Food for Fines Gives UT Community an Alternative to Paying Parking Tickets

byAvery Garrett

AUSTIN, Texas – Students and staff have until March 24 to pay for their parking tickets with soup cans instead of money, which could mean big savings for drivers who received one of more than 7,000 parking tickets issued on UT’s campus since August.  Food for Fines is a UT Parking and Transportation Services (PTS) initiative […]

BIPOC Pop Brings Together Minority Comic Book Creators, Animators, and Filmmakers

byKevin Vu

AUSTIN, Texas – Black, indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) artists, creators and scholars gathered March 9-11 at the University of Texas for a convention centering on BIPOC creatives. The three-day BIPOC Pop convention launched in 2022 and is the only convention of its kind dedicated to bringing together BIPOC creators from multimedia arts, uplifting […]

Rodeo Austin Prioritizes Education by Funding Scholarships

byMadalynn Lambert

AUSTIN, Texas– Rodeo Austin kicked off Spring Break on March 13 when students from all over Texas competed to show animals, art and other forms of agriculture. All money raised from Rodeo Austin goes to Texas students through scholarships. Many schools in Texas have an agriculture program that students can join to raise an animal […]

Experts Say Focus on Water Infrastructure Vital for Texas’ Future

byKeaton Peters

For more than 37 days, Julie Walker, 53, and her neighbors in the Channel Oaks II subdivision outside of Marble Falls, Texas, have had to boil their water, which often comes out of the tap a dark, murky brown.  Walker rents a home in Channel Oaks II, high on a hill south of the Colorado […]

Reporting Texas TV – March 9, 2023

byReporting Texas TV Staff

Journalism students from Moody College at the University of Texas produced their first newscast of the semester on March 9, 2023. Student journalists reported this week on the results of the 2023 Student Government elections, the demolition of the nation’s first African American public housing project, and UT’s annual STEM Girl Day.

Why the Nation’s First African American Public Housing Project is Being Torn Down

byTheo Werner

AUSTIN, Texas – Construction crews are tearing down Rosewood Courts in East Austin after the complex provided affordable housing for over 80 years. Sylvia Blanco, the Chief Operating Officer at the Housing Authority for the City of Austin (HACA), said the redevelopment plan will build more public housing while preserving the site’s history. Built in […]

The Race for UT Student Government Elections is Over

byAnabella Cooper

AUSTIN, Texas – Helen Getachew and William Ramirez are the newly elected University of Texas Student Government president and vice president. Student Government started on campus in 1902, and serves as a voice for the student body. It covers a wide range of projects to provide resources for students as well as act as a […]

UT Girl Day Makes Progress in Closing the STEM Gender Gap

byIvy Fowler

AUSTIN, Texas – Over 9,000 Texas children participated in UT’s STEM Girl Day this year, an outreach event hosted by Women in STEM (WiSTEM) to get young girls excited about futures in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math). The kids got to code fruits to be musical instruments, catapult water balloons, watch a fire and […]

Texas Republicans Look to Expand Restrictions on Trans Athletes to College

byCorey Smith

Texas Republicans — who passed a law in 2021 banning transgender athletes from competing on K-12 sports teams that match their gender identity —  are working to extend restrictions on transgender athletes to college sports.

House Bill 23, by Rep. Valoree Swanson, R-Spring, would prohibit transgender public college students from joining college sports teams that align with their gender identity. The bill stipulates that athletes participate on teams based on the “biological sex” listed on their birth certificate. The measure would allow women to compete on men’s teams if there is no corresponding women’s team available.

Reporting Texas Newsletter – March 2, 2023

Download the March 2, 2023 edition of the Reporting Texas Newsletter

How UT Adapted to Governor’s TikTok Ban

byEmma Claire Ellis

AUSTIN, Texas – Gov. Greg Abbott issued a ban on access to the TikTok app on government Wi-Fi on Feb. 6, which required all government institutions to implement the changes by Feb 15. The ban followed several concerns raised by Gov. Abbott around the app, including data harvesting.  TikTok hosts millions of unique content creators. […]

UT Women’s Tennis Head Coach Prioritizes Psychology to Win Matches

byMadalynn Lambert

AUSTIN, Texas — The Texas Longhorns women’s tennis team won back-to-back NCAA National Championships in 2021 and 2022, and are aiming for a three-peat. The recent success under head coach Howard Joffe was part of continued growth from making the top 10 in 2019 and rising to fourth in 2020 before reaching number one the […]

UT Students Create App to Help Promote Sustainable Farming

byTheo Werner

AUSTIN, Texas – Sustainable practices are becoming less affordable for farmers, but a group of UT students designed an app to help financially support these methods. UT students formed Gazelle Ecosolutions to primarily address the issue of overgrazing for ranchers. Their main focus has been in Botswana, where many ranchers overgraze land to the point […]

James Beard Award Semifinalists Dish on Prominence of Mexican Food in Austin’s Culinary Scene

byAna Paola Davila Chalita 

Of the six James Beard award semifinalists in Austin, three are Mexican food establishments. Comadre Panadería is nominated for Outstanding Pastry Chef or Baker, Suerte for Outstanding Wine and Other Beverages Program, and La Condesa for Outstanding Restaurant. 

The James Beard Foundation, founded in 1986, is a non-profit that celebrates and promotes America’s diverse culinary heritage through events and awards. 

Their annual awards, first given 1990, are often referred to as the “Oscars of the food world.”

UT Students to Bike from Austin to Anchorage

byAnabella Cooper

AUSTIN, Texas- – Fifty University of Texas at Austin students will ride their bikes 4,000 miles this summer to Anchorage, Alaska, to raise cancer awareness with the nonprofit organization Texas 4000. The nonprofit organization fundraises and advocates for cancer awareness. Students have a lot of work to do before they leave for the trip. Each […]

University of Texas Students Rally Against I-35 Expansion Plans

byKevin Vu

AUSTIN, Texas – Chants of “Let us walk, let us ride, no more lanes on I-35,” echoed through the University of Texas at Austin’s West Mall. Over 30 UT Austin students, professors and Austinites marched through the campus on Feb. 15 to protest against I-35 Capital Express Central Project — a proposal to expand and […]

Political Student Organization Hosts Workshops on Texas Legislature

byAvery Hough

AUSTIN, Texas – With the 88th Texas legislative session now in full swing, the University of Texas political student organization Texas Rising held its first TX LEGE 101 workshop of the year. The goal of the Feb. 15 meeting was to teach students about the legislature’s structure, key players and upcoming bills in the legislature. […]

CapMetro Mechanic Shortage Impacts UT Riverside Commuters

byIvy Fowler

AUSTIN, Texas – Off-campus students living in East Riverside are dealing with multiple cancellations of CapMetro shuttles in recent weeks due to a shortage of bus mechanics. On Feb. 9, CapMetro canceled all the shuttles on the 670 and 672 routes while the 671 ran just twice, at 12:53 p.m. and 1:41 p.m.  CapMetro sent […]

Thousands of Runners Push Through the Final Miles at the Austin Marathon

byRazyl Yanez

AUSTIN, Texas – Over 18,000 people gathered Feb 19. in downtown Austin to run the 31st annual Ascension Seton Austin Marathon, Half Marathon, and 5K. Drew Chibib, a recent UT graduate, trained for about a year before he participated. “Roughly two-and-a-half years ago, I got sober from opioids and alcohol, and part of entering into […]

Activists Demand More Resources to Combat Overdoses

byAvery Garrett

AUSTIN, Texas – 2022 was the deadliest year for people who died from preventable overdoses. Travis County Judge Andy Brown announced in November that the county had 118 deaths from fentanyl in the first six months of 2022, the same number as the county’s total for 2021. Citizens from across Texas gathered at the Capitol […]