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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 19, 1996)
] e despe t . to tj unity. a ce, hap health; hen ever, ution anil ater,” ^her Uni- id repeat, 'cientifit is safe to 'y Creek, WILD WEEKEND The A&M Baseball Team gets a sweep, a no-hitter and a record. Sports, Page 7 LAPSE OF REASON Pace: Education at A&M focuses on memorization rather than true reasoning skills. Opinion, Page 11 SUPER SANDLER Adam Sandler's comedic talents make Happy Gilmore a winner. Aggielife, Page 3 .The Battalion l. 102, No. 95 (12 pages) Serving Texas A&M University Since 1893 Monday • February 19, 1996 na- i andidates to inform oters before elections iEach candidate for Brazos County ffices will receive equal time at onight's political forum. y Michelle Lyons he Battalion Members of the Bryan-College Station com- lunity will have the opportunity to “Meet the andidates” for all Brazos County primary races anight at 7 p.m. on KAMU-TV Channel 15 and [AMU-FM 90.9. KAMU “Meet the Candidates” will be a live lolitical forum to inform voters about who is unning for political office and what their plat- orms and qualifications are. The event, which is co-sponsored by the Bra- os Valley chapter of the League of Women Vot- irs, will be mediated by Dr. Sharon Colson, exec- itive producer and host of KAMU-TV’s weekly irogram, 15 Magazine. Janelle Paulsen, a KAMU-TV promotions em- iloyee and a senior agricultural journalism major, laid the broadcast will not be a debate, but rather a lolitical forum for informational purposes only. “It’s not a debate,” Paulsen said. “It’s just a forum ivhere (candidates) can tell voters what they stand brand what they believe in.” Paulsen said voters need to know the inten- ions of the candidates who are running for Bra zos County offices. “We are a part of this community,” she said, “and these are the people that run it. It’s important for us to know who they are and what goals they have. Voters need to be informed if they are going to make a wise choice.” Naomi Fackler, co-president of the Brazos Valley chapter of the League of Women Voters, said it is important for voters to be fully informed. “One of our main goals is to give our voters as much information as we can about the candidates so they can make intelligent decisions,” Fackler said. “(The forums) are very informative.” An equal amount of time is allocated to each can didate, but they are not required to answer a set number of questions. Colson said the candidates appreciate the air time and the opportunity to reach voters. “Try as they may, they can’t ring every doorbell in the area,” she said. “This does give them the op portunity to reach many people.” The forum will be rebroadcast Wednesday, Feb. 21 and Friday, Feb. 23 at 11 a.m., and on Thursday, Feb. 22 at 7 p.m. Toby Boenig, student body president and a senior agricultural development major, said students who plan to vote in the county elections should pay atten tion to the forum. “I think that for the people voting in county elec tions, it’s probably a very good idea that they tune in to this,” Boenig said. Paulsen said that though A&M boasts a high percentage of voters in campus elections, stu dents constitute a low percentage of voters in county elections. Increasing the Peace □People interested in service with the Peace Corps should begin the application process nine to 12 months prior to the date they would like to leave the United States. By Heather Pace The Battalion For those who dream of blazing their own trails, the Peace Corps offers opportuni ties to make a difference in the lives of people in more than 90 countries around the world. To date, 344 A&M gradu ates have served in the Peace Corps. Lacy Vaccaro, a class of ’95 sociology graduate, will join the ranks of the 42 A&M stu dents now serv ing as Peace Corps The mission of Peace Corps is to promote world peace. The three goals: To help the people of interested countries and areas in meeting their need for trained men and women To help promote a better understanding of Ameriarut on the part of the peoples served. To help promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans. Currently, there are 42 A&M graduates serving in 27 different countries. Over 344 Aggies who have served as Peace Corps volunteers. volunteers in 27 countries. Next month, she will begin twelve weeks of training be fore leaving for Paraguay, where she will work with at- risk children. “It was always something I wanted to do,” Vaccaro said. “I thought this would be a good chance to do service work hands-on instead of something you just do on the weekends.” Vaccaro said that although she is not being sent to her first-choice country, she was able to specify the continent on which she wanted to work. “I didn’t really have a choice,” she said, “but since I had some Spanish background and wanted to come back flu ent in Spanish, they decided to send me to Paraguay.” There, Vaccaro will be im plementing programs to give youth direction and hope for the future. Peace Corps volunteers of ten return to the United States with new perspectives. Nichola Minott, an early childhood education consultant in Paraguay, said she came back with a revised sense of what is important in life. “I think in the United States people tend to focus on con suming and having things,” Minott said. “But I think in Paraguay people are more con cerned with living and not putting so much emphasis on See Peace Corps, Rage 6 SCONA faces future issues □ Students participated in small-group roundtable discussions, generating solutions to difficult governmental problems. By Kendra S. Rasmussen The Battalion Delegates to the 41st annual MSC Student Conference on Na tional Affairs held at Texas A&M this weekend overlooked their political affiliations in or der to suggest solutions to diffi cult governmental problems. Tim Fricke, an A&M delegate and senior political science ma jor, said governmental processes are often hindered by the ani mosity Democrats and Republi cans display toward one another. “Just because one person uses the title Democrat and one uses the title Republican doesn’t mean they should automatically disagree,” Fricke said. The students at the SCONA conference were able to avoid fixation on party affiliations, he said, while working together on roundtable topics. Diane Maddox, SCONA exec utive committee chairwoman and a senior kinesiology major, said delegates from A&M and 14 other universities were divided into groups of 10 to 15 people for nine roundtable discussions about issues that will face the government in the 21st century. “We wanted the delegates to answer the question of how they would like to see their country run in the future,” Maddox said. The delegates were not the only SCONA participants down playing the importance of politi cal party affiliations. See SCONA, Page 6 Rony Angkriwan, The Battalion PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT Children of A&M professors and students practice backstage for their performance at the Chinese New Year celebration in Rudder Theatre Sunday evening. Greek Week gives sneak peek □ A date auction and a mixer at the Texas Hall of Fame are among the activities scheduled for this week. By Marissa Alanis The Battalion Texas A&M’s Greek Week will bring fraternities, sororities and other student body members to gether to participate in a variety of social and charitable events. Tom Hegi, a junior accounting major and Greek Week co-chair, said this year’s Greek Week theme, “United in Tradition,” emphasizes that the events are open for everybody to enjoy. “It’s not to celebrate us,” Hegi said. “We want everybody to socialize. It’s just not a Greek thing.” Coordinated by the Greek honor society Order of Omega, Greek Week will consist of fund raising events, such as a date auction and a barbecue picnic at the Grove on Tuesday. Date packages created by each chapter will be bid on at the Grab-A-Greek Auction Fri day at 7 p.m. in Rudder Theatre. Michelle Fuller, a sophomore accounting major and Grab-A- Greek Auction chair, said there is a $50 spending limit and dates must stay within the Bryan-College Station area. Fuller said restrictions were imposed this year because of an incident at last year’s auction in which a man took the sorority member he bid on to Las Vegas. “We want to keep it from get ting real extravagant,” Fuller said. “We don’t want some chap ters spending like $250 when others can’t.” Fuller said the list of pro posed date packages turned in by the chapters range from horseback riding to an airplane ride over Bryan-College Station. Tuesday night, Order of Omega will join with other cam pus organizations to present “Friendship in the Age of AIDS,” a program about coping with friends who have HIV. Schlem- mer said the presentation will be educational for those who attend. “It’s a pertinent topic for col lege students, since we think we’re invincible and we’re not,” Schlemmer said. “It’s a reality check.” In appreciation of University faculty, each Greek chapter se lected two faculty members to attend a breakfast in the Koldus Building Governance Room Wednesday at 8 a.m. Wednesday night, two repre sentatives from each chapter will bring a child from the Brazos County Boys and Girls Club to the A&M men’s basketball game. Half of the proceeds from an All-University Mixer that will be held Thursday night at the See Greeks, Page 6 Children play at E-Day Gwendolyn Struve, The Battalion Jim Pinkerton, author of "What Comes Next: The End of Big Government and the New Para digm Ahead," speaks at the SCONA conference Saturday on "Replacing the Bureaucratic Op erating System." □ The science fair was the first event of Engineers Week, which will be celebrated with daily campus events until Saturday. By Danielle Pontiff The Battalion The Texas A&M Student Engineering Council hosted its fourth annual Engineering Day at Post Oak Mall Saturday, giving children a chance to learn about physics, chemistry and engineering in a nonclassroom atmosphere. The event launched A&M’s Engineers Week, which begins today and concludes Saturday. Eric Baggerman, a junior chemical engineering major and E-Day at the Mall committee chairman, said exhibits from A&M’s scientific departments provided children with hands-on science experi ence, not just material from a textbook. “The exhibits are an effort to spread engineering and science to young kids,” Baggerman said. “They are set up in a way so that children can have a bet ter understanding of science and also have fun.” One exhibit, sponsored by the Biomedical Engi neering Society, set up a laser to demonstrate its use in surgery and cancer treatments. Stewart Robinson, a biomedical engineering graduate student, said children were interested in how lasers work to heal the body. “One lady brought her sons to this exhibit to see the laser,” Robinson said. “She had just had laser surgery on her gall bladder two weeks ago. She was able to explain to her sons that this is what happened to her in surgery.” The physics department set up a gyroscope exhib it that demonstrated a principle called conservation See Engineers, Page 12 Amy Browning, The Battalion Ray McKinney, a senior chemistry major, demon strates the unusual properties of cornstarch putty.