Sports
residents practice English NEWS: International Page 2 club seeks students’ laughter ARTS & LIFE: Improv Page 3 Pets require responsibility VIEWS: Editorial: Page 7
Cross-country team wins home meet Story on Page 5
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
News 1, 2 Arts & Life 3, 4 Sports 5. 6 Views 7 Classifieds 8 Games 8
Volume 94 | Issue 16
Stormy 78° / 60°
ntdaily.com
The Student Newspaper of the University of North Texas
UNT confirms hazing cases BY CAROLYN BROWN Senior Staff Writer
PHOTO BY KHAI HA / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
Officer Jeremy Polk spars with a student Tuesday to teach the best way of slapping an attacker. Starting low, a person should box the attacker in the ear with an open palm. A slap is recommended over a punch because the untrained punch will often miss. The police advise that the best way to stay safe is to be alert, keep an open eye and attempt to avoid dangerous situations. See DEFENSE on Page 4 To see multimedia for this story, visit ntdaily.com
UNT fixes broken water main BY JOSH PHERIGO Staff Writer
Students expecting to enjoy a freshly cooked breakfast at the University Union on Tuesday discovered that vendors were only selling prepackaged food because of a cut water supply. A Denton water main underneath campus broke late Monday night, causing water to be shut off to the Union, the Administration Building and the Business Building through Tuesday morning, Executive Director of Facilities Charles Jackson said in an e-mail interview. “We received a call at around 3 a.m.,” Jeff Brown, director of maintenance, said. “It was an 8-inch city water main. The pipe was old and developed a leak that grew.” Brown said that the break caused of all bathroom facilities to close in the affected buildings, and the University Union
PHOTO BY DREW GAINES/ PHOTOGRAPHER
UNT’s maintenance staff works to clean up the remnants of a water main break Tuesday at the south end of the Business Administration Building. and Administration Building were without air conditioning until the pipe was back on line. “City employees arrived at about 8 a.m. and the pipe
was repaired and water was back on by 10:30 a.m.,” Brown said. City workers said the entire water main is scheduled for replacement in 2011.
Brow n sa id t he brea k caused no injuries, damages or flooding, but the water carried some mud down a sidewalk that required a quick power wash.
Initiation rituals could mean more than binge drinking — it could cost organizations money, jail time and campus suspension. In accordance with state law, the Center for Student Rights and Responsibilities released a list last week of campus organizations found responsible for hazing during the past three years. This week is National Hazing Prevention Week, which ends on Sept. 25. UNT has had six confirmed hazing incidents in the past three years, said Maureen McGuinness, assistant vice president for student development. The six organizations are UNT’s chapters of Sigma Phi Epsilon Fraternity, Delta Sigma Theta Inc., Sigma Lambda Gamma National Sorority Inc., Kappa Sigma Fraternity, the UNT Cheerleaders and UNT’s chapter of Krimson Kourt Incorporated. The organizations are undergoing educational sanctions and anti-hazing measures from the Center for Student Rights and Responsibilities, she said. The university defines hazing as an intentional act that endangers the mental or physical health of a student for the purpose of affiliation with an organization, according to its Web site. Although hazing is often associated with physical brutality, it can apply to seemingly innocuous activities such as costumewearing or forcing members to eat strange foods, McGuinness said. “No one should ever feel that to fit in a group they should have to compromise their integrity or what they are and what they believe in,” she said. However, hazing situations can be difficult to define, Greek Life Coordinator Alex Seltzer said. “There’s really no perfect blackand-white textbook answer. It’s more situationally based,” he said. “You have to take into consideration what is going on and what is the purpose of the activity.” The main aspect that usually defines hazing is whether orga-
nizations ask new members to do activities they don’t ask established members to do, he said. The Greek Life office works closely with the Center for Student Rights and Responsibilities to prevent hazing and help re-educate groups sanctioned for it, Seltzer said. The four Greek organizations on the list were disciplined for past hazing, but have not had any new incidents, he said. The last hazing incident for the North Texas Cheerleaders happened two years ago, coach Heath Miller said. Although not all members were involved, the entire team had to participate in a counseling program and several members decided to leave. The group now uses antihazing programs before tryouts and clinic activities, he said. “It’s kind of died out, really,” Miller said. Krimson Kourt Incorporated, a non-Greek service organization with groups at UNT and TWU, was suspended after an investigation of TWU hazing incidents in spring 2009, McGuinness said. The organization can return with certain conditions in spring 2010, she said. The Greek Life Of f ice, Center for Student Rights and Responsibilites and the Athletics department are working together to put on events to help educate students about how hazing affects them, Daniel Hernandez Greek Life Coordinator said. On Monday and Tuesday, the groups set up tables in the University Union to pass out hazing information, and will continue it today at Discovery Park. The organizations will have a bystander behavior workshop to teach people about hazing intervention and confrontation. The event will take place from 1 to 2 p.m. on Thursday in Union 418. Students who want to report hazing or future plans for it can call the Center for Student Rights and Responsibilities at (940) 565-2039.
City of Denton proposes tree-counting initiative BY CHRIS SPEIGHT Senior Staff Writer
The city of Denton is trying to protect its shade-bearing friends through the use of satellite imaging. The City Council discussed a possible survey at last week’s meeting that would determine the average number of trees and how to add more to the city. If the proposal is approved, the city of Denton will collaborate with UNT faculty and a graduate student to head up the research side of the project. “The project aims to protect the trees already in the Denton area and ultimately add more trees because of the positive environmental effects they yield,” said Bruce Hunter, the director of the Center for Spatial Analysis and Mapping within the departments of geography and institute of applied sciences at UNT. “An important first step in incorporating green infrastructure into a community’s plan-
ning framework is to measure urban forest canopy and evaluate management goals,” said Chuck Russell, planning supervisor for Denton. The council said that the tree survey project will cost an estimated $30,000. The money for this project comes from the City Tree Fund. As of April 30, the total Tree Fund balance was about $629,000. Almost $52,000 of the money in the fund is from interest income. At the city council work session on Sept. 15, the council discussed spending about $30,000 of the Denton City Tree Fund money for the proposal, Russell said. The tree fund is used to perform and maintain trees citywide, as well as educate residents and developers on the benefits and value of trees, Russell said. This proposal would support Denton’s ongoing process of updating its tree preservation techniques and create an accurate baseline measurement of the number of trees in Denton.
He said these measurements will provide valuable information for the city. “The green infrastructure within the city offers a unique opportunity to provide benefits — environmental, aesthetic and fiscal — with minimal expense to the city,” Russell said. To realize the goal, satellites will take aerial digital snap-shots of the Greater Denton area. “There’s a lot of commercial satellites that take images and so we contract with one of those satellite companies to take an image for us,” Hunter said. After UNT has these images, Hunter and his team will decipher them by dividing the images into different land use categories, such as water, pavement, rooftops, manicured laws and more. “We’re working with satellite imagery, there’s no way to count the individual trees,” he said. “A certain percentage of the city is covered by ‘X’ percent of tree canopy.”
The satellite images will cost nearly $10,000 each. Also Hunter said cities across the U.S. are interested in projects of this nature for quality of life issues. “Most people know how many trees they have in their backyard, if they’ve got a small yard,” Hunter said. “It’s a way for the city to know: Are we doing good as a city? Do we have a lot of trees? Do we have very few trees?” Hunter said Russell contacted him to discuss proposal details after hearing of a similar project he conducted around the Dallas/ Ft. Worth International airport. “We just completed a study for Dallas/Ft. Worth International Airport doing just this, 153 square miles of area around the airport,” Hunter said. Clayton Troegle, a recreation and leisure studies senior, said he doesn’t “think the city [needs] to take $40,000” worth of aerial pictures. “I’m all for some trees,” he said. “Let’s add some more trees.”
PHOTO BY KAITLIN HOAG / PHOTOGRAPHER
UNT tags trees across campus as part of a system to monitor the overall count. UNT could soon be partnering with the city of Denton to survey the city’s trees.