August 25, 2014
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Resident restrained, robbed
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Life&Arts
Int'l student health insurance plans fall short
Perpetrator enters victim's apartment under false pretense
Miscommunication from healthcare officials leaves insurance customers confused
ESTEBAN BUSTILLOS Managing Editor
A female student reported to UTD PD that a man dressed as a construction worker entered her UV apartment on Aug. 11, physically restrained her and stole personal property. Chief of Police Larry Zacharias said the student indicated the perpetrator entered the residence under false pretense, stating he was there to make a repair. The incident occurred at approximately 3:30 p.m. The student described him as a Hispanic male in his mid-20s wearing grey, paint-splattered pants, a white t-shirt and a yellow safety vest. He had short dark hair, was clean-shaven and was approximately 5-feet-8 inches tall with a medium build. “What he said was that he was there to make a repair,” Zacharias said. “It just so happens that she needed a repair to be made. So that could’ve been just a ruse that he used.” Zacharias said the suspect was not in the typical blue shirt residential workers wear, and he never showed her any worker identification. He said the police are currently going through as many of the construction workers as possible to see if anyone meets the description given. After the incident, the student ran from her apartment all the way to the police station to report the crime, Zacharias said. “She couldn’t call, and she was just focused on getting to the police station,” he said. He said students should practice safety, despite how safe the campus might seem. Zacharias said students have a tendency of not locking their door on campus because they feel it is such a safe environment. He also said incidents where someone breaks into a residence on campus are rare, with only about three or four apartment burglaries a year. UTD PD has not yet identified the perpetrator and his affiliation with UTD or contractors on campus has not been verified or denied. Zacharias said university policy dictates all
He was planning on flying back to India in the summer of 2015 after two years. Late this June he found out, he wouldn’t be able to go. His health insurance premiums for 2014-15 are going to cut into his savings, leaving him and his wife with very little to travel halfway across the world. “Since we are international students; we have to visit our family once in a while and now we are … unable to go to India; that’s a big disappointment,” the student, Somdeb Sarkhel, said. But Sarkhel, a computer science doctoral student at UTD, is perfectly healthy and has not used his health insurance once in the past three years. So why is his annual premium going up by almost a 100 percent? According to the updated UT System Regents’ Rule, all international students — more than 16,500 in the UT System — must now have health insurance that is compatible with the Affordable Care Act. This means that while coverage will improve, students have to enroll in UTD’s student health insurance plan, or SHI, unless they are able to find comparable coverage through the federal marketplace. They can also opt out of the plan if they are sponsored by their home country. However, the rule was updated in May and the plans were locked down by the UT System in late June, three months after open enrollment for ACA ended. There are some positives to the new plan and the ACA, Sarkhel acknowledged, because the coverage is much more extensive and includes pre-existing conditions and contraceptives, among other benefits. “That’s great but the way capitalism
→ SEE ROBBERY, PAGE 25
→ SEE HEALTH, PAGE 25
ANWESHA BHATTACHARJEE Web Editor
DON'T SHOOT DALLAS
Staff Writer
Demonstrators came together in downtown Dallas August 20 to show support for protests in Ferguson, Mo. See page seven for more photos.
ACA timeline: what really happened vs. what should have happened Ideal events Actual events March 2012 The Federal government announced gradual implementation of the Affordable Care Act starting July 1, 2012, phasing in until final regulations kick in Jan. 1, 2014.
October 2013 ACA upheld by Supreme Court and set to come into effect completely January 2014.
Regents' Rule updated early spring 2014.
Open enrollment ends March 31, 2014.
Students informed of SHI changes and new requirements within open enrollment
Students continue to buy third party insurance from AIA, PSI, ISOA at prices ranging from $500 $1,500.
Students waive off $1,859 annual premium for cheaper ACA plans.
Regents' Rule not updated until May 2014. Students not aware they were eligible for ACA. Students notified late June of new requirements
Students compelled to purchase $1,859 Gold Metal Tier Plan from BCBS. LINA MOON | GRAPHICS EDITOR
Student moonlights as stripper PABLO ARAUZ
PABLO ARAUZ | STAFF
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Sports
It all started as a joke. Shane’s friends noticed that he was pretty comfortable without any clothes on. Shane — who’s real name won’t be disclosed here — is a part time psychology student and part time exotic dancer. He first got the idea from his friends after they jokingly suggested that he’d make a great stripper. He enjoys various athletic activities, which gave him the courage — and the body — to do it. “I was used to wearing very little clothing around a lot of people and I had to get comfortable with it. Changing in locker rooms never really bothered me,” Shane said. After some thought, he decided to go to a strip club with a friend to see what it’s like to work as an exotic dancer. “It was a female strip club, and I saw what they were doing there, I saw what was expected there and I remember I walked up to one girl I found attractive and she’s up on her stage and she starts doing what strippers do,” he said. At first, the female dancer was taken aback. But once he told her he was interested in working in the industry, her personality completely changed. That night, they spent the whole night talking about what it’s like to work as a stripper. Later on, he went to a male strip club to see for himself.
“I asked about dancing there and they told me that I could get on a pole and try it out. So, I did for about half an hour. I made good money, and they hired me,” said Shane.
MIGUEL PEREZ | EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
During the day, he works on his academics and enjoys various athletic activities. At night, he goes to the club to dance and make a little extra money. At a small club in a low-key part of
the metroplex, he woos customers with his dancing and pole tricks amidst the neon lights and churning smoke machine. He’s danced for corporate executives, lawyers and he’s got plenty of other weird stories. He said one night, a customer kept giving him dollars while making airplane noises, as if he were hand-feeding him. The man continued to do this for the better part of the night. Shane said that’s just one of the stranger experiences he’s had. “It was disorienting at first. To have people come up an approach you in a completely different way than anyone’s ever approached me before,” he said. For a while, Shane took a step back after watching the film “Magic Mike” which was about the life of a male stripper. The film highlighted the pressures of the industry: being able to spend money frivolously, illegal drugs and just plain debauchery. “I realized that my life was becoming too much like that movie. I was being extremely irresponsible with school,” he said. “So I took some time off.” Shane dropped out of school for a semester. He afforded a trip to visit his girlfriend in the Carribbean and spent the time to study himself. He said he’s been clean for about a year now. Eventually, Shane went back to
→ SEE STRIP, PAGE 25
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THE MERCURY UTDMERCURY.COM Volume XXXIV No. 12 Editor-in-Chief Miguel Perez
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THE MERCURY | AUG. 25, 2014
UTDPD Blotter August 5 t " TUVEFOU SFQPSUFE IJT CJDZDMF XBT TUPMFO from Phase 7 at 9:10 a.m. August 8 t An unaffiliated person was arrested for failure to identify and/or giving false information at midnight. August 10 t "O BGGJMJBUFE QFSTPO XBT BSSFTUFE GPS QPT session of marijuana more than 2 oz. and driving with an invalid license at 11:28 p.m. August 11 t An unaffiliated person was arrested for driving while intoxicated with a blood alcohol content level of over .15 at 12:30 a.m. t " TUVEFOU XBT SPCCFE BOE VOMBXGVMMZ restrained by an unknown actor posing as a maintenance worker at the student’s apartment on campus. August 14 t At 2:45 a.m. a student was arrested for driving while intoxicated. The passenger who was also a student was arrested for interference with public duties. The other passenger who is a former student was arrested for other agency warrants out of university park police. t "U Q N B TUVEFOU SFQPSUFE DSJNJOBM mischief to her apartment. August 15 t "U Q N B TUVEFOU SFQPSUFE IJT CJ cycle had been taken without his consent.
Ad Sales Representative Sipei Huang
August 22: During a traffic stop, an unaffiliated driver was arrested for driving under the influence, possession of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia. An unaffiliated passenger was arrested for possession of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia. The two student passengers were cited; one citation was for possession of alcohol by a minor, and the other was for consumption of alcohol by a minor.
August 20: A student reported a driver struck his vehicle and failed to leave identification in Phase 4 around 1 p.m.
August 17: At 11:56 p.m., a student reported that an unknown person stole his wallet from the outdoor basketball courts sometime in the hour previous to the report.
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DRUGS & ALCOHOL
Contributors Pablo Arauz Anand Jayanti
OTHER
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MAP: UTD COMMUNICATIONS | COURTESY
Michelle Ofiwe Joey Sankman Parthasarathy S. K.
COMPARING DISEASE OUTBREAKS
Shyam Vedantam
Mailing Address 800 West Campbell Road, SU 24 Richardson, TX 75080-0688 Newsroom Student Union, Student Media Suite FIRST COPY FREE NEXT COPY 25 CENTS The Mercury is published on Mondays, at two-week intervals during the long term of The University of Texas at Dallas, except holidays and exam periods, and once every four weeks during the summer term. Advertising is accepted by The Mercury on the basis that there is no discrimination by the advertiser in the offering of goods or services to any person, on any basis prohibited by applicable law. The publication of advertising in The Mercury does not constitute an endorsement of products or services by the newspaper, or the UTD administration. Opinions expressed in The Mercury are those of the editor, the editorial board or the writer of the article. They are not necessarily the view of the UTD administration, the Board of Regents or the Student Media Operating Board. The Mercury’s editors retain the right to refuse or edit any submission based on libel, malice, spelling, grammar and style, and violations of Section 54.23 (f ) (1-6) of UTD policy. Copyright Š 2014, The University of Texas at Dallas. All articles, photographs and graphic assets, whether in print or online, may not be reproduced or republished in part or in whole without express written permission.
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JUST THE FACTS
Yang Xi
TOTAL CASES OF SWINE FLU SURPASS 60.8 MILLON
TOTAL CASES
DEATHS
0
HIV/AIDS (1981-87)
30,000
60,000
HAITI CHOLERA (2010)
90,000
SARS (2003)
120,000
150,000
SWINE FLU (2009-10)
EBOLA (2014)
Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Corrections: In the August 4 edition of The Mercury, in the article titled “JSOM Expansion,� August 4 was incorrectly referred to as the opening date for the JSOM expansion. The project reached substantial completion on this date. The Mercury regrets this error.
OPINION
AUG. 25, 2014 | THE MERCURY | UTDMERCURY.COM
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National media failed Ferguson MICHELLE OFIWE COMMENTARY
For the first four nights of Ferguson’s (intercommunity) protests, it was difficult to tell by television alone if the Missouri suburb even existed. While CNN and its peers settled neatly into their primetime routines each night, hundreds of the town’s tech-savvy protestors flooded social media sites in a firm move for proper documentation. The Ferguson Police Department had already began its use of military-grade weaponry against those who dared to crowd on West Florissant Street, and most coverage of the incidents that followed the police’s arrival flowed through Twitter often and with a tinge of desperation, as if no one was really sure if the world at large would really believe them. For four days, thousands of Tweets, Vines and videos were made to capture astonishing clips of protestors being maced, sprayed with tear gas, shot at and otherwise bodily threatened for protesting within their own neighborhood. As if granting their approval, major media outlets remained eerily silent on the matter, only commenting once to note unfortunate looters ransacking stores miles away from the scene. It wasn’t until the untimely arrest of Huffington Post journalist Ryan Reilly — who, ironically, immediately took to Twitter to detail the experience hours later — that a newfound interest in the rally was born, and the lure of TV time funneled journalists in by the busload. Yet, for all the media presence in Missouri, so much of the media coverage on the town’s actions remains wildly inaccurate or ignored. For these reasons, I believe that the media has failed Ferguson. More importantly, I believe that if it wasn’t for “online” or “Twitter” activism, the world would have never known about Ferguson or Mike Brown in the first place. Perish the thought. In an age where social media has proven itself a political tool numerous times, Ferguson became an international case study for anti-black police brutality and racial profiling in
ways that would have been inconceivable only a decade prior. By the sheer force of will — and hundreds of Twitter accounts — the protestors in Ferguson have managed to not only grab national attention and hold it for days at a time, but also rally against the poor narrative being created by major media. And because most of this grassroots coverage is available by Twitter, almost anyone and everyone can (and has) participated in documenting what has transpired so far: councilmen, celebrities, residents and everything in-between. Visiting the #Ferguson tag on Twitter is a dizzying experience still, with updates coming in from a variety of perspectives by the second. In Ferguson, we see “online activism” at its best, right down to its overpopulated Twitter hashtags. Online activism as a concept can be very polarizing. In activist circles (it doesn’t matter which one), you can expect to find people who sing its praises or curse its popularity. So much of what we know about activism and movements points to physical struggle as a signifier of “real” work taking place. The problem with online activism, its detractors will tell you, is its lack of this “physical” component, which invalidates its claim on “real” activism. Online activism — synonymous sometimes with “Twitter activism” or “social justice” — earns its derision by seemingly removing “real” activists from the sidelines to tweet or reblog their way through movements. With the rapid rise of technology, the concept has become a buzzword of sorts, eliciting debates of whether or not its presence marks a natural evolution in technology or a decline in activism itself. One only needs to look at Ferguson to understand how big of a role social media can play in activism, with protestors actively using Twitter to call out misrepresentations of incidents with Ferguson police officers or major media’s attempts to smear the reputation of Mike Brown. Despite its
shaky stance, online activism allowed protestors to effectively grab a piece of the national narrative surrounding their neighborhood and, even more surprisingly, hold major media accountable for its failures. Such failures, surprisingly, have been frequent and unparalleled. Some have been simply in poor taste, like the constant misrepresentation of the protests as “riots” or the media’s sensationalizations of looters ransacking the city (Ferguson residents have since debunked claims of looting, noting that the looters and the protestors were two distinctive groups.) Other failures have been downright disappointing, like the media’s inability to recognize Mike Brown’s death as a symptom of institutional racism and a critical issue within black and Latino communities. Some have even been comical, like Fox News’ use of Martin Luther King Jr. to placate what it believed were violent protestors. Overall, most of these failures have been harrowing, such as the smear campaign launched against Mike Brown that includes an irrelevant toxicology report identifying marijuana in Mike Brown’s system and the now-infamous clip of “Mike Brown” robbing a convenience store as unspoken “evidence” for the teen’s gruesome death. (On August 19, when thousands of protestors crowded CNN’s Atlanta studio in protest of this particular smear campaign, the news outlet couldn’t even find time to make a tweet about it.) Whatever their causes, all have effectively muddied the national conversation surrounding Ferguson and made it difficult to connect facts and experiences. The fact that justice for Mike Brown stands equivocally in so many Americans’ minds is a prime example of how much damage has really been done. Major media’s failure to consistently and accurately report all incidents in Ferguson has created a dangerous opportunity for sloppy or biased journalism that should
Online activism ... earns its derision by seemingly removing “real activists from the sidelines to tweet or reblog their way through movements.
worry many of us. These outlets’ positions in news and politics carry much weight for the many Americans who use them as sources. They are responsible for effectively driving the nation’s attention — what they talk about, we will talk about. When such an outlet reports an incident incorrectly or not at all, it has a substantial negative effect on the national opinion on Ferguson. For example, when such outlets ask about the marijuana in Mike Brown’s system instead of why Darren Wilson used nine shots to end Brown’s life, the national conversation is lost to fear-fueled assumptions about black men and drug use. When our media fails to ask the right questions, we all suffer under the insurmountable weight of injustice. There was a time in this country when journalists were the only barriers between an oppressed citizenry and a dominating national government. Like watchdogs, muckraking journos and the publications who loved them warred an effective campaign against the corruption and deceipt of unrepentant villains. In 2014, it feels as if the tables have changed. Our news comes to us faster than ever, yet the ethics of journalism has changed drastically, leaving a onceunknown Missouri suburb to police America’s oldest “policemen.” Journalists have transitioned from the government’s biggest nightmare to its personal megaphone, and Ferguson is just another example of what that can mean for citizens around the country, should they ever decide to hold a protest of their own. That’s why it’s important for us as citizens to be able to recognize when these misrepresentations are happening and to be confident in defending our community the way Ferguson has defended itself. It’s important for us to be able to talk about why such failures happen as well, and how factors like racism and classism can influence the media we consume, and what we ultimately believe about ourselves and each other. Again, the media has failed Ferguson. It has failed Mike Brown. But if there is any lesson to be learned, it can likely be found on the hundreds of Twitter accounts run by “online activists” doing some very “real” work on the streets of Ferguson. I implore anyone still concerned with the merits of online activism to take a second look at Ferguson — and ultimately, the true power of technology.
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The Mercury asked Radio UTD DJs what their favorite song of the summer was. Here are their responses... Song: Never Win
Song: Our Love
Co
ts
Artist: DJ Dodger Stadium
mm
en
Aaron Brown
“I’m a huge fan ... it’s a great house song. It has some French house elements that I really like. It’s just a really good, high energy house song.”
Psychology senior
Song: Imperial Sewers Artist: M.E.S.H. “I just love how ‘now’ sounding it is. It just sounds very modern.”
Thomas Sheehy Economics senior
Zack Stokes
Artist: Caribou “It just feels like summer and excitement to me.”
Daniel Hulsey
Neuroscience graduate student
Song: Digital Witness
Song: Make Space
Artist: St. Vincent
Artist: De Lux
“That’s my song of the summer because it reminds me that if nobody is paying attention to you, you don’t matter.”
“They’re a cool little Los Angeles duo. It’s a really energetic song. The beat sounds really summery.”
Electrical Engineering senior
James Pacifico Psychology senior
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Life after ATEC uncertain for graduates
Arts & technology students struggle to find desired employment, develop appropriate work portfolios from curriculum ANWESHA BHATTACHARJEE
their careers or getting a job until late in their senior year, said Mickey Choate, associate director He has 12 hours left in the for Career Services. By then, it is too late to work ATEC program at UTD and is on the hunt for a job that will use the on independent projects or build skills he learned in the classroom. a network with professionals in But looking at how others in the the industry, and students have to undergraduate program have done rely on classroom projects for their in the past, Oscar Sanchez is not portfolio, which is not enough, he said. very optimistic. Typically, students have three“Just knowing that I will be a starving artist, just dealing with month deadlines for class projthat truth, is the biggest challenge ects, and they end up filling their for me,” he said. “Once I get the portfolio with many small pieces degree, if I can’t get a job, then of content that are underwhelmwhat good did $60,000 of debt in ing and not professional grade, said Enrique Dryere, co-owner of student loans do for me?” game development company TriSanchez is not alone. pleBTitles, who Ian Owen, an has reviewed sevATEC alumnus Once I get the eral portfolios as a who graduated degree, if I can’t recruiter. in spring, already Instead, stuhad a basic portget a job, then dents should put folio when he what good did their efforts tostarted at UTD as ward building a freshman. $60,000 of debt these smaller projFour years, four in student loans ects into one remonths and a dedo for me? ally good portfolio gree later, he is piece, he said. struggling to find — ATEC student Dryere gradua job in the design industry, despite Oscar Sanchez ated from the ATEC program having worked with a graduate on several projects outside of class requirements, degree in 2012. His brother Paul also graduated with a bachelor’s Owen said. “When it came down to the from ATEC, and together they bottom line, there was no one launched their first game, “Ring really to review your portfolio,” Runner,” straight out of college. Most ATEC students want to he said. “We didn’t have classes on how to make a good portfo- go get their first jobs in some of lio. That’s a whole thing in itself. the big national studios, and that There’s a way to present yourself, is an unrealistic expectation because there are professionals with and it’s very difficult.” In a market that is hiring expe- 10 or 12 years of industry experienced professionals in entry-level rience working in those places, positions, jobs for those fresh out Dryere said. “ATEC is difficult,” said Lisa of college are hard to come by, Garza, director for Career ServicOwen said. While the market is competi- es. “Unfortunately, what happens tive even for students that have a sometimes is that students do have strong portfolio, ATEC students it in their mind that ‘I’m going to often don’t start thinking about work at Pixar.’ When they’re not Web Editor
MIGUEL PEREZ | EDITOR -IN-CHIEF
doing that or if they’re not seeing projects and coursework.” The course is designed to allow those types of companies or those types of jobs, they don’t feel like students to learn the fundamentals of the course, but no faculty can there is anything for them.” When they enter the program, possibly teach a student everyfreshmen typically think they thing there is to learn, Dryere said. The technology is constantly want to be in animation. In one class of 80 students, only five did changing, and a skill that was not want to be animators, Owen relevant four years ago might not be useful now, said Dennis Kratz, said. Contrary to what students dean of Arts and Humanities and think, several students from the the director for the program. “I think one of the strongest program have found relevant positions in business and healthcare, facets of the master’s program is that it gives you enough flexChoate said. AT&T Foundry, JP Morgan ibility in the curriculum,” Dryere Chase, Cisco Sytems and Texas said. “The projects in those classes Instruments are among the com- have the flexibility that they allow panies where ATEC alumni work. you to work on your own … The program gives you For Owen, the extra motivation.” ATEC program (ATEC) is Early networkseemed too easy ing is key to findand inadequate something that ing a job in the as preparation for you should do field, Choate said. the industry, he only if you’re Students should said. He had to learn most of his very passionate utilize the industry connections programming and about it, very their faculty have industry skills on and interact with his own. decided... guest speakers According to from the indusDryere, that is — ATEC graduate try who come to how it should be. Enrique Dryere speak to students, Students in the he said. ATEC program While the game development should not harbor the misconception that this is an easy major and community is growing in Texas, that work in the classroom will be most of the big networking conferences in the field are still either enough, he said. “The program needs to change on the east or the west coast, makthe way it presents itself,” Dryere ing it even harder for students said. “Currently a lot of people are to build leads into companies or going into it as a backup to be- show their work to potential recoming an accountant or (they’d cruiters, Dryere said. However, UTD’s ATEC prosay,) ‘I didn’t really like a science class, so now I’m going to do gram is working closely to build ATEC.’ It was more of a holiday partnerships with animation companies in the area, Kratz said. thing. Despite these efforts, the field “It’s not. It’s the furthest thing from that possible. It’s something continues to be very competitive, that you should do only if you’re Choate said. Unlike other mavery passionate about it, very de- jors, ATEC students rarely share cided and you’re willing to spend hours upon hours every day on → SEE ATEC, PAGE 25
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Don’t Shoot Dallas About 300 demonstrators gathered August 20 at Main Street Garden Park in downtown Dallas to show support for the Ferguson, Mo., protests after the fatal shooting of an 18-year-old black man named Michael Brown by a white police officer. Several of the demonstrators took turns speaking up about the incident under the gleaming park lights as the crowd grew. They marched about a mile and a half to the American Airlines Center, chanting the slogan “Hands up! Don’t shoot!” A few of the protesters are from the St. Louis area and now live in Dallas.
ALL PHOTOS: PABLO ARAUZ | STAFF
DESIGN: CONNIE CHENG | PHOTO EDITOR
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ADDICTION IN AMERICA
LIVING IN RECOVERY New center opens, aims to help students recovering from addictions MIGUEL PEREZ Editor-in-Chief
Students seeking help with substance use disorders or any addictive behavior can look to the new Center for Students in Recovery, or CSR. Zachary Ramsey heads the program as collegiate recovery manager and said the center’s services and programming will be fully functional when the fall semester starts. “We’re going to provide a recovery community where students with any type of addiction can find safety and support to live an authentic college experience while maintaining their sobriety,” Ramsey said. The success of the CSR at UT Austin prompted the UT Board of Regents to approve the establishment of collegiate recovery centers across all eight universities in 2012. Along with UTD, UT San Antonio and UT Tyler will be the first to test out the new program and operation will change based on those initial efforts. Ramsey, who has experience working in in-patient treatment centers, said the center will offer on-campus recovery meetings, individual support and sober social activities. He said the results of the first year of programming will determine how the center operates and what services it will offer to best suit the campus. “Each campus is different due to the culture, but based on statistics, alcohol is still the most prevalent (addiction) with college-aged individuals,” Ramsey said. “At the same time, the recovery landscape is changing drastically. More collegeaged students are seeking recovery than ever.” While many campuses tend to focus on alcohol, Ramsey would like to take the CSR in a different direction in order to encompass all issues.
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THE MERCURY | AUG. 25, 2014
Open to all students, programming will include 12-step meetings in Alcoholics Anonymous, Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous. Ramsey said campus-open meetings will be as accessible as possible, allowing all recovering students to reach out. The center will also offer individual sessions with licensed professionals. Although CSR is a separate entity, the Student Counseling Center will be offering its support. “I think there is a realization that students in recovery face special challenges at universities, and we really want to do what we can to support their sobriety as it pertains to their academic success,” said James Cannici, director of the Student Counseling Center. “We really want to provide supportive programs, services and a safe environment where (students) can connect with other people.” Ramsey refers to addiction and the recovery process as a spectrum. People find themselves on different points along that spectrum from problem drinking to other compulsive behaviors. No two people lie on the same point. Oftentimes, an individual’s emotional sobriety, or the step above a person’s physical rejection of his or her addictive behavior, can be affected by another addiction. The CSR’s mission, and Ramsey’s personal goal, is to consider the whole individual rather than his or her physical addiction. “To me the best barometer of progress and demonstrating what it’s all about is hearing individual stories,” he said. “The huge strides people make in recovery – their relationships, the way they’re better students and just being happy. I think that having those students in the future and hearing their voices will be the most important part as far as showing what kind of impact this program can have on the community.”
9 IN 10 According to a 2013 report from the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse, or CASA, at Columbia University, nine out of ten people with addiction started using substances before they turned 18.
1 IN 4 CASA also reported that one in four people from the United States who first drank or used other drugs before 18 years old has an addiction. Only four percent, or 1 in 25, Americans who first drank or used other drugs at 21 or older has an addiction.
DRUGS&ALCOHOL Number of collegiate recovery programs currently operating or launching in the U.S.
112 11%
Growth of collegiate recovery programs in operation
> 1,800 American college students between the ages of 18 and 24 die annually from
22% the rate of current use of illicit drugs among full-time college students aged 18 to 22.
NUMBER OF ACTIVE CSR PROGRAMS
of people in need of treatment for addiction receive treat-
40 30
The UT Board of Regents approves the establishment of collegiate recovery centers across all eight universities in the system.
20 10 0 1986
2005
2008
2013
YEAR Sources: The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse, National Institute on Alchol Abuse and Alcoholism, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Center for Students in Recovery at UTD
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AUG. 25, 2014 | THE MERCURY | UTDMERCURY.COM
jack of all trades
First freshman class faced unprepared administration
UT DALLAS | COURTESY
UTD’s first freshman class upon the students’ arrival to the university in 1990, seen here posing at the Plinth.
Unforeseen challenges marred Class of 1994 experience Editor's Note 2015 will mark the 25th anniversary of UTD's first freshman class, and the following is the second installment of a multipart series detailing the challenges and stories of the staff, faculty and students who paved the way for today's undergraduate student body. ESTEBAN BUSTILLOS Managing Editor
YANG XI | STAFF
Hynek Boril, a research associate in ECS, plays the guitar for a Bangladeshi band on campus.
Bangladeshi band, pingpong among prof’s passions LINDA NGUYEN Staff Writer
In his spare time, he likes playing pingpong. He is also the bass guitarist for a Bangladeshi band, playing music in a language he can’t speak – Bengali. Hynek Boril has been enjoying all UTD can offer
since August 2007, throwing himself wholeheartedly into a variety of new experiences that have broadened his horizons beyond his own Czech background. Born and raised in the Czech Republic, Boril came to UTD to work with John Hansen, associate dean
→ SEE BORIL, PAGE 15
Every year, campus lights up around the end of August as students return for the fall semester and freshmen step into the new realm that is UTD. For the inaugural freshmen class of 1990, that same step was new and unfamiliar for everyone involved. Eighteen year olds roamed campus for the first time, many coming straight out of area high schools. The first year was filled with challenges for the staff and students alike. Karen Roberts, who came to study computer science, said those first days were difficult for the new class in a new environment, particularly in one that was unfamiliar to both the school and the students. “That was hard, because nobody knew anybody,” she said. “The only thing that connected us was the fact that we were there only based on how well we had done in our high school careers up to that point.” Roberts said the class also ran into problems with the faculty and their perception of her young classmates. Many were researchers that had never dealt with freshman students. Roberts said there was one professor who taught freshman calculus and was condescending to the stu-
dents. He went too fast for many of her classmates. This caused some of them to go to Collin College to make up the class, which led to judgement from some of their peers because they quit the course. She said a lot of the members of the first class ended up leaving and going to other schools because they became frustrated with the lack of acceptance they felt both from professors and upperclassmen. Not only did the administration have problems with close-minded professors, but it also had to deal with the unfamiliar process of awarding scholarships students out of high school. “We had a problem with some of the students who thought ‘You’ve given me eight semesters of automatic, renewed scholarship,’ and nowhere in that contract did it mention anything about obligations about maintaining a GPA,” said Chris Parr, dean of undergraduate students in 1990. “So we had a small cadre that decided, ‘Well, we’ll take advantage of this and play video games for the semester,’ and essentially flunked out.” Parr said nobody told those students if they flunked out then they were no longer considered part of the university and could no longer be given a scholarship. Another problem with the faculty was the fact many of them were very old in comparison to their new, young pupils. Vice Preident of Student Affairs Darrelene Rachavong, who was the Dean of Students and Assistant VP of Student Affairs, said she remembered one instance in particular that caused some confusion for the faculty when it came to dealing with young people. “I don’t remember which faculty member said this,”
→ SEE FRESHMEN, PAGE 15
‘Sin’ sequel offers nothing new Stunning monochrome visuals fail to supersede shallow female roles, lack of novelty in ‘A Dame to Kill For’
MIGUEL PEREZ COMMENTARY
If presented as a shameless satire, “Sin City: A Dame to Kill For” would have been a smashing success. The darker-than-dark noir oozes with brooding figures, melodrama and gorgeous monotone imagery that slaps you right in the face. It’s gritty and a pleasant visual treat, but almost a decade later, the perversity, violence and conceptual novelty that made “Sin City” a critical and commercial success is lost. That hyperbolic style is what gives the film series its flavor, but the sequel feels too self aware of this idea. It plays it safe. Without the kitsch, it just doesn’t feel worth the time. The expectation for the same ludicrous elements — the yellow-faced villains and talking severed heads — never comes to fruition. Of course, there’s violent excess, but it feels tiresome. Even when martial arts master Miho (Jamie Chung) is splitting skulls like a little girl picking daisies, it felt like no one was waiting to see what would happen next. The film begins with a familiar face. Grimy hooligan Marv (Mickey Rourke) acts like the thin glue that keeps the film’s story arcs together. He wakes up on the interstate overlooking the projects in Sin City. He cracks a few jokes, commits some felonies, and the story proceeds. Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays Johnny, a smooth-talking card shark that wins against the wrong man. We see him roll up to the seedy Kadie’s Bar and by some mixture of confidence and magic, beats the corrupt and powerful Senator Roarke (Powers Boothe) in a game of poker.
→ SEE SIN CITY, PAGE 16 WWW.SINCITY-2.COM | COURTESY
Eva Green stars in “Sin City 2: A Dame to Kill For” as Ava Lord, a manipulative and magnetic femme fatale.
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LIFE&ARTS
Scriptwriter shares career tips, stories at AnimeFest
DAI SATO JOEY SANKMAN Staff Writer
Scores of people dressed as their favorite anime characters flocked to the Sheraton in downtown Dallas for the annual AnimeFest. Not only was the event a fourday convergence of cosplayers, but also an event that brought in some of the top scriptwriters, directors, and animators in the Japanese anime industry. Prominent Japanese scriptwriter Dai Sato spoke about his career, present work and discussed challenges facing students looking to work professionally in the anime industry. Sato started his career as a sketch comedy writer and got his break at age 28 when he worked as a writer on the critically acclaimed anime series “Cowboy Bebop.” He followed up with a series of popular shows including “Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex,” “Eureka Seven” and most recently, “Space Dandy.” A veteran of the industry, Sato had several viewpoints to share with students on how to get started in anime.
“It’s very difficult to start your own company,” Sato said, through an interpreter. “But because of the advent of things like Kickstarter, rather than go and search for investors — whether it’s a student or someone well-established — Kickstarter is the recommended way to go.” Indeed, there have been several successful anime series launched through Kickstarter. For example, producer Masaaki Yuasa recently raised over $200,000 for a project called Kick-Heart. “The other option is to find a connection within the studio and find a way to promote yourself to that studio,” Sato said. “Returning favors [to colleagues] also helps.” Nowadays, Sato works through his company, Storyriders, founded in 2007 after he left his music company, Frognation. Storyriders was created with the intent to combine the music aspect of his previous company, Frognation, with his scriptwriting skills to produce an original work while maintaining full ownership, Sato said. But his team quickly found that there were limited funds to start such a large project. With regard to students looking to start a company, freelance, or work for a studio, working freelance is the optimal choice for an animator, Sato said. For a student looking to be a scriptwriter, finding enjoyable work is a top priority, although the desired positions may not be readily found. “For any particular company, look for a job where you can apply yourself as a writer, where you can get your name attached to things, and work your way up,” Sato said. The concept of globalization
was a prominent theme of Sato’s commentary, which he discussed at a panel, joined by “Space Dandy” staff Hiroyuki Aoyama, Shingo Natsume, Hiroshi Shimizu and Kimiko Ueno. Sato discussed the variety of international collaborators from South Korea, France and the United States who were required to complete the project. “The advent of digital production gives people the opportunity to apply themselves to more globalized projects,” Sato said. Faster turn-around times for anime production have required outsourcing, which allows more time for the writers, producers and directors to perform their primary jobs. Traditionally, the creation process has occurred in Japan, with touch ups or animation between key frames being outsourced. In the case of “Space Dandy,” however, the creative process was more globalized. Because it was an original project, it allowed the creators to have colleagues overseas contribute. In turn, this trend may enable students to participate in the creation process of Japanese anime. “’Space Dandy’ was not based on a manga or other work, which gave us more freedom to ask friends overseas to contribute,” Sato said. Looking to the future, the move to 3D animation is a key area students should be aware of in the industry, he said. “There has been a big change in the industry (toward) adding more 3D animation: things like mechs, spaceships or things with a lot of detail,” Sato said. “For anybody who figures out a way of doing that level of 3D detail in 2D, you’re going to do awesome.”
THE MERCURY | AUG. 25, 2014
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→ BORIL
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 11
MIGUEL PEREZ | EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Karen Roberts, one of the first freshmen at UTD, is currently a configuration management engineer and a test environment manager at XO, a telecom company.
→FRESHMEN
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 11
“but I remember, kind of early on, a professor called me and said, ‘I kind of need some help with how to handle this situation in our class.’” she said. “’In my classroom,’ he said, ‘there are freshmen in the back of my class who are exhibiting courting behavior!’” Rachavong said there were several problems that Student Affairs ran into with the advent of freshmen on campus. For example, Rachavong said she didn’t have anybody on her staff at the time that had any experience with housing. This forced them to build a residential life program from scratch that lasts to this day. For Director of the Student UnionMary Walters, who was in charge of recreational sports at the time, the introduction of young didn’t create that big of a change. “To be honest, the first year there wasn’t that great an impact,” she said. “There was only like a hundred (students); it was really small. A hundred kids didn’t really impact it at all as far as the rec sports world.” Walters, who would later be named the school’s first athletic director, said back in ’90 the campus was very different from what it is today. The school was much more focused on commuters and night classes back then, she said, and during the middle of the day you could literally walk around campus and not see anybody. “And then around six o’clock, boom, the parking lots would fill and there would be people walking around,” she said. “But it was like a wasteland before that.” Roberts said this type of environment posed a problem for her young classmates as they searched for something to do around the campus. “We used to joke that our social life was us walking down the halls together and figuring things out and trying to figure out where we were going and stuff between classes,” she said. “That, and we started to get really good at pool, because
at the time the Student Union only had a single pool table and nothing else.” Even though things like this were a detriment in Roberts’ eyes, she said she still saw many positives in her experience as one of the first freshmen at UTD. One day the freshmen even managed to organize a shaving cream fight among the freshmen because they were a small enough group to plan it. She also said despite many others not being encouraging, she met a handful of professors who were very encouraging to the new students. Looking back on the way things were conducted, Parr reflected on what he wished the school had done better on in dealing with the universities’ first freshman class. “We had examples all throughout the state and throughout the country of well-run undergraduate programs, but we didn’t go investigate those,” he said. He said that most of the campus failed to go and find out how an undergraduate program was actually run with students at that level. Rachavong said even though the freshman class may have not made a huge impact to the campus that first year, they ultimately opened the door for change as the school continued to grow. “As far as immediate impact on how the way campus looked or the way it ran, no, we didn’t see that until those numbers grew,” she said. Some of those changes included putting food service into the Student Union, the rise of athletics and many of the student services around campus such as the Student Union and Activities Advisory Board. “I don’t want to minimize what upperclassmen and grad students do for the campus-I think we all know what the grad students do with the research and all that-but I think the freshmen and sophomores have grown this university,” Rachavong said. “I think those numbers have really caused us to get where we are today, population wise. I think they’ve had a huge impact on who we are today.”
for research in the Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science, as a research associate after completing his Ph.D. in electrical engineering and information technology at Czech Technical University in Prague. Boril has served as a mentor and friend to a variety of students in his lab and in the extracurricular activities he participates in including his involvement in a couple different bands. His first experience with a band began with a group of peers in his lab group. He said he has liked the guitar since he was 16, so after he got settled at UTD, he was eager to find opportunities to play. When he realized several members in his lab also played instruments, they formed a band together. Though that band eventually disbanded, he had another opportunity to play in a Bangledeshi band named Dhumketu where he continued to hone his musical skills and form friendships. “(Boril) was my best friend during the period of time when I was in my Ph.D. program,” said Taufiq Hasan an alumnus from Boril’s lab and fellow band member. Hasan bonded with Boril over their mutual love of music, and Hasan said this was unique because in the past, it was hard for him to find friends who were interested in music but also understood the importance of studying and academia. “There were people I talked to about music and friends I talked to about research and other stuff, but he was the only person I could talk with about both research and music — the perfect overlap,” Hasan said. He also said Boril has a genuine passion for music. He recalled the time when he and a few other people had the idea to start a Bangledeshi band to play at oncampus Bangledeshi events. They needed
THE MERCURY | AUG. 25, 2014 a bass guitarist, and when Boril heard this, although he had no experience playing the bass guitar, and it was not his instrument of choice, he immediately went out, bought one and learned to play it. “I was hesitant because I had never played it before,” Boril said. “The techniques are similar but the feeling is different.” His band mates viewed his willingness to pick up the bass guitar as instrumental towards getting the band together. Picking up the bass guitar isn’t the only challenge Boril has faced when playing with the band, though. “All of the songs we play are in our language Bengali and Hynek doesn’t speak it, so it was amazing he was able to pick up the songs and remember what to play and when,” said accounting junior Anwarul Abedine, another band member. “He’s a very good musician. He’s an awesome guitar player. I’m very privileged to play with him.” Hasan said his willingness to adapt to whatever band he is in was admirable. “We won’t always play songs he likes or has heard of,” Hasan said. “We didn’t play a lot of English songs. Once we played a Czech song and he really liked that, but in general it was hard to continue to be in the band because it was not in his language. He could have lost enthusiasm, but he didn’t.” Abedine said Boril brings the sheet music to practices and takes detailed and technical notes so that he can understand when to play. The band said Boril is a perfectionist when it comes to the band. His perfectionism has also overlapped into another one of his hobbies: pingpong. “I have liked pingpong since I was a little kid,” Boril said. “I went to some summer camps. I got really excited about it, but I was really unfortunate with it. When I was in Czech, I couldn’t find a place to play or someone to play with me.” He said his first real experience playing pingpong was at UTD. He joked that it was a terrible experience because he was destroyed as a result of his lack of experience, but he said it
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was exciting to have somewhere he could play. Boril’s first pingpong practice teammate was Duc Hoang Le, a former computer science student who is a doctoral student at the University of Michigan. Le said Boril was very similar to him in their desire to continue to improve and become better. “We started playing at the same time, and our levels went up together, so we were practice partners my whole time at UTD,” Le said. “We would practice two to three hours a day. We would also go to tournaments.” In between pingpong and guitar, Boril seeks out avenues to experience other cultures, especially Asian cultures. “In Czech, we weren’t exposed to much Asian culture,” Boril said. “So the real exposure started when I came to UTD, and I had friends that were Chinese and other people from Japan or Korea or a lot of other countries. That was really exciting for me.” He said he has learned about Bengali culture and food from Hasan and Abedine, Vietnamese culture and food from Le and Chinese culture and food from Qian Zhang, a graduate student in the Center for Robust Speech Systems. Zhang said the first time she met Boril, he surprised her by speaking Chinese. “I remembered the first thing he told me,” Zhang said. “He tried to use Chinese to explain some technical questions to me. He didn’t look Chinese at all.” She said they later became coworkers when she joined his research group. Many of his other friends recounted similar experiences teaching him about their languages over a meal at a local restaurant. “After table tennis, we usually went out to eat, and we ate at Bistro B most often,” Le said. “We’d play from 7-9 (p.m.), and we’d go out to eat. I taught him some Vietnamese sentences so he could order.” Boril said he has a hunger to learn about other cultures such as American or Indian culture. “It’s exciting to see how other cultures think and do things,” he said.
The Barona Bus comes to the Art Barn
CONNIE CHENG | PHOTO EDITOR
The Barona Bus made a stop at the Art Barn on the evening of August 22. UTD alumna Leah Foster and the bus have traveled from NYC to Texas, stopping at a slew of diverse venues along the way. They invited visitors to share in a potluck and leave their mark behind within this mobile cultural space. For more coverage, see gallery at UTDMercury.com.
AMP HOUSE
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LIFE&ARTS
THE MERCURY | AUG. 25, 2014
Creative twists engage viewers Moss, Duplass keep “The One I Love” real SHYAM VEDANTAM COMMENTARY
A romantic comedy disguised as a dramatic indie film in science fiction wrapping, the genrecrossing Sundance hit, “The One I Love” is a well executed two-hander. Sophie (Elisabeth Moss) and Ethan (Mark Duplass) are in couples therapy. The somewhat newlywed couple is in a rut. Ethan has cheated on Sophie, and no matter how much he apologizes and works on their relationship, Sophie won’t forgive him. Their therapist (Ted Danson) advises them to spend a weekend at a country house in Ojai. In the hope of reconnecting, Ethan and Sophie agree. This is where the story really shifts into gear. Sophie cooks a beautiful dinner, they smoke pot and have a fulfilling conversation in the main house. Afterwards, she goes to the adjoining guest house, where she and Ethan make love for the first time in a long time. Excited to spend the night in the guest house, rekindling their relationship, she quickly runs over to the main house to get her toiletries. There, Sophie finds Ethan asleep on a couch without any recollection of what she’s just experienced. The bizarre sci-fi twist that explains this encounter is a cool plot device by director Charlie McDowell and writer Justin Lader. Without spoiling the idea, the device works to remind Ethan and
WWW.FLAVORWIRE.COM | COURTESY
Elizabeth Moss and Mark Duplass display variety and character in the romantic dramedy.
Sophie of why they fell in love with each other when they first met. It also allows McDowell and Lader to explore the idea of how we present ourselves to one another when we are trying to court someone versus when we feel comfortable sharing everything about ourselves. Duplass and Moss bear the weight of this film entirely on their shoulders without breaking a sweat. Each shows variety in their performances and explores different degrees of the character. There’s nuance to their performances that flesh out each of the characters. In a movie with an inventive twist like this, it brings up the challenge of explaining how the scifi elements work. Somehow the rules have to be established and make sense. On the other hand, the film can be ambiguous about the plot device, ignore this facet entirely and just delve into the human drama. McDowell chooses a path somewhere in between this and hurts the film in the process. “The
One I Love” is mostly an exploration into human relationships when it detours to explain the plot device in a forced manner. This would have been fine if it didn’t open a Pandora’s box of further questions into the logic of the film. At a 90-minute runtime, “The One I Love” efficiently uses its time and is paced well. Director of photography Doug Emmett does a good job of creating contrast between the guest and main houses in the film, which otherwise could have felt claustrophobic and repetitive. Editor Jennifer Lilly and composers Danny Bensi and Saunder Juriaans subtly increase the tension in the film. The transition from drama to comedy to sci-fi and around again is effortless. Ultimately, “The One I Love” is a fine independent film. The appeal isn’t widespread, but those who check out the film will not be disappointed.
UTDMERCURY.COM → SIN CITY
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 11
Boothe does an excellent job of blending the class and intimidation you’d expect from a dirty politician. The film transitions into Josh Brolin’s Dwight McCarthy. A freelance photographer with a troubled past, Dwight’s ex-lover reemerges to disturb his quiet life. It’s in his old flame, Ava, the film finds its silver lining. Played by Eva Green, the lustrous femme fatale dominates both within the context of the film and outside of it. Women in Sin City often have to take a backseat, letting men brawl in their stead, but Ava takes control. She’s manipulative and there’s a glimmer of insanity in her eyes. Her grip on Dwight, her husband and every man in between bleeds off the film to the point that the audience feels her absence when she’s not on screen. Elsewhere in Sin City, Jessica Alba reprises her role as stripper Nancy Callahan, and this time around, she’s seeking vengeance. The ghost of John Hartigan, Nancy’s savior from the first film, haunts her conscience, and she wants nothing more than to wipe the slate clean. Her performance, of which a good portion is spent traipsing around the stage at Kadie’s Bar, is lackluster. Her scowls, scorns and rage aren’t enough to match the
grit of the city around her. Rosario Dawson also returns as Gail, the hard as nails overseer of Old Town. She’s still as raw and sensual as she was in the previous film, but her storyline and development isn’t given priority this time around. Apart from Nancy’s determination to seek revenge and Ava’s magnetism, the film does a poor job in its portrayal of women in general. If you consider the thematic inspiration for the film, most notably pulp fiction and film noir, then, the portrayal of women makes some sense. Depictions of women in these genres often focused on their questionable virtue, rather than their strengths and identity. But, perhaps, a world where Nancy, Ava and every female role in the film is allowed to really take control is that novel element the film desperately lacks. For all the film’s bare bodies, gory detail and fast-paced action, it feels underwhelming. “Sin City 2” unfortunately suffers from sequel syndrome. It takes itself too seriously all while sitting comfortably in its predecessor’s shadow. When the credits suddenly start rolling, there’s a sense that the film doesn’t really offer anything that the 2005 original didn’t have.
UPCOMING EVENTS VOLUNTEER EXPO
TEA TUESDAYS WITH THE WOMEN’S CENTER
INDIA DANCE FESTIVAL
Opportunity for students to window shop for volunteering opportunities all over Dallas. RSVP online via Comet Careers.
Refreshing tea every Tuesday starting Sept. 2. Different varieties such as Earl Grey, Rooibos and Peach available.
Indian classical dance performances of Odissi and Kathak styles by the leading artists Kaustavi Sarkar and Sanjukta Sinha. Free with Comet Card.
Aug. 27, 3 PM - 5 PM Galaxy Rooms GREEK TREATS AND TRIVIA Mingle with members of the Fraternity and Sorority Life community all while you enjoy music, fun trivia and cool, refreshing treats.
Aug. 27, 6 - 8 PM the Plinth
Sept. 2, 10 AM - 4 PM Galerstein Women’s Center ILLUMINA LIVE A dance party featuring talented DJs, state-of-the-art sound, laser shows and a wide array of live entertainment.
Sept. 3, 8 PM Activity Center Gym
Sept. 6, 7:30 PM University Theater ENEMY OF THE REICH A tale of an Indian-American Muslim woman who worked as a British spy in Nazi-occupied Paris during World War II and a panel discusison.
Sept. 7, 3 PM Clark Center
UTDMERCURY.COM
A JOURNEY BEGINS
THE MERCURY | AUG. 25, 2014
A Journey Begins
The Class of 2018 has arrived.
What did you bring on this new adventure? Daniel Neo
Software Engineering Freshman Brought his car poster and a rather large television.
Eric Shih
Biology Freshman Brought the Totoro plush that his best friend mailed to him after he moved last Christmas.
TOP PHOTO: MARCELO YATES | STAFF ALL OTHER PHOTOS: PARTHASARATHY S. K. | STAFF DESIGN: CONNIE CHENG | PHOTO EDITOR
Sidney | Biochemistry Freshman
Brought the board her friend made for her when she left. It documents their lives from the time they met in seventh grade.
Owen Liang
Computer Science & Engineering Freshman Brought along his keyboard to practice and continue his passion for music.
Herren Lovett Freshman
Brought along a basic turn table — an Audio Technica LP60 — and a collection of 33 records. He is pictured holding one of his favorite albums: “In the Aeroplane over the Sea” by Neutral Milk Hotel.
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SPORTS
AUG. 25, 2014 | THE MERCURY | UTDMERCURY.COM
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SERIOUS SUMMER TRAINING
Athletes prepare over the break and face tough regimens, early mornings and new changes as they get ready for the year
TOP PHOTOS: MARCELO YATES| STAFF BOTTOM PHOT0S: ESTEBAN BUSTILLOS | MANAGING EDITOR
New era begins for women’s soccer team, coaching staff ESTEBAN BUSTILLOS Managing Editor
Members of the women’s soccer team steadily filed into the Activity Center as the clock struck 7 a.m., some still rubbing the sleep out of their eyes as they prepared for one of the first organized practices of the season. The team was eager to start the season off on a good note under new head coach Kanute Drugan and seemed to be in a chipper mood as they chattered endlessly amongst themselves, the echoes of their voices bouncing off the walls. The energy in the room was split between the old and the new, with veterans calmly laying back, ready to finally start. Meanwhile, the freshmen nervously eyed the clocks on their cell phones as practice drew near. Unfortunately, the weather that day seemed to conspire against their aspirations. Lightning illuminated the sky and rain flooded the playing fields. Practice would have to wait. Drugan waited, uncertain if the skies would clear. It was just another harbinger of the unknown in a season bound to be full of changes. For Drugan and his squad, the upcoming season presents a myriad of challenges. Drugan brings with him a brand new style of coaching to the program, which had been under the leadership of John Antonisse since its inception in 1997. “For 16 years it was one style of play,” Drugan said. “Now suddenly, out of nowhere, there’s a whole new style of play. Different formations, different coaching staff, different teaching approach, different expectations, different standards in play. It’s a lot.” When he started working with the team at the end of the spring semester, things were slow as the team tried to acclimate themselves to his style of play, Drugan said. However, they’ve come a long way in a short amount of time, he said. When the team finally made it to the pitch at 6 p.m. later that day for its first practice, that unfamiliarity with Drugan’s style reared its head. As they did the first few drills, players seemed confused as to what they were supposed to be doing with the ball and where they were supposed to be. As the coaching staff patiently took their time with the players and more thoroughly explained the drills, the initial clumsiness quickly dissipated. The ball started to flow more smoothly and crisply as players weaved their way through the four-way-pass drill with relative ease. The process was made smoother by something rarely seen from most coaches: allowance of suggestions from the players on how to make the drill better. As Drugan discussed how it was supposed to be done, players chimed in on what they liked and what they thought could be improved upon. “He’s very big on listening, so if you noticed we’re all listening when he’s talking,” said senior forward Carli Beckett. “Theres’ not a lot of goofing off, but we’re still having fun. The big thing
is he’s very committed to teaching us, he makes things easy to understand, on a piece of paper and on the field.” Drugan has made learning a big part of his one-week camp, with two-hour learning sessions set in between the team’s morning and afternoon practices, where the coaches go over their style of play and formations. The ability to teach and learn from both the coaches and the team will be crucial for success in the upcoming season. The team went 10-91 last season, a record that qualified it for the ASC tournament. Once in, the Comets made it all the way to the championship game, where they lost 1-0 to the then 12th-ranked HardinSimmons. To maintain and surpass that same level of success, Drugan implemented a summer workout program that focused heavily on both the mental and physical aspects of the game. He prepared a 40-page packet detailing workouts for players to do, along with a 14-page booklet that broke down his offense piece by piece. This type of information proved invaluable to the players as they prepared for the season. “Our summer packet wasn’t just lift weights or run two miles and run sprints,” said sophomore forward Katherine Civitillo. “It had drills in them, it had certain ways of passing and it had moves to learn that we’re supposed to be able to incorporate, so if we come out here already knowing, it cuts that much of the little drill detail time and more incorporation of the game.” The average workout took around two hours to do and included everything from long distance running to agility work to drills focused on skill. As the practice came down to a close, Beckett seemed pleased with the progress the team had made. “The biggest thing I’m impressed with is that (the younger players) work with us already,” she said. “There’s not a big drop off between them and us, and that’s just a combination of hard work, talent and willingness to learn. It’s crazy because it doesn’t even seem like they’re new.” Drugan seemed pleased with the teams performance and chemistry. “All the older girls helped out,” he said. “No one was barking at anybody, no one was making anyone feel put down. Everyone was encouraging and instructing and supportive. That was impressive, too.” As the team gets ready for the season, their mindset is clear. “I think this team will go farther than teams previously,” said senior defender Jasmine Chipps. “We have a really strong class of seniors … but more than that we have a solid team, and having a coach behind us that understands and wants to use our strengths and basically get us to be the best team we can be, it’s something new.”
For 16 years, it was one style of play. Now suddenly, out of nowhere, it’s a whole new style of play.
— Kanute Drugan
Men’s soccer fights through two-a-days, Division I opponent ESTEBAN BUSTILLOS Managing Editor
The team came to a sudden halt as the shriek of a whistle pierced the late afternoon air, temporarily stopping the drill. You could tell the players had done something wrong. “Some of you guys, you’re too casual,” said head coach Jason Hirsch. “I’m asking for speed!” After Hirshch explained how the drill should be done properly, the men’s soccer team got back to its passing exercise with a renewed vigor. It was just another moment in a long, hot practice as the players strained to pick up their feet and meet Hirsch’s demands. The team prepares to enter the 2014 season with a week of two-a-day practices, with the first practice of the day having a heavier focus on conditioning and the second practice featuring more work on the minute details of the game. That attention to detail demonstrates one of the more overlooked struggles of athletes: waiting and watching. The team sat in the unforgiving sun as Hirsch meticulously explained, step by step how he wanted the players to run a drill that dealt with how the team should communicate to get the ball out of the backfield. Michael Darrow, the program’s all-time leader in goals and a current volunteer coach, said even though it may seem boring, he could guarantee very few schools put that much emphasis on the little details. As the team members gear up for the season, they look to respond to the heartbreaking finish they had last year. After going 12-1-6 and qualifying for the ASC tournament, they lost in the semifinals to conference rival UT Tyler in penalty kicks. The team lost some key players from their team last year, including Darrow and goalkeeper Steven Nicknish, who were the ASC offensive and defensive players of the year, respectively. “Replacing the guys that were productive for us last year, the seniors that have left the team, that’s going to be what we’re looking for straight away,” Hirsch said. In practices, Hirsch is loud and vocal the entire time, shouting out commands and adjustments. His voice booms and echoes, the use of any megaphone made unnecessary by his volume. He has to be loud to get his message across to the team during the long week. Coming back for a second practice in the sweltering August heat has a noticeable impact on the players as they sweat and struggle their way through the workout. “It’s physically exhausting and mentally exhausting as well,” Hirsch said. The increased effort by the players isn’t lost on the coaching and athletic training staff. “We’re pretty cautious, obviously, with the heat, from a recovery standpoint, in terms of what we do and the time in between,” said Tom Monagan, head athletic trainer. “We feel like we give them enough rest in between to let the body recover.” Because of the intense work the team puts in
the week before school, its members are expected to put in a substantial amount of time during the summer. Freshman midfielder Daaron McFarling said the workout program focused on more than just what they ran. “We have to play soccer everyday and run everyday and eat awesomely,” he said. The focus on nutrition for the team isn’t just during the summer. Monagan said the coaches and trainers emphasize recovery time. The trainers make sure to have protein shakes and protein recovery bars at the end of each practice for the players. During the long practices, players and coaches can sometimes become frustrated whenever play and performance devolves into sloppiness. Some members of the team become visibly distraught, something Hirsch feels the need to address to the team afterwards. “These guys, they’re UTD guys, they’re so smart, and they have a tendency to overthink things,” he said. “That’s all I was trying to tell them. There’s no reason to freak out or panic if something doesn’t go perfectly right; this is our third day … We have a long season ahead of us. We even have a long preseason ahead of us to sort these things out.” Players have to recover quickly from mental slumps. It was no different in the preseason as UTD faced Richland and SMU two days later. Unfortunately, that day did not go exactly as the Comets had planned. It started off with a game Hirsch said he was “very unhappy with” against Richland, which caused the coach to call a meeting to specifically address the team’s performance. After making some changes to its offensive formations, the team geared up and took the field at SMU’s Wescott field. Despite the Mustangs weeklong worth of practice time they had on the Comets and their abundance of scholarship players, UTD came out fighting. “We were in there, especially the first 30 minutes; they had no idea what hit them,” Hirsch said. “We were playing around them, we had control of the game, we were in their half of the field a lot, so that was good to see.” At half, the score read 0-0 and the team looked optimistic, having held off a seemingly stronger opponent. As the second half kicked off, that performance began to fade away as SMU took over the game with its size and speed. Despite having several on-goal attempts and a vigorous defense, the Comets lost 0-2. Despite the loss, Hirsch seemed pleased with the effort of his team and what that boded for the upcoming season. “The result here doesn’t really matter; this is more about the performance,” he said. “And against a team like SMU, with the athletes and the soccer players that they have, I know of course we want to win, but I’m proud of them.” As the team looks forward to the season, Hirsch’s goals are more in the present than the future. “We don’t like to say, ‘at the end of the year, we’re going to do this, this and that,’” he said. “We’d like to put ourselves in a certain position to be successful, but the way we take it is one game at a time.”
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V-Ball enters season with great expectations ESTEBAN BUSTILLOS Managing Editor
For the volleyball team, the schedule for preseason practice is different than the other teams on campus. Rather than having a full week of practices set up for the team, coach Marci Sanders opted for another route, kicking off her team’s practice schedule the Thursday before school started. Sanders said she did this because the depth she has returning on the roster. With 10 players returning from last year’s squad on the roster, she said she doesn’t feel the need to take as much time to teach as she used to. This means much of the training and conditioning had to be done by the players. “Obviously we can’t require anything, but we do provide them with a summer workout,” Sander said. “This year we tried something a little different; we called it the Three C program.” Three C, which stands for Comet Conditioning Challenge, featured several aspects the players worked on to get ready. “Our coach gave us a lot of workouts to do,” said junior Bethany Werner. “Things like fitness, agility, sprints, weights, things like that. We also started doing a nutrition log, which is something new that we didn’t do last season, so eating clean, because coming in you want
to be in the best shape as possible.” Werner, who will be a team captain this upcoming season, said the program featured several challenges, some of which were not as traditional as others. “One of them is a ‘get to know your teammate challenge,’ so we have to come in to the season knowing all of our teammates we were assigned, just like family,” she said. Players received the name and contact information of two team members. One of the players Werner received was an incoming freshman she had to get to know over the summer break. “We were given their phone numbers, so we were just kind of texting back and forth getting to know each other,” she said. “I think the thing with that is that our preseason this year is fairly short. We start practice on Thursday and our first games are the following Friday.” Werner said she thinks getting to know each other beforehand, especially with such a short time period to prepare, will help translate into team chemistry earlier in the season. That team chemistry will be needed for the Comets to replicate the success they had last season. They went 31-9: the most wins in program history. They also were the regular season conference champions and qualified for the NCAA tournament. Despite that success, the team failed to make
it into the American Volleyball Association Preseason Top 25, missing the vote by two places. “Of course that is motivation to come out strong from the very beginning and prove that we have been working hard all summer, that we’re in shape, ready to go and we’re going to have a better season,” Werner said. Junior Kayla Jordan said a major motivator for the team was how they ended the last season. “We’re very excited and pumped up to win the conference tournament,” she said. “We got first in regular season, and then we kind of fell apart during the tournament. To redeem ourselves would be good and then go on and get farther into the NCAA tournament.” During the few days the team has between the first practice and the start of the semester, they have to endure the hardship of three-adays. The first two days, the team had practices from 7-10:30 a.m., 3-6 p.m. ,and 8 to 10 p.m.. Jordan said during three-a-days, the members bond from playing with teammates and seeing how they work with one another on the court. Sanders, who worked this summer with the national volleyball collegiate team, said she would use tactics she learned from her time there to challenge her team once the
MARCELO YATES | STAFF
After winning the most games in program history, the volleyball team enters the season ranked just outside of the American Volleyball Association Preseason Top 25 .
year starts. “I learned some new things, so (assistant coach Zack Villarreal) and I are changing up our responsibilities a little bit,” she said. “There are going to be some different philosophies that we’re bringing into the season as far as who we’re playing when.” She said she would probably not go with the starters at all times, forcing the team into tough situations. “Will that cost us some sets? Sure. Will it potentially cost us some matches? Hopefully not,” Sanders said. “But we feel like if we’re losing earlier in the season, then maybe it
will prepare us to be better prepared late in the season when those challenges come.” As the summer draws to a close and the season and school year get closer, Sanders is optimistic about how the preparation her team had put in would pay off. “I think they worked hard over the summer, so it’s going to be exciting to see how they put the mental pieces together,” she said. “I really feel like we get in our own way sometimes, so hopefully with another year of experience, we’ll stay out of our own way, and we’ll see if the changes that Zack and I are making will pay off in the end or not.”
Cross-country teams rely on self-discipline, motivation to prepare ESTEBAN BUSTILLOS Managing Editor
A typical training day for Steven Baxter starts around 6:30 a.m. The computer science senior, who is starting the final year with the cross-country team, schedules his workouts depending on whether that day is a “hard” or “soft” according to the training regimen given to him by head coach Sean West. “A hard day is something with repeated high intensity, like 16 400-meter dashes,” Baxter said. “A soft day is something that’s basically like run seven miles or run 10 miles.” He said the regimen is based on hard days meant to improve running and soft days, which are meant to condition.
For the men’s and women’s cross-country teams, the preparation put into the season is different than every other team entering the school year. Most teams have at least a week before school in which they can get in official practice sessions as a team under the supervision of their coaches. NCAA regulations prohibit the cross-country team, from interacting with their coaches until the first day of school. Their first meet occurs four days after their first day. “You’re entirely self-motivated,” Baxter said. “It’s really hard to stay motivated alone.” Despite the prohibition on official practices, the teams still managed to meet up for workout sessions on their own time. They are allowed to do so as long as no coach
or member of the athletic department is involved with the process. They even met up for one of these sessions the Thursday before school started. Put together by team members via text message, the workouts allowed new faces to meet with some of the older veterans as they went out for a quick run. West emphasized the importance of running over the summer for the team to succeed. “If you’ve done nothing all spring, all summer, you’re not prepared the way you need to be prepared,” he said. “It’s being self-motivated. They’re training all spring, all summer and they’re building up to the fall season.”
West said running focuses heavily on the mental aspect of competition. Instead of emphasizing techniques such as how to throw a ball, all runners have to do is run faster for longer periods of time than their competition. He said the mental aspect really comes into play when the season starts and runners start to feel the strain on their bodies. “Running is such a mental sport, in general,” West said. “When you start doing 30, 40, 50 miles per week, your body will start to wear and tear on you. The mental side of it all is something that I’ve found to be that hurdle that they basically don’t get over or they do.” Both the men’s and women’s teams
finished in third place at last year’s ASC meet, which West said is a goal he hopes to at least meet again this year. The team will have to get through UT Tyler to do that, who West said has one of the most prestigious programs in the nation. UT Tyler had six of the conferences top 10 runners last year. UTT will host this year’s conference meet. Baxter said any success the team will have depends heavily on how they practice during the summer. “Most of the practice happens on your own,” he said. “Summer practices basically entirely gauges how well the team does during the fall.”
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THE MERCURY | AUG. 25, 2014
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THE MERCURY | AUG. 25, 2014
STATS SOURCES FROM UTD ATHLETICS RESEARCH BY: ESTEBAN BUSTILLOS | MANAGING EDITOR DESIGN: LINA MOON | GRAPHICS EDITOR
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Soccer and Volleyball Regular Season Schedules *Check The Mercury website for Cross Country Schedule. **All away games at opposing team’s home unless noted. ALL GAMES AT UTD IN BOLD
VOLLEYBALL
WOMEN’S SOCCER
08.29.14
Hendrix
3pm
08.29.14
Trinity
7pm
08.30.14
Southwestern
12pm
08.30.14
University of Dallas
4pm
09.05.14 09.05.14 09.06.14
Texas Lutheran (in Sherman)** Hendrix (in Sherman)** St. Thomas (in Sherman)**
8pm
5pm
09.09.14
East Texas Baptist
7pm
09.12.14
@Hardin-Simmons
7pm
09.13.14
@Howard Payne
2pm
09.20.14
Sul Ross State
2pm
09.26.14
@Concordia Texas
7pm
09.27.14
@Mary Hardin-Baylor
2pm
Elmhurst (in Georgetown)**
TBD
10.03.14
Texas Lutheran (in Georgetown)**
TBD
@Texas-Tyler
2pm
10.07.14
@East Texas Baptist
7pm
10.10.14
Howard Payne
7pm
10.11.14
Hardin-Simmons
2pm
10.18.14
@Sul Ross State
2pm
10.21.14
Texas-Tyler
7pm
10.24.14
Mary Hardin-Baylor
6pm
10.25.14
Concordia
11am
10.28.14
@Letourneau
7pm
11.01.14
@Southwestern
TBD
11.01.14
Austin College (in Georgetown)**
1:30pm
08.29.14
@Birmingham-Southern
7:30pm
08.30.14
Covenant (in Memphis)**
12pm
08.31.14
Ogelthorpe (in Birmingham)**
12pm
12pm
09.05.14
@Southwestern (in Georgetown)**
7:30pm
09.06.14
Trininty (in Georgetown)**
5:30pm
09.07.14
@Austin College
09.12.14
Southwestern
7pm
09.14.14
Trinity
1pm
09.20.14
Rhodes (in Abilene)**
3pm
09.21.14
Hendrix (in Abiliene)**
3pm
09.27.14 10.02.14
Ozarks Letourneau
TBD
10.04.14 10.11.14 10.17.14
Texas-Tyler Carroll @East Texas Baptist
09.14.14
@Austin College
2pm
09.19.14
Hardin-Simmons
7:30pm
09.20.14
Mary Hardin-Baylor
7:30pm
09.26.14
@Letourneau
3pm
09.27.14
@Texas-Tyler
3pm
10.02.14
Letourneau
7pm
10.04.14
Texas-Tyler
7pm
10.11.14
@Ozarks
11am
2pm 5pm
7pm
10.03.14
10.04.14
Principia (In Memphis)**
1pm
@Austin College
Letourneau
08.29.14
4pm
09.06.14
09.30.14
MEN’S SOCCER
5pm 7pm 1pm 10.17.14
@East Texas Baptist
3pm
10.18.14
@Louisiana College
3pm
10.23.14
Howard Payne
7pm
10.25.14
Hardin-Simmons
4pm
10.18.14
@Louisiana College
1pm
10.23.14
Howard Payne
5pm
10.25.14
Hardin-Simmons
2pm
10.31.14
@Concordia Texas
1pm
10.31.14
@Concordia
3pm
11.01.14
@Mary Hardin-Baylor
5pm
11.01.14
@Mary Hardin-Baylor
7pm
UTDMERCURY.COM
NEWS
THE MERCURY | AUG. 25, 2014
→ HEALTH
the fact that ACA was open for international students was the federal government’s responsibility and not the System’s, Chambers said. The health center can only communicate details of the SHI to students, she said. “The health center should not be advising students or employees on what insurance they should purchase,” Chambers said. The ISSO declined to comment on the issue stating they work with the health center and other departments to communicate regular updates to students as and when they are made aware of these changes, because other departments decide their own guidelines.
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works means that someone is going to pay for it and that someone is us, which is terrible,” he said. “(Several) international students have very little prospects of working in the United States after five or six years and will move anyway. So what’s the point of paying such a high premium when I’m not going to cash it in?” Until now, students like Sarkhel bought insurance from third party companies like AIA Life and Health Services and PSI International Student Insurance that provided the same benefits as the SHI but at cheaper rates. As a result, Sarkhel paid $300 a semester for health insurance. Now, he will pay $780 for the fall semester alone, amounting to an annual premium equivalent to his one month’s salary as a research assistant. Why the changes? ACA, commonly known as Obamacare, mandated that student health insurance policies offered by universities follow a gradual implementation toward ACA compatibility starting July 1, 2012, with final regulations coming into effect January 1, 2014, according to the Federal Register released March 21, 2012. All policies that renew in 2014 must be completely compliant with ACA. Once the Regents’ Rule was updated in May 2014, UT System accepted bids from different insurance providers and picked Blue Cross Blue Shield, the largest provider in Texas, as the endorsed provider for the 15 universities and medical institutions under the System, said Laura Chambers, director of employee benefits at the UT System. After negotiating with the company, the System locked down on a Gold Metal Tier Plan. “We’re giving students a policy that is just as good as a $6,000 policy for a fraction of the cost, because they are students and we understand there’s affordability issues,” Chambers said. Students, both current and new, however, don’t think the currently offered plan, at $1,859 a year, is affordable for students, said Andaleeb Iftekar, president of the Bangladeshi Student Organization, or BSO. Unlike the marketplace, however, the SHI is an umbrella policy, same for all students irrespective of their age, which while cheaper than the marketplace for some students like Sarkhel and Iftekar, is much more expensive for students 24 years or younger. “Some students who (could buy) Obamacare bought insurance as cheap as $50 a month and the university insurance is $150 a month,” Iftekar said. “Why is it that university insurance is always more expensive — three times, five times as much — as we pay outside?” The insurance prices have only gone up by 30 percent from what students were paying for the university’s SHI last year, said Lea Aubrey, director for UTD’s Student Health Center, in a statement to The Mercury. However, compared to what most were paying to third-party vendors, the price students will pay now has quadrupled. Student grievances Students were notified of the changes late in June, first by the health center and then by the International Student Services Office, or ISSO.
→ ATEC
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internship or job opportunities among themselves for fear of increasing the competition, he said. “If people have a job they’re happy to talk about it, but if they don’t have a job, everybody is kind of an enemy at that point,” Owen said. Comet Careers will assign a career consultant to each school starting fall so that students can build personal relationships and find career resources. Students need to come early on in their program, so that Comet Careers can help them, Garza said. Sanchez and Owen said that they have been unable to find any job openings posted on the Comet Careers website in their field, nor have they seen any ATEC recruiters at the career fairs. While Owen only encountered three professors that had worked in the industry, Sanchez said many of his professors have used their contacts with professionals to provide students with constructive criticisms on their work. The critiques have helped him and other stu-
CONNIE CHENG | PHOTO EDITOR
“First of all, the university, I feel, didn’t take good enough initiatives to let us know that these changes are coming up, to get ready for that,” said Mohammad Nasim, public policy student and former Student Leader of the Year recipient. “Even when they did let us know, they didn’t give us any alternatives. They just said this is what we have to offer, so we couldn’t find anything and we just had to take that.” When ACA was put into effect in October 2013, Sarkhel verbally asked a health center representative if he needed to do anything specific to adjust to the new requirements. He was told to regularly check the health center website, which did not reflect any changes until late June, he said. Sarkhel placed the responsibility for the lack of communication squarely on the university and ISSO. Sarkhel and Nasim said most of the students dents improve upon their work and develop an idea of what recruiters are looking for, Sanchez said. While the animation faculty at UTD has several members with significant industry experience, hiring such people is not easy, Kratz said. Faculty members must have at least a graduate degree in order to meet the university’s hiring policies, he said. No program can be designed simply to ensure that students get a job out of college, Kratz said. Coursework should train students for work in different arenas and give them the ability to create jobs, he said. Sometimes, becoming an entrepreneur two years after graduating might be a better option than having a job right out of college that doesn’t take the student further, Kratz said. “It leads to the larger question of what an education’s about, Kratz said. “It’s to become more skilled, more imaginative, deeper, more able to deal with strangeness and also able to present yourself in a way that someone wants you to work for them.”
→ ROBBERY
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contractors are required to do criminal background checks on their employees. “You have to keep in mind that this may have not been a contractor,” he said. “This may be some guy who just happened on campus. He may have been working across the street on another project. He may have put the construction vest on to look like he got there.” Anyone with information on the incident or the perpetrator is asked to contact Detective Stacey Rotunno at 972-883-4931.
SUSPECT
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they interacted with in their labs and organizations were not aware of the fact that international students were eligible to enroll in Obamacare, since it has always been touted as a program for U.S. citizens and permanent residents. Iftekar agreed that the ISSO should have done more to inform international students. “We are paying them $100 and they are there to let us know (of these details),” Nasim said. “If they are not letting us know or if they are saying we rely on the health center to provide information, I don’t think that is correct, because it is their responsibility to reach out to the health center and check to see if any changes are coming up of which they should keep our students aware.” While the UT System’s Office of Employee Benefits communicated changes to policies and plans with student health centers and international student offices across all 15 UT schools,
→ STRIP
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dancing. He’s been doing it for two years now. But Shane doesn’t want to be a stripper forever. He has hopes of someday working as an occupational therapist. This makes him a transient stripper, meaning he doesn’t want to work as a dancer for the rest of his life. His work is simply a means to an end. A study titled Students Who Strip: The Benefits of Alternative Identities For Managing Stigma suggests that transient strippers are becoming more common in the industry. The study also sheds light on the stigma of living a double life. Although, Shane said that there are big dif-
Moving forward BSO has officially advised all its new and current students that enrolling into UTD’s SHI is the only option for the fall semester. With no time to come up with comparable plans, third-party vendors that solicited students were unable to provide any acceptable alternate plans through the marketplace, Nasim said. Hopefully, they will be able to provide new plans with updated requirements by the time the waiver period for the spring semester opens up, he said. Meanwhile, in the computer science department, all TAs like Iftekar and RAs like Sarkhel might get a raise after students filed a petition asking for a hike in their paychecks due to insurance rate increases. However, they are part of a small minority of international students who are teaching and research assistants. For the others, the insurance premiums will pile on to their student loan debt, Sarkhel said. “Maybe the university can come back and say we’re giving a raise, but that’s only for TAs and RAs which is about 20 percent of the international student population,” he said. “What about the other 80 percent?” It might work better in the future if the university endorsed two or three different plans so that students can choose a premium they can afford, Iftekar said. “From what I understand, they offer us this insurance because they want to offer the best one to students to make sure students are covered,” Nasim said. “I have seen other universities that have worked with outside companies to provide reasonable insurance policies —like UNT — and UTA is doing that, but they haven’t yet (finalized it).” Most international students, given a choice, will opt out of the expensive SHI, Iftekar said. That is how it has always been. “We repeat this cycle — we spend hundreds of hours trying to figure out how to avoid this insurance — so who does it help?” he said. “It’s not helping anybody, it’s just wasting time.” For the time being, majority of the existing international students are scrambling to find resources to pay their insurance premium. No one knows what they’re doing for spring, Sarkhel said, but at least there will be more than a month to figure out what the ACA marketplace has to offer. “What I would like (the UT System) to consider is that we don’t have a lot of resources and even for TAs and RAs they are not paying a whole lot,” Nasim said. “So they should consider that we’re students, and that’s what they should think of when they come up with these policies.”
ferences between being a male stripper and a female stripper. He said that he doesn’t have to do full nudity, take a test or pay the club a major part of his tips. “Part of that is because it’s a strip club in the gay community and police visits are common. So, it’s less sexual to be a male stripper,” he said. Knowing the ins and outs of the industry, he’s even helped another friend get a job at a club. As for his future, he said there are resources for people who work in his line of work to find jobs elsewhere. For now though, Shane is sticking to the pole for a decent source of income and a fun time dancing. “It’s not a bad thing. It’s not a dirty thing as long as you keep yourself safe and responsible,” he said.
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