INSIDE
Students discuss alcohol policy
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Increased attendance at Moody
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Party food ideas for the big game
Staff makes Super Bowl picks
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Friday
January 31, 2014 FRIday High 73, Low 48 Saturday High 61, Low 37
VOLUME 99 ISSUE 53 FIRST COPY FREE, ADDITIONAL COPIES 50 CENTS
Fe ature
Courtesy of Faith Miller
Many events are planned throughout Black History Month at SMU.
Students help organize Black History Month Jehadu Abshiro News Writer jabshiro@smu.edu When Faith Miller came to SMU, she didn’t really have any friends on campus. So she joined the Association of Black Students. Three years later and now a senior, Miller is the vice president of Association of Black Students. Her involvements in ABS not only helped her make friends on campus, but also grow as a leader. “Being involved is important not only in the black community, but also in the SMU community,” Miller said. “Hopefully I am impacting, someone’s life, someone with a similar SMU experience. Especially first-years.” For both Miller and ABS, Black History Month is chance where all students can get involved and educated at the various activities that take place on campus from Saturday through March 1. “All of SMU is invited,”
ELLEN SMITH / The Daily Campus
The current Chi Omega house will eventually be converted into the Multicultural Greek Council house after the new Chi Omega house is built.
MGC finds new home Meredith Carey Contributing Writer mbcarey@smu.edu The Multicultural Greek Council will finally have a permanent home on Daniel Avenue. What is now the RLSH Greek and Apartment Maintenance building is being remodeled and will open as meeting and residential space for the five chapters that make up the Multicultural Greek Council (MGC). “MGC has been on campus for 14 years, but we have never had a
space of our own,” said Amy Chen ,MGC president and member of Sigma Phi Omega. “We hope that having a house on campus will help our members become more united and give us a common space to hang out.” MGC, which includes three sororities, Kappa Delta Chi, Sigma Lambda Gamma and Sigma Phi Omega, and two fraternities, Omega Delta Phi and Sigma Lamba Beta, was first chartered to promote cultural awareness and unify the multicultural Greek community, Chen said.
The new Multicultural Greek Council house will house 13 members of the five different organizations who will be chosen through a housing lottery. “As anyone in a Greek organization knows, it is sometimes difficult to go beyond your own organization and make meaningful connections with other chapters. The MGC house will give the five chapters a chance to get to know each other’s members better,” Chen said. The location of the house, at 3160 Daniel Avenue, also provides
the opportunity for the eight Panhellenic Council chapters located further down Daniel Avenue to get to know the MGC chapters. “It is important to know that Greek Life at SMU includes four councils: MGC, NPHC, IFC, and Panhellenic. All of them bring significant benefits to the SMU campus. Those who are involved in MGC value service, leadership, education and strong relationships. These organizations
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E xhibit
As a nod to the dedication of the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum, Bridwell Library opened an exhibit displaying certain presidential documents on Dec. 20. The exhibit features documents of 10 United States presidents written when they were in office, before they were elected or after their term of service. Every document is either a letter or a White House invitation sent to an American Methodist. Upon entering the notably quiet Bridwell Library, the Presidential documents are the first displays to be seen, protected in glass casing. While the presidential documents may be hard to read, visitors can pick up a pamphlet that provides information on the display. This pamphlet features an enlarged
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State
Bridwell displays Presidential Documents Lauren Burgess Contributing Writer lburgess@smu.edu
Miller said. “We want an array of people participating.” This year’s Black History Month features ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith, a history of song, a game, discussions and a ball. Students Devean Owens and D’Marquis Allen are the co-chairs of this month’s events. Owens, an advertising and public relations & strategic communications major, began chairing the event three years ago when Steven Johnson, Coordinator in OMSA, challenged her to revamp Black History Month and “make it 10 times better.” So she started small. They brought in poet, author and activist Nikki Giovanni as their opening speaker, set up the Black Inventors and Inventions Museum in the Hughes-Trigg Commons and held the Inaugural Black Excellence Ball. “We did it,” Owens said. “We knew the next year we could do it bigger and better.” The next year, Hill Harper, CSI: New York actor and author, was ABS’ Black History Month
emblem taken from the invitation to the White House from President and Mrs. Taft printed on the front. Bridwell Special Collections Archivist Tim Binkley described the exhibit as, “Bridwell’s way of inviting the community to study the presidential documents.” Previously, Bridwell has held two other exhibits featuring presidential documents. The first displayed presidential autographs and the second showed campaign materials. The current exhibit documenting the communication between presidents and Methodist figures hasn’t been seen much in 50 years and the documents truly shed light upon the friendships formed between them, Binkley said. This idea is exemplified by the correspondence between the 24th President Grover Cleveland
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Houston trafficking ring discovered Associated PRess Two Houston employment agencies that allegedly recruited immigrants living in the U.S. illegally to be cheap labor for restaurants in at least seven states were shut down Thursday after a series of arrests, federal authorities said. The Hong Li and the Tai Shan employment agencies were competitors that both provided workers, mostly from Mexico and Central America, to Chinese restaurants in Texas, Louisiana, Maine and other states, said Brian M. Moskowitz, special agent in charge of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations. “The agencies recruited and solicited the workers and sought the business of these restaurants to feed their demand for cheap labor,” Moskowitz said. According to the indictments, the two agencies used Chinese language newspapers and Internet
sites to solicit the restaurants and “offer Hispanic unauthorized alien workers, commonly referred to in this context as ‘amigos,’ to them.” Officials estimate that in the 10 years the agencies operated, they supplied restaurants with hundreds of workers. “The entire business model rested on the shoulders of illegal workers,” Moskowitz said. The agencies are also accused of housing the immigrants in often cramped homes and apartments and transporting them to restaurants in various states as part of services to their clients. “There is no doubt (the workers) were complicit, knew what was going on. But they were also exploited. They paid them below minimum wage, worked them 12 hours a day, six days a week, did not allow them to take gratuities and sometimes housed them in substandard facilities,” Moskowitz said.
Courtesy of AP
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A federal agent helps a person into a vehicle after raiding a business in connection with the alleged human smuggling ring.
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