The Mercury 10/1/18

Page 1

October 1, 2018

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THE MERCURY

UTDMERCURY.COM

SUSPECT ARRESTED FOR MURDER OF ALUMNA Community mourns loss of recent accounting graduate

PAVAN TAUH | MERCURY STAFF

PAVAN TAUH | MERCURY STAFF

LIN “RENEE” WANG

ANNA SCHAEFFER Mercury Staff

Dallas police charged a man with capital murder in the stabbing and subsequent death of a UTD alum. 38-year-old Jeremy Todd Meeks confessed to the murder of of Lin Wang, an MS ’18 graduate, while being questioned for an unrelated burglary charge on Sept. 29. Wang, who went by Renee, took her dog for a walk at 8 p.m. the night of Sept. 21. She lost her life when Meeks followed her home and entered her apartment with a knife, killing Wang and injuring her room-

mate. Meeks has arrest records dating back ner Park, about 7 miles from campus. Wang’s to 2001 in several Texas counties for offens- roommate, whose name has not been released es such as theft, assault and drug to the public, survived the stabpossession. His bail is currently bing. Although she was taken to set at $505,000. the hospital, details on her condition have yet to be released. Wang “We’re trying to get our was pronounced dead upon arrival thoughts around it,” said Dimat the hospital.Members of UTD’s ple Bhatia, Wang’s business Friendship Association of Chinese partner. “She was a very beautiStudents and Scholars gathered ful, smart, hard-working womin front of the Student Union the an. How does this happen to a JEREMY Friday after the attack to honor young girl?” MEEKS Wang and her roommate. Lit candles Wang and her roommate lived at the Churchill on the Park apartment com- arranged in the shape of a heart sat on a table plex near Interstate 635 and Anderson Bon- with an open book for students to write a mes-

sage to Wang’s family. The organization, which seeks to promote Chinese culture and serve Chinese students, also laid out two UTD T-shirts for signatures and written messages of condolences. Information technology and management graduate student and FACSS President Zheng Zhou said the shirts will be given to Wang’s parents, who came to the U.S. from China following her death. “We hope that she can rest in peace,” Zhou said. Wang moved to Texas from China to study

→ SEE ALUMNA, PAGE 11

Students trapped in study room for 3 hours Maintenance crew breaks through wall to free residents after doorknob malfunctions

NIKITA BANTEY | MERCURY STAFF

Several UTD students resigned from their positions at Tech EdVentures, a Dallas-based startup that develops educational resources for elementary and middle schools.

Startup suspended from internship fairs COLTON MIKESKA | COURTESY

Students in Residence Hall Northwest were trapped in a study room on Sept. 18 after they were unable to open the door. A maintenance crew entered the room through the ceiling and dismantled the door to allow the students to leave. MADELEINE KEITH Opinion Editor

Three students in Residence Hall Northwest were trapped in a study room for nearly three hours after the doorknob malfunctioned, forcing maintenance staff to break through a wall in order to safely extract them. Computer engineering freshman Colton Mikeska and two of his friends were studying during the evening of Sept. 18. The doorknob to the study room had recently been replaced and was working properly throughout the night. When the group tried to leave, however,

Mikeska was unable to open the door. Passing residence hall staff members were also unable to open the door from the outside. While calls were being made, the staff attempted to maintain a calm atmosphere. “What (the staff) did was really nice — they called the residence hall coordinator, and in the meantime, they grabbed some dry-erase markers and a rag, and we had one marker in there, so they just started drawing on the windows and playing hangman with us,” Mikeska said. A maintenance crew arrived 30 minutes after the incident was reported and determined that door could not be opened from the out-

side and, therefore, the team would have to resort to alternative methods. “The maintenance guy and the coordinator started talking a bit and one of the PAs started drawing a diagram on the window of two walls — us in one of the walls and them in the other,” Mikeska said. “So we’re thinking, ‘They’re really gonna bust through the wall!’ And they did. Apparently, it was cheaper and more efficient than breaking the glass door.” A maintenance staff member used a mallet to break a hole into the drywall between the

→ SEE STUDY ROOM, PAGE 7

Career Center investigating allegations of delayed, missing payments along with inadequate training IZAAK LUX

Mercury Staff

A startup that once employed 15 UTD students was recently barred from participating in university-sponsored career and intern fair events following allegations of mishandled payments. Tech EdVentures, which specializes in developing educational resources for elementary and middle schoolers, recently lost seven of the 15 UTD students working for the company. Chris Terrell, a mechanical engineering senior who worked as a con-

tractor for Tech EdVentures until this summer, said he was drawn to the company because of his interest in programming. "From the way they describe it in their interviews, they make it seem like we’re teaching kids to do a bunch of technical stuff like coding and circuitry, which I’m very passionate about because I’m in engineering, and I feel like kids need to get exposure to this stuff at an early age,” Terrell said.

→ SEE STARTUP, PAGE 7


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