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THURSDAY, JANUARY 24, 2019
volume
119,
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NEWS
OPINION
LIFE&ARTS
SPORTS
Committee assignments for the Texas House and Senate were announced yesterday. PA G E 3
UT needs to provide more information about hazing in student orgs. PA G E 4
UT alumna puts athletics to ultimate test on NBC’s “The Titan Games.” PA G E 5
Texas attempts to follow up win against OU in a road matchup with TCU. PA G E 6
SG
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CAMPUS
New SG initiatives promote accessibility, inclusivity
Putting the brakes on scooters
By Hannah Ortega @_hannahortega_
In an effort to make Student Government more inclusive and accessible, they have established reflection spaces, opened Longhorn Legislative Aides to transfer students and begun planning new election programming. “We have an abundance of resources and opportunities in this organization, and we wanted to make sure students could take a more active role in utilizing those resources,” Student Body President Colton Becker said in an email. “We want members of our organization to feel like they do have the capacity to make change, and we’ve made an effort to ensure they have the tools they need to do so.” Communications director Sarah Boatwright said the SG Executive Board revitalized their website and increased social media usage to eradicate “information barriers” between students and SG members. She also said development for new election initiatives is underway. “Our efforts to make opportunities more available also dips into reformatting the election process,” Boatwright said in an email. “Members of the executive staff have been working on a workshop for students interested in running for student body president and vice president to attend. Workshops for their campaign members are also in the works. We’re hoping that going forward, more students will feel prepared and excited to tackle the SG elections, rather than ambivalent or intimidated.” SG’s first-year student program Longhorn Legislative Aides will now accept transfer students. The decision came after complaints from transfer students and a realization
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eddie gaspar | the daily texan staff Electrical engineering freshman Naziul Jeead unlocks a Lime scooter, parked in a dedicated space in front of Jester, to make it to his class on time. UT’s Parking and Transportation Services have painted parking spaces for electric scooters and are reviewing plans to decrease their speed limits for around 15 mph to 8 mph.
Campus dockless scooters face parking boxes, lower speed limits. By Jackson Barton @Jackson_Brton
etting to class on a dockless electric scooter could soon take almost twice as long due to new policies outlined in a campus-wide email. Based on recommendations made by a campus work
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group, an email from Parking and Transportation Services includes new policies such as immediate impoundment for scooters parked along Speedway, in front of pedestrian walkways and blocking wheelchair ramps. PTS Assistant Director Blanca Gamez said the department will begin impounding improperly parked scooters on Monday. PTS will also be painting 10 new scooter parking boxes around campus, according to the email. “In the meantime, this is giving (PTS) plenty of time to go back and retouch a lot of those parking boxes that we added in the fall semester,” Gamez said. “Because of the rain, a lot of them have disappeared.” Gamez said the parking boxes will be similar to the
scooter parking area outside of Jester Center near the B-Cycle station. In addition to new parking rules, PTS is working with electric scooter providers to mechanically limit scooter speeds on campus to 8 mph. “All of (the scooter providers) have the technology to be able to govern their scooters down to 8 mph,” Gamez said. “There are already municipalities as well as universities that have their scooters governed down to that.” Currently, Lime scooters are limited to 14.8 mph, according to the company’s website. Lyft scooters can speed up to 15 mph, according to their website. PTS spokesperson Olga Finneran said in an email the recommendations in the campus-wide email are being
reviewed by campus leadership. She said there is no set date for a new speed limit to go into effect. “We intend to work with the commercial scooter operators to ensure that they implement the proper technology that governs speed based on location,” Finneran said. “Moving forward, this will be a condition for accepting permit applications for on-campus commercial scooter operations.” If a scooter is impounded, PTS will charge the scooter company $150. Whether the fine will be passed down to riders depends on which company was fined. Sam Sadle, Lime director of government relations and strategic development, said
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UNIVERSITY
CAMPUS
New degree might improve health care
Updated MyUT mobile app hopes to make class schedules, Canvas more accessible
By Tien Nguyen @tienjpg
A new one-year master’s program at UT seeks to spearhead change in health delivery and create high-value services in health care. The Master of Science in Health Care Transformation program, a joint project between Dell Medical School and the McCombs School of Business, is currently accepting applicants for the class of 2020. The program, which will be managed by the Value Institute for Health and Care, marks the University’s first joint degree program, said Scott Wallace, managing director of the Value Institute. “There is a current need for a transformation in health care that is focused on providing services that are effective at improving the health of the patient,” Wallace said. “If you design the care around the needs of the people,
their health improves significantly and the cost of that care goes down.” The MSHCT degree curriculum consists of 11 courses, including eight lecture-based courses and three courses focusing on a major team-based project, according to the program’s website. “There is no program in existence anywhere in the world with the focus on equipping people with skills to lead the value transformation in health care,” Wallace said. Alice Andrews, director of education at the Value Institute, said the focus on value in health care is what makes the program so unique. “Much of the work out there focuses on the cost side,” Andrews said. “We strongly believe it’s important to make services less expensive and efficient, but if that’s all you’re focused on, and you’re not actually delivering health care
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By Meara Isenberg @mearaannee
An app version of the University’s MyUT online portal is now available for students to download. Like the portal website, the MyUT Austin app allows students to access class schedules, Canvas and other campus-related information. Since its release last Thursday, the app has been downloaded more than 12,000 times, said Carolyn Connerat, chair of the MyUT Implementation Committee. “We know that students are very focused on having a mobile device, so we always intended when we launched the website in 2016 that we would develop a phone app,” Connerat said. “We’re very excited that this has finally launched.” Connerat said the app has been in the works for about a year and includes the aspects of the MyUT website accessed most by students. Upon opening the app, there are five tabs at the bottom of the screen. The first displays a student’s class schedule, the second shows a list of Canvas courses and the third is a ‘home’ tab that
displays links to information such as financial aid and transportation information. Another tab, Important Info, displays information such as what a student owes to UT and displays any registration bars. The last tab links to a University map in a web browser. Before the MyUT Austin app, there was a University app that included UT directories, maps and information about athletics, Connerat said. Last summer, the app was replaced with an app just for Texas Athletics. “We decided that it would make more sense to have two (apps) — one that is really tied into MyUT, which is focused on the services and resources that students need, and then athletics would have their app which would be much more focused on the fan experience,” Connerat said. Biology freshman Trazy Villatoro said she had downloaded the old UT app but deleted it because it had more sports-related content than academic information. She said the schedule tab on the MyUT Austin app has been helpful.
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alekka hernandez
| the daily texan staff