SERVING THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN COMMUNITY SINCE 1900 @THEDAILYTEXAN | THEDAILYTEXAN.COM
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 2018
VOLUME 118, ISSUE 97
N E WS
O PI N I O N
LI FE&A RTS
SPORTS
Flu season hits campus hard, with 285 students diagnosed by UHS last week. PAGE 3
For necessary improvements to campus public spaces, students should voice complaints. PAGE 4
Movie-ticket subscription service hopes to change the movie industry, but faces challenges. PAGE 8
Three Texas freshmen continue to adjust to the world of college basketball. PAGE 6
STUDENT GOVERNMENT
SG proposes voting, policy changes Assembly Bill 17 would eliminate possibility of ‘wasted votes.’ By Katie Balevic @katelynbalevic
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tudent Government proposed an amendment to its constitution that would establish a new voting system for elections. The change would eliminate runoffs during elections by implementing a ranked-choice system. In cases where candidates receive too few votes to advance in a runoff, those votes would be redistributed depending on who the second choice was on each ballot, eliminating student concerns of “wasting” votes on “sure-thing” or “underdog” candidates, said Benjamin Solder, an author of Assembly Bill 17. “You would potentially be ranking the people on the ballot instead of simply checking a box,” said Solder, a neuroscience junior. “We’re just giving the students the opportunity to express more of an opinion.” Solder said the new system could reduce drama during elections. “Student government causes a lot more drama than how productive we’re being right now, which is a problem,” Solder said. “It’s annoying when we have runoffs, especially when we have three because someone cheated. We draw much more attention to our own reelection than we do to actually benefiting campus.” Eliminating runoffs would “reduce subsequent drama and negative coverage in The Daily Texan student newspaper,” according to the legislation. With the new voting system, students are still able to only vote for their top pick if they choose, said
anthony mireles | the daily texan staff Student Government introduced a measure that could potentally change the way Longhorns vote for their student representatives. On Tuesday night, AB 17, a bill proposing to replace traditional “winner-take-all” systems with single-transferable-vote systems was debated on the floor for futher consideration. Morgan Lawless, computer science and Plan II senior. “You don’t have to rank the entire ballot,” Lawless said. “You only have to rank as far as you want to. It’s only there for the people that do have those preferences and do want to (keep voting).” Ranked voting can help increase civic engagement, combat political polarization on the ballot and ultimately give a more representative student voice, Lawless said. If the voting system is put in place, there will be a learning curve for
VOTING page 2
Eliminating runoffs would ‘reduce subsequent drama and negative coverage in The Daily Texan student newspaper,’ according to the legistlation.”
Resolutions support reworking University policies on faculty members’ conduct. By Katie Balevic @katelynbalevic
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tudent Government is working on two pieces of legislation concerning domestic and sexual abuse — one addressing the University’s policies on the issues and another regarding pharmacy professor Richard Morrisett.
Joint Resolution 5, the hotly debated legislation from last week’s meeting aimed at revising the University’s policies regarding domestic abuse and sexual assault, was tabled to allow representatives more time to work on Assembly Resolution 23, which supports the University taking action against Morrisett. “The goal is to pass (AR 23 and JR 5) as one message but two separate pieces of legislation to be looked at and given the same time and consideration by the University,” said legislative policy chair Natalie Engel. Engel, a social work and communication studies senior, said representatives would use the upcoming week to confer with pharmacy students on how to proceed with Morrisett’s case. The pharmacy professor pleaded guilty to a felony charge after strangling his girlfriend and then continued his employment at the University, according to an investigation by the Austin American-Statesman. “That will shape how this legislation turns out for actual voting next Tuesday,” Engel said. AR 23 was referred to student affairs committee for further debate. Afterward, JR 5 was elaborated on. “It may take one fact or one article to condemn one individual, but it takes all of our full intellectual and emotional capacity to address an issue as complicated as domestic violence,” pharmacy representative Lubna Mazin said. Pharmacy representatives have been meeting regularly with administrators to understand how the situation came to be, said Mazin, a pharmacy graduate student. “We started reading into the policies to see what kind of gray areas brought us to this point,” said pharmacy council president Melissa Kang. “We (looked at
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CAMPUS
NATION
UT Housing takes steps to ensure diverse discussion
Intelligence agency obtains help from private tech sector in analyzing location data
LC3 helps students get more comfortable with their differences. By Mason Carroll @masonccarroll
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ocial work junior Traquana Smith said as a black woman on campus, it is really hard for her to have conversations with people about diversity, but she joined Longhorns for a Culturally Competent Campus, LC3, to try and change that. The LC3 program was created by University Housing and Dining, UHD, to help students in residence halls feel comfortable and embrace others of different backgrounds when living in close quarters. “It makes me feel grateful that I choose to come to this University because the model here is ‘What starts here changes the world,’ and Housing and Dining is doing that,” Smith said. “They’re showing students that is possible.” The program was started last spring by Mylon Kirksy, director of residence life for
UHD. LC3 is on its third semester since it started and includes ten classes and two retreats — one at the beginning of the semester and one at the end. Up to 30 students can participate in each. The program uses a system called intercultural development inventory, which measures mindsets around issues of difference and culture based on participant responses. “Going to a mindset of judging difference to an acceptance mindset in 10 weeks is amazing,” Kirksy said. “As a director of residence life, it makes sense for me to be worried about how students in the residence hall are being educated and developed.” Aaron Voyles, director of residence hall operations for UHD, said the tools students take away from LC3 will not only help them during their college education but will also be carried with them after they graduate. “Students are going to be able to have the tools and go out into the world and have those interactions, be successful, be confident and have the knowledge
HOUSING page 2
The director hopes to open dialogue with tech companies. By Reagan Ritterbush @reagan0720
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n a “massive” transformation to the way it handles data, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, NGA, is partnering with professionals in the private sector. “I know the word ‘massive’ is overused, but still,” NGA director Robert Cardillo said. “We have more data than ever before, and working with people who understand that data will help us exponentially.” The NGA is a part of the U.S. intelligence community and provides geographic data to government policymakers, intelligence professionals, the military and first responders. Cardillo, in a speech at Bass Lecture Hall on Tuesday night, said he has to engage with companies such as Uber and Lyft so the agency can learn their methods of using geospatial data and apply them to their own system. Geospatial data uses maps and satellites to locate where specific people and things are. “The most significant advances in my profession are going to happen in the private sector,” Cardillo said. “Most of what happens today will affect
brittany mendez | the daily texan staff International relations senior Christopher Shafik, right, discusses future developments and technology with Robert Cardillo, director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, on Tuesday evening at the Bass Lecture Hall. tomorrow, and I want to be ahead of everything that happens within the government and outside it as well.” As part of a series of lectures hosted by the Intelligence Studies Project at UT, Cardillo, who has been a member of the intelligence community since the early 1980s and head of the NGA since 2014, said efforts to acquire data for geospatial intelligence have been made only, until recently, by the government and some large contractors. “The way the world works
now, this practice isn’t useful anymore,” Cardillo said. “The democratization of this planet has led to the idea that anyone can look at anything, and so the government can’t monopolize data anymore.” Cardillo said the process has not been negative so far, and his agency is optimistic about what comes of their transformation. “We are very proud of our history and our support,” Cardillo said. “Mostly, we are proud of what we can do on the humanitarian front, whether it’s
fighting Ebola in Nepal or (assisting) those recovering from floods in the United States. We want to do more with the help of professionals outside the government.” Computer science senior Abbas Ally said he thinks talking to people outside the government will help intelligence agencies be more transparent. “If our intelligence community holes itself up and doesn’t talk to people from all backgrounds and professions, society
AGENCY page 2