Serving The University Of Texas At Austin Community Since 1900 @thedailytexan | thedailytexan.com
Tuesday, November 19, 2019
Volume 121, Issue 70
NEWS
OPINION
SPORTS
LIFE&ARTS
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Students discuss the University’s admissions policies in Senate town hall.
UT must offer cheaper class ring options so all students can participate in campus traditions.
Alumni bring music program to underserved communities in Colombia.
Tom Herman and the Longhorns look to shrug off heartbreaking loss to Iowa State.
CITY
UNIVERSITY
Sidewalk renovations coming to northern West Campus By Sara Johnson @skjohn1999
Austin Public Works is preparing sidewalk ramp construction along West 29th Street by the end of the month as part of a larger transit accessibility plan for Austin. The department has plans to build or update ramps at all crossing intersections along roads on West 29th Street from Shoal Crest and San Gabriel streets to Guadalupe Street, according to The Sidewalk Program Projects page for Austin. Public works director Richard Mendoza said there is a lack of concrete starting dates because all work is part of one larger project — the North Lamar Corridor Mobility Program. “Even though it’s one big thing, the whole project spans so much space that it’s easier to take construction on a piecemeal basis,” Mendoza said. “If we tried to do it all at the same time, it would clog up the streets and make it more inconvenient for residents.” The North Lamar Corridor Mobility Program project is part of the 2016 Austin Mobility Bond, according to their website. Karla Taylor, the chief of staff at the Austin Transportation Department, said with some work on North Lamar Boulevard and Guadalupe Street being placed on hold until 2020 at the earliest, any small improvements to the area in the meantime would move their ultimate plans forward. “Most of the goal in this area is to improve accessibility for wheelchair users,” Taylor said. “It would be foolish to not do work that would SIDEWALK
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Plagiarism officially defined Faculty Council Research Policy Committee drafts official definition of plagiarism for University Handbook. By Emily Hernandez @emilylhernandez
lagiarism: Every professor warns their students to avoid it, but until last week, UT had not officially defined what plagiarism is. Maurie McInnis, the executive vice president and provost, charged the Research Policy Committee with officially defining plagiarism in September 2018, committee chair elect Sharon Horner said. The Faculty Council approved the page-long definition at its meeting last Monday, and it will be published in the University’s Handbook of Operating Procedures, Horner said. “There’ve been times when complaints come forward, and they’ve had trouble adjudicating because there’s no official definition,” said Horner, a professor and associate dean for research and nursing. “Every professor has their own (definition). The (Office of the) Dean of Students lists one and so on and so forth.” The official definition of plagiarism from the committee’s draft is simple: “Plagiarism occurs when a person represents another’s material as their own work without proper attribution.” It also includes six footnotes that specify what “material” and “proper attribution” mean, who is responsible for enforcing a plagiarism accusation and how the definition was created using official sources such as the Office of
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Research Integrity. “The thing that probably makes it different from other published definitions is that it’s not limited to just what you write because in our modern day, it seems that the complaints are coming out about some other ways to plagiarize somebody’s work,” Horner said. “So we wrote it a little more broadly. It’s just not limited to the written word.” Government senior Delaney Tubbs said she thought the new definition was decent, but she would like to see clearer definitions for all academic dishonesty violations, including cheating because different professors have different policies. “(My friend) and I will often do reviews for tests together, so we’ll end up writing very
similar things on the test because we worked on it beforehand,” Tubbs said. “We always try to check (with) our professors, like ‘Can we work on this together?’ They’ll usually say yes, but some students might not have thought to ask.” Tubbs said she would also like a clearer distinction between intentional plagiarism and accidental plagiarism. The new definition states intentional plagiarism falls under academic dishonesty, which could result in disciplinary action. Since it is a definition and not a policy, it does not include what actions will be taken next based on what kind of plagiarism the student commits. “When you think about crime … it’s different when you intend to do something and if you accidentally do
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something,” Tubbs said. “That’s why we have manslaughter and homicide. I feel like it’s a lot worse if you paraphrase someone and don’t put an in-text citation stating where you got the paraphrase versus blatantly copying word for word what someone else wrote.” Journalism freshman Kiara Vega said she would like the University to notify students about the change once the definition is published. “I would like the University to send out an email saying, ‘Just to let you know, we created a new definition for plagiarism,’ because I didn’t know about this until (now),” Vega said. “The school needs one simple policy because I’m barely coming into this University, and I’m terrified of plagiarism.”
CITY
UNIVERSITY
Increased traffic delays emergency services
Red River Street realignment project approved
By Graysen Golter @graysen_golter
Austin fire stations and emergency medical services are struggling to respond in time to emergencies due to traffic. Increases in population, traffic congestion and irresponsible driving are some of the top reasons for delayed response times to emergencies, according to the Austin Fire Department. Austin Fire Division chief Palmer Buck said the gold standard for fire stations is to respond in under eight minutes to 90% of emergencies, but traffic often delays fire stations across Austin by more than a minute on average. He said one emergency near State Highway 30 and State Highway 71 had a response time of 15 minutes. Buck said AFD is working with the Austin Transportation Department to fix the issue. He
said some of the solutions he has in mind are the creation of a computer system that would take current Austin traffic into account and give responders the quickest route possible to an emergency, as well as shrinking the currently bulky firetrucks to fit in narrower streets and roads. “It’s not a fire problem versus an EMS problem versus an Austin traffic conditions problem,” Buck said. “All the public safety agencies in the city are working together. We understand what we can do can affect that and vice versa.” Jen Duthie, the division manager for the Arterial Management division at the Austin Transportation Department, said ATD will be working with the Austin Fire Department and EMS to secure grant money for more software-based solutions to the traffic issue. She said new traffic signals T R A F F I C PAGE 2
By Laura Morales @lamor_1217
The UT Board of Regents approved $38.5 million to realign Red River Street and connect it to the existing Robert Dedman Drive. The street will be realigned to open approximately four acres for the development of Moody Center, the new basketball arena that will break ground on Dec. 3. UT President Gregory Fenves presented the proposal to the Board of Regents at the Nov. 14 meeting and asked to add the realignment project to the Capital Improvements Program. “The project we are requesting approval for is (money for) the utilities, sidewalks, roadway (and) traffic signals on Robert Dedman Drive from Dean Keeton to MLK (Boulevard),” Fenves said at the meeting. Red River Street is going back to its rocky higine
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