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THEDAILYCOUGAR.COM Issue 96, Volume 75
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Reduction plan raises concerns Faculty Senate encouraged to give input on budget cut
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By Hiba Adi THE DAILY COUGAR The Faculty Senate discussed the 5 percent budget reduction plan
implemented by Gov. Rick Perry in depth at Wednesday’s meeting. “The timeline for this has been very short,” Faculty Senate President Mark Clarke said. The state of Texas told its universities that they would be facing a budget cut in mid January, but specifics were released only a week ago.
“We started working on this last summer because we saw this coming,” Provost John Antel said. C l a r k e J Clarke said the plan published on the UH Budget
Ice shelf break leads to voyage
Office Web site was just a draft that was required to go to the state. He would like to see the Senate strongly encourage the faculty to provide input in order to form a more detailed plan. “Budget reductions will be targeted, and it will be made in a strategic way. They should not be across the board,” Clarke said.
see FACULTY, page 3
Skilled hands accomplish less In tough economy, the overqualified settle for basic job duties J
By Amanda Trella THE DAILY COUGAR By Michelle Villarreal THE DAILY COUGAR When the ice shelf of the Antarctic Peninsula broke up in 2002, it provided an opportunity to study the physical and biological environment of the former ice shelf. Earth science major Yuribia Munoz was invited by UH’s CoDirector of the Geoscience Learning Center, Julia Wellner, to start working on the LARISSA project (LARsen Ice Shelf System-Antarctica). The shelf is located on the east side of the Antarctic Peninsula. “I accepted the offer and after a lot of medical exams, vaccines and blood tests, I made it to Antarctica,” Munoz said. “A very thorough medical exam had to be done because there are no hospitals in Antarctica, and there are no doctors in the vessel. I even had to have my four wisdom teeth taken out in order to pass the medical exam.” The LARISSA project is separated into three different proposals: marine and quaternary geosciences, cryosphere and oceans and marine ecosystems. But those who choose
UH President Renu Khator attended the meeting and she said she doesn’t agree with the state’s budget reductions. “If you noticed the survey that was recently published in the Houston Chronicle, it shows that public opinion says (the budget)
COURTESY OF YURIBIA MUNOZ
The scientists in Antarctica working on a project, including a UH student and faculty, collected mud in search of sediments in steel boxes called kasten cores. They dropped the box into seawater and bring it back up on the ship for examination. to participate need time to adjust to living on the water. “This is my first time being on a ship and honestly, it was difficult the first days because I did get seasick,” Munoz said. “There was one day that I could not get out of bed and apparently I was not alone. More than half of the science party did not leave their rooms that day.”
Munoz is the only undergraduate working on the ship and shares a room with two other students working toward their doctorates. “Whenever there is work for the biologists, we, the geologists, help as much as we can. When we need help, they are always willing to stay late see ANTARCTICA, page 10
The University of Houston Department of Psychology has come out with a recent study surveying the effects of overqualified workers in the workplace. With the unemployment rate at an all-time high, the jobless are often taking any work that comes available to them, sometimes causing overqualified employees to work in unchallenging positions. Alexandra Luksyte, a thirdyear student in the Industrial Organizational Psychology graduate program conducted the study. She surveyed 215 full-time student employees in a wide range of occupations and their employers to find how overqualified workers reacted to their under qualified positions. “We found that overqualified people are usually the least productive in the workforce,” Luksyte said. “They engage in counterproductive work-behaviors, such as surfing the Internet or talking to their co-workers. They
do anything besides their work because they are bored and feel underutilized.” The study reflected that these employees participate in these behaviors because they become burned-out and tend to take a cynical point of view towards their occupations. “We hypothesized this would happen and it makes sense, if you are overqualified and doing something boring, to feel as if you are wasting your time. If there is no room for professional growth, you might become detached from your job or your employers,” Luksyte said. Luksyte’s findings also illustrate that employees tend to become cynical because no one forced them to accept the job for which they are overqualified. Employees become stuck in a position that they put themselves into even though they never had to accept the job in the first place. Although these employees feel a sense of cynicism, those who are overqualified do produce good quality work, according to their supervisors, but they do not go above and beyond their expectations, Luksyte said. For over two years, Luksyte see WORKERS, page 10
Environmental chamber used in human body study By Nzinga Tchameni THE DAILY COUGAR The UH Department of Health and Human Performance is using an environmental chamber to study the ways in which the immune system is susceptible to hot and cold weather. Associate Professor Brian McFarlin and Assistant Professor
Richard Simpson are the researchers behind this study. According to a UH news release, the environmental chamber at the department’s Laboratory of Integrated Physiology resembles a giant cooler. The temperature and humidity can be widely adjusted in the 10-by-10 foot stainless steel room between 120 degrees and minus 4 degrees Fahrenheit.
Biothera, a biotechnology company that’s primary focus is to improve immune health, developed a product called Wellmune, an FDA-approved food additive. McFarlin said the company approached the department about doing a study to evaluate whether Wellmune could maintain immune function after exercise in the heat. Researchers at the department
are assisting the company in evaluating their product and its effects on athletes’ immune systems. The athletes’ blood and temperatures are monitored while they work out on stationary bikes in both sweltering and frigid environments. “One of the focuses (of this study) is how the environmental stressors influence the immune
system,” McFarlin said. “What we know is that if you compare exercising in a very hot or very cold environment, it creates certain disturbances in normal immune functioning.” The study is intended to help evaluate the strain that elite athletes experience while training. see BODY HEAT, page 3