Daily Toreador The
TUESDAY, FEB. 12, 2013 VOLUME 87 ■ ISSUE 88
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Pope’s bombshell sends troubled church scrambling VATICAN CITY (AP) — With a few words in Latin, Pope Benedict XVI did what no pope has done in more than half a millennium, stunning the world by announcing his resignation Monday and leaving the already troubled Catholic Church to replace the leader of its 1 billion followers by Easter. Not even his closest associates had advance word of the news, a bombshell that he dropped during a routine meeting of Vatican cardinals. And with no clear favorites to succeed him, another surprise likely awaits when the cardinals elect Benedict’s successor next month. “Without doubt this is a historic moment,” said Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, a protege and former theology student of Benedict’s who is considered a papal contender. “Right now, 1.2 billion Catholics the world over are holding their breath.”
Obama to revive populist message in Tuesday speech WASHINGTON (AP) — Reviving his populist re-election message, President Barack Obama will press a politically-divided Congress to approve more tax increases and fewer spending cuts during a State of the Union address focused on stabilizing the middle class and repairing the still-wobbly economy. The agenda Obama will outline Tuesday before a joint session of Congress will include more money for infrastructure, clean energy technologies and manufacturing jobs, as well as expanding access to early childhood education. White House spokesman Jay Carney said Obama would outline “his plan to create jobs and grow the middle class” as the nation struggles with persistently high unemployment.
OPINIONS, Pg. 4
Reynolds: Former Senator decries SGA for inactivity
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School of Pharmacy construction complete By EMILY GARDNER STAFF WRITER
Students in the Texas Tech Health Sciences Center School of Pharmacy have a new way to learn to prepare drugs, which will help them in future endeavors. The HSC School of Pharmacy started classes in a new sterile laboratory for secondyear pharmacy students in January. The lab is used for two hours in the afternoon Monday through Friday, Thomas Thekkumkara, regional dean of the School of Pharmacy, said. He said workers finished construction on the lab, located in Amarillo on Jan. 2. “Basically, it was completed in within a month,” Thekkumkara said, “and that’s including the contractors working Saturdays, and Sundays, and holidays.” The purpose of the sterile laboratory is to provide pharmacy students with experience mixing drugs in a sterilized environment before entering the workplace, he said, because that type of training is lacking in pharmacy schools. “Our goal is to make sure our graduating students have that training before they graduate,” Thekkumkara said. The School of Pharmacy in Abilene also has a sterile laboratory similar to the one built in Amarillo, he said.
The current cost of the construction is $520,000, Thekkumkara said. Mikala Conatser, assistant professor at the School of Pharmacy, said the lab consists of 13 hands-free hand washing systems and 26 sterile hood working areas so students can prepare sterile products. Before the laboratory was built, she said the class was in an open-air lab room with five hoods. Because the students had to take turns using the hoods, they only used them every few weeks, and at midterms and finals. Conatser said the reason for the new lab was to provide students consistent practice with the hoods. “We want students when they come out of our lab, to be able to properly prepare sterile products, which are like your IV medications that you would get in the hospital without risk of contamination to the product itself or needle sticks to themselves,” she said. The most important benefit of the lab, Thekkumkara said, is the training students are provided, so the employer does not need to train the graduates after they are hired. With the use of the lab, he said, graduates will have an upper hand when looking for a job. “Because most of the places now, what they do is they hire the pharmacist and then they have to be trained on the job,” Thek-
PHOTO COURTESY OF MARK HENDRICKS
AIDA ARFAEE, A second-year pharmacy student, washes her hands before starting lab work in the hooded work station in the new School of Pharmacy sterile laboratory.
kumkara said. “And this way, you know, they basically feel much more confident.” Conatser said she had been through the program itself, and the lab will give students a better understanding of the process. “I’m totally excited about them,” she said.
By ELLEN CHAPPELL STAFF WRITER
With the results from this weekend at the Tyson Invitational in Fayetteville, Ark., many Texas Tech track and field athletes have gained recognition on a national scale. Tech now has seven athletes and two relay teams ranked in the top 20 nationally. This past weekend proved eventful for the qualifying athletes and record breakers. Senior hurdler Katie Grimes broke another school record for the 60-meter hurdles with a time of 8.16 seconds. This is her third time to break her own record in this event. Along with Grimes, senior AllAmerican jumper Bryce Lamb was honored
for his first outing of his senior season, becoming ranked top five nationally. Though he did not break the record, he sits in fifth place on the list of school records in the KITHUKA triple jump, having jumped 16.26 meters to place fourth in the event. Lamb is now ranked third nationally in the men’s triple jump. “It was great to see Bryce jump again,” Tech coach Wes Kittley said. “It was a strong performance and should put him
in a great position for nationals.” Senior distance runner Kennedy Kithuka broke the school record in the 5,000-meter run this weekend at the Tyson Invitational. Junior runner Ezekiel Kissorio ran the second fastest mile for the school this season with a time of 4:03.87, which earned him second in the event. In another record-breaking performance, the men’s distance medley relay team, comprised of Ezekiel Kissorio, Nick Rivera, Joseph Richards III and Kithuka, finished with a time of 9:40.71 and along with their new record, placed first. With that performance, the men’s distance medley relay team is now ranked eighth nationally, along with the women’s 4x400 relay squad, who are ranked eighth in the nation with their
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impact at New York Fashion Week
PHOTO BY LAUREN PAPE/The Daily Toreador
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finishing time of 3:35.44. “It was a great finish to a very positive weekend of performances,” Tech crosscountry coach Jon Murray said. “I was very proud of the way each leg of the relay competed.” Tech continues to fill the nation’s top 20 with Tech junior All-American Kyal Meyers at 10th in the nation in the men’s pole vault with his jump of 5.41 meters, earning fourth this weekend. The Big 12 Indoor Championships will take place in Ames, Iowa, on Feb. 22-23. The competition takes the top 16 for each event, and Kittley said he hopes for at least 10 of his athletes to qualify to represent the talent of Tech track and field at the championship.
Tech celebrates 90th birthday Former Texas Tech student makes STAFF WRITER
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Tech track and field athletes move into top 20
By ASHLYN TUBBS
Kappa Delta hosts sale for Girl Scout cookies -- LA VIDA, Page 3
“You know, it makes it a lot more realistic for the students, and I think that that’s what it takes to make a good learning environment: the hands-on approach, being able to see exactly how it’s going to be in the real world.”
CAKE WAS SERVED Monday in the Student Union Building to celebrate Texas Tech’s 90th anniversary. On Feb. 10, 1923, the Texas State Senate passed Texas Technological College’s charter.
By BETHANY CHESHIRE STAFF WRITER
Students ate cake in celebration of Texas Tech’s 90th anniversary Monday, in the Student Union Building Courtyard. “Ninety years, yesterday Feb. 10, 1923, was the day that Governor Pat Neff signed the charter for Texas Technological College,” Allison Matherly, coordinator of digital engagement, said. There were 34 applications to become the home for Texas Technological College, and the ADVERTISING: 806-742-3384
location board that was in charge of the decision picked Lubbock, she said. In celebration of the anniversary, cake and refreshments were handed out in the SUB. Tech made an impression on Megan Burns, a senior advertising major from Rockwall whose grandmother went to Tech. “I just like knowing she stayed at Weeks Hall on campus,” she said. “I get to walk by that every day and just kind of make the connection.” BIRTHDAY continued on Page 5 ➤➤
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Richard Eric Renteria knew exactly what he wanted to wear Saturday to Fashion Week New York 2013. As the former Texas Tech student showcased his fashion line, Etiquette Vintage Design, Renteria wore his repurposed vintage Tech letterman sweater, the clothing item he said marks a turning point in his life. “I purposely wore my letterman sweater because I have a love for Tech,” he said. “I could’ve worn anything else, but that was the sweater that got me started.” When Renteria made this sweater in 2010, he was an exercise and sport sciences major with no background in fashion design. His sweater came from a Tech alumnus named Jerry Stoltz, who attended Tech during the late 1940s as a member of the golf team. “I made it just to wear it around, something that I liked,” he said, “and from there, that is how I started my line.” Renteria said he immediately became recognized for his work. Now, he has repurposed about 30 of these sweaters, some even distributed in places such as Italy and Rome, and
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featured in Vogue Italia. “There’s actually people in Italy wearing Texas Tech sweaters who have probably never even heard of Tech,” he said. “They just liked them.” Instead of those sweaters, Renteria is currently focusing on his new fashion line, which includes dresses, skirts, tops and other clothing items he personally designed from inspiration found in previous editions of Tech’s yearbook, La Ventana, dating from the 1920s to 1950s. His next scheduled shows, in which the line will make appearances, are at The Junior League of Austin Derby Show and Austin Fashion Week. “It still has that vintage feel to it,” he said. “I used a lot of vintage patterns. I just made it more modern and fitting with more modern colors.” The Fashion Week New York 2013 showing was at Times Square in New York City, and Renteria said people from various countries attended. The show was hectic backstage, and since a blizzard was coming in at that time, Renteria said many of his personal helpers could not attend the show. But with the help of his wife, a model, he said they pulled off the show nicely.
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