Here's the PITCH
TCU Athletics announces fund-raising campaign
to pay for new baseball stadium
By Erin Munger
staff reporter
The TCU Athletics department is announcing the beginning of “Here’s the Pitch,” the fund-raising campaign to build an estimated $7 million baseball stadium, to a group of 200 TCU baseball stakeholders and press members today at the Dee J. Kelly Alumni Center.
Vice Chancellor for University Advancement Bronson Davis said the new stadium will be first-class.
“Right now, our goal is to have the funds by April,” said Ross Bailey, associate athletic director in charge of operations. “If that happens, we could start site work this summer.”
According to TCU’s policy, 70 percent of the total funds needed must be available to begin construction on a facility, amounting to $4.9 million for the baseball field. Davis said $1.5 million has already been pledged by six individuals, who will be identified at a later date.
TCU Athletics Director Eric Hyman said the construction of the stadium will complete the third of four phases approved by the Board of Trustees meeting for facilities to improve the TCU Athletics department in spring 1999.
“When I came to TCU, I felt we needed to develop a long range plan for facilities, so we developed a strategy of what we needed to do to develop a prominent athletic program,” Hyman said.
He said phase one consisted of the track, the soccer field and the football practice field. He said phase two was the John Justin Athletics Center, and phase four will be an indoor practice facility for the football team and other renovations to Daniel-Meyer Coliseum.
The new stadium will be between the soccer field and the track, Hyman said.
Plans for the new stadium include 3,500 seats, concessions, batting and pitching cages, locker rooms and a press box, said Davis Baab, associate athletic director in charge of fund raising.
Davis said after the new stadium is in use, the current stadium will become part of phase four by connecting with Daniel-Meyer Coliseum. The coliseum will then house an 80-yard indoor football field, an indoor track, more basketball courts and indoor practice facilities for the baseball program.
Baab said they will present a brochure to the steering committee of about 20 members that names possible opportunities for donors. Donors will have the opportunity to have parts of the facility named after them, such as the press box, the dugout and seats.
“This is much like what we did with the Justin Center, where we placed plaques with donors’ names on the rooms,” Baab said.
e said the committee is now looking for individuals who have interest
in the program and the financial ability to help fund the new stadium.
Davis said the chairman of the committee is Roger Williams, who was the
chair of the “Committee of One Hundred” project to boost season
ticket sales in the surrounding community in 1997. Davis said Williams
also owns a car dealership and recently acted as a fund-raiser for Gov.
George W. Bush’s presidential campaign.
According to the feasibility study for the stadium, the new facility is the key to the future success of TCU’s baseball program. It states that the stadium is critical to attracting and retaining coaches and student-athletes and attracting spectators.
Davis said the committee will be looking for a main donation in the range of $3 million from a corporation or an individual. The committee will also work with city leaders and neighborhood groups in the design and construction of the stadium.
Erin Munger
ermunger@student.tcu.edu
Ending isolation
Kight encourages gays, lesbians to be proud
of themselves, stop oppression
By Emily Ward
staff reporter
The key to continuously defeating the isolation and oppression of gays and lesbians lies in the hands of future generations, Morris Kight told about 60 people Thursday in the Moudy Building South.
Kight, a 1942 TCU alumnus, said standing up to oppression and being proud of oneself is necessary for members of the gay and lesbian community.
“We need to overcome isolation, and the way to do that is to come out — to say that you are lesbian or gay,” Kight said. “That isolation — I am not recommending any young man or woman to go through that.”
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Hillary Morgan/ASSISTANT PHOTO
EDITOR
Morris Kight, 1942 alumnus, speaks to a crowd of about 70 people Thursday night in Moudy Building South. Part of the presentation was a showing of “The Life and Times of Morris Kight, Liberator,” a documentary. |
As a part of his presentation, Kight showed “The Life and Times of Morris Kight, Liberator,” a documentary about Kight’s fight against sexual discrimination.
Audience members both laughed and cheered for Kight as they watched various scenes of him gathering leaves off a tree by Reed Hall, standing in picket lines and planting a magnolia tree in his hometown cemetery.
“I think this was a very unique experience for us,” said Jakobus Wolf, president of eQ Alliance. “I don’t know if anybody can say they have had an experience like his.”
Wolf said he read about Kight last semester, and having the nationally renowned gay activist speak at TCU was important to eQ Alliance.
Christen Grimsley, vice president of eQ Alliance said a lot can be learned from people who have fought battles for gay rights.
“It’s comforting to know that there are people who have fought those battles and can continue to give the encouragement to do that,” Grimsley said.
Gilbert Jones, a member of eQ Alliance, said about five or six students will travel with Kight today to his hometown of Proctor.
In Proctor, Kight says he plans to plant another magnolia tree in the town cemetery so that his memory will live long and stay strong.
“I think it’s going to be a touching experience,” Jones said. “That is where he was born, where he began, and he is sharing that with us.”
At the end of Kight’s speech, he presented Wolf with a rainbow flag dedicated to the gay and lesbian students at TCU.
“We have come this far by courage, dynamism, guts, creativity and an imagination,” Kight said. “Now, fairly soon, we need to hand it over to a new generation.”
In 1960, Kight was a part of the group that founded the Gay Liberation Front in Los Angeles, Calif. Kight said one of his greatest achievements was his founding of the Gay and Lesbian Center in Hollywood, Calif., which offers gay and lesbian community services.
Emily E. Ward
e.e.ward@student.tcu.edu
Staff Reporter Kristina Iodice contributed to this story.
Academic audit program maps degree requirements
By Melissa DeLoach
staff reporter
Registering for classes this week, junior nursing major Emily Orchard logged on to a Web site that showed her progress for completion of her degree.
By accessing the registrar’s home page at (www.reg.tcu.edu) Orchard and other students in the M.J. Neeley School of Business, School of Education, Harris School of Nursing and the kinesiology department now have access to an academic audit program. They are also available for graduate students in the Masters of Accounting and MBA programs.
The audit program, launched Nov. 6, allows students to run a comparison of what courses they have taken and still need to take to graduate, said Patrick Miller, registrar and director of enrollment management. Requirements not met are highlighted, he said.
Miller said the academic audit displays in a few pages all the courses a student has taken and breaks it down into University Curriculum Requirements and major requirements.
“The audit takes all the requirements of the degree and goes through them one at a time, line by line,” he said. “It is an advising tool for students and advisers at all stages of a student’s academic career.”
Kim See, coordinator of the Neeley Resource Center, said an advantage of the audit program is that students can access their degree on their own from any location.
Orchard said because the audit listed the different components of her degree, it helped her decide what classes to register for in spring 2001.
“It pointed me in the right direction of what I needed to take,” she said. “It was self explanatory and helpful.”
The academic audit replaces a previous program that was offered to the nursing, education and business schools before the university converted to PeopleSoft, said Pam Sanguinet, manager of academic progress services in the registrar’s office. Students could only obtain a copy if they went to their dean’s office and had one printed out, she said.
“We could not keep putting money in an old system,” she said. “We knew that we would eventually have to change because of PeopleSoft. The system died the week before we launched the new one. We were lucky that it lasted that long.”
Michael Shank-Taylor, a sophomore marketing major, also used the academic audit as an aid before registering for classes. He said he will continue to meet with his adviser because it is more personable than the computer.
“I get a lot more guidance from my adviser,” he said. “Not only ideas on night classes and assignments in classes, but also on career options.”
Chuck Williams, associate dean of undergraduate programs for the business school, said the academic audit will help students do a better job self advising.
“Students will avoid making mistakes like taking classes that they do not need,” he said. “The audit spells out all the requirements for the student.”
Another function that the academic audit performs is a “what if” search. This feature allows a student the ability to plug in their academic credit toward a different major, Miller said.
“This will be helpful because there are different requirements for each major, school and college,” he said. “Students will be able to weigh out the options of majors.”
Miller said the registrar’s office will add one or two schools each semester to the academic audit. All schools should be finished in three or four semesters, he said.
Melissa DeLoach
m.d.deloach@student.tcu.edu
Housing for Brite Divinity students dedicated Thursday
By Yvette Herrera
staff reporter
The rainy weather didn’t stop the dedication of the new housing development for Brite Divinity students Thursday, nor did it dampen the spirits of the people who attended the dedication at Robert Carr Chapel and the tour of Leibrock Village.
Members from Brite’s board of trustees and donors who contributed to the development of Leibrock took a tour of the first floor of one building. Brite chartered a bus for about 60 people to go to the site.
Chancellor Michael Ferrari said Leibrock is a superb addition to both TCU and Brite.
“It has been designed to be in the truest sense of the words, a residential community, and as such, it is a tangible indicator of several important bonds,” Ferrari said.
The new housing development is replacing three outdated and physically disconnected apartment complexes, Ferrari said.
David Murph, director of church relations, has been working on this project since 1989. Murph thanked the Leibrock family, who the complex is named after, at the dedication.
Robert Leibrock is a longtime oil producer and member of Memorial Christian Church in Midland. His wife, Prudie, is a widely respected artist and civic leader, Murph said.
“I cannot think of a better name to have associated with this place, not only for this generation and current students, but for generations and many more students to come, than the name Leibrock,” Murph said.
“They don’t come any better than Robert and Prudie.”
Alan McGrath, a second year graduate student at Brite, said he and his
fiancee plan on moving into the new apartments when they open in January.
McGrath currently resides in the Princeton House Apartments, which accommodate
Brite students, but the building was built in the 1940s and isn’t
up to date, he said.
Access to the Internet and cable will be an extra service provided that
Brite students don’t currently have in their apartments, he said.
“It seems time to move,” he said. “The upgrade will be nice.”
McGrath also said the apartments will allow seminary students to be together, which is important to the students at Brite.
“There’s a certain bond that we need,” McGrath said.
Larry Garrison, director of facility planning, said the construction of Leibrock has come a long way.
“We would have liked to have had more landscaping done for the dedication, but unfortunately the weather didn’t permit us,” Garrison said. As of Wednesday, builders were still adding final touches and cleaning up.
Elaine Kellam, a member of the board of trustees, said she was enthusiastic about the quality of the apartments.
“The apartments show a strong sense of community, both physically and spiritually, for the seminarians,” Kellam said.
Yvette Herrera
yvebex@yahoo.com