INSIDE
Going gluten-free at SMU
PAGE 2
Leave the political echo chamber
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Mustangs shut out by Houston
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New exhibit opens at Meadows PAGE 5
Monday
December 2, 2013 MONDAY High 68, Low 50 TUEsday High 79, Low 54
VOLUME 99 ISSUE 42 FIRST COPY FREE, ADDITIONAL COPIES 50 CENTS
Turn up the lights
Celebration of Lights ceremony illuminates main quad tonight ELLEN SMITH / The Daily Campus
The lighting of the University Christmas Tree in front of Dallas Hall kicks off the Student Foundation sponsored Celebration of Lights. This is the 36th Celebration of Lights since the tradition began in 1977.
Katy Roden Editor-in-Chief kroden@smu.edu Student Foundation kicks off the holiday season tonight, hosting the annual Celebration of Lights in the main quad in front of Dallas Hall at 7 p.m. “With an event that is so rooted in SMU tradition, we hope to see current and past SMU students coming together and celebrating
the true meaning of Christmas and sharing the jubilation that we all feel when the lights are turned on,” said Kat Thompson, a member of the Celebration of Lights Committee. Since 1977, the SMU community has gathered for this tradition, singing seasonal songs and watching student performances. Keeping with his own tradition, President R. Gerald Turner will read The Christmas
Story to the crowd. Attendees will be asked to blow out their provided candles as the quad is blanketed in darkness. Seconds later the University Christmas Tree, Dallas Hall and trees in the main quad will be lit. “The Campus Events committee has been working on Celebration of Lights since Perunapalooza — planning decorations, setting a date, auditioning musical acts, taste testing hot chocolate, selecting a
service project and ensuring that every little detail is accounted for,” Thompson said. This year’s service project is The Salvation Army Angel Tree, which “gives individuals and partnering corporations an opportunity to adopt less fortunate children and senior citizens and provide personalized gifts and necessities to those who would otherwise receive very little or nothing during the
Awards
SMU student Jewel Lipps was awarded the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Greater Research Opportunity Fellowship. The GRO fellowship program gave $1.65 million in research fellowships to 33 students across the country that are pursuing degrees in environmental science and other related fields. Lipps, an environmental science with biology emphasis and chemistry major, found out about the grant after attending the University Honors Program End of the Year Banquet. “I attended the University Honors Program End of the Year Banquet, where the director of the SMU National Fellowships Office, Dr. [Kathleen] HugleyCook, shared information about her office and encouraged us all to look at the website,” Lipps said. “It had many scholarships listed and I found the link to the EPA Greater Research Opportunity information there. Dr. HugleyCook then met with me to help me apply.” This year’s GRO recipients are qualified to receive a fellowship of up to $50,000. With her money, Lipps hopes to work on a project related to remediation, water quality or ecosystem protection. “The EPA’s GRO for Undergraduates is a fellowship that covers tuition and housing costs for a student’s junior and senior years, a paid summer internship with the EPA, and $5000 for academic and research
expenses. I am currently in the process of being matched for my summer internship,” Lipps said. “I plan to use my academic / research expense funds for travel costs in my SMU research project with the Institute for the Study of Earth and Man (ISEM). For this project, I will be working at the Trinity River Audubon Center (TRAC) to survey the forest composition and look at how the restoration process is going. TRAC has been reclaimed from an illegal landfill, so I find the site’s restoration to be an intriguing story.” According to Lek Kadeli, acting assistant administrator for the EPA’s Office of Research and Development, the EPA’s GRO program has been providing fellowships to students for the past 30 years. “For 30 years, EPA’s GRO program has nurtured and supported new generations of America’s workforce as they prepare to enter the environmental science and public health fields,” Kadeli said. “This year’s GRO recipients truly reflect EPA’s commitment to research that promotes a sustainable and healthy nation.” When she first found out Lipps said she was shocked and in disbelief. However, now that it is official, she is honored and grateful to be a GRO fellow. “I am passionate about the environment because it is an issue where individuals have an impact. What each person does locally can affect someone on the other side of the globe, but it is also a matter of collective actions. I also see environmental issues
reminding everyone what a great community we are a part of,” said Kaleigh Schropp, Vice President of Programming for SF. “[Today] we hope that everyone from firstyears seeing the lights for the first time to seniors who bond over it being their last time will take a break from their hectic lives and remind themselves what brings us all here.” The event is expected to last until 8 p.m.
Campus
Student wins EPA’s GRO fellowship Emily Sims News Writer esims@smu.edu
holiday season,” according to the organization’s website. Student performances will include senior Julian Spearman, senior Charlie Weber, senior Sarah Aboukhair, sophomore Shannon Conboy, first-year Uche Ndubizu and student groups Voices of Inspiration, Southern Gentlemen and Belle Tones. “The event attracts students as well as anyone associated with the university in the hopes of
Campus expansion requires demolition of faculty homes Trevor Thrall Opinion Editor tthrall@smu.edu
Courtesy of Jewel Lipps
Jewel Lipps
as the root of many problems related to human health, hunger and equality. Passion toward the environment not only has the benefit of restoring and sharing nature’s wonder but helping humanity in general,” said Lipps. In the future, Lipps hopes to attend graduate school to further research in ecosystem restoration and remediation methods. “In general I hope to make the world, or at least a piece of it, cleaner and healthier. More specifically, I hope to help restore ecosystems around very polluted areas,” Lipps said. “Research is showing that natural solutions, like wetlands and forests along rivers, are better ways to have clean water than industrial, engineering type of solutions, and I want to be part of this restoration movement.”
Children run from yard to yard, the smell of burgers grilling fills the neighborhood, and front porches on Fondren Drive are equipped with occupied rocking chairs. Residents meticulously trim hedges and tend to landscaping, pausing to chat with neighbors who stop by for a friendly hello. SMU faculty and staff members make up this closeknit community east of campus, where they’re able to live close to work and send their children to Highland Park schools. Living in a neighborhood they normally couldn’t afford, the SMU employees say they enjoy the opportunity to immerse themselves in the SMU culture. But, much to their disappointment, several families will soon move out of their SMU-owned homes to make room for new additions to the campus. “Just the quality of life is like Tom Sawyer. It’s like Mayberry. It’s safe. It’s a little piece of heaven here,” said John Wagner, a geology professor at SMU. Wagner and his 12-year-old son are both devastated to be leaving the neighborhood. They, along with several neighbors, are required to move out by Dec. 31. SMU will be taking the houses back so that construction can move forward under the Centennial Master Plan,
BEN OHENE / The Daily Campus
The area of homes near the Simmons Quad will be replaced with a parking lot.
requiring demolition of the homes to make room for a new parking lot. The construction will eliminate a section of the 3000 block of Fondren Drive, which is directly east of campus. SMU faculty and staff solely occupy the homes on this block, and pay low rental rates on SMU subsidized housing. In February, Harold Simmons and Annette Caldwell Simmons donated $25 million to The Annette Caldwell Simmons School of Education and Human Development. The gift will fund a new building on the east side of campus near Annette Caldwell Simmons Hall, which was also funded by Harold and Annette Simmons when they donated $20 million in 2007. The Centennial Master Plan, which details building plans for SMU from 1997-2015, shows where new buildings are to be built on the northeast side of campus. Proposed construction for Harold Clark Simmons Hall, along with another building near Annette Caldwell Simmons Hall, will eliminate parking in the area. The developing site, which will become the Simmons
Quad, spans the block between Ownby Drive and Airline Road from east to west, and between University Boulevard and McFarlin Boulevard from north to south. According to Philip Jabour, associate vice president of the Office of Planning, Design, and Construction and University Architect, lost parking will be replaced by a temporary lot. “Short term we’re going to be building a parking lot on the northeast corner of Airline and McFarlin. It’s about 15 lots. Some of them have homes, a couple of them are already demolished,” Jabour said. Plans for what the lot will be replaced with in the long term have not yet been made, but SMU has an idea for the area. SMU President R. Gerald Turner spoke briefly on the subject to the Student Affairs Leadership Council. “There will probably be five or so academic buildings, a parking garage and probably intramural fields,” Turner said.
EXPANSION page 3