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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 15, 1995)
t decision, f 110 busine Sl anient on t ; al Hotificatit; ie Court, 1 Court dec' ltract >yees as we|: ve admini? 1 whentha: atl y inad f . e and in 8ll i. lub said if; inistratin on ly woalij get a fra ( , believed it 'he (Dallas would ma - contracti us and ths ' s franchiss ^The Battalion Opinion Friday September 15,1995 n that it was ve remedy st the mat- suit rather a •he football s worker's m of their ;h comes i the lo- p change system 11 could kind of ■d base- tlances Mail Steiner rketing s like total t you aid. likely deals i tether ; •t the ; ^ues- ; fhen, deal igned ; Nike could i More opinions on Faulkner's decision I was an undergraduate stu dent at Texas A&M in the ’60s, and 1, along with my two daugh ters, am currently an undergrad uate student. In the ’60s many used the same arguments Mr. Segrest expressed about the Citadel in their attempt to keep A&M from admitting women. One of the biggest differences in attending class then and now is the improvement in the acade mic ability of my classmates. The admission of women has played no small part in achievements made by this University in the past 30 years. If the Segrest line of thinking had prevailed in the ’60s, I Mid now be attending a small school with declining enroll ment, concerned with recruit ing neW students rather than having to turn them away. The decision to admit women to Texas A&M was a good one, and we are most fortunate to have the benefit of their many contributions. The Citadel should be so lucky. Howard Fetner Class of ‘68 •Everyone has heard about Shannon Faulkner and her ongo ing battle with the Citadel. As a iernale, I can honestly say I do not f feel she should have been admit ted to the university. Her actions were her way of proving she could get into the all- male university. Most females would honestly admit a male would never be admitted to an all-female university, even if the case was taken to court. In Matt Segrest's article, he pointed out the Citadel was es tablished 153 years ago. If the all male school was successful for so long, why change it? To prove a point and then not even fight the battle; actually liv ing the life of a cadet. She fought long and hard (two years!) to live the life of a cadet, only to quit after three or four days of Hell Week. Faulkner said the mental an- I guish was unbearable, did she ac tually think her fellow all-male cadets would be civil to her? I think we all need to realize some things are the way they are for a good reason, not be cause any one person or institu tion is being sexist or has “anti women sentiments.” i The all-female universities out number the all-male uni- I versities 83 to three. The males deserve to have their three uni versities left alone. Dawn Humphreys Class of’98 Liberals rise above A&M conservatism On time, upon arriving at my dorm, I found a herd of people congregated near my room. One of them stopped me to continue a political debate we had engaged in a week before. After a few minutes, he glared at me and said, “You damn liber als should all go to t.u.” Eva Dars- ki shared his sentiment in a letter that appeared on September 13, She says that she left Cana- ! |ja and came to Texas A&M not I "for the cowboy hats and coun- Facts needed before opinion Sterling Hayman Managing Editor try music but rather for the tradition, honor, and an envi ronment where her beliefs (con servative) weren’t ridiculed.” Unlike Darski, liberals obvi ously did not come to A&M be cause it is conservative, we came in spite of it. Unlike Darski, I didn’t come to starve school children, cut stu dent loans or spew radically con servative propaganda; I came to be an Aggie. (This includes the tradition, honor and an accepting environment, along with cowboy hats and country music.) Somehow, conservatism has become a quasi-tradition here. Thus, if by some curse of God you’re not conservative, you meet with some permutation of Darski’s clever phrase, “t.u. is ac cepting applications.” Is this really a tradition? “Gee, I don’t have enough time to go to the games or build bonfire, the Dixie Chicken kinda scares me, and usually, I forget to take my hat off at the MSG, but at least I’m conservative.” I’ve never been to Canada, but in Aggieland, good Ags aren’t snobs. We refuse to “ridicule” other Aggies. If more Ags are Republican than Demo crat, that’s great. But A&M is not about “ridicul ing” people or telling them to go to t.u. because of their beliefs. It’s about education, inclusion, foot ball, dominoes, good times and dare I say it, lots of beer. Jeff Miller Class of ’98 Aggies not always gentlemen on bus Got a little story for you about a bus ride at TAMU (whoop!). I usually use my feet to get around, but I sometimes break down and take a bus to West Campus. One time, the bus was full when I got on, plus my hands were full. I was barely able to hold onto a rail. To my pleasure, a gentleman stood up and allowed me to sit. I did not expect this, it was simply a kindness he offered. Perhaps I’ve been spoiled. It’s entirely possible. I’ve been on many buses around campus and in a few major cities. That’s why this particular morning affected me so much. The bus quickly filled. More students filed in and the first two were young women. I watched them make their way toward the back, looking for a seat which wasn’t already filled. About halfway back, after the first one passed, a guy got up and did the expected: offered his seat. The second girl accepted. And then... what happened? The only girl left standing on the bus was the first one. Every other one was offered a seat im mediately. Why? I could point out her heritage — Indian, I think. Maybe no one got up because she looked different. Selective chivalry? Is that where 30 years since the Civil Rights movement has brought us? I wanted to apologize to her, to tell her things like that don’t happen in Aggieland. I wanted to stand myself, but besides having to crawl over two guys wearing Christian “Life” shirts, I didn’t want to insult her by embarrassing her. Now, I just want it pointed out. T ucked away behind shrub bery and foliage on the left comer of the Chemistry Building lies a wall plaque. En graved on the plaque are the barely legible words of the fa mous philosopher Aristotle. “Let us first understand the facts, and then we may see the cause.” These simple words have withstood the test of thousands of years. The message Aristotle emphasized long ago is one we tend to ignore these days, especially at A&M — comprehension before judgment. Take, for example, the proposed multicul tural bill that awaits Dr. Bowen’s signature. When that “nasty little m-word” first reared its ugly head two years ago, Aggies went nutso. “How dare the administration suggest we broaden our horizons?” “They can’t make me learn about African- Americans and women.” Well, heaven forbid anyone here should study anything other than the all-important fields of agriculture and Bonfire. The reason A&M is attempting to imple ment a multicultural requirement is because Texans generally tend to either be ignorant, insensitive or intolerant when it comes to dealing with other cultures — despite the fact that our culture is thought of as one of the strangest around. It’s necessary that we leam about these other cultures in classes since campus interac tion here doesn’t provide nearly enough diver sity. (This is because A&M’s minority enroll ment falls somewhere behind the campus squirrel population.) In fact, the proposal that awaits Bowen’s ap proval is so watered down, students could leave A&M still knowing nothing about different cultures. My guess is that the “Anthropology of Food and Nutrition” class or ‘Tropical Horticulture” will not provide the information I might need to understand a culture other than my own. However, at least the Uni versity is making an effort — which is more than can be said about Congress right now. Sen. Bob Dole and his cronies are now on a crusade to make English the “official” lan guage of the country. Well, it’s a damn good thing. I can’t tell you how many mornings I wake up sweating, fear ing that when I go to school, everyone will be speaking Icelandic or Pig Latin. I dread hav ing to be greeted every morning by “Owdy- hay” or “Oop-whay.” Is the English language in danger of be coming extinct? Or, are some people pissed off because “tawkiri in one of them fom tongues” is just un-American? I would guess the latter. Americans have an odd way of adopting habits and characteristics and then never changing them. Ideally, society should evolve to represent the people. And today, there are many people in the United States who speak languages besides English. Dole’s solution to this is to ignore them, even though most are legal U.S. citizens. Once again, “let us first understand the facts, and then we may see the cause.” The fact is that a small percentage of mi norities vote, and when they do, it’s usually not for Republicans. So Dole’s response is ... screw ’em. That’s cause and effect for you. Sometimes, however, members of Congress also feel the effects of causes. Take, for example, former Sen. Bob Pack- wood, who resigned last week after 19 women accused him of sexual harassment. His resignation came last week when the Senate Ethics Committee asked him to clean out his desk because it seemed clear that he had doctored his diary entries. The following diary excerpt from Sen. Naughty was printed in Washington Compost, a political magazine. The suspected alter ations are in all caps. I can't tell you how many mornings I wake up fearing that when I go to school, everyone will be saying "Owdy-hay." “September 5, 1977 ... Jane and I were work ing late tonight... one time during a break when we were all alone I came over to her side of the desk and squeezed her... MEMO and put my ... PENCIL in her ... BRIEFCASE ... and asked her to take off AS MUCH TIME AS SHE NEEDED FOR VACATION.” Well, there you have it, more cause and effect. Packwood should probably just leave his pencil at home the next time he decides to go on a vacation. If more people would just follow Aristotle’s advice, there would be fewer problems. Far too often we accept the first things that come to our mind, no matter how stupid or outlandish they may be. Rather than jumping to conclusions about everything, we should attempt root out the causes and leam from them. ... and make life a little easier in the process. Sterling Hayman is a senior political science major vV \\ v\ V Nn’ v Attempting to accomplish too much Trying to get a balanced education leads to overwork without fulfillment Cynthia Clark Class of '96 “Get a little balance in your education. ” I ’ve lost count of the number of times someone has shoved this handy little phrase down my throat. I don’t really know what it means, but I think after hear ing it. I’m supposed to go and accomplish everything ... now. So in this, what should be my last semester as an “undergrad” — Latin for “bend over and pay general use fees twice in one se mester” — I decided to make sure to “balance” my education. In other words, I signed up for everything under the sun. In my third week of school I am now starting to. realize what a “balanced education” is sup posed to mean. I feel like a duck at a shotgun convention, wearing bright or ange and wearing a sign around my neck saying, “I’m in season.” I don’t suppose anyone else can relate. After all, these are the best years of our lives. Sometime around the end of this past summer, I spoke with one of the counselors in the business school about my plans for the fall. After I fin ished, he was- quiet for a minute. Then he opened a book sitting on his desk and asked me to take a look at its pages. I felt an object lesson coming on, but I listened anyway ... not well enough, apparently. The counselor asked me if I could read the pages. It’s amazing how few pages I have actually read during my college years, but I answered “yes” anyway. Then came the kicker: “Would you be able to read the page if the words began in the crease and went off the edge of the page?” Well, gee ... let me think. The punch line kind of caught me off guard, and it makes perfect sense now. “Just like a book needs mar gins to do any good,” he related, “your life needs margins to really mean anything to you.” I just said, “Thanks,” and then I walked out. But let me say it again. I get it now. Too bad I didn’t listen in the first place. Allow me to impart my new found wisdom to those less for tunate: If you try to do every thing, you’re not going to ac complish much. At this point. I’m not sure how I’m going to pull this off. Before anyone thinks I’m feel ing sorry for myself, think again. Many of the things I’m doing and learning right now are things I’ve wanted to do all of my life. That, I guess, is the goal of education. In other words, we’re having fun, now — or we’re supposed to be. A few years back, I was look ing for a way to blow off steam. And since I was getting sick of punching my fist through the wall ... ok, of going to the emer gency room because I had tried to put my fist through the wall and accidentally broken it — the fist I mean ... I bought a guitar. Being the dutiful student of music that I am, I went and bought every kind of “do it yourself in only 13 seconds a day” handbook. Ever seen the “Chuck’s 12-step Learn the Guitar” video series on TV at three in the morning? * Yep, got that one, too. In fact, after four years of practice and dedication, of long hours late* at night, of swollen, aching fingers, I came to a striking conclusion. I will always suck at guitar. Fortunately for me, however, no one else has to hear me play. Well, no one except my neigh bors in apartment 605 (sorry!). Fortunately, neither have I made any 1 a.m. trips to the Death, er, I mean Health Center. Like a book needs mar gins to be any good, life needs them for meaning. Have you ever tried to think up an excuse for not being able to put your fist through a wall? You may as well just say, “Hi. I’m a wuss!” Well, a long time ago my es teemed editor suggested, “Have a point. It makes things a lot easier on your readers.” I guess it’s time to make one. As we all spend the next two months trying to figure out how to pay the retroactive fee in- . creases bestowed on us by our benevolent regents, remember not to let words go over the edge of your pages. You might also try listening to your counselors, studying for your classes and ignoring words like “balance.” Balance is overrated. David Taylor is a senior management major