Celebrating 200 Years

Opinion-Columns


Grubhub robots sit lined up outside Bell Tower Commons.
OPINION

What we can learn from Grubhub robots

"Grubhub robots, the colloquial name for Starship delivery units, are no different and have unintentionally become a part of campus culture at Miami University. But what lessons can we take away from Grubhub robots other than food?"


A Starbucks employee adds another drink to an full pickup counter.
OPINION

A bitter ‘first sip feeling’

"Even if you are not a consumer of Starbucks coffee, this is a reality check to think twice about the corporations you support and the greater implications this has on the world around you. Our culture of consumption has led to disassociation and neglect of what is happening in the world around us."


OPINION

Ohio can’t afford a patchwork of gun laws

"Fragmented local gun laws may feel empowering to city leaders, but they create confusion for residents, extra burdens for law enforcement and instability for the courts. Most importantly, they threaten to turn fundamental rights into privileges that vary by zip code."


Designed by university architect emeritus Robert Keller, the Tribute acknowledges nearly 8,000 alumni who have served and 279 killed in action or missing in action.
OPINION

Ohio's unknown soldiers

"I shared with Gary some of my Vietnam story with the 101st Airborne Division in 1969 and 1970, and I then asked him to share some of his WWII experiences. He disappeared into another room and came back and sat down with a manuscript."


A student retrieves their food from the ghost kitchen at Bell Tower.
OPINION

Bell Tower is a dystopian nightmare

"GrubHub is completely distanced from the user and does not provide any direct methods of remediating an issue. Have a problem with an order? You can’t talk to a cashier, but you can report an issue in the app; maybe a chatbot or worker in a third-world country will get back to you."


OPINION

The gift of guilt

"We’ve gotten good at not finding peace, but constructing illusions of it. We push out regret, sadness and uncertainty, but they don’t go away. Every emotion, no matter how nuanced or uncomfortable, exists for a reason, and therein lies a lesson to be learned."


Starship is a 400-foot-tall, stainless steel, Mars rocket made by SpaceX. Photo by Steve Jurvetson.
OPINION

The unavoidable politicization in modern space exploration

"I was fascinated by the company and dreamed of one day working there, helping to build that interplanetary future that it promised. But, as years passed, cracks began to show. While SpaceX has remained fairly apolitical and out of the spotlight, it became caught up in the absolute mess that was its founder, Elon Musk."


The Oxford Lane Library is in close proximity to campus.
OPINION

Restoring the magic: Why our public libraries should not be defunded

"Libraries are a vital public service and play an important role in education. They offer free and easily accessible learning opportunities to the public, and they allow people who do not have the privilege of receiving adequate education or educational resources to find such opportunities in one place, for little to no cost."


Liz Wilson teaching a religion course, one of the several majors targeted by Miami University.
OPINION

Miami: You’re a liberal arts college, not a polytechnic institute

"The new system changes how funding for departments is calculated. Now, 40% of instructional revenue will be given to a student's primary major, a large increase from the 25% set aside previously. This means that a department will get far less funding for offering courses to students from other majors, emphasizing ones that mostly offer courses to its own students and punishing ones that participate heavily in the Miami Plan."


OPINION

We aren’t bored enough: Doomscrolling is outdating hobbies

"The option to continually swipe after two seconds of disengagement feeds and affirms the catalytic nature of boredom: anything that is slower and quieter is automatically correlated to what the mind recognizes as a type of harm to the mind and in need of relief. Even if cognitively, we want to enjoy our hobbies, we just can’t."


(from left to right) Hailey Boye, Kenzi Perkins and Kira Boye pose in Uptown with the flowers and coffees they bought from the weekly Oxford Farmers Market. Photo provided by Kenzi Perkins.
OPINION

What is the college experience, really?

"A lot of their plans included going out to the bars Uptown or checking out parties, so I was a little bummed. I wanted to have fun like the others around me, but my idea of fun looked different from theirs. I decided to take matters into my own hands and find my own version of the college experience."

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