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Going out with a bang Monday, November 23, 2009
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Students aim to raise voter registration After low public turnout, campus groups cooperate for Riverside ‘Blockwalk’ By Viviana Aldous Daily Texan Staff About 35 students delivered more than 5,000 voter registration cards to six apartment complexes near Riverside on Sunday afternoon. Results from the Nov. 3 constitutional amendment election show that only 52 voters, or about 1 percent, of the nearly 5,000 registered voters in the area’s precinct cast their ballots. University Democrats, College Republicans at Texas and the Latino Leadership Council sponsored the Riverside Voter Registration Blockwalk. “While we may be different in terms of aspect and policy on social issues, both of our parties and the Latino Leadership Council believe that we all have this right,” said College Republicans President Mikael Garcia. “Whether or not we end up getting what we want, we want to make sure all voices are heard in our democracy.” Volunteers placed registra-
tion cards on apartment doors of the Town Lake, University Village, University Commons, Longhorn Landing, University Estates and The Ballpark complexes, which together house about 6,000 residents. “For a lot of us, when we think of Riverside, it hits home,” said Cindy Quintanilla, the UT Latino Leadership Council’s co-director of operations. “Students, a lot of times, don’t know or don’t have an interest, but whatever side or whatever political ideology you have, voting gives you a voice.” Rene Zamora, a mechanical engineering senior and University Commons resident, said he is not registered to vote but that what the volunteers did will encourage him to register. “I’ve been so busy with school, and I haven’t done anything but school,” Zamora said. “But accessibility [to registration information] is definitely really important, so now with [the voter registration card], I’ll register.” In the past, University Democrats has focused on registering students living on campus
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Caleb Bryant Miller | Daily Texan Staff
Government junior Thaddeus Woody and communication studies senior Melessa Rodriguez distribute voter registration packets at University Village apartments Sunday.
Joey Castillo | Daily Texan file photo
Astronomers did a pilot run last week for a three-year survey of more than one million galaxies with the Hobby-Eberly Telescope. The project will probe the mysteries of dark energy.
Desert sky may yield answers By Hudson Lockett Daily Texan Staff Far above the desert landscape of West Texas, the Milky Way dominated the night sky. Six astronomers huddled around a cluster of glowing monitors, wrapping up a six-day test run for a $34 million experiment that will keep the McDonald Observatory’s largest telescope busy for three years, probing the mysteries of dark energy. “There’s a lot riding on this,” said principal investigator Gary Hill early Sunday morning. The final version of the Hobby-EberON THE WEB: ly Telescope Dark Check out video Energy Experiment will measure the effor this story @dailytexanon- fect of dark energy on the universe by line.com surveying 100 million galaxies, making the largest-ever map of the universe in the process. Other projects have searched for dark energy in the more recent past, but UT researchers using the Hobby-Eberly Telescope are the only ones examining the more distant past for data on the phenomenon that is pushing the uni-
Hudson Lockett | Daily Texan Staff
The telescopes of the McDonald Observatory are perched high in the hills of West Texas to avoid the light pollution of urban areas. verse apart at an accelerating rate. “It easily is one of the biggest mysteries of all time in science,” said UT astronomy professor Karl Gebhardt, one of the principal investigators working on the project. Dark energy is a catchall term for the force speeding up the expansion of the
Church gives thanks with all faiths hosted the celebration in 1996. By Rachel Platis “Sometimes it’s scary to be in a Daily Texan Staff A Thanksgiving service at the Baptist church, isn’t it?” he said. First Baptist Church of Austin on “But many of our churches are hallSunday evening brought togeth- marks of religious liberty. We are er hundreds of worshippers of all thankful for the freedom to worship cultures, ethnicities, backgrounds our creator, regardless of the creed.” The theme of this year’s celand religions. Attendees of the 25th annual In- ebration was “courage,” for the terfaith Thanksgiving Celebration courage that it takes to enter relapacked every pew of the church tionships with one another, stand wearing traditional garments and with those who are different and head coverings of every shape and simply raise our voices together in thanks and color. The service praise, said Tom generally draws Spencer, the chief 800 to 1,000 atofficer tendees, said DerThanksgiving has no executive of AAIM. ek Hansen, the religious affiliation, Though the spokesman for theme was not Austin Area Inand gratitude is c h o s e n i n re terreligious Minsomething that we sponse to recent istries, or AAIM, can all agree on.” events, courage is which puts on the a value that is esevent. — Derek Hansen pecially impor“Thanksgiving has no religious AAIM spokesman tant in light of the Fort Hood trageaffiliation, and dy, Spencer said. gratitude is some“The fog that thing that we can all agree on,” Hansen said. “Things lifted from this Sunday morndivide us, but a grateful heart is ing didn’t lift the resentment, anger and fear placed upon many central to every faith tradition.” A Call to Worship opened the hearts in Central Texas,” Spencer service and silenced the chatter of said. “The incident at Fort Hood the church with an Islamic chant reminds us how important our by Ali Akbar Merrikh. Merrikh’s work at AAIM is. Building relavoice was joined by the sound of a tionships with one another can be Jewish shofar, Christian bells and our salvation.” Rachel Taylor | Daily Texan Staff Religions represented in the African drums. Rev. Roger Paynter of First ceremony included Judaism, Saman and Shafia Akhlaque get a plate of food at the potluck dinBaptist had been pastor for only ner at the First Baptist Church of Austin on Sunday. The dinner folCHURCH continues on page 2 a week when the church last lowed the Interfaith Thanksgiving Celebration.
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universe against scientists’ expectations that its growth would be slowing now, Gebhardt said. “It may not be dark; it may not be energy,” Gebhardt said. “All it is, is just that our universe is expanding much
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Engineering field still lacks female students By Priscilla Totiyapungprasert Daily Texan Staff Statistics released by the National Science Foundation show a gradual increase in engineering degrees awarded from 1998 to 2008, but women still remain underrepresented. About 22 percent of UT engineering undergraduates are women, the same amount of women who go on to graduate, said Tricia Berry, the director of the UT Women in Engineering Program. Many of the students pursue graduate school afterward, she added. The national average proportion of women awarded a bachelor’s degree in engineering hovers around 20 percent, the same since 2000, according to the National Science Foundation. Although the UT average of women is higher than the national average, the University also has not seen any significant increases in women enrolling in the engineering program, Berry said. “You have to get them while they’re in high school — middle school, even — to take those math and science courses and stick with it all the way through,” Berry said. Undeclared engineering freshman Tara Boggaram said teachers encouraged her to take
up engineering when she was in high school. “Once I applied, I was presented with all these scholarships and organizations I could join,” Boggaram said. “But it wasn’t until I applied did I find out about all these opportunities.” Boggaram said although she knows a fair share of female engineering students, the class ratios can sometimes be severe. In her programming class, four out of 36 students are female, she said. To recruit prospective students while they are still in high school, the Women in Engineering Program holds summer camps, targets people through Facebook and invites students to participate in engineering programs on campus, Berry said. The program also educates students on how a graduate school education is necessary for more work opportunities. To go into academia or research, a student would need an advanced degree, Berry said, which also helps students who want to become certified specialists in their field of study. “The mindset about the engineering field is changing,” Berry said. “Engineers have to think globally, be multidisciplinary and collaborate with other people to find a solution. Women can excel at those things.”