New reports suggest SIU might not be as unsafe as originally deemed. The Daily Egyptian reported Wednesday that the publication Business Insider published “The Most Dangerous College in America” Nov. 20, which ranked SIUC at the 15th slot of 25 other ranked universities. However, business Insider published another article with a new list Monday that moved SIUC to the 24th slot based on data from 2007 to 2009 compiled through the Clery Act. The first article was based on FBI data from 2008 to 2011. The difference, according to Business Insider, is that the Clery Act data is exclusive to campus crime, whereas the FBI data could have included off-campus crime activity or not include colleges that did not participate in the FBI crime survey. The Clery data also did not include any crime reports on larceny. Rod Sievers, university spokesperson, said Business Insider has come under fire about their articles. Sievers is one of the many who disputed the original article’s claims. “It does not change my (original) opinion about the list Business Insider put out,” Sievers said. “Business Insider obviously felt the need to put out this second article because it has been put under fire.” He said he still thinks students feel safe at SIU. “We dropped way down in the second list,” he said. “You can make numbers look the way you want.” Sievers said the methodology used in the Business Insider’s articles were neither critically examined nor credible. “While they aren’t backtracking, they put out a new list due to the controversy with the original list,” he said. “The people who put it out were misguided.” Christopher Blake, chief staff officer for the International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators, made a press statement on the IACLEA website about the articles. Blake stated Business Insider presented a list that was misleading and highly distorted. “The fact is that credible, longitudinal studies have proven the 18-to-24-year-old students are less likely to be a victim of a violent crime on a college campus than in general society,” he said.
Though cultures can go through dramatic changes after migration, some of them are able to hold on to their heritage. The 1980s movement of a population of Mayan people from Guatemala to the United States caused their culture to stay alive, said Roberto Barrios, an associate professor of anthropology. Barrios spoke Tuesday at the Student Center as a part of Native American Heritage Month. While some people may not think of Guatemalans as Native
LAURA ROBERTS | DAILY EGYPTIAN
Matt Davis, of Dowell, plays with his band, I Am Ruin, Wednesday at Tres Hombres as part of the Give Thanks to Nate benefit concert. Proceeds from the show, along with money raised from a silent auction and raffle were donated to the family of Nate Morrow, an SIU student who died Nov. 15. “He meant a lot to us,” Davis said. “The whole situation has a lot of weight on all of us, but just to be able to do anything we can for his family is a big deal. The only thing that’s really missing is Nate.”
The university’s challenges and how they’re being handled are a couple of topics some SIUC faculty have said they would like to do something about. Union members discussed the budget cuts proposed to campus colleges as well as changes to academic programs across campus at Wednesday night’s Faculty Association. Although some faculty voiced concerns of feeling pressured to make decisions regarding how departments’ budgets should be cut, Chancellor Rita Cheng said she thinks the faculty’s opinions are important to the campus’ changes. Budget cuts Holly Hurlburt, a professor of history,
relayed to faculty that some budget reduction issues have been brought up at recent Faculty Senate meetings. According to the Faculty Senate’s October meeting minutes, different campus departments have been asked to cover upcoming salary increases, and the chancellor’s budget committee was working to establish a rubric based on college and department enrollment performances to handle further budget difficulties caused by the decline in enrollment. “One of the concerns that has been raised is certainly a lack in clarity in how these numbers are adding up,” she said. During a later senate meeting, Hurlburt said the chancellor identified a formula that would be used to assess college cuts. Each college would be assigned a mathematical score, 70 percent of
which would be based on its generated credit hours and the other 30 percent to be based on the college’s recruited new students. Cheng said the 70/30 formula was developed by the planning and budget advisory committee. She said it aims to measure the amount of instructional efforts colleges put into their curriculums. Once the score was calculated, Hurlburt said, some colleges would receive greater cuts than others. However, Hurlburt said some faculty members are concerned about how the budget cuts will take place. “Some people who have looked closely at the administration’s budget numbers question whether these numbers add up, or how they add up,” she said. Please see FACULTY | 3
T
he term Native American is a very imperial term and it’s also very complex. A lot of people, when they hear the word America, they think the United States and forget the fact that there are lots of other countries and that the Maya, the Inca, and the Aztecs were here as well. — Serina Cinnamon president of the Native American Student Organization Americans, they are still a part of the same heritage, said Serina Cinnamon, a doctoral student in education from Milwaukee and president of the Native American Student Organization. Barrios said between 300,000 and 600,000 Mayan people left Guatemala as refugees because the Guatemalan military, with support from the United
States government, carried out political persecution and ethnic cleansing, which is the process of removing religious or ethnic groups through forcible deportation or mass murder. Barrios’ presentation was based on research he conducted from 1997 to 1999 in Lake Worth, Fla., which he said focused on how these refugees
created a new space for themselves in the United States and continued to pass down their culture to the next generation. “For many folks, there is the idea that people who speak Mayan languages are no longer present with us, and that people who speak Mayan languages vanished in the
10th century, but the truth is there has been continuous habitation (of Mayan people),” Barrios said Though some people may not think of the Mayan people as Native Americans, Cinnamon said, they still deserve to be represented. “The term Native American is a very imperial term and it’s also very complex,” she said. “A lot of people, when they hear the word America, they think the United States and forget the fact that there are lots of other countries and that the Maya, the Inca, and the Aztecs were here as well.” Please see HERITAGE | 3