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Territorial Cup hits hardwood Old coaches reunite as hoops team tries to end five-game skid at ASU this weekend
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Arizona Daily Wildcat
The independent student newspaper of the University of Arizona since 1899 friday, january , dailywildcat.com
tucson, arizona
LaRose discusses AD role By Bryan Roy ARIZONA DAILY WILDCAT The master front office in McKale Center still sits vacant, unsettled and unlit. One month on the job, Kathleen ‘Rocky’ LaRose still hasn’t moved into her new suite. “Not yet,” said the interim athletic director. “They just painted the walls.” And that’s just what President Robert Shelton ordered: Fresh surroundings within the department. One month ago, Shelton opted not to renew the contract of 16-year athletic director
Student biology research presented
Jim Livengood, who turned 64 years old last year. Without citing specific reasoning for the transition, Shelton appointed LaRose to fill in while he conducts a national search. LaRose now juggles both her old job — handling the internal affairs within the athletic department — and her new one: the business side of operations. “The first thing I said when I came interim: We don’t want to miss a beat here,”said LaRose, a 31-year UA veteran. “We can’t (miss a beat) in this competitive business, we have to keep moving forward.” Work on LaRose’s biggest priority will begin
UA interim Athletic Director Kathleen ‘Rocky’ LaRose in her McKale Center office Thursday afternoon. LaRose sat down with the Daily Wildcat to discuss the state of Arizona Athletics — including financial situations, the next athletic director and the football stadium expansion.
next week after the Arizona Board of Regents formally finalizes Arizona Stadium’s north end zone expansion,the flagship project of Livengood’s athletic facility renovation plan. LaRose will unveil a new campaign intended to fund the expansion through private donations. “(Boosters) are the backbone of the athletic department as we continue to grow,”LaRose said. In an interview with the Daily Wildcat on Thursday afternoon, LaRose discussed the current state of Arizona Athletics as it awaits a new leader.
Gordon Bates/ Arizona Daily Wildcat
LAROSE, page 3
State finally pays schools
A WALK IN THE CLOUDS
By Jazmine Woodberry ARIZONA DAILY WILDCAT More than 100 undergraduate student researchers will present poster projects of their research at the Undergraduate Biology Research Program conference Saturday. The conference will be held at the Keating (BIO 5) building on the UA Health Sciences Center Campus, north of Speedway Boulevard, from 1-5 p.m. Established in 1988, the Undergraduate Biology Research Program provides paid research experience to undergraduate students by putting them to work in labs. A two-year Undergraduate Biology Research Program participant, Brittany Choate truly loves what the program does for students like her. Choate works with an environmental microbiology doctoral candidate filtering water to check for fatal pathogens in Arizona recreational waters due to climate change. “It’s been a really, really fun gig, and I’m just glad that I got the chance to do it,” she said. Students get the chance to be funded for lab work by the program and their backer, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Students work hands-on in each laboratory. “They’re not just washing dishes and counting petri plates,” Choate said. “They actually get to run their own experiments and get hands-on experience with real-life lab work.” And these opportunities are open to undergrads in any major wanting to study biology. BRAVO! is the international research arm of Undergraduate Biology Research Program, said Kevin Keys, a math and linguistics major who studied biochromatics in skin pigmentation in Barcelona this past summer. “They funded me to do biology research even though I wasn’t a biology student,” Keys said. “The experience influenced me in my graduate applications … in statistics and biomathematics programs geared towards genetics, and I wouldn’t have known about it without UBRP.” At the conference, there will be alumni of the program from Brown University, University of Colorado, Denver and some from the UA, like Joyce Schroeder and Jessie Brown, who will be presenting along with the undergraduate members of the program. Giving a small introduction to their topic, the timeliness of their research and their findings, students- on a poster- present their work. “It’s a place where a bunch of UBRP students can present the research that they’ve been doing,”said Robert Gonzales, an undergraduate studying the faults of current Parkinson’s research and treatments. “It’s an open venue so people can walk around, look at the posters and get an idea of the research the person has been doing and interact with the person doing the actual research,”he said. The program is accepting applications until mid-March for summer research, which can be extended into the school year.
By Brian Mori ARIZONA DAILY WILDCAT
Gordon Bates/Arizona Daily Wildcat
More than 20 days overdue, the state of Arizona has fulfilled its monthly financial obligation to all three public universities, education officials said Thursday. The $75 million owed to the schools since December was dispersed by the Arizona treasury at the end of the business day Wednesday, and January’s payment is expected within a few days, said Katie Paquet, associate executive director of public affairs and external relations for the Arizona Board of Regents. Johnny Cruz, UA’s director of communications, confirmed that the Budget Office received its roughly $30 million share from the state’s General Fund, though officials aren’t sure when to expect January’s check. The UA relied upon an uspecified amount of emergency reserves to maintain operations during the delay, which was the third in the last year. Cruz said this delay, announced in December, came as a surprise because previous ones were part of scheduled negotiations between Governor Jan Brewer and the Arizona Board of Regents. “The state is in really incredibly dire times,” said Christine Thompson, of the Arizona Board of Regents’ government affairs office.
Clouds and high winds gather around campus Thursday as a prelude to today’s forecast from the National Weather Service of rain and thunderstorms.
FINANCES, page 3
More DUI checkpoints come to Tucson By Alexandra Newman ARIZONA DAILY WILDCAT The Pima County Sheriff’s Department and Nogales Police Department recently accepted grants from the Arizona Governor’s Office of Highway Safety to help control drunk driving. Pima County received two grants, which total $181,000, and plans to use the money in a variety of ways, such as establishing DUI checkpoints throughout Pima County. UA Police Department Sgt. Juan Alvarez said DUI checkpoints follow a certain process and must stop a number of cars each night. “Once they stop a car, they still have to establish that the person is impaired … by the way they smell or are talking and action,”Alvarez said. Officers may lawfully make arrests of underage people even if they aren’t driving if they admit they are underage and the officer suspects they possess or have ingested alcohol. Peter Gutierrez, head criminal attorney for the Thrush Law Group in DUI, page 3
Rodney Haas/Arizona Daily Wildcat
Chris Morand, Tucson police officer of the DUI squad, conducts a field sobriety test on an intoxicated driver at the Pima Community College Downtown campus parking lot around 2 a.m. on Nov. 28, 2009.
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