Serving The University Of Texas At Austin Community Since 1900 @thedailytexan | thedailytexan.com
Wednesday, February 26, 2020
Volume 120, Issue 108
NEWS
OPINION
SPORTS
LIFE&ARTS
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CNS Career Services hosts panel on nonmedical health care professions.
Three Executive Alliance candidates make their case, outline platform in SG election.
UT alumnus, banjoist player Danny Barnes talks latest album release.
Longhorns lean on their young pitcher to extend their undefeated start to the season.
CITY
CAMPUS
Belo Center restrooms provide menstrual products By Madi Margulies @madimarg
“(We also provide) STD treatment and testing,” Wheat said. “(STD’s) are very common and many are asymptomatic, so it’s very important that under age 25 patients are seeking STD testing and treatments.” Yulissa Colunga, a social work graduate student, said she sometimes doesn’t have time to go to the doctor because she doesn’t have a car. “It’s convenient to have the (Student Services Building) here, and I think it would be convenient for Planned Parenthood to be closer to campus as well,” Colunga said. “That way, students don’t have to go all the way to North Austin or South Austin.” All methods of birth control can start at $0, according to its website. Planned Parenthood also aims to help people find health coverage, insurance or other funding if they don’t have any. Planned Parenthood offers funding if a
The Moody Communication Council began providing free period products this month in the women’s restrooms of the Belo Center for New Media after a period product donation drive last semester. Periods ATX started a petition in May 2019 to offer free menstrual products at UT, and it gained about 1,000 signatures, according to the petition page. In 2018, UT launched a pilot program to provide free period products in the Texas Union and the William C. Powers Jr. Student Activity Center, said Kacey Vandervort, outreach chair of the Communication Council. Last November, the Communication Council took matters into their own hands to provide the products with a donation drive, said Rebecca McCraney, external director of the Communication Council. “(We) just recognized there was a problem,” McCraney, a communication and leadership senior, said. “And there was a really easy solution that we could just step up and provide for our fellow students and ourselves.” According to UT Health Austin, the average cost of a box of tampons is $7, and the average person usually goes through nine boxes per year. Period products can be expensive and difficult to obtain and should be as readily available as the condoms the University provides, McCraney said. Available products include tampons, pads and panty liners of various absorbencies, and they can currently be found in the women’s restrooms on the first through fourth floors of the Belo Center for New Media. Advertising senior Maya Shaddock said the free period
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DAN MARTINEZ
/ THE DAILY TEXAN STAFF
Planned Parenthood opens The nonprofit’s fourth Austin clinic is located a block away from UT’s campus and is open Monday through Friday, and every other Saturday. By Neha Madhira @nehamira14
lanned Parenthood opened up a new clinic less than a block away from campus, making it the nonprofit’s fourth location in Austin. Planned Parenthood is a health care provider that delivers vital reproductive health care, sex education and sexual health information, according to its website. The new location is located on Medical Arts Street, and the other Austin clinics are located on East Ben White Boulevard, Research Boulevard and East Seventh Street. “We hope the new location is accessible for patients coming from that part of Austin,” said Sarah Wheat, Planned Parenthood chief external affairs officer. “I think what’s really important (for our locations) are the resources (the clinic) provide, and (it’s)
why so many people trust us for their health care.” The new clinic, which officially opened its doors in December, is open during business hours Monday through Friday and every other Saturday. The next closest location to the University is around five miles away on East Seventh Street, but it is temporarily closed for renovations. Wheat said the clinic tries to destigmatize testing and treatments regarding sexual health. “I think it is very important to us that all patients are comfortable here,” Wheat said. “At any time of day, people can go online and make an appointment.” Community members can learn about options concerning their sexual health, including abortions, all forms of birth control, emergency contraceptives and sexually transmitted diseases, according to the Planned Parenthood website.
CAMPUS
CITY
Guest lecturer discusses sugar, convict lease system
UT Elementary School to use $2500 grant to restore classroom gardens
By Sera Simpson @thedailytexan
A visiting professor discussed the contemporary relevance of sugar plantations in Texas and how it affects the modern food system in a lecture Tuesday. Professor Ashanté Reese, an assistant professor of geography and environmental systems at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, gave a lecture called “The Carceral Life of Sugar: Plantations, Prisons and the Contemporary Food System” in Patton Hall. This talk focused on Reese’s research on the agriculture of sugar in Texas and the use of the convict lease system to support this food system in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In her work, Reese said she also focuses on how these processes relate and compare to current American consumption and the prison system. Reese said her project focuses on
studying the relevance of the plantation in modern Black life and in the construction of the state and food system. “I hope to contribute to a collective receiving, reinhabiting and reimagining of the world within and beyond the carceral structures that shape our lives,” Reese said. She said the convict lease system is connected to American consumption in general, but particularly to American sugar consumption, which is higher than any other country. “Our contemporary need for sugar in particular — and for globally circulated foodstuffs in general — is ideologically and materially connected to these plantation paths,” Reese said. Reese said prisoners are still working on farms today despite the abolition of convict lease, except now the farms are owned by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. She said the Texas S U G A R PAGE 3
By Brooke Ontiveros @brookexpanic
UT Elementary School, a research-based charter school that serves prekindergarten to fifth grade, lost its classroom gardens two years ago. Thanks to a $2,500 grant, the school plans to restore the gardens by next semester. The elementary school is run by and draws on resources from the University. The school lost its gardens to create room for construction trucks to park during renovations. Last week, the elementary school received a $2,500 Healthy Living mini grant from the Austin Public Health Department to restore its gardens, said Sharon Yarbrough, director of development and communications for the two UT
REBECCA VORE
/ THE DAILY TEXAN STAFF
UT Elementary School recently received a $2,500 grant to restore classroom gardens it lost two years ago. charter schools. “Many of our students come from apartment housing with very little green space,” said
Rebecca Vore, the wellness teacher at the elementary school. G A R D E N S PAGE 3