THE
PAN AMERICAN
T h e S t u d e n t N e w s p a p e r o f T h e U n i v e r s i t y o f Te x a s - P a n A m e r i c a n
Tragedy at Virginia Tech Officials examine security policies By tions on the campus, killing students SAN- and faculty members before turning the gun on himself, according to As a result of the shooting ram- media reports. page this week at Virginia Tech As reports of the first shooting at University in Blacksburg, Va., that West Ambler Johnston, a coed dormileft 33 people dead, officials at The tory, surfaced, James Loya, assistant University of Texas-Pan American chief of UTPA’s police department, are discussing possibile security said he never thought it would become improvements. the massacre it turned out to be. In an open letter to the universi“We (the UTPA police departty community, Blandina Cardenas, ment) were really shocked. We inipresident of UTPA, said she has tially thought it was an isolated extended condolences to VTU’s shooting as well; maybe one or two President Charles Steger as a result of deaths,” he said. “When the death the incident, which is the deadliest toll rose, that’s when it really hit shooting rampage in U.S. history. home that the situation was worse On Monday, Cho Seung-Hui, than we originally thought.” a 23-year-old senior English Once he learned of the second major at VTU, opened shooting - at Norris Hall, the fire at two differ- school’s science and engineering ent locabuilding - Loya knew the event would have a profound impact. “I don’t think they ever By SANDRA GONZALEZ The Pan American
thought they’d have an incident of that magnitude. I’m sure we, and all law enforcement, are going to learn from this just like we did with Columbine,” he said. “That brought a lot of changes and I’m sure this will bring some about as well.” IMPROVEMENTS? Though the first shooting took place at 7:15 a.m., students at VTU did not receive an e-mail warning of the incident until 9:27 a.m., according to the Associated Press. Minutes later, gunfire erupted at Norris Hall. The possible tardiness of the email has caused a stir of criticism from various sources, leaving many asking why immediate evacuations and/or a lockdown were not ordered. Some observers are calling for the use of text-messaging to spread the word more quickly in the future. Loya said it’s often a struggle to
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University community reacts to massacre By SANDRA GONZALEZ The Pan American As memorials take place across the country to honor the 32 students and faculty members who died as a result of the mass shooting at Virginia Tech University, The University of Texas-Pan American community will hold its own service today at noon in the Quad. Mallary Bryant, a senior broadcast journalism major, organized the event with help from various entities
on campus. “No one had started one yet, so I began it because it had to be done,” she said. However, while organizing the event, Bryant and other organizers ran into controversy as they had to decide whether to honor gunman Cho Seung-hui. “I know he died and his family is mourning, but we really didn’t want to glorify suicide,” she said. “We agreed that as Christians, that he does
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Sidney Meadows/The Pan American IN MEMORIAM - All flags at UTPA were lowered to half staff in observance of the shootings at Virginia Tech.
April 19, 2007
Bilingual education effectiveness defended By VERONICA GONZALEZ The Pan American Debate over the effectiveness of bilingual education has once again become a hot topic, following comments made by former House speaker Newt Gingrich. Gingrich recently criticized bilingual education, stating it was “the language of the ghetto.” He went on to claim that the American people believe English should be the official language of the government, giving him reason enough to want to replace bilingual education with English immersion, so that people would learn the common language of the country and “the language of prosperity.” According to Peter Farruggio, pro-
fessor of bilingual education at The University of Texas-Pan American, the debate to turn bilingual programs into English immersion programs is an attempt to eliminate immigrants’ rights to a decent education and their own language. “For Gingrich to make comments like that reveals a racist impulse. How else can you explain a comment like that?” Farruggio asked. “Take him to a trip to Latin America or Spain, where Spanish is used in science and philosophy classes and have him explain how this is a ghetto language.” It has become a coordinated movement among certain political conservatives to want to force cultural assimilation among immigrant groups in the country, mainly those from Latin
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SACS committee on campus for evaluation By CLAUDETTE GONZALEZ The Pan American A Southern Association of Schools and Colleges on-site accreditation committee came to The University of TexasPan American campus Tuesday afternoon to evaluate the university’s Quality Enhancement Plan, plus accreditation compliance issues ranging from fiscal responsibility to academic progress and faculty qualifications. In a series of meetings Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday, the eight committee members, all of whom are faculty or administrators from other institutions within SACS, spoke with UTPA President Blandina Cardenas as well as faculty and administrators from across campus. Since the university has already sent the required documents to an accreditation committee in charge of conducting an off-site evaluation, the
on-site committee is focusing primarily on areas that were hard to judge based on the submitted documents alone, specifically the QEP. In committee chair Linwood Rose’s eyes, one salient point is the university’s commitment to improvements outlined in the QEP, which focuses on implementing programs to help students succeed in math courses. “The thing that jumped out for all of us was the institution-wide commitment to this plan,” said Rose, who is the president of James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Va. “There was a lot of passion for implementing the improvements in the math program.” According to Judy Davidson, Writing Center director and member of the UTPA QEP team, the SACS committee recognized that schools are often reluctant to undertake projects involving
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