SERVING THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN COMMUNITY SINCE 1900 @THEDAILYTEXAN | THEDAILYTEXAN.COM
MONDAY, JANUARY 29, 2018
VOLUME 118, ISSUE 90
N E WS
O PI N I O N
LI FE&A RTS
SPORTS
Hundreds attend the opening of new mural revealed at Rowling Hall. PAGE 2
The Me Too movement extends beyond Hollywood. PAGE 4
The City Theatre of Austin takes on modern issues with Chekov’s ‘Uncle Vanya.’ PAGE 8
Longhorns outlast Ole Miss in Big 12 - SEC Challenge victory. PAGE 6
WEST CAMPUS
A REPEATED MISTAKE University House claims overbooking was one-time error. It wasn’t. By Chase Karacostas @chasekaracostas
W
hen advertising sophomore Jacob Sepulveda signed his fourth and last lease with University House for the 2017–18 term, he thought UH had learned from their mistakes.
For Sepulveda, who had spent the previous nine months fighting with UH for the apartment he originally signed for, the thought UH might overbook a second year in a row seemed outlandish. UH, which opened two years ago, garnered widespread attention over the past month for sending a number of their future-renters “mutual termination” emails severing their lease contracts, because a “one-time” software error had caused the complex to overbook by 5 percent.
However, The Daily Texan confirmed Sepulveda and at least four students all experienced issues resulting from UH overbooking during the 2016–17 term. All five students now live at UH after being offered different, and more expensive, apartments in the complex. “To (overbook) again, it’s like a slap in the face,” Sepulveda said, of learning that UH had overbooked a second year in a row. “It’s so frustrating … They should’ve learned from
their mistake.” The Texan previously reported UH terminated the leases of at least six students this school year. The Scion Group, UH’s parent company, did not say if last year’s overbooking complications resulted from the same software error as this year’s or a different issue. “We are in direct contact with all affected residents to make sure to address their needs individually,” said Keith Thompson, regional vice president of operations for The Scion Group, in an email.
griffin smith | the daily texan staff Advertising sophomore Jacob Sepulveda has faced University House’s overbooking problem two years in a row. In Sepulveda’s case, he did not receive a “mutual termination” email. Instead, he got a call from UH informing him they had sold out of his apartment floorplan, a studio, and he would need to sign a new lease for a one-bedroom apartment with higher rent.
HOUSING page 2
STATE SYSTEM
LEGACY
UT System removes online open records request logs
Retired UT Professor Emeritus, alumnus passes away
By Maria Mendez
By Brianna Stone
UT-Austin and UT System institutions are no longer posting past open records requests on their websites. The UT System’s open records policy required its institutions to display filed open records requests on their websites for years. But after the UT System amended this policy in September, UT-Austin and multiple UT institutions have removed these postings. The UT System’s policy, UTS139, guides how its universities comply with the Texas Public Information Act, which provides public access to information from state institutions. The UT System added that each UT System institution and administration “must maintain a publicly-accessible (sic) website dedicated to displaying public information requests it has received and responsive information” per UTS139 in May 2015. UT System spokeswoman Karen Adler said the System’s executive officers and chancellor reviewed this policy and updated
red night light in your room, making everything look dimly red. Then the Earth will move away and the blood moon effect will disappear as the eclipse continues.” UT astronomy lecturer Keely Finkelstein also said the lunar eclipse is the most exciting. “The blue moon isn’t anything different happening astronomically, but it’s still cool to think of,” Finkelstein said. “We can get a total lunar eclipse only during the full moon time. You have to have the right alignment of the
UT alumnus and retired computer science professor James C. Browne died Friday, three days after his 83rd birthday. Browne died peacefully surrounded by family. Browne was born on Jan. 16, 1935, and received his bachelor’s degree in chemistry in 1956 from Hendrix College, a liberal arts college in Conway, Arkansas. Browne graduated from UT in 1960 with a Ph.D. in physical chemistry and went on to spend nearly six decades on the UT faculty. In 1960, Browne joined the physics faculty at UT. From 1963 to 1967, Browne and his wife lived in Ireland to help Queens University set up its first computational center. When he returned to UT, he became a tenured professor in 1968. Browne was one of the first faculty members of the Department of Computer Science, which was founded in 1966 and also served as the department’s chairman for several years. Browne was known for helping others and, through the James C. Browne Graduate Fellowship Fund in Computer Science at UT, gave tens of
LUNAR page 3
OBITUARY page 2
@mellow_maria
RECORDS page 3
@ bristone19
jeb milling | the daily texan staff
Super blue blood moon will pass over Texas By Larissa Herold @thedailytexan
Six months after the Great American Solar Eclipse, the Texas skies will once again host an unusual astronomical event. On Jan. 31, a lunar eclipse will combine a blue moon, a blood moon and a supermoon, reaching maximal eclipse at around 7:20 a.m. The combination of these three phenomena has been dubbed a super blue blood moon, and it is rare. The last one seen in the Americas was in 1866. McDonald Observatory
researcher Joel Green said while the super blue blood moon is a combination of three events, one of them is a “calendar trick” due to the moon phases. “A blue moon just means when a full moon occurs twice in the same calendar month,” Green said. “Since the moon phases last only 29 days, you can sometimes have months with a full moon right at the beginning and end. Moon phases are caused by the angle of the sun on the moon with respect to our view from Earth. When the moon is full, that means the sun is illuminating the
close side.” The next component, the blood moon, is related to the eclipse. The Earth passes between the sun and moon, temporarily blocking the sun’s light from hitting the moon. It can only happen during a full moon when the sun is directly behind the Earth. “Much more interesting is the blood moon,” Green said. “When the Earth completely blocks the moon during an eclipse, it is entirely in our shadow. But because the Earth itself glows, the moon can still be seen, lit up by the red ‘dusk’ part of Earth’s atmosphere. So it’s like having a