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THE DAILY TEXAN DT WEEKEND
EXPOSURE PAGE 6
Dancing in the Moonlight
Rollin’ at The Stalin Thursday, November 19, 2009
Libraries document activists’ research By Melissa Pan Daily Texan Staff Some people engage in human-rights activism through protests and rescue missions. Meanwhile, some librarians at UT address the issue in another way: documentation. UT Libraries debuted its Web site for the Human Rights Documentation Initiative on Monday. The initiative aims to provide access to and archive research that relates to human rights. The site includes primary-source collections related to human rights, a blog and a Twitter feed with updates on new resources uploaded to the site, as well as upcoming events. The idea for the initiative arose from a conference Vice Provost Fred Heath attended in 2007 on humanrights archiving and documentation. “UT Libraries definitely realized there was a need to have that kind of a program,” said Tiffany-Kay Sangwand, a UT human-rights archivist. The initiative received a $1.2 million grant in July 2008 from the Bridgeway Foundation, a Houstonbased nonprofit that seeks to fund organizations committed to solving societal and community problems. The foundation is part of Bridgeway Funds, an investment management firm. “We’re carving out a new space for what libraries can do,” Sangwand said. “Libraries aren’t just a place where you can check out books. Libraries can also play an important part in preserving this documentation, not only for academics, but for activists as well.” The initiative’s current projects include working with the Kigali Memorial Center, the Free Burma Rangers and the Texas After Violence Project. The Kigali Memorial Center, named after the capital of Rwanda, collects testimonies from survivors of genocide, perpetrators and those involved in court proceedings. “What UT is doing is digitally preserving the video recordings, making copies and working with them to build a Web site to make these resources accessible,” Sangwand said. The Web site documenting the genocide is set to release in April 2010, in time for its 16th anniversary. Free Burma Rangers is a nonprofit based in an unspecified location in South Asia that provides medical aid, food and protection to internally displaced
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Program aids in job placement abroad for multiple fields
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Band electrifies, educates campus
Shelley Neuman | Daily Texan Staff
Patrick Brown, UT alumnus and member of the band ArcAttack, performs on the Main Mall on Wednesday evening. The band created the original Singing Tesla Coils, which they utilize in their performances. The Tesla coils are modified to produce musical tones by modulating their spark output.
ArcAttack’s concert harnesses electricity to combine music, physics By Priscilla Totiyapungprasert Daily Texan Staff Standing in front of the Tower while 1 million volts of electricity danced off his hands, UT alumnus Patrick Brown can say his return to
campus was literally an electrifying experience. Brown acted as a human lightning rod as part of a performance Wednesday night with his band, ArcAttack, which performed to a
crowd of hundreds on the Main dents Brown, Joe DiPrima, Tony Mall. The event, hosted by the UT Smith and Craig Newswanger. Society of Physics Students, was Nodding their heads to the compart electro-noise rock concert and puter-stylized notes and rapid part mad-scientist lab experiment. The band consists of Austin resiVOLTAGE continues on page 2
ON THE WEB: Watch ArcAttack @ dailytexanonline.com
Researchers conduct gaming analysis By Alex Geiser Daily Texan Staff Researchers found that the appearance of avatars in video games and other virtual platforms affects the way a user plays the game, according to a study released in September. The study, which is available online and will appear in the December 2009 issue of “Communication Research,” was conducted by two researchers at UT, Jorge Pena and Nicholas Merola, and Cornell University professor Jeffrey Hancock. It consisted of two experiments. In the first, 51 participants were randomly assigned either a dark- or white-cloaked avatar and were separated into two groups by cloak color. “We wanted to see how cues from the color of an avatar’s clothing were able to
prime the user,” said Merola, a doctoral student in communications. “The results showed that compared to the people using avatars dressed in white, people using avatars dressed in black showed more negative intentions and attitudes.” In the second study, 100 participants were assigned avatars dressed as a Ku Klux Klan member, a doctor or transparent. They were shown an ambiguous picture and asked to write a story about the scene they saw. Merola said those dressed as Klan members wrote stories with more aggressive themes, like murder. “It’s not something we are constantly aware of, but at the same time, in the back of our minds, we have some
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Organization links Longhorns to career opportunities in more than 700 countries
Derek Stout | Daily Texan Staff
Jorge Pena, a communication studies professor, studies the way in which the appearance of avatars in video games affects how a gamer plays.
Chinese transfer students adjust to Austin lifestyle
By Alex Geiser Daily Texan Staff A nonprofit student-run organization encouraged UT students and recent graduates to sign up and find work abroad at an information session Wednesday night. The Association of Students in Economics and Commerce, a global exchange organization, helps current students and graduates of two years or less find opportunities that match their interests, like overseas internships. “If you are determined to go somewhere, then there is a 100 percent chance that you will go there,” said Lauren Tipton, business honors senior and president of the organization. The program connects students with management, technical, education and development jobs.
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TOMORROW’S WEATHER
Derek Stout | Daily Texan Staff
Han Luo, a doctoral candidate from Beijing, works at the English as a Second Language help desk for students on Wednesday afternoon.
IN PRIZES FROM
texasstudentmedia.com/iphoneapp/
By Priscilla Totiyapungprasert Daily Texan Staff At his Riverside apartment, business junior Siming Yang cooks familiar spicy Chinese dishes to remind him of his home in Jinhua, China. It will probably be several years before he heads back to Jinhua, but Yang said he has adapted to the American lifestyle while still maintaining his roots thanks to Austin’s large Chinese community. Yang is one of 620 Chinese interna-
tional students at UT. Although the University has not seen a significant increase in Chinese international students in the past few years, the United States, with 98,510 students enrolling in American universities in the last year, has seen an increase of 21 percent. In the spring of 2008, Yang left his hometown to pursue studies in economics and accounting at UT. Yang said his parents encouraged him to
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