Kevin's farewell blog!

     Like every good story, there is always an inevitable end. My journey here as a Student Telecounselor has ended. This past year and two months has been incredibly enriching and it is sad to go, but in life we all have to move on. I was able to get an internship this summer so that's where my next journey begins!

UT Tyler Welcomes Two New Deans for Fall 2014

The University of Texas at Tyler is a continuously growing family of students, professors, administrations, deans, and presidents. Like most things, employment changes, students graduate, and life moves on. For every year we see people go, however, the next year is filled with vibrant faces, ready to join the UT Tyler family. New Student Orientations are welcoming the next generation of students in as I write. However, this year at UT Tyler, we are also welcoming two new and important faculty members to our halls.

On June 10, 2014, the campus announced that we would be receiving a new dean of the College of Business and Technology. Previously, Dr. Jerry Gilley was an interim dean in the position. This year, we welcome Dr. James Lumpkin in as the dean of the college and are excited to see what he brings to the table. According to the official UT Tyler press release concerning the hiring of the new dean, Dr. Lumpkin comes to UT Tyler from Louisiana Tech and has several degrees under his belt. He received a Masters and then a Ph.D. in Business Administration. We're very excited to have him join us here on campus!

Dr. Lumpkin, Photo from Press Release on UT Tyler Website

UT Tyler also announced on June 18, 2014 that we would also be welcoming in a new dean to the College of Nursing and Health Sciences. The previous dean, Dr. Linda Klotz, retired last semester and there was an interim dean for the rest of the semester, Dr. Pam Martin, who is succeeded by the new dean. His name is Dr. Yong "Tai" Wang. Dr. Yong "Tai" Wang comes to UT Tyler from Georgia State University. He has two master's degrees in biomechanics and exercise science, and also a Ph.D. in rehabilitative biomechanics. He sounds like an awesome addition to the college and the university itself! We hope these two colleges benefit from new leadership.

Dr. Yong "Tai" Wang, Photo from Press Release on UT Tyler Website

Change always comes in life, especially in a university. We're happy to be able to see it happening in front of us. Welcome new faculty, and new students. Can't wait to see you August 25th for the kick-off to a new school year!

The Potential for Cell Phone Connectivity at UT Tyler

One of the most important areas of discussion for colleges and universities is retention rates, primarily calculated by the average amount of freshman students that return to the same university for their sophomore year. UT Tyler's retention rate is roughly 64 percent, roughly 13 percent below the national average, and 11 percent below the state average. the average retention rate in the United States. Reasons for this trend among students include academic difficulty, family problems, and loneliness, but the most cited reason is money-related issues. Specifically, one reason for these issues lie with student's lack of reapplication for financial aid and scholarships through the government and their university. A study finds that more than 18 percent of students that receive a Pell Grant in their freshman year (a group that earned an average 3.0 GPA in their freshman year) fail to reapply for the grant in their sophomore year. As a result, half of those students did not return to their university in their sophomore year. A question arises from this startling statistic: Would encouraging students to reapply for financial aid increase their academic persistence, and in turn, a university's overall retention rate?

To tackle this problem, Ben Castleman and Lindsey C. Page, assistant professors of education that penned the previously mentioned study entitled "Here Today, Gone Tomorrow? Investigating Rates and Patterns of Financial Aid Renewal Among College Freshmen", designed and implemented a system of text-message reminders for students with the intention of reminding them to reapply for financial aid at the end of their second semester during their freshman year. These texts gave reminders about refiling their FAFSA applications, as well as maintaining satisfactory academic achievement in order to continue receiving financial aid and scholarships during their academic careers. The results, according to the study, show that the majority of improvement lied within community college student populations, whose retention rate was at 76 percent, 12 percent higher than students within the control group that did not receive the text messages. However, this study shows no significant changes for students attending four-year universities. Explanations for this lack of improvement from the author's include the already existing "passive" reminders that universities use, such as putting up flyers that remind students to refile their FAFSA application, along with the lack of a broad search during the experiment--researchers used colleges and universities in Massachusetts for their study, a state that has higher average retention and graduation rates than the majority of other states. 

Knowing that these methods have potential among students at both four-year universities and community colleges, it is worth considering the growth potential for cell phone connectivity at UT Tyler. As of now the university uses text reminders and alert systems for their students for various purposes, but the utility of academic and financial aid reminders could boost retention rates, average GPA values across different classes and schools, along with a litany of other benefits. The use of text messaging is at an immense high among college students nationwide, so the potential for improvement of its use can massively increase for our university. 

Representing UT Tyler at the NSDA National Debate Tournament

With the UT Tyler Debate team's season ending over three months ago, members of the team often find high schools that are looking for assistance with their tournaments or for consulting on how to improve their performance.  The members of the team will often volunteer their services to help those schools improve. Last week marked the end of the high school speech and debate season.  I had the pleasure of attending the week long tournament and judging many rounds of humurous, dramatic, and duo interpretation, and 12 debate
 rounds. It was a pleasure to watch so many excellent performances and
witness the future of speech and debate.

This was the where the finals rounds were held.
The auditorium held 4000 people!

Thousands of high school speakers and debaters converged on Kansas City, Kansas last Monday to begin their competition.  Students began competing at 8 AM on Monday morning, and some did not finish competing until late on Thursday or Friday evening. During the first two days, students competed in their main events: Humorous Interpretation, Dramatic Interpretation, Duo Interpretation, Original Oratory, Congressional Debate, Public Forum Debate, Lincoln Douglas Debate, and Policy Debate. Through 6 preliminary rounds of competition, the top 60

This is how elimination roudns were
announced.  If your "code" was on the
paper, then you had advanced to
the next round!

advanced to the next two elimination rounds.  After an additional 2 rounds of competition, the top 30 in each event were advanced, and so on until only 6 or 7 were left in each event. For debate events, competition continued until only 2 teams remained.

After a student was eliminated from their main event, they had the option to register for a supplemental and cancellation events.  These consisted of Storytelling, Expository Speaking, Prose Reading, Impromptu Speaking, Poetry Reading, Commentary Speaking, and Extemporaneous Debate. I had the pleasure of judging 2 rounds of Humorous Interpretation, 2 rounds of Duo Interpretation, and 4 rounds of Extemporaneous Debate.  It was awesome to see what students had been working on all year in preparation for this tournament.  The future is bright for the National Speech and Debate Association.

UT Tyler Recreational Sports offers Summer Camps for kids!

     When the campus isn't filled with students, and the halls are empty, kids flock the campus and get to experience the university. The University of Texas at Tyler Recreational Sports offers various summer programs for children to enjoy!

Have you heard of the UT Tyler College of Pharmacy?

     Whenever there's something new it always adds a fresh appeal. This is true when it comes to new programs here at The University of Texas at Tyler. The Ben and Maytee Fisch College of Pharmacy is expected to open Fall 2015! This will add new resources and qualities to the growing university!

UT Tyler Freshman Orientation session 1!!

     New Patriots flocked the university as the first orientation session occurred last Thursday and Friday. The University of Texas at Tyler welcomed these new freshman as they have taken the interest in attending UT Tyler. Orientation is always different for every session, the programs are the same for each session, but the new people make this experience fresher every time. Orientation is not only a valuable program for students, but parents also get to experience UT Tyler first hand!

UT Tyler Student's Court Date Adventure!

Helpful Tips Included.

This is a little story about my adventure with the court system in the city of Tyler. It’s magical, really. And it all started with a warning for speeding.

Have you ever been told to do something and for some reason you just didn’t get around to it? Maybe your mom told you to clean you room three years ago, but you found yourself too enthralled with being a slob to do what she asked. Or maybe you told your boss that OF COURSE you would get that filing done this Friday, but then someone brought cake to work and everyone got chatty (including you) and oh look, it isn’t finished and it’s time to leave. You walk sneakily off and vow to get it done first thing on Monday.

Yea. Don’t do that with the court system. Especially in Smith County. 

A factual account of corruption in the ETX Justice system.
Full text in the link. Have fun :) Via WikiLeaks

As a couple of you may know, I just recently got owned by the Tyler Municipal Court. It began innocently enough, when I received a warning for speeding and was told by the officer to get my license changed to reflect my new address. I did not do that last bit. Four months later I received snail mail telling me that I had missed my own court date and owed the city of Tyler $690.00. I thought I would be able to get out of the fines, and now I have my very first payment plan. I feel like a real life adult now. No really.

My face when I found out I would not be getting out of my fines
EW. Via PrettyVices

10 THINGS EVERYONE SHOULD KNOW ABOUT COURT BEFORE 

YOU FOOL AROUND AND OWE THE CITY YOUR FIRST BORN.

New Ways to Stay Safe at UT Tyler

The University of Texas at Tyler is considered a pretty safe place to be, but like any public establishment, there is always the potential for risk, especially situations that could be unique to college campuses. There is no need to fear, however. Here at UT Tyler, the campus police have worked on a large number of ways for students to stay safe and informed, including programs such as PatriotALERT and the upcoming release of a RAVE mobile safety app that lets you stay safe with just your cellphone or tablet on hand. If you are out and about without a mobile device, you may also want to know about the emergency blue phones on campus as well.

PatriotALERT is a system designed to send messages (emails, texts, and voice mails) to students and their parents if their contact information is included when the student signs up. Students automatically get emails sent to their campus account and adding phone numbers increases the chance that you will see these important notifications. The types of messages you might receive range from notices about bad weather expected around campus, closures, potentially threatening situations to the student, as well as notifications about emergency warning system drills so that people are aware that there is not any real issue while the drills are performed. If you want to opt in to PatriotALERT and have not already, visit your My.uttyler.edu account to sign up. This link provides you with all of the instructions.

We also have areas around campus that include emergency blue light phones that allow you to quickly get in contact with police dispatch services if you are in an unfavorable situation that requires immediate attention, or if you need help and don't have a working phone for whatever reason while you are on campus. If you ever need one of these, be sure to familiarize yourself with the map below so you know where to find one. The red numbers denote places where you may find an emergency blue light phone. Unfortunately, they do not look like a tardis. 

Click the map to Enlarge

Finally, we have the new App that has just been announced. This app, provided through RAVE Mobile Security, is called RAVE Guardian and can be found in your phone's app store. It provides the student with the ability to quickly contact campus police in an emergency situation, as well as to add numbers for other people the student may consider "Guardians"; from a trusted room mate to a family member nearby, or directly to your parents. We would highly recommend having at least two people as a guardian besides the police if you can, because it's good to know you have people who can help you if you need it. 

The app itself works by allowing students to quickly place a call or text to the campus police and their guardians if an unfavorable situation seems to be brewing and you feel you need help. The other useful function is what is called a safety timer, which is a button the student may press to set a timer for them to return safely from going out somewhere or to get out of a situation. If the timer is not deactivated by the student before it runs out, it will send a message to the police and the guardians designated in the app to send a police officer to check on you and ensure that you are in no trouble. 

These coupled with other measures of safety provided in the campus living areas help make our school as safe and secure as it can be. If you have any questions about campus safety or about the three services I wrote about above, leave a comment or feel free to directly contact Campus Police by following the link. The Campus Police page provides a lot of great information about security and about these systems.

Remember, have fun while you are at school, but be safety-conscious as well. Even in a safe area such as this, it's good to know what to do if you get stuck in a tough situation.

Who's Paycheck is Higher in Public-College Institutions?

At UT Tyler, it is not difficult to guess the comparative rate of pay for faculty, staff, and administration members. Pay increases as it normally would in a Division 3 institution, with the president of the university holding the most impressive pay stub, and a decreasing number as you move down the hierarchy of command and control. There obviously exists a direct relationship between rate of pay and authority at UT Tyler, but do other public universities have the same relationship with their staff and administration?

Not surprisingly, the answer is no. The Chronicle of Higher Education shared a survey on executive compensation on May 18th indicating that head coaches for football and basketball often carry higher salaries than the university's president and other high-status administration members. This trend occurs in more than 40 states, reflecting the subjective importance of sports for larger universities in the United States. This comparison occurs quite often within academic circles, as they weep helplessly as the coach of a sports team gets paid more than the professor or administrator that actually gives the institution the "higher education" qualification.

NCAA reports of revenues and expenditures by division, courtesy of Slate

At some colleges, coaches' compensation can be more than $500,000 more than a university president or other chief-executive position. That's more than double the president's salary at a typical institution. What is the utility for this type of pay distribution? Should a coach have a higher pay rate than those who keep the university running on an academic level?

It should be noted that many coaches' salaries are paid in part by athletic foundations with a hefty alumni base, so their pay comes not from tax payers, but rather former students at each university. But does that really justify their high pay? Alumni donations going toward improvements to sports facilities and high salaries for coaches means there is a large opportunity cost with not giving that money for actual academics. I'm not saying that the NCAA should be scoffed at, but rather prompting a reevaluation of our priorities within higher education institutions. UT Tyler seems to have their priorities in order; while extra-curricular activities and sports teams have large support from the administration and alumni organizations, there exists a substantial dispersion of funding to academic facilities and programs. But for other institutions in the US, priorities seem to be out of sync.

Beating the heat at UT Tyler

Summer is rapidly approaching us here at the University of Texas at Tyler.  The past couple of weeks have seen temperatures as high as 95 degree already! Some people love the warmth of summer, but I cannot stand the heat and humidity.  Rather than embrace the heat, I prefer to find other things to do things that will avoid the boiling temperatures.  If you are like me, keep reading to get some new ideas on what to do during the summer to have fun while still avoiding the heat!

UT Tyler Cowan Center: Enjoy high class acts!

     Texas is right down center from the two states infamous for entertainment wonders: California and New York. Although mostly two cities make these states popular, the value consumes the states with visitors. New York City is well known for having great performance acts, whether it be musical, comedy or Broadway. It has it all. So when those acts come to The University of Texas at Tyler, there is an opportunity for East Texans and UT Tyler students to experience Grade A entertainment without traveling far. This is what the Cowan Center provides here at the university. 

     This will be the 18th season for the Cowan Center. This season will provide an array of world class acts where audiences will only crave more and come back every year.

There's different series categorizing different acts. Each one providing an entertainment experience like no other.

Summer Reading List (no picture books, unfortunately)

I am terrible at reading. It is not that I cannot actually read, otherwise it would be a miracle that I can write this whole sentence with correct punctuation. The issue lies with my inability to stay focused on a piece of literature long enough to actually get to the last page. It's either my short attention span, or the large amount of work that comes with the school year. So every summer, when boredom rolls around, I make a short reading list, consisting of three to four books that deal with my personal interests, academic-related content, reading material for debate, or books that are currently being adapted to a television show on HBO (a fairly obvious selection). I read as many as possible before I eventually flake and go back to playing video games. Regardless, here is my reading list for the summer. Feel free to steal one of my choices for your own summer list.

Title page of a 1550 page of The Prince 

The Prince, by Niccolò Machiavelli

Considered to be one of the first works of modern philosophy, The Prince continues to be one of the most influential pieces of literature among academics, students, and political enthusiasts in the contemporary era. Written by Niccolò Machiavelli and published in 1532, The Prince evaluates the role of leadership and rule within a political society, and determines that the aims of princes--such as glory and survival--can justify the use of immoral means to achieve those ends. It is one of the earliest depictions of political and societal realism, and is a must read for any political science, history, and philosophy students during their time within academia.     

Resistance, Rebellion, and Death, by Albert Camus 

Last summer, I managed to finish a whole book on my summer reading list (this is a huge accomplishment for me). Unfortunately, finishing the book caused me to have a minor existential crisis, a common effect of reading The Stranger by Albert Camus. Considered to be one of the greatest authors of all time, French Nobel Prize winning author, journalist, and philosopher Albert Camus' heavy contribution to 20th Century literature revolutionized what we now know as absurdism and existentialism. His next work on my list is Resistance, Rebellion, and Death, a collection of essays published in 1960 that covers themes such as freedom, rebellion, capital punishment, totalitarianism, and others that are common centerpieces within political science, history, and philosophy discussions. A good read if you feel like thinking real deep and stuff.

The Nine, by Jeffrey Toobin

Sandra Day O'Connor, former Supreme Court Justice
who plays a large role in The Nine

Jurisprudence is a tricky subject; only a select few can stomach its intricacies, and even fewer do not find it horrendously boring. Within this study of the law and its evolution lies a continuing conversation regarding the makeup of the U.S. Supreme Court, and how its ruling pattern has changed throughout its existence. While most Constitutional Law courses you take in your undergraduate career will cover relevant cases, not often is there a hyper-specific look into the lives and careers of the Supreme Court Justices within the contemporary era. Toobin's The Nine profiles the justices of the United States Supreme Court within the past sixty years, discusses the function of the institution during an important era of social equality and justice, and how the jurisprudence of the branch and its members has changed over the years. It takes a specific look to the conservative revolution that took place within the court after the 1973 ruling of Roe v. Wade, and the key players that created permanent change to the bench, and what those changes mean for society in our current era. A great read for those who crave C-Span and watching old people deliberate on subjectively important matters.

A Song of Ice and Fire, by George R. R. Martin

Among fans of the popular HBO show Game of Thrones, I fall into the category of "non-book readers." That means all of the incredibly surprising, gut-wrenching events the show throws at me are completely unpredictable. Because this book series has been around since 1996, spoilers for the show are fairly common, and the guilty party is often someone who read all the books before the show started and ruin it for the non-book readers. Well, I am personally tired of the spoilers, and I know that they will inevitably continue so long as Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit continue to exist. So, to avoid the painful process of avoiding spoilers week-by-week, I decided that once Season Four of the show ends (two episodes remaining), I will try to read the books (again, like, for the fourth time).

UT Tyler Summer Transfer Orientation!

     It has begun!! Orientation season is upon us! This time it was transfer student orientation. Held today, June 4, The University of Texas at Tyler welcomed new students who are transferring from other colleges.

The Best of Netflix at UT Tyler

It's that time of year here at UT Tyler where, for most of us, the stress of class obligations and assignments is on hiatus.  While most of us do have plans, there will be times where we are looking for something to do.  But have no fear, Netflix is always there to provide you a good break from reality with its thousands of shows available.  Not sure what to watch? No worries, I have compiled a list of my personal favorite shows on Netflix.