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UTSA CELEBRATES WOMEN'S HISTORY WEEK - FEATURES, PAGE 4, A & E, PAGE 7
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I PAi^AnO
Febmaiy 27,1996 Volume 19, Number 7
Student fees used to violate University
licy
By Cynthia Klekar
Editor-in-Chief
UTSA has given $10,000 to thj UTSA yearbook, a student publica¬ tion, even though the payment vio¬ lated univer¬ sity policy, to help pay the yearbook's outstanding debts, accord
HanMKdu-Wrtnr
ing to Emest DeWinne, director of Business Affairs. The payments were made during the summer of 1993 and 1995 and conflict with the university's policy that the university will not sup¬ port any student publication fi¬ nancially, edito¬ rially, or by pro¬ viding space or equipment. The funds were taken from the
university'spub- lications account which pays for uni¬ versity publications such as The Roa¬
drunner and student guides. A portion of student fees goes to the publications account.
According to DeWinne, the first payment was made July 23,1993 after the students from the yearbook staff went to the office of student affairs seeking financial assistance. DeWinne states it was "in direct recommenda-
cated funds to support that task. How¬ ever, when the university decided against it, the funds remained in the budget, allowing last semester's pay¬ ment to be made.
During an interview with Dr. Bobbie Hernandez-Walker, Assistant Vice President of Student Affairs, she de¬ nied the university's involvement with
DeWinne called the payment "an error in budget" and said it was "apparently against university policy."
- Ernest DeWinne, director of Business Affairs
tion of the Vice President of Student Affairs" tliat the $5,000 be given to the yearbook to "essentially help them get out of debt."
A second payment of $5,000 was made in the summer of '95 to aid the yeaibook debt. According to DeWinne, the university at one time had consid¬ ered incorporating the yearbook as a university publication and had allo-
the yearbook, stating "The yearbook is a student publication and the univer¬ sity does not sponsor it. The university has never paid the yearbook's bills'." In a second interview, Hernandez- Walker admitted that in 1993 the uni¬ versity had paid Taylor Publishing, the yearbook's publishing company in Dal¬ las. However, Hernandez-Walker states that this payment was thought to
be payment up front for a proposed university-published yearbook, but later it was dis¬ covered that the payment went toward the year¬ books outstand¬ ing debt. "Four years ago the university con¬ sidered incorpo¬ rating the yearbook into a university publication. When we realized the debt, we decided against it."
DeWinne called the payment "an error in the budget" and said it was "apparently against university policy." Chapter 15, subchapter 15-100, Sec. 15-101 in the Institutional Rules on Student Services and Activities states "Student publications at The Univer¬ sity shall be in¬ dependent stu¬ dent enterprises. The University shall not provide ^ any student pub- , lication with fi¬ nancial support, editorial assis¬ tance, printing, or other facilities." It
Artist Rachel Hacker's "Parboiled." Hecker will lecture on and presents slides of her work on Wed., Mar. 5 entitled, "Almost Heaven," as part of UTSA'a Women's History Week. Her work uses images of the female figure and popular culture to emphasize women's relationship with pleasure and the patriached structure. See Arts and Entertainment, page 7, for story.
also states that the purpose of The University student publication policy is to "establish that student publica¬ tions are not official university publi¬ cations."
The university violates the student publication policy not only by provid¬ ing financial support but by providing facilities as well. For years the Year¬ book Organization has operated outof
Continued on page 3.
pace up for grabs
A Bookstor€
Commercial solicitation not welcome on campus
i the spnng semes-
f 1 SA bixdcstore should be
I to its new home in dib ex-
; Univ^-sity Center.   Several
nents have ^^^^^^^_,_
med of ^ space dao. are going to be open or vacated once dte bookstore moves out," Student Govemment President Kristi Hall said.
According to Hall, one way to uti¬ lize the space would be to create much needed science laboratories.   This
for what
atnenda-
7 have received a lot of comments from speciftoally biology majors that take a lot of classes in that buikling and they want the space to be used for lab space because there is a massive shortage."
' Kristi Hall, stodent govemment president
ck has the final >n to hired an
iim.e all over in most
would alleviate the problem that so many science m^ixrs encounter in not being ^bH to fetiiMo laboratory courses rsqalwd for graduation.
1 have received a lot of commraits irom specificidiy biology majors that take a iotof classes in the building and tbey want the ^sce to be used for lab
space becamsAne isaotacKive short- 3^" Hai! sffld.
Alttamgh the d«;ision rests upon PresKtent Kirtpurick. students do have a say in v/hm. the i^ace will bec(»ne.
"I am siomg to be mee^»$ with
and letting bim know tibi6 StiKtents' cotuxnis and their recommenda- ticais. I have let¬ ters from some pre-health organi- zatiotts on campus andleittcarsfraaiin- (fividuaisasweli," ^^^^^^_^ H^l said. '   ' ¦¦   "   ' '   ¦¦' Students
cm write Imers and bring diem to tfte Stirfcnt OovCTnnK»t office (2.01.048 UC)to place in Hall's box, stating their recommendation on the usage of the space. These letters must be received by Mar. 1. When HaU meets with Kiiicpatrick, she will take the letters and voice students' concerns.
By Lindsey Rausch
News Editor
Commercial solicitation through fliers, brochures, magazines, etc. are not [lermitted on the UTSA campus, although looking around the campus, forms of solicitation are seen.
According to Karen Whitney, As¬ sistant Vice President for Student Af¬ fairs, all UT system schools are not allowed to permit commercial solicita¬ tion on their campuses.
"Essentially, it's rather clear. No UT system school can allow commer¬ cial solicitation," Whitney said. "UTSA is not a mall, it is a university pursuing higher education."
Whitney said they have frequent problems with several differ¬ ent products being solicited on campus.
"People coming onto cam¬ pus see 17,000 consumers. They see 17,000 opportuni¬ ties to exploit and they have no interest in working with us or in any way inquiring- so we react," Whitney said.
Posters advertising the spring break trip to Cancun, Mexico placed throughout the campus are unauthorized. A represen¬ tative from the company said when they started to put up the posters, they were not aware that they must get approval to advertise the information.
"We did not know that we had to get permission. We did have some people yelling at us to stop putting the posters up, but we just hurried to finish and got them all up," the representative said.
If companies come on campus and begin to solicit the student body, Whitney said someone should notify the campus police, student activities, or Office of Student Life.
"Should anyonecome onto this cam¬ pus, they should be told to leave. If they don't, they will be cited for tres¬ passing," Whitney said.
Whitney said thc problem is they cannot catch every solicitor that comes
onto campus, because the campus is 600+ acres.
"Anybody can physically come onto this campus, it doesn't mean that they have the authority to be here," Whitney said.
Lieutenant Michael J. Hagy said the police department responds to many of the solicitors and most are unaware that they have to receive {permission from the University to be on campus.
"In the event that we find anybody soliciting, a patrol officer will respond, to try to make contact with the indi¬ vidual," Hagy said. "A lot of times the solicitors often are not aware ofthe no soliciting policy, however, there are times when people have been told be¬ fore and theyjust keep coming back."
Hagy said the officer responding to the solicitor makes a report of who, what, where, when, why and how, so the department can refer back to the repiort if they have any more trouble with the solicitor. Most ofthe time, the solicitor is told to leave campus, but in special cases, the police may have to escort them off campus. He also said if the same solicitor comes back, they can be subject to criminal trespassing (Class B misdemeanor) and can be fined up to $2,000 or put in jail for up to 180 days.
Hagy said they just do not want the solicitors to stand in the way of getting an education.
"We don't want students bothered in an environment when they are try¬ ing to get educated. We don't want educators to have to be bothered with
people interrupting their classes or set up displays that are in such a nature that they take away from the educa¬ tional side." Hagy said.
The main problem for the police department with commercial solicita¬ tion has been at the University Oaks, but other than that, there has not been a big problem with commercial solici¬ tation an campus.
"I think the biggest problem is with the Oaks. People think they (the apart¬ ments) are regular apartment com¬ plexes and not under the affiliation of the University and go door to door selling things," Hagy said.
One concem Whitney has about commercial solicitation on the cam¬ pus, is fraud.
"Who are these Jjeople, and why are they here? Students are giving them all this information about themselves. They (solicitors) may not be who they say they are," Whitney said. "We have a concem about the snidents being exploited, about fraud occurring and just find that it (solicitation) is just not at all necessary to be here."
Whitney said students should be aware of what information t|iey are giving and who they are giving it to. "Every student needs to be very careful about the information they give anybody they don't know. I think it is unwise to respond to these companies. My concem is that if somebody thinks that someone has set a table here on campus, that somehow the University's approved it, and that's not the case at all. In no way bave we approved it. In fact, we shut people down as fast as we can," Wliitney said.
Whitney said the students do have certain commercial needs on campus such as buying lunch or books from ihe commercial vendors on campus, but
Continued on page 3.
Correction: In the Feb. 13 issue, the article, "Paid leave provides faculty lime off for research," said Dr. Jeanne Campbell Reesman was teaching Dr. Wendy Barker's classes. It should be, Paulette Jiles and Dr. Janet Cliff who are teaching the classes, not Reesman.
Ma«atta«ai