SPORTS
BASEBALL
HOLIDAY
With their opening game on Friday nearing, the Cougars are excited about a solid crop of returners. The team has high expectations.
Do long-distance relationships actually work? Students share their woes about the miles in between them and their significant others. SEE PAGE 11
Let the games begin
SEE PAGE 8
Love is in the air
FEBRUARY
CALENDAR CHECK: 14
Valentine’s Day. Have you found your date yet?
THE DAILY COUGAR
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
Thursday, February 13, 2014
Issue 74, Volume 79
O F
H O U S T O N
S I N C E
1 9 3 4
ONLINE EXCLUSIVES AT THEDAILYCOUGAR.COM
STUDENT GOVERNMENT
Fighting for a change in leadership Nora Olabi Assistant news editor
The Division of Student Affairs has been wrestling with one of its departments as students and administrators have stood at odds with one another. After an almost 20-year run at the University, the Urban Experience Program has come under fire. Students in the program have felt that administrators in DSA have left the students to fend for themselves. Organizational leadership and supervision senior Naeem Abdullah took to legal recourse within the University to resolve the conflict. Abdullah and former SGA senator Mike Nguyen authored Senate Resolution SGAR50, which was presented to the SGA Student Life Committee. SGAR50 proposed that the UEP be transferred from DSA to the
Division of Community Relations and Institutional Access under the baton of Elwyn C. Lee. “Dr. Lee knows what’s best for the program, and we as students of the program don’t feel as though our current situation is good for the program,” Abdullah said. Lee used to head the program when he was the vice president of the DSA. Abdullah and other students enlisted in the UEP felt that a transfer between divisions was in Lee the best interest of the students. They complained that marketing was cut, that they were accused by administrators of being
ineffective and that the evidence provided by the students to demonstrate its effectiveness, including student testimony, was overlooked and denounced. Though UEP still receives funding, its students were told by administrators that they had to provide more data. This data discrepancy has the potential to affect future funding. Robbie Evans, who was the director of UEP for almost 15 years until her resignation late last semester, addressed the Senate floor and shared her disgruntlement with the state of affairs, calling it an “abomination.” Political science junior Ja’Terrell Moffett, who has been in the program for almost two years, was a proponent of the transfer. She felt that after Evans stepped down, the office coordinator should have been appointed as an official interim director because of
SGA Student Life Committee that decided on the SGAR50 in a special session Friday, said that though the UEP provided a useful service to the school, there were some shortfalls in the program’s ability to present administration with accurate data. “In all fairness ... a lot of the data just didn’t add up. You really could get buried in the numbers, and that was something that was really frustrating to see at (the Student Fees Advisory Committee), because we all feel that the Urban Experience Program is an important program to the school,” Haston said. “It serves a lot of students really well, but simultaneously we still need to be able to quantify the results of the program.” Senate resolution SGAR50 for request to transfer out of the DSA was SGA continues on page 2
ONLINE COMMENTS
CAMPUS
Aggressive social action antagonizes minorities
In response to “Questioning climate change claims at Energy Symposium Series” This is a joke, and so is BP-funded Obama. The degree of man-made climate change is debatable, but we cannot even hold the oil tycoons accountable. Those BP execs that preferred to “save money” by using saltwater instead of drilling mud and having the blowout preventer repaired in China should be tried and convicted for environmental terrorism and given the death penalty.
Trishna Buch
If al-Qaeda caused that much damage in our gulf, the clowns on CNN and Fox News would be demanding heads roll. But it’s OK because, unlike al-Qaeda, the BP oil tycoons love and care about America. Even in China, they executed those responsible for the melamine-tainted milk.In the US, the execs would get a slap on the wrist while the company and shareholders would be left paying the settlements.
Contributing writer
Stereotyping has become a common occurrence in the world today — and with it, microaggression. Women’s Resource Center Program coordinator Malkia Hutchinson led Wednesday’s Gender Talk, titled “Microaggressions: Sharing Stories of When We’ve Been Marginalized.” This week’s discussion topic focused on more than just gender issues, though. “Microaggressions are statements that reinforce marginalizations,” Hutchinson said. Microaggressive comments are not focused on one entity; they can be used to make comments on race, gender, social class and much more. According to the Society of Counseling Psychology, racial microaggressions
her experience with dealing with the students and for furthering the vision of the program. The UEP does not have a fulltime director, but it does have two parttime interim directors in Walker that leadership position. “I’ve seen the program flourish, and I’ve seen the program fall, and it’s falling right now,” Moffett said. “The fact that our office coordinator wasn’t appointed for at least half of the interim director position, I feel like that is not working toward trying to better our program, because she knows how to do everything.” Charles Haston, who headed the
— BPkillsUandMe Microaggression can be defined as verbal, behavioral or environmental indignities that communicate racial slights and insults toward people of color. The Women’s Resource Center focused its weekly gender talk on sharing stories of students who have been marginalized. | Justin Tijerina/The Daily Cougar are brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioral or environmental indignities, regardless of intent. “(Microaggressions) communicate hostile, derogatory or negative racial slights and insults towards people of color,” according to the organization’s website.
“Those who inflict racial microaggressions are often unaware that they have done anything to harm another person.” In the WRC discussion, participants discussed ways in which they GENDER continues on page 12
Environmental issues should be taken much more seriously than people and the government give credit for/spend time/educate on. I personally think climate change is something to be taken very seriously. Whether or not that is right or wrong, we still have to change the way we consume our limited resources. There should be no question that we humans have created a drastic change to our environment and the animals we “share” it with. Again, there should be less anger/controversy about whether climate change is real. There really is no point in arguing when it is obvious that we are having a negative impact on the environment and something has to be done. We need cleaner energy sources and stop over-using certain natural resources. — Respect the environment These comments have been edited for grammar and spelling. Read more and join the discussion at thedailycougar.com.