Section 13 – The 2020s Irvin Hall’s Centennial: 1925-2025Miami University, Oxford, Ohio Home Previous Section Next Section
![BOARD OF TRUSTEES MINUTES - Continued
In order to ensure that all stakeholders’ interests and concerns were considered in the process, Dr. Barr set up meetings as follows:
[List of meeting dates and meeting personnel]
The Department of Classics expressed a set of priorities that they wanted considered as recommendations for a merger partner were made. They include:
1. Maintaining the integrity of their program, without interference in programming
2. Staying together as a group in order to ensure the integrity of their program
3. Maintaining their visibility as a discipline, including retaining Classics in the name of any merger partner
4. Consideration as a full partner within their new department and the opportunity to offer cross-listed courses
5. Maintaining Greek language courses
Additionally, concerns voiced included being asked to merge again in the future, should they be merged with another small department, and becoming the ‘service’ arm (offering more than their share of service courses) if merged with a larger department.
The Department of Classics underwent an Academic Program Review in November of 2018. The outcome of that review identified several areas of concern that the review team felt needed to be addressed. While the review team strongly recommended that the Department of Classics remain a standalone department, they also recognized the enormous challenge associated with resources (to replace faculty lines; take on additional curricular initiatives; recruit students). Recommendations were to streamline the curriculum, increase the number and diversity of majors, enhance experiential programs (study abroad, independent research), increase visibility on campus, and recruit incoming students. In spite of recommending the Department stay a stand-alone entity, the Dean’s office asked for two plans of action. Plan 1 was to continue as a stand-along entity. Plan 2 was a merger with another department amenable to such a plan. (The entire Program Review and the Dean’s Responses to the Review are found in Appendix B.)](https://sites.miamioh.edu/meyersde/files/2025/06/IRV100-339-1024x576.png)
![JOURNEYING TO GROSS PLACES: MIAMI’S BATHROOMS, REVIEWEDBy Connor Oviatt and Michael Pattee
Love and honor ’em, or hate ’em, we all have to use the public bathrooms that Miami University’s wonderful campus has to offer. But which ones should you go to often, and which ones should you stay away from? We went across campus to find the best (and scariest) latrines.
[…]
Most likely to have an awkward bro moment — Irvin Hall
This one goes without saying. All of the homies can understand our pain with this one. Even after removing the urinal on the far left, it just ain’t right.
[…]](https://sites.miamioh.edu/meyersde/files/2025/06/IRV100-348-1024x576.png)
![FALL ON MIAMI UNIVERSITY'S CAMPUS IN OXFORD, OHIO
Carter Skaggs
Photo Essay
October 8, 2023, 7:34pm ET
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Irvin Hall on Miami University’s campus houses the Interactive Resource Center and more on Wednesday, Oct. 4, 2023, at Miami University campus in Oxford, Ohio.
[…]](https://sites.miamioh.edu/meyersde/files/2025/06/IRV100-349-1024x576.png)
![WE NEED BETTER ACCESS TO PERIOD PRODUCTS. PERIOD.
By Meredith Perkins
In the College of Arts and Science, an academic division in which 65.8% of students are female, the closest thing to a period product in any academic building is typically an empty, rusting dispenser from the 1960s.
The dispenser charges a quarter for tampons that do not exist.
The machine is guarded by a hefty Master Lock, so students will not steal the tampons that … still do not exist.
You can go to Harrison Hall, Upham Hall, Irvin Hall and Bachelor Hall; you will see abandoned dispensers in each bathroom, standing as nothing more than landmarks of a Miami University from 50 years ago.
When nearly two-thirds of students in these academic buildings have periods, why do we lack period products in Miami’s older buildings — especially when other academic buildings on campus demonstrate better models?
[…]
In McGuffey Hall, where nearly 70% of students in the College of Education, Health, and Society are female, period products and other hygiene products are easily accessible. They sit in a basket on the bathroom counter.
This initiative began in 2020 with the Periods Rock! project, which aimed to raise awareness for menstrual hygiene and reproductive health initiatives on campus.
As someone who has been in the highly-stressful situation of starting a period without a period product on-hand — an experience 86% of people who menstruate have had — it was a relief to know I could walk to Armstrong to find a free period product.
Many buildings and departments at our university have done a great job providing menstrual hygiene products, but many more have subpar access.
At a university that is majority-female, we can’t fall to the standard of requiring students to walk across campus to get the products they need. Providing period products in all public restrooms is a low-cost solution that universally benefits the student body.
[…]](https://sites.miamioh.edu/meyersde/files/2025/06/IRV100-350-1024x576.png)
![MULTIPLE HUMANITIES DEPARTMENTS FACE CHANGES BUT SEE POSITIVE FUTURES - Continued
“Our students want more than one major and want a more customized constellation of different kinds of programs and credentials that are aligned to their personal and professional goals,” Haynes said.
[…]
In Irvin Hall, the Department of German, Russian, Asian, and Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures (GRAMELAC) has found a solution to a problem that both it and the French, Italian and Classical Studies department faces. The two departments submitted a plan to combine the majors that are currently offered into one major with multiple concentrations that will retain all faculty while teaching the same curriculum.
Even with the preservation of staff and classes, Mila Ganeva, GRAMELAC department chair, said issues come with combining multiple majors across a wide array of subjects.
“It is a challenge to maintain the brand of the individual majors that have been attractive to the students,” Ganeva said. “[The major] is going to be called a different name, but that doesn't mean that you're not going to study the things that you want to study.”
Within the changing state of higher education, Ganeva said a liberal arts education is important for everyone across campus.
“Miami is a liberal arts institution,” Ganeva said, “and our students, whether they major in engineering or computer science or health sciences or nursing or business, do need the humanities foundation for all kinds of ethical and humanistic choices they're going to do within their professional lives.”](https://sites.miamioh.edu/meyersde/files/2025/06/IRV100-352-1024x576.png)
