Thursday, October 9, 1986/The Battalion/Page 3
State and Local
Chinese students excel at A&M
lav.l
By Olivier Uyttebrouck
Sufi Writer
On a campus of more than
55,000 students, 71 students
Tom the People’s Republic of
5hina may be easy to overlook.
But there are twice as many
nainland Chinese at Texas A&M
his year as there were last year.
Most of the 36 new Chinese
itudents are here on graduate
issistantships.
The departments they are
forking with include physics,
hemistry, engineering, geology
md business administration. One
s a doctoral student in sociology.
They are here as a result of a
letermined recruiting effort by
U.M faculty and administrators,
mxious to tap this rich vein of
icademic talent.
The People’s Republic of
China long has been reluctant to
let its star students leave the
:ountry, savs physics professor
Dr. Chiarin Hu, whose depart
ment has gotten most of the new
Chinese students. American uni
versities didn’t have access to
mainland Chinese students until
about five vears ago, he says.
This year the physics depart
ment has picked up two winners
of the prestigious China-United
States Physics Exam Admission
test, which selects the top 200
physics students in mainland
China, Hu says.
Offered to only 600 graduates
of undergraduate physics pro
grams in China, the CUSPEA ex
amination is about as rigorous as
the qualifier examination the
A&N^ physics department re
quires its doctoral students to
take, phvsics professor Dr. Che-
Ming Ko says.
In the last six months, two
mainland Chinese have made the
top two scores any doctoral stu
dents ever have made on A&M’s
examination, Ko says.
Two of A&M's new students
entered the University of Science
and Technology at the age of 15,
Ko says.
These two students, together
with the two CUSPEA winners,
are here as a direct result of A&M
President Frank Vandiver’s trip
to China in the spring of 1984
and both are funded by presi
dent’s scholarships, says Ko.
For most Chinese students,
however, going to school in the
United States is no easy trick.
Of the 150 applications the
physics department received
from Chinese students for this
academic year, only 20 were ac
cepted, Ko says.
And of these, three were un
able to come because the Univer
sity delayed in sending out the I-
20 form the Immigration and
Naturalization Service requires of
students entering the United
States, Ko says.
Jun Li, president of the A&M
China Club, says that in an effort
to avoid losing its top students,
the Chinese government has im
posed a new law, effective Oct.. 1,
that students already enrolled in
a graduate program in China will
be unable to continue their edu
cation in the United States.
Li says that since some of the
new students here this year de
cided to come now to avoid get
ting caught by the new law, he ex
pects that the number of new
Chinese students will not rise so
dramatically next year.
But other developments may
work to increase the number of
mainland Chinese at A&M in fu
ture years.
John Norris, director of the
Office of International Coordina
tion, says that over the past year
several of China’s leading univer
sities have signed agreements
with A&M for professor and stu
dent exchanges.
Bonfire makes ‘hot topic’
for symposium audience
Photo by Tom Own bey
Redpots speak at Sally’s Symposium.
By Cindy Bomba
Reporter
Safety and grades are the main goals of
the bonfire committee, six senior redpots
told a crowd of 50 people at Sully’s Sympo
sium Wednesday.
The redpots explained bonfire proce
dures and encouraged students to get in
volved with bonfire at the weekly sympo
sium.
Eric Witten myer, a senior redpot,
opened the discussion by explaining the hi
erarchy of the bonfire committee. Witten-
myer said the committee consists of 29
people, with eight senior redpots in charge
of the whole operation. The senior redpots
were junior redpots last year and teach this
year’s junior redpots how to build the bon
fire safely, he said.
John Truitt, senior redpot and head
stack, addressed the myth about redpots
having bad grades and missing classes.
“As redpots you may smell us a few feet
away,” Truitt said, "but we usually make it
to class and last year we had a 2.8 overall.”
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and the world may never be the same!
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UT researcher says
use of technology
enhances success
By Patty Pascavage
Reporter
Using information technology ef
fectively can enhance a person’s
power of success, a communications
researcher told about 200 Texas
A&M students and faculty members
Wednesday at Rudder Tower.
Dr. Frederick Williams, Director
of the University of Texas at Aus
tin’s Center for Research on Com
munication Technology in Society,
said that people can get ahead in life
by learning to control the media and
make use of its technology for gain
ing what they want.
“If you know a little more about
the information technology and are
creative with it, you can get ahead of
the pack,” he said.
Williams said the new generation
of information technology is marked
by the growing use of computers.
He said a study conducted last
summer showed that one out of ev
ery three Texans uses a computer at
work and one out of every five Tex
ans has a computer at home.
“We’ve gone from an era where
the computer was something that
was hidden in a refrigerated room
on a special floor behind electroni
cally locked doors to where it’s sit
ting around on the playdesks of
small children,” Williams said.
“Our whole lives are tied into
computers, so students should look
ahead now to see how their careers
will be affected by information tech
nologies,” he said.
He said, however, that people
should be aware of the negative con
sequences of technology if its effect
on society is to be positive.
Use of technology will be success
ful only if it is kept closely monitored
and controlled, he said.
“I fear that technology is moving
along so fast that we will witness
some of the negative consequences
before we will decide it’s something
that we have to govern and balance,”
Williams said.
But senior redpot Bryan Tutt said,
“Once the centerpole gets here and we
start working on stack, the junior redpots
don’t do much of anything. They eat,
sleep, study, and work on bonfire.”
The entire student body is able to work
on the bonfire. Truitt said redpots and
brownpots usually are men, either cadets
or civilians. Each civilian dorm has a yel-
lowpot and three or four crew chiefs to
help motivate the dorm, he said.
Women usually join in as pinkpots, Tr
uitt said. He said the duties of the pinkpots
are to provide the cutting crew with lunch
at the cutting site and help the cookie crew.
Truitt, Wittenmyer and Tutt were
joined at the symposium by senior redpots
Kent Hamaker, Brian Lehne and Tom
Kelley.
Tom Kelley ended the symposium an
swering a question about why they became
redpots.
“As a freshman and a sophomore at
A&M, the school gives a lot to you. Being a
redpot is our way of paying back the school
for what it has done,” Kelley said.
Geren tells Student Senate
he'll emphasize education
Congressional candidate Pete
Geren told the Student Senate
Wednesday that he is committed
to education and will represent
Texas A&M’s best academic in
terests if elected as the U.S. 6th
District candidate Nov. 4.
Geren and current 6th district
Rep. Joe Barton were invited to
speak at the senate meeting, but
Barton declined the invitation.
“It’s critical to have someone
committed to education,” Geren
said. “It’s also important to have
effective representation — some
body that can get things done for
Texas A&M.”
Geren said the U.S. govern
ment is the biggest founder of re
search funding in the world, but
A&M presently isn’t getting the
number of grants it deserves.
“I want to make sure that
Texas A&M has the opportunity
to participate and make a contri
bution to the rest of the nation
which will only be available if
A&M gets its share of the grants
and the research funding that’s
going to come out of Washing
ton,” he said.
Geren also criticized Barton’s
endorsement of the tax reform
bill which Congress passed re
cently.
The bill increases tax on the oil
and gas industry at a time when
Texas can’t afford it, he said.
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