Single copies free • 210-486-1773
Vol. 87 Issue 3 • Oct. 1, 2012
theranger.org
This week Deadline for voter registration looming The last day to register to vote in the Nov. 6 general election is Oct. 9. Oct. 30 is the last day mail applications will be accepted. Polling locations will be open 7 a.m.-7 p.m. Nov. 6. A sample ballot can be found at www.VoteTexas.gov. Voters can download the free mobile app SmartTxVoter for Android phones at Google Play or iPhones at the App Store. The app helps voters find polling locations, view the ballots, get voting related questions answered and set a reminders to vote. For more information, call the Bexar County Elections Administration at 210-335-8683, visit www.bexar.org/elections or visit www.sos.state.tx.us.
Ingrid Wilgen
Hispanic Heritage Month events Hispanic Heritage events continue with explorations of civil engineering, religious and secular art, a play and concert. Civil engineer Hernan Jaramillo will lecture from 11 a.m.-11:50 a.m. Wednesday in Room 218 of the nursing allied health center. Richard Arredondo, communication design program coordinator, will present “Rediscovering Mexican Religious Art” from 12:15 p.m.-1:30 p.m. Thursday in the craft room of Loftin Student Center. Visual artist Vincent Valdez will present his works from 6:30 p.m.7:30 p.m. Thursday in McNay Art Museum’s Chiego Lecture Hall, and afterward will lead a guided tour of the museum. Fine arts Adjunct Alison Vasquez will present “La Flor de la Canela,” a 40-minute play about Latina identity, from 9 a.m.-9:50 a.m. Oct. 8 in McCreless theater. The final event will be a concert by Pop Pistol from noon-1:30 p.m. Oct. 9 in the Fiesta Room of Loftin. For more information, call English Professor Patricia Portales at 210-486-0681.
David Espinoza
/ReadTheRanger
@TheRangerSAC
Scan The Ranger
District police and student affairs administrators gather information on an incident in Oppenheimer Wednesday. Riley Stephens
Altercation spills out of Oppenheimer “Interim disciplinary action” is issued to two students and more are under investigation. By FAITH DUARTE
fduarte3@student.alamo.edu
A verbal altercation among four to 15 students that began around noon Wednesday in the lobby on the first floor of Oppenheimer Academic Center and moved outside the building is under investigation by college officials and district police. Dr. Robert Vela, vice president of student affairs and interim vice president of academic affairs, said Thursday that two students have been given “interim disciplinary action” and college officials and the Alamo Colleges Police Department continue to investigate the incident. More individuals could receive disciplinary action pending the outcome of the investigation, Vela said. The investigation is expected to take a week. “I suspect that there will be more, but we need to really make sure that the investigation and the facts are there before we begin the disciplinary process on others,” he said. “Sometimes, we have to act immediately as a result of the situation.”
The number of participants has not yet been determined, but Vela estimated that about four students were initially involved and up to 15 students could have participated. Vela would not say what the code of conduct violation was, but he said there was no physical altercation. “With any verbal altercation, it could be abusive language, to threats, to intimidation. It could be a whole array of things,” Vela said. Although officials would not give details on the verbal altercation, about 10 police officers, including Chief Don Adams, responded to the call, and police officers blocked entrances to the first floor of Oppenheimer to everyone but students on their way to class. Vela and Manuel Flores, student conduct officer, also responded to the situation. Maricela Ramon, lab technician in the foreign languages lab, said Wednesday she was told by campus police to clear the first floor of the building.
After the altercation, participants were separated into three groups — two in classrooms and one in the conference room of the foreign languages and philosophy department — as officials attempted to sort out what had happened. “It’s more of trying to piece the puzzles together,” Vela told The Ranger Wednesday after the incident. “Any time there’s a code of conduct violation, we address it very swiftly. “The police are investigating that to see who exactly was involved,” Vela said. He said no arrests were made Wednesday, but “that doesn’t mean through the course of the investigation that arrests won’t be made.” President Robert Zeigler issued a statement to students and employees by email Thursday confirming disciplinary action and the ongoing investigation. To report any suspicious activity on campus, call the 24-hour police dispatch at 210-485-0099. For non-emergencies, call the police at 210-485-0099. Riley Stephens and Carlos Ferrand contributed to this story.
Committee to preserve fee money for students By JENNIFER LUNA sac-ranger@alamo.edu
After two cancellations, the Student Activity Fee Committee managed to meet Tuesday afternoon. It was the committee’s first meeting since the director of student life resigned as chair this summer. “We just wanted to meet to reboot and regroup and give you our ideas of a go-forward direction,” Dr. Robert Zeigler, college president, said in opening the meeting in the president’s conference room in Fletcher Administration Center. Cancellations were caused by a lack of a quorum for the committee of four employees and five students. Zeigler introduced the new chair of the committee, Emma Mendiola, dean of student affairs. She replaces student life Director Jorge Posadas. “I’ve asked Ms. Mendiola to be the chair, and we’ve all talked, and
she’ll do a bang-up job. She’s in a line of improvement to the director, I mean, because she’s the dean of student affairs.” Zeigler continued, “What we decided to do was to make a change in the committee’s leadership, restart and appoint a new chair and start thinking in terms with the committee to work with Ms. Mendiola, but in general, parameters that we are interested in, is trying to approve proposals that will have the most bang for the buck — in terms of having a broad student impact.” An example of a proposal that was rejected for not fitting that description was installing a Steinbach piano in Loftin, which Zeigler said would cost roughly $70,000-$80,000. The committee decided that a piano for Loftin would be nice, but the percentage of students who know how to play were substantially lower
than students who did not, thus the proposal was denied. “I want more conversation than decisions,” Zeigler said about the proposal. Since committee meetings were opened to the public in November, little discussion preceded votes. Zeigler explained how the committee is empowered to make recommendations and to have those recommendations seriously considered. If the committee recommends something and the president rejects the committee’s recommendation, the committee has the right to appeal it with the board. “I’m also interested in trying to preserve as much money as we can for student activities and not spend as much as we’ve been spending on personnel ... ” Zeigler said. “I think we are spending about $100,000 on personnel.”
The April 16 issue of The Ranger reported that the budget fiscal year 2012 included $100,000 for two assistant coordinators. The proposed budget for fiscal year 2013 added an additional $110,000 for those two assistant coordinators and two associate directors for student life. That budget was based on a request to double the student activity fee to $2 per semester hour. There was no increase because all five colleges could not agree on the increase to propose it to district trustees. Tuesday, Zeigler continued, “We no longer are able to do construction with the fee money. I don’t know if we’ve ever been legally able, but we’ve done it, but now we can’t, so those expenditures can no longer occur, but we can spend money on equipment.”
See ACTIVITY, Page 4