Image provided by: Texas A&M University
About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (April 25, 1996)
The Battalion jrsday • April 25,1)) right and experm ary, Gyeszly focustd' d other automata THURSDAY 'April 25, 1996 if.; was to come up «iii| .utomation will ca: brary,” Gyeszly si students can applfi ior Fulbright ScHs ’ulbright Prograi Abroad Programs, £ students will be raj and summer to gets; iy application, wbitl is for students e fall,” Rizk-Finne.i lents to groom tfe hts offered each)?! lany grants thet'al ating countries, gdom offered 39 ed. Germany proti zants. te student in ugh competition,!!;) o an English-spesq ■here you want to fi es where the lanpiij e more competifal have proficiency! ;cyclinf GGIE t Page 3 Library rare artifacts, sunique books Cushing’s Legacy holds y Rachel Barry he Battalion i: n 2200 B.C., a man named Alulu was given a clay tablet receipt for a sheep carcass he had purchased. To- lay, that hardened piece of earth sits n a shelf in a back room of the Cush- ng Library on the second floor of the terling C. Evans Library. Shelves in the dark back room of the lushing Library hold thousands of icntal chair andji! woks, manuscripts and artifacts, mak- major, saidtheupli ng the purpose of the library two-fold, ling Contract willij! )r. Donald Dyal is the director of the or the recyclingolp lushing Library. nd glass, and RHh ; “We are as much a museum as we are hold residence hi; I library,” Dyal said. “What’s in the book for recycling theseB |s not as interesting as the book itself.” nntract is adopted The room, kept cooler to help preserve are dorms that aw be artifacts inside, houses some of the :ellent job, andte is that aren’t doing? ~ews said. “The neis act will i and bring receipli' y are recycling.’ s, which constitute of trash, will helf waste taken to the ion landfill, whichii > reach capacity hi 3. papers and beerb)^ a lot of the trash,'ft e hope that by get: ycled, we will ciitl 1 rbage and a new lib West and rarest books in the country. )yal said the Cushing Library archives rovide not only a service to students do- that anyone whoa ig research, but they also help the Uni- 'ersity gain repute among scholars. Things at the Cushing Library were luch different when Dyal first came to said recyclingpi! t&M in 1973. He said the library had io manuscripts, few photographs, and t filled only 2,000 square feet of space. "Its image, if it had one, bordered on ivisible,” he said. Now, 10,000 to 13,000 feet of rchival material, over two miles of anuscripts and thousands of pho- graphs and books later, the Cushing ibrary holds some of the largest collec- jions in the country. One of these is the Science-Fiction have to op^n, < W ail tasy collection that Dyal said is the mse a rent increas 1 LKest in the world. mce halls).” mm GAMES! # VO!' t° P ' TTH DAY 17TH &M CAMPUS TEXAS AVE.) ACTION COALITION NSTITUTE )N ’errenot, Night Nffit R, Aggielife Editor 3andis, Sports Editoi >er, Radio Editor SIYAVANICH, ( ber, Graphics Editor “Students come here from Europe, . an and Australia to write disserta tions about Science-Fiction Fantasy,” e said, “and a lot of people here don’t ven know about it.” The collection also has over 20,000 aperback books. Dyal said the durabil- ty of these books raises an issue of how 3 handle the books in the collections, utting paperbacks into the main li- irary greatly decreases their survival ate, he said. “The half-life of a paperback book is ivo months,” he said. “If it gets read to eath, it ceases to exist.” Some of the books and artifacts in he Cushing Library are too fragile to •e readily available to people not doing erious research. Maintaining the cur- «nt state of the artifacts is one of the ibrary’s main goals. “What we have to do is balance the |xhibit use of the collections with the ie of research,” he said. “To do any- ing else would be irresponsible.” The Cushing Library is also home to e University’s archives. Along with cuments, books and photographs on e history of A&M, some other aspects | the school’s history have found their ay into the library. In 1963, John Wayne traded a paint- g of the Alamo for a saber engraved iwith Squadron 14 of the Corps of -adets. The painting now hangs in the of Knowledge Library director works to restore Cushing's memory Cushing Library. The office furniture of Richard Coke, a former governor of Texas who has a building and street on campus named after him, sits in the corner of the library, refinished and re stored to its original condition. "We are as much a museum as we are a library." — DR. DONALD DYAL director, Cushing Library David Chapman, university archivist, is in charge of the collections surrounding A&M’s history. He started as a student worker in Archives in 1972, and he was promoted over the years to his current position. “It’s kind of fun to enjoy history for history’s sake,” he said. “You get to deal with actual primary material that con cerns the history of the school.” He said that sometimes people get wrapped up in the legend and lore of the school and neglect to notice the facts of what went on. , Graphics EM Alanis, Pamela Benson,E s, Heather Pace, Kendra E mma Wiggins Rachel Barry, Krislina^l >e Goad, David Hall, B x Walters; Page Design! 1 ' stina Baffin, Phil teo« |, j ady Holley •$; H.L. Baxter, Rob CM enderson, Elaine Mejia'T iy Valdez & KieranWa^J iers: Rony Angkriwan ,, n Struve, Cory Willis^ el lor, Jody Holley, Jill ive Doyle, Ed Coodwir ado Quezada, lames ie Adaway, MandyCatf' its at Texas A&M Univf 1 ^ epartment of Journalise 1 , , sroom phone: 845-33U' J sorship or endorsement 11 idvertising, call 845-26“„ Tices are in 015 Reed )*; rough Friday. Fax: 845 ’) <as A&M student lo pick tf" er semester, $40 per sd*f I, Discover or American 1 y through Friday during ij* ' during the summers#*' t Texas A&M Universilf B40. T d McDonald Building, 1 '’ oance SPHNS SHOW 1996 Thursday April 2S 7:00 pm Rudder Theater Featuring: Jazz, Tap, Ballet 8r Modern dances!! Tickets available at tbe door. By Libe Goad The Battalion J_ of rom the depths of Texas A&M tra dition comes a fond remembrance of the past. Somehow, an important figure es caped from the books of Aggie tradition, but only for a moment. A&M historians have uncovered a grave’s treasure filled with the honor and loyalty this Universi ty prides itself on. Its tombstone meekly presents, “Here lies E.B. Cushing, Man and Building and Entity.” Cushing the Man Edward Benjamin Cushing, Class of 1880, singlehandedly saved A&M College. He guaranteed credit for A&M, which bartered for time the college needed to pay its $87,000 debt caused by the mess hall fire in 1911. No one knows what caused the fire, but everyone was painfully aware of the destruction on campus. It burned both the cafeteria and Old Main, now recon structed as the Academic Building. The administration had no place to go. Texas legislators cut off A&M Col lege’s funds, hoping to force A&M to Austin, which would create an agricul tural section for the University of Texas. Cushing saw his alma mater come to a crossroads. He took matters into his own hands and adopted an aggressive plan to bring A&M back to life. By the time he left his office as president of Texas A&M Board of Directors two years later, the Uni versity was out of debt and ready to launch into a new era. Cushing was a hero. The problem was he did not want anyone to know it. Donald Dyal, director of the Cushing Library, is in charge of resurrecting the memory of Cushing and the structure that bears his name. “He was a take-charge, make-it-hap- pen kind of guy,” Dyal said. “He was not the least bit encumbered with making sure that someone was pinning medals on his chest.” A video titled Forgotten Hero: E.B. Cushing that outlines the history of this A&M benefactor said he left A&M to qui etly retire in Houston with his family. People didn’t hear much about him again until after he died on Feb. 17, 1924. His will requested that his books, many on engineering, be left to the University. As time passed and generations moved on, the memory of Cushing has faded with time. Dyal said several events dictated the anonymity of Cushing. He said the time between 1915, when he retired from A&M, and 1930, when the building went up, fa cilitated memory loss, further ad vanced by the Great Depression. “Another reason Cushing was forgot ten was because of his own hard-headed stubbornness,” Dyal said. “If he was an ego-maniac, he would have been sure to be remembered. “In a way, he buried his own memory.” Cushing was not totally forgotten. When funds arrived to build a new li brary, former students petitioned the board to name it after Cushing. He survived in the hearts and minds of thosp hje helped. Dyal wants to make that happen See Cushing, Page 4 Shane Elkins, The Battalion Cushing Library displays the restored and refinished furniture of Richard Coke, a former governor of Texas. “Frequently, the facts are more fasci nating than the legends,” he said. Chapman said former students often come in to look at old yearbooks and relive their time at A&M through the books. Memories of old friends, some who have passed away, can activate strong emotions. “There is joy, sadness and all things that make the human experience in the paper of the archives,” he said. “(The archives) are records of individuals who passed through here, not about a piece of ground, but people who made this school what it is today.” Despite the fascinating nature of many of the collections in the Cushing Library, Chapman said many students are not aware of its existence. “To make people aware of it, we have to have a stage,” he said, “and we haven’t had one. We’ve been closeted away.” He said he hopes the current renova tion of the Cushing Library will raise awareness of the existence of the exten sive collections held in the library. “We tell people to come in, get the files and take a look,” Chapman said. “It will be interesting.” Edward Benjamin Cushing, Class of 1880, left his memorabilia to A&M in 1924. Law Schools Prefer Higher LSAT Scores. 100 155 - 150 Average Final LSAT Score 150.1 157.1 The average final score for Princeton Review LSAT students is 7 points HIGHER than the national average. Nalnral Average He Princetm Review Small Classes • Personal Attention Thorough Review • Effective Test-Taking Strategies Four Full-Length Practice LSAT's • Free Extra Tutoring Classes for June start Saturday, April 27th. Call today! Princeton Review scores are based on a 1994 Deloitte Touche study. National average provided by LSAS. The Princeton Review is nor affiliated with Princeton University or LSAS. THE PRINCETON REVIEW (800) 2-REVIEW email: into.cs@review.com
