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Stay connected with our Twitter and Facebook pages Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Issue 148, Volume 75
thedailycougar.com
Armed carjacking, robbery reported Cambridge Oaks guests approached in parking lot early afternoon gg
By Jose Aguilar The Daily Cougar University police said they are following up on active leads in
an apparent armed robbery that occurred on the complex of the Cambridge Oaks apartments early Saturday afternoon An 18 to 22-year-old man approached two guests of a Cambridge Oaks tenant after they parked on the complex, according to a security alert sent out by campus police. The man, who “made
confrontational statements” before brandishing a small handgun, demanded wallets, cell phones and also the vehicle’s keys before driving off in the vehicle. UH police recovered the vehicle about three hours later after two people, who were in the car at the time, fled. “Officers ran the vehicle through the system and got a hit
that showed it had been stolen,” assistant chief of police Brad Wigtil said. “Unfortunately, the suspects were able to flee the scene.” Wigtil was only able to comment on the recovery of the vehicle due to the status of the case. “Because it is an active investigation, I cannot comment on the current leads,” Wigtil said.
CAMP OF CHANGE Area middle school students study the concept of better predicting the future gg
By Ashley Evans The Daily Cougar
news@thedailycougar.com
Plans for new UC on track Regents set to vote in August to finalize plans, begin ground breaking gg
U
H’s College of Technology hosted the My Future=My Vision week-long camp that focused on area middle school students developing the concept of futures literacy. “The world is changing before our very eyes,” the camp flier states. “Futures literacy, an understanding of the basics of change, is a key 21st century skill.” Peter Bishop, professor in the UH future studies in commerce master’s program, further explained why the concept is an important one for younger students to learn. “We used to wait for change to happen to us, but now with the increasing rate of change we need to start predicting and preparing for the future sooner,” Bishop said. Bishop, along with Department of Human Development and Consumer Sciences lecturer Kay Strong and volunteers, encouraged the students to think about, talk about and actively imagine what the future will hold. Students were walked through the process of portraying their story of 2020 — the year the 7th and 8th graders would presumably reach graduate school. Volunteers helped the students arrange a two-minute presentation, which consisted of 10 images and a story that represented their vision of the future. “If you can imagine it, you can create it, but chances are if you can’t image it, we’ll never see it,” Strong said. Bishop and Strong asked the students to think in “steep categories” such as technology, environmental issues, economics and politics. The goal, Strong said, was to help students understand the possible, plausible, probable and preferred
“It could hinder or jeopardize our investigation.” Officers are currently under “directed patrol” in the Cambridge Oaks area in an effort to curtail any criminal activity from occurring. “(We are) telling officers to focus on that area to provide more visibility there,” Wigtil said.
By Gordon Furneaux The daily cougar
boi-yeanoh adams courtesy college of technology
Joan Gould, a librarian at Westbriar Middle School in West Houston, facilitates a table of students during the College of Technology’s Futures Camp. future. The future studies program at UH is one of only two programs of its kind in the country and the camp was the first of its kind at UH. Retired professor Oliver Markley, who pioneered the future studies program at UH-Clear Lake, documented the camp from planning until completion in hopes of
spreading the idea to others. The goal was to not only get the children to start thinking about the future, but for them to tell their teachers in order to spread the idea throughout the rest of education. Future studies has caught on at Westbriar Middle School in west Houston.
Plans for a redesign of the University Center are on track to be finished by May 2015, according to the timeline on the New UC website. Several steps must be taken before ground is to be broken in May of 2011, including approval of the plans, first by the facilities, construction and master planning committee of the Board of Regents, followed by the board itself and finally the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board. “ T h e consideration for approval is set for August,” UC 2010 Initiative Co-Chair Nicole Sopko said. “With g g Nicole Sopko support from the administration, we look forward (with) hopes of approval in August.” Once plans are approved, professional design and construction teams will be solicited. During this step, Sopko expects to lock down an architect and design team who will carry them through the rest of the planning. Students are anticipating the new modifications for the project they voted on. “When students voted in the process that took place in Fall 2008, they voted for a fully transformed UC,” Sopko said. “The plan is to
see FUTURES, page 6 see RENOVATIONS, page 6