UTSA The UTSA Downtown Campus Child Care Initiative is conducting a survey to better understand the needs of the students at the UTSA Downtown Campus in regards to child care services and resources. The answers provided will help the university gauge student opinion on the need for child care at the Downtown campus. The survey is available at https:// w w w.su r ve y monkey.com/r/TVGFFSJ
MAKING THE GRADE
Your professor doesn’t want to make their dean’s list
S.G.A. According to Student Government Association’s meeting minutes, the plan to bring IHOP to campus will be cancelled due to a corporate hold.
Here’s why: Caroline Traylor News Editor
@carolinetraylor news@paisano-online.com
Texas On Monday, Gov. Greg Abbott appointed Henry “Hank” Whitman, a former chief of the Texas Rangers, to head the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services. The agency has been a source of controversy lately due to a spike in the number of kids sleeping in state office buildings and in psychiatric hospitals. A recent federal court ruling condemned the state’s long-term foster care as an inhumane institution in which children “often age out of care more damaged than when they entered.”
Science Future solar panels will harness energy from fallen raindrops. Researchers in China have demonstrated that by using a thin layer of graphene to coat their solar panels, they can generate electricity. Graphene is known for its conductivity, among many other benefits. All it takes is a mere one-atom thick graphene layer for an excessive amount of electrons to move as they wish across the surface. In situations where water is present, graphene binds its electrons with positively charged ions. Some call this the Lewis acidbase interaction.
See Faculty, Page 5
DFW is not just an airport in Dallas. The acronym has different meaning for all UTSA educators : drop, fail, withdraw. The number of students who drop, fail or withdraw from an instructor’s course comprise their DFW rate. Many faculty members, particularly in the College of Liberal and Fine Arts (COLFA), are perturbed and anxious about the pressure from
the administration and its tactics to improve DFW rates. Because their future positions at UTSA are contingent upon the academic success and retention of their students.
“Faculty will recognize that their employment depends on this,” said Dr. Jill Hernandez, - associate professor of philosophy and the Faculty Senate’s secretary of general faculty. “We’re under immense pressure to improve graduation rates,” she said. The metrics UTSA uses to measure student success can be found in UTSA’s Four Year Graduation Rate Improvement Plan (GRIP). Currently UTSA’s four year
Is there enough green to ‘go green’? Alyssa Gonzales News Assistant
@alyssargonzales news@paisano-online.com In an effort to promote green initiatives and campus sustainability, UTSA has hired Dr. Keith Muhlestein as the new Director of Sustainability. As the face of green efforts on campus, working closely with students, President Ricardo Romo and the UTSA Sustainability Counsel to complete green initiatives. Muhlestein will be returning to UTSA for a fourth time. He earned his undergraduate degree, his masters in environmental science and his Ph.D. in environmental science and engineering from UTSA. Considering his ties to UTSA, Muhlestein was excited about the opportunities to improve his home campus. “There has not been a job like this before, because UTSA has just created the Office of Sustainability. So it is my job to create the job and define what it means for UTSA to follow a sustainable path,” Muhlestein said. “It takes a while to get a new office off the ground,
“The next big step is determining what will happen with the Green Fund once the funds are depleted,” says Ashley Polluck, chair of the green fund committee. The green fee was implemented in 2010 and expired this spring. Fabian De Soto, The Paisano; Photo of Dr. Muhlestein courtesy of UTSA
but it’s happening. Step by step we will make it go; bit by bit the wheels are turning.” Muhlestein maintains a close relationship with the UTSA Green Fund. The Green Fund is a studentled organization funded through the “green fee,” a five-dollar tack on tuition, which has funded the new Director of Sustainability position as well as many other green efforts on campus. “Keith, being the new Director of Sustainability, is going to bring synergy among university departments and student groups. He is looking at ways to make UTSA better, by working with Business
Auxiliary Services and finding ways that are not only financially sustainable but environmentally,” Chair of the Green Fund Committee Ashley Pollock said. “The next big step is determining what will happen with the Green Fund once the funds are depleted.” The “green fee” was implemented in 2010 and only written into UTSA tuition for five years. As of Spring 2016, UTSA students were no longer charged a “green fee.” Both the Office of Sustainability and the Green Fund will have to fundraise and solicit private donors to continue their efforts. “Personally, it bothers me
that a $5 fee for sustainability is seen as less necessary than a $120 recreation center fee (per semester), but unfortunately there is not much that can be done at this point,” Vice Chair of the Green Fund Committee Christopher Adkison said. “However, part of the purpose of funding the Director of Sustainability was for (Muhlestein) to help us look into the possible fundraising opportunities at UTSA, such as receiving donations/sponsors from companies in San Antonio that might already support UTSA.” In three years, Muhlestein will have to turn other sources of funding;
however, he and Pollock are discussing the possible revenue generating options for both the Office of Sustainability and the Green Fund. “What I really want is momentum, someone to get behind a project. Take littering for example. They go out to pick up trash around campus and drag their three best friends out with them, and then they’re going to get mad about trash and all of a sudden you have a movement on your hands,” Muhlestein said.