November 2, 2015
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Freshman dies in Res Hall West
Toxicology report shows no signs of illegal substances, police say no indication of physical trauma ESTEBAN BUSTILLOS Editor-in-Chief
THE MERCURY | UTDMERCURY.COM
An 18-year-old freshman was found dead in his dorm room in Res Hall West on Oct. 18. After Collins Chima, who was studying neuroscience, hadn’t replied to numerous phone calls and texts, his family called for a welfare check. That’s when Chima’s body was found. “I was totally numb,” said Vivian Chima, Collins’ older sister. “I’m still numb. I still think that this is like a dream, like this is not happening.” Toxicology reports from the Collin County Medical Examiner’s office found that there were no signs of alcohol or drugs in his system. The official cause of death has yet to be determined.
School mourns loss of longtime dean
Additionally, an investigation by UTD Police found that there were no signs of physical trauma or suicide. Vivian said Chima had a number of offers from other universities, but chose to come to UTD because of its neuroscience program. His plan was to one day become a neurologist and open a clinic in Nigeria “He was so psyched about leaving home for the first time,” she said. “I took him to the orientation and everything … He was just looking forward to his life. He was just excited about, you know, school and making new friends.” Chima was the youngest of six siblings and was the only boy. This led to him getting coddled by the rest of his family, something that Vivian saw as driving him to push for his own independence and
establish his own identity as a man. Vivian, who described herself as being like a “second mom” to Chima, fondly remembered how Chima shed his childhood nickname of “OC” once he reached UTD and instead preferred to go by CHIMA his first name, which he believed was more mature. “He was like, ‘Yeah, this is the new me. I’m a man now, so I need to go to a man name,’” Vivian said.
→ SEE CHIMA, PAGE 12
Marijuana users create growing drug culture on campus, risk arrest for lifestyle
Psychologist remembered for expanding, improving BBS
STORY BY CARA SANTUCCI | NEWS EDITOR PHOTOS BY ANDREW GALLEGOS | PHOTO EDITOR ART BY HAMID SHAH AND CHAD AUSTIN| MERCURY GRAPHICS
ESTEBAN BUSTILLOS Editor-in-Chief
Members of the UTD community are mourning the loss of Bert Moore, the longtime dean of the School of Brain and Behavioral Sciences. Moore died in his home in Dallas from pancreatic cancer on Oct. 20. Moore came to UTD in 1980 as the head of the psychology department. He was named dean of the School of Human Development in 1989 before it was renamed the School of Brain and Behavioral Sciences fourteen years later. Under Moore’s direction, the school’s enrollment grew from 387 students to nearly 2,500. Moore also had individual accomplishments. He was named a Distinguished Psychologist by the Dallas Psychological Society and was well known nationally for his research on child development. On campus, Moore was most recognized for the connections he made with his peers. For Marion Underwood, the dean of graduate studies in BBS, Moore’s kindMOORE ness stood out. “He was a very brave person, but also really gentle,” she said. “He was really good with people, very sensitive. He was very, very generous in seeing the best in other people and helping people become the best they can be.” Moore was also the chairman of the search committee that hired President Ad Interim Hobson Wildenthal in 1992. Moore’s personal qualities, like his trustworthiness and honesty, stood out the most to Wildenthal, who was one of the speakers at the memorial service held for Moore in the ATEC lecture hall on Oct. 24. “He made you He made feel good about you feel good yourself,” he said. about yourself. “In that sense … He’s just going In that sense ... to be missed as a He’s going to person who all of us enjoyed being be missed as a with.” person who all Moore was of us enjoyed also known for his commitment being with. to civil rights and equality. In 1965, when he — Hobson Wildenthal was a student at Southern Methodist University, Moore invited Martin Luther King Jr. to speak to the student body there. When King accepted the invitation, Moore picked him up from the airport and drove him to campus. It was this type of commitment to equality that made Moore a role model to Dru Sherrod, who attended SMU with Moore and was his best friend for more than fifty years. “He really was, for me, kind of a moral center,” he said. “If there was ever a hard decision I was having to make, I would run it by Bert, or often we would just call up and have nothing significant to talk about at all. But when there was something significant, it was important to be able to talk to Bert about it.”
Marijuana and drug paraphernalia covers the table of an off-campus apartment where several drug users from UTD live. Several of these users have claimed the marijuana community at UTD is growing and will continue to do so.
Names of some sources have been changed to protect their identities
C
asey, Jeff and Arjun, three students at UTD, live in an unassuming, offcampus apartment. Nothing seems out of place, except for the unmis-
takable smell of marijuana. A small coffee table is surrounded on all sides by overstuffed couches. On the wooden surface are three bongs, two pipes, a vaporizer, a grinder and a blowtorch. In the center is an open metal tin, which is filled with ground up weed. These three students, who have had different experiences with weed, are all a part of the often-overlooked drug culture on campus.
WHY DO IT?
Peter has tried practically every drug on the market, from shrooms to ketamine to research chemicals. “There is sort of a culture around it and there’s this sort of cred you get for it,” he said. Although the biomedical engineering senior has experience with all sorts of drugs, marijuana is the one he comes back to the most. He first got into the drug culture on campus his freshman year through his fraternity, using it partially for stress relief, but mostly for the social aspect. Now he smokes weed nearly every day. “I love the idea of a smoke circle. Everybody’s sitting around, you’re passing the bowl. You’re kind of forced into this group conversation,” Peter said. “It’s a big socialization thing.” Upon first arriving on campus, he said he thought there was only a small number of drug users at UTD. Since then, he’s discovered it’s much more prevalent than he previously supposed.
→ SEE WEED, PAGE 4
UT DALLAS MARIJUANA STATISTICS