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Tuesday, March 31, 2015
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LEGISLATURE
Bill filed to monitor student groups By Eleanor Dearman @ellydearman
Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer (D-San Antonio) submitted an amendment to the House budget which would place university organizations, including fraternities, under close watch. The amendment — which applies to all student groups but singles out sororities,
fraternities and athletic teams — would require universities to report on- and off-campus cases of gender, ethnic or racial discrimination to the Higher Education Coordinating Board, a multi-faceted state board that oversees state university operations. The Board would collect any information regarding occurrences of
discrimination universities report and relay the findings to the legislature. The amendment is a response to nationwide cases of racial discrimination by fraternities, according to a report by The Texas Tribune. The House is set to start their discussion on the proposed House budget Tuesday. Although the University
cannot comment on specific pieces of legislation, University spokesperson Gary Susswein said officials support a welcoming campus. “As with all legislation that could impact the University, we will review it closely,” Susswein said. “And I just also want to emphasize that, in general, the University works to make the campus as welcoming
and supportive of an environment for all of our students as it can be.” Lee Lueder, Interfraternity Council president, said he does not know how effective the amendment will be. He said its impact would depend on what it does with the collected information after universities have
BILL page 2
CAMPUS
Bush receives Latino leadership award By Katie Keenan & Jackie Wang @thedailytexan
UT President Bill Powers presented land commissioner George P. Bush the inaugural Latino Leadership Award on Monday evening. The president’s office worked in conjunction with the Center of Mexican American Studies and the Department of Mexican American and Latina/o Studies to select Bush as the first awardee, said Dr. Nicole Guidotti-Hernández, associate director of the Center for Mexican American Studies. “We went through a series of 15 nominees, and we evaluated them for leadership, public service and areas like that,” GuidottiHernández said. “With him as the first Latino land commissioner, I think in its
BUSH page 2
Carlo Nasisse | Daily Texan Staff
Texas land commissioner George P. Bush speaks Monday evening at the awards ceremony for the inaugural Latin Leadership Award.
CAMPUS
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CAMPUS
GeoFORCE receives top presidential recognition By Sherry Tucci @sherrytucci
President Obama awarded the Jackson School of Geosciences’ GeoFORCE Texas program Friday with the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring, one of the highest federal honors for a university. The Presidential Award is given to programs or individuals, especially to those reaching out to underrepresented communities, that focus on mentorship and promote education in STEM fields. GeoFORCE was the only program honored this year. The GeoFORCE Texas program works with incoming high school freshmen through the time they graduate. For a week each summer, students in the program travel to geological sites around the U.S. to learn about earth sciences. During the program, mentors and instructors educate students and provide them with college and career advice. Geology senior Victoria Fortiz participated in GeoFORCE Texas from 2008 to 2012 and mentored students for the program her freshman year of college. She said mentors and instructors check in
GEOFORCE page 3
CAMPUS
Museum stays open despite budget cuts By Eleanor Dearman
The Texas Memorial Museum located on UT’s campus will not be closing despite severe budget cuts. Outside funding and community outreach efforts are helping to keep the doors open to visitors.
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Chris Foxx | Daily Texan Staff
Beth Ferguson, principal of Sol Design Lab with Dallas Swindle, displays the inner workings of the solar charging station.
Campus to receive more solar charging stations By Katie Keenan @keenanarroyo
Students could soon have more places to charge their phones and laptops on campus with the arrival of new, more efficient solar charging stations. Sol Design Lab, which works to design energy-efficient products, designed
the two solar charging stations already on campus. Beth Ferguson, principal of Sol Design Lab with Dallas Swindle, spoke with students Friday about the prospect of having new solar charging stations on campus. The new stations would boast several
STATIONS page 2
Six months after having its budget gutted, the Texas Memorial Museum is improving its financial situation, and attendance is slowly rising. In September 2014, the University pulled funding for the Texas Natural Science Center, which included the Texas Memorial Museum, as part of a $600,000 budget cut. The center was essentially dismantled, leaving the Museum entirely financially independent, according to Edward Theriot, integrative biology professor and museum director. Today, the museum’s doors remain open as a result of outside funding, community outreach efforts and policy changes and despite a professional staff that’s less than half the size it was last year. “We survived a massive budget cut, but we are
Charlotte Carpenter Daily Texan Staff
not closed,” said Pamela Owen, associate director of the museum. In addition to the museum, the Texas Natural Science Center also owned extensive paleontology and biology collections. As a result of the budget cut, the Jackson School of Geosciences and the Department of Integrative Biology took over the respective collections.
Despite the shift in ownership, specimens from the transferred collections are still on display at the museum. Owen said the exhibitions on display at the museum were not affected by the cuts. “We still showcase specimens from those collections, so we’re the caretakers of them on exhibit,” Owen said. Theriot said attendance
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and revenue were below projections for the first two months after the budget cut. “As we went into the year, we were consistently low,” Theriot said. “It was concerning us, and what became apparent … was that people thought we were entirely closed.” In the past several months, attendance has
MUSEUM page 3