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TUESDAY, APRIL 9, 2019
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119,
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NEWS
OPINION
LIFE&ARTS
SPORTS
Lawmakers hear testimony on a bill that would ban abortions in Texas. PA G E 2
Student journalists face difficulty working with University Communications. PA G E 4
North Austin American Ninja Warrior gym appeals to both children and adults. PA G E 6
Caitlin Shick returns to Texas Rowing after battle with thyroid cancer. PA G E 5
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CAMPUS
Former UT tennis coach to plead guilty in admissions bribery case
Map aims to create accessible UT
By Megan Menchaca @meganmenchaca13
Former UT men’s tennis coach Michael Center will plead guilty by April 30 to one count of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and honest services mail fraud, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. As part of a nationwide scheme designed to fraudulently admit wealthy students into renowned universities, the DOJ accused Center of accepting approximately $100,000 from William “Rick” Singer as a bribe to facilitate the admission of a student with little tennis experience as a men’s tennis recruit. “The university learned today of the guilty plea,” University spokesperson J.B. Bird said in an email. “We continue to cooperate with federal law enforcement. Our highest priority is to complete our internal review to determine whether UT has the necessary rules and procedures in place to prevent someone from committing violations in the future.” Thirteen of the parents who were charged by the DOJ, including actress Felicity Huffman, will also plead guilty to using bribery and other forms of fraud to facilitate their children’s admission to selective colleges and universities. The maximum sentence for conspiracy to commit mail fraud and honest services mail fraud is 20 years in prison, three years of supervised release and a fine of $250,000 or twice the gain from the fraud. The plea hearing for Center and the other parents has not yet been scheduled. The U.S. Attorney recommended Center’s plea deal include “incarceration at the low end of the guidelines sentencing range,” a financial penalty, a year of supervised release, a
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amna ijaz | the daily texan staff Emily Shryock, assistant director of Services for Students with Disabilities, discusses the benefits of the newly developed accessible door map. Emily is pictured outside the Student Services Building on Monday afternoon.
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New UT Maps webpage shows accessible building entrances. By Mason Carroll @MasonCCarroll
ith the push of a power-operated door button, UT’s buildings become accessible to everybody. But before students can use an accessible entrance, they have to find it. This is where
UT’s new accessible door map can help students. The accessible door map is available on the UT Maps webpage and shows students all the accessible entrances on campus, including ones that have power-assisted doors. “That was a tool that came out of understanding that frustration of being in front of a building and not knowing how to get inside,” said Emily Shryock, assistant director of Services for Students with Disabilities. “We want people to know in advance, so that way it does not affect their plans and they can plan ahead of time.” The map is the result of the Division of Diversity and Community
Engagement’s Wayfinder Project, which focuses on improving accessibility signage on buildings across campus. Most buildings do have an accessible entrance, but Shryock said many of UT’s older buildings have staircases that are still inaccessible. Shryock said her goal is to ensure all students have the same access and experience. “As a person with a disability myself, I run into a lot of these challenges as well,” Shryock said. “Part of my job is working directly with students, so hearing their stories and experiences that they have is really motivating to make sure those don’t
MAPS
CAMPUS
UTA suspends all Greek life social events By Savana Dunning
By Tehya Rassman
@savanaish
@tehyarassman
andrew choi
people who are blind to understand more about how we can pillar the data and use algorithms to end user’s specific needs,” Morris said. Now, researchers are asking paid volunteers to describe images taken and
submitted by people who are blind through the crowdsourcing marketplace Amazon Mechanical Turk. They hope this data will help teach computers to describe similar images. The goal is to have data collected
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Researchers seek to make computers more accessible for blind users Hoping to help people who are blind, professors from UT are collaborating with Microsoft to create a dataset that can be used by the public to expand automated image captioning. The goal of the Microsoft Ability Initiative is to use artificial intelligence to make life more accessible to people who are blind or have low vision by having machines verbally describe pictures for them, principal investigator Danna Gurari said. “It’s very important that I do something that feels like it has social impact,” Gurari said. “While I’m a computer scientist by training, I very much care about the connection to the real world.” The first part of the initiative aims to develop a public dataset to create image captioning algorithms, said Microsoft principal researcher Meredith Morris. “We’ll be following that up with additional interviews and studies with
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on 39,000 images, Gurari said. By early May, Gurari hopes to have finished the public dataset, which will then be used by Microsoft to create a “novel algorithm to create captions.” The initiative is interdisciplinary across
| the daily texan staff
technical and social science fields. Working alongside Gurari as a co-principal investigator, social scientist Kenneth R. Fleischmann said he focuses on human values within the technology.
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To address concerns over student code violations and hazing in Greek organizations, UT-Arlington suspended all fraternity and sorority social activities last week. “The University of Texas at Arlington is committed to our students’ safety and security,” UTA spokesperson Joe Carpenter said in an email to UTA students. “Due to concerns regarding the culture of the fraternal community both at UTA and nationally, on April 1st the University administration has directed the suspension of all social activities of the UTA’s fraternity and sorority community.” Suspended activities include brotherhood and sisterhood events, philanthropic events, new member showcases and social mixers. Chapter business meetings, community service projects and other limited activities, however, are still allowed if they are coordinated with the office of Fraternity and Sorority Life or Student Affairs, according to the email. On April 4, UTA released a statement further explaining the suspension. The statement cited hazing, alcohol abuse and student conduct code violations from community members in the past two years as being among the reasons for the suspension. Last year, Phi Gamma Delta and Sigma Phi
Epsilon fraternities and Delta Sigma Theta sorority were suspended because of these issues, according to records obtained by the Shorthorn, UTA’s student newspaper. On Monday, the Shorthorn reported an alleged hazing incident at Sigma Chi fraternity which resulted in a male student being hospitalized on March 26. Carpenter said UTA is assembling a task force to review the Greek Life community and recommend steps to “effect a positive shift in the community culture.” The April 4 statement said the task force would be composed of the four Fraternity and Sorority Life governing councils, Student Affairs staff and the UTA Police Department. UTA President Vistasp M. Karbhari said in the April 4 statement that he has admiration for the work done by Greek organizations and is “saddened by the cases of hazing, sexual assault, extreme intoxication and other inappropriate behaviors connected to some members of our Greek Community.” “It is with a view to ending this and strengthening and growing the good aspects of our Greek Community that we have decided to suspend current social activities and assemble a Fraternity and Sorority Life Task Force,” Karbhari said. “I expect the task force will act quickly and apply best practices that will enable us to
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