TO CLIPS INDEX  Clips for March 25, 2009

Critical of education cuts, Rep. Schapira
fears backlash
The Arizona Republic 3/24/09 4:29 PM
A Tempe legislator said speaking out against
state budget cuts to education has stymied
several of his bills intended to assist teachers
and students. State Reps. David Schapira and
Ed Ableser, who represent District 17, have
criticized legislative budget cuts in education
and social services in the Republican-majority
Legislature this session. District 17 comprises
Tempe and south Scottsdale. Schapira said the
reaction to his criticism has adversely affected
his legislation.

Arizonans' income not keeping pace with U.S.
Capitol Media Services/East Valley Tribune
3/24/09 5:14PM
The income of Arizonans, on average, rose less
last year than anywhere else in the nation. New
figures from the U.S. Bureau of Economic
Analysis show per capita income in Arizona was
$32,953. That's an increase of just four-tenths of
a percent. That figure is determined by taking the
total personal income of everyone in the state
from all sources and dividing that by the latest
Census figures. Marshall Vest, an economist at
the University of Arizona, said some of the small
increase might be attributed in part to the state's
rapid growth: If the number of people in the state
who earn nothing increases faster than the
national average - meaning children and the
elderly - then it affects the calculation.

City Council OKs in-depth special audit of
Rio Nuevo
Arizona Daily Star 3/25/09
Tucson, Arizona - Rio Nuevo will have more public
oversight, as the City Council voted unanimously
Tuesday to conduct an outside audit of the
embattled Downtown redevelopment district.
With the Legislature threatening to cancel the tax-
increment-financing district or slap heavy reforms
on it, the council voted 6-0 for a special audit of
Rio Nuevo. Council members said it would clear
up misconceptions and give more accountability
for the more than $100 million the city has spent
on Rio Nuevo over the past 10 years. However,
the outside audit will be conducted by Heinfeld
and Meech, the same auditors who have audited
the city's books — including Rio Nuevo's finances
— for years. Councilwoman Karin Uhlich said this
audit will be different because it will focus only
on Rio Nuevo and be more in-depth than the
typical audit.

Kelly Clarkson, Jay-Z headline ASUA concert
Arizona Daily Star 3/25/09
Tucson, Arizona - Superstar rapper Jay-Z and
"American Idol" pop singer Kelly Clarkson will
headline the first concert at Arizona Stadium in
more than three decades. The April 29 show is
sponsored by the Associated Students of the
University of Arizona and any profits will benefit
student scholarships, ASUA President Tommy
Bruce said Tuesday. "We've been building up
to a stadium show for the past three years,"
said Bruce, the event organizer. "We are
thrilled." The concert, dubbed the Last Smash
Platinum Bash, also includes '90s rockers
Third Eye Blind and rising pop act the
Veronicas.

3 options offered on embattled Rio Nuevo
Arizona Daily Star 3/20/09
PHOENIX — Fed-up legislators demand vast
changes to original plan. While final judgment
may be months away, the future of Rio Nuevo
has become a tug of war among three camps
in the Legislature with wildly different ideas on
how to save or kill the Downtown
redevelopment district. One thing that is clear
at this point is Rio Nuevo will be in for major
changes because of the city of Tucson's failure
to show significant progress remaking Down-
town after 10 years and more than $100
million spent. State lawmakers are clearly
frustrated by how Tucson has managed the
tax increment financing district, which siphons
off state sales taxes.

A town too proud to die turns to UA students
for help
Arizona Daily Star 3/25/09
Tucson, Arizona - A small ranching village in
Sonora is trying to reverse its nearly certain
fate of becoming a ghost town. And residents
are looking to an award-winning planning
group at the University of Arizona to make it
happen. It was five years ago when the sole
maquiladora in Fronteras, Sonora, closed
and many residents left in search of work.
Some got involved with local drug dealers,
while others hopped the U.S. border in
hopes of finding more opportunities.

Intruders hold up UA students; 4 arrested
Arizona Daily Star 3/25/09
Tucson, Arizona - Four people suspected of
forcing their way into a Midtown home and
robbing seven University of Arizona students
were arrested early Tuesday, authorities said.
The men entered the home in the 1200 block
of East Grant Road just after midnight, with
one intruder holding the victims at gunpoint
while the others ransacked the home, said
Sgt. Fabian Pacheco, a Tucson Police
Department spokesman. Police arrested
Alex P. Lopez, 17, Diamond J. Taylor, 20,
Ronnie J. Anderson, 25 and Albert Bell III,
24, shortly after they fled the home with
stolen items, Pacheco said.

Annual Innovation Day honors students,
faculty
Arizona Daily Star 3/25/09
Tucson, Arizona - Even in the current economic
downturn, innovation prevails. That was one
message at the University of Arizona's sixth
annual Technology Innovation Awards,
honoring faculty members and students
who contributed to the development of a new
technology were honored. "Opportunity knocks.
Even at difficult times there are always
opportunities if you keep your eyes open,"
said Pouria Valley, optical sciences doctorate
student and recipient of the Student Technology
Innovation Award. About 250 people attended
the event, which included an awards luncheon
and trade-show-style showcase featuring
student team presentations from the McGuire
Center for Entrepreneurship at the Eller College
of Management.

Former UA College of Medicine dean now
works with Dr. Andrew Weil
Arizona Daily Star 3/25/09
Tucson, Arizona - The former dean of the
University of Arizona’s College of Medicine is
now working with Dr. Andrew Weil. Dr. James
E. Dalen is the new executive director of the
Weil Foundation, which supports integrative
medicine through research, education, training
and policy reform. About 90 percent of the
donations to the foundation come from Weil,
a Tucson resident, who contributes all after-tax
profits from royalties on the sale of retail
products licensed by Weil Lifesyle. The Weil
Foundation defines integrative medicine as
emphasizing the, “innate healing capacities
of the organism” by viewing patients as spiritual
entities as well as physical bodies.Weil’s
philosophy is to address all aspects of
lifestyle in evaluating health and illness and
to place a big emphasis on the role of
practitioner-patient relationship in the healing
process. “Dr. Dalen was the first medical
school dean in the country to promote the
values of integrative medicine in academia,
and many of the inroads we have made over
the past decade can be directly attributed to
his passion and hard work,” Weil said in a
statement.

UA Student Affairs will eliminate cultural
centers
Tucson Citizen 3/25/09
The University of Arizona will eliminate its four cultural
centers in July in a overarching realignment and
reorganization of the Student Affairs Office. Also, the
Office of Orientation and the University Learning
Center will be eliminated, while centers for social
justice, women, and sexual orientation will be
included with the cultural centers under an umbrella
unit tentatively called the Community Center. The
reorganization aims to streamline new student
enrollment through the creation of a "Next Steps
Center." It also aims to increase student retention
by expanding the Strategic Alternative Learning
Techniques Center to include services for the
entire campus, not just students with learning
challenges. Spurred by what university leaders
have called "debilitating" budget cuts, the Student
Affairs reorganization is the most recent step in
UA's Transformation Process, announced by UA
President Robert N. Shelton last fall.

UA research may help asthma sufferers
Tucson Citizen 3/25/09
University of Arizona scientists are using research
methods now improving crop yields to help
discover breath-saving asthma treatments. UA
BIO5 Institute researchers Rod Wing and Fernando
Martinez are collaborating to combine their world-
leading expertise in plant genome sequencing and
respiratory disease study to identify undiscovered
genetic variants present in asthmatics. By
sequencing a person's DNA, researchers will be
able to determine which drugs can best treat their
particular type of asthma, said Martinez, BIO5's
interim director and Arizona Respiratory Center
director.

Innovators show wares, seek investors at
UA showcase
Tucson Citizen 3/25/09
Controlled-environment high-yield agriculture,
unmanned drone aircraft for nonmilitary use
and a service to find the clothes your favorite
TV or movie star is wearing were among the
ideas showcased at Tuesday's Innovation
Day at UA. About 380 people attended the
event, which included an awards luncheon,
innovation showcase and the opportunity for
investors to check out projects developed by
students in the University of Arizona McGuire
Entrepreneurship Program.

City may seek full audit of Rio Nuevo program
Tucson Citizen 3/25/09
The Tucson City Council voted unanimously
Tuesday to look into seeking a detailed, out-
side audit of Rio Nuevo. The city's downtown
development program has been criticized for
a perceived lack of accountability, transparency
and timely results, and the Legislature has
threatened to withdraw the sales tax money
that funds it or to require new oversight.
Council-woman Nina Trasoff, who heads the
now-suspended meetings of the Rio Nuevo
subcommittee, voted for the audit proposal
after saying that she thought it was
unnecessary and likely costly. "It's just one
more time that we're not going to be putting
bricks in the ground, railroad tracks in the
ground," she said. "We'll be spending Rio
Nuevo money on one more, in essence,
study."

Editorial: Riddle us this
ASU Web Devil 3/25/09
Why did the chicken cross the road? To tell
the Tempe campus Undergraduate Student
Government to stop taking its place as one
of the predominant old overused jokes, we
would presume. While we very much support
the concept of student representation in
university issues, we find it very difficult to
get behind the student government body that
is shaped yearly by its “oy”-inducing spectacle
of an election process that only yields, at best,
a 4 to 5 percent voter turnout.

ASU receives $3.7 mil grant to improve solar
energy
ASU Web Devil 3/25/09
Researchers at ASU are delving into new and
improved forms of solar energy, which could
lead to less dependence on non renewable
sources of energy and a better environment
in the future. A University engineering research
project received a three-year extension grant of
$3.7 million at the beginning of this year to
create more effective and less expensive
solar-power sources. Ghassan Jabbour,
an engineering professor in the School
of Materials and director of the Advanced
Photovoltaics Center, is the head of the
project.

Advocacy, student fees at forefront of USG
debate
ASU Web Devil 3/25/09
Undergraduate Student Government presidential
candidates stressed service and accountability
for students in a debate on Tuesday night at the
Tempe campus Memorial Union, but they differed
on how to use the campus-wide student fee. The
candidates outlined how they would reform
appropriating money from the $25-per-semester
fee, approved by the Arizona Board of Regents in
spring 2008, with most promising more student
involvement in the process. “Any fee that students
are going to have to pay should be student-
controlled,” said Brendan O’Kelly, a history and
political science sophomore. “We want students
telling the administration where that money should
go.” If the administration wants to promote sustain-
ability at ASU, O’Kelly said, it can pay for recycling
bins around campus instead of making students
pay for it.

UA to host $1 million show
UA Daily Wildcat 3/25/09
Jay-Z, Kelly Clarkson, Third Eye Blind and The
Veronicas will headline a UA concert to be held
at Arizona Stadium on April 29. The concert will
start selling their 17,000 tickets on Friday and
will continue until the event is sold out,
announced the Associated Students of the
University of Arizona, who is organizing the
event. While the cost to put on such a show
rises above the $1 million mark, ASUA is
working on a zero-based budget in which all
expenses will be covered after the concert in
the form of ticket sales and other revenue,
such as merchandise and sponsorships,
said ASUA President Tommy Bruce.
"Basically, we'll spend the money in the
hole and then offset it," Bruce said.

Innovation Day honors, helps UA community
UA Daily Wildcat 3/25/09
Dressed in slacks and white polo shirts
embroidered with their company name
and slogan, Gabriel Hazlewood and
three fellow students show off the
company they've been working on for
the last eight months. Hazlewood, a
management information systems
and business administration senior,
and his business partners presented
Jumpistics, their logistics company
created through the McGuire Center
for Entrepreneurship at Innovation
Day in the North Ballroom of the
Student Union Memorial Center
Tuesday. Innovation Day, which gave
business people the opportunity to
see what UA students are working on,
also gave Jumpistics and other student-
made companies a valuable networking
opportunity, Hazlewood said.

Campus upgrade in works
UA Daily Wildcat 3/25/09
The UA will look to improve overall campus
sustainability and land use, officials, said
Tuesday during a presentation on a draft of
the updated Comprehensive Campus Plan
at the University Services Annex, 220 W.
Sixth St. Adam Gross and Carolyn Krall
from the planning and design agency
Ayers Saint Gross, met with people from
residence life, health sciences, the City of
Tucson, and many others to discuss what
they felt the campus really needs for the
new 2009 plan, updated from 2003. The
main focus of the community discussion
was expansion and rebuilding around
campus. Gross said the campus would
not be expanding its boundaries and that
everything done would utilize land the
university already owns or operates
through partnerships.

Universities Are Wary of Drawbacks to a Huge
Boost in Federal Spending
The Chronicle of Higher Education 3/25/09
Washington - After a month of celebrating the largest
boost in federal spending on scientific research that
most of them have ever seen, university presidents
are increasingly tuned to the possibility of a downside.
The new money—primarily from a $21.5-billion jump
in research-and-development spending in the
economic stimulus law—is certainly welcome,
several university presidents and higher-education
officials said on Tuesday during a lobbying trip to
Capitol Hill. Yet, the leaders said, many institutions
struggled over the past decade to retain promising
young researchers and their investigative projects
through upward and downward spikes in the budget
of the National Institutes of Health, And they’re now
hoping to avoid repeating that pattern with the stimulus
money. The delegation's efforts included a meeting in
the office of the speaker of the House of
Representatives, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of
California. The leaders thanked lawmakers there for
the stimulus money and then began brainstorming
about ways of ensuring it marks a long-term shift in
federal priorities.

Mike Dunlap Is Coaching at Arizona, but Not for Long
The New York Times 3/25/09
The focal point of Arizona’s run to the Round of 16 in
the N.C.A.A. tournament has been the team’s curious
coaching situation. It is so bizarre it almost sounds
made up. The Hall of Fame coach Lute Olson, who
sat out last season for personal reasons, was
supposed to return to the team this season, but he
retired in October because of health concerns. The
coach whom the 12th-seeded Wildcats wanted to
take his place, albeit on an interim basis, was the
associate head coach Mike Dunlap. But he refused.
“Basically, what they said at that time was that I
wasn’t good enough to coach this team,” Dunlap
said. “Let’s face it. That’s perfectly O.K. It’s a huge
corporation, it has huge tradition. I didn’t take it
personally. I understood.”