North Texas Daily (Denton, Tex.), Vol. 93, No. 42, Ed. 1 Thursday, April 9, 2009 Page: 1 of 6
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NEWS:
NT unscathed in salmonella scare
Page 2
AR & LIFE* 'romm exp°ses ^s'an sexua|ity ¡ssues
VIEWS:
New SGA officers face old problems
Page 5
Softball
Mean Green shoots down
Red Raiders in Lubbock.
Page 4
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Volume 93 I Issue 42
KW2
Windy
85° / 51°
North Texa s
News 1,2
Arts & Life 3
Sports 4
Views 5
Classifieds 6
Games 6
Qntdaily.com
The Student Newspaper of the University of North Texas
NT-related bills pend
voting in Legislature
By Mary Pharris
Senior Staff Writer
Members of the Texas House
of Representative's Higher
Education Committee heard
testimony Wednesday about
the proposed athletics fee for
NT students.
House Bill 2024, authored by
Rep. Myra Crownover, R-Denton,
relates to the increase in the
student athletics fee that NT
students voted on in October.
The bill reads that the Board
of Regents may charge "each
student enrolled at the University
of North Texas an intercollegiate
athletics fee in an amount not to
exceed $10 per semester credit
hour for each semester or summer
session."
The fee is capped at 15 credit
hours and will not take effect
until construction is completed,
according to an Oct. 21 Daily
article. Rick Villarreal, athletics
director, said in a previous inter-
view that he expects construction
to be finished in spring 2011.
NT President Gretchen Bataille,
Student Government Association
President Jeff Kline, and Student
Regent Meghan Vittrup traveled
to Austin to speak on the legis-
lation.
"I am very excited about the
opportunity to travel to Austin
to speak on behalf of students
regarding the legislation on the
athletic fee and stadium that UNT
students voted on last fall," Vittrup
said Tuesday.
An identical bill, Senate Bill
473, authored by Sen. Craig Estes,
R-Wichita Falls, is pending in
the Senate's Higher Education
Committee.
"UNT is a vibrant and growing
institution and I am happy to
support the students and adminis-
tration in their efforts," Crownover
said.
Law school legislation
moves forward in House,
Senate
The legislation regarding to
the establishment of a law school
Crownover
Kline
in downtown
Dallas by the
NT System was
unanimously
voted out of the
House's Higher
Education
Committee
last month and
the Senate's
Education
committee
Tuesday.
Only one
member was
absent for
the senate
committee's
voting.
The legisla-
tion has been sent to the House's
Calendar Committee, which sets
the debate calendar.
"It's moving, which is a good
sign," said Cynthia Hall, director
of system and external relations
at NT.
If passed, the legislation will
allow for the city of Dallas to give
the Municipal Building, located at
106 S. Harwood St. in downtown,
to the NT System. The law school
will eventually be incorporated to
UNT-Dallas, according to a March
5 Daily article.
Campus concealed carry bill
still pending in committee
Legislation allowing licensed
individuals to carry concealed
weapons on campus is still
pending in the House's Public
Safety Committee after hearing
public testimony last month.
House Bill 1893, authored by
Rep. Joe Driver, R-Garland, has
more than50 co-authors. Aniden-
tical bill, Senate Bill .1164, authored
by Sen. Jeff Wentworth, R-San
Antonio, is also pending in the
Senate's State Affairs committee.
Thirteen senators have signed on
as authors or co-authors of the
legislation including NT's repre-
sentative, Craig Estes, R-Wichita
Falls.
Currently, all college campuses
in the U.S. are gun-free zones.
SGA passes textbook
bill despite turnout
By Tyler Bauer
Contributing Writer
The Student Government
Association passed a bill
Wednesday that would let
it review textbook applica-
tions sent to it by professors
to reserve books so required
reading couldn't change at the
last minute.
The bill gives the fiscal
committee the responsibility
to review applications for
reserving textbooks that would
be sent in by professors. The
fiscal committee would also
manage the recipients of the
textbooks and the quantity of
textbooks reserved. The policy
would include all university
core classes or any high volume
course not in the core.
According to a March 13
Daily article, Senate Bill 215,
authored by Sen. Leticia Van
de Putte, D-San Antonio, is
currently pending the approval
of the Texas Legislature. The
bill would set equal conditions
for competition of independent
bookstores by requiring campus
bookstores to publish a list of
all course materials publicly
when the professor submits their
book list.
This was the association's
first senate meeting since
announcing Dakota Cater was
elected as the next SGA presi-
dent last Monday.
With President Jeff Kline and
other members of the execu-
tive branch in Austin lobbying
members of the Texas Legislature
about approving the freeze
on tuition and building a new
stadium, Speaker Pro Tempore
Robert Zamora and Speaker of
the Senate Joel Arredondo led
the 25-minute meeting.
The senate also discussed
the Eagle's Nest Attendance
Policy Bill. The proposed bill
would change the language of
the policy to let organization
delegates represent up to two
organizations at a meeting. The
SGA is voting on the policy next
Wednesday.
With Kline out of town and
no major bills to be voted on,
Wednesday's meeting was
attended by only 17 of the
34-member senate. The meeting
was delayed by about five
minutes because of the need
of one more senator to attend
in order to vote on the Reserve
Textbook Initiative Bill.
"It was difficult," said College
of Arts and Science Sen. Frank
Arriaga. "The meeting was
so short and a lot of senators
skipped out."
Photo by Holly Dutton/Staff Photographer
Elibornio Beltran is demanding a court case over dropped misdemeanor charges that he used crutches to beat the president of Texas Filmmakers. A judge
dismissed the case after a computer faiiure.
andidate wants case review
By Chris Speight
Senior Staff Writer
A current city council candi-
date for District 3, freelance
journalist and civil rights
activist, Eliborio Beltran, was
charged with a misdemeanor,
which was later dropped.
But Beltran would rather the
case go to court.
Beltran, 42, faced charges
of failure to identify himself to
a police officer until March 23
when the charge was dropped
because the complaint against
Beltran was incomplete.
Beltran said he wants to prove
his innocence before a jury but
Judge Robin Ramsay dismissed
Beltran's request.
The charges, a Class C
Misdemeanor, were dismissed
by city prosecutor Stephanie
Berry because of a supposed
"computer glitch," Beltran
said. Berry did not respond to
multiple requests for comment
before press time.
Beltran said Berry dismissed
the case on March 23 because
the words "failure to identify"
were not on the complaint in the
paperwork's correct space.
The complaint arose because
of the way Beltran, also known
as "Eli Gemini," spoke to a
Denton police officer after figh-
ingt with Mark Menza, an audio
professional from Dallas, who
was using crutches at the time,
on Sept. 27.
The altercation occurred
because Beltran was protesting
the second annual Thin Line
Film Festival, hosted by the
Texas Filmmakers.
Joshua Butler, the pres-
ident of the nonprofit Texas
Filmmakers, said that on the
fourth and final day of the
festival, Beltran protested
Texas Filmmakers for alleg-
edly discriminating against gay,
lesbian, bisexual and trans-
gender peoples.
Beltran said the Texas
Filmmakers has discriminated
against him because he's openly
gay and Hispanic.
"Essentially, Mr. Menza
walked outside and Eli gets
in his face with the camera
and says, 'Texas Filmmakers
discriminates against lesbian,
gay, bisexual and transgendered
people, how do you feel about
that?"' Butler said.
Menza told Beltran to put
away the camera and Beltran
refused on the grounds that
it was a public space, Butler
said. Menza swung his crutch to
block the camera, then Beltran
grabbed his crutch and beat
the handicapped man with it,
knocking Menza down and his
glasses into the street, Butler
said.
"Eli hit a man who had
crutches, with his own crutches,"
Butler said.
Beltran said he told Menza
he needed to put his crutches
down, but Menza kept coming
at him.
"I had no choice but to defend
myself," Beltran said. "This is not
recorded but I was able to wrestle
one of his crutches away andbop
him with it."
Denton police arrested Beltran
because he identified himself as
"Eli Gemini," his pseudonym,
and refused to show identifica-
tion, Beltran said.
Beltran was one of the original
members of the association.
He said he thinks Berry is
trying to cover for the police
officer who arrested him because
he falsely arrested him. Beltran
said he did provide a name
and contact information to the
officer.
A similar incident occurred at
the first annual Thin Line Film
Festival in September 2007.
Butler said that he and a friend,
William Willis, were leaving Cool
Bean's on Hickory Street. Butler
was packing his speakers into his
car when Beltran was protesting
people outside the entrance.
"I am literally down in my car,
putting my equipment up when
I hear a scuffle begin to take
place, between my friend and
Eli," Butler said. "That's when I
looked up and saw my friend grab
Eli's phone o ut of his hand."
Beltran said he was calling
police because Willis had thrown
his recorder over the fence of
Cool Bean's into a vacant lot.
He said police later found his
recorder with a cracked screen.
"I knew that it was time to
end the confrontation before it
got out of hand, so Willis and
I got into my car to leave, and
proceeded to do so," Butler said.
"We were pulled over and grilled
by police for an hour and had my
car searched."
The police found nothing in
Butler's car, and after giving him
a field sobriety test, they let him
go home, he said.
"He has tried to sabotage my
career and the Texas Filmmakers
numerous times by sending out
'press releases' that he writes
for his gay, lesbian, bisexual and
transgendered Yahoo group to
every single prestigious film
group in the DFW area," Butler
said. "I have no idea why he says
those things."
NT finalizes curriculum changes
By Amber Arnold
Junior Staff Writer
NT's University Curriculum
Committee is in the process of
finalizing plans to change the
core curriculum.
The committee decided to
lower the nine hours required
by social and behavioral
sciences, wellness, and cross-
cultural diversity and global
studies to six hours. These
six hours will include two
courses, a discovery course,
which students take first,
and a capstone course, which
requires a passing grade in the
discovery course to enroll.
The new curriculum will be
submitted in the fall of 2009 so
that courses can address the
new objectives of the curric-
ulum by the time it is added
to the course catalog in fall
2010.
Yesterday afternoon at
the Faculty Senate meeting
Celia Williamson, deputy
provost and dean of under-
graduate studies, presented
the committee's plans to the
Williamson
senate.
The
discus-
sion about
creating a
new curric-
ulum began
when the
state of Texas
changed
the amount of hours public
universities were required to
have, Williamson said.
The state now requires only
42 hours of core curriculum
rather than 47, so NT decided
to follow suit, Williamson
said.
"The discovery course
will be a course to intro-
duce students to a new way
of thinking as a university
student," Williamson said,
"and the capstone course will
be something that will intro-
duce students to the world
after UNT."
Along with removing a
course, the committee also
decided to remove the two
one-hour lab requirements
for non-science majors,
Williamson said.
In addition to these changes,
all departments have had the
chance to submit classes that
they would like to add to the
core curriculum, Williamson
said.
Tuition plans
During her report, NT's
Provost and Vice President
of Academic Affairs Wendy
Wilkins also discussed three
proposed spending plans for
the university in the upcoming
semesters.
One spending plan will
involve no tuition increase,
another will incorporate a 7.9
percent increase in tuition,
and the last will incorporate
a 5 percent increase, Wilkins
said.
"If we have zero in the
way of tuition increase, we
would have a year of nothing
new, such as new programs
or salary increases," Wilkins
said. "We've made the decision
that we would rather have a
slight increase rather than to
not invest in the future of the
university."
Wilkins said NT is leaning
toward the 5 percent increase,
despite Gov. Rick Perry's
proposal for a tuition freeze.
Under his proposal, tuition
would be frozen at the rate
that incoming freshmen
pay and would last for four
years.
Other business of the
faculty senate meeting
included the senate's support
for the Student Government
Association's resolution
to ban concealed weapons
on campus. The senate was
unanimous in its support for
this resolution.
Wilkins also discussed the
university's plans to found an
Emeritus college.
"It will be an opportunity to
offer non-structured learning
involving things like traveling
abroad," said Wilkins. "It is
also a way for us to stay in
touch with Emeritus faculty
who wish to be involved."
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North Texas Daily (Denton, Tex.), Vol. 93, No. 42, Ed. 1 Thursday, April 9, 2009, newspaper, April 9, 2009; Denton, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth145685/m1/1/?q=%222009%22: accessed July 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Special Collections.