Serving The University Of Texas At Austin Community Since 1900 @thedailytexan | thedailytexan.com
Tuesday, November 26, 2019
Volume 121, Issue 75
NEWS
OPINION
SPORTS
LIFE&ARTS
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Study finds UT “not affordable” for low and middle-income students.
UTPD needs to decrease drug arrests and refer offenders to counseling.
Furry friends help students cope with college, provide companionship.
Texas women’s basketball has a dominant weekend before its Hawai’i tournament.
CAMPUS
UNIVERSITY
Resolution urges UT to provide free menstrual products
Wayfinding aims to improve safety Safety projects to include call boxes, cameras to make campus safer, more navigable.
By Neelam Bohra @_neelam_b
All three legislative student organizations passed a joint resolution last week in support of the University providing free menstrual products in bathrooms across campus. Graduate Student Assembly and Senate of College Councils unanimously passed the resolution, and Student Government passed it in a 30-6 vote. The resolution proposes providing free menstrual products in all gender-neutral and women’s restrooms in academic buildings. “Standing there and seeing everyone vote for it and support it made me really happy,” said Sameeha Rizvi, a resolution author and public health freshman. “It’s something we were working hard to see, and to see people understand the necessity for this is so great.” Resolution author Radhika Patel said all three legislative student organizations passing the resolution proves it has student support. “This allows us to show faculty and administrators that there is student support for this initiative,” said Patel, an economics and math sophomore. “Whenever we meet with faculty and administrators, that will play an integral part in their decision making.” Patel said the SG Women’s Resource Agency met with the University’s chief financial officer when they started this initiative in the Student Activity Center, now known as the William C. Powers, Jr. Student Activity Center, and the Texas Union last year. Patel said authors of the resolution will meet with the CFO again to ensure the initiative can continue for longer than a year. She said administrators will control the actual implementation of the initiative. “We’ve done as much as we really can on the side of student support and research,” Patel said. “Now, it’s up to the MENSTRUAL
barb daly
By Lauren Girgis @laurengirgis
he University is working toward making campus safer and easier to navigate by adding call boxes and cameras to maps on campus and increasing wayfinding signage. UT requested a security audit from the Texas Department of Public Safety following the murder of student Haruka Weiser on campus in April 2016, said Jimmy Johnson, assistant vice president for campus safety. Among the audit’s recommendations was providing clear ways for people to navigate campus. The Office of Campus Safety has been working with Project Management and Construction Services over the years to implement projects that will fulfill these suggestions. “We have a very dense location,” Johnson said. “We are bound by the city. Our footprint is only so large, and as we expand our footprint, we have to do things that help incorporate easy navigation of the campus.” Wayfinding signage will be added on both the main campus and the J.J. Pickle Research Campus by February 2020. Johnson said
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outside of every parking garage, emergency call boxes and additional information will be added to monument signs that are already up. “Once you walk out of a garage, we want to have wayfinding right there at the exit,” Johnson said. “So you can say, ‘I am here. How do I get to there?’” Johnson said the other side of the signs will include information about nighttime safety programs, warning systems and other safety messages such as “Lock your car, take your keys.” “There’ll be those map signs coming out of the garages, and then there’ll be some additional directional signs on various key walkways … once you get onto the campus proper,” said construction services director Mike Carmagnola. Johnson said the signs will feature a way for people to find electronic maps using their phones so users can view live updates. The electronic maps will include upto-date information on campus features that physical maps do not show, such as construction. “For our 18- to 22-year-old student population, a hard map might not be something that is as practical,” Johnson said. Carmagnola said these projects
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are necessary because the core of campus is becoming more oriented around pedestrian traffic rather than vehicle traffic. “Signage and wayfinding (are) an important element, not only for safety, but for just getting people comfortable if they’re not familiar with campus so that they know where to go,” Carmagnola said. Biology junior Alma Carro said she thinks more signs and maps on campus could help students find out how to get where they need to go. “When I was at orientation, I didn’t know where the (Flawn Academic Center) was, but I didn’t want to look dumb, and I didn’t want to seem like I was ‘the freshman,’” Carro said. “I did have trouble finding those places.” Johnson said the Office of Campus Safety tries to incorporate practices such as wayfinding and UT Police Department patrols to areas with heavy population traffic. Carmagnola said that, unlike a multiyear construction project, this wayfinding project should not disrupt pedestrians’ paths or cause them to take a different route. “We’re just enhancing what’s there,” Carmagnola said. “The actual disruption time would be pretty minimal.”
CITY
CAMPUS
Hate crimes rise at slower rate
UTPD hosts public active shooter prevention classes By Emily Hernandez @emilylhernandez
emma overholt
By Lauren Girgis @laurengirgis
In 2017, Austin had the most hate crimes in Texas. However, Austin is now behind cities of the same size in terms of hate crimes despite a small increase
in such incidents in 2018, according to the FBI Hate Crime Statistics report. Austin reported 19 total hate crimes in 2018, according to the report. Austin Police Department Lt. Jeff Greenwalt said Austin reported 17 in 2017. Of the 2018 hate crimes, 13 were
motivated by race or ethnicity, four by sexual orientation, one by disability and one by gender identity. “Crime, in general, fluctuates,” Greenwalt said. “It goes up and it goes down, and there’s dozens and dozens of contributing factors that can be
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associated with that. So it’s not anything that we can take away (or) any specific trend.” UT reported no hate crimes on UT property for 2018, according to the 2019 Annual Security and Fire Safety report. H A T E PAGE 2
As the semester draws to a close, the UT Police Department is scheduled to host two more requested active shooter response trainings, which are likely to be the final classes on top of the 21 presented so far this semester. UTPD is about 64% of the way to matching the 33 classes the department hosted over the 2018-19 academic year. UTPD Chief David Carter said this is probably because it is the department’s first time hosting four public Civilian Response to Active Shooter Events classes this semester. Before this semester, the department only offered the classes upon request. “Reception has actually been good in terms of number of classes that we put on (by) setting a date and having people show up as opposed to on requests,” Carter said. “We still do both. The interest always picks up, unfortunately, after an event occurs. It’s the nature of emergency response.” The public classes consisted of a lecture-style presentation to an average class size of 30 to 50 people, Carter said. They covered UTPD’s “Run, Hide, Fight” method in detail and explained the psychological reactions peo-
ple would likely have in a highstress situation. “Moving forward, the construct is basically the same,” Carter said. “Rooms change, personality of the instructor may change, but at the end of the day, we want to make sure that we’re engaging with the community.” Carter said while the department will continue hosting the public and requested classes next semester, the focus and language of the class may shift to include other public safety concerns. “The focus on active shooter is clearly something that people understand and resonates,” Carter said. “But we’re also looking at it from an aspect of something that we’ve suffered on our own campus, which is somebody doing attacks with a knife. One of the things I want to be looking at in the future is the language may adjust to not just active shooter, but any act of mass violence.” The public classes, which were livestreamed and are available on UTPD’s website for a year, had 235 additional views online, UTPD spokesperson Noelle Newton said. Carter said UTPD will look at improving the feedback and tracking systems for the classes to understand attendee response S H O O T E R PAGE 3