To whom it may concern,
Although I appreciate the publicity and attention the bike program has received from The Maneater in Molly Duffy’s article entitled “MSA Plans for Bike Rental Program, Competition for Tiger Wheels,” there were some significant factual errors that need to be noted.
As the Sustainability Coordinator of RHA, I was approached by RHA President Chris Rucker in the summer about starting a bike program. Although Mr. Tyler Ricketts has made insightful contributions to the project, RHA has done the majority of the research and work required to get this program started. In fact, Mr. Ricketts even emphasized during his interview that I should be contacted about the program as well. Thus, I find it interesting that she neglected to interview me. To be fair, I was contacted for an interview, but it was only a few hours before the deadline for this article. Seeing that the request was last-minute, I was unable to meet with her. I find it important to note that this program has always been an RHA-led initiative with MSA support, unlike how the article reports it and frankly, I was insulted when the credit that RHA deserves was given to another organization. The article made it sound like RHA was playing the side-kick to MSA’s superhero. I believe I can safely speak for both organizations that this is not the image we want projected to the student population. If I had been contacted sooner, many of the errors in this article could have been avoided.
The main thing that this article got wrong was that this program is not a bike rental program, but a bike sharing program. I do not intend for this program to cost students anything unless the bike is destroyed, lost or stolen. Calling the program “bike rental” implies that there is a fee for checking out a bike. Bike sharing is intended to be accessible to all on campus, regardless of monetary limitations. Thus, I felt compelled to make this distinction.
Another issue in the article was the agreement with the university’s Surplus Department. As RHA initiated the conversation with Surplus and came to an agreement with the department, I feel that I need to clear the air about the issues in the article. Surplus is not giving the bikes to RHA for free. Rather, they are loaning us a set number of bikes for a pilot program. Once the pilot period has elapsed, we will sit down and evaluate what our next step with the bikes will be.
Furthermore, the article lacked quality as the sources, besides Mr. Ricketts, had no solid knowledge about the plans for the program. Although I greatly respect Jake Sloan for his work in MSA, the RHA President, Chris Rucker, or I should have been interviewed instead. Comparatively, the article makes it seem like our program intends to challenge the private Tiger Wheels establishment in Columbia. It has never been RHA’s intention to make competition for Mr. Logan Hepburn. We are simply trying to create a service that many students have expressed interest in and create a program that promotes sustainable choices in our community.
In this instance, neglecting to fact-check reflects poorly on The Maneater. I would appreciate that all of the errors found in the article be remedied and that any future questions regarding the RHA/MSA bike sharing program be directed to me.
Sincerely,
Jordan Glasgow
Sustainability Coordinator, Residence Halls Association
jlgd86@mail.missouri.edu
