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At a press conference Monday morning, UT Sys-tem Chancellor Francisco Cigarroa announced he will be stepping down as chan-cellor because he feels he has completed significant work on the goals he originally set for himself in the role.

Cigarroa, who will be-come the head of pediatric transplant surgery at the UT Health Science Cen-ter-San Antonio once his successor is named, said he came to his realization in December.

“I realized I had accom-plished every goal that I set out to do,” Cigarroa said. “I’m at a point in my professional career where I need to take a look at the next steps. The type of academic I am is real-ly a surgeon, [and I realized] that, if I didn’t go back to sur-gery, I think that, long-term, I would have regretted it.”

Cigarroa maintained his decision had nothing to do with recent tensions be-tween President William Powers Jr. and members of the UT System Board of Re-gents, and said he is proud of the work he has done to

advance UT-Austin.“As it relates to Presi-

dent Powers, this decision is completely separate from that,” Cigarroa said. “I will continue to do my work as chancellor every day until my last day, as I’ve always done,

based on facts and perfor-mance. I support President Powers, and I will continue to evaluate all presidents ev-ery day.”

State Sen. Judith Zaf-firini, D-Laredo, said she believes Cigarroa’s

resignation stems from some regents’ recent behav-ior. Zaffirini, who served as chairwoman of the Senate Higher Education Com-mittee for six years, still sits on the committee and is also co-vice chair of the

Joint Oversight Committee on Higher Education Gov-ernance, Excellence and Transparency.

“Although I am confi-dent that he will deny any

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Transfer students find transition difficult

Sixth Street disturbance spurs APD initiative

When undeclared junior Joshua Alvarez transferred from Texas Tech to UT, he had to give up his two majors and had trouble finding hous-ing — problems he feels were exacerbated by the University’s treatment of transfer students.

“Transfer students don’t fall into four-year graduation rates, so we’ve been pushed to the side in a sense,” Alva-rez said. “It’s really unfair.”

Transfer students, who are given a much shorter new

student orientation and have no office to specifically address their needs, are 40 percent more likely to drop out after their first year than incoming first-year students, according to the most recent data available from the Office of Information Management and Analysis.

Kristen Jones Harris, as-sistant director of operations at New Student Services, said there is not currently an office dedicated to helping students transition into the University, but the need is being addressed.

“There is not technically a transfer office,” Harris said.

“We are still trying to find specific opportunities to sup-port them throughout their college career versus when they just get here.”

Harris said New Student Services organizes a non-mandatory transfer student orientation that allows trans-fer students to meet with aca-demic advisers and plan their schedules.

“We have to make different accommodations for their college, but we do feel like a large number of transfer stu-dents attend because of those opportunities,” Harris said.

The transfer student orien-tation is a day and a half long, and Alvarez said he felt like there was not as much infor-mation available to him as there would be to freshman.

“Not only was there a lack of support at orientation, but here, with that one day and a half, I basically came, regis-tered and left,” Alvarez said. “It didn’t provide me with the resources I was looking for.”

Alvarez is on the Transfer Student Board, designed to ad-dress the concerns of this small Michelle Toussaint / Daily Texan Staff

Kiefer Shenk, vice president of UT Senate, is heading an inia-tive to better facilitate students transferring into the University.

By Nicole Cobler@nicolecobler

SYSTEM

Cigarroa: ‘I had accomplished every goal’

Shelby Tauber / Daily Texan StaffUT System Chancellor Francisco Cigarroa stepped down from his position at a press conference Monay morning. Cigarroa will become the head of pediatric transplant surgery at the UT Health Science Center-San Antonio once his successor is named.

CIGARROA page 2

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On Friday, the Austin Police Department began enforcing Operation Safe Passage, an initiative that po-sitions extra officers on the east end of Sixth Street.

APD Lt. Christian Malan-ka said the operation launch was quickened as a result of a video filmed on Jan. 26 that showed two groups of men engaged in a fight near the parking lots close to I-35.

“We’re putting the great-est concentration on areas of high-density parking because those are the areas people are going to travel to after the bars close,” Malan-ka said.

Malanka said the initia-tive is meant to help officers better deter or respond to in-cidents that occur as people return to their cars.

“When anywhere from 20,000 to 60,000 patrons of bars are pushed into the streets at 2 o’clock in the

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CAMPUS

Journalist discusses the need for foreign aid in rural Africa

Michelle Toussaint / Daily Texan StaffJournalist and author Nina Munk gives a talk about foreign aid at the LBJ School of Public Affairs on Monday afternoon.

In a presentation at the LBJ School of Public Af-fairs on Monday, journal-ist and author Nina Munk said she is in favor of for-eign aid for the developing world, but only if it is spent wisely.

Munk spoke about her book, “The Idealist: Jeffery Sachs and the Quest to End Poverty,” which is a profile of Jeffrey Sachs, an econo-mist and special adviser to the Secretary-General of the United Nations and author of “The End of Poverty.”

Sachs’ work in the ru-ral areas of Africa included launching the Millennium Villages Project, a five-year

initiative to test his theories for combating poverty.

Munk said many areas in Africa rely heavily on international aid, which was provided through the project.

“Anyone who’s been to rural Africa has seen what I have seen.” Munk said. “These people are alive be-cause of foreign aid.”

Munk said it was diffi-cult to collect base data in the rural African villages, which led to skepticism from academics.

“Many reports have had to be retracted because of lack of good data,” Munk said. “Almost no one in aca-demia embraced this project and held it up as an example worth following, largely

because of these problems with the data.”

Anna Scanlon, an in-ternational relations and global studies and govern-ment junior and a research assistant with UT Innova-tions for Peace and Devel-opment, said the method-ology of the project was flawed.

“Munk admitted during the Q-and-A that some of these villages are located in highly remote areas lack-ing any formal governance mechanism and are highly unlikely to ever develop any sort of industry, sustain-able agricultural sector, etc.,” Scanlon said.

Scanlon also said it’s

By Adam Hamze@adamhamz

SAFE page 2

MUNK page 2

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important for the American public to understand that foreign aid is an incredibly complex issue.

Taking place in an al-most full auditorium, the event attracted a variety of students. Rahima Hou-saini, global policy studies graduate student, said she came to learn strategies for combating poverty in Afghanistan.

“I’m from Pakistan and want to see how it could re-late to current development activities in Afghanistan,” Housaini said.

Munk said the book was not what she was expect-ing when she first began writing.

“I wanted it to have a hopeful ending. … Who doesn’t want to believe pov-erty can be ended?” Munk said. “I was either naive or hopeful enough to think that Jeff Sachs could pull this off.”

disharmony, I am equally confident that [Cigarroa’s] decision was influenced by the continued negative cir-cumstances at hand,” Zaf-firini said in a statement. “His action personifies the harmful repercussions of the current attack on those who pursue excellence, pro-tect the privacy of students and strive for true transpar-ency for all.”

Zaffirini said members of the board need to express their “strong support” of Powers as they look for a new chancellor.

“[Cigarroa] has endured unmitigated stress from the rogue regents who want UT President Bill Pow-ers fired,” Zaffirini said. “Those who were unhappy with his recommendation to continue the heavily supported employment of President Powers report-edly turned their powerful weapons on him.”

Board chairman Paul Foster said he did not be-lieve “perceived tensions” between Powers and the regents would impede the search process for Cigar-roa’s successor in any way.

Foster said he anticipated the search process would take between four and six months.

“This is a tough day for me because it’s diffi-cult to imagine trying to replace Francisco Cigar-roa,” Foster said. “Indeed, in my opinion, he can’t be replaced. People with his varied and impressive re-sume don’t come along ev-ery day. … He found com-mon ground where others couldn’t.”

In a statement, Powers said he appreciated Cigar-roa’s leadership over the course of the past five years and noted his work in help-ing establish a new medical school for the University.

“We are in a better place in Texas because of his leadership,” Powers said. “I will always remember and appreciate his support in a variety of areas — most of all, establishing a medical school at UT-Austin. Like-wise, the entire state will al-ways remember and benefit

from the new University of Texas-Rio Grande Valley, which will soon be a reality because of [Cigarroa].”

During Cigarroa’s ten-ure as chancellor, the Texas Legislature approved the establishment of a new medical school in the Rio Grande Valley in addi-tion to the new University, which will be eligible for

funding from the Perma-nent University Fund.

Cigarroa said, after he steps down in his role, he will serve the Board of Re-gents as a special adviser on the development and implementation of both institutions.

“We have no doubt plant-ed a giant flag in South Tex-as,” Cigarroa said.

morning, they sort of go all directions,” Malanka said. “The truth is there is vio-lence associated with large crowd density and high consumption of alcohol.”

Bob Woody, who owns 24 establishments in downtown Austin, includ-ing several on Sixth Street, said he believes the time period between 2 a.m. and 3 a.m. is the most risky because the bars start to close, leaving many people out on the streets to linger.

“That’s when you really have to have your head on straight, and — let’s face it— a lot of folks at that point are drunk,” Woody said.

Woody said he believes the increased police pres-ence would help reduce the number of incidents that happen outside of the regu-larly patrolled area.

“There are about 12 of-ficers dedicated to walking around on Sixth Street be-tween South Congress and I-35 every weekend, but the bad guys know that perim-eter, and they hang around outside of the perimeter,” Woody said. “A lot of the incidents take place right outside of that area.”

In addition to the on-foot patrol officers, APD deploys its mounted pa-trol unit to monitor Sixth Street on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights to help manage crowds.

“Bad people are crazy scared of horses,” Woody said. “If you’ve got a group that’s acting bad and you send a policeman out there, he just blends in with the crowd. But, if you send two horses out there, I guarantee you that crowd will disperse.”

Latin senior Dana Ogrin, an employee of The North Door, said her boss wit-nessed the Jan. 26 fight, which took place about one block from the venue where she was working. Ogrin said her close proximity to the parking lots is a cause of concern.

“Every Friday and Sat-urday night, I get off work around 2 a.m., which is always when the droves of people are heading out from Sixth Street and right around the time something like [a fight] would happen,” Ogrin said.

Lt. Troy Officer said the operation is a temporary measure and will cost the department in overtime pay for the officers assigned the task of patrolling east Sixth Street.

“If we had adequate staff-ing, there would [be] some-thing similar in place per-manently,” Officer said.

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Volume 114, Issue 101

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Zoe Davis / Daily Texan StaffStudents examine Caret 6, an installation produced by undergraduates in Professor Kory Bieg’s Design V Studio architecture class.

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Permanent StaffEditor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Laura WrightAssociate Editors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Christine Ayala, Amil Malik, Eric NikolaidesManaging Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Shabab SiddiquiAssociate Managing Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Elisabeth DillonNews Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jordan RudnerAssociate News Editors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Antonia Gales, Anthony Green, Jacob Kerr, Pete Stroud, Amanda VoellerSenior Reporters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Julia Brouillette, Nicole Cobler, Alyssa Mahoney, Madlin MekelburgCopy Desk Chief . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sara ReinschAssociate Copy Desk Chiefs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Brett Donohoe, Reeana Keenen, Kevin SharifiDesign Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jack MittsSenior Designers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Hirrah Barlas, Bria Benjamin, Alex Dolan, Omar LongoriaMultimedia Editors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Charlie Pearce, Alec WymanAssociate Photo Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Sam OrtegaSenior Photographers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jonathan Garza, Shweta Gulati, Pu Ying Huang, Shelby TauberSenior Videographers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Taylor Barron, Jackie Kuenstler, Dan Resler, Bryce SeifertLife&Arts Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Hannah SmothersAssociate Life&Arts Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Lauren L’AmieSenior Life&Arts Writers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Eleanor Dearman, Kritika Kulshrestha, David Sackllah, Alex WilliamsSports Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Stefan ScrafieldAssociate Sports Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chris HummerSenior Sports Writers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Evan Berkowitz, Garrett Callahan, Jori Epstein, Matt WardenComics Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . John MassingillAssociate Comics Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Hannah HadidiSenior Comics Artists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Cody Bubenik, Ploy Buraparate, Connor Murphy, Aaron Rodriguez, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Stephanie VanicekDirector of Technical Operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Jeremy HintzAssociate Director of Technical Operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sarah StancikSenior Technical Staff . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jack Shen, Roy VarneySpecial Ventures Co-editors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Bobby Blanchard, Chris HummerOnline Outreach Coordinator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Fred Tally-FoosJournalism Adviser . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Michael Brick

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Issue StaffReporters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Christina Breitbeil, Adam Hamze, Jeremy ThomasMultimedia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Zoe Davis, Fabian Fernandez, Michelle ToussaintSports Writer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jeremy Thomas Columnists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chuck Matula, Suchitra SundaramCopy Editors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Rainier Ababao, Charity Chukwu, Taiki MikiComics Artists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Shannon Buler, Blake Carter, Tallis Davidson, Calhan Hale, Holly Hansel,. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Andrew McMahon, Isabella Palacios, Annyston PenningtonPage Designer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Aleigh RomitoLife&Arts Writer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sam Hays

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UT System Chancellor Francisco Cigarroa’s five priorities

1) To position UT-Austin as America’s finest public university. Cigarroa said the soon-to-be-opened Dell School of Medicine and the Engineering Education and Research Center make him confident the University is on track to reaching this goal.

2) To move UT-El Paso, UT-San Antonio, UT-Arlington and UT-Dallas toward achieving Tier One status.

3) To “plant a larger flag” in South Texas.

4) To improve the health of Texas, generally.

5) To establish the UT System as a leader in energy-related research.

CORRECTIONBecause of a reporting error, a story about health care for transgender students in the Feb. 6 issue of The Daily Texan misstated a person’s title. Adrienne Howarth-Moore is the director of Human Resource Services, an office under University Operations which deals with employee health benefits.

Because of a reporting error, a story about a potential kidnapping in the Feb. 5 issue of The Daily Texan misspelled a person’s name. UTPD Lt. Charles Bonnet is the correct spelling.

MUNKcontinues from page 1

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After several days of in-clement weather limited cookie sales, the Girl Scouts of Central Texas have decid-ed to extend sales through March 2.

The extension of sales be-gan last weekend, National Girl Scout Cookie Weekend, and will continue for more than three weeks in order to give Girl Scouts more time to reach their sales goals.

Sierra Fernandes, the Girl Scouts’ product pro-gram manager for Austin, said that the decision to sell the cookies through all of February has been well re-ceived by both customers and Girl Scouts.

“[The sale extension] got a lot of positive feedback ... because it gives [the Girl Scouts] a change to regain their lost weekends of sales, and it helps the older girls meet their higher goals,” Fernandes said. “They have a reward chart that they base their goals off of.”

According to Lucia Weinmeister, public rela-tions executive for the Girl Scouts of Central Texas, the unexpected chance to boost sales hurt by previous inclement weather

has sparked enthusiam in the Girl Scouts.

“We think girls are go-ing to be encouraged to sell some more,” Weinmeister said. “Girls couldn’t make it to their booths this week-end with the cold, [so] we’ve seen a lot of enthusiasm be-cause of it.”

Austin’s recent inclement weather has also prompted the option for customers

to purchase a virtual “7th box” which goes to those who were first respond-ers during the inclement weather. The donations will be part of an event known as “Operation Cookie Drop,” which de-livers boxes of cookies to American military forces and first responders.

“Helicopters [collect] the boxes in a net,” Weinmeister

said. “This happens on a service unit level, so each troop delivers [the cookies], and the service unit delivers [them] to the local first re-sponders.”

Rachel Renier, geological sciences and Plan II fresh-man and a former Girl Scout for 13 years, said that the ex-tension of cookie sales was a smart move.

“I think that beyond

just an organization for young girls, Girl Scouts of Central Texas is also a business,” Renier said. “If this is a necessary mea-sure to keep the organi-zation financially afloat, then I’m all in. As a Girl Scout, I know that every day counts during cookie season, and, besides that, I am loving the extra days to buy cookies.”

percentage of the student body.According to the statistical

handbook from the Office of Information Management and Analysis, in 2012, 7.4 percent of 2,279 new transfer students dropped out after one year, while 4.4 percent of 8,034 first-time freshmen dropped out after one year.

In 2013, 8,153 transfer stu-dents applied to the Universi-ty. Of the 3,129 students that were accepted, 2,391 enrolled.

The Senate of College Councils passed a resolution in support of more services specifically for transfer stu-dents at its meeting Thursday.

Senate vice president Kiefer Shenk said the goal of the res-olution is to create an office for transfer students to go to, cre-ate mentorship programs and boost orientation attendance.

“[Traditional first-year students] know their ad-viser better, they have the

First-Year Experience office and are told from the get go they can go there with any is-sues,” Shenk said. “Transfer students get here and the Uni-versity seems to expect them to know how to work the sys-tem because they’ve been at another school before.”

Shenk said the First-Year Experience office hopes to have the transfer student of-fice in place in the fall.

“I know the University has a priority on four-year grad-uation rates, and, if these transfer students are com-ing in and don’t know who to talk to, that’s not going to help the initiative at all,” Shenk said.

Alvarez said the Univer-sity’s policy towards trans-fer students contradicts its core principles.

“The University stresses equal treatment for all stu-dents and I think the trans-fer students are a population that are currently not being treated equally,” Alvarez said.

NEWS Tuesday, February 11, 2014 3

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CAMPUS

CITY

MetroRapid’s effect on routes scrutinized

A UT staff member ar-gued that changes to exist-ing bus routes associated with the introduction of MetroRapid have adverse-ly affected Austin com-muters at the Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization, known as CAMPO meeting Monday.

The CAMPO Transporta-tion Policy Board schedules to meet every second Mon-day of the month to oversee the organization’s transpor-tation programming.

CapMetro bus routes changed Jan. 26 with the introduction of the Me-troRapid 801 service. According to CapMetro, Route 801 replaced Route

101 North Lamar/South Congress. Routes 1L and 1M combined into Route 1 Metric/South Congress and will keep the former service stops for the new route. At the meeting, Marylin Harris, admin-istrative associate at the Division of Statistics and Scientific Computation in the College of Natural Sciences, said she found problems with the Cap-Metro changes.

“[Commuters] have been impacted because of the change in the fre-quency of the local buses that make every stop, and the inconvenience of rid-ing multiple buses where one bus used to take us ev-erywhere we needed to go,” Harris said. “Those buses

used to run every 11 to 12 minutes, making all lo-cal stops. Now you have a wait, a second wait or even a third wait for a bus, and your commute times are much longer.”

Harris said the 801 will not attract riders unless they can get all the way from the first point until the last point without transfers.

“There also should be an increase in the frequency of those local buses that make every stop, so that they can connect to the 801, so that we can make this transportation system work for the North Lamar/Guadalupe corridor,” Har-ris said.

Austin Mayor Lee Leffin-gwell said Harris should talk to CapMetro directly about

the issues she raised.“I think there are repre-

sentatives here from that organization that you may want to talk to,” Leffin-gwell said.

One of those represen-tatives, John Langmore, a CapMetro board member and a CAMPO executive management represen-tative, said CapMetro is looking to improve Me-troRapid services.

“We’ve obviously — based on some of the com-ments that we’ve heard tonight, and we’ve heard it from others — we need to do some tweaking to how that service is provided,” Langmore said. “But I’m sure we will get that right and get our customers hap-py shortly.”

By Christina Breitbeil@christinabreit

TRANSFERcontinues from page 1

By Jeremy Thomas@JeremyOBThomas

Girl Scouts to sell cookies through MarchNEWS BRIEFLYUTPD calls for caution in light of suspicious event

UTPD reported a female student was approached by a man who tried to get her to enter his car Friday near Gua-dalupe and the 2600 block of Whitis around 4:15 p.m.

According to the report, the man drove an off-white, older model four-door se-dan. He asked the student for directions to the Chemi-cal Petroleum Engineering building, which is located near the intersection of San Jacinto and Dean Keaton.

The man stopped his car next to the student and pro-ceeded to tell her to enter his car so that she could show him how to get to the build-ing, according to the report. The student refused to enter the vehicle and left the area before calling the police.

UTPD officer William Pieper added precautionary tips to the report.

“First and foremost, there is safety in numbers,” he wrote. “Whenever possible, go places with friends. Always have your cellular telephone on you and keep it charged.”

Pieper recommended call-ing the police anytime you feel threatened.

“Call the Police Depart-ment anytime you find your-self asking, ‘Should I call the Police?’,” Pieper wrote. “Be aware of your surroundings and have an escape route.”

—Julia Brouillette

Illustration by Albert Lee / Daily Texan Staff

MUNKcontinues from page 1

Since October 2013, one of the most con-tentious administrative issues on campus has been Shared Services — an initiative that will centralize the University’s finance, human re-sources, procurement and information tech-nology services in an attempt to save more than $30 million per year.

The centralization will likely eliminate 500 university jobs, primarily through natural at-trition and retirement. When Kevin Hegarty, the University’s executive vice president and chief financial officer, first addressed the shift to Shared Services last year, these lost jobs seemed to be the most controversial aspect of the proposal, at least in the eyes of students. Soon after, though, faculty and students alike pointed to other concerns, including the hefty price tag of the implementation — $160 mil-lion combined for both Shared Services and switching to a new business-management software system — as well as the University’s decision to hire consulting firm Accenture to assist with the project’s implementation.

The University’s decision to hire Accen-

ture has been a heated issue because of the close relationship many of the individuals on UT’s Committee of Business Productiv-ity have with the firm, as well as Accenture’s involvement in past mishaps in the public sector. As the Daily Texan has reported, the committee chair, Stephen Rohleder, served as chief executive of Accenture’s Health and Public Service division. The subcommittee that recommended that UT’s operations be centralized into shared services was chaired by Stephan James, a 38-year Accenture vet-eran. And three of six people on the Shared Services Steering Committee are Accenture employees, with one being a former Accen-ture executive.

As for Accenture’s contentious history, in 2006, a Texas Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program run through Accenture encountered so many problems, including long-wait times for callers and unreceived medical benefits for children, that the con-tract was canceled prematurely.

According to Hegarty, who spoke to the ed-itorial board about Shared Services on Thurs-day, the University hired Accenture to imple-ment the beginning stages of Shared Services because the consulting firm had an existing contract with a Texas agency, and the Univer-sity could easily latch onto the same contract without having to initiate a competitive bid-ding process separate from the one that had already occurred. Yes, as Hegarty repeatedly said Thursday, this action was a completely legal one. But we don’t believe the legality of the decision makes it any less an example of partiality on the part of UT officials.

Friday, more than 300 students protested

against the University’s relationship with Ac-centure, despite the fact that the campus was closed for winter weather. The protest’s goal was to encourage the University to terminate its relationship with Accenture. Anne Lewis, a senior radio-television-film lecturer who spoke at the rally, told the Texan editorial board that her biggest concern about UT’s relationship with Accenture lies in the “DNA alteration of the University we love and value in support of a corporate project. … This is worrisome because we are using a private model for a public institution; there’s a great deal of money going into this and the pub-lished figures are incorrect.”

In other words, Lewis believes that “both the model and the specific company are trou-blesome.” To remedy the situation, both Lew-is and Bianca Hinz-Foley, Plan II junior and a spokeswoman for United Students Against Sweatshops (a student group that took part in the protest), want the University to termi-nate its relationship with Accenture. But that’s both unlikely and unreasonable.

The truth is Shared Services is not and should not be an issue. Given the Univer-sity’s current budget shortfall, it may very well prove to be a reasonable, timely and cost-saving initiative. With rapidly declining state funding and a freeze on tuition, it’s im-perative that the University consider cutting costs in administrative areas, rather than cut-ting back on the quality of education that it provides students. And in regard to the new ERP system: It’s about time. Our current sys-tem is 25-30 years old. For technology, that’s ancient.

So yes, UT needs to spend the money on an

updated system. UT needs a Shared Services model. But that doesn’t mean everything in this arrangement is kosher.

As Hegarty said repeatedly, “The devil’s in the details.” The details indicate that hir-ing Accenture without a separate competitive bidding process was inappropriate; a separate bidding process would have insured that no nepotism was at play in hiring the firm re-sponsible for implementing Shared Services. Although paying for Shared Services or the ERP system won’t cut into our University’s operating budget now, it easily could if some-thing goes wrong. After all, the money has to come from somewhere.

Shared Services and the much-needed ERP upgrade should benefit the University, both in terms of efficiency and profitability. But, by not competitively bidding out the contract for the Shared Services implementation, the University has increased the risk, however small, that the system or the ERP software isn’t the best one for UT. This irresponsibil-ity is the main issue at hand, and it’s one that should not be acceptable.

4A OPINION

LEGALESE | Opinions expressed in The Daily Texan are those of the editor, the Editorial Board or the writer of the article. They are not necessarily those of the UT administration, the Board of Regents or the Texas Student Media Board of Operating Trustees.

SUBMIT A FIRING LINE | E-mail your Firing Lines to editor@dailytexanonline.com. Letters must be more than 100 and fewer than 300 words. The Texan reserves the right to edit all submissions for brevity, clarity and liability.

RECYCLE | Please recycle this copy of The Daily Texan. Place the paper in one of the recycling bins on campus or back in the burnt-orange newsstand where you found it.EDITORIAL TWITTER | Follow The Daily Texan Editorial Board on Twitter (@TexanEditorial) and receive updates on our latest editorials and columns.

EDITORIAL

University should have more carefully vetted Accenture

4LAURA WRIGHT, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF / @TexanEditorialTuesday, Febrauary 11, 2014

Shared Services is not and should not be an issue. Given the Univer-sity’s current budget shortfall, it may very well prove to be a rea-sonable, timely and cost-saving initiative.

By Suchi SundaramDaily Texan Columnist

Today could be considered an average Tuesday for most people. But, for Student Governments candidates, it is Judgement Day: the day when filing closes. As of right now, only two candidates, both of which can be described as decidedly traditional, are running: Kornel Rady, a government, corpo-rate communications and communications studies senior, and Kenton Wilson, a govern-ment senior. By the end of today, the candi-date pool will be finalized and the nominees for elected positions revealed.

Some regard SG elections as a way to drive change to the University, while oth-ers see it as a validation prize for being popular. Some see it as a joke, while others place a high value on the need for an or-ganization like SG to represent their needs and ideas. But what exactly is the state of elections at UT?

At UT today, there is an increasing pessi-mism towards SG elections. Rising cynicism for the election cycle could be attributed to the lack of true change in student-body representation. Who do we think of when we think of student-body representatives? White males in Greek organizations or tra-ditional spirit groups. Who do we think will run this semester? White males in Greek or-ganizations or traditional spirit groups. Who do we think will run next year? Candidates with exactly the same profile and platforms as the ones running this year.

The Greeks have ultimately created a dy-nasty out of a democracy. Year after year, there are a disproportionate number of stu-dents in SG who are in Greek organizations. But, rather than disparaging them, I wish to commend them. No other organization on campus has had such a consistent history of victory, and no other organization on cam-pus has created a situation in which the only qualified candidates for higher office are the ones who have already been elected — lead-ing to a seemingly never-ending cycle of Greek overrepresentation in SG.

Similar to popular political parties, the

Greeks have driven out the competitors due to the sheer amount of people they can reach. Through blitzing and social media, the Greek candidates manage to reach the 7,000 students involved in sororities and fraterni-ties. Non-greek candidates cannot dream of such a scope.

The dominance of Greek organizations in the election process is perceived as unfair, but why should we hate organizations that are simply successful at networking and vot-er outreach? Why do we keep railing against the inequality of representation in SG rather than identifying its causes? Why do we not realize the ultimate reason for this inequal-ity is us?

Simply put, all we need to do to fix the inequality in SG is to care. Elections are important. Democracies have lasted thou-sands of years for a reason. It’s because they drive change. The representative na-ture of SG has been a catalyst for reform and campus improvement for years; In the 1940s, students organized a rally to support NAACP efforts to desegregate the univer-sity. In the 1970 SG elections, the unusual vote for a cartoon character over a legiti-mate candidate helped drive SG to reform itself to actually represent the opinions and ideas of the students.

I am not asking us to throw a revolution but, rather, to acknowledge that the only way we can drive change is to first change our-selves and decide to care about the future of our University and about how our represen-tatives are representing us.

Rather than berating the Greeks, we should learn something from them and adapt. They elect their candidates through the Intra-Fraternity Council endorsement list, but that doesn’t stop the rest of UT from electing its representatives through our own free choice. Ultimately, the stu-dents who are elected are our represen-tatives, and that idea is what we should consider. How can we make sure the rep-resentatives have strong sustainable plat-forms? We should actually bother to vote. Vote for the ones who do and encourage others to do the same. How can we make sure representatives are actually follow-ing their platforms? Email them and hold them to their promises. Encourage SG to improve communication and raise its ac-countability policies. How can we drive change? Again, by caring. As can be seen by the current vice-presidential nominees, both of which are female, change is here. We just have to continue spearheading and demanding it for the change to both grow and be sustained.

This upcoming election season, we should consider an important idea: For better or for worse, these representatives are tasked with the daunting task of providing a voice for 50,000 students. Let’s choose the right ones.

Sundaram is a business honors, finance and international relations senior from Austin.

The dominance of Greek organi-zations in the election process is perceived as unfair, but why should we hate organizations that are simply successful at network-ing and voter outreach?

COLUMN

At the Texas Republican Lieutenant Gov-ernor Primary debate Feb. 2, four candidates stood against the backdrop of a colossal Tex-as flag and bandied about phrases like “true conservative,” while roundly lauded the mer-its of teaching creationism in public schools. If God shaped man in His own image, surely Rick Perry shaped these Republican lieuten-ant governor candidates in his.

This debate revealed that all of these can-didates have remarkably similar views on most issues, including the teaching of cre-ationism as a science, which three of the candidates agreed is acceptable. Only Jerry Patterson, the financial underdog in the race, disagreed, saying it should instead be taught in social studies. Some people might take issue with the way the candidates seem to have fashioned their platforms entirely out of divisive cultural issues. Some people might object that the teaching of creationism in schools is explicitly unconstitutional. And some people might even accuse them of na-ked, shameless, embarrassing, disingenuous pandering to reactionary Republican prima-ry voters. However, I disagree and think we should applaud these brave men for standing up for creationism, despite the fact that 97 percent of scientists support evolution. That kind of blind adherence to politically conve-nient beliefs is what belongs in science class-rooms — not evolution.

I have a modest proposal to ensure the fu-ture success of the next generation of young Texans: Drop evolution from the statewide

curriculum and immediately adopt creationism as the standard teaching. I be-lieve that David Dewhurst, Jerry Patterson, Todd Staples and Dan Patrick prove that re-peating claims to appease ideological primary voters is far more important to a student’s success than understanding science. Under-standing evolution isn’t important for a child’s education. Sure, a grasp of evolution and its mechanisms is necessary to develop vaccines, decode the human genome and design more efficient agricultural methods, but it won’t get you the Republican nomination for statewide office. Giving children an education ground-ed in the scientific method is important, but putting forth religious ideas under the guise of legitimate scientific theory is a more prag-matic skill for our leaders of tomorrow to know. This slate of lieutenant gubernatorial candidates have clearly demonstrated that.

Even The Texas Education Agency, which administers all primary and secondary schools in the state, promises in its mission statement to “prepare [students] for success in the global economy.” While “success” is obviously not an objective metric, certainly anyone would acknowledge that election to high state office represents some degree of professional success. Our students need to be taught to reject critical thinking the way Staples, Dewhurst, Patrick and Patter-son have and, instead, publicly say only the things that their most important fundraisers want to hear.

In fact, I propose that we abandon sci-ence-based education all together. Instead of science textbooks, children should be issued a copy of “Atlas Shrugged,” campaign litera-ture from the local Tea Party outfit and an American flag lapel pin. It’s very clear that those things have been more influential in the development of this year’s field of Repub-lican candidates than any textbook.

Matula is a finance junior from Austin.

By Chuck MatulaDaily Texan Columnist

@chucketlist

Illustration by Albert Lee / Daily Texan Staff

COLUMN

This is worrisome because we are using a private model for a public institution; there’s a great deal of money going into this and the pub-lished figures are incorrect.

— Anne Lewis, Senior Radio-television-film lecturer

This year, make SG representative A modest defense of creationism

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Through August 3

This exhibition illuminates the experience of World War I from the point of view of its participants and observers, preserved through letters, drafts, and diaries; memoirs and novels; and photographs and propaganda posters.

Free public tours on Tuesdays at noon, Thursdays at 6 p.m., Saturdays at 2 p.m., and Sundays at 2 p.m.

6STEFAN SCRAFIELD, SPORTS EDITOR / @texansportsTuesday, February 11, 2014

Shrieks fill the arena. As bare feet pound the floor, screams accompany ev-ery strike of the shinai — a bamboo sword. Protecting a kendoka — one who par-ticipates in the sport — is armor, complemented by a metal grille helmet and hard leather flaps that guard the torso, forearms and legs.

“Like in a game of chess …,” one must mentally out-maneuver one’s opponent, strategically engaging the challenger and thinking ahead to the next move. But notions of winning or besting an adversary are not the most important aspects of the sport of kendo.

“I feel, when you go to the dojo, you must shut ev-erything out,” design senior Janet Shim said. “Practic-ing kendo clears your mind and releases tension. Oth-erworldly problems take a backseat. With kendo, I feel like a better person.”

Before practicing kendo, Shim said she lacked self-confidence and “allowed

people to run all over her.” The sport gave her confi-dence and a new perspec-tive on life. Now, Shim is the president of the University of Texas Kendo Association.

In Japanese, the word “kendo” means “way of the sword.” In accordance with the tradition of Japanese mar-tial arts, key aspects of kendo include integrity, respect and sportsmanship. Although it is nice to win matches, kendo is not about beating other play-ers, but about helping each other grow.

“There is a sense of non-verbal communication with your opponent,” Shim said. “You can tease your oppo-nent into their weakness to show them, which allows them to learn how to im-prove and defend against that weakness the next time.”

Kendo provides not only a mental challenge, but also physical demands. The first player to tactically strike the opponent twice wins the match. Accord-ing to International Kendo Federation regulations, the target areas to strike an opponent are the top, sides

or front of the head pro-tector, as well as the armor that protects the arms, neck, shoulders and torso. A complete strike consists of various components.

“In order for a strike to be valid, the person perform-ing the strike has to show ki, ken, tai and ichi,” Shim said.

Ki refers to the shout and is how a person shows his or her spirit. Ken refers to the bamboo sword, which must hit the intended target. Tai refers to the full body, which is represented by the foot stomping. Ichi, in this case, means “as one” — spirit, sword and body working as one. Then, after striking, the person must show zanshin — following through the strike — for the hit to even count.

Displaying a complete strike may seem complicat-ed, but it is about letting the body learn the actions on its own.

“Once you practice a lot and learn the techniques, it is just training your body to perform muscle memory,” Shin said.

Brittney Boles, a bio-chemistry senior who serves as the organization’s vice president, said the prac-tice of kendo gave her a chance to try something new and explore herself in different ways.

“Kendo is a mindset,” Boles said. “It is not about being great, but about im-provement. What you put into kendo is what you get out of it.”

After the seven-game win-ning streak that put it in the rankings, Texas rolls back into action Tuesday, look-ing to prevent the start of a losing streak.

The Longhorns face a de-termined Oklahoma State on Tuesday at the Frank Erwin Center after fall-ing to Kansas State over the weekend.

In the AP ranking released Monday, Texas has moved down to No. 19, a four-spot drop in the polls after a 74-57 loss to the Wildcats on Saturday.

Since its upset victory against No. 6 Kansas just over a week ago, Texas (18-5, 7-3 Big 12) has had trouble pulling away from its opponents, mostly be-cause of turnovers and lack of energy. The Longhorns overcame 13 turnovers against lowly TCU to pull out a victory. On Saturday, Texas coughed up 18 turn-overs against the Wildcats for its third Big 12 loss of the season.

“Some of the turnovers we had were ridiculous and so were some of the shots we took,” said head coach Rick Barnes after Saturday’s loss. “I was baffled with some of the things we did, even on the shots that we took. They were getting out

in transition. The turnovers were huge.”

In its seven conference wins this season, Texas averaged 11.7 turnovers per game and held its op-ponents to 65.1 points per game. On the contrary, the Longhorns averaged 16 turnovers per game and al-lowed their opponents to score 83 points per game in their three Big 12 losses this season.

Freshman point guard Isaiah Taylor has led his team since it started 0-2 in the Big 12. Taylor has reached double figures in scoring and averaged 19.5

points per game in the last four games. Against Kansas State, the freshman recorded a team-high 17 points and four rebounds.

“It was a big learning pro-cess for me taking on a lead-ership role in the team and just having my teammates around,” Taylor said after his best performance of the year against Kansas. “I had a tough stretch at the begin-ning of the Big 12. They’ve just been encouraging me on and off the court, just keep it going just keep attacking the basket.”

The Longhorns and the Cowboys faced off early last

month in Stillwater, Okla., with Oklahoma State emerg-ing victorious, 87-74.

Oklahoma State is coming off a loss against Texas Tech, a game which thrust Cow-boy guard Marcus Smart in the middle of controversy. With six seconds left in the game, Smart — who leads his team in scoring with 17.5 points per game and is expected to go early in this year’s NBA Draft — got in an altercation with a Red Raider fan in the stands. As a result of his actions, he received three game suspensions and will miss Tuesday’s game.

Head coach Charlie Strong has been unable to escape the topic of recruiting since he replaced Mack Brown as Texas’ football coach. Un-surprisingly, this has only worsened in the week since the Longhorns have accrued the nation’s 20th ranked re-cruiting class, according to recruiting website, Rivals.

But what will be the pri-mary focus here, though, is not the players Strong brings in, but his ability to cultivate their talent and return this program to the elite status it once held.

Critics of Strong’s hir-ing have asserted he has weak connections in Texas, which will hurt his capacity to recruit against the likes of Texas A&M, Oklahoma and LSU. This argument has merit; Look at what hap-pened with Sione and Maea Teuhema, two brothers who recently dropped their com-mitments to Texas in favor of LSU. Overall, six Longhorn pledges have decommitted in the last month.

The discussion neglects the primary criteria of coaching: winning. Brown

led the Longhorns to nine consecutive 10-win sea-sons and two appearances in the BCS National Championship. But with sev-en top-five recruiting classes from the stretch of 2002-2013, most Texas fans ex-pected more championships.

While many of Brown’s teams did not live up to lofty expectations, Strong’s have made a habit of overachiev-ing. Despite having no top-25 recruiting classes at Louisville, he coached the Cardinals to four straight winning seasons, including a 23-3 record from 2011-2012 and a win over heavily favored Florida in the 2011 Sugar Bowl. His coach-ing ability was best displayed last season, when Louisville boasted the nation’s top de-fense without a five-star re-cruit on the roster.

Of course, when given premium talent, Strong has produced premium results. While defensive coordinator at Florida, Strong put togeth-er several top-five defenses, including stifling units on the Gators’ championship teams in 2006 and 2008. Strong has shown a far greater ability to translate high-school recruits into stars at the college level, and, if he can display the leadership and intellect he did at his previous coaching stops, the Longhorns will be rewarded with elite players defined by success on the field — not the other way around.

By Garrett Callahan@CallahanGarrett

CLUB SPORTS

MEN’S BASKETBALL

FOOTBALL | COLUMN

The way of the swordBy Jeremy Thomas

@JeremyOBThomas

Jonathan Garza / Daily Texan StaffMembers of the UT Kendo Association practice the sport during one of the team’s meetings. Participants in the sport use kendo as a way to achieve relaxation and build confidence.

Strong’s success will be based on building talent

Horns look to rebound against Cowboys

Shelby Tauber / Daily Texan StaffFreshman guard Damarcus Croaker attempts a shot during Texas’ victory against Kansas. The Longhorns face Oklahoma State on Tuesday after losing to Kansas State on Saturday.

I feel, when you go to the dojo, you must shut everything out. Practicing kendo clears your mind and releases tension. Otherworldly problems take a backseat. With kendo, I feel like a better person.

—Janet Shim, Design senior

Phil SandlinAssociated Press

Charlie Strong speaks to the media as the defensive coordi-nator at Florida during a college football media day in 2009.

Kendo inspires students to view life through a different lens

By David LefflerDaily Texan Columnist

@leffler_david

COMICS 7

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IT’S A LOVE-SAVERELATIONSHIP.

ACROSS 1 Anatomical

pouches 5 Rocker Hendrix 9 Ingredient in a

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17 Norse war god18 Aggressive

swarms20 Glittery stone22 Headline event

in India in 1974 and ’98

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padded walls27 And more, in

brief28 Neighbor of

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symbol39 Florence’s river41 Complete

makeovers

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while pulling leftovers from the fridge … or a query about the initial words of 18-, 24-, 33-, 43- or 50-Across?

65 Suffix with concession

66 Boxer’s bane67 Mixed bag68 Stellar

phenomenon

69 “Chicago” director/choreographer

70 Surrealist played by Adrien Brody in “Midnight in Paris”

71 Editor’s retraction

DOWN 1 Japanese chess 2 “In Memory of W.

B. Yeats” poet 3 Ad awards 4 It may have a

cherry on top 5 Alternative to

Newark or La Guardia

6 One of Chekhov’s “Three Sisters”

7 Sloughs off 8 R&B’s ___

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down stakes?: Abbr.

11 Number at a bridal boutique

12 German city on a canal of the same name

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often21 ___’acte25 Greeting that

saves postage26 Calliope or

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the Union Jack, informally

32 Sits on to keep warm, say

34 Mountain ___35 Despot Amin36 Infirmary sight

37 Leave ___ (do permanent damage)

38 Excluding40 Some pods44 How sausage

links are connected

45 Locks49 About 60%

of the world’s inhabitants

51 More, in Madrid

52 “My heavens, no!”

53 “Alley Oop” woman

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55 Bonehead

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57 Distinguished

58 Son of Willy Loman

59 Capital near the 60th parallel

63 Suffers from

64 “___ Hear a Waltz?”

PUZZLE BY MARK BICKHAM

For answers, call 1-900-285-5656, $1.49 a minute; or, with a credit card, 1-800-814-5554.Annual subscriptions are available for the best of Sunday crosswords from the last 50 years: 1-888-7-ACROSS.AT&T users: Text NYTX to 386 to download puzzles, or visit nytimes.com/mobilexword for more information.Online subscriptions: Today’s puzzle and more than 2,000 past puzzles, nytimes.com/crosswords ($39.95 a year).Share tips: nytimes.com/wordplay. Crosswords for young solvers: nytimes.com/learning/xwords.

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

14 15 16

17 18 19

20 21 22 23

24 25 26

27 28 29

30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38

39 40 41 42

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47 48 49

50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57

58 59 60 61

62 63 64 65

66 67 68

69 70 71

O B E Y S R I D E S K I PH A V O C E M I R M E S AM N I G H T S H Y A M A L A NS E L A N E O A L L O T

M B U T T E R F L YG O K A R T L E I G A MA N I T A L E I L A R P IV C R S X A C T O T E A LE L K M E R G E T H E R EL E G I N A P L E N T Y

I A M A M E R I C AA M B L E B I N L A U DV I S F O R V E N G E A N C EE L O I A I R S E M I L ER E N E G A T E R O M A N

The New York Times Syndication Sales Corporation620 Eighth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10018

For Information Call: 1-800-972-3550For Release Tuesday, February 11, 2014

Edited by Will Shortz No. 0107Crossword

Today’s solution will appear here next issue

Arrr matey. This scurrvy beast is today’s answerrrrrr.

Crop it out, or it’ll be the the �shes for ya!

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4 9 3 1 79 7 4 1 68 2 3 44 5 9 3 8 7 6 8 2 5 9 1 8 4 7 1

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Crop it out, or it’ll be the the �shes for ya!

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Crop it out, or it’ll be the the �shes for ya!

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COMICS Tuesday, February 11, 2014 7

8 L&A

ATTENTIONUNDERGRADUATE

STUDENTSAWARDS TO BE GIVEN IN THE AMOUNT OF

$2,000, $3,000 & $10,000University Co-op George H. Mitchell

Student Award for Academic Excellence

Students must be nominatedby a faculty member for this award.

Nominees must be juniors or seniors currently enrolled at UT Austin or have received their

undergraduate degree in December 2013.

NOMINATIONS WILL BE ACCEPTED FROM MARCH 11-25, 2014(at noon)

For Nomination Form and AwardInformation Please Visit

http://www.utexas.edu/provost/initiatives/undergraduate_awards/mitchell/

or contact Kati Pelletierkpelletier@austin.utexas.edu 512-232-3312

FREE SPEECHESSAY CONTEST

Free Speech - Let’s talk about it.

OPEN EXCLUSIVELY TO UT UNDERGRADS

• First Prize - $1500• Second Prize - $1000

• Third Prize - $700

DEADLINE

FEBRUARY 17TH 2014

Contest sponsored by the BB&T Chair for the Study of Objectivism and the

Philosophy Department

www.freespeechdialogues.org

Specific questions, rules, and entry instuctions at:

ESSAY QUESTIONS

AWARDS

on

FREEDOM OF SPEECH AND ARTISTIC EXPRESSION

& FREEDOM OF SPEECH AND PRIVACY

HANNAH SMOTHERS, LIFE&ARTS EDITOR / @DailyTexanArts 8Tuesday, February 11, 2014

CAMPUS

For soldiers during World War I, diary entries, poetry, photos and drawings served as an escape from the hor-rific events around them. To-day, these personal accounts allow insight into the reality of life on the front.

The Harry Ransom Center’s exhibit “The World at War, 1914-1918” gives the public a chance to view these docu-ments up close.

Rather than showcasing common World War I mem-orabilia, such as weapons, “The World at War, 1914-1918” juxtaposes these per-sonal documents with mass-produced propaganda and recruitment posters.

“[The Ransom center is] not a military museum,” said Elizabeth Garver, a cura-tor for “The World at War, 1914-1918.” “We are basically a literary repository, so that’s what we collect: people’s let-ters and their manuscripts to themselves. It’s really a per-sonal view, and some of it is quite atrocious. We’ve got letters where [the soldiers] tell you about the front lines and the trenches and seeing people get killed.”

“The World at War, 1914-1918” covers the different

people and countries involved in World War I. The museum is divided into sections, with each space showcasing a dif-ferent area of involvement in the war. There is a display for each country involved, as well as various groups of people in-volved in the war efforts, such as women, children, African-Americans and spies.

“When doing an exhibition like this in the gallery that’s broadly themed, you can pull from all of the collections,” said Jean Cannon, a curator for the exhibit. “We have some exhibitions that are maybe just one collection or one topic or one medium, but this is a little bit more challenging.”

By attending this exhibit, Cannon said students have the opportunity to learn about the lesser-known history of World War I through the Ransom center’s one-of-a-kind archives.

“American audiences in general do not have the best understanding of this war,” Cannon said. “A lot of that is because America entered the war late. We entered in 1917, so, by that time, the French army was almost liquidated. The British and German armies were also exhausted.”

James Montgomery Flagg’s iconic “I Want You” Uncle Sam poster that has been duplicated throughout history can also be

found at the exhibit. “It just blows your mind

to see the original because it’s something that we’re so famil-iar with,” Garver said.

Cannon and Garver also took donations from the family members of World War I veter-ans to use in the exhibit.

Christina Jones loaned the Ransom center letters, pic-tures and awards from her father, Heinrich Lerche, who served in the German Military. Lerche enlisted when he was 19

years old and fought on both the Eastern and Western front. Jones also noted that since her father worked for the German government as a legal clerk, he was required to join the Nazi regime in World War II. After the war finished, however, he did not participate in the party.

“It’s important for people to know history and remem-ber it and possibly learn from it,” Jones said. “Maybe at this point they’ll look at it and say, ‘We were enemies and now the

Germans are one America’s best friends, one of our allies,’ and see how things change over the decades.”

Jones’ favorite item she put on file with the Ransom center is Lerche’s letter to her son about his time dur-ing the war.

“My son is his only grand-son, and, when he was a little boy, he liked to look at the war picture, so I told my dad about it,” Jones said. “He wrote a let-ter back to [my son] in Ger-

man about how horrible war was and how we should all be peaceful and never again have any bad wars like that.”

These personal stories, such as the one Jones shared, make “The World at War, 1914-1918” more than just a compilation of facts and dates.

“It gives the historical per-spective of the war, but it also gives the personal view-points of people who actually lived through these years,” Cannon said.

By Eleanor Dearman@EllyDearman

CITY

Jonathan GarzaDaily Texan Staff

Exhibit cura-tors Christina Jones (left) and Elizabeth Garver go over the final steps of setting up “The World At War, 1914-1918” on Monday morning. Jones and Garver have been preparing the exhibit — which will open Tuesday — for the past two years.

By Sam Hays@samingtonhays

AUSTIN POETRY SLAM

When: Tuesdays at 8:30 p.m.Where: Spider House BallroomCost: $5

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R E C Y C L E ♲AFTER READING YOUR COPY

Exhibit showcases rare WWI memorabilia

Poetry finds more than its voices at renowned Austin Poetry Slam

On Tuesday nights, the crowd gathered at the Spider House Cafe & Ballroom isn’t waiting for a band to tune its guitars. They’re not waiting for the sarcastic banter of a co-median to fill the room, either. On Tuesday nights, the crowd gathers to witness a different art form altogether.

Poetry slam is competi-tive poetry. At Austin Poetry Slam at Spider House, poets from all over the city recite their works in front of an eager crowd. The poets are judged by criteria such as presentation, depth of writ-

ing and the extent to which they emote while perform-ing. When a poet walks up to the mic, the DJ’s music fades into the background. Unlike the aimlessly chattering au-diences at music shows, the crowd falls silent once the poets begin speaking. There is a palpable energy that fills the entire room. The crowd acts as a seismograph, react-ing to the emotional highs and lows of each poem with snaps and cheers.

Jomar Valentin, who was part of Austin Poetry Slam’s 2011 national team, writes per-sonally but also, as he asserts, accessibly.

“I write a lot about gay life

and gay rights,” Valentin said. “I try not to be preachy; I try to be funny about it. It’s bringing awareness to it, as well as being able to express yourself. It’s a great platform.”

Some poets, such as Val-entin, come to spread a mes-sage. Others, such as Dave Webber, come to sort out their personal troubles. Tim Clark, a retired Austinite who found out about poetry slam through his daughter, wants to accomplish something dif-ferent with his poetry.

“Sometimes, things just hap-pen. I want to see if I can com-municate how that made me feel,” Clark said, referencing a poem he wrote about a woman with cerebral palsy. “I want to communicate that to a general audience so they can get some-thing out of it too.”

Austin Poetry Slam start-ed in 1994 and, four years later, hosted the National Po-etry Slam, which brought na-tional attention to the group. Gloria C. Adams, secretary of Austin Poetry Slam, said Austin has some of the best poets in the country.

“We have a really robust crowd full of people who are truly interested in being here,” Adams said. “This is a great place to hear things that will resonate with you.”

Adams, a seasoned poet who competed at last year’s national competition, said the basic premise of poetry slamming is not only helpful to poets but also essential to their well-being.

“There aren’t that many places in the world where peo-ple are interested in hearing the dark truths about yourself,” Adams said. “One thing I really like about the poetry world is this emphasis we put on tell-ing your truth, on telling what’s happening to you and what you’ve experienced.”

Austin Poetry Slam takes place weekly and not only showcases local talent but also features touring poets in its lineup, such as award-winning poet Andrea Gibson.