Mercury 30th April 2012

THE STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF UTD — WWW.UTDMERCURY.COM APRIL 30, 2012

The mad dash to

How does UTD fare in the race?

ANWESHA BHATACHARJEEFeatures Editor

For the first time in the university’s history, all academic schools have come together to work towards a comprehensive multi-year campaign

for fundraising. This campaign, which officially began in fall 2009 and will continue until Dec. 31, 2014, has set a goal to raise $200 million from donors, according to university officials.

As of 2011, UTD has already raised $110 mil-lion. The campaign was publicly launched March 29 to encourage alumni participation to raise the remaining $90 million in gifts and pledges, said Aaron Conley, vice president for development.

Of the $110 million, more than $55 million was raised in 2011, while in 2010, the university received $40 million in endowments and gifts.

Among the 2011 donors, more than 1,710 were alumni, according to UTD’s annual report. The number of giving alumni jumped by 20 percent last year as compared to 2010, Conley said.

However, alumni aren’t the only ones giving to the university, he said. In 2011, 1,348 donors were unconnected to the campus and another 300 were corporations.

“The local companies see us as a great oppor-tunity for ensuring they have the kind of skilled workers they need for their business, … so they want to make sure they’ll be able to hire great en-gineers, and people with business backgrounds,” Conley said. “And it isn’t necessarily about a company’s own interests — a lot of them want to make sure that North Texas is a good place to live.”

see TIER ONE page 5

Director: ATEC facility to triple classroom spaceBuilding attracts ‘world-class’ facultyLAUREN FEATHERSTONEMercury Staff

As ATEC continues to grow, it ex-pands into modern facilities that will house advanced technology, innovative research and world-class faculty.

Now that the structural work for the Arts & Technology, or ATEC, build-ing is nearly finished, people can begin to see the facility take shape, said Rick Dempsey, associate vice president for Business Affairs and Facilities Manage-

ment. The next milestone will be to complete the building’s exterior and then finish the work inside.

Thomas Linehan, Endowed Chair and director of Arts & Technology, elaborated on the details of the internal work and why the project is necessary for UTD.

The Arts & Technology school was created in 2002. Since then, ATEC has formed the Emerging Media and Com-

see ATEC page 5

AKSHAY HARSHE/PHOTO EDITOR

The west side of the new ATEC facility. ATEC Director, Thomas Linehan, said the building will house 14 classrooms, five design studios, five major research labs and a significantly more powerful render farm for student use.

Rugby streak endsWayne State takes UTD downPAUL DANGMercury Staff

The undefeated streak of the UTD rugby club came to a halt on April 14-15, when the newly found-ed team experienced its first losses of the season at a tournament that would have placed them in the na-tional championships.

Leaving on the foreboding Friday the 13th, the team began a 13-hour bus drive to Wayne, Neb., where the National Small College Rugby Or-ganization PacWest Region Cham-pionship was hosted.

Ominous storm clouds loomed over the field on the next morning of their first game against the host school, Wayne State.

An intense first half erupted and the more experienced Wayne State team exploited every hole they could find in the UTD team’s plays.

The first half ended: Wayne State 34, UTD 0.

The first salvos of thunder echoed, as cracks of lightning etched the Ne-braskan sky, causing officials to post-pone the match until the weather subsided.

The match resumed an hour and a half later and while a quick surge from UTD gave the visitors a touch-down by Vince Dutton, the match ended with Wayne State winning 44 to 7.

“It was a huge disappointment,” said Jimmy Chi, MIS senior. “

This was the players’ first loss in what had been an immaculate league season.

“It wasn’t that we were a bad team

see RUGBY page 5

INFOGRAPHIC BY CATHRYN PLOEHN

INFORMATION BY THE TEXAS HIGHER EDUCATION BOARD

LISA NIELSEN/COURTESY

SIFE takes championship title for service Team members, adviser reflect on their road to victorySHEILA DANGMercury Staff

The UTD chapter of Students in Free Enterprise, or SIFE, took home a regional championship after presenting their work at the SIFE USA Regional Competition on April 13 in Dallas.

SIFE is an international organization that encourages students to use business principles and strategies to develop com-munity outreach programs. The compe-titions, which begin at the regional level

and progress to the SIFE World Cup, serve as a platform for SIFE chapters to present the work and impact of their projects.

“We selected eight projects out of the 17 that we have that show what we’ve worked on in the past, what we’re work-ing on right now and what we’ll contin-ue to work on in the near future,” said Lisa Nielsen, president of SIFE UTD and management and administrative sci-ences graduate. “So our presentation was actually like a scrapbook ... we wanted

to tell the story of how SIFE started at UTD and where we’re going.”

The schools in each of the regional competitions are grouped into leagues with respect to the strength of their SIFE chapter. Each school is then allotted 24 minutes to present their work and five minutes for Q&A from a panel of busi-ness leaders who serve as judges.

Ha Nguyen, finance graduate, was one of five students that presented SIFE

see SIFE page 7

TROI CLUSE/STAFF

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VOLUME XXXII NO. 8

Drag queens take center stagePAGE 10

News WWW.UTDMERCURY.COM THE MERCURY n APRIL 30, 20122

LAUREN FEATHERSTONEMercury Staff

Senate rejected modifi-cations of Article 1 of the Student Government con-stitution at the April 17 SG meeting.

After weeks of debate, sen-ate chose to continue use of the current system of run-ning elections, stated in Ar-ticle 1, Sec. 1 and 2 of the SG constitution.

In the current system, one junior and one senior from each school is elected to sen-ate.

Seven sophomores, 14 graduates and the president and vice president are elect-ed at-large. Students who are not elected may apply for appointment for any seats left open.

Senators began propos-ing amendments to Article 1 more than a month ago, af-ter concerns that SG might not adequately represent the student body.

The final amendment at-tempt was proposed by Jes-sica D’Souza, Communica-tions Committee chair and sociology junior.

D’Souza addressed a grow-ing student body and repre-sentation for commuters and proposed half of the gradu-ates be elected in the fall.

The internal percentages and calculations would be more complicated, but the ballot would look the same, D’Souza said.

Nate Fairbank, undecided freshman, agreed that com-muters are historically un-derrepresented in senate,

even though they make up a large percentage of the stu-dent body.

Nick Hinojosa, manage-ment and administrative sci-ences graduate, opposed the amendment.

He said senate was trying to solve every potential elec-toral problem for a minority that may or may not exist.

Cody Willming, SG vice president and political sci-ence junior, said senate had difficulty resolving the Ar-ticle 1 debate due to the mindset that it could always be improved.

“The constitution can al-ways be better, but at some point a decision has to be made,” Willming said.

Sharkey Andrews, SG president and Arts and Hu-manities senior, said that even though nothing ulti-mately passed, she was glad that senators had the chance to think about the constitu-tion and see that change is possible.

Text Swap, an SG con-ducted textbook exchange, is tentatively scheduled for May 10-11. Dates for the fall Text Swap will be posted at the event.

With leftover funds in the project budget, senate al-located up to $800 for a T-shirt gun to promote school spirit.

The allocation is contin-gent on approval from UTD officials.

The 2012-2013 senate term will begin at the next SG meeting, scheduled at 5:15 p.m. on May 1 in one of the Galaxy Rooms.

UTD Police scannerApril 13• A student was arrested for

DWI.• Officers received a report

of criminal mischief to a stu-dent’s vehicle.

April 14• A student reported fraud-

ulent use of his debit card.April 15• A student was issued a

citation for consumption of alcohol by a minor.

April 17• A non-affiliated individ-

ual reported unauthorized use of his vehicle.

April 18• A staff member reported

criminal mischief to two li-brary books.

• A student was issued a

citation for possession of drug paraphernalia.

• A non-affiliated male was issued a criminal trespass warning.

April 20• Two students were arrest-

ed for possession of marijuana following a traffic stop.

• A non-affiliated individual was issued a citation for DWI as a minor.

• A student was arrested for assault-family violence.

• A non-affiliated individual was arrested for assault-family violence and interference with an emergency telephone call.

• A student reported non-criminal property damage to his vehicle.

• A student reported the

theft of his cell phone.• A student received a cita-

tion for DWI as a minor.• Two students received

citations for consumption of alcohol by a minor following a traffic stop.

April 21• Officers received a report

of theft of a stolen laptop.• A student reported her

unattended vehicle was hit in Lot D.

April 22• A student was detained

during a public intoxication investigation and released to an adult.

• An unknown person re-leased soap into the northern-most reflecting pool.

• A student reported harass-

ment.• An officer responded to

a minor vehicle collision be-tween a student and a non-affiliated person in Phase IX of University Village.

April 23• A student received a cita-

tion for duty upon striking an unattended vehicle following a police investigation.

• A non-affiliated individual was issued a criminal trespass warning.

April 24• A student reported viola-

tion of an active protective order.

April 25• A non-affiliated male was

arrested for public intoxica-tion.

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My towing terror

The apartment complex I pulled my car into always seemed like a ghost town, devoid of resi-dents, even though their cars filled most of the parking spots.

My friends at UTA actually enjoyed how pastoral the apart-ments stayed, even on weekends, which is why it baffled me when I didn’t hear the several tons of metal creep through the night and take my car along with it.

After a night of inequities on April 20 — and there’s no con-nection there — I decided that I was in no state to make the hour-long drive back from Arlington at 4 in the morning, without a quick nap.

I woke up two hours later to learn a life lesson about how car towing is a draconian process, a few steps shy from being an out-right scam, and how I’d never want to go through the ordeal again.

My car was gone.The first and

most natural thing that ran through my mind and my buddy Greg’s mind was grand theft auto.

This was Arling-ton — it gets like that.

Greg quickly remembered his complex carried a reputation for towing cars at ev-ery whim, and how he — a resi-dent — had his car towed a few months ago because he forgot to hang up a parking permit.

A half-hour drive to an area of Fort Worth where dreams go to die and $293.30 later, I waited in my driver’s seat for the rusty gate of the impound lot to slowly inch open, calculating in my head how much more it would cost me

if I just stepped on the gas and rammed through the door.

I didn’t have that kind of mon-ey.

Turns out my car was towed less than 30 minutes before I got up and I actually saw the tow truck that towed my car cruising away from the impound lot, right as I got there.

Time in lot: 6:48 a.m.Time out of lot: 6:55 a.m.And despite all of my sob sto-

ries about being a broke col-lege student that I pitched to the lady working at the office of the impound lot, I got no such break. Maybe it was because we couldn’t actually see each other’s faces through the two layers of

completely tinted — most likely bul-letproofed — glass that separated us.

The towing in-dustry can’t afford any opportunity for humanity.

I had no idea that such a medi-eval process still existed.

Let’s put it into perspective: A ve-hicle that doesn’t belong in a pri-

vately owned establishment gets physically ousted without a warn-ing and the owner has to pay a hefty towing and storage fee to get their own car back.

Does that logic hold up in any other real life scenarios?

I walk into a private booth at a sports stadium, forget my belong-ings in the booth and the owners not only refuse to give me my

stuff back unless I pay them, they start charging me daily “storage fees.”

Obnoxious.It ultimately comes down to a

question of ownership. When your belongings are

somewhere you don’t belong do they then belong to the person that owns the place?

If that’s the case, those sun-glasses you left at so-and-so’s place, our U.S. military bases sit-uated on foreign soil and that car I parked at my friend’s place aren’t really ours, are they?

If I hadn’t been able to scrounge up the $300, a quarter of how much I paid for the car itself, the storage fees would continue to pile on until the price to get my car back would be more than what my car cost.

In that situation, most owners would just forsake their cars and after a certain period of time, the vehicle belongs to the impound lot and they, being a profiting business, would auction these cars off in a process that’s basically le-gal theft.

An extreme example of this profiteering occurred last year in Chicago, where Kathie LaFond’s drunk boyfriend wrapped her car around a tree, killing her 5-year-old son in the process and in the aftermath, she was billed with a $550 impound fee — an im-poundment she attests never hap-pened.

And while my towing story wasn’t nearly as horrific as the Chicago mother’s, you have to ask yourself, what happens when legal leeway allows an opportunity for profit?

PAUL DANGMercury Staff

UTD could be friendlier placeROBERT FYRSTEPPS Graduate Student

The political climate has been tumultuous for Texan women this year. At the end of 2011, Texas became the first state to require a transvaginal ultrasound before performing an abor-tion, a medical pro-cedure where doc-tors probe a woman seeking an abortion, 24 hours before the procedure. The pur-pose of the transvag-inal ultrasound is to decrease the amount of abortions in the state by making them more difficult to obtain.

According to a Fort Worth Star-Telegram article written by Alex Branch and published on March 1 entitled “Patients often unhappy with new Texas sonogram law, abortion provid-ers say,” Branch writes that the unnecessary procedure causes the hardship of having to schedule two appointments, a burden for women who live far from abortion clinics.

Pro-choice Texans consid-ered this move a huge blow, and they responded by organiz-ing the March Against the War on Women, in protest of the new law.

In the wake of this heralded “War on Women,” a group of feminist-minded students at UTD decided they were going to do something about it. With varying focuses, the Pro-Choice Feminist Alliance, or PCFA, banded together to promote awareness of feminist issues, in-cluding the use of transvaginal ultrasounds, on campus.

Shortly after coming to-gether as a group, members of PCFA found that their pro-choice ideals would take a hit by the state government.

In March, Governor Rick Perry and Director of Health and Human Services Tom Suehs signed a bill into law that cut off funding to Planned Par-enthood, clarifying that organi-zations affiliated with abortion

could not receive money under the federally funded Women’s Health Program.

“The current climate in Tex-as is definitely not a positive one when it comes to women’s reproductive rights,” said Trace McCaslin, PCFA member and

Emerging Media and Communica-tions freshman. “I’m very displeased with the cuts to Planned Parenthood’s fund-ing.”

PCFA does not have very far to look for feminist sup-port. The Feminist

Majority Leadership Alliance at UNT, one of the largest femi-nist groups in North Texas, co-sponsored a rally on the square in Denton to fight back against the state government’s on-slaught of attacks on women’s reproductive healthcare.

With members of PCFA in attendance, it seemed to the groups involved that a collabo-ration would soon be under-way.

“I went to the Stand Up for Women’s Reproductive Health-care rally in Denton,” said, Shelby Schram, one of the founding members of PCFA. “(PCFA is) definitely trying to get a really strong North Texas contingent that we can hope-fully bring to Austin when we have these big rallies.”

The Austin rally is set to oc-cur on April 28, just one of more than 50 rallies that will occur nationwide as part of the March Against the War on Women.

PCFA is looking to help or-ganize a carpool for those in North Texas that wish to at-tend.

It’s no small undertaking for a new group on campus, but according to PCFA member Michelle Ofiwe, the group is ready for the challenge.

“As far as Texas goes, we’re probably like a firecracker in a barrel. We’re not the biggest or-ganization, but the passion and drive that we have would sur-prise a lot of people,” she said.

TROI CLUSE/STAFF

When your belongings are somewhere you don’t be-long do they then belong to the person that owns the place?

“I really want to work in Congress or the state leg-islature as a legislative assistant, so it’ll be great to get experience and possibly job opportunities ... In high school I was a congressional page so I spent a semeser in D.C. working in the House, and ever since then I’ve been obsessed with politics.”

Cody WillmingPolitical science sophomore

“The Archer program is such a unique opportunity. It gives you real-life experience to help you figure out what you want to do while you’re in college ... I’m re-ally interested in public policy that affects healthcare. I’m excited to learn firsthand about healthcare legisla-tion and communication at the national level.”

Jessica D’SouzaSociology sophomore

Archer scholars special edition: What they hope to gain from the experience

“I want to be a prosecutor, so the Archer program will really help me see if it’s the career path that’s right for me.”

Elizabeth PetruyPolitical science sophomore

“I think I’m nervous about getting into the Archer and DC bubble so much that I forget other impor-tant things ... I think some of us get so caught up in our careers that we forget how to relax and enjoy what we are doing in life.

Dana LitovskyIPE sophomore

As the university grows, officials continue to find innovative ways to accommodate students and their need for transportation. In Lots F, K, G, M and I, smart parking meters, called “Pay-by-Space Kiosks” have been introduced to replace old, individually spaced meters and time-limited spaces which had a shorter duration.

Meters debuted on campus in the 1990s at a cost of a dollar an hour, said Paul Smith, Parking and Transportation Supervisor. The new meters are still a dollar an hour and have been placed in areas that expect high turnover, like the lots of the Student Services Building, Hoblitzelle Hall and the Visitor’s Center. While most of the lots that received new meters were selected by the Parking Office and benefit students and guests on campus for administrative reasons, the M West lot was modified at the request of Hasan Pirkul, dean of the Jindal School of Management, to better service JSOM students.

Before the modifications, Lot I contained 160 spaces designated for business that were off-limits to students. Now, 64 of those spaces are metered, and the other 100 have been returned to student use. At the Visitor’s Center, nine spaces are now designated as free for use while getting a visitor’s permit, while the others are metered.

Whereas the old meters only accepted coins, the new meters don’t accept cash at all. Accord-ing to Smith, before installing the credit-only meters, the university examined meter data from other Universities across the state. At Texas A&M, the biggest meter user overall, 93 percent of meter transactions are paid for with credit card and only 7 percent with cash. UTD decided that card readers would be more cost effective than change meters, saving the manpower and labor costs of collecting and aggregating the coins and then taking them to a bank and deposit-ing them. Smith said it seems to have been the right decision: Since January 17, when the card readers began operation, the Parking Office hasn’t had a single complaint.The new meters are enforced 24 hours a day, all week long, consistent with enforcement of purple and orange spaces.

News WWW.UTDMERCURY.COM THE MERCURY n APRIL 30, 20124Meters, chargers added to car services

Credit card reading parking meters aren’t the only parking change. The university has installed eight “blink” electric vehicle charging stations, which are pending finalization.The university decided to install the charging stations after the Department of Energy started an initiative known as the Electric Vehicle Project, targeting the Dallas-Fort Worth area – among other regional hubs – for electric vehicle infrastructure and dedicating grants to install the stations throughout the city. Although the Parking Office estimates that there are presently more stations on campus than electric vehicles, the steep discount ECOtality, vender of the blink stations, offered – “buy one, get seven free” – made planning for the future easy, said Thea Junt, Energy Conservation manager.

“It is better to build infrastructure ahead of demand,” Smith said.The stations had to be located in parking lots near buildings with electrical rooms, a criterion Junt said was surprisingly tough to meet.

“For example, in order to put a station by the McDermott Library, running power would have cost 12 times as much for six stations as putting meters by the Activity Center,” Junt said. Locations were also selected for their visibility and turnover, as well as convenience for off-campus guests, who can access our stations as part of the nation-wide “blink network,” a comprehensive pool of electric ve-hicle charging stations that can be monitored online for availability. According to Junt, the university hopes its participation in the network may draw community members onto campus to explore as they wait for their cars to charge.

For the rest of the year, students will be able to use the stations without purchasing a new parking pass, and visitors will always be able to use the stations without charge. In the future, a permit of gold or better will be required – or a residential parking pass, as no stations are located in apartment lots – along with ownership of an electric vehicle. Charging an electric vehicle usually takes 2-3 hours, and as demand ramps up, students and staff will be asked to park in the station spaces only while charging.

The ZipCar group has recently approved the addition of a fifth ZipCar to the universi-ty’s fleet. UTD, which is still in its first year of using the program, is the biggest “freshman” user in the nation – some days, a single car will have 12 one-hour reservations, said Thea Junt, sustainability manager. The cars are used by commuting students, running errands between classes, as well as by car-less students living on campus.

Recently, UTD’s ZipCar membership expanded to include access to cars in the UT Austin fleet, and by next year, the university may add another 2-3 vehicles to its own fleet, including a small truck, which the Parking Office has already approved. Membership is also now available to alumni at ZipCar’s standard rate of $50 a year, with $25 worth of free drive time included.

Parking Meters

ZipCar use among freshmen highest in nation

ZipCars

Charging Stations

LINDSAY BERNSEN/Contributor

CATHRYN PLOEHN/GRAPHICS EDITOR

NewsTHE MERCURY n APRIL 30, 2012 WWW.UTDMERCURY.COM 5

munication, or EMAC, de-gree. The school has grown from zero to 1,048 students, a relatively quick increase, especially for the given space, Linehan said. The demand for additional space was pri-marily the result of interest from students who wanted to study ATEC, Linehan said.

The current ATEC build-ing has five classrooms. The new facility will be three sto-ries tall, have a fourth floor extension for visual arts, 14 classrooms, five design stu-dios and five major research labs.

Linehan said students wanted customized class-room studio space, as well as

informal learning spaces in the new building. There will be small study pods spread throughout the building, project spaces for groups, student lounges on every floor and coffee and beverage rooms.

The only study space ATEC students currently have is the “kitchen lab,” where no class-es are scheduled, but it still receives 100 percent utiliza-tion and is always packed.

One reason students need to be able to study in their school’s building is to have access to intensive computing resources. Officials are cur-rently looking at options that involve cloud computing to allow students to log onto the main server and have full ac-cess to ATEC software from any personal or stationary de-

vice in the building, Linehan said.

Using the building’s re-sources, students will be able to complete their work faster. The render farm in the build-ing will have up to the equiva-lent of 100 very fast comput-ers, so students can calculate an assignment in 10 minutes that would take overnight to do on a home system.

There will be a strong focus through the main lobby area and through some of the larg-er corridors of the building to create an exhibition space to showcase student work to the public, which students cur-rently do not have.

The 1,200-seat auditorium will be another way to draw in both the larger commu-nity of the university and the community outside of the

university. Linehan said he hopes the auditorium will be used for prominent lecture series and high-quality, inter-national video conferences.

Linehan explained that new facilities were not only necessary for more space, but for developing the ATEC program, which has under-gone a huge transformation.

ATEC used to be focused on the entertainment indus-try, but now virtually every market sector is showing a huge demand for digital content, including scientific research.

Current major research sponsors include the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, where ATEC students cre-ate virtual training spaces for teachers and nurses, and the U.S. Army, where similar vir-

tual training spaces provide cultural training for soldiers.

These research contracts are important because they allow UTD to support about 100 graduate students by pay-ing their tuition and stipend, through a research sponsor, Linehan said.

The new building will en-able UTD to hire world-class faculty. Over several years, ATEC has received about $8 million from an anonymous donor, who requested that the money be spent on peo-ple, not facilites. This dona-tion has opened up three new endowed chairs for ATEC, and two big names have ap-plied for the distinguished professor position in Serious Gaming, Modeling and Sim-ulation, Linehan said.

One of Linehan’s main

goals is to make the ATEC department at UTD un-avoidable. He said he hopes that the ATEC program will become so renowned that anybody working in the field, including many employers, will need to come through UTD.

ATEC experts coming to UTD will ensure that the ATEC program stays relevant to what the needs are in the industry and will give stu-dents a leg up when they ap-ply to major companies such as Pixar.

“Everybody in the world is going to say, ‘Why would he go to UT-Dallas?’ And they’re going to find out,” Linehan said.

Dempsey said the new building is on track to open fall 2013.

ATECcontinued from page 1

that day or anything, it was just experience,“ said Domi-nic Prestia, ATEC junior.

The rugby club sprung from a small group of devoted rugby players that had prac-ticed together in 2010. Only in the 2011 fall semester did the UTD rugby club become a registered team. They went on to compete against colleges that had years of experience over them, but despite being

outclassed, the underdogs be-came the 2012 state champi-ons.

“Honestly, out of the 35 sol-id guys we have on the team, only four of us, I believe, have played before,” Prestia said. “To go that far with a bunch of guys that have never played — that was amazing.”

The match for third place took place on Sunday against the University of Puget Sound, or UPS, from Washington.

Both UTD and UPS ar-rived on the field with fresh scrapes and bruises from their

Saturday losses, playing as though they had something to prove.

This game was evenly matched and tough for both sides.

Reminiscent of the matches against UTSA, the UPS team scored on their first two tries, giving the Puget Sound a head start for UTD to catching up to.

UTD fired back with Dut-ton capitalizing a penalty kick and Luke Lewis scoring a try before the second half.

UPS 10, UTD 8.

The second half com-menced and Dutton — no stranger to the penalty kick — scored another one to put UTD in the lead for the first time at 11 to 10.

Despite a hard fought game, UPS walked away with the victory.

“I felt good after the game, it’s never fun losing, but I definitely didn’t feel defeated,” Prestia said.

Nathan Sohadaseni, MIS senior and team captain, said they understood that they were outclassed in terms of

experience by the others teams like Wayne State, which had rugby facilities and a com-munity that valued the sport highly.

“After winning the champi-onship, we didn’t really mind if we were going to lose or not but we just went in with the mindset that we were going to go and do our best,” he said. “We played our hearts out and ended up having a great show-ing.”

Word of the UTD rugby club’s underdog story had spread to the other teams at

the tournament and coaches and players from Wayne State, Puget Sound and even Cali-fornia Maritime Academy, who didn’t play against UTD, came to congratulate the bud-ding team.

The players said they ex-pect to make it to the national championships in Colorado next year, but until then, they’ll have time to revel in what has been a fairytale rug-by story no one saw coming.

“We definitely put UTD rugby on the map,” Sohadas-eni said.

RUGBYcontinued from page 1

Donors and alumni are cen-tral to the Tier One campaign through the endowments, pledges and gifts they make to the university, Conley said. Although Naveen Jindal and Charles and Nancy Davidson were the biggest donors last year, he said, every gift counts towards fundraising, includ-ing the annual fund gifts of $25 that alumni make to their school.

Endowments contribute towards funding research and graduating more doctoral stu-dents each year, both of which are measured for Tier One eli-gibility.

Currently, UTD places third among seven “Emerg-ing Research Universities” in Texas, after the University of Houston and Texas Tech Uni-versity, in terms of endow-ment funds.

According to a report pub-lished by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board in February, both Uni-versity of Houston and Texas Tech University have fulfilled the criteria to receive funding

from the National Research University Fund, or NRUF, although UTD fell short on a few measures.

To be eligible to receive funding from the NRUF, UTD needs to have restricted research expenditures of $45 million for two consecutive years, said Bruce Gnade, vice president for research.

The university spent $41 million in 2010 and roughly $44 million in 2011, fall-ing marginally short of the required amount. By August 2012, however, UTD’s re-search expenditure is expected to cross the $45 million mark, Gnade said. At the same time, research is growing at a steady rate of five to seven percent, he said.

Meanwhile, the university also graduates fewer doctoral students each year than is required to receive NRUF funding. While the threshold requires 200 doctoral stu-dents to graduate each year, UTD graduated 195 and 160 students in 2010 and 2011, respectively.

“Certainly this is an area that we have to improve in,” Gnade said. “As the number of faculty grows, the number

of doctoral students is going to grow as well — we’ll get there, and in reality that’s why we need more research fund-ing which pays for doctoral students. So it all kind of ties in together.”

As of 2011, the university employed close to 500 faculty members, of whom 211 were on tenure track. By 2017, the number of total faculty is ex-pected to grow to more than 600, Gnade said.

Adding more programs and increasing enrollment will in turn create the need to hire more faculty, he said.

While enrollment is pro-jected to grow further this year, it won’t be as high an increase as fall 2011. Although the number of applications received has grown significantly, accept-ing more students than the infrastructure can support will ultimately work against the university, Gnade said.

If students in their fresh-men year cannot take their chemistry and calculus courses due to a lack of sessions and laboratory fa-cilities, they will not be able to graduate in four years, which is another metric used

to measure Tier One status, he said.

As a result, UTD will most likely have a lower acceptance rate than UT Austin this year, Gnade said. Typically univer-sities with lower acceptance rates are considered better, in-dicating high competition for admissions.

Although the university is striving to meet the metrics that define Tier One status, the growth has not compro-mised the quality of educa-tion or quality of students at

UTD, he said. “If our total goal was just

to be able to say we’ve met the numbers of Tier One, we could have graduated more Ph.D students and asked our donors to give their money upfront to spend on research instead of as an endowment to hire faculty, and met the numbers,” Gnade said. “But from day one Dr. Daniel has said ‘We don’t change how we do business.’”

And the reason for that is clear — UTD doesn’t just

want to be a Tier One uni-versity in the terms defined by the Texas Legislature, but a university known nationally for the quality of education it provides, he said.

“If you have to (tell people) that you’re Tier One, you’re probably not one yet,” Gnade said. “It should be obvious to everyone around you that you are a top tier university — MIT, Berkeley or Georgia Tech don’t have to say they are Tier One — when you are, people will know it.”

TIER ONEcontinued from page 1

News WWW.UTDMERCURY.COM THE MERCURY n APRIL 30, 20126

Concealed carry bill could stay alive in Texas SenateJAMIE FIELDContributor

A concealed handgun right to carry measure may resurface as another Senate bill this upcoming 2013 legislative session.

Texas Sen. Jeff Wentworth (R) is the primary author of the concealed carry measure. Wentworth’s original concealed-carry bill did not pass in 2009, so he proposed the concealed carry on Texas campuses as an add-ed amendment.  

“The people who would be able to carry weapons on campus, if this passes, would be licensed, and

therefore fully trained,” Wentworth said in an interview with the Texas Tribune. He said Texans looking to obtain a concealed carry license must be 21 years old, take a 10-hour course, pass a written exam and pass a test with the firearm on a shoot-ing range. Along with completing the required concealed carry train-ing, applicants must also pay a $100 fee and pass a criminal background check.

“People do not lightly apply for licenses,” he siad.

In 2007, the Virginia Tech shootings prompted Wentworth to propose his original SB 354. Ac-

cording to MSNBC, the Virginia Tech rampage ranks as the deadliest school shooting by a single gunman in U.S. history.

“This is about self-defense. It’s about protecting lives of students who are totally vulnerable and de-fenseless,” Wentworth said, referring to the Virginia Tech shootings.

Closer to home, Texans will not forget about the second deadliest campus shooting at UT Austin. Charles Whitman killed 16 people and wounded 31. On Sept. 29, 2010, Colton Tooley fired shots on UT Austin grounds with his semi-automatic, before turning the gun

on himself. Wentworth told the Texas Tri-

bune, “I just decided that I didn’t want that ever to take place on a Texas college campus again.”

Ethan Harmon, EMAC junior, thinks the bill is a terrible idea.

“This is a place of education, and there is no room for weaponry, con-cealed or not,” he said.

Harmon said he believes that the issue of trust between one another causes the greatest concern.

“This mistrust could lead to any kind of discrepancy on the premises of UTD’s campus, which would be poorly handled by such actions like

passing concealed carry,” he said.A local Dallas-based chapter

within a nationwide organization in favor of gun ownership restrictions heard news that Wentworth was not planning to re-file the concealed carry bill next legislative session. President of the Dallas Brady Cam-paign chapter, Marsha McCartney, said, “I think Wentworth finally re-alizes that there are too many folks who don’t think carrying guns on college campuses is a good idea.”

Harmon agreed with McCart-ney’s stance on concealed carry.

“The bill would overall make Texas campuses feel like an unsafe

place, instead of a place one receives education,” Harmon said.

To date, Wentworth campaign officials have spoken to the Texas Tribune about the re-filing of the concealed carry bill. They told the Tribune that Wentworth is cur-rently focusing all of his efforts for re-election and doesn’t know if he will re-file.

Wentworth recently said, “I haven’t made up my mind about that, but I’m certain, because there was overwhelming support in both the Senate and the House, that someone will file it and it will be de-bated vigorously next spring.”

Students volunteer for, celebrate Earth WeekSHEILA DANGMercury Staff

The Office of Student Volun-teerism recently hosted UTD’s first annual Earth Week, held April 16-22, which featured a collection of events to celebrate and showcase sustainable initiatives on campus.

“In the past, there had been bits and pieces of events and pro-gramming, but not anything that was formally combined together to happen for Earth Week,” said Monalisa Amidar, assistant direc-tor of the Office of Student Vol-unteerism. “We were lucky that we had student groups that were eager to jump on-board. It’s a goal of ours that this becomes an annual tradition.”

The events included an Earth Fair held on the Student Union mall and Chess Plaza, with a dis-play of Zipcar vehicles as well as booths showcasing UTD’s “green” student organizations such as Stu-dents for Environmental Aware-ness, or SEA, and the Vegetarian Society at UTD.

“I hope that UTD’s Earth Week allowed students to learn about the efforts that both administration and student-run organizations are making to promote environmen-tally friendly policy, recycling and conservation on campus,” said Marissa Miller, president of SEA and biochemistry sophomore.

Earth Week also included a pic-nic on April 19 near the recently relocated Community Garden to kick-start the spring planting sea-son. Originally located between the soccer fields and Phase II of the Waterview Apartments, it was moved to the intersection of Drive A and Drive H to accommodate the Loop Road construction. The garden itself was designed to be sustainable by prohibiting the use of pesticides and using compost scraps produced on campus as a weed barrier. Students wanting to contribute to the garden must sign up and join the UTD Community Gardeners.

“We built (the garden) in such a way that it’s expandable, so as interest and involvement goes up,

we can add more plots,” said Thea Junt, energy conservation and sustainability manager. “On some gardening days, we harvest and take the food to a food bank, but most of it is for (personal use).”

The week concluded on the na-tional Earth Day on April 22 with the university taking part in Earth Day Dallas, a two-day festival in Fair Park featuring exhibits, live music and a speaker series, includ-ing former First Lady Laura Bush as the keynote speaker.

“We had nine booths at the event. We had folks from JSOM that presented some of their find-ings in sustainability in construc-tion and building, engineering and computer science had four booths that showcased research programs in green and innovative engineer-ing,” Junt said. “Natural Science and Mathematics (department) also had two booths to showcase their green research.”

Earth Week followed a string of successes in sustainable initiatives on campus; UTD was recently listed in the Princeton Review’s

“Guide to 322 Green Colleges: 2012 Edition,” and is the only University of Texas school to make the list. UTD also placed first or second in every category it partici-pated in during the recent Recyle-Mania competition, and further, the Green Fund referendum was

successfully passed in the Student Government elections.

Both Amidar and Junt hope the Earth Week programming will spur interest in eco-friendly cam-pus practices as well as raise aware-ness for programs already in place.

“We hope to get conversations

going about these ideas,” Amidar said. “We’re doing great things al-ready, it’s just a matter of bringing them together and letting people know that these groups exist, that these research projects exist and that there’s a rise in interest in ways we can be sustainable.”

AKSHAY HARSHE/PHOTO EDITOR

A student works a booth at the Earth Fair on the Student Union mall during Earth Week. Other Earth Week events included a picnic on April 19 near the Community Garden.

NewsTHE MERCURY n APRIL 30, 2012 WWW.UTDMERCURY.COM 7No vacancy on campusHousing app numbers grow with enrollmentIRENE MORSEContributor

UTD enrolled 2,022 fresh-men for the 2011–2012 aca-demic year, an increase of more than 300 from the the previous year.

Because of increases in en-rollment, some upperclassmen, including those who received housing scholarships or are from other states, were denied their first request for housing. Matt Grief, assistant vice presi-dent for Student Affairs, said this is because the housing ap-plications of freshmen leaving the residence halls and moving into the on-campus apartments were prioritized over all other applications, with the excep-tion of students who renewed their current apartment for the summer as well as the academic year.

Students who were denied on-campus housing for the next year are uncertain how University Village, or UV, de-termined priority. Matthew Westbrook, mechanical engi-neering junior, and his room-mates filed a transfer request with UV because they wanted to move from a first-floor apartment to a second-floor apartment. They were denied

housing and learned later that they should have renewed their current apartment.

“My roommates and I only found out about the housing priority when we directly went to the UV office and asked why we, returning customers, were denied housing altogether,” Westbrook said.

Grief said administrators decide priority for on-campus housing with one of the pri-mary goals of the University in mind: improving the Freshman Year Experience.

“Their educational success is dependent on where they live and being on campus. Having that support structure with the Residential Life program is very important,” he said.

Grief said the University recognizes the difficulties faced by students who were denied their first request for housing, especially those who received housing scholarships, and has remedied the problem.

“Everyone who is an AES scholarship student who was housed in University Village at this point in time has either signed a lease with Waterview Park or has been offered a space at University Village,” Grief said.

However, some students

say they’re not satisfied with their experience because the housing UV provided may be different from what they origi-nally requested and the rent may be higher. Sarosh Ahmed, neuroscience junior, said she was expecting to be placed in a four-bedroom apartment. After her first housing request was denied, UV placed her in a two-bedroom apartment.

“Though being granted the Academic Excellence Scholar-ship and submitting my appli-cation seconds after it opened should have prioritized my re-quest per UV standards, I am placed in an option that would double my rent from the past two years,” Ahmed said.

Sagar Shah, biology and business junior, said although he applied for housing on the first day it was available, he was denied housing for both sum-mer and fall.

Additionally, some students posted complaints on Face-book about the timing of UV’s emails telling them they had been denied housing. These emails were sent out in early March, right before or dur-ing Spring Break, which put a damper on vacations and made communication with the hous-ing office difficult.

“I tried to get in contact with someone at UV right after I got the email, and I was told that I would have to wait until Mon-day of Spring Break,” posted Shelby Chattin, literary studies sophomore.

There are also unanswered questions for those upperclass-men who are having to look for off-campus housing. Students without cars are limited to the few apartment complexes on the Comet Cruiser bus route.

“Until on-campus housing is sustainable for our growing stu-dent body, AES should consid-er extending the housing allow-ance to off-campus residences,” Ahmed said.

In addition, off-campus apartment complexes don’t of-

fer programs like Residential Life, and UTD hasn’t set up any partnerships with them.

“We are looking right now at potentially trying to arrange an agreement with an offsite search company,” Grief said.

He said the decisions regard-ing housing are part of the Uni-versity’s growth.

“I would not view it as a crisis. I would view it as a con-tinual growth of our campus,” Grief said.

Over the past four years, the University has constructed three new residence halls. In ad-dition to these, Grief said that a fourth residence hall has been planned that will tentatively house 600 students. This resi-dence hall is also intended for

freshmen.“If we can’t fill all those halls

with first year students, we’re certainly going to look at our other students and look at op-tions of housing them as well,” Grief said.

Some additional housing options are being considered for graduate students. Grief said that UTD would soon be surveying current students about their housing needs with the hopes of constructing new graduate housing on campus at some point in the future.

“We know that there is a need for housing, and we’re always going to be looking at what we can do to increase our housing as the need arises,” Grief said.

AKSHAY HARSHE/PHOTO EDITOR

Due to the increasing number of students on campus, University Village denied many stu-dents’ housing applications, leading students to question how UV priorities applications.

UTD’s work and acknowledged that there was significant anxiety leading up to the presentation.

“We were there the morning before (the competition) to try to feel the room and try to re-duce our nerves,” Nguyen said.

“But it went well because for a month we practiced almost ev-eryday.”

Jeanne Sluder, SIFE UTD adviser, shared the team’s anxiety but said the presentation moved flawlessly.

“I don’t think they missed even one word that had been re-hearsed and the PowerPoint and video ran right on cue,” Sluder

said. “They had prepared and rehearsed for weeks and I was ready for them to share our story with the judges and all the other people who had come to watch.”

Among the eight projects that were presented at the competi-tion was “Youth Village: Finan-cial Literacy,” in which SIFE UTD coordinated a five-week course to teach young men

about topics such as invest-ments, debt management and properly managing checking and savings accounts.

Another project called “Auto Care European: Sam’s Club Step Up for Small Business,” aimed to help the struggling owner of a local auto repair shop. Nguyen served as the leader for the proj-ect and presented the results

at the competition. The team’s business plan earned them a $1,500 grant from Sam’s Club to carry out the project.

“The marketing aspect came with creating and distributing fliers, updating the Facebook page and website and making ar-rangements for a speaker event,” Nguyen said. “Our members also spent over 30 hours volun-

teering at Auto Care European to expedite a waste management program and sort through trash and unused car parts.”

This will be the fourth con-secutive year that SIFE UTD has advanced to nationals. The team will travel to Kansas City, Mo., to attend the SIFE USA National Exposition from May 22-24.

SIFEcontinued from page 1

Advertisement WWW.UTDMERCURY.COM THE MERCURY n APRIL 30, 20128

Every day, her mother would return from work and see the paintings she made. And for a long time every one of those paintings was a lotus — each in a different color.

“I remember the first thing I ever drew was a lo-tus,” Jayshree Bihari said. “I would sit all day long

and draw lotus flowers in different colors — blue, pink and red — until my mother got tired of them.”

Today, Bihari’s paintings have grown from watercolor flowers to a more ab-

stract, mature blend of acrylic on canvas. The public policy doctoral

student’s collection of more than 30 paintings, called the “Art~Sutra”, was recently showcased in a four-month-

long exhibit at the Lillian Bradshaw Gallery in downtown Dallas.For Bihari, art is a source of joy and happiness, and a form of

mediation. Her inner peace radiates through her paintings, which depict, in an abstract form, spiritual messages.

On the one hand, her work combines the essence of the sciences and humanities, on the other, Bihari’s artwork illustrates people’s struggle to rise above the turmoil of daily life and connect with the eternal soul. In all her paintings, the unique mesh of colors on the canvas, thrown in with three-dimensional elements in some of her works, all paint a trail that leads the mortal soul towards inner happiness.

Even though art means a lot to her, until two or three years ago, Bihari, who works as an Institu-tional Research Ana-

lyst in the Office of Strategic Planning and Analysis, practiced painting only as a hobby.

Bihari grew up in the historical city of Lucknow, located in northern India, during a time when everyone wanted to be a doctor or an engineer.

“My parents were supportive (of painting) but … back home I didn’t have much choice — especially when I was growing up, because being an artist didn’t fetch you your bread and butter,” she said.

Bihari has never had formal training in painting. Her earliest memories of an art instructor was a doctor — her mother’s col-league — who loved being around kids. Later, through her years in school, she took up drawing and art as an elective as part of her curriculum. Although her art teacher at school saw potential in her work, Bihari herself never gave it much attention until she won an award in “The Golconda Contest,” a nation-wide competition in India.

However, after high school Bihari continued studying and earned her bachelor’s in science followed by a Ph.D. in sociol-ogy. Later, she became busy founding and running a clinic for

abused women, but managed to scrape in some time to paint every now and again.

In the fall of 2003, Bihari came to UTD to pursue a degree in public policy and political econ-omy. She met Euel Elliott, public policy professor a n d

then associate dean for the School of Economic, Political and Poli-cy Sciences. Later, Bihari also took two of his courses.

Bihari and Elliott continued to stay in touch, and started seeing each other romantically in 2008. They married in December 2010.

Although he doesn’t paint, it was Elliott who encouraged her to take up art as an alternate occupation.

“I think she has a real talent for painting,” Elliott said. “Peo-ple who know more about art than I do have always consistently thought she has a real talent in that area, so I encourage her to pursue it and try to turn it into something more than just a hobby, into something of an occupation — a full time thing.”

There have been smaller exhibits for Bihari’s works before, but the one in the Lillian Bradshaw Gallery was Elliott’s idea, Bihari said.

Elliott, however, refused to take credit for the success of the ex-hibit in any way, joking that his work involved helping her get the paintings out of the house and into the car, nothing more.

Meanwhile, Bihari plans to launch a website for “Art~Sutra” soon, and wishes to teach painting to children in the future.

APRIL 30, 2012 n THE MERCURY n WWW.UTDMERCURY.COM 9

Sociologist conveys art of living through abstract artwork

Story by Anwesha Bhattacharjee

It’s a constant struggle for col-lege students who worry about meeting all of their degree re-quirements and juggling extra-curricular activities within four years. However, Braeden Mayer accomplished all of this in three years to pursue two remarkable opportunities during his senior year of college.

Mayer, an international politi-cal economy junior, plans to study abroad in Cuba during fall 2012. Mayer said Cuba and its foreign relations with the United States have always intrigued him. In his sophomore year, he chose to en-roll in Monica Rankins’ “The His-tory of the Cuban Revolution,” a course in which students analyze the relationship between the Unit-ed States and Cuba and its devel-opment over time. For Mayer, the course furthered his interest and curiosity in the so-called “Croco-dile Island.”

Cuba is not one of the usual lo-cations that come to mind when choosing a destination to study abroad. Labeled as a “forbidden territory,” travelling to Cuba has been prohibited or highly discour-

aged over the years. In addition, Cuba is a Communist country and its foreign relations remain highly disputed.

To grasp a better understanding of Cuba’s past and present, Mayer will be taking multiple courses at the University of Havana.

Mayer is hoping to do an in-dependent study analyzing the role of media in Cuba; this would most likely involve in-vestigation into the prevalent cen-sorship by Cuban authorities.

“Being cut off from the United States because of the lack of In-ternet in Cuba, which is very poor, is my big-gest insecurity about traveling to Cuba,” Mayer said. “It’s known for being scarce and slow.”

In spring 2013, he will be going to Washington D.C. to participate in the Archer program.

Although there is a focus on public policy and political science in the Archers program, students

of many different majors have participated in the program, in-cluding history, biology, man-agement, economy and sociology majors. Edward Harpham, faculty adviser for the Archer program and associate provost at UTD, has witnessed immense growth in the program. He said the application

process is very rigorous, but the experience is in-valuable in terms of one’s career.

“The Archer program pro-vides students with a unique set of opportuni-ties for personal and professional growth in Wash-ington D.C.,” Harpham said. “It is a capstone experience for students’ interest

in public service, politics and the law.”

Mayer said that he is excited for his trips to Cuba and Washington D.C. because he knows they will immensely further his education and allow for numerous opportu-nities in the future.

Nataleigh Jimison, EMAC se-nior, organized a lupus awareness event on April 21 to bring aware-ness and help raise funds for its cure.

The event, titled “Spreading Wings for Lupus” took place at the Clark Center and brought together many people who have been touched by the disease and about 50 supporters.

It began with a dance perfor-mance to “Living Proof ” by Mary J. Blige, which delivered the mes-sage of hope through a long jour-ney.

At the event, Jimison shared her personal struggle with lupus. Whereas a normal body’s defenses attack infections, lupus causes these defenses to attack the body’s healthy tissues.

This leads to a myriad of prob-lems, most commonly inflamma-tion and kidney failure; Jimison has dealt with both.

Lupus also involves debilitating pain that is instigated by tasks as simple as wearing shoes or open-ing a bottle.

This semester Jimison had sur-gery to repair her hip that was suf-fering from bone decay caused by lupus. However, she still shot an entire video project from her hos-

pital bed. “My number one goal is to

graduate from the University of Texas at Dallas in May 2012. I can just visualize walking across the stage and accepting my de-gree,” Jimison said. “I won’t let lupus get in the way of that.”

The Office of Student Access-Ability aims to help students like Jimison accomplish their academ-ic, recreational and social goals.

The office currently caters to approximately 300 students with documented disabilities ranging from temporary injuries to chron-ic diseases like lupus. The office provides academic, non-academic and environmental accommoda-tions, referral information and support to students with disabili-ties.

Lupus requires floating accom-modations as it may vary from day to day depending on what are known as lupus flares.

Kerry Tate, director of Student AccessAbility said, “We encour-age students to use our office. We have a lot of resources that could help them.”

Lupus is a disease that has no cure, but Jimison says she is deter-mined to fight hard to find one.

All proceeds from the event were sent directly to the Lupus Foundation of America, North Texas Chapter.

JAYSHREE BIHARI/COURTESY

Growth, whether spritual or intellectual, is possible only when one is well rooted in the reality of the microcosm with-in. This piece is called Roots, exudes the power of roots in our lives, and Bihari used bronze and acrylic on canvas to paint it.

JAYSHREE BIHARI/COURTESY

A Spiritual Brush

JAYSHREE BIHARI

EMAC student fights disease, raises awarenessDEBI TERRYContributor

BRAEDEN MAYER

L&A

Archer fellow to spend his senior year in Cuba, D.C.

ELIZABETH SOHNSMercury Staff

L&A WWW.UTDMERCURY.COM THE MERCURY n APRIL 30, 201210

The annual Oozeball tour-nament took place on April 20 near the Phase III parking lot. More than 15 teams, including students and staff, competed for the Oozeball trophy.

(TOP SERIES) YANG XI/STAFF(Above) Kicking off their shoes and don-ning their evening gowns, UTD men com-peted for the title of ‘Miss Drag Queen’ at the Student Drag Show on April 24 in the Galaxy Rooms. (Left) Greek Week attendees take part in a rock climbing event on April 18 in the Activity Center. (Below) A student recites a poem at the Underground Poetry Circus on April 25 in The Pub.

UTD celebrates Earth Week for the first time in efforts to revolutionalize the Go Green Initiative. One of the activi-ties, tree planting, gathered students, faculty and staff to plant almost 20 trees on April 18 outside of the Visitors Cen-ter. The Earth Fair was put on to emphasize environmental health and safety, recycling waste, planting trees and sav-ing non-renewable sources of energy.

ABHISHEK BASU/STAFFCHRISTOPHER WANG/STAFF

YANG XI/STAFF

AKSHAY HARSHE/PHOTO EDITOR

Taking Time Out

AKSHAY HARSHE/PHOTO EDITOR

Sports APRIL 30, 2012 n THE MERCURY n WWW.UTDMERCURY.COM 11

Team clinches home-field in ASC first roundSHAWN CHOMercury Staff

The Comets have been crowned the ASC East Division Champions after closing out the regular season with a 27-13 overall record (14-4 in the ASC). The team will head into the ASC Cham-pionship Tournament as the East Division’s top seed even though University of Texas at Tyler finished with the same conference record of 14-4 because of the win against Tyler earlier in the sea-son.

“One of our goals was to make the playoffs, our next goal was to win the East Di-vision which we were able to do,” head coach Shane Shew-make said. “Our next goal is to win the first round of the playoffs and ultimately win the conference tournament.”

The 2012 regular sea-son came to a close with a three-game series at East Texas Baptist University. The Comets successfully took two of the three games with scores of 9-8 and 14-6, re-spectively. The series didn’t start the way the team had hoped for by losing 5-1, but the squad managed to bounce back and sweep the remaining games.

The Comets were in danger of losing their place at the top of the divisional standings, trailing ETBU 8-5 in their final at-bat. The offense sparked to life with a little help from the defensive end as well. Senior Jacob Starnes reached first on an error by the ETBU first base-man, and junior Zak Anderson followed suit by reaching first with a single to right field, then se-nior Chase Brown loaded the bases with a single to left. Junior Jake Wyand stepped up to crush a pitch well over the left field wall for a game-winning grand slam to bring the score line in favor of the Comets 9-8.

Senior pitcher Max Williard and junior Zach

Dickson combined to shut out ETBU for the final three frames after starting pitcher senior Marvin Prestridge struggled, lasting only four in-nings.

Similar to the second game, the Comets trailed ETBU 6-1 early in the rubber match of the se-ries but rallied back in the end to take the game 14-6. The eighth inning proved to be pivotal as the Comets’ lineup punished ETBU’s bullpen by registering 9 hits and 11 runs to go past the

Tigers and finish the season on a high note, securing the East’s top seed going into the playoffs.

This will be the Comets’ ninth all-time appearance in the ASC Tournament, post-ing a 20-18 record in their previous eight trips to the postseason. The school has never won the league title but finished runners-up in 2003, 2004, 2006, and 2011.

“Our goals at the begin-ning of the season are right on track,” Shewmake said. “Two down, two to go.”

The Comets hope to go deep into the playoffs and

try to bring home the trophy for the first time in the program’s history.

“We feel like we’ve got a great chance to do some really good things,” Shewmake said. “We’ve just have to relax, play our game, and not let the situation dictate how we play whether it’s the first game of the year or first game of the playoffs.”

For the 2012 season, the Comets lineup in-cluded seven players hitting over .300 for the season. Senior Chase Brown led the pack with a batting average of .428 with 8 home runs and a .730 slugging percentage, followed closely by a fellow senior Jacob Starnes (.390) and junior Jake Wyand (.372).

On the mound, the Comets recorded a total ERA of 3.36, with senior Marvin Prestridge lead-

ing the pack in the wins column with eight in 11 starts, followed by sophomore Jason Fink’s six and junior Derek Dallas’ five. Senior Max Wil-lard led the ERA column with a 1.93 ERA, fol-lowed closely by sophomore Chase Knight with a 2.18 ERA.

The Comets hosted McMurry University, who

finished fourth in the West with a 12-9 confer-ence record, for a best-of-three series on April 27-28 in the first round of the tournament.

Editor’s Note: This article does not include stats or information from the Comets’ weekend series against McMurry University in the first round of the ASC Tournament from April 27-28.

Softball team comes up just short in EastPlayoff push ends in disappointment but Comets put up program-best winning percentage

SHAWN CHOMercury Staff

The Comets came within two games of pulling off an improbable finish to their 2012 season, but fell just short of reaching the playoffs for the first time since 2005. The team finished with an overall record of 24-14 (12-12 in the ASC), one win short of tying the pro-gram record for all-time wins in a single season.

The team finished its ASC schedule with a 12-12 mark, which is the team’s best ASC finish in eight years. Even though the Comets just missed in making the playoffs, head coach Brad Posner said the season was in-deed a successful one.

“I really don’t know what more we could’ve asked for,” Posner said. “As a coach, we like to define success not always by the end results but by the process.”

The Comets opened a four-game series against Louisiana College with a pair of wins on April 20, with scores of 5-2 and 3-2, respectively. But they fell just short of reaching the playoffs when they were handed an 8-0 loss in the last game of the series and season after beat-ing Louisiana College 6-3 in the game be-fore on April 21.

The team was one game away from sweeping the Wildcats, against whom they have a 7-34 all-time record, and Posner said it was a valiant effort by the entire squad to try and extend their season into the playoffs. Regardless of the outcome, Posner was more than satisfied with the team’s performance throughout the season.

“This season has been capped as a mi-raculous run, but I think that’s a little un-fair because we’ve been capable of this all along,” Posner said. “I don’t think this was a miracle, but this was a more of ‘we figured

it out.’’’This year’s squad only

had two senior players who would be graduat-ing, and the rest of the squad will be expected back next year. Junior players will now be ex-pected to step up and become the leaders in 2013. Twelve out of 18 players currently on the squad are freshmen or sophomores, and they have produced through-out the season in help-ing to achieve one of the most successful seasons in the program’s history — the team achieved its highest winning percent-age (.632) of all-time.

“I think the fact that we reached a significant place where we would like our team to be, as a coach, you couldn’t be more proud of some-thing,” Posner said. “And it being our first year, that just tells us that we have something really solid to build on for next

year.“Players figured it out and being able to

be a part of it and watch them be able to do it is just a tremendous thing as a coach,” Posner continued. “So I’m really excited for the team next year for what they’re capable of.”

Looking into next year, Posner is antici-pating good things to come for the program, as it will try to repeat another successful sea-son and hopefully make it into the playoffs for years to come.

“There is definitely continued success on

the horizon, and we’re just looking forward to next year already,” Posner said. “I think we have some goals now that we can see that they’re very attainable as well, not just a dream.”

The Comets’ batting average for the 2012 season was .312, with junior Britta-nie Knowles hitting .409 with 47 hits to lead the pack, followed by freshmen Avery McHugh (.391) and Hannah Creech (.347). Sophomore pitcher Heather Foust led the team in the wins column with 17 and an ERA of 2.66, followed by freshman Micah Starkey with 3 wins.

Comets win regular season title

BEN HAWKINS/STAFF

Micah Easterling (No. 27) greets Kaleb Robinson (No. 13) and Jacob Price at home plate after they scored against Mississippi on April 6. The Comets won 12 of their final 14 games.

BEN HAWKINS/STAFF

Infielder Stephanie Harris’ reac-tion after an opposing runner safely reaches base. UTD missed the postseason by one game.

1. UT Tyler (20-4) (33-7)

2. Louisiana (14-10) (24-15)

3. East Texas Baptist (14-10) (24-15)

4. Mississippi (13-11) (26-14) *

5. UTD (12-12) (24-14) *

* - Indicates team was eliminated from playoff contention

FINAL ASC EAST PLAYOFF PICTURE

ASC East Regular Season Standings

1. UTD 14-4 27-13

2. UT Tyler 14-4 31-9

3. Mississippi 9-9 18-21

4. Louisiana 7-11 14-22

ASC East Regular Season Standings

1. UTD 14-4 27-13

2. UT Tyler 14-4 31-9

3. Mississippi 9-9 18-21

4. Louisiana 7-11 14-22

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