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Issue 125, Volume 75
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UH to cut $4.1M from budget
Prof awarded part of cancer grant
More reductions to come as administrators say this is only the beginning
A researcher from the College of Education received a portion of a $6.8 million grant from the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas earlier this month. Eleven other programs in Texas also received a portion of the money. Associate professor Jenny Yi was awarded a grant of $272,753
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By Jose Aguilar The Daily Cougar The first phase of the statemandated 5 percent budget reduction began last week and the implementation is expected will continue into the summer. In January, deans from each college were asked to look into possible areas where savings could be achieved and propose ideas for the University at large. “We have tried to take the elements of various proposals from the UH community and craft a plan that focuses on efficiencies and savings in the first year,” Executive Vice Chancellor Carl Carlucci said in an e-mail announcing the UH Cost Savings Plan for Fiscal Year 2010. A projected $4.1 million in savings is expected in the first phase of the reduction. Implementation of the plan will be conducted by each of the departments across campus. The University has given each department initial savings targets they must meet throughout the next four months. “Most (of the departments) have already developed plans (to implement each item),” Carlucci said in a separate e-mail. The majority of the nine items proposed deal with the business aspects of the University, such as eliminations or reductions in expenditures and purchasing contracts. One major item of the plan is a mandatory oneday furlough for all faculty and staff late in the semester, which, according to the UH budget Web site, “would be implemented over the course of two weeks, during a non-instructional period, to reduce the impact of services lost.” “There will be more than one day identified so that not everyone will be off the same day and no departments will close,” Carlucci said. Business and travel expenditures for departments see BUDGET, page 8
Money will help fund study on effectiveness of cervical cancer programs gg
By Wyshanda Sennett The Daily Cougar
for her proposed project on cervical cancer. “This is the first step in UH’s concerted efforts to play a role in preventing and treating cancer,” Assistant Vice President of the University Health Initiatives Kathryn Peek said. The two categories of awards are prevention and research. Yi was awarded a prevention grant that will be used to conduct her project, “Framing Effective Cervical Cancer Messages for Vietnamese American Women.” Yi said the purpose of the study is to develop, implement and assess the effectiveness of
a culturally tailored cervical cancer educational program for Vietnamese American women with limited English proficiency and to educate them on how to prevent the disease. The project addresses the unique needs and concerns of these hard-to-reach and vulnerable women who otherwise cannot be assessed through conventional means. Yi said the HPV vaccine is fairly new and not much is known about its acceptability among Vietnamese American women. “I’d like to know what they think about it and also their
knowledge and attitudes about the vaccine in order to know the best way to educate these women in a cordially sensitive way, and teach them the pros and cons of the vaccine so they can make the right decision for themselves,” Yi said. Peek, who is also an associate professor at the University of Texas, said that CPRIT was created in the fall of 2007 when Texas voters passed a proposition — then known as Prop 15 — and made available $300 million a year devoted to funding cancersee CANCER, page 8
Architecture book on display at MFAH By Morgan Creager The Daily Cougar
MATTHEW KEEVER The Daily Cougar
Batman and friends boogie
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tudents outside the UC Satellite enjoyed a free concert by Mundo Tribe, hosted by the Student Program Board. The group is known for their unique blend of Latin, soul, funk, pop, Middle Eastern and urban music.
Past the photos of blasted rock, bland buildings and burning paper is a book from UH’s William R. Jenkins Architecture and Art Library on display at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. The exhibition, Ruptures and Continuities: Photography Made after 1960 from the MFAH Collection, captures the medium of photography and artists’ books. Jon Evans, the head of reference at MFAH’s Hirsch Library, said these specific artistic practices question the boundaries of mediums in that time period and were viewed as outside the spectrum of “high” art. The book Learning from Las Vegas is an example of how artistic tradition was broken. “Without this book, this exhibition would be totally different,” said Yasu Nakamori, the exhibition’s curator. The page on display is a collection of small snapshots of Las Vegas: gas stations, run-down buildings and neon signs are just a small part of what the page contains.
“The photos really represent intellectually what they were trying to say,” Evans said. Nakamori said the book was positioned as a rebuke to orthodox modernism and elite architectural tastes. The 1972 publication contains the studies of the Las Vegas Strip undertaken by a 1968 research and design studio led by Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown at the Yale School of Architecture. Steven Izenour also assisted in its creation. “It came out almost as a termend graduate seminar project,” Nakamori said. Graduate students at Yale took several of the photos, Nakamori said. Venturi, Brown and Izenour used the students’ snapshots to create what is now on display at the museum. The photos are mundane, Evans said, but the collection of photos as a whole is what makes the exhibition intriguing. “The ideas are more important than the actual images in some cases,” Evans said. see TEXTBOOKS, page 8
Experts weigh in on recent earthquakes By Michelle Villarreal The Daily Cougar The earthquake scare began in January with a 7.0 magnitude in Haiti and then progressed in February to an 8.8 magnitude in Chile, and it all starts with a release of energy in the Earth’s crust that creates seismic waves. Earthquake activity also extends
to the U.S., specifically in California, Washington and Alaska, but Texas remains at low risk. “Texas is at a relatively low risk of earthquakes. In contrast to California, it is not close to the boundary of a tectonic plate,” UH geology professor Kevin Burke said. “Strain accumulates relatively quickly at plate boundaries, and rocks on the boundaries break
relatively frequently, generating earthquakes.” The largest earthquake in Texas was near the city of Valentine in 1931 and reached a 5.8 magnitude. A schoolhouse, which consisted of one section of concrete blocks and another section of bricks, had to be rebuilt due to the damage. Property damage was reported from the city and surrounding areas, and
landslides occurred as far away as Carlsbad, N.M. According to the United States Geological Survey’s Web site, there are several reasons for the perception that the number of earthquakes, specifically destructive ones, is increasing. “In the last 20 years, we have see EARTHQUAKE, page 3