the daily texan 2015-02-16

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According to a report re- cently released by the Mod- ern Language Association, enrollment in foreign lan- guage courses has dropped 6.7 percent from 2009 to 2013 following about 20 years of consistent growth. e report, based on a sur- vey of 2,616 American uni- versities, compared foreign- language enrollment from two- and four-year colleges. Spanish and French contin- ued to be the most studied for- eign languages across all col- leges, followed by American Sign Language (ASL), which surpassed German as the third-most studied language. Kristen Harmon, English professor at Gallaudet Uni- versity, said a growing aware- ness of ASL as an autono- mous language is likely what caused its rise in popularity. “Students find that study- ing an indigenous American language gives them another perspective on American life and culture,” Harmon said. “ose who receive advanced training and certification in sign language interpreting will also find that there is demand for highly qualified interpreters in education, government and business.” Although Spanish had great- er enrollment than all other languages combined, Spanish enrollment saw its first decline in the history of the survey with an 8-percent drop. Rosemary Feal, executive director of the association, said the addition of 34 more languages previously not in the survey influenced the de- cline in Spanish. “This change [in Span- ish enrollment] suggests that students in US class- rooms have more options e Texas Student Media Board certified David Davis Jr. and Claire Smith to run for editor-in-chief of e Daily Texan in a contentions meeting Friday. A third applicant, David Maly, was not certified because he did not meet the qualifica- tions specified in the Texas Stu- dent Media (TSM) handbook. Maly worked for the Texan for three semesters as a reporter and copy editor, but has not worked for e Daily Texan since January 2013. e handbook specifies that each candidate must have ex- perience of one semester as a permanent staff member in e Daily Texan’s opinion section as well as experience of one semes - ter in another section. In the past, these qualifications have been waived by a two-thirds vote from the TSM Board. e TSM Board, which manages five student-pro- duced media properties — Cactus Yearbook, Texas Trav- esty, Texas Student TV, KVRX 91.7 FM and e Daily Texan — voted to amend the hand- book in November, altering the application requirements for editor-in-chief. Candi- dates who do not meet all of the requirements can now only be certified if no other fully qualified candidates During a panel discus- sion at the School of Law on Friday, civil rights lawyers warned of backlash if Texas’ constitutional ban on same- sex marriage is liſted. Lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, Austin LGBT Bar Associa- tion and family law firms said a backlash from conservative political forces could adversely affect Texas’ lesbian, gay, bisex- ual and transgender communi- ties, even if the Supreme Court rules that state same-sex mar- riage bans are unconstitutional. Lawyers discussed the ways that the state legislature could still use loopholes in anti-dis- crimination laws and new laws to hurt the LGBT community in areas such as housing, em- ployment and adoption. “If you were to poll people and ask if they thought LGBT Texans have protection against employment discrimination, you would find most people think they already exist be- cause they are so fundamental to being a full participant in our society,” said Rebecca Robert- son, legal and policy director of the ACLU of Texas. “In reality, we do not have any protections for LGBT Texans in our state.” Ian Pittman, a partner at the family-law and estate- planning law firm Jorge- son Pittman LLP, said state government could also use the “power of the purse” to control state employees to prevent them from following Supreme Court precedents. Robertson said an ex- ample of this practice is Rep. Cecil Bell’s (R-Magnolia) bill, HB 623, which entered the Texas Legislature on Jan. 8. e bill says any employee of the state who acts against Texas’ ban will be deprived of salary and any other employ- ment benefits. Panelists and members of the audience said there were several opportunities for law- yers and law students to help expedite the LGBT move- ment in Texas. “In our current session, there are three LGBT lobbying days scheduled, and I cannot overemphasize the importance to have attorneys and law stu- dents appear before the leg- islature and talk about these issues,” said Gary Schumann, founding partner of Savrick, Schumann, Johnson, McGarr, Kaminski & Shirley LLP. Robertson said she thinks the backlash will cre- ate additional movement towards equality. “When we hear about people who returned happy from their UT System Chancellor William McRaven is calling on lawmakers to help fund a tuition exemption for veter- ans that resulted in a loss of $42.1 million in forgone tu- ition at UT System schools in the 2014 fiscal year. e exemption was estab- lished as part of the Hazle- wood Act, which grants veterans who are Texas residents 150 credit hours in return for their service. UT System universities pay for a tuition exemption for veterans who have served at least 181 days of active duty service. McRaven said with- out state support, the cost is passed on to other students. “When the state is not in the position to provide us those funds, then invariably Members of Student Government are working to bring a mobile safety ap- plication to campus in an attempt to give students a better sense of security. Taylor Strickland, SG vice president, said the inspiration for the application came from a similar program at Virginia Tech, which a student who was present at Virginia Tech’s 2007 on-campus shooting helped develop. “I’ve lived in West Campus since my sophomore year, and I’ve actually been fortunate enough to always feel safe, but I know that’s not a universal feeling,” Strickland said. “So any tools we can provide to students to make them feel better and more secure and safe is kind of what I saw this being a great opportunity for.” Strickland said the main fea- ture of the application would be a tracking system for students walking on campus or back and forth from their homes. It would allow a friend or parent to monitor their progress and show when the student reached their destination. “is is probably one of the biggest ones because we live on a campus where a lot of students live in West Cam- pus, and a lot of students live within walking distance, even if you’re just on campus and walking at night,” Strickland said. “at way somebody is looking out for you, and it doesn’t have to be super inva- sive, but at the same time, it’s just an extra sense of security.” Strickland also said they want the application to con- nect students to officers from both the University of Texas Police Department and the Austin Police Depart- ment, and SG members have worked alongside UTPD of- ficials on the early stages of its development. Instead of adding more blue emergency call boxes across campus and further into West Monday, February 16, 2015 @thedailytexan facebook.com/dailytexan Serving the University of Texas at Austin community since 1900 dailytexanonline.com bit.ly/dtvid SPORTS PAGE 6 COMICS PAGE 7 LIFE&ARTS PAGE 8 SG develops tracking app for safety UNIVERSITY TSM Board authorizes two editor candidates By Samantha Ketterer @sam_kett By Wynne Davis @wynneellyn APP page 2 STATE By Josh Willis @joshwillis35 McRaven calls on state to fund Hazlewood VETERANS LIVING IN TEXAS FUNDING TUITION FOR TEXAN VETERANS FORGONE TUITION INCOME 42 MILLION (UT INSTITUTIONS) 169 MILLION (ALL STATE INSTITUTIONS) 94 MILLION 379 MILLION 1.7 THE HAZLEWOOD ACT GRANTS TEXAS VETERANS 150 CREDIT HOURS AT STATE PUBLIC UNIVERSITIES. THE STATE DOES NOT PAY FOR THE COST OF THE TUITION EXEMPTION. PROJECTED Alex Dolan | Daily Texan Staff EDITOR page 2 NATION Conspiracy theorists focus on wide pool of data. PAGE 3 Surgeons’ military experi- ence impacts their work. PAGE 3 NEWS MOOCs transform learning experience. PAGE 4 Time for more study abroad programs in Cuba. PAGE 4 OPINION Turner’s career night pro- pels Texas over Texas Tech. PAGE 6 Texas rallies to beat Rice for season’s second win. PAGE 6 SPORTS Graduate student exhibits work for Pump Project. PAGE 8 Drake drops surprise mix- tape to preclude album. PAGE 8 LIFE&ARTS Get creative with your morning toast. The best science news from around the web. dailytexanonline.com ONLINE REASON TO PARTY PAGE 7 HAZLEWOOD page 2 Study reports a decline in language enrollment STATE By Lauren Florence @thedailytexan LANGUAGE page 3 LGBT rights face potential backlash By Zainab Calcuttawala @thedailytexan LGBT page 3 Charlotte Carpenter | Daily Texan Staff Civil rights lawyers, from left to right, Rebecca Robertson, Christine Henry Andresen, Ian Pittman and Elizabeth Brenner held a panel discussion at the School of Law on Friday. LANGUAGE ENROLLMENT CHANGES 2009–2013 All: Down 6.7 percent Korean: Up 44.7 percent ASL: Up 19 percent Portugese: Up 10.1 percent Chinese: Up 2 percent Spanish, French remain most studied languages. STUDENT GOVERNMENT

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The Monday, February 16, 2015 edition of The Daily Texan.

TRANSCRIPT

According to a report re-cently released by the Mod-ern Language Association, enrollment in foreign lan-guage courses has dropped 6.7 percent from 2009 to 2013 following about 20 years of consistent growth.

The report, based on a sur-vey of 2,616 American uni-versities, compared foreign-language enrollment from two- and four-year colleges.

Spanish and French contin-ued to be the most studied for-eign languages across all col-leges, followed by American Sign Language (ASL), which surpassed German as the third-most studied language.

Kristen Harmon, English professor at Gallaudet Uni-versity, said a growing aware-ness of ASL as an autono-mous language is likely what caused its rise in popularity.

“Students find that study-ing an indigenous American language gives them another perspective on American life and culture,” Harmon said. “Those who receive advanced training and certification in sign language interpreting

will also find that there is demand for highly qualified interpreters in education, government and business.”

Although Spanish had great-er enrollment than all other languages combined, Spanish enrollment saw its first decline in the history of the survey with an 8-percent drop.

Rosemary Feal, executive director of the association, said the addition of 34 more languages previously not in the survey influenced the de-cline in Spanish.

“This change [in Span-ish enrollment] suggests that students in US class-rooms have more options

The Texas Student Media Board certified David Davis Jr. and Claire Smith to run for editor-in-chief of The Daily Texan in a contentions meeting Friday.

A third applicant, David Maly, was not certified because he did not meet the qualifica-tions specified in the Texas Stu-dent Media (TSM) handbook. Maly worked for the Texan for three semesters as a reporter and copy editor, but has not worked for The Daily Texan since January 2013.

The handbook specifies that each candidate must have ex-perience of one semester as a permanent staff member in The Daily Texan’s opinion section as well as experience of one semes-ter in another section. In the past, these qualifications have been waived by a two-thirds vote from the TSM Board.

The TSM Board, which manages five student-pro-duced media properties — Cactus Yearbook, Texas Trav-esty, Texas Student TV, KVRX 91.7 FM and The Daily Texan — voted to amend the hand-book in November, altering the application requirements for editor-in-chief. Candi-dates who do not meet all of the requirements can now only be certified if no other fully qualified candidates

During a panel discus-sion at the School of Law on Friday, civil rights lawyers warned of backlash if Texas’ constitutional ban on same-sex marriage is lifted.

Lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, Austin LGBT Bar Associa-tion and family law firms said a backlash from conservative political forces could adversely affect Texas’ lesbian, gay, bisex-ual and transgender communi-ties, even if the Supreme Court rules that state same-sex mar-riage bans are unconstitutional.

Lawyers discussed the ways that the state legislature could still use loopholes in anti-dis-crimination laws and new laws to hurt the LGBT community in areas such as housing, em-ployment and adoption.

“If you were to poll people and ask if they thought LGBT Texans have protection against employment discrimination, you would find most people think they already exist be-cause they are so fundamental to being a full participant in our society,” said Rebecca Robert-son, legal and policy director of the ACLU of Texas. “In reality, we do not have any protections

for LGBT Texans in our state.”Ian Pittman, a partner at

the family-law and estate-planning law firm Jorge-son Pittman LLP, said state government could also use the “power of the purse” to control state employees to prevent them from following Supreme Court precedents.

Robertson said an ex-ample of this practice is Rep. Cecil Bell’s (R-Magnolia) bill, HB 623, which entered the Texas Legislature on Jan.

8. The bill says any employee of the state who acts against Texas’ ban will be deprived of salary and any other employ-ment benefits.

Panelists and members of the audience said there were several opportunities for law-yers and law students to help expedite the LGBT move-ment in Texas.

“In our current session, there are three LGBT lobbying days scheduled, and I cannot overemphasize the importance

to have attorneys and law stu-dents appear before the leg-islature and talk about these issues,” said Gary Schumann, founding partner of Savrick, Schumann, Johnson, McGarr, Kaminski & Shirley LLP.

Robertson said she thinks the backlash will cre-ate additional movement towards equality.

“When we hear about people who returned happy from their

UT System Chancellor William McRaven is calling on lawmakers to help fund a tuition exemption for veter-ans that resulted in a loss of $42.1 million in forgone tu-ition at UT System schools in the 2014 fiscal year.

The exemption was estab-lished as part of the Hazle-wood Act, which grants veterans who are Texas residents 150 credit hours in return for their service. UT System universities pay for a tuition exemption for veterans who have served at least 181 days of active duty service. McRaven said with-out state support, the cost is passed on to other students.

“When the state is not in the position to provide us those funds, then invariably

Members of Student Government are working to bring a mobile safety ap-plication to campus in an attempt to give students a better sense of security.

Taylor Strickland, SG vice president, said the inspiration for the application came from a similar program at Virginia

Tech, which a student who was present at Virginia Tech’s 2007 on-campus shooting helped develop.

“I’ve lived in West Campus since my sophomore year, and I’ve actually been fortunate enough to always feel safe, but I know that’s not a universal feeling,” Strickland said. “So any tools we can provide to students to make them feel better and more secure and

safe is kind of what I saw this being a great opportunity for.”

Strickland said the main fea-ture of the application would be a tracking system for students walking on campus or back and forth from their homes. It would allow a friend or parent to monitor their progress and show when the student reached their destination.

“This is probably one of the biggest ones because we

live on a campus where a lot of students live in West Cam-pus, and a lot of students live within walking distance, even if you’re just on campus and walking at night,” Strickland said. “That way somebody is looking out for you, and it doesn’t have to be super inva-sive, but at the same time, it’s just an extra sense of security.”

Strickland also said they want the application to con-

nect students to officers from both the University of Texas Police Department and the Austin Police Depart-ment, and SG members have worked alongside UTPD of-ficials on the early stages of its development.

Instead of adding more blue emergency call boxes across campus and further into West

1

Monday, February 16, 2015@thedailytexan facebook.com/dailytexan

Serving the University of Texas at Austin community since 1900

dailytexanonline.com bit.ly/dtvid

SPORTS PAGE 6 COMICS PAGE 7 LIFE&ARTS PAGE 8

SG develops tracking app for safetyUNIVERSITY

TSM Board authorizes two editor candidatesBy Samantha Ketterer

@sam_kett

By Wynne Davis@wynneellyn

APP page 2

STATE

By Josh Willis@joshwillis35

McRaven calls on state to fund Hazlewood

VETERANSLIVING IN

TEXAS

FUNDING TUITION FOR TEXAN VETERANS

FORGONE TUITION INCOME

42 MILLION (UT INSTITUTIONS) 169 MILLION (ALL STATE INSTITUTIONS)

94 MILLION379 MILLION

1.7THE HAZLEWOOD ACT

GRANTS TEXAS VETERANS 150 CREDIT HOURS AT STATE PUBLIC UNIVERSITIES. THE STATE DOES NOT PAY FOR

THE COST OF THE TUITION EXEMPTION.

PROJECTED

Alex Dolan | Daily Texan Staff EDITOR page 2

NATION

Conspiracy theorists focus on wide pool of data.

PAGE 3

Surgeons’ military experi-ence impacts their work.

PAGE 3

NEWSMOOCs transform learning

experience.PAGE 4

Time for more study abroad programs in Cuba.

PAGE 4

OPINIONTurner’s career night pro-

pels Texas over Texas Tech.PAGE 6

Texas rallies to beat Rice for season’s second win.

PAGE 6

SPORTSGraduate student exhibits

work for Pump Project.PAGE 8

Drake drops surprise mix-tape to preclude album.

PAGE 8

LIFE&ARTSGet creative with your

morning toast.

The best science news from around the web.

dailytexanonline.com

ONLINE REASON TO PARTY

PAGE 7

HAZLEWOOD page 2

Study reports a decline in language enrollment

STATE

By Lauren Florence@thedailytexan

LANGUAGE page 3

LGBT rights face potential backlashBy Zainab

Calcuttawala@thedailytexan

LGBT page 3

Charlotte Carpenter | Daily Texan Staff Civil rights lawyers, from left to right, Rebecca Robertson, Christine Henry Andresen, Ian Pittman and Elizabeth Brenner held a panel discussion at the School of Law on Friday.

LANGUAGE ENROLLMENT

CHANGES 2009–2013

All: Down 6.7 percentKorean: Up 44.7 percentASL: Up 19 percentPortugese: Up 10.1 percentChinese: Up 2 percentSpanish, French remain most studied languages.

STUDENT GOVERNMENT

Name: 3513/re:fuel-Jimmy John’s; Width: 19p4; Depth: 8 in; Color: Black, 3513/re:fuel-Jimmy John’s; Ad Number: 3513

2

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CONTACT US

Volume 115, Issue 100

TOMORROW’S WEATHER

High Low55 36

FOCUS!

COPYRIGHTCopyright 2015 Texas Student Media. All articles, photographs and graphics, both in the print and online editions, are the property of Texas Student Media and may not be reproduced or republished in part or in whole without written permission.

The Texan strives to present all information fairly,

accurately and completely. If we have made an error, let us know about it. Call (512) 232-2217 or e-mail

managingeditor@ dailytexanonline.com.

2 NEWSMonday, February 16, 2015

Campus, Strickland said she saw this as a more feasible and practical solution.

“We have a great UTPD, they do a lot, but there’s only so much you can do with 50,000 students, and that’s where blue boxes came in,” Strickland said. “So where UTPD can’t be, the blue box-es are there, but now we’ve moved into an age where blue boxes can’t be everywhere.”

Government senior Mi-rusha Yogarajah said she liked the idea of a safety ap-plication but said she wasn’t sure students would con-sider the application a viable option for personal security.

“I know I’m sometimes worried about walking home when there aren’t many people around, and this feels like a sense of se-curity,” Yogarajah said.

Corporate commu-nications senior Anna Chamness said she has lived in West Campus for three years and that an

application like this would be useful to all students walking to and from cam-pus or walking to different places in West Campus.

“I think the app is a step closer in improving the safety of West Campus and other student-populated areas,” Chamness said. “It’s an easy and convenient way to make sure our friends make it home safely after a night out.”

Strickland said she hopes the application will be available to all stu-dents — even those who don’t live on campus or in West Campus.

“What I would really like to see is this count for more than the 40 Acres be-cause we aren’t always on the 40 Acres,” Strickland said. “There are a ton of students who live on Riv-erside, and there’s some students who live in North Campus, so making sure that they can still use this app and someone will make sure that [the police] get contacted no matter what the circumstances.”

have applied. In a meeting Thursday,

board members — finance senior lecturer Heidi Toprac, journalism senior lecturer Robert Quigley and Adam Alloy — recommended the Board “roll back” Novem-ber’s decision.

At the meeting, Maly pre-sented written concerns to the Board regarding November’s decision to amend the require-ments for certification. Maly said that although he had not served as a permanent staffer in the opinion department, he had significant work in opin-ion departments at other pub-lications, including The Horn and The Odyssey. Maly serves as editor-in-chief at both pub-lications, according to a re-sume he submitted as part of his application.

Board President Mary Dunn said she thought the Board was correct to amend the certifica-tion process.

The debate between Board members about maintaining or

discarding the November chang-es was, at times, contentious.

“I want to be very clear on this. I was aiming for clarity. I was aiming for consistency. I was not out on a personal vendetta against anyone,” Dunn said.

Five Board members, in-cluding Toprac, voted to up-hold the decision. Only Quigley voted in opposition.

“Our intent was to not add a new roadblock [to being certified],” Quigley said. “I don’t deny that, as a Board, we made a mistake in the fall

— it was a ‘dunderheaded’ mistake … I think the solu-tion should be that we to try to fix the mistake.”

Board Vice President Ar-jun Mocherla said he didn’t see the merit in having quali-fications if those qualifica-tions could be easily waived.

“I think the qualifications of one semester in opinion and one semester not in opinion — at least from my outside perspective — seem fairly rea-sonable,” Mocherla said.

Smith and Davis will begin campaigning Tuesday.

it comes back and that goes on to other students that are coming in,” McRaven said.

At the end of January, a U.S. District Court judge ruled that a Hazlewood pro-vision which restricted eli-gibility to military veterans only if they served while a resident of Texas was un-constitutional. Under the new ruling, veterans from anywhere in the country can receive the tuition exemption at Texas universities as long as they establish Texas resi-dency, a process that requires living in Texas for one year.

“When you look at the fed-eral judge’s ruling, some of the cost figures I’ve seen — and again I can’t verify them — but I’ve seen costs up to $2 billion,” McRaven said. “So clearly, we can’t absorb that kind of money in terms of support for Hazlewood.”

Covering the cost of vet-eran tuition amounts to $169.1 million in waived revenue for universities across the state, ac-cording to a report prepared by the Legislative Budget Board.

In a conversation with the Texas Tribune on Feb. 5, McRaven said colleges and universities have expected the state to pay for veteran education for years, but the exemption has remained an unfunded mandate.

“There was an expectation that the state would pay for the cost of the exemption,” McRaven said. “But it has never happened.”

McRaven said educational opportunities for other stu-dents are hampered without

the state funding.“All we’re asking is that the

state consider [funding Hazle-wood] because if not, what happens is that money that had been expected from the state is now impacting our ability to educate other young men and women,” McRaven said.

Jeremiah Gunderson, in-terim director of student vet-eran services, said he expects the number of veterans en-rolled at UT, as well as other institutions, to grow in the near future.

“I think we will see an in-crease because of the large number of veterans who are exiting the military,” Gunder-son said. “They’re doing a huge drawdown in the military; I believe the Army alone is looking to draw down 80,000 troops. I think, in general, col-leges and universities are see-ing an influx of new veterans coming to school.”

McRaven said it is impor-tant to continue to provide educational opportunities to veterans despite the chal-lenges of Hazlewood.

“I think we need to contin-ue to support the Hazlewood as it stands right now, and I look forward to working with the service veteran’s organiza-tions to find out the ways that I can help them at each of the universities,” McRaven said.

Gunderson said Hazle-wood has encouraged many veterans to become the first in their family to attend a college or university.

“I think it’s an outstand-ing opportunity, and a lot of statistics have shown that many veterans are first gen-eration college students,” Gunderson said.

Carlo Nasisse | Daily Texan StaffGinny Kalmbach relaxes inside the Little Longhorn Saloon, which she founded over two decades ago.

FRAMES featured photo thedailytexan

APPcontinues from page 1

HAZLEWOODcontinues from page 1

EDITORcontinues from page 1

Chris Foxx | Daily Texan Staff Members of the TSM Board discuss the upcoming election for editor-in-chief of The Daily Texan.

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Modern-day conspiracy theories materialize from vast amounts of hyper-spe-cific information gathered on the Internet, Jenny Rice, writing, rhetoric, and digital media professor at the Uni-versity of Kentucky, said Fri-day in a talk at the Union.

Rice said “archival mag-nitude,” or the overwhelm-ing amounts of information conspiracy theorists possess on controversial events, al-lows the theorists to easily view events through different perspectives. Conspiracy theorists known as “truthers” doubt widely-accepted theo-ries about how major events unfolded, including events such as 9/11, Rice said.

“As I began to interview 9/11 truthers and joined Facebook groups devoted to 9/11 truth, as they call it, I very quickly found myself drowning in details, infor-mation and images and texts that circulated across these various groups,” Rice said. “The archive in conspiracy

discourse is huge and also microscopic, often composed of time-lapsed images and still frames in order to give a second-by-second analysis.”

Rice said the Boston Mara-thon bombing is an example of an event that provided the “big data” theorists can col-lect on terrorist attacks. The marathon bombing, which took place in April 2013, killed three people and in-jured over 200.

“Such fine-grain atten-tion to detail was seen in the truther community that sprung up overnight after the Boston Marathon bombing,” Rice said. “Many of the post-ings in online sites like Red-dit and Facebook included intensive archival work.”

Rice said a distrust of the government often provides an underlying foundation for conspiracy theories, as evi-denced by the Boston Mara-thon bombing.

“[Conspiracy theorists be-lieve] the bombing was a false flag, which was perpetuated by the federal government in order to clamp down on civil liberties and take away guns,”

Rice said. “The version of con-spiracy is almost besides the point. Secrecy is at work. It’s nefarious. It must be revealed.”

Teddy Albiniak, a rheto-ric and language doctoral student, said Rice’s discus-sion of big data opened his eyes to ideas he hadn’t previously considered.

“She was mentioning that the process of accumula-tion brings a certain type of enjoyment. That was one of the things I was taking out of it. To think about how pro-cesses are affected, I think, is integral to the ways we can kind of experience the world,” Albiniak said.

Sarah Frank, a rhetoric and history doctoral student, said the lecture overlapped with her doctoral work in history.

“I’ve been studying this woman who writes about do-ing history as mapping terrain, and she’s constantly gathering evidence to expand the map, and so what really clicked in the lecture for me was that the map could expand infinitely as you gather and accumulate more data,” Frank said.

Surgeons John Uecker and Jayson Aydelotte discussed their experiences as general surgeons in war zone medi-cal units at a talk in Welch Hall on Friday.

Both doctors, who now work at University Medical Center Brackenridge, said their military backgrounds allowed them to develop their skills and practice new medical procedures.

While serving in the U.S. Navy during the Iraq War, Uecker spent time in the For-ward Resuscitative Surgical Suite, a mobile unit made up of 8–10 people, including sev-eral surgeons, anesthesiolo-gists and ICU nurses. After his time in Iraq, Uecker said he carried practices he learned in war to civilian workplaces.

“What we learned from the war is the idea of damage con-trol,” Uecker said. “We have learned to operate quickly and prevent them from going into shock or going cold as we move them to another facility.”

Aydelotte said his experi-ence in the Army was differ-ent. Following the attack on the USS Cole in October 2000 by two suicide bombers of the al-Qaeda network, Aydelotte transferred from Germany and was stationed in North Africa.

Aydelotte said he was deployed in 2007 to the Green Zone in Baghdad. That year was the deadliest period in U.S. military his-tory since the Tet Offensive in Vietnam.

“The interesting part about

this from a research stand-point is all the deaths fun-neled to one place,” Aydelotte said. “This changed a lot of ways modern trauma care is practiced now days.”

As a result, Aydelotte said they began treating pa-tients with blood rather than IV fluids.

Aydelotte said his most traumatic experience during the war was performing on a soldier hit by an explosively formed penetrator (EFP). According to Aydelotte, he became the first soldier to survive after losing all of his arms and legs.

According to Aydelotte,

Iranian militants and other militant groups manufac-tured EFPs because they were effective against the Army’s armored vehicles.

“The specifics of [the EFP] is a big copper plate, and an explosion behind the plate will turn into molten copper,” Aydelotte said.

With this technology, the enemy could damage armored vehicles without blowing them up, causing ex-tensive damage to the vehicle operators, he said.

Reginald Baptiste, director of pre health professions at the Dell Medical School, said the military can be a good option

for students looking for higher education opportunities.

“This was focused on mili-tary today, but we are focused on exposing the students to all practices,” Baptiste said. “We want to exposure them to different opportunities to possibly shadow in and see what suits them.”

W&N 3

NEWS Monday, February 16, 2015 3

than they had in the past,” Feal said. “They may be coming from high school with knowledge of a lan-guage other than Spanish or French, and they are taking advantage of the impressive array of offerings at the col-lege level.”

Marketing senior Gaby Yu said she believed, while it was useful to be

multilingual, knowing a foreign language is not cru-cial to finding a job unless a business student plans to work in a specific country.

“I think in business to have that [foreign lan-guage] knowledge is not really necessary because a lot of business is English speaking, unless you’re do-ing international business,” Yu said.

Feal said certain language programs are still retaining

their enrollment rates despite the decrease in some foreign language enrollments.

“At a time when so many language programs are fac-ing financial constraints, it’s inspiring to see how some programs are thriving,” Feal said. “If we are going to give all students the oppor-tunity to pursue advanced language study, we need to document what successful programs are doing and ad-vocate these models.”

honeymoon, came to work the next morning, shared their story with their boss and got fired without recourse, it may create some momentum for an employment nondiscrimina-tion act on the state level and

federal level that would finally extend those protections,” Robertson said.

Rudy Corona, computer sci-ence junior and vice president of the Secular Student Alli-ance, said the next step for the LGBT community is transgen-der rights. He said members of the transgender community

face a litany of problems that might be beyond the attention of the public.

“[Even] public bathrooms can be an uncomfortable place for transgender people be-cause they might not be wel-come to the bathroom of their choice based on their gender,” Corona said.

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RESEARCH

Surgeons discuss opportunities in militaryBy Matthew Adams

@MatthewAdams60

Joshua Guerra | Daily Texan Staff Jayson Aydelotte, a surgeon at University Medical Center Brackenridge, served in the Army as a general surgeon in a war zone medical unit. In a talk at Welch Hall on Friday, Aydelotte and fellow surgeon John Uecker discussed how their military backgrounds developed their skills as surgeons.

RESEARCH

Professor lectures on ‘truthers’By Caleb Wong

@thedailytexan

LANGUAGEcontinues from page 1

Charlotte CarpenterDaily Texan Staff

Jenny Rice, a writing, rhetoric and digital media professor at the University of Ken-tucky, lectures about modern-day conspiracy theories in the Texas Union on Friday afternoon.

Established by the Board of Regents in 2012, the University of Texas System’s Institute for Transformational Learning has a bold mandate: to leverage technology to make a UT quality ed-ucation more accessible, affordable and success-ful, especially among populations that higher education has too often failed.

The ITL’s mission is to serve as a catalyst for innovation. To this end, the ITL has supported a number of initiatives at UT Austin including innovative online delivery of a large number of “gateway” classes and development of nine massive online courses, or MOOCs, that have reached nearly a quarter of a million students globally. These included the first MOOCs to implement adaptive learning, which tailors learning pathways to individual students’ needs, and project-based learning — in the case of Jonathan Valvano and Ramesh Yerraballi’s Em-bedded Systems MOOC, building circuits and programming a real microcontroller.

UT Austin is currently integrating MOOC assets and digital content into on-campus courses.

Right now, ITL’s energies focus on ways to better serve non-traditional students: low-income students, first-generation college stu-dents, part-time students, commuting students, working adults, family caregivers and students with some college and no degree.

Our strategy is three-pronged. We are work-ing with faculty across the System’s academic and health science campuses to:

• Develop transformational curricular and program designs that offer a clear value proposition; individualized learn-ing pathways; anytime, anywhere access to course content; and wrap-around stu-dent support.

• Design and implement next generation user experiences and infrastructure that will allow the UT campuses to deliver personalized, adaptive educational pro-gramming and support services at scale.

• Harness the power of advanced learning analytics to better advise students, per-

sonalize instruction, and continuously improve teaching methods and student support services.

We consider the ITL-supported projects to be among the most exciting in higher education. These include:

• An array of career-aligned, competency-based degree programs in areas of high employer and student demand. The first of these programs, a B.S. in Biomedical Sciences at UT Rio Grande Valley, will launch this fall.

• Degree pathways with an intentionally designed curriculum that can begin in high school and lead to graduate school or a rewarding career. UTRGV’s B.S. in Biomedical Sciences is part of a broader Middle School to Medical School path-way.

• Innovative medical school curricula that are competency-based and that emphasize experiential and project- and challenge-based learning; and

• UTxProfessional Health, a cross-insti-tutional educational marketplace for health professionals worldwide.

Uniting these initiatives is an approach that is student-centered, outcomes-oriented, career-aligned and data-driven. Our projects empha-size high fidelity content and instructional de-sign, personalization, powerful networking and collaborative experiences, high impact student services, sustainability and scale — which will provide the data needed to further enhance these programs and to better support student success.

Faculty at UT Austin are among the country’s leaders in inventing next generation teaching and learning and conducting educational re-search. The ITL is staunchly committed to part-nering with campus visionaries to support the innovations that will define the future of higher education.

Mintz is the executive director of the University of Texas System’s Institute for Transformational Learning and a UT Austin history professor.

House Speaker Joe Straus, R-San Antonio, has been on a roll recently. At the beginning of this year, he annihilated his competition in an attempted palace coup for control of his gavel. By a 127-11 margin, Straus brought together all the Democrats and a healthy ma-jority of his party, the Republicans. Only the most zealous, obtuse and obstreperous Tea Party-backed rabble rousers opposed his bipartisan mandate to rule over the House. For the first month of the session, Straus has focused on neutralizing not only the right wing’s representatives, but their key policy points as well.

This has stood in sharp contrast to Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, elected last year in a con-tentious Republican primary predominantly because of those same ultra-conservatives. Patrick, in his capacity as the president of the Texas Senate, has pushed for increasingly out-of-touch right-wing pipe dreams in his brief time in office. These include allowing open carrying of licensed handguns and al-lowing handguns on college campuses, as well as rescinding the 2001 Texas Dream Act, which allows for undocumented students to be granted in-state tuition at public universi-ties, including this one. In doing so, Straus has not only stood up to both Patrick and Gov. Greg Abbott, but also the platform of the Texas Republican Party.

Straus has always stuck out as a moder-ate on many issues, but he has only recent-ly begun to show his true colors. He was first elected in 2009, deposing the previous speaker, Tom Craddick, R-Midland, by cob-bling together a bare-boned coalition of the

most moderate Republicans and Democrats. Thereafter, Straus embarked on a noble ex-periment: He let the House members run the House. A diverse selection of legislation, some of which I definitely found myself op-posed to, came to the floor and was passed by a majority of the members. In the three speaker’s elections that have followed, Straus has been re-elected unanimously or nearly unanimously.

But the right wing has never been fully comfortable with Straus. Part of this has to do with his comfort working across the aisle with the Democrats. Part of it has to do with his religion: Straus is the first Jewish major officeholder in Texas. In 2010, when a few high profile contenders first flirted with short-lived candidacies to depose Straus, the crux of their complaints chiefly revolved around the need for Texas to be led by a “Christian conservative.” A few weeks ago, when I was in a Capitol elevator, I overheard two lobbyists for a gun rights organization make anti-Semitic remarks about Straus.

Perhaps Straus has gotten tired of at-tempting to mollify enemies who intrinsi-cally loathe him, perhaps from a position of bigotry, and is thus becoming more forceful in his assertions. In 2011, Straus was nota-bly more hesitant on taking a position on campus carry, when pressed by the Texas Tribune. Recently, however, he was far less ambiguous.

“Personally, I would caution anyone to ignore [UT Chancellor William] McRaven when you’re talking about arms and ammu-nition,” Straus said in recent comments at the Texas Politics Project on campus. McRaven, of course, recently came down forcefully against the campus carry proposal, arguing it would makes campuses “less safe.”

Straus was similarly forceful in his opposi-tion to repealing the Dream Act.

“These are young people who have played by the rules, who’ve qualified for admission at our colleges, who’ve gone to our pub-lic schools and, personally, I can think of a lot worse things these people can be doing with their lives than pursuing higher educa-tion and becoming engaged citizens in our economy and paying taxes,” Straus said in the same interview.

Now, if Straus’ history at the helm of the lower house is any indication, the body may very well still pass these right-wing bills, giv-en Straus’ preference to be a hands-off leader. But his willingness to come out for pragmat-ic and centrist causes, in a state whose lead-ership is all racing as far as they can to the extreme right, is a breath of fresh air.

Horwitz is senior associate editor.

In December, President Barack Obama an-nounced that the U.S. would reestablish dip-lomatic relations with Cuba. The embargo with Cuba has long been criticized as petty and outdated policy, especially in the post-Cold War era. The Berlin Wall fell 25 years ago. The U.S. has had a relationship with communist China for 42 years. And yet an island nation 90 miles from Florida with an ancient dictator and a toothless government remains extremely isolated from Ameri-can society. As Obama said in his State of the Union address: “When what you're do-ing doesn't work for 50 years, it's time to try something new.”

Our post-Cold War generation is ready to turn the page in our relationship with the island nation. Most millennials cannot re-member the years of tension with the com-munist world; most undergraduates were born after the Soviet Union ceased to exist. For us, the threat has transitioned into histo-ry. As the actions by Obama’s administration indicate, it is time to make up. It is time to learn from each other and our past mistakes. Greater interaction will lead to more mutual

understanding and mutual benefit. A better relationship with Cuba will also

have ramifications throughout the region. Much of Latin America’s sympathies, if not official support, lie with Cuba. America’s pol-icy toward Cuba provides ammunition for anti-American sentiment. The U.S. has a his-tory of meddling in the affairs of many coun-tries in the region. Latin America has not for-gotten. Some see the U.S. as an exploitative imperialist power, which the irrational Cu-ban embargo supports. Turning over a new leaf with Cuba will earn the U.S. favor with both the people and the governments of the developing region.

With greater access, Cuba will provide op-portunities for study in economics, history, sociology, anthropology, philosophy, politi-cal science, literature, fine arts, business, the Spanish language and more. UT has the best Latin American Studies program in the na-tion, with the faculty and resources at the Lo-zano-Long Institute of Latin American Stud-ies. LLILAS should also encourage academic exchange at the undergraduate and graduate levels through curriculum and study abroad programs, and at the professorial level by hosting Cuban academics and supporting UT professors’ efforts to study Cuba. LLILAS should be a leader in academic and cultural

exchange in this new era of U.S.-Cuba relations.

With travel restrictions sub-siding, the University should encourage more students to study abroad in Cuba. Cur-rently, the International Office offers a Maymester program in Havana. While certainly an en-riching experience, it is by de-sign a limited one. The “Cuba in Question” Maymester offers one course and a one-credit pre-departure seminar. The program cost is equivalent to a full semes-ter’s tuition and is limited in the number of students it can take.

A traditional exchange pro-gram in Cuba would give stu-dents a more substantial experi-ence. Five months of interaction with Cuban culture beyond the boundaries of a faculty-led educational tour would allow students to form a much deeper connection and under-standing. Additionally, a semester exchange would allow students to take a full course load with much less additional cost. Our gov-ernments have decided to make Cuba more accessible to Americans. UT should follow suit and make the island nation more acces-

sible to students. UT and LLILAS have a responsibility to

continue improving its top-rated offerings. In the coming years, Cuba will provide enor-mous opportunity; the University should not let it pass to someone else out of lack of ef-fort. The University should pave the way so students and faculty can compete for the wealth of opportunities that an increasingly accessible Cuba presents.

Burchard is a Plan II senior from Houston.

4RILEY BRANDS, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF / @TexanEditorialMonday, February 16, 2015

LEGALESE | Opinions expressed in The Daily Texan are those of the editor, the Editorial Board or the writer of the article. They are not necessarily those of the UT administration, the Board of Regents or the Texas Student Media Board of Operating Trustees.

SUBMIT A FIRING LINE OR GUEST COLUMN | E-mail your Firing Lines and guest columns to [email protected]. Letters must be between 100 and 300 words and guest columns between 500 and 1,000. The Texan reserves the right to edit all submissions for brevity, clarity and liability.

RECYCLE | Please recycle this copy of The Daily Texan. Place the paper in one of the recycling bins on campus or back in the burnt-orange newsstand where you found it.EDITORIAL TWITTER | Follow The Daily Texan Editorial Board on Twitter (@TexanEditorial) and receive updates on our latest editorials and columns.

MOOCs change learning experienceCOLUMN

As U.S.-Cuba relations thaw, time for more programs to Cuba

Other Texas politicians could learn leadership skills from Straus

COLUMN

Our commentary doesn’t stop on the page. For more of our thoughts on the issues of the day, check out our blog, A Matter of Opinion, at dailytexanon-line.com.

ONLINE

Mariana Munoz | Daily Texan StaffThe International Office could offer more programs to Cuba as relations open up between the U.S. and the Caribbean country.

By Nathan BurchardDaily Texan Columnist

@nathburch

By Steven MintzGuest Columnist

COLUMN

[Unlike Straus, Dan] Patrick, in his capacity as the president of the Texas Senate, has pushed for increasingly out-of-touch right-wing pipe dreams in his brief time in office.

By Noah M. HorwitzSenior Associate Editor

@NmHorwitz

GALLERY

Erica NdubuezeDaily Texan Staff

Senior starting pitcher Parker French, who is expected to be the ace of the Longhorns staff in the early going, looked his part in the Longhorns’ season opener Friday.

After struggling in the first inning with a hit batter and an earned run, French settled in, allowing only three hits and recording a strikeout over the course of his next four innings. French did struggle with three hit batters in the game, although those could be attributed to the nerves of starting a new season.

Sophomore starting pitch-ers struggle

Outside of French, Texas will have to rely on a pair of sopho-more arms on the mound if the team is to have the success it wants this year. In Satur-day’s doubleheader, however, both starting pitchers — Kacy Clemens and Josh Sawyer — struggled in their first starts.

Clemens’ day got off to a rough start, as he allowed seven hits, including a home run, and six runs in his first inning. Cle-mens settled down for the next two innings but was credited for two more earned runs in the fourth after the Longhorns had closed the deficit to one.

Sawyer’s end result was similar. He allowed a run in the first, allowed two more in the third and was cred-ited with two earned runs in the fifth as Rice swept the

Longhorns in the double-header.

Longhorns bats rattle Rice’s Blake Fox

While Clemens struggled on the mound, the Longhorns bats kept the game close, which was an impressive feat given the strength of the Owls start-ing pitcher Blake Fox. Texas pegged Fox for seven runs — four of which were earned —

eight hits and two walks.Last season, Fox posted

a 1.46 ERA for Rice and was anticipated to be one of the game’s leading pitch-ers heading into this season. Fox still emerged with his 19th straight win as a starter but not before taking shots from the Longhorns batters.

Boswell starts with solid opening series

After missing all of last year with a wrist injury, red-shirt freshman Bret Boswell made the most of his first opportunity to see the field this weekend.

On Friday, Boswell went 1-for-3, scoring the tying run in the fifth inning. On Satur-day, he combined to go 3-for-8 and brought in two runs in the first game of the double-header. In the third inning,

Boswell laid down a success-ful squeeze bunt to draw the Longhorns to within one of the Owls. Then, in the ninth, he ripped a double to left-center field to again get Texas to within one run.

Shaw comes through as game one hero

Senior outfielder Collin Shaw didn’t take long to make an impact for the Longhorns.

With Friday’s game tied 1–1 in the top of the sev-enth, Shaw stepped up to the plate with runners on second and third and a new Rice pitcher on the mound. Shaw then drilled a double to right field, scoring the two runners, which proved to be the winning runs for the Longhorns. He then added an RBI double in the first game Saturday.

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SPORTS Monday, February 16, 2015 5

French kicks off Texas’ season with opening winBy Jacob Martella

@ViewFromTheBox

Courtesy of Marcel MerwinThe Rice Thresher

Senior pitcher Parker French opened Texas’ season allow-ing just one run in five innings during Texas’ win against Rice on Friday. French is expected to lead Texas on the mound this season as the Longhorns’ vet-eran pitcher.

R E C Y C L E ♲

BASEBALL

After going undefeated three weeks for three weeks, Texas saw its hopes of a national title end quickly this weekend.

The Longhorns, who won their first five matches of the season, traveled to Chicago for the ITA Indoor National Championships but lost the first match of the tournament Friday in heartbreaking fash-ion to the defending champi-ons, No. 8 Ohio State.

Texas began the match in a 2–0 hole after losing the dou-bles point as well as the fifth singles match, but the Long-horns rallied to win three of the next four matches to tie the contest. Still, despite the strong play of seniors No. 16 Søren Hess-Olesen and No. 65 Adrien Berkowicz, Texas lost the match after freshman John Mee lost in sixth singles, 5–7, 6–1, 7–5.

“It was a great match today,” Texas head coach Michael Center said. “I’m disappointed that we lost, but we are improv-ing as a team. This tournament has a way of making teams better and stronger later in the season, and I see that progres-sion with this team.”

Despite the opening loss, Texas came out strong in the

consolation matches. The Longhorns quickly took care of No. 16 Penn State on Sat-urday, sweeping the match 4–0. Dominance from the top of the Longhorns roster once again marked the victory, as all three of Texas’ top players won their matches in straight sets, including a hard fought 6–4, 6–4 victory from senior Lloyd Glasspool.

Texas continued to im-press in its final match of the tournament Sunday af-ternoon against No. 13 Co-lumbia, as it won by a score of 4–1, winning four con-secutive singles matches fol-lowing a loss of the doubles point.

The Longhorns, who have proved this season to be a top contender in the nation, return to action against North Caro-lina on Friday.

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6GARRETT CALLAHAN, SPORTS EDITOR | @texansportsMonday, February 16, 2015

MEN’S BASKETBALL

Longhorns beat down on Red Raiders This was the Myles Turner

everyone has been waiting for.Not the freshman who

scored in the single digits in the last four games or the self-proclaimed 7-footer who, in that same time period, missed half his free throws after shooting at an 89-percent clip. Not the highly touted pros-pect who connected on just one of his last seven threes.

But the Myles Turner that, in a must-win on his home court, delivered a career game to carry Texas to a 56–41 win against Texas Tech on Satur-day, evening out the Long-horns’ conference record.

“I was just confident,” Turner said. “The last cou-ple of games, I didn’t play with the same poise and the same confidence.”

Scoring from the inside and out, Turner finished with 25 points on 10-of-13 shooting. It was his third 20-point game of the season, but the first against a well-named opponent. He was also big on the boards, gathering a career-high 12 re-bounds for his third double-double of the season.

While Turner was deflat-ing Tech’s morale, the Texas zone showed the Red Raid-ers (12–14, 2–11 Big 12) no love on Valentine’s Day, lim-iting them to just 33 percent shooting. Texas Tech senior guard Robert Turner did all he could to keep them in the game, dropping 10 points, but as the only Red Raider in double figures, it wasn’t

nearly enough for an offense that struggled mightily.

“It was the first time this year [Turner] approached the game with a defensive mentality,” head coach Rick Barnes said. “Without ques-tion, he did the best job all year playing the middle of it. Overall, I thought he was ter-rific, and he got started on the defensive end.”

The game was slow-paced from the outset, as both teams struggled offensively. With just under three minutes left

in the first half, Texas Tech held a one-point lead. But an 11–0 run by Texas to end the half evaporated Tech’s lead quickly, giving Texas (17–8, 6–6 Big 12) breathing room in the second half.

Tech was able to cut its deficit to 5 midway through the second half, but that was as close as the team would get, as it couldn’t stop Turner.

“Myles Turner was out-standing,” Texas Tech coach Tubby Smith said. “Not only

is he talented, but he’s a smart player.”

While Turner handled most of the work on offense, ac-counting for 45 percent of the team’s points, the rest of the points were evenly divided out with junior guard Javan Felix and junior forward Connor Lammert leading the crowded pack with just six points apiece.

In his first game back after missing two with a concus-sion, senior forward Jonathan Holmes played fewer minutes than usual, as he came off the

bench and finished with five points on 1-of-5 shooting. In 118 games, this was just his 19th off the bench.

Texas will return to ac-tion Tuesday when it travels to Norman, Oklahoma to start a brutal stretch of five straight ranked opponents.

“We just have to string to-gether wins,” Felix said. “It’s a tough night every night in the Big 12. I believe that if we keep doing things the right way and play for each other, then we’ll be fine.”

TEXAS TEXAS TECHVS.

By Evan Berkowitz@Evan_Berkowitz

Ellyn Snider | Daily Texan Staff Freshman forward Myles Turner recorded a career night Saturday against Texas Tech in Texas’ sixth Big 12 win of the sea-son. Turner tallied 25 points and 12 rebounds as the Longhorns evened their record to 6–6 in conference play.

BASEBALL MEN’S TENNIS

Late-game rally gives Texas second win of young season

Daulton Venglar | Daily Texan file photoSophomore catcher Tres Barrera eyes a pitch heading his way. Barrera was important in the Texas win, as his two-out walk prompted the Longhorns’ rally in the 10th inning.

By Nick Castillo@Nick_Castillo74

By Michael Shapiro@mshap2

Texas faces first loss at indoor championships

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1972Former NFL halfback Jerome Bettis is born.

Back-to-back losses plague Longhorns

During its weekend trip in California, Texas wom-en’s tennis struggled, los-ing back-to-back matches against No. 30 Pepperdine and No. 12 USC.

No. 25 Longhorns came out fast in doubles against Pepperdine on Saturday but lost steam when singles started, re-sulting in a 5–2 loss.

Sophomore Neda Ko-prcina posted the lone win for Texas in third sin-gles against Pepperdine sophomore Apichaya Runglerdkriangkrai (6–2, 2–6, 6–3), but the Waves were still clearly domi-nant in singles, taking the rest of the points.

On Sunday, the Long-horns struggled against the No. 12 Trojans, who recorded their fifth sweep of the season.

In fourth singles, freshman Dani Wagland forced USC freshman Gabby Smith into a tie-breaker game when she won the first set, 7—6, but Smith came back to clinch USC’s sweep.

Texas has a short break before heading north to Michigan on Feb. 27.

—Reanna Zuniga

SPORTS BRIEFLY

TRACK AND FIELD | BRADLEY MADDOXWEEKEND RECAPS

With their eyes set on the Big 12 Indoor Cham-pionships in less than two weeks, the Longhorns tal-lied more personal bests, conference marks, and nation-wide records in Seattle, Washington and Fayeteville, Arkansas over the weekend.

At the Husky Classic in Se-attle, sophomore Sandie Raines set another personal record in the 3000 meters with a time of 9:11.16 — four seconds

better than her previous best which she achieved just last week. And in the mile run, junior Brady Turnbull posted the third-best mark in the Big 12 this season with a time of 4:03.58.

In Arkansas, sophomore Nick Phynn was one of many standouts, winning the triple jump with a distance of 15.89 meters. With the new Big 12 mark, Phynn looks to win the triple jump title at the Big 12 In-door Championships.

Despite starting the weekend with a win over Rice, Texas put itself in jeopardy of dropping its opening series Sun-day afternoon after the Owls swept Saturday’s doubleheader.

Still, the Longhorns found a way to salvage the weekend – with a late-game rally, No. 6 Texas overcame a 3–0 deficit to defeat Rice, 4–3, in 10 innings at Rice’s Reckling Park on Sunday afternoon to split the series.

The game began as a pitchers’ duel as Long-horns junior pitcher Chad Hollingsworth and Rice junior pitcher Aus-tin Orewiler kept the game scoreless through four innings. But the Owls broke through in the bottom of the fifth, and the threat of los-ing the series magni-fied when Rice took a 3–0 lead.

In the seventh inning, however, the Longhorns battled back into the game, adding three runs to eventually send the game into extra innings.

In the 10th inning, sophomore catcher Tres Barrera drew a two-out walk before redshirt freshman infielder Bret Boswell followed Bar-rera with a single up the middle. With a scoring threat on second base, Texas sent freshman des-ignated hitter Michael McCann, who was 0–4 on the day, to the plate. McCann smacked an RBI double down the left-field line in the top of the 10th to give Texas a 4–3 lead.

In his first collegiate appearance, freshman pitcher Kyle Johnston was able to finish the game to give the Long-horns their second win of the season.

On Friday, to begin the series, Texas started off slow, but it overcame its

10–6 hit deficit. Senior pitcher Parker French only gave up one run in five innings of work, while senior right fielder Collin Shaw went 2–5 and hit the go-ahead, two-run double to pro-pel the Longhorns to a 3–1 win.

In game one of Satur-day’s doubleheader, soph-omore pitcher Kacy Cle-mens struggled as he gave up eight runs on eight hits and made it through just three innings in his first collegiate start. Texas fought valiantly, getting to within one run of the lead twice, but Rice took the 10–9 win. Texas fell into a 5–0 deficit in the second game of the dou-bleheader. Barrera hit a two-run home run in seventh inning for Texas’ only runs.

The Longhorns (2–2) will look to improve when they return to ac-tion Tuesday against UTSA (2–1) for their home opener.

COMICS 7

COMICS Monday, February 16, 2015 7

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KAT SAMPSON, LIFE&ARTS EDITOR | @thedailytexan 8Monday, February 16, 2015

ART

Occidental geometry inspires new exhibitFluorescent lights, ce-

ment blocks and a pair of gloves star as some of the main attractions in Adam Crosson’s new art installa-tion, “Soft Wax.”

Studio art graduate stu-dent Adam Crosson will display his latest sculpture exhibit through Feb. 28 at Pump Project Art Complex, a local, nonprofit art studio and exhibition gallery es-tablished to bring affordable work spaces to artists.

Crosson said the inspira-tion for his exhibition came primarily from two places: the creation and destruction of the European climate and the influential pieces of Paul Virilio, a French cultural the-orist and urbanist. Virilio’s writing on the concept of occidental geometry — the regulation of diverse forms of representation — influenced Crosson’s construction of his featured pieces.

“Two of the primary ob-jects come from this think-ing of these occidental ge-ometries: climates of war and climates of modernist archi-tecture in the mid-century,” Crosson said.

Crosson, who received a fellowship last fall, spent the semester at the Royal Col-lege of Art in London. While there, he learned about Euro-pean art and history, which he said had a major impact on his work.

“The work that I am doing now is established off of that first year of study, but more specially, it comes out of my experience in London,”

Crosson said.Rebecca Marino, Pump

Project gallery director, said she was impressed with his work after only one viewing.

“I was really drawn to his use of materials and the sub-tle familiarity of the objects that he was making. And not only was the work strong overall, he has an interest in the qualities of ‘non-place’

alongside an architectural background that can defi-nitely be seen in his work,” Marino said.

Crosson said he wants ex-hibit viewers to come away with their own interpre-tations of his work, with-out being told how to feel. Crosson said it is important for artists to look back at early art history, to see how

artists translate their energy to their viewers.

“For me, I’m interested in understanding that his-tory, and incorporating that history, and developing a dialogue with that history,” Crosson said.

Katie Edwards, curator at UMLAUF Sculpture Garden & Museum, met Crosson after the museum awarded

him the UMLAUF Prize — an award given to an out-standing UT Master of Fine Arts student. She said she would be happy to work with any student, but Cros-son was a dream.

“‘Soft Wax’ was partly about making us aware of spaces we generally don’t think about,” Edwards said. “So, in a way, some of his

sculptures makes us aware of the impossibility of certain situations.”

Crosson said he plans to move to Europe in the near future to further his art career.

“I think that being in an international setting for a few years, at least, will do my practice a lot of good and ex-pand it in ways that staying here wouldn’t,” Crosson said.

By Mackenzie Palmer@thedailytexan

Daulton Venglar | Daily Texan StaffStudio art graduate student Adam Crosson is the creator of “Soft Wax,” an exhibit currently on display at Pump Project, a local art studio established to bring artists affordable work spaces. Both European culture and the work of Paul Virilio, a French cultural theorist and urbanist, influence Crosson’s art.

BUSINESS ALBUM REVIEW | DRAKE

With his fourth album, Views from The 6, com-ing down the pipeline, Drake has a great year ahead of him. On top of the album, he went and pulled a Beyoncé, re-leasing an unannounced mixtape titled, If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late, on iTunes. The move caused his almost 21 million Twitter fol-lowers to clamor in ex-citement. Is this just an-other piece for Drake’s catalogue, or does it have replay value?

Drake, who has been teasing new content for months, has not said what exactly If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late is. Is this a mixtape, as all of Drake’s social media teasing has suggested? Is it an album with concep-tual weight to justify its cost? Is this some sort of hybrid of the two meant to fight back against Cash Money Records and Birdman to free Drake from his contracts? So far, no one seems to know.

One thing is obvious right off the bat: This isn’t the Drake we’re used to hearing. Drake was never a raw artist; this might be the closest he’s ever come to that status. The production is mini-mal compared to what I consider to be Drake’s best work.

The most upbeat song of the mixtape is “Leg-end”. This is classic Drake at his best, with familiar beats and rhymes that work well together. Drake hits the ground running, declaring, “If I die, I’m a legend.” After this somewhat reflec-tive track, everything

becomes much darker.The best track on the

mixtape, “You & The 6,” is an open letter from Drake to his mother. He thanks her for raising him prop-erly and touts her re-siliency. The last song, “6PM In New York,” lifts the album’s gloomy vibe. Drake proves his skill with confident approach and complex rhymes.

This mixtape does have its bad moments, however. On the second track, Drake raps, “Bout to call your ass an Uber, I got somewhere to be.” Drake, you can do bet-ter than that. “Jungle” didn’t work well, either, given Drake’s usually top-notch singing.

I enjoyed listening to If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late, but I don’t think I’ll ever listen to it again. It’s not that it was bad; it just doesn’t seem to have any replay value. Drake wrote this for some self-contemplation and an op-portunity for the listener to reflect as well, but it’s not something I would go back to.

The truth is, I just want the album. This just feels like a prelude. After lis-tening to this mixtape, I’m looking forward to what Drake will release in the coming months.

By Chris Duncan@thedailytexan

IF YOU’RE READING THIS IT’S TOO LATE

Artist: DrakeTracks: 17Genre: R&B/Hip-HopRating: 6/10

Drake reveals new side in unannounced album

To the unobservant cus-tomer, Dominican Joe appears to be just another Austin cof-fee shop. But underneath the hipster background music and mood lighting is a business run by two UT alumni that strives to give back to kids in Dominican Republic.

In 2006, UT alumni Sharla Megilligan and Mehul Patel co-founded Dominican Joe, a coffee shop located on South Congress Avenue, to finan-cially support Megilligan’s non-profit organization, Makarios. Makarios aims to educate chil-dren in the Dominican Repub-lic through the organization’s school, Colegio Makarios.

The partnership between Dominican Joe and Makarios began because of the abun-dance of Dominican coffee growers struggling to make a living selling their coffee at the low prices that the Dominican

market demanded. Makarios stepped in and became a pri-mary buyer for coffee growers, buying their coffee at fair trade prices. Makarios sells coffee to Dominican Joe, which turns around and sells it to under-caffeinated Austinites.

“[Dominican Joe] exists to support Makarios,” Patel said.

According to Patel, as Do-minican Joe grows more suc-cessful, they increase the price at which they buy the coffee from Makarios, thus increasing Makarios’ profits over time.

“The way we structured the shop is that we are just a regu-lar for-profit coffee shop,” Pa-tel said. “Our profits go to the owners just like any other shop, [but] over time, [we] raise the prices that we pay to Makarios. As we are more successful, we pay more to Makarios.”

Makarios uses profits from coffee sales, fundraisers and sponsorships to grow their school, which currently teaches children from pre-K through

6th grade, and plans on adding a grade every year.

“We plan to continue grow-ing the school by one grade every year and are in the process of being a US certi-fied international school,” Megilligan said in an email to the Texan. “We add new pro-grams each year as well — ev-erything from art to soccer to adult education classes.”

Megilligan started Makarios in 2004. Originally, she trans-ported coffee from the Do-minican Republic to the U.S. in her travel suitcases because the Dominican Republic’s gov-ernment was not supportive of the export market, she said. She sold the coffee in the U.S. at fundrasiers for Makarios. The coffee sales were so strong that Megilligan approached Patel with the idea of building a business around supporting her nonprofit.

Patel said he was losing inter-est in his job at the time, and the idea of doing something socially

productive enticed him.“Neither of us were the types

that are like, ‘We’re gonna study this for two years and learn ex-actly how to do it right,’” Patel said. “We just kind of dove in and started trying things.”

Patel said neither he nor Megilligan had any experience in retail or coffee, but they had a vision and a desire to make a difference. Dominican Joe opened 18 months later.

“At the time, neither of us knew what we were doing. It was just an experiment — a fun idea to see if we could build this,” Patel said. “We learned a lot, and we did a lot wrong, but that was just a part of the process.”

Patel said Dominican Joe’s first year in business was a haze of broken pipes, flooding and sewage trauma.

“The first year was a night-mare for us,” Patel said. “Learning, growing, develop-ing everything from scratch. But every year since then has gotten better.”

UT alumni run coffee shop with a missionBy Katie Walsh@katiehwalsh_atx

Joe Griffin Smith | Daily Texan StaffUT alumnus Mehul Patel is a co-founder of the coffee shop Dominican Joe, located on South Congress Avenue. Dominican Joe financially supports co-founder Sharla Megilligan’s nonprofit organization, Makarios, which aims to educate children in the Dominican Republic.