Thursday Nov. 8, 2007
58th Year No. 11
TECHNOLOGY
CAMPUS
A technological obsession?
New journal showcasing students in the works
Internet generation could be gadgetdependent By J.R. ORTEGA The Pan American Without much avail, she went from one convenient store to the next in hopes of finding a pay phone but had no luck. Panicked, she felt anxious and scared. She did not know what to do next. With no way to get in contact with her husband, she felt helpless and lost. She had lost her cell phone. This is one reality Elizabeth Rodriguez, a 27-year-old project accountant for the department of rehabilitation at The University of Texas-Pan American, said she never wants to face again. “I felt so disconnected from the world,” she said. “It was at that point in time that I realized how dependent I was on my cell phone, it makes me wonder how we use to do it when we didn’t have this technology.”
THIS WEEK
OVER CONNECTED According to The Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association, there were 219 million U.S. cell phone subscribers in mid-2006 and Rodriguez is part of that growing number learning to get by in a digital world. Between technology like cell phones, Ipods and the Internet these tools are becoming as natural as some-
one’s morning cup of coffee. And students, staff and faculty at UTPA are no exceptions. Walk up and down any hallway at UTPA and the technological obsession is obvious: people on cell phones, laptops or with their MP3 players practically attached to their ears. Erica Flores, a 21-year-old sophomore English major from Edinburg, said if it wasn’t for technology like the Internet, she would have trouble keeping in contact through blogs and online journals with some of her friends. “I think it’s different for different people because for some people that’s what they’ve become use to,” she said. “They feel that they can share their problems with the world, maybe they get some feedback.” She added that she keeps utilizes online tools to help stay somewhat private and releases little about herself to the general public other then her friends. But Ezequiel Barrera, a 27-yearold sophomore sociology, said he thinks differently about technology.
By ANA VILLAURRUTIA The Pan American Research journals are typically produced exclusively by medical and law schools, plus other academic entities peopled by professors and graduate students. But not anymore. Mark Noe, an English professor at The University of Texas-Pan American, said the creation of a revolutionary new student publication called “Border Line” will surely take the university to a new level. “Nobody out there is doing a student journal that treats student works as academic articles,” said Noe, editor of the publication, which will have studentproduced articles on the border community and its issues. The journal is the fruition of a long-time project by Stephen Oliver, a history and philosophy professor at UTPA, who was among one of the initial founders of the idea. It has taken several iterations over a period of years to bring the project close to completion. Oliver said he came up with the name for Border Line from a local television program of the same name. “The show would get people in the Valley interested in issues and to learn
See CONNECTED page 11
See BORDER LINE page 11
CURRICULUM
NEWS Book examines leaders of Middle East See Page 3
A&E Local promoters give voice to RGV talent See Page 8 and 9
SPORTS Lady’s golf tournament finish is highest ever See Page 13
Proposed core curriculum fails to pass faculty vote Revisions stalled until new plans constructed By SANDRA GONZALEZ The Pan American Plans to revise and lower the number of required core curriculum hours at The University of Texas-Pan American were stalled Monday, following a faculty vote against the proposal. A total of 174 voting-eligible facul-
ty members were in favor of the proposed core and 227 against. Only fulltime faculty members, of whom there are an estimated 700 on campus, were able to vote. As a result of the vote, the current core will remain in place and the University Core Curriculum Committee will determine if it will revisit a review of the core in the coming weeks. The committee had the recently rejected proposal in development for nearly three years. “Any major, substantive curriculum change has to be driven first by the
faculty and then has to be ratified by the faculty. That’s in the HOP,” said Danika Brown, Faculty Senate co-chair. In the proposal, the departments of modern languages, computer literacy and kinesiology were among areas dropped from the basic classes all students must take. The goal was to whittle the core down from 48 to 42 hours, which a number of schools around the country have done recently in an effort to help students stay on a four-year graduation plan.
See CORE page 11