INSIDE
Creativity in the workplace
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Increased attendance at Moody
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August: Osage County channels Shakespeare
Mustangs defeat Houston
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Monday
January 27, 2014 Monday High 52, Low 25 TUEsday High 41, Low 23
VOLUME 99 ISSUE 51 FIRST COPY FREE, ADDITIONAL COPIES 50 CENTS
Student Life
Students combat sexual assault
Fighting for Fugate
Friends, students organize event for alum battling cancer Jehadu Abshiro News Writer jabshiro@smu.edu
Katelyn Gough Editor-in-Chief kgough@smu.edu
Students are preparing to launch an independent campaign against sexual assaults in the SMU community next month. “Students were not taking ownership,” said Ramon Trespalacios, current Student Body President, of the on-campus sexual assault epidemic. “When students decide to do something together, that’s when change happens.” The idea for the campaign has come out of a number of brainstorming sessions by a growing group of students who initially came to Trespalacios seeking advice. Now, the movement is well underway and more members of the student body and coming together to demand change from each other. “It will be an initiative of students where we will ask students to stop being silent about [the issue of sexual assaults] and take action against it,” Trespalacios said. “Given the number of sexual assaults we experienced on campus last year, we wanted to start a sort of grassroots movement,” said Student Body Vice President Jaywin Malhi. “[It’s] students creating pressure for their peers not to do these things.” Malhi explained the ultimate goal is to ensure the number of sexual assaults on SMU campus reduces each year. However, Malhi made clear that that goal should not come at the expense of students reporting fewer incidents.
REBECCA KEAY / The Daily Campus
Student Body President Ramon Trespalacios
“Some saw [the many sexual assaults reported in fall 2013] as discouragement,” Malhi said, “[but] sometimes numbers don’t tell the whole truth. There is some solace in knowing students are reporting assaults when they happen.” Malhi explained that the campaign elements of the new movement will be “pushing the envelope a little bit further,” including posters featuring SMU student leaders with the message “not on my campus” written across their hands. Trespalacios explained that students who want to join the movement would be asked to sign a pledge agreeing to uphold five statements. One paramount assertion the campaign will emphasize is, “drunk sex is not consensual sex.”
ASSAULT page 3
Starting a new career, renting an apartment, buying a new car and even finding love is what many college students expect their futures hold for them when they graduate. Oct. 31 is also a night that most college students see as a night of partying. It’s what SMU alum Jennifer Fugate expected when she start her last semester at SMU in fall 2013. For Fugate, Oct. 31, 2013 was the day when her entire life was flipped upside down. She was admitted into Baylor Hospital at Plano after suffering from severe pain in her right hip for about three months. “It was literally the worst timing ever,” Fugate said. “A month before college ended.” An electrical engineering major, she had four job offers, including two from John Deere and General Motors, which she was deciding on. She had to turn all four down. Fugate’s right hip was four times bigger than her left hip and after a high contrast MRI, doctors found a tumor. The tumor was so large that it broke her hip in half. Her team of 10 doctors at Baylor couldn’t pinpoint the specific type of cancer and sent her lab results to Harvard. “At one point, no one could figure it out,” Fugate said. “My insurance company wanted to kick me out of the hospital because the doctors couldn’t do anything.” She was on pain medication every two hours. “This period was such haze,”
Fugate said. “I couldn’t walk at all. I had to have help to the bathroom, it was embarrassing. I used to be so independent.” Fugate’s mom had to speak to several doctors before the third doctor gave Fuagete tests that allowed her to stay in the hospital. “You can’t just lay in the hospital,” Fugate said. “It was crazy, I can’t go home when I can’t function.” After Harvard tried three times to narrow her diagnose down, she was diagnosed with an Ewing like Sarcoma. Her specific type of cancer is only found in .6 percent of the population. Fugate was at Baylor from Halloween to mid November. She lost almost 30 lbs. in that period. She had about 200 visitors come through her room. “When you get sick like that, your true friends step up,” Fugate said. “Goodies, care packages, so many letters. It’s been crazy I don’t know how to thank them. Words don’t do the job.” The day the letter from Harvard came in the mail, Fugate was leaving to go to M.D Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, a hospital that is considered “the number one center for Sarcoma,” for an appointment. After being put on Morphine, Fentinol and Haldol, Fugate overdosed on painkillers. She was put on chemotherapy and after 24 hours it helped. “I haven’t had a pain killer since then,” Fugate said. Fuagte, originally from Atoka, Oklahoma, and family of nine spent crowded into one hotel room
Multicultural
Courtesy of Jennifer Fugate
SMU alumna Jennifer Fugate was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer.
for their Thanksgiving dinner in Houston. “The hardest part is I am a 22 college graduate and instead having fun skating or going uptown, I am in a hospital on Saturday night,” said Fugate. “The fact that I am young and I’m not doing stuff. Now I’m in a wheel chair and it sucks.” Fugate was prescribed 14 21-day cycles of chemotherapy. Although she has been discharged from
Anderson, she has to be within an hour of the hospital in case of emergency. Her doctor gave her special permission to attend her graduation. Fugate sat in a wheel chair in the front row on left corner. “I still wore my red heels I’ve been planning to wearing since day one,” Fugate said. “People said I was crazy since I could
FUGATE page 3
E vent
Physicist speaks on human rights Yusra Jabeen Contributing Writer yjabeen@smu.edu
CHRISTOPHER SAUL / The Daily Campus
Honorees pose during last year’s annual Black Alumni History Maker reception.
Black History Month at SMU kicks off Saturday Jehadu Abshiro News Writer jabshiro@smu.edu The annual Black History Month activities, sponsored by Multicultural Student Affairs, begins Feb.1 with guest speaker ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith in Hughes-Trigg Student Center at 6 p.m. Along with special guest speaker, there will be several discussions on a variety of subjects. Attendance to the events tends to be one side, according to Multicultural Student Affairs Coordinator Melanie Johnson.
“A lot of people think Black History Month is for black students only,” said Johnson. “Black history month, along with our other heritage months, is about educating the campus as a whole about that culture.” The discussion on Feb. 10, “What’s in a Name?” will discuss the difference between African Americans who have immigrated from Africa and Black Americans who don’t know exactly where they are from in Africa. “A lot of people don’t understand the different cultures. They are totally two different cultures,” said Johnson. “It’s something a lot of people could
get something out of.” National Pan-Hellenic Council’s Delta Sigma Theta will be hosting Family Feud Delta Edition Feb. 7 at 7 p.m. On Feb. 23, SMU’s Voices of Inspiration will host “ Gospel Music in America: History in Song” in Hughes-Trigg at 7 p.m. “Progression of the Black Woman,” co-sponserd by Sisters Supporting Sisters, will study the history of the everyday Black American woman from slavery to present day on Feb. 27 at 6 p.m. Students Devean Owens and D’Marquise Allen are co-chairs of
HISTORY page 3
Pervez Amirali Hoodbhoy, renowned nuclear physicist and member on the Advisory Board for Nuclear Disarmamation Matters, appointed by the UN Secretary General, spoke at SMU on Saturday at the Conference on Human Rights: Crisis in South Asia 2014. The conference was organized by South Asia Democracy Watch (SADEW) in partnership with SMU Embrey Human Rights Program. The conference was arranged to create awareness on the human rights crisis, particularly religious persecution, in South East Asia, President of SADEW Qaisar Abbas said. Hoodbhoy said the “biggest threat to Muslims comes not from the west, but [from] themselves,” as there is inter-factional violence. He said the “process of division is not going to stop, even if it’s a Sunni State” because then there will be a division between the Wahabi’s and Barelvis, for example.
Courtesy of aicongress.org
Pervez Amirali Hoodbhoy
“Living in the U.S., you can practice your religion the way you like,” Hoodbhoy said. However, the same is not true for most other areas of the world. Hoodbhoy emphasized the idea of separation of church and state, and not governing people from what one interprets as his or her God’s commands. It is time “apologists for Taliban are told to shut up,” Hoodbhoy said of the of religious persecution by terrorists, advising against any negotiation. “Why should you try to talk to monsters like that?” Working to alleviating human
rights issues partially lies in incorporating human rights education in the overall college course curriculum, according to Rick Halperin, Director of Embrey’s Human Rights Program. “There are 3500 universities in this country, and only six of them offer a degree in human rights education,” Halperin said. “Human rights should be taught at every school much like biology and mathematics…” We have a responsibility to educate young people, said Andrea Pearson-Haas, director of operations at the Bakhta Foundation — a nonprofit working to educate underprivileged youth in Pakistan. “Education is not just about sitting in a classroom and reading a book, but it is gaining the ability to interact with the community, and one thing students can do is attend informative conferences like these,” Pearson-Haas said. According to speakers, students lay at the heart of fixing the issues. “Young people must have their voices heard,” Hoodbhoy said.
Obituary
Student reportedly falls to death Staff Reports SMU student Ofelia Garza y Garza, 22, died Thursday from injuries sustained from a fall from a patio, according the Dallas Police Department records. The DPD labeled it an unexplained death, pending the
Medical Examiner’s final report. Police responded to an apartment complex at 8088 Park Lane at 9:58 a.m. Garza was a senior Engineering major from Nuevo Leon, Mexico. Vice President for Student Affairs Lori White said in an email to students Friday that the
university has numerous resources for any student who “may be looking for resources in dealing with their grief.” White closed saying, “Strength and support are found in community, and the SMU community stands ready to support you should you need it.”