www.theAccent.org
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Clery Act not ollowed, crime logs incomplete
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and made available in twobusiness days. Te law isexplicit here. Where did heget the idea that it could bereported quarterly?” askedS. Daniel Carter, director o public policy or Security onCampus.Security on Campus isa non-prot organizationounded by the parents o Jeanne Clery, a 19-year oldLehigh University student whowas raped and murdered inher dormitory in 1986.Aer Clery’s death, herparents Connie and HowardClery, ound out that studentsat the university had not beentold o 38 violent crimes thatoccurred on the campus inthe three years prior to Clery’smurder. Along with other vic-tims, they persuaded Congressto pass the law, originally theCrime Awareness and CampusSecurity Act o 1990, nowknown as the Jeanne Clery Act.ACC police are also havingproblems reporting everythingthat is required to be reportedon the daily crime logs. Temissing inormation in theannual reports, and on thedaily logs, means that studentsand the police themselves cannot draw accurate conclu-sions about important security inormation like campus crimerates.While looking ate the crimestatistics, Carter said “Tereare a lot o things here thatdon’t seem to be compliant;they need to break it downgeographically by more than just campus or one thing.”Te crime logs are locatedunder the Clery section o thecampus police website.Because the intent o theClery Act is that campus policereport crimes that wouldreasonably eect students, not just on-campus crime has tobe reported.“Legally i it took place onpublic property [around the
Ro Revew celebrates creatvty
Le’Bistrette reopens or springAsian Festival returns to ACCACC students invited to lecture
Te Spring 2009 Rio Review Release Party, sponsored by theCreative Writing department, will be held on Tursday, April 30at 7 p.m. inside the Rio Grande Campus’s Gallery Teater. TeRio Review is a literary journal that eatures poetry, short ction,non-ction, photography, screenplays and interviews with poetsthat were all selected by student editors. Te event is open to thepublic and will include readings o selected works rom the jour-nal by the writers. For more inormation, please visit the CreativeWriting department’s webpage at www.austincc.edu/crw/.Le’Bistrette, sponsored by the Culinary Arts Department classon American Cuisine Restaurants, reopened April 1 and will berunning through May 6 and serving lunch rom 11: 30 a.m. to1 p.m. at the Eastview Campus Building 3000. Te restaurant isrun by students as ches, waitsta and a maitres d’ along with thesupervision by program aculty members o the Culinary Artsand Hospitality Management Department. Menus are availableby going to the Hospitality Management website at http://www.austincc.edu/hospmgmt/. Reservations are encouraged at least24 hours in advance. Because as it is a class, there is a limitedamount o production.Te Asian Spring Festival 2008, sponsored by the ForeignLanguage Department, Student Lie, and the Society o EastAsian Cultures, will take place at Riverside Campus Circle onTursday, April 16 at 5 p.m . Te event will eature ood, Asianthemed vendors, games, a Kung Fu demo, and Japanese, Korean,and Chinese dances. Te event is ree and open to the public. Formore inormation, contact Student Lie.ACC students have been invited to attend the University Meetand Greet at exas State University. Tey will have the oppor-tunity to hear President Lyndon B. Johnson’s daughters speak on his achievements and legacy on April 14. Te event, which iscoordinated by ACC’s Te Center or Public Policy & PoliticalStudies, has 70 spots or ACC students. Students will be leavingrom Highland Business Center on April 14 at 2:30 p.m. and willreturn at 7:00 p.m. Te event is ree to students, but reservationsare needed. R.S.V.P’s or the event are due by April 9. o RSVP,contact Carla L. Jackson, Associate Director o the CPPPS, atcjackso3@austincc.edu by the deadline.
Postponed pay raisesstirs up controversy
Anne Boyd
Staff Writer
Faculty and sta pay raisesor the coming school yearmay be delayed or eliminatedas one o several hedgesagainst possible revenue short-alls resulting rom the currenteconomic downturn.Te announcement cameaer 19 o the college’s 43administrators received pay raises to bring them up tomarket compensation levels.While the administratorincreases may seem incongru-ent with the goal o strength-ening the college’s nancialposition, these raises were parto an ongoing eort that beganin 1999.Te endeavor, board policy F10, called or a marketreview o compensation orall employee classes, the goalbeing to ensure that compen-sation was at a level that couldattract and retain top talent.Since that time, aculty andsta have been brought up tomarket rates. Te last groupto receive the market adjust-ment was the administrators.Teir salaries were increasedprior to the start o this schoolyear and beore the currenteconomic downturn.According to a memoissued earlier this year by President Steven Kinslow, thecollege is attempting to posi-tion itsel or what could be“several dicult budget years.”Although the institutionhas experienced increasedrevenues recently, anticipatedreductions in state contribu-tions rom property taxesmake it dicult to know howconusion and anger amongmuch o the sta and aculty.“I am overwhelmed withsadness,” said Cheryl Richard,Student Lie director, o theadministration’s original deci-sion to take down the poster.Richard said that many othersta members elt the sameway.“Maybe the eect thisdecision would have on thisinstitution hasn’t been thoughtthrough,” said Richard.On March 13, Kinslowsent out a memo to the ACCaculty and sta in whichhe attempted to explain theadministration’s decision by stating that, “Te College isexpected to present a non-par-tisan ace to our students andall our constituents.”“It strikes me as a littlebit ormalistic to rush totake down all these posters,”said University o exas LawProessor Daniel Rodriguezwhen asked to comment onthe situation at ACC, “It seemsto be that best reading o theexas Government Code is notto render every eort at politi-cal expression as violative o the government code.”A number o aculty mem-bers voiced their complaintsto the administration. AnnPalmer, a DevelopmentalWriting Proessor, sent aletter and spoke to the boardo trustees urging them toreconsider the decision toremove the posters. She arguedthat President Obama is a rolemodel to students and morepictures o role models areneeded, not less.“Tere’s never been anintent to violate anyone’s ree-dom o expression or intendany disrespect to the sittingPresident or to not acknowl-edge the historic nature o the rst Arican Americanpresident,” said Kinslow atan inormal meeting open toaculty, sta, and students onMarch 26.Kinslow expressed hisdesire or employees to useACC’s shared governance pro-cess to discuss the issue and tohelp cra a policy regardingwhat should and should notbe posted on public spacesaround campus.On the same day Gerry ucker sent out a memo withthe time and place o three di-erent orums where employeeswill be able to discuss andmake policy suggestions. woo the orums are April 3, oneat Northridge Campus at 10:00a.m., and the next at RiversideCampus at 2:00 p.m..“We are delighted to reversethe decision in avor o theemployees and give the shared
Obama drama continues as posters go back upACC and the Clery Act
How campus police departmentis not ollowing ederal law
What the law says
Incidents are to be included [on the daily log] withintwo business days… Te log must be publicly avail-able during normal business hours. Tis means thatin addition to students and employees the generalpublic such as parents or members o the local pressmay access it. Logs remain open or 60 days and sub-sequently must be available within two business dayso a request.
What ACC is doing
Te crime log is not up to date with the last 60 days o inormation. Te plan is to update it quarterly whichis not in compliance with the Clery Act and doesn’tprovide students with timely inormation. Daily logsare not available when requested. As o the time thiswas written, Apr. 2, 2009, a new crime has not beenadded or 148 days.
What the law says
Schools that maintain a police or security departmentare required to disclose in the public crime log “any crime that occurred on campus…or within the patrol jurisdiction o the campus police or the campus secu-rity department and is reported to the campus policeor security department.”
What ACC is doing
ACC does not include crimes that are not imme-diately on campus, even i they are in the patrol jurisdiction.
What the law says
Te statistics (should be) broken down geographically into “on campus, residential acilities or students oncampus, non-campus buildings, or on public prop-erty,” such as streets and sidewalks. Schools can use amap to denote these areas.
What ACC is doing
ACC only provides date, time, and campus name.Tere are no descriptions o where on campus thesecrimes occurred, making it less eective in alertingstudents to saety risks.
Clery Act inormation rom www.SecurityOnCampus.org
Frank Taylor, Campus Manager at Riverside poses with Obama photo, “I appreciate the decision to reverse itand I think that was the only right thing to do,” Frank comments on the administrations reversal decision.
Chrstopher Smth • Sta Photographer
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governance a chance to work,”said ucker.Te posters are once moreon the walls o the admin-istrative oce on RiversideCampus, and aylor believesthe administration did theright thing in reversing itsdecision.“Its great to still knowthat in our society and in ademocracy, the voice o thepeople does have an impact onthings,” said aylor.the college will are over thenext ew years.Added to this uncertainty are the impacts o the stimuluspackage, enrollment changes,and the legislature. Ratherthan wait, and perhaps beorced to make hasty cuts later,the memo continues, the col-lege will identiy possible areasor belt tightening now.As the economy was diag-nosed as being in a recession,unemployment rose and sodid the number o peopleattending community colleges.Spring enrollment is up 13percent said executive direc-tor Brette Lea. Te additional4,200 students bring in morerevenue, but require resourcesand sta. Lea says the pri-mary objective is to serve thestudents and cuts will be madeonly where it does not impactthe college’s ability to do so.Some other budget itemsbeing reviewed include main-tenance, new sta and technol-ogy allocation.During the coming year,the administrators will moni-tor the budget and the needso the college closely includingmaking appropriate spendingdecisions. None o the pro-posed budget reezes, delays,or cuts are denite, as thenancial planning process isongoing. I economic condi-tions improve, expendituresmay stay at previously plannedlevels.Tese measures have beentaken not only to ensure theinstitution remains scally responsible, but also to keepin-district tuition at its currentrate.campus] it absolutely needsto be reported. It’s not oncampus, that doesn’t matter,”Carter said.Te Clery act also statesthat a good aith eort has tobe made to contact city policein order to better report crimesthat aect students’ saety.“It’s dicult to distinguishwhich crimes in the city o Austin are ACC related,” saidWaller “We don’t know aboutthem until we read about it inthe paper.”Reportable public property areas are dened as beginningat the sidewalk on the side o campus property and continu-ing to the end o the sidewalk across the street rom campus.In the case o Pena’s attack,she was o campus by lessthen 100 eet, but she waswell within ACC police patrol jurisdiction, and the Act alsorequires o campus crimesthat occur on public prop-erty near the campus to bereported on the daily log.“Personally I have nopatience with people sayingthat it’s not in their jurisdic-tion i it’s on their patrolroute, but it could be arguabledepending on where it hap-pened,” Carter said.Pena was stabbed mul-tiple times while trying to getinto her car, including in herthroat. Due to nerve damage,she doesn’t have ull use o herle hand.She spent nine days in thehospital, and took two yearso rom school to recover.Now 26, she is hoping tograduate next year rom exasState University with a degreein Communications. She hasnot been on any ACC campussince the attack.“I’m not surprised,” saidPena, when asked about theact that her and other crimesare not reported. “Anyonethat wants to go to any schoolshould have access to this kindo inormation, so that they can take it into consideration.”
Meet ‘09-’10 SGA candidates
Te Meet the Candidates Event, sponsored by the StudentGovernment Association, will be held on April 10 at EastviewCampus in the Multi-Purpose room rom 1 to 3 p.m. Te threecandidates or president; students Joshua Bacak, Jonathan Sack,and Christine Sattler will be participating in a presidentialdebate moderated by Peck Young, Director o the ACC Centeror Public Policy and Political Studies.
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