Global Meet & Greet

Global Meet & Greet is a bi-weekly event initiated by the International Students and Faculty Services (ISFS) in partnership with Office Education Abroad (OEA) at Ohio University. Starting from this quarter, the event aims at bringing international students together so they can meet, talk, have free food and fun.

Held at Walter International Educational Center (room 106) which is a new home of ISFS, the series welcomes many international and domestic students to share their culture with each other on a given theme. For example, the theme of this week (Nov 9) is Thanksgiving which is one of the most important holidays in the U.S.

Decorated with thanksgiving postcards, students can write down their thanks to sponsors whose generosity made the event happen. "I really enjoy the food, especially pumpkin pie. It helps me understand about the traditional food they have in Thanksgiving Day", said Yahan, a Chinese student in Biology Sciences.

"The aim of the event is to bring international and domestic students together so they can socialize with each other. And also for us, we can provide necessary information they need regarding travel abroad opportunities and other international students issues", said Jascene Dunkley, Graduate Assistant at ISFS.



Participants said it is not the first time they attend the event and they definitely don't want to miss the next one which is on Nov 15 from 4-5pm with the theme of Finals Week.

Ohio General Election on Nov 8

Ohio General Election will take place tomorrow (Nov 8). Ohio's voters will decide the fate of candidates and issues on their ballot, according to the State official website.

Senate Bill 5, known as limiting collective bargaining rights, is equivalent with Issue 2 in the referendum, remains as a hot topic in agenda.

Advocating activities and campaigns, with the enormous support of social media are being conducted everywhere for a NO on Issue 2.

Ohio University students can vote from 6:30 a.m. - 7:30 p.m on Tuesday, Nov. 8 at the following places:

1. Baker University Center

2. Jefferson Hall Library

3. City Hall

4. Community Center

View Where to vote in a larger map

Homecoming Parade in the Street of Athens

Homecoming week started off on Oct 10 but its peak was the parade on Oct 15 in the main street of downtown in Athens: Court St.

Having people waken up on Saturday morning is not easy; however, if you happened to stop by Court St. last Sat, you would see hundreds of people gathered on the two sides of the street. It seems that they have been there for long. The reason was known and confirmed: people longed for the parade, one of the most exciting events in the small town of Athens.

The opening of the parade was the march of about a hundred students with trumpets.

Followed by were marching groups of student organizations such as African Students Union or International Students Union and local organizations.

Athens News, a local newspaper, have consolidated comments of students via social media such as Twitter with the mostly used hashtag: #OUHC 2011.

Below is one of the videos shot at the event:

Athens in the fall

Athens, the small city (it is actually the college town with the presence of Ohio University) located in Southeastern Ohio, is most beautiful in the fall.

The scenery turned yellow and red just over a night. Leaves falling down from the tress that made a marvelous carpet on the surface of roads. It tells us the fall is coming with mild wind, sunlight and a little bit chill. It is actually the most pleasant season of the year, not too cold and gloomy but yet sweaty like summer.

Here are some pictures randomly taken at OU campus and Stroud Run State park in Athens.

From Occupy Wall Street to Occupy OhioU

Occupy Wall Street protest has headed to Ohio University campus under the name of Occupy OhioU on the occasion of Homecoming week (Oct 10-16).

The first event took place on Sunday, Oct 16 at the lawn nearby Alden library. There was about 20 participants including OU students and local people. The students set up tents with an attempt to "occupy" the area 24/7 the upcoming week. Participants formed as a circle and took turn to share their concerns over the protest at Wall Street and its spread to the entire country.

One student brought an article from a blog which indicated JPMorgan Chase bank donated $4.6 million, the biggest donation in its history, to New York Policy Department to strengthen security in the city.

OU President, Roderick McDavis, said the demonstration didn't bother him and he thought it was great to have students and faculty to express their thoughts and feelings on the issues of American time.

Can Political Issue Affect Students?

Followed up with the previous post about Senate Bill 5; a recent poll on The Post, OU student-run newspaper revealed that 26% of the total 57 responses think that Student Senate should not waste time on partisan politics.

Frankly speaking, many OU students do not really care about SB5 because they think it is purely political and there is no evidence showing quantified loss caused by SB5 on students. Students might protest against something intangible like tuition increase but "collective bargaining rights" is sort of a vague perception. If OU disseminates information about SB5 to students and its possible impact to the school, the level of understanding can be reached, even neutrally.

We will wait to see final decision of OU Student Senate to take a stance on SB5 or not. It will be hard for Student Senate to survive over criticism if they disappoint many students who keep demanding to add this issue to their agenda.

Do OU Students Really Care about Senate Bill 5?

Senate Bill 5 (SB5) is now a very controversial political issue in the State of Ohio. Signed into law by Gov. Kasich in March, SB5 will limit collective bargaining rights of public employees. Ohio SB5 veto referendum, known as Issue 2, is scheduled to appear on the general election ballot in November to repeal SB5.

Athens County, the poorest county of Ohio is expected to suffer from SB5 as most of its public employees are working at Ohio University (OU), the largest employer of the whole county. A protest of about 250 OU students took place on campus in March to oppose the cutting budget proposal of Gov. Kasich in higher education sector which OU belongs to. Last Wednesday, more than 50 OU students showed up at the OU Student Senate weekly meeting to speak out on SB5 and request the Student Senate to take a stance on it.

However, the above mentioned groups of students is modest compared with the total of 20,857 students, Athens campus alone. A large number of students do not care or even know about SB5. Many students think it is a political issue and not directly affecting them. "OU students are no different than most people in the world. A lot of people don't pay attention to politics", said David Smith, a student at OU. From the side of OU Student Senate, they seems to have the same opinion said by President Kyle Triplett : “The opinion of the Student Senate executives is that it’s not Student Senate’s role to get involved in issues that are purely political".

We will need to wait for an official figure to know exactly how many students really care about SB5, how many of them sign in form to vote against it and for them SB5 is just a State issue or OU-related issue.