Partly cloudy with a 30% chance of rain HIGH LOW 92 77
Goodfriend Tennis Center to become one of the best in the nation
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
PAGE 6 T H E
Issue 14
E D I T O R I A L L Y
Managing Editor Brandi Panter analyzes lost art of music videos PUBLISHED SINCE 1906
I N D E P E N D E N T
S T U D E N T
PAGE 5
http://dailybeacon.utk.edu
Vol. 114
N E W S P A P E R
O F
T H E
U N I V E R S I T Y
O F
T E N N E S S E E
New student trustee passionate about policy Robby O’Daniel Editor-in-Chief Last week Gov. Phil Bredesen named two new members to the UT Board of Trustees, one of which was Carey Smith, senior in political science. The appointment is for two years, the first year being as the non-voting student seat on the board and the second being a voting term. In many ways, the move was a culmination of an interest in policy that began before she ever went to UT. “Ever since I attended Volunteer Girls State when I was a junior in high school, I really became hooked on politics,” Smith said. “I follow up, especially in Tennessee, very closely. It just became a passion of mine. ... When I went, I fell in love with the political process and being a good citizen and being an informed voter and talking about the issues.” Smith loved the experience because it gives students the ability to learn about issues and form their own ideas. She liked it so much that she wrote a letter to her Girls State counselor team, asking
if she could come back as a counselor. “Lo and behold, the next year, they called me, so I actually worked with the program — I went as a delegate in 2006 and have worked as a counselor ever since,” she said. Smith came to UT undecided, but after taking a few political science classes, she decided for that major in her sophomore year. But while political science is a field of interest, Smith has a few different career ambitions. Right now she’s studying for the LSAT in preparation to go to law school after her undergraduate studies are finished. She sees an intersection between politics and law. She said she expects to practice law for a few years, but even that is not the end-all be-all of her life. She said perhaps a run for public office might be in order eventually. “Ultimately I’d really be interested in going back into higher-education policy,” Smith said. “Of course, I find it hard to speculate on what you’ll be doing in the future because I feel like you never really know.”
But she said she could shape higher-education policy in some of the roles she’s considering for her future, and higher-education policy is something she’s interested in and passionate about. It was during her work in the spring in the Office of State Relations in Nashville where her eyes were really opened about some of the issues facing the school. David Folz, Smith’s Political Science 320 professor, was one of the ones who nominated her for the role. “We select who we believe are the very best, most qualified, talented and able students to represent the University of Tennessee as more or less our ambassadors on Capitol Hill during the legislative session,” Folz said. He described Smith in the classroom as an excellent student. “She was extremely able and studious and very bright, able to understand and articulate the processes involved in how an idea becomes policy, and how policy is implemented in various ways across the state,” he said. See SMITH on Page 2
• Photo courtesy of Gina Stafford and Ellie Amador
UT researchers meet for funding Andrea Castillo Staff Writer
Tara Sripunvoraskul • The Daily Beacon
The Frank H. McClung Museum, located in Circle Park, has an Ancient Egypt exhibit currently on display. The museum is open from 9:00am-5:00pm Monday - Saturday and 1:00pm-5:00pm on Sundays.
On May 10 through May 11, UT researchers met with potential investors and entrepreneurs at the Tennessee Innovation Conference and Venture Showcase in Nashville, with Tennessee Technology Development Corporation sponsoring the event. This was the second year that this event has been held for this new, yearly event and also marks the inaugural event of the Tennessee Enterprise Network (TEN), which is a network made up of business-assistance organizations intended to promote the growth entrepreneurship in the state of Tennessee. The goal of the event was to possibly serve as a mechanism for transformational economic development impact by initiating and assisting communication and discussion among scientists and venture capitalists. It was a way of networking with other scientists to get helpful information and feedback on their projects, as well as to get together with researchers who may be doing similar projects to talk over and exchange data. Another benefit of this conference was the potential investors to be made aware of the projects to open up potential market opportunities and to be made aware of similar research for, what could be, future competitors, which may help with decisionmaking during development to be more commercially efficient. This event held more than 50 of Tennessee’s leading scientists, inventors and entrepreneurs and of those 50, three were
from UT, including, Shane Foister, Ramki Kalyanaraman and Jayne Wu. Also four participating researchers were from the UT Health Science Center, including Ed Chaum, Arnold Postlethwaite, Tayabeh Pourmottabed and John Stewart; from the UT Institute of Agriculture were Juan Luis Jurat-Fuentes and Qixin Zhong. One of the participating researchers, Shane Foister, had also received a grant earlier this year for 2010 as to allow for further development with the research. Foister was one of only nine proposals to be funded by UTRF totaling $135,000. This funding has assisted in 12 of the 20 projects in the prior two years to have either resulted in obtaining additional funds for research, executing a license, or for the technologies to currently be in discussion with potential licensees. Jurat-Fuentes, assistant professor in entomology and plant pathology, worked on a research project that focused on developing biological pesticides based on insecticidal toxins produced by a bacterium called Bacillus thuringiensis. Chaum, professor in ophthalmology, said the meeting was helpful for startup companies such as his own as well as for scientists looking to develop companies from their research. “The structure provided an opportunity to present business plans and research ideas to a panel of venture capitalists and experienced business professionals and get feedback regarding strengths and weakness in the businesses, suggestions about key areas to address and how to continue to develop the new companies or inventions,” Chaum said.
Carpenters meet to demonstrate against perceived slight Andrea Castillo Staff Writer With signs that read “Wakefield STOP lowering area standards for carpenters,” Carpenters Union Local No. 50 has spent the last week over on Highland Avenue behind Fort Sanders Regional Medical Center. It seems as though the publicity that the Carpenters Union workers have received over the past few years has left them hesitant to say more than a few words about the issue for fear of being misquoted in the media, yet again; they merely want for both sides of the story to be told. Over recent years, Knoxville Carpenters Union Protests have been held all over Knoxville and surrounding areas, led by
Carpenters Union Director of Organizing Robert Helton. Most recently, the union has been picketing near a construction site in the Fort Sanders area. When asked about the issue, the union wouldn’t comment aside from the signs. Helton claims he has been misquoted several times in the past by media and has discontinued commenting though the press, instead using a website entitled http://www.wakefieldsucks.com to comment to the press. The mission of the Carpenter Union Protestors is to “preserve our construction industry,” and they plan to do so by protecting their industry from companies who drive wages down and drive quality craftsmen out of the industry altogether. “We are not asking Wakefield Corporation
to become a union contractor, nor are we asking any of his workers to join the union,” Helton said. “All the union wants is for Wakefield’s non-union workforce to receive area standards while working for the nonunion company, The Wakefield Corporation.” Helton said the Carpenters Union began several years ago when they claimed to have invested millions of dollars in the training of Knoxville carpenters to upgrade their skills and enhance productivity, after hosting an open house event in order to allow contractors to be made aware of the effort put forth by the Carpenters Union in the local community. This was when Jim Wakefield became interested in joining with the Carpenters Union but wanted to use a nontaxable work-
force through labor brokers, which does not comply with all the labor laws such as deducting taxes from employees, Helton said. As far as the website and the picketing are concerned, Michael McLemore, senior in plant sciences, said the picketing is possibly a step to try and better the lives of the workers and prevent poor quality buildings from being made. “The forwarding all questions to the website is a great way to get the point across because all answers are there for the public to see and in its entirety,” McLemore said. “So it’s not like they are not answering at all, but simply making sure they do not end up being misinterpreted.”