The Mercury 08/04

What should have been a time for joy and cel-ebration quickly turned into a race against death and missiles, when days after her sister’s wedding, a student watched firsthand Israel's air, land and sea offensive within the Gaza Strip.

Rawan Muhanna found herself stuck in the midst of conflict, cooped up at home for fear of being hit under the open skies, living in uncertainty for two weeks until the American consulate arranged an evacuation for her family through Jordan.

“My sister was there, my cousins, family were all there,” Muhanna, a chemistry senior, said. “It was bitter-sweet — bitter in the sense that they’re not safe. But sweet in that I was so ready to come home. I had been there two weeks longer than I wanted to, and I felt like I was let out of this prison finally.”

A week after they got back, her mother’s nine-month pregnant cousin along with her two sons were killed in an air strike in the heart of Gaza. The family had taken refuge in the city after evacuating their home in the Shuja'iyya district of Gaza where dozens were killed after Israel ordered an evacuation and attacked the area.

That is the reality of Gaza. As a child, trips to Gaza had been easier for

Muhanna. She remembers flying to Tel Aviv from where they would cross the borders with ease.

But each year it’s been harder to get in and get out. Palestinians can’t land in Tel Aviv anymore.

The last time Muhanna was in Gaza, in 2006, she saw the start of another war.

This year, when her family planned the trip so her sister could get married there, everything seemed normal. They had checked that the Cairo border would be open and flew out, but as soon as they arrived things began to go awry.

They had to wait two extra weeks in Cairo because Egypt did not open the borders to Gaza on time and the wedding had to be postponed.

Soon after the wedding, three teenage Israeli boys were found dead in the West Bank and caused palpable unease among civilians — the people of Gaza knew it wouldn’t end well, Muhanna said.

Things escalated quickly going forward, and Muhanna remembers very little; it was all a big blur for her.

Every time she heard the sounds of air strikes she’d look out of the window and see missiles hit-ting the city. She would check the news on her phone to see which part of the city had been hit and if everyone was safe.

Stepping out of the house, even for food, can be scary and exposes people to the risk of being hit. Very few taxis run in such times, and even when they do, they speed on the empty

Students living on the upper ! oors of the newly constructed Res Hall West can add a view of downtown Dallas to their list of living perks as well as the new din-ing and recreational facilities nearby.

" e # fth residence hall built on cam-pus, it houses 600 beds, as opposed to the 400-bed capacity of other res halls, and will include gaming rooms, classrooms of various sizes and a large multipurpose room for students in the di$ erent living learning communities.

Students entering the res hall are met with a larger lobby, a gaming area and a kitchen with two cooking stations.

Card-access is required to get into the upper hallways of the res hall, but access into the lobby and adjoining facilities is open to all until midnight. Late-night joints like Papa John’s can be reached without entering the res hall.

" ere are 31 study rooms throughout the facility, and they will be accessible to student living in any res hall.

While the actual rooms are virtually identical to rooms in older res halls, the design of the building means every suite has ! oor-to-ceiling windows in the com-mon living area.

Matt Grief, associate vice president for student a$ airs, said the building will also combine all the housing sta$ into one lo-cation. Residential life services and sta$ from housing operations will move into one o% ce.

“I think this will be a good opportu-nity,” Grief said. “All these people coor-dinate with each other, but they’ve been in # ve or six di$ erent buildings. Now, we’re giving our housing sta$ one space.”

Outside, the building encloses a large grassy area and a natural spring.

The Jindal School of Management building is getting a much-needed extension, sched-uled to open on August 4, which will feature an undergraduate lounge for JSOM students and a

Jason’s Deli.The new JSOM addition is connect-

ed to the main building via enclosed bridges on the first and second floors, said Kelly Kinnard, director of Physical Plant Services. There will also be a cov-ered bridge on the north side of the building.

Expanding was necessary for JSOM due to the growth of the program, said Senior Associate Dean Varghese

Jacob.“We’ve grown both the faculty

and student operation, and we just don’t have enough space to put all the necessary classes here as well as the faculty space,” he said.

JSOM, which had the largest enrollment of any school with

August 4, 2014 facebook.com/theutdmercury | @utdmercury

Student witnesses terror in Gaza Strip as Israeli strikes escalate; student group seeks to help Palestinians from home

! SEE WEST, PAGE 10! SEE JSOM, PAGE 10

TRAPPED IN GAZATHE MERCURY | UTDMERCURY.COM

CONNIE CHENG | PHOTO EDITOR

New residence hall features two-story recreation center, 700-seat dining hall while other campus projects near completion

LIFE&ARTSCool o! and read The Mercury's top moments of the summer

! SEE GAZA, PAGE 10

NORTH MALL RES HALL WESTESTEBAN BUSTILLOS

Managing Editor

JSOM EXPANSIONESTEBAN BUSTILLOS

Managing Editor

MIGUEL PEREZEditor-in-Chief

! PAGE 6

RESIDENCE HALL WEST

RESIDENCE HALL WEST

RESIDENCE HALL WEST

CONSTRUCTION SPECIFICATIONS

DINING HALL WEST

THIS DOES NOT REPRESENT AN ACCURATE DEPICTION OF CAMPUS CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS

244,000 SQUARE FEET

RESIDENCE HALL WEST

RESIDENCE HALL WEST

RESIDENCE HALL WEST

CONSTRUCTION SPECIFICATIONS

DINING HALL WEST

THIS DOES NOT REPRESENT AN ACCURATE DEPICTION OF CAMPUS CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS

244,000 SQUARE FEET

ANWESHA BHATTACHARJEEWeb Editor

New prof shares experiences battling disease outbreaks and more.

SPOTLIGHT ON PROFS A BREAKDOWNOF MCDERMOTTLIBRARY

! PAGE 7 ! PAGE 4

construction zone

Updates to the North Mall, expected to be complete in early 2015, are set to include features like a terraced lawn with Wi-Fi that can be used for events and classes and more green space.

The upper half of the mall is current-ly undergoing a major renovation project to upgrade the area. This is the second phase of a larger campus landscaping project, said Kelly Kinnard, director of Physical Plant Services.

“The rest of the project is going to look more like what the North Mall will look like: a lot less concrete, a lot more vegetation,” Kinnard said. “UTD has always been a commuter campus. With all the res halls and our enormous growth, we’re more of a pedestrian cam-pus now, so this will put elements in there to make it a little more friendly for pedestrians.”

The first phase of the project covered the southern end of the mall in 2010 and the next step after the North Mall will extend renovations from the trellis to Rutford Avenue, he said.

However, the project has not been without its setbacks that have delayed the project.

“There have been design issues that have been worked out that probably weren’t accounted for early on,” Kinnard said. “We had to completely reroute a water line because it went shallow a lot closer to some other utilities than what was anticipated in the original draw-ings.”

The larger renovations will aim to look like one continuous design, with the same types of plants and benches being used and smaller trellises in the style of the large one in front of the Plinth througout the updated parts of campus , he said.

MIGUEL PEREZ | EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

2 THE MERCURY | AUG. 4, 2014 NEWS UTDMERCURY.COM

ContributorsSarah LarsonPablo Arauz

Humza KhanShyam VedantamAndrew Gallegos

The Mercury is published on Mondays, at two-week intervals during the long term of The University of Texas at Dallas, except holidays and exam peri-ods, and once every four weeks during the sum-mer term.

Advertising is accept-ed by The Mercury on the basis that there is no discrimination by the advertiser in the offering of goods or services to any person, on any basis pro-hibited by applicable law. The publication of adver-tising in The Mercury does not constitute an endorsement of products or services by the newspa-per, or the UTD admin-istration.

Opinions expressed in The Mercury are those of the editor, the editorial board or the writer of the article. They are not nec-essarily the view of the UTD administration, the Board of Regents or the Student Media Operating Board.

The Mercury’s editors retain the right to refuse or edit any submission based on libel, malice, spelling, grammar and style, and violations of Section 54.23 (f ) (1-6) of UTD policy.

Copyright © 2014, The University of Texas at Dallas. All articles, photographs and graphic assets, whether in print or online, may not be reproduced or repub-lished in part or in whole without express written permission.

Editor-in-ChiefMiguel Perez

[email protected](972) 883-2294

THE MERCURYUTDMERCURY.COM

Volume XXXIVNo. 11

Director of Sales and Promotions

Juveria [email protected]

(972) 883-2210

FIRST COPY FREE

NEXT COPY 25 CENTS

Managing EditorEsteban Bustillos


Web EditorAnwesha

[email protected]

Graphics EditorLina Moon

[email protected]

Media AdviserChad Thomas


Staff PhotographerMarcelo Yates

Ad Sales Representative

Sipei Huangpromotions

@utdmercury.com(713) 298-0025

Mailing Address800 West Campbell

Road, SU 24Richardson, TX

75080-0688

NewsroomStudent Union,Student Media

Suite

July 2: An employee reported a former student was harassing her via telephone around 2 p.m.

UTDPDBlotter

July 3

threat at Phase 2 at 11:34 a.m.July 4

session of marijuana less than 2 oz., open con-tainer of alcohol, no insurance and other agency warrant arrests on Waterview Parkway around 10:30 p.m.

July 5

possession of drug paraphaneila, possession of marijuana less than 2 oz. and for active Irving

at Phase 6.July 6

with an additional o! ense of speeding on Water-view Parkway at 10:51 a.m.

July 7

ing while intoxicated on Renner Road at 1:13 a.m.

July 12

theft at Phase 6 at 11:41 a.m.July 22

A female student reported that she was be-ing harassed at the McDermott Library at 12:03 a.m.

July 24A student reported a driver struck his vehicle and

LEGEND

VEHICULAR INCIDENT

THEFT

DRUGS & ALCOHOL

OTHERMAP: UTD COMMUNICATIONS | COURTESY

Photo EditorConnie Cheng

[email protected]

July 4: charged with DWI, possession of marijuana less than 2 oz. and possession of drug paraphanelia at 2:04 a.m. on Waterview Park-way. " e male was also given a UTD criminal trespass warning.

July 11: for driving without a license with previ-ous convictions of no insurance, failure

agency warrant arrests at 11:47 p.m. on Campbell Road.

The Mercury is a proud member of both the Associ-

ated Collegiate Press and the Texas Intercollegiate

Press Association.

Copy EditorLauren Featherstone

JU

ST T

HE F

AC

TS

THE MOST VIOLENT CITIES IN THE WORLD

San Pedro Sula, Honduras

169.30 homicides per 100,000 residents

Distrito Central, Honduras

101.99 homicides per 100,000 residentsTorreón, Mexico

101.99 homicides per 100,000 residentsMaceió, Brazil


Acapulco, Mexico

142.88 homicides per 100,000 residentsCaracas, Venezuela


Source: Business Insider, November 2013 The study did not count deaths in a war zone or cities where data was unavailable.

“To be honest, I would want to be a racecar driver.”

Neev GhodasaraElectrical engineering graduatestudent

“I’d be a professional soccer player for Arsenal.”

Ridwan RajiFinance and accounting senior

“Probably doing foley e!ects in the movie industry.”

Albert ChangATEC senior

“If money wasn’t a determinant, what would be your career choice?”

“I would do something related to music.”

Tommy LockwoodComputer engineering senior

“I would like somewhere I would get paid to do adven-ture sports.”

Sanket ShahBiology senior

C

omet

C o m m e n t s

AUG. 4, 2014 | THE MERCURY | UTDMERCURY.COMOPINION 3

Immigrant kids are not criminals

Between the influx of migrant chil-dren fleeing Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador and Costa Rica mak-ing it to the semifinals in the world cup, Central America has been in the news a lot this summer. And as a Central American journalist born in America, it’s a paradoxical time to be alive.

There’s so much misinformation going around about what’s happening on the border that it’s hard to look past the surface of what President Obama proclaimed as a “crisis” earlier this year. People boil the issue down to either a legal matter or a moral one. At its core, it’s a lot more complicated than that.

My parents legally immigrated here from Costa Rica in the late 1980s. They had humble beginnings living in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, and my mom had to learn English. My fam-ily went back to Costa Rica for some time, but we came back to North Tex-as where I grew up in Carrollton.

I was lucky to grow up with a middle class American life, and I’m thankful for it. Many of the Central American kids coming in don’t have the opportunities that I had growing up. But I guess just for the fact that I once was a Central American child, I can empathize with these kids.

I visited family in El Salvador in 2008, and I remember seeing police officers armed with machine guns be-cause the crime and gang violence is so bad in the capital of San Salvador. It was an image that stuck with me – this is a country where the houses have barbed wire and security gates if people can afford them.

It’s a country where up to half the population is displaced because of a history of conflict and strife. But how did it get like this?

Looking at this issue from a histori-cal context, there’s a pattern of cor-rupt governments in Central America who were actually propped up with the help of the CIA. Years of war and genocide have turned these countries into hell on earth.

During the 1950s, the government in Guatemala made policies that called for the redistribution of land and equality among workers, landown-ers and industrialists. Many American companies, particularly the United Fruit Company, had stakes in the ba-nana industry in Guatemala. So, the CIA orchestrated a coup d’etat, and a civil war ensued that led to decades of fightinge. Thousands of Guatemalans died during the 36-year war.

El Salvador, similarly, went through a 12-year-long civil war when

another socialist movement took con-trol and right-wing militias fought back. Thousands of people were killed by the infamous death squads who even murdered priests that spoke up against the oppressive right-wing jun-tas, who were also backed by the CIA.

Honduras, the original “banana republic,” has been ruled by several military dictators since the 1930s, co-opted by U.S. fruit corporations such as United Fruit. But when the liberal political party was democrati-cally elected in the 1950s, its move-ment was crushed by the right-wing military juntas. The country’s history to this day is plagued with genocides and coups.

Today, the current population of these three countries is roughly 22 million people, less than the popula-tion of the state of Texas. Yet, they are plagued by drug-related gang violence that resulted from disparate poverty, possibly the aftermath of civil wars and an interventionist U.S. foreign policy.

These countries have some of the highest homicide rates in the world. According to a study done by the U.N. Office of Drugs and Crime, Honduras has the highest homicide rate in the world, with 91 deaths per 100,000 people. El Salvador and Gua-temala rank 4th and 5th in homicide.

Now, the thousands of immigrants that are trying to escape the cities with some of the worst imaginable poverty and crime is making headlines in the mainstream media. So many years after the conflicts instigated by the American government have led us to this point: helpless children who don’t have any other option than to cross the border and hope for a better life. I don’t know what it’s like to travel thousands of miles to escape vicious gang violence and the kind of poverty we can hardly imagine here in the states.

It’s disturbing to hear people talk about these kids like they’re a threat, criminals or carry diseases. People are angry because these kids are just try-ing to look for a way out of a tortur-ous life. And their solution is to send troops and drones to the border, in-jecting more violence into the lives of these traumatized kids. What needs to happen is a total change in U.S. for-eign policy in this country, which has stayed perpetually the same as it was in the 1980s.

When you consider the improving economy and the fact that the United States is still one of the richest coun-tries in the world, why shouldn’t it have the capacity to take care of these kids and at least give them a chance to stay?

This country was founded by im-migrants and to think that they can’t stay because they can’t afford to come into this country legally doesn’t seem very American to me. One thing is for sure, this will go down in a chapter of American history that determines where the people are in terms of hu-man rights.

PABLO ARAUZ COMMENTARY

Send a submission of 500 - 800 words to [email protected]. Include references for any facts you cite. We ask for your name and contact information.

Personal contact info will not be published.We reserve the right to reject submissions and letters, and we cannot be responsible for their

return. We also reserve the right to edit for clarity, brevity, good taste, accuracy and to prevent libel.The next issue of The Mercury will be published on August 25. Submit your finalized opinion

or letter by August 15, and contact the editor-in-chief by August 13.


HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY?


Fi!y Shades, Harry Potter among top library checkouts

Engineersdesign fuel- e!icient car

Bilingual program stresses parent, child relationship

A team of mechanical engineering students is working to design and build a vehicle that could po-tentially run on 900 miles per gallon.

Brought together under the campus’ chapter of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, or AME, the engineering students are participating in the Shell Eco-marathon competition.

“!e premise of the Shell Eco-marathon is to build a very fuel-e"cient vehicle,” said mechanical engineer-ing senior Clyde Dodson. “!ey have pretty rigorous speci#cations that we have to follow. So far, we’ve de-signed a smaller working model of our design.”

!e team has designed most of the car, including a chassis, body and wheels. Some components are still left like steering columns, but the team aims to #nish by the end of August.

!e body and chassis will be constructed of car-bon #ber. !e carbon #ber design helps remove un-necessary weight from the vehicle to make it more aerodynamic, as well as give it a more aesthetically pleasing look, Dodson said.

Dodson, who is also the competition’s chair for ASME, said the engine and the tires must be given the most attention during the design process to make sure the vehicle runs as e"ciently as possible.

Alumna Jessie Bogart was project manager last year when she worked on the project as a senior, and this year she is helping the team network and #nd funding for the project.

“We had no idea how big this project was going to be. No one knew anything about motors or dif-ferentials or how the suspension should work,” Bo-gart said. “We spent about six months just learning about cars.”

Bogart said projects like this help teach mechani-cal engineering students industry skills they don’t get in the classroom.

“In school, they’ll teach you how to read a textbook or how to solve cookie-cutter problems, but not in one class do they teach you about standard drill bit sizes,” she said. “So, you get into an industry like manufac-turing and get completely thrown o$. You can’t design something without designing it to a tool that already exists. It’s too expensive.”

In the actual competition, participants are given a liter of fuel and asked to race around a track until their tank empties or the clock runs out. Because of the engines, the fastest the vehicles can go is about 28 miles per hour.

But, they make up for it in their incredibly ef-#cient motors. !e model of last year’s winner in the European competition ran at 1,700 miles per gallon.

!e team has until May 2015 to build its car and enter it in the marathon.

!e early years of a child’s life are some of the most important for development as the child learns how to socialize and interact with others. For children in Dallas-area neighborhoods, that process is made easier through the e$orts of Juega Conmigo.

Spanish for “play with me,” Juega Conmigo is a pro-gram created by the School of Behavioral and Brain Sci-ences Center for Children and Families that works with children from their birth to the age of three and their parents. It focuses on guided play sessions for the chil-dren where parents learn child-rearing skills and child development.

“We call it a playful learning class,” said Margaret Owen, director of the Center for Children and fami-lies. “!ere are routines. !ere’s knowledge about good parenting practices that are conveyed. !e children par-ticipate in activities that involve music and stories and physical activities along with peer interaction.”

Owen said that most programs that are somewhat equivalent involve dropping the children o$ and sepa-rating them from their parents, but Juega Conmigo aims to reach both children and parents simultaneously.

Juega Conmigo is also unique because it is bilingual, o$ered primarily in Spanish, allowing the program to cater to the many Spanish-speaking families in the me-troplex. Owen said that many of these families are iso-lated and that Juega Conmigo forms social support for them where they gain new friendships and knowledge about other resources for them in the community.

Juega Conmigo, which started in the Bachman Lake area in 2011, has recently expanded to Vickery Mead-

ow, Pleasant Grove and Plano, allowing the program to reach out to even more families.

“We went to Vickery Meadow and Pleasant Grove because community leaders came to our program, and they said we want to have this program in our com-munity,” said Adriana Villa Baird, program director for Juega Conmigo. “So we trained volunteers to take the program to those areas.”

Villa Baird, who has been working with children since she started an internship with the Red Cross in Columbia in 1997, said she has seen the way that pro-grams like Juega Conmigo change over time. She said in the past professionals would present themselves as the experts about children, whereas now the #eld is more about giving parents the knowledge to be the experts because they are the ones who ultimately spend more time with children.

Despite the program’s focus on Spanish-speaking families, it also is o$ered to English-speaking families as well. Child learning and development and psychology junior Diana Rodriguez, who works as a registrar for Juega Conmigo, said they also have several workers who do not speak Spanish.

“We have a couple of people that just speak English,” she said. “But we have this little cheat sheet with them and it’s sort of the very basic ‘Hi, how are you?’” So it’s pretty basic stu$, plus little extra things that we would use just within the program.”

Rodriguez, who wants to be a clinical worker, said her time with Juega Conmigo has helped her by showing the more serious sides of working with children.

“I’m learning a lot of body language because children don’t really talk, so you sort of have to engage in what they’re saying with their body,” she said. “You kind of

have to read what their body language is saying, because in (domestic violence) a lot of people aren’t going to say ‘Oh yeah, my husband hits me,’ they’re going be like ‘I’m #ne.’”

She said that part of the program focuses on a lon-gitudinal study that observes and records the children’s development in terms of speaking. One of its goals is to get the children to vocalize their needs rather than simply pointing at an object, she said.

Rodriguez said that Juega Conmigo also focuses on teaching the children the sign language symbol for “more.” She said that doing this allows them to another way to speci#cally communicate what they want.

She said gaining the trust of the parents was a chal-lenge for her at Juega Conmigo. Once the parents saw that she was genuinely there out of a interest in the children and wasn’t there just to use the program as a resume #ller, they started to open up to her.

Owen said another struggle for the program is rais-ing the funds to keep the program going since it’s pro-vided free of charge.

Another aspect that Juega Conmigo o$ers is a part-nership with Children’s Medical Center that allows pe-diatric residents to visit the parents and children. Owen said it works for both the parents and the residents.

“!e (pediatric residents) are getting experience in a good community program and lots of observational experience,” she said. “We think that the parents get a lot more comfortable with talking to medical providers when they see them there in their Juega Conmigo ex-perience. We really think it’s a really good foundational experience for these families, building upon the early origins of school readiness, which involves playful learn-ing supported by a supportive caregiver.”


ESTEBAN BUSTILLOSManaging Editor

DESIGN BY MIGUEL PEREZSTORY BY ANWESHA BHATTACHARJEE


While UTD is well-known for its established science and technology research, it’s in a little building across campus where The Institute for Urban Policy Research is an emerging force in investigating the economic distress around Dallas.

In 2009, The Dallas Morning News hired the Institute for Urban Policy Research, or IUPR, to survey five neighborhoods in South Dallas as a part of their series of articles about the economic disparity between North and South Dallas.

Now, IUPR is back in the field in order to follow up on their findings.

The Windshield Survey, named for the slow drive-bys done by interns gathering information through their car windshield, is a list of street codes that are assigned appropriately to every parcel of land in Pleasant Grove, Oak Cliff, Grand South Dallas, West Dallas and Red Bird communities.

A house that sits on a parcel of land is ranked from one to four by its cosmetic condition and other codes like barred windows or an unkempt lawn. The appearance of large grocery stores like Target or Walmart versus mini-marts and strip malls are also noted.

The survey is on track for completion by mid-August when the findings will be compiled, analyzed and compared to the previous Windshield Survey.

IUPR interns Sheila Dang and Ty Speights were assigned the task of driv-ing through these neighborhoods and attest to the necessity of economic investigations like these.

“[IUPR] was founded to do commu-nity research and a lot of their studies do reach out and get into the neighbor-hoods, so I think that type of outreach was what The Dallas Morning News was looking for,” Dang said.

The Windshield Survey’s most impor-tant effect is the verification of what Dallasites may already know; there are significant economic differences around

Dallas.“The Red Bird neighborhood was

probably the most developed out of the five, and the other four are pretty much on par with each other in terms of the deterioration of the houses,” Dang said.

Typical houses in these areas show signs of aging or neglect. Abandoned lots factor in negatively as well. Surrounding retail areas have less vari-ety in grocery stores and retail in gen-eral.

“Dallas is trying to improve the qual-ity of life for residents by giving them places where they can get groceries from instead of having to shop from a mini mart,” Speights said. “It’s so they can have a steady supply of good food so they don’t have to stock up on cheap junk food.”

While out in the field, the biggest challenge in taking data is the software used on a portable tablet to code par-

cels. On occasion, the software has a mind of its own, Speights said.

Another challenge is simply being able to judge parcels of land fairly.

“It is strange to look so objectively at the houses, even if you know someone is living there and even though the house may be looking really terrible sometimes, it’s hard to drive past and not think twice about labeling it as a two or a three,” Dang said.

As data is analyzed and under-stood by IUPR, there is hope that the Windshield Survey will reopen the conversation about the goals Dallas city leaders have for its struggling areas.

“If things are not changing, then what can we do to actually increase the economic development, because that’s the ultimate goal here, to decrease the economic disparity between Dallas as a whole,” Dang said. “And just from me looking, I can tell it has a long way to go.”

5THE MERCURY | AUG. 4, 2014 NEWSUTDMERCURY.COM

Results of a study focusing on the effects of marijuana use on the brain found that the areas of the brain that control memory and emotion also drive the reward net-work that triggers the intense de-sire to seek out the drug.

Dr. Francesca Filbey, associate professor and researcher at the Center for BrainHealth, took part in a $500,000 grant used to fund a consortium of four universities to study the effects of marijuana in dependent and non-dependent users.

“Marijuana has been around for a long time and it has been used for a variety of purposes, we actu-ally know very little about the long term effects on the brain,” Filbey said in an interview in May. “That is an important absence of infor-mation in the scientific literature that I thought was important to fill.”

Her study focused on users’ re-actions to paraphernalia. Subjects observed and touched cannabis-related cues such as a pipe used for smoking. At the same time, sub-jects were put through a brain scan while Filbey and her colleagues looked at how reward areas of the brain reacted.

Filbey said that one surprising outcome of the study was not find-ing any major differences in overall regional brain activity.

“While we expected that the network connectivity would dif-fer with severity, we predicted that some regional activation would also distinguish the two groups of users,” Filbey said.

However, while overall regions of the brain did not differentiate in activation, the network that con-nected these regions did vary.

Doctoral student and research

assistant Sam Dewitt works with Dr. Filbey at the Center for BrainHealth on various related projects.

He explained that the functional connectivity, or the network connect-ing the reward regions to the brain, was what differentiated those addict-ed to marijuana and those who aren’t.

“What we saw was a distinctly dif-ferent coherence of reward regions for our dependent users as compared to non-dependent users so the function-al connectivity for that hub of reward circuitry was distinctly different for dependent users than non-dependent users,” he said.

And while marijuana remains to be the most widely used illicit drug in the United States, according to a study by the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, it’s starting to be regulated and used recreationally in states such as Colorado and Washington, leaving more room for scientists to study the drug, its affects and dependence.

“It’s really useful for us as scientists in terms of putting together architec-ture of how the brain of a substance using individual is set up,” said De-witt.

He said that the purpose of Dr. Fil-bey’s research is to objectively look at the impact of marijuana on those ad-dicted to the substance.

“The goal of Dr. Filbey’s lab is not really to cast a light on cannabis as a whole one way or the other,” said Dewitt. “But we know that there is a subset of any population that struggle with substance abuse and we really want to identify the factors for the in-dividuals that struggle with substance abuse related to cannabis use, what is it that’s defining the problem for them.”

Filbey said in an interview for public radio that what’s next in her research is studying the long-term effects of marijuana, as well as the genetic and environmental factors such as stress on dependent and non-dependent users.


PABLO ARAUZMercury Sta!SARAH RACHEL LARSON

Mercury Sta!

Drive-by survey from the Institute of Urban Policy Research shows economic disparity between North, South Dallas neighborhoods

Drug study linksmemory to weed

Pinpointing Dallas poverty

ROMAN BOED | FLICKR

COURTESY | IFC FILMS

NICHOLAS ECKHART | FLICKR

AUG. 4, 2014 | THE MERCURY | UTDMERCURY.COM6 LIFE&ARTS

MALAYSIAN FLIGHT MH17 CRASHES

SEVEN NOTEWORTHY MOMENTS FROM SUMMER 2014

ISIS TERRORIZES THE MIDDLE EAST

WORLD CUP MADNESS

LIT WORLD LOSES THREE LEGENDS

‘BOYHOOD’ BREAKS BOUNDARIES

DEATH GRIPS DISBANDS

BURWELL V. HOBBY LOBBY

COURTESY | WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

CC MONTECRUZ PHOTO | FLICKR

On July 17, Malaysian Airlines ! ight MH17, ! ying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, was shot down over Ukrainian air space, killing 298 passengers and crew. As investigators and medical experts struggled to reach the crash site in pro-separatist eastern Ukraine, the Ukrainian government, pro-Russian separatists and Russian president Vladimir Putin denied having " red the surface-to-air missile that took down the plane. # e incident led to more " ghting between rebels and Ukrainian forces around the crash site, and international investigators " nally reached the site 13 days after the event. # e crash could have possibly knelled the death toll for Ukraine-Russian negotiations in the future. # e United States imposed more sanctions on Russia following the crash and is forcing the European Union into a corner over its stance on Russia. Russia, on the other hand, continues to exercise control over Crimea and east Ukraine, supporting pro-separatist rebels against Kiev, in an attempt to retain strategic control over the country and prevent it from joining NATO. — Anwesha Bhattacharjee

Many cases on the Supreme Court’s docket go overlooked, but every so often there is one that is so compelling it gets the whole nation in an uproar. SCOTUS’s 5-4 decision in favor of Hobby Lobby’s claim that a government mandate of for-pro" t corporations to cover contraception for female employees was against its religious beliefs was one of those cases. # ose on the right hailed the decision as the judicial branch curbing back the government’s power to require private citizens and businesses to partake in actions that potentially violate their religious beliefs, while people on the left lamented the thousands of female employees of Hobby Lobby that now lose coverage of a basic healthcare item. No matter what opinion anyone has on the case, it will surely be remembered as a landmark moment in the history of the Supreme Court. — Esteban Bustillos

In June 2014, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, an extremist wing of Al-Qaeda, took over several major Iraqi cities including Tikrit and Mosul and strategic crossings that connect Iraq with Jordan and Syria in a lightning takeover. # e group is persecuting Shia Muslims and minorities, forcing Christians to either convert to Islam, ! ee the country or pay a tax. ISIS’s takeover is a cause for worry because it now controls parts of Syria and large parts of Iraq, rede" ning borders of the Middle East as we know it in a country that has barely recovered from U.S. military opera-tions. — Anwesha Bhattacharjee

Saving sports fans from the usually slow sports-less summer, the 2014 World Cup was one for the ages. # is year’s Cup, hosted by " ve-time champ Brazil, featured some of the closest matches and most entertaining moments in tournament history. From Luis Suarez of Uruguay taking a chomp out of his opponent to U.S. keeper Tim Howard holding o$ a Belgian onslaught, there was not a moment to be missed. Ultimately won by Germany, who became the " rst European team to win the Cup in the Americas, in a tightly contested " nal against Argentina, this tournament had everything a sports fan could want. Underdogs like Costa Rica advanced deep into the brackets while classic giants of the game like England, Italy, Portugal and Spain all collapsed in the " rst round. # is was a World Cup that will surely be fondly remembered for years to come. — Esteban Bustillos

With Maya Angelou’s death in late May and Nadine Gordimer’s death later in July, the world suffered a huge loss in important literary icons. An incredibly multifaceted artist, An-gelou is most recognized for her 1969 autobiography “I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings.” Gordimer, a South African writer and Nobel laureate, was an active voice in understanding race and politics in her home country. Although his passing occurred early in April, Gabriel Garcia Marquez must also be mentioned. A pioneer of the magical realism literary style, the Colombian novelist won the Nobel Prize in 1982 and helped carve new paths for contemporary Latin American writers. Their combined voices helped shape not only modern literature but the world at large. — Miguel Perez

Even the making of this summer’s indie hit “Boyhood” deserves to be its own movie. Filmed by director Richard Linklater in a span of 12 years, “Boyhood” follows Ellar Coltrane as a six year old in the " rst grade to an 18-year-old college freshman in real time. In lesser hands, the real-time format might have been a silly gimmick. But Linklater’s humanistic approach and casual style empower the " lm. “Boyhood” isn’t driving toward a single dramatic set piece or moment. Rather, the issue at hand is life. Like life, transitions in time over years are barely felt, but audiences will be able to gleam them from subtle references to technology and pop culture. # e script is loosely based on the personal growth of the lead actor and has dialogue that is so authentic it may feel improvised at times. # ere are many human, relatable moments in the " lm like how sometimes the best advice we get is from the people we least expect. Linklater understands that people are ! awed and doesn’t judge them for it. — Shyam Vedantam

Formed in 2012, Death Grips has always been a band that thwarted conventional practices. Known for releasing albums for free at the behest of its label and recklessly abandoning scheduled concerts, the band has always done what it felt was best. With the unexpected release of the " rst half of its newest, and now " nal album, “# e Powers # at B: Niggas On # e Moon,” the band has reached its Mount Olympus. Every release before this has seemed to steadily build into the colossal wall of sound that is this album, instilling sensory overload into the listener. Björk has lent her voice on this album, yet, in typical Death Grips fashion, she is not adding any sorts of lyricism. Instead, her voice is used as an instrument, adding even more to the complexity and technicality of the project. # e band’s recent demise may have come as a shock to some, but as drummer Zack Hill stated in his handwritten explanation, “Death Grips was and always has been a conceptual art exhibition anchored by sound and vision.” In a world where artists are governed by an unwritten set of rules, Death Grips has proven that it is unnecessary. — Humza Khan

SUMMER WRAP-UPTHE MERCURY’S

01 02 0304

06 07

05

01

02

03

04

05

06

07

2014

COURTESY | WIKIMEDIA COMMONSNICHOLAS ECKHART | FLICKR

7THE MERCURY | AUG. 4, 2014 LIFE&ARTSUTDMERCURY.COM

New professor brings experience, stories of disease outbreaks during her time with Center for Disease Control


ESTEBAN BUSTILLOSManaging Editor

Anime aficionados, professors to speak at Forth Worth film series focused on Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki



MIYAZAKI 101

The recent outbreak of Ebola in West Africa has caused quite a stir in the international media. The case of American Kent Brantly, who caught the disease while trying to treat its victims in Liberia, has captured national atten-tion. Fortunately for residents of North Texas, a scientist who specializes in these types of con-tagions is coming to campus.

Seema Yasmin was hired in May as a pro-fessor in practice. She brings with her an impressive resume in the fields of health and medicine. After studying medicine and surgery at Cambridge University, Yasmin served as an epidemic intelligence service officer for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC, where she investigated disease outbreaks.

“It was a very exciting job,” she said. “From day to day, you didn’t know what outbreak was going to happen. You’d pick up the phone and somebody would say ‘We need assistance, can you come help?’”

Yasmin said that her role at the CDC involved a lot of detective work because officers would have to use displayed symptoms to uncover the outbreak.

While at the CDC, she worked on several noteworthy cases, including an outbreak of bot-ulism in an Arizona maximum-security prison that was causing inmates to acquire paralysis.

“We’d go in and say, ‘We need to do a sci-entific study that has enough power to provide results that are meaningful; that means we need to interview 200 max-security inmates,’ and the warden of the prison will just look at you and laugh,” she said. “We needed privacy so the inmate wasn’t affected by having the cor-rectional officers nearby. We wanted to be in a room with them, we had to be behind glass, so that was challenging in that regard.”

Yasmin said that case was particularly diffi-cult due to the distrust that inmates in a federal prison had of employees of a federal agency.

Another outbreak she worked on involved an outbreak of Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever

among Native Americans. She recalled children dying from the disease that could have been saved by a simple antibiotic.

It was this sort of experience, seeing people suffer unnecessarily, that encouraged her to go into the field of public health in the first place. The daughter of an AIDS activist, Yasmin was outraged by the fact that people with HIV had such a stigma surrounding them. She became a

treatment advocate for young people living with HIV, where she learned about the social aspects of illness and disease.

“I met a young man as a teenager in (England) who passed away last year,” Yasmin said. “He was only 25 or 26, and he passed away in London when we have a fantastic, free health care system in England. Nobody should get sick from HIV, let alone die from an AIDS-related

illness, but it turned out that he hadn’t been taking his medications, again because there was some level of denial about having the illness and there’s so much stigma.”

After completing medical school, she started doing clinical work in London. There she saw some patients going through what she described as a “revolving door”: patients would come in from something like massive liver failure due to alcoholism one week and then show up again after they had already been treated for problem.

This is where she became interested in the idea of population-level health and preventa-tive medicine, taking a step back to see how the medical system can prevent the patient from succumbing to alcoholism in the first place, for example.

“My interest in public health really started when I became frustrated with clinical medi-cine, but my aim is to bring public health to life for the students at UTD - to show them how interesting and how broad it is,” she said. “Public health is everything from outbreaks of infectious disease to mental health to gun vio-lence, so I really just hope to make them aware of what public health is.”

Yasmin will also be working as a staff writer for The Dallas Morning News. She has already written several stories for the paper and has been featured as a guest on KERA, as well as on KXAS-TV describing why doctors chase outbreaks like Ebola.

Yasmin said she came about the field of jour-nalism after her time at the CDC was finished.

“The maximum amount of time you can be in the epidemic intelligence service is two years,” she said. “As that came to an end, I thought ‘What can I do that’s going to be half as inter-esting as this?’ I thought ‘If I can’t be a disease detective, what about teaching or reporting those stories and telling those stories?’”

Yasmin, who completed work as a global journalism fellow at the University of Toronto, said working with government as an outsider has presented a significant challenge. Her first

! SEE DISEASE, PAGE 9

Acclaimed animator Hayao Miyazaki’s films will be the star attraction at Fort Worth’s Modern Art Museum, and two faculty members will lead discussions around the Japanese artist’s most-recognized characters and stories as part of the film series.

Although Marc Hairston is a research scien-tist for the William B. Hanson Center for Space Sciences, his fascination with anime has made him somewhat of a specialist on the subject.

He first discovered Japanese animation back in the early ‘90s.

“I was aware of it, but it just wasn’t available in the U.S. before that time,” Hairston said. “What little stuff was brought over commer-cially were things like ‘Astro Boy’, ‘Eightman’ and ‘Battle of the Planets.’”

Hairston met Pamela Gossin, a humanities professor focusing on the relationship between literature and science, in 1998 and suggested she use Miyazaki’s films in her classes.

Gossin was teaching a course on the “nature of nature” and Hairston sat in. He thought her cur-riculum could benefit from the messages in Miyazaki’s “Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind,” which involves a young woman fighting to find balance between the manmade and natural world.

They have been teaching courses focusing on Miyazaki’s work, anime, science fiction and fantasy on and off ever since.

Gossin describes the two professors’ seemingly opposing fields as a surprisingly complementary pair-ing. Hairston focuses on the technological details and minutia of the animes, while Gossin focuses on the themes and visual motifs.

“Students get a full spectrum of approaches to the material, from uber-geek on the science side to uber-geek on the lit side,” she said. “I think students actually

appreciate that because then they see Marc and me interact and say, ‘Hey, a lit prof can actually speak to a scientist and vice versa.’ I think that ends up being the most powerful message beyond any specific thing we might say about a film.”

Miyazaki’s films have been gaining more and more attention from the U.S. public over the

years, and he is arguably the most recognizable Japanese animator.

The phenomenon is helped due in part to excellent marketing, Hairston explains.

“In Japan, he’s a household name, but he was some-what of an unknown when Disney bought the rights to bring his films to the United States,” he said. “They

were actually frustrated because they wanted the video rights to family-friendly films like ‘Totoro’ and ‘Kiki’s Delivery Service,’ too.”

The first film that Miyazaki brought to the

! SEE MIYAZAKI, PAGE 9

8 THE MERCURY | AUG. 4, 2013 DEAN’S LIST UTDMERCURY.COM

School of Arts & Humanities

Negeen AghassibakeSara Jawaid AhmadKiratiben Dilip AminJoseph Edward AnthonyVictoria ArandaBrianna C. BartholomewAlexander Lee BeanKarri Bertrand BoltonSara Allena BolingJessica Kay BowersStephanie Ann BrisendineAllison Virginia BurchRocquel Dijon CarpenterCamellia ChanSamuel Joseph CollinsBrennan Ernest CrawfordCaroline Rose CurleyAshley Marie DangCaryn Nicole DimarcoRobert Townlin DubeDaniel Craig DunhamEfrain Daniel EsparzaValentina FilicAmanda Michelle FisherYifan GanShanee Crystal GbelawoeYajaira GonzalezMacy Taylor HarrisonSean Michael JohnsonSabrina Maurine JordanMadeline Marie LindellLuan !e MaiVictoria Louise May"eldMelanie Cathryne McAllasterKatelyn Danielle McWilliamsMolly Lathitham MeyerSophia MiaoAllison Anne MillerBelinda Tim-Mun MokNehal Osama MubarakStephanie Anne MyersAshley Anne Nor#eetMichael Steven PayteCathryn Alicia PloehnMitchell Curtis PricerJennifer Christine QuirosCaleb Ryan ReidlingerMarcela ReyesAlexander Benton RodgersSpencer Matthew SchaeferSarah Ann SimesMatthew William SmithConnor Wade SpencerCheyenne Louzelle SullivanColin Lee !amesDi !eisKyle Andrew TrostZachary M. Van DuyneAndrew Scott WardGisselle Gabrielle HooverKathleen Grace AlvaBenjamin Edward BakerAdam Matthew DaytonSamiha Safa KhanJennifer Alexa MoravitsStephanie Michelle SwainAri Benjamin CohnSara Nicole MelnickLindsey Kay WardNealie Love BagbiMichael Alexander BazarSean Hamilton FaganZachary Joseph FreemanAmanda Shea Hu$Melody Alexis JacksonSydney Blair JordanJaveria KhanGenevieve !uymai KhuongCarrie Elizabeth LackeySean Paul LenoxSamia NasirAnjuli Sulochana SethiMacy Ayn SheehanJoshua Ryan StewardMichael Stephen CohenZachary McCarron ArmstrongJordan Anthony ArriazolaNicholas Philip BenkeScott Daniel BennettSarah Elizabeth CallawayEdward Young ChoiLaura Alejandra CitalanNatalie CookSean Basler CraigenEmily DuvallChloe Ann FerrisChristopher Joseph GomezRobert John HauptNatalie Corinne HillCatherine Lee JohnstonJohn Gabriel KingAishah KuzuRachel L. LutzMichael Louis MiralesSo"a Edith Ocampo LonngiNam Phuong Nguyen PhamJohnathan Kalvin SambilayNicole SandovalTakaki ShingakiAllison Anne-Marie Sparks

School of Behavioral & Brain Sciences

Jenna Abrenica AbanteCaroline Michelle AbeAlia Al-NajjarNilam Nizar AliJynelle Mari Guerrero ArchesMelanie Victoria BayatCristina BenezraKaren Elizabeth BeserraAmanda Kay BierschenkAlisa Yuriivna BovdaCrystal Grace BuchananRoger Duyhoang BuiAlissa Marie BurchMadison Steele BurgeIan Luke CampbellFlavia Veras Sodre CavalcantiCory Rachael ChandlerConnie Li ChengDerek Chee-Hong ChengKathleen Michelle ChildsAproteem ChoudhuryAllison Elizabeth CunninghamTina Nghi DamKaryna Raychelle DangNicolette Cattuong Doan

Micah !omas EasterlingJulia Michelle EvansShawheen FaghihahmadabadiKate Elizabeth FlanaganJennifer Ann GallardoDante Michael GallucciDaniel R. GuestCiara Jordan GuilhasNatasha Bhushan GuptaBrittney Ann HamiltonSara Hassan YoussefAshlie Nicole HawckBrooke L. HinsonMarie Stephanie HocsonSavannah Heather HoltcampSyeda Tehniat HussainiAlexzandrea Elexus JonesBryan Edwin JonesLauren Elizabeth JonesAnila JosephSandra Sharon JoshuaVictoria Diamante JuarezShrinath KadamangudiPranali Sandip KamatLu-Yi KangAmanda Megan KarasicAva KarimiCassandra Natalie KarlDanae Elizabeth KershAisha Sarwar KhanKayla Marie KleinBraden !omas KnightRedeate Mekonen LakewAmanda Noelle LancasterVirginia Elizabeth LandJessica Briana LawsonCalvin LeTran Bao LeNancy Deann LewisEsther Wing-Yan LiCynthia Shuang LiangMirna Jazmin LuceroGurbani Kaur MakkarPriya Mary MathewStephanie MatijevicPatrick Joseph McCarthyMatthew !omas McClureHayley Diane McMillanHaley Kuehn MinorMuhammad Abdullah MuradGeethika NandamAshley Elias NeduvelilAimi Olivia NguyenPaul Jeremy Nguyen-LeeEmily Joan NiewiarowskiDonna Sara NoorbakhshIbrahim NoorbhaiJanki PatelKarina Mariel PerezAarti PrasadIvan Ashiqur RahmanYvonne K. RalphAnna-Maria ReiterAdriana Geibel RibeiroTammy J. RidenourMaddison Brooke RobertsLeonardo RojasAshley Joy RuikkaRyan James RussellAradhana SahooStanley M. SajuChristi Rene SchaeferKeri Le SchoenemannKelsey Nicole SchreiberJoy Ann ScottJonathon Robert ShasteenJessica Marie ShotlandLaurie Michelle SmithAlwin SomasundaramBruna De Melo TavaresCindy Chilin TiuFurkan Gorkem TorlakRebecca Jayne TownsendDiem-Nhi Ngoc TranLisa Van TranCaroline Nicole TrentTammy Hoai TrinhZubeda Musa VarwaniShyam Chinmay VedantamDavid Prem VenincasaLynn Hoang VuCourtney Samantha WayneTravis Paul WeaverLauren Patricia WeittenhillerSelena Chao Shing YangJoseph Omar YounisChristopher YueHelena ZhangHarjeen Zibari

Erik Jonsson School of Engineering & Computer

ScienceBistees Adel AbdelmalakRahat Arman AhmedTaha Ahmed AkhawalaMuhammad Nabeel AkramDavid Paul AllenShaurya AroraSalmanTariq AusafRa" Al AyubChristie Elaine BakerJonathan Paul BakkerErick BarriosDavid Allen BeardSamin BoharaJonathan Anthony BucioAndrew P. BugnoMaria Angelica Burbano SalazarBenjamin Vu CaoRidhima ChadhaJonathan Ashish ChariJaejin ChoTravis Wah ChunTimothy Curtis CoganMatthew David ColeyGerard Le CopelandAyari Lissett CruzRushi Sunil DalalMary Elizabeth DerryberryEric Robert DilmoreNam Viet Dinh!omas Scott DrablosDillon Ryan DrobenaRyan Benson DuanTristan George DuckworthHazen EckertJesus A. EspinozaParker Hudson FranklinTej Prakash Gidvani

Tej Prakash GidvaniBenjamin John GravellTyler Dean GrayWilliam Carson HamerAmber Moon HasanOmar Andrew HasanTimothy Samuel HoColin Alexander HoweAnastasia Jean HudmanMoses Junior IkeScott Anthony JonesDeepu Joseph JoseDominic JosephSajith JosephMeagan Victoria KelsoMohammad U. KhanHyoungil KimJinhong KimBrandi James KirkpatrickSamuel Allen KonstantyMikaela Christal KrottnerRajesh KuniBradford James KupkaMichael Anson LauGrant Sidney LedfordJihwan LeeJu Heon LeeAriane Tremblay LemieuxZackary Ryan LindstromKenneth Alan LivingstonYiding LuoRyan Joseph MarcotteSavannah Irina MarsMelanie Elizabeth MaurerCharmara Jeanine MaysHailey Jean McCurryJoseph Richard McFarlandJason !omas McKenzieGeovanni MendezVerneil Mesecher MesecherTrevor Kyle MorganJoey Salim NahlousErick Zadiel NarvaezVivien Hong NgoHoang Huy NguyenJacinth R NguyenSamuel Alexander NinDaniel Robert NoelBrendon Chase O’Connor- LynchJoshua Allen OlsonMarco Antonio OrdonezDongmin PakKwanwoo ParkApurva Pramodkumar PatelRaj Prakash PatelSanya PeshwaniTuan AnhPhamLan !i Minh QuachEdward Neil QuinnBenjamin Daniel ReedTanner Kevin RideoutMaribeth Joy RuddellCamron Matthew SalisburyAnuvrat SaxenaBrian Andrew SchiebKara Elizabeth SchraderJose Luis SerranoZain Ahmed Shari$Shiva SharmaHans Alexander ShinnDanyal Alam SiddiquiNazeera Aisha SiddiquiAlec Leo SpinhirneShane Joshua St. LucePaul Christopher StaggsCody James Stan"eldAdam Robert SteinerBrian Andrew SturmDavid Scott SwedbergScott Michael TatStuart Jameson TaylorMatthew Joshua TijerinaKenny TranSatsuki Luke UenoAndrew Triana VaccaroKyle Michael WalshJiayang WangKyle Eugene WebsterWalter Evan WedgeworthZackary Ryan WegerAndrew Ran WeiJames Ford WilliamsJoshua Lee-Hsien WyllieJunjie XuShahrukh ZindaniSamantha Helen HartkePhuong Ai DiepMason Reece LeachAaron Damien AndersonSanyukta BihariLucas Kai-Hsiang ChurBrandon Hoangnam BuiJason Marvin ChangMaria Emily Mattso ArnaizJonathon Perry BaroneTristan Fun!anh Trieu TruongMargaret Elise BullockJoshua Michael CarppRyan Charles KaoDaniel Boxuan LiBilal Syed QuadriCameron Ryan AlbertsAmin Shoukat ArabGaurav BathijaChi-Kan CheungMark Wayne DitsworthTyler Craig HagenWilliam James HesterSihui HuangShail KariaMarshall Dean McCrackenAlexis MorenoShelbi Nicole ParkerRaman SathiapalanCorrin Nicole !ompsonCharles Isaiah VandergriftJacqueline WongAaron Jan CuaGarrett Allen GreenwoodLalu Vazhuthanapp JohnKanami MaedaMichael Daniel MugglerSon Anh PhamSergiy Mykhaylovich RozhdestvenskyyMiguel Angel SantillanIsabelle Annemarie SmithBrandon Sean Stevens

Luke Jacob SzymanskiNeil Ryan VanmiddendorpBontavy VorngDavid Stanley KinnamonChristine Maily MaWilliam M. McKinneyZachary !omas RichiedJosh M. AbrahamWilliam Gray BushMark Harrison DwightOkebaram I. EkwuribeMarina Adel GeorgeMichael Edward GomezJe$rey Allen HertzingPeter Wahba MickaelSalvador MorenoJonghan ParkJuan Robert ReynaJoshua George !omasAndrew Joseph Wells

School of Economic, Political & Policy

SciencesJason AbidiImaan AdilNathan Edward AgnewWiam Kacem AyachiMelissa Marie BakerMittan BarzaniLachu M. BastolaFranco Luciano Bria-MassaroDaniel Chris BrownBrian Anthony CervenkaBlake Aaron CohorstTravis David CorneliusDenise Maria CortezRyan Anthony DormanChristopher Allen DuboisBlake Jackson EatonRachel Katherine FickePaul GentryMatthew Johann GessnerJose Valentin GonzalezHena Syeda Ha"zullahWaqas Zia HaqueLaura Lynn HazeldineHannah Nicole HubbardKyle Andrew JohnsonRachel Mariah KailKyler Nicole KellyMariam Mehar KhanJoseph E. KlineCurtlyn Charlene KramerMohammad Khurram KureishyTanner Michael LandryJacob James LoehrColton James LutterlohAlexie Chopin McCauleySean Michael McEvoyKamron MoghtaderYehia MokhtarDalton Ray MottTraci Renee MurdockAnh Nhat NguyenPaul Ifechukwude OsadebeElizabeth Garrison PeterkortColin Joseph PhillipsRohit PrasadSergio Alan ReyesMichael Kyle ReynoldsAlessandra Veronica RichterJoshua RiddellRaily Valentina Rincon VillalobosJosette Catherine RophaelCory K. SagduyuRahela Alam SamiSteve ShenMahtab SobhaniHope Lynn Ste$ensenBeverly S. TalleyJamison Louise Tolbert!eodore John TorresOanh Xuan TranPhuong !i TranCynthia M. TuskoChristine Joy VargheseAura Lilian VasquezRyan Edward WannerLewis Richard WarneDavid Marijan WatsonNathan Yee

School of Interdisciplinary Studies

Dana AborahmaMelissa Paige ArmandSamantha Jane BoydGordon Gregory ByerlyRebecca Lynn ChrastaKayla Marie CoxDakota Lynn DavisZachary Jacob DezeeuwNicole Dinkuhn GaydishBrittaney Je’Na HarrisMubeen V. HeatonJohn Min HouckAustin Lee JentzAmy Nicole JowersKathryn Ann KaminskyAmeen Ahmed KhanTri Van LeMichael Minchiou LiCarlye Jamil MingsPreston Weisheng OoiTi$any Nicole TallieChristine Ti$any TranShelley Nicole WeidenbruchLauren Allexis WilsonAlicia Ann Wood"nKaran Vir GoenkaSai Pranathi BaddipudiAysha Nadeem IqbalAseel Ali DweikKlleodora Shaban BrahimajChelsea Marie CockrumJe$rey Charles HerpersAria MansooriKaitlin Elizabeth ChapmanDustin Michael Flynn!ach Ngoc NgoSophia Le TranTina Harvey DavisShogufa Kamin

Naveen Jindal School of Management

Maria Ana Laura Acosta

Jay Kumar AgrawalRobin Ghzbani AhmadiIqra AliAlexander Mark AlperovichVictoria Kay AlperovichNeaz Are"nMuhammad AsadHardeek Ambalal BarotSharon Hope BenedictoMelissa BerasaluceArindam BhattacharyaNaureen Ashiqali BhojaniZahra Ashiqali BhojaniVishavjyot BhullarKaran BindraStephanie Alexis BlitshteinMarie Mae BraswellMeagan Nicole BrooksGarrett Joseph BrownTed William BuerkleVan T. BuiEdward CaoJohn ChangChristopher ChenJasmine Marie ChippsSohyun ChoHee-Seon ChoiSun Young ChoiChristopher Lee ClarkAlissa Brooke CoursonHannah Gayle CreechFaith Julia CrockettEli M. CummingsNaomi DamatoAndi DedjaMeghan Anna Del CastilloMatthew Anthony DerobertisSabrina Kaur DhesiRocio Leslie DiazGinger Rose DoggettAmy Elizabeth DollinEngo MputuZachary Michael EvansAshek FaizullahAli Reza FarzadpourCaroline Frances FergusonTyler Logan FishbeckKristy Lynn Forstho$Erin Melissa FrancMaria Faye R. FranciscoHilda Lizbeth GarciaReiniel Joshua T. GarciaAlec Spencer GetzFabiola Amparo GodoyNitza GomezAmanda Carolyn GuajardoPhuc Tien HaSeth Michael HaleAllison Marie HallasNathan !omas HawksFrancisco HerreraTucker Alexander HessLeng HouthLyndsey Lace IbarraRavi Teja JagabattuniTasnem JahangirAfrah Tafsir JilaniStanley G. JosephPuja Jatin KalyaniIan Taylor KannadyMia Sue KhedairyEunjin Andrea KimJennifer Rachelle KlingArchit KshetrapalEsther Ning KuoEdward Yu-Ju LaiSara LavingiaY Quang LeSusan Jennifer LedbetterJeremy Yuuji LiuMatthew Yoshiaki LiuBianca Alessandra LoftonHuanyu LuHolli Mae LuegKayla Valentina MaaraouiMajennine Baltazar ManinangSirigarn ManitaseJamel Hakam ManounLorenz Arnold MarshShelby Elizabeth McCoyMariah Alexandrea McHenryHunter Austin McWinnAndrew MezheritskiyAlexey A. MikheevBilal Ahmed MoonRandy Amos MoserSpandana S. MudhaliarMulhum Zayd NajjarTriza Njoki NgangaNgoc Hong NguyenTrang Van NguyenTriet NguyenTanner Lee NovakAdam Zachary Nu$erHei Rin OhHee Myoung ParkRahilkumar PatelKatie K. PayneKayla Michelle PeleNga !anh PhamJohn Charles PhelanDiana Carolina PinzonYuan QinNidia Quezada!omas Ahmad RahimiArmin RahmaniUriel RamirezRebecca Ann Raymond!omas ReschMatthew William ReynoldsJessie Lynn RichardsonRonald Troy RobinsonSu Jin RyeElicia Marie SalinasDavid SantiagoRichard Alan SchmidtSaurav SenguptaTanvi Ketan ShahJieyu ShenAmit Janardan ShirsatShawn P. ShuklaErnest Joon Soo SliterErin Patricia SmithElizabeth Ann SohnsJakeb Timothy SpearsMichael Andrew StemkeKristi Marie StilesLaura Patricia SuCasey Lynn SublettDevina Widjaja Sutiono

William TangBrian Elliott Ti$eeDuy Le TranMichael Chi TranNghia Quang TranStephanie Lan TranTue Minh TranHuy Xuan TrinhKyle Blaine TurnerOrukeme UkiriMarya Ishaq UnwalaJonny Alexander VillatoroAmy !y VoCaleb Walter WardBrittany D. WintersMichael C. WuJune-Shim Joshua YuekAlice Wenyi ZhengAzin ZomorodianKaren Ann HanschkeMeng Ting QiuAnirudhaa Rao RaviLaura Leigh GrahamTrang !u HoangJacqueline Michelle AbudaTamara Ivana DjakovicMario Antonio HernandezHae Min LeeAmber Akbar MawjiDouglas OlaughlinYohanjohn ParkGuillermo RomoShea Rene Van SchuyverZaynah Azeem ZafarBaseet AzamElizabeth Ann CechanRegina ChowdhuryNga !i DangGraham Taylor DavisTrevor Layne DeupreeMohamed Hussein Dewji!ao Phuong DuongTyler Rolf ErnstKatherine Michelle FarrisPaul J. GlazikYongzhu KuangSiriwun ManitaseTaylor Scott McClureAndrew Mark MilewskiDiem !ai Ngoc NguyenPhuong Linh NguyenYeong Bin ParkVictoria Briana PuckettScott Tyler RyanRachel Lara ShallowTarnbir SinghAbdullah TanveerSiddarth VyasYifei WangChelsea Elizabeth WolfeDillon James YoungSumenri TranAssima B. AbdrakhmanovaEyad AlmasriJanet AlvaradoBryan Keith BjerkeShanna CuiRaphael P. DelvauxImelda GarciaBassel Husam MahdawiEryn Christine YoungAysha KhanJenson M. AbrahamAsad AslamJohn BaoAlexander Mark BowenRichard James BrevigNemorio CarbajalOlga Sergeyevna DoroshenkoDavid Wayne DowdleJustin Levon DuJeremy Justin EnglishSmita Lakshmi GangaMatthew James GonzalesSyeda Nahreen HaqPaulette JonesZohaib Ahmed MohdTyler Blake OrtegaBaldeep Kaur PanesarBrandon Michael RohlfJoshua Lee RuizDaisy SanchezJessica Nicole VillarrealAnh !i Van VuDohhoon YoonJessica Marie Zamudio

School of Natural Sciences &

MathematicsNigel Dennis AbrahamPhebe Ann AbrahamJustin Charles AdlerAlisha AggarwalVedika Subodh AgrawalSara Walid Al DogomRanna Ghannam Al-DossariSwathi Uthra AriyapadiLinda AsiamahRaheel Saeed AtaAndrew David BaerReyhaneh BagheriAida BasiratAllison M. BeltroneDene Momtaz BetzRajvi Prashant BhagatSreenand BodduEmerson Ailidh BoggsKatherine Elizabeth BornerLaura Hart BretSuna Noora BurghulAlexander Joshua BurnsJoseph Ocampo CaguioaBrittney Elaine CampbellBenjamin Allan CashenJanine Rochelle CastroAngela ChandyNeil Chandrabhan ChevliPunya ChittajalluManeera Tosha ChopraBrent ClandJonathan Hall CohnChristopher Ryan CormierJianqi Wendy CuiOscar Quang-Vinh DaoAnanya DasPooja DasariChristina Nicole DavisDaniel De Los SantosJennifer Bao-Vy Dinh

Kayleigh Marie DonnellyLauren Moses DunnAnne Anhthu DuongAlexander Joseph EddyYasmin Aly El-HagMohammad M. FaisalBenjamin Mark GardnerBethany Renee GeerRohit GeorgeSanjeeth Shibu GeorgeMatthew James GillingsEvan James GordonJohn Sharbil HamatiKareem Fawzan HamdanMatthew Alan HendersonHayden M. HigginsAndrew HoEvi Xuan HoConrad William HoltCindy Pei HuaDerick Sean HunterAlexander Pham HuynhFarid IghanihosseinabadAarzu Jawaid IsaMeera Farzana IyengarMohammad JahangiriKanwal Kamran JauraAndrew Jason JohnAlysha S. JosephMahdi Mannan KaheriRohan Bhalchandra KanadePradyotha KanchustambhamVivek KantamaniKara J. KasseesColton Reese KayfusKarina Alexandra KinghornAtef KokashRohan George KulangaraLinh !anh LeRoxanne R. LeeJoseph Seunghyun LimKeith Eric LiuJames Norman LopezAli Mohamed MahmoudMeisam MahmoudiSonakshi ManjunathParker Matsuo McDillConor Francis McGrathVidya MenonAndrew Daniel MerrillLizaveta S. MiadzvedskayaMadeeha Aslam-Syeda MianJustin Todd MillerKinsey Nicole MillerJonathan !omas MinnigHusain M. MogriLauren Nicole MooreBradley Keck MorenoTravis MorrisonMinh-Phong Andrew NgoChristopher M. NguyenNancy Naruemon NguyenNgan N. NguyenShannon Vi NguyenTaylor My Hang Nguyen!ong Quang NguyenAlexander Seung-Hwan OhZane Tyler OldsRashmi Machendranat PalankarVincent PanAakash Minesh PatelAkash Bharat PatelBadar PatelTarak Piyush PatelEmily Marie PetermanVi Hung PhamStephanie Kristin PowdarGrishma PradhanDorinda QuarshieAnandini Sunil RaoJonathan Eric ReederAlexander Herbert RileyRebecca Corrine RoblesAllison Taylor RoderickSean RomitoEli Andres SanchezDaniel Arminius SattelbergerWilliam Tyler ScottRobert SecheliSagar Shailesh ShahSidra Rehan ShahKhamis Abdelkader ShalabiMohammad ShalabiJustine Chao-Ting SheuBradley A. SprengerWhitney Leigh StuardShan SuRyan Temal SurujdinShinyi TanAli Shah TejaniAndrew Clark !omsonRobert James !omsonAdrian Laurence !orntonJustin Andrew TranKha Andy Minh TranVictoria Mai-Tram TranCristian Trejo!omas James TrompeterNatasha Anne VarugheseYarlini VipulanandanNhu !inh !i VoKevin Quochuy VuCourtney Barbara WaltonKatie E. WardJackie Christopher WebbArden Alana WellsMatthew Alan WilliamsKimberly WongFlora YanMatthew Chiasheng YangShangyuan YeAhana Gopal YogeshGreg W. ZhangHaris Vakil

UndeclaredAvantika BanerjeeNourhan Amin ElgendyAyesha FarooquiKaylee Ann V. GrossRobert Elliott HallKia Corey KhademAdam MendoncaMonica Lauren MoleresTrent August SmallEvan Robert !rockmortonNathalie UongGuowen LuoIan CampoAmy Lin Kronschnabel

DEAN’S LIST The Dean’s List contains the names of students who completed at least 12 credit hours during Spring 2014 with a grade-point average among the top 10 percent of all students within their respective schools. The students are listed below in accordance with student privacy requests under the Family Educational

Rights and Privacy Act.

9THE MERCURY | AUG. 4, 2014 LIFE&ARTSUTDMERCURY.COM

Star performance keeps James Brown biopic afloat

James Brown, the godfather of soul, gets the biopic treatment in “Get On Up.” It won’t disappoint.

The film goes against the clas-sic biopic structure by hopscotching around Brown’s life. For example, the film opens with five minutes of a drug-addled Brown wildly wielding a shotgun during an insurance seminar, upset because someone used his pri-vate bathroom. Then, the film jumps to Brown as a nine-year-old child in Georgia, playing tag with his mother. Each of these sequences is labeled with a date and nickname Brown was given or chose himself (ex. Little Junior, Mr. Dynamite, The Hardest Working Man in Show Business, etc.). This cross cutting lets audiences avoid the scenes we’ve seen a dozen times over. How-ever, the execution isn’t perfect, and the timeline can get confusing.

Yet, the performances here manage to keep this film together. Namely, Boseman as Brown is incredible. The cockiness, magnetism, raspy voice, an-imalistic screams and relentless energy are all present. There’s a great scene in which Brown harshly instructs his band to play music like every instru-ment is a drum and with no need for

a time signature. He’s a maniacal but genius boss, so they reluctantly fol-low him and create the music we still recognize to this day. The underrated Boseman is most famous from his role as Jackie Robinson in last year’s biopic “42.” This role is an interesting con-trast to that one. While Robinson was forced to bottle up his anger, James Brown was the exact opposite. He was black and proud in a world that wasn’t ready to accept black performers.

The film also showcases many of Brown’s performances on stage. The music is from Brown’s vinyl but the moves that inspired Mick Jagger (who is a producer on this film) and Michael Jackson are all Boseman here.

The supporting cast, which is almost entirely African American, doesn’t drop the ball either. Although they got top billing for this film, Octavia Spen-cer and Viola Davis are barely in the film. They each leave an imprint on the movie though, and James Brown for that matter, as the two mother fig-ures in his life. Nelsan Ellis grounds “Get on Up” with a warm performance as Bobby Bird, the supporting charac-ter and friend in Brown’s life. Brandon Smith also gives a flashy and memo-rable performance as Little Richard.

Director Tate Taylor is most known for 2011’s “The Help.” That movie weakly and artificially portrayed rac-ism in the South with white bigotry portrayed as caricature. Some of that is still present here, with a less-than-stellar cameo from the almost always great Allison Janney.

Yet, there’s improvement shown in “Get On Up,” and it could be due to

the script by Jez and John-Henry But-terworth. A powerful moment arises when a young Brown picks shoes off of an African-American hanging from a tree. Brown is so dirt poor that these two-tone shoes are his first pair. This film doesn’t deify Brown like most mediocre biopics do. Brown was char-ismatic, but he also was a womanizer and fickle with his money. Further-more, the context of Brown’s life is

present. Famous moments like his up-staging of the Rolling Stones on “The T.A.M.I. Show” and his quelling of an African-American crowd in Boston af-ter the murder of Martin Luther King Jr. are included.

Fans of James Brown will find a lot to like here. Others might be less en-thralled. The lack of dramatic tension makes the film feel long. The jumping around in the timeline allows the film

to escape many biopic pitfalls, but Taylor forgets to include a through line to bind the movie together. The film has an uneven tone, yet the per-formances hold it together. “Get on Up” is an eclectic mess at times, but Boseman as Brown will be one of the year’s best performances, and it’s not to be missed.

SHYAMVEDANTAM COMMENTARY

! MIYAZAKICONTINUED FROM PAGE 7

Concert Under the Stars

W

orld

Cup Final Watch Party

CONNIE CHENG | PHOTO EDITOR ANDREW GALLEGOS | STAFF ANDREW GALLEGOS | STAFF

A N

ight

at t

he Art Barn

July 11 July 13

July Recap

July 20

! DISEASECONTINUED FROM PAGE 7

COURTESY | UNIVERSAL PICTURES

Chadwick Boseman delivers in his performance as James Brown in “Get on Up.” Named a!er the Brown song of the same name, the film explores the highs and lows of the star’s o!en wild and unpredictable career as a soul musician.

United States when Disney bought the rights was “Princess Mononoke,” and they bought the film sight unseen believing they could handle another simple princess movie.

It wasn’t until Disney executives saw the trailer complete with samurais and sword fighting that they realized this wasn’t the usual American cartoon.

Hairston said it was a real problem for Disney to market it at first because it was simply so different. Miyazaki is popular in Japan because its fantastical elements attract children and adults alike.

It wasn’t until Spirited Away won the Academy Award that the floodgates opened

and Miyazaki’s backlog became popular in the United States.

What makes his films unique is their complicated nature, Gossin said.

“You can’t immediately divide the world into good and evil,” she said. “You can’t predict very well where the plot is going. (Viewers) have to pay attention to nuances within every individual character.”

Hairston agrees.“One of my favorite stories is of a friend

of mine who showed (Princess Mononoke) to her father when it came out on video and they were about halfway through it when he turned to her and said, ‘I give up. Whose side am I supposed to be on?’”

The depth of Miyazaki’s films allows the two professors to create vivid discussions on science, the human condition and the

natural world. During her short introduction for

“Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind” at the Modern, Gossin plans on talking about Miyazaki’s concerns for the envi-ronment.

“One of the biggest things people notice is a deeply-seeded eco-philosophy,” Gossin said. “He is trying to get people to understand that we’ve had a long history of exploiting natural resources, and that we may be at an endgame.”

The Modern will be playing many of Miyazaki’s classic films, including “Spirited Away” and “My Neighbor Totoro” on select dates from August 2 to August 23. Gossin and Hairston will help introduce each of the films.

story for The Dallas Morning News was about the impact on public health children crossing the border unaccom-panied brings. She said tight-lipped government agencies proved to be dif-ficult to get information from for her story.

Despite her fair share of setbacks, Yasmin said she sees her work as a journalist complimenting her work as a professor.

“My reporting inspires my teaching,” she said. “I’m writing a story about Chikungunya, which is a virus that is being spread by mosquitoes. There’s an outbreak in the Caribbean, and now we

have people traveling to the Caribbean from Texas coming back home to Texas. So, already I have a class that’s about mos-quitoes and vector-borne diseases, and this kind of feeds into that.”

She also said that she is going to factor in the recent outbreak of Ebola into her curriculum.

Even though working simulatneously as a professor and as a journalist can bring stress, Yasmin does not seem to be ner-vous about the workload.

“When you really enjoy something it doesn’t really feel like work,” she said. “I’m going to get to call four of the world’s experts on Chikungunya or whatever I’m writing to satisfy my curiosity and be an advocate for any readers out there who are also concerned about a particular disease.”

6,100 students during the spring semester, had space issues this last year. The school placed some doctoral. and post-doctoral students in the base-ment of the library rather than in the JSOM build-ing due to lack of room, Jacob said.

The four-story structure features classrooms, a finance training lab and a computer lab, among other features, on the second floor Jacob said. The top two floors will be new office space for the growing faculty.

streets in order to avoid becoming targets. There are no underground trenches, nowhere to

go for cover in the event of an air strike, Muhanna said. The people of Gaza simply sit inside their homes, hoping to stay safe.

A strip of land that is no more than 139 square miles is home to an estimated 1.5 million people, according to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, or UNRWA, with a per capita density of 11,000 people per square mile.

“The city is so incredibly densely populated, you can’t hit anything in the city and not kill someone,” Muhanna said. “You can’t. So there’s nowhere safe to go. You can’t go into the city. You can’t go any-where.”

The Palestinian death toll in Gaza has gone up to 1,400 and 80 percent of the casualties are civilians, while three Israeli civilians and 56 Israeli soldiers have died in the four-week conflict, according to the United Nations.

For many kids in Gaza, this is the third war they’ve lived through, and no one knows how many of them will survive this one to see a fourth.

“I think they’ll never become desensitized to loss of life,” Muhanna said. “Sometimes (the media) likes to portray people there as people who have a suicidal complex, that they don’t care if they’re killed. It’s never been like that; it’ll never be like that. They value life just as much as you value life, just as much as I value life.”

Entire families get wiped out in wars like these with some losing 18 or 20 members in one attack, she said.

“Sometimes, there’s only one kid left from his whole family,” Muhanna said. “You wonder, this kid isn’t going to grow up and say, ‘I love Israel, let’s make a peace deal.’ Violence breeds violence.”

With burgeoning refugee numbers at the U.N. camps in Gaza and blockades on aid, the 1.2 million refugees on the strip face a scarcity of rations.

Even in times of peace, at least half a million displaced Palestinians live in eight recognized U.N.

camps. Several blockades on trade since 2007 have taken the economy on a downward spiral rendering more than 80 percent of the employable population dependent on international assistance, according to UNRWA.

Despite having a power plant, which has now been bombed, the people in Gaza only had electric-ity half of the time even when there was no war, Muhanna said, with eight-hour power cuts after every eight hours of electricity supply.

The younger citizens of Gaza want to get out to find a better life for themselves, but can’t because even in the absence of open warfare, it’s challenging to get in or out of Palestine easily.

Entry and exit of people and resources to Gaza is controlled by Egypt and Israel, while in the West Bank, it is controlled by Jordan and Israel. Palestinians living in Gaza can’t enter West Bank and vice versa, and getting out of Gaza is an ordeal for Palestinians because many nations don’t recognize

Palestine as an official country. Even for American citizens of Palestinian origin,

the process of entering the West Bank or Gaza to visit family is a challenge, with waits of six or eight hours at the borders, said Tamam Bushnaq, presi-dent of Students for Justice in Palestine, or SJP.

Gaza’s air space and coast are occupied, and drones are a part of normal Gaza life, Muhanna said. It is common to see warships in the distance away from the coast line, or to hear that fishermen have been shot at by navy ships, even when there is no war, she said. The possibility of war is real and very normal for the people of Gaza.

“You look at the people of Gaza right now; they don’t have a lot to lose,” Muhanna said. “They feel like they’re not living anyway.”

When the conflict started, there were numerous protests by Palestinians opposed to war in down-town Dallas and UTD’s SJP chapter had a booth there where they encouraged passersby to write

letters to prominent Texas statesmen expressing discontent at the way the United States has handled the situation, Bushnaq said.

They were able to send 200 letters to seven states-men including Ted Cruz and Rick Perry, she said.

Bushnaq and a few other SJP officers also got together and started a Twitter hashtag campaign through the @Palicampaigns account, where they started tweeting using a new Gaza hashtag every Saturday at 8 a.m. and ask their friends to tweet using the same hashtag, Bushnaq said.

They released the first one, #iccforIsrael, which stands for International Criminal Court for Israel, on July 26, that demanded a trial for Israeli war crimes, and it gained a lot of popularity, she said. The second one released August 2 was #interview-Palestinians.

Using social media to generate awareness and garner public opinion is one of the few things that Palestinians living outside Gaza can do besides pray-ing for the safety of their countrymen, Bushnaq said.

“You wake up every day, not wanting to check the news but feeling bad because you think these are my people,” she said. “The least I can do is to check the news and see how they’re doing.”

With more media presence, the humanitarian crisis in Gaza is becoming clear to the world and though people might not be able to understand how the Palestinians live in Gaza, they can definitely empathize, Muhanna said.

Gaza might not be normal but its people are very much human, affected by loss and grief just as much as anyone else, she said.

The waiting game that is the life of people in Gaza, not knowing if they’ll be hit next, not being able to escape, with no safe haven, is the most claus-trophobic and excruciating experience Muhanna has ever lived through.

“I (was) in this open land, but I felt like the world was kind of caving in on me,” Muhanna said. “I couldn’t leave, and it was such an odd feeling. Can you imagine living here and you want to go to Houston, and they tell you ‘too bad’…? (Gaza) is, in fact, an open-air prison.”


The dining hall has outdoor seating next to the pond, and the whole space has a 700-seat capac-ity.

Hours for the dining hall will probably be ad-justed based on student usage, Grief said.

Adjacent to the dining hall, a two-story recre-ation center will house a miniature version of the Activity Center.

“It has two basketball courts, which will be primarily used for badminton and volleyball,”

said Recreational Sports Director Tricia Losavio. “We’re going to dub that our net gym and try to keep basketball over in the Activity Center.”

The second level houses a weight and fitness area with cardio equipment like treadmills, ellip-ticals and cross trainers.

There also are two small locker rooms with showers and a multipurpose studio for dance and yoga, among other things.

Recreational Sports will offer additional pro-gramming in the new rec center, including Zum-ba and group exercise classes.

All students will have access to the rec center

just like in the existing Activity Center. Facul-ty and staff can buy a membership for access.

The original plan was to build only three residence halls by 2017, but with the school’s booming growth, provisions to the master plan had to be made. With the building com-plete, the university will most likely focus on the Comet Town development, Grief said.

“Now we’re going to take a breath and eval-uate what we might need in the future,” Grief said. “Certainly, we’re going to gauge what happens this next year to determine what we build next.”

! WESTCONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

! JSOMCONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

! GAZACONTINUED FROM PAGE 1


Rawan Muhanna (le! ) sits with Tamam Bushnaq, president of Students for Justice in Palestine, and recounts her time in the Gaza Strip when the conflict between Israel and Palestine began to escalate.

Date post:	02-Apr-2016
Category:	Documents
Upload:	the-mercury
View:	247 times
Download:	9 times

The Mercury 08/04

Documents