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GTNY

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Posts posted by GTNY

  1. 25 minutes ago, ZB'Tejas said:

    This is how I picture the Foundation as the rumor's swirl and the empty seats start filling up

    amused jaw drop GIF

     

    And this last part was really interesting... so if you buy next year you are no longer locked in even at that price?

     

    Thats right. Very glad I renewed. 

  2. 29 minutes ago, lemonandaturd said:

    I just want Sark and Coach K to help me forget that Shawn Watson and Todd Orlando ever were coordinators at Texas.  The only other way to forget involves lots of drugs and alcohol.  

    Hopefully its us consuming the alcohol in this case

    • Haha 1
  3. 6 hours ago, allrightallrightallright said:

    whats the language around locking in seat donations?  I have only had my seats for about 5 years and I always assumed prices would be going up eventually

     

    They added this to the emails this year: "This is the final season to lock in annual seat-related gifts for years to come. If you have ever wanted to upgrade your seat location or add seats, this is the year to do it.

  4. 12 minutes ago, Tex Pete said:

    Did you ask them when we get the refunds for the late Mack-, Charlie Strong-, and Tome Herman-eras?

    Talk about flushing money down a toilet! I promise I overpaid by thousands. 

    Couldnt agree more. Its getting incredibly difficult to justify season tickets vs buying the minipacks or secondary for the one good home game a year. 

    • Like 1
  5. 55 minutes ago, NeverMarryAStripper said:

    I did our selection this morning.  You people should have locked in your donations in the 70s like we did.  Our required donation is only $250 total for 4 seats.

    Neg repped out of pure jealousy. 

    Talked to ticket office yesterday regarding the new language around locking in seat donation, they said prices are going to go up across the board. They think we are much lower than other universities - I countered with half of the expensive sections were empty, which was brushed off. 

  6. 1 hour ago, Shaggybevo said:

    Apparently, some still refuse to believe the findings in the report produced by the panel of experts:

     

    Tensions boil at UT-Austin over "The Eyes of Texas", where students are refusing to work and a man with a gun crashed a virtual event

    https://www.texastribune.org/2021/05/04/eyes-of-texas-ut-austin/

    Stop giving them clicks. Post the article:

     

    Tensions boil at UT-Austin over "The Eyes of Texas", where students are refusing to work and a man with a gun crashed a virtual event

    A student group was hosting an event with a UT-Austin professor about the song when a man entered the online Zoom call with his face covered, holding what appeared to be a large gun.

    Spoiler

    Dozens of students at the University of Texas at Austin who give campus tours to prospective Longhorns are refusing to work this week over a dispute about a plaque with “The Eyes of Texas” lyrics hanging in the Admissions Welcome Center.

    The dustup over the plaque is the latest example of UT-Austin officials standing by “The Eyes” over pleas that the university distance itself from the alma mater song because it originated at a minstrel show where students likely wore Blackface.

    It’s also the latest in a series of clashes over the song in a nearly yearlong controversy that has frequently pit administrators and alumni against students and divided members of the Longhorn community.

    Just this week, a threatening incident was reported to UT-Austin police where a student-led online event about “The Eyes of Texas” was crashed by an unknown man on camera wearing a bandana over his mouth and nose and who appeared to be loading a large gun.

    UT-Austin officials did not respond to a request for comment about the incidents, nor did they respond to written questions.

    Students say protests over the song are not going away. Kendall Walker, a UT-Austin senior who is part of the student strike in the admissions office, said she thinks administrators wrongly assumed the issue would die down after the school formed a committee this past year to study the song’s origins. UT-Austin President Jay Hartzell has repeatedly affirmed that the university will keep the song.

    “I think this is the tip of the iceberg honestly,” Walker said. “This is the beginning of it and people resisting that decision and not accepting a committee of people deem[ing] the song isn’t racist. There's a whole generation of students and minority students that are equally and more mad than we are and don't want to enter a space that predetermined their opinions don’t matter.”

    Members of the Texas Tour Guides said the song has created a divisive environment on campus and wanted the plaque to be removed to ensure all student employees and prospective students feel comfortable in the Welcome Center, according to more than six students who work or volunteer as tour guides and spoke to The Texas Tribune.

    The guides sent a letter to the university on April 19, asking for a plan detailing for the plaque's removal by May 1 — otherwise, they said they would stop giving tours virtually or in person.

    Tour guides said they suggested replacing the plaque with something symbolizing another university tradition that is more inclusive.

    The admissions office would not commit to removing the plaque and told students via email on April 29 that they did not have to work as a tour guide if they had concerns.

    “We understand you may no longer desire to serve in this role based on your feelings about the University’s long-standing school song. If you no longer wish to serve as a Texas Tour Guide, please inform your supervisor so that your request can be processed,” wrote Miguel Wasielewski, director of admissions. Wasielewski did not respond to a request for comment.

    The request to remove the plaque from the Welcome Center came months after admissions renamed the tour guide group. Previously called “the Guides of Texas,” intended to sound similar to “The Eyes of Texas,” the admissions office decided to separate itself from the name last July, according to an email sent to students by the admissions office and obtained by the Tribune.

    “We feel that in order to have an inclusive space where everyone feels safe and welcomed that a name change is necessary,” wrote Noemi Gomez, student program coordinator in the university’s admissions office.

    The tour guides estimated that the strike includes roughly 55 students, about half of all the guides.

    Student tour guides compared the university’s action over the plaque to its recent announcement that members of the Longhorn marching band are required to play “The Eyes of Texas.” The university said if they opted against playing the school song they can join a separate, newly created band where it won’t be required.

    Walker, who is Black, said she is often asked on tours by Black families about her experience on campus.

    “I [used to] stand up there and say, ‘I feel welcomed. I feel heard’ … The way that I feel has completely flipped in the past 12 months,” she said. “We bring in students into this university and showcase this university in a way other students cannot. They reap so many benefits of having our presence there but can't honor something that makes us overtly uncomfortable. It's just super hurtful.”

    Multiple students who spoke to the Tribune said they’ve had uncomfortable conversations with prospective parents and students about the controversy over the past year, yet they have not received any guidance for how to deal with questions about the song while giving tours. In some instances, students said questioning has gotten aggressive.

    “It definitely has been an added, like, burden on my mental health to go get dressed and put on my tour guide Polo and go out and talk to families that are oftentimes like predominantly white, about like things like racial justice here on campus,” said Jeremiah Baldwin, a tour guide and sophomore at UT-Austin. “I'm always like having this game of mental gymnastics that I'm playing, like, ‘how should I describe this?’ Or, ‘should I be as open and honest?’”

    “A targeted incident”
    In another sign of escalating tensions, a student group recently reported an online threat related to the dispute over the song.

    Last week, the Texas Orange Jackets hosted an online Zoom conversation with professor Alberto Martinez about his report on the song, which identified links to Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. According to students on the call and Martinez, as he was presenting, an unaffiliated person with a gun joined the call but was removed by moderators.

    A screenshot of the Zoom call shared with the Tribune shows the man wearing a black beanie and a face covering over his mouth and nose while holding what appears to be a large black gun.

    “The fact that a conversation about changing a song inspired someone to bring a gun to a Zoom call is just ridiculous,” said Irene Ameena, a senior leader in the Texas Orange Jackets. “And shows that this isn't just some small debate. This is something that’s violent, like it is violent to bring a gun and show it to people.”

    The student group reported the incident to university officials and the professor reported it to the UT Police Department.

    “Given the sensitive nature of the matter discussed on this call, we believe this was a targeted incident,” Texas Orange Jackets wrote in a statement on the Facebook page for the event. “We unequivocally condemn the racism and violence that have been brought up in conversations about this song and again call on the university to remove the “Eyes of Texas” as the official school song of the university.”

    “A rebuke of their spinelessness”
    Walker said she knew students who didn’t sing “The Eyes” even before student athletes brought attention to the matter by demanding the school do away with the tradition last summer in the wake of the death of George Floyd at the hands of police. That demand was faced with swift opposition from alumni and heavy weight donors who clamored for the school to keep the song and threatened to pull donations if it went away. While a university commissioned report found in March that the song “had no racist intent,” it has done little to diminish the controversy.

    Recently, a petition calling on UT-Austin leaders to remove the song has circulated, with nearly 180 faculty as of Tuesday morning threatening not to attend graduations and university events unless it's confirmed the song won’t be played. A previous petition calling for the song’s removal had garnered close to 100 faculty signatures.

    UT-Austin history Professor Jorge Canizares-Esguerra said the new petition was created after Martinez released his report that challenged the university’s narrative about the song’s history. Overall, he said professors felt as if the administration had handled the issue without properly involving faculty and students.

    “It is a rebuke of the administration,” Canizares-Esguerra said. “It’s a rebuke of their spinelessness before donors and alumni and powerful capital.”

    Members of the Texas Black Legislative Caucus and state NAACP chapters have also condemned the song. After UT-Austin released its report in early March, Black student leaders submitted a new list of demands for more scholarships, affordable student housing and increased wages for student workers to improve the experience of Black students on campus.

    Brianna McBride, a senior at UT-Austin and co-director of the Black President’s Leadership Council, said UT-Austin officials, including Hartzell, have been receptive to their requests and are continuing to work with student leaders to better communicate initiatives and plans with students.

    As the academic year reaches an end, Canizares-Esguerra said he worried how the song and the ongoing controversy will affect the broader university if it continues

    “It is not sustainable because it promotes division,” he said. “It's unsustainable as a policy because it shows the world that the university is divided.”

     

     

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  7. 25 minutes ago, GW Hayduke said:

     

    From page 11 of the report:

     

    Doesn’t it also say that the “the eyes of...” was a common phrase well before Lee’s usage? And the more direct stories of Prather hearing it from Lee like at the university showed no evidence? 

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  8. 10 hours ago, GW Hayduke said:

    What do you think I am not comprehending? 

    Are you under the impression that the report establishes the confederacy, General Lee, and General Gregg played no role in the origin of the eyes?   If so, you are misreading the report.  There are two speeches by Prather noted on that page.  One recorded in October 1899 and another recorded December 1900.  The December 1900 speech clearly established that Prather (two years before the eyes was written) linked the eyes to the confederacy. He refers to both Lee and Gregg (confederate generals) in the speech, and the quotes Gregg as stating "the eyes of texas are upon you" and "the eyes of General Lee are upon you." 

    Then in 30's, the Dean of Engineering again links the confederacy and Lee (leaving out Gregg) back to eyes.  

    There is no reason to hide from any of that.  Those are facts in the report.

    I'm not saying it has no links, but what you are quoting isn't right in the report. Those arent "facts in the report" - those are existing claims the report researched and could not substantiate with evidence. 

    On the first speech, the report states there is confusion and other sources don't cite Lee in it.

    On your Dean of Engineering comment (Thomas Taylor if I am reading it/you right), the report says this explicitly "Perhaps Prather did tell Taylor a different story than he told the medical students. But this appears unlikely. For there to have been two separate events involving “the eyes” of some person or region, and that separately inspired Prather’s “eyes of Texas,” seems a stretch. More likely Taylor misremembered." 

    It goes on - Taylors story is that Prather told him he got it from Lee using it at his Washington College addresses but the report states "Further, research has failed to discover in the records of Washington & Lee University (as Washington College is now called) evidence that Lee ever closed an address to the students with the phrase attributed to him by the Taylor account. Absence of evidence, of course, is not proof of absence. But if the phrase was as common with Lee as Taylor asserted, one would expect some supporting evidence. "

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  9. 2 hours ago, GW Hayduke said:

    I recommend you read the report. Or at least the open letter at the beginning. A few paragraphs from the open letter composed by the chair of the committee.

     

     

    I recommend you read and comprehend it too:

    "These historical facts add complexity and richness to the story of a song that debuted in a racist setting, exceedingly common for the time, but, as the preponderance of research showed, had no racist intent in that it was intended to parody the famous phrases of the university president."

    "The committee found no evidence the lyrics were intended to show nostalgia for slavery"

    On your own page 11 "The University Record for October 1899 printed that speech; in it, as printed, Prather quoted Aristotle, Harvard president Charles Eliot, William Makepeace Thackeray, and the authors of the Texas Declaration of Independence, but he made no mention of Robert E. Lee, and he did not tell the students that “the eyes of Texas” were upon them. Nor did the Austin Daily Statesman’s transcript of Prather’s inaugural address contain any reference to Lee or the eyes of Texas."

    The speech in question was either 1899 or 1903. The report also notes this "Finally on this point, the committee noted numerous examples of the formulation “the eyes of ___________ are upon you” around the world and long predating 1903. "

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