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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 11, 1995)
T A M U >C A A WL U N R T Y C fee-;. tfgrafc «gti; •150p: ; ient, Cool in the pool A&M's Mel Nash wants a men's SWC Swimming Championship before the move to the Big 1 2. Sports, Page 10 Media madness Hernandez: The media was responsible for making the O.J, trial the sad spectacle it was. Opinion, Page 13 Time warp The Renaissance Festival brings the Middle Ages to Texas tourists. Aggielife, Page 3 B AT TALI O Vol. 102, No. 33 (14 pages) Established in 1893 Wednesday • October 11, 1995 V Regents open house for students’ opinions □ The mixer provides an opportunity for Aggies to voice their concerns before the Board's Thursday and Friday meetings. By James Bernsen The Battalion The Texas A&M University System Board of Regents will hold an open house tonight to give students an opportunity to express their views on a vari ety of issues. The event is at 7 p.m. in 153 MSC. Regent Robert Allen of Houston said the open house is not like a forum or other orga nized meeting, but more like a gathering or mixer. “It’s, a very informal thing,” Allen said. “We don’t expect anything, just for students to come and ask us anything.” Allen said the reception was the idea of Mary Nan West, Board chairman, who saw it as an opportunity for students to get to know the Board. “There’s no agenda — no hidden agenda — just a get-to gether,” he said. Regent John Lindsey of Hous ton said students have illusions about the Board being unap proachable, based on things they read in the newspaper. “Nothing could be further from the truth,” Lindsey said. “Hell, if I didn’t have inter change with the students, I wouldn’t be on the Board.” This is the first such open house since he has been on the Board, Lindsey said, but the com munication is not what is new. “There’s nothing unique about it at all,” he said. “I have ex change with students all of the time. I guess the convenience of being on campus is good.” Lindsey said students can bring up any topic they want, and he expects to answer ques tions on many issues. “Everybody has a student parking problem, for instance,” he said. “And we’ve talked with the Old Main Society about preserving old buildings.” One of the issues the regents will vote on at the meeting this Thursday and Friday will be an initiative to tear down Law and Puryear residence halls. The regents originally turned down the initiative dur ing its January meeting. Uni versity officials had planned to destroy Law and Puryear in Summer 1995. Because of increasing room and board rates and historical significance of the building, the Board decided to give adminis-' trators more time to strength en their arguments for tearing down the buildings. “If students want to voice their opinions, I’ll be interested in hearing about it,” Lindsey said. “I’m Class of ’44, and I knew some people who lived there, so I can see their con cerns. But when I saw [the res idence halls] last time, they looked pretty bad.” Toby Boenig, A&M student See Regents, Page i d test iris./ A J Evan Zimmerman, The Battalion GO AHEAD, MAKE MY DAY Catherine Devine, junior management major and co-captain of the rifle team, lines up a target at A&M's shooting range Tuesday. Bridging the gap Student leaders reach out to fellow Aggies □ SG is aiming to make its committees readily accessible to others. By Kristen Homyk The Battalion Texas A&M’s student leaders said they intend to concentrate this year on commu nicating with the students they represent. Toby Boenig, student body president, said Student Government has put effort into publicity and communication. “One of our goals was to make our com mittees readily accessible and make appli cations [for those committees] available for everybody,” Boenig said. Boenig said Student Government is try ing to become accessible to the students this year, personally and quickly. Student sena tors plan Constituency Days at the MSC, where students can simply walk up to a senator and register a comment, he said. Students are welcome at Senate forums and roundtables, Boenig said, and Student Government also has a home page on the World Wide Web for students to use. Chris Foster, chairman of Student Gov ernment’s Fee Oversight Committee that provides information about fee use to stu dents, said his committee tries hard to keep the lines of communication open, since they exist to give out information. “We’ve had numerous requests to look up information already,” Foster said. “We’re answering those questions.” Foster said students interested in reach ing his group can contact a student senator or leave a note in the Student Senate box. “We don’t intend that the public meet ings be the only way that students can con tact us,” he said. A&M students offer differing opinion of the representation and communication of the student leaders thus far. Ashley Huffman, a senior finance major, said her student representatives are See Leaders, Page 14 Senators ready for Q & A □ Class leaders will be stationed across campus today to address students' concerns. By Tara Wilkinson The Battalion Texas A&M student sen ators, eager to receive stu dent input and answer questions, will be stationed across campus today from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. for the first Student Senate Con stituency Day. Senators will work one- hour shifts at tables in front of Sbisa Dining Hall, the Wehner Building, Zachry Engineering Center, the MSC and the Quadrangle. Nicholas Dickson, an en gineering senator and a ju nior civil engineering ma jor, said the Senate decided to implement Constituency Days in order to facilitate communication between students and senators. Because of the size of A&M, most students do not know who their Senate rep resentatives are, Dickson said, much less how to reach them with their ques tions and suggestions. “Our main idea was to make it easier for our con stituents to get in touch with us and vice versa,” he said. Senators have been en couraged to work shifts at campus locations frequent ed by their constituents, Dickson said, in order to answer specific questions. For example, senators rep resenting the College of En gineering will be at Zachry, and Northside senators will be at Sbisa. But for some senators, who represent, for example, students from the College See Q & A, Page 14 New freshman officers whoop up success □ More than 500 students voted during the Class of '99 council elections Tuesday. By Heather Pace The Battalion The Class of 1999 elected new leadership Tuesday amid stu dent concerns that voter turn out and election procedures may not put the most representative candidates in office. Stephen Lair was elected freshman class president with 51.2 percent of the votes, and Gregg Nichols won vice-presiden cy with 60 percent of the votes. The other officers elected were Amy Berger, treasurer; Ryan Workman, historian; Kendall Kelly, secretary; and Trevor Richards, social secretary. Lair whooped excitedly after the results were announced Tues day night in front of the Academ ic Building, and Nichols said he was “really excited and ready to go to work for the class.” Lair and Nichols said they plan to represent the freshman class by going out and meeting their constituents. “We want to be people the freshmen know, not just names,” Nichols said. Lair said he will keep in touch with the freshmen by continual ly meeting more people and lis tening to new opinions. About 550 freshmen turned out yesterday to vote in runoffs for freshman class council positions. Max Mitchell, a freshman bio medical science major, and Ja son Schultz, a freshman bio chemistry major, helped run the voting station at the Zachry En gineering Center. They said few freshmen knew about elections and even fewer bothered to vote. “Voting turnout was very poor,” Mitchell said. “Freshmen don’t seem to care who they put into office.” Schultz said freshmen are not getting their say in government because “the actual winners may not be the choice of the majority, but the majority didn’t come out and vote.” Candidates were allowed to use 33 percent of their budgets for campaign funds. Most candi dates spent last week making sandwich boards and flyers and trying to meet people. Berger and Kelly campaigned to different groups. Both went to fraternity and sorority houses and Berger spoke to Fish Aides, Aggie Leaders of Tomorrow (ALOT), Aggie Fish Club and the Corps of Cadets. Mitchell said he was im pressed that Berger came to speak at Fish Aides. “It was a big plus,” he said. “It showed she really wanted See Election, Page 7 Shane Elkins, The Battalion Historian Ryan Workman, Vice President Gregg Nichols and Presi dent Stephen Lair celebrate the freshman election results Tuesday night in front of the Lawrence Sullivan Ross statue. ii *1^: