Tennis team undefeated

VAISHNAVI JOSYULA Mercury Staff

UTD’s men’s and women’s tennis teams are No. 1 in the ASC East conference for Division III, where they have persisted as undefeated against other DIII teams.

The women have played 12 games so far — three of which were against other DIII colleges in the East conference — with an overall score of 8–4 and a conference score of 3–0. The men, on the other hand, have played 10 games so far — two of which affected their conference standings — with an overall score of 5–5 and a conference score of 2–0. Games against DI and DII schools do not affect conference standing.

On March 14, freshman Nathan Qi and sophomore Elyssa Ducret were named Players of the Week for the ASC East division. With five and six overall matches to go for the men and women respectively until the ASC Championship Quarterfinals, coach Bryan Whitt said he hopes that both the teams can retain their No.1 spot.

“Ultimately, beating the teams of the ASC East is really the main thing that matters to get us to the tournament,” Whitt said. “We’re undefeated in the East. We still have East Texas Baptist University and LeTourneau University on the men’s side, but on the women’s side we just have ETBU left.”

Despite the smooth progression throughout the tournament so far, software engineering graduate student Jeremiah “Jed” De Luna said that the men’s doubles lineup has been changed to improve results and camaraderie.

“We felt like if we wanted to take some of these doubles matches, there would have to be a change,” De Luna said. “I definitely think we’ve got three stronger doubles teams as a result. I think us being more flexible now has really helped our doubles lineup because we’ve been able to make a couple swaps, and we’re really able to fit the puzzle pieces together. I could watch my teammates compete, and it really felt like we were coming together as a team, not just as competitors.”

The women have also been practicing rigorously. According to healthcare management sophomore Megan Zeng, spring break has been both a relaxing and crucial time for the team.

“We each either went home, or some of us [stayed] in Dallas because a lot of our team is from Dallas,” Zeng said. “Even though we had a break, a lot of us were still able to practice just because we know we have a lot of matches following spring break. Each of us just practiced individually. One of our teammates, Rebecca, is also from Austin, and I’m from Austin, so we were able to practice with each other.”

Whitt said he hopes to secure the first spot for DIII in the East conference. The upcoming men’s game is on April 9 against SMU and the next women’s game is on April 1 against Southwestern University.

“April is the big month because that’s when we play the bulk of our conference [matches] and all the seatings kind of get worked out because they’re all playing each other too, and their results affect our results,” Whitt said. “Within the next week or two, we might know who the number one seeds are even if we haven’t played everybody because they’ve played other people.”

Two UTD students secured chess honors on March 25 at the 2023 Texas Women’s Chess Championship.

The format of the tournament consists of six rounds, and each round is 30 minutes per game per player with five seconds of delay. Two players from the UTD chess team were the final finishers: Gergana Peycheva, a business administration freshman and FIDE master, or FM; and Tarini Goyal, a business analytics graduate student and international master, or IM. Peycheva earned first place, making her the official Texas Women Champion, and Goyal earned third place as a finisher.

Peycheva claimed the title of 2023 Texas Women’s Champion after winning five of six games and drawing one game with her fellow teammate Goyal.

“I didn’t expect it, to be honest, but it felt good,” Peycheva said. “It felt nice because we prepared a lot, and we planned everything, and the way we went on the tournament was very professional, comparing to maybe our opponent. So I think it’s deserved that we took first center.”

Goyal won four of her six games and drew against Peycheva, bringing her to third place in the match. Goyal found this tournament to be very competitive as she was playing people rated higher than her after a couple of rounds. It was Goyal’s first time playing in a women’s championship in the U.S.

“I was very happy,” Goyal said. “The last game was very tense, and I won that, so I was happy to get a prize after that.”

Both Peycheva and Goyal played perfectly in the game they played against each other, but there were no other moves that could have given either player an advantage, so their game resulted in a draw.

“The position seemed to be equal and dry so that there were no big chances to win, and so I offered her a draw, and I think that was a good decision because we finished our game a little bit earlier, comparing to the other players,” Pey - cheva said. “So we managed to rest, and we had some time with the coach to prepare for the next round.”

Goyal prepared openings beforehand and trained with UTD Chess Coach Julio Sadorra to lock down time control.

“The coach prepared some positions in which we would be given ... similar time control with the delay,” Goyal said. “They were trying to pressure us on those points where things could go either way, it’s a risky position, it could go good for me, good for them.”

Goyal had a risky game with women’s international master Sila Caglar from University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, but nevertheless won the game. The position in this game was closed initially, but Goyal had an opportunity to sacrifice a pawn to promote to queen. As Goyal foresaw possible moves, she took the risk and sacrificed her pawn in exchange for a passed pawn, ultimately winning the game.

“I could have repeated moves, and that would have led to a draw, but I wanted to take that risk,” Goyal said.

Peycheva has also played matches against UTRGV players. However, her crucial awarddeciding match was the fifth game against Caglar.

“I chose to change my opening in the last moment, so that was a very important decision,” Peycheva said.

As the spring semester comes to an end, Peycheva seeks to compete in more tournaments in her home country, Bulgaria, to reach her goal of becoming a woman grandmaster, or WGM. However, to become a WGM, you must complete three norm, high-level performances in chess tournaments where a player must play higher than their rating. For Peycheva, her norm would be playing at a performance rating of 2,400 against opponents rated higher than 2,130. Peycheva has so far completed one norm out of the three and is thankful to have a team that supports her to reach that goal.

“I have the rating,” Peycheva said. “So I hope I will be able to get there. I really like to thank Coach Julio. He created a very good atmosphere in the team, not only between me and Tarini, but in general.”

Peycheva said that this was a huge achievement not only for her, but for the UTD Chess Team, and she is very happy that she played for UTD.

“After I got it, when I see how glad the people near me are, I can understand afterwards that this is actually a very important thing, and also I’m very happy to perform at our university,” Peycheva said. “And I will keep improving, so I hope we will have even bigger success in the future with our great team.”

Men's basketball star second ever Comet to ball as an All-Star

Kyle Poerschke was selected by the NABC to play in the elusive national D-III All-Stars game on March 18

Graduate guard Kyle Poerschke became the second Comet in the history of UTD men’s basketball to play in the National Association of Basketball Coaches Division III All-Star game.

The All-Star game on March 18 featured top DIII senior players from across the nation, including another player from the American Southwestern Conference, Ty Prince of Mary-Hardin Baylor. Poerschke played under Coach David Hixon, a basketball legend with 826 career games won — the third most in DIII history — while Prince played under Coach Kevin Vande Streek. UTD men’s basketball coach Terry Butterfield selected Poerschke for the All-Star honor, and it is one of many honors Poerschke has received over the past year, including three ASC Player-of-the-Week awards and ASC First Team Newcomer of the Year.

All-Star games are usually rapid shooting competitions, but Hixon came into the game with a different mindset for his team, emphasizing defense and holding down the fort. This strategy kept the match neck-and-neck in the first half but didn’t pull through in the end. The opposing team, Team Streek, won primarily through offense with a final score of 116–112.

“It was really cool to see how quickly the guys could get along together who had never seen each other,” Poerschke said. “Ty Prince was in our conference, so I knew him, but most guys had never even really heard of each other or seen each other and were from all across the country. But they were really unselfish and just open to creating friendships in such a short amount of time. That was my favorite part about it.”

Despite the game’s seemingly competitive nature, Poerschke said he and all the other players duked it out for entertainment more than anything else. And while Team Hixon went for primarily defensive plays, Poerschke had fun with it and tried to land some 3-pointers. Poerschke said it was easy for him to get acclimated to the new team, even if they only had one practice together, and he compared the personalities of players he met to the personalities of his teammates back at UTD.

“It was a lot of similar types of guys,” Poerschke said. “That can be said about DIII players – it speaks to the quality of men and people that play DIII sports. You’d think at an All-Star game that there would be some people that are a little entitled and are really full of themselves. But that was not the case, they were just regular people. I could see myself being good friends with these guys and that just speaks to the quality

UTD’s new sustainability initiatives include community gardens, bee apiaries and Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design-certified buildings. A key part of this campaign was increasing student involvement. By implementing a composting program, the Office of Sustainability can engage more students to be cognizant of their impact on the environment.

Prashanth Boda, the Eco Representative who oversees the compost bins, said that an understanding of accountability often inspires composting.

“Why is it done? Why does anyone compost? Because they feel responsible about the environment … If they can divert it from going into landfill, that’s a success. So the intention [with] which people come into this program, that’s the beautiful part for me,” Boda said.

The first step for students to participate in residential composting is

BILLS CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 a certain testosterone level. SB 15 also runs alongside other anti-transgender bills in Texas, including the very similar “Save Women’s Sports” act that will affect all public institutions and the recently-passed Senate Bill 14 that will ban minors from transitioning on taxpayer money and prevent mental health professionals from endorsing their transition. SB 15 requires that the university pay a fee if caught violating this rule. It also, however, proposes that all public universities will must allow female students to compete in equal intercollegiate competitions designed for men if an alternative is not already offered.

Senate Bill 15, which was passed March 29, has over 18 authors and is supported by Gov. Greg Abbot, who said that transgender women hold an unfair biological advantage in sports compared to cisgender women.

“We’ve fought for the rights of women to be able to succeed in the world, only to have that now superseded by this ideology that men are going to be empowered to compete against women in things that should be protected by federal law, state law," Abbot said.

Another bill that has racked up controversy is House Bill 4736, which prevents international students from China, Iran, North Korea or Russia from enrolling in a public school. Additionally, the bill proposes that citizenship will no longer be obtainable even if they graduate high school after living in Texas for three years. This bill

CHIEF CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 organizations and athletics.”

Rafael Martín, the vice president and chief of staff of UTD, who was a part of Tourangeau’s hiring process and promotion, believes that Tourangeau was the only right pick to ensure UTD’s safety.

“Brent is really somebody that I trust,” Martín said. “He has already developed so many relationships with key stakeholders across campus, and the feedback that I got from all of those groups was just so positive.

People were very enthusiastic about his candidacy, about seeing him as the new chief of police here at UT Dallas.”

Tourangeau has served UTD since February 2014 but has a long history in law enforcement. Born in Bennington, Vermont, Tourangeau graduated from Castleton State College before arriving in Richardson, Texas. Between 1986 and 2007, Tourangeau worked various positions in the Rich- completing an online training and post-quiz, which teaches participants what goes in compost containers, how to manage the food caddies and how to acquire a combination lock for securing the containers. Boda said that many students enter the program without this information. would apply to H1B Visa Holders, students and refugees, and it parallels Senate Bill 147, which was endorsed by Abbott to prevent foreign citizens from buying land. While the bill has a low chance of passing and has only been referred to State Affairs so far, its proposal has sparked concern for several groups.

“Even though it has been there for a long time, it sounded pretty new to me because right now with all the modernization that’s happening, we are not aware of [the composting process] … Composting is just a natural phenomenon, and being aware of that and participating in it … that's why I encourage people to participate in composting,” Boda said. After the training is complete, students can pick up their compost bins from locations specified in the video. There are eleven drop off locations for composted food waste located throughout Canyon Creek, Northside, University Village, residence halls and the campus, a map of which can be found on the Office of Sustainability’s website.

Meanwhile, House Bill 2390 and House Bill 4465 propose a bill that prohibits schools from hosting polling sites. Both bills claim their goal is to keep outsiders off campuses during voting days. However, critics point out that the bills would create added difficulties for students to exercise their voting rights and target locations often associated with Democrat turnout.

The bill was referred to Elections on March 21 for HB 2390, but the author of both bills, Representative Carrie Isaac, is adamant that these bills will protect students.

“There’s a lot of opportunity there for people to be places they shouldn’t be,” Isaac said. “I just know in this session, this is going to be a topic we cover intensely, school safety. I just believe these are a couple areas we can improve on.” ardson Police Department, or RPD, under former UTD Chief of Police Larry Zacharias. Starting off in the patrol unit, Tourangeau moved up the ranks into special investigations, a crimes against persons unit, the Drug Enforcement Administration task force, FBI Foreign and Domestic Counterterrorism task force and the motorcycle unit and crash investigations team. In his time at RPD, Tourangeau served as a firearms defensive tactics instructor, an A Team member of the SWAT unit for 26 years, the Tactical Operations Commander of RPD SWAT and then finally as the captain of the patrol unit.

Another bill following Uvalde is House Bill 13, which encourages teachers to undergo training to identify individuals with mental health issues that could pose a school shooting risk. Additionally, campuses will have to prepare an active shooter plan if one is not already in place, and the budget allotment for student safety will increase to $100 per student.

Tourangeau retired from RPD with the Life Saving Award and a Meritorious Conduct award for his response during a bank robbery.

After his honorary leave, Zacharias invited Tourangeau to UTD and has since become an integral part in making UTD one of the safest campuses in Texas. Tourangeau has also played a role in repairing the previously fragile

“Composting, I would say, is just like a tiny portion of what sustainability is … so you’re just a small part, but still it plays an important part,” Boda said.

If students would like to participate in sustainability in other forms, they can apply for the Office of Sustainability’s Sustainability Honors Program and sign up for the newsletter. This program allows students to submit their volunteer hours applying to any of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and get recognized at graduation for their service. The Office of Sustainability also provides a list of other volunteer opportunities on their website, both in-person and virtual.

“It’s just wonder, like you get to experience nature through your eyes,” Boda said. “When we start composting on a personal level, [we] get to see maybe on day one you kept all the waste … and after two months, when the compost is ready, when you go and see it, it's no longer that [same] waste.”

HB 13 would accompany an increase funding for the Texas Child Mental Health Care Consortium for school-based telehealth care, which came after Texas Children’s Hospital reported an 800% increase in mental illnesses late last year. UTD is expected to be one of the institutions providing health care professionals to address the growing mental health crisis, with Congress funding a telehealth care program at UTD last year. HB 13 was left pending on March 27 in the Texas House Select Committee on Youth Health and Safety.

While these bills primarily affect university students; faculty and staff can also expect changes. Senate Bill 18 would effectively end the tenure program starting Sept. 1 if passed. Critics argue that this bill would diminish the pool of quality faculty and would target critical race theory, which Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has repeatedly expressed opposition to. Supporters point out that this bill removes a seniority hierarchy that has previously been abused and that it will allow more opportunities for younger educators. Meanwhile, House Bill 600, Senate Bill 9 and Senate Bill 10 are all expected to improve educator retirement plans and costs of living. Additionally, SB 9 would provide incentives for retired teachers to return to teaching and provide mentorship programs to help the next generation of educators.

As of March 30, SB 10 has been approved and passed. HB 600 has been voted favorably after amendments, SB 9 is awaiting vote results and SB 18 is pending under an education subcom- relationship between students and law enforcement. learned from graduate school and from my postdoctoral training,” Fasan said. “A lot of our projects revolve around essentially the matters to be able to generate molecules that can be used for cancer. And, as a group, we sort of grew over the years until we had this opportunity to join UTD.”

“Chief Tourangeau has a great deal of respect for our students,” Zacharias said. “Brent and I have worked with each other for more than 20 years. He is a servant leader with high ethical standards. We share very similar policing and management styles and philosophies. He will have very little problem maintaining what the police department has established over the past several years.” Tourangeau is frequently seen at events or traveling across campus in a golf cart to check in on students. While students can reach Tourangeau through text or email, he is more than happy to hear from anyone willing to visit the UTD police station.

“We will also continue to promote a professional policing culture and inclusive environment. I will always communicate honestly and transparently, and we will maintain our focus on ethics here at our organization,” Tourangeau said.

Fasan will join UTD — the first transfer in his career — with his lab members in fall 2023. He said he is excited both to collaborate with UTD faculty and UT Southwestern Medical Center — a leading institute in cancer research — and also to recruit new students at UTD and work with undergraduates. “What I found sort of very excit- ing about the move is really the opportunity to continue to grow and expand this research program,” Fasan said. “This is clearly possible through a lot of synergistic collaboration that can happen at UTD. We received this recruiting award from CPRIT that will provide a significant boost to all this research. This will essentially give a unique opportunity to be able to apply and generate libraries of our molecules and be able to apply and test their anti-cancer activity and evaluate their anti-cancer potential in collaboration with the investigators at UT Southwestern.”

Fasan said he is looking forward to establishing a new center for highthroughput reaction, discovery and synthesis with chemistry professor Vladimir Gevorgyan, which will boost research and therapeutic application in cancer.

“We are very excited about this initiative,” Fasan said. “It will help with all of our programs for the faculty, myself, as well as other investigators at UTD and collaborators like UT Southwestern to be able to essentially discover new reactions for synthesis and be able to synthesize interesting molecules.”

For undergraduates and the UTD student body, Fasan advised students to pursue their passion and push themselves, but to not be demoralized by failures.

“Maintaining a positive attitude, pursuing what you're passionate about and not being afraid to fail, I think, provides a great attitude really to move forward,” Fasan said.