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Buckeye holiday primer

December 7, 2011

The university offers several means of support to students and employees during the
holiday season, from baking cookies to dealing with the effects of stress.

When the quarter ends, the cooking begins

Students who stay at OSU over the holidays bond through food

Don’t let stress “stress” you out

Ohio State’s Employee Assistance Program offers free, confidential help for employees who are coping with high levels of stress

Open wide those global gates

December 7, 2011

Ohio State’s China Gateway brings far corners of the world together

By Katy Ricchiuto

The world is becoming more flat. At least that’s what Chris Carey, director of Ohio State’s Global Gateways, believes.

And he’s not alone. In fact, Ohio State developed the concept of its international gateways based on this Thomas Friedman-esqe belief in an effort to become a more globalized university.

The idea of the Global Gateways began to take shape in 2009, when William Brustein, the new vice provost for Global Strategies and International Affairs, brought with him the global gateways strategy.

“Basically, the strategy is to set up a series of offices that function as embassies for Ohio State around the world to facilitate activities and be a portal between strategic regions and Columbus,” said Carey.

The first Gateway opened in China in 2010 with some big goals.

“We want to bring knowledge from our university to regions such as China. We want more faculty members to have research collaborations in China. We want to send more students to China for study abroad and internships because it is going to be much more of a strategic place in the global future,” Carey said. “We want to understand the culture, language and environmental and social issues of the country so that we have more well-rounded global thinkers at Ohio State. And we want to bring well-rounded students from China to our university in the US.”

Kevin Wu, an Ohio State MBA student, is one such student from China. After graduating from China’s Fudan University in 2008, he worked in a futures brokerage company for several years before applying to graduate school in the United States. He selected Fisher College of Business and is studying Marketing Strategy.

As a student from China, Wu believes the Gateway concept is essential to Ohio State’s globalization efforts. “Ohio State and Fisher are superb, but Ohio is not an area that many students in China are familiar with. So I do think it is crucial to have something like a China Gateway, because if people are more familiar with the Gateway, they are going to look into the university and realize what an excellent school it is.”

What’s more, the benefits of the China Gateway reach far beyond students’ experience while they attend Ohio State. “We have one of largest living alumni populations at Ohio State in China that has been somewhat forgotten,” said Carey. The Gateway helps to reconnect with alumni and to build networks across the world.

“The general culture in China is that we like to get together,” added Wu. “We like to find some common ground with each other. I attended a networking event that included everything from business students to top CEO’s. I got to know a lot of people, and that was something special, especially for people who had graduated from Ohio State. I would definitely utilize the Gateway as an alumni living back in China.”

As for Ohio State’s China Gateway and its goals in a globalized society, Carey thinks the lessons learned in the academic setting carry far outside the classroom. “Globalization makes the world a smaller place. It’s important to learn about other cultures, as we will undoubtedly have to work with them in the future. The Gateways are providing service to the university in trying to get members more engaged in these countries and learn how things are done there. There are some subtle and some not so subtle differences between cultures, and it’s beneficial for our students to learn these differences while in a university setting.”

The university also is applying its Gateway concept right here in Ohio. “As a public institute in the state of Ohio, we want to serve the greater needs of the state as well, so we’re helping Ohio-based businesses that want to establish a relationship in China, we’re helping to recruit students, to set up training programs for employees in China and to serve the local business community as a whole,” he said.

And Wu’s goals for after he finishes his degree embody that internationalization concept.

“My ideal job is to work for a company in the US where my function is to be a bridge that connects companies here that want to extend their business to China, to better help them understand the Chinese cultural background and market,” he said. “I do think in 20 years, China will be a huge force in the global market. So if you know their ways of thinking and culture, you can manage international business and develop other ways to do business.”

When the quarter ends, the cooking begins

December 7, 2011

Students who stay at OSU bond through food

By Adam King

Graduate student Huyen Nguyen gets homesick at this time of year, thinking about how she should be with all her family in Vietnam instead of immersed in her biophysics studies. This is her third consecutive December spent at Ohio State, but this year is harder since she had her newborn son in August, and he’s too young to travel on such a long flight to the other side of the hemisphere.

Her parents are in Columbus to help care for her son while she studies, but her younger sister and other relatives are still in Vietnam.

“We are very, very close,” Nguyen said. “That makes it so tough to live away from home during the holidays.”

But Nguyen refuses to let herself get all “bah humbug.” She enrolled in a cooking class — Party Appetizers on Dec. 8 — that the Ohio Union Activities Board established especially for graduate and professional students. A second class, Holiday Baking, is Dec. 15, and both are expected to be full.

OUAB Graduate/Professional advisor Kerry Hodak said it’s a new idea to offer programming after the quarter is over.

“I hope that these classes brighten the students’ day and they feel as though the university community values them,” Hodak said. “While they may not be able to participate in their regular holiday traditions, maybe these classes will provide them something fun and unique that makes them feel a little more at home.”

Nguyen said the classes are an opportunity to sample American holiday culture. She knows how to cook, but she’s never experienced baking. And it will be the first time she spent a holiday on campus doing an activity with students she doesn’t know.

“It gives the students a chance to get together and share joy, emotions and experiences during the holidays when they can’t do so with their family,” she said.

It’s a slightly different situation for Lindsey Higgins and Travis Walker, who both live stateside and are planning to head home the week of Christmas. But the instructional classes give them an excuse to connect to the broader OSU community since they usually have their blinders on during their studies.

Walker, who is taking the baking class, works with smart materials in mechanical engineering, so he already enjoys making things. He’s attempted some recipes on his own with good success (though he admits his first cake fell apart).

“I’ve discovered that building something out of wood or putting together the ingredients to make a delicious dish are very similar,” he said. “It’s often easier to go with baking and cooking since I lack many of the tools needed for construction projects. I also enjoy learning new things, so anytime I get a chance to learn a new skill or something, I like to take that opportunity.

“This is a good event for OSU to provide. It gives students something to do with their time since there are no classes and they are still here in town. It is another chance to get out of the house or lab and stay involved in the learning process outside of school.”

Higgins, who will be continuing her research in geography and climatology, is enrolled in both classes and has taken previous cooking demos.

“I like to think that I am a good cook, but I definitely have my moments where experimentation does not pay off,” she said.  “The chefs teach basic ideas that make cooking at home a lot easier and more enjoyable. It also is a great venue to try different types of food. When I was younger, my family would get together to bake and decorate holiday cookies. Taking this baking class brings me back to that feeling.”

For graduate and professional students, OUAB focuses on three areas of programming. The cooking classes fall under Social (fitness classes, happy hours, quiz nights), and there also are activities for Professional Development (interviewing, job search, resume writing) and Family (films, pumpkin painting).

Chef Roger Garland will lead the baking class, with such mouth-watering lessons in how to prepare chocolate ganache-dipped strawberries, baked apple filled with rice custard, pumpkin and hazelnut bread pudding, chocolate peppermint bark, gingerbread cookies and homemade eggnog.

“The December classes are designed to help students as they host each other for holiday or end-of-term parties,” Hodak said. “And with the popularity of cooking shows on television, the interest in local and sustainable food and the economy of cooking at home, cooking classes are a great fit. Students learn new cooking and baking techniques and leave each class with the recipes for all of the items on the menu.”

Walker said having classes like this bring the large scale of OSU down to an individual level.

“I came from a small school in high school, so I was a little unsure of what to expect from such a large school,” he said. “I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to find a place to fit in and get involved in something that meant something to me.”

Mission: American culture

December 7, 2011

OSU’s center at Wuhan University builds understanding of US

By Adam King

It was a sight to see, once-demure Chinese women screaming at the top of their lungs as they thrust the heel of their hand toward a mythical assailant’s nose, with the hope of breaking it.

Instructor Brieanne Billman smiled, recalling just how much work it took to get her students from Wuhan University, Ohio State’s sister institution, to yell during the self-defense exercises. Raising one’s voice is supremely out of character for the Chinese, but once she convinced them it was absolutely necessary, they responded with gusto.

“They were really loud,” said Billman, the coordinator for Sexual Violence and Education Support at OSU’s Student Wellness Center. It was one of the more memorable moments during her month-long teaching excursion in China.

Billman’s summer visit to Wuhan, her second, was the latest exchange between the universities, which became sister schools in 1981. Since 2004, the universities have been sending delegations back and forth to reinforce their memorandum of understanding, which outlines the relationship.

But that relationship got a boost this year when the US State Department, seeing the success of Ohio State’s management of the Wuhan University Summer Intensive English Program (WUSIEP), awarded OSU $100,000 to establish a Center for American Culture.

“The Center for American Culture is another step in the right direction for Ohio State in terms of our engagement in global initiatives,” said Vice Provost for Global Strategies and International Affairs William Brustein. “The value of teaching global perspectives to the next generation is an invaluable asset and better prepares students for a myriad of opportunities that may arise.”

At the CAC, students, faculty, staff and members of the WHU community will learn what it means to be American from Americans with a wide range of ages, backgrounds and experiences. Overall, the State Department awarded $1 million to 10 US institutions to establish CACs or programs in China. Ohio State’s CAC will open next September.

“The reason the State Department places such value on this exchange is they see the fate and destiny of our two nations wrapped up together, and they want us to understand each other,” said Bob Eckhart, who directs the OSU-Wuhan University Center for American Culture.

Mostly it has been Hollywood’s version of America that has influenced Chinese students’ interpretation of US culture. Many Chinese use American media as a way to supplement their English lessons. For example, some Wuhan students have watched episodes of the sitcom “Friends” over and over, and they asked Eckhart to explain lines they had memorized from the show and didn’t understand.

“It’s minute, analytical and a mystery to them, and they’re trying to decode it,” Eckhart said. “American culture can be a mystery to Americans too, so we’re just trying to give them tools to understand and a critical thinking framework. They have even less of a reflective framework in China, so they learn about their culture too. They’re fascinated about the littlest details of how we dress, and how we think.”

The CAC, however, also is excellent for teaching OSU how Chinese students learn. With 130,000 Chinese attending US universities, including more than 2,800 at Ohio State (a number that has grown significantly in just the last five years), understanding their classroom behavior is becoming a requirement.

Allen Coleman, the digital media and instructional technology coordinator for the College of the Arts and Sciences, has taught twice at Wuhan. Unlike their American counterparts who are eager for class participation, Chinese students, he said, don’t speak out when a question is asked.

“What’s interesting is the Chinese already have that critical thinking and independent thought, but the academic environment there doesn’t encourage that,” Coleman said. “That’s what we changed and we gave them the opportunity to practice sharing that.”

In the WUSIEP,  students rotated during the day between instructors, who were recruited from all over the US. They touched on 10 cultural themes (music, sports, food, business, family, etc.), and each classroom was decorated to match the theme.

In the media and technology classroom, one of the lessons was about Facebook. Because that site is blocked in China, the instructors put up paper “walls” for each student to demonstrate how it worked. Students wrote out their profiles, could go to other students’ walls to make friend requests and write status updates.

“Some students who would friend each other had never met in person,” Coleman said. “And they couldn’t post until that person accepted their request. It was a lot of fun and a way to bring that to life.”

Eckhart said he wants faculty and staff to send him new ideas on what to teach, and it could mean a trip to China for those who submit them. The grant money already is going to fund instructors from English, Education, Law and Comparative Studies in 2012, to host seven study abroad graduate students from the Higher Education/Student Affairs program and possibly promote a partnership with OSU’s Historic Costume and Textiles Collection.

“So many faculty and staff have an interest in China, and our sister school is a great place for them to make inroads,” Eckhart said.

Did you know…?

Wuhan University has become one of China’s top 10 higher-learning institutions, with a student population nearly as big as Ohio State’s.

“The only thing they don’t have that we do is a football team,” said Bob Eckhart, the director of the Ohio State-Wuhan Center for American Culture.

Wuhan also has the political sway to make connections for OSU as Ohio State builds its China Gateway.

“Not only have our faculty and students benefited from the relationship with Wuhan University, our ability to secure meetings with top Chinese officials owes much to the intervention of our friends at Wuhan,” said Vice Provost William Brustein.

Yung-Chen Lu, an OSU emeritus professor of Mathematics who was born in Wuhan, was one of those who helped initiate the sister-school relationship in 1981.

Don’t let stress “stress” you out

December 7, 2011

By Julia Harris

Robert Meier knows a thing or two about stress. As director of Ohio State’s Employee Assistance Program (EAP), he sees scores of people who are struggling with stress — the real, physiological symptoms of stress — and that number is only going up. It’s not surprising when you think about the times in which we live: Economic upheaval; outbreaks of disease; hurricanes and tsunamis and other natural disasters; political firestorms and military conflict.

“We are really in a period of time when stress is coming at us so fast, we’re not physiologically equipped to deal with it,” Meier said. “We have to help people recognize that stress is not some imaginary thing: It’s real, and it hits home.”

And it hits home especially hard right around the holidays, Meier noted, when people are busy running around making, doing, buying — in gray, wet Ohio weather that can depress even the most sunny of dispositions. People tend to neglect their health, ignore their symptoms of distress, so that when January hits and the long stretch of winter settles in and all the stressors catch up with them, suddenly life is overwhelming.

That’s where Meier and his staff at the EAP, a service for benefits-eligible faculty, staff and dependents, can help. “What we try to do is help people understand the physiological effects of stress inside a human body,” he said. “It affects all the organ systems, including the brain, so that our higher functions — the ability to remember, focus, think clearly — start to erode and you start living on emotions and instincts.”

Other symptoms of out-of-control stress are chronic sleeplessness and changes in appetite. “If you don’t manage your stress, your stress manages you,” Meier said. “We provide techniques to help mitigate those physical effects, like meditation, deep breathing and relaxation, guided imagery.

Part of Your Plan for Health, the EAP offers five complimentary face-to-face or phone counseling sessions per plan year, either with one of the three internal counselors or an external provider. In addition, EAP recently partnered with IMPACT Solutions — an Ohio-based behavioral healthcare consulting firm — to expand its statewide network of licensed professionals who are immediately accessible, all day, every day.

“Two of our selling points are confidentiality and the promptness with which we can get people in,” Meier said. “If you have a crisis, you don’t need an appointment three weeks from tomorrow. You can’t plan six weeks ahead for things to go wrong.”

That was a major draw for Dave Donley, scholarship program manager for the College of Engineering, who says he was impressed and grateful that Meier was able to schedule a session the very day Donley called. “I called at 10, he called me back at 11:30 and I saw him at around 4 that day,” he recalled.

Donley, who sought assistance because of a long bout with depression, says he began to feel better from the very first meeting with Meier. He learned about some coping mechanisms that might work — such as taking vitamins, using a reduced dose of a sleeping medication to help him get more than three hours of sleep per night and choosing which forms of exercise would be best for helping him manage his stress.

“Tennis is good because you have to work really hard at focusing and you don’t have time to sit and ruminate,” Donley said. “That made a lot of sense.”

“One of the things that really impressed me was his scientific approach to dealing with stress issues,” Donley added. “My dad was a scientist, and I was taught if you don’t have data and can’t quantify it, you just better keep quiet.”

Donley hopes that by talking about his own experience with EAP, the Ohio State community will become more aware of the services that are available to them and also overcome any sense of stigma they may feel about seeking help.

“I think most people nowadays have either been in therapy or should be,” he said with a laugh. “I just know that within two weeks, my wife was telling me how much better I looked, and I was getting seven or eight hours of sleep a night. I’m still not ‘normal’ — but who is?”

Did you know…

To learn more about all the services provided by the Employee Assistance Program, see their expanded website at osuhealthplan.com/OhioStateEAP.

Shirts for scholarships

December 7, 2011

Revenue from the sale of OSU-licensed gear goes to enrich the lives of students, from research aids to programming and tuition help

By Jeff McCallister

That Ohio State football jersey your daughter’s wearing to school today means another scholarship for a deserving Buckeye scholar or athlete tomorrow.

Or a new collection for the library.

Or programming in the Office of Student Life.

Continue reading ‘Shirts for scholarships’

Pulling all the right strings

December 7, 2011

Wenda Williamson makes celestial music in her free time

By Julia Harris

Wenda Williamson, a two-year employee with the Office of Development, may not be an angel, but she sure can play the harp like one. Her particular instrument, however, isn’t quite like the sweet little winged harps you see in most holiday cards.

No, Williamson’s harp is cherry red, tall as a 10-year-old child and electrified like a hard-rock guitar. It bristles with pick-ups and power; plugged in, it produces sounds that are simultaneously sublime and jagged and complex. Sounds that make hairs rise on the back of your arms and neck in an aesthetic shiver.

“Playing the harp is very ethereal and freeing,” says Williamson in her Clintonville home, her bare feet tucked beneath her on the couch. “It’s very fluid.”

It’s also a mystical gift, she says, telling a story about a great-grandfather in England who was self-taught on the harp and played it devotedly until his spiteful wife took an axe to it and splintered it to bits. “It’s like his soul has been floating around waiting to gift this ability to someone,” she says, smiling.

Whatever the origin of her musical ability, Williamson’s love of the harp traces back to high school, when she encountered an acoustic harp in an unlocked closet in her high school band room.  She “noodled around with it” a few times after school and discovered she had some talent with improvisation. But it wasn’t until her freshman year in college, when she went to a concert and witnessed a performance by a professional harpist, that she knew she’d found her calling.

“The orchestra had started playing, everything was going along and all of a sudden a harpist dashed in, wheeled his harp in and plunked it down, got a bench and plunked that down, then flipped his coattails out, sat down and played — right on cue,” she recalls.

“That got my attention. Plus he played so beautifully, I came out of that concert knowing I had to learn to play the harp.”

So, with a surety that surprises her today, she dropped out of Earlham College — a small and expensive liberal arts school in Indiana — and enrolled in Ohio University as a harp major.

At that time, there was no such thing as electric harps, so Williamson went through school playing her acoustic harp in the orchestra, writing and performing her own songs.

It wasn’t until she went to a performance by Austrian harpist Andreas Vollenweider, who was playing his own version of an electro-acoustic harp, that she decided to experiment on her own.

“The first thing I wanted to do was make a midi harp, which basically is a harp with a digital interface that would make it sound like a cello or an electric guitar or even a brass instrument,” she says.

She moved from that to a fully electric harp that she built herself, on which she made a recording of Tom Petty’s “Face in the Crowd.” In her house she has a tiny recording studio, where she can play at the window and film the movement of her fingers across the harp strings.

Williamson estimates that she has written anywhere from 500 to 600 of her own pieces, including what she terms a “comic book music video” based on a cartoon series of her own creation. A Nasvhille trip is in the works, where she has plans to record a few of those songs; the dream, she says, is to get some of them published.

“In my wildest dreams, this Nashville trip will net me a publishing contract, but I’m not naive,” she says. “I don’t think I can have a music career for myself at this point in my life, but I do think it’s possible that I could sell a song, have another artist record it and then make royalties from it.”

Right now, her dreams are fairly modest. “I like doing weddings,” she says. “I’d like to play with a drummer and a bass player, maybe play some hotel bars and lobbies… And I kind of want to focus on recording.”

For more info…

Meyer brings record of success

December 7, 2011

Urban Meyer, who has the 10th-highest winning percentage among NCAA head coaches all-time, has been named to head football coach at Ohio State, ending (and confirming) weeks of rumor and speculation.

He returns to the institution from which he earned his master’s degree and where he began his collegiate coaching career.

“In Urban Meyer we have found an exemplary person and remarkable coach to lead the university’s football program into the future,” said Ohio State President Gordon Gee. “As an alumnus, he understands and believes in the core academic mission of the university. As an Ohioan, he shares our common values and sense of purpose.”

Gene Smith, Ohio State’s director of athletics and associate vice president, said that Meyer is “known not only as one of the nation’s most successful coaches, but also as a leader and mentor who cares deeply about the young men who are his student-athletes. He brings with him an understanding of the university — both the important traditions of its football program and the excellence of the institution.”

Meyer has 20 years of football coaching experience, most recently serving as head coach at the University of Florida from 2005 to 2010.

Under his leadership, the Florida Gators won two BCS National Championships (2006, 2008). He has received numerous awards, including Coach of the Decade from both Sports Illustrated and The Sporting News (2009). While at the University of Florida, Meyer helped lead an effort to raise $50 million for scholarships for first-generation college students.

“I am honored and humbled by the opportunity to return to Ohio State,” said Meyer. “This university and the state of Ohio have enormous meaning to me. My duty is to ensure that Ohio State’s football program reflects and enhances the academic mission of the institution. I am part of it, I believe in it and I will live it.”

Prior to becoming head coach at Florida, Meyer was head coach at both the University of Utah and Bowling Green State University. He has amassed a record of 104 wins and 23 losses, and his teams won four conference titles. Meyer has been national coach of the year three times.

Meyer’s first collegiate coaching position was as a graduate assistant at Ohio State, from which he earned his master’s degree in sports administration.

Meyer assumes his position effective immediately.

Luke Fickell, who has served as Ohio State’s head football coach since May, will continue to serve as the current team’s head coach through the Jan. 2 Gator Bowl. He will remain on Meyer’s staff thereafter.

“I want to express my enormous gratitude to Luke Fickell,” Smith said. “During the past several months, he has demonstrated true leadership and devotion to the university and his players. He will continue to be a great asset to our program.”

CASE places onCampus among best internal pubs in midwest region

December 7, 2011

onCampus, Ohio State’s faculty/staff newspaper, has won a bronze award in the Best Tabloid/Newsletter for Internal Audience category in the Council for Advancement and Support of Education Region V awards program.

Purdue Today won the silver award, and no gold, first-place award was presented in the category.

“It’s always nice to earn the recognition of your peers, to get that affirmation that you’re doing something right,” said Jeff McCallister, onCampus editor. “Obviously, we’re even more proud of the fact that Ohio State’s faculty and staff continue to turn to us either in print or online as the go-to source for the information they need.”

CASE V represents universities and colleges in a six-state area that includes Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Minnesota and Wisconsin.

In its 41st year of publication, onCampus publishes 26,350 issues 21 times a year. The paper is delivered through the campus-mail system to 16,915 faculty/staff and 4,475 graduate students who work for the university, and also is distributed at 81 building locations on and off campus.

The Ohio State Alumni Association won a gold award in the Best Student Alumni Programming category in the CASE V awards for its student outreach efforts through the new Ohio Union.

The awards will be presented at the CASE V District conference Dec. 11-13 in Chicago.

Buckeyes set to go bowling in Sunshine State

December 7, 2011

Tickets went on sale Dec. 5 to see the Ohio State Buckeyes play against the Florida Gators in the 2012 TaxSlayer.com Gator Bowl.

The game will kick off at 1 p.m. Jan. 2 at EverBank Field in Jacksonville, Fla., home of the NFL’s Jacksonville Jaguars. It will be televised nationally on ESPN2. University offices will be closed that day for the New Year’s Day holiday.

“The guys will be extremely excited about playing Florida in the Gator Bowl on Jan. 2,” Ohio State coach Luke Fickell said. “We are hoping to end the season on a good note.”

Both Ohio State and Florida finished the regular season with 6-6 records. Ohio State posted a 3-5 Big Ten Conference Leaders Division record while Florida’s mark included a 3-5 record in the SEC Eastern Division. The game also will be a chance for each team to move on and rebound from a season-ending loss to their rival. Ohio State fell on the road to Michigan, 40-34, Nov. 26, the same day that Florida dropped a 21-7 decision to Florida State in Gainesville.

“I am excited that the team is going to a bowl game and to have one more chance to win another game as a Buckeye,” senior linebacker Andrew Sweat said. “We’ll be ready to get back to practice later this week.”

And for Ohio State senior center Mike Brewster, his last game as a Buckeye will be in his home state.

“I am happy the way the bowl game worked out,” Brewster said. “If we couldn’t be in a BCS game, I like the fact that we are playing against a program like Florida that has a rich tradition like Ohio State does. And I like it that I’ll be playing my last game in my home state in front of friends and family.”

Tickets are available for the game with prices starting at $60, plus applicable service charges. Fans interested in purchasing tickets can do so online at go.osu.edu/2012GatorBowlTix. Every seat at the stadium includes a chair-back, and the average daily high is 65 degrees.

Ohio State and Florida have met only once before on the gridiron, and that meeting was significant.

The game was the 2007 BCS National Championship game in Glendale, Ariz., and the No. 2 Gators, coached by Urban Meyer, defeated the No. 1-ranked Buckeyes 41-14 to claim the national title. It was the first of two national championships over a three-year period for Meyer’s program.

Ohio State has played in a bowl game every year since last missing out in 1999, an official streak of 11 consecutive bowl appearances.

Fickell thinks his 6-6 team deserves the opportunity to play.

“These guys deserve this bowl game,” Fickell said. “All they’ve been through … they deserve this.”

Ohio State has played in one Gator Bowl. It was the 1978 game between Ohio State and Clemson, won by the Tigers, 17-15. It was the last game coached by Woody Hayes, something that Fickell is very much aware.

“We’d like to put a completely different spin on Ohio State’s Gator Bowl history,” Fickell said.

Ohio State has nine players on its current roster from the state of Florida. The list includes Brewster (a senior center from Orlando, as well as senior quarterback Joe Bauserman (Tallahassee); junior linebacker Etienne Sabino (North Miami Beach); junior safety Orhian Johnson (St. Petersburg); junior cornerback Travis Howard (Miami); sophomore running back Carlos Hyde (Naples); freshman linebacker Ryan Shazier and freshman defensive back Jeremy Cash (both from Plantation); and freshman tight end Jeff Heuerman (Naples).

Fickell is in his first season as a head coach and will stay on the Ohio State coaching staff following the bowl game when Meyer takes over. Will Muschamp is in his first season as Florida coach.

“I’ve known Will for a few years,” Fickell said. “He’s had some ups and downs as well (this year) … probably why we are having a similar season record-wise.”

Ohio State officials traditionally organize a day of service as part of any bowl trip. Details, when available, will be posted at oncampus.osu.edu.

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