Nov. 10, 2021 | The Reflector

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THE OFFICIAL STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF INDIANAPOLIS • FOUNDED 1922 • INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA VOL.

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I S S UE 4

NOVEMBER 10, 2021

reflector.uindy.edu

Security changes on campus UIndy President Robert Manuel announces several security measures amidst crime on campus By Jacob Walton

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF & CO-BUSINESS MANAGER University of Indianapolis President Robert Manuel announced via an email on Oct. 20, that he was expediting several safety and security measures. These changes include expanded resources for UIndy police, plainclothes officer postings, additional highdefinition cameras for campus and the expansion of the Blue Light Emergency Call Box system to the west side of campus. These changes all stemmed from several incidents that occurred on campus in the first three months of the current semester, according to Manuel’s email. On Oct. 19, the night before Manuel’s email was sent, there was an incident in which a non-UIndy affiliated individual was found with a gunshot wound, according to an email the next morning from Vice President for Student and Campus Affairs and Dean of Students Kory Vitangeli. This incident raised concerns in the UIndy community regarding security and safety on campus. Manuel said that he is grateful for the community ’s conversations and that changes like the ones he expedited are constantly in the works. He said the campus should see physical changes happening very rapidly. “What you're also going to see are the organizational changes, the communication changes, these meetings [about campus security], occur over the long haul so that we can continue to make alterations to the public safety strategies that have been on the shelf for a very long time but need modifications, so that they keep up with the changing environments that exist in our wor ld,” Manuel said. “ That is

part of how universities maintain their rele vance and they keep themselves up with the public safety needs of today.“ According to Manuel, UIndy has two major committees that oversee safety and security measures on campus, both of which filter into the Risk and Compliance Committee. He said that these committees are consistently looking for ways to keep the campus safe as the Indianapolis crime rate rises and that the measures he accelerated c a m e f ro m t h o s e c o m m i t t e e s ’ recommendations. “ What I did was look at the general conversation going on in our community and the concern that everybody had and said, ‘Let's look at

... It's more than just campus. It's those people around us." where we are in those conversations and listen to the recommendations that were going to come forward and say which ones of those should we expedite, and move forward,’” Manuel said. The first of the safety and security measures announced in Manuel’s Oct. 20 email was increased resources for the campus police department, which includes hiring four more police officers. According to UIndy Chief of Police David Selby, the police force currently consists of 14 officers, counting himself, an assistant chief, a detective and a lieutenant. Selby said the addition of four more officers who can patrol campus and the surrounding areas will be ver y beneficial to their efforts. “When you talk about a university community, it's more than just campus. It's those people around us,” Selby said.

“We try to patrol around the campus to help push stuff back. And so we're going to be able to continue to do that but yet have people in the parking lots as well. So along with that, we're able now to start hiring some part-time people to help fill in where we need them as well.” The second of the announced measures was the strategic placement of plainclothes officers in border parking lots at specific times to monitor traffic. According to Selby, the plainclothes officers, who will be cadets or student employees, will not get directly involved with incidents but rather will carry radios that will call the main police force. The UIndy Police Department has used plainclothes officers in the past, Selby said, mainly when there were catalytic converter thefts rampant on campus. According to Manuel, the recommendation for more plainclothes officers came from Selby and Vitangeli. The third measure announced in Manuel’s email was additional high-definition cameras posted in specific locations on campus as a crime deterrent. According to Selby this has been something that he and others in the campus community have wanted. He said that the cameras are going to be issued in two phases: first on buildings and the second on poles in parking lots. The delay is due to the steps necessary to post a camera in the middle of a parking lot. The fourth measure announced in Manuel’s email was the addition of two more Blue Light Emergency Call Boxes on the west side of campus. Selby said that while all of the changes and new measures are things any police chief would want, being a private university limits UIndy ’s capabilities. “Everything in the private schools [is] tied to tuition dollars. I could go to you and say, ‘I think it's a

good idea.’ If nothing happened, you'd say, ‘Well, I don't want to raise my tuition,’” Selby said. “So I think everybody, not just me, everybody would want one of these things. It's doing a little bit at a time…. I just want to emphasize that safety and security has always been an issue here. And we've always been trying to move forward with things. It's just [that] things are expensive.” Another area of concern at the

university has been the timing and use of Watchdog and its alerts, the system UIndy uses to alert students, faculty and staff about emergencies and other issues on campus. According to Selby, the system currently in place works fine, but competing with the emergence of apps such as the Citizen app, through which the UIndy community can receive immediate alerts when events occur, is difficult. He said that he > See Security on page 8

Graphic by Jazlyn Gomez

International Education Month By Frida Fonseca STAFF WRITER

The University of Indianapolis is celebrating its fifth annual International Education Month. The month-long celebration includes events such as performing arts, lectures, films and interactive events designed to showcase international, indigenous, and migrant cultures at the University of Indianapolis from mid-October to mid-November. According to the International Education Week 2021 website, International Education Month is an opportunity to celebrate the benefits of international education and exchange worldwide. This initiative of the U.S. Department of State and the U.S. Department of Education is part of efforts to promote programs that prepare Americans for a global environment and attract future leaders from abroad to study, learn and exchange experiences, according to the website. This organization is created to encourage the participation of all individuals and institutions interested, to exchange activities, including schools, colleges and universities, embassies, international organizations, businesses, associations and community organizations, according

Photo by MaKenna Maschino

Photo by MaKenna Maschino

Assistant Professor of Violin Joanna Genova performs a piece written by Bulgarian composer Pancho Vladigerov at the Poetry and Music Across the World concert series.

Faculty Accompanist and Assistant Professor Haruka Ostokić shared her meaning of the lyrics of the Japanese national anthem ‘Kimigayo’ and experiences during the concert.

to the website. Associate Professor of English and Assistant Director for Fellowships Karen Newman along with six other staff faculty wanted to do something to expand and draw this energy to campus. Newman said she wanted to showcase diversity to help students see the diversity of opportunities and people at UIndy. Part of the idea was to introduce the broader campus and community to the diversity on campus, but to also help

able to have a booth representing her work to help students understand how they could get involved in this project.'' Newman said that she and Marilyn Chase, director of international student and scholar services in the Center for Global Engagement, are the co-founders of International Education Month at UIndy. They like to provide everyone with new and fun events for students on campus and they typically start the month with Celebration of the Flags, Newman

students see that there are opportunities for engagement, Newman said. “Our typical booths have been the Center for Service Learning and Community Engagement [and] study abroad,” Newman said. “This year we were very fortunate to have Dr. Crystal Latham's graduate student team that has been working on her project to exhume the bodies of migrants on [the] U.S. Mexico border in Texas. So we were really thrilled that at the expo we were

said.They have a movie night in different languages, which exposes students to new languages. Something new this year that Newman said she hosted was dining services for staff, faculty and students. “This month we went with five or six dinners that are actually themed internationally, and so we're having the students who are using our dining services using the opportunity to expose them to a different kind of food than they > See Education on page 8


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