UTA In The News — Monday, October 14, 2019
Higher wages
In the face of Dallas-Fort Worth area restaurants struggling to hire enough employees to keep operations running smoothly, Roger Meiners, UTA economics professor, says businesses need to pay higher wages to fill their job openings, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported. Meiners said the “hot” economy in the area means more opportunities for people with little education and experience, thus there are fewer applicants for service industry jobs that aren’t paying over minimum wage.
Nursing shortage
Yan Xiao, UTA professor of nursing and patient safety specialist, is leveraging a new four-year, $2.5 million grant to develop interventions to reduce unsafe use of medications, Dallas Innovates reported. Xiao is overseeing the Partnership in Resilience for Medication Safety Learning, or PROMIS, Lab—a consortium led by UTA.
Disaster reconnaissance
Nick Fang, an assistant professor in the UTA Department of Civil Engineering, received a $299,000 National Science Foundation grant to use unmanned aerial vehicles to perform reconnaissance after natural disasters and more accurately and quickly assess damage to buildings, Mirage News reported. The use of UAVs could accelerate the conventional insurance adjustment process, which can take months.
Educational sabotage
A study published in the journal Violence Against Women by a domestic violence expert at UTA focuses on an overlooked form of psychological abuse—educational sabotage— Education Daily Report reported. Educational sabotage is a form of coercive control that directly affects a survivor’s efforts to obtain educational credentials, said Rachel Voth Schrag, assistant professor in the School of Social Work.
Nursing shortage
Mary “Beth” Mancini, retired professor emeritus and senior associate dean for education innovation at UTA, said the shortage of nephrology nurses is one of the biggest challenges facing health care, Healio reported. Projections show a 19% increase in registered nurses needed by 2022.
Voting law impact
A newly implemented change to election law is leaving a trail of shuttered early voting polling places across the state, including UTA, the Longview News-Journal reported in a story originally run in The Texas Tribune. The story quoted Gavin Mitchell, UTA student body president. The development felt like “a punch in the gut” to campus organizations that have worked to register as many students as possible and relished in having an on-campus site, especially for working students, he said. “To put it simply: those students will no longer be able to vote,” Mitchell said.