In the midst of the novel coronavirus pandemic, many are left wondering what’s going to happen next. However, some in the Oxford community have decided to take a different route. Spreading smiles instead of germs, Miami University students are using this pandemic as an opportunity to be creative and look into different hobbies for the remainder of the remote semester.
When I came to college, I thought I was an adult. I thought, as most of us probably did, I had it all figured out. Though I was only 17, I was on my own, free from my parents’ roof. I lived in Hepburn Hall during my first year, and while it was nice, I longed for the day I’d be able to live off campus, avoiding sticky dining hall tables and crowded dorms with communal bathrooms.
Even before the stay-at-home order, on GBD last week, uptown was quiet. There were no lines stretching out of Brick Street Bar & Grill. There were no queues spilling out of Bagel & Deli. There were parking spots available. Sidewalks were nearly empty.
The bathrooms of college students can be downright gross. Toothpaste lines the bowl of the sink, the trashcan overflows and the toilet paper roll is notoriously empty. But, at the very least, Miami University sophomore Seif Boulos can fix that last problem.
Some stories delve deeply into the lives of their subjects. Others seek to capture the human condition in just a few words. Modeled after journalist Brady Dennis’ 300 word stories that explore the unfiltered intimacy of the everyday, these pieces offer a glimpse into the untold experiences of college life.
In a classroom on the second floor of Upham Hall sit 10 students. They drum their fingers on desks, bob their heads and tap their feet while the song “Heading Out to the Highway” by Judas Priest plays. Instead of the regular sounds of muted lectures and shuffling students, the raw chords of the song reverberate throughout Upham’s hallways. At the front of the room, the music video dances across the whiteboard. This is what a meeting looks like for Miami’s heavy metal club known as the Newly Woken Organization Based on Heavy Metal (NWOBHM). The name is a nod to certain metal subgenres like NWOTHM (New Wave of Traditional Heavy Metal).
Drinks? Check. Music? Check. Local vendors and student entrepreneurs? Check. Wait, what?
I’ve always loved a ritual. Proms, bat mitzvahs, confirmations, swearing-in ceremonies, quinceañeras, masses, weddings, funerals. And graduations. Rituals help us take what is ordinary, what is necessary, and transform it into an event. A moment that helps us step out of our everyday selves to recognize that the momentous has happened. Now, it looks like the chance to pause and feel how momentous graduating is might be taken away.
Going off to college, my soon-to-be roommate was texting me, excitedly talking about future plans and how she couldn’t wait to get to Miami. It seemed like all my friends from home were the same way, counting down the days until they would leave for school. I was the complete opposite. I was terrified to leave the only place I had ever known to move 300 miles away and live with complete strangers. When my parents left me, I cried the entire walk from their car back to my dorm, before wiping my eyes and trying to pull myself together as I met the people I would be living with for the next year.
After a brief introduction, four dogs ran out onstage to blaring rock music, taking their places on four wooden crates in a line upstage. Dog-loving families had packed the seats of Hall Auditorium to see Mutts Gone Nuts, a traveling comedy dog show, at 7:30 p.m. last Friday. Founder Scott Houghton entered in a red velvet blazer, introducing the dogs to the audience. Their lead trainer, Samantha Valle, stood behind the mutts, directing the tricks and sneaking them treats from her pocket.
“The Wolves,” a one-act play by Sarah DeLappe, follows a girls indoor soccer team as they warm up before their game each week. The nine girls slide tackle big political questions and social topics with the energy and awareness of high school students. The cast consists of ten women: nine teammates identified by their jersey numbers and a soccer mom played by professor and Chair of Theatre department Julia Guichard.
Tucson DeShon drapes a white apron across a boy sitting in a dorm room desk chair. “What are we looking for today?” he asks. DeShon, a sophomore marketing major, started cutting hair during his junior year of high school. He’s a triplet, and one of his brothers, Turner, was tired of going to a barber to get his haircut.
Starting in the wee hours of March 19, Miami University students across Oxford will begin celebrating Green Beer Day (GBD), a “holiday” where students dress up in green clothing or wear shirts sporting pop culture references related in some way to drinking beer colored a ghastly shade of green.
Sunlight beams in through the large windows at the front of the living room as Robert Schonlau sits before the gleaming ivory keys. His face, reflected in the glossy black finish above the ivories, is contemplative and serene as he adjusts the large-rimmed glasses on his face. Back straight and feet reaching for the pedals, the 16-year-old pianist sets his fingers to the smooth keys.
Every year, a new wave of first-year students are invited into the realm of sisterhood. Through the four seemingly never-ending rounds of sorority rush, girls search for a place to call home. But this search does not end when they receive their bid. Through lunch and study dates, a week full of being spoiled with surprise gifts and the final big reveal, sorority pledges go on the search to find the person to guide them on this new journey of sisterhood.
The warm scent of chicken, dumplings and other homemade cuisine hung over the crowd of students packed into the Armstrong Student Center’s Fritz Pavilion. The aroma wound its way through the numerous booths set up throughout the room, wrapping itself around brightly colored paper decorations and ornate ceremonial garb.
There was a small gap between the floor and the edge of the back curtain on the stage of Leonard Theatre in Peabody Hall. Just a few minutes before 7 p.m., a line of heels paraded from one side of the stage to the other, stiletto clicks ringing clearly through the theatre.
Long, black capes, pointy hats and wands dashed every which way in a hurry to emerge victorious. The whistle of a flute filled the air and magic filled the room. The third-annual Triwizard Tournament was in session, and Miami University’s muggles ran around Armstrong Student Center in celebration.
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.”