The City of Fort Worth has invited the public to comment at 7 p.m. today right here at the Kelly Alumni Center on a growing controversy affecting students. The issues concern everyone in Fort Worth, but...

Anyone who has been in the Mary Couts Burnett Library has seen Susan Swain's work, but few have seen Susan Swain.Swain is a library specialist who works in the library's special collections creating the various exhibits on display in the library's entrance, in addition to providing creative support for faculty and occasionally the chancellor's office.

On Jan. 10, Swain became the ninth recipient of the annual Library Staff Recognition Award sponsored by the Friends of the TCU Library.

"I was very surprised" Swain said. "I didn't expect that."

Every day these opinionated people meet and discuss important issues from the news. They debate the issues, come to a consensus, and tell you what they think. Here is a little about each of them.Mike Dwyer
* News editor
* Senior news-editorial journalism and history major
He was Sports Editor in fall 2005 and has been a reporter and copy editor for the Skiff. His guilty pleasure is getting his face stepped on.

Stephanie Weaver
* Opinion Editor
* Senior English, philosophy and French major

Being opinionated got me this job.I'm not a journalism major, but my coursework doesn't exactly leave me out of the loop: The English department taught me how to write, the philosophy department taught me how to use my critical reasoning skills and analyze arguments logically, and the French department, if nothing else, made it easier to read international news.

What I do on this page is try to find a variety of opinions, get a discussion going and stir up some interest.

With new equipment allowing improved DNA sequencing research on the TCU campus, students in the College of Science and Engineering will have increased opportunity in the job market upon graduation, said Phil Hartman, professor of biology.The DNA research that used to take weeks, will now take days with the 4300 DNA Analyzer, Hartman said.

"DNA sequencing is an important technique because it was only talked about theoretically," Hartman said. "Now graduate students will have hands-on experience. This makes our graduates more marketable."

'Twas 19 days before Christmas, and the Lady Frogs were a mess.Fresh off a 40-point loss to No. 2 Duke on Dec. 6, the TCU womens' basketball team was a disappointing 2-5 and had lost to three top 15 teams by a combined score of 249-157. After just seven games, the season was already slipping away.

Sophomore guard Adrianne Ross said that while things looked bleak early, the players forced themselves to keep a positive outlook.

"We looked at ours as one of the tougher nonconference schedules," Ross said. "We were mentally tough."

A new position and new responsibilities await the recently named assistant vice chancellor for marketing and communications as the spring semester begins.Tracy Syler-Jones, formerly the director of communications, will assist in the development of new media initiatives, refining school and college marketing and communication plans, and overseeing planning and implementation of institutional advertising. These duties are in addition to those of her former position as head of the Office of Communications.