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FRIDAY, AUGUST 31, 2018
volume
119,
issue
NEWS
OPINION
LIFE&ARTS
SPORTS
Study finds high school dual credit classes are pay dividends down the road. PA G E 2
Interpersonal violence prevention orgs deserve more support from the university. PA G E 4
Follow these recipes and become a master cheif without leaving your dorm. PA G E 8
Texas squares up against Maryland in season opener after hype-filled off-season. PA G E 6
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CAMPUS
Funding her
Future
carlos garcia
| the daily texan staff
Destiny Brannon, a first year health and society major, is happy that she made it to UT despite losing a scholarship that guaranteed her enrollment at the University.
This DeSoto valedictorian almost lost her chance to go to UT, but thanks to a GoFundMe — she can still go. By Jessica Regan @JessicaReganUT
After giving her commencement speech and graduating from DeSoto High School, Destiny Brannon abruptly lost not only her valedictorian title, but her certainty of attending UT. Brannon, a health and society freshman, received a scholarship for high school valedictorians that would allow her to afford UT after being named first in her class. The DeSoto School Board later revoked the title, citing a miscalculation. “I’ve always wanted to go to UT,” Brannon said. “I was just shocked (when I heard the title was revoked).”
In her valedictorian speech, Brannon criticized the DeSoto administration for a lack of trained teachers and a larger focus on sports than academics. Brannon and her mother Samantha Brannon said they believe the revised rankings were in retaliation to the speech. “We have teachers that don’t know what they’re doing and I mentioned that in my speech,” Brannon said. “The principal at the time suggested I change it, but I felt like I earned the right to say what I wanted to say.” The DeSoto School Board did not respond to The Daily Texan’s request for comment, but in a statement given to news site BlackNews.com, district spokesperson Tiffanie Blackmon-James said the board is regretful of the error. “(DeSoto ISD) failed to ensure that systems were in place to prevent this from occurring, but has since worked diligently to ensure that those at fault have been held accountable and that there is a system and process in place to verify student academic ranking as
based on grades, grade point average and course weighting,” Blackmon-James said. “The recalibrated rankings are in no way a form of retribution or in response to Brannon’s address.” At the time, Brannon’s family had recently sold their house and were unable to afford the cost of UT tuition without the scholarship, which would have covered the first year of tuition. Brannon’s mother said she was frightened after she heard the news. “We had no idea what we were going to do,” Samantha said. “Our plan B was going to be community college.” Brannon’s counselor suggested a GoFundMe page to help pay for tuition. The family spoke to the press and began to broadcast the page, which eventually raised a total of $40,930 from over 300 donors. Donations came in from as far away as Ireland. “My GoFundMe started doing really well,” Brannon
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CAMPUS
UNIVERSITY
UT places sunscreen dispensers for students
McDonald Geodetic Observatory to research tectonic plate movement
By Gracie Awalt @GracieAwalt15
Students toasting under the sun’s rays next to the Gregory Gym Aquatic Complex for hours on end now have the option of using free sunscreen provided by the University to prevent the development of skin cancer. The Office of Health Promotion and UT Recreational Sports placed six new sunscreen dispensers at Gregory Gym, the Gregory Gym Aquatic Complex, Whitaker Courts, Caven-Clark Field and Wright-Whitaker Sports Complex. One more dispenser will soon be placed near the newly constructed Student Activity Center patio. Data collected by the National College Health Assessment at UT in 2016 was a motivational factor in initiating plans for the new dispensers. The data showed over half of students reported not using sunscreen regularly, and around 35 percent of students reported tanning outdoors regularly, which is considered a
risky behavior. “We heard from students that sunscreen often is not something you think about until you didn’t use it and have that sunburn, feeling the pain,” said Brittany O’Malley, manager of the Office of Health Promotion. “My hope is if you use the sunscreen and don’t have that sunburn, you realize that (it) was easy and it worked and it was free, and maybe that will lead to more consistent use outside of where the dispensers are.” O’Malley said the office worked with students to determine where to put these dispensers. After receiving funding from the Student Services Funding Committee, they installed them with the help of Recreational Sports, which is responsible for refilling the dispensers. “We had one dispenser that had been used enough that we thought it might be broken, so we had to address that problem,” O’Malley said. “That could be seen as a bad thing, but to me it’s
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By Savana Dunning @savanaish
Thanks to a new $4.25 million facility being built at UT’s McDonald Observatory, scientists will be able to more accurately describe tectonic plate movements and changes in the sea level. The McDonald Geodetic Observatory focuses on geodesy, the study of the Earth’s shape and how it changes over time. This is the first observatory to be built and funded by NASA’s Space Geodesy Project and is expected to be in operation by 2022. Taft Armandroff, director of McDonald Observatory, said the improved technology will help scientists better understand changes within the Earth’s crust. “Because we know the speed of light so well and we can time things so accurately, we can get incredible distances,” Armandroff said. “We can create
copyright mcdonald observatory, and reproduced with permission The new observatory is a part of a global effort to create a reference framework system that will help scientists understand changes in the Earth’s crust.
a reference frame. We can tell how the two sides of the San Andreas Fault are moving with respect to one another. We can tell incredibly precisely the
height of the ocean …. We can tell if sea level increased by two inches exactly where that water would go.” The project is part of a global
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network of observatories to improve the original International Terrestrial Reference Frame,
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