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This week Campus closes for holidays Alamo Colleges will be closed Thursday through Sunday for Thanksgiving and reopen Nov. 26. Offices at all district colleges will close Dec. 24 for winter break and will reopen Jan. 7. Classes for the spring semester begin Jan. 22 after the Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday Jan. 21. For more information, visit alamo.edu/calendars.
Rebecca Salinas
Last day to drop with W Tuesday Tuesday is the deadline for students to drop classes with a W. Students must meet with their course instructor to decide if dropping a course is best for them before the instructor can drop them from a course, David Rodriguez, director of counseling, said. Instructors can drop students only for exceeding the number of absences allowed by the college attendance policy. After the census date, students cannot drop courses using from their ACES account. “The reason for meeting with the instructor is because nobody wants students to drop classes unless it’s absolutely necessary,” he said. Rodriguez said when students meet with their instructor, they can discuss options, such as extra credit opportunities, to prevent the drop. If students are dropping all their courses for the semester, they must see a counselor, he said. “If a student is at the point where they’re dropping everything for the semester, many times there’s something significant going on other than just academics and we want to see if there is any assistance we can provide,” Rodriguez said. Although course drops do not affect a student’s GPA, they do affect financial aid, academic progress and the cost to repeat the courses, he said. A three-peat penalty charges out-of-state tuition for a course taken three or more times, and the six-drop rule allows only six dropped courses during a student’s undergraduate career. For more information, call the counseling center at 210-486-0333.
Alma Linda Manzanares
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Vol. 87 Issue 9 • Nov. 19, 2012
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Committee member denies arrest records By JENNIFER LUNA sac-ranger@alamo.edu
A student appointed to the Student Activity Fee Committee, which oversees the allocation of about $400,000 in student fees, shares the same name as a person with a criminal background that includes three convictions for theft, a felony conviction for burglary and one conviction for writing hot checks that resulted in a year in jail. The committee member, addiction counseling sophomore Jeff Schnoor, maintains he is not the person listed in Texas Department of Public Safety documents with 16 variations of the name and two birthdates. “That’s another Jeff Schnoor,” he said Tuesday. He declined to provide a reporter his birth date and full name. After his appointment by the Student Government Association in early October, Schnoor told the committee Oct. 12 in introducing himself that he had been president of student governments at St. Philip’s College, Palo Alto College and the University of Maryland at College Park. The University of Maryland at College Park could find no record of a former student named Jeff Schnoor. No one at Palo Alto College could confirm his serving as a student government president. In an interview Tuesday, Schnoor admitted that he had been student
Jeff Schnoor, top left, participates in a Student Activity Fee Committee meeting Oct. 12. Monica Correa government president only at St. Philip’s, which he said was in 2003, and that he only helped student governments at College Park and Palo Alto. He said he would provide documents from College Park, but had not done so by deadline. “I’ve helped over at Palo Alto and University of Maryland and some other colleges,” he said. A St. Philip’s dean of student success secretary confirmed by telephone Tuesday that Schnoor had been a student government president at St. Philip’s. Public records show that the person using a version of Schnoor’s name has had seven arrests dating back to 1991 and as recently as
March 16, 2012. This person served over a year in state prison. The arrests for theft were reported in Tom Green County. A mug shot obtained from the county sheriff’s office bears a strong resemblance to Schnoor. The first arrest was in 1991 for Class C theft of less than $50. The next arrest for this person was in 1992 for a Class B theft between $50 and $500, which resulted in three months probation. An arrest in 1996 for a person using his name was a first-degree felony for burglary of habitation of more than $200,000. The person using Schnoor’s name received 10 years probation.
On Nov. 1, 1999, a person using one of the 16 versions of Schnoor’s name in DPS records was arrested for writing $2,688.77 in bad checks, pleaded guilty and was jailed for 457 days, according to records from the 119th Judicial District in Tom Green County. In September 2000, a person using Schnoor’s name was arrested in Tom Green County for unauthorized use of a vehicle. The most recent arrest for a person with a variation of that name was March 16, 2012, for driving with an invalid or suspended license in Tom Green County.
See COMMITTEE, Page 4
Disabled students frustrated with access By PAULA CHRISTINE SCHULER sac-ranger@alamo.edu
Some mobility-challenged students at this college have questioned whether moving the office of disability support services to the first floor of Moody Learning Center Aug. 1 serves their best interests. They complain of difficulties with access, an inadequate cell phone signal in the office and a VIAtrans drop-off point that is often blocked by other vehicles and difficult to use in the rain. They say mobility issues with construction projects underway all over campus add to frustration. Education sophomores Mariana Solis and Meloday Magallanez, kinesiology sophomore Zachry Arambula and liberal arts sophomore Charlie Shivley at different times asked the same question, “Why did DSS have to move?” DSS moved to the first floor of Moody Learning Center Aug. 1 from the first floor in Chance Academic
Liberal arts sophomore Charlie Shivley and his wife, Sherrie, wait for a VIAtrans shuttle Wednesday east of Moody. Access for the shuttle is blocked by a district truck parked in the tow-away zone. Sergio Ramirez Center, a building designed for ease of access, to be near the office of veterans affairs. “I thought they were going to turn that place into something else,” Arambula said of the space in Chance. “I went by there (Chance Room 124) the other day,” he said. “It was just empty.” Solis, Magallanez and Shivley expressed puzzlement on why the office of veterans affairs was not able to move into Room 119 of Chance, near the old DSS office. Students and staff report cell phone service is poor in Moody with only two cell
Charlie Shivley service providers with signals reaching indoors to the DSS office spaces. On Aug. 1, DSS students met with Emma Mendiola, dean of student affairs, at their request. The content of the meeting remains confidential, except that it included location change concerns, Magallanez said.
She quoted Mendiola responding to student concerns by saying, “I had to move my office too, and the paint wasn’t the paint I wanted, but I dealt with it.” DSS assistant Delia De Luna attended the meeting and corroborated this quote. In an interview with Mendiola Nov. 7, Mendiola learned Magallanez interpreted her comment as suggesting the paint on the walls was comparable to their challenges navigating campus with wheelchairs and canes. “There is no comparison, but yeah, I’m not going to
make light of their abilities,” Mendiola said. “We have to find some place in the middle so they can do for themselves.” Mendiola said she has been working for Alamo Colleges for about 20 years and she spent her first three years in DSS. Her background includes a master’s degree in social work. “I would never want to insult someone by assuming that they can’t do for themselves,” she said. “That was one of the lessons they taught me when I worked in DSS.” Mendiola’s impression of the Aug. 1 meeting was that student questions and concerns were answered and students felt better when the meeting was done. She was surprised to learn the Magallanez had said later, “This campus seems to not give a crap about us.” Mendiola said Alamo Colleges wants to educate the whole student, not just the academic part of the student, but the whole person
See DISABLED, Page 4