The Campus Conservative

Source: Tyler Morning Telegraph An alert from a campus license plate reader leads to a quick arrest for trespassing at UT-Tyler.  According to police reports, UT-Tyler Police arrested non-student Glenn Smith, 20, of Longview on Oct. 20 for trespassing on university property after he already received a trespass warning earlier that day. A license plate reader then tipped off police that evening that Smith returned to campus. License plate readers are relatively new technology at UT-Tyler and are posted at every campus entrance. According to police reports, two public safety officers (PSOs) say they discovered Smith while he was trying to hide from during their walk through of Room 106 in the fine arts complex around 8:16 p.m. on Oct. 20. A responding UT-Tyler Police officer subsequently issued Smith a trespass warning, barring his return to campus property Then at 10:07 p.m., reports say UTTPD received an alert from its FLOCK license plate reader that Smith’s vehicle entered the so...

    (Source: "Dayton 06-20 19 38 - Dayton Police Department Police Car" by David Ellis, via Flickr) Here are the recent crime reports for UT-Tyler's main campus according to UTTPD's Daily Crime Log. For more information, visit UTTPD's Daily Crime Log  webpage . Drug / Narcotics Offense, Minor in Possession of Tobacco / Tobacco Products -  Police encountered an incident of a drug / narcotics offense,  minor in possession of tobacco / tobacco products at Ornelas Hall on Nov. 17 at 3:15 p.m. Police issued a criminal trespass warning and closed the case. Previously Reported Crime in November:    Drug / Narcotics Offense - Police encountered an incident of a Drug / Narcotics Offense in The Foundry Parking Lot on Nov.14 at at 10:10 a.m. Police conducted a criminal arrest and closed the case. Drug / Narcotics Offense - Police encountered an incident of a Drug / Narcotics Offense on between 2611 Old Omen Road and University Blvd intersection on Nov.1...

("Apartment for Rent"  by Jun Acullador via Flickr ) The Foundry Apartments tops the UT-Tyler Police's Daily Crime Log as the most frequent site of reported campus crime. Since Aug. 14, The Foundry has had 10 instances of reported police responses. It saw three instances of drug / narcotics offense, two instances of domestic violence, one report of sexual assault, one of harassment, one stalking, one habitation burglary and one weapons offense. Two offenses (the weapons offense and a drug / narcotics offense) led to arrests. In the past semester, The Foundry has been the site of the most criminal incidents that led to an arrest of all six campus housing facilities. In contrast, Liberty Landing Apartments had seven, mostly alcohol- and traffic-related offenses. It has no reported drug-related offenses and no arrests. Ornelas Hall had five incidents, one drug / narcotics offense and no arrests. Patriot Village had four incidents, one a drug paraphernalia offense and no a...

  (Source: via Flickr) This week, I adjured The Student Government Association to take two steps before the semester's end to address student complaints about parking: address whether to raise the parking citation fine and whether to reinstate the volunteer faculty & staff remote parking shuttle. My full speech is available here . I thank Vice President Robert Carnes who led a discussion about the parking fine later in the meeting.  Senators had a lot to say in support of a parking fine increase. Multiple members also suggested solutions for how to address unauthorized parking. However, change happens through leadership. It is important to realize that someone must now take responsibility for the change he wants to see. Otherwise, the change senators want to see in the parking fine will likely fall through the cracks and SGA will end its semester without having taken meaningful action to improve students' parking experience. So, the parking situation needs a champion; and...

  (Source: via Flickr) Here is a recap of The Student Government Association at UT-Tyler's Nov. 14 meeting.  Summary I adjured student government in the Open Forum segment to act now to improve students' parking experience before the semester's end. I asked them to tackle the question of a parking fine increase and their support for a reinstatement of the volunteer faculty & staff remote parking shuttle of 2017. They addressed the parking fine increase, but took no action, neither on the fine or the remote shuttle.  Faculty Senate President Dr. Amentahru Wahlrab took senate questions during Speaker's Podium. He briefly touched on controversial Texas legislation S.B. 17 and S.B. 18 (which ban DEI offices and modify faculty tenure, respectively) in response to a student question. He said "nothing really changes" for UT-Sysem with regard to tenure approval process and post-tenure review. The process for faculty tenure still goes through the Board of Regents f...

  (Source: "Dayton 06-20 19 38 - Dayton Police Department Police Car" by David Ellis, via Flickr) Here are the recent crime reports for UT-Tyler's main campus according to UTTPD's Daily Crime Log. For more information, visit UTTPD's Daily Crime Log  webpage . Drug / Narcotics Offense - Police encountered an incident of a Drug / Narcotics Offense in The Foundry Parking Lot on Nov.14 at at 10:10 a.m. Police conducted a criminal arrest and closed the case. Drug / Narcotics Offense - Police encountered an incident of a Drug / Narcotics Offense on between 2611 Old Omen Road and University Blvd intersection on Nov.14 at 3:21 a.m. Police conducted a criminal arrest and closed the case. Previously Reported Crime in November:   Harassment - Police received a report of an incident of harassment that occurred at Ornelas Hall on Nov. 2 at 10:50 p.m. This case is closed. This report was for information only. Burglary: Not a habitation - Police received a report of a...

    (Logo. Source: Student Government Association at UT-Tyler.) The following is a copy of my speech to The Student Government Association at UT-Tyler on Nov. 14 during its Open Forum segment. You can listen to the speech audio on YouTube here . …. Hello, Student Government.  The semester is  ending   soon and you  now  have only two meeting s  left to take action on  the issue of student  parking. It is important that you do something to address this issue before the semester’s close or else students are going to return to campus next spring  and  find  that their parking experience is the same   as it was in the fall  and  that their student government has not  acted  to create meaningful improvement to their experience.  As a result,  I predict this  could  cause  many  students   to lose faith in student government. Therefore, I am here to remind you of your r...

    (Logo. Source: Student Government Association at UT-Tyler.) This week, Treasurer Soren Peters opened a discussion on pedestrian safety in student government, to which the assembly responded by also reporting their concerns about areas of pedestrian safety on the main campus. While Peters deserves commendation for taking initiative on this subject and for promoting awareness of its importance among his peers, the cause of pedestrian safety will continue to fail unless a leader takes responsibility for it. In this vein, here are four ways a student government member can take to resolve issues of pedestrian safety.  1. Resolve to figure it out. Student government members will have to first persevere through an preliminary investigation about his subject before he can discover productive solutions to propose for his issue. Investigations are open-ended at first and unclear how rewarding they will be. Therefore, a member must resolve to go through the uncomfortable, open-e...

  (Source: via Flickr) Here is a recap of The Student Government Association at UT-Tyler's Nov. 7 meeting.  Summary The assembly heard from guest speakers about an institutional effectiveness survey and UT-System's new microcredential. It also had a brief discussion on pedestrian safety. The assembly took no action. Speaker's Podium  Office of the Provost Drs. Lou Ann Berman and Christopher Holmquist spoke to SGA about the University's pilot post-graduation survey it intends to launch in January and Spring 2024. The survey will aim to measure how UT-Tyler prepares students to work with artificial intelligence (AI) in the workplace.  The two administrators came to request feedback from the assembly. Berman said that a past failure of her office's previous post-graduation surveys was not sharing the survey results with student government, an oversight which she said correct this year to gain more perspective from SGA's input.  Office of Digital Learning Director o...

  (Source: "Dayton 06-20 19 38 - Dayton Police Department Police Car" by David Ellis, via Flickr) Here are the recent crime reports for UT-Tyler's main campus according to UTTPD's Daily Crime Log. For more information, visit UTTPD's Daily Crime Log  webpage . Editor's Note: No new crime reported this week. Here is the reported crime to date from October 1: Harassment - Police received a report of an incident of harassment that occurred at Ornelas Hall on November 2 at 10:50 p.m. This case is closed. This report was for information only. Burglary: Not a habitation - Police received a report of a burglary that occurred at or near Soules College of Business between November 2 at 9:00 a.m. and November 3 at 10:00 a.m. This case is open. Disturbance, Drug/Narcotics Offense - Police responded to a disturbance at The Foundry Apartments that included a drug/narcotics offense on November 1 at 12:11 a.m. Police issued a written warning and closed the case. Ac...