TENNIS
TRIUMPH
Bobcats’ weekend action includes victory over previously impervious Texas-San Antonio SEE SPORTS PAGE 12
GREEK WEEK
Annual event brings community, Texas State together for service, fun SEE TRENDS PAGE 5
DEFENDING THE FIRST AMENDMENT SINCE 1911
WWW.UNIVERSITYSTAR.COM
TUESDAY
MARCH 27, 2007
School of sound
VOLUME 96, ISSUE 68
Texas State only university to offer bachelor’s in highly competitive field
By Molly Berkenhoff The University Star The sound recording technology program at Texas State, now in its 15th year, continues to see success in both its students and graduates. “Getting into (the program) and doing this for the past two years has really begun to shape me into the person that I want to be,” Jan Nowicki, sound recording technology sophomore, said in an e-mail. “If it wasn’t for this program, it would have been way harder learning all of these things that we learn and getting the experience that we get while we are here.” Texas State provides the only available baccalaureate degree in sound recording technology both in Texas and the entire Southwestern U.S. Because the program is such a rarity in the region, majors must meet rigorous stipulations to become a part of the highly selective and demanding program. About 15 candidates are accepted each year from the applicant pool. “I was honestly a little worried,” Nowicki said. “I knew that this program was well-known for being really good and I also knew that it was very selective. I See SOUND, page 4
ASG reviews Grad House decision By Paul Rangel The University Star
Jon Clark/Star photo TECH CHECK: Sound recording technology students Ashley Stone, junior, Charlie Kramsky, senior, and Alex Loughborough, sophomore, work in class March 19 in the Fire Station Studios as part of Texas State’s sound recording technology program.
CIVIL RIGHTS ACTIVIST’S BIRTHDAY CELEBRATED BY LATINO STUDENT ASSOCIATION By Karen Little The University Star The Texas State Latino Student Association will host an event to commemorate the leadership and accomplishments of civil rights activist César Chávez, 5 p.m. Wednesday in the LBJ Student Center, Room 3-15. Chávez was a Hispanic labor leader and farm worker who co-founded the National Farm Workers Association in 1962. “We want to highlight the achievements in his life, especially his work in the Farm Workers’ Union,” said Erica Rodriguez, advertising junior and president of the Latino Student Association. Rodriguez said the association is one of the few organizations on campus participating in events for Chávez’s birthday Saturday. “(The event) is important because Texas State is pushing to be a HispanicServing Institution,” she said.
“C
ésar Chávez fought for fair working conditions and living conditions for farm workers. He was a very kind, humble person who believed everyone should be treated equal.”
—Gloria Martinez assistant professor, sociology
Chávez
Special guests include Joanne Smith, vice president of student affairs, who will introduce the event, and Gloria Martinez, assistant professor of sociology. Martinez will show a film entitled In The Land of Plenty, which depicts the life of strawberry field workers in Watsonville, Calif. “I will talk about (Chávez’s) life, leadership and his contribution to farm workers and American society as a whole,” Martinez said.
Martinez will share some of her experiences growing up in the Salinas Valley, located on the California coast. Her father was a bracero, or a Mexican laborer, admitted into the United States to work for a short period of time. She said her parents were part of the United Farm Workers of America, formerly known as the National Farm Workers Association. Martinez said because many poor white farm workers were called to action during World War II, the U.S. and
Mexico signed a treaty to recruit and employ Mexican citizens to help maintain the agricultural fields. This was called the Bracero Program. The program was created to bring experienced Mexican workers to harvest crops temporarily, but the program continued for almost 22 years. Martinez said Chávez was an environmentalist and strove to reduce the amount of pesticide in fields for workers. “Cesar Chávez fought for fair working conditions and living conditions for farm workers,” Martinez said. “He was a very kind, humble person who believed everyone should be treated equal.” Chávez’s birthday is currently recognized in four states, but not as a holiday. Martinez said the association wants to make his birthday a national holiday. “We’re trying to get people involved in a petition for a national holiday,” Martinez said. “It’s going to be a day of action, too.”
Regular business could not be conducted Monday at the Associated Student Government meeting because quorum was not met. Because of the attendance, new legislation could not be presented and old legislation was not voted on. During his report, ASG President Kyle Morris introduced the nominees for the Election Commission. Ryan Galloway, communication studies senior, was nominated for chairman of the commission and Austin Shelton, biology sophomore, as a committee member. The commission will be reviewing and regulating different aspects of the upcoming ASG elections. Morris then went on to address issues concerning the recent ASG Supreme Court case that reversed ASG Vice President Amanda Oskey’s decision to dissolve the Graduate House of Representatives. “…They never sought out opinions of the various sides that may have had an interest (in) communicating that to the court before a decision was made,” Morris said. He soon called for senators to address the issue by creating reform and regulations for the Supreme Court. Morris said problems that concerned him were that public hearings were not conducted and the case was not disclosed to the student body. “These were four gentlemen in the Supreme Court who went into a room and they made their decision without listening to the opinions of individuals,” Morris said. When questioned by Student Sen. Megan Titus, college of liberal arts, about whether the Senate could make a decision on what the Supreme Court could or could not do, Morris made it clear he was only trying to address the structural issues of the court. “(The court justices) looked at situations before and after the issue at hand,” Morris said. “Well I hoped that the people we selected would have given See ASG, page 4
New Braunfels City Council UT has Watergate reporters discuss govt. corruption votes to relax its river rules By Kiah Collier Daily Texan (U. Texas)
By Alysha Mendez The University Star After recently passing four river ordinances regarding cooler sizes, tubes and life jackets, the New Braunfels City Council decided March 14 to relax those rules. Previously, tubers were limited to six-pack coolers on the Comal River and 12-pack coolers on the Guadalupe River, as decided by the council at their Feb. 19 meeting. Now, while on both rivers within the city limits, tubers are allowed to carry up to a 16-quart cooler, which holds approximately 20 cans. “I think we made a big stride going from a six-pack cooler to 16-quart sized,” said district 3 councilwoman Gale Pospisil. “I still would have liked that size to be larger, but more people find this compromise reasonable.” The council revised the requirement that children under 8 years old wear a life jacket.
“Some people on the River Activities Committee thought it’d be a good idea for young children to wear life jackets,” said Bruce Boyer, New Braunfels mayor. “But it’s a short river and it’s not particularly dangerous.” They instead recommended young children and poor swimmers wear life jackets while tubing. “The consensus after hearing the public input was that we wanted to encourage safety, but it comes down to what the children’s parents think is best,” Boyer said. “Hopefully, parents will intervene when necessary.” The council amended the proposed limit of only allowing tubes up to four feet in diameter, changing it to five feet. “The tube chute is five feet and eight inches I think, so I agreed that if a five foot tube can fit through the chute, it should be allowed,” Pospisil said. The council voted to allow floaters
Today’s Weather
AM Showers 79˚/62˚
Precipitation: 30% Humidity: 77% UV: 9 Very High Wind: SSW 11 mph
See RIVER RULES, page 4
Two-day Forecast Wednesday Partly Cloudy Temp: 81°/ 65° Precip: 10%
Thursday Scattered T-Storms Temp: 69°/ 57° Precip: 40%
(U-WIRE) AUSTIN, Texas — Every year, journalism students learn about the Watergate scandal as one of the most important events in the history of their future profession. On Friday, the two Washington Post journalists who tore down the Nixon administration with their investigative reporting in the 1970s, put the historic lessons learned during the infamous scandal into context with what they see as the failings of the current presidency. In front of a packed McCullough Theater on the University of Texas Campus, Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward made comparisons between Richard Nixon and President Bush. Bernstein said both presidents share a fundamental “psychological unfitness for the presidency” during a three-hour, two-part panel discussion titled “The Legacy of Watergate: Why It Still Matters.” Watergate was a turning point in American history that made citizens conscious of the possibility for corrup-
tion and abuse of power in the White House. A generation later, the result of the recent mid-term elections show Americans recognize that the current administration has withheld information from its citizens about the war in Iraq, Woodward said. “What we see today is an abuse of power that is even more egregious than in the Nixon administration,” Bernstein said to an applauding audience. The largely Watergate-era-aged crowd laughed and applauded at many of the statements made, mostly by Bernstein, about the far-reaching consequences of a dishonest and secretive president. “It’s better to have a criminal president than an incompetent president,” Woodward said. Nixon was impeached because his actions were criminal, while the actions of many incompetent presidents do far worse damage, but aren’t grounds for legal action, he said. Topics during the first discussion included the questions of why presidents abuse power, the federal government’s neglect of Hurricane Katrina victims
and specific stories about the political climate during the Watergate scandal, namely the Vietnam War. “Vietnam and Watergate together caused millions of Americans to lose their trust in government,” UT government professor Bruce Buchanan said in an e-mail. Buchanan moderated the first part of Friday’s discussion. “People now tell pollsters that what they consider most important in presidential candidates is honesty, reflecting the hope (though no longer the expectation) of being able to trust the president.” During the panel, Woodward and Bernstein’s banter was characteristic of two old friends, and personified their yin-and-yang dynamic, which is described in many introductory journalism textbooks. “We’ll never agree,” Woodward said laughing after he and Bernstein argued about the reason for the original break-in at the Watergate Hotel during a question and answer session before the official discussion. At The Washington Post, Woodward was known as more conservative in his reporting style and See WATERGATE, page 4
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