life+arts
Summer heat on the horizon
sports
Baseball team starts C-USA play
t h e o f f i c i a l s t u d e n t n e w s pa p e 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
THE DAILY COUGAR thedailycougar.com
@thedailycougar
facebook.com/thedailycougar
Issue 122, Volume 76
Friday ®
Sign up for daily e-mail alerts
April 1, 2011 Read. Recycle. Repeat daily.
STUDENT GOVERNMENT
newsline Got news? E-mail news@thedailycougar.com or call 713-743-5314
CAMPUS EVENT
Dangers of driving while texting, talking to be focus of event today Students will have the opportunity of seeing firsthand the real dangers associated with driving while distracted, which includes talking, texting or getting on Facebook while driving a car. The “Talk Text Crash” distracted driving event will take place from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. today in Lynn Eusan Park. A NASCAR simulator will be available for participants to really see what distracted driving can do to themselves and others sharing the road.
Outgoing staff looks back Senators reflect on this year’s accomplishments; student voices opposition David Gonzalez
THE DAILY COUGAR The officers of the Student Government Association’s outgoing administration reflected on its accomplishments during its last official meeting of the semester. All officers were in attendance as
senators and members from the president’s cabinet gave speeches commending the job they had done as a collective group. “In essence, what we have achieved this year is tremendous and it did make a difference for the students we serve — for example especially with events at the Cat’s Back, the Campus Accessibility Tour and Walk in the Dark,” Chief of Staff Jeff Syptak said. “All the work we have achieved could not have been done by one person, but many, so thank you.” The same sentiment was not found
The event is sponsored by UH Department of Public Safety, the Texas Department of Transportation and Nationwide Insurance.
throughout the night. The beginning of the meeting was interrupted by a displeased student upset with the results of the presidential runoff. Incoming President and Vice President Michael Harding and Craig Premjee were convicted of establishing an illegal polling location by a 3-2 vote of the elections commission. Upon appeal, the original punishment of disqualification was reversed by SGA continues on page 3
LAW CENTER
UH in top quarter of national rankings
PEOPLESOFT
Disruptions of service to last through Tuesday Students will be unable to access their myUH accounts from March 31 to April 5. The PeopleSoft system will be offline due to a system upgrade. The upgrade will include “My Academics” and “Planner,” which will allow students a personalized advisement report on what core and in-major classes students need to complete. “Planner” will assist in choosing which future courses to take. These 2 features will only be open to students who are completing their first undergraduate degree. Because the system will be offline, the date to drop classes with a “W” has been extended to April 7.
Ayesha Mohiuddin
THE DAILY COUGAR
— Anna Gallegos/The Daily Cougar
CORRECTIONS J
Report errors to editor@thedailycougar.com. Corrections will appear in this space as needed.
86 LO 66
today
HI
Another pleasant day....
SAT
SUN
MON MO
86/69 /
84/72 8 /
85/61 85/ /61
TUE TU UE
76/54 76 6/54
Turkish delights
F
rom left, English grad students Yunus Sahin and Hidayet Erken, Mustafa Bayraktar, Technology grad student, and Mikail Koc, electrical engineering grad student, dress up in costume for the third annual Turkish Student Festival. | Brianna Leigh Morrison/ The Daily Cougar
The University’s Law Center has moved up four slots to 56th in the national ranking system assembled by the U.S. News & World Report. Health care, intellectual property law and the Law Center’s part-time program ranked in the Top 10 among 190 accredited law schools in the nation. “There are several ranking systems applied to law schools and they mean different things. UH Law does well in all of them,” UH Law Center’s Dean Raymond T. Nimmer said. “The US News ranking system (where we rank 56 out of 200) uses its own methods, which include a heavy reliance on opinion polls of a small number of judges, lawyers and academics,” Nimmer said. “It also includes other variables about bar passage rates (where we do very well), entering class statistics (where we do very well) etc.” RANKINGS continues on page 10
EVENTS AT&T Presenting Free Concert Featuring Sublime With Rome The concert series begins at Discovery Green downtown today at 4 p.m. Sublime with Rome is headlining the event and will be performing at 9 p.m. Envisioning College of Architecture Associate Professor and Architect Robert Griffin will be presenting an exhibition of works from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Joseph Mashburn Architecture Gallery.
FOR MORE EVENTS, CHECK OUT thedailycougar.com/calendar
Students head north to encounter Passion Lauren Mathis
THE DAILY COUGAR UH ranks in the top 10 for students attending the Christian conference known as Passion. The 2011 conference begins today and lasts through Sunday in Fort Worth.
“Passion 2011 is a gathering of tens of thousands of university-aged students from across the US and around the world to celebrate their common faith and purpose,” Hannah Springston, public relations representative for Passion, said. “It’s part of a larger global movement in which students from all backgrounds and parts of the world come together under one
banner,” Springston said. “We are expecting 10,000 students in Fort Worth.” Hotel & Restaurant Management senior Liz Strickland has attended Passion conferences in the past. “Passion is an annual conference that is held by 268 Generation, an organization PASSION continues on page 3