iWhat now?: Apple’s iPad, the latest object of obsession for the tech savvy, is the subject of tweets the world over – but is it worth the hype? npage 6
Wednesday n February 3, 2010
thewichitan
Budget cut will cost $2 million Brittany Norman Editor in Chief
The state has asked MSU to return about $2 million over the next two years, and while university president Dr. Jesse Rogers says the prospect of leaner times are cause for concern, there’s no reason to panic. He said that some commitments that were made when the budget for 2010-2011 was laid out will have to be postponed, but that there will be no faculty and staff layoffs and the quality of education students receive will not suffer. Rogers said a “small” tuition increase is likely, but that the promise the Board of Regents has made not to exceed a five percent raise in tu-
ition every year will still be honored. “The first thing I intend to tell the faculty and student government is we’re not cutting back on core services,” Rogers said. “We will not be cutting back positions that have been filled now. No one will lose their jobs due to layoffs.” He feels he can make these promises because the budget cuts have not come as a complete surprise. “I’ll be very honest with you,” Rogers said. “I had great concerns this was coming. I believed all along that the recession would finally hit Texas much harder than it has thus far.” Rogers said that Texas is one of the last states to really feel the strain from the economic crisis, but a dramatic drop in spending on the part of
individuals has put the largely sales tax-funded treasury in a tough spot. With the treasury running about 17 billion dollars behind projections, Governor Rick Perry, Lt. Governor David Dewhurst, and Texas Speaker of the House Joe Strauss sent out a letter on Jan. 15 to state agencies, including universities. About a week and a half ago, Rogers said he received the letter, which advised the university to “prepare a plan” to potentially cut five percent of the state-funded portion of the budget for 2010-2011. The situation is made more complicated by the fact that, according to Rogers, the budget year in question is already well underway. The problem, Rogers said, was the
letter didn’t say five percent of what. There are a variety of different stateappropriated funds. One of the initial worries was that the state was asking for five percent of state-designated tuition, the $50 per credit hour designated fee that serves as a baseline for MSU’s total tuition cost. For the current semester, each credit hour at MSU costs instate students about $143, meaning the state-mandated tuition accounts for about 35 percent of what students pay. On Jan. 27, Rogers received some clarification while attending a briefing by Dan Branch, Chair of the Texas House of Representative’s Higher Education committee.
See BUDGET on page 4
your university n your voice
MSU employee Lynn Sharp lost his home to a fire on Jan. 21. His wife, Donna Chandler, was badly burned. (Photo by: Julia Raymond)
MSU reaches out to victim of house fire Chris Collins Managing Editor
With the flick of a light switch, Lynn Sharp’s life changed forever. At about 5 p.m. on Jan. 21 the MSU utility engineer’s girlfriend, Donna Chandler, turned on a light in the back room of the home, located at 1813 Kessler Street. A second later the house erupted in flames, smoke fuming up into the sky over Donna, who was badly burned and running to neighbors for help. Sharp, who was driving home from work, was in for a shocking discovery. “I was headed home for the day and I saw the black smoke, so I called Lynn,” said Dean Price, utility superintendent and Sharp’s boss. “I said, ‘Can you see what’s burning up there?’ and he told me couldn’t get past the emergency vehicles. Then he said to me, ‘I hope it’s not my house,’
See FIRE on page 4
Brittany Norman Editor in Chief Technology has shrunk the gap between places Westerners know and the “faraway world” where war, epidemics and devastating poverty are an everyday reality. But a marked distance still exists, according to a physician who has roamed remote corners of the globe as a field agent for Médecins Sans Frontières, or Doctors Without Borders (MSF). Dr. Richard Heinzl, who founded the Canadian branch of MSF in 1988, spoke
Monday night at MSU as part of its Artist Lecture Series. He talked about his experiences with the people of Cambodia, Iraq, South Africa, Uganda and Haiti. Heinzl was most passionate about dismantling the boundary lines between “us” and “them,” reinforcing the value of even the poorest people and reaffirming their potential. “Technology can change the way health care is delivered,” Heinzl said. “It holds a lot of promise for the less industrialized part of the world.” What has followed him home from the
field, Heinzl said, is not the hopelessness so often perceived by the rest of the world. What he carries with him is the real promise for a better future through technology and the resilience and determination of the people. “Now we can take a sample, stain it, put it under a microscope and take a picture,” Heinzl said. That photo can then be e-mailed to someone with the expertise to give a positive, accurate diagnosis. It wasn’t always so simple. When Heinzl was beginning his fieldwork in the late ’80s
Barry Macha (Photo courtesy)
Cold Case
MSU alum seeks judge position after 26 years serving as DA Brittany Norman Editor in Chief
See BORDERLESS on page 10
Dr. Richard Heinzl has traveled to “faraway lands” while working with Doctors Without Borders, Canada. (Clockwise from top): The field hospital in Cambodia, Heinzl and other aid workers, and Heinzl with Cambodian children. (Photos by Dr. Richard Heinzl)
To this day, when District Attorney Barry Macha drives through the neighborhoods surrounding Wichita Falls High School, he finds himself staring at a house on Bell Street. The house seems nondescript now, but just before Christmas in 1984, it was the site of a hellish nightmare. It was in that house where Terry Sims, an MSU student and employee at Bethania hospital, now part of the United Regional Health Care System, was brutally murdered. Macha, a candidate for 78th District Court Judge, remembers the rape and murder well. It was the first case waiting on his desk the day he walked into the district attorney’s office in January, 1985. The case would haunt him for 15 years and finally lead him to a serial killer. But not before that man murdered four other local women. One would be another MSU student. Despite overseeing the prosecution of an estimated 25,000 felonies, talking about Sims – his first case – still evokes an emotional response from Macha. “She had a tough life,” he said. “Her dad died in a car wreck when she was very young. She had two
See MACHA on page 5