Daily Toreador The
MONDAY, FEB. 4, 2013 VOLUME 87 ■ ISSUE 82
TTUHSC Cancer Center receives grant By EMILY GARDNER STAFF WRITER
Children with cancer in the West Texas region may have another option for treatment of their various diseases. Texas Tech Health Sciences Center School of Medicine Cancer Center received a $53,543 grant from St. Baldrick’s Foundation on Jan. 1. The grant received is a one-year infrastructure grant, said Traci Shirk, media and public relations specialist for the foundation. The grant began Jan.1 and will continue to be used through Dec. 31. “The St. Baldrick’s Foundation is a volunteer-driven charity that’s dedicated to raising money for childhood cancer research,” she said, “and since 2005, we’ve awarded over $103 million to pediatric cancer research.” The foundation’s signature fundraisers involve volunteers shaving their heads to support children losing their hair as a result of cancer treatment, Shirk said. The foundation hosted its first head-shaving event in 2000 and became its own nonprofit agency in 2005, she said. To receive the grant, the cancer center had to go through a review process, Shirk said. For the infrastructure grant, the foundation looked at the center’s needs, the research being conducted and local participation in St. Baldrick’s events.
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She said the members of the foundation want to make sure they are giving the grants to facilities performing cutting-edge research and those with community involvement. “This award will better treat the children in the area,” Shirk said, “and will provide the resources that will enable the institution to conduct more research and enroll more kids in clinical trials, which most often is their best chance for a cure.” Dr. Patrick Reynolds, cancer center director, said the grant will be used to support the entrance of children with cancer into clinical trials by providing clinical research associates. Clinical research associates, he said, help get patients with cancer into the clinical trials being offered. “That’s what the St. Baldrick’s grant is doing,” Reynolds said. “It’s providing us the support for one of those kind of individuals to help get children that need to go on a clinical trial here in the Lubbock area onto those trials.” The center is the central vehicle for cancer research and the coordination of that research and cancer control for the HSC’s School of Medicine, he said. It also interacts with the School of Pharmacy in Amarillo and the School of Medicine in El Paso to turn as much laboratory research into clinical trials, as well as get as many clinical trials in West Texas, as possible.
Black History Month
PHOTO BY EMILY DE SANTOS/The Daily Toreador
BRANDALE RANDOLPH, EXECUTIVE director of Project Poverty and curator for TEDx Lubbock, gives the keynote speech during the 12th annual Black History Month Celebration honoring R.J. and Octavia Givens on Saturday in the School of Law. The celebration was hosted by the Health Sciences Center Black Faculty and Staff Association.
Black Faculty, Staff Association hosts 12th annual celebration By SHANNON O’NEIL STAFF WRITER
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The Black Faculty and Staff Association hosted the 12th annual Black History Month Celebration at 6 p.m. Saturday at the Texas Tech School of Law building. Musicians, storytellers and speakers were present at the event, the theme of which was “Uniting to Stop the Violence in our African American Community, Our Country, and Our World.” Aretha Marbley, president of the Black Faculty and Staff Association, said growth only comes by experience. By honoring those in the community, she said the members of BFSA hope to bring the community and Tech together to heal violence within the black community in Lubbock. As the evening began, R.J. and Octavia Givens were honored for their dedication to the Lubbock community.
Men’s Basketball, Sports
R.J. Givens has been running his own business for more than 40 years and became the first black man to join the Lubbock Board of Realtors. R.J.Givens also was the first black member of the Lubbock AvalancheJournal Editorial Board, according to a news release. When he decided to retire from his post office job, according to the release, R.J. Givens became a counselor for equal rights for postal workers and the president of the American Postal Workers Union. Octavia Givens became the first black cashier for Starks Brothers Grocery in Austin and with Southwestern Public Service Company in Amarillo. Like R.J. Givens, Octavia Givens was the first black woman to join the Lubbock Association of Realtors, according to the release. Octavia Givens also is a part of the Texas Association of Realtors and National Association of Realtors, according
to the release, while R.J. Givens is an Omega Psi Phi fraternity member and a 33rd-degree mason of the Rio Grande Comisitory No. 24. Brandale Randolph, the executive director of Project Poverty, was the keynote speaker of the night. Randolph said he grew up in Los Angeles where he had an experience that changed his life. He said he had a gun pulled on him while playing basketball when he was 13 years old. However, the gunman chose to threaten Randolph rather than shoot him, Randolph said. This incident, he said, along with Martin Luther King Jr.’s words, has pushed Randolph to promote ending poverty and violence in communities. Randolph said he sees poverty as a loss of humanity that results in violence. This, he said, creates a vicious cycle, which he believes can be stopped. HISTORY continued on Page 2 ➤➤
Law students advance to national moot court competition By CAROLYN HECK STAFF WRITER
TEXAS TECH FORWARD Jaye Crockett rises up and dunks the ball during the Red Raiders’ 77-61 loss to West Virginia. SPORTS, Page 6
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Two Texas Tech School of Law students are training to compete against schools such as Harvard and Colombia in the 2013 Frederick Douglas Moot Court Competition nationals. The students won the Rocky Mountain Black Law Student Association Convention Jan. 16-20, and brought home the recognition of Best Respondent’s Brief. Anh Tran and Deniz Kardirhan will represent Tech’s Black Law Student Association in Atlanta, Ga. on March 6, said Vaughn James, professor at the School of Law and the coach of the team. When Tran and Kardirhan auditioned for the team in October, James said he felt nearly overwhelmed at the task ahead of them. “After I selected the team and we had our first practice,” he said, laughing, “I lifted
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my eyes to heaven and said, ‘Lord Almighty, what did I get myself into?’” The students were inexperienced at first, James said, and unaware of the nuances and methods of appellate court. The team began to meet for practice every day for three hours a day, he said, practicing even through the winter break right up until the day they left. “If you’re serious about winning, which I am,” he said, “then you have to put in the long hours and the hard work. It’s tough going.” The hard work was not for nothing, he said, and is evident by the girls’ oral arguments in the Rocky Mountain competition in Dallas, which resulted in their win. The team competed against other NBLSA chapters from the Rocky Mountain chapter area, including Colorado, Montana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Utah and Wyoming. “That’s how much they have grown,” he
said. “From people who were not thinking on their feet, from people who were saying ‘um’ and ‘er’, from people who had no clue how to address the court, they became thinkers who can think through things and answer on the fly.” Kardirhan, a second-year law student from Austin, said while she and her teammate put in a lot of work, James was the one that built them up. “Professor James is an amazing coach who basically taught us from not knowing anything to being regional champions,” she said. Ibukun Adepoju, a third-year law student from Nigeria and an assistant coach to the team, also was vital to the team’s success, James said. Adepoju was responsible for coaching the women’s on non-verbal communication, such as body language and dress.
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