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Serving the University of Texas at Austin community since 1900
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Friday, March 7, 2014
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CITY
Austin soccer could join big leagues By Alyssa Mahoney @TheAlyssaM
Austin may get its first professional sports team by 2020, as the City Council began discussing a possible Major League Soccer team Thursday. Mayor pro tem Sheryl Cole sponsored a resolution, which passed 6-0, that states the city will work with the University, the Austin Aztex — the city’s United Soccer Leagues (USL) semi-professional team — and other
stakeholders to determine whether an MLS team is possible. By 2020, MLS plans to expand from 20 to 24 operating teams, two of which have not yet been determined. Austin and San Antonio are two major contenders for a professional team in Texas, MLS commissioner Don Garber said. “Expanding — that’s likely going to happen,” Garber said in a press conference. “Where that happens, when that happens, is something that remains to be seen.”
According to Garber, the league will conduct research to evaluate whether Austin has the fan demographics, soccer interests, potential ownership groups and stadium plan to successfully support an MLS team. Garber said ideally, a stadium should be located within the urban core of the city. Aztex marketing director Jeffrey Burns said Austin’s high urban density makes the city a
SOCCER page 2
Structural changes to SAT set for spring 2016 @itsmorebueno
Helen Fernandez / Daily Texan Staff
City Council meets to discuss the possibility of bringing a Major League Soccer team to Austin.
Change ahead for campus creek Waller Creek development to be altered at UT, downtown By Alyssa Mahoney @TheAlyssaM
CREEK page 3
NATIONAL
By Nicole Bueno
CAMPUS
Just as surveyor and Austin mayor Edwin Waller considered Waller Creek a beautiful resource in his original 1838 plan for the city, recent University and city master plans are beginning to feature the creek more prominently as an important ecological asset, resulting in drastic changes both on campus and in downtown Austin. While Waller Creek has always figured prominently in UT’s history, only in recent decades did the University begin to embrace the creek’s ecological value. The University’s 2013 Campus Master
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Jonathan Garza / Daily Texan Staff
The bridge by San Jacinto Hall is an example of the 2013 master plan’s hope to feature Waller Creek more around the University and downtown. Renovations, such as new bike trails and a possible rail line, will take place in the next 20-30 years.
College Board announced Wednesday that it has revised its SAT, reversing many of the changes made to the test in its last revision in 2005. The new test will be administered in the spring of 2016, and College Board will publish sample sections on its website by April 16, 2014. The major change in the revised test lies in its scoring format. The scale, raised from a 1600 to a 2400-point system in 2005, has been lowered back to its former scale. In addition, College Board will no longer penalize wrong answers with deductions. Kedra Ishop, vice provost and director of admissions, said the University is still weighing the impact of the changes. “How students perform will depend on, as it is for any test, how well students prepare rather than on the qualities of the test itself,” Ishop said. “It’s too early for us to know if or how the changes may affect our admission practices or policies.” The new SAT will leave the essay portion as a separately-scored option for particularly strong writers to take advantage of, though colleges and universities can still request it from applicants. Chemical engineering senior Ishita Madan, an SAT tutor at Austin-based House of Tutors, said she thinks the test will be
SAT page 2
STUDENT GOVERNMENT
STATE
Wes Draper triumphs in SG runoff election
Wendy Davis shares platform, plans
By Nicole Cobler @nicolecobler
Wes Draper took the eighth position for University-wide representative in a runoff election Thursday, after an additional week of campaigning since last week’s campus-wide elections. Draper, an undeclared sophomore, and government sophomore John Brown both received 2,080 votes last week. Draper won the runoff election with 54.49 percent of the vote. According to Election Supervisory Board chairman Ryan Lutz, 2,090 students voted Wednesday and Thursday. This is about four times greater than the 507 students who voted in the Graduate Student Assembly election. “We didn’t expect this high of a voter turnout, but we’re absolutely pleased it was that high,” Lutz said. “That means a lot of students cared about
that position.” Lutz said he was surprised there was a runoff election for a representative position. “If there are more than two executive alliances, it will almost always go into a runoff, but for a representative position, something like that has not happened for as long as I can remember,” Lutz said. As an incoming University-wide representative, Draper said he plans to make transferring to colleges more accessible for current students at the University. As a student in the School of Undergraduate Studies, he said he has found it difficult to transfer into another college. “Just because you’re at UT doesn’t mean as much as it used to, which is kind of silly in itself to keep enrolling large masses and just throw them into the feeder
RUNOFF page 5
By Alyssa Mahoney @TheAlyssaM
Democratic gubernatorial nominee and state Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Forth Worth, said she wouldn’t raise taxes to fund programs such as education in a discussion hosted by the Texas Tribune on Thursday. Davis said she is not worried about facing a Republican super majority if she is elected governor and she said she believes under her leadership, the legislature will become more nonpartisan. “‘D’ is not a liability,” Davis said. “There are honorable people on both sides of the aisle who really do want to be part of constructive, solution-oriented, futureoriented thinking.” According to Davis, Texas should make education its single most important priority. Davis said she wants to focus on public preschool education and said she proposes a sliding scale to
Jonathan Garza / Daily Texan Staff
Gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth, speaks at a discussion with The Texan Tribune at the State Theater Co. on Thursday morning.
determine how much parents should pay. “There will be a tremendous cost to the state of doing nothing,” Davis said. “I don’t think I have all the answers, but I think I have some good ideas.”
Davis said the state already has adequate revenue to fund the programs she proposes. According to Davis, at the next legislative session, the state may have as much as a $5 billion surplus.
NEWS
OPINION
SPORTS
LIFE&ARTS
ONLINE
Website connects students with health care jobs. PAGE 5
We asked: Did you vote in the primaries? PAGE 4
Women’s basketball renews Red River Rivalry. PAGE 6
UT professor premieres new film at SXSW. PAGE 10
Did students vote in the primaries?
Visting professor says nutrition affects epigenome. PAGE 5
Texas needs better political polls. PAGE 4
Texas baseball hopes to add to five-game streak. PAGE 6
Andrew Belle tours with singer-songwriter group. PAGE 10
Find out in a video at dailytexanonline.com
“A 21st century education — that needs to be priority number one [with the surplus],” Davis said. Texas has the largest population of adults without a
DAVIS page 2 REASON TO PARTY
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