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Wednesday, January 25, 2017
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STATE
Tuition reform remains top priority By Mikaela Cannizzo @mikaelac16
Initiatives to cut costs for college students are a large component of several higher education bills filed this legislative session. In Lt. Gov Dan Patrick’s “2017 Top Legislative Priorities,” he highlights tuition reform through Senate Bill 19, which calls for Texas public universities to temporarily limit tuition rates. “The state has increased
funding for higher education, but tuition and fees have continued to rise,” Patrick said in a statement on his website. “Taxpayers must be assured they are getting a quality education at a cost they can afford. SB 19 will prevent tuition and fees from continuing to outpace what hardworking Texans earn.” Patrick also identified SB 18 as one of his top priorities. The bill intends to repeal Texas’ setaside program, which requires public colleges and universities to transfer a portion of
paid student tuition to support lower-income students in need of financial aid. According to Patrick’s website, SB 18 “will stop Texas families from being forced to subsidize college costs for others.” Senator Kel Seliger, R-Amarillo, authored both SB 18 and SB 19. During the 78th Texas Legislature in 2003, House Bill 3015 gave governing boards of public universities the ability to designate tuition
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Municipal golf course gets new lease on life @anusha_lalani
Infographic by Megan McFarren | Daily Texan Staff
SG convenes, offering semester preview By Kayla Meyertons @kemeyertons
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UNIVERSITY
By Anusha Lalani
STUDENT GOVERNMENT
Student Government convened Tuesday night to preview what’s in store for their last semester as the 110th session officers. Applications to run for SG officer positions close Feb. 14 at noon, and candidates will be able to begin publicly campaigning Feb. 15. Student body president Kevin Helgren said he hopes for a positive transition for his successors. “First and foremost, Binna (Kim) and I are a team,” Helgren, a psychology and neuroscience senior, said. “We actually view this as a bit of a blessing in disguise in that the more attention that’s focused on the campaign, the more time we’ll have to actually get down and get our work done.” Helgren said he and vice president Binna Kim are not getting involved with the elections publicly and are not
bit.ly/dtvid
Brooke Crim | Daily Texan Staff
Student body president Kevin Helgren discusses current plans to increase diversity awareness on campus. The 110th session officers have eight more legislative sessions left before the new officers take their places.
RESEARCH
The University has offered to extend the lease of the Lions Municipal Golf Course, which the UT System originally decided to let expire in the next two years. The offer to re-lease the golf course known as Muny, which sits on the System’s land, comes from a letter President Gregory Fenves wrote last Tuesday to Mayor Steve Adler in which he told Adler to let him know by March 1 if the city of Austin is interested in renewing the lease. “I would love to work with the University of Texas to find a way to preserve Muny,” Adler said, according to the Austin American-Statesman. The UT System Board of Regents voted against the renewal of the golf course in 2011, leaving the lease to expire in 2019. According to the Austin American-Statesman, the regents decision in 2011 was because of the possibility of the golf course being transformed into a neighborhood with homes, shops and hotels. The new developments could help the University acquire $5.5 million a year versus the $414,720 the city of Austin pays annually to lease the course. “… I write now to ask if the City has any desire to negotiate an extension or renewal of the Muny lease on terms closer to current market value past the initial term,” Fenves said in the letter. “If the answer is yes, I am prepared to work with you
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UNIVERSITY
Study addresses Texas human trafficking UT Nursing program By Catherine Marfin @catherinemarfin
Coinciding with National Human Trafficking Awareness and Prevention Month, a new study released by the Institute on Domestic Violence & Sexual Assault at UT’s School of Social Work revealed that 313,000 Texans are victims of human trafficking at any given time. Human trafficking occurs when one person is controlled by another through violence or other means of coercion involving commercial sex, forced labor and other forms of servitude. The Statewide Human Trafficking Mapping Project of Texas seeks to address the potential inaccuracy of existing data sets, which only focus on identified victims and therefore only address a fraction of the larger problem. In collaboration with the Bureau of Business Research at UT’s IC2 Institute and Allies Against Slavery, the research study began in 2014 with funding from the Criminal Justice Division at
the Texas Office of the Governor. Institute director Noël Busch-Armendariz served as the principal investigator on the project. “It’s not that we’re getting false reports, it just has to do with the complexity of reporting,” Busch-Armendariz said. “People are controlled by other people exploiting them, and they’re scared to report. The question now is how do we use this information to push the solution forward—information that we know now to be true and evident from the research?” In addition to using existing databases, Busch-Armendariz and her team compiled their data by estimating community segments in the state that are at a higher risk for human trafficking and then estimating an average number of victimizations in those areas. By applying those numbers together, the team was able to determine how many victims are in Texas at any given time. According to the study, of
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ranks fifth in nation By Lisa Nhan @nhanbread24
UT’s Master of Science in Nursing program ranked fifth out of 50 on College Choice’s 2017 list of the best master’s in nursing degrees in the U.S. College Choice provides rankings and other resources to help students select which college they want to attend. Factors taken into consideration for the rating include academic reputation, financial aid offerings, overall cost of school and graduate success rates on the post-college job market. The rankings were based on data from U.S. News & World Report, the National Wednesday, January 25, 2017 Center for Education Statistics, PayScale.com and the Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA. Freshman nursing student Itzel Osornia said the MSN program’s reputation made her admission as a nursing undergraduate exciting. Courtesy of the School of Social Work “I feel really blessed and Noël Busch-Armendariz, director of UT’s Institute on Domesgrateful to be a part of UT tic Violence and Sexual Assault, served as the principal invesnursing,” Osornia said. “As
COMICS
tigator on the study on human trafficking in Texas.
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CMHC plans semester’s upcoming events. PAGE 3
Higher education in Texas deserves fuller funding. PAGE 4
Joyner Holmes making strides as a freshman. PAGE 6
Eberly offers taste of Greenwich Village. PAGE 8
Researchers investigate costs of leading energy sources at
Study shows racial disparity in family deaths. PAGE 3
National political coverage obscures local threats. PAGE 4
Where does Texas go after miracle win? PAGE 6
Artist hopes to educate about artistic process. PAGE 8
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a high school senior I was well aware of how competitive it was and the fact that it was ranked among the best nursing schools in the country, and I remember crying when I found out that I had been accepted.” The master’s degree at UT is a two-year program, with graduates focusing on one of five concentrations: Leadership in Diverse Settings, Adult-Gerontology Clinical Nurse Specialist, Family Nurse Practitioner, Psych/Mental Health Nurse Practitioner and Pediatric COMIC Nurse Practitioner. Gayle Timmerman, associate dean for academic affairs and associate professor at the School of Nursing, said the staff works hard to provide students with the best education possible. “We focus to really develop nurses who can lead and improve healthcare at the bedside, or wherever they may be, and to find solutions to the tough questions,”
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REASON TO PARTY
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