Trinitonian SERVING TRINITY UNIVERSITY SINCE 1902 s WWW.TRINITONIAN.COM
VOLUME 109, ISSUE 6
What’s Inside
s SEPTEMBER 23, 2011
SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS
Major Meals: food for body and mind Roommate
selection looks for diversity, balance
n Trinity tries to encourage new experiences, limit confict between roommates with assignments
KLOUT SCORE Get some tips on how to raise your Klout with the help of all your friends.
by Rachel Puckett
page 13
Reporter
photo by Purushottam Shah
DOG-EARED TREASURES
See which books get the most love, which movies get the most attention and what other quirky things can be checked out from the library. page 12
Sussan Siavoshi, professor and chair of the political science department discusses the major with sophomore Sara Miller at Major Meals Thursday night. The event, held in the Skyline Dining Room allowed potential majors to discuss the benefits and requirements of each major as well as meet the faculty working in each department. The dinner was a part of Sophomore College meant to encourage students to explore the major of their interest over a free meal. Major Meals took place over three nights, Sept. 20, 21 and 22, and 15 majors were represented. Faculty as well as alumni and current students were present at the affair to help sophomores plan their futures.
TU promotes professors’ rights n Coalition allows teachers to maintain copyright to articles by Kellie Benn Reporter
YOGA SOOTHES THE SOUL Local gurus offer students discounts, variety in their workout routine page 18
WEEKEND WEATHER High
Friday 96° Low 71°
High
Saturday 99° Low 71°
Sunday High 101° Low 72°
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Trinity University recently joined 21 other universities across the nation in the Coalition of Open Access Policy Institutions, whose goal is to bring national attention to the issue of open access and advocate for more open access institutions. An open access policy allows universities to retain copyrights to peer-reviewed papers by its faculty members that are published in scholarly journals. According to the open access website, “the Trinity University
Open Access Policy encourages faculty authors to retain noncommercial copyright for their scholarly publications and provides them with the means to negotiate those rights with their publishers. Additionally, Open Access facilitates the sharing of peer-reviewed research through Trinity’s digital repository (Digital Commons@Trinity), which provides broad, free access to a faculty author’s scholarly work.” By becoming a member of the coalition, Trinity will join other universities, including Harvard, Stanford, Columbia and Duke, in sharing implementation strategies and encouraging other institutions of higher learning to adopt open access policies. According to Cabrera Balreira, assistant professor of mathematics
and member of Trinity’s Open Access Committee, the policy provides an advantage for both students and teachers. “If I’m teaching a course and I want to use my paper for my students, I can’t because when I published that, I lost my copyright,” Balreira said. “If I give it to my students, that’s copyright infringement. We would like to retain the rights. The journal will have the copyright but as an addendum, we are going to have that copyright as well.” By adding the addendum, professors are still able to publish their research and work in scholarly peer-reviewed journals but the paper also goes into the university’s Digital Commons n See COALITION page 4
At Mabee’s grand opening last week, Trinity and Aramark were both represented at the ceremonial ribbon cutting. Student Kaitlin Wetherbee and David Tuttle, associate vice president for Student Affairs and Dean of Students stand next to Dennis Ahlburg, president of Trinity University, officials from Aramark, other Trinity administrators and Trinity cheerleaders and Leeroy, the Trinity mascot. photo by Abhishek Chhetri
Melissa Pinchback, assistant director of Residential Education, spends her summers working to place the incoming first-year class into compatible suites that foster a community for academic achievement. Pinchback explained that academics are the focus of Residential Life’s roommate assignment process. “Our biggest concern—the whole reason that people are here—is for academics. They are here to learn, they’re here to study, and so we want to make sure that that room is the best environment for them to be able to study successfully,” Pinchback said. She explained how she tackles the monumental task of dividing 500 students into suites of four. For incoming first years, the seven-question housing survey includes a section on intended majors. Residential Life first checks to see if a student indicated an intended major that involves a particularly specific course load. “Students that are in highly sequenced majors such as computer science, physics, engineering—there’s a whole list of them—will all live in an area where half of their floor is also intending that particular major,” Pinchback said. These students are paired with an academic advisor from the department in which they wish to major. n See ROOMMATE page 4
The Trinitonian asked students to give their opinions on the transition from the old dining system to Real Food on Campus. The responses to the changes were mixed but overall negative as students face long lines, limited seating, and new hours of operation. Administration and Aramark respond to student concerns.
n See ARAMARK page 3