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UAB wants to blemish Cougars’ perfect record in Birmingham SAFETY
Fire marshal’s office updates building inspection method The UH fire marshal’s office will no longer be taking handwritten notes while inspecting a building and has simultaneously found a way to streamline the building inspection process. Deputy Fire Marshals Lance Wilson and Chris McDonald collaborated on the innovative idea to enter a building’s violations directly into inspection software they developed on the iPad that uses Sharepoint and Microsoft Access. This has helped eliminate many steps, as well as saved the department time, money and paper. — Karishma Sakrouja
THEATER
Show to teach audience how to make lifestyles green The Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts will be presenting “red, black and GREEN: a blues” at 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday in the Lyndall Finley Wortham Theatre. Through multimedia visuals and performances, the show aims to get people talking about staying green and mainly focusing on how to better the environment and doing your part in the climate-change era. For more information on this event, visit www.mitchellcenterforarts.org. — Bryan Dupont-Gray
November 3, 2011
Perfect steak not hard to make
Issue 43, Volume 77
RELIGION CENTER
Volunteers feed body, soul Ministries provide students with free meals, religious discussions Pedro Pinto
THE DAILY COUGAR For 50 years, the A.D. Bruce Religion Center has been serving UH students, faculty and staff free lunches from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. every Monday and Wednesday. The center, which has 11 different ministries represented in the building, asks each department to host a lunch at least once per semester. “We feed somewhere up to 180 to 200 students every week,” said Mike McAllister,
campus minister for the Church of Christ. McAllister, who has been at UH for five years, is responsible for nine to 13 lunches per semester on Wednesdays. “Students don’t have home cooked meals and some of them don’t have any money,” he said. “God cares about them, so we care about them.” His ministry has been doing this for more than 40 years and has local churches provide the meals. “By word of mouth so many students have come here,” said Susan Maxwell, a volunteer from Kingwood Church of Christ. “We are sharing the love of Jesus, the food nourishes their bodies and souls.”
Hoang Long, a Spanish and pharmacy senior, has been coming to the building since he was a freshman. “Two years ago, I saw the building, thought it was beautiful and saw people eating,” Long said. “When you’re in college anything that has the word free in it is a good thing.” Long has also benefited from the diversity of the people who attend. “There are always international students studying here, I’ve experienced new cultures and diversity and have since learned two more languages,” he said. For other students, the interactions with others LUNCH continues on page 3
SPEAKER
Living archives series continues Political activist shares her story with audience Saniya Maya
THE DAILY COUGAR
AWARD
UH Law Center student wins effective mediation award In recognition of his efforts to enhance Texas mediation quality and devotion to the field, UH Law Center student Joseph Radler was awarded the 2011 James Gibson Award on Oct. 22 at the symposium for the Texas Mediator Credentialing Association in Austin. Radler was nominated by UHLC Professor Tasha Willis, who praised him for working at the Civil Clinic and volunteering as mediator while still being able to find time to complete his courses. The award is given in honor of James W. Gibson, founder of TMCA, to individuals with impressive skills in resolving disputes and conflicts in management and also given the highest honor for mediators in Texas by the Texas Association of Mediators. For more information on TMCA, visit www.txmca.org. — Bryan Dupont-Gray
The 15th Annual Living Archives series sponsored by UH Friends of Women Studies welcomed Joanne King Herring as their guest in the M.D. Anderson Memorial Library on Oct. 25. Herring, long-time host of KHOU’s “The Joanne King Show,” is a political activist, socialite and author best known for her work as an adviser in the Afghanistan war. This role gave her wide recognition when she was portrayed by Julia Roberts in the 2008 film, “Charlie Wilson’s War.” At the event, she discussed her new memoir, “Diplomacy and Diamonds,” as she answered questions in an interview with Claudia Freeman, a journalist for The Houston Chronicle. Herring said that her struggles with dyslexia for most of her childhood shook her confidence; she credits her father for giving her the strength to succeed. ARCHIVES continues on page 3
Students stopped at booths to find information on how to be eco-friendly as part of Green UH Day. | Paul Crespo/The Daily Cougar
RECYCLING
UH celebrates eco-friendly initiatives University festivities give students information, advice on being green Imelda Vera
THE DAILY COUGAR UH Coogs changed the red pride to green pride on Wednesday at the Green UH Day at Butler Plaza. Student organizations and supporting groups, including Green Mountain Energy and METRO, set up in front of the M.D. Anderson Memorial Library to showcase campus environmental successes
and promote green efforts by sharing tips and ideas with students as they walked to class. “It is important to us as a department to be sustainable, but it’s also part of the University’s larger mission to be green, so we do what we can to help out,” said Marketing Coordinator of UH Dining Services Amber Arguijo. Students were encouraged to stop at the UH Dining Services tent to make biodegradable playdough out of flour, salt, water and food coloring. “We wanted to do something food related and so this is something that we came up with that was interactive,” Arguijo said. “We
didn’t want to just set up information about what we are doing because we do a lot of sustainable things that are more large scale.” The UH bookstore was also part of Green UH Day as they displayed a number of the recycled and biodegradable products available for sale, including T-shirts made by the fair labor company Alta Gracia. “Alta Gracia is a brand that promotes using fair wages and fair hours for their workers — the design of the shirt was chosen in a competition last year and was designed by a UH student, we GREEN continues on page 3