Dazzling String Art Installation
DENTON
pg. 8 SUNNY High 82° Low 63° Weather pg. 2
A new U is up to you
Wednesday │October 3, 2012 │ Vol. 99, No. 7
Texas Woman’s University | Student run since 1914
Shelby Baker Reporter
On October 16-17, students will vote on the approval of a new union. From there, the plan will be presented to the Board of Regents, and finally the state legislature before construction can begin. If the vote passes, there will be a fee increase of $149 per semester, which will support the costs of a building twice the size of the current
union, while any less would only pay for another of the current size. The Student Union is recognized as the heart of the university, both for location and importance. The building contains two cafeterias, an unmanned U.S. Post Office, two dining areas, a game room, computer labs, meeting rooms, a notary public and three different offices. If that is not enough, there are activities going on almost daily on the
second floor, making the union even busier. The Student Union was built in 1970 to house the then 5,810 campus members. In 1990, the Underground was added for a population just under 9,000. The current campus population is 14,700, and space limitations often lead to organizations and departments seeking other sites for their meetings and events. “We noticed the problem several years ago,” Student Union Director, Kyle Voyles
said. “We finally put the change into action this past year, and depending on how the students vote, we will be able to begin work.” Often busiest at lunch, the dining rooms are filled to the brim with students eating, hanging out, or waiting for a chance to get food before class. For a number of students, this creates issues on various levels like volume, space and time management. “We have lines at Chick-
Aaron Claycomb Editor-in-Chief As the fall semester continues, new alternative parking choices are becoming available for students, faculty and staff on all three campuses. Cyclist now have a place to store and secure their bikes at TWU. Physical Plant director, Ron Tarbutton said that a total of 31 new bike racks are being added to the Denton campus in addition to two existing bike racks. “On the Denton campus, when the project is completed,” Tarbutton noted, “we will have added 185 bicycle parking spaces for a total of 335” spaces. Tarbutton added that in Houston, the number of available spaces will be increased to 37 bike parking spaces— increasing it from three to five bike racks where 21 spaces currently exist. The Dallas campus will have eight bike racks added in the parking garage, contributing to a total of 72 available spaces. In addition to bicycle racks being added to all three TWU campuses, Kyle Voyles, Student Union director at TWU, reported that repair stations will also become available for student use. Tarbutton also adds that “You’re going to be able to go and repair your bike…[with] some standard tools attached to steel cables, so you can stand up and tighten and loosen and fix flats.” Two bike repair stations will be on the Denton campus, one at Dallas and another in Houston, Voyles confirmed in an email. The bike racks behind the Student Union were completed last week, by facility workers, Marty Looper and Clarence
Photography by Aaron Claycomb
Irrigation technician, Marty Looper installs one of the bike racks behind the Student Union on Thursday, Sept. 27.
Fil-A going out the building at lunch,” freshman, Logan McCourry, said. “When you throw in the extra activities upstairs, you get a mass of people and need more space just to walk through anywhere.” However, there are those students who believe a new union is not that important and should not be a priority.
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Johnson, who were working on the installation Thursday afternoon. So far, Tarbutton said, facilities still has nine more bike racks to install on the Denton campus, two of those to be completed by the end of the week. Tarbutton said that he hopes to have the project complete by November, and is uncertain for when the repair stations will be fully installed. “The maintenance stations have just been requested,” Tarbutton remarked, and are awaiting arrival in order to begin the installation process. The repair stations will become available to students, and just “depends on delivery time and installation,” Voyles noted in an email. Regarding the Guinn and Stark dorms, “We’ve [already] determined that there are not enough [bike] spaces in housing,” Tarbutton said, and “it seems like more people are bringing [bikes].” As the need for bike spaces grows, he said, additional installations will be considered. The total cost for each unit is approximately $900, Voyles stated in an email, and the Student Union is funding one of these repair stations for cyclists. According to Voyles, Fitness and Recreation also purchased one bike repair station to be located outside their facility. Last spring, “the Union was noticing more and more bikes,” Amy O’Keefe, director of Commuter Services and Non-traditional Student Services said, while her office was “looking for alternative ways for students to commute other than a car.” With the combined efforts “through the Union, Commuter Services,
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Addressing parking solutions at TWU Ginger Hughes Sr. Reporter TWU is currently reviewing possible solutions to alleviate the parking congestion at TWU, Dr. Brenda Floyd, vice president for
finance and administration, said in an interview. Floyd stated that while there are no confirmations at this point, TWU is pursuing the possibilities of utilizing several locations wherein to relieve the parking gridlock on campus.
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She is working on the short-term plans to determine if there are any parking locations available to the university. The cabinet, consisting of Chancellor and President Dr. Ann Stuart, Vice President and Provost Dr. Robert Neely, and others are working in a joint effort toward long-term plans, hopefully to be presented to the Board of Regents by spring 2013. Still in the initial planning and envisioning stage, Floyd stated that “we are highly likely to have an open forum sometime
-Dr. Brenda Floyd, vice president for finance and administration
later, around the first of November, to present whatever we have at that point— in terms of the master plan to the campus community.” This forum will address the
parking on the Denton campus, as well as growth for housing and a new Student Union. Envisioned plans for spring will include parking relief for the Dallas and Houston campuses.
Kyla Rae Reporter Sharing a room with a stranger may seem a little scary; sleeping, showering and studying habits might be altered in order to compromise with a new roommate. This year, some students have been placed in rooms with not one, but two and sometimes three roommates. Originally, TWU’s dorm rooms were designed to accommodate two people: two desks and chairs, two dressers and two closets. However, due to an overflow of students this year, extra compromises had to be made. Those arranged in a triple dorm, with three students per room, are placed in the standard two-person dorm room. “About 140-210 students are impacted,” housing director, Dr. Joseph Berthiaume said. “There are around 70 triple room” arrangements in the Stark, Guinn and Jones dorm halls. On the other hand, students assigned to a four-person dorm have it a little differently. These students are located in the suite dorms, on the lower floors of Stark and Guinn Halls, and one quad room located in Jones— about 20 quad rooms are on campus, Berthiaume said. Berthiaume states that these dorms have two separate rooms in order to keep from cramming students into a small area. “We didn’t think we would get a suite. I thought we were going to get a small, normalsized dorm,” nursing major Miryam Alonso said. For the freshmen, the room assignments have been a surprise. “My roommates were totally random,” education major Elizabeth Gonzales said. Once students received their assignments via email, they found out who and how many roommates they would have for the year. Alonso described living with three other people as all right, but said, “the problem I’ve had is respecting space.” Because of potential irreconcilable differences between roommates, there is an opportunity for students to request for a room change. “I’m trying to see about a room change if it isn’t too late,” Alonso continued. All dorms are equipped with two Internet connections, which also creates a problem for these students. “We have two outlets, but one isn’t working,” Alonso said, and this causes her to relocate to the common labs in Guinn, Stark, or a friend’s house in order to gain Internet access. For all that the students in university housing go through
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INSIDE THIS ISSUE News
Dorm Living..........................3
Features
Core Requirements..............4
Features
Faulkner................................5
twulasso.com
“We are highly likely to have an open forum ... around the first of November.”
Three’s company, four’s a crowd
Opinions
Apple’s Siri-ous Problems......6
Sports
Soccer....................................7
Arts & Entertainment
Vampires................................8
Questions or comments about The Lasso? twu_lasso@yahoo.com