SERVING THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN COMMUNITY SINCE 1900 @THEDAILYTEXAN | THEDAILYTEXAN.COM
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2018
VOLUME 118, ISSUE 107
N E WS
O PI N I O N
LI FE&A RTS
SPORTS
P. Terry’s new drive-through, Taco Ranch, to replace Taco Cabana on MLK Boulevard. PAGE 2
From local to state governance, students must be attentive and involved. PAGE 4
How long could it take to check out a book from the PCL? Apparently, 37 minutes. PAGE 8
Osetkowski and the Longhorns are prepared to gain momentum after Oklahoma win. PAGE 6
CAMPUS
UTPD plans procedures in response to Florida shooting
STATE
SYSTEM
Racial Profiling Report UT System 2017 traffic report finds percentage of Hispanic drivers pulled over is consistent with previous years.
New tool to show which dual credits would be transferable
By Anna Lassmann
By Mason Carroll
As mass shootings flood the headlines, the UT Police Department has specially trained officers ready in the event of an active shooter on campus. Advertising sophomore Alexa Wachsman graduated in 2016 from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, where a mass shooting killed 17 people last week. Her sister currently attends the high school and was there the day of the shooting. “I was devastated to hear about the shooting,” Wachsman said in an email. “I never felt unsafe a single day at Douglas or in Parkland as a whole. At first it didn’t make sense to me. My family was heartbroken by the news and is still grieving. I have never been so thankful that my sister is safe.” UTPD created the Counter Assault Strike Team in 2014 with the primary purpose of countering an active shooter or a highrisk situation, said Jorge Cuellar, UTPD corporal. “The CAST team does monthly training,” Cuellar said. “We have mandated training hours that we have to abide by for the state of Texas. The minimum is 16 hours a month that we train. We go all over the state for the most recent, updated training, mainly for active shooter responders.” Along with specialized CAST officers, every officer in the UT System Academy goes through Advanced Law Enforcement Rapid Response Training, which is for active shooter scenarios, and they have additional yearly training, Cuellar said. Cuellar said during an active shooting on campus, people should listen to police officer instructions and remember to “Run. Hide. Fight.” Cueller also said if people suspect anything suspicious or concerning, they should call 911. UTPD has a Threat Mitigation Unit to address certain concerns and investigate further. One of the first mass shootings in the United States took place when Charles Whitman shot and killed 14 people from
Many college students use transferable and dual credits as part of their college education, but because of a lack of communication, those credits often go unused. The Greater Texas Foundation gave UT $500,000 last week to change that. The grant will fund an online system where students can view the credits they need for their degree. The tool, MapMyPath, is estimated to be ready by Spring 2019. Harrison Keller, deputy to the president for strategy and policy, said the University is trying to help future UT students know what transfer credits they need. Every year, nearly 160,000 students take at least one dual credit course while in high school, and more than 70 percent of UT students have some community college or dual credit they apply toward their degree program, Keller said. This does not include Advanced Placement credit. “We want to create a new kind of tool that would be groundbreaking for the state of Texas but also for the nation, so that students would be able to understand the portability of the credit they are learning,” Keller said. Keller said the foundation plays an important leadership role in the state in increasing educational access for students. Ten other Texas universities and community colleges will collaborate with UT to design the tool. “It would be an online tool that would easily let you compare the recommended course sequences across multiple institutions,” Keller said. “The main motivation for this is in the past 15 years we’ve seen this dramatic growth in the number of students who are taking college-level courses while they are in high school.”
@annalassmann
@ masonccarroll
By Allyson Waller @allyson_renee7
H
ispanics make up a majority of motor vehicle stops among UT institutions, according to the UT System’s 2017 Racial Profiling Report. “A lot of (the numbers) depend on the (campuses) that we are engaging,” said Ruben Puente, assistant director of the UT System Police Department. “The Hispanic population in Texas is high, (and) we reflect the level of the activity of the communities that we serve.” The UT System Police Department’s Annual Contact
Report for calendar year 2017 was released this month and compiles data from 14 UT System institutions, including UT-Austin. The UT System is required to obtain data categorized by race, such as the number of motor vehicle stops, the number of detainments in which race and ethnicity were previously known and the number of arrests made during motor vehicle stops, according to the report. Thirty-nine percent of motor vehicle stops made by UT police agencies involved Hispanic drivers, 36 percent involved Caucasians and 14 percent involved African-Americans. Hispanics made up 45 percent
of custody arrests as a result of these stops. These statistics are consistent with past ones, according to the previous two years’ reports. According to the 2016 Racial Profiling Report, motor-vehicle stops consisted of 41 percent Hispanics, 31 percent Caucasians and 15 percent African-Americans. “Overall, we’ve found the data to be consistent from year to year, and there are no anomalies that concern us,” Puente said. The report complies with Texas’ racial profiling law Senate Bill 1074, which was introduced in 2001. The law
PROFILING page 2
rena li| the daily texan staff
SHOOTER page 2
CREDIT page 2
STUDENT GOVERNMENT
SG candidates aim to combat conflict with civil discourse By Katie Balevic @katelynbalevic
Student Government executive alliance candidates Bryce Fuller and Vikram Sundaram are running on the platform of increasing respectful civil discourse on campus. Fuller and Sundaram, both electrical engineering juniors, are running for SG president and vice president, respectively. They said their agenda aims to foster productive conversation to
combat political and social polarization on campus. “We’re running solely on the platform that we want to have intellectual and civil discourse to decide (campus) issues,” Fuller said. The campaign is based on encouraging respectful free speech and making sure all students are empowered to speak their minds, Sundaram said. “This is literally about hearing people’s voices and listening to what they have to say so that we can help them and build solutions
around their perspectives,” Sundaram said. Over the past few years, students on campus have become increasingly divided along social and political lines, leading to conflict among groups, Fuller said. “We see this dangerous encroachment of mob mentality and groupthink, and I think that it’s both dangerous and counterproductive to unifying and making progress on our campus,” Fuller said. Fuller said their solution to polarization on campus is creating a space for student
organizations to discuss campus issues on a regular basis. “We want to have a night every week where everyone can come and we can talk about what’s happening on campus, like a coffee chat,” Fuller said. “You shouldn’t have to win the election of Student Government in order to be the one that makes change. We should have leaders who are willing to hear good advice when they see it.” The team plans to create
SG page 2
RING WEEK
anthony mireles | the daily texan staff Electrical engineering students Bryce Fuller, left, and Vikram Sundaram are campaiging on a platform that focuses on productive conversations on campus that include compromises, while avoiding polarizing debates between multiple student groups.
Ring Week is here! February 19–23 • 10 a.m.–4 p.m. Etter-Harbin Alumni Center
texasexes.org/rings COMPLETED HOURS REQUIRED: Undergraduate, 75; Graduate, 16