INSIDE
Enjoying the Mediterranean Diet
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Women’s soccer faces Rutgers
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Corny horror in ‘We Are What We Are’
Colleges should rethink the SAT
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FRIDAY
October 11, 2013 FRIDAY High 88, Low 66 SATURDAY High 84, Low 68
VOLUME 99 ISSUE 23 FIRST COPY FREE, ADDITIONAL COPIES 50 CENTS
STudent Life
‘InterSECTIONS’ to be held over fall break Shannon Lynch Contributing Writer snlynch@smu.edu
RYAN MILLER / The Daily Campus
Mark Rhodes, Creston Lynch, Samantha Thomas, Brad Boeke and Larry Brown answer student questions about campus issues Thursday evening.
Senate hosts town hall
Athletics, parking, diversity, safety,Wi-Fi issues brought to leaders Katy Roden Editor-in-Chief kroden@smu.edu
SMU students brought the top campus issues forward to a variety of administrators and faculty last night at a Town Hall in HughesTrigg Student Center hosted by Student Senate. Students voiced their complaints, comments and suggestions about parking, campus safety, sexual assault, PerunaNet Wi-Fi, construction, diversity and the basketball team. Many students had questions for men’s basketball Head Coach Larry Brown and the team’s upcoming season which begins in the American Airlines Center Nov. 8 against Texas Christian University. “There’s no reason why we can’t be an elite team,” Brown said. “We’ve got a great school, live in a great city and we’re in a great conference.” Brown called for students to reach out to his players and include them in the SMU community. “We have a lot of kids that are kind of out of place in this environment right now,” Brown said. “You can kind of recognize the guys that play on the basketball team. Our greatest hope is that our
kids be part of the student body, that we bring in kids that you’re proud of, you want to be friends with. We don’t want our guys isolated like they’re different.” Students directed questions about parking and crosswalk safety to Mark Rhodes, director of Parking and ID Card Services. Students commented on the amount of construction workers occupying parking spaces on campus, which are already overflowing with students, faculty and staff. Rhodes said the problem will soon be solved when the Moody Coliseum construction is complete. The renovated Moody Garage will reopen in January 2014. Another student complained about the crosswalk at Airline Road and Daniel Avenue that has reportedly had dysfunctional lighting since the summer. Rhodes said the issue has not been resolved due to logistical issues. One of the three palettes of materials needed to fix the crosswalk lighting was lost, Rhodes said, but that the crosswalk is close to being repaired. Samantha Thomas, executive director for Access and Equity, and executive assistant to the president/ Title IX coordinator, addressed all student concerns about campus safety and sexual assault reports. She stressed using the Giddy Up
golf carts that transport students around campus from 7 p.m. to 3 a.m. She also noted the resources on campus for students to report assaults — the Access and Equity Office, counseling and psychiatric services at Memorial Health Center and the SMU police. Thomas said that students shouldn’t be concerned about anonymity issues and that coming to the Access and Equity office does not have to turn into a full-fledged investigation. Additional resources can be found at smu.edu/liveresponsibly. “I have to emphasize ‘be responsible,’” Thomas said. “Take care of each other. It doesn’t hurt to help a person get back to campus safely.” Brad Boeke, director of Academic Technology Services, addressed concerns about the campus Wi-Fi, PerunaNet. Boeke said additional wireless access points are in the works, but the increased amount of devices on campus is what is causing the slow internet connection. He said the average student on campus has five devices, including cellphones, computers, video game consoles and tablets. Boeke welcomes student complaints, which he said help Technology Services solve problems. “If you have problems with technology, don’t just take it,”
Boeke said. “Call our help desk and complain.” Boeke also discussed the email unsubscribe system that debuted this semester. Student Body Vice President Jaywin Malhi wrote a bill for the system two years ago as a senator and said it was great to see “we can make changes, it does take time though.” Creston Lynch, director of Multicultural Student Affairs, spoke about campus diversity and the current initiatives on campus, including a leadership and diversity retreat this weekend called InterSECTIONS. “The Multicultural Student Affairs office has constant efforts to engage students in conversation about diversity and being who you are and valuing each other,” Student Body President Ramon Trespalacios said. MSA hosts “Real Talk” every second Tuesday of the month to discuss current, relevant events and the impact they have on diversity, equality and social justice. Lynch said MSA’s efforts cannot be successful unless there is student support. All members of the panel encouraged students to reach out to their staffs with additional comments and concerns.
Philanthropy
Event promotes literacy for first-graders Trevor thrall Opinion Editor tthrall@smu.edu SMU students are encouraged to return from fall break bearing all their old books from childhood. A book drive, ending Wednesday, will benefit first-graders from West Dallas in an effort to promote literacy. Books will be distributed at Reading for a Reason, scheduled for Oct. 18. Reading for a Reason will bring 150 first-grade students and their parents to SMU’s campus to learn about literacy. Children will be split into groups where an SMU volunteer will read two books and play educational games with the West Dallas students. Parents will attend an informational session in the Simmons School of Education and Human Development to teach them how to read with their
Correction: In Wednesday’s
issue of The Daily Campus, the caption on the photo for the story titled “Prof. Detcheva looks forward to out of classroom learning for faculty, students” misspelled Miroslava Detcheva’s name. We regret the error.
children and facilitate literacy at home. SMU senior Eleanor Rosler came up with the idea after she realized that she wanted to do something bigger than volunteering on a weekly basis. Rosler is one of the founders of Mustang Heroes, a service organization on campus. She has had a passion for volunteering with children since she was in the 10th grade, so this event was right up her alley. “While all volunteering is important, helping kids is something that sparks a true passion for me. Having a plethora of books at a young age was so beneficial to my childhood, so I wanted to make sure that all kids had that same opportunity,” Rosler said. SMU students Antonea Bastian, Carissa Grisham, Kayce Pederson and Emily Towler are also responsible for organizing this event, along with a grant from the SMU Big iDeas program. Senior Bastian got involved because of her passion for education. She knew literacy was a cause she wanted to work for when she came across a statistic that linked poor reading skills in third-graders with teen pregnancy. “When I look at my own educational career, it
ELLEN SMITH / The Daily Campus
Books can be donated in boxes like these in Umphrey Lee, Virginia Snider, McElvaney and the Mustang Heroes office.
was falling in love with books and subjects that made my school work come to life,” Bastian said. Sophomore Towler hopes the event will also have a positive impact on SMU students. “It is so important to students to be engaged in the community around us,” Towler said. “It is incredibly easy to live on the beautiful SMU campus and forget that anything else exists in Dallas. However,
there are so many larger issues that we can help solve right in our own backyard. In addition to narrowing the literacy gap in Dallas, we really hope this event inspires our peers to take a more active role in serving their community.” Books can be donated until Wednesday in Umphrey Lee, Virginia-Snider Hall, McElvaney Hall and the Mustang Heroes office.
This weekend, SMU Student Senate, the Office of Multicultural Student Affairs and the Community Engagement and Leadership Center will give students “a break from the ordinary” in the inaugural Mustang InterSECTIONS retreat. Mustang InterSECTIONS will consist of activities and discussions that revolve around leadership and diversity. Mustang InterSECTIONS, held at the Sky Ranch Retreat Center, hopes to tackle issues such as identity exploration, recognizing and battling bias, oppression and the development of advocacy skills. Offered at no cost to students or staff, the weekend retreat will provide an environment that allows them to “foster inclusivity and a deeper understanding of diversity,” said Creston Lynch, director of Multicultural Student Affairs. “We will be taking students through a variety of activities and discussions [to help] them explore their own backgrounds and experiences, and how that shapes their worldview and interactions with others,” said Community
Engagement and Leadership Director Stephanie Howeth. According to Howeth, roughly 40 students are expected to attend, ranging from first-year to graduate students. Howeth explained that the retreat will focus on student development through diversity and leadership for a social change. “This is the first time we’ve looked specifically at the InterSECTIONS of diversity and leadership within this framework,” Howeth said. Howeth and Lynch started planning Mustang InterSECTIONS in early summer, when they saw an opportunity to work with another Student Affairs organization in hopes of challenging students to think differently about leadership at SMU. The collaboration of these two campus organizations is thus the ideal way to target a wide range of students and “get more people involved in conversations about leadership and diversity,” Lynch said. Howeth hopes that the students who participate in Mustang InterSECTIONS will walk away with tangible skills to manage conflict, build coalitions with those of different backgrounds, and address potential issues of bias, prejudice and hate on campus.
Profile
Fontenot pioneers Faculty-in-Residence Katy Roden Editor-in-Chief kroden@smu.edu Editors’ note: In August 2014 SMU will debut the Residential Commons on-campus living model. Eleven Faculty-in-Residence were selected to live among students. This is part four of 11 FiR profiles. In 2009, Mark Fontenot was the first faculty member to move on campus. The computer science professor worked with Residence Life and Student Housing the past four years developing the Residential Commons system. “We knew we were on the path coming toward the Residential Commons system and the idea was to start working through some of the challenges,” Fontenot said. Fontenot studied computer science as an undergraduate at McNeese State University in Louisiana before choosing SMU for graduate school. He was a teacher’s assistant during graduate school and was offered a teaching position in the computer science department upon graduation. He has been teaching full time since 2005. Fontenot hopes to use his campus life experience to show students that faculty are “humans with desires, passions and hobbies.” He himself is an organist for a Catholic church in Plano and has been playing for churches since he was 14. “I think I can really help students understand that faculty are not scary people that they come to college thinking we are,” Fontenot said. “[I hope to] help students understand that, yes, we have high expectations, classes are hard, but, no, that doesn’t mean that you can’t have a friendship or mentorship with a faculty member. We’re not just here to stand up, teach and go home.” After working for years with RLSH as a faculty representative in the development of the Residential
ANNA CLARKSON / The Daily Campus
Professor Mark Fontenot
Commons, Fontenot believes the system will improve student and faculty life. He said the FIR positions will be highly desired after the “Founding FiRs” three to four years come to an end. “It’s going to make the educational experience much more impactful, meaningful and transformational,” he said. “It’s going to help us retain the best and the brightest students that choose to come to SMU. Those students can not only challenge each other, but challenge the faculty members. They can raise the level of discourse in the classroom. It’s going to make SMU that much better of a place to spend perhaps the most important four years of any student’s life.” Fontenot said the administration’s efforts to create the Residential Commons are a big step to developing community on campus. “Actions speak louder than words,” Fontenot said. “Saying we need to build community is one thing. Investing [$134.5 million] that could have been invested in other things speaks volumes to the importance [the administration sees] in what the Residential Commons system has to offer.” Fontenot will live in the Loyd Residential Commons.