Co-op housing hits the mainstream
Editorial
Move over hippies, it looks like cooperative housing is going mainstream.The idea of allowing students to become co-owners of the properties in which they live, while seemingly a common sense sort of good idea, has never really taken hold at OSU. However, a new initiative joining Campus Partners, Buckeye Cooperative and students themselves is reportedly gaining greater acceptance within the university community. No longer will community-living be strictly the province of sixties holdovers and the unwashed masses of Phish fans. Now any students interested in taking greater control over their homes will finally have a viable alternative to the often times exhausting Columbus rental companies.Just call it a good idea whose time has finally come.If cooperative housing does indeed become a reality at OSU, the potential benefits for the university and surrounding community are both real and exciting. Not only is this a cheaper housing alternative, it seems intuitively obvious to us that when students have an actual vested interest – read: co-ownership – in the maintenance and upkeep of their homes, this can only result in an accompanying improvement in the overall look and feel of the neighborhood. Because co-op house members will be responsible for cleaning, repairing, and painting their homes, if they don’t do it, it doesn’t get done. And woe to the errant drunk who decides to take it upon himself to leave his mark upon our co-op friends’ home. He’s liable to find out just what it means to take pride in one’s work. We wish the project the best of luck and look forward to having co-op houses in our neighborhood.Lord knows they can’t be any worse than the neighbors we’ve got now.
State of the State a whole lot of puffery
Editorial
A few hundred years ago Galileo was convicted of heresy when he refused to recant his scientifically-based belief that, contrary to Church doctrine, we lived in a heliocentric solar system. Turned out he was right. The Earth does indeed revolve around the Sun. Good for Galileo.So forgive us if we choose to remind Gov. George V. Voinovich that, contrary to what he apparently believes, the issue the whole of Ohio is revolving around concerns not the programs the governor wants to take credit for, but rather just how we’re going to find the money to more fairly fund our public schools. Unfortunately, what Voinovich delivered yesterday was more puffery, reiterating all the wonderful progress he’d made in the area of school funding since 1991. Hmmm, anyone looking to make a bid for the U.S. Senate anytime soon?Tuesday’s State of the State address relegated what was on everyone’s minds to little more than an afterthought, a blurb in a mostly self-congratulatory speech. And while we’re fully aware that higher education in general – and OSU in particular – are not the most pressing items facing Ohio today, it’s still bewildering when the Governor writes off your entire existence with some inane remark about the “harder-smarter, more-with-less” movement.Really, what the hell does that mean? It’s no secret that the Governor has a more or less open disdain for funding higher education, but it seems that his feelings have bled into other aspects of Ohio’s educational system. If Voinovich wants to ignore Ohio’s universities, fine. But failing to take a leadership role on the school funding debate is inexcusable.Some might even say heretical.
