Eight students have said J & J Towing removed their cars from their apartment complexes although they had permits displayed.

J & J towed the cars from Texan Tower and San Gabriel Condominiums, both of which are located in West Campus; University Estates in River-side; and Tanglewood North Apartments in North Campus. Four of the towings occurred this semester.

Sociology senior Jenna Van-denbrande said J & J wrongly towed her car from Texan Tower twice.

“I got towed once for being parking in a handicap spot, even though it wasn’t marked one, and once for not having a permit displayed, even though

it was clearly displayed on my car,” Vandenbrande said.

When she went to the man-agement of her complex, Van-denbrande said the staff told her that the complex would only refund her money if she provided a photo of her permit on the car immediately before J & J towed it.

Each time J & J towed her car, Vandenbrande said she paid about $193, and she never received a refund from her complex.

According to an open re-cords request that KXAN filed with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation, J & J Towing has received 32 complaints, 34 violations and 15 illegal towing violations since 2011.

Timothy Sapp, director of operations for J & J Towing, said drivers work with each

apartment complex differ-ently.

“There are some properties that have us make patrol on our own, and others where we’re waiting for their call,” Sapp said. “The protocol for most apartments is permit patrol. The driver does an inspection of the property … [and], after the driver has checked the en-tire property, vehicles that do not have parking permits or are in violation are removed at that time.”

Corporate communica-tions senior Lauren Martinez

When looking to assemble a team for a startup, Evan Spiegel, co-founder and CEO of Snapchat, found it crucial to find people with a variety of viewpoints who are willing to stand by their convictions.

“When you’re with a ton of really smart people with a ton of different points of view, it’s really important that you be-lieve that you’re correct and fight for your ideas,” Spiegel said. “Otherwise they sort of get lost in that intensity.”

Snapchat — a communi-cation application valued at $19 billion dollars, according to Bloomberg — is the sixth-most downloaded free app in the iTunes App Store.

Spiegel said his company values hard work, creativity

and kindness the most when looking for people to add to their team. Spiegel’s advice for entrepreneurs who want to start a business: Find great mentors and not put off ideas.

One of the most important qualities of an entrepreneur is

the ability to listen more than you speak, Spiegel said.

“The way I can tell some-one is going to succeed when I meet young people is

1

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LEGISLATURE

Lawmaker calls to legalize marijuana

GSA votes to approve its first Bill of Rights

Rep. David Simpson (R-Longview) filed a bill Monday to legalize marijuana in Texas.

If passed, HB 2165 would repeal offenses related to pos-sessing, selling and growing marijuana in Texas. The bill re-tracts all mentions of the word “marihuana” mentioned in the current provisions of the law.

In a statement, Simpson said, “God did not make a mis-take when he made marijuana.” According to Simpson, the government should not have a role in marijuana regulation.

Simpson said marijuana should be regulated like any other plant.

“I am proposing that this plant be regulated like to-matoes, jalapeños or coffee.” Simpson said. “Current mari-juana policies are not based on science or sound evidence, but rather misinformation and fear.”

Currently, marijuana is legal for recreational use in Alaska, Colorado, Oregon and Wash-

ington, as well as the District of Columbia.

Stephanie Hamborsky, Plan II and biology junior and president of Students for Sensible Drug Policy, said she is in favor of the bill. Hambo-rsky said she believes selling marijuana in the state would aid Texas’ economy. Colorado made $34.4 million in revenue from recreational marijuana sales between January–Oc-tober 2014, according to The Washington Post.

“I think overall this bill is a good thing. I think lawmak-ers are realizing … it is a huge economic incentive,” Hambo-rsky said. “They can tax it and regulate it, and the money goes to the state.”

The legalization of mari-juana would also help students charged with the use or posses-sion of marijuana, according to Hamborsky.

“As a student at UT, you’re working hard, and you want to graduate and get a job,” Hamborsky said. “If you have a blemish like that on your re-cord, that doesn’t reflect your

competence as an employee or professionalism. It can be a barrier for students.”

There were 12 offenses re-lated to the possession of drug paraphernalia last year on campus — 11 of which were cleared, according to Universi-ty of Texas Police Department crime statistics.

When asked whether UTPD supports the legaliza-tion of marijuana, UTPD spokeswoman Ronda Weldon said UTPD would uphold the new law if the bill were to pass.

Bridget Guien, commu-nications director for Col-lege Republicans and eco-nomics freshman, said the organization is divided on the legalization of marijuana.

“We currently do not have a stance on the legalization of marijuana,” Guien said in an email. “The members of our organization hold a variety of different opinions on this sub-ject so I am unable to give a general opinion.”

University Democrats sup-port medical and recreational use, production and sale of

marijuana in Texas, according to Ashley Alcantara, UDems communications director and international relations and global studies senior. Howev-er, Alcantara said she thinks marijuana should be regu-lated in a similar fashion as alcohol.

“University Demo-crats supports the regulation and de-criminalization of marijuana, which

aligns with the platform of the Texas Democratic Party.” Alcantara said in an email. “Both policies would cre-

ate more reasonable law enforcement practices and reduce the incar-cerated population, which are both very

pressing issues.”

By Eleanor Dearman@ellydearman

STUDENT GOVERNMENT

The Graduate Student Assembly on Tuesday ap-proved the Graduate Student Bill of Rights and Respon-sibilities, the first official legislation outlining gradu-ate student rights in the organization’s history.

The bill includes the right to a basic standard of liv-ing, nondiscrimination and inclusion in the Univer-sity grievance process. This year’s Graduate Student Bill of Rights and Responsibili-ties Committee will begin meeting with faculty bodies to discuss the language of the document as well as the rights they approved.

By Samantha Ketterer@sam_kett

GSA page 2

SYSTEM

Institute to offer grants for brain research

The UT System Neuro-science and Neurotechnol-ogy Institute will accept applications for $100,000 seed grants for human brain research.

The institute, which the UT System Board of Re-gents established in Au-gust 2014, will be giving up to a total $5 million to applicants in an attempt to enhance brain research, according to a statement from the UT System.

The seed grants, which are grants that go toward approved projects, will fund innovative brain re-search projects, according to institute director Daniel Johnston. Johnston said he is expecting around 200 applications from UT System institutions.

“The purpose of the seed grants is to allow research-ers to pursue new high-risk areas of research and to form new collaborations with other scientists that might not have occurred without the seed funding,” Johnston said.

Patricia Hurn, UT Sys-tem vice chancellor for re-search and innovation, said the institute, also known as UT Brain, will benefit from the seed grants because the researchers will be in a better position to receive federal funding.

“The really important output is that our research-ers be well-positioned to compete for the national [Brain Research through Advancing Innova-tive Neurotechnologies (BRAIN)] Initiative,” Hurn said. “To do that, they need to be not only fabulous scientists, but they need to be innovative.”

By Josh Willis@joshwillis35

BRAIN page 2

CAMPUS

Snapchat CEO: ‘Don’t put off ideas’By Lauren Florence

@laurenreneeflo

CITY

Students express towing frustrationsBy Wynne Davis

@wynneellyn

TOWING page 2 SNAPCHAT page 2

TOWING CHARGES

Base tow: $193.30Per additional night: $20Notification fee after 24 hours: $50

Thalia Juarez | Daily Texan StaffEvan Spiegel, Snapchat CEO and co-founder, talks about

his experiences at Snapchat in the SAC on Tuesday evening.

Illustration by Melanie Westfall | Daily Texan Staff

Rachel ZeinDaily Texan Staff

Beth Cozzolino, Graduate Stu-dent Assembly student affairs director and sociology gradu-ate student, speaks at a GSA meeting in the Gradu-ate School of Business build-ing Tuesday evening.

said J & J correctly towed her car when she parked near the AT&T Conference Center.

“I got caught up in class and forgot to pay again, so, when I walked out there, my car was gone,” Martinez said. “The guys weren’t rude about it, but it was just unfortunate.”

Every time J & J tows a vehicle, the base charge is $193.30. According to a company employee, the ini-tial tow costs $150 and then there is a $20 impound fee and a $20 storage fee, which the company incurs for the vehicle for each day it is in the lot.

Sapp said anyone can file a complaint, but the company tries to resolve any issues before further action is necessary.

“First off, [we] look at photographic evidence to try and make a determi-nation about whether the complaint has any valid-ity,” Sapp said. “If it does,

[we’re] obviously going to work to resolve the problem. We attempt to resolve any of these conflicts before it seems necessary to look for an independent arbitrator through the legal system.”

Sapp said the company al-most all of the complaints on file with Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation have been dismissed.

“There are going to be complaints against the tow-ing company since people don’t like having their cars removed without their con-sent,” Sapp said. “It’s go-ing to be very difficult to make everyone comfort-able with the situation. Obviously, we would like to have as few complaints as possible”

the guy who is silent in the meeting is always the ge-nius — like, every time,” Spiegel said.

Interested in creating his own startups, computer engi-neering sophomore Sean Gaj-jar said Spiegel taught him the first steps to take with a start-up and the importance of hir-ing the right people early on.

The idea of Snapchat is ap-pealing because it is quick and

user-friendly yet entertaining, Gajjar said.

“It’s true that social media is becoming a chore — people have to go through a certain process to go and check their Twitter and find out what’s happening,” Gajjar said. “I think our generation looks for things that are kind of ‘snappy.’ We don’t like to wait for things.”

Snapchat’s original concept was simple, according to Spie-gel, who said he just wanted an app that could send pictures

and make them disappear. Jeff Linwood, lecturer of a mobile app development class, said he hopes Spiegel will inspire students to follow even the simplest of ideas.

“Executing well on simple ideas can lead to amazing opportunities — whether it’s running a billion-dollar com-pany or getting millions of users,” Linwood said. “With simple ideas, you need less time, less money and less ef-fort to convince new users to try your product.”

2

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Ellyn Snider | Daily Texan StaffNoah Zim holds a string of balloons at the South Mall on Tuesday to promote Zoku’s launch.

FRAMES featured photo 2 NEWSWednesday, March 4, 2015

Because of decreased federal funding for neu-roscience research, there will be increased national competition, according to mechanical engineering professor Dale Klein.

Although the seed grants will only be available for UT System schools, they are in-tended to garner competi-tion for federal grants.

“It appears that federal funds are going to become more challenging to obtain, [and] the amount will be re-duced, so the competition is going to be more challeng-ing,” Klein said. “So this seed grant is to put people together to be more com-petitive for what we expect to be reduced federal funds for research.”

UT-Austin will be ad-ministering the grants in a partnership with the UT System. Applicants for the seed grants will come from departments and facul-ties from across the state, Klein said.

“The applicants we ex-pect will be mainly within the UT System campuses, but they could also partner

with schools outside the sys-tem,” Klein said. “Our funds will only be to the System schools. We expect it will be the neuroscience faculty or those faculty involved in that.”

President Barack Obama announced the launch of the BRAIN Initiative in April 2014. The initiative is “focused on revolution-izing our understand-ing of the human brain,” according to a White House statement.

“Currently, the BRAIN Initiative that President Obama is pushing is sev-eral hundreds of millions of dollars per year,” Klein said. “So what we want to do is enable our faculty to be more competitive to go after those funds.”

The UT Neuroscience and Neurotechnology In-stitute was founded to fos-ter collaboration among researchers, according to Klein.

“It really is intended to enhance communica-tion among the faculty at both the academic and the medical health-sci-ence institutes to help fo-cus on research needs,” Klein said.

BRAINcontinues from page 1

“Even just getting this passed all the way up and all the way through is going to take a really long time,” said Beth Cozzolino, GSA student affairs director and sociology graduate student. “But the hope is by having this document in policy, we will have laid the ground work and the method for how you make other kinds of changes, and the other battles will come later.”

GSA began working on

the bill in January 2014. Members of the committee said they do not expect the University to fully recog-nize the rights immediately.

“We’ll have to meet with administrators at all lev-els and discuss the options to move forward with the document as a whole or in pieces,” said Jake Jor-dan, committee member and geological sciences graduate student. “I kind of think it’s going to be an iterative process.”

Cozzolino said there were many points that the committee and other graduate students wanted to include in the bill, such as parental leave, higher pay for graduate students and better health care. The committee did not include these items because of ad-ministrative pushback, Cozzolino said.

“The ones we’ve landed on are the ones that we think are more feasible,” Cozzolino said. “All the ones we got more pushback [on] we have not included on this document.”

A lack of funding is at the root of the pushback, Jordan said. Additionally, graduate student hous-ing is one of the largest problems the committee hopes to address with the bill, said David Ottesen, committee member and aerospace engineering graduate student.

“There’s problems with the current grad housing — a lot — and we’re aware of the issues,” Ottesen said. “It’s mostly a quantity issue, but it’s also disproportion-ately toward international students and families. And that’s not a bad thing, but there are other grad stu-dents [out there].”

Jordan said even students who have not encountered problems at the Univer-sity could see the benefit in having a Bill of Rights and Responsibilities.

“I still sort of see the need for there being [an] underpinning document that really outlines … guidelines for what we should be providing to the University in conjunction with what they’re sup-posed to be giving back to us,” Jordan said. “This re-ally is a symbiotic relation-ship.”

GSA President Brian Wilkey said this legisla-tion is one of the most important ones that has been passed in GSA all year, although getting fac-ulty to aid graduate stu-dents in these rights could be difficult.

“This is going to be a long process,” Wilkey said. “They’re going to have many suggestions, and we’re going to have to hash it out. But this long journey has to start some-where. It’s time to break the champagne open, and this ship can get sailing.”

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Most individuals on campus are indubitably familiar with, for example, the SG President, Kori Rady. More astute follow-ers will likely recognize a plethora of other names of active students on campus, which are mentioned time and time again in the pag-es of this newspaper. One name that is likely not fa-miliar is Max Richards, the student regent for the UT System. Richards, who took office last year, has not made much of an im-pact in these tumultuous past few months for the board. In fact, a cursory search of his name shows that it has not made its way into the Texan since his nomination.

One possible reason is the backdoor way that Richards came into office. A 2005 law passed by the Texas Legislature suggests that applicants to student regent positions apply to their respective student government or-ganizations first. Richards — as well as his predecessor, Nash Horne — completely ig-nored this prerogative and applied directly to the office of then-Governor Rick Perry. Predictably, the move prompted condemna-tion from pertinent student groups, includ-ing this editorial board.

However, the move has also angered a bi-partisan caucus of concerned onlookers in the Legislature. As the Texan has reported, a pair of bills in both respective houses of

the legislature seeks to formally forbid stu-dent regent applicants from applying di-rectly to the governor’s office. State Rep. J.D. Sheffield, R-Gatesville, and state Sen. Judith Zaffrini, D-Laredo, the respective authors of said bills, noted that they wish to both improve the quality of student regents and return more decision-making power back to the students themselves.

Granted, Gov. Greg Abbott’s track record on issues pertaining to this University has been significantly better than his predeces-sor’s, but we still strongly believe, nonethe-less, that the state’s chief executive should not usurp one of the few remaining op-portunities for students to contribute to the administration of their universities. We sup-port these bills, HB 1256 and SB 42, respec-tively, and urge the Legislature to pass them swiftly.

College applications can be a stressful topic for many high school seniors, includ-ing those who wish to attend this University. A potential Longhorn has to ensure that his or her GPA and extracurricular activities are impressive enough to merit an accep-tance letter. Some students are guaranteed admission, but some are stuck in the “may-be” pile, in need of an impressive award or accomplishment that can push them over the top. However, as recent news has dem-onstrated, there is an unconventional asset that those “maybe” students can use to their advantage: political connections.

According to a report by Kroll Associates Inc., President William Powers Jr. granted undergraduate admissions to 73 students with poor academic records between 2009 and 2014. The Kroll report found that, in the cases of these students, their political or legacy connections likely played an over-sized role in their acceptance.

Powers and other University leaders would put “holds” on certain applications, according to a recent Austin American-Statesman article. These holds would signal that the applicant would not be formally re-jected until the person who had placed the hold was notified. Final decisions concern-ing these applications would be made by the president’s office and the admissions office.

The Kroll report stated that while Pow-ers’ office “appears to have violated no law, rule, or policy (with the possible exception of the prohibition against legacy admis-sions), it is an aspect of the admissions process that does not appear in the public representations of UT-Austin’s admissions process.”

It is an understatement to say that admit-ting students based on favorable connec-

tions is not a part of the “public represen-tation” of the University. The UT website endorses the same standard admissions process used by many other universities. Applicants are encouraged to send in the usual items such as transcripts and SAT/ACT test scores. While the website does encourage students to send in recommen-dation letters, it says that they are only used to “provide more information about [an applicant’s] personal and academic achievements.” Nowhere on the website is it revealed that a recommendation letter or any other sort of endorsement from an im-pressive connection could help balance out a subpar transcript or test score.

While the idea of well-connected stu-dents having an easier time getting into col-lege may not be a surprising one, it should be pointed out that the vast majority of students applying to UT do not have these kinds of connections, especially those who come from other states or countries. An out-of-state student probably isn’t going to have someone who can tip the scales in his or her favor if the admissions office decides to reject them. This practice is also hurtful toward lower-income students, who usually do not have the same advantages (and con-nections) that higher-income students do.

Perhaps the system will change. Accord-ing to the Austin American-Statesman, UT Chancellor William McRaven is undecided on whether or not the admissions system should be isolated from the rest of the cam-pus by a “firewall,” saying, “That may be a good idea. It may not. I don’t know.” McRa-ven is right to not make a quick decision. A barrier between the admissions office and the rest of UT would have to be put in ef-fect before its potential benefits or conse-quences could truly be assessed. It could be that a “firewall” would allow for a more fair admissions process. It could be that the cur-rent system is still the better way to go. What matters is that all prospective students are reviewed using the same process. UT needs to ensure that students are admitted or re-jected from this University because of their academic achievements, not because of who they were able to get to advocate for them.

This has always been a great school. The opportunities for growth and discov-ery afforded to students in all majors and programs are endless. We need to make sure that potential students are reviewed fairly so that all applications have an equal chance to enjoy this University and every-thing it has to offer.

Dolan is a journalism freshman from Abilene.

3RILEY BRANDS, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF / @TexanEditorialWednesday, March 4, 2015

LEGALESE | Opinions expressed in The Daily Texan are those of the editor, the Editorial Board or the writer of the article. They are not necessarily those of the UT administration, the Board of Regents or the Texas Student Media Board of Operating Trustees.

SUBMIT A FIRING LINE OR GUEST COLUMN | E-mail your Firing Lines and guest columns to editor@dailytex-anonline.com. Letters must be between 100 and 300 words and guest columns between 500 and 1,000. The Texan reserves the right to edit all submissions for brevity, clarity and liability.

RECYCLE | Please recycle this copy of The Daily Texan. Place the paper in one of the recycling bins on campus or back in the burnt-orange newsstand where you found it.EDITORIAL TWITTER | Follow The Daily Texan Editorial Board on Twitter (@TexanEditorial) and receive updates on our latest editorials and columns.

Student regent system exclusive

UT prospects deserve a fair shotCOLUMN

Our commentary doesn’t stop on the page. For more of our thoughts on the issues of the day, check out our blog, A Matter of Opinion, at dailytexanonline.com.

ONLINE By Mary DolanDaily Texan Columnist

@mimimdolan

Contimplating policies should help combat global incivility

EDITORIAL

Is it just me, or has our world taken a turn to greater incivility in the last few years? The evidence seems overwhelming. Our politi-cians attack one another and show no incli-nation to listen to anything but what they already believe. Politics has always involved aggression, but we have crossed a line when national figures compare peaceful protest-ers to international terrorists and prominent personalities accuse their adversaries of “not loving America.” Our public discourse leaves little space for legitimate and respected dis-agreement. You are loyal and upstanding or you are traitorous and debased, depending on who is listening.

This phenomenon is global. The dismis-sive renunciation of Greece’s calls for reform in European Union finances and its pleas for some alternative to economic policies crushing its population show how European politics are also plagued by callousness to-ward dissent. China and Russia have only in-creased their intimidation, torture and even murder of dissidents. The killing last week of Boris Nemtsov, a former deputy prime min-ister and leading liberal politician in Russia, was one more sign that rulers around the world are cracking down on public critics. Shot dead in sight of the Kremlin, Nemtsov’s murder is a deadly warning to all, in Rus-sia and beyond, who challenge established authority.

Growing inequalities of power and wealth are a necessary part of this story. During the past half-century, millions of people around the world have gained access to education, high incomes and personal security. At the same time, many more millions have been left behind. By most measures, the gap be-tween the lucky “haves” and the unlucky “have-nots” has grown across societies. This is perhaps true in the United States most of all, where a narrow sliver of the population has seen unprecedented income growth,

while the vast majority of citizens face real declining wages. The children of the wealthy and the educated in our society can expect lives of great abundance and opportunity; the children of the poor have much narrower prospects, with less hope than during prior decades.

In a growing but deeply unequal world, the stakes in political debate are often vio-lent. Those who have acquired much in recent years fear, legitimately, that those left behind want to take what they have. Since the poor have “proven” they cannot help themselves, the argument goes, they must want to steal someone else’s earnings. Taxes, health care and even aid for educa-tion get coded as thievery by the lazy and unqualified, or those who are doing their bidding.

On the other end of our polarized debates, those who speak, legitimately, for citizens left behind claim that privileged citizens in our society have somehow cheated and sto-len from others. There is a populist hatred of well-educated hard working profession-als that seeps through the nasty condemna-tions voiced by the Tea Party’s supporters and the “Occupy Wall Street” movement. Both blame elites for their personal frustrations when, in fact, most of the highly educated and high earning members of our society are also hard-working and simply playing by the rules. Successful professionals in our knowledge industries do not work with their hands, but they are the sources of innovation and productivity that allow even our poorest citizens to live better material lives than their predecessors. Although elites (like most of us reading this column) are beneficiaries of cur-rent inequalities, we did not make them, and we often do what we can to help broader parts of our social community. Self-interest and concern for the public good are not necessar-ily contradictions, and they do not correlate with one’s income-level.

Inequality is encouraging incivility today because of the fear I mentioned earlier. Those at the top fear that their position is not se-

cure, especially as they see how far they can fall. Those near the bottom fear that they do not have an opportunity to climb even part of the way to the top. That is the story of our vituperative politics around health care. It is also the story surrounding European Union finances and political authority in China and Russia. When the world is increasingly di-vided between “haves” and “have-nots,” each side has more to fight for, at almost all costs. In these polarized circumstances, democracy becomes a secondary concern, even in the United States – witness the cynical efforts by certain politicians today to discourage poor, young and minority voters from casting their ballots.

The solution to our current global inequal-ity and incivility is not clear. I do not have a simple roadmap to offer. We must, however, begin by diagnosing and discussing the prob-

lem. We must study the numerous causes and their many consequences as social scientists, humanists and cosmopolitan citizens. We must push ourselves to contemplate creative policies – in our universities, in our home communities, in our nation and our world – that push against these problems. This should be a calling for our best universities and our best young thinkers.

If we are not studying these issues, we can expect more violence and democratic de-cline in coming years. Money and moral self-righteousness will mean little if our society does not find the resolve to encourage more civility and more equality. You can visit Boris Nemtsov’s grave in Russia to see the alterna-tive.

Suri is a professor in the Department of History and the LBJ School of Public Affairs. He writes about foreign policy.

Daily Texan File PhotoMax Richards is the current UT System student regent.

COLUMN

By Jeremi SuriDaily Texan Columnist

@JeremiSuri

According to a report by Kroll Associates Inc., President Wil-liam Powers Jr. granted un-dergraduate admissions to 73 students with poor academic records between 2009 and 2014.

Illustration by Albert Lee | Daily Texan Staff

The Walk-ons on most col-lege rosters generally go un-noticed. They rarely get into games. When they do, the score is usually so unbalanced that many fans have already left. Even some of the biggest fans might not know their names.

But the 2014–2015 Texas men’s basketball walk-ons are making sure people know exactly who they are.

Sophomore forward Danny Newsome, a three-year veteran of the program, has the longest tenure of the five walk-ons. Se-nior guard Tarale Murry and junior forward Brandon Allums joined him at the beginning of last season, and sophomore forward Ryan McClurg soon followed suit in January 2014. Freshman guard Joe Schwartz rounded out the squad in December.

Individually, the five walk-ons don’t receive the same recognition as the Longhorns’ scholarship players do. But, as a unit, they’ve created their own online brand.

Their success on the Internet has arisen because of their Twitter account, @UTBBallWalkOns, in which they call themselves the “LastOnesOffTheBench.” The account currently has more than 1,800 followers.

Newsome said the idea to create the account arose dur-ing the team’s trip to Arizona for a scrimmage against Gon-zaga. He said he wanted a way to document the adventures of the Longhorns’ least prolific players. He pitched the idea of a Twitter account to McClurg, and they became the co-creators and the

lone password holders for the Twitter account.

“We really had no idea what we were going to get out of it,” Newsome said. “We knew we wanted it to be very funny and sarcastic and very promoting of the team.”

They decided the best way to do this was to upload stoic pho-tos of all five walk-ons standing at the half-court line of each of the team’s road venues.

They tweeted their first pic-ture on Nov. 20 from Madison Square Garden in New York City, where they received 64 “retweets” and 94 “favorites,” and they’ve continued to tweet pic-tures ever since.

At first, Murry gave his team-mates a hard time about the Twitter, joking that he wouldn’t take part in the photos. He even-tually agreed to participate — under the condition he would never look at the camera in any of the pictures.

“It seems like a paradox,” Mur-ry said. “Because I’m drawing attention to myself by not look-ing, but I’m [acting like I don’t want attention].”

Of course, the walk-ons possess a far more important role on the team than sim-ply garnering attention on social media.

They serve as Texas’ scout team– studying the tendencies of the Longhorns’ next oppo-nents and then emulate them against the scholarship players in practice.

“It gives the guys a better look at how [teams are going to play against us],” McClurg said. “They aren’t going to re-member plays, but they’re re-membering general actions, and those things kind of stick. That’s

kind of our way that we can help them.”

While the fans may not be aware of what the walk-ons do in practice, the scholarship play-ers realize the significance of their contributions.

“They’re really the behind-the-scenes guys on this team,” freshman forward Myles Turner said. “They put in the extra work when we’re not here just to [learn] the personnel of the other team [for] scout [team]. They do a lot of stuff with this team that goes unnoticed.”

Beyond functioning as the scout team, the walk-ons help out in drills and fill in during practice if someone is hurt.

“We do whatever the coach-es need us to do, basically,” Allums said.

When the Longhorns are holding a healthy lead over their

opponents, the walk-ons actu-ally get to hit the floor during a game’s closing minutes. Each time they’ve made it to the court this season, their entrance has elicited loud cheers from the fans.

Newsome and Allums lead the walk-ons with five appear-ances this season, and McClurg and Murry each have four.

On Dec. 16 against Lip-scomb, Schwartz’s first game on the active roster, all five of the walk-ons played during the final few minutes. Each walk-on scored.

Schwartz connected on a 3-pointer in his only shot at-tempt in the game, but he hasn’t played since.

“He’s now 100 percent from three,” McClurg said. “I told him not to take another shot in his career.”

Although the opportuni-ties to play are rare for the walk-ons, Schwartz consid-ers their overall contributions to the team to be as significant as anyone’s.

“I think our role is just as important as everyone else’s,” Schwartz said. “We’re here to bring energy. We’re here to do the best we can on scout team. We’re here to be tough on the guys when we need to, and we’re here to have the guys’ backs.”

For the walk-ons, those responsibilities seem to be a perfect fit.

“We want playing time be-cause if we get playing time, that means we’re up by 30,” McClurg said. “But we really don’t want playing time. We just love being a part of the program and love be-ing around the guys.”

4

4GARRETT CALLAHAN, SPORTS EDITOR | @texansportsWednesday, March 4, 2015

Walk-ons: The last ones off the bench

Shelby Tauber | Daily Texan file photoFrom right, senior guard Tarale Murry, junior forward Brandon Allums and sophomore forward Danny Newsome cheer on the Longhorns from inside Madison Square Garden.

Cold, rainy weekend cools streaking Texas

Texas ends regular season play, routs TCU with big second-half

WOMEN’S BASKETBALL

MEN’S BASKETBALL

STAT GUY

By Peter Sblendorio@petersblendorio

By Drew Lieberman@DrewLieberman

Joshua Guerra | Daily Texan StaffSenior right fielder Collin Shaw provided the lone hit for the Longhorns in the front end of Sunday’s doubleheader.

SIDELINE

WEST VIRGINIA

KANSAS STATE

NCAAM

NCAAW

I forgot just how good the Juan in a Million handshake

really is

Chad Hollingsworth@ChadH_31

TOP TWEET

Last week, Texas baseball was on a roll.

Redshirt freshman third baseman Bret Boswell provid-ed the heroics in the form of a walk-off single as the Long-horns rallied from a four-run deficit against UT-Pan Ameri-can for their seventh consecu-tive victory — their longest streak since March 2011.

Texas’ pitching had been dominant during the streak. Against Minnesota, Texas pitchers threw three consecu-tive shutouts, and that hasn’t happened since the 2002 national championship sea-son. In those seven games, the staff allowed only seven earned runs.

The offense was hitting as well as one could expect dur-ing the run, combining to hit .335 in those seven contests.

While 23 of Texas’ 29 ex-tra-base hits came from the first six batters in the order, the bottom of the lineup got on base in other ways — by drawing 18 walks, which tied the rest of the lineup over the stretch.

With a 2–6 San Diego head-ed to Austin for a three-game set, the Longhorns appeared to be a near lock to enter their four-game series against Stan-ford with double-digit wins and perhaps even a double-digit winning streak.

But colder temperatures

seemed to cool down the streaking Longhorns.

The weather forced Texas to scratch a three-game series for a Sunday doubleheader. The Longhorns dropped both games, falling five spots to No. 13 in the NCBWA rankings.

They batted a meager .104 in 48 at-bats against the To-reros. In the first game of the doubleheader, the Longhorns only had one hit — a double by senior right fielder Collin Shaw, who, through Monday’s games, ranks second in the na-tion in that category with 10.

In the combined 16 innings, Texas scored just twice against San Diego. That same staff al-lowed at least three runs in seven of eight contests enter-ing the weekend, including eight or more in three of those.

Texas stranded 14 runners on base, with the middle of the order responsible for nine of those. Meanwhile, the last third of the lineup went hitless.

The Longhorns totaled only eight bases after hitting for 118 in the previous seven games.

If the bats get going again against Stanford this weekend, the Longhorns could start an-other winning streak before conference play. The Cardinal, similar to Texas, split its four-game series with Rice this past weekend, and its pitching staff may be exactly what gets the Texas offense back on track.

Stanford has allowed nine or more runs in four of its first 12 games.

Texas athletics to offer loyalty system

With a new loyalty points system in place, Texas’ donors and season-ticket holders will be re-warded for their contribu-tions to Longhorns sports and philanthropy.

Texas Athletics an-nounced Tuesday that the system gives season-ticket holders priority for foot-ball season tickets, park-ing and special events based on their full-season ticket history, seat-related contributions and philan-thropic gifts dating back to 1986.

The system awards do-nors up to five points for each $100 donation since Sept. 1, 2014, and a mini-mum of one point per season ticket account for all ticketed sports since 1987. Ticket and parking requests will be processed in order of point totals.

Men’s athletics director Steve Patterson said in a statement that the new system adds value to be-ing a season-ticket holder and Longhorn Founda-tion member. He also em-phasized the importance in rewarding donors for their contributions.

“[The system] rewards those who make a lifetime commitment in Texas Ath-letics and our student-ath-letes through philanthrop-ic contributions, which are vital to the future success of our programs,” Patterson said.

The points system will be implemented starting with upcoming season ticket renewals for the 2015 season.

—Ezra Siegel

Three Longhorns get academic honor

Tennis senior Lina Pa-degimaite, track and field junior Alaina Perez and track and field senior Megan Siebert earned the fifth annual Lage Academic Achievement Award, the Big 12’s highest academic honor.

To qualify for the award, student-athletes must have at least one letter, and the recipient, who can only earn the award once, must have earned 100 hours of credit with a cumulative GPA of 3.80.

Padegimaite is majoring in exercise science, Perez is majoring in chemistry, and Siebert is majoring in health promotion/pre- physical therapy.

—Evan Berkowitz

SPORTS BRIEFLY

Rachel Zein | Daily Texan StaffSophomore center Kelsey Lang had 19 points and 10 rebounds in her second double-double of the season. She helped the Longhorns outscore TCU 36–10 in the paint.

By Courtney Norris@courtneyknorris

Texas made a statement Tuesday night — just ahead of the Big 12 tournament.

The Longhorns jumped all over TCU in the second half to win by 34 and send a message to the rest of the conference.

“I believe we are bet-ter than anybody in this league,” head coach Karen Aston said.

And when the Big 12 tournament begins Friday, TCU will once again have to face off in the quarterfinals against a Texas squad that is firing on all cylinders.

“I’m looking for hungry dogs,” Aston said of her team’s fight heading into tournament play.

However, the final score, 79–45, doesn’t tell the whole story. The game wasn’t a rout during the first half.

Maybe Texas was still sluggish from its overtime loss in Morgantown, West Virginia, on Sunday. Or maybe its nine turnovers helped keep the Horned Frogs (17–12, 9–9 Big 12)

close in the first half. Either way, the Longhorns (20–9, 9–9 Big 12) led by just 5 points at halftime despite an 11-point burst from junior guard Brady Sanders.

“We need to play atten-tion to detail,” Aston said.

The team took Aston’s advice in the second half as they came out and executed almost flawlessly, turning the ball over just four times.

Behind sophomore cen-ter Kelsey Lang’s 13 points and eight rebounds in the second half, Texas rolled as it made up for its loss to TCU earlier in the year. The Longhorns outscored TCU by 29 in the half, shooting 55 percent from the field and holding the Horned Frogs to a meager 25 percent.

Texas took advantage of its size, going to the rim on offense and keeping TCU outside. Texas out-scored TCU in the paint by a wide 36–10 margin and forced TCU to jack up 22 from deep, where they made just three shots. Lang finished with her second double-double of the season,

as she tallied 19 points and 10 boards.

Apart from Lang, the rest of the scoring was balanced. The bench had itself a nice game, outscoring TCU’s sideline, 33–6.

Junior center Imani McGee-Stafford had 9 points and four blocks. Sophomore guard Brianna Taylor also chipped in on the glass, bringing down 10 rebounds.

While Texas’ scoring came from many sources, TCU’s offense was bunched. Junior guard Zahna Medley, junior forward Veja Hamil-ton and senior guard Nata-lie Ventress combined for 39 of TCU’s 45. The rest of the team shot 1-of-25 from the field and 3-of-9 from the free-throw line.

The win came on an emotional night that hon-ored the team’s seniors: forward Nneka Enem-kpali and guard Krystle Henderson. Enemkpali tore her ACL earlier in the year, effectively ending her college career.

“Today is their day,” As-ton said. “Our day.”

79–45 BASEBALL

(20) WEST VIRGINIA

(9) KANSAS

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When the activists behind the national Art+Feminism cam-paign browsed through art cate-gories on Wikipedia, they found thousands of detailed pages dedi-cated to male artists. As they con-tinued reading, they all shared the same thought: Where were the women?

UT’s School of Infor-mation will host the 2015 Art+Feminism Wikipedia Edit-a-thon on Saturday. Dur-ing the communal editing event, participants will spend an entire day updating articles that concern art and feminism on Wikipedia.

Art+Feminism’s campaign seeks to improve the coverage of women in the arts in digital media, such as Wikipedia.

According to Wikime-dia surveys, about 9 per-cent of Wikipedia editors are female. Art+Feminism’s goal is to make this statistic more balanced.

Pearl Ko, information studies graduate student

and co-director of Advo-cating for Women in Tech-nology, said that she feels the lack of female voices in editing impacts the qual-ity of information available on Wikipedia.

“Because of the ubiquity of Wikipedia-supplied informa-tion, we must be mindful of which voices are expressed and which are not,” Ko said. “If Wikipedia is to remain a free-access encyclopedia, then we all should and have a right to contribute.”

Through public events, such as the Edit-a-thon, Ko said she wants to spur dis-cussion on how the gender gap in Wikipedia’s articles influences common public perception of female artists and feminist topics. Rachel Simone Weil, art and art his-tory lecturer, said she shares Ko’s concerns.

“Many of us might imagine that Wikipedia articles, espe-cially those on popular topics, remain relatively unchanged and uncontested as they gravitate toward ‘the Truth,’”

Weil said. “Yet a peek under the hood of the editing process reveals so much about how histories and truths are con-structed, illuminating their inherent instability.”

UT alumna Amy Cav-ender, who helped plan Art+Feminism’s Edit-a-thon, said she believes the Internet belongs to everyone.

“We should all chip in to make it bigger and better,” Cavender said. “It is my hope that specifically focusing on these areas will draw in people who might not normally feel like they ‘can’ or ‘should’ edit Wikipedia, or who may have a lot to say about subjects that fall under the broader top-ics but haven’t thought about Wikipedia as a viable forum to do so.”

Weil said she thinks there

is a risk of some people mis-understanding the goal of the Edit-a-thon.

“The intent is not to dis-proportionately overstate the roles of women or downplay the achievements of men through a malicious rewrit-ing of history,” Weil said. “Rather, this project seeks to revisit gaps in scholarship and

canonical history — places in which the accounts of women’s contributions to society may, for one reason or another, sim-ply not exist.”

Ko said she agrees with Weil’s assessment of Art+Feminism’s goals. She hopes that the upcoming event will give women more confidence to participate

in editing.“It’s really up to no one but

ourselves to change what we see on Wikipedia, but admit-tedly it can be intimidating when you feel alone, inexpe-rienced or unwelcome,” Ko said. “A vital first step is to encourage everyone to par-ticipate and make Wikipedia a welcoming space.”

If the four students behind “Cramen” had it their way, ev-eryone would top their dishes with crickets.

Cramen — a portmanteau of cricket and ramen — is a food startup that UT students Michael Chang, Gary Hsu, Vik Parthiban and Kevin Sy found-ed this past summer.

Cramen specializes in spice packets similar to the ones that come with ramen noodles — but with a nutritional twist. Each

packet contains cricket flour and algae powder, both of which are high in protein and nutrients.

Parthiban, an electrical and computer engineering gradu-ate student, said the team’s ul-timate goal is to create a spice blend that tastes delicious in a variety of recipes — whether it’s ramen or cookies.

“We want to make sure we have a spice that we can trust,” Parthiban said. “Right now, we want to perfect that spice. Then, we’ll start selling to dif-ferent customers and see what their reception is.”

The team recently competed as a finalist in the UT Food Lab Challenge in which they had to come up with a food-relat-ed idea that could help with a global health issue.

“Something that we all have in common is that we all love ramen,” said Hsu, a manage-ment information systems and radio-television-film senior. “So we were thinking about the spice packets, and we said, ‘Why don’t we make these spice blends, so we can add it to anything?’”

With a passion to eliminate

world hunger, the team said it hopes to eventually ship the spice packets to third-world locations, such as Africa, In-dia and Thailand.

Chang, a chemical engi-neering senior, said the inspi-ration for Cramen came from a 2013 United Nations essay detailing insect protein and nutrition. He said he knew many people used algae pow-der in foods such as protein shakes, so Cramen incorpo-rated both elements in their spice packets.

“The idea of a ‘spice

powder’ is not a very foreign idea,” Chang said. “But con-veying the idea that, although this thing may be small and we’re only four students, we have an idea that could change the world. It was challenging to all of us.”

Sy, an electrical engineering senior, said developing Cra-men exposed him to how diffi-cult creating a business can be.

“What I learned is that the world also runs from a business perspective, and you also have to learn to appeal to your cus-tomers not just from a business

perspective but a psychology perspective as well,” Sy said.

Above all, Hsu said anything is possible when a group of dedicated people willingly put in effort and work to accom-plish a goal.

“Getting this far proves that you don’t have to have a mil-lion dollars, and your last name doesn’t have to be ‘Zuckerberg’ in order to come up with a great idea,” Hsu said. “If you have a group of people willing to put in the time, you can really do something that can change the world.”

6

KAT SAMPSON, LIFE&ARTS EDITOR | @thedailytexan 6Wednesday, March 4, 2015

CAMPUS

Activists try to close Wikipedia gender gap

Illustration by Albert Lee | Daily Texan Staff

By Megan Kallus@megmayumi

FOOD

Cricket ramen founders develop protein-packed spices

CAMPUS

Solar Vehicle Team looks to futureBy Rebecca Fu

@thedailytexan

Rachel ZeinDaily Texan Staff

Members of UT’s Solar Vehicle Team, from left, Kon-rad Werzner, Ji Seon, Ross Miglin and An-gus Ranson, stand with the TexSun, a solar-powered car built to participate in cross-country and track races.

By Emily Fu@thedailytexan

ART+FEMINISM WIKI-PEDIA EDIT-A-THON

When: SaturdayWhere: UT School of InformationAdmission: free

A group of students is building a solar-powered car that can function, drive and even race — all while creating minimal waste.

Each school year, UT’s Solar Vehicle Team builds solar-powered cars to race in both cross-country and track competitions. This year, the group is improv-ing their current car, the TexSun, and working on an entirely new vehicle.

According to Cynthia Luu, electrical engineering junior and team president, the club tends to attract engineers, but it is open to students of all disciplines. Despite focusing her stud-ies on electrical engineer-ing, Luu said she started out on the team by working on the body of the car.

Ross Miglin, mechani-cal engineering freshman and team member, said the group adopts a trial-by-fire approach to learning the ropes.

“I crawled under the body of the vehicle and stared at the wheel for 30 minutes,” Miglin said. “Eventually, through ask-ing a lot of questions, I

figured it out.”Much of the work on

the car is done indepen-dently by different sub-groups within the team. Luu said the teams devel-op each aspect of the car from scratch.

For Alejandro Silveyra, electrical engineering ju-nior and team member, the collaboration among the subgroups drastically en-riches the process.

“The biggest reward is [learning] how to work well with teams,” Silveyra said. “It’s not possible to know everything about the project by yourself. You have to start trusting oth-ers and know that they can make their own decisions.”

Although creating a car from scratch requires a lot of foresight. Sliveyra said exhaustive planning doesn’t hold the team back.

“I’m not saying planning is not important,” Silveyra said. “The actual point is to create something. It’s a re-ally laid back team, but we get stuff done.”

Despite the varied as-pects of production, An-gus Ranson, electrical engineering senior and team member, said the common goal of creating a

functioning solar-powered car unites the team.

“For each individual, their reason for making the car is different,” Ran-son said. “Each individual’s reason that they’re doing it is collectively ours.”

The members agreed that the team’s focus sets it apart. While solar-pow-ered vehicles present many challenges, they present exciting new opportuni-ties, according to Silveyra.

“We’re in an area that no companies are trying to figure out,” Silveyra said. “It’s not viable at the mo-ment, it’s too expensive, and it doesn’t make sense. I think, while [we are] hav-ing fun racing cars, we’re creating an idea that could be used later.”

Solar-powered cars are still not considered main-stream vehicles. No major car company has ever re-leased a vehicle that runs entirely on solar power.

Nevertheless, Mi-glin said he is confi-dent in the future of solar-powered cars.

“My goal in the fu-ture is to pick up a girl for a date in a fully solar car,” he said. “It’s going to happen someday.”