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INSIDE 5 NEWS
ESPN strikes a contract with AT&T; Longhorn Network to be on U-Verse.
SPORTS
Longhorns defeat Cowboys in season opener.
Student-run theater offers fall selection
Running backs pace Horns’ opening victory
LIFE&ARTS PAGE 12
Sports PAGE 7
UNIVERSITY
Rice passes partial ban on tobacco By David Maly
7
Tuesday September 4, 2012
facebook.com/dailytexan
UT and Rice disagree over most effective tobacco policy The battle over tobacco use on university campuses continues to heat up as Texas schools take different policy approaches.
UT banned tobacco campus-wide earlier this year after the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas changed its grant application, announcing a provision prohibiting tobacco use in areas of campus where institute-funded cancer research takes place. The
institute is a state-funded organization that works to fight cancer through research funding and other initiatives and has awarded UT more than $33 million for cancer research. This past Saturday, Rice University also announced it was adopting a tobacco-free policy to
comply with CPRIT guidelines. However, Rice only implemented a partial tobacco ban, leading some to question whether UT’s full ban was necessary. Rice’s partial ban consists of 13 designated areas on-campus where tobacco use is allowed. Whichever route to compli-
ance CPRIT-funded entities choose, Heidi McConnell, chief operating officer for CPRIT, said as long as they follow grant rules, their funding will not be affected. Adrienne Howarth-Moore,
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Seeds donated to Bastrop UNIVERSITY
9 Life & Arts
Real life horror comes to life on screen in “Compliance.”
TODAY Texas Ballroom
Come learn how to swing and salsa dance with Texas Ballroom. Enjoy an entire free week of ballroom dancing; no partner, shoes or experience necessary. The classes will be held in Anna Hiss Gym 136 from 8—10 p.m.
PCL Tour
This walking tour provides an overview of the service points of the PCL, and covers key areas in the building, including the periodicals collection, the map collection, general stacks, microfilm and group study rooms. The tour is from 11 a.m.—12 p.m. and tour will meet in the PCL lobby.
College Excellence workshop offered
Want to get more involved on campus? The Longhorn Center for Academic Excellence presents a workshop that explores student organizations and campus resources. Free pizza provided. The meeting will be held in the Jackson Geological Sciences building from 5:30—7p.m.
By David Loewenberg
With Tuesday marking the one-year anniversary of the most destructive fire in Texas history that reduced more than 30,000 acres of Bastrop County to ashes and more than 1,500 homes to mere memories, a UT graduate student is working to restore life to the affected landscape. UT molecular biology graduate student Vlad Codrea has spent the last year developing and maintaining a tree nursery at UT’s Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center with the goal of delivering thousands of native tree seedlings for Bastrop residents and park officials to plant. Codrea hopes this massive effort will help restore natural areas that were devastated in last year’s fire. “[The seedlings] will be given out to landowners whose land had been burned by the fires as well as planted across Bastrop State Park,” Codrea said. Codrea said he plans to distribute the 70,000 seedlings growing at the Wildflower Center to Bastrop residents and park officials in October. UT’s Green Fee Committee funds the majority of Codrea’s tree nursery, the first of its kind at UT, with a $54,000 grant dis-
In 2012
Kelly Clarkson, a 20-year-old cocktail waitress from Texas, wins Season One of American Idol in a live television broadcast from Hollywood’s Kodak Theater.
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Quote to note “When easily identifiable and quite frankly embarrassing mistakes were pointed out, the University should have taken ownership of the problem instead of simply seeking to scapegoat Groat.” OPINION PAGE 4
tributed over three years. A part of the Office of Sustainability, the committee allocates the funds it receives from the $5-a-year “Green Fee” that each student pays as part of student fees. Karen Blaney, Green Fee
Committee program coordinator at the Office of Sustainability, said the project’s originality and long-term positive effects motivated the committee to award
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Video Online
Check out this video of various volunteers cultivating seedlings to be planted in Bastrop area. NATION
UNIVERSITY
Texas ranks 23rd, survey determines
Shooting for higher grad rates, University coins “2016” brand By Bobby Blanchard
Today in history
Nathan Goldsmith | Daily Texan Staff UT students Alison Wyllie and Shelly Bergel remove weeds from seedlings at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center Saturday. The seedlings are slated to be delivered to areas affected by last year’s fires in Bastrop County.
2016 is everywhere. It is on the shirts. It is on the bags UT gave students at orientation. It has become a hash tag on Twitter. It was in UT President William Powers Jr.’s speech at Gone to Texas. It was even on the UT Tower for a few hours last Wednesday night. It’s no longer only a graduation date; 2016 has become a brand, continuously reminding students when their four years are up. The logo the University has slapped onto college shirts and orientation bags reads “Class of Twenty 16” and is enclosed with an orange box. “Part of the reason and the goal with this branding is not
just to have that logo visible as much as possible but to also get students to buy into meeting their expectations and their potential,” said Kyle Clark, associate director of New Student Services. “We want as many of them as possible to graduate together.” Clark said ‘branding’ this incoming class is part of the overall effort to increase fouryear graduation rates. For the University, 2016 is not just a brand; it is also a deadline. Graduation rates have been at the forefront of University administrators’ minds since they made it a goal in February to in-
crease UT’s four-year graduation rates to 70 percent by 2016. Current four-year graduation rates are at 51 percent. As part of the most recent effort to increase its four-year graduation rates, the University has also implemented changes to its orientation program and appointed David
Illustration by Colin Zelinski Daily Texan Staff
By Joshua Fetcher
L aude to senior vice provost for enrollment and graduation management. UT called Laude in this new position the University’s “Graduation Rate Champion.” Clark said the design for the 2016 bags and T-shirts given to freshmen originally came
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UNIVERSITY
iPods used in learning English By Blake Carter
A recent study conducted by a UT professor and three graduate student assistants has shown that English language learners in elementary, middle and high schools gain more learning time and motivation from using iPod Touches outside the classroom. The data gathered from the devices show that they used resources
such as translators, calculators and maps, as well as media tools such as voice recorders, still cameras and video cameras to complete their assignments. UT education professor Min Liu and her research team conducted a survey at three different schools in a Central Texas school district. The three schools — one elementary school, one middle school and one high school
— provided English language learners with iPod Touches. Liu said between 85 and 105 students participated in the program between 2010 and 2012. English language learners describes students who attend schools where English is the language of instruction but do not speak English. A school district representative, who Liu requested to remain anonymous to protect the identity of study partici-
pants, said the district implemented the project to address gaps between then-TAKS scores for its English language learners and its native Englishspeaking students. Liu said she designed the study to analyze the significance of an emerging technology for this specific group of students. “The curriculum, the
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UT is the 23rd best university in the nation, according to Washington Monthly’s 2012 rankings of U.S. universities. Washington Monthly’s results differ significantly from those of U.S. News & World Report, a highly referenced college ranking system, because of differences in its ranking methodology. Washington Monthly bases its calculations on three categories: recruitment and retention of low-income
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Washington college rankings 1 University of California-San Diego (CA)* 100 2 Texas A&M University (TX)* 91 3 Stanford University (CA) 90 4 Univ. of North Carolina-Chapel Hill (NC)* 89 5 University of California-Berkeley (CA)* 87 6 University of California-Los Angeles (CA)* 85 7 Case Western Reserve University (OH) 84 8 University of WashingtonSeattle (WA)* 9 University of California-Riverside (CA)* 82 10 Georgia Institute of Technology-Main (GA)* 81 *indicates a public school Notable: 12: University of Texas at El Paso 79 23: University of Texas at Austin 70