09 25 2012

Page 1

VOLUME 102, ISSUE 14

www.UniversityStar.com

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TUESDAY

SEPTEMBER 25, 2012

Pink Heals 5K

GO NE ONLI NOW

Pink Heals 5K is a fundraiser that promotes awareness and supports victims of breast cancer. Watch the video at UniversityStar.com.

HOME GROWN

Students, volunteers practice sustainability By Adrian Omar Ramirez News Reporter On a Saturday morning, people busy themselves with planting seeds, hoeing, plowing and harvesting crops on a plot of land on the outskirts of San Marcos. The group is made up of students and volunteers working at the Student Sustainable Farm, a project under the guidance of Ken Mix, assistant professor in the department of agriculture. Operation at the farm, located on Highway 21 next to the San Marcos Municipal Airport, began March 2012 with the help of a $40,000 grant from the Environmental Service Committee. Mix has a group of 100 students, most of whom are assigned homework hours for their work, as well as volunteers who

help at the farm. Artichoke, broccoli, cabbage, kale, carrots and sweet potatoes are some of the crops grown there, which are then sold at farmers markets in The Quad. Mix said the Student Sustainable Farm arose because the agriculture department needed an opportunity to develop a teaching and research site to explore the concept of sustainability. Adam Salcedo, a volunteer at the farm, is a Texas State alumnus who plans to return as a graduate student. “We—and by we I mean all Americans and members of industrialized society— need to learn how to produce food locally,” Salcedo said. “The industrial system has destroyed our competence, and we don’t know how to grow food anymore.” Salcedo said there are benefits to locally grown food. Most food travels about

Career Services director heads to Qatar

1,600 miles if it is bought from a store like H-E-B. Food bought from a farmers market only travels a few miles and was most likely harvested a few hours before it was sold. Locally grown food is also nutritious. Dag Osorio, agriculture education graduate student, helped start the farm as a senior and said the project was a major deciding factor in continuing his education at Texas State. “I’m here to supervise some of the (agriculture) students who are doing parts of their assignments out here,” Osorio said. “(This) includes anything from seeding to working the plots to harvesting or just learning a little bit about agriculture.” Osorio said one of the project goals is

READ FARM, PAGE 2

Katrina Barber, Staff Photographer

Dagoberto Osorio, agriculture education graduate student, harvests sweet potatoes Sept. 22 at the student sustainable farm. Osorio is the manager of the farm, teaching students about crops and farming.

Photo courtesy of Chandler Prude

Curtis Schafer, director of Career Services, is moving to Qatar to establish a career services program at the country’s only public university. By Nicole Barrios News Reporter

to apply. The program is sponsored by the Mind Science Foundation, the Honors Thesis Fund, Freeman Ranch Research Fund, TriM Foundation and AVP General Research Fund. Additional funds come from the College of Science, College of Health Professions and College of Education. “It’s a bunch of different small sources that we’ve put together,” Galloway said. “But students can just make one application.”

Texas State’s director of Career Services will be keeping his title, but in a new setting: Qatar. Curtis Schafer, director of Career Services, is leaving San Marcos after the month’s end to move to Qatar. There he will help establish a career services department at Qatar University, the only public university in the country. Schafer said he will be a resident consultant to the university’s career services department, which is still fairly new. He will be there for two to three years mentoring the training staff and the native Qatari director, who is new to the field. “I wasn’t looking to leave Texas State. I like it here,” Schafer said. “This job (in Qatar) just really intrigued me because of the cultural immersion and because of the opportunity to see a totally different higher education system.” Schafer said he enjoyed working with Middle Eastern students when he was a counselor at Louisiana State University in the ‘70s. It pained him to see Americans negatively stereotype Middle Eastern people when 9/11 occurred. After working at LSU for 20 years, Schafer moved to Texas State. He was a high school teacher and counselor in Baton Rouge, Louisiana before working at LSU. Schafer began his career at Texas State in 1997. Gregory Snodgrass, his supervisor and assistant vice president for student affairs, said Schafer has always been “on the cutting edge.” “He was a steal. We didn’t know what we were getting when we got him,” Snodgrass said. Schafer said the thing he will miss most about the university is the people. “When I first interviewed (at Texas

READ FUNDING, PAGE 2

READ QATAR, PAGE 2

Undergraduates get research funding By Nicole Barrios News Reporter The Honors College and the Office of the Associate Vice President for Research recently announced the 2012-2013 campuswide undergraduate research program. The Student Undergraduate Research Fund program is in its second year of providing money through grants to undergraduate research. The program provides funds for student research projects in various fields of study and creates a means through which

students can gain experience in writing research proposals. The program awards up to $1,000 of research funding to undergraduate students based on competitive applications. Undergraduates may apply for funding by Oct. 23 by submitting their research grant proposals online. Heather Galloway, dean of the Honors College, said the college has received a wide variety of research applications for funding from science and engineering to fine arts students. Any enrolled undergraduate is eligible

San Marcos neighborhoods unite in friendly competition By Andrew Osegi News Reporter Neighborhood leaders and local citizens of all ages competed in events Saturday to earn placement, prizes and bragging rights on behalf of their neighborhood. Citizens of San Marcos came together at the City Park fields to compete in the first San Marcos Neighborhood All-Star Games. The competing neighborhoods were Dunbar, Hills of Hays, El Camino

Real, Heritage and Blanco Gardens. El Camino Real won the competition, and operations coordinator Amy Kirwin said the games were started to promote camaraderie between San Marcos communities and city leaders in a non-political arena. The San Marcos Council of Neighborhood Associations and the City of San Marcos Neighborhood Commission brought the games to fruition. Participants competed in egg and spoon relays, a three-legged race, a bas-

ketball game of Horse, a potato sack race, tug of war and a pie-eating contest. Event coordinator Elena Duran directed the participants in each event. A number of city officials and sponsors were in attendance, including Mayor Daniel Guerrero, Place 3 Councilman John Thomaides and Lisa Dvorak, community liaison of Achieving Community Together. Thomaides participated in the games

READ GAMES, PAGE 2

City officials consider educational center By Natalie Berko News Reporter The City of San Marcos and Hays County are looking into the implementation of an interpretive and educational center near the San Marcos River. County Commissioner Will Conley, Precinct 3, said the discussions signal the last phase in a three-part plan at the Meadows Center for Water and the Environment, formerly the River Systems Institute. Conley said the first phase was to restore the old hotel, located at what was formerly the Aquarena Springs Amusement

Park, to house an expansion of the center. The hotel now houses office facilities and a small museum. The second stage was to remove old amusement park equipment and return the site to its natural state before executing the third phase, he said. The third phase includes planning for the interpretive educational center. Andy Sansom, executive director of the Meadows Center at Texas State, said the educational center is now operating out of a temporary building. The current situation is inadequate for handling the diving operations, lake maintenance and approxi-

mately 125,000 visitors the center receives a year. The parties involved include Hays County, the City of San Marcos, Texas Parks and Wildlife, and Texas State. Sansom said if the parties decide to create a new facility, funding would come from sources external to the university, either philanthropies, foundations, individuals or other governmental entities. It is too early to tell how much would need to be raised. “I think we are a long way away from

READ CENTER, PAGE 2

Police search for stabbing suspect By Nancy Young News Reporter Authorities are searching for the suspect in an attempted homicide investigation after a man was stabbed at the University Heights II apartment complex parking lot at approximately 3:30 a.m. Sunday. Penny Dunn, San Marcos Police Department commander, said the man was stabbed during a disagreement between two groups of individuals. The attacker fled the scene. One man was arrested at the scene for not complying with SMPD. Dunn said this is a “tampered investigation” due to the amount of alcohol involved in the incident. The victim is hospitalized and is in stable condition, Dunn said. The man was able to answer a few questions from SMPD about the incident. Dunn said there was “a lot of commotion happening at once” because a car accident also occurred during the time of the stabbing. Dunn said SMPD believes this is an isolated incident and hopes anyone with information about the case will come forward.


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