Imagine a silent, patient audience, partially comprised of students required to attend an event for a class and partially of eager LGBTQ+ community members ready to “get their life.” Now imagine that silence interrupted by three powerful words sung by Teyana Taylor.
In the summer of 1964, hundreds of students gathered on what is now Miami University’s Western Campus to learn how to register African American voters in the South, specifically Mississippi. Among them was retired Miami philosophy professor Rick Momeyer. Arrested three times, indicted by a grand jury and assaulted with various weapons in the South, Momeyer is an expert on Freedom Summer and its significance. “If you don’t know black history, you don’t know American history,” Momeyer said. “It’s not a separate history.”
Around three years ago, I committed to Miami University as an education major. I had attended Make it Miami, surrounded by lines of chattering high school students — red lanyards with name-tags hung about their necks, accompanied by anxious parents asking countless questions. It didn’t occur to me at the time that I would want to change my major before I had even gone to my first class.
“I promise you I didn’t do this on purpose.” Sophomore psychology major and independent musician Lyric Rains-Bury, also known mononymously as Lyric, says to me in reference to his outfit — a red-tinted shirt plastered with a baby picture of himself with his name on the sleeves. “I really just wanted to match with the rest of the red vibe I was feeling today,” he said. He also makes a point to call out how his anime-decorated walls are “weird,” and how I should divert my attention elsewhere. My eyes jumped to an endless mound of caffeinated beverages that seemed to have accumulated on the floor. As braggadocious and larger-than-life as Lyric presents himself in both his fashion choices and music stylings, he could not be more different in person.
Hunched over and focused on painting, students spilled into Armstrong Pavilions A & B to paint mugs last Tuesday night. The event, put on by Miami Activities and Programming (MAP) and Uptown pottery painting shop You’re Fired!, had a line of students waiting out the door to scan their IDs to get in.
What most obviously separates t’ai chi from other martial arts is the speed. “When you look, it’s slow, but when you learn, it’s difficult,” Xing said. Xing teaches two sections of Beginning T’ai Chi, listed under KNH 120T. This is his last semester in Oxford before he returns to China to continue teaching and studying Chinese martial arts as national traditional sports.
Sophomore Vedika Gupta isn’t sure what age she’s turning this year. The marketing major from India is a leapling, meaning her birthday falls on February 29, a date that only occurs every four years. “Technically I’m turning five, but also 20,” Gupta said. “So I think I’m turning five and 20.” Although she isn’t sure how to describe her age, Gupta finds joy and takes pride in her leapling status.
Leading up to their first tournament of the spring semester, the players on Miami University’s Quidditch team had only one thought: They had to beat Michigan. This would be their first time playing the University of Michigan since falling to them in the semifinals of the Great Lakes regional competition last fall. This time, they’d be playing on home turf.
Buried deep beneath Miami University’s pristine quads and beautiful buildings, a hidden network of tunnels criss-crosses the campus. Some of these passages, like the one underneath the sidewalk that runs alongside Bell Tower Commons, are visible to students who walk above. However, this tunnel system is far more extensive than what one can see above ground — approximately five miles of tunnels connect the various buildings on the mile square.
On the third floor of Miami University’s Shriver Center, tucked into a corner office, is the Miller Center for Student Disability Services (SDS). The space is decorated with art from local disabled artists and soft, flowing music fills the room. “Who are you here to see?” asked the woman sitting at the reception desk. The three of us looked at each other. “We have a meeting with Andy Zeisler,” Tim replied.
What’s black and white and bears a small resemblance to a cow? Moo, the aptly-named bunny. Although she has slightly-longer ears and a more impressive vertical leap than her bovine counterparts, the color similarities are striking.
Senior Lexi Scherzinger’s interest in fashion has literally taken her around the world. In the summer of 2018, she lived in New York City and interned for world-renowned fashion designer Christian Siriano. She then studied in Paris during the fall of 2018, right after she decided to switch majors. Originally a strategic communication major, she decided to change to journalism. She’s known that she wanted to study fashion since her second semester freshman year.
After two-straight weekends of waking up at 6 a.m. to get ready for a day filled with small talk, Haley Faber couldn’t be more excited to celebrate the end of recruitment with her sorority’s new pledge class.
The display case offers a wide array of options: French, Italian, Caesar, balsamic and even raspberry vinaigrette. There is one particular dressing, however, that appears to be missing. At first glance, it feels like a mistake. Perhaps you simply glanced too quickly. Perhaps it’s stuck behind the raspberry vinaigrette packets. But no, as sad as it is to accept, the ranch packets seem to have disappeared from Lux — and this is where our Midwestern mystery begins.
On the first Wednesday of the spring semester, the line to get into Top Deck extended all the way down the stairs. Inside, the bar was buzzing with people carrying pitchers of beer to their tables and teams trying to find a space to sit — or at this point, stand. Ben Storsved, who graduated in December, and junior Hunter Wotruba stood in the back corner of the bar, behind a laptop and sound system and under a glowing Chicago Cubs logo sign — one of many neon signs decorating Top Deck’s walls. As the clock strikes 10 p.m., Ben leans in and speaks warmly into a microphone. “Hello friends and welcome back to another fantastic week at Top Deck Trivia!”
The rain drizzling outside the windows harmonizes with the first few notes of “Piano Man” a student plunks out on the old piano at the front of the room. As another student draws the words “Spring Street Reading '' in bubble letters on a large whiteboard, students and English professors trickle in slowly, helping themselves to the coffee, lemonade and cookies laid out on the back table and settle in to hear their fellow students’ stories.
High school dances may be a cesspool of sweat and hooligans, but one dance I went to will always hold a special place in my heart. When I was a sophomore in high school, my school held a masquerade-themed Winter Formal. Traditionally, it was a girls-ask-guys dance, but I went with a few of my friends.
Across the titular street from the Oxford Fire Department, the lime-green ice cream shop used to be home to a drive-through bank, but now features bright colored walls, shelves full of knick-knacks for sale and quite a few customers who stop by regularly for pints to bring home.
On Tuesday nights, two very different styles of music can be heard emanating from a basement bar on High Street. Nestled underground on West High Street is Bar 1868, a laid-back lounge with an atmosphere that makes Brick Street’s bustling dance floor seem all the more hectic. The bar has pool tables, biweekly drag shows and, every Tuesday night, live music performed by Miami University seniors Karen Mayet and Zach Vanderink.
Li didn’t get to travel back to China over break, but when he started classes this semester, he was asked multiple times where he was from, and whether or not he was from Wuhan (the center of the coronavirus outbreak). But that doesn’t bother him very much. “I’m scared as well, so I totally understand why they ask that,” Li said.
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