UTDmercury_April4

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SPRINGAPALOOZA PAGE 6

VOLUME XXXII, NO. 6

THE STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF UTD — WWW.UTDMERCURY.COM

APRIL 2, 2012

Check out our Facebook page >> We will be giving away a $25 gift card to the on-campus bookstore

Texas Ed Board enlists its first UTD student Klein to work on higher ed financial aid committee

PAUL DANG Mercury Staff

KAYLA KLEIN/COURTESY

Kayla Klein, neuroscience sophomore and SG rep, becomes the first UTD student to work on the Texas Higher Education Committee Board. Starting June 1, she aims to make tuition assistance more accessible for students.

Kayla Klein will become the first UTD student to represent her peers by voicing tuition assistance concerns on a board that oversees the state’s higher education plan. Currently devoting much of her sophomore year to a double major in neuroscience and biology, Klein will also act as a member of the Financial Aid Committee on the Texas Higher Education Committee Board, or THECB, beginning

June 1. “It looks great to see UT Dallas have a student up to par,” said Sharkey Andrews, Student Government president. “It adds to our name as a university.” THECB aims to increase enrollment and degree opportunities over a multiyear plan, and Klein said she hopes to increase the accessibility of scholarships and financial aid while she is on the board. As former class president and student body president at Cedar

Park High School, Klein said she discovered a passion for helping others get their voice heard, long before the green and orange. “It can be intimidating for students to bring up their issues to teachers or administrators, which is why representative organizations are needed,” Klein said in an email. “I don’t mind talking to faculty and administrators about problems so I almost feel like it is my duty to help those around me who might

see KLEIN page 4

FIJI gains its charter SHEILA DANG Mercury Staff

The UTD colony of the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity, or FIJI, became an official chapter March 24 after it was awarded its charter at a banquet. After two years of recruiting members, saving funds and building an on-campus reputation, the colony petitioned the governing body and ultimately received a charter, elevating the men’s status to full brothers of the fraternity. Connor Pokorny, an alpha class member of FIJI and computer science junior, said while it required hard work, the path toward receiving a charter felt rewarding. “It feels amazing, it’s really great,” Pokorny said. “Two years ago we set out and this was our goal, to get chartered. You hope it happens faster, but a lot of guys put a lot of hard work into this. So we finally have our charter and we’re able to move forward.” While the length of time it takes to receive a charter can vary, the governing body consistently looks for

UTD one of few schools ready Story by Anwesha Bhattacharjee Photo illustration by Cathryn Ploehn

It’s that time of the year when frequent storms blow through Texas. According to statistics from the National Weather Center, 50 percent of the 1,691 tornadoes in the United States in 2011 were in the month of April alone, with another 35 percent between May and June. From past data recorded by the National Climactic Data Center, or NCDC, North Texas has been found to lie within “The Tornado Alley,” a region prone to tornadoes. Texas recorded 155 tornadoes in 2011, according to NCDC. Other states in this region include Kansas, Oklahoma, and areas of Colorado, Nebraska and South Dakota. The National Weather Service, or NWS, identifies UTD as one of 107 universities in the country that is “StormReady”, or prepared for severe weather conditions. UT Austin, Texas A&M and UT San Antonio are among others in Texas to have received the same status.

see STORM page 5

see FIJI page 5

Charge stations ready for use

UV upgrades residents’ Internet free of charge PAUL DANG Mercury Staff

ALBERT RAMIREZ/STAFF

Eight electric car charging stations have been installed across campus as part of a U.S. Department of Energy research development project. “(The project) selected a few metropolitan areas to install the infrastructure and gave grants to companies in the area to get the infrastructure installed,” said Thea Junt, energy conservation and sustainability manager. “The Department of Energy will collect data (from the stations) for one or two years.” Two stations each are located near the Activity Center, Clark Center, Research and Operations Center and parking lot K.

University Village upgraded its Internet speeds for all residents on March 26, while offering the option for an even faster connection to those who want to pay more. Formerly clocked at 3 Mbps, or megabits per second, the new plan with Time Warner Cable permanently sets download and upload speeds to 5 Mbps for UV residents at no extra cost. Housing officials blazoned their new service with a preview of what 10 Mbps download and upload speed would be like on the weekend of March 23-25. Matt Grief, assistant vice president for student affairs, facilitated the change to the Internet system that had been in place since 2008. “This year we have had some issues with speed and the students’ ability to upgrade their speed in the units,” Grief said in an email to The Mercury. “As the campus official who works closely with this

agreement with Time Warner, I felt that the students in University Village had not been provided a quality Internet product for the entire year.” Fahad Firoze, a graduate student, has served as a peer advisor for University Village for almost two years. He said that the only complaints about the apartments’ online connectivity have been its frequent disconnections. “It would just malfunction, like completely stop working,” Firoze said. “We’ve had a lot of issues with that in the past so I think that’s why [University Village] acted when and which they did.” With the previous speed of 3 Mbps, a typical movie file of 1 gigabyte would ideally take 44.4 minutes to finish downloading. The same movie would take about 26.7 minutes to download with the upgrade running at its highest potential. Despite the data bit rate increase, some residents resumed online activities as they normally would any

UV Internet by the numbers • University Village Internet formerly at 3 Mbps • Residents preview 10 Mbps speeds on March 23-25 • UV increases standard Internet speed from 3 Mbps to 5 Mbps on March 27, for free • Faster speeds available for users who want to pay an additional fee other day. “I haven’t really noticed an increase in speed or anything like that,” said Clay Farris, accounting senior. “But I never really had an issue with the speed before.” Residents now also have the option to pay out of pocket for Internet speeds faster than the newly set 5 Mbps.


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