by NICK BUCHANAN
Co-editor

Looking to get away from the stress of classes and homework for the day? Tired of knowing how to operate only a car as your mode of transportation? Have a strong passion for horses?

Greenfield Stables, located at 1500 East County Road 50 in Tiffin, is the place for you. Plugged as “a great place to relax, clear your head, and enjoy the simplicities of life,” the facility provides the opportunity to get up-close and personal with horses. Equestrians of all skill levels are welcome.

Amenities include indoor and outdoor riding arenas, three pastures, and an outdoor track. Boarding options are available, should you have your own horse.

​Lessons for the public are $40, and Tiffin University students, staff, faculty, and their families are eligible for a 10 percent discount. For more information, visit Greenfield Stables' Facebook page or contact Gail Kingseed at 419-618-7614.

By Colleen Vallo
Adviser to The Tystenac

     Students praised its services; educators deplored it. And for more than 37 years a Tiffin-based company prospered as a self-proclaimed international business dealing in ready-made "literary productions"—in other words it sold research papers to students.
     Ah, the good old days before robots roamed the internet, revealing recycled papers through plagiarism detecting services, such as Turnitin.com, the good old days when the lazy, the desperate or clueless Johnny come lately could readily pass off a paper as his own and businesses could make money supplying them.
       But it wasn’t' cheap to cheat. According to a 1901 advertisement for the Tiffin-based Colchester, Roberts and Co., which called its prices "the very lowest rate," high school orations and essays sold for $3 to $8; college essays, orations and debates cost $3 to $15; political speeches and lectures ranged from $10 to $30. Bear in mind that the average hourly rate of pay for skilled laborers at that time was 50 cents.  
     To keep business brisk, the company, based downtown at 11 Court St., made prodigious use of mass mailing circulars and classified ads, such as this one that appeared in the October 1901 St. Stephen's College Messenger: "For outlines and for material for essays and orations, address Colchester, Roberts and Company, Tiffin, Ohio." It was a simpler time indeed when mail could reach its recipients without a street address or zip code. Similar advertisements appeared in the Tarheel, the student newspaper for University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Purdue University's The Debris, as well as national magazines, including The Nation. Sometimes the mass mailings were addressed at large to "a member of the senior class" at high schools throughout the country with the instruction that "if not delivered to the person addressed, please hand to some student."
            To show its appreciation for the literary production service, The (Purdue) Debris newspaper staff dedicated its hard-bound compilation of the newspapers from the 1894-95 academic year to Colchester, Roberts and Co.: "This charming volume will appear in August, ’95. The binding, which will be in Hyde, is a special feature, the ideas of the editors being all strongly hide-bound. The dedication is extremely appropriate—To Colchester Roberts & Co., of Tiffin, Ohio, who have [sic] enabled ’95 to skin [sic] through college." This section of the editor's column reads as if it had been quickly skimmed during proofreading.
            This need for busy students to quickly skim through their assignments was one of the selling points in the company's longer advertisement which read: "We are at present, as in the past, supplying the busy students of the country with all kinds of Literary Productions. … [O]ur work is becoming more and more a necessity to the student as he becomes a specialist in education, and to the man who, as the victim of circumstances, is forced to perform literary labors, for which he has neither the time nor the adaptability."
            Not everyone found the company praiseworthy. The Atlantic Monthly criticized it after an advertising circular reached the editor's desk. The April 1, 1900 issue of the education journal, The Intelligence, decried the service for preying "upon the souls of weak but innocent young people" and further stated that "these scoundrels would tempt the young person to stand upon the graduating platform before friends and neighbors with a production that plainly declared that he or she had both the time and adaptability for the literary labor represented in it." The journal also expressed sorrow for the town of Tiffin for "harbor[ing] such an infamous business concern."   
            A 1900 semi-annual issue of the Educational Review went so far as to muse whether the penal code of Ohio could "reach this form of enterprise." While time rather than fines shut down Tiffin's term paper mill, committing academic fraud is still frowned upon just like it was in the good old days. At Tiffin University offenders may find themselves facing the fine of an "F" on the paper or in the entire course.
 

by IBRAHIM ALSAIARI
Staff writer

TU alumna Heather Hunker has opened Ma chère Claire Boutique, a new store in downtown Tiffin that offers high-quality women’s apparel and accessories.
 
Before she opened her shop on Feb. 15  at 191 Jefferson St. inside the Ye Crimpers Shoppe salon, she opened her store online. She continues to maintain her website at http://www.machereclaire.com/ that allows customers to view and order the store’s products. Also, it provides free shipping for orders overs $50.