INSIDE
Student directed shows open
Porter magazine launched
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Mustangs for Life speak up
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Forrest Gregg, No. 9 SMU athlete
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Wednesday
april 23, 2014
Wednesday High 88, Low 51 Thursday High 86, Low 57
VOLUME 99 ISSUE 84 FIRST COPY FREE, ADDITIONAL COPIES 50 CENTS
Campus women get political Katelyn Gough Editor-in-Chief kgough@smu.edu It’s no secret that women are a minority in politics. According to the Center for American Women and Politics, only 18.5 percent of the House seats are held by females, and only 20 percent of the Senate positions are led by women. The Elect Her event coming to campus Friday is looking to improve those numbers, starting with collegeaged women. One of the prominent featured speakers is a woman who has dedicated her career to building the powerful and respected campaigns — and successful elections — of fellow women running for an opportunity to lead in the nation’s political ring. Jessica Grounds is the Director of the Women’s Office at Ready for Hillary, the super PAC for potential presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton. Prior to moving to Ready for Clinton, Grounds cofounded Running Start and served as the executive director beginning in 2010. Grounds said she developed her passion for supporting and increasing the number of women in politics early on, working on two separate campaigns for female politicians during her time as an undergraduate at Pepperdine University.
“We’ve really got to change the culture around women...in politics,” Grounds said. Her mission in co-founding Running Start was to provide women a viable option for creating the changes they want to see that too few women explore. “We really wanted to show young women that politics was an avenue to make that change,” Grounds said. “We started with [training] 20 high school girls in 2007...we’ve grown to train 8,000 women [in high school, college and post-graduate].” Running Start is the umbrella organization above Elect Her, which partners with the American Association of University Women to travel to colleges and universities across the country and offer workshops and seminars educating young women on political articulation, fundraising, networking and a wide variety of other skills and personal experience stories meant to empower women to run for elected office. Friday’s events will feature speakers Rep. Cindy Burkett (R-Texas) and expert on congressional elections and the success of women candidates Barbara Palmer, as well as SMU’s Director of the Carey M. Maguire Center for Ethics and Public Responsibility Rita Kirk and Tower Center Senior Fellow Dennis Simon.
State
Oversight needed after West blast Staff Reports
Courtesy of AP
Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton
“It’s really...a day for SMU young women to come together and say, ‘I’ve always wanted to make an impact,’ and to think about student government as a way to do that,” Grounds said. Graduating senior Savannah Stephens has served on student
senate in several capacities her past four years at SMU, and will be speaking on a panel with fellow women Senators Monica Finnegan, Fantine Giap and Becca Rothstein. Looking back, Stephens said
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The Texas fertilizer plant explosion that killed 15 people a year ago could have been prevented — and agencies at all levels haven’t done enough to change the circumstances that led to the catastrophe, federal officials said Tuesday. The U.S. Chemical Safety Board presented its preliminary findings about the blast in West, Texas, in front of a packed room of residents and town officials still rebuilding after the April 17, 2013, explosion leveled part of the tiny town and injured 200 people. Even though several investigations have not determined the exact cause of the fire, the board said it’s clear the owners of West Fertilizer Co. failed to safely store hazardous chemicals or prepare for a potential disaster. The board also said several levels of federal, state and local government missed opportunities to prevent the tragedy. Investigators said the
firefighters who rushed to an initial fire at the plant didn’t know enough about the dangers they faced inside: 40 to 60 tons of ammonium nitrate, a chemical used in fertilizer that detonated due to the blaze. But experts on a panel convened by the safety board said Tuesday night that even if the firefighters had known more, there still isn’t clear guidance on what to do in that kind of situation. Among those in the audience was West Mayor Tommy Muska, a volunteer firefighter who responded the night of the blast. Muska thanked the board for holding its meeting in the city. “It is my personal hope and prayer that the lessons learned from your report ... will be enacted, and measures put in place so that the loss of the first responders’ lives will not be in vain,” Muska said. Despite investigations that have yielded information about safety deficiencies at the plant and voluntary safety steps taken by the nation’s fertilizer industry, not a single state or federal law requiring change has been passed since April 17, 2013.
Student Life
SMU child care program offers help for student parents Jehadu Abshiro News Writer jabshiro@smu.edu Tucked away on the southeast side of campus, there is a smallgated playground. In it, there is an array of children’s toys and two human sized concrete teddy bears. Across the parking lot from the playground sits the graduate apartment Hawk Hall. Enter the apartment take the short flight of stairs down and come to a bright blue mural and a door. It’s the SMU Preschool and Child Care Center.
“No one really knows how long its been here,” said Julie Schilling, the director of the Preschool and Child Care Center. “It’s always been in this building.” The center started sometime between 36 to 40 years ago. Before it was officially sanctioned as a child care center, it consisted of students with children offering to watch each other’s children during class. “Watch my kid when you’re in class and I’ll watch yours type of thing,” Schilling said. Someone decided to take it to the higher ups and from then on
the year-round SMU Preschool and Child Care Center has been a fully licensed childcare center for infants to preschoolers of SMU students, faculty and staff. The center was under Residence Life and Student Housing until September 2013 when they were moved under the Dedman Center for Lifetime sports. Past the door, swipe access is required for entry; Sixteen coats hang along the wall and 16 little paper frogs, labeled with the coat owner’s name, are stapled above each coat. Further down the hall, there is a ceiling to floor
giraffe painted on the wall facing Schilling’s office. Two bookshelves with everything from Dr. Seuss to “The Little Red Hen” sit in the corner along with a maroon winged chair. It’s past 3 p.m. and naptime is over. Preschoolers groggily march out of the multi-age children’s room to put up their blankets. They’re called the Mini-Mustangs on campus. This is one of the three rooms in the child care center. The center has an infant room for five six week to 18-month infants, a toddler room for 12 18-months-to
Local
Dallas celebrates Earth Day Avery Stefan Contributing Writer astefan@smu.edu Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Earth Day Texas will share 800 environmentcentered exhibits with an expected guest list of 60,000 attendees at Fair Park. Formerly known as Earth Day Dallas, the event changed its name this year due to the national nature of the groups that will participate: over 50 groups this year come from Washington, D.C. alone. Lanny Shivers, the Eco Expo Manager of Earth Day Texas, has worked year round with 17 other staff members to organize the event and recruit hundreds of national organizations to participate. “We believe it takes business to drive environmental economic change,” Shivers said. “At the event, they’ll all talk about what they’re doing within their own organization or business to try to make the world a better place.” With more Fortune 500 companies headquartered in North Texas than anywhere else, Earth Day Texas is a prime occasion for environmental
3-year-olds and a multi-age room for 3 to 5 year olds. The center only took 33 children this semester. “I get calls all time asking about enrolling their kids,” said Schilling, who is also the lead teacher in the multi-age room and the Hawk Hall manager. The center has five other staff members. The wait-list to get into the center is two to three years long and there are 47 families currently on the wait-list. About four years ago, there were 87 people on the wait-list. In 2008, Schilling created a user group that is trying to build
a bigger center. “The need is there,” she said. “We’ve got the need and the waitlist would probably be longer if we had a bigger center.” One of the biggest needs of the center is a larger infant program. The center is staffed to take care of 10 infants but is currently only able to care for six. Thirty-four infants are on the waitlist. Siblings have priority, which means if one child is already part of the center, and their brother or sister would be higher up on list to get into
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Politics
Supreme Court upholds Michigan ban on affirmative action in college Associated PRess
Courtesy of city-data.com
Fair Park was the center for the Earth Day celebration in Dallas this year.
economic change on a large business scale to make way. Although Texas is the biggest fossil fuel state, it is also the biggest wind and solar state in the Union. With its size and economic prowess, Shivers believes Texas has the potential to trigger a movement that could result in a dramatically more environmentally-conscious and concerned world.
“We want Texas to be the frontrunner in environmental progression,” Shivers said. Somewhat of a recent convert himself, Shivers moved away from his life at Citibank in 2008 to see what he could do to contribute to a positive environmental impact. “I did not believe I was
EARTH page 3
A state’s voters are free to outlaw the use of race as a factor in college admissions, the Supreme Court ruled Tuesday in a blow to affirmative action that also laid bare tensions among the justices about a continuing need for programs that address racial inequality in America. The 6-2 decision upheld a voter-approved change to the Michigan Constitution that forbids the state’s public colleges to take race into account. That change was indeed up to the voters, the ruling said, over one justice’s impassioned dissent that accused the court of simply wanting to wish away inequality. The ruling bolsters similar voter-approved initiatives banning affirmative action in education in California and Washington state. A few other states have adopted laws or issued executive orders to bar race-conscious admissions policies. Justice Anthony Kennedy said voters in Michigan chose to eliminate racial preferences, presumably because such a
Courtesy of AP
Protesters speak against the Supreme Court’s decision in Michigan.
system could give rise to racebased resentment. Kennedy said nothing in the Constitution or the court’s prior cases gives judges the authority to undermine the election results. “This case is not about how the debate about racial preferences should be resolved. It is about who may resolve it,” Kennedy said. He stressed that the court was not disturbing the holding of a 2003 case from Michigan —which gave rise to the 2006 Constitution change — permitting the consideration of race in admissions. A Texas affirmative
action case decided in June also did nothing to undermine that principle, Kennedy said. In a separate opinion siding with Kennedy, Justice Antonin Scalia said Michigan residents favored a colorblind constitution and “it would be shameful for us to stand in their way.” Strongly dissenting from the majority, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the decision trampled on the rights of minorities, even though the Michigan amendment was adopted democratically.
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