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Math majors chalk up campus for Pi Month
15
Students and a professor woke up at 3:14 a.m. to chalk up to 3,000 digits
Crack open the New York Times #1 Bestseller
Musings of fantasy: John Mendiola reviews Words of Radiance
21
Golf team saves Hyde at Jekyll Island Invitational
First-year Hanna Niner earns SCAC honors with sixth place overall finish.
theTrinitonian Volume 111, Issue 21
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www.trinitonian.com
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Serving Trinity University Since 1902
• March 21, 2014
Nafisi extolls the role of literature in democratic society Reknowned author reads from her bestseller Reading Lolita in Tehran by Cassandra Watson NEWS REPORTER Speaker and author Azar Nafisi spoke in Stieren Theatre Tuesday, March 20. The theatre was completely packed with students, faculty and people from the surrounding community - including people from Lubbock, Texas, who came by bus. The event was held to mark the 10th anniversary of Trinity University Press, which publishes books intended for scholars and students. Senior Trinity student Ambreen Hooda gave an introduction to Nafisi’s talk. “Azar Nafisi is best known for her memoir, “Reading Lolita in Tehran,” which received several awards and was named one of the 100 best books of the decade in 2009 by the
London Times. It has spent 117 weeks on the New York Times Bestseller list and has been translated into 32 languages,” Hooda said. Nafisi is currently a professor at the Foreign Policy Institute of Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies. She taught at Oxford University and at the University of Tehran until she was expelled for refusing to wear a veil. She has also written for The Washington Post, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal. Nafisi continues to write and plans on releasing a new book later this year. “Forthcoming this fall is the her latest book, “the Republic of the Imagination,” about the power of literature to liberate minds and people,” Hooda said. Many people in the audience were familiar with Nafisi’s writings and accomplishments and were eager to hear what she had to say. “I read Reading Lolita about ten years ago and just loved it.
see NAFISI Page 6
photo by Miguel Webber Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books, authored by Nafisi (pictured above) spent over 117 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list.
Area construction and community events challenge parking feasibility Drivers’ patience is tested with Alamo Stadium Construction and parking lot closures by Faith Ozer NEWS REPORTER Trinity community members are feeling parking pressure due to construction projects over the past years of the Center for Science and Innovation (CSI) and Alamo Stadium, as well as the increase in events on Trinity’s campus. “They continue to have [the symphony events] but they’ve been better about sending emails. It’s still up in the air as to whether the second Alamo Stadium parking lot will be closed,” said senior psychology major Madeline Estes. “Usually if the first one is closed then you can still use the other one, but for some reason they were both blocked off [for a Feb. symphony event], and I had to park in the Bell Center. I feel like I paid for a parking permit, so I would like to have a place to park and not have to walk a super long distance.” Senior urban studies and
English major Michelle Padley has different opinions about parking, suggesting parking convenience and low permit prices are benefits for Trinity students not always enjoyed at other universities. “A lot of the parking here is very conveniently close. A lot of campuses have parking very clustered and far away, and then you’d walk onto campus and just have to walk everywhere around,” Padley said. “We on this campus manage to have
parking that is both convenient and accessible to buildings but also allows us to have a walkable campus, which I think is really unique and goes unappreciated. I definitely can see the parking frustration in people, but I think a lot of it is uncalled for.” According to Peter Perez, assistant chief of the Trinity University Police Department (TUPD), events held on campus such as the San Antonio Symphony puts a particular
limit on parking. However, they remain important parts of university community outreach. “We have a lot of parking, but we have these big events that put a big strain on certain members of the community. We do our best to meet that challenge,” Perez said. “There are times, for instance with the recent events from the San Antonio Symphony, due to construction Lot B behind Laurie Auditorium, where
photo by Megan McLoughlin Multiple potholes mark the entrance to Alamo Stadium parking lot and are unavoidable when entering or leaving the lot from Stadium Drive.
we used to park the buses in reference for events so that we could have kids walk across the street instead of coming from Alamo Stadium, that lot is closed down because of construction.” Alamo Stadium is currently also undergoing construction. According to Andrea Rodriguez, San Antonio Independent School District (SAISD) Bond Communication Major, Trinity is in its fifth year of a 25-year contract with SAISD for use of the two parking lots nearest to the entrance when events are not taking place at the stadium. However, construction has somewhat limited parking as well. Rodriguez was informed by contract planning that “it is scheduled so that at least one lot will be available for Trinity.” “The purpose of construction is to make Alamo Stadium ADA accessible because obviously the stadium was built in 1940, so that’s important. There will also be different utility upgrades to make it safe and bring it into the 20th century, as well as overall renovation to bring Alamo Stadium up to today’s standards and different criteria,” Rodriguez said.
see PARKING Page 6