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FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 2018
volume
119,
issue
NEWS
OPINION
LIFE&ARTS
SPORTS
The University’s four-year graduation rate has reached an all-time high. PA G E 2
With ACL coming up, students should keep the #MeToo movement in mind. PA G E 4
Matt’s El Rancho values quality and culture and emphasizes family over money. PA G E 8
Julius Whittier, Texas’ first African-American player, dies at 68. PA G E 7
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CAMPUS
CITY
‘Highest possible call’
Twenty-year-old Zachary Price hopes to get students involved in decision-making processes that affect them.
Study abroad office works to add diversity to programs By Neelam Bohra @_neelam_b
carlos garcia | the daily texan staff Government junior Zachary Price is campaigning for District 4 trustee of the Austin Independent School District. Price was motivated to create a more direct relationship between the students and the policies that directly affect them.
By William Kosinski @willkosinski
ince he was a young man, government junior Zachary Price has developed his political involvement by volunteering for campaigns, picketing and making phone calls. Now, he is campaigning for District 4 “trustee” of the Austin Independent School District. Price was inspired to launch his campaign after the March for Our Lives protest in Austin earlier this year. He said a lack of response from AISD board members to the student organizers to talk about school safety invigorated him to represent the needs of Austin students like him.
“That felt like such an opportunity to get students involved in the process on issues that matter to them, and (the board is) not involving students in the decision making,” Price said. Price graduated from Anderson High School more than two years ago, and he said his 15 years in the public education system, in addition to volunteer and leadership work with local schools, has steered his ongoing civic involvement toward education. Price, 20, said he thinks his age may weaken his credibility but can bring a fundamentally different perspective to the decision making of a board with members. “I’m not running a school board campaign on the platform that I am 20,” said Price, a former Daily
Texan copy writer and columnist. “I am running on a very specific set of platform points that are aided by the fact that I am young and have lived that experience in our schools.” Price said if elected, he wants to increase mental health resources in schools, which he said is motivated by two recent events at his former high school. “Last year at Anderson High School, at my alma mater, there were two attempted suicides on campus,” Price said. “Two kids jumped off the third floor of the building during the school day. That had an impact on the student body. The kids were shocked, it definitely had a depressing impact.” Price’s other platform points
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Out of the 4,421 students who studied abroad last year, almost half were white. Of the other students, 19 percent were Hispanic, 17 percent were Asian and 5 percent were African-American. For the past five years, these percentages have not fluctuated much. However, the UT International Office works to try and close the gap by addressing financial barriers and creating more inclusive environments. “Ensuring students of color have the information and support they need to incorporate an international experience into their four-year degree is our goal,” said Heather Thompson, director of study abroad. “We work closely with units, such as the Division of Diversity and Community Engagement and the Multicultural Engagement Center to increase awareness to diverse students.” On Thursday, the division hosted a Diversity Abroad Showcase to raise awareness about its current programs. “The history of international education was promoting Western superiority,” said Devin Walker, the division’s director of global engagement. “Study abroad was made for white students. Now we have more equity within higher education, and the world is becoming more globalized. International education will be more and more important.” Sociology junior Keelan Wilson attended the division’s trip to Cape Town, South Africa, last year, which he said added to his love of traveling. “When you go somewhere far from home with people who look like you, you’re automatically more comfortable,” Wilson said. “You’re in a foreign land. Someone who understands
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John Kerry speaks at Texas Tribune Festival
Anthropology’s dildo display immortalizes Cocks not Glocks
By Megan Menchaca @meganmenchaca13
Former Secretary of State John Kerry said although the United States has proven it can withstand anything, the current state of the country is in deep trouble. Kerry, the opening speaker for the Texas Tribune Festival, spoke Thursday at The Moody Theater about the upcoming Texas midterms, voter turnout and American politics. Over the next three days, the festival will feature more than 300 other speakers throughout downtown Austin. “I believe in our country,” Kerry said. “(But) we’ve lost the baseline of civility. We’ve lost truth. Any democracy requires truth to be able to determine the decisions and choices you want to make.” Kerry said he is concerned about the current state of patriotism and democracy in the U.S., especially after what he has seen while serving in Vietnam. “I appreciate that patriotism can come from many different places,”
Kerry said. “But you will find demagogues that exploit patriotism for power and we have seen that. But it doesn’t take us where our country needs to go.” Evan Smith, chief executive officer and editor-in-chief of The Texas Tribune, asked Kerry how the U.S. could improve voter turnout in the 2018 midterms. Kerry said his solution is to organize people. “I’ve walked up to people (across the world) who were waiting in a long line in the hot sun at risk of life who said, ‘Mr. Secretary, I’ve waited 50 years for this,’” Kerry said. “We’ve got to feel that way in the United States of America again.” Kerry said the Republican Party is also actively working to keep people from voting through corruption and gerrymandering. “There is far too much money in American politics to have a legitimate election, and it is destroying the system,” Kerry said. “We can’t even have a democratic election in this country because
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By Savana Dunning @savanaish
The anthropology department has three display cases on the fourth floor of the Student Activity Center that hold various objects of anthropological significance. Two hold large gorilla skeletons. The other holds a dildo. “If you don’t look too closely, you don’t even notice it because it’s just sort of in the background,” associate anthropology professor Craig Campbell said. “It looks like it’s supposed to be there.” The phallus was erected in the SAC by Campbell in 2016 at the height of the Cocks Not Glocks protest. The protest involved students openly brandishing dildos, an action prohibited by Texas Penal code, to challenge the Campus Carry law passed that year allowing licensed gun owners to carry firearms into university facilities. Campbell said he had been thinking about creative ways to use the display case and saw the
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joshua guenther | the daily texan staff Karoline Husbond, an anthropology exchange student from Denmark, works on the fourth floor of the Student Activity Center next to a dildo on display in the anthropology department.
protest as an opportunity to use anthropology to talk about the issues raised by the movement. “I wasn’t particularly interested in taking a big political position with this but (instead) use it as a teachable moment to think through and play
with some of those ideas and show the way anthropology can be used to understand current events,” Campbell said. “It coyly takes a position but not very seriously.”
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