Austin Pets Alive! Celebrates 11 Years as a No-Kill City

bySloane Wick

AUSTIN,  Texas — Austin Pets Alive! held a party on Oct. 11 at the Austin Beer Garden Brewing Co. to celebrate Austin’s 11th-no-kill anniversary. “No-kill is a very interesting phenomenon. We were the first large city to have a no-kill shelter,” said Craig Nazor, Chair of the Austin Animal Advisory Commission. “It’s one of these […]

Field of Light Shows Austin a New Perspective of Nature

byEthan Ferguson

AUSTIN – The Field of Light display made its debut Sept 9. at the Lady Bird Johnson (LBJ) Wildflower Center, after a two-year delay due to the COVID-19 pandemic.  Catenya McHenry, the LBJ Wildflower Center’s Director of Marketing Communications, said the Field of Light is made up of 28,000 fiber optic, solar paneled light stems. […]

Longhorn Fiesta Fosters Family and Friends on Campus

byCecilia Rodriguez

AUSTIN, Texas – The Hispanic Faculty and Staff Association (HFSA) hosted Longhorn Fiesta on Oct. 14 to celebrate the end of Hispanic Heritage Month on campus. Entertainment, activities and treats to stimulate all the senses spread across the University of Texas Main Mall. Selena Quintanilla’s “Como La Flor” played through loudspeakers as colorful decorations and […]

Congressman joins Austin protest for Iranian human rights

byDominique Ramirez Bejarano

U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett joined over 200 protesters outside the Texas Capitol in solidarity for Iranians and to raise awareness of the 22-year-old woman who died last month after being arrested for wearing her headscarf too loosely.
“I admire the courage of Iranians and Iranian-Americans,” Doggett, D-Austin, said after his speech on the south steps of Capitol. “It is vital to stand up for human rights and the horrors that women are facing.”
Though Doggett was appearing for the first time, it was the fourth consecutive week that Austinites have rallied at the Capitol after the death of Mahsa Amini, a Kurdish woman who was arrested by Iran’s morality police for having her hair visible under her hijab. Amini’s death in custody on Sept. 16 triggered protests in Iran and around the world, creating viral videos of women defiantly cutting their hair and throwing their head coverings into fires. 

Austin City Council Approves $15 Monthly Electricity Bill Increase Starting Nov. 1

byKeaton Peters

The Austin City Council voted to increase the average monthly residential electricity bill by about $15 starting Nov. 1.
In voting for the increase, Council Member Allison Alter said the increases are “primarily driven by external market factors beyond our control.” 
The increase is one of two rate increases proposed by Austin Energy, the city’s nonprofit publicly-owned electric utility company. The $15 increase will cover rising costs from the record-high price of natural gas, increasing energy demand and regulatory changes coming from ERCOT, Texas’ grid operator, according to Austin Energy.

Harry Styles’ Residency Brings Campers to Campus

byCecilia Rodriguez

AUSTIN, Texas – Amid a plethora of tents, blankets, chairs and air mattresses was a line of campers waiting for the most talked about show in town.  The much anticipated six night and sold out Austin residency of British singer Harry Styles kicked off Sept. 25 at the new Moody Center on the University of […]

Thursday Night Social Ride Rolls Through Austin

byTaryn Jones

AUSTIN, Texas – Hundreds of cyclists gather every Thursday evening underneath the I-35 bridge next to Chicano Park. Headlights and neon decorations attached to bicycles illuminate the park as the sun sets. At around 8:15 p.m., a shrill whistle pierces the air, announcing the start of a 10-mile ride through downtown.  This event is called […]

Ovarian Cancer Survivors Walk “Together in Teal”

byEthan Ferguson

SAN MARCOS, Texas – For the first time in three years, several Texas chapters of the National Ovarian Cancer Coalition hosted the annual Together in Teal community walk in-person. Combining the Central Texas, Austin and San Antonio chapters of the coalition, this year’s event on Oct. 2 took place in San Marcos for the first […]

Dozens of Students Learn Latin Dances in Front of the UT Tower

byOihane Ochoa Navarro

AUSTIN, Texas – A Latin dancing student organization and an international student organization collaborated for a free salsa and bachata class at the Main Building Square. Texas Latin Dance and Planet Longhorn hosted the event Sept. 28 beneath the UT Tower. “We just like to dance, teach people to dance and have a fun time,” […]

Project Connect to Impact West Campus Buildings

byCristina Folsom

AUSTIN, Texas – A project to add new rail lines will displace several West Campus businesses within the next few years, according to Austin Transit Partnership. In the most recent proposal for Project Connect, the Orange Line is set to run through Guadalupe Street between Stassney Lane and North Lamar Boulevard, stopping at UT West […]

UT Students Walk Out in Support of Reproductive and Trans Rights

bySamantha Eisenmenger

University of Texas students walked out of their classrooms as part of the National Day of Student Action, a nationwide peaceful protest for reproductive rights and trans rights after the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade in June.   

The Graduate Student Action Network organized walkouts at about 50 universities in 25 states, including the University of Nebraska, the University of Arkansas, West Virginia University, the City University of New York and New York University.    

“It’s incredibly exciting,” said one student. “I think we had an excellent turnout. Just seeing the range of speakers and organizations that we come from and all of the backgrounds is incredibly inspiring. Reproductive justice is such an intersectional issue, all of the perspectives here today.”

Former UT Hoops Walk-on Hopes Graduate Assistant Gig Leads to Coaching Career

byBrandon Jenkins

After Tristan Licon earned a surprise spot on the Longhorn basketball team as a walk-on, he is ready to hang up his jersey for good and complete his initial goal of being a graduate assistant.
Graduate assistants for an athletic team are similar to university teaching assistants. The position is designed for students pursuing a master’s degree, many of whom want to pursue a coaching career. 
“You need to go somewhere where you can learn the business,” said Drew Valentine, current head coach of Loyola-Chicago who first started out his career as a graduate assistant at Michigan State University. “The graduate assistant experience was great for me because I got to see firsthand how a program was run at the highest level.”

Pandemic, Criminal Conviction Resulting from Nurse’s Mistake Raises Concerns for Future Healthcare Workers

byVictoria May

Hot on the heels of the conviction of a Tennessee nurse at another university medical center, University of Texas at Austin nursing students are wary of joining healthcare workers already stretched to the limit by the COVID-19 pandemic. RaDonda Vaught injected Charlene Murphey with an incorrect drug and failed to monitor her, resulting in Murphey’s death. […]

Just Call Me By My Name: UT Students Reflect on Their Identity

byJennifer Errico

A name is the first glimpse into a person’s character. It, too, is one’s brand.

Names correlate with self-worth, personality and status. According to author Ralph Ellison, it is through our names how we first place ourselves in this world.

Three University of Texas at Austin students share how their names shaped their identities, often not without struggle.

Austin Mounted Patrol Making Most of New Home

byPamela Hall Vance

Like many Central Texas residents, Austin police officer Dawn Leonard has bad memories from Winter Storm Uri in 2021. Not only did she have to keep herself warm, but she had to ensure the survival of the horses of the Austin Police Department’s mounted patrol unit.

 “It was a horrible week,” Leonard said. “So 24/7, every two hours, I got up and scooped poop.”

In the end, the storm turned out to be a blessing for the 16 horses in the mounted patrol unit. Because of a lack of water and sewer issues caused by the storm, the Austin Police Department moved the animals from a stable in Manor to the Austin Equestrian Center in Cedar Creek.

Amid Population Decline, Rural Texas Towns Look to Future

byJill Ament, Veronica Apodaca, Cristela Jones, Paula Levihn-Coon and Gabriella Ybarra

Despite Texas gaining more people than any other state in the past decade, more than half of its counties lost population, according to the 2020 U.S. Census.

During the past few decades, changes in agriculture and the boom-or-bust oil and gas industry have led to dwindling employment opportunities in rural Texas. Many young people leave rural communities after high school in search of economic and social opportunity, often never returning.

“You start seeing what I describe as kind of a net out-migration of young people who age up through high school in their community where they grew up. And if they want to go to post-secondary education or they want to work in a job that’s, you know, potentially higher paying, they’re going to have to move to a more urbanized area,” Texas State Demographer Lloyd Potter said.

That loss of young people, Potter said, has left aging populations in rural communities.

Diversity in Tattooing Opens Up Art Form to People with Different Identities

byTaryn Courville

In the years she’s been a tattoo shop owner and artist, Tina Poe has witnessed more body art studios opening, increased diversity in artists and more creative work being put out. It’s exciting to see more demographics being represented in the industry, she said. One demographic Poe noted was women. The majority of Moon Tattoo’s clients are female now, she said.

Responsibility for Ukrainian Refugees Shifts to Individual American Sponsors Like Austin Woman

byAlexa K. Haverlah  

In the absence of a more robust immigration system, American citizens are hosting refugees, assuming financial responsibility and assisting with the resettlement process.

As Teacher Vacancies Mount, Special Education Teachers Struggle to Meet Student Needs

byGabriella Ybarra 

Nearly all states in the U.S. are dealing with teacher shortages in special education. Texas school districts have struggled to fill teacher vacancies for years. The situation worsened during the pandemic.

Residents, Businesses Face Prospect of Moving to Make Way for I-35 Expansion 

byZacharia E. Washington

TxDOT’s $4.9 billion I-35 Capital Express Central project is intended to reduce congestion and improve the safety of the highway. The Austin section of I-35 has twice been named in the Congress for the New Urbanism’s “Freeways Without Futures” report as one of the American highways in most need of elimination. That section of highway ranked second among Texas’ most congested roadways by Texas A&M’s Transportation Institute.