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Thursday, December 5, 2019
Volume 121, Issue 79
NEWS
OPINION
SPORTS
LIFE&ARTS
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APD expands No Refusal to prevent drunk driving during holiday season.
Landscaping should add signs to inform students of native Texas flora on campus.
Art and tech meet in augmented reality project of studio art professor.
Brionne Butler’s vollyeball career has taken her from Austin to the Pan-American Games.
Afraid to speak up For years, students feared retaliation if they said anything about music professor Dan Welcher’s inappropriate behavior. By Chase Karacostas @chasekaracostas
he allegations of sexual misconduct by composition professor Dan Welcher detailed in an article by VAN Magazine earlier this semester were shocking to some in the Butler School of Music. But for others in the school, it wasn’t. They felt they had endured a culture of fear and harassment for years during their time at the University. “There’s a part where Brandon Rumsey (the main subject of the VAN article) is talking about how new students would be inculcated into this atmosphere, kind of surreptitiously warned by saying, ‘You know, Dan is a divisive figure,’” said a former graduate student who requested anonymity. “Even after Brandon was no longer there, we still did that. We still would say, ‘Dan is polarizing’ or even, ‘I try to avoid Dan.’ I remember telling people that just as a way of telling them … how to essentially survive.” College of Fine Arts dean Doug Dempster barred Welcher from contact with students the same day VAN’s article was published, to ensure their safety while the University investigated the allegations, which ranged from repeated sexual comments to inappropriate sexual contact with students. The Daily Texan spoke to 10 current and former undergraduate and graduate music students, as well as a former music professor, about Welcher’s time at the University. The allegations made by these students did not reach the same magnitude as those detailed in the VAN article, but through these conversations, the Texan found an environment surrounding Welcher where students would give vague warnings to one another about how to survive classes or time with him while remaining too afraid to speak up and report behavior they found inappropriate. Behavior that once included suggesting to a student that she “would look good nude at Hippie Hollow” – the nude beach in Northwest Austin, one current graduate student said.
lauren ibanez
Even with major allegations against Welcher now public, the students the Texan spoke to requested anonymity for fear of retaliation. They attended the University during a range of years from 2012 to the present. Some of the students said they kept quiet about the extent of how uncomfortable they were around Welcher, wondering if they were overthinking his comments or making a big deal out of inappropriate comments others weren’t bothered by. Many of them are talking to each other about it all now, but before the VAN article, some said they just tried to ignore — and forget — about his conduct. “My motivation for not speaking out was less about repercussions and more just about like trying to ignore it and get out of this situation as quickly as possible, which, now I see I really should have reported it back then,” one former graduate student said.
The Texan reached out to Welcher prior to the publication of this article and was contacted by his lawyer, Joe Crews, who said in an email that Welcher would not be providing a comment. Fear of retribution
Part of the fear of academic or professional retaliation stems from how tight-knit the music industry and the music school itself are. For the last seven years, the school has had an average of 320 undergraduates and 300 graduate students at any given time.The composition major alone comprises just seven undergraduates and 26 graduate students, on average. And Welcher served as one of just four full-time composition SPEAK UP
CAMPUS
By Lauren Girgis @laurengirgis
New website merges financial aid, records, registration information By Laura Morales @lamor_1217
kirsten hahn
/ the daily texan file
Emma Garcia, a studio art senior, chants along with student leaders at the second student sit in Nov. 11 in the Tower. joined the movement. “It’s kind of our last hoorah before break, and we don’t want to lose momentum over the break,” Huynh said. “We’ve only just started to see some progress with our demands.” The group is working to achieve structural change, which includes University transparency, a restorative justice program and faculty and staff training regarding what constitutes sexual mis-
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SYSTEM
The Coalition Against Sexual Misconduct forms following sit-ins for student safety Students have formed a coalition to demand transparency and accountability from the University regarding professors guilty of sexual misconduct. Students planned the third Sit-In for Student Safety outside the Provost’s office on Nov. 20. to protest the University’s employment of two professors found in violation of misconduct policies: English associate professor Coleman Hutchison and Sahotra Sarkar, integrated biology and philosophy professor. The coalition, called The Coalition Against Sexual Misconduct, grew out of the sit-in, said Lynn Huynh, a member of The Coalition Against Sexual Misconduct. “The coalition has become all of us encompassed,” said Huynh, an advertising and women and gender studies junior. “We started meeting with the first sit-in organizers. This is becoming a movement. It’s not just sit-in (after) sit-in. We need this united front.” Huynh said the group is planning a fourth sit-in this Friday because, following their biweekly timeline, because more students have
/ the daily texan staff
conduct and how to prevent it, Huynh said. “This is about a system and (a) power imbalance,” Huynh said. “We would love to see Sarkar and Hutchinson fired, but you fire one person, and that doesn’t address the amount of faculty and staff who are guilty of sexual misconduct but just haven’t been outed yet.” On Tuesday, UT President Gregory Fenves and Maurie McInnis, executive vice
president and provost, committed to attending a student-led forum at the beginning of next semester where students can voice concerns about sexual misconduct policies and violations, according to a coalition press release. Huynh said they have filed an open records request with the University and will receive a summary of all COALITION
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Financial aid, student records and registration information are now all available on one website. The Texas One Stop website, finished on Nov. 21, consolidates information from the Office of the Registrar, Office of Scholarships and Financial Aid and Student Accounts Receivable websites, said Jennifer Love, director of Office of the Registrar. She said the website includes “Bevo Bot,” a chatbot which answers question with information from each of the offices. “This really puts all the enrollment services in one spot,” Love said. “Whether you are trying to pay your bill, or utilize finical aid, or a combination, all of this information is in one place, and you have one user experience in the Texas One Stop website.” Love said the new website comes as construction on The Texas One Stop For Enrollment Services center in the Main Building prepares to finish in spring 2020. She said this is part of a larger effort to make the University services easier for students
to access. “This is really center to our bigger vision, which is putting the students at the center,” Love said. “We made sure it was built for a student and not from an institutional perspective.” Carolyn Connerat, associate vice provost for Enrollment Management, said she helped with the design of the
Whether you are trying to pay your bill, or utilize finical aid, or a combination, all of this information is in one place.” JENNIFER LOVE
director of office of the registar
website and conducted student focus groups before the website launched. She said they are still making improvements based on what users say in the feedback form. “Many staff members on campus who have found that W E B S I T E PAGE 2