When taking a break from the daily responsibilities of policing, a group of Austin Police officers play drums and bagpipes in funerals, parades, festivals and com- munity events. Aſter listening to bagpipes artists at an officer’s fu- neral, APD Detective Todd Bircher began practicing the instrument on his own. Five years later, he formed the Austin Police Pipe and Drum Corps. Bircher said the police community did not imme- diately celebrate the idea of a departmental pipes and drum corps. “You know, down in Texas and the South, [bag- pipes are] not around — that’s northeast stuff,” Bircher said. “It was a lit- tle bit of a sell, especially among the more traditional Texas officers.” Once the idea of bagpip- ing caught on, the group quickly expanded to include firefighters and emergency medical technicians, as well as members of police departments from across the state. All together, the statewide group calls them- selves the Emergency Ser- vices Pipe and Drum As- sociation. Bircher plays as a pipe major for the APD corps and a bagpiper for the state association. James Gray, a Fort Worth Police officer and member of the state association, said his interest in playing bagpipes stemmed from a visit to the national police memorial in Washington, D.C., where he watched live performances from other pipes and drums bands. Gray said he pur- chased a set of bagpipes and began practicing to join the association as soon as he re- turned to Fort Worth. Gray said the perfor- mances are about more than just the music — they’re At a talk Monday, Rus- sian film director Yury Urnov said post-Cold War Russian theater differs from American theater in several key ways — and said Amer- icans are much more likely to experiment with their source material. At the talk, which the Center for Russian hosted, East European and Eurasian Studies, Urnov said there are five categories in which theaters in Russia and the U.S. differ. According to Urnov, the main differences are the relationship between money and power, the society’s attitude to- ward art and how power operates in the respective cultures. “Since the Cold War, the theater can answer a lot of our differences,” Urnov said. “Some of it is the geographical and historical attitude.” Urnov said in the U.S., unlike in Russia, there are collaborations on plays, and actors understand their characters. He said more emphasis is placed on the director, and scripts have to be interpreted from their original text. Over the next three weeks, Urnov will be pre- senting a spin-off of “Three Sisters,” a play originally created by Russian play- wright Anton Chekhov, at the Salvage Vanguard Theater in Austin. “Jenny Larson, an artistic director at Woolly Mam- moth, had a student who wrote a different version of the play,” Graham Schmidt said, one of the play’s direc- tors. “It takes the zombie film genre and meshes it with the plot of ‘Three Sis- ters’ and then steps back and criticizes the play from a feminist standpoint.” Katya Cotey, assistant instructor in the Center for Russian, East Euro- pean and Eurasian Stud- ies, said he is looking for- ward to the production of “Three Sisters.” “I am excited to see the addition of zombies to the play and seeing the new in- terpretation that is attract- ing a younger audience,” Cotey said. Urnov graduated from the Russian Academy of Members of the Global Embassy of Activists for Peace unveiled a plaque honoring Holocaust sur- vivors in the Texas Capitol on Monday. Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr. (D-Brownsville) and his son, Rep. Eddie Lucio III (D-Brownsville), pre- sented Holocaust survi- vor Leon Horn with the plaque, which featured the handprints of his family members. Lucio Jr. said the Embas- sy’s mission is to educate audiences about the conse- quences of World War II. “[The Embassy’s] mis- sion promotes peace to strengthen the principles of love through life, re- spect for human dignity, tolerance, equality, justice and solidarity, in addition to emphasizing the peace- ful resolution of conflicts,” Lucio Jr. said. The plaque is part of the “Traces to Remember” ex- hibit, which was previously housed at UT-Brownsville and will eventually move to different states through- out the country to promote world peace. Bruno Harden-Cooper, regional coordinator of the Embassy, said the Holo- caust are used to represent all acts of genocide. “There are many as- pects for things that you can bring out, and people can learn from [The Ho- locaust],” Harden-Cooper said. “We put it as a symbol for intolerances, disrespect, racism, lack of love.” William Soto Santiago, global ambassador of Ac- tivists for Peace, said the exhibit plays a role in edu- cating people about the harmful effects of intoler- Students and faculty don’t always flip out over flipped classes. In a “flipped class,” professors provide online video lectures to students prior to class. e profes- sor then uses classroom time to ensure students have a deeper under- standing of the material. Flipped classrooms have increased in popularity at UT since the concept was first introduced in a course transformation initiative by administra- tors in 2009. Harrison Keller, vice provost for Higher Educa- tion Policy and Research, said using online tools both in and outside of the classroom has increased with the rise of newer on- line teaching platforms, such as Blackboard and Canvas. “We definitely have more requests from fac- ulty who are interested in incorporating technology into their classrooms,” Keller said. “e change from Blackboard to Can- vas has been a catalyst for some of this.” Keller said not every professor wants to flip the classroom, and he ac- knowledged not all class- es would benefit from the change in format. “I would say there’s people who use lectures very effectively in com- bination with all kinds of things,” Keller said. “So we shouldn’t be too dog- matic. is is a time when we want to encourage ex- perimentation and inno- vation.” Petroleum engineering senior Danny Cervantes said in his experience, flipped classrooms make learning more difficult. Tuesday, January 27, 2015 @thedailytexan facebook.com/dailytexan Serving the University of Texas at Austin community since 1900 dailytexanonline.com bit.ly/dtvid LIFE&ARTS PAGE 8 COMICS PAGE 7 SPORTS PAGE 6 CITY By Eleanor Dearman @ellydearman Five legislators filed bills in favor of “open carry.” PAGE 2 Visiting professor lectures on climate and migration. PAGE 3 NEWS Start the semester off with optimism. PAGE 4 Common Core is a bum deal all-around. PAGE 4 OPINION Longhorn comeback falls three points short. PAGE 6 Kansas continues its Big 12 basketball domination. PAGE 6 SPORTS Student premieres semi- autobiographical play. PAGE 8 Student-created origami is used for therapy. PAGE 8 LIFE&ARTS Try out for The Daily Texan. dailytexanonline.com/ employment ONLINE REASON TO PARTY PAGE 7 POLICE By Wynne Davis @wynneellyn APD Pipes and Drum Corps serves Austin police Professors give mixed reviews for flipped classrooms By Josh Willis @JoshWIllis35 CAMPUS Legislators, activists honor Holocaust survivor Carlos Nasisse | Daily Texan Staff Detective Todd Bircher of the Austin Police Department is the founder of the Austin Police Pipe and Drum Corps, an organiza- tion of bagpipers and drummers. Bircher started the band in order to play at the funerals of officers killed in the line of duty. Alexa Ray | Daily Texan Staff Bruno Harden-Cooper, regional director for the Global Embassy of Activists of Peace, speaks at a press conference Monday afternoon at the Texas State Capitol Building. The program was held in honor of Holocaust survivors, including Leon Horn. Multimedia To see Detective Bircher and the APD Pipe and Drum Core check out our video at dailytexanonline.com CAMPUS Russian director discusses theater, politics since Cold War WWII page 2 RUSSIA page 3 Sarah Aleraoul Daily Texan Staff Russian film director Yury Urnov says American and Russian cinema differ but are not disparate from each other. FLIPPED page 2 CORPS page 3 By Matthew Adams @thedailytexan
Transcript
When taking a break from the daily responsibilities of policing, a group of Austin Police officers play drums and bagpipes in funerals, parades, festivals and com-munity events.
After listening to bagpipes artists at an officer’s fu-neral, APD Detective Todd Bircher began practicing the instrument on his own. Five years later, he formed the Austin Police Pipe and Drum Corps.
Bircher said the police community did not imme-diately celebrate the idea of a departmental pipes and drum corps.
“You know, down in Texas and the South, [bag-pipes are] not around — that’s northeast stuff,” Bircher said. “It was a lit-tle bit of a sell, especially among the more traditional Texas officers.”
Once the idea of bagpip-ing caught on, the group quickly expanded to include firefighters and emergency medical technicians, as well as members of police departments from across the state. All together, the statewide group calls them-selves the Emergency Ser-
vices Pipe and Drum As-sociation. Bircher plays as a pipe major for the APD corps and a bagpiper for the state association.
James Gray, a Fort Worth Police officer and member of the state association, said his
interest in playing bagpipes stemmed from a visit to the national police memorial in Washington, D.C., where he watched live performances from other pipes and drums bands. Gray said he pur-chased a set of bagpipes and
began practicing to join the association as soon as he re-turned to Fort Worth.
Gray said the perfor-mances are about more than just the music — they’re
At a talk Monday, Rus-sian film director Yury Urnov said post-Cold War Russian theater differs from American theater in several key ways — and said Amer-icans are much more likely to experiment with their source material.
At the talk, which the Center for Russian hosted, East European and Eurasian Studies, Urnov said there are five categories in which theaters in Russia and the U.S. differ. According to Urnov, the main differences are the relationship between money and power, the
society’s attitude to-ward art and how power operates in the respective cultures.
“Since the Cold War, the theater can answer a lot of our differences,” Urnov said. “Some of it is the geographical and historical attitude.”
Urnov said in the U.S., unlike in Russia, there are collaborations on plays, and actors understand their characters. He said more emphasis is placed on the director, and scripts have to be interpreted from their original text.
Over the next three weeks, Urnov will be pre-senting a spin-off of “Three
Sisters,” a play originally created by Russian play-wright Anton Chekhov, at the Salvage Vanguard Theater in Austin.
“Jenny Larson, an artistic director at Woolly Mam-moth, had a student who wrote a different version of the play,” Graham Schmidt said, one of the play’s direc-tors. “It takes the zombie film genre and meshes it with the plot of ‘Three Sis-ters’ and then steps back and criticizes the play from a feminist standpoint.”
Katya Cotey, assistant instructor in the Center for Russian, East Euro-pean and Eurasian Stud-ies, said he is looking for-
ward to the production of “Three Sisters.”
“I am excited to see the addition of zombies to the
play and seeing the new in-terpretation that is attract-ing a younger audience,” Cotey said.
Urnov graduated from the Russian Academy of
Members of the Global Embassy of Activists for Peace unveiled a plaque honoring Holocaust sur-vivors in the Texas Capitol on Monday.
Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr. (D-Brownsville) and his son, Rep. Eddie Lucio III (D-Brownsville), pre-sented Holocaust survi-vor Leon Horn with the plaque, which featured the handprints of his family members.
Lucio Jr. said the Embas-sy’s mission is to educate
audiences about the conse-quences of World War II.
“[The Embassy’s] mis-sion promotes peace to strengthen the principles of love through life, re-spect for human dignity, tolerance, equality, justice and solidarity, in addition to emphasizing the peace-ful resolution of conflicts,” Lucio Jr. said.
The plaque is part of the “Traces to Remember” ex-hibit, which was previously housed at UT-Brownsville and will eventually move to different states through-out the country to promote world peace.
Bruno Harden-Cooper, regional coordinator of the Embassy, said the Holo-caust are used to represent all acts of genocide.
“There are many as-pects for things that you can bring out, and people can learn from [The Ho-locaust],” Harden-Cooper said. “We put it as a symbol for intolerances, disrespect, racism, lack of love.”
William Soto Santiago, global ambassador of Ac-tivists for Peace, said the exhibit plays a role in edu-cating people about the harmful effects of intoler-
Students and faculty don’t always flip out over flipped classes.
In a “flipped class,” professors provide online video lectures to students prior to class. The profes-sor then uses classroom time to ensure students have a deeper under-standing of the material. Flipped classrooms have increased in popularity at UT since the concept was first introduced in a course transformation initiative by administra-tors in 2009.
Harrison Keller, vice provost for Higher Educa-tion Policy and Research, said using online tools both in and outside of the classroom has increased with the rise of newer on-line teaching platforms, such as Blackboard and Canvas.
“We definitely have more requests from fac-ulty who are interested in incorporating technology into their classrooms,” Keller said. “The change from Blackboard to Can-vas has been a catalyst for some of this.”
Keller said not every professor wants to flip the classroom, and he ac-knowledged not all class-es would benefit from the change in format.
“I would say there’s people who use lectures very effectively in com-bination with all kinds of things,” Keller said. “So we shouldn’t be too dog-matic. This is a time when we want to encourage ex-perimentation and inno-vation.”
Petroleum engineering senior Danny Cervantes said in his experience, flipped classrooms make learning more difficult.
11
Tuesday, January 27, 2015@thedailytexan facebook.com/dailytexan
Serving the University of Texas at Austin community since 1900
dailytexanonline.com bit.ly/dtvid
LIFE&ARTS PAGE 8 COMICS PAGE 7 SPORTS PAGE 6
CITY
By Eleanor Dearman@ellydearman
Five legislators filed bills in favor of “open carry.”
PAGE 2
Visiting professor lectures on climate and migration.
PAGE 3
NEWSStart the semester off
with optimism.PAGE 4
Common Core is a bum deal all-around.
PAGE 4
OPINIONLonghorn comeback falls
three points short.PAGE 6
Kansas continues its Big 12 basketball domination.
PAGE 6
SPORTSStudent premieres semi-
autobiographical play. PAGE 8
Student-created origami is used for therapy.
PAGE 8
LIFE&ARTSTry out for The Daily Texan.
dailytexanonline.com/employment
ONLINE REASON TO PARTY
PAGE 7
POLICE
By Wynne Davis@wynneellyn
APD Pipes and Drum Corps serves Austin police
Professors give mixed reviews for flipped classrooms
By Josh Willis@JoshWIllis35
CAMPUS
Legislators, activists honor Holocaust survivor
Carlos Nasisse | Daily Texan StaffDetective Todd Bircher of the Austin Police Department is the founder of the Austin Police Pipe and Drum Corps, an organiza-tion of bagpipers and drummers. Bircher started the band in order to play at the funerals of officers killed in the line of duty.
Alexa Ray | Daily Texan Staff Bruno Harden-Cooper, regional director for the Global Embassy of Activists of Peace, speaks at a press conference Monday afternoon at the Texas State Capitol Building. The program was held in honor of Holocaust survivors, including Leon Horn.
MultimediaTo see Detective Bircher and the APD Pipe and Drum Core check out our video at dailytexanonline.com
CAMPUS
Russian director discusses theater, politics since Cold War
WWII page 2
RUSSIA page 3
Sarah AleraoulDaily Texan Staff
Russian film director Yury Urnov says American and Russian cinema differ but are not disparate from each other.
FLIPPED page 2CORPS page 3
By Matthew Adams@thedailytexan
Periodically checking Facebook while doing homework negatively af-fects college students’ grades, but using the website also helps to build and maintain relationships, according to a recent Iowa State University study.
Reynol Junco, educa-tion associate professor at Iowa State University, con-
ducted a survey of 1,649 college students and found that Facebook use, espe-cially when trying to study, negatively impacts the ma-jority of students’ GPAs.
“Other research [had] looked at multitasking — how students use Facebook for class and while they’re studying — and found negative relations,” Junco said. “There was a separate study where I found that using Facebook helps stu-
dents build and maintain relationships, which is still very important.”
Junco categorized Face-book use into two catego-ries: “multitasking time,” when students use Face-book while attempting to study, and “regular time.” Junco said Facebook use while multitasking con-tributed to lower grades for all students participat-ing in the study, except seniors. Regular Facebook
use, though, only affected freshman’s grades.
Junco said the nega-tive effect of Facebook use on freshmen’s grades is offset by the gains in interpersonal relationships.
“Freshmen need to use Facebook to maintain their previous group of friends, and they’re also building and maintaining new relationships, which is essential for them to be successful,” Junco said.
Psychology junior Yann Garcia said she thinks her personal use of Facebook does not affect her grades.
“I use Facebook like no other, and my GPA is fine compared to others who use it less but are bad studiers or [have] harder majors,” Garcia said.
Psychology senior Alyssa Salinas said she also thinks Facebook is not a factor in her GPA.
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accurately and completely. If we have made an error, let us know about it. Call (512) 232-2217 or e-mail
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2 NEWSTuesday, January 27, 2015
Carlo Nasisse | Daily Texan StaffMaya Amor Alvarado waters her garden with her mother, Blanca.
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Study: Facebook leads to lower grades, better relationshipsBy Ariana Guerra
@thedailytexan
State lawmakers file campus carry bill
On Monday, state leg-islators in the House and Senate filed identical bills that would allow univer-sity students, faculty and staff with licenses to carry concealed handguns in campus buildings.
Under current Texas laws, licensed students, faculty and staff at universities are allowed to keep handguns in cars on campus, but general “cam-pus carry” is illegal even with a permit.
The two bills, HB937 and SB11, prohibit university of-ficials from creating rules to ban concealed handguns on campus generally. Each bill does provide some leeway in certain areas and build-ings on campus — accord-ing to the bill, administrators could still prohibit concealed handguns in residence halls, university-operated hospi-tals, and on-campus pre-schools, elementary schools and secondary schools. More than 400 students between the ages of six weeks and five years under are enrolled in UT’s on-campus Child De-velopment Center.
The bills also contain provisions that would pre-vent universities from be-ing liable for the actions of concealed handgun owners.
Four Republican members of the House have signed the bill as joint-authors in sup-port of the policy alongside the bill’s primary author, Rep. Allen Fletcher (R-Cypress).
19 of the 20 Republicans in the Senate are listed primary authors of SB11. Sen. Joan Huffman (R-Houston) is the only Republican senator who did not sign on as an author of the bill.
Similar concealed carry bills were filed in both cham-bers during the last legisla-tive session, but no law was ultimately passed.
— Eleanor Dearman
NEWS BRIEFLY“I feel like it may have
gotten in the way of learn-ing a little bit because it doesn’t really give you the chance to ask questions on sight,” Cervantes said. “It’s really good to have some-
thing going on while you’re thinking and just to process information a little better.”
Exercise science ju-nior Gabby Mircovich said she experienced a flipped classroom for the first time this semester.
“I feel like you get a lot out of it because you’re putting the practice that you learn outside of class into work, and then you’re having the professor help you and work through everything with you,” Mircovich said.
Keller said faculty members in various de-partments are constantly working to redesign the
flipped classroom model and said student feedback is a critical element in the retooling process.
“It’s really important for the students to talk to the faculty members,” Keller said. “That insight, that suggestion could end up reshaping the whole class going forward.”
David Laude, senior vice provost for Enrollment and Graduation Management, said he began uploading lectures online about eight years ago, long before UT dedicated any resources to flipping classrooms. Laude said in addition to improv-ing student test scores,
flipped classrooms make teaching more enjoyable for professors.
“It makes teaching an absolute delight, in my opinion,” Laude said. “In-stead of simply repeating what’s on a PowerPoint slide, you have the freedom and the time to do what-ever you want with a class-room in terms of engaging the students.”
Laude said not all class instruction, such as in-class writing or laboratory exer-cises, can be done online.
“I think there are cer-tain classrooms for which it’s ideal, but not for all,” Laude said.
FLIPPED continues from page 1
ance by presenting the Holocaust as an example.
“Victims of this geno-cide were not a single group,” Soto Santiago said. “The Holocaust was an at-tempt against humanity because countless mem-bers of other minorities were also murdered. For that reason, the Holocaust will always be a warning sign and prevention for the entire world.”
Harden-Cooper said future destinations for the exhibit have not yet been determined, but he hopes to see it displayed at the White House or at UT-Austin. He also said
he would like to bring rep-resentatives from the or-ganization to speak at UT about the Holocaust.
“We’re looking at the opportunity to bring it to the Univer-sity of Texas at Austin, but we haven’t done the connection yet,” Harden-Cooper said.
At UT, students can study World War II and the Holocaust as part of the Normandy Scholar Program. The program is an intensive World War II studies program that takes place each spring semester and provides an opportu-nity for students to study the causes, conduct, con-sequences and contem-porary representations of
the war. Program director Char-
ters Wynn said it is neces-sary to understand World War II in order to under-stand the modern history.
“What education can do is provide an under-standing of the complex-ity of the past and how it influences current events today,” Wynn said.
Wynn said it is impor-tant to learn from mistakes of the past, but it is also important to remember that the past and present are different. He said it is dangerous for government officials to make policy decisions today based on past events.
“The solutions aren’t al-ways so easy,” Wynn said.
WWIIcontinues from page 1
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about giving back to the community and making the police force more ac-cessible in general.
“When we’re in our kilts, that’s a time that we’re there for the community … just to give back,” Gray said. “It gives people a chance to come talk to you about music. It gives them an opportunity to see that we’re just people too.”
Performing at the fu-nerals of officers who are killed in the line of duty is the top prior-ity of police pipes and drums corps, according to Bircher.
“I don’t ever want to do that,” Bircher said. “I hope
we never do it again, but that’s why we’re here — I’m honored to do that.”
Bircher said the corps serves to honor fallen of-ficers and provide comfort to those officers’ families.
“It helps give clarity and purpose to what would otherwise be a senseless death,” Bircher said. “For a family to see that trib-ute paid to those officers illustrates the purpose of what they did. They went out and risked their lives to keep the rest of us safe.”
Bircher said the band members have various lev-els of musical expertise. APD officer Geoff Sum-ner, who joined the group in summer 2013, said he studied music in college before becoming a police
officer. He said mastering the bagpipes is a challenge he enjoys.
“Everybody honors a fallen brother in their own way, but I feel like, as a mu-sician, the best way for me to do it would be to cer-emoniously perform for them with the bagpipes,” Sumner said.
The bands also play for civic and holiday events, such as officer gradu-ations, officer promo-tions and St. Patrick’s Day festivities.
“The most fun is prob-ably St. Patty’s Day be-cause that’s the one day a year we’re kind of rock stars,” Bircher said. “Every other day, we’re just guys wearing skirts, playing bagpipes.”
In a lecture Monday, Teó-filo Altamirano, visiting professor of social science from the Catholic Univer-sity of Peru, emphasized the relationship between climate change and forced human migration.
At the event, hosted by The Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies, Altamirano listed three forms of forced mi-gration — seasonal, tempo-rary and permanent — that occur as a result of climate change. He also said global warming affects those who are not migrating.
“Any type of professional will be touched by these global warming situations”, Altamirano said.
Altamirano said 80 per-cent of displaced people prefer to go to cities, and 20 percent relocate to refugee camps. He said the pres-sures cities will face in the future as a result of forced migration include water and housing shortages.
June Gunaratne, in-ternational relations and global studies senior, said there is a lack of attention regarding global warming in America. According to Gunaratne, global warm-ing does not simply apply to one region or population but rather all regions and populations.
“Global warming affects people much more in other
regions of the world than in America,” Gunaratne said. “[But] global warming is huge and impacts everyone and everything.”
Business freshman Dar-rell Sung said he thinks global warming is not yet a cause for concern.
“Global warming is an issue for the future,” Sung said. “As of now, people shouldn’t be too worried about it.”
Altamirano also spoke about last month’s United Nations Conference of Partners in Lima, Peru,
which provided a forum for countries to discuss climate change.
In his recap of the con-ference in Lima, Altami-rano discussed the United Nations’ lack of assistance to the forced migrants of global warming.
“The United Nations rec-ognizes victims of war in Syria, but why don’t they recognize environmen-tal migrants?” Altamirano said. “That is a fault of the United Nations.”
According to Altami-rano, United Nations
officials’ promotion of this year’s UN Summit on Cli-mate Change in Paris is a positive step toward climate change reform. Altamirano said governments would need to meet certain re-quirements before attending the summit.
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NEWS Tuesday, January 27, 2014 3
Study: Facebook leads to lower grades, better relationships
CAMPUS
Professor correlates climate change, migration
Theater Art in 2000. He has directed plays in the United States, Russia, Eng-land and Germany. Urnov has taught in the Master of Fine Arts program at Towson University for five years and works with an ex-perimental theatre, Woolly Mammoth Theatre, in Washington, D.C.
According to Urnov, Rus-sian theater is still evolv-ing, in a way Urnov said he hopes audiences will find compelling.
CORPScontinues from page 1
Sarah Alerasoul | Daily Texan Staff Teófilo Altamirano, visiting professor of social science at the Catholic University of Peru, speaks about the effect of global warming on forced migration on Monday.
RUSSIAcontinues from page 1
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By Vinesh Kovelamudi@thedailytexan
Editor’s Note: This is one of a series of interviews with the deans of the 18 schools and colleges of the University. Social Work Dean Luis Zayas was ap-pointed in 2012. This interview has been condensed.
The Daily Texan: So could you start by telling us a little bit about your plans and goals for the School of Social Work as well as some of the suc-cesses you’ve had since you were appointed dean in 2012?
Luis Zayas: What I had encountered when I first arrived was that it was top heavy at the full professor and associate professor ranks, and at the time when I arrived, there were only two as-sistant professors in a faculty of 30-something. So, to me that’s not good succession planning. Over the past three years, I’ve been able to fill in more assistant professor level positions and now we are up to seven assistant professors and a dozen each of the other two. Our school really needs new in-frastructure, a new building or a well renovated one. Especially if we are to compete with the elite schools of social work.
DT: How have you been lobbying for a new
building?
Zayas: One of the things we’ve done has been an architectural assessment of our building and they poked it and prodded it an lifted it and looked up the hood, poked the tires, that sort of thing. We hear that it has strong bones but the organs are failing. Lobbying is a good word. It’s helping oth-ers to understand our needs and where we should best be positioned.
DT: Speaking of the new medical school, how do you see the School of Social Work collaborat-ing with them?
Zayas: We’ve already started. One of the things I’ve done in my administration is to appoint an as-sistant dean for health affairs, Dr. Barbara Jones… One of the things we are doing a lot, and nurs-ing and pharmacy are deeply involved as well, is inter-professional education. How do we get our students talking to each other as professionals early on? You know, you ask any physician who they need on the team and most often they’ll say a social worker.
DT: Like certain other programs, including
nursing, the School of So-cial Work has a low male enrollment. What is it try-ing to do to increase the number of male students?
Zayas: One of the things we need to do is reach out to the average undergradu-ate male and help them un-derstand what social work is and what we do.
DT: Can you say a little bit about the newly estab-lished dual-degree pro-gram between the School of Social Work and Latin American Studies?
Zayas: The students will come in and they’ll do half and half at the schools… A student doesn’t just go into [Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies] or social work and then the second year bounce back. Rather, we integrate them early on so that they have a foot
in both schools all along the way. In their field work placements, most of them will start out in local field internships, in organizations that serve large numbers of Latinos. In their fourth semester for the master’s student, they will then do a block placement in a Latin American country…The ad-vantage for the student is that for those that want to work in Latin America will go with two terrific degrees to work there.
4RILEY BRANDS, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF / @TexanEditorialTuesday, January 27, 2015
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 OR GUEST COLUMN | E-mail your Firing Lines and guest columns to [email protected]. Letters must be between 100 and 300 words and guest columns between 500 and 1,000. 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.
Let optimism, not pessimism, determine course of semester
Tone-deaf Common Core rives broken communities yet further
COLUMN COLUMN
By Jeremi SuriDaily Texan Columnist
@JeremiSuri
Public education systems across the United States are plagued with more prob-lems — and more complex problems — than you’ll find on any trendy standardized math test. They perpetuate intergenerational in-equality by providing superior resources to wealthier districts. They’re too bureaucratic to adequately respond to student concerns. And, worst of all, their curricula are outdat-ed. Now that the age of assembly-line work-ers and mid-level corporate hacks has been killed by outsourcing and technology, rote memorization and uniform standards have no place in the classroom.
So what’s with the Common Core’s plan, which has now been adopted in whole or in part by 44 states? Replace cold, harsh stan-dardization with colder, harsher standard-ization. How’s that for critical thinking?
For instance, instead of learning to form their own opinions or analyze works of lit-erature in their English classes, Common Corified students will get to parse through informational texts in order to answer mul-tiple-choice and short-answer comprehen-sion questions. That’s because, as Common Core architect David Coleman put it in a 2011 speech to New York state policymak-ers, “People don’t really give a shit about what you feel or what you think.”
Coleman isn’t entirely wrong. In the mod-ern world, data analysis and evaluation have become exponentially more important in everyday life, governing baseball roster se-lections and political decisions and even opinion journalism, where “because I said so” prognosticators are giving way to sta-tistical brains in the FiveThirtyEight mold. And being able to quickly recognize and evaluate written information is obviously an important skill — especially when scanning the labyrinthine Common Core website for relevant material.
The problem with the Core, then, lies more in its implementation than in its con-struction. In order to evaluate student prog-ress, the program relies on the standard-ized Smarter Balanced Assessment. And no evidence suggests that students benefit from learning how to fill in bubbles or cram buzz-words into an answer box, which, despite protestations to the contrary from Common Core hoplites, is what invariably follows when a district’s funding and prestige are tied to test scores.
That’s the sort of outcome that worries Anne Lutz Fernandez, co-author of the forthcoming book “Schooled” and an Eng-lish teacher in Connecticut. While Fernan-dez described the political controversy sur-rounding the Core itself as “overblown,” she fears that its assessment procedure will lead to a “narrowing and redirection of the Eng-lish curriculum” in public schools. Overall, Fernandez said, the teachers interviewed in the book share her aversion to the testing that comes along with the Common Core package.
At Fernandez’s suggestion, I took an on-line version of the 11th grade Smarter Bal-anced Assessment for English and language arts to check out how we evaluate America’s future leaders and innovators. Luckily for me, the computer system the program runs on glitched out on Question 16 out of 99, or else I would’ve spent all afternoon skim-ming passages on sustainable cotton farm-ing for EPA data and “Life of Pi” excerpts for information on solar still utility and the history of shipwrecks. The multiple-choice questions all include excerpts from the piece presented, which means you don’t really have to read the whole thing to take the test. In that regard, maybe it is a pretty good ap-proximation of high school life. However, the instructions are just vague enough that I wouldn’t be surprised if districts have to de-vote a significant amount of time to teaching test-taking skills instead of, you know, books that aren’t about sustainable cotton farming.
So even if the Common Core isn’t sup-posed to replace a school’s individual cur-riculum, in practice it does exactly that. It seems clear, then, that Coleman doesn’t un-derstand kids too well — unless he genuinely believes that his system can convey valuable information in 99-problem doses to millions of different children with millions of differ-ent experiences raised in millions of differ-ent households across thousands of different districts. If that’s the case, I recommend that he try babysitting. That might show him that his Common Core as it’s currently con-structed cannot replace a teacher’s intuition or a student’s creativity.
If Texas’ Republican leaders felt equally strongly about individualism, I’d be encour-aged by their rejection of the Common Core and by Rick Perry’s declaration that “the academic standards of Texas are not for sale.” But through their willingness to fund religiously motivated charter schools and the Texas Education Agency’s promotion of “alternative” science, it seems as though lawmakers care just as much about getting Bibles into the classroom as they do about keeping bureaucrats out of it. Through its stand in favor of the 10th Amendment, Tex-as is short-shrifting the First, thereby wast-ing a great opportunity to develop students who might actually remember which gov-ernment departments they want to abolish.
That kind of nonsense can’t continue, unless America wants its cultural and eco-nomic future to hinge on preachers and Dwight Schrute knockoffs. With the likes of Coleman and Perry becoming increasingly influential nationwide, states should pull a lesson from every kid’s standardized test playbook: Sometimes, the correct answer re-ally is “none of the above.”
Shenhar is a Plan II, economics and gov-ernment sophomore from Westport, Conn. He writes about campus and education issues.
By Jordan ShenharSenior Columnist
@jshenhar
I love this time of year, especially in Texas. While our friends in New York and Boston en-dure mountains of snow and frigid tempera-tures, we benefit from beautiful, sunny and mild days. Everything seems possible in this climate at this time of year.
Our political moment offers a unique opportunity for new beginnings. In Wash-ington we have a new Congress, with new leadership in the Senate. Our president is entering his last years in office, when he will look forward to his lasting legacy, not an-other election. In our state, we have a new governor and a new legislature that will be in session for the next half-year. Our Uni-versity system also has a new chancellor. Many of the leaders who matter most have reason to differentiate themselves from their predecessors, to try new things and to plan for the long game.
The American founders anticipated these moments when they designed a system of government that rejected hereditary pow-er and required changes in leadership at regular intervals. James Madison, Alexan-der Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams wanted stability and experience in government, but they also wanted a cycling of talent, of ideas and of virtue. For them, a republic had to remain fresh with seasonal adjustments to established ways of thinking. “Aristocracy” meant dull consistency; “de-mocracy” meant reasonable and experimen-tal reforms in governance.
We have the opportunity to pursue rea-sonable and experimental changes today, inspired by our founders and enabled by the new beginnings all around us. Do not believe the naysayers who claim things can-not change. Their cynicism is shallow and self-fulfilling — if you think change is im-possible, it will never happen. Optimism of-fers a much more productive way forward. That is what separated our nation’s founders from many of their opponents who denied dramatic possibilities.
Our current times are another founding moment. Partisanship will not go away any-time soon, but citizens have elected new lead-ers to help us escape the stunted imagination, low expectations and self-defeating tactics of recent years. We are almost universally frus-trated with our insufficient accomplishments as a society, and we are hungry for something bigger and better. This assessment is evident to
me every day when I speak to people around the country, and especially when I look in the faces of my students. I am teaching more than 300 undergraduates this semester, most of whom are freshmen, and they have the ner-vous energy, steely determination and smiling optimism of people who are ready to pursue ambitious dreams for our society. They are not cynical, despite what they read on their elec-tronic devices. They are hopeful because they are smart and understand the potential in our people.
We should encourage precisely this kind of optimism in our University community. Changing the world and seizing opportunities for change are what we are all about. Making our society a better place is the core purpose of a university.
There are three steps I would like to see students and faculty undertake in our bright new semester. First, we must become well-informed about the major issues of our day. For all the intelligence on campus, students and faculty tend to think in narrow, often nar-cissistic ways. We have strong opinions, but often far less evidence and reflection behind them than we claim. If we want to change the contemporary world, we need to understand it better and that is both a core research and teaching mission.
Second, we need to share what we know bet-ter. Cynicism has encouraged more shouting and shut ears than conversation and listening. Ask yourself how infrequently you have a real in-depth discussion with someone who sees the world in fundamentally different ways. Those discussions need to occur early and often if we are going to pursue change. Our campus should become a cacophonous town square, crowded with diverse people sharing what they know and what they want.
Third, and perhaps most important, we must become men and women who are politi-cally engaged – “In the arena,” to use Theodore Roosevelt’s famous phrase, “it is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena.”
In this sunny and mild Texas season, let us devote ourselves to making our new begin-nings the start of something big. Let us leave the cold and timid souls behind as we pur-sue the promise of change, renewal and even greatness.
Suri is a professor in the Department of His-tory and the LBJ School of Public Affairs. He writes about foreign policy.
In the modern world, data analysis and evaluation have become exponentially more important in everyday life, governing baseball roster se-lections and political decisions and even opinion journalism.
Social Work Dean discusses infrastructure, male enrollmentEDITORIAL
Photo courtesy of Callie Richmond
Albert Lee | Daily Texan Staff
a city about music, so to do it here makes a lot of sense.”
Hutchinson said she developed interest in the production after hearing Garner perform one of the songs from the show in a class. The two decid-ed to collaborate to bring the show to Austin stages.
“[Garner] said some-thing about this honky-tonk musical she had written, and I was im-mediately intrigued,” Hutchinson said. “Then I heard her play ‘One Man Closer to Nashville,’ which is one of the big cornerstone songs in the play. I was hooked by the song, by the quality of it, by her playing it.”
The Austin-version of the show features a group of actors and musicians from UT and Austin, including theatre and dance senior Alexander Villarreal, who plays the band’s bass player. He said working on the show combines his passion for music with his passion for theater.
“I love the authentic-ity that is portrayed in the story,” Villarreal said.
“The fact that music is so vital to the show is won-derful to me. Music is a huge part of my life, and getting to use that to tell stories is amazing.”
After the Austin run closes Feb. 14, Garner hopes to tour “100 Heart-breaks” nationwide and showcase the play in New York. The ultimate goal: to produce a movie.
“I’ve had so much fun with this rehearsal pro-cess,” Garner said. “I feel so artistically satisfied and so excited every night to be working on it.”
Beavers remembers wak-ing up from a coma six months later. Disoriented and afraid, he ripped out the tubes connecting him to life support systems. This reac-tion caused life-threatening blood loss and sent him into another coma.
He woke up two months later strapped down, weigh-ing in at half his original
weight. Doctors told him he would never walk or speak again.
Beavers worked diligently to prove them wrong. He dedicated himself to reha-bilitation and visited thera-pists, specialists and pathol-ogists — until the money ran out.
Luckily, by that time in his recovery, Beavers could head to work. Beavers’ friend of-fered him a job at her newly
opened restaurant, despite his disabilities. And so he took a job waiting tables at Teji’s.
Hovering behind the reg-ister, soft-spoken and re-served, Beavers manages to pass along a few kind words to every customer he helps.
Even though the left side of his body is partially para-lyzed, Beavers holds doors open for strangers, smiles at passersby and plans to
donate his hair to a nonprofit organization that makes wigs for chemotherapy patients.
“Bad stuff happens to good people all the time, but it’s what those good people let that bad stuff do to them that determines their happi-ness,” Beavers said. “And I’ve learned you’ve just got to love life, not hate life and not be angry. I could be so an-gry, but every day I choose not to.”
Ellyn SniderDaily Texan Staff
After spending eight months in a coma, Brian Beavers under-went months of rehabilitation and therapy to overcome severe brain damage. Despite his dis-abilities, Beavers holds a job as a server at Teji’s.
HEARTBREAKS continues from page 8
I love the authenticity that is portrayed in the story. The fact that music is so vital to the show is wonderful to me. Music is a huge part of my life, and getting to use that to tell stories is amazing.
—Alexander Villarreal, Theatre and dance senior
TEJI’S continues from page 8
6 SPTS
6GARRETT CALLAHAN, SPORTS EDITOR | @texansportsTuesday, January 27, 2015
MEN’S BASKETBALL SIDELINE
As shots fall short, so do HornsA late-game rally gave No. 19
Texas a chance at a comeback, but, eventually, the hole was too much for the Longhorns to overcome in their game against Iowa State Monday night.
No. 15 Iowa State manhan-dled Texas most of the way in Ames, Iowa, giving the Long-horns their second straight conference loss. Iowa State had no problem tearing apart the Longhorns, whether Texas was in zone or man-to-man de-fense, in the Longhorns’ worst defensive performance of the season, and the Cyclones went on to a 89–86 win.
The Longhorns (14–6, 3–4 Big 12) started the game in a zone defense that head coach Rick Barnes has relied on re-cently. That strategy collapsed as the Cyclones picked it apart in the first half on their way to a 36-point half — the most Texas had allowed in a half up to that point.
“We were way too conscious of the 3-point line,” Barnes said at halftime. “We didn’t make the adjustments, and we let [Georges] Niang get in the middle. We can guard them in the zone, but we got to be quicker.”
Iowa State had its way with the zone, working a smooth high-low between juniors Georges Niang and Jameel
McKay, as the Cyclones had 13 assists on 16 first-half field goals. By the end of the half, and after more than three games in zone defense, Barnes reverted back to his normal man-to-man defense.
That approach didn’t work much better. The Cyclones (15-4, 5-2 Big 12) had their way with that too, tallying 53 points in the second half.
Despite a vulnerable defense and lopsided loss that all but diminished Texas’ hopes of a Big 12 title, the Longhorns’ of-fense did finally start to look
to the post. In the early goings, Texas remained patient with the ball as it let its big men post up inside — unlike in Saturday’s game against Kansas. The Long-horns relied heavily on 6-foot-11 freshman forward Myles Turner, who turned in his best performance in a half against a highly ranked opponent.
Turner finished with 16 points, showing off his quick release and good touch, and drawing the double team on almost all his touches.
Texas eventually turned away from that strategy in the
final 30 minutes, partly because of its defensive woes and sur-prising accuracy from deep, and it was the sharpshoot-ing that gave Texas a fighting chance in the end. After going 0–7 from deep in the first half, Texas made 10 of the last 15 en route to a 61-point half — its highest of the season.
Junior guard Javan Felix also turned in his best performance of the year off the bench, going for 20 on a perfect shooting night behind the arc. Sopho-more point guard Isaiah Tay-lor added 17 points, with 15
coming in the second half, while senior forward Jonathan Holmes also added 17.
Iowa State had five double-digit scorers, as it claimed its fifth Big 12 win this season. Niang, McKay, senior forward Dustin Hogue, sophomore guard Monté Morris and se-nior guard Bryce Dejean-Jones all hit the double-digit mark, with Niang leading the way with 19.
The Longhorns will look to get back in the win column in another Big 12 game Saturday at Baylor.
By Evan Berkowitz@Evan_Berkowitz
Daulton VenglarDaily Texan Staff
After a disap-pointing 89-86 loss to Iowa State, the Long-horns’ chance at claiming the Big 12 title is in jeopardy.
NCAABSYRACUSE
(13) N. CAROLINA
MAGIC
GRIZZLIES
NBA
76ERS
PELICANS
TIMBERWOLVES
THUNDER
Officially commiting [sic] to University of Texas (for good ) see yall on the
John Burt@burticus21
TOP TWEET
TODAY IN HISTORY
1894The University of Chicago beats Chicago YMCA 19-11 in the first game of college basketball.
Wide receiver Burt commits to Horns
Four-star wide receiver John Burt made it official Monday morning: He is go-ing to be a Longhorn.
“Officially commiting [sic] to University of Texas (for good) see yall on the 40!!” Burt tweeted, includ-ing a picture of himself with the Texas coaching staff at what appeared to be his home. Head coach Charlie Strong, Shawn Watson, as-sistant head coach for the offense/quarterbacks coach, newly minted wide receiv-ers coach Jay Norvell, and defensive backs coach Chris Vaughn stood by his side in the picture he posted.
Burt, a 6-foot-3 Tal-lahassee, Florida, native chose Texas over Auburn, Alabama and many other Florida schools. According to 247Sports, Burt is the 14th-ranked wide receiver in the nation. Burt decom-mitted from a verbal with Texas in January, leading many to think he was head-ed Auburn’s way.
Burt joins four-star pros-pect DeAndre McNeal and three-star Gilbert John-son, also a Florida recruit, as next year’s Longhorns’ freshman receiving corps.
—Evan Berkowitz
SPORTS BRIEFLY
40!!
For the past 10 years, No. 9 Kansas has sat at the top of Big 12 basketball. However, after a non-conference 72–40 blow-out loss at the hands of No. 1 Kentucky, many thought the Jayhawks looked vulnerable.
But two months later, Kan-sas looks like its usual self.
The Jayhawks traveled to Austin this weekend and defeated Texas, 75-62. Kansas Freshman forward Cliff Alexander had a team-high 15 points and nine rebounds to help put the Jayhawks back atop the Big 12 standings.
“We just wanted it more than them,” Alexander said.
With a one-game lead over in-state rival Kansas State, the Jayhawks will return to ac-tion to take on unranked TCU on Wednesday.
Wildcats bounce back
Before Kansas reclaimed the Big 12 throne, Kan-sas State was on top of the
conference. However, a 77–71 loss to Iowa State last week de-throned the Wildcats.
Kansas State struggled to keep up with the Cyclones early but rallied to get within 1 point of Iowa State at halftime. But, in the second half, the Wildcats couldn’t overcome the deficit and received their second Big 12 loss of the season.
After the loss to the Cy-clones, Kansas State stayed within striking distance of the conference’s top spot with a 63-53 bounce-back win over Oklahoma State. Senior for-ward Nino Williams led the Wildcats with 20 points and seven rebounds.
“It’s a good team win,” said Williams, who was 10-of-13 from the field. “Like Coach [Weber] said, every-body played well, everybody did something.”
Mess in the middle of the pack
Nearing the midpoint of the season, the Big 12 is making an argument for the toughest conference in
college basketball. While Kan-sas currently leads the league, second- through seventh-place teams all have a shot, if any of them have a late season run.
The middle of the pack con-tains seven teams jockeying for position, including Kan-sas State, West Virginia, Iowa State, Baylor, Texas, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State. The Cy-clones and Longhorns faced off Monday, and Kansas State could separate itself from the pack with a win over No. 17
West Virginia on Tuesday. Baylor and Oklahoma State
will meet Tuesday for a game that will help the winner’s NCAA tournament chances. Oklahoma, on the other hand, has the easiest upcoming game, taking on Texas Tech, which sits at the bottom of the Big 12.
With the NCAA tour-nament looming around the corner, the teams in the middle of the Big 12 will be looking for every opportunity to make a
statement and improve records.
Polls kind to Big 12The Big 12 had six ranked
teams — Kansas, Iowa State, West Virginia, Texas, Baylor and Oklahoma — in this week’s AP poll. The conference also had five teams ranked in the USA Today Coaches Poll — Okla-homa was excluded from the top 25.
The Big 12 was tied for the most teams in the AP poll with the ACC.
The Longhorns trailed by as many as 20 points with less than 7:30 remaining in the game, and they almost came all the way back.
Texas got red hot from be-yond the arc late, connecting on 7-of-8 from deep between the final 7:24 and 0:23 marks in the second half. That, coupled with an aggressive press defense, al-lowed Texas to close the game out on a 35–18 run.
Sophomore point guard Isaiah Taylor was the catalyst for the late comeback attempt, scoring 12 points in the final six minutes of the game. It was too little, too late, however, for a Texas team that trailed by as many as 21 points in the second half.
Iowa State torches the Texas zone
Iowa State, on the other
hand, played a cohesive game offensively. The Cyclones had little trouble weaving through Texas’ 2-3 zone, consistently getting around the Longhorns’ perimeter defenders and into the lane for high-percentage looks at the basket.
The Cyclones’ penetration into the lane forced Texas’ big men out of position to play help defense. This led to four dunks in the first half alone for Iowa State, including three by redshirt junior forward Jameel McKay.
Remarkably, the Cyclones racked up 13 assists on their 16 made baskets in the first half. They got any shot they wanted for much of the game and fin-ished with 20 assists as a team.
Rough start for Texas
Fresh off a lifeless second half performance against Kan-sas on Saturday, Texas picked up right where it left off to start Monday’s game against
the Cyclones.The Longhorns opened
the game just 1-of-9 from the field and trailed 10–2 af-ter less than three minutes of play. Iowa State double teams greeted junior center Cam Ridley and freshman forward Myles Turner every time they touched the ball down low, leading Texas to once again settle for outside jumpers.
It didn’t get any better for the Longhorns in the first half. They trailed 36-25 going into halftime, connecting on just 10-of-31 shots from the field. Taylor failed to make any of his five shot attempts in the first half, and senior for-ward Jonathan Holmes went just 2-of-8.
It’s officially time to worry
With their back-to-back losses, the Longhorns slipped to 3–4 in conference play, dropping 2.5 games behind of first-place Kansas — But
more alarming is the way they’ve been losing.
The Texas offense has been inconsistent since the start of Big 12 play, and the Longhorns have struggled to take advantage of their size and get the ball inside. The defense hasn’t been much better, as opponents found holes in the Texas 2-3
zone with ease in the last two games.
And the season won’t get much easier for the Long-horns. Six of their remaining 11 games are against ranked opponents. For any chance of getting back into the confer-ence title race, they’ll need to make drastic changes in a hurry.
Texas comeback fails, Big 12 chances in dangerBy Peter Sblendorio
@petersblendorio
BIG 12 BASKETBALL
Jayhawks reclaim top spot in conferenceBy Nick Castillo
@Nick_Castillo74
(19) TEXAS (15) IOWA STVS.
Daultion Venglar | Daily Texan StaffFreshman forward Myles Turner’s 16 points weren’t enough for the Longhorns to take down conference foe Iowa State on the road.
Daulton VenglarDaily Texan Staff
After beating the Longhorns in Austin on Saturday, Kansas returned to its spot atop the Big 12 standings.
CELTICS
JAZZ
COMICS 7
COMICS Tuesday, January 27, 2015 7
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!
Charlane Tucker, the protagonist of Joanna Gar-ner’s latest play, thought it would take 100 broken hearts to write the per-fect country ballad. It only took 43.
Garner’s new show tells the story of aspiring coun-try star, Charlane Tucker, who tours dive-bars around the country with her band in pursuit of enough heart-break to write authentic country music.
Inspired by her own se-ries of unsuccessful first-dates and her love for old-school country music, the Master of Fine Arts gradu-ate student began writing the country musical “100 Heartbreaks” in 2006.
“I started writing it at a time in my life when I was going on a lot of unsuc-cessful dates,” Garner said. “A lot of artists write from that place of heartbreak. Country music, especially, is all about taking that pain and suffering and channel-ing it into music. So I was thinking about – if I was going to go on all these dates – how I could put them to use.”
Tuesday at Sahara Lounge, Garner will star as Charlane Tucker, with fellow Master of Fine Arts student Jess Hutchinson in the director’s seat.
Garner decided to write the role of Charlane Tuck-er for herself after frus-trations she faced while
auditioning for other people’s shows.
“I was thinking, ‘What should I do with my life, and how can I be artisti-cally satisfied?’ so I de-cided to write a play for myself to perform – sort of selfishly,” Garner said.
“I decided that if no one’s going to give me the parts I want, I’ll just create them for myself.”
Originally, Garner per-formed the musical in 2008 as an hour-long, one-woman show. After a suc-cessful three-week run at
the Capitol Hill Arts Cen-ter in Seattle, she chose to adapt the show to feature more actors and songs. She then decided to go to graduate school and brought “100 Heartbreaks” to Austin, where she thought the show would
be well-received. “It’s non-traditional and
site-specific, so the audi-ence in the bar is like the audience at this country show,” Garner said. “I think that’s very ‘Austin.’ It’s such
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KAT SAMPSON, LIFE&ARTS EDITOR | @thedailytexan 8Tuesday, January 27, 2015
THEATER
Grad student writes, stars in ‘100 Heartbreaks’By Emily Gibson
@emgeemtee
“100 HEARTBREAKS”
Who: Written by Joanna Garner / Directed by Jess Hutchinson Where: Sahara LoungeWhen: Tuesday - Feb. 14Cost: $15.00
Daulton Venglar | Daily Texan StaffJoanna Garner, a Master of Fine Arts graduate student, rehearses for “100 Heartbreaks” on Friday evening in the Laboratory Theater. Garner started writing the play in 2006 and performed it in 2008 as a one-woman show.
HEARTBREAKS page 5
300 CAMPUS
Each day, hundreds of stu-dents flood Teji’s — a narrow, dimly lit restaurant — and place their order with Brian
Beavers. No one knows that the quiet, polite man fill-ing orders day after day suf-fers from irreparable brain damage, memory loss and crippling injuries.
“Guess you could say
I’m damaged goods, huh?” Beavers said.
Years ago, on a quiet road, Beavers’ accelerator pedal got stuck under his floor
By Briana Zamora@whaterwillbri
For many students, pa-pers lead to late nights full of frustration, but, for members of UT’s Healing Origami club, paper offers an escape from the ev-eryday stresses of student life. Since 2007, the group has gathered once a week to socialize, craft dif-ferent designs and learn new patterns.
“I feel like any type of hobby someone enjoys, and takes pleasure in doing, and makes them feel happy, is important,” co-president and biology junior Jiahui Qi said. “Personally, for me, origami has been my de-stressor, and I really wanted to help show other people that they can do the same thing.”
Healing Origami con-sists of about 15 students, who gather to create elabo-rate figurines by folding paper. Healing Origami also volunteers with differ-ent organizations in which the members can share their particular means of unwinding.
According to Samuel Lau, co-president and pe-troleum engineering senior, the group has collaborated with nursing homes and organizations such as Dell Children’s Medical Center of Central Texas and China
Care, a foundation that aids Chinese orphans who have developmental or mental disabilities.
“The main goal is to help them reconnect with their Asian culture be-cause they are adopted,” Lau said. “What we did was make different crafts that represented their cul-ture — simple things like paper cranes.”
Qi said this semester, the group is searching for ad-ditional organizations with which it can partner, but, for now, the members are focused on internally de-veloping the club.
“Our people range from people who have never done origami before to people who have done it for life,” Qi said. “We want to preserve the closeness of our group, but we also want to get other people inter-ested in the club.”
Lau said the group’s name emphasizes both helping individual mem-bers and doing volunteer work with the community.
“Sometimes, whether it is a stressful week or some-thing goes wrong in [our members’] lives, [Healing Origami] is something to cheer themselves up,” Lau said. “It’s kind of a way to get away from all that. The other part [is] where we teach children and people who are interested.”
Ruoxi Wu, computer science sophomore and member, said origami exists in various forms and is not necessarily an Asian practice.
“There are a lot of Americans and Europe-ans that are experts in this area,” Wu said. “I think a good example is Rob-ert Long. He collaborated with NASA over a satellite that uses a folding tech-nique related to origami, and it is also not just a type of art. It relates to math be-cause of the geometry.”
Qi said she acknowl-edges members have busy schedules but believes in the importance of taking time to de-stress.
“I think that speaks out that origami can be used as something to alleviate stress just by being in a space folding together,” Qi said. “Our finished product is the finish line.”
Origami club helps students alleviate stress through art
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Healing Ori-gami is a group dedicated to alleviating students’ stress. They meet once a week to fold, chat and relax through this unique art.
I feel like any type of hobby someone enjoys and takes pleasure in doing and makes them feel happy is important.
