INSIDE
U.S. life span shorter
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LGBT community needs voice
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Top 25 SMU athletes continues
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Perot Museum opens new exhibit
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monday
april 7, 2014
MONDAY High 70, Low 49 TUESDAY High 71, Low 46
VOLUME 99 ISSUE 78 FIRST COPY FREE, ADDITIONAL COPIES 50 CENTS
world
Afghan elections hailed associated press
SIDNEY HOLLINGSWORTH / The Daily Campus
Mustang Corral holds its traditional candlelight ceremony to unite first-years during each retreat.
Corral to get re-vamped Will join forces with new Residential Commons Meredith carey Contributing Writer mbcarey@smu.edu Each member of the student body has their own memories from Mustang Corral: the heat, the bus speed-dating game, the cabins and the heat again. But this year, Corral is getting facelift. As the Residential Commons program begins rolling out, Mustang Corral will begin dividing Corral sites by dorm affiliation, meaning the camps, buses, cabins and RoundUp groups will be filled with new students from the same dorm. “The goal of Corral is to make connections between the new students and SMU. With Corral organized this way, we will provide additional opportunities to connect with students they can continue relationships with back on campus,” said Lindsey Koch, Director of New Student Orientation and Student
Support (NSOSS). Corral has become a hot button issue, as junior William O’Connor who ran for Student Senate Vice President highlighted orientation as an area that needs improvement during his campaign. “I love the idea of grouping Mustang Corral by Residential Commons. I think that part of the philosophy behind the Residential Commons model is that everyone, regardless of organizational affiliation, feels like they have a home, support group and family here at SMU,” O’Connor said. “To start building those relationships at Mustang Corral will help students feel more at home in their respective Residential Commons before school even starts.” O’Connor has future plans to speak with the NSOSS office with his suggestions to improve the experience. O’Connor has served as both an AARO and Mustang
Corral leader. Mustang Corral director and fellow former AARO leader, sophomore Lindsay Forrister sees the change as an elimination of the awkward random encounters that come with Corral. “At my experience at Corral, I know that while I made many close friends, there were also a million hand shakes and small talk sessions with students that I would never see again,” she said. “While I appreciated the opportunity to reach out to students I otherwise wouldn’t meet, I believe that by introducing the Residential Commons aspect the students will find comfort in knowing that the peers they encounter at Corral will be ones that they will continue to come into contact with once the school year begins.” Forrister said that the change will allow incoming Mustangs to form strong bonds with the students they’ll be studying
with, living with, dining with and getting involved on campus with over the next four years. While strengthening these bonds within the Residential Commons, Forrister hopes that the diversity of friendships made through Corral remain. “I do hope that students will understand that their Residential Commons are not the only friendships they will find here at SMU. I encourage them to continue to get out of their comfort zones, branch out and get involved in clubs, organizations and classes their first semester so that they can meet students from all across campus,” she said. Koch said in the future, the NSOSS hopes to assign Corral leaders to RoundUp groups based on their current or previous dorm affiliation. Small programming changes to Corral include more spirit components and working with the student value statement.
STUDENT LIFE
Afghans and the international community hailed its presidential election as a triumph of democracy over violence Sunday, despite complaints about ballot shortages and sporadic fraud after millions of people braved a Taliban threat to vote for a new president. But some cautioned against declaring a premature defeat of the Islamic militants. Securing the vote was a test for Afghan government forces as they prepare to take full responsibility for their own security as the U.S. and allied forces end their combat mission at the end of this year. The consensus was that they largely passed, though there was sporadic violence. A roadside bomb hit a pickup truck transporting ballot boxes Sunday in the northern province of Kunduz, killing three people, officials said. But
the major attacks that had been feared did not materialize. “This in itself is a victory over violence and a victory over all those who wanted to deter democracy by threats and violence,” said Thijs Berman, the head of the European Union’s election assessment team in Kabul. Electoral officials, meanwhile, urged patience, saying officials continued to log complaints and tally ballots. The ballots were coming from more than 20,000 polling stations nationwide, some in extremely remote and rural areas. They were being transported to tally centers in all 34 provinces before the results reach Kabul. Some candidate forecasts and partial results are expected in the coming days. Noor Mohammad Noor, a spokesman for the Independent Election Commission, said preliminary
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state
Davis’ uphill battle to make Texas blue megan grosse Contributing Writer mgrosse@smu.edu Just eight months after Texas Senator Wendy Davis stood in her pink tennis shoes for 11 hours in a filibuster against the GOP’s new abortion legislature that would ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy, regulate firsttrimester abortions and access to medication-induced abortions, she has rocketed to stardom and earned herself the Democratic nomination for governor. The question, now, is whether or not she will be able beat out her opponent, Republican Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, in one of the “reddest” states in the Union.
According to Politifact.com, in 2012, San Antonio Rep. Joaquin Castro, while speaking at a Texas Tribune Festival, said, “We are the state that has now gone the longest without electing a Democrat statewide. It has been since 1994 that a Democrat has been elected in Texas.” A recent poll conducted by the Emerson College Polling Society (ECPS) over the period of March 7 to March 12, showed Davis’ growing favorability. Abbott led in the poll by only seven points, 49 percent to 42 percent, 4 percent less than the 11-point lead Abbott had in the University of Texas and The Texas Tribune poll
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academics
New way for students to gossip Medieval studies professor jehadu abshiro News Writer jabshiro@smu.edu “I wake up and immediately read last night’s Yik Yaks like it’s the newspaper,” a Yik Yak user posted on the app. Yik Yak, an anonymous Twitterstyled app, has gain popularity across college campuses in the United States. The app, released by 23-year-old Furman University graduates Brooks Buffington and Tyler Droll in late 2013, has managed to garner over 200,000 users. The goal was to create a social network that allows a free flow of communication. “We wanted to enable people to be really connected with the people around you, even if you don’t know them. It’s like a virtual bulletin board, a hyper-local version of Twitter where people can use it to post information and everyone in the area can see it,” Buffington said in an International Business Times article. The app is simple. Up to 500 users in a geographical location can post up to 200 words anonymously on a virtual bulletin board and
RYAN MILLER / The Daily Campus
The newest app for campus chitchat.
other users can “up vote” “down vote” or reply to a yak. No pictures are allowed and if a post is “down voted” enough times by other users on the forum, the comment disappears. “It has definalty become a craze around campus,” sophomore Chandler Helms said. Senior Stephanie Gentile, who wrote an opinion piece for The Daily Campus about Yik Yak, uses the app to occupy time. “When I am in class or walking
from class it is something to do,” she said. “It is funny and keeps you in the know of what is going on around campus.” The app, which is mostly popular on college campuses in the south and east according to Buffington, has gained popularity on SMU’s campus fairly fast. “It is being talked about by everyone and I just downloaded it this week,” Gentile said. “I think it is interesting how word can spread so fast and that Yik Yak has become such a big deal.” Buffington and Droll targeted the app toward college students, however middle and high school students have been using it as a bullying app. This has led the app’s creators to disabled use of the app at 85 percent of all middle schools and high schools across the U.S. “I haven’t downloaded it yet because I have mixed feelings about it,” Helms said. ”Some things my friends have told me are really funny. And some things are offensive.” Yaks subjects range from
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honored with writings Jehadu Abshiro News Editor jabshiro@smu.edu
A collection of multi-color origami cranes dangle over director of medieval studies Bonnie Wheeler’s desk. A variety of books sit on a filled bookshelf. In a corner by her door, two academic regalia robes hang on a coat hanger. There is a blue book, a festschrift published in 2013, on her desk. It’s a collection of writings, published in honor of a scholar. It’s for Wheeler. “It’s a phenomenal thing,” she said. “It’s a rare thing for a professors to be honored in which the essays are written by distinguished colleagues around the world.” Purdue University’s Dorsey Armstrong and Ann W. Astell and Amherst College’s Howell Chickering edited the book. The book is written by a collection of esteemed professors.
Courtesy of smu.edu
Professor Bonnie Wheeler.
The editors chose to focus on writings that “extend or complement” Wheeler’s own body of scholarly work. “Her support, encouragement and generosity has transformed my academic life and that of many others, so to honor her a few of us got together to the publish the festschrift in her honor,” Armstrong said. Armstrong met Wheeler in 1999 at the International Medieval
Congress in Kalamazoo, Mich. When Wheeler mentioned at the business meeting of the International Arthurian Society, North American Branch, she was interested in having some help with the journal she edited, “Arthuriana.” Since Armstrong was staring a job three hours a way in Shreveport, La., she offered to come to Dallas once a month to help. “That was the beginning of a fantastic working relationship, and she quickly became the most important mentor I have ever had in my academic life, and also, one of my best and dearest friends,” Armstrong said. Wheeler served as the editor of “Arthuriana,” a quarterly journal published by the North American branch of the International Arthurian Society, from 1994 to 2009. Armstrong was her successor. Wheeler has edited, co-edited or co-authored
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