1934 – 2009
t h e o f f i c i a l s t u d e n t n e w s pa pe r o f t h e u n i v e r s i t y o f h o u s to n s i n c e 1 9 3 4
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Forecast, Page 2
In Focus blogger Erika Moyer examines religion in the Congo Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Issue 129, Volume 75
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Paper, yearbook editors elected CLASS By Neal Dasgupta The daily cougar
newton liu The Daily Cougar
The Student Publication Committee elected Matthew Keever as editor in chief of The Daily Cougar for the summer and fall semesters. Patricia Estrada (not pictured) was elected as editor in chief of the Houstonian.
The Student Publication Committee elected the new editors in chief of The Daily Cougar and The Houstonian for the summer and fall semesters during its meeting on Monday at the University Center’s Lone Star Room. Communication junior Matthew Keever was chosen as The Daily Cougar’s editor in chief, and education and print journalism senior Patricia Estrada was voted editor in chief for the Houstonian. Keever, who serves as The Daily Cougar’s managing editor, ran unopposed and will replace Editor in Chief Ronnie Turner. Estrada, a co-news editor for The Daily Cougar and the yearbook’s marketing director, was elected over photo editor Kendra Berglund. Keever said he wants to continue the success of The Daily Cougar, which he said has traditionally had strong editors. “In the past, there have been some great editors,” Keever said. “I want to continue this tradition, increase readership and reward the hard workers.” Estrada hopes to use her experience to improve marketing
of the yearbook. “I want to promote the book,” Estrada said. “So much work goes into it, and it is sad that people don’t know about it. I am committed to increasing awareness that the yearbook is out there. “One of the ways I plan to do this is by reaching out to professors in the marketing department at Bauer (to) see if maybe they can make it a part of a classroom project or extra credit, or at least give us some pointers.” Keever said he wants communication majors of every type to get involved with the paper and communicate with professors and editors alike early on in their academic careers. “It’s important for students to develop a professional relationship with the professors early, so they get an understanding of how the journalism world works right off the bat rather than wait until their sophomore or junior year when they might already be mentally checked out,” he said. Estrada also said she hopes to improve the photography in The Houstonian, citing improved communication between the photographers and editor.
see STUDENT, page 6
see SGA, page 3
Senior’s design of a new tracking software system gets praised in New York-based publication
A senior student of the Cyvia and Melvyn Wolff Center for Entrepreneurship, Alfonso Olvera, was given the title of one of “America’s Coolest College Start-ups for 2010” by Inc. Magazine for his rail tracking software, RailTronix. “I designed a system (that) connects to networks that are already set up by the railroads, which gives you what they call car location methods,” Olvera said. He started his first business at age 16, a year after moving to the Woodlands with his family from Mexico City. “Everybody was going into working at McDonald’s and Starbucks and places like that,” Olvera said. “I already knew a lot about technology, so I just started my own computer repair business for residential and small
uh.edu
A Cyvia and Melvyn Wolff Center for Entrepreneurship student, Alfonso Olvera, designed a software system that received garnered recognition, and he plans to expand his business ideas to other companies and industries. The system lets you know the location of the railcar, where it was last seen and whether it was loaded or empty. “Those are the three things that a car location message has. That’s what I call my raw data,” Olvera said. Olvera’s system helps companies realize inefficiencies in their supply chain by tracking when the rail car crosses the U.S.-Mexico border, if it has stopped along the way, why the stops were made and the amount of
By Jose Aguilar The daily cougar
time needed for the trip. “There are three networks that have been placed by the railroads, and my system processes this information to give you this kind of statistical data, which can tell you the path that the railroad is circling,” he said. Olvera’s next business move is to expand RailTronix to other companies and industries. “Everything was designed for
see SPC, page 6
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businesses.” In 2007, one of Olvera’s clients, who was in the oil business, began transporting asphalt and oil throughout Mexico and the U.S. using railcars. Olvera designed a database for his company to keep track of their rail cars. “His company used to do everything in Excel sheets, which was awful for (the company) because they had to be passing the files from one person to the other and make changes, which was really inefficient,” Olvera said. “I basically designed this system to fit the needs of this customer, and ultimately they started using the logistic system.” RailTronix tracks each railcar by its license plate, or railcar I.D., the way a FedEx package is tracked with the tracking number. “You plug in the railcar number (I.D.) into my system, and it tells you exactly where it was last spotted,” Olvera said.
SGA sets council, tuition as top priorities on its agenda gg
The College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences is the largest college on the UH campus, with more than 12,000 students enrolled. As a result, it is represented in the Student Government Association with seven senate seats, the most in the legislature. Journalism junior Mila Clarke, elected to Seat No. 1, is the sole returning senator for CLASS in this administration. She has served as Speaker Pro-Tempore of the Senate, chair of the Internal Affairs committee and started off her SGA experience as Clerk of the Senate. “I ran for SGA, because I wanted to really do things for the University to make it a better place for students,” Clarke said. “I’ve always had a sense of pride about being here, and I wanted to feel even better about the University by actually being involved in it. SGA is one of the best ways of doing that.” Elected to Seat No. 5, public relations and political science student Lucia Ayala-Guerra has previous experience in student politics as a national leader in the College Democrats of America, the membership director of Texas College Democrats, and she has previously served in SGA as a public relations intern. “I don’t go into something unless I feel really passionate about it,” AyalaGuerra said. “(I ran for SGA) because I see things that are not happening, and I want to do something about it.” History senior Mike Nguyen claimed CLASS’ Seat No. 7 after defeating three other opponents. A transfer student from UH Downtown, Nguyen previously served as a senator of UHD’s SGA. “There is definitely more people here, so you have more senators (and) you have to represent more people,” Nguyen said. “UHD has only four colleges and four sets of senators, but I’m ready for it. It’s exciting to meet all these new people.” Meeting the students is at the
Student tries his hand at business By Sarah Raslan The daily cougar
senators focus on security