Change in hourly parking awaiting approval
Proposed policy to extend parking on Lubbock
Street from one to two hours
By Matt Jones
staff reporter
The city of Fort Worth Traffic division is awaiting approval from residents and property owners in the 2900 block of Lubbock Street to extend one-hour parking to two-hour parking on the residential street behind Dan Rogers Hall.
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Sarah Kirschberg/CO-PHOTO EDITOR
Morgan Landry, a sophomore computer science major, goes door-to-door Tuesday afternoon to collect signatures in support of a piece of Fort Worth parking legislation. |
In response to student complaints about limited parking, the TCU Police and university administration filed a request with the Transportation and Public Works division to change the zone in late August, said J.C. Williams, assistant chief of police.
Morgan Landry, a sophomore computer science major, said she addressed the Traffic and Parking Regulations committee last spring when she realized it was a commuter concern.
At the time, Landry was the sub-chairwoman of commuter concerns for Student Government Association. She said she received about 180 responses to the commuter survey.
“After surveying the students, we realized that there was a disparity in the parking policies in the neighborhood surrounding the business building,” Landry said. “Several students were raising complaints about unfair tickets and parking in the one-hour zone.”
However, John Craver, a senior engineering technician for the city, said the university needs the support of residents who own property and reside on the street in order to change the current policy.
“Whoever owns the property essentially controls the parking and regulations surrounding the area,” Craver said. “TCU does not make decisions regarding the city streets.”
However, Craver said a work order will be issued pending two-thirds approval for the change.
“We will change the policy if it is the consensus of the residents living on the block,” he said.
Craver said two of the eight residential properties on the block belong to TCU.
Landry said she will work with Campus Police over the next week to obtain the signatures of at least six of the eight residents along the street.
Once the signatures are obtained, Diana Vazquez, a traffic safety coordinator, said the city generally allows 10 working days to change the signs and complete the work order.
Vazquez said the current zone was established in 1978 at the request of the residents on the street. Vazquez said, at the time, the strip on Lubbock was primarily a residential zone.
“Many of the residents raised concerns about parking in the neighborhood and the need to establish hourly zones,” Vazquez said.
Since that time, Craver said TCU has continued to grow and expand their property holdings in the neighborhood.
“We are not trying to punish students,” Craver said. “We were simply upholding the guidelines established by the residents of the community.”
Don Mills, vice chancellor for Student Affairs, said the traffic committee, which comprises students, faculty and staff, recommends annual changes and re-evaluates parking rules each year.
“Parking issues are very sensitive,” Mills said. “Essentially, it is very difficult to please everyone.”
Matt Jones
matthewsjones@hotmail.com
Treats for Tots
Colby Halloween provides safety, treats for
children
By Melissa DeLoach
staff reporter
Monkeys screaming behind cages in the basement is how Megan Jolley, then 4 years old, remembers Colby Halloween.
“There were monkeys everywhere, hooting and hollering and jumping around,” she said. “I really thought there were monkeys living down there.”
Jolley is now a freshman speech communication major and a resident of Colby Hall. Tuesday’s 28-year event was a special night for Jolley, 360 residents and more than 400 children of TCU faculty and staff that attended the event.
This year the age limit for children attending was lowered to 9 to limit the number of people coming in and out of the building, said Naunie Mead, Colby Hall director. Additionally, black tarps and trash bags were not allowed to cover the walls because of fire hazards, she said.
“It is really twofold,” Mead said. “We needed to control the crowd, but because the older kids expect it to be scary, we lowered the age level because we did not want to disappoint any children.”
And disappointment was not visible at all. What was visible were the smiling faces of Superman, the Avon lady, beauty queens, Harry Potter and “Braveheart’s” William Wallace, said Ernesia Harts, a freshman political science major and Colby Hall council president.
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Jennifer Klein/SKIFF STAFF
Dressed as Rainbow Brite, Jessica Ridings, a sophomore advertising/public relations major, leads Claudette Rae Fraire, dressed as Dorothy from the “Wizard of Oz,” through Colby Hall Tuesday night. |
“This was such an exciting event,” she said. “It was a whole-hearted effort of every Colby resident working hard together. Everyone was working around the clock putting spider webs up, putting music together and making costumes.”
Convenience for small children to trick-or-treat was a reason why Topaz Thornton brought her two children Taylor, 2 1/2 and Andryia, 11 months. The family lives in Milton Daniel Hall with Artist Thornton, hall director.
“This is a great opportunity to give back to the community, both to TCU and the surrounding neighborhood,” she said. “Plus it gives small children like mine the opportunity to walk around safely being as small as they are.”
Tuesday was the first Colby Halloween for 5-year-old twins Sarah and Blake Harmet. They traveled from Chicago with their parents, Lisa and David Harmet, last week for their parents’ 20-year TCU reunion and stayed for Halloween. Sarah dressed as an angel and Blake was Jar Jar Binks of “Star Wars.”
“This is a lot easier than going home and trick-or-treating,” Lisa Harmet said. “The girls are so nice and friendly. Plus it makes things easier on Blake, who has spina bifida and is in a wheelchair. Our trip to TCU was absolutely wonderful.”
Colby Halloween was sponsored by Residential Services, International Education and Services and the Colby Hall council. Fort Worth Fire Station 21 made a special visit for children to see their fire truck and meet firefighters.
Children attending the event were led throughout the residence hall by volunteers and resident assistants. Each wing in the residence hall was decorated with a different theme, from Charlie Brown’s “The Great Pumpkin” to “The Blair Witch Project.” Resident Assistant Chelsea Hudson’s Enchanted Forest won top honors for the best decorated wing in Colby.
“It was such a special event for everyone involved,” said Hudson, a sophomore political science major.
My girls spent so much time making things perfect for the children so that they could have a fun, safe, magical Halloween experience.”
Melissa DeLoach
m.d.deloach@student.tcu.edu
E-business course offers skills for corporate world
Students say courses allow them to see all aspects
of e-business career
By Melissa DeLoach
staff reporter
Armed with the challenge to create an online processing system for a family sportswear company, Shawna Golden, a junior marketing and e-business major, is learning all the back-end technology required to complete online transactions.
As a second semester student in the electronic business program, Golden is looking for ways to improve the retail Web operations of Hot Tamale, a semester project that she and other e-business students analyze on an ongoing basis.
“It is very time intensive,” she said. “We just had a 15-page paper due last week. I was up until 4 a.m. putting on the finishing touches. And this is only one class.”
In November 1999, TCU became the first university accredited by the International Association for Management Education to offer an undergraduate degree in e-business.
Jane Mackay, director of the e-business program, said the degree equips students with the technical and business skills to develop, implement and manage an infrastructure of information on the Internet. Students also learn to manage and develop ways to apply electronic business, she said.
“It is an information services degree with all the applications based on the Web,” Mackay said. “Students gain all the skills to compete in the dynamic business world of today.”
This week, the second e-business class will be selected from a pool of 110 applicants. New facilities are being planned to house e-business classes, including a computer lab donated by Compaq and RadioShack. The lab is expected to be completed by the beginning of the spring semester.
According to a recent US News and World Report study, the M.J. Neeley School of Business ranks eighth among business schools that offer programs in e-business. The program also includes an MBA concentration in e-business.
Mackay said the report is misleading because TCU is the only school in the study that has an e-business degree at the undergraduate level. The other schools focus on or emphasize e-commerce, she said.
E-business involves all the activities a business organization conducts over a computer-mediated network, Mackay said. The 70 students in the 2 1/2-year program are learning every aspect of a Web organization from human resources and sales, to the manufacturing of a product. E-commerce deals with only one aspect of a business, like the sales of goods and services, Mackay said.
Bob Lusch, dean of the business school, said the e-business program has helped in the recruiting of undergraduate students to the business school.
Erin McBrayer, a sophomore business major, said e-business was the biggest selling point for her when she decided to transfer to TCU from Tarrant County College. She will find out later this week if she is accepted to the program for spring 2001.
“In just one semester I have learned so much,” said McBrayer, who is currently enrolled in e-business I, a required course for all incoming business students. “I have learned everything from operating systems to transmitting information on the Internet.”
Golden said the difficulty of the program is that every class is built upon another and leaves no room for her to specialize in a certain aspect of e-business.
“I enjoy database principles but do not enjoy programming,” she said.
Julie Covert, a senior e-business and management major, said even though she may not aspire to be a database analyst, the well-rounded degree enables her to see all aspects of e-business and how it fits the competitive needs of an individual business. The program requires her to be at TCU another year, but she said it will be worth it in the end.
The marketability of the degree for job opportunities after college is what motivated junior e-business major Reed Artim to apply for the program.
“There is such a high demand in the field because technology is changing rapidly,” he said. “I have no doubt that I will be able to get a good paying job right out of college.”
Melissa DeLoach
m.d.deloach@student.tcu.edu
Six students named millennium scholars
Program aimed at expanding access to higher
education for minority students
By Matt Jones
staff reporter
Six TCU students were named Gates Millennium Scholars Monday in an inaugural program aimed at expanding access and opportunity to higher education for minority students.
TCU students Jonathan Banda, Rachael Fisher, Crystal Chantelle Jones, LaTorsha Oakley, Dora Suarez and Crista Williams were among 4,000 of 62,000 applicants chosen nationwide to receive merit-based scholarships that cover remaining college costs.
Oakley, a freshman psychology major, said she was relieved when she was notified.
“I realized that I qualified based on their formula, but I wasn’t sure how it would turn out,” Oakley said. “It will allow me to stay at TCU and get an excellent education.”
Oakley, who received about $3,500 to pay for her remaining costs at TCU, said she is grateful to have been chosen.
“I feel like someone generously contributed to my future education,” Oakley said. “I owe it to them to give my all and do my best.”
Banda, a freshman Latin American studies major who received $2,000 from the foundation, said the scholars program benefits minority students who may not otherwise get a quality education.
“It has made attending a private university possible,” Banda said. “Tuition and fees are very expensive and often have the biggest impact when choosing a college.”
The Gates Millennium Scholars Program was created last fall with a grant of private money from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, a non-profit organization that supports improved global health care and education.
The program is administered by the United Negro College Fund, in partnership with the National Hispanic Scholarship Fund and the American Indian College Fund. Together, the groups seeks to increase the number of African-Americans, American Indians/Alaska Natives, Asian Pacific Americans and Hispanic Americans who enroll and complete undergraduate and graduate degree programs.
The foundation is committed to a 20-year, $1 billion initiative aimed at reducing the financial barriers to a college education for 20,000 students.
To qualify, applicants had to be nominated by individuals from educational organizations and community agencies. Applicants should be citizens/permanent residents of the United States, have attained a cumulative GPA of 3.3, have applied to, been accepted into or enrolled full time in an accredited college, have significant financial need as defined by the Federal needs analysis formula and have demonstrated leadership ability through participation in community service, extracurricular activities or other activities.
Australia Tarver, director of undergraduate studies in English, said she nominated several of her students for the program.
“They were looking for intelligent, strong leaders from the dominant minority groups,” Tarver said.
One of Tarver’s students, Williams, was chosen for the program.
“Crista was an excellent candidate,” Tarver said. “She is a great student and had a variety of leadership positions within the community.”
Matt Jones
matthewsjones@hotmail.com