little fresher legs than the teams that are going to play a game in that first round,” UT head coach Tricia Cullop said. “There are a lot of teams in this league that can upset someone.”

Toledo (20-6, 12-1 MAC) also snapped a six game losing streak at Worthen Arena with the win on Saturday with their last win com-ing in Jan. 10, 2004.

“There have been some very good teams to come in here and not come out with much success,” Cullop said. “We were very happy to get a victory today.”

Toledo was led by junior guard Naama Shafir and senior Melissa Goodall who tied for a team-high 15 points. Shafir added five rebounds and three

assists and Goodall had a game-high nine rebounds.

The Cardinals (9-17, 4-9) kept the score close early but would not regain the lead after a three-pointer by junior guard Court-ney Ingersoll, putting the Rock-ets up 10-8 with 13:51 left in the

first half. Toledo add-ed to the lead in the remainder of the pe-riod and went into halftime ahead 35-23.

The Rocket advan-tage swelled to as many as 22 in the second half as UT

took control of the contest down the stretch, cruising to a 67-49 victory.

Senior guard Ty’Ronda Ben-ning fronted the BSU effort with

a game-high 16 points, the only Cardinal to reach double-figures. Senior foward Emily Maggert, the team’s leading scorer at 15 ppg, had only six points and fouled out with 11:43 remaining.

“I told them after the game, don’t be satisfied because any team can surprise

you,” Cullop said. “Eastern Michigan certainly has a lot of talent and we’re going to have to be prepared for them.”

The Rockets will host East-ern Michigan (18-9, 9-4) on Wednesday at 7 p.m.

Toledo Ball State

6749

Goodall

— Holliday, Page B2

Independent CollegianTheMonday, February 21, 2011B2

Jeremy Granger’s game-high 20 points. Granger also had eight rebounds and made all 13 of his free throw attempts.

The Panthers led the entire game against Toledo, jumping out to an early 13-5 lead. The Rockets cut the lead to 13-12, but EIU stretched the lead to as many as nine in the first half.

Two consecutive

Jason Mack / IC

Sophomore wide-out Eric Page received the 2010 National Kickoff Returner trophy from Col-lege Football Performance Awards at halftime of Saturday’s men’s basketball game vs. Eastern Illinois.

Jeff Siner/Charlotte Observer/MCT

Bayne’s WorldOne day after turning 20 years old, Trevor Bayne won the Daytona 500 on Sunday.

three-pointers by Anyijong and Shunnar in the last min-ute of the first half cut the lead to 30-28 but the Panthers took the momentum halftime after Granger banked in a three from nearly half court at the buzzer.

After cutting the lead to one at 35-34, EIU scored 12 unan-swered and cruised to a 75-58 victory. The Rockets trimmed the lead down to six but trailed by as much as 18, down by double-figures most of the half.

“We need to get stops,” Shunnar said. “We were fight-ing. I felt like a couple times the ball didn’t bounce our way and other than that we will be alright. We just have to keep fighting.”

The Rockets return to con-ference play when they travel to Kalamazoo to take on MAC West leader Western Michigan (15-10, 7-4) on Wednesday at 7 p.m. Toledo defeated the Broncos 73-60 on Jan. 19 for its lone conference victory on the year.

HollidayFrom Page B1

UT loses three games on opening weekend By Tony BiblerIC Staff Writer

The Rockets opened the 2011 season on the road in Cary, N.C. at the USA Na-tional Baseball Training Complex, dropping all three contests over the weekend. UT lost two one run games against Canisius on Friday (6-5) and Sunday (7-6) as well as a 5-1 defeat to Creigh-ton on Saturday.

“Everyone is disappoint-ed,” UT head coach Cory Mee said. “This is not the way you want to open up the season. We have to recognize it is only one weekend out of the season, learn what we need to improve on and use that while we prepare this week. We’ve got a lot to work on.”

Toledo (0-3) ju-nior right hander Lincoln Rassi started Sunday’s game against Ca-nisius (3-1) and struck out a career-high sev-en batters while giving up four runs over 4.1 innings. Senior Matt Zahel (0-1) earned the loss in relief after allowing the go-ahead run across to score in the top of the 10th.

Senior outfielder Chris Dudics went 3 for 4 Sunday with an RBI while classmate Jason Edwards was 1 for 5 with two RBI. UT found themselves down 1-0 head-ing into the home half of the second inning but

responded with three runs as Edwards doubled in two. Dudics promptly singled home Edwards to give Tole-do a 3-1 lead.

Canisius scored a run in the third but the Rockets re-sponded with an RBI single in the fourth by junior out-fielder Mark Lapi-kas, making the score 4-2. Canisius tallied two runs in

the top half of the fifth to tie the game at four. The Rockets pulled ahead in the bottom of the fifth to take a 6-4 lead after junior Matt Delewski and senior Jim Vaha-lik each singled in runs.

Junior reliever Ty-ler Scott gave up two runs in the eighth in-ning that pushed the game into e x t r a innings.

After Canisius plated a run in the 10th, senior out-fielder Dan Sher-wood doubled him-self into scoring po-sition with a one-out double but the Rockets failed to capitalize as the next two batters struck out and popped out to end the game.

“We have pitched ourselves into some tough jams,” Mee said. “We pitched ourselves out of some but when you’re

living on the edge, sooner or later it’s going to catch up with you and that’s what hap-pened this weekend.”

On Saturday, Toledo lost its only matchup of the weekend against Creighton 5-1.

Junior lefthander Kyle Shaw (0-1) took the loss after giving up four runs in four innings of work. Ju-nior reliever Alex Ra-don pitched a re-spectable four in-nings in relief and al-lowed one run to the Bluejays (2-1). Soph-

omore infielder Wes Wight knocked in the Rockets only run with an RBI single in the fourth.

Toledo opened the season with a 6-5 defeat against Ca-nisius on Friday. The Rock-ets held a 5-0 lead but a six-run eighth inning by Canisius sealed the loss for UT. Fresh-man reliever Adam Tyson

was handed the loss after giving up a run over two-thirds of an inning.

“I’ve told the guys before that the key to success is to play great defense and pitch well,” Mee said. “This weekend we just didn’t do enough of that to win.”

The Rockets return to action this weekend as they travel to Louisville, Ky. to take on No. 22 Louisville. First pitch for Friday’s game is scheduled for 3 p.m. while Saturday and Sunday will start at 1 p.m. and noon, respectively.

CanisiusToledo

76

CreightonToledo

51

Sun, Feb 20

Sat, Feb 19

CanisiusToledo

65

Fri, Feb 18

Dudics

Edwards

Independent CollegianTheMonday, February 21, 2011 B3

airing March 1 on PBS stations.

While Motown music has been no stranger at the White House _ artists such as Robin-son, Stevie Wonder and the Four Tops have played for several presidents _ next week’s event is unique.

“I don’t think the company and genre have been recog-nized in this way by any ad-ministration,” said Audley Smith, chief executive officer of the Motown Historical Mu-seum, which will transport several items from its collec-tion for display at a pre-con-cert reception.

“I think it kind of says it all, that this administration has seen fit to honor this music that is unique to Detroit,” said Smith.

President Obama _ who was born two years after the label’s 1959 inception _ has long shown a fondness for Motown: Stevie Wonder’s “Signed Sealed Delivered (I’m Yours)” was a major theme song during his 2008 cam-paign, and he has described Wonder as his “one musical hero.”

In a video message taped for the label’s 50th anniversa-ry gala in November 2009, the president paid tribute to Mo-town’s cultural impact, saying the music “defined a style, lifted up a city and moved an entire generation.”

The Detroit group, which includes students from Mosa-ic Youth Theatre and the Sphinx Organization, will spend an extra day touring Washington, D.C. They’ll also meet with U.S. Attorney Gen-eral Eric Holder, a Motown fan who last summer was treated to a private tour of the Motown museum on West Grand Boulevard.

While Motown will be the focus of the White House events, the Grammy Muse-um’s Santelli said his lecture will emphasize Detroit’s broader role as a music capi-tal and what “the city has giv-en over the years to the Amer-ican music legacy.”

“I want the students to real-ize this wasn’t a one-shot deal _ that Detroit music was serv-ing American culture for many years before and after,” he said.

MotownFrom Page B4

six other friends came to the convention with the sole inten-tion of playing X Crawl, a dice-based board game Teare de-scribes as a “specific setting of [famed RPG] Dungeons and Dragons.”

Teare and friends took turns rolling dice and scrawling data onto score card sheets laid in front of them. One of the friends at his table, Michael Jones, is a Toledo native cur-rently attending the University of Cincinnati. He returned for the convention just to play X Crawl with his friends.

“You don’t need [a conven-tion] to play X Crawl; all you need is a dining room table,” Jones said. “I don’t go to any other conventions. I came back to Toledo to play with my friends and while I was here I bought a book and some dice.”

Another one of the players was Teare’s sister Nicole. Now in her sixth year of her phar-macy degree, she has attended every BASHCon since she came to UT. She has also vol-unteered at the event in the past.

Talking with attendees and vendors, one quickly learns that

BASHCon is one weekend for the larger gaming community, which has shown itself to be a tight-knit one. It is common to hear an attendee say that they’ve volunteered at past events, assisted in coordina-tion, or are a part of UT BASH or another campus-based gam-ing community.

Nathan Young, a local busi-ness owner who runs Gameol-ogy on West Central Avenue, hosted Magic: The Gathering tournaments in the Ingam Room throughout the weekend. For the past 15 years, Young has volunteered at BASHCon, Gen Con and other gaming con-ventions in the Midwest.

Young explained he brings snacks for his volunteers and that BASHCon volunteers are treated to a party at the culmi-nation of the weekend.

“I’ve been to a number of events, and I plan to go to more,” Young said.

He mentioned conventions in Akron, Ohio and Fort Wayne, Ind. where he’d like to partici-pate as a vendor.

Young also takes credit for creating Eaten Alive, which he claims friend Steve Stallkamp invented, but was uncertain if he wanted to suggest the idea to event coordinator Trent No-vak. Lucky for everyone,

Stallkamp’s idea has been a huge hit.

Taking role playing to a whole new level

Eaten Alive isn’t the only event where players have to do more than sit in a chair and roll a die. Dagorhir, a full-contact scuffle between con-testants wielding foam coated weapons, carried on in various spots throughout the convention.

Though different scenarios are dictated as the purpose for the battles, the goal is ubiqui-tous: eliminate all members of the other team. This is done through a series of carefully executed body shots by an op-ponent’s foam ax, sword, spear or projectile.

“Sometimes we let players ‘resurrect’ – they can return to the game after they’ve been ‘killed.’ It makes it more bal-anced and more fun,” said UT alum Crystal “Dakin” Bennett.

While battling, competitors use pseudonyms, called “Dag-names,” to address each other, and more or less stay in char-acter throughout the battles. This means some players ar-rive and participate dressed in

halfway around the wide opening to get to the other side, and Bellmyer walked across the lower part of the Field House and back.

It wasn’t all good news though; one scene in partic-ular posed numerous diffi-culties to the crew. Quads 1 and 2 (Brian Purdue and William Toth) hold back Greg so he won’t start a fight, but filming a scene in which one actor struggles to break free can be hard.

One of the best clips to film was a clip of Jaleeah and Marky on the stairs.

The stairs in the Field House are broad and open, so we were able to film the same clip from several an-gles: from the top of the stairs, from the bottom of the stairs and on the landing the actors were standing on to deliver their lines.

Overall the location had a huge effect on the look and feel of the scene.

medieval and fantasy-themed clothing. Others however, simply wore shorts and t-shirts.

“This isn’t role playing, our characters are the same as us,” said a player who wished to be identified by her Dago-hir name Viveca.

Like BASH, UT also has a Dagorhir club, where enthusi-asts practice weekly at the Health Education Center on campus.

“We use events like BASH-Con to recruit people. Maybe they walk by and see what’s going on, and think that they might be interested,” said Austin “Goggles” Barth, a ju-nior double majoring in com-puter science and engineering technology. He is also the treasurer of the UT Dagorhir Club.

Wisdom comes with ageAs the vendors begin to

pack their unique supplies onto carts and contestants file out, one aficionado re-mains in the ballroom. Dressed in a black suit and a cardboard party hat, Matt Purdue waxes on the past, present and future of BASHCon.

Field HouseFrom Page B4

ConventionFrom Page B4

Kevin Sohnly/ ICUT gamers playing Dagorhir, a live-action combat game, played with foam coated weapons and shields.

Purdue, known as “Jail-bait” to his gaming friends, has been a member of UT BASH for eight years. He earned his nickname from his early years at UT BASH, which he first started at-tending when he was 8 years old. He continues to attend events despite leav-ing UT for Stautzenberger Community College in Maumee.

“At BASHCon, you find like-minded people. These people want to play card games, video games, other games – whatever you like to do, you can find some-body here who likes to do it,” Purdue said.

For Purdue, the standout event of the weekend was on Friday night. When much of the campus lost their electricity around 11 p.m., BASHCon was still going strong.

“The lights went off. Within a few seconds, ev-erybody all at once took out their cell phones, point-ed their screens at their games, and went on play-ing. No panic whatsoever – true gamers.”

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Page4

Game on! Filming scenes from ‘West Bancroft’ at the Memorial Fieldhouse

White House Motown

By Brian McCollumDetroit Free Press(MCT)

DETROIT _ Detroit is back on the White House agenda. And this time it’s got a backbeat.

Motown Records will be in the spotlight Thursday as President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama wel-come Berry Gordy Jr., Smokey Robinson and more than 120 students for a tribute to the record label that bears the city’s nickname.

An East Room concert that evening will feature Robinson, Sheryl Crow, John Legend, Jamie Foxx and several other musicians playing Motown classics for the first couple and the

student group, including 10 metro Detroit high school-ers handpicked by the Mo-town Historical Museum.

The students will also participate in an afternoon workshop hosted by Mi-chelle Obama, to include a question-and-answer ses-sion with Gordy and Robin-son. Bob Santelli, executive director of the Grammy Museum, will speak about the social and cultural in-fluence of Motown and De-troit music.

Produced by the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles and timed to Black History Month, the Motown tribute is the latest in a series of music events hosted by the Obama White House. The concert will be taped for

— Motown, Page B3

President to pay tribute to record label

There are two basic ways to film a movie or television show: using sets, which are built in studios to look ex-actly how the director or producer wants it to look, and filming on location, which requires crews and actors to go to a real-world place to film and move to another real-world place to film a scene in a different area.

“West Bancroft Side Story” is filmed on loca-tion, which pres-ents a number of issues to the pro-duction crew when we have limited time with an actor to film.

We planned to film one particular scene in the Stu-dent Union Building Satur-day that leads up to a musi-cal number. In the scene, Marky (Gage Howell) picks a fight with Greg (Nick Bellmyer), making Greg so angry he “want[s] to burst into song.”

All lame musical jokes aside, the production crew – consisting of producer Ca-rina Cornieles, cameraman Larry Williams and myself – had a few issues to deal with when we headed to the South Lounge to set up the filming.

Foremost of the issues: during this past weekend, from Feb. 18 to 20, UT host-ed an annual event called BASHCon, a gaming conven-tion hosted by the student group dedicated to gaming of all kinds, BASH.

Ordinarily, an organized event would be no cause for problems, except that there were too many people walk-ing around dressed like pi-rates for Carina’s taste, and we had to scout another lo-cation at noon – which meant we had only an hour and a half to shoot before Bellmyer had to leave.

Our conversation very well may have gone like this: “Come on, guys. Where can

we film that’s nearby, a pub-lic area that the characters are likely to see one another in, but without large crowds of people on a Saturday?”

“Why, the Memorial Field House, of course.”

That said, we shifted gears and headed to the second floor of the Field House near the elevator and cen-tral staircase.

As most film students can probably explain, the location a scene is shot in adds specific dy-namics to the filming. The Field House gave

us an opportunity to film the scene in two places at once.

Since the scene started with Marky wanting to fight with the Quads for fun, we set the Ottawas on the sec-ond floor of the Field House overseeing the lower floor, where the Quads could walk.

The filming then took an interesting turn because of the wide range of camera angles available. Since we shoot on location – and many of the locations are smaller spaces, such as in-side dorm rooms – the plac-es we can safely stow a cam-era, boom mic and crew members are not exactly numerous.

Inside the Field House, though, there were many camera angles to choose from: first-floor angles to follow Greg and the other Quad actors, second-floor angles for Marky and the other Ottawa actors and even angles on the staircase during a part in which Greg’s girlfriend, Jaleeah (Sarah Fatemi) confronts Marky.

Working around the larger movements of the actors was tricky, since we work with only one camera. How-ell had to move from one end of the Field House

File Photo by Nick Kneer‘WBSS’ Director Scott Corsi and Producer Carina Cornieles.

By Feliza CasanoCopy Chief

The show must go on

— Fieldhouse, Page B3

UT hosts weekend-long gaming convention in Student Union

Game on!

By David GuastellaArts & Life Editor

Football fans have the Su-per Bowl, music fans have the Grammy Awards and fans of role playing games, competi-tive collectable card games, and other subcultural pas-times have conventions. The biggest convention of the gaming variety is Gen Con In-dy, held annually in Indianap-olis. Arguably one of the big-gest in the region is BASHCon.

BASHCon XXVI has called Toledo home since its incep-tion 26 years ago. From Fri-day evening until Sunday night, the convention took over several rooms in the Stu-dent Union Building. During this time, cadres of characters clad in costumes and sporting event lanyards filled the halls and eateries of the Union.

The event’s name is derived from the student group UT BASH which does the plan-ning and staffing of the annual

event . The name is an acro-nym for “Benevolent Adven-turers ’ S t ra teg ic Headquarters.”

UT BASH hosts games throughout the year including chess and euchre as well as cult favorites like Magic: The Gathering. The club’s logo sports the phrase “Alia iacta est,” Latin for “the die has been cast,” famously uttered by Julius Caesar before he lead his army across the Rubi-con River.

Inside the rooms, attendees participated in organized gaming events, watched an-ime features and played ar-cade games. Vendors plied wares ranging from anime based board games to hand crafted swords.

“BASHCon isn’t as big as Gen Con, but it is nowhere near as expensive for the ven-dors,” explained Sword Ven-dor John Bowen. “I’ve been coming here for twenty years; this year, I had a 10 percent increase in sales.”

Bowen operates Bowen-Dragon1, a nationally recog-nized website that deals gam-ing books and pocket games, in addition to swords. He’s a 37-year veteran of the busi-ness and drove 260 miles from his Baldwin, Mich. home to appear at the convention.

Many vendors like Bowen make the convention rounds annually. Bowen visits about 50 conventions a year, and plans to continue returning to BASHCon for the foreseeable future.

This year’s convention saw an increase in patrons – up nearly 25 percent from last year’s attendance of around 900. Unlike larger conven-tions like Gen Con, BASHCon is organized and staffed by volunteers, many of whom are students.

“It is really a lot of fun; you’re running around differ-ent tables, playing a bunch of different games – this event always brings a lot of people,” said Qusai Al Shidi, assistant

coordinator for BASHCon XX-VI and a junior majoring in physics.

Al Shidi also serves as presi-dent of UT BASH.

He mentioned two special tournaments added to BASH-Con this year that have been popular with convention at-tendees: Eaten Alive and Pathfinder.

Pathfinder is a normal “ta-ble top” Role Playing Game. Eaten Alive, in contrast, is a live-action zombie-themed battle employing the use of Nerf weapons by participants.

Gamers of a feather flock

togetherOn Sunday evening, as the

fanfare was winding down, many dedicated players re-mained in the top floor of the Union.

Phillip Teare, a freshman majoring in engineering, and

—Convention, Page B3

Kevin Sohnly/ ICConventioneers compete in a Magic: The Gathering tournament in the Ingham Room at UT’s Student Union Building during BASHCon’s 26th annual gaming convention.