DW
Sticking with soccer
After four years of injuries and setbacks, soccer goalie Devon Wharf is finally a core member of the team. PAGE 7 SECTION
Arizona Daily Wildcat
Surprise! thursday, october ,
tucson, arizona
dailywildcat.com
Props to alter K-12 funding By Karina Salazar ARIZONA DAILY WILDCAT
Lack of state funding in public schools around the UA could affect the caliber of professors hired. The ballot for next month’s general election will include propositions 401 and 402, both of which propose budget increases in Tucson Unified School District schools.The
results of these propositions may affect the UA community in a number of ways. Proposition 401 aims to fund full-day kindergarten classes — one of the first programs to go after state budget cuts were issued — and improve Internet connections in schools. Proposition 402 would provide around 10,000 new computers in classrooms, replacing outdated technologies incapable of
sustaining adequate resources for students. It’s crucial that we support these propositions given the state cuts in Arizona and the effects they could have on so many different aspects of education, said Rachana Kamtekar, a UA professor of philosophy and parent of a TUSD student. “Education funding for the state of Arizona has fallen to 50th among all 50 states in spending per pupil,” said Mark
Stegeman, an economics professor. “Professors and private business that are interested in coming to Tucson will think twice if public education for their children will be poor.” Professors look at many different aspects of the community before deciding to move to Tucson and teach at the EDUCATION, page 3
Architecture college proposes creating downtown campus By Yael Schusterman ARIZONA DAILY WILDCAT
Members of the Tucson community, in partnership with the College of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, have drafted a proposal describing the creation of a downtown UA campus. The proposal is very preliminary and does not constitute any official action, officials said, but the aim would be to build a so-called “communiversity” between the UA and downtown. The proposal was released by Janice Cervelli, the dean of the College of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, and documented a “collection of interested parties looking to create more of a presence for the university downtown,” she said. A major component of the planning process is trying to get an understanding of what the educational needs of downtown are and matching those needs to those of the UA, she said. Cervelli cited her own college as an example, saying it would be beneficial to relocate downtown because of the college’s expertise in urban design, which could help in the re-development efforts of downtown Tucson. The proposal describes the downtown campus as a “center for learning” that would integrate support from the city, the county and the university to “more fully engage the knowledge economy.” Although officials said many sites are being considered, the proposal calls special attention to the historic Roy Place building at 44-60 W. Stone Ave., near Pennington Street. According to the proposal, Pima County — the building’s owner and landlord — is offering several floors of the building for the university’s use. Financial challenges in this year’s unstable budget climate will influence the project’s speed and development, she said. ASU’s downtown Phoenix campus has become a good example to learn from, Cervelli noted. Debra Friedman, dean of the College of Public Programs at DOWNTOWN, page 3
ASUA TODAY The Daily Wildcat’s roundup of hot topics from Wednesday’s ASUA meeting By Shannon Maule ARIZONA DAILY WILDCAT
About 400 Fray tickets left
The Associated Students of the University of Arizona is making a final push to aid UApresents in selling the last available tickets to The Fray’s concert, set for Nov. 18. Both organizations are attempting to get rid of approximately 400 remaining tickets. “We are very pleased with the trend of ticket sales,”said President Chris Nagata. The concert’s capacity will be 2,500 audience members. Caleb Wilson, ASUA executive special events coordinator, explained that the student government still has many ways to promote the show. “ASUA has gotten a large portion of student response, but community-wise there hasn’t been any push,”he said. Nagata also added that the last portion of promotion will include“an e-mail push to saturate the last areas on campus.”
Drop fee makes more than $100K
This year, for the first time, undergraduate students were charged a $25 fee to drop any course after Aug. 31. The charge has yielded revenue of approximately $143,000. The question regarding where this money will be directed is “still in negotiation,”Nagata said. “(The) money is specifically geared to help class availability,”he said. The drop fee will remain for next semester, Nagata added.
ASUA, GPSC elections may coincide
Lisa Beth Earle/Arizona Daily Wildcat
The Roy Place building, located on the southeast corner of Stone Avenue and Pennington Street, is the location for a proposed downtown UA campus. The proposal aims to link the university to downtown.
The Graduate and Professional Student Council and ASUA are discussing potentially holding their elections in tandem this spring. This possible new approach to election season is meant to help strive for a better voter turnout, Nagata said. Nagata hopes this will create “a culture on campus for voting day.” The graduate executive board will be approached with the idea by GPSC President David Talenfeld in the coming days. Talenfeld said that while he is in favor of the tandem election days overall, the idea is still in the planning stages. “I support the idea. I think we’d get more of our grads to vote,” he said.“I very much appreciate (Nagata’s) gesture of offering.” The primary elections for ASUA and GPSC could be held March 2 and 3, with general elections potentially being held March 9 and 10, he said. “We just noticed an opportunity to collaborate with GPSC,”Nagata said. Both groups hope to fuel activism on campus, Nagata said. ASUA and GPSC officials have been attempting to create a viable relationship with one another this year through what members of both organizations have called“bridgification.” ASUA elected officials are chosen atlarge from the entire undergraduate student body, while their graduate counterparts are elected based on college association.
UAPD UA faces stiff competition at Decathlon releases theft report By Michelle Cohen ARIZONA DAILY WILDCAT
By Shain Bergan ARIZONA DAILY WILDCAT After claiming confidentiality and declining to release a police report on the theft of thousands of Daily Wildcat newspapers, the University of Arizona Police Department released their most recent reports to the public on Wednesday. The addendum is an update to the original report, filed on Oct. 8, when about 10,000 Daily Wildcat newspapers were stolen from newsstands around the UA campus. Several thousand of the stolen newspapers were found on the western outskirts of Tucson the next day, along with what appeared to be Spanish homework carrying the REPORT, page 3
Feelings were bittersweet as the UA Solar Decathlon team packed up its solar energy house on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday after placing 18th out of 20 in the competition. “Being an architecture student, I learned a lot from designing through building this thing and a lot more about teamwork than I thought,” said recent UA architecture graduate Eddie Hall, student project architect. “For a first-time team, I think we did respectively well, but we have a lot of lessons to learn.” The Arizona Solar Energy Efficient Dwelling was developed by UA faculty, staff and students from the Colleges of Architecture and Landscape Architecture and the Department of Materials Science and Engineering over the past two years. The event was hosted by the U.S. Department of Energy. Team Germany won first place at the competition and
Stefano Paltera/U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon
The public tours the international U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon, featuring energy-efficient, solar-powered houses built by 20 university teams from North American and Europe, on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., Tuesday, Oct. 13.
Team Illinois finished second. Construction of the dwelling began about five months ago at the UA.
“The rest of the time was planning the design process and getting things engineered,” Hall said.
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Architecture professor Larry Medlin, a principal investigator for the Solar SOLAR, page 5
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