1
COMICS PAGE 7
SPORTS PAGE 6
LIFE&ARTS PAGE 8
Serving the University of Texas at Austin community since 1900
@thedailytexan
facebook.com/dailytexan
Wednesday, April 16, 2014
dailytexanonline.com
CAMPUS
Pulitzer finalist surprised by honor By Nicole Cobler @nicolecobler
History professor Jacqueline Jones was named as one of two finalists for the Pulitzer Prize in history Tuesday. Jones said she had no clue her book, “A Dreadful Deceit: The Myth of Race from the Colonial Era to Obama’s America,” was even in contention for the award. Alan
Taylor, author of “The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia, 1772-1832,” won the award. “I had no idea I was even under consideration, so it was quite a surprise, and a nice one, I might add,” Jones said. The book researches race as a social invention that has retained its power to harm the lives of Americans.
“The effects of this fiction have been devastating throughout history,” Jones said. “The idea here is that this myth or idea has been a very powerful one in justifying the exploitation of [people of] African descent and other people as well.” Jones said growing up in a small town in Delaware and seeing the inequality AfricanAmericans faced made her
curious about this subject. “There were separate black and white churches — black kids being bused to an all-black school, black kids not being allowed to go into the general store in town — so I was always very curious as a kid why that situation existed,” Jones said. “In a way, my interests in history have kind of grown out of those experiences.”
New center to investigate prevention of identity theft @kjdannen
Jacqueline Jones History professor
Grad students call for affordable housing By Nicole Cobler @nicolecobler
GRAD page 2
CAMPUS
By Kate Dannenmaier
CAMPUS
Alberto Jorge Vazquez Anderson, a graduate student from Mexico, came to the University in 2011 to study chemical engineering and quickly realized Austin is an expensive place to live. Vazquez and his wife put their names on a waitlist more than 800 people long to get into more affordable graduate student housing offered by University Apartments. Some people on the list have been waiting for housing since 2008. University Apartments — Brackenridge, Gateway and Colorado — offer 715 units to all students with at least 30 credit hours. 93.2 percent of its occupants are graduate and professional students, and 74.9 percent of its occupants are international graduate students
bit.ly/dtvid
Charlie Pearce / Daily Texan Staff
Alberto Jorge Vazquez Anderson and his wife were on a waitlist of more than 800 people before moving into the Colorado University Apartments. Last week, the Graduate Student Assembly passed a resolution requesting new opportunities for graduate housing.
Last year, Americans lost $24.7 billion to identity fraud, but the UT Center for Identity’s new resource center for identity theft, fraud and privacy will offer materials to help prevent more losses. Lauren Willis, Texas State Comptroller’s office spokeswoman, said Comptroller Susan Combs played an integral role in getting funding for the resource center. “[Combs secured] $5 million, which interestingly is the largest state-level investment in this sort of thing in the country,” Willis said. “No other state has anything like this.” Expected to open in summer 2014, the resource center will provide training tactics and packages, iPhone apps, top-10 lists and other materials to help people be more alert to the issue, protect their identities and recover if they have issues, according to Suzanne Barber, the director of the Center for Identity. Barber said the resource center will do research to determine what people’s most valuable assets are in order to figure out how to protect them.. “We’ll be able to tell you what the best practices are or give you the best app to help you monitor, but a lot of the research in this area hasn’t been done,” Barber said. “It’s key before we can give you
ID CENTER page 2
RESEARCH
CAMPUS
Dean researches effect of media on reading habits
Senator advocates foreign intervention
By Natalie Sullivan @natsullivan94
The amount of time you spend reading Facebook posts and skimming web pages could impact one’s ability to read and comprehend longer texts on paper, according to a University professor. School of Information Dean Andrew Dillon said the way online content is formatted leads to breaks in attention span, which can then make it more difficult to return to extended texts, such as novels. “We’re spending so much time touching, pushing, linking, scrolling and jumping through text that, when [you] sit down with a novel, your daily [habit] of jumping, clicking, linking is just ingrained in you,” Dillon said. “We’re in this new era of information behavior, and we’re beginning to see the consequences of that.”
Dillon, who studies reading and human behavior, said the change in reading habits occurs because of increasingly smaller electronic devices and the challenge web publishers face to attract audiences to online content. “As the technology moves, the content providers adjust and, since screen real estate and human attention are at a premium, shorter texts, increased use of animation and color, and a concern with getting the message across quickly all come to the fore,” Dillon said. “This is the new norm, and you probably won’t be seeing too many people reading Proust on their iPhone anytime soon.” According to Dillon, this emphasis on reading in short bursts could have damaging effects on comprehension, especially for younger readers who have grown up in a digital age.
DIGITAL page 3
By Adam Hamze @adamhamz
Sen. Marco Rubio, RFlorida, said the United States should use its influence to intervene in conflicts overseas, in a speech addressing foreign policy topics on campus Tuesday. Rubio, who also addressed topics such as Iran and Edward Snowden, said he believes wherever people are suffering, dying, being invaded and persecuted, there is a tyrannical government behind the conflict. Rubio, who began his political career in the Florida House of Representatives and was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2010, said the U.S. government needs to become more involved. “In the real world, there is only one nation on this planet still capable of rallying the free people of this world for the great causes of our time, and that nation is ours,” Rubio said. “That is not my opinion. That is fact.”
Mengwen Cao / Daily Texan Staff
Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Florida, spoke about topics including Iran, Edward Snowden and the U.S.’ role in international affairs at the Blanton Museum of Art on Tuesday afternoon.
Rubio said he would support the use of force against Iran if diplomacy and economic sanctions fail because he believes Iran to be a serious threat. “Despite these crippling international sanctions, Iran
continues to spend millions of dollars a year supporting terrorism all over the world,” Rubio said. “America, if you want peace and prosperity, one of the best ways to ensure it is to have a military that no one will question.”
Austin Reggae Festival April 18-20 • Butler Park Easy Star All-Stars, Inner Circle Everton Blender and More www.austinreggaefest.com Benefitting the Capital Area Food Bank
After being asked a question regarding Snowden leaking out government information in 2013, Rubio said his actions were the most damaging
RUBIO page 2