In order to prevent this from happening, ExxonMobil Corp. has given a $1 million endowment to the University’s teachHOUSTON program to train science and math teachers so that students may further their education in science, technology, engineering and mathematics within the next five years.

“The teachHOUSTON program had to raise $1 million in its endowment to qualify for the matching funds,” said co-director of teachHOUSTON Jeff Morgan. “This gift will have a tremendous impact in future years as these and other funds grow in our endowment.”

TeachHOUSTON started in 2007 with 14 students and is a replication of a program called UTeach that was created at the University of Texas. Through a partnership between the College of Natural Science and Mathematics and the College of Education, the program allows students to have teaching opportunities throughout their four years at UH and is changing the way science and math teachers are trained.

Nearly 340 students are enrolled in the teachHOUSTON program at UH, and the goal is to graduate 100 teachers per year. Through its efforts, the program has continually helped students find their calling in the field of teaching, like biology senior Katherine Palmer.

“At first I was not sure what I wanted to do,” Palmer said, “but after my first class, or Step 1 in the program, I fell in love with the program, and that is when I realized that I wanted to become a teacher, and now I want to teach high school biology.”

There are 33 universities across the nation that replicate the UTeach program with training opportunities similar to teachHOUSTON, and through its endowment, Exxon is likewise helping prepare a more stable pipeline of skilled workers in STEM fields specifically for Houston.

“Almost all our graduates stay in Houston and work in our local school districts. It’s a win-win situation,” Morgan said. “Local industries will benefit from improved math and science teaching in area schools, and UH will benefit from it as well.”

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The research indicates that the more a father is involved with his children and family, the more he is benefiting his children’s lives and also his own mental health and well-being.

Hernandez

Daphne Hernandez, an assistant professor in the Department of Health and Human Performance, performed her research during a span of five years and received data from 5,000 fathers (single, cohabitating and married) between the ages of 25 and 35 who were considered at risk of becoming absent dads. All of the fathers had young children and lived in close proximity to their partner in order to have frequent interaction with their children. The health status of the fathers was self-measured by a survey.

“The role of a father comes with such high expectations before you factor in complications such as finances, proximity or pre-existing health issues,” Hernandez said in a UH press release. “Supporting his mental health is an important way to support the whole family.”

The study showed that the fathers who were more physically engaged with their children, played with them and read to them were less likely to be depressed or stressed. In addition, fathers who had a supportive partner or a former partner had better mental and physical health compared with those who had less supportive partners.

Hernandez’s study also depicted that during the five years of research, the rate of single fatherhood increased and was 45 percent by year five. As this rate increased, the involvement with their children decreased. In addition, there was an increased risk of drug use and depression with these fathers.

“Personally, my father sacrifices so much as a parent for my future that it makes me want to excel and later be able to support him,” said biology junior Sanah Rahman.

“I definitely believe that fathers who physically engage with their children are less likely to be depressed or stressed because at the end of a hard working day, they know all that work was not for nothing. It was for their kids.”

According to Hernandez, the fathers who became single fathers or who experienced strain in their roles as fathers were associated with an increased likelihood of becoming clinically depressed. This dynamic is concerning because mental illness is stigmatizing, and a number of socio-economically disadvantaged men do not have the means to receive mental health assistance.

“An association that I had always wondered about was whether there is a bidirectional relationship between father engagement and mental health,” Hernandez said. “In my study, I found that greater engagement by fathers predicted less depressive symptoms, while fathers who demonstrated less depressive symptoms were more actively engaged with their children.

The results provided by Hernandez’s research suggested that fathering has broader implications than child development. She also said that, as a society, we are quick to blame fathers who are not actively involved with their children. There may be an underlying mental health problem that may need to be addressed.

“I believe that there is just a stronger emotional tie between moms and their children,” said biology sophomore Arif Sajid. “Because of that, I feel like fathers generally have to establish their relationship with the kids. It’s not something that’s automatically there. If a father has a wife and kids he loves and who love him back, he will have minimal stress, resulting in nothing but a healthy mental state of mind.”

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“This is a difficult exam, and (it’s) not uncommon to require several attempts to pass,” Rawlins said.

”I was even telling my friends and family not to judge me harshly for whatever the results were because I had no idea how it would turn out.”

Rawlins

Rawlins said she was so doubtful about her performance on the exam that she approached it as an “exploratory mission.”

“My plan was to take it this semester to get a feel for it,” she said. “(I’d) really focus on it in the fall when I would need to pass it to graduate.”

All students in the construction management program at UH are required to pass the exam in order to receive diplomas. Many universities recommend their students to take the exam, but only the UH program makes it a requirement.

“It is a great point of pride,” Rawlins said. “It basically tells employers that all of our graduates are certified in a variety of construction principles by a national third party.”

The College of Technology program offers both undergraduate and graduate degrees in the field of construction management.

Students learn how to combine construction science, engineering and business in order to learn the knowledge and skills necessary for the construction industry, according to the program’s website.

Internships are a core part of the curriculum as well, and Rawlins has used them to her advantage.

Her internship at Balfour Beatty Construction landed her a full-time job that she has had for the past two years, making her the first intern the contractor has hired that has not graduated yet.

In the future, Rawlins said she hopes to work with sustainable development and renewable energy construction techniques.

After graduation she plans on continuing her work with Beatty and building up her field experience.

“Whether creating a building or bringing infrastructure to it, construction is one of those industries that is an essential part of how we live our lives,” Rawlins said.

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UH announced on Friday it will join other universities that have taken steps to offer MOOCs. Coursera, one of the companies worldwide that links colleges together to provide free courses to anyone who wants to learn, will begin discussing its future with the UH System and nine others across the nation.

“Coursera is working with the most renowned and well-respected universities, and we’re excited to join with our peers in using the MOOC technology and content to improve the quality and access of our educational offerings,” said Interim Provost Paula Short in a press release.

While Coursera’s goal is to extend free education and classes not for college credit, UH — after the original implementation of the technology — will phase in courses that will count toward degrees and will require tuition.

“We will evaluate full potential of the program over the next year and move forward in a strategic way that enhances our Tier One status and student success initiatives,” Short said.

The partnership will encourage faculty members to incorporate the online resources in their classrooms, which will create a more thorough and diverse education.

“We think the coming decade will see a transformation in the way education is delivered, where teachers and online content come together to better serve students on campus and beyond,” said co-founder of Coursera Daphne Koller in a press release.

At first, UH will spotlight science courses but will try to bring more to the table.

“Courses developed by our National Academy of Science faculty in engineering and natural sciences should be popular MOOCs that we can offer, as well as other online courses that allow the student to self-pace instruction to achieve mastery before moving to the next topic,” Short said.

MOOCs are a relatively new topic in the higher education world, and the Coursera company is even newer. The company began in April 2012 and since then has generated more than 300 courses and 3 million users. UH will be among the more than 70 partners of the company, a list that includes Rice University, Yale University and Princeton University.

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“We’re providing the best available care in the entire world,” said AHRL-SUTC Director Michael Zvolensky.

The clinic-lab focuses on understanding the connection between anxiety and addiction, but the patients who use its free services have behavioral problems ranging from smoking cigarettes to panic attacks.

In order to help patients, the one-year-old clinic builds their tolerance toward emotional events by having them confront their fears in safe conditions. Another way of treating patients is by encouraging them to change their thinking patterns, such as being more mindful of their day-to-day routines, said Zvolensky.

But the clinic also functions as a lab that trains undergraduate, graduate, post-doctoral and visiting scholars to study anxiety-substance use.

Chad Brandt, a clinical psychology graduate student, works at the lab and said he thinks it is a great place for undergraduate students to experience what research is like.

“When you work in a treatment facility like we do,” Brandt said, “you never know exactly what you’re going to see.”

Although the clinic treats anyone 18 to 65 years old, Zvolensky said it prioritizes UH staff and students.

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The Center will support and complement Bauer’s graduate real estate program in partnership with Houston-area real estate leaders by bringing professional practice into the classroom.

“The Stanford Alexander Center for Excellence in Real Estate will be one of the cornerstones of the specialized programming in the practice of real estate development offered at the C. T. Bauer College of Business,” said dean Latha Ramchand.

“Here, we look for opportunities to customize learning for our students, giving them not just a degree but an experiential learning opportunity, where they learn about best business practices from academic and industry leaders. The Alexander Center will help us to fulfill that mission by providing practice-based learning for graduate students interested in the real estate industry.”

The center will offer career scholarships, internships, counseling and placement, as well as a “best practices initiative” beginning in 2014 to promote collaboration between students, faculty and real estate professional through the exploration of different segments of the industry each year. The initiative will result in the publication of a paper, research seminar, conference and awards ceremony.

John E. Walsh, director of the graduate real estate program and former president of Friendswood Development Co., said the Center will be dedicated to instilling students with Stanford Alexander’s values, which are of the highest level of professional expertise and personal integrity.

“The Center, with its unique mission of advancing expertise in the professional practice of real estate, will establish the UH Bauer Graduate Real Estate Program as a leader among the 64 universities in America that offer an advanced degree in real estate,” Walsh said. “Mr. Alexander represents the best in real estate professionals and is an outstanding role model for students, faculty and staff of the graduate real estate program.”

The Stanford Alexander Center for Excellence in Real Estate will build on the vision set by its founders by giving students expertise and experience because “creating great cities” is a guiding principle of the real estate program, and it reflects the industry’s commitment to serve the community through responsible development of the built environment.

“For over 50 years, Stanford Alexander has set the standard of what a Houston real estate executive should be,” said Welcome W. Wilson Sr., founding chair of the program’s Executive Advisory Board and former chair of the UH System Board of Regents. “Now, because of his leadership, Houston will have one of the nation’s most attractive programs in real estate education.”

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“This building is a tremendous catalyst to get us to that point,” said Russell Dunlavy, chief development officer for the college. “Dean Tedesco’s vision is to move the college into the top 50 engineering programs in the U.S.”

The Board of Regents’ Facilities, Construction and Master Planning Committee approved the site and program for the four-story building that is proposed to be finished February 2016.

Through this building, College of Engineering faculty will have more lab space, and the building will house major core facilities that serve the needs of the University’s engineering, energy and health research, said Vice Chancellor for Research and Technology Transfer Rathindra N. Bose.

Instead of having different research labs across campus, they will be housed in one central location.

“Our faculty deserves to have a state-of-the-art facility. The new research building will help us attract and retain top faculty,” said Dunlavy.

The University community believes the building will bring UH closer to Tier One status because UH has a Tier One target of $200 million in research expenditures by 2020.

Yet, the building with 19 labs will cost approximately $51 million, and the construction will destroy a parking lot with nearly 160 spaces.

Dunlavy said the University has received tremendous support from alumni and corporate partners and will continue to work with them to fundraise.

The University has already completed the Health and Biomedical Sciences Center and Engineering Research Center; a Health and Biomedical Sciences Center 2 is in the planning phase.

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Morgan

Each year, the Minnie Stevens Piper Foundation, a Texas-based nonprofit organization that supports charitable, scientific and educational undertakings, chooses 10 outstanding educators from across the state of Texas for this honor. Morgan is the 10th professor from UH to receive this honor.

“I teach to give something back that was given to me,” Morgan said. “It was clear from a young age that I had a hunger for teaching, and this was because a few excellent teachers in (kindergarten through 12th grade) played an amazing role in shaping my life.”

Morgan came to UH in 2002 and has served as the chair of the mathematics department for 10 years. Under Morgan’s leadership, the department introduced common exams to unify standards and approaches across class sections, built electronic databases and course management software, creating online learning materials and instituting mandatory attendance requirements.

Morgan is also a co-director of teachHOUSTON, a math and science teacher-preparation program. This six-year-old program is designed to help urban schools attract and maintain middle-school and high-school teachers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields by immersing aspiring educators in public school classrooms early in their college careers.

Chemistry professor Simon Bott was selected as a Piper professor last year and also serves as co-director of the teachHOUSTON program with Morgan.

“I feel very privileged to work with him.  He created teachHOUSTON and put a great team together of former high school and middle school teachers,” Bott said. “He has a very strong and ambitious agenda and set of goals for teachHOUSTON that will elevate the teaching of math and science in the Greater Houston area.”

In addition to his many responsibilities as a professor and chair of the math department, Morgan provides support and resources to math and science teachers in the community. He organizes competitions, workshops, and develops free exercises and practice exams for both students and teachers for kindergarten through high school.

Morgan is immersed in mathematics across the board at UH and has played a significant role in educating many college students who may otherwise have slipped through the cracks of higher learning. A substantial number of students have been inspired to become math majors because of their experiences in his courses.

“I am always trying to figure out how something works — even if I have to dismantle it. My curiosity for life is perhaps my greatest gift. I look forward to experiencing everything life brings my way and sharing that passion with my family, friends, colleagues and students,” Morgan said.

“Outside of family and faith, my commitment to teaching is the most important thing in my life. I love UH, and I plan to stay here as long as I can make positive contributions in teaching, service and research. I will continue to teach, work with teachers and contribute in any way I can, so long as I can find a way to make a difference.”

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As of January, there were 30,000 applicants to law schools for the fall, a 20 percent decrease from 2011 and a 38 percent decrease from 2010, according to the Law School Admission Council.

UH Law Center has seen a decrease in applicants as well, and it may be because the economy is improving.

“Usually when the economy is bad, most folks try to apply to law school,” said Texas Southern University’s Thurgood Marshall Law School Dean Dannye R. Holley.

The idea of being an attorney creates a sense of financial security that many other jobs can’t, said Holley.

“I wanted to go to law school because once I graduated I didn’t have to look for a job, I was a job,” said UH law graduate Berhanu Gebreslasie.

The Law Center’s Associate Director for Admissions Nathan Neely said he agreed that the economy affects attorneys, as everyone else, but in a unique way.

Around 2006 and 2007, prior to the economic crisis of 2008, there were historic numbers of law school applicants, Neely said.  Because it takes generally three years to complete law school it wasn’t till 2009 and 2010 that those applicants felt the wrath of the economy.

“It took that long for the applicant pool to react to the housing market and to the credit issues going on at that time.” Neely said.

A focal point of discouragement amongst people wanting to go to law school is the fact that during that time period, only a few years ago, it was more difficult to find a job out of law school than previous years.

“In spring 2009 after some assessment firms said ‘whoa we might not be able to take all these people,’” said Law Center’s Associate Dean for Student Affairs Sondra R. Tennessee.

However 2009 wasn’t long ago, and the discouraging words of those old fresh lawyers still circulate through our hallways.

“My brother graduated from law school in 2010, and it was such a hassle for him to get a decent paying job,” said international business graduate Amanda Baetz.

But Tennessee said the passionate law students do not let the job market deter their application.

“We are working with people that really want to be here,” said Tennessee.

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Finals Mania offers a solution for more than just hunger. In addition to serving pancakes and orange juice, Finals Mania organizers will let stressed-out students play with puppies. | Bethel Glumac

Finals Mania is set to kick off Tuesday with a plethora of snacks, pancakes and drinks to keep students pumped up and fueled through the tough night of studying.

Dozens of volunteers will gather to prepare food and help keep lines moving because of the rush of traffic pancakes and turkey sausage will bring.

UH hosts Finals Mania every semester to help students relieve stress and take a break from endless studying.

“I went to Finals Mania for two straight years, and I love it. Food is the best support system especially during the stress of finals; now, I don’t have to sacrifice food to study. Plus, who doesn’t love pancakes at odd hours of the night?” said biology junior Kinza Muzaffar.

This year, dogs are the newest addition to the usual line up of a performance by the Spirit of Houston Band, turkey sausage and orange juice.

“I love dogs, and rumor has it that I’ll get to cuddle up with one and take my mind off of studying for a short moment. I’m also glad that, this being my last semester, we actually have something so different to do,” said political science senior Lina Al-Salim.

Students will have the opportunity to play with the dogs from 6 to 10 p.m. in Rooms 106P and 106T before returning to their studies if they choose to.

“This is my first semester at UH, and I’m looking forward to attending Finals Mania since everyone always talks about the great pancakes. Just my luck that the year I plan on attending they’ll have dogs. I can’t wait to play with them,” said sophomore mechanical engineering technology Nicky Echevarria.

Along with the snacks and food that will be handed, for students who have been fighting to collect all trading cards, this is their chance to collect more and maybe complete their collection.

“The one thing I love about Finals Mania is that it means the semester is finally ending, but of course I can’t wait to eat some pancakes,” said public relations junior Anh Mai.

Students at UHCS participated in the annual Jump Rope for Heart and Field Day activities in 2012. | File photo/The Daily Cougar

Sitting on the edge of the UH campus is a public charter school that admitted around 135 students from kindergarten to fifth grade.

The UH Charter School, which has been a part of the University for 16 years, works to provide a well-rounded education to young students.

“As a charter school, UHCS was established to increase innovation in public education,” said UHCS Principal Carolyn Black.

Each spring, UHCS takes in about 30 kindergarteners to fifth grade siblings and lottery applicants to build its enrollment of about 135. Its six classes, which are held from 8 a.m. to 3:45 p.m. Monday through Thursday and 8 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Friday are taught by lead and assistant teachers.

“The specific mission of UHCS is to implement a constructivist model of elementary education based on the research of Jean Piaget and the program developed by John Dewey,” Black said

The school focuses on empowering students, parents and faculty in the Houston community while also giving those students the technological and intellectual skills as well as leadership abilities that will help them succeed.

Black said building a community within the charter school and extending that to a larger community is also a focus.

“We promote the development of the whole child. We enjoy family events including those where we celebrate our student writers, mathematicians and scientists at Authors Night, Family Math Night and Science Fair,” Black said.

Camp Construct is an after school program provided by the UHCS. Math investigations, art, music, science, technology, engineering, handwriting without tears and daily physical education are just some of the many activities that the program includes.

In its larger community, the school participates in the March of Dimes, which is a citywide fundraiser that raises money for premature babies and their mothers. This year’s event will take place at 8 a.m. Sunday at UH. The school also participates by collecting money for other nonprofit organizations such as the Leukemia Lymphoma Society.

“We also promote health at our Wellness Fair, Jump Rope for Heart and Field Day. We celebrate our diversity at our World Bazaar,” Black said.

“Parents join us as we trek to San Antonio for the fourth grade Texas history trip and then further west for the fifth grade geological expedition. Parents are active in supporting all aspects of the school.”

For UH students, the charter school gives them a chance to earn educational experience with the help from its family and community.

“We want to get everyone involved,” said school secretary Glenn Carosella.

“This means from the students, teachers and the principal. We want everyone to be involved in the development of our students during these crucial years.”

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A handful of students will be finishing their undergraduate education with an upper hand in the graduate school and career-finding markets through a program called the Senior Honors Thesis, a year-long curriculum that allows students to conduct research and write comprehensive theses within their major and area of choice.

Students participating in the Honors Thesis program put their hard work on display during this month’s Spring Academic Showcase. | File photo/The Daily Cougar

“It hones your writing, cultivates your research abilities and you can work one-on-one with a professor for an entire year,” said Karen Weber, director of the Office of Undergraduate Research.

“Especially for those students going to graduate school, it models that of a Master’s thesis or a dissertation, so they’re actually defending their project before a committee, getting them used to talking about, researching and writing about their findings and working with faculty within and outside their field.”

The program takes place during a student’s senior year of school and provides them with six credit hours and a particular honors designation at graduation, Weber said.

Although English, biology and psychology are the most dominant fields, there are many departments that get involved each year with the program, allowing students across campus to participate with ample flexibility.

“The best part of the program is the personal latitude,” said architecture and environmental design senior Ian Spencer.

“You are free to define your research direction any way you like, according to your passions and analyses of the subject. We are able to select everything, from the location of the project to its typology and formal characteristics.”

Over the course of the year, seniors can put in anywhere from 250 to 300 hours into their thesis, but the benefits of the program can be seen even before graduation.

“I am hoping that my thesis demonstrates to graduate schools and future employers that I am dedicated to research as an integral part of architectural design,” said Spencer, whose thesis explores the development of a resilient coastal plan for the Houston Ship Channel.

“In fact, it has already helped in my admission to the master of architecture post-professional degree program at Yale University.”

The Senior Honors Thesis program is a tool the University offers students to excel in their personal growth and academic development.

“I would absolutely recommend the thesis program to other students who have a particular interest in a certain discipline,” said political science and philosophy senior Safa Ansarai-Bayegan. “Not only is it a worthwhile endeavor for students who plan to go to graduate school, it is also very rewarding on a personal level.

“Writing a thesis is not for everyone. It can be very stressful and requires a lot of work and diligence, but it’s a perfect example of the challenging opportunities the University of Houston offers its students.”

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Simpson

The UH Department of Health and Human Performance has partnered with NASA to help understand why this happens in a 14-month program that will analyze the effects of long duration space flight on astronauts aboard the International Space Station.

“It is important to determine whether or not long-duration spaceflight impairs immunity before exploration class spaceflight missions — i.e., to Mars or an asteroid — can be considered,” said Rickie Simpson, principle investigator for the program and UH assistant professor in exercise and immunology.

To do this, Simpson said that the team will collect blood, urine and saliva samples from the astronauts before they travel to space, while they are on the ISS and for about six months when they return.

“The samples collected on the space station will be returned to Earth via the Soyuz space vehicle so that we may analyze the samples in our lab at UH,” Simpson said.

Simpson said he and his team will be using the samples to measure antimicrobial proteins that are crucial for the body’s defense against microorganisms such as bacteria, viruses and fungi. He also said they will be measuring and assessing the role of specific immune cells in the blood.

“We are particularly interested in Natural Killer Cells, which are important cells of the immune system in the identification and destruction of virally infected and cancerous cells,” Simpson said.

The goal is for the team to measure how spaceflight affects the facility of these cells to do their job within the immune response.

“We anticipate that long-duration spaceflight will cause alterations to the immune system but whether or not these will manifest as an increased clinical risk among crewmembers remains to be determined,” Simpson said.

Mark Clarke, Thomas Lowder and Dan O’Connor will assist Simpson in heading the research. Post-doctoral scientist Guillaume Spielmann and doctoral candidates Hawley Kunz and Austin Bigley are also involved in the project.

The research team is completed by Brian Crucian, an immunologist at NASA Johnson Space Center, and Duane Pierson and Satish Mehta, microbiologists at NASA Johnson Space Center.

“I am very excited to be involved in this project,” Kunz said. “It is almost surreal to be able to be a part of the process of exploring space and its effects on humans and to be able to analyze samples that have been in space.”

Crucian says NASA expects the study to be a valuable tool in making changes for future missions.

“We are excited about Dr. Simpsons flight study onboard ISS, as it will provide novel information regarding human physiology during spaceflight,” Crucian said. “Currently NASA is trying to determine any and all medical risks for exploration-class missions.”

“The information from the UH study will provide new information to help NASA assess crew risk related to the function of the immune system. Countermeasures for immunity may be as simple as nutritional supplementation or as complicated as pharmacological intervention.”

Simpson said that their findings could lead to many changes for the future of spaceflight and he hopes that they will ultimately lower the health risks for crew members.

“If the integrity of the immune system is compromised during spaceflight then it is likely that an adverse clinical event may occur,” Simpson said.

“This would have an immediate impact on the mission and may jeopardize the health of the crew and the likelihood of mission success. If we find that there is a risk to the health of the crew due to altered immunity then it would allow us to develop countermeasures that help mitigate these risks.”

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Ezemenari M. Obasi, an associate professor in counseling psychology and director of the Hwemudua Addictions and Health Disparities Lab at UH has been awarded $2.5 million to fund a study in understanding the correlation between stress and substance abuse. The funds will also help uncover the effect the correlation has within the African-American community of Southwest Texas.

“This is a five-year study that is designed for us to go into the community and try to learn about the relationship that stress might have with varied substances,” Obasi said.

The $2.5 million, awarded by the National Institute of Health and National Institute on Drug Abuse will be used to fund pay for faculty and graduate students that work on the project, as well as travel costs, laboratory supplies and equipment.

Around 350 African-American individuals in the Southwest Texas area between the age of 18 and 25 will be tested. The test will not necessarily focus around illegal drugs but will include the effects from those who suffer from addictions to caffeine, cigarettes and alcohol.

Obasi will be working with two other researchers at the University of Georgia, one at Emory University and a small handful of graduate students. Despite this, it remains primarily a Houston-based project, and its research will draw from members of the community.

“I think there are communities that disproportionately suffer from various negative health outcomes. For me, I thought it was important to try and understand what mechanisms we (give to those communities) with this (topic),” Obasi said.

“In particular, (African-Americans) are often ignored because people don’t necessarily have access to them. One of the nice things of being in Houston is the diversity of our community, so I thought it’d be a great idea to include them with research addressed at their issues.”

Obasi said he hopes to find which experience puts African-Americans at risk for stress and substance abuse. The research process will include collecting data on tests subjects’ home environments and controlled stress paradigms with assessments every three months.

Data collection will begin this summer, and the research as a whole is expected to conclude around December 2017.

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Tammy Mermelstein spoke at the second annual UH Bauer College Financial Symposium, which advocated financial literacy. | Aisha Bouderdaben/The Daily Cougar

Reva Zhao Azeez, Leonard Loyd, Donald Bowers, II, and Alfred Coleman were the panelists in the discussion about Careers in Finance and Financial Planning. | Aisha Bouderdaben/The Daily Cougar

The C.T. Bauer College of Business wishes to change that reality by providing students with useful resources and knowledge on a variety of financial topics through the annual Financial Symposium event held Saturday.

“The one thing we know about earning potential is that it doesn’t really matter how much money you make; it’s how much money you keep,” said Donald Bowers II, assistant vice president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas – Houston Branch.

“This financial education program is all based upon trying to help people within our community better understand how to manage their resources, large arsenal and how to build wealth and retain assets.”

Bowers said the majority of people spend 80 percent of their time working to earn money, worrying about how to make more or spending. In addition, 13 percent of households in Texas do not have any type of bank account.

“That either means that they’re taking risks and saving money at home, or they’re just not saving any money at all,” Bowers said. “They’re trading off long-term financial stability to try to deal with short-term issues.”

Another issue in Texas regards student loans. Estimates are that 1 of every 5 young people who have student loans will default within the first 3 to 5 years after they are out of college.

“We need to fix that,” Bowers said. “We got to be better prepared and do things with intention. We want you to learn how to be intentional about your personal finances.”

Alexander Obregon, special projects coordinator for the office of the Houston City Controller, gave continuity to the discussion by addressing the city’s point of view.

“What’s your government’s interest in people having personal financial education?” Obregon said. “Well, we want you to be taxpayers, to be able to build wealth, pay property taxes and things like that. That’s a good thing because it means you have assets.”

Obregon said that the city of Houston worked in partnership with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Federal Reserve, some banks and nonprofit organizations to start the Bank on Houston program in 2008, which is designed to bring the unbanked and the underbanked into the financial mainstream.

“We want you to know that the City of Houston, other government entities and Bauer are all taking invested interest in making sure that you have the financial tools to begin to be taxpayers, contribute to the University of Houston, provide for your family and yourself and, more importantly, to provide for the greater good of this population,” Obregon said.

Bauer worked with the Texas Council on Economic Education to come up with a Money Management Poster contest as an initiative to promote financial education in children from several district schools in the metropolitan area. TCEE President and CEO Laura Ewing honored the winners during Saturday’s event.

James Hong, president of the Bauer Alumni Association and founder of Hong Financial, closed the discussion by giving five tips on how to get started and be successful about achieving personal finance awareness.

Hong said the first step is to have a plan, set goals and stick to a budget. The next step is to have discipline. The third step is to take one step at a time because nothing happens overnight. Hong’s next tip stressed the importance of knowing the difference between “needs” and “wants.” He said people tend to follow trends because ours is a consumerist society, which can hugely affect personal finances. Lastly, he advised the audience to learn from others.

“It doesn’t take a millionaire to be a millionaire,” Hong said. “Use your resources, talent and academic knowledge to achieve your goals.”

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Team members, who are enrolled in the Quality Improvement in Project Management course, have ironed out the wrinkles for a smoother process and have helped prepare the UH Payroll Department for a rollout of a new electronic payroll process later this year.

“Lean Six Sigma concentrates on improving efficiency and reducing variability in all types of business processes,” said Jami Kovach, an assistant professor in the Project Management Program. “This level of performance is a tremendous improvement over where most organizations currently operate.”

The department’s investigation, which began last year, was looking for ways to implement electronic time reporting for biweekly employees. However, members soon found that major process advances were needed before employing a new system.

While investigating, it was discovered that the payroll department was continually running payroll, sometimes as much as twice a week during off-cycles. After analyzing their findings, the team members found more efficient ways to address the need for major improvements that would allow preparations for a new electronic system to begin.

“Initially, it had been a great idea to run more payroll cycles and meet employees’ needs to get paid on time, but the growing over-dependence on going around our established process to serve our customers presented another set of problems,” said Joan Nelson, executive director of human resources. “Our challenge was to figure out a way to reduce the number of off-cycle payrolls without causing payment delays for employees.”

The Lean Six Sigma project team is based around a business philosophy that focuses on a specific methodology. Their success is based on a formula utilized for a business approach.

They define the problem, measure the process performance, analyze the cause of the problem, improve the process and then control the improved process and fix the problem permanently.

“Being able to implement these strategies in a real-life setting has proven to be a valuable learning experience for our students,” Kovach said. “There is no better way to learn these kinds of things.”

Using this system, the team developed strategies to reduce the cause of errors, which include online orientation for students and implementing an employee acknowledgement form to alert new employees to the payroll process.

With the improvements put into place, payroll-processing errors decreased to 6.77 percent from 10.35 percent and the amount payroll processing cycles was reduced by 50 percent.

“We learned an efficient method to improve our process by partnering up with our students,” Nelson said. “We are very proud of our students and we know they will have great success in their transition to the real world.”

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A chalked statement outside of Ezekiel W. Cullen building advertises the English teaching fellows’ campaign to attain a raise. | Nichole Taylor/The Daily Cougar

Khator said she was away celebrating the birth of her granddaughter for the last ten days, but was immediately briefed on the goings-on in her absence. She said the budget restrictions make it difficult for any immediate salary adjustment.

“While decisions related to TF and TA salaries are entirely under the domain of the colleges and departments based upon their priorities,” Khator said, “I understand that colleges’ decisions may be shaped by budgetary allocations from the University.”

While the president’s office does not directly control individual salaries, Khator said she will allocate funds to the deans, along with the provost, who will decide how the money is distributed.

“Funding will come from monies designated to support our broad commitment to student success,” Khator said. “This pool of money will provide assistance to TFs and TAs, whose salaries are most compressed and who teach undergraduate CORE classes.”

Secondarily, Khator said she will create a “university-wide task force on Graduate Assistant Success.”

The TFs sent an email to members of the press acknowledging Khator’s statement. They said they appreciate the promise to take action and now wait on College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences Dean John Roberts to find out more details.

“We are waiting on a concrete wage adjustment figure from Dean Roberts, who has been working closely with us throughout this process,” the TFs said in the email.

While they wait to hear more details, the sit-ins have been suspended, according to the email.

“We are incredibly hopeful and experiencing a great deal of support from the administration,” the TFs said in the email. “We have contacted Dean Roberts in order to find out when he will be able to allocate the funds given to him by President Khator.”

At the end of her letter to the UH community, Khator said the provost asked for an external review of the English Department—the last one was nine years ago.

“The review will help the dean and provost evaluate competitive information, learn best practices, get advice from aspirational peers, show accountability to the public, and help rectify not just the wage issue, but all issues related to the learning and working environment of the teaching fellows and teaching assistants,” Khator said.

Additional reporting by Zachary Burton.

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Students on energy-related career tracks may want to make room in next semester’s schedule. UH has created a minor in energy.

The energy minor corresponds to the creation of UH Energy, a group of top energy research and education programs led by Ramanan Krishnamoorti, special assistant to the president and chancellor for UH Energy.

As UH pushes toward becoming a dominant player in energy education, the need for sustainable energy education grows, Krishnamoorti said.

“If we’re going to use energy in an unsustainable way, I think we’re going to be doing the entire society a disservice. Sustainability has to become a part of the conversation,” Krishnamoorti said.

“In that sense, what I’m suggesting is that we have a discussion not just about energy, but about energy in a sustainable way.”

The introductory course for the minor is being taught by two professors, Joseph Pratt, professor of business and history, and Ognjen Miljanic, assistant professor of chemistry, and will be housed in the College of Business.

The course was advertised around campus and gathered to it a heterogeneous group of students despite the class designation.

“It is fun as a teacher to have different students discuss this with one another,” Pratt said. “This is a lively class; there is quite a bit of discussion. The engineers, the business majors, the economics majors, a Chinese studies major, everybody knows a little bit of a different part of the puzzle, so the discussion gets very interesting.”

“It’s kind of exciting. The enthusiasm of students has been contagious. The idea that we’re doing this at UH is very appropriate. I’ve been here a long time, and this is the place this course should be.”

Because of its interdisciplinary nature, the minor plans to move to the Honors College, Krishnamoorti said, but it will still be available to any and all UH students.

Issues addressed in the course can be applied to many fields, making the course less career-specific and showing the global significance of energy, Pratt said.

“The minor should provide a breadth of knowledge to students who are interested in jobs in energy and sustainability, green jobs as well as oil and gas jobs. It also is a good kind of citizenship training. These are big issues,” Pratt said.

“They’re going to stay big not just in Houston but in the whole world for generations. The kind of energy we use, the degree to which certain paths in the future are sustainability, the idea that energy use and global environment are interconnected, those are big ideas.”

The minor has been seriously planned since only Spring 2012, Pratt said, but the idea of streamlining the different energy courses and student organizations across campus has been in the works for several years.

The collaborative efforts of the different colleges is one of the better parts of the program, Krishnamoorti said. It allows for different points of view to the same wide-reaching subject to be heard and communicated clearly.

“Now not only are you going to talk to people who think interdisciplinary, but you have to think in a interdisciplinary way,” Krishnamoorti said. ”You have to start to appreciate all the different sides.”

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The Bauer Internal Audit Program achieved the honor as the “Center for Internal Audit Excellence” and received $100,000 to create an endowment fund. | Courtesy of UH.edu

The IIA, an organization with chapters around the world, represents internal auditors and encourages internal audit courses in educational institutions. It presented the Department of Accountancy & Taxation at the C.T. Bauer College of Business with $100,000 to create an endowment to secure the program’s success. The Houston Chapter of the IIA hosted a dinner on March 7 at the Houston Racquet Club to celebrate the college’s achievement.

“Our vision is to further assist UH in attracting top students to meet the growing needs of the Internal Auditing profession in Houston by creating a scholarship endowment for their Internal Audit Program,” said Houston IIA President Larry Abston in a press release.

The endowment will go toward scholarships as well as internal audit associations and programs, said Vice President of Students Relations for the Internal Audit Student Association Erin Neely. Supporting associations such as this one is key in getting students involved and interested in the internal audit profession, she said.

“Participating in the (International Auditing Education Partnership) program identifies University of Houston as a forward thinking university that recognizes the importance of the internal audit profession as a career choice,” said Academic Relations Committee Chairman of the IIA Harold Silverman in a letter to Michael R. Newman, director of accounting programs at Bauer.

The UH Bauer Internal Audit Program has the distinction of being the first IAEP program to be recognized as a Center program since the IIA academic relations program was reengineered in 2005, Silverman said in the same letter.

“Our program is actually the first to be voted on by the IIA,” Newman said. “The other schools were grandfathered in.”

Although auditing courses were offered sporadically in the 1980s, funded by the IAA, the program took off in 2003 in the hands of professors Jim Pratt, Michael Parks, Thomas Noland, Jim Stinson, Gerry Lobo and George Gamble.

“The professors are really the stars within the program,” Newman said. “They are the ones that keep it going and improving everyday.”

Current professors include Johnny Leavins, David Ahola, Richard Peters, Jim Garcia, Norman Comstock and Robert Barr.

The demand for skill sets in the field boomed after the passage of the Sabanes-Oxley Act in 2002, a U.S. federal law that established new or improved standards for U.S. public company boards, management and public accounting firms. These new regulations increased the independence of outside auditors who review corporate financial statements and increased the role of boards of directors Newman said.

Newman said that what the program is today is the result of the efforts of several leaders.

“The IIA not only helps us financially but it also supports us by bringing in speakers, volunteers and giving advice, among other things,” Newman said. “They are a phenomenal group of people that has given a lot to our professors and students.”

The UH Bauer Internal Audit Program recognition as a Center of Excellence has proved to be key in promoting and giving continuity to the internal auditing career in Houston.

“The profession of internal auditing must sustain itself by ensuring that highly-qualified students are ready and available to enter our organizations,” Peppers wrote in a message to Bauer Dean Latha Ramchand, Chair of the Department of Accountancy & Taxation Kaye Newberry and Newman.

“This new designation indicates that the University of Houston Bauer College is doing just that.”

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