Photo by Joshua Buck Auraria Board Dean Wolf outlines the specifics of the weapons ban, including who may carry a weapon as well as the process for weapon possession approval, during a Sept. 17 meeting in Tivoli 320. The board passed the ban unanimously.

The Auraria Board unanimously voted to ban concealed weapons on the campus last Wednesday, after postponing the vote in August. The nine board members present cleared up any misconceptions on exactly what constitutes a concealed weapon and the enforcement of such a ban.

The members agreed that people would not be searched for fingernail clippers or tweezers, nor will metal detectors flank the entrances to the campus. While carrying a concealed weapon, with a permit, does not violate Colorado state law, it will violate Auraria Campus policy, they said.
The Colorado concealed weapons law took effect in May. It states that anyone with a permit may carry a concealed weapon nearly anywhere in the state.

The permit application, which can be found online and at local police stations, requires a minimum age of 21 years,  $152.50 for the processing and background check and a certificate of weapons training. The permit is issued about 90 days later and is valid for five years.

The judicial officers of Metro, CCD and UCD are meeting with the campus police to make the policy consistent across the campus. Dean Wolf, executive vice president of Auraria, believes this ban will make people feel safer and add a sense of stronger security on the campus.

Photo by Joshua Buck Auraria Police Chief Heather Coogan listens to discussions about the new campus weapons ban Sept. 17 in Tivoli 320. Weapons on campus can only be permitted if approved by Coogan, including those carried by police officers, whether on duty or stuents, as well as cases involving theatrical productions.

“People already feel threatened in society,” said Police Chief Heather Coogan. “There is no need for a weapon in the classroom. It’s disruptive to the learning environment.”
People in law enforcement are exempt from the ban.

Not everyone is pleased with the new policy, including Dudley Brown, executive director of Rocky Mountain Gun Owners. “This (Auraria Campus) is another criminal-safe zone,” said Brown. “That means all the criminals know it’s OK to be there, because no one has a gun but them.”
The RMGO is a non-profit, non-partisan gun lobbying organization.

“I can guarantee you this,” said Brown. “The first time a student denied his right to carry a concealed weapon is harmed, they’ll sue the Auraria Campus for denying their civil right. State law is state law, and we’ll back anyone that wants to challenge this.

”Some private institutions and establishments, including Six Flags Elitch Gardens and Colorado Mills Mall, have set up similar policies banning weapons by posting signs saying “NO FIREARMS.”

“I think that’s dumb,” said Brown. “Our members don’t spend their money there, and let me tell you; gun-owners have a lot of money to spend.”
Not everyone agrees with Brown on the issue.

“It’s a good move to keep temptations away and increase the amount of civility on campus,” said Joseph Sandoval, professor and chair of the criminal justice department at Metro. “The policy banned seems to have more bark than bite.”

The RMGO Web site lists businesses and owners that ban concealed weapons on their property, but places like Galyan’s, which at one time posted a NO FIREARMS sign, have since discontinued the policy. The RMGO considers Galyan’s to be redeemed and urges its members to spend money at the sporting goods store.

Metro sophomore Broderick Wazzie feels that guns are made for one thing.
“If we start to carry (weapons), problems will come,” he said. “Someone has the power to take someone’s life.”

Wazzie said the weapons ban the Auraria Board implemented makes him feel safe.
Auraria Campus as well as all of the higher-education campuses throughout the state have implemented such policies. While the law allows permit-carrying people to carry concealed weapons, it is a violation of campus policy.

“If there is someone on campus with a gun, we want to know about it,” Coogan said. She advises not to approach the person but to call the campus police.

Auraria defines banned weapons as:

• Any firearms, BB & Pellet Guns
• Bows and arrows
• Crossbows
• Slingshots
• Knuckles of lead, brass or other metals
• Bowie knives
• Look-alike weapons, such as those used in dramas and plays, are also banned.

Auraria Police and the Auraria Board ask that any information regarding a violation of the weapons ban be reported immediately to the Auraria Police Department.

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Metro’s faculty union will hold their first rally at 3:30 p.m., Wednesday, Sept. 24 at the Golda Meir Center. The Colorado Federation of Teachers, an affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers, will sponsor the rally.

“The AFT’s mission is for faculty to have more of a voice to determine the conditions of their employment,” said CFT Director of Field Services Mark Belkin. The meeting will be open to the public.

“This meeting is, among other things, an attempt to make information available to the  wider Metro community,” said David Sullivan, an associate professor of philosophy.

The rally will include a wide range of speakers, including Penfield Tate of Metro’s Foundation Board, CFT legal council Joe Goldhammer, Faculty Senate President Joan Foster and faculty member Timothy Gould.

Joan Foster, Left, and Penfield Tate are some of the key speakers who will address students, faculty, staff and administration at the rally Wednesday, Forester is Metro's current Faculty Senate president , and Tate serves on Metro's foundation board.

According to Gould, the rally will serve as a “dual-educational function” for union and non-union faculty to learn more about the issues.

“The issue of faculty rights, ranging from the rights implied by the granting of tenure, to the right to organize, and to the tradition of shared governance among faculty, administrators, trustees and students, will, presumably, all be discussed,” Gould said.

The tenure issue has been a source of controversy since Metro’s Board of Trustees released their policy manual last July.

Many faculty members have construed the manual’s reduction in force policy as an elimination of tenure, since it would allow the president to eliminate tenured faculty in the event of a budget crisis.
Interim President Ray Kieft recently reported to the board of trustees that he will propose two revisions to the reduction in force policy but could not be reached for comment.

“I’ve had 23 years experience in business, and I’ve never heard of a situation in which the best-trained staff is the first to go,” said Martin Miller of Metro’s history department.

Tenure, as Gould pointed out, is “not just about job security.” Without meaningful tenure, Metro could be “the largest school in the country at risk of censure for tenure loss,” Gould said.

Metro currently has a ratio of 290 full-time faculty to roughly 1600 adjunct faculty, which Gould called “one of the worst ratios in the country.”

The new tenure policy will actively decimate a faculty already diminished by “age and disgust at working with people who have little concept of a college education,” Gould said.

Sullivan noted the importance of tenure in ensuring academic freedom.

Tenure is the guarantee for academic free-dom.  Without academic freedom, control of the curriculum is effectively removed from the faculty’s hands,” Sullivan said.

Despite the grievances, the union “is not deadlocked against the board,” Miller said.

“It’s important to demonstrate to the administration that there is a faculty solidarity,” Miller added, who also noted that the issues at stake will ultimately affect the students.

“There seems a deep sense of powerlessness among students and certain faculty alike, as if we are beaten before we even started,” Gould said.

He also said students are invited and encouraged to attend the rally.

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Former Metro President Sheila Kaplan’s resignation in June is not the only controversial issue surrounding the school’s relation to Kaplan. She recently settled with the college for $25,000 for disparaging remarks made against her by Metro Board of Trustees Chairman Bruce Benson during a July dinner billed as a social event.

An official Metro release and settlement agreement states: “Kaplan has asserted that certain statements made by a member of the board defamed her and breached a provision of the resignation agreement, which promises that the board will not disparage her as president of the college.”

The document does not state what the comments were, and Kaplan and her attorney Sheldon Smith were both out of town at press time. But according to a Sept. 4 Rocky Mountain News article and the notes taken at the dinner, Benson commented during a question-and-answer session that Kaplan had lost confidence in the board, caused in part by misstated facts regarding enrollment and student retention as well as what Benson said he believed to be a “straying from (Metro’s) mission.”

The notes also stated that Benson said Kaplan’s resignation was not politically motivated.
Foundation board member and Alumni Association President Courtney Cowgill, who took the notes at the dinner, said such a settlement and the controversy it has caused could affect the students, as well as the college.

“Students are paying, at Metro, state tuition dollars for an education that is rated very high,” she said. “So it’s up to you as students to say ‘I am paying this amount of dollars in tuition and I want the very best education that Metro can give me.’ But if the school is focused on something else, they need to do that and still not lose their focus on educational qualities.”

She also said that she and other members were not aware, during the dinner, what the disparaging remarks were.

According to that same News article, foundation board member Penfield Tate said the statements made were somewhat shocking.

“It was an astounding series of statements,” he said in the article. “For me, personally, I found some of the statements inconsistent with what representatives of the board of trustees had shared with the foundation board before.”

While interim President Ray Kieft has replaced Kaplan for the moment, Cowgill said the resignation of Kaplan and several other Metro administrative officials could also have an effect on the school.
“You want to make sure that the academic excellence of the college is still there and protected,” Cowgill said. “And you need to make sure that whoever is running the college, that that is one of their highest priorities.”

Cowgill also said the trustees need to ask themselves some questions

“People have different priorities,” she said. “What if those people receive different instructions from the people they report to? What if the faculty gets tired and they decide not to work for Metro anymore? What if your faculty starts leaving because of the unionizing?”

During a Metro Alumni Association meeting Friday, Cowgill said she believed the quality of education at the school might be at risk

“It’s threatened. What I wanted to make sure was that trustees make a total commitment and a verbal commitment to the quality of education,” she said.

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In the last five years, Metro has grown in both enrollment and as an online class provider, according to the fall 2003 census from the Office of Institutional Research.

In the fall of 1999, the total number of students attending Metro was 17,595. Since then, there has been an increase of 2,635 students, bringing the total to 20,230 students enrolled for the fall of 2003.

In this same time period, the average age of students has dropped from 24.1 to 23. Census records show that the college has not lost its older students in the process, however. The number of students age 45 and older has increased at the college by 0.3 percent from the fall of 1999, according to the Office of Institutional Research.

Among Metro students, 23 percent are classified as an ethnic minority, compared to the University of Northern Colorado’s 13.9 percent.

According to an article in The Denver Post, 26.6 percent of Colorado residents are non-white. In Denver, the population is 49.9 percent white and 50.1 percent are non-white. These figures show that Metro’s percentage of minorities is only 3.3 percent below the state percentage.

UNC and Metro are comparable in tuition costs. A major difference between the two schools is that UNC has a set tuition cost of $1,260 for between nine and 18 credit hours. Tuition at Metro changes according to how many credit hours a student is taking. For example, a student taking nine hours will pay $757.80 in tuition, while a student taking 18 hours will pay $1,191.48.

These tuition costs do not include other fees, which vary in each school according to the number of credits a student takes.

Fees at Metro for a student taking nine hours are $235.15, while a student with 18 hours will pay $285.27.

At UNC, a student taking between nine and 18 hours pays $269.22 in fees.

Metro students have begun to take more online classes. In the fall of 1999, only one percent of students were taking online classes exclusively.

In the fall of 2003, 3.6 percent of Metro students are taking advantage of this off-campus option.

In 1999, 92.4 percent of students were not taking any type of an online course.

As of this current semester, 81.7 percent of students are not taking an online course.

A survey of 2000-01 Metro graduates was conducted in the spring of 2002.

In this survey, conducted by the Academic Affairs, Career Services, Alumni Relations and Institutional Research offices, these Metro alumni generally felt they had received a good education.

Following are percentage measurements of the graduates and college’s success.

• Ninety-five percent of the survey respondents said they were satisfied or very satisfied with their Metro experience.

• Ninety-seven percent said their instructional program met their education goals, answering “yes, somewhat” to “yes, very much.”

• Sixteen percent of these survey respondents are unemployed.

• Seven percent of these 16 percent are not seeking employment.

• Seventy-two percent said their jobs are related to their fields of study.

• Ten percent said their jobs are not related to their majors and they are not satisfied with them.
According to the survey, Metro grads had high percentages for acquiring jobs after graduation.

• Forty-eight percent had jobs at the time of graduation

• Thirty-six percent found jobs in less than six months after graduation.

• Eleven percent of these employed graduates make $50,000 or more per year.

• Five percent earn less than $10,000 per year.

• The most common income bracket, in which 35 percent of the graduates were included, is between $20,001 and $30,000 per year.

• Twenty-two percent of the survey respondents are enrolled in a program of further study.

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As they make their way down the streets of Denver, members of the Sons of Italy will come across some of the usual protesters during their annual celebration of Christopher Columbus.

But this Oct. 11, they may come across a whole new scene. Flanking the streets will be silent protesters holding signs reading “1492,” the year Columbus arrived in the Americas.

After the initial confusion passes, the marchers will see what many consider to be Columbus’ true legacy: the conquest, slavery and murder of Native Americans by Columbus and his men as depicted by street performers.

This is one of several protest ideas developed by the Metro activist organization Creative Resistance for activist issues and events. The street performance is one idea the group has for the Transform Columbus Day movement to be held Columbus Day weekend, joining other groups in the protest against the celebration of Christopher Columbus.

TCD is just one of many causes the group supports and is working for, but they’re not a traditional protest group.

“What Creative Resistance is looking to do is protest in more effective ways,” said sophomore Lindsey Trout, one of the four main members of the group. “It’s also to get kids plugged in and active in college, because if you don’t get them involved in college, they won’t be later on.”

Their official mission statement reads: “Creative Resistance is a Metro State organization dedicated to seeking innovative methods of non-violent resistance to injustice.”

Sophomore Jeremy Bernier, one of the primary four members, said CR is important not only to take a stand against social injustices, but also to educate.

“I think it’s to shed light to issues that don’t really get talked about in a manner that is appealing to people like artists and young people; just to get people involved in what’s going on in the world,” he said. “We’re in the belly of the beast and it’s our responsibility.”

The group was initially formed in the beginning of the spring semester to protest the U.S.-led war in Iraq. Bernier was one of several on campus who participated in a CR-sponsored “Peace Camp,” in which protesters camped out in tents for a few weeks with anti-war sentiment signs such as one reading, “We ain’t stoppin’ ‘till the bombs stop droppin’’

Member Joel Tagert said he almost feels compelled to be involved in a group like CR.

“I’m in this because the world is messed up,” Tagert said. “People are dying all the time and this government seems to think that’s okay. That’s crazy. I’m in this group because we’re talking about the survival of the human race.”

CR is looking at making better music for rallies or getting artists to do stuff with protests.

“If you look at most rallies, they’re pretty sedate. And the more sedate they are the less young people want to be involved,” Trout said. “If there are young people involved, more young people will want to become active.”

The group – whose only official members consist of its founders Bernier, Tagert, Trout and sophomore Caroline Fontoura – is currently working on issues such as promoting voter registration, supporting Democratic candidate Dennis Kucinich, and speaking out against the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas.

Bernier explained the FTAA is an agreement that essentially allows for corporations to do whatever they want without government interference.

FTAA, which was passed in 1998 under the Clinton administration and is an expansion of the North American Free Trade Agreement and the World Trade Organization, has the potential to threaten job security and endanger public healthy and safety, according to Bernier.

The group is pushing the issue because, according to Trout, it is, in many ways, their pivoting point.
“It all goes back to globalization,” Trout said. “It’s so central to practically every issue we’re fighting right now.”

Fontoura recently returned to Colorado after a trip to Cancun, Mexico where she and nearly 10,000 activists from around the world protested the WTO talks, which eventually ended after several members walked out.

“Hearing about the talks collapsing was really amazing,” she said.

And while the protests were marked in the media by the suicide of a Vietnamese farmer, she said the protests had a positive effect on her.

“I felt an immense sense of solidarity,” she said, “and I came back with a lot of hope.”

While the group is taking on specific issues, they also have strong opinions about some main problems they find on campus and in the community, including people’s lack of concern for the problems in the world.

“Students really are apathetic,” Tagert said. “And so many students don’t even care about their own welfare.”

Trout agreed and said she thinks it’s really not too much to ask for people to help out.

“People just sit around watching TV waiting for the oxygen masks,” Trout said. “I just want people to donate a couple hours a week to an issue.”

The members said that the people they really have a problem with are Republicans, especially politicians like President George W. Bush.

“These Republicans are greed-heads, they just care about themselves and theirs and as far as they’re concerned, the rest of the world can go to hell,” Tagert said. “They will kill you for money. And George Bush will kill you for money; that’s flatly the truth. They do not care about human rights.”

David Horowitz, who Tagert places in that group of radical conservatives, is pushing for the Academic Bill of Rights, which calls for more conservative perspectives in college classrooms.

Tagert recently opposed Horowitz and his coming to Metro on Sept.. 30 in a Metropolitan editorial. Horowitz’s speech is another event CR is planning on protesting.

While some could accuse Creative Resistance of pushing the “liberal agenda,” the members said they consider CR a “progressive” group, more than liberal.

Tagert also said the group welcomes people of all political viewpoints.

“We want everyone here. If somebody objects to what we’re doing, if they object what we’re about, let them come here and try to change our minds and I’ll try to change their minds,” he said. “I’m confident that the truth will win out. I think any debate benefits the truth.”

Trout said the group allows for levels of involvement for those who want to be involved.

“(It’s great) even if people just come to an event a semester or help out in some way,” she said.

She said she feels the lack of activism on campus and the substantial lack of young people in the activist community in Denver is a problem, but there is a reason behind it.

“I think that things are so bad right now, that people don’t want to admit it,” Trout said. “To get involved and try and change it, people would have to become aware of how bad it is and they don’t want to face it. And their lives are okay, so they don’t care if somebody else’s life isn’t.”

Tagert is also angry at what seems to him to be an overwhelming amount of apathy, but doesn’t want to demonize anyone.

“I believe that people are fundamentally good,” Tagert said. “We have a choice in how we act. But there’s always a conflicting tendency in the human psyche towards selfishness on the one hand and selflessness on the other.” Bernier said he often gets discouraged but tries to keep his head up.

“I just keep fighting,”

For more information on Creative Resistance, call the Baghdad House at 303-534-5456 and ask for a CR representative.

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None this week

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Second five weeks underway
Sept. 27 will be the end of first five weeks of the first term. Classes will begin for the second five weeks on Sept. 29.

Appreciating diversity
Those interested in learning to accept and understand differences in others are invited to attend a workshop from 3-4:30 p.m. on Sept. 30 in Tivoli 651. Focus will be on stereotypes, and how prejudices block our paths to cultural appreciation.

For more information call Michael Burgan or Jennifer Arellano at 303-556-3132.
Escape stress with yoga

On Saturday, Sept. 27 from 9 a.m. - 3 p.m. a Shoshoni Yoga Retreat will be offered to students for a fee of $20.

Centered in a peaceful Colorado location, the day will consist of pranayana classes (practice of proper breathing and concentration), hatha yoga and a vegetarian lunch.

Call Linda at 303-556-6954 to sign up. Space is limited.

Homeopathy and health care
Dr. Smith, a naturopathic physician, will be in Tivoli 640 on Oct. 1 to discuss how current health care practices can be affected by homeopathy (a system of medicine based on the Law of Similars).   Time TBA.

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In last weeks issue of the Metropolitan Olgal Chilian’s name was reported with the first name last and the last name first.

Also, the story on the Chicano Studies Department was credited to the wrong reporter. It was written by Jerry Roys.

The Metropolitan strives for accuracy. Report mistakes to the news editor at
leavittn@mscd.edu

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