Anthropology thefts leave SCCC unsettled and frustrated

By Zachary Q. Zimmerman  Recent thefts of Seattle Central’s anthropology department remains mysterious and unsettling. The skeletons and fossils in room 4105 have remained intact and well kept since Professor Peter Knutson inherited them from a previous anthropology professor. The most expensive artifact was an original chimpanzee skeleton. A plastic cup is suspended humorously from the hook which once held the skull of the chimpanzee. The skull and left arm were stolen last November and the culprit still has yet to be discovered. Peter Knutson says he has been the only one of  the two anthropology professors at SCCC to look into the case, file the reports, and attempt to replace the artifacts or the financial hole left by their disappearance. The Chimp skeleton is worth approximately $10-20,000 “Security,” said Knutson “has always been a problem. The door is often left unlocked, though they finally posted a sign asking for it to stay shut, none-the-less cabinets and things keep getting left unlocked.” Knutson said that the thief had walked into the room, likely in the evening when there are fewer students and staff milling about, and hoisted the skeleton off the shelf. The skeleton is attached to a plank and is a heavy artifact. The head and arm were dismembered and stolen. Instead of placing the skeleton back in its usual place where it would likely have gone unnoticed for days, it was placed where it would be instantly seen by anyone who walked into the room. Knutson, who was the first to walk in the room afterward, described the sight as eery. “[Finding the dismembered skeleton] felt like a statement, as though somebody was trying to say something by it.” The door to room 4105 is key carded, only professors with the card programmed to that room are able to enter. Either the door was left carelessly open for the culprit to enter the room, or the theif already had a key card, said Knutson. No matter how it happened, it did not appear to be an act of random vandalism, he says. The chimp skull and arm were not the only stolen artifacts. In the past few weeks or so it was discovered that a copy of an australopithicus africanus (ancestor of homo sapiens) skull and jaw bone had also been stolen. Professor Knutson was lecturing in 4105 which he hadn’t taught in for roughly four months and he went to where the skull was usually kept only to find it missing. He filed another missing property report to the school. This theft was not similar to the first. It was not immediately obvious that something had been stolen, nor did it feel as though somebody was “making a statement.” At the time not much was done to help Knutson replace the stolen artifacts or make any action toward finding the thief because the robbery occurred at a time of very high stress for faculty and staff. A recent faculty movement of “no-confidence” against the dean at the time created a tangible tension between the dean’s allies and school administration, which made communication and calls for assistance hard to be heard. Knutson said “I can still use the damaged skeleton [to teach the class.] I applied to the school for a replacement of the stolen cash value, or about $3000 of equipment. I was surprised, but finally the administrators supplied it.” The classroom is still filled with numerous expensive skeletons, skulls, and artifacts. What is being done to prevent further theft? “I am meeting with the Vice Principal [soon,]” said Knutson “to show him that there need to be more cabinets built and there needs to be better protection on the room.” After a pause he added “That’s assuming [the robber] was somebody from the outside.” Oddly enough, many of the signs and evidence seem to suggest it was not someone from the outside. Chloe Scheffe, a student in Knutson’s class, described the theft as ridiculous. “[Knutson] told us how expensive the things were that were stolen, and it’s just stupid,” said Scheffe. “Whoever did it probably just thought ‘Oh, wow this is cool’ and didn’t respect what they were taking. It’s just some ignorant person taking away resources from students and teachers. I suppose injustice is the word I’m looking for.” Much technology and computer equipment has recently been stolen at various locations around campus, such as the laptop in the office that contained many student’s financial aid information, as well as some computerized equipment from the school library. Scheffe said “I keep hearing about [theft,] and I feel as though I never see any security officers around campus, no security measures taken…the whole place seems ramshackle. If security doesn’t act fast and people don’t start to seem upset about what’s going on, it is just encouragement for theft. It will escalate the problem,” she said.

One Small Step For Students, One Giant Line At SCCC Enrollment Office

Colleges and high schools alike have always had bureaucratic issues, but is the enrollment office at Seattle Central exceptionally bad? “It took me over a month to even get registered as a student here!” states incoming freshmen Jamaika Norgard. “It’s like I wait in one line for an hour just to get sent to another one, told to come back another day.”  Jamaika did not necessarily have everything completed ahead of time, but she feels the office should’ve been more helpful to get her enrolled in the fall quarter.

 

Students seem to agree that the aspect of enrollment that needs the most improvement is the financial aid.  As student Glen says, “I was completely on time with all of my information with financial aid, when I went in a few days before the quarter to double check, they said that I was missing several pieces, and that they had emailed me about it.  I received no such email or notification.  There is just a lot of bad communication.”

 

“Its not terribly efficient,” says 5th year Indu, “but as long as you do all that you can before hand online its fine. Just never go on the first day of the quarter.”  It’s not just the first day of the quarter where the problem lies, the majority of students agreed that the office needs to be organized and made more efficient, but few went so far as to say that it is exceptionally bad.

 

Not all students had negative experiences with the enrollment office and registration process however.  “It was a pretty seamless process, for me at least.  I did everything that I could online and had no problems enrolling, says Nathaniel.  It seems as though if all the proper measures are done before hand, the process of registering for classes should be a relatively easy thing.  The main problem that is perceived is the length of the lines, but nothing can be done to fix that in the small space available.

 

Upon asking the question:”what do you think could be done to improve the system,” I got a variety of different answers.  “I think they need to have full staff working during the initial registration process,” states Indu.  The first day of classes the financial aid line and the registration lines stretched out the door of the school with a mere four people working.  Also the organization within the office is very lacking, the paperwork station is located directly in the middle of all of the lines, adding to the cramped feel and confusion.

 

“It would be really nice to be able to talk to someone about your schedule in private,” says Nathaniel.  Overall the enrollment office is doing a decent job.  Yes, there are things that could use improvement but nothing can be perfect.

 

Campus Security brings school into compliance with federal law

By Sahily Castro

Three years after the previous security manager ran afoul of federal law, all signs suggest that campus security has successfully managed to bring the school into compliance with the Clery Act.

The Clery Act requires all colleges and universities that participate in federal programs to keep and disclose crime data on and near their campus. The school’s police department of security department is required to maintain a public log of all crimes reported to them. The log must have the most recent 60 days worth of information and crime logs must be kept for seven years. The schools must report to the U.S. Department of education statistics on homicide, sexual offenses, robbery, assault, burglary, arson, motor vehicle theft, and arrests, disciplinary referrals for liquor-law violations and drug-law violations, as well as illegal weapons possession.

In October, the Seattle Central’s website crime statistic section had not been updated since 2008. Correct statistics had, however, been submitted to the Department of Education website. Robert Huss, the security director at SCCC, on October 14 said he would update the statistics by Monday the 18th.

On October 15, Huss was able to provide the school crime log at a moment’s notice, both the year to date for 2010 and the complete 2009 crime log, even providing a copy of the 2009 record for study and comparison within the hour.

Ninety-five crimes were reported in the 2009 crime log, but only sixty were reported on the Department of Education website. However, under the Clery Act, schools are not required to report thefts at the school, and that is what plagues Seattle Central most, as forty two of the crimes reported were theft. Overall, the crime data that must be reported under the Clery Act seemed accurate and the crimes on the crime logs that must be reported directly reflect the crimes that were reported to the Department of Education. As of  October 17, Huss updated the school website to reflect the 2009 crime statistics

In 2004, the school’s independent student newspaper, The City Collegian, featured a story that revealed discrepancies in the school’s crime statistics that caused the school to be out of compliance with the Clery Act. Again, in 2007, Scott Sands, as student reporter for The City Collegian, pointed out that “Discrepancies in crime statistics of arrests for liquor, drug, and weapons violations, as listed on Seattle Central’s website, bring their accuracy into question” and went on to presenting startling evidence that Dan Vicente, the security manager at the time, had tossed the schools crime records and falsified data to the Department of Education. Both former security officers later resigned their positions. The school administration shut down The City Collegian in 2008.

International Education Programs Office gets complaints from students

By Linh Nguyen

International Education Programs was made to help students from all over the world have a better chance coming to Seattle Central Community College to study with a vast variety of study programs. International Student Center (ISC) office is an assistive place for students and offers nothing but good information in order to help students get used to college life. However, many international students say that come in and out the office with unanswered questions and they feel frustrated because of the inefficiency of advisors and assistants.

According to these students, the assistants of ISC office sometimes have a hard time communicating with International students and do not show the full capability in assisting students. Many students who native languages are not English do not have a great English skills and excellence potentiality to communicate their intention. They say that the assistants cannot understand the questions of students, which lead to them asking students to repeat all over again many times and causing irritating to students.

Anh Ngoc Nguyen, an ESL student, share her resentful story when she was interviewed: “I come to the International Office when I got trouble with financial problems. However, when I presented my worry, she could not understand what I was talking about and asked me to repeat about three times. After that, I wrote down my Student ID Number, got to meet advisor and once again presented my problem to the advisor. If she does not the problem I was talking about and does not know how to solve it, why did she ask me to repeat it many times? Basically, the assistants do not know anything and cannot help students in an effective way. They are also not fast, sensitive and well trained enough to catch the problem of students and therefore no satisfactory answer is given by them”.

The assistants turn out to be also students themselves from school and volunteer to work in the ISC office. Obviously, they cannot give a full answer to students because they do not have enough information to do so. Many international students wonder about how volunteer students can work in ISC office and what requirement for them to work there. According to one assistant working in the office, students have to fill in the form provided in the office, which also includes the student’s class schedule. Students chosen to work in the office must be college students and have a well-defined schedule. Other than that, no more specific requirements are given. It is said that it is not complicated and rather easy to get in there, international students say they wonder about the efficiency and helpfulness of assistants.

There are also some students say that ISC is not an organized office and sometimes causing confusion and frustration to students. Jiin Park, one ESL students that has been studying in SCCC for four quarters, shared her dissatisfactory story when she was interviewed:  “An orientation was held to help students studying ESL register for classes and every student in level 5 and 6 had to go there, otherwise they could not register for next class. I could not come to the orientation because I had class at that time; in result, I was not allowed to register for classes. I came to the office and presented what my situation was, the assistants said there was no advisor at that time and she would make an appointment for me to meet advisor the next morning. I came there the next morning and still received the same answer as the day before. I was really worried because my class that I wanted to get in was full and I did not know which classes remained that I should take. I patiently come in the next five days and eventually met the advisors. I was really frustrated at that time and I wondered why they made a promise to me to come there but could not fulfill it.”

Khanh Thuy Nguyen, another ESL student, also reflected on her experience: “In summer quarter, I registered for one more class at the beginning of the quarter, making the total classes I studied for summer quarter was four. After studying for two days, I realized that class was not for me so I decided to drop it. However, I forgot about that and after two weeks I still neither paid the tuition for that class nor drop it. One day I came to class and the teacher said I was banned to come to class and have to go to the ISC Office immediately. I was really worried and nervous about what was going on, and that day was a test day so I asked her to let me stay in class and I would come to the office afterwards. The teacher said she was not allowed to do so and I had to go right away. I then realize that I had not dropped the class yet and that was why I was banned from class. Nevertheless, I already paid the tuition for the other classes so there was no reason to ban me from coming to those classes. They should had told me beforehand about I had not paid the tuition and reminded me several days ago, not just abruptly forcing me out of class like that.”

Certainly, having problems in paying tuition, registering and adding/dropping classes happen to anyone. There is high possibility that readers can feel the similarity of the situation just as they are the person in the story.

Every international student that studies in SCCC perhaps will remembers their first day at school – the orientation day. In order to break the unfamiliar atmosphere and make people friendly engage to each other, there will be a short game that each person has to remember three facts from their partners and says those things to the whole class. Each person will carry those three facts, says it to the next one and will get three new facts in return. After twenty-minutes talking to everybody, there will be a test to see how precisely one person remember about her/his partner. Most of them either miss one fact or falsely remember about that person. It turns out to be approximately seventy people in that room, but people cannot fully remember half of them.

Carla Honkanen, one advisor in the ISC office, then said that there are approximately 1000 international students enrolling to SCCC every year. She also said if students cannot even remember seventy people that they met in the orientation, think about one thousand that ISC officers and advisors have to handle every day. That is a no easy task. If every student come in and assume that everybody in the office must remember my story and problem because he/she came here several times before, that is no help to the advisors because they are human too, they cannot remember stories of that much people.

The programs and the office are created with the purpose to assist international students as much as they can and to “be responsive to the needs and concerns of international student, whether those needs are academic, emotional, or relational.” – according to ISC website. International students that come to the office when they are having problem do the best in giving the full opportunity for advisors to assist them, by openly expressing the problem, being understanding when they are having to wait in the long line in the office or advisors do not remember students’ problems.