Defending the First Amendment since 1911
INSIDE THIS ISSUE NEWS Pages 1-4 River monitoring project will protect endangered species
Volume 99, Issue 30
05
Lottery holds fate for students’ on-campus living By Kosaku Narioka News Reporter
Lights out in dining hall means more revenue
OPINIONS Pages 5-6 Free speech ends and annoyance begins Everyone gets graded, ASG is no exception
TRENDS Pages 7-12 Style you sole, help another soul Renting textbooks saves money, helps Mother Nature A Bobcat to Know: Passionate art student makes her way to fulfill dreams S.M.A.R.T. outlet for local musician
Current university housing residents will have to draw lottery tickets early spring semester if they want to live on campus next fall. The Department of Housing and Residential Life introduced a housing policy that will require students under the age of 20 with fewer than 30 credit hours to live on-campus. The students who graduated from high school within a year will be required to live on campus regardless of their credit hours. The new policy will take effect next fall. The adjustment came in response to growing freshmen enrollment and delayed housing construction projects. Joanne Smith, vice president of Student Affairs, said the university staff will reserve about 15 percent of beds for those who will have met the requirements and is planning to conduct a lottery early spring for them.
By Amanda Venable Editor in Chief
SPORTS
Volleyball seeks revenge Soccer secures top seed in tournament Football prepares for road battle
Allie Moncrief/Star photo
The Boys are Back Supporters watched the Bobcat baseball team compete in its first Fan Appreciation Fall World Series. See story page 16
Thirty-two ballots could keep Place 5 candidates from runoff
Page 13
Cameron’s Commentary: Thank you losers
She said university officials expect freshmen enrollment will continue to grow. The university announced an adjustment to lower the credit hour requirement from 52 to 42 for this fall in the middle of last semester. Still, it turned out the number of students who are required to live on campus this fall exceeded the number of beds available. Smith said at the July 9 President's Cabinet meeting, the number of students who wanted to live on campus has exceeded the capacity by 330 beds with additional applications pending, according to the minutes. The cabinet endorsed a set of recommendations Smith brought and suggested appropriate departments start a comprehensive review of the housing policy. Rosanne Proite, director of Housing and Residential Life, said the the department staff sent e-mails to students and told them if they have more see RESIDENCE, page 4
Some Texas State students see a wall. Others see an opportunity. Students tumble across campus in the underground sport known as parkour, only at UniversityStar.com.
A waiting game
DIVERSIONS
Pages 15-16
Hardcore parkour
THURSDAY
NOV
www.UniversityStar.com
The winner of the Place 5 City Council seat has yet to be determined, but officials say a runoff election may not be necessary. The Hays County Elections Office is waiting on 32 ballots coming in from residents living outside the country, which could be all candidate Ryan Thomason needs to clinch the seat. Thomason needed three votes to avoid a runoff with Lisa Marie Coppoletta based on early voting and Election Day results. Thomason is 0.1 percent of the votes shy of winning. He will have to wait until Monday to hear if there will be another round of elections. “It would be an entirely dif-
ferent type of election,” Thomason said. “Everyone is in a state of limbo with the outof-country ballots yet to be counted.” Coppoletta received 26 percent of the vote, which is two percent more than candidate Shaune Maycock. Thomason needed 50 percent plus one of the votes to win Place 5. Joyce Cowan, Hays County elections administrator, said her office staff is doublechecking results and waiting for the 32 ballots to come in. The election office must wait five days for the ballots to reach the city’s jurisdiction by law. She said a runoff is still a possibility. “Sunday is the last day,” Cowan said. “We will check the mail on Monday. If we have any ballots that have been returned… We will count them
and the results could change.” A runoff date has not been set. Coppoletta declined to comment on Tuesday’s results. “I believe the most professional way to proceed is to wait for Ms. Cowan to do her job as elections admisitrator before commenting,” Coppoletta said. Thomason said he anticipated the possibility of entering a runoff with Coppoletta. Thomason, who received 54 percent of the early vote, said he was confident of a win, however. “I haven’t looked at the list (of voters),” Thomason said. “I was joking I was going to send everyone the list to see who they know who didn’t vote. Then (I was going to) mail them a bill of what it will cost see ELECTION, page 4
Voter apathy results in low turnout at polls By Heidi Morrison News Reporter Voter attendance on Election Day was low, said Joyce Cowan, Hays County elections administrator. “A lot of people didn’t turn out,” she said. Election day was Tuesday, and 8.11 percent of registered voters participated at the polls. Cowan said one of the main reasons she believes the turnout was small is because people do not educate themselves about the candidates or propositions. “If you don’t feel you have the information to vote wisely, then of course you don’t turn out,” she said. “It’s hard to get informed of whether to vote
for or against an issue without checking into it.” Cowan said San Marcos brought in 2,049 votes. She said that is not much with the nearly 29,000 San Marcos residents and more than 30,000 Texas state students. “By the knowledge I have right now, I don’t think we had a lot of our younger age group turn out,” she said. Mandy Domaschk, president of College Democrats, said Texas State officials were not as involved as they should have been. “We didn’t have anything on our homepage about voting,” she said. “Nothing.” College Democrats were in The Quad during early voting see TURNOUT, page 4
Prospective smoking ban in the works By Dj Nutter News Reporter
Today’s Weather
78°/50° Sunny Precipitation: 0% Humidity: 55% UV: 6 High Wind: E 6 mph
Friday
Sunny Temp: 77°/52° Precip: 0%
Saturday
Partly Cloudy Temp: 77°/58° Precip: 10%
A campus-wide smoke ban is being discussed in an ASG committee meeting. At least 365 campuses in the United States are smoke-free, according to the 2009 report taken by American Nonsmokers’ Rights Foundation. ASG Sen. Dallen Terrell, who is researching the potential legislation, said he wants Texas State to become 366th. He said the initiative for a campus-wide smoke ban is meant to direct and advise students to healthier lifestyles. Terrell said people who smoke on-campus absorb efforts for the university’s beautification and intrude on students’ right to a healthy, intellectually conducive environment. “When you obtrude on others rights (to clean air), your rights normally cease,” Terrell said. “Infamous smoking tables like the ones outside Elliot Hall blatantly disregard that a smoking policy even exists.” ASG Sen. Brice Loving, marLindsey Goldstein/Star file photo keting senior, said they have submitted a version of the SMOKING BAN: Research is being done in an ASG committee to initiate a campus-wide smoking 2008 “Opinion Survey on Toban.
bacco and Exposure” at University of Minnesota to the Institutional Review Board. Members of Texas State’s Institutional Review Board oversee which surveys will be distributed campus-wide. Loving said the review period has 13-steps, but the survey should be ready to administer by the end of the semester. Terrell said their argument encompasses three tenants and the bill would be publicly available as an oppressive feature, but they have the students’ health at heart. Smoking on-campus is illogical, Terrell said, as it poses public health and environmental issues. He said health professionals on campus like the Honors Health Professions Organization and Eta Sigma Gamma, stand behind a resoltuion enforcing stricter policies and consequences for those who light-up on campus. Terrell said the initiative focuses on ridding students addicted to smoking tobacco by publicizing the smoking cessation program at the Student Health Center. Physicians determine independent stusee SMOKING, page 4