Men’s soccer ready for the season
Best cider mill doughnuts in the county
SEE A5
SEE B1
Movie reviews SEE B2
A NATIONAL PACEMAKER AWARD NEWSPAPER
VOL. 28, No. 3 The student publication of Washtenaw Community College
Tuesday, September 24, 2019 www.washtenawvoice.com
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Picky thieves hit Fitness Center Public Safety mobilizes to curb string of larcenies by brian babcock
Staff Writer
An ongoing string of larcenies, or thefts, reported at the WCC Fitness Center caught the attention of WCC Public Safety. The thieves were after one specific item: credit cards. “There was an incident where somebody got their credit card stolen from their wallet and curiously enough, inside the wallet was $700 and the perpetrator did not take that cash,” said Dawn Lyons, manager of the fitness center. Victims of the thefts weren’t out any money as the stolen credit card charges were waived under The Fair Credit Billing Act (FCBA). Six people were identified to be working together in the thefts. According to Scott Hilden, chief of WCC public safety, the criminals were taking advantage of the busiest times to slip into the locker rooms and steal. “Shoulder surfing,” or spying on peoples’ locker combinations was likely how the group orchestrated the thefts, said Hilden. Upon gaining entry, the thieves would snatch the cards and then immediately attempt to drain them before eventually being cut off by the banks. After discovering that this was part of a bigger heist being committed throughout the southern Michigan area, Campus safety and fitness center staff teamed up to take action to stop this from continuing. “We started out with educating the staff on what to look for and managing access in and out of that area . . . we
Screenshot of the new site preview.
New college website rollout postponed Website ‘soft launched’ last spring; full launch now expected this semester after delay by nicholas ketchum
Deputy Editor
LILY MERRITT | WASHTENAW VOICE
A demonstration of how theives “shoulder surf” to gain locker combinations.
also increased our presence over there and we’ve got great video systems over there,” said Hilden. “We have narrowed the entry space so that it slows traffic down, we’ve also put out a request to our members for when they pass the front desk, they let us know and
they check back in,” Lyons said. “There are a lot of good reasons for people to come back and forth because they might go out for a run or take a phone call . . . it is nice to see them honoring this request. “We also had Chief Hilden come over and talk with our staff about things to look for
during prime times. We do know when that the center is really busy we need to be on high alert . . . he spent some time training our front desk staff for this.” Since these actions were implemented at the fitness center, no new cases of larceny have been reported in the last two months.
The Voice confirmed the launch of a new, public-facing college website has been postponed—but not indefinitely. Last March, the Voice reported the college’s plan to “soft launch” a new website later that month. A soft launch is an event when a product or service initially opens—but with limits—as in this case, where the new website was assigned its own URL. The soft launch itself occurred as scheduled on March 25 at new.wccnet.edu, but the new website was only sporadically available by the end of summer. No public updates on the new website have been announced since March. The project, according to previous Voice reports, has been ongoing since at least July 2017, costing an estimated $350,000. It includes a revamped look-and-feel with improved responsiveness for mobile devices and a sim-
plified navigation structure, among other changes. The current website is at least 10 years old, which is considered old age for a website. What happened? Brendan Prebo, associate vice president of marketing and communications at WCC, is familiar with the project.
see website, a3
COURTESY OF BRENDAN PREBO
Brendan Prebo, associate vice president of marketing and communications is familiar with the new website.
Youth lead the way for climate strike by catherine engstrom-hadley
Staff Writer
On Friday, people from all over Washtenaw County joined thousands of strikers across the globe to demand
action on climate justice. “The global strike movement is the youth’s way of saying we’ve had enough” said Naina Agrawal-Hardin, a high-school organizer for the Washtenaw County Strike
ERIC LE | WASHTENAW VOICE
Zaynab Elkolaly, a WCC student, speaks at the climate strike. Strikers filled Ingalls Mall from N. University Street to Rackham.
Coalition. Youth organizers hosted a short rally followed by a series of workshops based on the Climate Strike Coalition’s five core demands at Ingalls Mall on University of Michigan’s central campus. The strikers have five different demands they hope to put in the spotlight on a local and national level: Biodiversity, environmental justice, indigenous land tenure, sustainable agriculture, and a green economy. The Washtenaw County Strike Coalition pushes for both local and national reform.
see strike, a3
ERIC LE | WASHTENAW VOICE
Teaming up with PTK on Sept. 13, athletic teams on campus gathered to participate in Field Day. The students had an opportunity to connect and bond while participating in a series of activities.