March 8, 2012

Page 1

Vol 120 | Issue 15

Thursday, March 8, 2012

Publishing since 1913

Independent Student Newspaper of Sam Houston State University

Kony2012 trends worldwide, pg. 3

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Basketball bounced at Southland championship, pg. 5

INDEX Viewpoints ....... pg. 2 A&E ................... pg. 4 News .................. pg. 3 Sports................. pg. 5

5-Day Source says more to Sloan’s Forecast sudden resignation as dean announcement was made on Feb. 15. “Sam Houston State University New light has been shed on the announced today that Dr. sudden resignation of the dean of Roberta Sloan…is stepping down the College of Fine Arts and Mass from her position due to health Communication. issues,” Hebert said. “[Sloan] will A source close to the continue to serve as Senior Special resignation who wished to remain Assistant to the Provost.” anonymous says H e b e r t there may have said Sloan’s been additional six-month factors beyond evaluation the reason given was never that informed conducted due Roberta Sloan’s, to the fact the Ph.D., decision former dean to resign. brought up The source health concerns said Sloan was prior to the told her sixevaluation month review ever being would be conducted. negative and Sloan, in an would be made email, reiterated official if she her reason for remained in her resigning. position as dean. “ W h i l e Courtesy SHSU website. Sloan put in her Roberta Sloan, Ph.D., was the dean my personal resignation soon of CoFAMC since August 2011. health is a after that citing private matter, health reasons. I can confirm that I do have Jamie Hebert, Ph.D., provost health issues and am, quite and vice president for academic frankly, the person with the most affairs, said that Sloan’s resignation reliable information about this was her decision when the topic,” Sloan said. “Speculative STEPHEN GREEN Editor-in-Chief

HI: 79 LOW: 55

Friday, Mar. 9 HI: 58 LOW: 53

Saturday, Mar. 10 HI: 62 LOW: 55

Sunday, Mar. 11 HI: 71 LOW: 60

Monday, Mar. 12 HI: 77 LOW: 63

HD iPad announced at event

HerCampus attempts to help New LGBTQ protections women with style, health added to SHSU

STEPHEN GREEN Editor-in-Chief Apple CEO Tim Cook announced the launch of a new HD iPad at a media event held in San Fransico on March 7. The new iPad will include a faster processor, a screen which Cook said will be sharper than the original, and a five megapixel camera. “It is amazing,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said at a San Francisco unveiling. “We’ve taken it to a whole new level, and we are redefining the category that Apple created with the original iPad.” The screen will be doubled in number of pixels. Currently, the iPad 2’s measurements are 1024 pixels by 768 pixels. The updated version will have 2047 by 1536 pixels. Cook said the new iPad will go out on the market on Mar. 16 and for the same price as the original iPad 2. Cook also announced that the price on the iPad 2 will go down by $100. This means a 16GB, WiFi-only model will sell for $399, making it more competitive with the lower-end tablets, such as the one’s produced by Barnes and Nobles and Amazon.

comments aside, I would request Sloan and the university in April privacy as it related to my own 2010 for “religious and disability personal medical condition.” discrimination, retaliation and Not everyone in the university defamation.” felt that Sloan did all she could to That lawsuit was settled out of be inclusive when she made some court in August. of her decisions. No sources at SHSU told Chris White, Ph.D., a professor the Houstonian they felt any in the mass communication type of discrimination by Sloan department, said that he felt mentioned in the lawsuit; Sloan left him out of key decisions although, some faculty members despite his experience and did say the Dean Search knowledge of how the department Committee failed to adequately works. look into her past. “It puzzled While my personal health One tenured faculty me,” White said. member, who chose is a private matter, I can “She’s made to remain anonymous some decisions confirm that I do have health for fear of retaliation, that myself and issues... said Sloan’s resume Roberta Sloan, Ph.D. should have thrown this department should have been up red flags. a part of. I know “When I read her more about how resume, I could think this program works than probably of a lot of questions that needed anyone on campus and it puzzles to be asked,” the faculty member me that she didn’t ask me for said. “For example, just look at the input.” amount of time she stayed at each White stepped down as interim university. Sometimes it’s not a chair in 2011 to make way for bad thing, but it still should have a newly hired chair. It was not signaled the search committee to his first time as chair of the look further.” department. Sloan worked at Temple Complaints against Sloan aren’t University in Pennsylvania from just unique to SHSU. A lawsuit was 2006 until she was hired by SHSU filed by current Temple University professor Donna Snow against — SLOAN, page 3

Thursday, Mar. 8

Graphic by Stephen Green |The Houstonian, images from HerCampus.com

SOFIA MEDRANO Contributing Reporter HerCampus.com, a top online magazine for college women, made its debut at Sam Houston State University this week making it the first of its kind to ever have been produced on campus. Her Campus was launched in September 2009 when undergraduate students Windsor Hanger, Stephanie Kaplan and Annie Wang had the idea to create a site to reach college women around

the nation while working on the campus lifestyle and fashion online magazine at Harvard University. According to Kaplan, the CEO and Editor-in-Chief of Her Campus, the website has grown to have about a million viewers per month and more than 200 universities have their own campus branch. Every branch has a staff made up of students from each university updating weekly stories that relate to their campus. Staff members follow the Her Campus motto

“A Collegiette’s Guide to Life,” to target young women who are looking for tips on style, health, love, careers and more. Last semester, twin sisters Lauren and Morgan Hall decided to start a Her Campus branch at SHSU by getting the idea from following them on Twitter. After noticing that there was nothing similar being done on campus, Lauren Hall applied to run the magazine at SHSU. “I looked into it and thought it would be something fun to start at Sam, so I did,” Lauren Hall, Editor-in-Chief of the SHSU branch said. The sisters began recruiting their classmates and friends for their staff and created a Facebook and Twitter to promote the online magazine. Her Campus-Sam Houston currently has 500 views per week; however they hope to soon rival other universities who have 20,000 views per week. The online magazine already looks promising to become a big hit on campus; now going into their third week of publication, they have made their name known with their local stories. “I like the idea of someone cataloging Sam Houston events,” Rachel Drewes, sophomore at SHSU said. “If I can’t go, at least I can see pictures and read about it.” Although staff members do not get paid for running —

CAMPUS, page 3

STEPHEN GREEN Editor-in-Chief New revisions to Sam Houston State University policy will add protections for sexual orientation and gender identity, according to university officials. The President’s Cabinet voted to add the two groups as protected classes into three areas of the university policies including employment practices, admissions criteria, and “non-discrimination policy involving campus life and activities,” according to the press release. “I believe that our policies should reflect and encourage the full spectrum of diversity on our campuses and adopting this policy is just the right thing to do,” Frank Parker, President Cabinet’s leader and vice-president for student services, said. This step was taken after the Student Government Association passed S11-03 in March 2011 called the “Bearkat Equal Protection and Opportunity Act.” Its purpose was to list sexual orientation as a type of official discrimination, and prohibit that type of discrimination in the Student Handbook. SGA Vice President Jason Tilton helped to write the SGA legislation along with Sen. Kendall Scudder (CHSS). “I think Parker , and the Cabinet did a wonderful job of being very thorough,” Tilton said. “They made sure to include protection for both classes in multiple policies, and I’m very grateful to them for upholding their commitment to making SHSU a university that exceeds the standard for excellence, innovation and service.” Tilton is also president of the SHSU GayStraight student alliance. “The LGBTQ community must face issues of inequality and injustice,” he said, “and to have the backing of a university that is willing to show and express its support is truly outstanding and amazing.”

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March 8, 2012 by The Houstonian - Issuu