PHOTOS: Suburbia Music Festival
INSIDE
Tesar to open steak house
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Managing Editor says goodbye
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And the No. 1 SMU athlete is...
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wednesday
may 7, 2014
Wednesday High 90, Low 70 Thursday High 81, Low 70
VOLUME 99 ISSUE 90 FIRST COPY FREE, ADDITIONAL COPIES 50 CENTS
Campus
SIDNEY HOLLINGSWORTH / The Daily Campus
SMU’s Board of Trustees has approved the hiring of efficiency experts at Bain & Company to help the university consolidate its budget.
Bain begins work with SMU Chris Warley Contributing Writer cwarley@smu.edu Bill Detwiler, a long-time official in SMU’s Business and Finance office, had the opportunity to sit in on the school’s recent Board of Trustees meeting last month. He’s sat through dozens of board meetings during his tenure at SMU, but said he’s never seen the trustees more excited about a project than they were at this meeting. The board officially approved a motion to hire efficiency experts Bain & Company to consolidate the university’s budget. “Of the many years I’ve been going to board meetings, I’ve not seen that kind of dialogue and engagement,” said Detwiler, associate vice president of
Business Services and Human Resources. “They get it. They’re beyond approving it. They’re excited about it.” Bain’s Atlanta-based higher education group will examine SMU’s finances and make recommendations about how it can become more efficient in the future. The plan, called “Project SMU: Operational Excellence for the 2nd Century,” will occur in three phases: Bain will identify places where SMU can save money in its budget, design new systems to reduce costs, and help SMU implement the systems across the campus. Bain sent a team to set up an office on campus April 7 and it will be here for the next 12 to 18 months, depending on how long it takes to complete their reporting and enact any new programs. Bain officials are working out
of Perkins Administrative Building near the Business and Finance offices. SMU President R. Gerald Turner said that the university had never hired an outside group to review operations on such a broad scale but thinks the decision to hire was well-timed. “We are doing it now so that we can continue to enhance the academic stature of the university by operating as efficiently as possible,” Turner said. Detwiler and Turner declined to disclose how much SMU would pay Bain for its services, but noted that a cost estimate couldn’t even be determined at this point in time. “The exact number is not known because we’re not far enough along in the project,” Detwiler said.
The University of California, Berkeley paid Bain $7.5 million to do a similar review of its operations, according to The Daily Californian, Berkeley’s newspaper. Detwiler said that Bain won’t get one large fee regardless of the results of the project. While there is a flat fee component, Bain will also charge a percentage of the savings they identify and a percentage of the savings SMU implements. Turner said that the expertise of Bain justifies the cost. “Having extended access to the level of expertise available for this project is not inexpensive,” Turner said. Bain’s review of expenses can be categorized into two separate
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Lecture
ELLEN SMITH / The Daily Campus
The Residential Commons will open for the fall semester 2014.
Residential Commons to be dedicated Friday Katelyn GOugh Editor-in-Chief kgough@smu.edu SMU’s new Residential Commons complex will be dedicated Friday. The newest $146 million addition to SMU residential life is the largest capital project in SMU history and will house an additional 1,250 students on campus. Friday’s noon ceremony will include both the dedication and a tour of the new residential commons. Vice President for Student Affairs Lori S. White said the dedication will be a time for members of all facets of the
SMU community to experience the campus expansion first. “We’re very excited about the dedication on Friday. It will be an opportunity for the community to see what the Residential Commons looks like and a chance to thank the donors,” White said. Lead donors — totaling $30 million cumulatively — were gifted to the university by the Armstrong, Arnold, Crow, Crum, Loyd and Ware families. Brad Cheves, vice president for development and external affairs, told SMU News and Communications that Friday’s
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Student Life
Millenials not marrying young Ariel Monticure Contributing Writer amonticure@smu.edu
Courtesy of SMU
Cokie Roberts.
Courtesy of SMU
Susan Stamberg.
Courtesy of SMU
Nina Totenberg.
NPR founders featured at Tate Meredith Carey Contributing Writer mbcarey@smu.edu Most people in the audience at the Tate Lecture Monday could have spent the entire discussion with their eyes closed. The voices of the four women who graced the McFarlin Auditorium stage are familiar, found nearly every day on the airwaves of National Public Radio. Cokie Roberts, Susan Stamberg, Nina Totenberg and Linda Wertheimer, the founding mothers of NPR, spoke with moderator Keven Ann Willey on every topic from women in the workplace to snakes and shotguns. The radio legends have each spent nearly 40 years on the air, spreading news and information to the nation on popular shows like “Morning Edition,” “All Things Considered” and “Weekend Edition.” They shared their perspective on impeachments, disasters and elections to thousands of listeners across the country. As Roberts sat in the pouring rain in the Vatican City, waiting for the papal election in 2013, she complained to herself about the weather, the cardinals’ lengthy decision and the seagull perched
Courtesy of SMU
Linda Wertheimer.
on the famed chimney. But, as the smoke came pouring out of the stack, she was humbled by the weight of the moment. “We eyewitness history all day, every day,” Roberts said. “When you cover it, you don’t think of it as history.” For the women, radio allows them to share their stories in a way that other mediums limit. “Interactive media is a new idea, in theory, but it’s really what we’ve been doing all along,” Roberts said. “If we write it well enough, your imagination creates even better pictures that what would have been taken.”
Roberts, Stamberg, Totenberg and Wertheimer all joined NPR in the early ’70s, a time when strong women were still rare in the workforce. Full of self-deprecation, the women spoke at length about their time together in a progressive but still male-dominated area. Totenberg explained that she, Stamberg and Roberts worked in a small room at the beginning of their careers, sharing professional and personal problems and advice. “One man called it the ‘Fallopian Jungle.’ I would like to point out that he is gone. We are not,” Totenberg said. The Tate Lecture had a casual feel, different from many other lectures, as the women seemed to invite the audience into their minds, as they do through the radio. “I’ve been to all of the Tate Lectures and this by far is the best one yet,” first-year Katie Anne Head said. “They played off each other really well. I think it was as fun for them as it was for the audience.” Bringing a sort of levity to topics like the Supreme Court, Congress and international news is not new for the four speakers, but their amusing personal stories brought their on-air and on-stage personalities to life.
Seniors Allie Hays and Katie Smith may be approaching the next chapter in their lives, but the idea of marriage within the next five years is a laughable matter. Their reasoning may be self-serving but not because they want to live life in vice and participate in reckless behavior. Both girls expressed their need for personal achievement before settling down. “It depends where we are in our lives,” Hays said. “I think you’re both doing your own thing. You’re both growing and changing,” Smith said. Hays and Smith are not alone in their views against marrying young. A study conducted by Pew Research Center in 2013 revealed a sharp decline in marriage among Millennials, ages 18-33, compared to generations in the past. The decline of marriages among Millennials is approximately half of the percentage of their parents’ generation. In a study done in 2008, younger people felt that having a successful career, social status and a fulfilling sex life were easier to accomplish while remaining single. Where a Millennial is from can also affect their intention to marry. Pew Research Center revealed that 71 percent of those who were unmarried in the South said they wanted to get married, compared to the 49 percent in the East, 53 percent in the West and 60 percent in the Midwest. While this school of thought varies
Courtesy of SMU
Perkins Chapel is a popular place for SMU students to get married.
regionally, college students across the country seem to have the same mentality. A small survey of students from University of Wisconsin and Southern Methodist University was conducted to test if the contrasting cultures had different sets of values. Regardless of their answers all participants brought up the topic
of wanting financial stability before settling down. SMU students who were for marrying within the next five years versus students against it were almost equally split 42 percent and 57 percent. On the other hand, 75 percent of the students who took the
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