Last Gasp
art students sculpt their own army NEWS: UNT Page 2 Female motocross champ races in mostly male sport ARTS & LIFE: Page 4 Homebuyer tax breaks prove perfect for grads VIEWS: Page 6
Football team’s comeback attempt falls short Page 8
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
News 1,2 Arts & Life 3,4 Sports 5,8 Views 6 Classifieds 7 Games 7
Volume 94 | Issue 53
Rainy 49° / 39°
ntdaily.com
The Student Newspaper of the University of North Texas
Glass research Broncos stomp Mean Green men clears up process BY SEAN GORMAN Senior Staff Writer
UNT physics prof studies method
experiments and the physics of the glass formation. Despite the difficulties, Hu said the highlight of the research was working with the outstanding scientists on BY K ELSEY K RUZICH the team. Contributing Writer Weitz said glass research has been going on in his labs Zhibing Hu of the physics department helped a research for about 10 years. “It changed the way that team better understand the we c a n look at behavior of glass. t h e s e t y p e s of Da v e Weit z , a materia ls,” Weit z professor at Harvard said. “It’s a class of University, led the material that, until team. With the research researching, we had that Hu contributed, no idea existed.” the team was able to Weitz also said better understand the that as Hu develops formation of glass. ZHIBING HU new materials and “People have been making glass for centuries, but findings, he sends them to the the making of glass formation rest of the team. “Hu is a leading researcher is not very clear,” Hu said. T h e i r f i nd i n g s w e r e on the materials,” he said. published in the November “We’re very lucky he works issue of Nature magazine, a top with us.” Hu said that the research science journal in the U.S. Hu said they are studying the does not directly affect the formation because it is hard for students of UNT. A psychology senior Alesha people to understand. He said the team specifically studied Love said she has not heard the particles inside the suspen- of the research that Hu has been doing. sion of the glass. She said it would be good to Hu said he used the number system in order to study the know things like glass research glass formation. When he were going on at the universtudied the glass, Hu said he sity, but she was not interested could see a long crystal state in the subject. “If I was a chemistry major, in the formation. “We sometimes call glass maybe I would be interested, but since its way beyond my frozen liquid,” Hu said. The system that Hu used own major, I’m not that interwas a simulation of the new ested in it,” Love said. Weitz said now that the glass. Hu said it was much bigger research has been done, than the original process of the team is a lot closer to making glass. The team found mimicking the behavior that out that the process of glass you see in different types of formation is actually related glass. He also said that the team to the elasticity of the matewould continue to work and rial. Hu said that his research follow up on the research of findings would help people glass formation. Weitz said he hopes that Hu will continue understand things better. “Eventually, manufacturers to contribute his examples to will have high-performance the team. “We’re really happy that we glass,” Hu said. Hu said the hardest part can work with Hu on this and of his research was trying to we are able to get such nice understand the data of the results,” Weitz said.
The UNT men’s basketball team continues to struggle on the road. With one overtime win in three away games, UNT (3-2) was unable to finish off the Boise State University Broncos (4-2) in a 79 to 73 loss in Boise, Idaho, on Saturday. “It’s always going to be difficult playing away from home,” said guard Shannon Shorter, a communications junior. “I think we’re more than capable of winning a few on the road during the rest of this season.” Despite a strong effort from guard Josh White, a sociology junior, and an early lead, the Mean Green (3-2) fell short to the Broncos (4-2) in a backand-forth game that was UNT’s second-straight loss. White went to work from the start, scoring 10 of his 23 points in the first seven minutes of the game. “Josh is the guy that runs this offense. He’s got a lot on his shoulders,” said guard Richard Thomas, an applied arts and sciences junior. “He doesn’t have that shoot-first mentality, but when we give him an open look he’s going to make the shot.” Foul trouble plagued the Mean Green early on, as forward George Odufuwa, a finance junior, committed three fouls in the first three minutes. “Any time that happens to one of your big men, it’s going to slow down the efforts down low,” head coach Johnny Jones said. “Our guys filled in great, but it never helps to lose one of your guys at the beginning to foul trouble.” After White made a layup to give the Mean Green a twopoint lead with 30 seconds left in the first half, the Broncos pulled ahead when guard Paul Noonan hit a 3-pointer at the buzzer. “Basketball is a game of runs and each team is going to catch some breaks,” White said. “It was frustrating to have that happen, but that’s just the nature of the game.”
PHOTO BY RYAN BIBB / PHOTOGRAPHER
Guard Collin Mangrum, a sociology junior, goes up for a slam-dunk against Jackson State University at last week’s game. The Mean Green men’s team lost a game against Boise State University on Saturday 73-79. UNT continued to fight and led by five with less than 11 minutes left, but an 11-2 Boise run put the Broncos in front. Despite holding the Broncos to one bucket over the final 2:40 and cutting the deficit to three, the Mean Green couldn’t complete the comeback. “There’s a lot of things we didn’t do right in the second
half,” Jones said. “But I liked what we were able to do on the defensive side of the basketball to keep things close at the end there.” Much of the Mean Green offense came from outside, as UNT made 9-22 from threepoint range. The team made four in the first nine minutes of the second half to keep up
with the Broncos. “I t hink we have some strengths on the block and the perimeter,” Jones said. “Tonight we showed that we have some guys that are capable of making plays from outside.” The Mean Green returns home at noon on Wednesday to host the University of the Southwest.
Texas schools move professor evaluations online BY CAROLYN BROWN Senior Staff Writer Beginning today, students will have a new way to rate their professors online. From Dec. 1 to Dec. 11, students can complete the Student Evaluation of Teaching Effectiveness through their MyUNT accounts. The evaluation contains 12 questions about instructor per for m a nc e a s w el l a s genera l opinion questions and feedback space, and it will be available for all lecture classes, Deputy Provost Celia Williamson said. “It’s a wonderfully designed tool with lots of input from s t u d e n t s a n d f a c u l t y,” Williamson said. It also satisfies a requirement of the recently passed Hou s e Bi l l 2 5 0 4, w h ic h mandates that public universities conduct student evaluations and post the scores online. Several committees developed the survey during a 16-month period of research, focus groups, and field tests involving students, faculty, and industry experts. The final product addresses
ment. t hree ma in He noted a rea s : orgat hat it is nization and unclear how e x p l a n a t i on some of the of materia ls, variables learning enviw i l l a f fect ronment, and p r o f e s s o r s’ self-regulated scores. learning. “We really Three scale don’t k now scores f rom to what t he s e a r e a s extent class and an overall size is taken composite into considscore will be e r a t i on ,” counted and he said. posted on Pe r e z s a id t he facu lt y he t houg ht profile system t he Facu lt y starting next S e n a t e fall. should have The evaluabeen allowed tion will take PHOTO BY KAITLIN HOAG / PHOTOGRAPHER to vote on i nto considthe finished eration vari- Students can visit my.unt.edu to anonymously evaluate their professors starting today until Dec. 11. product, and ables such as However, some fac u lt y that the administrators did class meeting times, class are posted. The evaluation is size and anticipated grade, one tool for assessing faculty, mem b er s a r e c onc er ne d not com mu n icate clea rly about some of the faculty’s but Williamson said ot her about the survey. Williamson said. Jose Perez of the physics concerns and questions. Student pa r t icipat ion is methods are being planned. “I don’t think they did a “What’s clear about this is department said he felt some optional, and names will be it’s one snapshot,” she said. of its items were not put very good job of advertising kept confidential. Professors will be able to “For a f u l l eva luat ion, we together well, and that the this,” he said. Williamson said she and the see the response rate but not need to get perspectives of Faculty Senate did not have enough input in its develop- committees worked to engage the scores until after grades faculty and their peers.”
the senators and hear their concerns, but that the Faculty Senate did not need to vote on the assessment because it is a student-answered evaluation rather than a facultyanswered one. She s a id some of t he concerns about the use of variables could not be fully a nswered u nt i l a f ter t he survey’s first run, and that a detailed manual about the survey will be published next spring. Williamson said she hopes that a lot of students w ill answer the questionnaire. “The more responses we have, the more help we have in moving teaching forward,” she said. Emily Fannin, an English literature junior, sa id she plans to use the evaluation in addition to the usual faculty rating Web sites to register for classes next year. “I think it would be really useful, because I go to ratemyprofessor.com all the time, and some of it isn’t very accurate,” she said. “I think that t his would be much more accurate, reliable source.”