DW
BASEBALL’S STREAK ENDS
Beginning of Pacific 10 Conference play ends Arizona’s 15-game winning streak
SPORTS
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Arizona Daily Wildcat
The independent student voice of the University of Arizona since 1899 monday, march , dailywildcat.com
tucson, arizona
Men’s swim takes 3rd at NCAAs Lighter hearts
Artificial heart patients can leave hospitals today By Jazmine Woodberry ARIZONA DAILY WILDCAT
Jay LaPrete/The Associated Press
Arizona’s Cory Chitwood celebrates his win in the 200-yard backstroke at the NCAA Division I Championships for men’s swimming and diving on Sunday in Columbus, Ohio.
Busch: Even after battling the norovirus, Wildcats give ‘greatest performance’ By Derek Lawrence ARIZONA DAILY WILDCAT A week full of adversity came to an end for the Arizona men’s swim and dive team, finishing in third place at the NCAA Championships, in Columbus, Ohio. Third place wasn’t the expected result for the Wildcats, who came into the championships as the top-ranked team in the nation. But even after a contagious norovirus struck nine members of the team, UA head coach Frank Busch’s spirits weren’t dampened. “Awesome. Amazing is all I can say,” Busch said of the team’s finish under
the circumstances. “I couldn’t be more proud of this team. This is one of the greatest performances in the history of this program.” Senior swimmer Jordan Smith said that coming together as a team is the reason the Wildcats are satisfied with the weekend’s results. “We achieved something amazing by getting third in the NCAAs, and the way we did it was representative of what this team has been about all year,” Smith said. While the team was happy with its performance, members also understand that the result very easily could have been different.
GPSC begins election debates By Luke Money ARIZONA DAILY WILDCAT
Current members and hopeful candidates of the UA Graduate and Professional Student Council gathered at the Auld Dubliner Irish Pub and Restaurant Friday to discuss the upcoming election. Among those present were 2010-11 GPSC presidential candidates Emily Connally and Mabel Crescioni and vice presidential candidates Alison Betts and Farah Sutton . Connally, a doctoral candidate in clinical psychology, has been on the council in the past and is running for president to help restore the working relationship between GPSC and UA’s administration. Connally cited rising fees and tuition costs, more interdisciplinary collaboration and keeping classes from growing larger to increase revenue as issues she would focus on as GPSC president. “I think students don’t realize the power they have to affect how the university runs, and how it affects them,” Connally said. Crescioni, a graduate student in the College of Public Health, has been on the council as a representative for her college for the past two years. Along with the ongoing fee and tuition issues, Crescioni stressed maintaining healthy ties with ASUA and addressing graduate student workloads as major
components of her platform. “My experience on the council has shown me the effect we can have on graduate student experience,” Crescioni said. Crescioni also discussed her position on fees and tuition. “Being a competitive research institution requires an investment in funds,” she said. “What we don’t have to accept is that the sole responsibility of bearing this burden lies with the student body. We have to find a balance between maintaining competitiveness and bearing the burden.” GPSC President David LopezNegrete asked both presidential candidates whether the UA should privatize some of its programs to spare them from
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I think students don’t realize the power they have to affect how the university runs, and how it affects them. — Emily Connally GPSC presidential candidate
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state budget cuts. “Higher education should be a right, not a privilege afforded GPSC, page 3
“It’s obvious that the sickness affected us pretty bad because we’ve been getting so much better every day, and I think if we were healthy we definitely would have been challenging for the title,” said senior Jean Basson. Less than a week ago, Arizona appeared to be on its way to winning its second national championship in three years. The team had everything going for it: an undefeated dual meet season, the most qualified swimmers of any NCAA team and a handful of past champions. Then came Tuesday. Late that night, nine UA swimmers were among the 19 people admitted
to the Ohio State University Medical Center with what seemed to be a gastrointestinal illness. It was later determined that the swimmers had contracted the highly contagious norovirus, forcing them to spend a night in the hospital before being released on Wednesday. The swimmers were given an extra day to recover after the start of the championships were pushed back to Friday at the request of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “After seeing how sick they were, I knew it was unlikely that they would
For the first time in U.S. history, patients with completely artificial hearts can be discharged from the hospital while waiting for a permanent heart, thanks to the efforts of UA alumni and the University Medical Center. Before, patients were landlocked by a 413-pound driver named “Big Blue.” Now, headed by UMC, a 13.5-pound portable Freedom driver received Food and Drug Administration approval for study through SynCardia, Inc. on Friday. The driver provides power to the artificial heart, allowing patients who need a new heart but might not make it through the average 144-day waiting period. This heart cannot be rejected by the body, unlike other transplants, and, if given, a portable driver can“let patients have the heart to walk a marathon,” according to Rodger Ford, CEO of SynCardia, Inc. “This is the breakthrough that allows people to live a normal life with an artificial heart,” Ford said of the technology, which took two years and $30 million to develop. Ford, an Eller College of Management alumnus, is one of many UA alumni and staff who worked with SynCardia, Inc. to develop this technology. “There’s truly a history that this has grown out of the University of Arizona,” said Richard Smith, the co-founder and chief technical officer for SynCardia, Inc.“It’s truly a UMC, U of A product.” Artificial hearts have had a long history at the UA, with the first transplant completed in 1985 by Dr. Jack Copeland at UMC. UA faculty continue
SWIM, page 10
HEART, page 7
Flying Club takes off
Alan Walsh/Arizona Daily Wildcat
Ralph Rina, a certified flight instructor of 40 years, trains his student, Daniel Lamb, a media arts sophomore in training for a twin-engine license.
By Jennifer Koehmstedt ARIZONA DAILY WILDCAT The UA Flying Club lets students fly in planes traveling at 200 mph to Eloy, Ariz. Of the four planes taken to Eloy, Daniel Lamb, a media arts sophomore, flew the 1960 Piper Aztec. Flying the five-passenger plane over Picacho Peak, eventually landing back at the Tucson Airport, Lamb said he joined the Flying Club in order to get more flying time. “(Flying) is something new every day. No two flights are the same, that’s what makes it so fun,”he said. Members of the club get more and cheaper flying time. Two UA professors and a flying instructor used their own personal planes so the club only had to rent one airplane. Retired professor Charles Curtis said providing a cheaper way to fly is important because the costs of learning to fly continue to increase. “When I was an undergraduate, I was learning to fly for $600, now it’s more like
$6,000,”he said. Flying Club President Judson Stuart, a management and information systems junior, said the Flying Club puts on two to three fly outs per semester. The club also goes on tours of airports, air traffic control towers and gives ground school training, which is the classroom portion of the training needed to get a pilot’s license, at cheaper rates. Stuart said these club activities were needed at the UA because the university does not have an aviation program or an air traffic control program. “Tucson has some of the best flying weather, but UA doesn’t have anything particular to aviation,”he said. While some students went on the fly out in order to get experience unavailable at the UA, Megan Folley, an aerospace engineering freshman, was using the flying time to supplement her engineering education. “If I’m going to be building planes in the future, I want firsthand experience,”she said. Folley, the only female club member
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who attended the fly out, said being in the minority in the Flying Club and in aerospace engineering classes only made her want to pursue engineering and aviation more. “It motivates me to show that girls can do what guys can do, because (the profession) is male dominated,”she said. Folley, who does not have her pilot’s license, said she was excited to get stick time — time when a licensed pilot lets the passenger take control of the airplane. Stuart said the club mostly consists of licensed pilots, but members without licenses are always allowed to get stick time and receive informal training from the licensed pilots in the group. Standing in Eloy beneath the incoming parachuters, Eduardo Bendek, a second year doctoral student in optical sciences, said he always loved to fly, so joining the Flying Club was simple. “If you don’t want to spend the money to rent a plane or don’t have a license, it’s a good way to get out,”he said.
: @DailyWildcat