I’m writing this while on hold with financial aid. It’s only minute nine, though, so I’m still considering myself one of the lucky ones.

Oh! Okay, I just got somebody on the phone.

“Yeah, my name is Cara, and I’m working on a story about UH financial aid. I’m just trying to get a better understanding of the process.”

“You should probably speak to a financial aid representative. Here, I’ll transfer you.”

… Then who were you? Regardless, after seven minutes of fuzzy piano music, I was able to talk to a ‘customer-service-representative-for-the-scholarships-and-grants-department’ who preferred to not give me her name.

I asked questions. Some were softballs, like “I’m trying to understand your process so I can share it with students, are enrollment issues students have dealt more of an issue with federal grants?” By “issues,” of course, I mean students getting dropped from their courses after failing to pay tuition on-time, even though they depend on federal or state aid that hasn’t arrived yet.

Other questions — and admittedly fewer — were tougher to navigate.

I asked her if there was any situation, any at all where a student with pending aid would get dropped from classes because their money came in late. No, she said, in theory.

She said she always encouraged students that received aid to file for “emergency deferment,” which would extend their payment deadline if a worst-case scenario were to happen. And I believed her.

She was a little nervous, but she seemed to have an answer for everything that made crystal clear sense to me. But that doesn’t change the fact that so few students, myself included, have yet to enjoy the seamless enrollment process she described.

Whatever the infrastructure is that encompasses enrollment, financial aid and advising, it never seems to have a problem proving itself as fundamentally flawed on some level. I’m not pretending to know which level the blame should fall on (you’ll see I did my due diligence of asking the source directly), but there are some serious issues students are faced with at the beginning of each semester. Maybe they’re just not telling them to the right person — after all, venting to your friends won’t generate the same kind of feedback that, say, an open letter to anybody involved in the enrollment process might have.

Shockingly, most students aren’t well-versed in the jargon of the financial services office. The majority of issues I’ve heard second-hand are rooted in a lack of communication between the student and the financial office. And honestly, most of the aid representatives have an answer for everything you’d ask them. There’s a clear protocol for almost any hypothetical situation presented to them.

But what looks great on paper is rarely as crisp in reality. The minutia, like the difference between a tax return and a tax return transcript, is rarely explained to students. Most students don’t know the difference between a work W-2 and a student W-2.

These formalities seem insignificant, but failing to navigate their waters can wind up holding students back from enrolling on time, graduating on time or even staying at UH long enough to graduate. And I’ll stop saying that the office has a communication problem when I hear somebody say they understood everything that financial services needed from day one.

These accusations are broad, I know, but they’re all founded in a theme that recurs in every financial services horror story I’ve heard.

It’s no secret that UH’s population is booming. We’re currently enjoying the University’s highest enrollment numbers in history. But what’s the point in welcoming this eager, bushy-tailed influx of Cougars if we don’t have the infrastructure to support them?

Enrollment and payment is usually the first thing a student deals with at UH — before their first football game, meal at McAlister’s Deli or workout at the Recreation and Wellness Center. If we’re subjecting new students to one of UH’s weakest links before they’ve formed any good memories here, how can we expect those students not to come in sour?

Or, maybe these issues have arisen because of the influx. Maybe we’re understaffed, scrambling to handle enrollment numbers we simply aren’t equipped to handle.

Is that an understandable reason for today’s problems? In a sense, sure, though it would’ve been prudent to bolster our financial services staff as soon as we saw enrollment numbers trending upward.

I’m just drawing from personal experience here — not to mention the experiences of friends, acquaintances and conversations I hear in passing — so take these anecdotes for what they’re worth. Which is a lot, at least according to me and my friends, acquaintances and the conversations I hear in passing.

And I’m not raising new questions here. I’m just asking them to a larger audience than most students ever do.

-Cara Smith, editor in chief

—
“Letter from the Editor: Raising the right questions” was originally posted on The Daily Cougar

President and Chancellor Renu Khator addressed the Faculty Senate, touching on the subsidized community college that President Barack Obama has proposed. | Cara Smith/The Cougar

When Wynne Chin was appointed as president of the Faculty Senate on Wednesday, it was a familiar feeling — seven years ago, Chin was in the middle of his first term as Faculty Senate president. It’s not common for presidents to return for another term, but Chin spoke to the senate with goals for enhanced communication and student success.

He began his second presidential tenure during the Faculty Senate meeting held Jan. 21 in the Rockwell Pavilion at the M.D. Anderson Library. Chin replaced Maria Elena Soliño as president; Soliño is a professor of spanish literature and film at the University.

Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs Paula Short touched on the senate’s priorities of student success. | Cara Smith/The Cougar

“I have a good understanding of how the University works, and I’m just looking forward to more continued success,” Chin said. Among other things, Chin hopes to integrate technology into the senate’s communication to better connect the senators to the faculty.

President and Chancellor Renu Khator and Provost and Senior Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs Paula Short addressed the senate. Short updated the senate on the search for a new College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences dean, following the resignation of Dean John W. Roberts.

According to Short, there are no prospective candidates being publicly considered for the position.

Khator also touched on President Barack Obama’s proposal for free community college, encouraging the senate to remember that “nothing is free.”

“The cost is $60 billion over the next 10 decades. However, the concept is intriguing,” Khator said.

She said that regarding rising national tuition rates, the President focused less on assigning blame to universities and more on the broader goal of giving institutional access to all, a topic she also spoke on during her time in at the Texas Tribune Festival last October.

The next faculty senate meeting is scheduled for Feb. 18 at 12:15 p.m. at Rockwell Pavilion.

-Additional reporting by Christopher Shelton

news@thedailycougar.com

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“New president takes the helm at Faculty Senate” was originally posted on The Daily Cougar

President Barack Obama at the Las Vegas Presidential Forum in 2008. | Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

In one variation or another, ‘This was the most confident Obama we’ve seen,” seemed to be the go-to summation of President Obama’s “State of the Union” address.

In prior addresses, the President hasn’t been enjoying an economy in an upswing or a nation that seems to be adopting his party’s overarching social values: gay marriage (with 7 of 10 citizens living in a state where it’s legal, said Obama) and majority support for women’s contraceptive rights.

For college students, it can be overwhelming to navigate around the speech’s subjects that don’t directly impact them, let alone take an hour and a half out of their night to watch television.

Here’s some of the key takeaways for college students from President Obama’s 2015 State of the Union address:

Obama proposed free community college for “those that are willing to work for it.”

It was one of the first concrete proposals Obama brought up tonight. He said that his ultimate goal is to make “college to be as “free and universal in America as high school is today,” citing Tennessee and the city of Chicago as examples that, put simply, free college works.

But there are some alarming statistics that weren’t addressed in his speech: a study conducted by the National Center for Education Statistics in 2010 looked at the nation’s public community college enrollment. Of those students (who began enrollment in as early as 2003), around 25 percent earned a degree or certificate after six years of enrollment.

This isn’t just an alarming statistic for those enrolled in college – it isn’t a sustainable pattern to see in higher education. In his address, Obama said that by 2020, two of three jobs will require “some form of higher education.”

Aside from tuition, expenses like food, transportation, books and the general cost of education can deter students from higher education.

TIME reports that the free tuition initiatives of Chicago and Tennessee also included strict monitoring of “student progress, careful alignment of courses to transfer and job requirements… and help for students to make better choices about what to study.”

In his State of the Union, Obama didn’t give too many specifics on his national free tuition initiative – only that the U.S. needs it in order to be nationally competitive in education and innovations.

“Some are young and starting out. Some are older and looking for a better job. Some are veterans and single parents trying to transition back into the job market,” Obama said. “Whoever you are, this plan is your chance to graduate ready for the new economy, without a load of debt.”

The President wants to see some major improvements in childcare and paid sick leave.

Obama said the United States is the only “advanced country” that doesn’t offer paid maternity leave and that 43 million Americans aren’t offered paid sick leave.

Currently, Texas doesn’t extend maternity leave beyond what’s federally mandated in the Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978 and the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA), the latter of which protects an employees up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave per year for “serious medical conditions.” However, the employer must meet some qualifications in order to offer these benefits to its employees, and the employee must complete 1,250 hours of work with the employer to qualify.

“Today, we’re the only advanced country on Earth that doesn’t guarantee paid sick leave or paid maternity leave to our workers that forces too many parents to make the gut-wrenching choice between a paycheck and a sick kid at home, Obama said. “Let’s do the right thing.”

Obama wants to improve the United State’s port system.

The President didn’t get into specifics, but he said his “bipartisan infrastructure plan” would create “30 times as many jobs” annually nationwide and focus on building and improving infrastructure, including our nation’s ports.

There was no mention of a federal oil and gas tax, and Obama’s only mention of foreign trade was that the U.S. is steadily increasing its independence from foreign oil.

As native Houstonians and residents of the country’s second-largest port in terms of tonnage, this might perk some ears around the Bayou City. Currently, the gas tax sits at 18.4 percent, and some are pushing for an increase in this tax to pay for infrastructure projects like the ones proposed tonight.

“21st century businesses need 21st century infrastructure  —  modern ports, stronger bridges, faster trains and the fastest Internet,” Obama said. “Democrats and Republicans used to agree on this. So let’s set our sights higher than a single oil pipeline.”

news@thedailycougar.com

—
“Key takeaways from Obama’s 2015 State of the Union Address” was originally posted on The Daily Cougar

UH social media manager Jessica Brand was hired to create UH’s social media presence in January 2010 and has helped change the way the University interacts with its students and the UH community. | Jenae Sitzes/The Cougar

When she’s not handing out free T-shirts on Cougar Red Friday or live-tweeting an event on UH’s official Twitter account, there’s a good chance you’ll find Jessica Brand in some remote part of nature – probably reading a classic piece of Russian literature.

That’s one of the rare times Brand allows herself to turn off her phone. As UH’s social media manager, Brand’s job forces her to be constantly tuned in to what’s happening on and around campus by monitoring UH’s many social media platforms and tracking several hashtags.

#CreatingAPresence

Brand and social media coordinator Tiffany Norman work closely together to make planning decisions, such as choosing which events to live-tweet on @UHouston. | Jenae Sitzes/The Cougar

When Brand came into her career at UH in January 2010, UH was not active on any social media, other than having a long-term YouTube account.

Five years later, UH has over 112,000 likes on Facebook, almost 27,000 followers on Twitter and over 157,000 followers on LinkedIn. Brand has also expanded UH’s social media presence to include newer platforms, such as Tumblr and Pinterest; with her involvement, UH was the first among universities to begin using Snapchat.

Her first obstacle was getting the word out. Brand’s small team set up booths around campus, urging people to “like” and “follow” UH on its new accounts. But this was 2010, a time when smartphones were not yet the norm.

“Maybe 10 percent of students on campus had smartphones,” Brand said. “So we had these really old and very slow computers, and very slow Wi-Fi and long lines… But people were really excited.”

Last year, UH competed in the 7th Annual Shorty Awards, a competition honoring the best in social media within dozens of categories. Social media coordinator Tiffany Norman recalled how fiercely their team fought to have UH recognized as Social Media’s Best Barnes & Noble College, determined by how effectively the University uses social media to engage with students, faculty and the campus community. UH placed as a finalist, and despite the team’s disappointment, Norman said Brand reminded everyone how much they have to be proud of.

“Even though we didn’t win, Jessica went to a thrift shop, purchased a random trophy, decorated it and presented it to us as our own Shorty Award to honor how hard we had worked,” Norman said. “It made us feel like winners.”

#ACareerThatDidn’tExist

Brand graduated from UH in 2004 with a bachelor’s in communications and a focus in media production. Back then, there wasn’t much social media happening. For about six years, Brand worked several different jobs, honing skills that would later be useful in her social media career, such as video production, media monitoring and news editing.

In her free time, however, Brand was directly preparing for her career at UH without even realizing it.

“On the side, I was doing a lot of social media promotion for music. I’m a musician, and I have a lot of friends who are musicians and artists,” Brand said. “I was helping everybody promote what they were doing and trying to get people to show up for these events, like concerts and art showings and stuff like that. So I had been doing social media marketing without realizing that that was what it was.”

Brand said gaining her position as UH’s social media coordinator was unexpected– she initially applied for a videographer position at the University. After a friend urged her to apply for the social media position, she was called back for an interview and soon hired.

“My career in social media has been kind of an accident and kind of organic,” Brand said. “When I applied for this job, it was the end of 2009 and there weren’t a lot of people who had that kind of experience. The title of social media coordinator was kind of made up at the time.”

There was no precedent for Brand’s position. UH threw around several ideas for her title, such as community manager or digital media manager.

“They didn’t exactly know because everybody was making it up at that time,” Brand said. “It was kind of like, ‘Well, we’ll hire somebody to do something with our social media and hope that it’ll go well.’”

#UnderstandingTheField

Managing social media for a major university involves more than simply posting information and interacting with followers; it requires strategy, planning, multitasking and knowing the strengths and weaknesses of each platform. Over the years, Brand has truly become a guru in her field.

Brand and her team, social media coordinator Tiffany Norman and intern Guillermo Pereira, rewarded business administration sophomore Madison Richard for wearing red on Cougar Red Friday. | Jenae Sitzes/The Cougar

“Being in social media, you really have to know what’s going on all the time, everywhere, because if you say the wrong thing at the wrong time, it can really offend people,” Brand said. “It can come off as, ‘Why are you tweeting about free T-shirts when there’s an earthquake going on?’ Nobody cares.”

“If you’re going to manage social media, you really have to be a jack of all trades.”

Every day, her team receives requests from departments and colleges across campus about events and opportunities that they’d like the UH social media accounts to promote. Brand said they carefully consider which platforms are appropriate for distributing such messages.

“Occasionally we might agree to promote something that’s for a niche audience, but only on a platform that targets that niche audience. Other than that, we try to keep it pretty broad,” Brand said.

“On Snapchat in particular, our audience skews younger, so that tends to be a bit more playful and we don’t post as much serious stuff there. For LinkedIn, clearly our audience tends to skew a bit older, so we put a lot of alumni-focused stuff there. Instagram was skewing younger for quite a while, but we’re seeing a lot more alumni engagement there now… Tumblr is also fairly young.”

#OffTheGrid

For someone whose job widely involves interacting in the digital world, it’s surprising that many of Brand’s hobbies have little to do with modern technology.

“If I’m going to turn off my phone, a lot of times I’ll be hiking, or in a forest someplace,” Brand said. “I’m very much in touch with technology, but I like to remind myself occasionally that nature is awesome.”

After tweeting and going to meetings all day, Brand said she loves hiking in areas like Sculpture Falls near Austin, where she can get in touch with her nature side. | Courtesy of Jessica Brand

In addition to hiking, she loves biking and making music. For over three years, she’s been taking Russian classes with her boyfriend in the hopes of being able to read the works of her favorite Russian author, Dostoyevsky, in his native language.

If she’s out and about in Houston, you’ll most likely find her in the museum district. Rather than relaxing on her couch watching Netflix – she doesn’t own a TV – Brand said she loves watching movies at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston as part of its film series.

She said she tries to strike a balance between her work, which could potentially follow her home and into the night, and her social life.

“I do have to admit that I have my phone on me at all times. I have Twitter notifications set so that whenever (UH President Renu Khator) tweets, I get a text message. I’m basically on the alert mostly all day, every day,” Brand said. “But when I know that I won’t access to my phone, like if I’m going camping or something, then I’ll let the other people on my team know.”

Brand said emergencies don’t usually come up during after-hours and weekends, luckily.

“One time I got a tweet notification at like 1 a.m. on a Saturday night, and this guy was like, ‘I broke my leg – do I need to go to class on Monday?’ And I’m like, ‘Um, you should probably contact your professor,’” Brand said, laughing. “But I think most people know that the University of Houston Twitter account is just going to be able to get them the same info you could find researching on your own.”

#WorkHardLearnForever

Brand is a live-in-the-moment type of woman. Ask her where she wants to be 10 years from now, and she’ll tell you that’s not a question she’s asked herself.

“I tend to go with the flow of things. What I would like to have experienced is a lot more travel, absorbing books, just learning and meeting new people,” Brand said.

Today, Brand is no longer a social media coordinator, but UH’s first social media manager. She leads a small team of two social media coordinators and three student interns. While her team handles most of the day-to-day posting and interacting on social media, Brand coordinates with the many social media departments around UH and plans big projects, such as the UH1UP Challenge.

Her direct boss, Director of Web and New Media Bill Herndon, called Brand’s enthusiasm “contagious.”

“I can honestly say that she is one of the best social media managers I have ever met because she’s interested and enthusiastic about the medium,” Herndon said. “Jessica is continually exploring ideas and asking students what they want. That hard work is one of the things that keeps UH rising as one of the top social media universities in the country.”

Brand said the environment at UH suits her perfectly.

“I want to keep learning for the rest of my life. If I had to choose my favorite thing, it’s learning,” Brand said. “I want to push more information into my brain all the time, and that’s what students are focused on… It’s a very interesting time in people’s lives, and to get to experience that with them is special.”

“There’s a special kind of energy around campus, versus if I were working in the Medical Center or in oil and gas. I wouldn’t have that kind of spark of people looking at the world with new eyes every day.”

arts@thedailycougar.com

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“Meet the Brand behind @UHouston” was originally posted on The Daily Cougar

Studies show that the closer parental relationship millennials develop while living at home does not affect their sense of independence or future ambitions. | Courtesy of Bigstock

For Andy Lu, living at home and working for his parents isn’t a matter of convenience – it’s a necessity.

“Because we’re a first generation of immigrants, they’re dependent on me, so I have to help them live,” Lu said. “Without me, they can’t do the bills, they can’t read the mail, they can’t operate their business.”

After experiencing on-campus life during his freshman year and relocating to a rented house for his sophomore year, the 22 year-old  marketing junior decided to move back home to help his parents run the Chinese restaurant they purchased in 2012. Lu described his relationship with his parents as mutually beneficial.

“My parents do pay for utilities and everything,” Lu said. “But then in return, I have to manage the restaurant they own, manage the house, all the car stuff. I do pretty much all the chores, and they pay for all the things. So it’s like an equal trade, and right now for me and my parents, I see it as a kind of codependent (relationship).”

Despite the fact that his parents support him financially, Lu said living at home has not affected his sense of independence.

“They are more dependent on me, because if I leave, I mean…I have a high school diploma, I’m in college. I could get a job. I could live by myself. But they can’t,” Lu said.

Lu’s situation highlights the financial necessity of living at home that many millennials — those born after 1980 and before 2000 — are facing today as young adults. According to the Pew Research Center, 56 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds are living at home. Considering that 39 percent of millennials within this age group are enrolled in college and that college students are more likely to live at home than those not enrolled at college, it’s clear that pursuing higher education has urged many ambitious young people to stay or return to the nest.

This trend has caused many experts to label millennials as “boomerang kids,” a category that can be split into two different groups: those who are content living at home and contribute nothing to the household, and those who have an “exit strategy,” according to CNN.  Lu acknowledged the difference that productivity makes when living in a house owned by one’s parents, even if one calls it “home.”

“I don’t see a problem with living at home. You can help your parents, they can help you — why not?” Lu said. “If you’re leeching off your parents, it’s not a good thing, because you’re just going to grow lazier and lazier, get comfortable with it. And then if you have younger siblings…they’ll be like, ‘My older brother lives at home, (so) why can’t I do it? Why do I have to get a job?’”

Jeffrey Arnett, a research professor at Clark University, said many parents of millennials are so willing to provide financial support to their children because they “invented the idea of striving for a career you really want.” The discomfort some parents feel, then, could be a product of the expectations they grew up with.

“I don’t see a problem with living at home. You can help your parents, they can help you — why not?”

Andy Lu, marketing junior

“Even though we have this new norm, we don’t feel entirely comfortable because we still have this old value that they should kind of be doing this themselves,” Arnett said.

Despite common perceptions of millennials as being lazy and lacking ambition, recent studies are showing that the closer parental relationship that millennials have developed while living at home is beneficial in the long-term and doesn’t conflict with young adults’ sense of independence.

In 2012, The New York Times reported that young adults who received support from their parents, whether financially, practically or emotionally, said they had clearer life goals and higher satisfaction than those who did not receive as much parental support.

Millennials are now consulting their parents for advice, unlike young people of 25 years ago, who instead turned to their peers. Experts suggest that the closer parental relationship young people are embracing today is breeding a group of emerging adults who are utilizing the experience of their middle-aged parents, who are able to draw from their greater life experiences and material resources to forge successful lives for themselves, according to the Times.

In addition to the rising cost of higher education and a slowly recovering economy, the trend of delayed marriage is also providing incentive for millennials to stay home. Today, the median age of marriage for men is 29; for women, 26, according to the United States Census Bureau. Because young people are waiting so long to get hitched, usually until after they’ve received their first college degree, parents become crucial sources of support during this dynamic period of life.

Political science junior Sahar Sadoughi has lived with her parents for her entire undergraduate career at UH. She said that in her culture a close parental relationship is expected, considered important, and one doesn’t usually move out until married or unless it’s absolutely necessary. She also emphasized the practicality of her living arrangements.

“So far I have saved more than $25,000 by living at home. It’s also definitely a plus for me that I…don’t live too far away from campus,” Sadoughi said.

Sadoughi said that while her parents expect her to make time for them and be an active member of the family, they respect her educational goals and growing independence as a 20-year-old woman.

“It hasn’t been until recently…that my mom will let me come home later so that I can study and…get my work done. My mom gives me a lot of space to allow me to work as hard as I can without sacrificing her relationship to me, and I really appreciate that,” Sadoughi said.

Like Lu, Sadoughi described her living situation in terms of earning her keep. She said she still does chores, helping to clean the house and washing her own clothes while assisting her mother in any way she can.

Even in instances where the support is mutual, surveys done by The New York Times have shown that parents have reported uneasiness arising from the closeness of their relationship. The fear of 20-year-olds developing an inhibiting dependency on their parents from living at home could arise from images of the disheveled college (or high school) graduate crashing on the couch, playing video games before their shift at Kroger and ignoring their parent’s call to come do the dishes. The general sense of entitlement observed among millennials contributes to this image.

Susan Ende, author of “How to Raise Your Adult Children,” says this sense of entitlement leads to a lack of shame about receiving support from one’s parents. This is where the distinction between the two groups of “boomerang kids” comes in. Having an exit strategy and being an active contributor to the household is what sets a wide group of millennials apart from their “perma-child” peers, enabling them to call themselves independent while maintaining residence in their parents’ home.

For her senior year, Sadoughi plans to move into a dormitory on campus or an apartment near campus with one of her close friends, whom her parents are familiar with.

“That’s the only way my parents would be OK with it, although granted it’s still in the mini stages. I haven’t fully persuaded them yet,” Sadoughi said. “When I graduate, I know that I am definitely not going to stay in Houston, so I need to prepare myself for that future.

“I think, and my parents somewhat understand, that living out of the home but still in the same city is an adjusting step to what and where I hope to be after I graduate.”

Lu’s exit strategy is to graduate and save money until he can move to Austin and start a business of his own, which he has been planning for years. When his parents sell their restaurant and reach a point of stability without him, he said he will make the transition.

Lu said he is grateful for the opportunities living at home has provided him and for the support his parents have shown him in pursuing his academic studies.

“For a college student, (living on your own) is almost impossible because you have to focus on school, and if you get a 40-hour job to pay for housing, food and utilities, you’re not going to be able to hold up your grades like that,” said Lu, whose parents gave him two weeks off from the restaurant to focus on his finals.

The negativity some still harbor toward millennials living at home is understandable, Lu said.

“It’s because people don’t see what the kids are doing.”

news@thedailycougar.com

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“The ‘boomerang kids’: How millennials are retaining their independence” was originally posted on The Daily Cougar

It’s the little things that always worry me. I can make grand, sweeping decisions fairly quickly, but it’s the minutia of a task that trips me up.

When I look back on the state of a newspaper I’ve been leaving my fingerprint on since May, I’m probably going to toil over a fragment of the entire picture.

But what I want to talk about is big… at least it feels that way to me. I’ll be the first to admit that we didn’t get everything right last semester — shockingly, the incredibly driven student journalists of The Cougar are students, and we still have a few things to learn.

A lot happened in 2014, and while it’s not my intention to be insensitive and reduce real events down to their news value, that’s what the job demands sometimes. In my mind, what stands out most from last year are two senseless tragedies – suicides, both involving University students and both which left the public with lots of questions and few avenues for finding answers.

The Cougar could’ve used our unique platform to express some solidarity with the community struggling to find peace, or even admit that we were just as confused as the public on how to handle this senseless news twice in one year.

Aside from covering these events in a purely objective, journalistic capacity, I chose not to insert my viewpoints and the viewpoints of our readers into the fairly hushed public dialogue on the suicides.

We didn’t do a story on the rising suicide rates that come each winter, and we didn’t talk about the suicides outside of simply explaining to the public what happened. And I regret that. I regret that The Cougar did not say more about suicide, as a source that you could maybe glean some comfort and insight from. I regret not letting more people be heard, not expressing the confusion and anger that can, and did, grip a community after tragedy.

Among many things, one thing I want The Cougar to do is just that – to make sure that all voices are heard.

And I’m not advocating advocacy, as that’s neither my prerogative as an editor or within the bounds of this publication’s mission to do so. What I’m calling for is for this news organization to be used in the way that its founders intended, which is to serve as a public forum for members of the UH community.

Here’s to getting the little things right in 2015.

-Cara Smith, editor in chief

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“Letter from the Editor: This year, The Cougar will sweat the small stuff” was originally posted on The Daily Cougar

John O’Korn is predicted to wind up at either Syracuse or Wisconsin, according to the Houston Chronicle. | File photo/The Cougar

The Cougars’ former starting quarterback John O’Korn has been approved to transfer and will not return to UH next season, according to the University.

The news comes on the heels of a rough season for O’Korn, whose starting position was replaced by Greg Ward Jr. with seven games left in the season. O’Korn announced his departure via Twitter Saturday night, thanking fans for making his time at UH “a memorable one.”

THANK YOU to everyone who made my time at the University of Houston a memorable one. I'll never forget my time as a Cougar!

— John O'Korn (@JohnOKorn) January 18, 2015

The Houston Chronicle reported that O’Korn has been approved to visit four schools- Texas Christian University, the University of Texas at Austin, University of Florida and the University of Wisconsin.

O’Korn’s departure follows an overhaul of UH’s football program, with the firing of Tony Levine and his replacement by former Ohio State University offensive coordinator Tom Herman. Todd Orlando has replaced former defensive coordinator David Gibbs, who accepted an offer at Texas Tech University.

sports@thedailycougar.com

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“John O’Korn approved to transfer, will not return next season” was originally posted on The Daily Cougar

Written by Jason Hall and directed by Clint Eastwood, “American Sniper” has sparked a national dialogue on Eastwood’s political motivations as a director. | Courtesy of Village Roadshow Productions

As the war in the Middle East winds down, many individuals have made history throughout the 10-year conflict. Navy SEAL Chris Kyle was one of them.

In Academy Award-winning director Clint Eastwood’s newest film, “American Sniper,” Bradley Cooper stars as Kyle, known by the Navy as the deadliest sniper with the most kills.

Because of Eastwood’s Republican background, some wonder if he utilizes his ideology to justify the war in Afghanistan. However, Eastwood’s film delves into an exploration of the service member’s mental and emotional journey rather than focusing strictly on politics and policy.

The real story isn’t about Kyle’s high number of sniper kills or his road to “success”; rather, it’s a story about Kyle’s and countless other service members’ combat mindset — before, during and after his time overseas.

The view that Eastwood and Cooper try to portray is not whether the deadliest sniper was a hero, but that he was human. He —  like many of us who deployed before and after him — are not going because of any hyper-patriotic “’Murica” sentiments, or to blow up buildings. The film serves to remind moviegoers that in any war, service members hold protecting their comrades above all else.

Kyle’s number one priority — regardless of whether he loved to kill “savages,” as reported in The Guardian — was to protect those on foot. When he is unable to save everybody, he considered it a failure. This is taught in every military branch: having accountability, taking responsibility and constantly remembering that one mistake can cost a life or a limb.

Despite one’s views on the conflict in the Middle East or whether Kyle is worthy of praise, the majority of moviegoers can agree on this: war is ugly and horrible.

When Vice President Joe Biden spoke at the Student Veterans of America national conference this month, he reminded the service members-turned-students that, although they were out of the military, their job was not done.

“America needs you, your brother and sisters need you,” Biden said, referring to the growing veteran population and their transition upon returning home.

The unfortunate demise of Kyle was not during war, but while helping his comrade who suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder.

While the number of PTSD patients grows, along with criticism of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs’ handling of medical treatment, the film is a reminder to its audience, including veterans, that the job of caring for their comrades is never finished.

arts@thedailycougar.com

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“Coming home isn’t the same in ‘American Sniper’” was originally posted on The Daily Cougar

It’s not the start of the second millennium, and it’s not the quarter century mark. 2014 was nestled just awkwardly enough into this century to be deemed insignificant from the start, but I think it proved plenty significant for UH and its surrounding communities.

For starters, the University enjoyed the grand opening of the new University Center this past January (soon to be christened as the Student Center), yet another milestone in the redefinition of the University under the leadership of President and Chancellor Renu Khator.

Speaking of Khator, she also announced preliminary plans to open a medical school by 2020 that would train primary care physicians. That’s nothing short of amazing, especially for a University that also just broke ground on a new $51 million Multidisciplinary Research and Engineering Facility, to be completed in 2016.

Probably the most obvious addition to UH this year was the widely-heralded TDECU Stadium, though its name wasn’t met with the warmest student reactions. (My opinion? It’s one of the most profitable deals in NCAA history. That’s what we should’ve been talking about.)

Regardless, the stadium opened in a matchup against UTSA that drew over 40,000 attendees but has been struggling to crack that number ever since. (Side note: to the students that want your University to have the Big 12, SEC-esque athletics programs that you envy, it would behoove you to start by supporting your own teams. We aren’t going to have an athletics program on that level if we don’t generate a fanbase that’ll rally behind our boys and girls in red.)

Head coach Tony Levine, who stormed out with the team in that August 29 matchup has been fired, to be replaced by Ohio State University’s offense coordinator Tom Herman. For what it’s worth, I’m incredibly excited, and it’s pretty cool to be writing this as his offense clobbers the Crimson Tide in the Sugar Bowl. Here’s to hoping this wasn’t a jinx.

But it wasn’t all fairies and rainbows. There was one hell of a cold war waged between Khator and Senator John Whitmire over a proposed freshman housing requirement that was released on the Board of Regents website, pulled from the table and supported by the Student Government Association. Now, it hangs in limbo alongside UH’s convoluted identity as a commuter campus.

In November, Khator announced an internal investigation to ensure that $5 million in state funding earmarked for Spirit of Houston classrooms in TDECU Stadium wasn’t put toward the stadium’s construction. And Lord knows that A&F had the brunt of the bad days this year, as SGA President Charles Haston also called out the department in front of the Student Fee Advisory Committee for failing to honor parts of the Memorandum of Understanding that passed in 2012. Despite all that jargon, it’s not as confusing as it sounds.

On a more somber note, the UH community experienced two suicides this year – one in June at the stadium’s construction site, the other less than two months ago at Cougar Village 2. Professor Temple Northup wrote a column for the Houston Chronicle that called for more open dialogue around the oft-taboo subject of suicide, and I couldn’t agree more with what he’s advocating: a dialogue that won’t always be comfortable.

So, there’s been a lot to deal with. A lot to celebrate, a lot to grapple with and even more to question. As a journalist, it wouldn’t feel right summing up 2014 without mentioning the event that sent shockwaves through my field. Reporters are having an even tougher time overcoming stigmas set in place by the shoddy, distracted reporting of Sabrina Rubin Erdely for the Rolling Stone’s “A Rape on Campus,” which is still being brilliantly demystified by The Washington Post. That might sound random in a letter that’s otherwise exclusively addresses UH issues, but it’s relevant to the mission and challenges of this newspaper.

Going into 2015, readers of The Cougar (which underwent a pretty monumental facelift this year, too) can expect to hear from trustworthy, conscientious student journalists who have no greater prerogative than to deliver relevant, accurate and thought-provoking journalism. We may lose sleep and a few GPA decimals over it, but that’s a fair trade for the privilege of catering to this campus and the UH community.

Thank you to all who have come to us for your daily dose of news in 2014, and I can promise that we’ll exceed any standards set last year.

Cheers,

Cara Smith, Editor in chief

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“Letter from the Editor: A significant year” was originally posted on The Daily Cougar

Marking the largest comeback in FBS play this year, the Houston Cougars toppled the Pittsburg Panthers 35-34 in Friday’s 2015 Lockheed Martin Armed Forces Bowl after recovering from a 25-point deficit.

The Cougars trailed 31-6 before scoring 29 points in the fourth quarter to capture a game that once seemed out of reach. UH recovered two onside kicks, before responding with touchdowns on both drives, including the go-ahead two-point conversion with less than a minute remaining in the game.

Quarterback Greg Ward tossed three touchdown passes and completed a two-point conversion in the final 3:41. Before the Cougars recovered their first onside kick, Ward connected with receiver Deontay Greenberry on an 8-yard touchdown pass. After another onside kick and 29-yard touchdown pass to Demarcus Ayers on fourth-and-13, Ward found Greenberry again for a score with 59 seconds remaining to bring the Cougars within one point.

After Greenberry’s 25-yard touchdown reception, interim coach David Gibbs opted for a win-or-lose 2-point conversion try. Greenberry’s catch in the back of the end zone put the Cougars ahead for good.

Ward led the Cougars with 274 yards passing and three touchdowns.

The strength of Pittsburgh’s offensive line allowed the nationally acclaimed James Conner to start battling against the Houston defense, rushing for 90 yards and two touchdowns off of 21 carries.

sports@thedailycougar.com

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“Cougars make improbable comeback in Armed Forces Bowl” was originally posted on The Daily Cougar