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. 

Kirk Watson, Running Again for Mayor, Wants Austinites to Look Forward

byKrissi Reeves

Watson, who was mayor from 1997-2001, says Austin needs a mayor with long-term, forward-looking direction —  not someone simply reacting to the day-to-day issues facing one of the fastest-growing cities in the country. 

George Clinton Art Exhibit  ‘Grooves from the Deep’ in East Austin

The Carver Museum exhibit, “Grooves from the Deep and the Space Math of George Clinton,” opened March 10 and will run through June 19. It’s the first public museum showing for Clinton, who debuted his visual art in a solo exhibition in a private gallery in New Orleans in 2021.

Carre Adams, Carver Museum culture and arts education manager, said Clinton’s visual art is an extension of his music — a singular form of eclectic psychedelic funk that he performs in outrageous costumes with his band Parliament Funkadelic.
The exhibit features dozens of mixed-media paintings made by the artist, album covers from his records, posters, videos and photographs. 

Nurses Rally at Capitol to Fight for Workplace Safety

byAndrew Logan

Several dozen Texas nurses demanded workplace changes at a rally outside the Capitol May 12.

Increased Production Could Lead to More Methane in the Permian Basin

bySamuel Stark 

Beneath the stark, dusty landscape of West Texas lie copious energy-rich substances that have fueled American automobilse and the Texas economy for over a century. These resources are now playing a role in America’s response to the war in Ukraine, raising new concerns for environmental advocates

How a UT-Austin Program is Helping Students of Color Study Abroad 

byCristela Jones

During the 2017-18 academic year, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, about 11% of all U.S. college students studied abroad, according to reporting from Inside Higher Ed. Of those who studied abroad, Black students comprised 5.5%, Hispanic students 10.6% and Asian students 8.6%, while white students accounted for 70%, according to data from the Association of International Educators. 

About 4.7% of Black UT-Austin students studied abroad in the 2018-19 school year, Heather Thompson, director of the university’s education abroad department, told Reporting Texas. Among all UT-Austin students, about 8.5% study abroad annually.

The Global Leadership Program is helping to change the way students of color study abroad at UT by recruiting students of color and first-generation college students, offering study-abroad scholarships and building leadership programs for student success.

UT Professors: ‘Anti-Critical Race Theory’ Law Is Attempt to Avoid Historical Truth

byEniola Longe

In a series of interviews with UT professors in March and April, most said the law is an affront to the teaching of historical truth regarding racism.

City Council Again Discusses Austin Opera House Redevelopment

byVeronica Apodaca

The dispute over a proposed 1,200-seat music venue on the site of the old Austin Opera House continued to flare during an Austin City Council meeting Thursday. 

Reporting Texas TV – May 5, 2022

byReporting Texas TV Staff

Journalism students from Moody College at the University of Texas produced their sixth and final newscast of the semester on May 5, 2022. This week’s reports include a rally demanding increased pay and other benefits for many Austin Independent School District employees, efforts to unionize by workers at a campus-area Starbucks, and the announcement of […]

AISD Teachers Rally for Living Wage and More Planning Time

byEniola Longe

AUSTIN, Texas — Participants at the “At What Cost” rally on April 28 chanted “hey hey ho ho, [Superintendent Stephanie] Elizalde’s got to go!” and held signs with statements like “All classified workers deserve a $6.50 pay raise” as they expressed dissatisfaction and impatience with the Austin Independent School District. Organized by Education Austin, the […]