THE DAILY COUGAR
TODAY’S WEATHER
Ballet group transforms masterpieces /LIFE & ARTS
Close game slips away from Houston on the road in overtime /SPORTS
3-day forecast, Page 2
Hi 68 Lo 60
Monday, January 26, 2009
Issue 78, Volume 74
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Partner helps Bauer go green By Jonathan Harris The Daily Cougar PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), a corporate partner of Bauer College of Business, will be hosting Make Recycling Count, an environmental awareness event, today from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the AIM Center and in the lobby of Melcher Hall. The event will focus on the importance of student service, along with individual and corporate responsibilities. The UH Campus Sustainability Task Force (CSTF) will be meeting with PwC to compare notes on ways to improve the University’s environmental efforts. “PwC has started an initiative on college campuses to introduce recycling and our task force is doing a lot of linking up with other colleges during RecycleMania in our aim to start grassroots recycling campaigns,” junior English student and CSTF board member Mary Martin said. “The University of Houston is taking great strides in making the campus a greener place for its
students, faculty and staff,” Jessica Robertson, communications manager for the Bauer College of Business, said. At the event, students will be able to trade plastic water bottles for aluminum bottles and take part in activities meant to teach them about energy consumption. Robertson said that ideally those who attend the event will not only learn, but follow up with action. “(Make Recycling Count) will give everyone in Melcher Hall the opportunity to learn more about recycling and energy consumption and to put that knowledge into practice by registering to take part in a New Orleans service project in June,” Robertson said. PwC will be holding similar events such as this one at 100 U.S. schools, with one student per campus chosen from an open drawing to join and represent their school at the New Orleans service project in June.
James Rincon THE DAILY COUGAR
Associate violin professor Kyung Sun Lee (left) and husband and visiting associate music professor Brian Suits honor violin professor Fredell Lack with Johannes Brahmís “Sonata No. 2 in A major,” Friday at Dudley Recital Hall.
Moores honors own Despite early-morning hospital procedure, Lack attends tribute
news@thedailycougar.com
By James Rincon The Daily Cougar
Michael Scott The Daily Cougar
Students can catch up on their studies, get their coffee fix and support their peers at the same time at student-run Cougar Grounds inside the Conrad N. Hilton College of Hotel and Restaurant Management.
UH alum creates campus business By Allison P. Smith The Daily Cougar The Conrad N. Hilton College of Hotel and Restaurant Management will introduce the newest edition to the campus coffee shop scene with today’s grand opening of Cougar Grounds — the first entirely studentrun coffee shop in the nation. “It is an outstanding educational opportunity,” Dean of the Hilton College John T. Bowen said in a Hilton College press release. “Students will take on everything, from ordering
supplies to managing inventory, cost control, payroll, tax deductions, maintenance and, of course, outstanding customer service.” The business will give students such as hotel restaurant management freshman Daniel Jarvis an opportunity to employ the entrepreneurial concepts they learn in the classroom, Bowen said. Jarvis worked for Starbucks for six months prior to Cougar Grounds hiring him as a supervisor. see GROUNDS, page 3
The Moores School of Music paid tribute to the career of C.W. Moores Distinguished Professor Fredell Lack Friday night in the Dudley Recital Hall of the Fine Arts Building. Lack is one of the Moores School of Music’s most celebrated and accomplished faculty with a career spanning more than 65 years in which, after attending Julliard, she traveled across the United States and Europe as a violin soloist for orchestras in New York, Pittsburg, Stockholm, Sweden, Oslo, Norway and Berlin, as well as for the Royal Philharmonic in London and the Concertgebouw of Amsterdam, among many others. “She’s one of the most famous female violinists of the last century,” associate violin professor Kyung Sun Lee said. Lee, the night’s violinist, was accompanied on the piano by her husband, visiting associate music professor, Brian Suits. The University and the Moores School of Music owes a tremendous amount of credit to Lack for its development, Suits said. “She had a really incredible hand in making the music school what it is, even from its conception,” Suits said. Both Lee and Suits said that Lack has been an inspiration to them as a colleague and a musician. “She’s such a wonderful supportive colleague and she has all of this connection with the music world to draw on. Just about everybody in the classical music world who’s been alive in recent past, she has worked with them,
or knows of them, or has stories to tell about them,” Suits said. “She’s just such a wonderful resource, and we’re so lucky to have her.” Suits and Lee are decorated concert musicians in their own rights. Suits taught accompaniment at the Yale School of Music from 1990 to 2002 and is a composer, conductor and arranger as well as a classically-trained pianist. His orchestral arrangement “The Host” was a hit at the 2006 Cannes Film festival and broke all box-office records in Korea. Lee, who plays a Joseph Guarnerius violin from 1723, is a Peabody Conservatory and Julliardtrained violinist who has been recognized by the Tchaikovsky Competition and the Queen Elisabeth Competition. Lee was the firstprize winner Washington and D’Angelo International Competitions. g g Fredell Lack was Lee came to born in Tulsa, Okla. UH in 2006 and and began violin she said she has lessons at age six. Lack to thank for that as well. “My teacher, Sylvia Rosenberg, who is a 75-year-old, she and Ms. Lack used to be so close, and that’s how I got the invitation for the job,” Lee said. “It’s been wonderful. We’re neighbors in the studio, and she often comes to my door and says she is happy to have me around and she wants to know if there’s anything she can do to help.” The tribute consisted of four parts, with selections from Johannes Brahms, Felix Mendelssohn and
Erich Wolfgang Korngold. Of the pieces played, Brahms’ Sonata No. 2 had a special meaning, Lee said. “There are three Brahms sonatas and people actually like the last one a lot and the first one, but (Lack) really thinks the second one is the perfect one, so I said, ‘OK, let’s do No. 2.’” Friday’s concert was a replacement for what was originally meant to be a five-piece performance with assistant horn professor Roger Kaza, affiliate artist in viola Wayne Brooks, and associate cello professor at Rice University Brinton Smith in addition to Lee and Suits. Hurricane Ike forced the concert to be rescheduled but Kaza, Brooks, Smith and all members of the Houston Symphony could no longer participate due to a schedule conflict. Despite the setback, Suits said the concert was a success. “It can’t go much better than that,” Suits said. “The Mendelssohn was the first time we’ve ever played it. It was a brand new piece for us. It went very well.” Lack, who will retire at the end of the semester, was in attendance at the tribute after having been in the hospital earlier that day to undergo a scheduled procedure. She left soon after the concert was over, but spoke to Lee about the concert before she left. “She has been here for 50 years, and now she’s about to retire. She told me she feels very secure leaving (the program) to me, so I’m very honored.” Lee said. “She was so delighted to hear the beautiful concert. I was flattered.” news@thedailycougar.com