Daily Beast reporting. Not sure where else it's covered, but this is pretty shameful, if true.


Https://www.thedailybeast.com/ohio-university-enabled-cop... /

Shameful, yes. This is from 2005-06, which is interesting in terms of the timing of this reporting, given that the perpetrator was fired from OUPD.

Yes very shameful. I remember the news stories about this at the time, and that there were less than straightforward answers as to why the university took so long to take action. If memory serves, there was a good deal of internal fighting within the university that prevent those that wanted to fire him summarily from doing so. I do not remember much of the details.

So I talked with my parents in Akron (Ellet) today. They are 90 and 85 and they wanted to know "what is going on down at Ohio U?" Their question was in relation to something that they had heard on the radio (remember those?). I explained the whole thing about hazing with special emphasis on the death last year (actually made the point four times). Anyway, we are taking a huge beating right now and no one seems to be at the helm of the ship.

And on the flipside, while watching the Nationals the last 9 nights, I saw this ad for an Ohio college.

https://www.ispot.tv/ad/oQW7/ohio-northern-university-the...

Awful. Horrifying.

I'm not sure I understand. Nobody seems to be at the helm of the ship because of a lawsuit filed based on terrible leadership 20 years ago?

Honestly, this seems like a weird thread to choose to complain about a perceived PR hit due to the hazing suspensions. Then again, I guess I would have expected a whole lot more of the anger towards the University that was so evident in the hazing thread in this one. So what do I know?

www.thepostathens.com/article/2019/10/lawsuit-2005-minor-...

Due to being on the receiving end of a lot of questions like the one Alan describes, I've become a bit obsessed with how OU is perceived compared to OSU and other schools in this state. I find it fascinating. As for OSU, in the past few years they suspended all fraternities, fired the band director, had two students murdered, lost an age discrimination law suit, have a horrifying decades long sexual assault scandal.... I mentioned this to a friend from Columbus and he sent me OSU's daily crime log web site. Goodness what a read. So I started an experiment where I asked OSU fans/alums "Jeesh, what's doing on there? It seems to be a mess." They looked at me like I was insane. They would ask what I was talking about. I'd say "well all the scandals and crimes and assaults and etc." And, they looked at me like I was even more insane. Oh well.... It is what it is I guess. I assume the new marketing and enrollment management folks at OU will be flooding the state with a new campaign this year. I sure hope it works. We need some positive mojo.

It's all related my man - and it's all negative PR. Having worked in hundreds of public high schools for over 35 years and heard again and again "my parents won't let me got there" in regards to attending OU, these sort of things taken together only serve to deepen that negative perception of OU.

69 mentions the new marketing folks and a campaign. It seems that they are using the tag line "Like a Bobcat" as in "Give Like a Bobcat" or "Who Wants to Be a Bobcat?" What exactly does that mean and what are the characteristics of a Bobcat?

I mean, I guess it's related? It's related because very broadly it's news and contributes to public perception and it's related because you view both of these incidents as negative press.

But beyond that? These two things are not at all alike. One is something every member of the Ohio University community should be furious about. The other was a temporary suspension of a few campus organizations.

I maintain that it's a very weird reaction to lump these things together and to consider this only from a PR standpoint seems to lack humanity. That the hazing thread includes multiple calls for resignation, insistence that it's a "disgrace" and that the University is in a sad state, but that here some of those same folks are mostly concerned with optics just feels off.