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VOLUME 137, ISSUE 1 | THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 2018
OLIV IA KOT L A REK / AGG IE
OL IV IA KOT L A REK / AG GIE
REGENTS VOTE TO DECREASE TUITION Budget plans approved for 201819 school year BY SABR I NA HABCHI campus@theaggie.org
HIDE YOUR LAPTOPS, HIDE YOUR CELL PHONES String of burglaries in Davis
A string of burglaries close to the UC Davis campus have occurred over the last few weeks. Students are now advised to make sure they lock their windows and doors due to these recent crimes of opportunity. “There were three burglaries on September 7 and there was a crime alert on September 15 in the morning,” said Andy Fell, the public information representative for the UC Davis Police Department. “On September 7, there had also been similar break-ins and reports. All these times involved unlocked doors or windows.
Stolen items included laptops or cell phones.” Joseph Farrow, the UC Davis police chief, noted the areas where the burglaries happened. “There’s 400 Parkway Circle — where the frat houses are — there’s Russell Park [and] there’s West Village,” Farrow said. “West Village is spread out a little bit, so they’re not in the same general area.” The crimes didn’t just happen where people lived, there was also a reported incidence in a parking structure. “Saturday (Sept. 8), someone smashed a window in a car to steal a laptop in the South Entry Parking Structure, between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m.,” police said, according to UC Davis News
Briefs. Currently, there are no suspects, but there has been increased patrol in the Russell Park area. Property managers will also distribute information to residents. “The only identification that we have was a possible male wearing all dark clothing, wearing a hoodie,” Farrow said. “One common thing was that they didn’t had to pry anything open — they didn’t need a key [and] they didn’t do anything. All they did was check the door and it opened. They took what they could see in the common area, and then they were gone very quickly.” As a precaution, Fell reminded students to
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DISCREPANCIES IN HANDLING OF SEXUAL MISCONDUCT CASES AT UC DAVIS, BERKELEY, UCLA, STATE AUDITOR SAYS UC Davis among campuses that took longer to discipline certain faculty members BY G EORG E L I AO campus@theaggie.org
A California State Audit published in June recommended steps to address problems in the handling of faculty sexual misconduct within the UC system, with specific focus on UCLA, Berkeley and Davis. The audit, prepared by State Auditor Elaine Howle, identified three key issues: a discrepancy between how investigations and discipline are handled among faculty and staff, the length of time
to complete an investigation and adjudication of faculty sexual misconduct cases. Additionally, the audit requested the statewide Title IX office standardize practices for handling sexual misconduct cases. The audit set a July 2019 deadline for the implementation of changes. A response letter issued by UC President Janet Napolitano stated that the UC accepts all the recommendations issued by the state auditor’s office. “The three campuses we reviewed — Berkeley, Davis and Los Angeles — took much longer to discipline Senate faculty than staff and non-Senate
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faculty,” the report stated. In its review of 23 cases, the audit reported that, on average, “staff received discipline in 43 days, nonSenate faculty in 74 days and Senate faculty in 220 days.” The audit mentions one 223-day case at UC Davis in which a respondent was placed on “involuntary leave with pay shortly after the campus office received the complaint. This involuntary leave lasted until the respondent’s separation from the campus.” UCLA, Davis and Berkeley also did not “retain adequate case files to demonstrate how they resolved cases through the informal process, with Davis and Los Angeles performing especially poorly.” According to the audit, Davis “does not retain all communications with individuals or notes from discussions because its campus coordinator believes that university policy does not require the office to do so.” Because of existing Academic Senate processes, the handling of faculty misconduct takes “longer to determine discipline as it involves many steps and does not always specify time frames for completion,” according to the audit. The report also mentioned inconsistencies in the implementation of disciplinary measures. For UC Berkeley and UCLA, cases often exceeded the 60-day time frame established by the universities and, in some cases, did not obtain the necessary approvals for extensions. The audit also said UCLA “inappropriately closed some cases.” Wendi Delmendo, UC Davis’ chief compliance officer, spoke about the cases at UC Davis where extensions had taken place. “We did pretty well at meeting the 60 day deadline, and in the two cases where we did not, we issued extensions,” Delmendo said. “We monitor the timelines very carefully at Davis. We try not to issue extensions if we do not have to. Of course, things happen. Sometimes the parties need more time. Sometimes investigator workload is such that
we need to give them a little bit more time to finish the report.” The audit also reported a systemwide lack of “a clear mission that would enable it to ensure that the university’s response to sexual harassment is coordinated and consistent. At a minimum, the systemwide office should play a central role in setting university policy, analyzing complaint data and overseeing the campus offices.” At this time, the UC campuses do not communicate about approaches to handling cases of sexual misconduct, Delmendo said. “We are very much focused on what is happening at our campuses,” she said. “We have not had a requirement or a means to look at what the other campuses are doing. So that might be some work the system will take up.” Robert May, the systemwide chairperson of the Academic Senate and a professor of philosophy and linguistics, spoke about the Academic Senate’s role in the handling of faculty sexual misconduct cases. “The process for managing cases can be time consuming and complex,” May said, adding what he says is an issue with the state’s findings. “The cases that were being investigated by the California State Auditor were done before our current guidelines were put into place,” May said. “Those contain a number of time-based milestones that needs to be met [in] various parts of the procedure which are rather more complicated than are represented in the audit.” A Title IX officer must establish probable cause before disciplinary action can be taken, May said. The Title IX officer presents the investigation to the privilege and tenure committee within the Academic Senate, who then makes their findings known to the Chancellor. “We, the [Academic] Senate, are absolutely firmly committed to ensuring that these processes will [happen] as quickly as possible while respecting due SEXUAL MISCONDUCT on 11
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On July 19, 2018, the UC Board of Regents voted to approve the 2018-19 budget plan which saw an increase in state funding. The approved plan reduced UC tuition by $60 while the student service fee, at $1,128 a year, remains unchanged. The tuition reduction is a result of the termination of a “temporary surcharge” which began in the fall of 2007, “to recoup damages from two earlier class-action lawsuits, Kashmiri v. Regents and Luquetta v. Regents. By fall 2018, nearly all of those costs will be fully recovered,” according to a press release by the UCOP. “The class-action lawsuits, one filed in 2003 and the other in 2007, stemmed from claims made by students at UC’s professional schools that the university raised their tuition without sufficient notice,” the press release stated. “The university disagreed, but lost both cases on appeal. In total, the litigation process cost the university nearly $100 million.” The UC Student Association lobbied to secure additional funding from the California legislature. According to a press release sent by the UCSA, the association said it is glad to see the funds approved by Governor Brown for the UC system. The press release also highlighted a number of issues the association believes the state budget failed to address, including “support services, counselors, and tenure track faculty integral for student success.”