Texas A & M University
Jilll
l TH IYEAR • ISSUE 112 • 10 PAGES
COLLEGE STATION • TX
51 84
>5 1 ) 64
TODAY TOMORROW
TUESDAY • MARCH 24 • 1998
^search Week showcases student projects
By Jennifer Wilson
Staff writer
fine first annual Student Research
; at [Texas A&M will give students a
r perspective on the importance of
mt research through informational
ts and presentations,
jden t Research Week will host speakers
I various institutions and corporations,
pmore than 100 students will win awards
igh poster and oral presentations,
incy Sawtelle, director of communica-
I for research and graduate studies, said
the purpose of research week is for student
groups to get together and find out what
types of research the groups are doing.
“Many people do not realize that stu
dents do research work and this does not
happen at all universities,” she said.
Sawtelle said many universities do not
have the technology and facilities that
A&M has to give the students these oppor
tunities. She said this week will also help
students share their research with others
and learn more about the different meth
ods of research.
“Research teaches students to think and
analyze, and how to present the ideas that
they develop to other people,” she said.
The week will kick offWednesday with an
opening reception in Rudder Tower at 4 p.m.
Dr. Howard Kaplan, professor of sociology,
will speak on the importance of research.
Kaplan will prepare students on how to
acquire and collate information, under
stand the process of gathering information
and teach research methodology.
“With the information explosion that is
occurring and the increase of knowledge, it
is much harder to teach the methodology
of acquiring knowledge,” he said. “Two
skills dial will help students are to concep
tualize and to gather information so they
can be able to collate the knowledge and
transmit it for themselves.”
Kaplan said to do this, students must
have practical research experience. He said
this week provides a chance for students to
be active in their research.
Thursday, students will prepare posters
and oral presentations.
Sawtelle said the students created
posters, which will be on display in the ex
hibit hall of Rudder Tower, to visually dis
play the research they conducted.
“We would really like for the communi
ty and the students to take the opportunity
to walk through and take a look at the
posters,” she said. “They will be amazed.”
Sawtelle said other students will give
short oral presentations to display their re
search ideas.
Participants will be assigned categories
to their areas of study and will be eligible to
win prizes based on their ability to com
municate ideas verbally or in graphic form.
Please see Research on Page 2.
t v atchful eye
w i 7 ;
MIKE FUENTES/The Battalion
»vSd Stroman, a sophomore history major, looks on as Hutch Butler, a senior recreation parks and tourism science major, plays hacky sack
tween classes Monday afternoon.
Deadline looms
April 6 marks last day students can Q-Drop
classes, advisors suggest ways to avoid use
EWS
Briefs
Russian cabinet ousted
>mmittee to hold
aring on campus
|ie Texas House Committee on
sportation will hold a public
ing at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday at
; Bush Presidential Library Con-
ice Center.
ommittee members will focus
dfically on two major subjects
: : ently affecting transportation
;xas: issues related to speed
|s and highway safety, and the
its of oversize and overweight
|ks on roads and bridges, in-
ting the impact of NAFTA-relat-
raffic.
Wednesday’s public hearing will
he second held this year by
committee, which has juris-
ion over all transportation
i; ters in the state, including:
||mercial motor vehicles, the
I is highway system, railroads,
orts and waterways,
he hearing, which will be host-
>y the Texas Transportation In-
jte, is being held in conjunction
the annual meeting of the TTI
icil. the institute’s industry ad-
fry group.
Officials from the Texas Depart-
|it of Transportation and the
ps Department of Public Safety
will participate in the hearing.
ndidates appear
Flagroom forum
xas A&M Student Body Presi-
l and yell leader candidates
articipate in a campus forum
nesday in the MSC Flagroom
:30 p.m.
e forum will be an opportunity
tudents to hear candidates
s and answer questions from a
of student leaders. Candi-
s will have an opportunity to re-
d to each question,
e forum is co-sponsored by the
ent Government Election Com-
ion and Political Forum.
MOSCOW (AP) — President
Boris Yeltsin picked a little-known
reformer as acting prime minister
Monday after firing his entire Cab
inet without warning. He promised
that Russia’s biggest government
shakeup since the Soviet Union
dissolved would not derail democ
ratic and free-market reforms.
Yeltsin shocked many Russians
when he dismissed the Cabinet, in
cluding his stolid and loyal prime
minister, Viktor Chernomyrdin.
Few had ever heard of the man
named as Chernomyrdin’s acting
replacement, Sergei Kirienko.
Despite the shakeup, leaders
from Yeltsin on down insisted that
Russia was not teetering on the
verge of a political crisis.
“There is no governmental cri
sis in the country,” Chernomyrdin
said after losing the job he had held
since 1992. “This is a natural and
routine process of renewing pow
er. One thing is clear: The course of
reforms in Russia is irreversible.”
Most of the Cabinet members
were ordered to stay on tem
porarily and many, including For
eign Minister Yevgeny Primakov,
were expected to keep their posts.
Yeltsin said he needed a fresh
government to re-energize eco
nomic reforms, which he said were
moving too slowly, jeopardizing
the future of democracy in Russia.
“Unfortunately, people don’t
feel changes for the better,” he
said, speaking slowly and calmly
in a nationwide television broad
cast. “I believe that recently the
government has been lacking dy
namism and initiative, new out
looks, fresh approaches and
ideas. And without this, a power
ful breakthrough in the economy
is impossible.”
By Amanda Smith
Staff writer
An increasing number of stu
dents must decide to drop or
keep classes as April 6, the Q-
drop deadline, approaches.
Margie Dyer, an academic advi
sor in the College of Liberal Arts, said
students often wait until the last day to
drop classes. She said students need to
use Q-drops only when necessary.
“Use them sparingly, particularly
early in your college career,” Dyer said.
“Take a careful look at a professor’s syl
labus (during the first week of classes).”
Texas A&M allows students only
three Q-drops, excluding special ap
peals for an additional Q-drop.
Dyer said Q-drops provide stu
dents a chance to experiment with
different classes.
“One positive is that the Q-drop al
lows students to take classes they
might not otherwise take,” Dyer said,
“ft gets students to try a class for a
longer period of time.”
Dyer said students can take mea
sures to reduce the likelihood of Q-
dropping a course. Students may
check grade distributions, read
through course descriptions and visit
with faculty members before selecting
courses for the next semester.
“Make the schedule doable as far as
classes go,” Dyer said. “It would be
good to have variety. Students should
try to balance the type of work they
will be doing.”
Kriss Boyd, the director of General
Academic Programs, said a limit of
three Q-drops was implemented after
the College of Engineering and the
College of Business expressed con
cerns about students dropping and re
taking courses.
“Students were retaking courses
three, four and five times,” Boyd said.
“This causes a backlog due to increased
demand for the same courses. Now every
college limits students to three Q-drops.”
Boyd said other universities have
adopted drop limits since A&M limit
ed the number of drops students can
have as undergraduates.
Dr. Hillary Jessup, a professional
Health Center offers services to women
By Jill Reed
Staff writer
Texas A&M University is cele
brating Women’s Week this week,
but the Student Health Center cares
for women’s health every week.
Reagan Mensch Brown is a
nurse practitioner who has headed
the gynecology clinic at the health
center since it opened in June 1995.
Brown said the Women’s Clinic
offers students Pap smears and
other reproductive health ser
vices, and die Beutel pharmacy of
fers students low-cost birth con
trol products.
A student can buy ten con
doms for two dollars and birth
control pills for five to ten dollars
per month.
For limited emergencies, the
Health Center offers morning-after
pregnancy prevention.
With about 25 appointments
per day, Brown said, a small per
centage of women at A&M use the
women’s clinic.
She said there is now a three-
day wait, and the clinic probably
could not handle more women
without expanding its facilities.
Dr. Lucille Isdale, director of the
Department of Student Health Ser
vices, said the women’s health clin
ic is awaiting available funds for
expansion.
She said nine physicians at Beu
tel are able to handle gynecological
medicine, but the students like the
privacy and isolation of the
women’s clinic.
“We have an excellent staff of
diseases or eating disorders.
Dr. Jane W. Cohen, Health Edu
cation Coordinator and nutrition
specialist for the Department of
Student Health Services, said stu
dents with questions about their
nutritional intake can use a com-
“We are here to provide primary health
care and we want to provide the
best service we can.”
Margaret M. Griffith
Assistant coordinator of Health Education Center
physicians,” Isdale said. “Over half
of them are board certified, and we
now have more female doctors
now than we’ve had in the past.”
The health center also offers a
sexual health education program,
a nutrition education program and
a drug education program.
Margaret M. Griffith, who has a
master’s degree in health education,
is the assistant coordinator at the
Health Education Center at A&M.
Griffith said students may visit
the Health Education Center for
counseling about personal health
issues such as sexually transmitted
puterized diet analysis program
and in less than 20 minutes, calcu
late daily nutrients.
Cohen said the health educa
tion center is a good service for
students because it would cost $50
or more to consult a private prac
tice dietitian.
She said students can consult
her with questions about anorexia,
bulemia, obesity and other binge
eating disorders.
“National statistics say that any
where from 20 to 40 percent of
women have eating disorders,” Co
hen said. “The sooner they can get
counselor in the College of Business,
said students should talk to the pro
fessor before talking to an advisor
about Q-dropping a class.
“Students should go by and talk to
the professor,” Jessup said. “Sometimes
students think they are doing poorly.
Students should really listen to the pro
fessor and listen to their advice.”
Students in the College of Business
and most other colleges on campus
may talk to an academic counselor be
fore deciding to Q-drop a class but
they are not required, Jessup said.
“Quite a few students drop because
of their grade in a class or they may de
cide to change their major,” Jessup
said. “Students can raise their grades
by dropping a class and (devoting)
more time on their other classes.”
After dropping a class, some stu
dents choose to continue attending
the class before taking it again.
Katie DuFour, a sophomore com
munity health major, said she began
attending another section after she Q-
dropped her biology class last year.
“I do think that it helped me be
cause I knew that the material was go
ing to get harder,” DuFour said. “It
helped me to see the more difficult in
formation before I took the class again
the next semester.”
Please see Q-Drop on Page 2.
help, the better. However, the indi
vidual must take responsibility for
their problem.”
Cohen said that the Health Cen
ter uses a team approach with a
physician, dietitian and a psychol
ogist for student nutrition coun
seling because an eating disorder
can be a sign of an underlying
problem such as family stress or
personal experiences.
“We refer some students to stu
dent counseling, which can help
with self-esteem, body image and
eating disorders,” Cohen said.
The Health Education Center
has educational videos and a
health library that students can use
as a resource for research papers or
for other purposes.
“We would like more students
to use our service and we would
like more student input on what
they would like to see us do,” Grif
fith said.
“We are here to provide prima
ry health care,” Isdale said, “and
we want to provide the best ser
vice we can.”
As of April 1997, the Health Cen
ter is one of the 110 health services
out of2,500 that has voluntary sub
jected itself to and acquired na
tional accreditation by the Accred
itation Association for Ambulatory
Care Inc. Isdale said.
INSIDE
aggielife
Local family
makes good
with local
restaurants and
rich Italian
background.
See Page 3
sports
Furtick: Baseball’s National
League Central stumps
handicappers.
See Page 7
opinion
Meier: The myth of a color
blind Hollywood is dispelled
with this year’s Oscars.
See Page 9
online
http://battalion.tamu.edu
Hook up with state and na
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