Suggestions Being Voted on For Residence Hall Name

             The first African American undergraduate student at the University of North Texas, the first woman to serve as the school's president and the first and only Hispanic woman in Texas to hold a position of federal judge are among the namesakes being considered for the new residence building in a recent student poll.

             “It's been very enlightening to research the people of color and women they feel deserve to be a name sake,” said Misaki Collins, creator of the petition and a senator for the Student Government Association. “I wanted a way to empower the UNT community to have their voices heard. I feel it's crucial for the Student Government Association to accurately represent the students.”

            Collins created the poll on twitter for UNT faculty, students and alums to vote for who they think the new building should be named after. This poll comes after Collins created a petition that gathered over 1000 votes to have the new residence building named after a person of color or a woman. 

            “This has been so impactful on our campus and it has really started the conversation about representation on our campus,” said Chelsea Abii, president of the UNT chapter of National Association for Advancement of Colored People. “The petition was the start of something great, but we still have much further to go.”

            Irma E.L. Sephas, the first African American undergraduate student, Hilda G. Tagle, the first Hispanic district federal judge, Joe Atkins, the man who desegregated UNT and Gretchen Bataille, the first female UNT president were those named in the poll. Rishi Van Horne, a UNT biology student, said she voted that the building be named after Sephas.

           “Not only does Irma E.L. Sephas encapsulate the African American community at UNT, she is also a woman,” Van Horne said. “A lot of the times when you think about somebody being the first to do something, you think about a man, and later, the ‘first woman to...’ title follows afterwards. However, in the case of Irma, she denied the odds.”