College Councils speak up
Yesterday evening, the Liberal Arts Council and Senate of College Councils hosted a forum on foreign language requirements at the University. Although they didn’t get around to it until two weeks after proposed changes to the curriculum had been dropped, we applaud them for taking a step in the right direction.
The council and the senate are meant to represent undergraduate students’ academic interests. In a year where undergraduate students seem to be lowest on the list of the administration’s priorities, it is encouraging to see our academic representatives speaking up and providing an avenue for us to voice our concerns.
While President William Powers frequently lists hiring world-class faculty and graduate students among the University’s priorities, undergraduates frequently go unmentioned.
Unless undergraduates become invested in the restructuring of the UT budget and curriculum, they will end up in larger classes with fewer staff and faculty to help them find their way to graduation.
As Mykel Estes, Liberal Arts Council president said, “We’re the ones in the classroom, and our voices have been noticeably absent up until this point. There’s been a lot of confusion and not a lot of transparency to the students.”
Perhaps next time the councils will weigh in on curriculum changes before the decisions have been made.
Capital Metro raises fares
Capital Metro voted yesterday to ring in the new year with drastically increased fares. The board had already approved minor fare hikes but scheduled them for August of 2010. Now, the fare hikes will be steeper and kick in eight months sooner. Monthly bus passes will go from $18 to $28 dollars. Express bus passes will go from $36 to $63, and MetroRail passes, originally set to cost $36, will now cost $70.
This is the second major fare increase in a little more than a year by Cap Metro, which increased fares by 50 percent or more last October.
The fare increases are a response to low revenue and depleted reserves. Since 2002, Capital Metro reserves have shrunk from $200 million to $3.8 million.
This fall, Cap Metro was forced to cancel its Dillo bus service and announced that the MetroRail, already nearly two years behind schedule, was indefinitely delayed. The rail program has already run millions of dollars over budget, and costs of expanding the line are partially prompting fare increases.
After former CEO Fred Gilliam took early retirement this fall, interim CEO Doug Allen addressed the Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization to discuss the MetroRail, calling the delays, “no one’s fault but Capital Metro’s.”
We’re glad to see someone taking responsibility for at least one of Capital Metro’s woes. But while we understand that the organization is somewhat hamstrung by financial constraints, we cannot support its decision to nearly double its fares, passing the cost of its botched light rail onto Austin’s bus riders.
The Free Flow of Information Act
The Senate Judiciary Committee is set to consider The Free Flow of Information Act today. If passed, the act will protect journalists from being forced to reveal confidential information, including anonymous sources. Using anonymous sources allows news organizations to do their job better; Reporters are able to inform the public of crucial information in cases where sources are too vulnerable to disclose their identities.
According to the amended text of HR 985, the act will cover, “[People] with the primary intent to investigate events and procure material in order to disseminate to the public news or information ...” This encapsulates everything from bloggers to student journalists to The New York Times. While newspapers should not use anonymous sources lightly, there are cases — often involving government or corporate corruption — where promising anonymity can help them inform the public.
Texas Sen. John Cornyn serves on the Senate Judiciary Committee. We encourage him to vote in favor of this act and protect the right of the public to information.
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