1
The Daily Texan Serving the University of Texas at Austin community since 1900
@thedailytexan
facebook.com/dailytexan
INSIDE NEWS Sustainability is more than just going “green,” according to two philosophy professors. PAGE 5 For Valentine’s Day, guys may spend more money, but girls often buy more gifts for more people, according to UT researchers. PAGE 6
SPORTS Myck Kabongo has served his suspension and now Texas is hoping he will bring a much-needed spark. PAGE 7 Baseball season is around the corner and the Longhorns are ready to play ball. PAGE 8 Brejae Washington is fast, but she’s focused on more than just statistics as she leads the Horns this season. PAGE 9
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
dailytexanonline.com
Longhorns seek to compete with complete team.
Scorpion Child is true rock (and roll) of local scene.
SPORTS PAGE 7
LIFE&ARTS PAGE 12
UNIVERSITY
UNIVERSITY
UT offers free online classes
Texas Grant Program may require $1.3 billion
By Christine Ayala UT will offer free online courses, available to anyone around the world, starting this fall. The course will be Ideas of the 20th Century, Introduction to Globalization, Bench to Bedside: Introduction to Drug Development and the Commercialization Process and
Energy Technology & Policy. The University recently joined the edX program, a nonprofit organization providing free online learning that was started by the Harvard and Massachusetts Institute of Technology and also includes the University of California at Berkeley, Wellesley College and Georgetown University. Harrison Keller, vice provost for higher education policy
and research senior lecturer, said the classes created by UT professors will offer students a certificate of mastery or completion at the end of the course, but will not qualify UT students for course credit. Keller said there will be no limit on enrollment in the classes. “UT is one of the leading institutions in technology enhanced learning education,” Keller said. “This is one of
the most interesting frontiers we’re exploring. These courses are aimed at personal enrichment and life long learning.” The courses set to be offered next spring are Jazz Appreciation, Foundations of Data Analysis, Mathematics and Effective Thinking, Introduction to Embedded Systems and Linear Algebra.
CLASS continues on page 2
FRAMES | FEAtuREd photo
LIFE&ARTS What does constant connection do to relationships? Timothy Loving will give a Science Study Break talk on the science of relationships Tuesday night. PAGE 12
COLUMN THOR LUND, WILLS BROWN With Student Government elections around the corner, current Student Government president and vice president share their advice to the candidates. PAGE 4
Jorge Corona | Daily Texan Staff Psychology senior Elias Gardea dances the first part of his own UT-organized “Harlem Shake” at the Perry-Castañeda Library on Monday night. A recent viral trend, the Harlem Shake was showcased on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon and the staff of companies such as Harper Collins and thechive.com have performed it. The UT version will be posted by Gardea on YouTube soon.
UNIVERSITY
TODAY Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night” The American Shakespeare Center returns to campus for an exciting performance. In “Twelfth Night,” Shakespeare provides a feast of language and songs in a play that is sublime and subversive, breaking rules and bending gender to show love in all its guises and disguises. The play will be held at Hogg Auditorium and begin at 7 p.m. General admission tickets cost $15 or $10 with an UT ID. ChE Seminar Dr. Tse Nga Ng will present the paper “Flexible Printed Electronics: From Materials Characterization to Device Integration.” He will speak from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. in the Chemical and Petroleum Engineering Building (CPE) 2.218. The event is free.
Professors Joseph Beaman Jr. and Sharon Wood were inducted into the National Academy of Engineering in recognition of their achievements in the engineering world. Beaman received an undergraduate education at UT and works on technology for 3-D printing and manufacturing at the Department of Mechanical Engineering. Wood, chairwoman of the Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering, is the first woman elected to the academy in the area of structural engineering. The National Academy of Engineering has only 2,461 members and foreign associates, 80 of which were inducted this year, said Maria Arrellaga, director of communications and public affairs at the Cockrell School of Engineering. “Being inducted into the
NAE is something that is the result of years and years of research,” Arrellaga said. “It’s the award of all awards, the recognition of all recognition.” Wood was elected for her designs for reinforced concrete structures, which can withstand more severe earthquakes and are based on field research in Chile, Turkey and California after earthquakes, as well as for her work installing seismic instruments in earthquake prone areas, according to the academy’s website. Wood said she and colleagues studied collapses of parking garages in California after the Northridge earthquake in 1994, and she recently worked on committees to implement a national plan for installing seismic instruments in buildings. “One of the problems when you go out and look at an earthquake is you don’t know how the ground moved in that location or
NAE continues on page 2
Today in history In 1999
President Bill Clinton is acquitted by the United States Senate in his impeachment trial.
Joseph Beaman Jr.
Texas could expand access to a financial aid program that benefits thousands of low-income students at UT if it enacts recommendations passed down by the state’s higher education agency. Raymund Paredes, Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board commissioner, told a subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee on Monday that the TEXAS Grant Program would need $1.3 billion to fully function during the 2014-15 biennium. “Unless the Legislature is willing to make significant increases in the TEXAS Grant Program every session as demand continues to increase, this program is simply not sustainable in its current form,” Paredes said. The program serves students whose expected family contribution to their cost of attendance is $4,000 or less, which constitute a large percentage of students graduating from public schools, Paredes said. “Given that fact, the state simply can’t meet the escalating demand for financial aid under current program operational guidelines and funding levels,” Paredes said. The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board is asking the Texas Legislature to allocate $719.6 million to the TEXAS Grant Program for the 2014-15 biennium. That amount is about $145 million more than the
GRANT continues on page 2
UNIVERSITY
Engineering association recognizes professors By Miles Hutson
By Joshua Fechter
Sharon Wood
Mechanical Engineeing, 3-D
Civil, Architectural,
printing and manufacturing
Environmental Engineering
E. Gordon Gee, The National Commission on Higher Education Attainment chair, discussed ways college completion could be improved at the AT&T Conference Center on Monday afternoon.
Charlie Pearce Daily Texan Staff
UT pushes graduation rates By Jordan Rudner The UT System Board of Regents, President William Powers Jr. and President Barack Obama have all issued calls to raise graduation rates, and in the search for solutions, the University is turning to the ultimate experts: actual college educators. UT hosted a panel Monday to discuss “An Open Letter to College and University Leaders: Completion Must Be Our Priority,” the report released last month by the National Commission on Higher Education Attainment. The report states that “our goal was to look at this issue from the viewpoint of college and university leaders.” Panel participants included E. Gordon Gee, president of Ohio State University and chairman of the commission; Molly Corbett Broad, president of the American
Council on Education; UT-El Paso President Diana Natalicio; and George Martin, president of St. Edward’s University. The report, released in January, offered a range of suggestions under three broader categories: changing campus culture to boost student success, improving cost-effectiveness and quality and making better use of data to boost success. UT has already undertaken some of the goals laid out in the report, including appointing David Laude as senior vice provost of enrollment and graduation management. Gee said appointing such an officer was a vital step in shifting the focus exclusively from boosting enrollment rates. “We have vast institutions called admissions offices, but we don’t have any offices focused on completion,” Gee said. Natalicio emphasized the impact a cultural shift
can have on completion rates. She also mentioned her preference for the term “completion rate” rather than “graduation rate” because typically, graduation rate calculations do not include transfer students or part-time students. “We’ve been able to change the culture of a community that always saw itself as marginalized and working class,” Natalicio said. Natalicio attributed a large part of the cultural shift to the work UT-El Paso has done with local K-12 schools. “We all know that talent crosses gender and ethnic and socioeconomic boundaries, and we were squandering a tremendous amount of talent in the El Paso community,” Natalicio said. “El Paso colleges didn’t reflect the demographic makeup of the community. So we first worked for K-12 to raise aspirations and
PANEL continues on page 2