ROBBED.
OPINION//
CSU wrongfully derecognizes Christian club
16 houses broken into in 28 days
BY AMANDA CHANG
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ixteen burglaries occurred in the residential area around Lynbrook from Sept. 1 to Sept. 28. The San Jose Police Department (SJPD) reported that no suspects were identi�ied or located in San Jose, but an investigation led to the arrest of a suspect in Turlock, Calif. “The San Jose Police Department is doing all we can to combat this steady increase in burglaries,” said Albert Morales, a SJPD public information of�icer. “As staf�ing and call volume allows, patrol units try to be visible inthe areas where burglaries are occurring. When a burglary is reported, a patrol of�icer responds to conduct an investigation.” On Sept. 16, the SJPD received a tip about a suspicious person around Johnson Avenue and set out in a helicopter to scour the area. The tip reported that the man was between the ages of 20 and 30. At around 12 a.m. on Sept. 17, a man broke into senior Kevin Lin’s house. Lin, his sister Jackie Lin, and their mother were in separate rooms inside the house at the time of the burglary but were unaware of the intrusion until Jackie caught a glimpse of the burglar. “My sister only saw him for a second, but she saw that he was shirtless and mistook him for me because I was taking a shower when the burglary happened,” said Kevin Lin. “The burglar left the room as quickly as he could, so she couldn’t get a good look at him. She saw me come out of the bathroom later, and it clicked.” In addition to �inding the burglar shirtless, the Lin family discovered that he was shoeless, as they found dirty footprints on their kitchen �loor. After the family realized that they were being robbed, they locked themselves in Kevin’s room and called the police. The Lin family did not realize until 20 or 30 minutes later that the thief had also driven off in their car. “When the police arrived, they asked us a few questions. Apparently, we weren’t the �irst house to get robbed that
night,” said Kevin. “In fact, we were told that two other houses got robbed a few blocks from our’s.” Fortunately, because the man had used Jackie’s stolen phone the day after the burglary, the Lin family was able to trace the phone back to Turlock, Calif., a city located about two hours away. On Sept. 17, the police found several stolen items including purses, electronic devices and credit cards inside two stolen cars parked near the apartment that the phone call was traced to. “We had to drive two hours to get to our car,” said Lin. “But, when we got there, we found our car in a mess.” The possible thief left his clothes in the Lins’ car, leaving traces of DNA that matched the DNA found in the vomit he had left in another victim’s home. Fingerprints and other incriminating evidence found in the cars led to the burglary suspect’s detainment. Currently, the Turlock police are compiling more evidence to charge the suspect and get a warrant to search his apartment. Among others, Kevin Lin’s family was called in to get a look at a lineup of suspects. Kevin Lin was not the only Lynbrook student affected by the burglaries; senior Jeffrey Yang’s family was also one of the 16 cases. By 8:30 a.m. on Sept. 25, all of Yang’s family had left their house near John Muir Elementary. No one had remembered to close and lock the front window. see ROBBERIES page 2
GRAPHIC ILLUSTRATION BY JEFFREY YANG
BY SHIVATEJA VEMIREDDY AND FRINA REDOLOZA
NEWS//
Teachers research cheating to ensure academic honesty BY JESSICA LUO AND MEERA KRISHNAMOORTHY
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his year, teachers are reinforcing the importance of academic honesty for various reasons. The issue of cheating was brought to light through the number of academic infractions over the past few years. Because of this, English teachers Joshua Miller and Diana Ball and math teachers Michele Quindipan and Sara Kraemer have been conducting a research project on causes and possible solutions to cheating as a part of the coursework for their master’s degrees, so changes in their classrooms re�lect the discoveries that they have made while researching. All teachers, however, are working toward the same goal: ensuring that students work their hardest to preserve academic honesty in the classroom.
Ball, Miller, Quindipan and Kraemer have been working on this study since last year for their Master’s in Educational Leadership at San Jose State University. “We were interested in cheating because it’s pretty prevalent,” said Kraemer. “There were some pretty big incidents last year. In my opinion, [cheating is] growing to be accepted and the school culture is becoming a cheating culture. It keeps growing and growing, and we need to �ind a way to change it.” Each teacher is conducting individual research on a different aspect of cheating, and they will combine their work to put together a comprehensive report. “Right now, I’m looking at the forms of cheating, from copying homework to morally dangerous decisions like buying essays online,” said Miller.
Another aspect of their project is the different perspectives of cheating, which is being researched by Kraemer. She mentioned how oftentimes teachers and students have different de�initions of cheating, and how that may lead to confusion. “I think in the future, teachers should make it clear in the beginning of school, ‘what does cheating mean for my class,’” said Kraemer. For example, in Quindipan’s classroom, �inishing homework in class does not count as cheating. Other teachers, however, may consider completing work the day it is due as a form of academic dishonesty. Her reason is that students understand what is taught better when a teacher is there to guide them. see CHEATING page 3
t the start of the school year, the California State University (CSU) system derecognized the InterVarsity Christian Fellowship (IVCF), an evangelical Christian fellowship with around 860 chapters on U.S. university campuses. The derecognition occurred because IVCF does not allow nonChristians to serve in leadership roles, a reason that is unjusti�ied because it is important for a Christian club to have committed and faithful leaders who are capable of leading others to Christ . As a result, IVCF, which has branches at 19 of the 23 CSU campuses, will lose access to student fairs, on-campus meeting rooms and other school functions. This decision comes a year after directors of public affairs at the CSU system informed IVCF that they would have to sign a non-discrimination policy requiring leadership roles to be open to all students. Although it is sensible for the CSU system to want equality in all club organizations, allowing non-Christians to become leaders of a Christian club would harm the club’s community because the non-Christian leaders would not be able to properly teach or help the other members of the club. Likewise, at Lynbrook, the Agape Christian Club community shares the same belief. “The purpose of all Christian clubs is to serve Christians and other non-Christians who are interested in the religion,” said senior Tiffany Chen, a core team leader of Lynbrook’s Agape Christian Club. “In order to do so, the leaders need to be Christian. It’s a requirement that the leaders need to uphold.” Many other clubs on high school and university campuses have prerequisites to become a leader, and InterVarsity’s rules requiring leaders to be Christian are just as reasonable. Similar to how Speech and Debate requires captains to have experience in their events to indicate their commitment and how sororities require their members to have a certain GPA, InterVarsity, as well as Agape, requires its leaders to be Christian. “All of Agape’s leaders are Christian,” said Chen. “As leaders, we’re supposed to help others develop better relationships with God and further our relationships with each other. That’s not really possible if the leaders aren’t Christian.” see RELIGIOUS CLUBS page 6