Opera premieres are very similar to that proverbial box of chocolates, you never know what you’re gonna get.
We often decry the modern works for their lack of melody. All angsty and off-putting, without key structure, the characters all sound the same whether hanging up laundry or having a breakdown. It’s not tonal, and you never leave the theater humming any tune.
Tom Cipullo’s world premiere Hobson’s Choice, at University of Houston’s Moores Opera Center, is definitely not modern music, except for its use of xylophone, wood block, whoopie whistle, and ratchet. It could be some forgotten Lehar operetta unearthed from the Viennese archives or a Sigmund Romberg work hidden in his trunk of forgotten scores. It’s a throwback to Puccini’s comic one-acter Gianni Schicchi from Il Trittico (1918), although that one sounds much more modern and up-to-date, and is a lot more fun.
Hobson, adapted from a once-popular play by Harold Brighouse (1915) is a boulevard farce satirizing a father’s complete control over his family of daughters and their fight for women’s emancipation. The youngest cannot marry until the eldest does, and the eldest, Maggie, is a shocking 30 years old.
Father assumes she’s an old maid and is in no hurry to marry her off and compromise his shoe-making business which she runs with absolute efficiency. She’s in love with the cobbler in the basement, a definite no for the family’s social position. But she’s a feisty one, not to be outwitted. She marries her Will, arranges her sisters’ marriages to the beaus of their choice, and out foxes her father in the end. It’s a most satisfying conclusion, but it’s never in doubt, not for one bar of music.
Maybe that’s why this opera never goes anywhere and begins to pall. Maggie is so strong from the start there’s no contest against her inebriated but ferocious father. We know she will conquer, so all the following is filler. Pleasant filler to be sure, easy on the ears, but not much drama and not much comedy. The score washes over you without much effect although its conducted by maestro Jorge Parodi with love, the singing is very good, the direction is sufficient, the set and costumes (Jefferson Ridenour and Mary Webber/Shaun Heath) are clever and colorful, the lighting (by pro Christina Gianelli) is perfect for a farce – we can see what we need to see.
Cipullo sets this whirligig is motion with a bright score with many arias for the principals that mimic Gilbert and Sullivan’s patented patter songs or Sondheim on a bender. The main melody – I guess you could call it Maggie’s theme – is a lush romantic up-sweep that is quite pretty, and the tongue-twisting lyrics by Cipullo in the Rossini-esque numbers are most adroit.
It’s the spaces in between that slow this opera down. For being such a bonbon opera, the work needs a sharp red pencil; it’s too long (two intermissions!) One character, Missus Hepworth, a Lady Bracknell wanna-be, has only one scene. Underused, I thought she might be widow Hobson’s prospective bride, but, no, she disappeared until curtain call. A battleship royale, she is sorely missed as the opera unfolds.
The Moore’s student cast is most adept, at ease on the stage, and have voices to be heard again.
Soprano Chelsea DeLorenz, as Maggie, has a natural intelligence as singer and actress. She knows what she’s doing. Her number, ironically, “I Know What I’m Doing,” is straight-forward, without flourish, and right on. And her credo song, “Chance Favors Those Who Court Her,” was angelic. She was in command of the stage throughout and fit the role of Maggie like a bespoke pair of fine leather boots.
Baritone John Allen Nelson made a beloved rogue out of Henry Hobson, as he tongue-twisted through his patter about the trials and joys of only having daughters. He was gruff and tough but ultimately had a heart of gold. He showed that in his fine voice. Baritone Jack Cozad, as beloved of Vicki, had youth and talent on his side. He even performed a neat little vaudeville routine during his number, shuffling along with his boater hat. Tenor Grant Peck, as Will, commands a strong and nimble voice, rising above the fray and filling the house.
Contraltos Cassi Gardner and Avery Ditta ate up the scenery whenever possible as sisters Alice and Vicki, “warbling in thirds” as Maggie introduced them at the opera’s prologue. They are admirable singers, and coloratura suits Gardner as much as comedy suits Ditta. Wesley Kelley, as Alice’s love Albert, doesn’t have much to do, but he sings it nicely. And Elena Bryan, as Missus Hepworth, is terribly underutilized. She could have her own opera.
Hobson’s Choice, once amended and shortened, would be a worthy addition to the contemporary opera catalog. We need melody, we seek it. Maybe composer/lyricist Tom Cipullo will be the one to bring it back. We hope so.
Hobson’s Choice continues at 2 p.m. Sunday, October 26 at Moores Opera House, 3333 Cullen. For more information, call 713-743-3388 or visit kgmcaboxoffice.universitytickets.com. $10-$25.
Before the federal government shutdown announced last week, the most recent halt in services — also under a Donald Trump administration — lasted 35 days, and the current political climate is much more acrimonious than it was seven years ago, signaling things may get worse before they get better, a Houston economist says.
“We seem to be in a more adversarial world today,” said University of Houston economics professor Vikram Maheshri. “I don’t think we’ve gotten better at getting along today than we were in 2018. I’m not saying everything was amazing then, but we’ve gotten worse at making compromises. If I were going to be a political prognosticator, I’d say I think it’s going to last for a while.”
“This doesn’t strike me as a brief disagreement because it seems to me that both parties think they have something to gain from this,” he added. “In any sort of negotiation or mediation, if both parties think they have something to gain from not agreeing or not compromising, then it’s really hard to do that. My sense is that it’s not going to make either side more popular.”
The latest stoppage was announced October 1 after the U.S. Congress failed to reach a funding agreement for its governmental agencies. Republicans and Democrats are blaming each other, with Dems saying they want to negotiate lower healthcare premiums and the GOP lamenting a failed “continuing resolution” that would have extended funding through late November and avoided the shutdown, at least temporarily.
When the government shut down from December 2018 to January 2019, it caused service delays and temporary financial setbacks for federal employees, but some people, especially those who didn’t work for a government agency, may not have experienced a huge impact, Maheshri says.
A government shutdown occurs because federal institutions like the U.S. military, Environmental Protection Agency, and Veterans Administration lack the legal authority to spend money without an approved budget. So for the government to reopen, Congress has to pass legislation that provides funding for the agencies that have been halted.
The U.S. House passed a continuing resolution that would have extended funding for seven weeks, but the measure failed in the Senate in a 44-48 vote. Most Texas Republicans supported the extension; Democrats voted against it, saying they wanted to negotiate on preserving health care subsidies that expire at the end of the year.
Senate Republicans need 60 votes to pass a spending bill through the upper chamber.
Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are funded separately from other Congress-funded programs and are generally unaffected by government shutdowns, Maheshri says. However, benefit administration could be delayed if workers are furloughed or call in sick.
John Diamond, a financial policy expert at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy, says he expects federal employees will be furloughed, some public services will be disrupted, and payments to essential workers and government contractors will be delayed.
Although Diamond sayshe doesn’t know how long the D.C. standoff will last, he estimated it would extend “maybe another week or two.”
“Everything depends on how long it lasts,” Diamond said. “If it ends today, the average Houstonian would be completely unimpacted. If it continues on for a month, the average Houstonian probably won’t notice and they would only notice if they were a federal employee, if they had contracts with the federal government, or if they live in an area that is highly concentrated with federal services and they provide some service to those employees.”
At its onset, the shutdown will be more costly for certain people, and the costs will increase over time, Maheshri says. The process of closing on a new home could be delayed because the buyer can’t get flood insurance through a national program, and a person planning international travel and waiting on a passport will have to cancel their plans, the professor says.
“So for a few people, in these specific kinds of situations, it’s going to be extremely costly, but for most people it might not be such a big deal,” he said. “And then, after a week or two, employees who are counting on paychecks and are basically just getting IOUs, that might start to get costly. This includes the majority of military people and government contractors. And then it will get broader and broader.”
An air traffic controller who is getting paid in IOUs might take days off to try and make money another way, Maheshri added.
“The response to that is not going to be to fly the same number of planes and just have crashes,” he said. “It’s going to be that airlines are going to fly fewer and fewer flights. The longer it goes, the more people are going to be affected by it. And I think more people will be affected more acutely. We all interact with the federal government in some way or another. Eventually it’s going to affect all of us.”
The EPA reported last week that about 90 percent of its workforce will be furloughed during the shutdown. This could be a devastating blow to the agency responsible for overseeing toxic pollution and cleaning up contaminated sites like the cancer cluster at Harris County’s San Jacinto River. It also gives Trump leeway to pursue layoffs and dismantle institutions that his political adversaries support, critics say.
The Department of Homeland Security has said it plans to keep the vast majority of its Immigration and Customs Enforcement on the job, so raids on Houston laborers aren’t expected to slow down.
Members of the Houston Democracy Project protest once a week outside U.S. Sen. John Cornyn’s office. Credit: Neil Aquino
Neil Aquino, founder of the Houston Democracy Project, protests outside of U.S. Sen. John Cornyn’s office once a week and opposes Trump’s policies on immigration but said he hasn’t gotten involved in any organized effort to speak out on the government shutdown.
“It’s all a stream of lousy news, and I don’t know that people differentiate it from the other lousy news,” he said. “You’re really just trying to manage trauma, and here’s one more, essentially, assault by [Republicans] who have made it clear they want to hurt us. So they’re going after these agencies because they think it will inflict hurt rather than it being about public policy.”
Jobs and funding have already been cut at the Texas Medical Center, NASA, National Weather Service and FEMA, with little action at the local level to stand up to Trump, Aquino said.
Although President Trump has threatened to dismantle FEMA after this hurricane season, shifting the burden of natural disaster response to states, the Department of Homeland Security indicated most of its emergency management officials are considered essential and will continue working through the shutdown.
Diamond says that in the short term, only government workers and people planning trips will be affected, but the big picture is that fiscal reform is needed at the federal level.
“The indirect effects are, to the extent that this lasts long enough and this nudges the [Gross Domestic Product] down enough, if we’re in an economy that’s very weak and this causes the economy to flip into a recession, then the average citizen may feel that,” he said.
Healthcare Debate
The future of enhanced premium tax credits under the Affordable Care Act is at the core of the shutdown negotiations. The measure, first approved in 2020, allows households above 400 percent of the federal poverty line to become eligible for tax credits, and it lowers the percentage of income households are expected to contribute, Diamond says. The federal poverty line for a family of four is $31,200.
“Obviously, reducing subsidies for premium tax credits would increase the costs that households are required to pay, but extending the credits will increase spending through the tax code and the deficit,” Diamond said. “The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates that an extension for 10 years would cost $300 [billion] to $400 billion, depending on how broad the subsidy eligibility is.”
The credits were approved during the COVID-19 pandemic and extended by the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022. Democrats want to make them permanent to prevent rising premiums, and Republicans say they were only intended to be in place temporarily.
A likely scenario to end the shutdown would be that a few Democrats switch their votes, and if that happens, there may be a negotiation scenario in which the Republicans agree to reconsider tax credits at the end of the year. But something has to give, Diamond says.
When COVID hit in 2020, people lost jobs, income, and health insurance. The government responded by providing temporary relief, but it can’t go on subsidizing health insurance forever, particularly while the country’s debt is in the trillions, Diamond says.
“Here’s the thing about federal programs. Once people have them, it’s very hard to take them away,” he said. “Once a benefit is on the books, the political pain of taking it away often outweighs the cost of keeping it.”
“It’s a symptom of America’s broken budget process,” he added. “Instead of deliberate long-term planning, we get crisis-driven policymaking where programs are born in emergencies, patched through short-term extensions, and eventually calcify into permanent spending.”
Democrats appear to genuinely want their constituents to be able to access affordable healthcare, and some Republicans want that, too, Maheshri says.
“It seems like a lot of Democrats are worried about being perceived as, ‘We’re not fighters. We’re rolling over.’ You have to do some symbolic stuff to show that you’re a fighter,” he said. “If you’re a little kid in the lunchroom and you want to not get picked on, you might pick a fight with someone stronger than you even though it’s not going to go so well for you. It could change the perception.”
“I think on the Republican side, one thing that’s different about this shutdown versus any others that I can think of over the last 10 or 15 years, I feel like the administration is trying to use this as a way to kind of punish people that it doesn’t like or restrict money to blue states or use this opportunity to reduce the size of government.”
Diamond says historically during a standoff, the party seeking the policy change has almost always lost.
“The party that just wants a clean resolution usually wins,” he said. “My hunch is that eventually the Democrats will have to abandon this political ploy and move on to a continuing resolution. The Democrats don’t have the votes. You can’t force it to pass now by holding the government hostage.”
Federal Workers Won’t Be Paid
In the meantime, thousands of Texas workers will go to their jobs knowing they won’t get a paycheck right away.
Transportation Security Administration employees at George Bush Intercontinental Airport were among those essential employees expected to show up despite the shutdown, an airport employee told The Houston Press last week. They’re guaranteed back pay once the funding is restored — the IOUs professor Maheshri mentioned — but there will undoubtedly be a stall in service.
VA hospital providers, active-duty service members and most civilian personnel at military installations are also expected to work without pay. The economy and labor market have softened lately, and a shutdown isn’t going to help, Maheshri says.
“It’s not like we’re in a really robust place right now, economically,” he said. “Imagine if everyone has to skip a paycheck. We’re not going to go to as many restaurants. We’re not going to buy as much stuff, and we’re not going to do as much stuff. If things were going really strongly in the economy, it might not be that much of a concern but if things are a bit more fragile, it’s not going to help.”
Thousands of Texans employed by federal agencies will be furloughed or have to work without a paycheck during the shutdown. Credit: AFL-CIO
Texas AFL-CIO president Rick Levy says the shutdown will lock out hundreds of thousands of federal employees from doing their jobs while forcing hundreds of thousands more — like TSA officers, VA caregivers, and border patrol agents — to work without pay.
“That reduces access to services and pulls billions out of local economies,” Levy said in a press release. “Trump and his billionaire buddies have taken our government hostage until their demands are met — and Texas families will pay the price.”
Financial Pressure
Those who rely on government benefits like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and the WIC food and immunization program for postpartum mothers and children can still use their debit cards and attend appointments, but that could change if the shutdown extends for a long period of time, government officials have said.
It’s a recurring theme since Trump took office, Aquino says. The policies hurt the lower- and middle-class residents while the rich stay wealthy.
Diamond says a takeaway from the current situation is that the government shouldn’t pass an extension or increase on a temporary basis because people expect it to be permanent.
“That goes for tax cuts and spending,” he said. “We saw that in July with the Republicans’ tax cuts, claiming that temporary tax cuts were really meant to be permanent. Now we’re seeing it with Democrats on the spending side. If we continue like this we will be bankrupt. You can’t increase spending and always reduce taxes. Those two things never work out well in the end.”
If the health insurance premiums are extended, something has to be cut or an additional revenue stream must be identified, he added.
“My suggestion would be to broaden the tax base,” he said. “It involves cutting spending or raising taxes. The problem is it’s very hard to get everybody to agree politically on which route you should take.”
Maheshri agreed that the big fiscal picture for the United States is “not great.”
“We have a lot of debt,” he said. “Our debt is bigger than our [Gross Domestic Product], and it’s growing. We’re not moving in the right direction. This is not to say you should have zero debt. You have to do one of two things. The government has to spend less or make more. In all likelihood, it’s going to take some combination of both.”
Texans have grown accustomed to heatwaves and deadly floods, and, while a hurricane can’t be stopped by a panel of politicians, residents who vote on both sides of the aisle want the government to implement climate change policy solutions, according to a University of Houston Hobby School of Public Affairs survey released last week.
More than 86 percent of about 5,000 survey respondents believe in the effects of climate change, but their thoughts on the causes vary along party lines. About 48 percent of Democratic respondents attributed climate change mostly to human activities, compared to 13.3 percent of Republicans, who attributed it mostly to natural environmental changes.
About 3.7 percent of respondents deny that climate change exists, and 57.7 percent identify the oil and gas industry as one of the main culprits.
Republicans have traditionally not listed climate change as a priority and almost 70 percent say an important consideration for them in any climate policy proposal is keeping consumer costs low, according to a Pew Research Center study released last year and cited in the UH Hobby School survey.
About 5,000 people in nine counties were surveyed on climate change. Credit: University of Houston Hobby School of Public Affairs
So climate change is “a thing,” but what can be done to address it?
Maria Perez Arguelles, lead researcher on the report and a research assistant professor at the Hobby School, said the Texas Legislature considered several measures during its most recent session.
“Lawmakers passed more bills that were aimed at strengthening the power grid or expanding the reliability of energy supply,” she said. “But other bills targeting renewable energy development and those that targeted wind and solar installations, for example, didn’t pass.”
The survey polled residents of nine counties surrounding Houston between August 11 and September 4.
Overall, respondents showed stronger support for policies promoting energy efficiency — such as improving energy use in homes, vehicles, and factories — over more technical solutions like carbon capture. These solutions are seen as more effective and more likely to garner bipartisan support, the report states.
“What these results suggest is that those policies that promote efficiency and visible community benefits — things that people can visualize and see translated into everyday lives — have a higher chance of gaining bipartisan support in the Greater Houston area,” Perez Arguelles said.
Houston and Harris County have climate action plans to address a steady rise in federally declared disasters, including Hurricane Harvey in 2017, severe floods, winter storms, and wildfires.
“These repeated events have underscored the region’s vulnerability and highlighted the urgent need for stronger infrastructure, flood protection, and emergency response systems,” the Hobby School report states.
At a press conference this week on emergency preparedness, County Judge Lina Hidalgo lauded the “first of its kind in the nation” community-focused Climate Justice Plan, adopted earlier this year. The plan’s chief goals are to deploy electric vehicles and charging stations; improve energy efficiency in county buildings; and produce green spaces and native landscaping.
“I’m not going to pretend like there are not challenges right now,” Hidalgo said. “We all know that FEMA has been taking some hits and nobody is sure how they will respond when we need them. There’s a major grant for solar power that we were awarded by the federal government that we were told is not arriving anymore. That’s another challenge, and of course, there are certain things in the budget that just passed that can have an impact on emergency response efforts.”
Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo speaks at a September 30 press conference on emergency preparedness. Credit: April Towery
Within 24 hours of Hidalgo’s press conference, the federal government shut down, adding to the uncertainty facing states and counties that are prone to natural disasters.
Harris County’s Climate Action Plan, adopted in 2023, aims, among other things, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent by 2030 through reductions from county buildings, fleet and commuting, procurement, and waste management.
“I want to make sure folks know that we have strong partnerships,” Hidalgo said at the press conference as she stood at a podium with meteorologist Jeff Linder, Harris County Fire Marshal Laurie Christensen. Homeland Security and Emergency Management Coordinator Mark Sloan, and American Red Cross Regional CEO Shawn Schulze.
“There are many things we can’t control about emergencies and disasters, but one thing we can control is the partnerships. That is what a smooth response depends on,” she said.
As city and county leaders work to address climate change through action plans and policies, they’re also reminding the public of how to stay informed and how to best respond when a disaster hits. Although Harris County hasn’t had an active hurricane season this year, tropical storms are expected through the end of November. Some regions of the county are experiencing drought conditions, Christensen said.
Harris County Fire Marshal Laurie Christensen speaks at a September 30 press conference on emergency preparedness. Credit: April Towery
At the September 30 press conference, Christensen urged the public to prepare for disasters on “blue sky days” like the ones Houston has experienced lately.
“Have your chimneys cleaned,” she said. “Make sure that you’ve got a five-foot radius around your fireplace. If you’re burning outside and you’ve got a nice fire pit that you bought at a box store, make sure you have water around it so you can disperse and put the water on it and get the fire out.”
The fire marshal further suggested that families practice evacuation plans for their homes. Several of the speakers at the press conference reminded residents to sign up for Ready Harris emergency alerts.
Houston released its first-ever Climate Action Plan in 2020. The CAP, overseen by the Office of Recovery and Resilience, was part of the Resilient Houston strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, and improve urban resilience. It’s cited in the UH report as one of the policy initiatives residents prefer.
The CAP focuses on transportation, energy transition, building optimization, and material management. A two-year update in 2022 highlighted some progress, including a 37 percent drop in emissions since 2005 and 92 percent of municipal facilities powered by renewable energy.
About 5,000 residents were surveyed on climate change by the University of Houston Hobby School of Public Affairs. Credit: University of Houston Hobby School of Public Affairs
Among survey respondents, the most popular policy solution to reduce carbon emissions was to make factories and energy systems more efficient.
“Generally, we observe significant partisan differences in perceptions of carbon reduction strategies,” the report states. “Democrats consistently show higher support for all measures, especially efficiency improvements and cleaner fuels, while Republicans are less supportive of all options, especially carbon capture. We also find that Independents and non-affiliated respondents in the Greater Houston area typically align closer to Democrats.”
Irony abounded in the life — and death — of Charlie Kirk.
A small group of college students, including women, gathered on the University of Houston campus last week to mourn Kirk’s death. The conservative Christian activist was known for his political debates on university campuses, even though he believed college was a “scam,” and supported young women prioritizing marriage over higher education.
Kirk mobilized youth to vote for a national leader, President Donald Trump, who was in his late 70s at the time of the 2024 election. And he was an ardent supporter of the Second Amendment right to bear arms, before he died September 10 by gun violence.
Kirk, 31, was fatally shot while speaking at Utah Valley University. He founded Turning Point USA, a conservative movement that condemns “woke” DEI hiring practices, civil rights for transgender individuals, and abortion. He was known for his college campus tours at which he debated students with whom he disagreed. A TikTok page for his podcast, “The Charlie Kirk Show,” has almost 9 million followers.
UH student David Cantu said he found Kirk on social media and wanted to join the movement. “He made a big impact on our youth,” Cantu said. “I think he would want us to continue on what he started. Even though he can’t finish it, we can continue on.”
In addition to last week’s vigil at the University of Houston campus, a community-wide prayer service was held Sunday evening at Discovery Green in downtown Houston, hosted by the Republican consulting group Red State Solutions.
But a lot of people didn’t like Charlie Kirk, and his death created a stir, with some on the progressive, or liberal, side implying that the activist created a hostile environment that led to his demise. Despite this, many Democratic leaders, including Houston and Harris County officials, condemned gun violence and the actions of Kirk’s suspected shooter, 22-year-old Utah resident Tyler Robinson, who was apprehended Friday.
Journalist and Howard University professor Stacey Patton said last week she was on Charlie Kirk’s “hit list,” a database of educators that Turning Point USA believes “discriminate against conservative students, promote anti-American values and advance leftist propaganda in the classroom.”
“His so-called ‘Professor Watchlist,’ run under the umbrella of Turning Point USA, is nothing more than a digital hit list for academics who dare to speak truth to power,” Patton wrote on Facebook. “I landed there in 2024 after writing commentary that inflamed the MAGA faithful. And once my name went up, the harassment machine roared to life.”
The professor said some educators received death threats; others lost their jobs or left universities because of the harassment. She said Kirk “demonized LGBTQ people, mocked gun violence survivors, spewed racism, and pushed policies that shorten lives.”
“And now, in the wake of his shooting, there’s all this national outpouring of mourning, moments of silence, yellow prayer hands, and tributes painting him as a civil debater,” Patton said. “But the truth is that Kirk and his foot soldiers spent years terrorizing educators, trying to silence us with harassment and fear.”
Kirk supporters called the shooting a political assassination and characterized the conservative leader as a martyr who died spreading the teachings of Jesus in civil, respectful debate. Several people shared stories of how their children admired Kirk and young boys wore coats and ties to middle school in Kirk’s honor on the day after his death.
Students and Charlie Kirk supporters planted flags outside the Memorial Student Center on September 11.
Photo by April Towery
Trump said Kirk would receive a Presidential Medal of Freedom and ordered flags lowered through the weekend. The President took the same action in August following a school shooting in Minnesota, but didn’t order flags lowered when Minnesota Rep. Melissa Hortman, a Democrat, was assassinated in June, prompting critics to say Trump was engaging in “selective patriotism.”
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott offered his condolences and called for prayer for Kirk’s family.
“Charlie’s voice was a beacon for millions of young Americans searching for truth, courage, and conviction,” Abbott said in a statement. “This senseless act of violence has no place in America. Our prayers are with Charlie’s family and his loved ones, especially the two young children he leaves behind. Texas stands with them in mourning and in honoring Charlie’s enduring legacy.”
A quote from Kirk in April 2023 saying that he supported the right to bear arms was widely shared on social media.
“I think it’s worth it,” Kirk said in a social media post more than two years ago. “I think it’s worth it to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights.”
The University of Houston has a student chapter of Turning Point USA with about 20 active members. On the day of Kirk’s death, however, UH chapter president Jordyn Hackner said her phone was flooded with calls from people who wanted to join or offer assistance.
“Yesterday was a really tough day,” Hackner, a sophomore, told a reporter before the vigil in Kirk’s honor. Students said they’d been instructed by Turning Point USA not to speak to the media about the circumstances surrounding Kirk’s death, but many spoke openly about his legacy and wept during the vigil.
“I didn’t have the honor to meet Charlie or show him what our chapter looks like but we hope to pass on his legacy,” Hackner said as she broke down in tears.
Texas Youth Summit founder Christian Collins led the group in prayer. The annual Texas Youth Summit is set for September 19 and 20 in The Woodlands and will feature Collins, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, and U.S. Rep. Wesley Hunt, all Republicans, as speakers.
Collins said Kirk was silenced by a shooter who was afraid of the truth. Kirk’s ideas weren’t outrageous, Collins said. He believed in two genders: man and woman. He probably would have become president one day, Collins added.
“They took his life because millions of young people were listening to him,” Collins said. “I would say there was nobody who did more with young people in the history of our nation, especially with the Republican Party, than Charlie Kirk. He’s the reason, I think, that President Trump won the 2024 election. It’s because young men loved Charlie Kirk and they looked up to him. That’s their hero.”
Christian Collins, founder of Texas Youth Summit, spoke to students at the University of Houston campus last week. Also pictured is UH student David Cantu.
Photo by April Towery
Past president of the UH Turning Point chapter Lauren Corrales broke down in tears as she described meeting Kirk and praying with him.
Although college campus tours were his battleground, Kirk and his wife Erika made an appearance earlier this year at a Young Women’s Leadership Summit in Dallas, covered by the New York Times. Deemed “Trump World rock stars,” by the Times, the Kirks advised about 3,000 young women at the conference on finding a husband and raising Christian children.
“I must have missed it in Matthew — which is, Go forth and become CEO of a shoe company,” Kirk reportedly told the audience. He asked attendees whether their “daily purpose for being” was finding a husband and instructed the room that “every hand should go up.”
University of Houston students prepared a memorial for Charlie Kirk on September 11.
Photo by April Towery
Some in attendance were surprised by the appearance of Texas Sen. Angela Paxton, R-McKinney, a graduate of UH and a leadership consultant and former educator, at the conference where women were told to stay home and have babies. Shortly after the gathering, Angela Paxton filed for divorce from her husband, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.
At the September 11 memorial event on UH campus, Collins encouraged the college students to keep speaking out on what they believe in.
“Conservatives are sometimes divided, but everyone in the conservative movement respected Charlie Kirk,” Collins said. “When there is a terrorist attack, people tend to curl up in a ball and cry. What Charlie Kirk would want is for us to keep fighting the good fight.”
“We are in a war in this country. It is a spiritual and political war, and it is a cultural war,” he added. “We have to win. We need crusaders for truth. We need leaders who are not afraid. We cannot live in fear. We have to fight back.”
Newswise — Over the past decade, suicide rates have increased by 30% for Black Americans. By contrast, in a similar time frame, epidemiological data reveals a decrease in suicide trends for white Americans. A new study, led by University of Houston psychology doctoral student Jasmin Brooks and directed by professor of psychology Rheeda Walker, examines the role of mindfulness, a robust coping mechanism, on the association between impulsivity and suicidal risk within a sample of Black emerging adults.
Mindfulness, or living in the present, means directing your attention to fully experience the current moment, free from judgments based on the past or anxiety about the future. It involves training your brain to concentrate on your senses and physical actions as you encounter them. In psychological terms, impulsivity is a predisposition toward rapid, unplanned reactions to internal or external stimuli without regard to the negative consequences of these reactions.
Walker directs the “Culture, Risk, and Resilience Lab” at the university. She indicated that her research over the last two decades consistently reveals that important psychological buffers can diffuse potential vulnerability to mental health crisis.
“Our current findings support the clinical utility of mindfulness as a potential buffer to the negative consequences of impulsivity for Black Americans,” the researchers report in the journal Mindfulness. “Suicide among Black Americans is a complex phenomenon that may be best understood via an analysis of risk factors in tandem with protective factors.”
While impulsivity is a factor often associated with suicidal risk, few studies have examined the association between impulsivity and suicidal risk, or clinically relevant protective factors, for Black Americans. Similarly, few studies have examined the role of mindfulness in the context of impulsivity and suicidal risk for Black Americans.
For this research, the first of its kind, the UH team examined data from 332 Black emerging adults with an average age of 22 years. Participants completed an online questionnaire battery that included measures of impulsivity, mindfulness, suicide ideation and elevated suicide risk.
“Mediation analyses revealed that impulsivity was directly and indirectly associated with suicide ideation and elevated suicide risk via lower levels of mindfulness,” said Brooks.
Among Black Americans, mindfulness is also associated with a host of favorable health outcomes, including decreased suicidal ideation and depressive symptomatology, lower levels of substance use, lower levels of psychological distress, increased psychological well-being, and adaptive coping strategy selection.
“Ideally, we would live in a society that doesn’t create unnecessary stress or incite mistreatment,” said Walker. “Until that is a reality, a mindful disposition is an important source of resilience.”
Newswise — Extreme environments in several critical industries – aerospace, energy, transportation and defense – require sensors to measure and monitor numerous factors under harsh conditions to ensure human safety and integrity of mechanical systems.
In the petrochemical industry, for example, pipeline pressures must be monitored at climates ranging from hot desert heat to near arctic cold. Various nuclear reactors operate at a range of 300-1000 degrees Celsius, while deep geothermal wells hold temperatures up to 600 degrees Celsius.
Now a team of University of Houston researchers has developed a new sensor that was proven to work in temperatures as high as 900 degrees Celsius or 1,650 degrees Fahrenheit, which is the temperature mafic volcanic lava, the hottest type of lava on Earth, erupts.
“Highly sensitive, reliable and durable sensors that can tolerate such extreme environments are necessary for the efficiency, maintenance and integrity of these applications,” said Jae-Hyun Ryou, associate professor of mechanical engineering at UH and corresponding author of a study published in the journal Advanced Functional Materials.
The article, which was featured on the cover of the journal, is titled “Piezoelectric Sensors Operating at Very High Temperatures and in Extreme Environments Made of Flexible Ultrawide-Bandgap Single-Crystalline AlN Thin Films.”
Making It Work
The UH research team previously developed III-N piezoelectric pressure sensor using single-crystalline Gallium Nitride, or GaN thin films for harsh-environment applications. However, the sensitivity of the sensor decreases at temperatures higher than 350 degrees Celsius, which is higher than those of conventional transducers made of lead zirconate titanate (PZT), but only marginally.
The team believed the decrease in sensitivity was due to the bandgap – the minimum energy required to excite an electron and supply electrical conductivity – not being wide enough. To test the hypothesis, they developed a sensor with aluminum nitride or AlN.
“The hypothesis was proven by the sensor operating at about 1000 degrees Celsius, which is the highest operation temperature among the piezoelectric sensors,” said Nam-In Kim, first author of the article and a post-doctoral student working with the Ryou group.
While both AlN and GaN have unique and excellent properties that are suitable for use in sensors for extreme environments, the researchers were excited to find that AlN offered a wider bandgap and an even higher temperature range. However, the team had to deal with technical challenges involving the synthesis and fabrication of the high-quality, flexible thin film AlN.
“I have always been interested in making devices using different materials, and I love to characterize various materials. Working in the Ryou group, especially on piezoelectric devices and III-N materials, I was able to use the knowledge I learned in my studies,” said Kim, who earned his Ph.D. in materials science and engineering from UH in 2022. His award-winning dissertation was on flexible piezoelectric sensors for personal health care and extreme environments.
“It was very interesting to see the process leading to the actual results and we solved the technical challenges during the development and demonstration of the sensor,” he added.
What’s Next?
Now that the researchers have successfully demonstrated the potential of the high-temperature piezoelectric sensors with AlN, they will test it further in real-world harsh conditions.
“Our plan is to use the sensor in several harsh scenarios. For example, in nuclear plants for neutron exposure and hydrogen storage to test under high pressure,” Ryou said. “AlN sensors can operate in neutron-exposed atmospheres and at very high-pressure ranges thanks to its stable material properties.”
The flexibility of the sensor offers additional advantages that will make it useful for future applications in the form of wearable sensors in personal health care monitoring products and for use in precise-sensing soft robotics.
The researchers look forward to their sensor being commercially viable at some point in the future. “It’s hard to put a specific date on when that might be, but I think it’s our job as engineers to make it happen as soon as possible,” Kim said.
Newswise — Researchers at the University of Houston Conrad N. Hilton College of Global Hospitality Leadership say many skilled hospitality workers who were furloughed or laid off during the COVID-19 pandemic are angry and unlikely to return to the industry.
During the first few months of the pandemic in 2020, travel and dining out declined rapidly putting severe financial strain on hospitality organizations, especially those in the lodging and food and beverage sectors. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the hospitality industry lost nearly 8 million hospitality jobs were lost, making it the hardest-hit industry in the U.S. by the pandemic in terms of workforce reduction.
“I don’t think any industry was prepared, but the hospitality industry really wasn’t prepared,” said Juan Madera, the Curtis L. Carlson endowed professor at Hilton College. “Their solution to cutting costs and saving the business was to let people go and then try to rehire them when it was over.”
Fast forward nearly three years, and the overall U.S. jobs market has surpassed pre-pandemic levels. But the hospitality industry remains far behind in its recovery with roughly 1.3 million jobs still available as of July 2022.
Madera and his Hilton College colleague, Ph.D. candidate and teaching fellow Iuliana Popa, along with two of his former students, wanted to figure out why. In a study published in the Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management, the team focused on two basic emotions: anger and fear. They collected data from over 300 online surveys and over 100 responses to a scenario-based experimental study. Participants included hospitality students, as well as current, former, and aspiring hospitality industry professionals.
“Your job, your livelihood is taken away, so a natural response is fear for your future,” Madera said. “But we found anger was a bigger driver in explaining why these workers aren’t coming back. They were angry over how the industry responded to the pandemic.”
According to Popa, the results of the study point to a problematic trend for the industry. If skilled workers switch industries due to job loss amidst another industry-wide negative event, it may be difficult for businesses to find qualified employees once the recovery and rehiring begins.
“I think by and large, people who were laid off or furloughed during the pandemic probably moved on to different industries altogether,” she said. “Something more stable and less dependent on those in-person interactions where their skills were transferable, like business or real estate.”
Unlike other industries, the hospitality industry already faced challenges in finding and retaining highly skilled workers due to the nature of the business, according to Popa.
“Workers in the hospitality industry already had it hard, whether it’s low wages or having to work weekends, overnights and holidays,” Popa said. “It’s a very demanding job, so to go through all of that and then be laid off was kind of the last straw.”
The research team came up with recommendations for businesses to consider going forward, including offering higher compensation and better benefits and doing a better job of protecting workers’ health.
But Popa said the most important priority should be rebuilding trust with their employees.
“It’s important that organizations understand this anger among workers and build better communication with them,” she said. “If there’s another crisis in the industry, they’ll want to know there’s a plan in place and that they’ll be protected, financially, emotionally and physically.”
Despite the massive impact of the pandemic and the ongoing challenge to restore the workforce, Madera said not all hope is lost.
“There are people who are still motivated to work in hospitality because it’s a unique industry,” he said. “You can travel the country or the world, you have a lot of personal interaction. Even people from outside the industry could be attracted to that.”
A dean at the University of Houston says he was ousted this week because of his support for abolitionism, a movement that calls for the elimination of police and prisons.
Alan J. Dettlaff, who since 2015 had served as dean of the Graduate College of Social Work, wrote on Twitter that he was removed from the post this week. He said he was proud of his work advocating for carceral reform as the college’s leader, but that “unfortunately, the resistance to this was too great.”
In an interview with The Chronicle, Dettlaff, who will return to the Houston faculty, said that the college has focused its work and programming on racial justice since shortly after he began as dean, and that conversations about abolitionism had intensified after the 2020 murder of George Floyd. Dettlaff has led faculty study groups on abolition, and the college has purchased copies of books on the subject for all faculty, staff, and students, he said.
“We’ve really been engaged in a process of learning about this collectively,” Dettlaff said. “But there has been resistance, and that resistance has grown over time among a small group of people that led to this outcome.”
The Chronicle tried to contact every faculty member listed on the college’s website on Wednesday, but none who opposed Dettlaff’s leadership would speak on the record.
The decision to remove Dettlaff as dean was “initiated,” the university said in a statement, by Robert McPherson, the interim senior vice president for academic affairs and provost, “to better align the college with the university’s academic priorities, which include growing research expenditures and elevating the learning experience for all students as UH works to realize its vision of becoming a Top 50 public university.”
Dettlaff, the statement read, will “continue his own important scholarly work, which focuses on racial disparities, improving outcomes for LGBTQ youth, and addressing the unique needs of immigrant families. Dr. Dettlaff is a well-respected thought leader in his field and will continue to do this important work as a member of our faculty.”
In response to assertions that opposition from a small group had led McPherson to demote Dettlaff, Shawn Lindsey, a university spokeswoman, said that the institution doesn’t provide details on personnel actions but that “our practice is to verify facts prior to any action and the timing occurred so as not to disrupt the academic semester.”
Dettlaff, meanwhile, thinks his removal from leadership sends a troubling message. “My university thinks that the dean should be neutral, and I disagree with that,” Dettlaff said. “I think it’s our responsibility as leaders to move our professions forward and to take bold stances, to know what’s coming on the horizon in our disciplines.” (Lindsay did not answer a question about the university’s stance on whether deans should remain neutral.)
This is not the first time an abolitionist scholar has alleged pushback and professional consequences. The University of Mississippi in 2020 terminated an assistant professor who was an outspoken abolitionist, leading to criticism from advocacy groups such as PEN America and the American Association of University Professors and, eventually, to a confidential settlement with the professor, Garrett Felber. Other institutions, too, have wrestled with how to support faculty members who face vitriol for their opposition to the police.
At the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, a campus-policing task force that convened in 2020 included members who supported abolishing the police. But group members told The Chronicle that they struggled to advance conversations about truly reforming policing, citing resistance from university administrators, as well as from parents of undergraduates who opposed scaling back the university’s police presence.
Abolition, Dettlaff said, is “not as fringe a topic as it was a few years ago, and I think that academia has a responsibility to understand that.” That doesn’t mean that it’s a source of universal agreement, Dettlaff added, but it’s crucial for the field of social work to engage with the subject.
“I have always said to all of my faculty, ‘You don’t have to be an abolitionist to work here, but I want you to understand what abolitionism is so that you can have conversations with our students about that,’” he said. “Because the reality now is that students come to the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work specifically because of our focus on abolition.”
That’s true of many faculty and staff members, too, said Melanie Pang, a clinical assistant professor. “Many of us have made super-clear that the reason we came to this college was because it was committed out loud to racial justice,” Pang said. She believes the decision to remove the dean was based on opposition within the college that was “anti-racial justice, anti-equity, and anti-anything that doesn’t center their voices.”
More than 120 students signed a letter, sent to university administrators on Wednesday, asking that the college remain committed to racial-justice and abolitionist work and that a justification for Dettlaff’s removal be provided. Among them was Savannah Lee, a second-year master’s student. “I’m really proud to be a student because of the work that we were doing collectively and because of the work that Dean Dettlaff does,” Lee said. “We are surprised, and I am hurt, by the loss of him. I think it’s a detriment to the university and the college itself.”
The university did not seek faculty or student input in demoting Dettlaff, Lee and Pang said. The decision was made solely by McPherson, the interim provost, said Lindsey, who noted that “deans serve at will at the discretion of the provost.”
An interim dean has not been announced, and Lindsey said that, in the meantime, the college’s administrators will report to McPherson.
Pang said she and her colleagues are determined to push ahead. “The majority of us are moving in a direction that centers racial justice, period,” she said. “It doesn’t matter who the dean is, we’re going to carry our work forward.”
