THURSDAY
SEPTEMBER 18, 2014 VOLUME 104 ISSUE 18
D efending the First Amendment since 1911
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UNIVERSITY
San Marcos Artists: Local artists are bound together by the San Marcos culture and their need to create.
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HARON SAENZ STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
A student pours chemical waste into a designated container in Joann Cole Mitte Art Building.
TSUS
University generates 2,000 Texas State, Sam Houston pounds of waste per month policies protect
By Naomi Lovato NEWS REPORTER
T
exas State is doing its part to reduce the university’s waste footprint through the disposal of food, sewage and hazardous waste. The university is considered a large generator of waste, creating about 2,000 pounds per month, said Elizabeth Arceneaux, environmental health and safety specialist. There are multiple ways of sanitizing around campus, from disposing of dining hall food refuse to the special care of hazardous waste and efforts to clean the river, said Juan Guerra, associate vice president of Facilities.
Toxic waste is produced in the chemistry and art departments. The art department generates waste in its rinse water because the paint contains heavy metals, Arceneaux said. The plumbing, carpenter and painting shops on campus have waste in the form of solvents, oils, used rags containing chemicals, paints and old gasoline. A streamlined process is used to pick up chemicals from the Supple Science, Roy F. Mitte and Chemistry buildings, Arceneaux said. A crew of three or four people picks up hazardous waste every Friday morning. Hazardous waste is carefully sorted and stacked in an air-conditioned
building that is carefully inventoried, Arceneaux said. Every 60 days, the waste contractor picks up the waste from the university and transports it to the facility in Houston. The university’s science departments separate organic and inorganic chemicals before these materials are picked up for disposal, Arceneaux said. Solvent-based water gets burned for energy recovery, and some chemicals are “so nasty” that they are incinerated to nothing but ash. “I’m involved with it pretty heavily,” Arceneaux said. “Hazardous waste management is very serious. You could go to jail.”
The cost to dispose of waste is a utility, and all of those costs on campus are bundled together, said Brad Smith, director of Grounds Operations. Utility costs are distributed different departments according to use. “We pay to have our trash removed, so it’s actually costing the university more for the stuff to be hauled away than recycling,” Smith said. “We have a recycling program, but it’s all voluntary and you can go to any building, look in the trash can and see lots of stuff that can be recycled.” Texas State has recycling and composting programs for dining
“We had larger graduating classes of master’s students in 2012 and early 2013, and if people are graduating early and the graduating classes are larger than your classes coming in, it can appear that enrollment is going down,” Bourgeois said. A better way of looking at enrollment is the amount of net new students coming in, Bourgeois said. “Overall master’s enrollment was down last year, but there were actually more net new students coming in-,” Bourgeois said. “We
See GRADUATE, Page 2
See GENDER IDENTITY, Page 2
See WASTE, Page 2
Administrators address graduate enrollment
DENISE CATHEY STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
Officials are increasing graduate enrollment incentives and recruitment efforts.
Graduate program enrollment at Texas State dropped in 2013, and officials are now focusing on incentives and recruitment in its continuing efforts to become a Tier One university. At the master’s level, there has been a “slight dip” of three percent in the number of students enrolled, said Provost Eugene Bourgeois. Overall enrollment in the graduate programs was up 3.9 percent, Bourgeois said.
SOCIAL
By Tayler Chambless NEWS REPORTER The Texas State University System has implemented an institution-wide sexual misconduct policy, but Texas State and Sam Houston State are the only universities to address gender identity and gender expression in their discrimination and harassment policies so far. The Texas State University System Board of Regents approved the sexual misconduct policy Aug. 29 that affects all TSUS universities. Gender identity is not explicitly mentioned in the sexual misconduct policy because the policy is meant to apply to any student or faculty member regardless of sexual orientation, said Mike Wintemute, associate vice chancellor for Governmental Relations and director of Communications. The purpose of the policy is to “maintain an educational environment free from all forms of sexual discrimination,” according to the TSUS sexual misconduct policy and procedures. After discussing the inclusion of gender identity and expression for about a year, Texas State added the clause into its own policy a year ago, alongside Sam Houston State, which added ‘sexual orientation’ roughly two years ago, said Joanne Smith, vice president for Student Affairs. The gender identity and expression statement was not included at that time. “A number of years back, (Texas State) added ‘sexual orientation,’ and that was when Dr. Trauth first came here,” said Kristen Ploeger, president of Texas State Alliance. “She put that policy in, and we were the only institution in the Texas State University
UNIVERSITY
By Houston York NEWS REPORTER
gender identity
LEADERSHIP
Leadership program continues in Anonymous photo memory of alumnus sharing application comes to Texas State
By Benjamin Enriquez NEWS REPORTER A new anonymous photo-sharing app called Unseen aims to provide students with the ability to connect with others without a fear of backlash. Michael Schramm, CEO and cofounder of Unseen, said current social media platforms are glossy versions of who people are. Schramm and his cofounder, Munjal Budhabhatti, created a platform that allows college students to be who they are without fear of repercussions. “The overall goal is to be an antiFacebook,” Schramm said. “Here (on Unseen) you can find people with common interests and opinions, and it’s just so much more genuine.” Unseen removes the stresses associated with posting certain things, and users do not have to think before posting, Schramm said. Zero identifiable information is collected from app users, Schramm said. The little data collected is geolocation. “The future ‘Facebook’ of the world is going to come out of the anonymous space,” Schramm said. “We’re in the best position to build the social media platform of the future.”
Schramm said the concept of anonymous space is taking off and has the potential to be a “trillion dollar industry.” “There was no ‘aha’ moment, ever,” Schramm said. “We just realized there was no better way to connect, so we built a product that connected that gap.” The app rolled out in May and was only available at Texas A&M University, Schramm’s alma mater. Since then, its reach has expanded to over 70 campuses nationwide and is continuing to grow “at light speed.” Users of the app accept the terms of service, pick their university and begin posting anonymous images to a Tumblr-like newsfeed. Users can view, comment on and like posts from other universities. “It’s pretty incredible what’s happening,” Schramm said. “It’s really rough around the edges now, and we’re just trying to hold the ship together, but in order to have tomorrow you have to have today.” Schramm, Budhabhatti and their entire team are not afraid of the growing pains involved with creating something like this.
See APP, Page 2
PRESLIE COX STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER Bill Poston founded the Housley Principled Leadership Program.
By Elizabeth Barrera NEWS REPORTER In tribute to his friend Kevin Housley, Bill Poston, founder and president of the Housley Principled Leadership Program, maintains connections with alumni and current students for support in reaching success. The memorial program for Housley has had a great turn out, Poston said. Housley was an alumnus of Texas State and best man at
Poston’s wedding. Housley died six years ago from brain cancer, and ever since, Poston said he was his motivation to fulfill the need of a program for students eager to gain leadership proficiency. “I wanted to do this as a memorial and have something more significant than having a scholarship named after him,” Poston said. “When you’re really tired and you think, ‘Why am I doing this?’—that aspect of making it a memorial keeps me going and keeps me motivated.” In 2008, the Stelos Alliance program began. The original idea was simply to raise money for college scholarships targeted at junior and senior students demonstrating leadership, Poston said. Poston saw many students who had great potential but were working and going to school part-time, which caused them to struggle to find a balance, he said. The idea was to provide them with funding and an educational component that would allow them to cut back on the amount of work they had to do to gain the experience of campus leadership roles, Poston said. “We started Housley in 2010 and did a couple of years of scholarship work and really recognized the need to put together a co-curricular program,” Poston said. “These
classes were not for credit, were about four hours long for eight Fridays and word quickly spread to people.” The first time Housley classes were offered, 15 students came, Poston said. The next time the number doubled to 30. After that 100 people applied, and now there are over 150 applicants every semester. “There are 30 seats in the class, and we continue to offer the cocurricular program at Texas State,” Poston said. “Last spring, classes were offered at Trinity College in San Antonio and San Angelo State University for a four-credit semester-long class.” This fall, Texas State has also brought the semester-long fourcredit course to the Honors College, Poston said. It allows for more detail, an expanded curriculum and deeper concepts. The class is now divided into three different parts, Poston said. The first third of the semester is about on self-awareness, selfidentification and values. The second consists of leading others and how to motivate, trust and adapt to situations and challenges. The last third of the program
See HOUSLEY, Page 2