Western Iowa Tech instructor resigns, students protest - KTIV Siouxland's News Channel

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SIOUX CITY (KTIV) -Dozens of Western Iowa tech students gathered, this afternoon, at the Sioux City campus to show their concern for the alleged treatment of a college instructor, who recently resigned.

Mariana Pacheco, who worked as a psychology instructor at WITCC, said she was stalked on campus by a former student. She added the student also boasted having access to AR-15s in homework assignments.

Pacheco resigned after she brought her concerns to campus police, and nothing changed. Students, at today’s protest, say they want a change in the WITCC’s policies about on-campus safety.

“She had to be escorted to all of her classes, escorted to her office, to her car; that’s ridiculous. No one should have to go through that,” said one WITCC student, Taylor Place. “Any school should be a place where you feel safe, and if I don’t feel safe then what’s the point in me paying you for me to be at your college and for me to not feel protected?”

“He was one of my former students, he took three classes with me. He’d be going around my classroom, staring at me and going again, staring at me and going again,” said Pacheco. “Things got worse and things got very scary.”

The former WIT instructor also told KTIV in a half-hour interview, Tuesday afternoon, that the former student would follow her on campus and to her office, and wait for her in hallways. Pacheco reached out to campus police, WIT administrators, and Sioux City police about the stalking and harassment.

“I filed a complaint with campus police multiple times, and they told me to ‘use my mom voice,’” said Pacheco. “They would just minimize it, anything I said was met with ‘this is normal.’”

“When complaints are brought in we have our policies and our procedures in place that we follow,” said WITCC’s Director of Marketing, Andrea Rohlena. “We follow them to a T, do our due diligence, and we investigate the situation so that we can give both parties the support that they need.”

Pacheco, who had taught at WIT for two years, emailed her students after she submitted her resignation. She said, “...although this decision has been quite painful, it has been prompted by the college’s failure to ensure my safety, leaving me with no choice but to resign,”

The email sent from Pacheco to her students following her resignation.(KTIV)

“I hope that my resignation would work as a catalyst for positive change. Because I know I’m not the only student or faculty member that’s going through the same thing there right now.”

Pacheco, and students KTIV spoke to today, say the student involved in this case is still on campus. When asked to confirm that, a WITCC representative said they couldn’t because of the confidential nature of the case. But, she went on to say, “...we want to make sure that WITCC stays a place where our students and our faculty can feel safe.”

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