Last week, officials at the University of Texas at San Antonio confirmed the placing of two tenured professors on an indefinite paid suspension due to their alleged violation of the school's ethics code.
David Gabler, a UTSA spokesman, said that professors Chia Shun "Rocky" Shih and Alberto Arroyo had been found guilty of using information from land surveys that were part of one of Shih's students' projects in order to purchase 33 acres of undeveloped land near the small Texas town of Helotes, about 20 miles northwest of San Antonio.
Despite the guilty judgment, Elizabeth Ortiz, the real estate investor who organized the professors' investments, as well as several of the professors' students, claim the men have been falsely convicted by an "unprofessional" investigation by the university.
The students whose work was allegedly misused were students of Shih, Ortiz said. Arroyo did not work closely with the students throughout the project as Shih did, Ortiz said.
"For some reason, the university wants to lump these two men together, but they are two different circumstances," she said.
David Burris, a student who participated in the design project in question, wrote in a letter to UT-San Antonio President Ricardo Romo on Feb. 1 that the information the students gathered for their design was for a plan for a public park that was to be built on the property. Burris also said this information could not have assisted the professors in their property investment.
"My group and I were looking at the property strictly from a park development point of view," Burris wrote. "I am 100 percent certain Dr. Arroyo is not going to spend his money on a piece of property and then incorporate our ideas and designs for a public park."
Ortiz said that throughout her career in real estate, she has never had an investor buy a property with the intention of making it a public park.
Burris said he got an aerial photo of the area from the Internet for his project. His group then used the photo, along with a specialized computer program, to design plans for a public park.
"Anybody could have had access to [this photo]," Burris said. "We never went out and surveyed the property."
Burris visited the property in order to more accurately develop his concept for a public park. He stressed he did not do any engineering work that the professors could have exploited.
While a college student might be able to gather general measurements by visiting a site without any instruments, in order to officially purchase a piece of land, engineering work by registered surveyors is usually required, said Martha Juch, executive director of the Texas chapter of the American Society of Civil Engineers.
Burris also said that in his group's presentation to Shih and Arroyo in May, they never disclosed the exact location of the property, making it unlikely that the professor's investment in the land was intentional.
Gabler said he did not know the reason why it had been previously reported that the students surveyed the land.
Ortiz said that at the time of the student's presentation, the land was under a month-to-month contract extension with the city of Helotes.
"They had no idea [the property] would go back on sale," Ortiz said. "They would have had to be mind readers to know that."
According to Helotes Mayor Tom Schoolcraft, the city's extension expired on June 1, several weeks after the students gave their presentation.
"They are determined to find these men guilty because they are trying to show that they are doing a favor to the students," Ortiz said. "All the evidence is there to exonerate these men, but the university has turned this into a witch hunt."
