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Issue 87, Volume 77
CAMPUS
Program combines University logins Annette Santos, Alicia Wilson, Tristan Tippet and Bethany Redd
THE DAILY COUGAR UH is joining the nationwide initiative towards greater accessibility through the beta launch of AccessUH. While students used to have to remember separate logins and passwords for interfacing with multiple university services — such as myUH, Blackboard, Parking and CougarCard — they can now go to accessuh.uh.edu to access all of these services with just their CougarNet username and password.
University Information Technology Executive Director David Johnson said the implementation of single sign-on capability has been in the works for several years. “It’s only just recently that we found this was going to be simple,” Johnson said. “(The program is) something that you could run on your computer without having to download any software, or where we wouldn’t have to do any special extensive programming.” He said SSO is not meant to replace current log in services, but ease students’ troubles in accessing them. “You have a lot of things that you have to consider during your college career,”
Johnson said. “AccessUH is like a wrapper that goes around those things. When you go in, you can log in to MyUH and a variety of other things, and it will provide you with several other services that you want to use. “Instead of replacing those services, it streamlines the way that you access those services.” Many other universities are also looking for ways to reduce the number of school-related login information that students have to remember, Johnson said. The University, is working towards having only a single username and password per student for the entire UH system, he
said. Accounts can be added as needed, Johnson said. “We’ve been speaking to the library about adding the library services, and we’ve been speaking to other departments about adding other types of services,” Johnson said. “We hope that eventually we can have one portal that will allow people to get into all the resources that they use on a regular basis.” There are security risks involved in homogenizing account access across ACCESSUH continues on page 3
STUDENT GOVERNMENT
SGA senate discusses election fraud, mural Audris Ponce
THE DAILY COUGAR
(From left) Joe McKinney, Scott Gilbert and Larry Kelley show off UH’s medals from the 50th American Advertising Federation Houston ADDY Awards. The group came home with seven gold and silver medals.| Courtesy of Larry Kelley
ORGANIZATIONS
‘Mad fest’ is a success for ad students
Cougars bring home seven gold, silver medals Jed Ocot
THE DAILY COUGAR The 50th annual American Advertising Federation Houston ADDY Awards recognized Jack J. Valenti School of Communication students, taught by Larry Kelley and Rosario Laudacina at UH with a total of seven gold and silver medals. The school ranked eighth
overall, ahead of 52 others. Inspired by the show “Mad Men,” the Feb. 25 event was titled Madfest. The National Student Advertising Competition team at UH won two gold and two silver medals for their work for JC Penney, Kelley said. The gold medals were awarded to the overall mixed media campaign as well as the magazine category, and the silver medals went to the television and collateral categories. Keith Houk and his Television II class
collaborated on the television campaign. Senior advertising majors Isabelle Chabrier won a gold medal in the nontraditional advertising category while Joe McKinney won silver for the television category. Jaime Alvizar and Matt Whiteley were also awarded silver Addys for the magazine category, Kelley said. Gold and silver medalists will go onto the District AWARDS continues on page 3
The Student Government Association further discussed the alleged fraud in the elections during last night’s meeting at the Elizabeth D. Rockwell Pavilion. Chief Justice Taylor Kilroy said the Election Committee is watching tapes to identify who passed out petitions to a student in front of M.D. Anderson Memorial Library. “We were actually lucky enough to have some witnesses of people giving out petitions and flyers for a specific candidate,” Kilroy said. Civil engineering freshman Tanzeem Chowdhury said numerous emails sent to the Election Commission have not yet been answered. “I come from a third-world country where corruption is part of their nature,” said Chowdhury, who came from Bangladesh seven years ago. “If the same thing happens in country like this, how is democracy going to survive?” Chowdhury said he’d like the Senate elections to follow the same voting format used for the athletics fee referendum. “I realize it takes more money, but you guys can’t afford fraud year after year,” Chowdhury said. “I’d rather cut things around somewhere else to ensure a fair
election. I’d rather have the right people representing us.” SGA President Michael Harding said the election scandal is does not represent what the student government does for the school. “Each year, there is always a scandal reported about SGA,” Harding said. “Not to say that it’s okay, but no organization is perfect.” Harding said that Chief Election Commissioner Arsalan Razakazi is “doing the best he can with the cards that he is dealt.” Speaker for the Senate Reyes Ramirez agreed with Chowdhury about the senate needing to fix the problems that arose with this year’s election. “It’s unfortunate if we have a person who wants to adulterate the system, but we have to deal with it,” Ramirez said. “It doesn’t matter how many mistakes an organization makes, what does matter is what measures they take to rectify them.” Chicano Mural The senate also briefly discussed what to do with the mural in the University Center Cougar Den. Several members of the senate, including Ramirez and Honors Senator Maggie McCartney, advocate preserving the mural in SGA continues on page 3