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Updated on Tuesday, May 15, 2012 at 4:29 p.m.
On the heels of a recent blog post claiming the UT System Board of Regents plans to fire President William Powers Jr., the Faculty Council passed a resolution supporting the president and his administration Monday.
As always, dead week promises to live up to its ominous name. With classes drawing to a close and finals swiftly approaching, students ready themselves for caffeine-fueled nights at the library, sealing themselves and their laptops inside veritable walls of books. At this point in the semester, desperate students would be apt to hail any professor advocating the abolition of final exams as the messiah of pedagogy, but the University of North Florida’s David Jaffee even has a scientifically valid argument underlying his criticism of exams.
KABUL, Afghanistan — Afghanistan’s president has branded his U.S. allies as corrupt, wasteful and contemptuous of Afghan lives. Once he even threatened to join the Taliban. Nonetheless, Hamid Karzai signed a deal that could keep thousands of U.S. troops in his country for years.
Despite his rhetoric, Karzai needs international support if Afghanistan is to survive economically and avoid descending into civil war like it did when the Soviets left two decades ago.
Since this is my last column, I want to self-indulgently take a little time to thank the important people.
Thank you to my friends and family who actually read my column. And thank you to my dad for telling me my columns were good even when commenters said they weren’t. Mostly thank you to my editors for being patient and putting up with me: I sound 10 times funnier and smarter as a result.
Editor’s note: This story is the fifth in a series exploring race, racism and diversity on the UT campus.
A simple stroll around the 40 Acres tells you a lot about UT’s complicated history with racism on campus.
Permanent fixtures of the University’s ties to race and racism are scattered throughout campus. From the representations of Confederate figures in the South Mall to the more recently unveiled statues of Martin Luther King Jr. and Barbara Jordan, each encompass a part of the complex mosaic that is UT’s racial past and present.
Molecular genetics and microbiology professor Tanya Paull studies how cells respond to DNA damage and to a cellular imbalance called oxidative stress. Her research on cell damage has implications for cancer treatment as well as the treatment of ataxia-telangiectasia, a rare neurodegenerative disorder that inhibits movement and coordination.
Editor’s note: This story is the fourth in a series exploring race, racism and diversity on the UT campus.
In March, a racially offensive cartoon commenting on the media’s coverage of the killing of Florida teenager Trayvon Martin motivated members of the University community to picket The Daily Texan and shined a spotlight on the coverage of race by the Texan in the modern era.
Journalism professor Robert Jensen said the most recent controversy at the Texan is the latest in a long line of incidents.
Any person who has visited campus for one day can testify to the racial diversity that is present at our University. UT prides itself on this demographic diversity as the campus transforms into a door to the rest of the world.
UT’s Undergraduate Philosophy Association took philosophy out of Waggener Hall and beyond the scope of western thought Wednesday night.
Earlier this month, the Faculty Council sent a letter to UT System Chancellor Francisco Cigarroa to convey its “strong support” of the tuition increases proposed by the Tuition Policy Advisory Committee (TPAC) and President William Powers Jr. The letter was distributed to members at the council’s meeting on Monday.
A biographer chronicling the life of a central Cold War policy maker received a Pulitzer Prize this year for his literary work.
John Lewis Gaddis, a UT 1968 alumnus and Yale professor, received the Pulitzer Prize for biography for his novel “George F. Kennan: An American Life.”
All 18 protesters arrested Wednesday in the lobby of President William Powers Jr.’s office were released from Austin Police Department custody Thursday morning and gathered on the Tower steps at noon to reiterate their message and rally support.
The protesters, who are members of the Make UT Sweatshop-Free Coalition, drew more than 50 people to the rally.
More than 1,000 sculptures made out of credit cards, brochures, tops of Bluebell Ice Cream containers and paper towel rolls are displayed on a table in Goldsmith Hall.
Academi, the private military company formerly known as Blackwater USA that was contracted to fight in Afghanistan and Iraq, has acquired a new director with close ties to UT.
Daniel Hamermesh | Economics professor
In his research, economics professor Daniel Hamermesh takes a closer look at the “faceless consumer,” examining what people do with their free time and how beauty impacts economic success. Hamermesh, an expert in labor economics, is widely quoted by major publications like The New York Times and has appeared on national television programs several times.
Oscar Brockett, a former UT professor, was one of the world’s leading theater historians, and his leadership will continue to be honored by the development of an academic research center in his area of expertise.
For some students, roll call in a classroom is exactly what it sounds like — the reading of a name. However, for transgender students who identify by a different name than the one listed, roll call can open the door to being outed to classmates.
As the list of patients needing organ transplants increases, so does the need for more organ donors.
Organ donor numbers are not increasing, though, said Michelle Segovia, Texas Organ Sharing Alliance Community Relations coordinator, resulting in more people waiting for necessary organs. There are about 113,000 people in the U.S. waiting for an organ transplant, and 11,000 of them are in Texas, Segovia said. She said more than 18 people die every day because they are waiting for a transplant.
Last week, UT mathematics professor James Vick was awarded the 2012 Friar Centennial Teaching Fellowship, one of the most prestigious teaching awards on campus. This award recognizes Vick’s ability to personally care for each student and engage him or her with the subject matter.
Associate government professor Terri Givens teaches two government classes, updates two weekly blogs, runs marathons and insists on holding a family dinner every night.
Editor’s note: From redistricting to the state’s B-On-Time loan program, these are among our favorite quotes from the past several days.
“There would be very little time before November to advertise, ‘here’s what the districts look like,’ and more important, there would be relatively very little time for the public to weigh in on what those districts ought to look like with the commission.”
Ethical business on a global level and skills-based courses are important issues to students in the McCombs School of Business.
The Undergraduate Business Council hosted the McCombs Curriculum Review Town Hall Meeting Tuesday in partnership with the Undergraduate Programs Committee to learn about students’ perspective on possible changes to the school’s undergraduate curriculum.
A professor’s 9 a.m. calculus class was interrupted when the Longhorn Band playing UT fight songs barged in yesterday to honor the professor and his achievements.
A month ago, crowds flooded Moscow’s city squares to protest the controversial re-election of Vladimir Putin as Russia’s president. On Monday, the University hosted a key figure in the protest movement that has shaken Russia to its core.
