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The A&M Career Center offers students the
opportunity to plan for their future.
Page 2
Opinion
MICHAEL LANDAUER: Date rape is not just a girl's
problem. Guys need to help prevent it, too.
Sports
The Lady Aggie volleyball team prepares
to face the University of Texas Lady
Longhorns tonight.
Page 5
WEDNESDAY
September 14, 1994
Vol. 101, No. 13 (10 pages)
“Serving Texas A&M since 1893"
Dislike still main rea-
>n of dropouts
[WASHINGTON (AP) — More than
ja.quarter of the girls who drop out of
high school cite pregnancy as the
reason — and nearly 8 percent of male
dropouts say it’s because they’ve
Bcome parents.
■ The most common reason for
dropping out still is a plain dislike of
I™wool, the Education Department said
Tir sday.
school■ In its annual dropout report, the
i is tlieBpartment said 381,000 high school
ivvBicents aged 15 to 24 quit school last
ms vaB ar - AH told. 3.4 million people aged
16 to 24 — 11 percent of the age
•, ■oup — are high school dropouts.
J Although the 11 percent dropout
^ I* 6 WaS unchanged f rom 1992, it has
■ : declined since the 1970s, when it
InnesBnged from 14 percent to 14.5
! problaBrcent.
ols wosl "Students who were black or
ncaBgi|spanic, |j V j n g j n families with low
,,,.( t | 1( .:l:ome, or living in the South or West
were less likely to complete high
I. ■hool," the report said.
Ihuttle’s robot does
„ ft/ork and then some
/ass of| CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) —
Jiscovery’s Mr. Romps, the first U.S.
1ITIP R* 301 ' n s P ace ’ zipped through its man-
ufacturing work with semiconductors
.fccard the shuttle Monday and even
VCljiampleted extra chores.
I The robot master was impressed,
safe. 'I “We're pleased, keeping our fingers
orkeraflrossed, knocking on wood,” NASA
)d, sloiroject manager Lloyd Purves said
■■ft. | irlrom the Goddard Space Flight Center
,,,) toi-fi Greenbelt, Md.
ifiildul Romps, short for Robot Operated
Materials Processing System, heated
S p) semiconductor crystals in furnaces
|is Discovery’s six astronauts slept.
•The plan called for 26 samples to be
Removed from storage racks and
placed in the furnaces one at a time;
the robot worked faster than expected.
It was the second workout for
t Romps, which is making its orbital de-
)ut. The first on Saturday was just a
j varm-up.
fate policy may ban
igarettes for inmates
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Medical exam easier for men, study shows
Test measures
technical skills,
not capability
By Stephanie Dube
The Battalion
A recent study indicates white men
generally perform better than women on
a section of the National Board of Med
ical Examiners test, but some A&M fac
ulty say the test is no indication of future
performance.
Billy Rankin, associate dean for stu
dent affairs and admissions for the Col
lege of Medicine, said these standardized
tests do not indicate who would be a
more competent physician.
“At this point, it is impossible to mea
sure what constitutes a successful physi
cian,” Rankin said. “It is hard to mea-
sure and standardize a physician’s per
formance. How do you assess it?”
Rankin said the standardized tests
are successful at indicating who has
mastered certain technical skills regard
less of their sex.
“The licenser test shows who has mas
tered the technical skills necessary to be
a competent physician,” he said. “But
they do not test interpersonal skills or
how a person cares about the patients.
“Whether men or women make better
physicians, this test has nothing to do
with that,” he said.
Rankin said this test has recently
been replaced by the more updated Unit
ed States Medical Licenser Exam. Part
one of the test is usually administered
during a medical student’s second year of
study.
Rankin said the findings for the Med
ical Examiners test should be similar to
any findings discovered in the future on
the USMLE.
Part one of the Medical Examiners
test covers basic science skills students
learn in their first two years of medical
school.
Dr. Karen Wilson-Sadberry, assistant
professor of sociology, said boys in their
early elementary school years used to re
ceive more encouragement and exposure
to the math and sciences than girls.
Wilson-Sadberry said that in the past,
when girls did not receive the encourage
ment boys received in their early elemen
tary school years, girls often became dis
couraged in the fields of math and sci
ence causing problems in their future ed
ucational performance.
“It appears there are greater opportu
nities for math and science exploration
See Exams, Page 7
Medical gender bias?
A study has recently shown that men
perform better on a section of the
National Board of Medical
Examiners test. However, A&M
officials say that the standardized
tests do not indicate a
doctor's potential
ability.
55.8
11 m
Percentage of medical
students passing
78.9
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HOUSTON (AP) — A uniform
imoking policy for the state’s correc-
ional institutions could mean no cigs
for cell mates, but it will be weeks be
fore anyone knows for sure.
A committee is studying the incon
sistent policies regulating smoking
mong both inmates and correctional
faff for the Texas Department of Crim
inal Justice.
Concerns for health and hygiene
mong staff and inmates, coupled with
ihe taxpayer bills for inmate medical
re spurred the review by an in-house
mmittee.
Although Carol Vance, the non-
moking chairman of the TDCJ board,
vouldn’t mind a total ban on smoking,
le said Tuesday he’s not actively
tushing the issue.
"I’m going to support the findings of
he study,” Vance said.
Mother takes stand
at gang rape trial
; HOUSTON (AP) — A woman
I,Whose daughter was raped and killed
fpy gang members last summer took
the witness stand Tuesday, tearfully
recalling her last encounter with her
jpnly child.
| Sandra Ertman described the
baggy blue jeans, purple tennis shoes
|nd the favorite rings and necklaces
er daughter, Jennifer, was wearing
:hat day.
And as the prosecutor asked her to
entity the girl’s jewelry, Mrs. Ertman
ometimes gazed fondly at the trinkets
s she held them in her hands.
Jennifer Ertman, 14, and Elizabeth
ena, 16, were murdered June 24,
993, when they stumbled onto a
jroup of gang members drinking beer
n the woods. The girls had spent the
vening with friends and were on their
vay home when they took a shortcut
trough the woods.
Tim Moog/THE Battalion
What's wrong with that doggie in the window?
Four year old Dachshund, Mr. Pete, is about to undergo an operation to repair his hernia as
fourth year graduate student Russell Welfare (left) looks on.
Collider project leads
to increased knowledge
Scrapped super collider project leaves
prospect of future technolgy advances
By Katherine Arnold
The Battalion
The superconducting super
collider project may be dead,
but the technologies involved
and prospects for future devel
opments are not, some A&M of
ficials involved with the project
said.
Dr. Peter McIntyre, profes
sor of physics, was involved in
the project, and feels that the
spinoffs from the technology
are endless.
“The flaw in our lawmakers
is that they think if you pump
enough money into one project,
you will eventually get the re
sults you want,” McIntyre said.
“Science is an incredibly ma-
trixed thing. The conpections
that can be made are endless.”
The super collider was an
$11 billion project designed to
uncover the fundamental com
ponents of matter. Specifically,
scientists were interested in
discovering the smallest parti
cles in atoms.
“The SSC would have ex
tended the study of the funda
mental particles of nature,”
McIntyre said. “We would have
found the clues to the unifica
tion of forces of nature.”
Several A&M professors
were involved in designing com
ponents of the SSC. One such
design was for detectors to de
termine where protons in a
high intensity beam were locat
ed. These detectors have led to
advances in other areas, McIn
tyre said.
“The technology involved in
mammography is currently
very poor for the intricate de
tail needed to detect a mass of
dead cells,” McIntyre said. “We
have redesigned the detectors
we developed for the super col
lider to improve x-ray tech
niques specifically used for
mammography.
“This type of technology
would have been years in the
future had it not initially de
signed for the SSC,” he said.
A&M physicists have also
improved magnet technology
since the super collider’s
demise. High field magnets
were needed to help accelerate
proton particles around the su
per collider’s 54-mile circum
ference.
McIntyre and his associates
have been working to improve
the strength of the magnets to
use in future accelerator exper
iments.
Cathode developed for usage
in the super collider have also
had spinoffs. One component
of the cathode, a silicon chip
with narrow liquid chambers,
has been redesigned to poten
tially be used in the Human
Genome Project.
Strands of denatured DNA
can be passed through the liq
uid trenches and aid in discov
ering individual coding of
genes.
The actual site of the super
collider in Waxahachie was par
tially completed before funding
for the project was cut.
Scientists have proposed a
lower energy, lower cost super
collider to be built in place of
the SSC.
Dr. James T. White, system
professor of physics, said that
the buildings, equipment, and
the actual site will still be used.
“The computers will probably
stay at the site and be used re
motely by universities and labo
ratories,” White said. “The
cryogenics equipment will prob
ably be moved to Fermilab, and
there is a proposal to turn the
land above the tunnel into a
state park.”
Scientists are optimistic
about the use with technologies
and how they may be used in
the future.
“They may have taken away
our Mazzerati, but we still have
a Toyota that’s not so bad,”
White said.
Today s fc>/\
.
Campus
2
Classified
4
Opinion
9
Police Beat
2
Sports
5
'Toons
3
Weather
7
What's Up
8
U.S. aircraft carrier departs
JL
for Haiti to protect interests
WASHINGTON (AP) ~ An
aircraft carrier that could serve
as a launching platform for in
vading Haiti headed to sea
Tuesday, and President Clinton
scheduled a Thursday night ad
dress to make his case that U.S,
interests there are vital.
Both Democrats and Repub
licans in Congress complained
they were being ignored by a
White House bent on war.
Clinton is considering an
nouncing a firm deadline for
Haiti’s military leaders to leave
or sending an emissary to Port-
au-Prince with one last demand
that they surrender power, a se
nior administration official said.
The USS America sailed
from Norfolk, Va., as another
huge carrier, the USS Eisen
hower, was taking on Army
helicopters and soldiers there
for a Wednesday departure to
the Caribbean.
Defense Secretary William
Perry was heading to Norfolk to
talk with military leaders
aboard the Eisenhower and the
USS Whitney.
At the White House, chief of
staff Leon Panetta threatened
that if Haiti's military leaders
don’t give up power, “action is
going to be taken against them
very soon.”
In Haiti, the army-installed
government protested what it
called the “scandalous and Un
acceptable behavior” of the
United States but gave no indi
cation of stepping aside.
"My view is that the cake
has been baked,” said Senate
Minority Leader Bob Dole, R-
Kan., who was briefed Tues
day by Perry and Joint Chiefs
of Staff Chairman Gen . John
Shalikashvili
Clinton signs $30 billion crime bill
Anti-crime bill becomes
law after 6 years of debate
WASHINGTON (AP) — After six years of talk
and bitter congressional debate, the huge anti-crime
bill became law Tuesday, banning many assault-
style weapons, allowing the death penalty for dozens
more federal crimes and provid
ing billions of dollars to build
prisons and hire police.
President Clinton signed the
$30 billion, six-year measure at
an outdoor ceremony at the
White House.
“Even this great law ... can
not do the job alone,” he said.
“By its own words it is still a
law. It must be implemented by
you. And it must be supple
mented by you.
"Even when we put a new
police officer on your block, the
officer can’t make you safe unless you come out
of your home and help the officer do his or her
job,” said Clinton.
Clinton noted that “some people in this town
Clinton
tried to keep this day from happening” despite a toll
of violence that saw “half a million Americans ...
killed by other Americans” in the last 25 years.
Clinton did not directly blame Repubhcan leaders
for the bill’s close calls last month. He pointedly
praised the relatively few GOP congressional mem
bers who were invited to the ceremony because they
bucked their party leadership to keep the bill alive.
They were among those “without whom we would
not be here today,” Clinton said.
The law:
—Bans the manufacture, sale and possession of
19 specific types of assault-style weapons and scores
of copycats and firearms with similar accou
trements. Manufacturing must stop immediately,
but those in private hands or in stores are exempt
ed.
—Allows the death penalty for 60 additional
federal crimes, including drive-by shooting and
carjacking deaths.
—Sends some third-time felons to prison for life.
The law authorizes $10.8 billion for state and lo
cal law enforcement including $8.8 billion for subsi
dies to help hire up to 100,000 new officers.
The law also authorizes $6.9 billion for crime-pre
vention programs; $9.9 billion for prisons, including
$7.9 billion to help states build thousands of new
cells, and $2.6 billion for federal law enforcement.