Teen pregnancy is not as glamor-ous as the MTV show “Teen Mom,” Calee Renick, a senior at the School of Nursing, said.

“We did our booth over teen pregnancy and — not just necessar-ily how to prevent it — but if you were to get pregnant, the nutritional needs, the cost of a baby — because it is super expensive — any support systems and resources that we have,” she said. “Self-esteem, body image — your whole body changes if you get pregnant at an early age.”

Lubbock County has the highest percentage of unplanned pregnancy in the state of Texas, Chelsey Lo-zano, a senior at the School of Nursing, said.

After conducting a survey at Tech, Lozano and other medical and nursing students found only 30 percent of the university’s popula-tion knows how to put on a condom.

“Condoms cost a dollar a piece, and a child costs $20,000 a year on average,” Shandi Forbes, a senior at the School of Nursing, said.

Another hot topic up for discus-sion was texting while driving.

Students learning about texting and driving could sign the West Tex-as No Texting Pledge to promise not to use their phone while in the car.

“While making the texting and driving poster, we learned a lot,” Chelsea Williamson, a senior at the School of Nursing, said. “I didn’t realize that every day 11 teenagers die from texting and driving.”

Causing an accident while tex-ting and driving is six times more likely than while drinking and driv-ing, she said.

“You have the same reaction time though as if you had a blood-alcohol level of .08 when you’re texting and driving,” said Mandy Weinheimer, a senior at the School of Nursing. “Even with hands-free devices, you still have that delayed reaction time.”

If drinking is an activity for a night, a designated driver is impor-tant, she said.

“If you don’t have anyone sober to drive, then call the taxi service,” Weinheimer said. “They’re more than willing to help out, even if it is a little money for it. It’s a lot cheaper

than having a wrecked car or killing someone.”

The fi ne can be up to $10,000 and anywhere from two to 20 years in jail, she said. With other charges and fi nes tacked on, a person could spend more than 20 years in jail.

More than 60 community orga-nizations support the Straight Talk program, including The Family Guidance and Outreach Center of Lubbock and Nurse-Family Part-nership.

“We try to advocate and prevent child abuse and neglect in the Lub-bock area,” said Shelby Epperson, a senior in community health and an intern at Family Guidance and Outreach Center of Lubbock.

The organization is distribut-ing 40,000 blue ribbons in April for child abuse prevention month, she said.

“The last Saturday in April we’re doing a blue ribbon rally car and bike show down in the Depot District,” Epperson said. “It’s free to the public and we’ll raffl e off a Harley. It’s one of the ways we can raise money for the organization, so we can continue to offer free parent-ing classes.”

Anger management programs for children in Lubbock Indepen-dent School District and shaken baby prevention programs are other resources offered by the Family Guidance and Outreach Center.

Nurse-Family Partnership is an evidence-based community health program, said Lisa Dillard, a supervi-sor Nurse-Family Partnership.

“The nurse works with the mom during pregnancy up until the time that the baby is two years old, pro-viding her with education, support, resources and advocating for health care, well-being and taking on her maternal role to provide for her baby,” she said. “We assist young moms to stay in school, plan for prevention of subsequent pregnan-cies, learn preparation for childbirth and how to utilize services if the mom doesn’t have family support.”

Nurse-Family Partnership is a grant-funded program without any costs to the new mom, she said.

“Evidence shows that if you interface with the mom during the most rapid time of change — which is pregnancy and the new baby — that with what she gets out of the program, she will be better and more

21

3MARCH 5, 2012WWW.DAILYTOREADOR.COM NEWS

Putin claims victory in Russia’s presidental vote

Talk↵CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

PHOTO BY NICOLE MOLTER/The Daily Toreador

A BOOTH SHOWS models of a human fetus at various stages of devel-opment at the Texas Tech Health Sciences Straight Talk forum Saturday. The event for all ages informed participants about teen pregnancy, STDs, bullying and a number of other issues.

➤➤nmolter@dailytoreador.com

prepared for subsequent pregnan-cies,” Dillard said.

Amy Garcia has had about 40 new moms complete the program.

“Sometimes it’s challenging because they’re not driven,” she said. “They like the motivation and they just don’t see themselves get-

ting further. It’s rewarding, because you can see when the baby comes and how they have grown up and realize they have a big responsibility now. They’re looking forward and starting to think and look at things differently.”

“We were very pleased with the audit report, and (.000287 percent) was the highest percentage of all of our fi ndings,” Wilson s aid. “Packag-ing and processing fi nancial aid is an integral process. You have to make sure it is packaged correctly. We were very pleased with the report.”

Both Cook and Wilson said recent media coverage failed to highlight another signifi cant aspect of the audit and changes which took place during the 2010-2011 award span.

Wilson said for several years, Tech had used full-time budgets in determin-ing the cost of attendance, which is used in the formula for determining students’ need for fi nancial assistance.

A phone call from the state audi-tor’s offi ce suggested Tech needed to use a separate budget for part-time students in assessing the cost of atten-dence. After contacting Tech’s repre-sentative with the U.S. Department of Education, Wilson said, her offi ce was told the fi nancial aid offi ce was in compliance with current rules. After

relaying this information to the state auditor’s offi ce, Wilson said, offi cials with the auditor’s offi ce stated further communication between the state au-ditor’s offi ce and the U.S. Department of Education had confi rmed a formula for part-time students would need to be implemented.

“Once we were told that, we complied — as we always do — and instituted a part-time formula,” Cook said. “That’s where you see that split; students who had already been award-ed were done so on a full-time basis. You can’t go back and change that. The audit started at the beginning of the fi scal year, but the criteria are based off of the end of that year. The audit report didn’t explain that discrepancy.”

Additionally, the audit was not unusual, Wilson said.

“We are audited almost every year so this is nothing new for the fi nancial aid offi ce,” she said. “The state chooses institutions based on who handles the most (funding) and we are always on that list,” Wilson said.

Wilson said all issues brought to the attention of university offi cials during the audit were corrected.

Audit↵CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

MOSCOW (AP) — Vladi-mir Putin claimed victory in Russia’s presidential election before tens of thousands of cheering supporters Sunday, even as the opposition and independent observers insisted the vote had been marred by widespread fraud.

At a massive rally just out-side the Kremlin, Putin thanked his supporters for helping foil plots aimed at destroying Russia, sounding a nationalistic theme that has resonated with the prime minister’s core supporters amid a wave of unprecedented protests.

“I have promised that we would win and we have won!” he shouted to the flag-waving crowd, which responded with shouts of support. “We have won in an open and honest struggle.”

He said the vote showed the majority of Russians has rejected “political provocations” by his opponents aimed at “destroying Russia’s statehood and usurping power.”

Putin tallied 58-59 percent of the vote, according to exit polls cited by state television. Com-munist Party candidate Gennady Zyuganov received about 18 per-cent, according to the surveys, and the others — nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky, socialist Sergei Mironov and billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov — were in single digits.

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