TUESDAY, MARCH 3, 2015 VOLUME 89 ■ ISSUE 84
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School of Law hosts diversity week lectures Diversity Week at the Texas Tech School of Law begins today and will feature a series of speakers through Thursday. One of three events will take place from noon to 1 p.m. each day in the School of Law’s Lanier Auditorium, according to a School of Law news release. Today, female attorneys will host a panel discussion called, “Law and the Good Ol’ Boys: Women Lawyers in West Texas,” according to the release. Jerry Beard, Molly Whitman and Clinton Quisenberry are three gay lawyers from the Dallas/Fort Worth area, according to the release. They will be a part of the Wednesday panel discussion, “Out in Texas: Practicing as a Gay Attorney in Texas.” On Thursday, keynote speaker Anthony Graves will discuss the 18 years he spent on death row after he was wrongfully convicted of murder in 1992, according to the release. The events are free and open to the public. ➤➤@dailytoreador
Nurse who survived Ebola sues hospital DALLAS (AP) — The Dallas hospital that treated the first patient to be diagnosed in the U.S. with Ebola lied to Congress when it said its staff was trained to handle the deadly virus, a nurse who contracted the disease contends in a lawsuit filed Monday. Nina Pham, who was an intensive care unit nurse at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas, says after being told last fall that she would be treating a patient suspected of having Ebola, “the sum total” of information she was given to protect herself was “what her manager ‘Googled’ and printed out from the Internet.” She says in her lawsuit that the day after getting that information, the patient, Thomas Eric Duncan, tested positive for the disease. Duncan, who contracted Ebola in his native Liberia but started showing symptoms during a trip to the U.S., died at the hospital. Pham, 26, and another nurse who treated Duncan, Amber Vinson, contracted the disease but recovered. In a statement released through her lawyers, Pham said she felt she had no choice but to sue the hospital’s parent company, Texas Health Resources. “I was hoping that THR would be more open and honest about everything that happened at the hospital, and the things they didn’t do that led to me getting infected with Ebola,” she said. Wendell Watson, a company spokesman, said Texas Health Resources is optimistic that the matter can be resolved. He would not address allegations in the lawsuit about statements a hospital official made to Congress.
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‘The Flying Professors’ began distance learning By KAITLIN BAIN Seniior reporter
Before Internet and live streaming, there were four Texas Tech professors who would fly to Pampa, Borger, Amarillo, Midland and Odessa once a week to teach students in those areas in addition to the classes they were already teaching on campus. Justin Louder, assistant vice provost of Tech Worldwide eLearning, said this was the first distance education initiative in Tech’s history. “Four faculty members from the College of Engineering started a program called The Flying Professors,” he said, “and they traveled around West Texas offering classes toward the Master in Engineering degree.” Milton Smith, professor of industrial engineering and previous flying professor, said he joined the program during the late 1960s as a graduate student. The courses taught were started through a contract between engineering businesses in Amarillo, Borger and Pampa, including the Texaco refinery, Pantex nuclear weapons plant and the Phillips petroleum and chemi-
cal refinery plant. According to the Tech Worldwide eLearning website, when the program started, 58 students participated in the Borger/ Pampa programs and 20 in the Midland/ Odessa programs. “They would fly professors up there once a week and teach three hours,” Smith said. “Typically there would be five professors in a single-engine aircraft. We would meet at the airport at about 3:30, fly to Amarillo and drop off one person, fly to Borger, drop off two of us. Almost every time I went to Borger and then went on to Pampa, stayed there and there were two people who stayed there.” In Smith’s experience, he said students would rotate each week and take the professors to dinner at a “real nice” barbecue restaurant and the group would then go back for class from 6 to 9 p.m. This was Smith’s first experience teaching a three-hour block, which he said was challenging because he had to have all his materials and plans put together before the professors got on the plane. DISTANCE continued on Page 3 ➤➤
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE 1966-67 LA VENTANA YEARBOOK
THE FLYING PROFESSORS program began in 1966 with four engineering professors who flew to Borger, Pampa and Midland to deliver a Master of Engineering program. The program changed in 1967 when Amarillo was added as a location and Milton Smith, professor of industrial engineering, joined the program in 1970. The first five professors in the program were James Lawrence, A. G. Oberg, Richard Dudek, H. R. Heichelheim and Donald Helmers, all professors of engineering.
Sam’s Place West to reopen Texas’ first lady, Cecilia Abbott, this week after accidental fire to visit Lubbock organization After more than two weeks, Sam’s Place West in the Wiggins Complex is scheduled to reopen on Wednesday. Alan Cushman, manager of business development for Hospitality Services, said there is a chance the dining hall will be opened before Wednesday. Hospitality Services officials and employees are working around the clock to ensure the dining hall is open this week, he said. The StrEat Food Truck will continue to serve students in the parking lot outside of Chitwood and Weymouth Residence Halls, he said.
The dining hall has been closed since Feb. 20 when a fire took place in a staff-only kitchen in the basement of the Wiggins Complex, according to a previous article in The Daily Toreador. Tech officials initially estimated the facility would be closed for about one week after the fire, according to the article. The offices of University Student Housing, Hospitality Services and others are still relocated across the Texas Tech campus, according to each department’s websites. ➤➤@dailytoreador
Texas First Lady Cecilia Abbott will be in Lubbock on March 10 for a noon luncheon with local nonprofit Sondra’s Song. Sondra’s Song is a Lubbock-based organization that assists youth transitioning out of the foster care system, according to the nonprofit’s website, and will host the event in the Lubbock Memorial Civic Center. The organization offers mentoring as well as employment and education resources and other opportunities, according to the website. Proceeds from the event will go to-
ward the organization, according to an Office of First Lady Cecilia Abbott news release. Abbott previously served on the advisory board of the National Center for Missing ABBOTT and Exploited Children, according to Greg Abbott’s official website. Tickets cost $50 per person, according to the release, and can be purchased through Select-A-Seat Lubbock. ➤➤@dailytoreador
Candidate blocs encourage students to vote before elections Texas Tech students can cast ballots for candidates online Wednesday to Thursday By JONATHAN LAUREL Staff Writer
With elections beginning on Wednesday and Thursday, the candidates from the OneTech and Techsan Tradition campaign blocs are making their last pushes through the beginning of this week to get Texas Tech students to vote. Holton Westbrook, presidential candidate for Techsan Tradition, said members of his campaign bloc are giving away shirts, buttons, fliers and other items to raise awareness for the candidates. “This week is definitely a big one for Techsan Tradition. It will begin to shape our next year and where we plan to go in the near future,” he said. “Promoting our campaign will be huge as we will need to be organized, efficient and energetic, much like characteristics that will be needed if we were able to serve in office.” The biggest goal of the bloc is to reach out to those students who may not know much about student government, he said. The OneTech campaign bloc has created events on Facebook for each individual ADVERTISING: 806-742-3384
senator candidate so people will receive voting reminders on Wednesday and Thursday, Charlie Mitchell, the presidential candidate for OneTech, said. “Our main method for getting students to vote is social media,” he said. “There will be all kinds of posts on our Facebook page that will be going out frequently throughout the day.” OneTech will speak in classrooms and spend much of this week in the free speech area, Mitchell said. Ajax the campaign dog will also be there with the candidates, he said. Amber Yanez, internal vice presidential candidate for OneTech, said the bloc has also spoken with various organizations because they provide feedback on the candidates’ initiatives. “I can promise you that on Election Day, it will be really hard for a student to walk on campus and not know about the election,” she said. “The OneTech campaign has been working so hard and we’ll definitely be hitting the ground running on Wednesday.” SGA continued on Page 2 ➤➤
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PHOTO BY ZETH ABNEY/The Daily Toreador
CALEB FISHER, EXTERNAL vice presidential candidate, Charlie Mitchell, presidential candidate, and Amber Yanez, internal vice presidential candidate, make an campaign appearance to talk about their plans for Student Government Association on Monday in the Alpha Chi Omega lodge. Mitchell, Fisher and Yanez represent the bloc OneTech.
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