That’s according to a new report from the Cincinnati Enquirer. The paper reports Ohio’s dropout rate jumped from 3.1 percent to 4.2 percent in 2008-2009 alone.

States aren’t required to have comprehensive policies to cut their dropout rates, and Ohio is among the majority of states that don’t have such policies.

Governor John Kasich wants to combat the drop out rate by holding students back if they can’t pass reading tests by the end of third grade.

OSU formed the committee after several incidents of hate crimes were reported on its campus, including the words “Long Live Zimmerman” spray painted on the side of OSU’s black multicultural student center. The recommendations aim to increase diversity and inclusion on campus.

Short- and Long-term goals

In the short term the panel recommends more discussions about diversity and a help line where students can report hate crimes. In the long term they want the university to provide financial aid to students from underrepresented populations and increase recruitment of minority faculty.

OSU’s Vice President for Student Life Javaune Adams-Gaston says the committee was created out of student demand, and many of the goals of the task force were inspired by students.

“Much of the work that the task force did was student inspired, student supported, student researched,” Adams-Gatson said.

One of the goals of the panel has already been accomplished, the creation of an email alert system for hate crimes.

But the Columbus Division of Police and OSU Police continue to struggle over a mutual aid agreement to police one of the most densely-packed neighborhoods in the nation.

The University District

The neighborhood east of High Street is, for all intents and purposes, an extension of the OSU campus. The vast majority of residents are OSU students, crammed into apartment buildings and fraternity houses.

But it’s not officially part of the OSU campus, so OSU Police officers cannot patrol the area, or even cross the street to help.

“The students themselves asked ‘why couldn’t university police officers patrol their neighborhoods,’” Denton said.

At least part of the reason is an agreement with the union representing Columbus police officer.

Aging Agreement Between Columbus and OSU

Most of the University District lies in the jurisdiction of the Columbus Division of Police. The basic rules: OSU police patrol campus property and buildings, and Columbus police patrol the area around campus.

Neither can operate independently on the other’s turf.

But the two agencies do corporate under a mutual aid agreement put in place in 1992.

“They can ask us to help them, we can ask them to help us,” says Columbus Police Commander Terry Moore. “But it doesn’t go beyond that. They don’t have jurisdiction to act independently in the city of Columbus.”

The mutual aid agreement has not been updated in 20 years, and OSU Police Chief Denton says it needs to be.

OSU Cops Want To Help

Denton says the increased awareness in crime has raised concerns among parents, students and staff. He wants to give OSU officers authority to patrol streets just off campus.

He says an increased police presence would help drive down crime.

“So anything that we can do to respond, to assist, to support Columbus police, to support the students, I think would have value in that regard.”

Denton says the patrols would help reduce crime, but Commander Moore says there is no evidence to support that claim.

“To speculate and say that more officers in a given area is going to have a specific effect is something that you can’t…you can’t say that specifically.”

Denton says OSU Police already has open ended mutual aid agreements with 3 neighboring police departments,Upper Arlington, Bexley and Clinton township.

“When I look across the state of Ohio, and the country I see examples of mutual aid agreements and jurisdictional agreements between campus agencies and their city counterparts that are very broad and open ended,” Denton says.

And Denton stresses OSU property would remain his officers main priority.

“Primarily, we want our officers to patrol campus and university property first and foremost, which means residence halls, academic areas, our facilities, the medical center. All of those are where our officers should be deployed first and foremost.”

Union Rules Block Expansion

CPD Commander Moore says in order to establish an expanded mutual aid agreement between the two departments, it would have to serve four purposes.

“It benefits OSU it benefits the City of Columbus, and it benefits the residents. And then the officers that work for both agencies,” Moore says.

The city of Columbus, the mayor’s office, OSU Police and Columbus Police have been in talks for quite sometime now, but Denton says the time frame for establishing joint jurisdiction is undefined.

“I really cant give you a time frame, there are very complex legal, contractual issues, operational issues that we have to still work through and discuss, and formalize in some respect.”

By contractual issues, Denton means Columbus Police currently has a union contract with the Fraternal Order of Police that does not allow the city to contract out any police work to other agencies.

One potential hold up is deciding whether allowing OSU poice cars to assist in the off-campus area violates the contract out clause. While Columbus Police works through revising its contract with the Fraternal Order of Police it might be quite sometime, if ever, before OSU Police cars can cross high Street in an effort to help students.

Click the play button above to hear the legal group’s strategy.

The university is, until the end of May, accepting bids from companies interested in leasing out OSU’s massive parking operations.

Almost immediately after trustees announced last year they were exploring parking privatization, students started voicing concerns about predatory ticket writers and sky-rocketing parking fees.

In a recent faculty survey, 92 percent voted against privatization.

OSU Undergraduate Student Government President Nick Messenger also sits on the committee looking at privatizing parking. He says any lease would have built-in safe guards.

“There are a lot of rules and stipulations that would be put in place legally to prevent a private operator from coming in and just gouging students and faculty with ridiculous rate increases,” Messenger says.

OSU President Gordon Gee says the school would not accept a bid under $375 million, and Messenger thinks it could be in the half billion dollars range.

The plan has been approved by the board of the State Teachers Retirement System, which has 470,000 members. It’s up for consideration by lawmakers who would need to sign off on it.

The plan is aimed at saving $13 billion in accrued liabilities. It’s the fourth package of its kind sent to lawmakers since 2009.

It would reduce cost-of-living raises in pension checks and provide retirees with no increase in the 2013 fiscal year.

A spokesman for the retirement system says not everyone will be happy but that it’s in the best interest of participants to help ensure the system remains solvent.

The Athens Messenger reports the move came Friday after trustees heard from an OU committee studying the best ways to safeguard university land from any negative impacts associated with hydraulic fracturing.

A new state law has overhauled the process for leasing state-owned land for oil and gas development. It opens up all state land, including property at public colleges, for potential drilling.

A university official says the board of trustees should have the power to veto any mineral rights leases the state enters into regarding university-owned land, but she didn’t know if the state could override those vetoes.

A letter from the general secretary of Beta Theta Pi says its trustees decided to close the OSU chapter partly because of “a lack of transparency” during the investigation of the hazing allegation. It also says members’ conduct has violated the standards of the school and the organization.

The school and the fraternity have not released details about the allegation.

The Pontifical College Josephinum is one of more than 180 Roman Catholic seminaries in the United States. But the Josephinum is unique. It’s the only seminary in the U.S. that’s directly run by the Vatican. Rev. James Wehner is the Josephinum’s president.

“There are only 15 pontifical seminaries in the world,” Wehner says. “14 of them are in Italy and then Columbus, Ohio. That makes us a unique seminary in the United States.”

About 200 men from across the U.S. are enrolled at the Josephinum. While the seminary offers academic degrees, Wehner says there’s a larger purpose: to determine if students have a call to the priesthood.

“They’re going through a formation experience; it’s like going through boot camp,” Wehner says. “So here we’re providing the space and the time for the men to get trained in a way that they can then answer the question, ‘Am I called to be a priest.’”

During evening vespers students sing passages from the Bible. The music rises through the elegant and expansive Saint Turibius Chapel.

Saint Turibius Chapel rises several stories above the third floor of the main building at the Josephinum. The 81-year-old building was designed by Dutch architect Frank Ludewig in a style that reflects the sacred architecture of Europe.

“Sacred architecture is always trying to bring man in touch with the divine,” says Columbus architect William Heyer.

Heyer oversees restoration at the Josephinum. He says Saint Turibius Chapel is somewhat reminiscent of iconic places of worship such as France’s Mont Saint Michel.

“It’s meant to carry us spiritually, mentally, into another realm and so the chapel at the Josephinum, Saint Turibius Chapel, rising above the rest of the buildings, is symbolic of that flight of the spirit, taking us out of the mundane at the level of the ground, and lifting us toward the heavens,” Heyer says.

The chapel’s soaring architecture and beautiful altar create an atmosphere conducive to worship and prayer.

“The paintings and all of the symbolic forms that are in the church are part of the chapel speaking to the people who come here for liturgies. These are things that are important for us to understand the building. It’s talking to us. When you take all of these things out, the building really has a hard time communicating with you,” Heyer says.

The Josephinum is said to be the finest building Frank Ludewig ever designed. The placement of the chapel, Heyer says, is evidence of its importance.

“Its being at the top of the facility and being in the center in plan it’s at the center of the Josephinum, so in that sense it’s symbolic of its importance,” Heyer says. “It’s the highest, it’s most important, it’s at the center, it’s at the heart of the campus. And the architecture is monumental, it’s unique, and it celebrates Catholic architecture throughout time, really.”

Again the Josephinum’s president, James Wehner:

“We have a beautiful campus with a beautiful history; a very beautiful architecture which hopefully raises the minds and the hearts of people from the mundane, ordinary aspects of life to really what this is all about and that’s the supernatural and the kingdom of God and our architecture captures some of the mystery of what life is supposed to be about.”