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1900
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 30, 2018
volume
119,
issue
NEWS
OPINION
SPORTS
LIFE&ARTS
2015 UT alumna receives Houston ISD Teacher of the Year award. PA G E 2
Students should not be deterred by SURE Walk wait times when going home. PA G E 4
Herman discusses Kris Boyd-Emmanuel Acho social media feud. PA G E 6
UT students turn to Reddit community for mental health support. PA G E 8
CAMPUS
WEST CAMPUS
Student’s drone aids campus water conservation around LBJ
West campus moped theft rates increase
By Gracie Awalt @gracieawalt5
If students see a drone flying through the sky around the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library, it means UT is looking for ways to improve water conservation on campus. Electrical engineering junior Marwan Madi pitched his drone technology to UT, and now it’s flying around campus. As a high school student, Madi and his team won the National Innovation Merit Award for the drone in a competition that encourages students to address world issues through engineering. The drone uses special imaging technology to sense plant health. UT Landscape Services is in the process of gathering data about the lawn surrounding the LBJ Library, which uses 20 percent of the irrigation water on campus, said Markus Hogue, irrigation and water conservation coordinator for Landscape Services. “We weren’t sure of the best way to apply the technology on campus at first, but we knew we wanted to try something,” Madi said. “Water is a scarce resource, and I think a lot of people take it for granted.” Madi received funding through the Green Fund, a grant supported by tuition and fees, funds sustainability projects on campus. The grant paid for a $5,000 camera attached to a $2,000 drone. The camera takes images of the landscape and measures plant health based on how a plant reflects light. Hogue said his goal is to determine the minimum amount of
DRONE
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Here’s what moped owners need to know to prevent it.
andrew choi
By Megan Menchaca @MeganMenchaca13
fter a string of moped thefts in West Campus this year, the Austin Police Department is urging students to protect their mopeds. Forty moped thefts have occurred in West Campus and the surrounding area since the beginning of the calendar year, according to data from APD. During the same time from January to October last year, there were 22 moped thefts. “We certainly tend to see a small spike in moped thefts when students come back to school because students use mopeds
| the daily texan staff the most,” said Natalia Lee, APD auto theft neighborhood liaison. “But across the board, we’ve been seeing an overall rise in moped thefts throughout the year.” While there haven’t been any moped thefts on campus, Lee said the majority of moped thefts have happened in areas where there is a high concentrations of students, such as West Campus. Lee said the moped thefts occurred throughout the day, including during daylight hours. “It could be 2:00 in the morning, or it could be 2:00 in the afternoon,” Lee said. “If somebody is looking to take a moped and it’s not fastened to anything stationary, they’re going to take it.”
Lee said people do not understand how vulnerable mopeds are. APD recommends that moped owners keep their mopeds out of sight, lock the wheeluse a secure bike lock to attach the moped to something stationary and park their mopeds in front of a camera, Lee said. “A lot of these thefts are preventable,” Lee said. “We definitely recommend … locking your moped to something, keeping it out of sight when possible and then locking it again. People just need to take more personal preventative measures.”
MOPED
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CITY
STUDENT
Voter registration in Travis County hits new record for 2018 midterm elections
SG advocates for new electronic IDs
By Sami Sparber @samisparber
Travis County set a “modern-day record” for voter registration ahead of the Texas midterms, said Bruce Elfant, Travis County tax assesor-collector. As of Oct. 26, 94.5 percent of eligible citizens in the county were registered to vote, up from 92.6 percent in 2016, Elfant said. The number of registered voters could continue to grow as his office processes the remaining registration applications. “We’re very proud to have so many people in Travis County registered to vote,” Elfant said. “We don’t normally see this kind of voter activity in a midterm election year, which is why this is so exciting.” At the state level, a record-breaking 15.6 million people registered ahead of the upcoming election, said Texas Secretary of State Rolando Pablos, earlier this month. A combination of factors at the national, state and local levels contributed to the increased interest in registration, said Joshua Blank, manager of polling and research at UT’s Texas Politics Project. “Our national environment is
relentless in focusing on politics and current events,” Blank said. “It makes even people who are otherwise unlikely to pay attention unable to avoid politics.” The closely watched U.S. Senate race between Democratic Rep. Beto O’Rourke and Republican Sen. Ted Cruz is also influencing voter enthusiasm, Blank said. “The big factor here in Texas is a competitive race at the top of the ticket,” Blank said. “That’s not something that’s very common in Texas and is likely leading more people to pay more attention than normal.” Blank said the number of competitive races for seats in the federal and state legislature is also influencing voter enthusiasm in Texas. “At the far reaches of Travis County, in each direction, there are Democratic candidates running against entrenched Republican incumbents and/or for open seats in competitive races that are normally not very competitive,” Blank said. “Those Democratic candidates, in part, have an incentive to register and turn out voters in Travis County, which tends to be more Democratic than its adjacent counties.” Elfant said he’s encouraged by
VOTE
STEER CLEAR!
TEXAS ATHLETICS GAMEDAY CLEAR BAG POLICY
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Voter Registration in Travis County As of Friday
Young people aged
788,645
18-25
now make up the largest voting bloc
people in Travis County are registered to vote
Composition of registered voter population 18-35
36-55
56+
39%
35%
26%
S O U R C E : T E X A S S E C R E TA R Y O F S TAT E & T R AV I S C O U N T Y R E G I S T R A R emma overholt
| the daily texan staff
By Sara Schleede @saraschleede
Student IDs are the golden ticket to accessing campus resources, but they are just as forgettable as they are important. Speedway, bathroom sinks and dorm front desks are littered with lost IDs, but a new Student Government initiative that wants to turn IDs digital might help. SG nursing representative Nicole Flanigan said she decided to start an initiative to bring electronic IDs to UT after reading an article about them at Duke University, the University of Oklahoma and the University of Alabama. As of Oct. 2, students at those universities can access their college IDs through Apple Wallet to pay for textbooks or enter buildings on campus. “A lot of students will forget their student IDs or lose it,” nursing sophomore Flanigan said. “By having it on your phone, that’s going to provide a lot of convenience.” Samantha Lucas, UT
APPROVED BAGS • Bags that are clear plastic and do not exceed 12” x 6” x 12” • One-gallon clear resealable plastic storage bags • Small clutch bags or purses that do not exceed 4.5” x 6.5”
PROHIBITED BAGS • Backpacks, purses, diaper bags, cases (camera, binocular, etc.), fanny packs, printed pattern plastic bags, reusable grocery totes, mesh or straw bags, duffle bags, large totes
TexasSports.com/clearbag
Police Department property specialist, said UTPD Lost and Found no longer accepts student IDs because they used to receive too many to keep track of. Now, they send them to the ID Center. Still, she said the department returns about 20 IDs each week. Lucas said electronic IDs would be a great way to help reduce lost IDs. “People are less inclined to lose their phone than their actual ID,” Lucas said. Faculty and staff can currently display a virtual ID on a web page on their phone to gain access to certain locations on campus, according to UT’s ServiceNow website. Electrical engineering representative Michael Pontikes said electronic student IDs would only work for scanning, not swiping, devices. He said replacing all devices to make them scannable would take a few years. “We would start with what’s existing, and as it grows more possible we start to invest in more scanners,” electrical engineering junior
IDS
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