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Fresh faces put on a show in Cougars’ exhibition opener ARCHITECTURE
Accessibility tour to help find trouble spots for disabled The Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture and the Center for Students with Disabilities will be hosting a Campus Accessibility Tour for all UH students, faculty and staff from 1 to 3 p.m. today in the GD Hines College of Architecture Atrium. The tour will allow students to experience life on campus the way some of their peers, who are blind or rely on wheelchairs to get around, do on a daily basis. For questions or additional information, please contact Donna Kacmar at donna.kacmar@mail. uh.edu or call 713-743-2424 —Deisy Enriquez
FESTIVAL
15th annual International Day to feature food, games The UH College of Pharmacy’s 15th Annual International Day Festival will be hosted by the class of 2015 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Thursday between the University Center Satellite and the Science and Research Building 2. This year’s fundraiser will feature foods from Kona Grill, Tan Tan, El Greco, La Mexicana and Prima Pasta. Scheduled events include dance performances, a fashion show and raffle drawings for gift cards. Tickets are $5 and include three food items and a drink. They will be available for purchase at the festival. T-shirts will also be on sale. For more information contact tdmai@uh.edu. — Alana Mousavi Din
FACULTY
UH prof, alumnus recognized for promoting citizenship A UH College of Education professor and a distinguished UH Law Center alumnus will be honored by the Freedoms Foundation at Valley Forge at 11 a.m. on Saturday at the Houston Racquet Club, at 10709 Memorial Drive. Theresa Monaco, executive director of UH’s Center for Gifted and Talented Education, and former Texas Supreme Court Justice Eugene A. Cook will both receive the FFVF’s George Washington Honor Medal, the highest achievement awarded by the national organization. The cost to attend the event is $32 per person. For more information, please contact Laura Tolley at ljtolley@uh.edu or at 713-743-0778. — Saniya Maya
‘Battlefield 3’ doesn’t meet expectations
November 9, 2011 Issue 46, Volume 77
STUDENT GOVERNMENT
Smoking bill to be reviewed Joshua Mann
THE DAILY COUGAR A bill that would ban smoking in some areas of campus will be reviewed by the Student Government Association at 7:30 p.m. today. Before the last senate meeting, many students expected legislation that would ban smoking. Some students went so far as to speak in protest in front of the student senate, but the bill that Natural Science and
Mathematics senator Josie Ceasar presented was actually a modification of the current policy. “We’ve been talking to constituents, and we see that an outright ban is not needed at this moment,” Ceasar said when introducing the bill two weeks ago with a co-author from the Collegiate Cancer Council. Smoking would be prohibited in covered walkways “including, but not limited to, the PGH breezeway, the breezeway between Cougar Village and Moody Towers Dining Hall,
the breezeway between Cynthia Wood Mitchell Center for the Arts and the Jack J. Valenti School of Communication,” according to the bill. Smoking would also be prohibited on “all pathways adjacent to the M.D. Anderson Memorial Library and Butler Plaza,( ... ) all pathways adjacent to the Recreation and Wellness Center ( ...and ) the pathways along the University Center Perimeter.” After the meeting, College of
EVENT What: SGA Meeting When: 7:30 p.m. today Where: Cougar Den Topic: Campus smoking ban bill Liberal Arts and Social Sciences senator Lee Arnold said that the bill would probably go through “serious editing” in committees before being voted on at the next meeting. news@thedailycougar.com
SPEECH
Astronaut lands on University grounds Daughter of founding dean pays tribute to father, discusses space Lindsey Falcon
THE DAILY COUGAR NASA’s first Houston-born astronaut to launch, Shannon Walker, presented a keepsake to the College of Natural Science and Mathematics on Tuesday in the auditorium of the Science and Engineering building and talked about her space journey on the Soyuz, a Russian spacecraft. Walker — the daughter of founding dean of UH’s NSM department, Hugh Walker –– began her presentation titled “Long Duration Space Flight, Preparing For and Living on the International Space Station” with a salute to her father. Students, staff and visitors applauded as Walker held up a poster of her father, which flew 118 million miles around Earth. Walker’s team, comprised of three Russians and three Americans, spent three years in training before the launch. Their time in space is described as one of experimental research, housework and aweing at the earth from above. “We did a lot of experiments like watching bubbles move in liquids,” Walker said. “Yes, it was a lot like watching grass grow, but it was very important to the scientists on the ground, so we did that.” Along with conducting daily research from watching bubbles to growing plants, Walker says she
spent a great deal of time just gazing at the earth below. “When we were not doing science, we spent a lot of time looking out the window. It’s gorgeous. I cannot even begin to describe how beautiful the colors of the earth are. The colors are so rich and so deep,” Walker said. “Earth at night was pretty impressive too,” she said, showing a picture of the Nile River. Aboard the space station and without the luxury of gravity, however, things can go from pretty to not so pretty. Showering, sleeping, eating and using the restroom are no longer simple tasks, she said. “Never underestimate the role gravity plays in going to the restroom,” said Walker. “We do not have a shower. We do not have running water. You have dry shampoo like they use in hospitals and they claim it’s no rinse — don’t believe it. “Another thing is there’s no blow-dryer. At this point, you’re just space beautiful.” Two of the mandatory routines aboard the space station were housework and exercise. Physical fitness is a necessary part of staying healthy and strong in an environment with no gravity. The housework or cleaning up of the spacecraft and space station was also vital, said Walker. “We use resistance exercises. Every day for about 2.5 hours, we are scheduled to exercise,” Walker said. “And you can never escape housework, not even in space.” After five and a half months in space on the Soyuz, Walker and
Astronaut Shannon Walker received a physics degree from Rice University and began her professional career at NASA as a robotics flight controller for the space shuttle program. | Yulia Kutsenkova/The Daily Cougar the rest of the team headed back to earth. Upon landing, Walker experienced what she described as the “scariest” part of the trip. “We had a leak in our capsule (while) coming in, so the pressure alarms were going off,” said Walker. “It was kind of scary at first. It’s my job to monitor that stuff but I could tell by the leak rate that it wasn’t that bad and it would be fine.” In the week following her
return, Walker noted the struggles of adjusting to a world with gravity again. “Your inner ear is usually confused. It makes you dizzy, and it’s hard to walk a straight line for a while. I was back a week, and I walked into a wall,” Walker said. “But am I going back? I sure hope so. I imagine in another couple of years.” news@thedailycougar.com