October 17 2013

Page 1

VOLUME 103, ISSUE 25

www.UniversityStar.com

THURSDAY

OCTOBER 17, 2013

Defending the First Amendment since 1911

VIDEO | UniversityStar.com

SPORTS | B1

The San Marcos Farmer’s Market is a year round, bi-weekly event that allows local farmers and artists to sell their products in a friendly environment.

Georgia State Preview: Texas State football will attempt to capture its first-ever Sun Belt win Saturday against winless Georgia State at home.

FACULTY SENATE

Administrators discuss racial, ethnic identifiers By Rebecca Banks News Reporter

e nication junior, strikes a pos Emily Burns, mass commuht and Fashion Show, hosted Oct. 16 during the Bra Nig . The event aimed to raise s by CAMCO and FashioNation cer through decorated bra awareness for breast canaround campus. designed by organizations

Faculty senators discussed the differences between racial and ethnic identifiers and the problem incurred with them not being reported separately. Joseph Meyer, director at Institutional Research, said the department revised the way the university collected race and ethnicity information due to changes from the U.S. Census Bureau in 2010. Meyer said the university does allow students to select Hispanic as an ethnicity as well as the individual’s race and stores the imputed data separately. Race refers to physical features such as skin, eye and hair color, as well as bone and jaw structure. Ethnicity refers to cultural features such as nationality, culture, language and

Kate Silva, English freshman, walks during the Texas State Bra Night and down the runway Fashion Show. Reynaldo Leaños | Staff Photographer

ORGANIZATIONS

Bra Night raises breast cancer awareness By Kelsey Bradshaw News Reporter

L

ast night, fashonistas dominated the LBJ Ballroom to watch the Bra Night and Fashion Show put on by Cancer Advocacy Movement for Colleges and Outreach (CAMCO) and Fashionation. After audience members collected their “swag bags” and complimentary food at the reception, they headed into the ballroom to take part in a night dedicated to breast cancer awareness with over

600 others. More than 20 organizations competed against each other to see who had the most welldecorated bra. At the end of the night Fashionation won first place, CAMCOSO won second place and Latinas Unidas received third place for their creative bra designs. According to the Master of Ceremony Graciela Sandoval, night was all about awareness and sequined bras. “Know your body, check yourself, talk to your parents and talk to your doctor,” Sandoval said. A lot of planning went into the show, according to Iain

Kathryn Parker | Staff Photographer

By Taylor Tompkins News Editor

Mason Murphy City Council Place 2 candidate

Mason Murphy, candidate for Place 2 on the San Marcos City Council, sat down with The University Star to discuss his platform and the ideas he will bring to the table if elected. TT: Why did you want to run for city council? MM: Why I wanted to run for city council is, I have a background as a career counselor and I wanted to use that background, working with employers and employees to help bring jobs to San Marcos. I know the average income in San Marcos is around $26,000, but I

believe we have to find ways to effectively address that. I would like to address that by working with small businesses to help sustain them and help bring manufacturing businesses to San Marcos, but also to utilize my background to go out and recruit businesses to come to San Marcos that will help to give our residents quality jobs. TT: How do you feel you can use your experience at Texas State as a career counselor in a potential role on city council, beside helping to bring jobs here? MM: Being in an education setting as an employee, I have an understanding of both the K-12 system and the higher education system. And how I would like to utilize my background is to work with the school system to help address the K-12 level issues of poverty by working with nonprofits and churches to create programs that will effectively address those issues. It’s just another way that I would like to utilize my background, even though city council doesn’t directly deal with the

Sexual assault report under investigation A Texas State student has reported a sexual assault occurring between the late evening hours of Oct. 11 and the early morning hours of Oct. 12, according to a University News Service alert. The incident, which is currently under investigation, began downtown and continued on east campus. People with information about the incident can contact the University Police Department at (512)-245-2805, or call Crime Stoppers of Texas State at (512)-245-7867. —Report compiled by James Carneiro, assistant news editor

See BRA NIGHT, A3

TT: In your platform on your website, you say that you would like to address issues in the San Marcos Consolidated Independent School District. In your opinion, what are the biggest issues facing the district and how do you propose to fix those? MM: It is along the lines of working with the students and addressing those issues of poverty, which some of those issues are helping our students with, for example, if students need a mentor. There are programs that are in place, but also continuing to develop those types of programs to help students, not only to mentor them from a personal perspective, like the Boys and Girls Club would, but also to help them with tutoring from an academic perspective. So I think there’s programs that exist, but (there’s) also ways that we can build on that. By helping students with both academic and personal issues, we would be raising them out of poverty in a small way. TT: You’re running against an incumbent, Jude Prather. How do you feel about running against an incumbent, what do you think the challenges are with that? MM: Well, I believe my opponent, he’s a really great guy, and one of the things I have to do as a candidate is to present my own vision for the city, but also be able to talk about my background and how I can effectively bring that to

See MURPHY, A3

See RACE, A2

CRIME

McMichael, photographer sophomore who works for Fashionation. He said Fashionation had to keep in touch with 22 organizations as well as sponsors, vendors and stores. Banana Republic, Strut, Crickets and Lotz of Shoes, Joe’s, Langford Market and New York, New York were all represented in the show. With over double the audience members of last year, the fashion show was a success in raising awareness about breast cancer and an exciting evening for all who at-

funding. That’s what the school board does. I feel that as a city councilmember, we should still be able to offer ideas and work with the community to develop programs to help our citizens.

ancestry. However Meyer said the university does not report race and ethnicity separately because many other institutions in the state and region do not report it that way. Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, Voluntary System of Accountability and Common Data Set do not separate Hispanic as an ethnicity but incorporate the data into an aggregated system of race and ethnicity, Meyer said. According to Meyer, these institutions use a hierarchy system that establishes Hispanics. “If they (the individual) indicate Hispanic then that trumps everything else in their report,” Meyer said. “It doesn’t matter if they indicate another race they are reported (as Hispanic)

RESEARCH

Texas State officials to collaborate with NASA Johnson Space Center By Nicole Barrios News Reporter

One small step for Texas State students may mean one giant leap for internship and research opportunities. Collaborations have begun between Texas State and the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston to plan research partnerships and a cooperative education program. Provost Eugene Bourgeois said he and other faculty members went to the space center this summer and met with NASA research heads in divisions such as material sciences, engineering and electronics. He said NASA representatives then visited the university in early October and engaged in meetings with university faculty on future collaborations. Bourgeois said the Ingram School of Engineering, the Department of Engineering Technology, the Department of Physics, the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and the Material Science, Engineering, and Commercialization Ph.D. program are all engaged in conversations with NASA scientists and staff to begin partnerships. He said conversations on the partnership began “nearly a year ago.” “I believe, in the case of both intuitions, there are some unique equipment research

laboratory facilities that may be used by the other partner,” Bourgeois said. Bourgeois said the partnership will allow university faculty to have access to research projects that NASA Johnson Space Center personnel are engaged in. He said the collaboration will mean heightened visibility for Texas State faculty and their research initiatives. In addition to possible internships, the university is discussing plans for a cooperative education program with NASA that would allow students to work full-time for a semester when they reach a certain level in their curriculum, Bourgeois said. Stanley McClellan, director of the Ingram School of Engineering, said students will return to the semester after they work full-time and take class. He said this process of the student working for one semester and taking classes the next will be repeated three times. “They really want us to have a cooperative education program and we really want a cooperative education program,” McClellan said. “That would be a big, huge, hairy deal.” McClellan said this program would be an “enormous” benefit to the university and its students. He said NASA has a well-established cooperative education program format, and

See NASA, A2


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