SERVING THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN COMMUNITY SINCE 1900 @THEDAILYTEXAN | THEDAILYTEXAN.COM
TUESDAY, MARCH 20, 2018
VOLUME 118, ISSUE 121
N E WS
O PI N I O N
S P ORTS
LIFE&ARTS
Teaching assistants seek outside training for classroom roles. PAGE 2
Columnist educates novice cyclists on the importance of safe, defensive riding. PAGE 4
Texas advances to Sweet 16 with dominant win over Arizona State in Austin. PAGE 6
UT alumnus Wes Anderson talks his love for Japanese cinema and all things canine. PAGE 8
CITY
UNIVERSITY
APD pins string of explosions on ‘serial bomber’
STUDENT GOVERNMENT
Percent Change in Student Government Voting Turnout for Runoffs and Special Elections
By Anna Lassmann @annalassmann
50
25
% Change
Austin Police Department responded to reports of an explosion Sunday night in a Travis Country neighborhood that injured two people, APD Chief Brian Manley said in a media briefing Monday morning. This was the fourth incident of an explosion in Austin since March 2, when a package exploded at an East Austin home. Unlike the previous three, Sunday’s explosion was probably set off by a trip wire, Manley said. “In the past we have talked about not touching suspicious packages, not moving packages, not handling packages,” Manley said. “The belief that we are now dealing with someone using trip wires shows a higher level of sophistication, a higher level of skill.” Manley said investigators have seen similarities in the explosion Sunday night and the previous three explosions this month, all of which occurred in residential areas. He said the suspect behind the incidents may be a serial bomber. APD is asking anyone in the Travis Country neighborhood to send in any home security footage to assist in finding a suspect for the bombings, Manley said. Following the explosion Sunday night, the UT Police Department released a safety statement to the UT community. The statement was written by UTPD Chief David Carter and James Johnson, interim associate vice president for campus safety and security. UTPD’s statement said the use of a trip wire does not require victims to handle packages to trigger an explosion. “This enhances the warning from being limited to the safe handling of packages to now include not going near any packages, unattended bags, unattended backpacks or anything that looks out of place,” UTPD’s statement said. Since the fourth explosion took place in southwest Austin, the warning area has expanded, UTPD said. The previous three incidents only took place in northeast and East Austin. UTPD and APD have also urged people to call 911 to report any suspicious items or people. Over 500 federal agents from the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are working on solving the string of explosions, Manley said. Additionally, assistance is being provided to APD by the San Antonio Police Department, the Houston Police Department and the Texas Department of Public Safety, Manley said. “We need this to stop,” said Christopher Combs, FBI special agent, during the media briefing. “We are very concerned that people could get hurt by this just by walking now that we have trip wires.”
0
1999 2000 2001 2002
2010 2011
2017 2015 2016
2018
-25
-50
Source: Student Government election records
UT System approves tuition raise, repairs to institute By Maria Mendez @mellowmaria
With newly approved tuition increases, UT students will face slightly higher tuition bills next fall. The UT System Board of Regents, which governs all UT institutions, approved 2 percent tuition increases at UT-Austin for the 2018-19 and 201920 academic years during a Monday meeting. UT’s undergraduate in-state tuition, which totals about $5,200 per semester, will rise by $104 in the fall of 2018, and by another $106 in the fall of 2019. Tuition for non-resident undergraduates will increase by about $370 both years. In-state graduate students will pay roughly $95 more both years, while outof-state graduate students will see increases of about $185 both years. Students currently under the Longhorn Fixed Tuition will not be affected. In a unanimous vote, the Board approved the increases for UT-Austin along with tuition increases for all other UT universities and health institutions, which range from about 1 to 8 percent.
TUITION page 2
SYSTEM mingyo lee | the daily texan staff
Voter turnout historically decreases with SG runoffs Despite increase in SG voters, special election turnout expected to fall. By Chase Karacostas @ chasekaracostas
B
etween the initial Student Government executive alliance vote this month and the special election that followed, voter turnout increased by 31 percent. Historically, however, voter turnout has decreased when a second SG election is held. Including this year, there have been 10 years when a second election was held for executive alliance since 1998, according to election records. Both this year and in 2016, the initial voting results were nullified, resulting in a special election. However, none of the executive alliances achieved a majority in either elections and a runoff was subsequently held. A runoff election for this year’s executive alliance candidates will be held later this week. “I think this level of turnout is an outlier at the moment,” said Santiago Rosales, SG chief of staff. “It could be something that keeps up, and I’d hope it does. (But) I’m anticipating turnout will decrease 20 to 30 percent because of spring break.”
Rosales was also a part of the Alejandrina Guzman and Micky Wolf executive alliance campaign last year, which saw decreased voter turnout with its runoff election. This year, a second election occurred because the results of the first vote were invalidated by the SG Supreme Court due to what was deemed a wrongfully issued campaign sanction. With the initial vote, the Guneez Ibrahim and Hannah McMorris campaign got just over 30 percent of the total votes cast while their main opponents, the Colton Becker and Mehraz Rahman executive alliance, took 53.75 percent. However, the Guneez-Hannah alliance gained more than 2,000 votes when the re-vote occurred and ended up with 46 percent of the votes, which coincided with the drastic increase in turnout. The Colton-Mehraz alliance came up just short of a majority with 49.24 percent of the votes. “We’re really proud (of the increased turnout),” said Ibrahim, student body presidential candidate and sociology and design senior. “To see the campus come out and support us in that way was really exciting. We went up by over 2,000 votes — which I think is pretty unheard of — in less than a week.” What happened with this year’s election, however, is not the norm.
Of the 10 years when a second election occurred, voter turnout decreased during seven of them by an average of 20 percent, which resulted in the loss of thousands of voters between the first and second elections. Business freshman Ricky Cooks said he voted in both elections already and plans to vote in the runoff this week. Despite voting for the same candidates in the first two elections, Cooks said he has yet to decide who he will vote for this week. “Every time I’ve gone about voting I’ve really had to start from square one and think about why I’ve voted for those people in the first place,” Cooks said. “It hasn’t just been an easy, ‘I’ve voted for this person once, so I’m going to keep doing it.’” To combat this issue of decreased voter turnout, the SG assembly passed a bill last month to amend the SG constitution and election code to implement a voting system that would eliminate runoffs. Because voter turnout typically decreases when runoffs occur, the bill’s authors said eliminating them ensures a greater portion of the student body’s voices are heard in executive alliance elections. The bill, which was passed during the special election the week before spring break, goes into effect next year.
Campus protests renovations to Fine Arts Library By Brooke Vincent @ brooke_e_v
A typical meeting for the Faculty Council on Monday became a two-hour forum about the concerns of faculty and students surrounding the relocation of 150,000 resource materials from the Fine Arts Library and possible future renovations. Maurie McInnis, executive vice president and provost of UT, addressed concerns about the loss of relocated scores, bound volumes, CDs and DVDs from the fourth floor. Over the course of the last year, stacks were relocated to the J.J. Pickle Research Campus and the Joint Library Facility in College Station to make space for the Foundry and classrooms for the new School of Design and Creative Technologies. “We do not have the ability to add significant new square footage,” McInnis said. “We simply do not have room on campus to be able to store every volume that we own, but we also insure that we keep those collections so that they are always accessible.” Doug Dempster, dean of the College of Fine Arts, appointed two task forces on Dec. 8 to
LIBRARY page 2