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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (July 20, 1993)
119,1993 tale MG, i You. (tSlDEMT ] 'ou! A6 LMK. Af\ he -Dotin'T, (>oX£ oM aWowC-; The Battalion Vol.92 No. 176 (6 pages) 1893 - A Century of Service to Texas A&M - 1993 Tuesday, July 20,1993 Former NASA center director to teach at A&M roud Alt THE .OLE CAM, M HOOR o HE )N S T E'IEk :e rv\\LK! 3n man nterview ?wspaper >ne thing, ' he said. sioner for erbs had is headed lumanity ers tde loff RESS U.N. en- progress ; of talks standoff oring of on 2 on dis- ; blazing r Ameri- nes. The »d "Aid )on-type mouths A^e have ?nt, July : enter of missiles i, killing le Inter- By REAGON CLAMON The Battalion The former director of the NASA Johnson Space Center has accepted an appointment as the Zachry Professor of Engineering at Texas A&M after ending his year career with the space or ganization. Aaron Cohen resigned his po sition with NASA Friday and an nounced he will join the faculty of the College of Engineering this . He will teach a freshmen en gineering course and participate in a senior advanced design course when he assumes his fac- y.position. Cohen said he will also design a system engineering course this College of Engineering welcomes Aggie alumnus to Zachry Professorship fall to be offered to A&M stu dents in the future. He said the course will be a rare benefit to students and will put them a step ahead of other graduates. "This is a course that you usu ally don't see being offered at universities, and you usually have to learn it in the field," he said. "I see a need for it in my ex perience with business and gov ernment." Cohen has directed the NASA Johnson. Space Center since 1986. He has worked for NASA since joining the Apollo program as an engineer in 1962. Cohen, a Distinguished Alum nus of Texas A&M, said he has al- "There is nothing more heart warming than to go back to your old alma mater and teach ... I was very honored to be offered the Zachry Professorship." -Aaron Cohen, former director of NASA space center ways wanted to teach, and after he decided he was ready to retire last spring, he was offered the professorship from the University. "There is nothing more heart warming than to go back to your old alma mater and teach," he said. "I felt the time was right, and I was very honored to be of fered the Zachry Professorship." The Zachry Professor is sup ported by the Zachry foundation of San Antonio in association with the University. Dr. Herbert H. Richardson, chancellor of The Texas A&M Uni versity System, said Cohen will be a strong asset for the University. "I'm delighted that Aaron Co hen will now be part of Texas A&M's engineering program," he said. "As a leader in the space program for more than three decades, his unparalleled scien tific and programmatic experi ence will be a gold mine for our students." Cohen's experience will be missed, NASA administrator Daniel Goldin said. "Aaron represents all of the finest you could hope for in a government servant," Goldin said. "He has brought technical excellence, integrity, dedication and leadership to the Johnson Space Center." In addition to his teaching du ties Cohen will continue to work for NASA as a consultant to the administrator on human space flight as well as research and technology. Cohen's honors include twice receiving the highest award for senior federal executives, the Presidential Rank of Distin guished Executive (1982, 1988) and three times receiving NASA's highest award, the Dis tinguished Service Medal. Visitors receive campus tour Mm ti? M Hi *w > 11* „ > a a m "4? 4 ;» 'A***'? r ft \ 4* ■- :>i mm iiii ■ - i. 1 1 ^ - ■ ■■ .■■■ ■■■ ■ MARY MACMANUS/The Battalion Wes Wadle, a senior political science major from Dallas, leads a was explaining how Lawrence Sullivan Ross became president of group of people on a tour of campus for the visitor's center. Wadle Texas A&M. A&M defends against name change lawsuit Counsel: 'clerical error' in meeting notice By STEPHANIE PATTILLO The Battalion Charges that the Texas A&M University Board of Regents failed to give adequate notice of their March 5 meeting, which changed the name of three System schools, are being defended by A&M general counsel who said Monday that the regent's meeting was in compliance with the Texas Open Meetings Act. Last week five Texas A&I University alumni and one student filed a lawsuit against the A&M System alleging that the Board didn't give the necessary 72-hour notice required by the Texas Open Meetings Act be fore the meeting that resulted in the changing of Texas A&I University to Texas A&M University-Kingsville, of Corpus Christi State to Texas A&M-Corpus Christi and of Laredo State to Texas A&M International University. The name changes, effective Sept. 1, were made to reflect the institutions' ties to the A&M System. "The suit is a technical attack on the action the Board took in March in changing the names of the institutions," said James Bond, A&M deputy chancellor and general counsel. Dick Hutchens, a Kingsville lawyer representing the six plaintiffs, said the main objective of the lawsuit is to have the Board reconsider the Texas A&I name change. The original meeting of the Board to vote on the name changes was to be by telephone since there were not enough regents scheduled to be in town for a quorum at the time of the meeting. Bond said. Hutchens said the notice for this telephone meeting was posted with the secretary of the state on Feb. 26. Bond said when it was learned there would be a quorum for the meet ing, the regents decided to change the meeting from a telephone meeting to a regular meeting. On March 3, a request by the secretary of the Board was sent to the secretary of the state to amend the meeting format. Instead, Bond said the secretary of state made a mistake and posted a notice that the meeting was canceled. "The Board secretary made it clear all that had happened," he said. "It was an inadvertent clerical error. It was not sufficient to set aside the meeting." Although the secretary of the state's office posted March 3, 4 and 5 that the meeting was canceled. Bond said the Texas State Register, an See Lawsuit/Page 2 Greenwood testifies in murder trial By JENNIFER SMITH The Battalion Sherron Dante Greenwood feared for his life and had been warned repeatedly by school offi cials not to leave his house alone, tils attorney said Monday. Greenwood, 16, is accused of stabbing Billy C. Williams, 16, to death March 26 in the cafeteria of Bryan High School's Lamar ninth-grade campus.. Greenwood, who testified for most of the morning, said he Bung out with a group called the lip Toe Posse. Another group, called the Squab Mob, had been involved in numerous fights with the Tip Toe Posse, and Green wood said members of this group had threatened his life on numer ous occasions. Greenwood said members of the Squab Mob made many threatening phone calls to him saying "they were going to come hmy house and burn it down." Greenwood said school offi cials had repeatedly warned him h> watch his back. "They said I'd end up being hilled or hurt," Greenwood testi fied. When asked by Defense At torney Michelle Esparza if he could leave his home and feel s afe, Greenwood said, "not in fhis city." Ronnie Jackson, the principal °fan alternative school in the Bryan Independent School Dis- hict who had spent many hours talking with Greenwood, agreed the defendant was in danger every time he left his home. See Trial/Page 2 Clinton fires Sessions THE ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON — President Clinton fired defiant FBI Director William Sessions on Monday, cit ing "serious q uestions'' about Ses sions' conduct and leader ship. It was the first time an FBI director has ever been dismissed. Clinton is expected to name U.S. Dis trict Judge Louis Freeh of New York to head the agency, administration sources said. Freeh is a 43-year- old former FBI agent and federal prosecutor. The dismissal of Sessions, an nounced by Clinton himself, end- Sessions ed a long feud between the direc tor and the administration, which had long been trying to persuade him to step down voluntarily. The 63-year-old former federal judge from Texas has served un der a cloud since a report six months ago accused him of ethi cal lapses. .To the end. Sessions had fought the allegations and de nied any wrongdoing. He had 41/2 years left of his 10-year term, but served at the pleasure of the president. White House aides said that Sessions' defiance over the weekend in refusing a demand by Attorney General Janet Reno that he resign left Clinton no al ternative but to fire him. Clinton announced the firing after a short meeting at the White House with Reno. He said he had called Sessions and noti fied him of the dismissal. TASP reform exempts some students Guidelines add incentive for higher standardized test scores By CARRIE MIURA The Battalion Some Texas A&M students will be exempt from taking the state-mandated basic skills test beginning in the fall. The new standards were devised Friday by a joint effort among the American College Test (ACT), Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT), Texas Education Agency (TEA) and the National Education systems (TASP contractors). The guidelines, which were established by H. Paul Kelly in collaboration with the Coordinating Board Staff are as follows: •SAT total score must be equal to or greater than 1,200, with each section score (verbal and mathemat ics) equal to or greater than 550. • ACT composite score must be equal to or greater than 29, with the math and English scores only equal to or higher than 27. •TAAS (Texas Assessment of Academic Skills test) test score equal to or greater than 1,800 on each section. Michael Brasel, program director of the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, said the new standards were approved because "some people feel that students are being over-tested, and it's a way to elevate students from having to take more standard ized tests." It is estimated that no more than 10 percent of the students who normally take the TASP will be ex empt from the test, Brasel said. Brasel said the format of the TASP test will not change, but the standards for every section have been reformed. "The math section should better screen for algebra readiness," he said. Students will no longer write a personal narrative, but they must analyze, evaluate and synthesize giv en information on a certain topic and the reading section of the test will be screened for the academic level of material, Brasel said. "The new standards also add an additional incen tive to performing well on the standardized tests," he said. Karen Sturdevant, the director for the Center for Academic Enhancement, said A&M officials are still in the process of obtaining more information about the new TASP standards. Women's health ignored, report says By MICHELE BRINKMANN The Battalion The lack of resources for medical research aimed at women is causing their health to suffer, say Texas A&M and women's health specialists. Dr. Harriett Andreadis, associate professor of English and former women's studies department head, said she believes the problem of little medical research on women can be attributed to living in a traditionally male-dominated society. "Male equals human in our world," she said. "There is no question that women have been exclud ed from research." Dr. Ethel A. Tsutsui, professor of biochemistry and biophysics and women's studies department head, said, "There has always been an assumption that women will react the same way that men do biochemi cally. In the past, money decisions have been made by men, and there were not many women scientists in government. As a result, women were left out." Dr. Vivian Pinn who heads the new Office of Re search on Women's Health at the National Institutes of Health recently told an audience in Houston that the title of John Steinbeck's novel. Of Mice and Men, exemplifies women's status when it comes to med ical research. She said as a consequence, the health of all women has suffered. According to a report by the Texas Commissioner of Health, Dr. David R. Smith, a widely cited Har vard study indicated that an aspirin a day may help prevent heart disease — in men. Although heart dis ease is the number one cause of death among males and females, the study did not even include women. The largest national study on aging, the Baltimore Longitudinal Study on Aging, excluded women for its first 20 years. "Heart disease, cancer, and stroke are known top killers of men and women," Smith said. But most biomedical knowledge about the causes, symptoms. See Women/Page 2 Inside Sports • Ryan returns- Rangers beat Brewers 5-3 •Venetoulias balances soccer, football careers Page 3 Opinion •Editorial: Lawsuit against rap artist a dangerous precedent ►Column: Vasquez writes about Bosnia - not buttcracks Page 5 Weather •Tuesday: partly cloudy highs in the mid 90s •Forecast for Wednesday: partly cloudy, highs in me 90s to near TOO. Hot!! •Your Battalion extended forecast: Same old stuff, partly cloudy, highs in the 90s, lows in the 70s