The Mercury 08/04

August 4, 2014

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TRAPPED IN GAZA THE MERCURY | UTDMERCURY.COM

Student witnesses terror in Gaza Strip as Israeli strikes escalate; student group seeks to help Palestinians from home ANWESHA BHATTACHARJEE

But each year it’s been harder to get in and get out. Palestinians can’t land in Tel Aviv anymore.

The last time Muhanna was in Gaza, in 2006, she saw the start of another war.

This year, when her family planned the trip so her sister could get married there, everything seemed normal. They had checked that the Cairo border would be open and flew out, but as soon as they arrived things began to go awry.

They had to wait two extra weeks in Cairo because Egypt did not open the borders to Gaza on time and the wedding had to be postponed.

Soon after the wedding, three teenage Israeli boys were found dead in the West Bank and caused palpable unease among civilians — the people of Gaza knew it wouldn’t end well, Muhanna said.

Things escalated quickly going forward, and Muhanna remembers very little; it was all a big blur for her.

Every time she heard the sounds of air strikes she’d look out of the window and see missiles hitting the city. She would check the news on her phone to see which part of the city had been hit and if everyone was safe.

Stepping out of the house, even for food, can be scary and exposes people to the risk of being hit. Very few taxis run in such times, and even when they do, they speed on the empty

Web Editor

What should have been a time for joy and celebration quickly turned into a race against death and missiles, when days after her sister’s wedding, a student watched firsthand Israel's air, land and sea offensive within the Gaza Strip.

Rawan Muhanna found herself stuck in the midst of conflict, cooped up at home for fear of being hit under the open skies, living in uncertainty for two weeks until the American consulate arranged an evacuation for her family through Jordan.

“My sister was there, my cousins, family were all there,” Muhanna, a chemistry senior, said. “It was bitter-sweet — bitter in the sense that they’re not safe. But sweet in that I was so ready to come home. I had been there two weeks longer than I wanted to, and I felt like I was let out of this prison finally.”

A week after they got back, her mother’s ninemonth pregnant cousin along with her two sons were killed in an air strike in the heart of Gaza.

The family had taken refuge in the city after evacuating their home in the Shuja'iyya district of Gaza where dozens were killed after Israel ordered an evacuation and attacked the area.

That is the reality of Gaza.

As a child, trips to Gaza had been easier for Muhanna. She remembers flying to Tel Aviv from where they would cross the borders with ease.

MIGUEL PEREZ | EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

→ SEE GAZA, PAGE 10

THIS DOES NOT REPRESENT AN ACCURATE DEPICTION OF CAMPUS CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS ST CEJORP NOITCURTSNOC SUPMAC FO NOITCIPED ETARUCCA NA TNESERPER TON SEOD SIHT RESIDENCE HALL WEST

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New residence hall features two-story recreation center, 700-seat dining hall while other campus projects near completion

NORTH MALL

RES HALL WEST

ESTEBAN BUSTILLOS

MIGUEL PEREZ

Updates to the North Mall, expected to be complete in early 2015, are set to include features like a terraced lawn with Wi-Fi that can be used for events and classes and more green space.

The upper half of the mall is currently undergoing a major renovation project to upgrade the area. This is the second phase of a larger campus landscaping project, said Kelly Kinnard, director of Physical Plant Services.

“The rest of the project is going to look more like what the North Mall will look like: a lot less concrete, a lot more vegetation,” Kinnard said. “UTD has always been a commuter campus.

With all the res halls and our enormous growth, we’re more of a pedestrian campus now, so this will put elements in there to make it a little more friendly for pedestrians.”

The first phase of the project covered the southern end of the mall in 2010 and the next step after the North Mall will extend renovations from the trellis to Rutford Avenue, he said.

However, the project has not been without its setbacks that have delayed the project.

“There have been design issues that have been worked out that probably weren’t accounted for early on,” Kinnard said. “We had to completely reroute a water line because it went shallow a lot closer to some other utilities than what was anticipated in the original drawings.”

The larger renovations will aim to look like one continuous design, with the same types of plants and benches being used and smaller trellises in the style of the large one in front of the Plinth througout the updated parts of campus, he said.

Students living on the upper floors of the newly constructed Res Hall West can add a view of downtown Dallas to their list of living perks as well as the new dining and recreational facilities nearby.

The fifth residence hall built on campus, it houses 600 beds, as opposed to the 400-bed capacity of other res halls, and will include gaming rooms, classrooms of various sizes and a large multipurpose room for students in the different living learning communities.

Students entering the res hall are met with a larger lobby, a gaming area and a kitchen with two cooking stations.

Card-access is required to get into the upper hallways of the res hall, but access into the lobby and adjoining facilities is open to all until midnight. Late-night joints like Papa John’s can be reached without entering the res hall.

There are 31 study rooms throughout the facility, and they will be accessible to student living in any res hall.

While the actual rooms are virtually identical to rooms in older res halls, the design of the building means every suite has floor-to-ceiling windows in the common living area.

Matt Grief, associate vice president for student affairs, said the building will also combine all the housing staff into one location. Residential life services and staff from housing operations will move into one office.

“I think this will be a good opportunity,” Grief said. “All these people coordinate with each other, but they’ve been in five or six different buildings. Now, we’re giving our housing staff one space.”

Outside, the building encloses a large grassy area and a natural spring.

Managing Editor

Editor-in-Chief

CONNIE CHENG | PHOTO EDITOR

JSOM EXPANSION ESTEBAN BUSTILLOS Managing Editor

The Jindal School of Management building is getting a much-needed extension, scheduled to open on August 4, which will feature an undergraduate lounge for JSOM students and a

LIFE&ARTS Cool off and read The Mercury's top moments of the summer → PAGE 6

Jason’s Deli.

The new JSOM addition is connected to the main building via enclosed bridges on the first and second floors, said Kelly Kinnard, director of Physical Plant Services. There will also be a covered bridge on the north side of the building.

Expanding was necessary for JSOM due to the growth of the program, said Senior Associate Dean Varghese

Jacob.

“We’ve grown both the faculty and student operation, and we just don’t have enough space to put all the necessary classes here as well as the faculty space,” he said.

JSOM, which had the largest enrollment of any school with

→ SEE JSOM, PAGE 10

SPOTLIGHT ON PROFS New prof shares experiences battling disease outbreaks and more. → PAGE 7

→ SEE WEST, PAGE 10

A BREAKDOWN OF MCDERMOTT LIBRARY → PAGE 4

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THE MERCURY UTDMERCURY.COM Volume XXXIV No. 11 Editor-in-Chief Miguel Perez

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THE MERCURY | AUG. 4, 2014

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UTDPD Blotter July 3 t " TUVEFOU SFQPSUFE SFDFJWJOH B UFSSPSJTUJD threat at Phase 2 at 11:34 a.m.

July 4 t "O VOBĂŻ MJBUFE QFSTPO XBT BSSFTUFE GPS QPT session of marijuana less than 2 oz., open container of alcohol, no insurance and other agency warrant arrests on Waterview Parkway around 10:30 p.m.

July 5 t "O VOBĂŻ MJBUFE QFSTPO XBT BSSFTUFE GPS possession of drug paraphaneila, possession of marijuana less than 2 oz. and for active Irving 1PMJDF %FQBSUNFOU 5SBĂŻ D XBSSBOUT BU Q N at Phase 6.

July 6 t "O VOBĂŻ MJBUFE NBMF XBT BSSFTUFE GPS ĂŤ WF PVUTUBOEJOH DMBTT $ USBĂŻ D XBSSBOUT BOE DIBSHFE with an additional offense of speeding on Waterview Parkway at 10:51 a.m.

July 7 t "O VOBĂŻ MJBUFE QFSTPO XBT BSSFTUFE GPS ESJW ing while intoxicated on Renner Road at 1:13 a.m.

July 12 t 5XP VOBĂŻ MBUFE QFPQMF XFSF BSSFTUFE GPS theft at Phase 6 at 11:41 a.m.

July 22 t A female student reported that she was being harassed at the McDermott Library at 12:03 a.m.

July 24 t A student reported a driver struck his vehicle and GBJMFE UP MFBWF JEFOUJĂŤ DBUJPO BU 1IBTF BSPVOE Q N

July 4: "O VOBĂŻ MJBUFE NBMF XBT BSSFTUFE BOE charged with DWI, possession of marijuana less than 2 oz. and possession of drug paraphanelia at 2:04 a.m. on Waterview Parkway. The male was also given a UTD criminal trespass warning.

July 2: An employee reported a former student was harassing her via telephone around 2 p.m.

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July 11: "O VOBĂŻ MJBUFE NBMF XBT BSSFTUFE for driving without a license with previous convictions of no insurance, failure UP NFFU ĂŤ OBODJBM SFTQPOTJCJMJUZ BOE PUIFS agency warrant arrests at 11:47 p.m. on Campbell Road.

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THE MOST VIOLENT CITIES IN THE WORLD

Humza Khan Shyam Vedantam

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JUST THE FACTS

Andrew Gallegos

San Pedro Sula, Honduras 169.30 homicides per 100,000 residents

Acapulco, Mexico 142.88 homicides per 100,000 residents

Caracas, Venezuela 118.89 homicides per 100,000 residents

Distrito Central, Honduras 101.99 homicides per 100,000 residents

TorreĂłn, Mexico 101.99 homicides per 100,000 residents

MaceiĂł, Brazil 85.88 homicides per 100,000 residents

Source: Business Insider, November 2013

The study did not count deaths in a war zone or cities where data was unavailable.

OPINION Immigrant kids are not criminals AUG. 4, 2014 | THE MERCURY | UTDMERCURY.COM

PABLO ARAUZ COMMENTARY

C

Between the influx of migrant children fleeing Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador and Costa Rica making it to the semifinals in the world cup, Central America has been in the news a lot this summer. And as a Central American journalist born in America, it’s a paradoxical time to be alive.

There’s so much misinformation going around about what’s happening on the border that it’s hard to look past the surface of what President Obama proclaimed as a “crisis” earlier this year. People boil the issue down to either a legal matter or a moral one.

At its core, it’s a lot more complicated than that.

My parents legally immigrated here from Costa Rica in the late 1980s.

They had humble beginnings living in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, and my mom had to learn English. My family went back to Costa Rica for some time, but we came back to North Texas where I grew up in Carrollton.

I was lucky to grow up with a middle class American life, and I’m thankful for it. Many of the Central American kids coming in don’t have the opportunities that I had growing up. But I guess just for the fact that I once was a Central American child, I can empathize with these kids.

I visited family in El Salvador in 2008, and I remember seeing police officers armed with machine guns because the crime and gang violence is so bad in the capital of San Salvador.

It was an image that stuck with me – this is a country where the houses have barbed wire and security gates if people can afford them.

It’s a country where up to half the population is displaced because of a history of conflict and strife. But how did it get like this?

Looking at this issue from a historical context, there’s a pattern of corrupt governments in Central America who were actually propped up with the help of the CIA. Years of war and genocide have turned these countries into hell on earth.

During the 1950s, the government in Guatemala made policies that called for the redistribution of land and equality among workers, landowners and industrialists. Many American companies, particularly the United Fruit Company, had stakes in the banana industry in Guatemala. So, the CIA orchestrated a coup d’etat, and a civil war ensued that led to decades of fightinge. Thousands of Guatemalans died during the 36-year war.

El Salvador, similarly, went through a 12-year-long civil war when

another socialist movement took control and right-wing militias fought back. Thousands of people were killed by the infamous death squads who even murdered priests that spoke up against the oppressive right-wing juntas, who were also backed by the CIA. Honduras, the original “banana republic,” has been ruled by several military dictators since the 1930s, co-opted by U.S. fruit corporations such as United Fruit. But when the liberal political party was democratically elected in the 1950s, its movement was crushed by the right-wing military juntas. The country’s history to this day is plagued with genocides and coups.

Today, the current population of these three countries is roughly 22 million people, less than the population of the state of Texas. Yet, they are plagued by drug-related gang violence that resulted from disparate poverty, possibly the aftermath of civil wars and an interventionist U.S. foreign policy.

These countries have some of the highest homicide rates in the world.

According to a study done by the U.N. Office of Drugs and Crime, Honduras has the highest homicide rate in the world, with 91 deaths per 100,000 people. El Salvador and Guatemala rank 4th and 5th in homicide.

Now, the thousands of immigrants that are trying to escape the cities with some of the worst imaginable poverty and crime is making headlines in the mainstream media. So many years after the conflicts instigated by the American government have led us to this point: helpless children who don’t have any other option than to cross the border and hope for a better life.

I don’t know what it’s like to travel thousands of miles to escape vicious gang violence and the kind of poverty we can hardly imagine here in the states.

It’s disturbing to hear people talk about these kids like they’re a threat, criminals or carry diseases. People are angry because these kids are just trying to look for a way out of a torturous life. And their solution is to send troops and drones to the border, injecting more violence into the lives of these traumatized kids. What needs to happen is a total change in U.S. foreign policy in this country, which has stayed perpetually the same as it was in the 1980s.

When you consider the improving economy and the fact that the United States is still one of the richest countries in the world, why shouldn’t it have the capacity to take care of these kids and at least give them a chance to stay?

This country was founded by immigrants and to think that they can’t stay because they can’t afford to come into this country legally doesn’t seem very American to me. One thing is for sure, this will go down in a chapter of American history that determines where the people are in terms of human rights.

et m o

MIGUEL PEREZ | EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

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“If money wasn’t a determinant, what would be your career choice?” ts

“I’d be a professional soccer player for Arsenal.”

Co

3

n e mm

“I would do something related to music.”

Tommy Lockwood Computer engineering senior

Ridwan Raji Finance and accounting senior

“I would like somewhere I would get paid to do adventure sports.”

Sanket Shah Biology senior

“To be honest, I would want to be a racecar driver.”

Neev Ghodasara

Electrical engineering graduate student

“Probably doing foley effects in the movie industry.”

Albert Chang ATEC senior

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NEWS

THE MERCURY | AUG. 4, 2014

UTDMERCURY.COM

Fifty Shades, Harry Potter among top library checkouts STORY BY ANWESHA BHATTACHARJEE

Engineers design fuelefficient car

DESIGN BY MIGUEL PEREZ

Bilingual program stresses parent, child relationship

MIGUEL PEREZ Editor-in-Chief

A team of mechanical engineering students is working to design and build a vehicle that could potentially run on 900 miles per gallon.

Brought together under the campus’ chapter of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, or AME, the engineering students are participating in the Shell Eco-marathon competition.

“The premise of the Shell Eco-marathon is to build a very fuel-efficient vehicle,” said mechanical engineering senior Clyde Dodson. “They have pretty rigorous specifications that we have to follow. So far, we’ve designed a smaller working model of our design.”

The team has designed most of the car, including a chassis, body and wheels. Some components are still left like steering columns, but the team aims to finish by the end of August.

The body and chassis will be constructed of carbon fiber. The carbon fiber design helps remove unnecessary weight from the vehicle to make it more aerodynamic, as well as give it a more aesthetically pleasing look, Dodson said.

Dodson, who is also the competition’s chair for ASME, said the engine and the tires must be given the most attention during the design process to make sure the vehicle runs as efficiently as possible.

Alumna Jessie Bogart was project manager last year when she worked on the project as a senior, and this year she is helping the team network and find funding for the project.

“We had no idea how big this project was going to be. No one knew anything about motors or differentials or how the suspension should work,” Bogart said. “We spent about six months just learning about cars.”

Bogart said projects like this help teach mechanical engineering students industry skills they don’t get in the classroom.

“In school, they’ll teach you how to read a textbook or how to solve cookie-cutter problems, but not in one class do they teach you about standard drill bit sizes,” she said. “So, you get into an industry like manufacturing and get completely thrown off. You can’t design something without designing it to a tool that already exists. It’s too expensive.”

In the actual competition, participants are given a liter of fuel and asked to race around a track until their tank empties or the clock runs out. Because of the engines, the fastest the vehicles can go is about 28 miles per hour.

But, they make up for it in their incredibly efficient motors. The model of last year’s winner in the European competition ran at 1,700 miles per gallon.

The team has until May 2015 to build its car and enter it in the marathon.

CONNIE CHENG | PHOTO EDITOR

ESTEBAN BUSTILLOS Managing Editor

The early years of a child’s life are some of the most important for development as the child learns how to socialize and interact with others. For children in Dallas-area neighborhoods, that process is made easier through the efforts of Juega Conmigo.

Spanish for “play with me,” Juega Conmigo is a program created by the School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences Center for Children and Families that works with children from their birth to the age of three and their parents. It focuses on guided play sessions for the children where parents learn child-rearing skills and child development.

“We call it a playful learning class,” said Margaret Owen, director of the Center for Children and families. “There are routines. There’s knowledge about good parenting practices that are conveyed. The children participate in activities that involve music and stories and physical activities along with peer interaction.”

Owen said that most programs that are somewhat equivalent involve dropping the children off and separating them from their parents, but Juega Conmigo aims to reach both children and parents simultaneously.

Juega Conmigo is also unique because it is bilingual, offered primarily in Spanish, allowing the program to cater to the many Spanish-speaking families in the metroplex. Owen said that many of these families are isolated and that Juega Conmigo forms social support for them where they gain new friendships and knowledge about other resources for them in the community.

Juega Conmigo, which started in the Bachman Lake area in 2011, has recently expanded to Vickery Mead-

ow, Pleasant Grove and Plano, allowing the program to reach out to even more families.

“We went to Vickery Meadow and Pleasant Grove because community leaders came to our program, and they said we want to have this program in our community,” said Adriana Villa Baird, program director for Juega Conmigo. “So we trained volunteers to take the program to those areas.”

Villa Baird, who has been working with children since she started an internship with the Red Cross in Columbia in 1997, said she has seen the way that programs like Juega Conmigo change over time. She said in the past professionals would present themselves as the experts about children, whereas now the field is more about giving parents the knowledge to be the experts because they are the ones who ultimately spend more time with children.

Despite the program’s focus on Spanish-speaking families, it also is offered to English-speaking families as well. Child learning and development and psychology junior Diana Rodriguez, who works as a registrar for Juega Conmigo, said they also have several workers who do not speak Spanish.

“We have a couple of people that just speak English,” she said. “But we have this little cheat sheet with them and it’s sort of the very basic ‘Hi, how are you?’” So it’s pretty basic stuff, plus little extra things that we would use just within the program.”

Rodriguez, who wants to be a clinical worker, said her time with Juega Conmigo has helped her by showing the more serious sides of working with children.

“I’m learning a lot of body language because children don’t really talk, so you sort of have to engage in what they’re saying with their body,” she said. “You kind of

have to read what their body language is saying, because in (domestic violence) a lot of people aren’t going to say ‘Oh yeah, my husband hits me,’ they’re going be like ‘I’m fine.’”

She said that part of the program focuses on a longitudinal study that observes and records the children’s development in terms of speaking. One of its goals is to get the children to vocalize their needs rather than simply pointing at an object, she said.

Rodriguez said that Juega Conmigo also focuses on teaching the children the sign language symbol for “more.” She said that doing this allows them to another way to specifically communicate what they want.

She said gaining the trust of the parents was a challenge for her at Juega Conmigo. Once the parents saw that she was genuinely there out of a interest in the children and wasn’t there just to use the program as a resume filler, they started to open up to her.

Owen said another struggle for the program is raising the funds to keep the program going since it’s provided free of charge.

Another aspect that Juega Conmigo offers is a partnership with Children’s Medical Center that allows pediatric residents to visit the parents and children. Owen said it works for both the parents and the residents.

“The (pediatric residents) are getting experience in a good community program and lots of observational experience,” she said. “We think that the parents get a lot more comfortable with talking to medical providers when they see them there in their Juega Conmigo experience. We really think it’s a really good foundational experience for these families, building upon the early origins of school readiness, which involves playful learning supported by a supportive caregiver.”

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NEWS

Pinpointing Dallas poverty Drive-by survey from the Institute of Urban Policy Research shows economic disparity between North, South Dallas neighborhoods

Mercury Staff

Mercury Staff

MIGUEL PEREZ | EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Dallas.

“The Red Bird neighborhood was probably the most developed out of the five, and the other four are pretty much on par with each other in terms of the deterioration of the houses,” Dang said.

Typical houses in these areas show signs of aging or neglect. Abandoned lots factor in negatively as well.

Surrounding retail areas have less variety in grocery stores and retail in general.

“Dallas is trying to improve the quality of life for residents by giving them places where they can get groceries from instead of having to shop from a mini mart,” Speights said. “It’s so they can have a steady supply of good food so they don’t have to stock up on cheap junk food.”

While out in the field, the biggest challenge in taking data is the software used on a portable tablet to code par-

cels. On occasion, the software has a mind of its own, Speights said.

Another challenge is simply being able to judge parcels of land fairly.

“It is strange to look so objectively at the houses, even if you know someone is living there and even though the house may be looking really terrible sometimes, it’s hard to drive past and not think twice about labeling it as a two or a three,” Dang said.

As data is analyzed and understood by IUPR, there is hope that the Windshield Survey will reopen the conversation about the goals Dallas city leaders have for its struggling areas.

“If things are not changing, then what can we do to actually increase the economic development, because that’s the ultimate goal here, to decrease the economic disparity between Dallas as a whole,” Dang said. “And just from me looking, I can tell it has a long way to go.”

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Drug study links memory to weed PABLO ARAUZ

SARAH RACHEL LARSON

While UTD is well-known for its established science and technology research, it’s in a little building across campus where The Institute for Urban Policy Research is an emerging force in investigating the economic distress around Dallas.

In 2009, The Dallas Morning News hired the Institute for Urban Policy Research, or IUPR, to survey five neighborhoods in South Dallas as a part of their series of articles about the economic disparity between North and South Dallas.

Now, IUPR is back in the field in order to follow up on their findings.

The Windshield Survey, named for the slow drive-bys done by interns gathering information through their car windshield, is a list of street codes that are assigned appropriately to every parcel of land in Pleasant Grove, Oak Cliff, Grand South Dallas, West Dallas and Red Bird communities.

A house that sits on a parcel of land is ranked from one to four by its cosmetic condition and other codes like barred windows or an unkempt lawn. The appearance of large grocery stores like Target or Walmart versus mini-marts and strip malls are also noted.

The survey is on track for completion by mid-August when the findings will be compiled, analyzed and compared to the previous Windshield Survey.

IUPR interns Sheila Dang and Ty Speights were assigned the task of driving through these neighborhoods and attest to the necessity of economic investigations like these. “[IUPR] was founded to do community research and a lot of their studies do reach out and get into the neighborhoods, so I think that type of outreach was what The Dallas Morning News was looking for,” Dang said.

The Windshield Survey’s most important effect is the verification of what Dallasites may already know; there are significant economic differences around

THE MERCURY | AUG. 4, 2014

Results of a study focusing on the effects of marijuana use on the brain found that the areas of the brain that control memory and emotion also drive the reward network that triggers the intense desire to seek out the drug.

Dr. Francesca Filbey, associate professor and researcher at the Center for BrainHealth, took part in a $500,000 grant used to fund a consortium of four universities to study the effects of marijuana in dependent and non-dependent users.

“Marijuana has been around for a long time and it has been used for a variety of purposes, we actually know very little about the long term effects on the brain,” Filbey said in an interview in May. “That is an important absence of information in the scientific literature that I thought was important to fill.”

Her study focused on users’ reactions to paraphernalia. Subjects observed and touched cannabisrelated cues such as a pipe used for smoking. At the same time, subjects were put through a brain scan while Filbey and her colleagues looked at how reward areas of the brain reacted.

Filbey said that one surprising outcome of the study was not finding any major differences in overall regional brain activity.

“While we expected that the network connectivity would differ with severity, we predicted that some regional activation would also distinguish the two groups of users,” Filbey said.

However, while overall regions of the brain did not differentiate in activation, the network that connected these regions did vary.

Doctoral student and research

assistant Sam Dewitt works with Dr. Filbey at the Center for BrainHealth on various related projects.

He explained that the functional connectivity, or the network connecting the reward regions to the brain, was what differentiated those addicted to marijuana and those who aren’t.

“What we saw was a distinctly different coherence of reward regions for our dependent users as compared to non-dependent users so the functional connectivity for that hub of reward circuitry was distinctly different for dependent users than non-dependent users,” he said.

And while marijuana remains to be the most widely used illicit drug in the United States, according to a study by the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, it’s starting to be regulated and used recreationally in states such as Colorado and Washington, leaving more room for scientists to study the drug, its affects and dependence.

“It’s really useful for us as scientists in terms of putting together architecture of how the brain of a substance using individual is set up,” said Dewitt.

He said that the purpose of Dr. Filbey’s research is to objectively look at the impact of marijuana on those addicted to the substance.

“The goal of Dr. Filbey’s lab is not really to cast a light on cannabis as a whole one way or the other,” said Dewitt. “But we know that there is a subset of any population that struggle with substance abuse and we really want to identify the factors for the individuals that struggle with substance abuse related to cannabis use, what is it that’s defining the problem for them.”

Filbey said in an interview for public radio that what’s next in her research is studying the long-term effects of marijuana, as well as the genetic and environmental factors such as stress on dependent and nondependent users.

LIFE&ARTS THE MERCURY’S SUMMER WRAP-UP 6

AUG. 4, 2014 | THE MERCURY | UTDMERCURY.COM

SEVEN NOTEWORTHY MOMENTS FROM SUMMER 2014

01 02 03 04 05 ROMAN BOED | FLICKR

NICHOLAS ECKHART | FLICKR

COURTESY | WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

NICHOLAS ECKHART | FLICKR

06 COURTESY | IFC FILMS

01 02

20 14

07 CC MONTECRUZ PHOTO | FLICKR

MALAYSIAN FLIGHT MH17 CRASHES On July 17, Malaysian Airlines flight MH17, flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, was shot down over Ukrainian air space, killing 298 passengers and crew. As investigators and medical experts struggled to reach the crash site in pro-separatist eastern Ukraine, the Ukrainian government, pro-Russian separatists and Russian president Vladimir Putin denied having fired the surfaceto-air missile that took down the plane. The incident led to more fighting between rebels and Ukrainian forces around the crash site, and international investigators finally reached the site 13 days after the event. The crash could have possibly knelled the death toll for Ukraine-Russian negotiations in the future. The United States imposed more sanctions on Russia following the crash and is forcing the European Union into a corner over its stance on Russia. Russia, on the other hand, continues to exercise control over Crimea and east Ukraine, supporting pro-separatist rebels against Kiev, in an attempt to retain strategic control over the country and prevent it from joining NATO. — Anwesha Bhattacharjee

BURWELL V. HOBBY LOBBY Many cases on the Supreme Court’s docket go overlooked, but every so often there is one that is so compelling it gets the whole nation in an uproar. SCOTUS’s 5-4 decision in favor of Hobby Lobby’s claim that a government mandate of for-profit corporations to cover contraception for female employees was against its religious beliefs was one of those cases. Those on the right hailed the decision as the judicial branch curbing back the government’s power to require private citizens and businesses to partake in actions that potentially violate their religious beliefs, while people on the left lamented the thousands of female employees of Hobby Lobby that now lose coverage of a basic healthcare item. No matter what opinion anyone has on the case, it will surely be remembered as a landmark moment in the history of the Supreme Court. — Esteban Bustillos

03

ISIS TERRORIZES THE MIDDLE EAST

04

WORLD CUP MADNESS

05

LIT WORLD LOSES THREE LEGENDS

06

‘BOYHOOD’ BREAKS BOUNDARIES

07

COURTESY | WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

In June 2014, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, an extremist wing of Al-Qaeda, took over several major Iraqi cities including Tikrit and Mosul and strategic crossings that connect Iraq with Jordan and Syria in a lightning takeover. The group is persecuting Shia Muslims and minorities, forcing Christians to either convert to Islam, flee the country or pay a tax. ISIS’s takeover is a cause for worry because it now controls parts of Syria and large parts of Iraq, redefining borders of the Middle East as we know it in a country that has barely recovered from U.S. military operations. — Anwesha Bhattacharjee

Saving sports fans from the usually slow sports-less summer, the 2014 World Cup was one for the ages. This year’s Cup, hosted by five-time champ Brazil, featured some of the closest matches and most entertaining moments in tournament history. From Luis Suarez of Uruguay taking a chomp out of his opponent to U.S. keeper Tim Howard holding off a Belgian onslaught, there was not a moment to be missed. Ultimately won by Germany, who became the first European team to win the Cup in the Americas, in a tightly contested final against Argentina, this tournament had everything a sports fan could want. Underdogs like Costa Rica advanced deep into the brackets while classic giants of the game like England, Italy, Portugal and Spain all collapsed in the first round. This was a World Cup that will surely be fondly remembered for years to come. — Esteban Bustillos

With Maya Angelou’s death in late May and Nadine Gordimer’s death later in July, the world suffered a huge loss in important literary icons. An incredibly multifaceted artist, Angelou is most recognized for her 1969 autobiography “I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings.” Gordimer, a South African writer and Nobel laureate, was an active voice in understanding race and politics in her home country. Although his passing occurred early in April, Gabriel Garcia Marquez must also be mentioned. A pioneer of the magical realism literary style, the Colombian novelist won the Nobel Prize in 1982 and helped carve new paths for contemporary Latin American writers. Their combined voices helped shape not only modern literature but the world at large. — Miguel Perez

Even the making of this summer’s indie hit “Boyhood” deserves to be its own movie. Filmed by director Richard Linklater in a span of 12 years, “Boyhood” follows Ellar Coltrane as a six year old in the first grade to an 18-year-old college freshman in real time. In lesser hands, the real-time format might have been a silly gimmick. But Linklater’s humanistic approach and casual style empower the film. “Boyhood” isn’t driving toward a single dramatic set piece or moment. Rather, the issue at hand is life. Like life, transitions in time over years are barely felt, but audiences will be able to gleam them from subtle references to technology and pop culture. The script is loosely based on the personal growth of the lead actor and has dialogue that is so authentic it may feel improvised at times. There are many human, relatable moments in the film like how sometimes the best advice we get is from the people we least expect. Linklater understands that people are flawed and doesn’t judge them for it. — Shyam Vedantam

DEATH GRIPS DISBANDS Formed in 2012, Death Grips has always been a band that thwarted conventional practices. Known for releasing albums for free at the behest of its label and recklessly abandoning scheduled concerts, the band has always done what it felt was best. With the unexpected release of the first half of its newest, and now final album, “The Powers That B: Niggas On The Moon,” the band has reached its Mount Olympus. Every release before this has seemed to steadily build into the colossal wall of sound that is this album, instilling sensory overload into the listener. Björk has lent her voice on this album, yet, in typical Death Grips fashion, she is not adding any sorts of lyricism. Instead, her voice is used as an instrument, adding even more to the complexity and technicality of the project. The band’s recent demise may have come as a shock to some, but as drummer Zack Hill stated in his handwritten explanation, “Death Grips was and always has been a conceptual art exhibition anchored by sound and vision.” In a world where artists are governed by an unwritten set of rules, Death Grips has proven that it is unnecessary.

— Humza Khan

UTDMERCURY.COM

LIFE&ARTS

THE MERCURY | AUG. 4, 2014

7

New professor brings experience, stories of disease outbreaks during her time with Center for Disease Control ESTEBAN BUSTILLOS Managing Editor

The recent outbreak of Ebola in West Africa has caused quite a stir in the international media. The case of American Kent Brantly, who caught the disease while trying to treat its victims in Liberia, has captured national attention. Fortunately for residents of North Texas, a scientist who specializes in these types of contagions is coming to campus.

Seema Yasmin was hired in May as a professor in practice. She brings with her an impressive resume in the fields of health and medicine. After studying medicine and surgery at Cambridge University, Yasmin served as an epidemic intelligence service officer for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC, where she investigated disease outbreaks.

“It was a very exciting job,” she said. “From day to day, you didn’t know what outbreak was going to happen. You’d pick up the phone and somebody would say ‘We need assistance, can you come help?’”

Yasmin said that her role at the CDC involved a lot of detective work because officers would have to use displayed symptoms to uncover the outbreak.

While at the CDC, she worked on several noteworthy cases, including an outbreak of botulism in an Arizona maximum-security prison that was causing inmates to acquire paralysis.

“We’d go in and say, ‘We need to do a scientific study that has enough power to provide results that are meaningful; that means we need to interview 200 max-security inmates,’ and the warden of the prison will just look at you and laugh,” she said. “We needed privacy so the inmate wasn’t affected by having the correctional officers nearby. We wanted to be in a room with them, we had to be behind glass, so that was challenging in that regard.”

Yasmin said that case was particularly difficult due to the distrust that inmates in a federal prison had of employees of a federal agency.

Another outbreak she worked on involved an outbreak of Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever

MIGUEL PEREZ | EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

among Native Americans. She recalled children dying from the disease that could have been saved by a simple antibiotic.

It was this sort of experience, seeing people suffer unnecessarily, that encouraged her to go into the field of public health in the first place.

The daughter of an AIDS activist, Yasmin was outraged by the fact that people with HIV had such a stigma surrounding them. She became a

treatment advocate for young people living with HIV, where she learned about the social aspects of illness and disease.

“I met a young man as a teenager in (England) who passed away last year,” Yasmin said. “He was only 25 or 26, and he passed away in London when we have a fantastic, free health care system in England. Nobody should get sick from HIV, let alone die from an AIDS-related

illness, but it turned out that he hadn’t been taking his medications, again because there was some level of denial about having the illness and there’s so much stigma.”

After completing medical school, she started doing clinical work in London. There she saw some patients going through what she described as a “revolving door”: patients would come in from something like massive liver failure due to alcoholism one week and then show up again after they had already been treated for problem.

This is where she became interested in the idea of population-level health and preventative medicine, taking a step back to see how the medical system can prevent the patient from succumbing to alcoholism in the first place, for example.

“My interest in public health really started when I became frustrated with clinical medicine, but my aim is to bring public health to life for the students at UTD - to show them how interesting and how broad it is,” she said.

“Public health is everything from outbreaks of infectious disease to mental health to gun violence, so I really just hope to make them aware of what public health is.”

Yasmin will also be working as a staff writer for The Dallas Morning News. She has already written several stories for the paper and has been featured as a guest on KERA, as well as on KXAS-TV describing why doctors chase outbreaks like Ebola.

Yasmin said she came about the field of journalism after her time at the CDC was finished.

“The maximum amount of time you can be in the epidemic intelligence service is two years,” she said. “As that came to an end, I thought ‘What can I do that’s going to be half as interesting as this?’ I thought ‘If I can’t be a disease detective, what about teaching or reporting those stories and telling those stories?’”

Yasmin, who completed work as a global journalism fellow at the University of Toronto, said working with government as an outsider has presented a significant challenge. Her first

→ SEE DISEASE, PAGE 9

MIYAZAKI 101 Anime aficionados, professors to speak at Forth Worth film series focused on Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki MIGUEL PEREZ Editor-in-Chief

Acclaimed animator Hayao Miyazaki’s films will be the star attraction at Fort Worth’s Modern Art Museum, and two faculty members will lead discussions around the Japanese artist’s most-recognized characters and stories as part of the film series.

Although Marc Hairston is a research scientist for the William B. Hanson Center for Space Sciences, his fascination with anime has made him somewhat of a specialist on the subject.

He first discovered Japanese animation back in the early ‘90s.

“I was aware of it, but it just wasn’t available in the U.S. before that time,” Hairston said.

“What little stuff was brought over commercially were things like ‘Astro Boy’, ‘Eightman’ and ‘Battle of the Planets.’”

Hairston met Pamela Gossin, a humanities professor focusing on the relationship between literature and science, in 1998 and suggested she use Miyazaki’s films in her classes.

Gossin was teaching a course on the “nature of nature” and Hairston sat in. He thought her curriculum could benefit from the messages in Miyazaki’s “Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind,” which involves a young woman fighting to find balance between the manmade and natural world.

They have been teaching courses focusing on Miyazaki’s work, anime, science fiction and fantasy on and off ever since.

Gossin describes the two professors’ seemingly opposing fields as a surprisingly complementary pairing. Hairston focuses on the technological details and minutia of the animes, while Gossin focuses on the themes and visual motifs.

“Students get a full spectrum of approaches to the material, from uber-geek on the science side to ubergeek on the lit side,” she said. “I think students actually

CONNIE CHENG | PHOTO EDITOR

appreciate that because then they see Marc and me interact and say, ‘Hey, a lit prof can actually speak to a scientist and vice versa.’ I think that ends up being the most powerful message beyond any specific thing we might say about a film.”

Miyazaki’s films have been gaining more and more attention from the U.S. public over the

years, and he is arguably the most recognizable Japanese animator.

The phenomenon is helped due in part to excellent marketing, Hairston explains.

“In Japan, he’s a household name, but he was somewhat of an unknown when Disney bought the rights to bring his films to the United States,” he said. “They

were actually frustrated because they wanted the video rights to family-friendly films like ‘Totoro’ and ‘Kiki’s Delivery Service,’ too.”

The first film that Miyazaki brought to the

→ SEE MIYAZAKI, PAGE 9

8

DEAN’S LIST

School of Arts & Humanities

Negeen Aghassibake Sara Jawaid Ahmad Kiratiben Dilip Amin Joseph Edward Anthony Victoria Aranda Brianna C. Bartholomew Alexander Lee Bean Karri Bertrand Bolton Sara Allena Boling Jessica Kay Bowers Stephanie Ann Brisendine Allison Virginia Burch Rocquel Dijon Carpenter Camellia Chan Samuel Joseph Collins Brennan Ernest Crawford Caroline Rose Curley Ashley Marie Dang Caryn Nicole Dimarco Robert Townlin Dube Daniel Craig Dunham Efrain Daniel Esparza Valentina Filic Amanda Michelle Fisher Yifan Gan Shanee Crystal Gbelawoe Yajaira Gonzalez Macy Taylor Harrison Sean Michael Johnson Sabrina Maurine Jordan Madeline Marie Lindell Luan The Mai Victoria Louise Mayfield Melanie Cathryne McAllaster Katelyn Danielle McWilliams Molly Lathitham Meyer Sophia Miao Allison Anne Miller Belinda Tim-Mun Mok Nehal Osama Mubarak Stephanie Anne Myers Ashley Anne Norfleet Michael Steven Payte Cathryn Alicia Ploehn Mitchell Curtis Pricer Jennifer Christine Quiros Caleb Ryan Reidlinger Marcela Reyes Alexander Benton Rodgers Spencer Matthew Schaefer Sarah Ann Simes Matthew William Smith Connor Wade Spencer Cheyenne Louzelle Sullivan Colin Lee Thames Di Theis Kyle Andrew Trost Zachary M. Van Duyne Andrew Scott Ward Gisselle Gabrielle Hoover Kathleen Grace Alva Benjamin Edward Baker Adam Matthew Dayton Samiha Safa Khan Jennifer Alexa Moravits Stephanie Michelle Swain Ari Benjamin Cohn Sara Nicole Melnick Lindsey Kay Ward Nealie Love Bagbi Michael Alexander Bazar Sean Hamilton Fagan Zachary Joseph Freeman Amanda Shea Huff Melody Alexis Jackson Sydney Blair Jordan Javeria Khan Genevieve Thuymai Khuong Carrie Elizabeth Lackey Sean Paul Lenox Samia Nasir Anjuli Sulochana Sethi Macy Ayn Sheehan Joshua Ryan Steward Michael Stephen Cohen Zachary McCarron Armstrong Jordan Anthony Arriazola Nicholas Philip Benke Scott Daniel Bennett Sarah Elizabeth Callaway Edward Young Choi Laura Alejandra Citalan Natalie Cook Sean Basler Craigen Emily Duvall Chloe Ann Ferris Christopher Joseph Gomez Robert John Haupt Natalie Corinne Hill Catherine Lee Johnston John Gabriel King Aishah Kuzu Rachel L. Lutz Michael Louis Mirales Sofia Edith Ocampo Lonngi Nam Phuong Nguyen Pham Johnathan Kalvin Sambilay Nicole Sandoval Takaki Shingaki Allison Anne-Marie Sparks

School of Behavioral & Brain Sciences

Jenna Abrenica Abante Caroline Michelle Abe Alia Al-Najjar Nilam Nizar Ali Jynelle Mari Guerrero Arches Melanie Victoria Bayat Cristina Benezra Karen Elizabeth Beserra Amanda Kay Bierschenk Alisa Yuriivna Bovda Crystal Grace Buchanan Roger Duyhoang Bui Alissa Marie Burch Madison Steele Burge Ian Luke Campbell Flavia Veras Sodre Cavalcanti Cory Rachael Chandler Connie Li Cheng Derek Chee-Hong Cheng Kathleen Michelle Childs Aproteem Choudhury Allison Elizabeth Cunningham

Tina Nghi Dam Karyna Raychelle Dang Nicolette Cattuong Doan

DEAN’S LIST

THE MERCURY | AUG. 4, 2013

Micah Thomas Easterling Julia Michelle Evans Shawheen Faghihahmadabadi Kate Elizabeth Flanagan Jennifer Ann Gallardo Dante Michael Gallucci Daniel R. Guest Ciara Jordan Guilhas Natasha Bhushan Gupta Brittney Ann Hamilton Sara Hassan Youssef Ashlie Nicole Hawck Brooke L. Hinson Marie Stephanie Hocson Savannah Heather Holtcamp Syeda Tehniat Hussaini Alexzandrea Elexus Jones Bryan Edwin Jones Lauren Elizabeth Jones Anila Joseph Sandra Sharon Joshua Victoria Diamante Juarez Shrinath Kadamangudi Pranali Sandip Kamat Lu-Yi Kang Amanda Megan Karasic Ava Karimi Cassandra Natalie Karl Danae Elizabeth Kersh Aisha Sarwar Khan Kayla Marie Klein Braden Thomas Knight Redeate Mekonen Lakew Amanda Noelle Lancaster Virginia Elizabeth Land Jessica Briana Lawson Calvin Le Tran Bao Le Nancy Deann Lewis Esther Wing-Yan Li Cynthia Shuang Liang Mirna Jazmin Lucero Gurbani Kaur Makkar Priya Mary Mathew Stephanie Matijevic Patrick Joseph McCarthy Matthew Thomas McClure Hayley Diane McMillan Haley Kuehn Minor Muhammad Abdullah Murad Geethika Nandam Ashley Elias Neduvelil Aimi Olivia Nguyen Paul Jeremy Nguyen-Lee Emily Joan Niewiarowski Donna Sara Noorbakhsh Ibrahim Noorbhai Janki Patel Karina Mariel Perez Aarti Prasad Ivan Ashiqur Rahman Yvonne K. Ralph Anna-Maria Reiter Adriana Geibel Ribeiro Tammy J. Ridenour Maddison Brooke Roberts Leonardo Rojas Ashley Joy Ruikka Ryan James Russell Aradhana Sahoo Stanley M. Saju Christi Rene Schaefer Keri Le Schoenemann Kelsey Nicole Schreiber Joy Ann Scott Jonathon Robert Shasteen Jessica Marie Shotland Laurie Michelle Smith Alwin Somasundaram Bruna De Melo Tavares Cindy Chilin Tiu Furkan Gorkem Torlak Rebecca Jayne Townsend Diem-Nhi Ngoc Tran Lisa Van Tran Caroline Nicole Trent Tammy Hoai Trinh Zubeda Musa Varwani Shyam Chinmay Vedantam David Prem Venincasa Lynn Hoang Vu Courtney Samantha Wayne Travis Paul Weaver Lauren Patricia Weittenhiller Selena Chao Shing Yang Joseph Omar Younis Christopher Yue Helena Zhang Harjeen Zibari

Erik Jonsson School of Engineering & Computer Science

Bistees Adel Abdelmalak Rahat Arman Ahmed Taha Ahmed Akhawala Muhammad Nabeel Akram David Paul Allen Shaurya Arora SalmanTariq Ausaf Rafi Al Ayub Christie Elaine Baker Jonathan Paul Bakker Erick Barrios David Allen Beard Samin Bohara Jonathan Anthony Bucio Andrew P. Bugno Maria Angelica Burbano Salazar Benjamin Vu Cao Ridhima Chadha Jonathan Ashish Chari Jaejin Cho Travis Wah Chun Timothy Curtis Cogan Matthew David Coley Gerard Le Copeland Ayari Lissett Cruz Rushi Sunil Dalal Mary Elizabeth Derryberry Eric Robert Dilmore Nam Viet Dinh Thomas Scott Drablos Dillon Ryan Drobena Ryan Benson Duan

Tristan George Duckworth Hazen Eckert Jesus A. Espinoza Parker Hudson Franklin Tej Prakash Gidvani

Tej Prakash Gidvani Benjamin John Gravell Tyler Dean Gray William Carson Hamer Amber Moon Hasan Omar Andrew Hasan Timothy Samuel Ho Colin Alexander Howe Anastasia Jean Hudman Moses Junior Ike Scott Anthony Jones Deepu Joseph Jose Dominic Joseph Sajith Joseph Meagan Victoria Kelso Mohammad U. Khan Hyoungil Kim Jinhong Kim Brandi James Kirkpatrick Samuel Allen Konstanty Mikaela Christal Krottner Rajesh Kuni Bradford James Kupka Michael Anson Lau Grant Sidney Ledford Jihwan Lee Ju Heon Lee Ariane Tremblay Lemieux Zackary Ryan Lindstrom Kenneth Alan Livingston Yiding Luo Ryan Joseph Marcotte Savannah Irina Mars Melanie Elizabeth Maurer Charmara Jeanine Mays Hailey Jean McCurry Joseph Richard McFarland Jason Thomas McKenzie Geovanni Mendez Verneil Mesecher Mesecher Trevor Kyle Morgan Joey Salim Nahlous Erick Zadiel Narvaez Vivien Hong Ngo Hoang Huy Nguyen Jacinth R Nguyen Samuel Alexander Nin Daniel Robert Noel Brendon Chase O’ConnorLynch Joshua Allen Olson Marco Antonio Ordonez Dongmin Pak Kwanwoo Park Apurva Pramodkumar Patel Raj Prakash Patel Sanya Peshwani Tuan AnhPham Lan Thi Minh Quach Edward Neil Quinn Benjamin Daniel Reed Tanner Kevin Rideout Maribeth Joy Ruddell Camron Matthew Salisbury Anuvrat Saxena Brian Andrew Schieb Kara Elizabeth Schrader Jose Luis Serrano Zain Ahmed Shariff Shiva Sharma Hans Alexander Shinn Danyal Alam Siddiqui Nazeera Aisha Siddiqui Alec Leo Spinhirne Shane Joshua St. Luce Paul Christopher Staggs Cody James Stanfield Adam Robert Steiner Brian Andrew Sturm David Scott Swedberg Scott Michael Tat Stuart Jameson Taylor Matthew Joshua Tijerina Kenny Tran Satsuki Luke Ueno Andrew Triana Vaccaro Kyle Michael Walsh Jiayang Wang Kyle Eugene Webster Walter Evan Wedgeworth Zackary Ryan Weger Andrew Ran Wei James Ford Williams Joshua Lee-Hsien Wyllie Junjie Xu Shahrukh Zindani Samantha Helen Hartke Phuong Ai Diep Mason Reece Leach Aaron Damien Anderson Sanyukta Bihari Lucas Kai-Hsiang Chur Brandon Hoangnam Bui Jason Marvin Chang Maria Emily Mattso Arnaiz Jonathon Perry Barone Tristan Fun Thanh Trieu Truong Margaret Elise Bullock Joshua Michael Carpp Ryan Charles Kao Daniel Boxuan Li Bilal Syed Quadri Cameron Ryan Alberts Amin Shoukat Arab Gaurav Bathija Chi-Kan Cheung Mark Wayne Ditsworth Tyler Craig Hagen William James Hester Sihui Huang Shail Karia Marshall Dean McCracken Alexis Moreno Shelbi Nicole Parker Raman Sathiapalan Corrin Nicole Thompson Charles Isaiah Vandergrift Jacqueline Wong Aaron Jan Cua Garrett Allen Greenwood Lalu Vazhuthanapp John Kanami Maeda Michael Daniel Muggler Son Anh Pham Sergiy Mykhaylovich Rozhdestvenskyy Miguel Angel Santillan Isabelle Annemarie Smith Brandon Sean Stevens

UTDMERCURY.COM

The Dean’s List contains the names of students who completed at least 12 credit hours during Spring 2014 with a grade-point average among the top 10 percent of all students within their respective schools.

The students are listed below in accordance with student privacy requests under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. Luke Jacob Szymanski Neil Ryan Vanmiddendorp Bontavy Vorng David Stanley Kinnamon Christine Maily Ma William M. McKinney Zachary Thomas Richied Josh M. Abraham William Gray Bush Mark Harrison Dwight Okebaram I. Ekwuribe Marina Adel George Michael Edward Gomez Jeffrey Allen Hertzing Peter Wahba Mickael Salvador Moreno Jonghan Park Juan Robert Reyna Joshua George Thomas Andrew Joseph Wells

School of Economic, Political & Policy Sciences

Jason Abidi Imaan Adil Nathan Edward Agnew Wiam Kacem Ayachi Melissa Marie Baker Mittan Barzani Lachu M. Bastola Franco Luciano Bria-Massaro Daniel Chris Brown Brian Anthony Cervenka Blake Aaron Cohorst Travis David Cornelius Denise Maria Cortez Ryan Anthony Dorman Christopher Allen Dubois Blake Jackson Eaton Rachel Katherine Ficke Paul Gentry Matthew Johann Gessner Jose Valentin Gonzalez Hena Syeda Hafizullah Waqas Zia Haque Laura Lynn Hazeldine Hannah Nicole Hubbard Kyle Andrew Johnson Rachel Mariah Kail Kyler Nicole Kelly Mariam Mehar Khan Joseph E. Kline Curtlyn Charlene Kramer Mohammad Khurram Kureishy Tanner Michael Landry Jacob James Loehr Colton James Lutterloh Alexie Chopin McCauley Sean Michael McEvoy Kamron Moghtader Yehia Mokhtar Dalton Ray Mott Traci Renee Murdock Anh Nhat Nguyen Paul Ifechukwude Osadebe Elizabeth Garrison Peterkort Colin Joseph Phillips Rohit Prasad Sergio Alan Reyes Michael Kyle Reynolds Alessandra Veronica Richter Joshua Riddell Raily Valentina Rincon Villalobos Josette Catherine Rophael Cory K. Sagduyu Rahela Alam Sami Steve Shen Mahtab Sobhani Hope Lynn Steffensen Beverly S. Talley Jamison Louise Tolbert Theodore John Torres Oanh Xuan Tran Phuong Thi Tran Cynthia M. Tusko Christine Joy Varghese Aura Lilian Vasquez Ryan Edward Wanner Lewis Richard Warne David Marijan Watson Nathan Yee

School of Interdisciplinary Studies

Dana Aborahma Melissa Paige Armand Samantha Jane Boyd Gordon Gregory Byerly Rebecca Lynn Chrasta Kayla Marie Cox Dakota Lynn Davis Zachary Jacob Dezeeuw Nicole Dinkuhn Gaydish Brittaney Je’Na Harris Mubeen V. Heaton John Min Houck Austin Lee Jentz Amy Nicole Jowers Kathryn Ann Kaminsky Ameen Ahmed Khan Tri Van Le Michael Minchiou Li Carlye Jamil Mings Preston Weisheng Ooi Tiffany Nicole Tallie Christine Tiffany Tran Shelley Nicole Weidenbruch Lauren Allexis Wilson Alicia Ann Woodfin Karan Vir Goenka Sai Pranathi Baddipudi Aysha Nadeem Iqbal Aseel Ali Dweik Klleodora Shaban Brahimaj Chelsea Marie Cockrum Jeffrey Charles Herpers Aria Mansoori Kaitlin Elizabeth Chapman Dustin Michael Flynn Thach Ngoc Ngo

Sophia Le Tran Tina Harvey Davis Shogufa Kamin

Naveen Jindal School of Management

Maria Ana Laura Acosta

Jay Kumar Agrawal Robin Ghzbani Ahmadi Iqra Ali Alexander Mark Alperovich Victoria Kay Alperovich Neaz Arefin Muhammad Asad Hardeek Ambalal Barot Sharon Hope Benedicto Melissa Berasaluce Arindam Bhattacharya Naureen Ashiqali Bhojani Zahra Ashiqali Bhojani Vishavjyot Bhullar Karan Bindra Stephanie Alexis Blitshtein Marie Mae Braswell Meagan Nicole Brooks Garrett Joseph Brown Ted William Buerkle Van T. Bui Edward Cao John Chang Christopher Chen Jasmine Marie Chipps Sohyun Cho Hee-Seon Choi Sun Young Choi Christopher Lee Clark Alissa Brooke Courson Hannah Gayle Creech Faith Julia Crockett Eli M. Cummings Naomi Damato Andi Dedja Meghan Anna Del Castillo Matthew Anthony Derobertis Sabrina Kaur Dhesi Rocio Leslie Diaz Ginger Rose Doggett Amy Elizabeth Dollin Engo Mputu Zachary Michael Evans Ashek Faizullah Ali Reza Farzadpour Caroline Frances Ferguson Tyler Logan Fishbeck Kristy Lynn Forsthoff Erin Melissa Franc Maria Faye R. Francisco Hilda Lizbeth Garcia Reiniel Joshua T. Garcia Alec Spencer Getz Fabiola Amparo Godoy Nitza Gomez Amanda Carolyn Guajardo Phuc Tien Ha Seth Michael Hale Allison Marie Hallas Nathan Thomas Hawks Francisco Herrera Tucker Alexander Hess Leng Houth Lyndsey Lace Ibarra Ravi Teja Jagabattuni Tasnem Jahangir Afrah Tafsir Jilani Stanley G. Joseph Puja Jatin Kalyani Ian Taylor Kannady Mia Sue Khedairy Eunjin Andrea Kim Jennifer Rachelle Kling Archit Kshetrapal Esther Ning Kuo Edward Yu-Ju Lai Sara Lavingia Y Quang Le Susan Jennifer Ledbetter Jeremy Yuuji Liu Matthew Yoshiaki Liu Bianca Alessandra Lofton Huanyu Lu Holli Mae Lueg Kayla Valentina Maaraoui Majennine Baltazar Maninang Sirigarn Manitase Jamel Hakam Manoun Lorenz Arnold Marsh Shelby Elizabeth McCoy Mariah Alexandrea McHenry Hunter Austin McWinn Andrew Mezheritskiy Alexey A. Mikheev Bilal Ahmed Moon Randy Amos Moser Spandana S. Mudhaliar Mulhum Zayd Najjar Triza Njoki Nganga Ngoc Hong Nguyen Trang Van Nguyen Triet Nguyen Tanner Lee Novak Adam Zachary Nuffer Hei Rin Oh Hee Myoung Park Rahilkumar Patel Katie K. Payne Kayla Michelle Pele Nga Thanh Pham John Charles Phelan Diana Carolina Pinzon Yuan Qin Nidia Quezada Thomas Ahmad Rahimi Armin Rahmani Uriel Ramirez Rebecca Ann Raymond Thomas Resch Matthew William Reynolds Jessie Lynn Richardson Ronald Troy Robinson Su Jin Rye Elicia Marie Salinas David Santiago Richard Alan Schmidt Saurav Sengupta Tanvi Ketan Shah Jieyu Shen Amit Janardan Shirsat Shawn P. Shukla

Ernest Joon Soo Sliter Erin Patricia Smith Elizabeth Ann Sohns Jakeb Timothy Spears Michael Andrew Stemke Kristi Marie Stiles Laura Patricia Su Casey Lynn Sublett Devina Widjaja Sutiono

William Tang Brian Elliott Tiffee Duy Le Tran Michael Chi Tran Nghia Quang Tran Stephanie Lan Tran Tue Minh Tran Huy Xuan Trinh Kyle Blaine Turner Orukeme Ukiri Marya Ishaq Unwala Jonny Alexander Villatoro Amy Thy Vo Caleb Walter Ward Brittany D. Winters Michael C. Wu June-Shim Joshua Yuek Alice Wenyi Zheng Azin Zomorodian Karen Ann Hanschke Meng Ting Qiu Anirudhaa Rao Ravi Laura Leigh Graham Trang Thu Hoang Jacqueline Michelle Abuda Tamara Ivana Djakovic Mario Antonio Hernandez Hae Min Lee Amber Akbar Mawji Douglas Olaughlin Yohanjohn Park Guillermo Romo Shea Rene Van Schuyver Zaynah Azeem Zafar Baseet Azam Elizabeth Ann Cechan Regina Chowdhury Nga Thi Dang Graham Taylor Davis Trevor Layne Deupree Mohamed Hussein Dewji Thao Phuong Duong Tyler Rolf Ernst Katherine Michelle Farris Paul J. Glazik Yongzhu Kuang Siriwun Manitase Taylor Scott McClure Andrew Mark Milewski Diem Thai Ngoc Nguyen Phuong Linh Nguyen Yeong Bin Park Victoria Briana Puckett Scott Tyler Ryan Rachel Lara Shallow Tarnbir Singh Abdullah Tanveer Siddarth Vyas Yifei Wang Chelsea Elizabeth Wolfe Dillon James Young Sumenri Tran Assima B. Abdrakhmanova Eyad Almasri Janet Alvarado Bryan Keith Bjerke Shanna Cui Raphael P. Delvaux Imelda Garcia Bassel Husam Mahdawi Eryn Christine Young Aysha Khan Jenson M. Abraham Asad Aslam John Bao Alexander Mark Bowen Richard James Brevig Nemorio Carbajal Olga Sergeyevna Doroshenko David Wayne Dowdle Justin Levon Du Jeremy Justin English Smita Lakshmi Ganga Matthew James Gonzales Syeda Nahreen Haq Paulette Jones Zohaib Ahmed Mohd Tyler Blake Ortega Baldeep Kaur Panesar Brandon Michael Rohlf Joshua Lee Ruiz Daisy Sanchez Jessica Nicole Villarreal Anh Thi Van Vu Dohhoon Yoon Jessica Marie Zamudio

School of Natural Sciences & Mathematics

Nigel Dennis Abraham Phebe Ann Abraham Justin Charles Adler Alisha Aggarwal Vedika Subodh Agrawal Sara Walid Al Dogom Ranna Ghannam Al-Dossari Swathi Uthra Ariyapadi Linda Asiamah Raheel Saeed Ata Andrew David Baer Reyhaneh Bagheri Aida Basirat Allison M. Beltrone Dene Momtaz Betz Rajvi Prashant Bhagat Sreenand Boddu Emerson Ailidh Boggs Katherine Elizabeth Borner Laura Hart Bret Suna Noora Burghul Alexander Joshua Burns Joseph Ocampo Caguioa Brittney Elaine Campbell Benjamin Allan Cashen

Janine Rochelle Castro Angela Chandy Neil Chandrabhan Chevli Punya Chittajallu Maneera Tosha Chopra Brent Cland Jonathan Hall Cohn Christopher Ryan Cormier Jianqi Wendy Cui Oscar Quang-Vinh Dao Ananya Das Pooja Dasari Christina Nicole Davis Daniel De Los Santos Jennifer Bao-Vy Dinh

Kayleigh Marie Donnelly Lauren Moses Dunn Anne Anhthu Duong Alexander Joseph Eddy Yasmin Aly El-Hag Mohammad M. Faisal Benjamin Mark Gardner Bethany Renee Geer Rohit George Sanjeeth Shibu George Matthew James Gillings Evan James Gordon John Sharbil Hamati Kareem Fawzan Hamdan Matthew Alan Henderson Hayden M. Higgins Andrew Ho Evi Xuan Ho Conrad William Holt Cindy Pei Hua Derick Sean Hunter Alexander Pham Huynh Farid Ighanihosseinabad Aarzu Jawaid Isa Meera Farzana Iyengar Mohammad Jahangiri Kanwal Kamran Jaura Andrew Jason John Alysha S. Joseph Mahdi Mannan Kaheri Rohan Bhalchandra Kanade Pradyotha Kanchustambham Vivek Kantamani Kara J. Kassees Colton Reese Kayfus Karina Alexandra Kinghorn Atef Kokash Rohan George Kulangara Linh Thanh Le Roxanne R. Lee Joseph Seunghyun Lim Keith Eric Liu James Norman Lopez Ali Mohamed Mahmoud Meisam Mahmoudi Sonakshi Manjunath Parker Matsuo McDill Conor Francis McGrath Vidya Menon Andrew Daniel Merrill Lizaveta S. Miadzvedskaya Madeeha Aslam-Syeda Mian Justin Todd Miller Kinsey Nicole Miller Jonathan Thomas Minnig Husain M. Mogri Lauren Nicole Moore Bradley Keck Moreno Travis Morrison Minh-Phong Andrew Ngo Christopher M. Nguyen Nancy Naruemon Nguyen Ngan N. Nguyen Shannon Vi Nguyen Taylor My Hang Nguyen Thong Quang Nguyen Alexander Seung-Hwan Oh Zane Tyler Olds Rashmi Machendranat Palankar Vincent Pan Aakash Minesh Patel Akash Bharat Patel Badar Patel Tarak Piyush Patel Emily Marie Peterman Vi Hung Pham Stephanie Kristin Powdar Grishma Pradhan Dorinda Quarshie Anandini Sunil Rao Jonathan Eric Reeder Alexander Herbert Riley Rebecca Corrine Robles Allison Taylor Roderick Sean Romito Eli Andres Sanchez Daniel Arminius Sattelberger William Tyler Scott Robert Secheli Sagar Shailesh Shah Sidra Rehan Shah Khamis Abdelkader Shalabi Mohammad Shalabi Justine Chao-Ting Sheu Bradley A. Sprenger Whitney Leigh Stuard Shan Su Ryan Temal Surujdin Shinyi Tan Ali Shah Tejani Andrew Clark Thomson Robert James Thomson Adrian Laurence Thornton Justin Andrew Tran Kha Andy Minh Tran Victoria Mai-Tram Tran Cristian Trejo Thomas James Trompeter Natasha Anne Varughese Yarlini Vipulanandan Nhu Thinh Thi Vo Kevin Quochuy Vu Courtney Barbara Walton Katie E. Ward Jackie Christopher Webb Arden Alana Wells Matthew Alan Williams Kimberly Wong Flora Yan Matthew Chiasheng Yang Shangyuan Ye Ahana Gopal Yogesh Greg W. Zhang Haris Vakil

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Avantika Banerjee Nourhan Amin Elgendy Ayesha Farooqui Kaylee Ann V. Gross Robert Elliott Hall Kia Corey Khadem Adam Mendonca Monica Lauren Moleres Trent August Small Evan Robert Throckmorton Nathalie Uong Guowen Luo Ian Campo Amy Lin Kronschnabel

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Star performance keeps James Brown biopic afloat SHYAM VEDANTAM COMMENTARY

James Brown, the godfather of soul, gets the biopic treatment in “Get On Up.” It won’t disappoint.

The film goes against the classic biopic structure by hopscotching around Brown’s life. For example, the film opens with five minutes of a drug-addled Brown wildly wielding a shotgun during an insurance seminar, upset because someone used his private bathroom. Then, the film jumps to Brown as a nine-year-old child in Georgia, playing tag with his mother.

Each of these sequences is labeled with a date and nickname Brown was given or chose himself (ex. Little Junior, Mr. Dynamite, The Hardest Working Man in Show Business, etc.). This cross cutting lets audiences avoid the scenes we’ve seen a dozen times over. However, the execution isn’t perfect, and the timeline can get confusing.

Yet, the performances here manage to keep this film together. Namely, Boseman as Brown is incredible. The cockiness, magnetism, raspy voice, animalistic screams and relentless energy are all present. There’s a great scene in which Brown harshly instructs his band to play music like every instrument is a drum and with no need for

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Chadwick Boseman delivers in his performance as James Brown in “Get on Up.” Named after the Brown song of the same name, the film explores the highs and lows of the star’s often wild and unpredictable career as a soul musician.

the script by Jez and John-Henry Butterworth. A powerful moment arises when a young Brown picks shoes off of an African-American hanging from a tree. Brown is so dirt poor that these two-tone shoes are his first pair. This film doesn’t deify Brown like most mediocre biopics do. Brown was charismatic, but he also was a womanizer and fickle with his money. Furthermore, the context of Brown’s life is

present. Famous moments like his upstaging of the Rolling Stones on “The T.A.M.I. Show” and his quelling of an African-American crowd in Boston after the murder of Martin Luther King Jr. are included.

Fans of James Brown will find a lot to like here. Others might be less enthralled. The lack of dramatic tension makes the film feel long. The jumping around in the timeline allows the film

to escape many biopic pitfalls, but Taylor forgets to include a through line to bind the movie together. The film has an uneven tone, yet the performances hold it together. “Get on Up” is an eclectic mess at times, but Boseman as Brown will be one of the year’s best performances, and it’s not to be missed.

natural world.

During her short introduction for “Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind” at the Modern, Gossin plans on talking about Miyazaki’s concerns for the environment.

“One of the biggest things people notice is a deeply-seeded eco-philosophy,” Gossin said. “He is trying to get people to understand that we’ve had a long history of exploiting natural resources, and that we may be at an endgame.”

The Modern will be playing many of Miyazaki’s classic films, including “Spirited Away” and “My Neighbor Totoro” on select dates from August 2 to August 23. Gossin and Hairston will help introduce each of the films.

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have people traveling to the Caribbean from Texas coming back home to Texas.

So, already I have a class that’s about mosquitoes and vector-borne diseases, and this kind of feeds into that.”

She also said that she is going to factor in the recent outbreak of Ebola into her curriculum.

Even though working simulatneously as a professor and as a journalist can bring stress, Yasmin does not seem to be nervous about the workload.

“When you really enjoy something it doesn’t really feel like work,” she said.

“I’m going to get to call four of the world’s experts on Chikungunya or whatever I’m writing to satisfy my curiosity and be an advocate for any readers out there who are also concerned about a particular disease.”

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story for The Dallas Morning News was about the impact on public health children crossing the border unaccompanied brings. She said tight-lipped government agencies proved to be difficult to get information from for her story.

Despite her fair share of setbacks, Yasmin said she sees her work as a journalist complimenting her work as a professor.

“My reporting inspires my teaching,” she said. “I’m writing a story about Chikungunya, which is a virus that is being spread by mosquitoes. There’s an outbreak in the Caribbean, and now we

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and Miyazaki’s backlog became popular in the United States.

What makes his films unique is their complicated nature, Gossin said.

“You can’t immediately divide the world into good and evil,” she said.

“You can’t predict very well where the plot is going. (Viewers) have to pay attention to nuances within every individual character.”

Hairston agrees.

“One of my favorite stories is of a friend of mine who showed (Princess Mononoke) to her father when it came out on video and they were about halfway through it when he turned to her and said, ‘I give up. Whose side am I supposed to be on?’”

The depth of Miyazaki’s films allows the two professors to create vivid discussions on science, the human condition and the

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United States when Disney bought the rights was “Princess Mononoke,” and they bought the film sight unseen believing they could handle another simple princess movie.

It wasn’t until Disney executives saw the trailer complete with samurais and sword fighting that they realized this wasn’t the usual American cartoon.

Hairston said it was a real problem for Disney to market it at first because it was simply so different. Miyazaki is popular in Japan because its fantastical elements attract children and adults alike.

It wasn’t until Spirited Away won the Academy Award that the floodgates opened

a time signature. He’s a maniacal but genius boss, so they reluctantly follow him and create the music we still recognize to this day. The underrated Boseman is most famous from his role as Jackie Robinson in last year’s biopic “42.” This role is an interesting contrast to that one. While Robinson was forced to bottle up his anger, James Brown was the exact opposite. He was black and proud in a world that wasn’t ready to accept black performers.

The film also showcases many of Brown’s performances on stage. The music is from Brown’s vinyl but the moves that inspired Mick Jagger (who is a producer on this film) and Michael Jackson are all Boseman here.

The supporting cast, which is almost entirely African American, doesn’t drop the ball either. Although they got top billing for this film, Octavia Spencer and Viola Davis are barely in the film. They each leave an imprint on the movie though, and James Brown for that matter, as the two mother figures in his life. Nelsan Ellis grounds “Get on Up” with a warm performance as Bobby Bird, the supporting character and friend in Brown’s life. Brandon Smith also gives a flashy and memorable performance as Little Richard.

Director Tate Taylor is most known for 2011’s “The Help.” That movie weakly and artificially portrayed racism in the South with white bigotry portrayed as caricature. Some of that is still present here, with a less-thanstellar cameo from the almost always great Allison Janney.

Yet, there’s improvement shown in “Get On Up,” and it could be due to

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streets in order to avoid becoming targets.

There are no underground trenches, nowhere to go for cover in the event of an air strike, Muhanna said. The people of Gaza simply sit inside their homes, hoping to stay safe.

A strip of land that is no more than 139 square miles is home to an estimated 1.5 million people, according to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, or UNRWA, with a per capita density of 11,000 people per square mile.

“The city is so incredibly densely populated, you can’t hit anything in the city and not kill someone,” Muhanna said. “You can’t. So there’s nowhere safe to go. You can’t go into the city. You can’t go anywhere.”

The Palestinian death toll in Gaza has gone up to 1,400 and 80 percent of the casualties are civilians, while three Israeli civilians and 56 Israeli soldiers have died in the four-week conflict, according to the United Nations.

For many kids in Gaza, this is the third war they’ve lived through, and no one knows how many of them will survive this one to see a fourth.

“I think they’ll never become desensitized to loss of life,” Muhanna said. “Sometimes (the media) likes to portray people there as people who have a suicidal complex, that they don’t care if they’re killed. It’s never been like that; it’ll never be like that. They value life just as much as you value life, just as much as I value life.”

Entire families get wiped out in wars like these with some losing 18 or 20 members in one attack, she said.

“Sometimes, there’s only one kid left from his whole family,” Muhanna said. “You wonder, this kid isn’t going to grow up and say, ‘I love Israel, let’s make a peace deal.’ Violence breeds violence.”

With burgeoning refugee numbers at the U.N. camps in Gaza and blockades on aid, the 1.2 million refugees on the strip face a scarcity of rations.

Even in times of peace, at least half a million displaced Palestinians live in eight recognized U.N.

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The dining hall has outdoor seating next to the pond, and the whole space has a 700-seat capacity.

Hours for the dining hall will probably be adjusted based on student usage, Grief said.

Adjacent to the dining hall, a two-story recreation center will house a miniature version of the Activity Center.

“It has two basketball courts, which will be primarily used for badminton and volleyball,”

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camps. Several blockades on trade since 2007 have taken the economy on a downward spiral rendering more than 80 percent of the employable population dependent on international assistance, according to UNRWA. Despite having a power plant, which has now been bombed, the people in Gaza only had electricity half of the time even when there was no war, Muhanna said, with eight-hour power cuts after every eight hours of electricity supply.

The younger citizens of Gaza want to get out to find a better life for themselves, but can’t because even in the absence of open warfare, it’s challenging to get in or out of Palestine easily.

Entry and exit of people and resources to Gaza is controlled by Egypt and Israel, while in the West Bank, it is controlled by Jordan and Israel.

Palestinians living in Gaza can’t enter West Bank and vice versa, and getting out of Gaza is an ordeal for Palestinians because many nations don’t recognize

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Palestine as an official country.

Even for American citizens of Palestinian origin, the process of entering the West Bank or Gaza to visit family is a challenge, with waits of six or eight hours at the borders, said Tamam Bushnaq, president of Students for Justice in Palestine, or SJP. Gaza’s air space and coast are occupied, and drones are a part of normal Gaza life, Muhanna said.

It is common to see warships in the distance away from the coast line, or to hear that fishermen have been shot at by navy ships, even when there is no war, she said. The possibility of war is real and very normal for the people of Gaza.

“You look at the people of Gaza right now; they don’t have a lot to lose,” Muhanna said. “They feel like they’re not living anyway.”

When the conflict started, there were numerous protests by Palestinians opposed to war in downtown Dallas and UTD’s SJP chapter had a booth there where they encouraged passersby to write

CONNIE CHENG | PHOTO EDITOR

Rawan Muhanna (left) sits with Tamam Bushnaq, president of Students for Justice in Palestine, and recounts her time in the Gaza Strip when the conflict between Israel and Palestine began to escalate.

said Recreational Sports Director Tricia Losavio.

“We’re going to dub that our net gym and try to keep basketball over in the Activity Center.”

The second level houses a weight and fitness area with cardio equipment like treadmills, ellipticals and cross trainers.

There also are two small locker rooms with showers and a multipurpose studio for dance and yoga, among other things.

Recreational Sports will offer additional programming in the new rec center, including Zumba and group exercise classes.

All students will have access to the rec center

just like in the existing Activity Center. Faculty and staff can buy a membership for access.

The original plan was to build only three residence halls by 2017, but with the school’s booming growth, provisions to the master plan had to be made. With the building complete, the university will most likely focus on the Comet Town development, Grief said.

“Now we’re going to take a breath and evaluate what we might need in the future,” Grief said. “Certainly, we’re going to gauge what happens this next year to determine what we build next.”

letters to prominent Texas statesmen expressing discontent at the way the United States has handled the situation, Bushnaq said.

They were able to send 200 letters to seven statesmen including Ted Cruz and Rick Perry, she said.

Bushnaq and a few other SJP officers also got together and started a Twitter hashtag campaign through the @Palicampaigns account, where they started tweeting using a new Gaza hashtag every Saturday at 8 a.m. and ask their friends to tweet using the same hashtag, Bushnaq said.

They released the first one, #iccforIsrael, which stands for International Criminal Court for Israel, on July 26, that demanded a trial for Israeli war crimes, and it gained a lot of popularity, she said.

The second one released August 2 was #interviewPalestinians.

Using social media to generate awareness and garner public opinion is one of the few things that Palestinians living outside Gaza can do besides praying for the safety of their countrymen, Bushnaq said.

“You wake up every day, not wanting to check the news but feeling bad because you think these are my people,” she said. “The least I can do is to check the news and see how they’re doing.”

With more media presence, the humanitarian crisis in Gaza is becoming clear to the world and though people might not be able to understand how the Palestinians live in Gaza, they can definitely empathize, Muhanna said.

Gaza might not be normal but its people are very much human, affected by loss and grief just as much as anyone else, she said.

The waiting game that is the life of people in Gaza, not knowing if they’ll be hit next, not being able to escape, with no safe haven, is the most claustrophobic and excruciating experience Muhanna has ever lived through.

“I (was) in this open land, but I felt like the world was kind of caving in on me,” Muhanna said.

“I couldn’t leave, and it was such an odd feeling.

Can you imagine living here and you want to go to Houston, and they tell you ‘too bad’…? (Gaza) is, in fact, an open-air prison.”

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6,100 students during the spring semester, had space issues this last year. The school placed some doctoral. and post-doctoral students in the basement of the library rather than in the JSOM building due to lack of room, Jacob said.

The four-story structure features classrooms, a finance training lab and a computer lab, among other features, on the second floor Jacob said.

The top two floors will be new office space for the growing faculty.