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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (April 1, 1998)
( 'uesday • Marclii Texas A & M University / he Ekittalion encourages l srs must be 300 woidsot mthor’s name, class, and r-i he opinion editor reseiwtj rs for length, style, and „ be submitted in personal ild with a valid student ID, b ailed to: The Battalion-MailCj 013 Reed McCta* YEAR • ISSUE 118 • 18 PAGES • 2 SECTIONS Rax: (409) 84M&!' : ^ COLLEGE STATION ‘TX TODAY TOMORROW WEDNESDAY • APRIL 1 • 1998 E-mail: batt@unlx.tjni. Iws Briefs atch ers es, tulips) S s Accepted. r lay 707 Texas Avi Brys' 822-21 an posts bail o theft counts exas A&M University profes- osted $3,500 bail Monday on :ounts of theft between $750 fib,000. liraj Pradhan, once the highest A&M computer science pro- jr, received a grand jury indict- t last Thursday that accuses of using state funds to pay Hfora personal patent, adhan received a separate in tent in late February on two ts of abuse related to two of ersonal businesses. Officials H National Science Founda- (NSF) presented evidence to ■id jury and accuse him of g travel expenses to a govern- «ency and to Texas A&M. ■s A&M University officials Hccused Pradhan of using ),0 0 of University funds for inal gain. amm to speak at sh Library Friday ■. Sen. Phil Gramm will speak ■edicare Reform Conference at aArge Bush Presidential Library plex on Friday. ie conference will take place V a.m. to 4p.m. Gramm is tiled to speak at 3:15 p.m in rrs of a series of public policy ■ sponsored by the Bush xj of Government and the De- ®nt of Economics. ■ nation’s leading economic achers in the health care are- vi| come together to present Solutions to the problems as- d with Medicare, he chairman of the U.S. Sen- [bcommittee on Health Care, was recently named to a 17- r Medicare commission to pull the Medicare system ankruptcy. new look, links break) ‘ to Campus • CLOSE TO CAMR! loftcc served on Cl drinks available. mis on Saturdays e from either Plugs n 1 More located at Station 34-1975 xas A&M web site •ts exas A&M University’s re ed web page is now online, site was adapted to make infor- li more easily accessible to 5e unfamiliar with Texas A&M and icrease its speed and efficiency, ft new page uses 12 major dngs in a drop down menu di dry list as well as five new links those seeking information con- Tig prospective students, cur- jtudents, former students, fac- and staff and visitors. Another Jon is a search box that rches the Texas A&M web site specified word or phrase in ik name or the actual URL. stateAppro»4|e new web site is designed ■^d Netscape Navigator 3.03+ ternet Explorer 3.01+. Down- ime has been reduced to 11.5 ids. The URL for the Texas A&M remains the same [://www.ta m u. ed u>. AGGIELANl' TAN Tanning & Accessories N S I D E nths or Mof 1 and Get A FREE id Libs celebrates 40th 5»rt«.-i versar y of making Iple laugh. <pre 46-2265 5 4-31-98 ricane HarryVf See Page 3 ital |ie Baseball Team iged earlier loss to UTSA 18 to 4 slaughter. See Page 7 ■vear -409) 696-5557 ntral Texas. Uimacher: Cartoon garters ridicule psycho- (cal problems. See Page 9 c//balta1l0n.tamiLedu k up with state and na- al news through The Ire, AP’s 24-hour online iws service. Student election signs evoke mixed reactions By Kelly Hackworth Staff writer With the recent theft of campaign signs Saturday, the importance of campaigning for student elections has come into question. ■ See Voter’s Guide, Special Section Murray Van Eman, student elections commissioner and a senior animal science major, said the signs are causing more trouble than they are worth. “This is making me want to speak to the student sen ate revisions committee to have big signs removed both on and off campus,” he said. Van Eman said there is a limit on the number of signs allowed on campus and their location. The signs are also restricted to 16 square feet of advertised space per side. Student leader candidates are allowed to place signs in four locations: West Campus, Sbisa Dining Hall, the Commons and the MSC. Many of the sign rules come from University regula tions, he said. Van Eman said his vote was never affected by the cre ativity of the campaign signs. Texas A&M students have expressed mixed reactions to campaigning. Corissa Remmert, a sophomore English major, said she looks at the campaign signs rather than the platform of the candidates. “I go more for their signs because that shows they re ally want the job and they’re campaigning,” she said. Kirby Atwood, a senior business analysis major, said the candidates’ platforms are more important. “It’s what they stand for that matters,” he said. “It’s not how pretty they make their signs.” Wendi Statzer, a sophomore English major said the signs reflect effort on behalf of the candidates. “I think the signs affect my vote because putting more effort into how they campaign gives an idea of how they might treat their position,” she said. The Student Senate has passed a bill that copyright ed or trademarked materials can not be used for cam paigning beginning next year. ■ |p i r | .... i APRIL 1,1998 _ VOTER 1 S GUIDE IffS lALIIJM RYAN ROGERS/The Battalion i I Steven Smith, associate professor and Special Collections librarian at the Cushing Memorial Library, demonstrates how Shakespeari- I an books were printed on a replica printing press of that era. The demonstration was part of this week’s 1998 Shakespeare Festival. Aboutface Gov. Bush promotes new plan to further education DALLAS (AP) — Many problems with public education could be fixed by employing a few sim ple business strategies — like holding schools ac countable for students’ failures — Gov. George W. Bush said Tuesday. Bush, addressing members of the National Center for Policy Analysis, reiterated his cam paign promise to do away with “social promo tion” in Texas schools. Bush said schools, like businesses, should be required"to show results. “Proven management principles when ap plied to government can transform the public sector and help create sound public policy,” Bush said to an audience of over 300 people. “The principles may seen pretty obvious to people in the business world ... But efficiencies and good practices that are second nature in busi ness are often second-fiddle in government.” Bush reiterated his proposal to eliminate so cial promotion by requiring third-graders to pass the Texas Assessment of Academic Skills reading exam before moving on to fourth grade. Fifth-graders would have to pass the reading and mathTAAS, and eighth-graders would have to pass reading, math and writing. The plan would take effect beginning with stu dents in the 1999 kindergarten class. Currently, the practice of promoting students regardless of performance is against the law, but there’s a clause that allows students to be pro moted if they “demonstrate proficiency of the subject matter.” Seniors take lead Opportunities to experience real world abound for students on Leadership Trip By Suzanne Riggs Staffwriter Some ofTexas A&M’s top seniors will gain first-hand knowledge about life af ter college during the 36th Annual MSC Spring Leadership Trip (SLT) in Hous ton, April 1 to 4. “The trip is like Fish Camp for the real world,” said Nichole Grice, SLT chair and a senior political science ma jor. At the beginning of every spring se mester, 42 seniors who have demon strated leadership abilities at A&M are chosen for the SLT program. SLT was started in 1963 by former students J.Wayne Stark, Class of ’39; James Ray, Class of '63; and John H. Lindsey Class of ’44. The three believed A&M students needed an opportunity to explore the challenges facing them after college and to enhance their cultural aware ness. As a result, Grice said the trip has evolved into three days of personal en richment. “We hope the students will have a good time and learn something from the people and things they are exposed to,” she said. Among the list of SLT’s featured speakers are Harris Pappas, founder of Pappaddeaux Seafood Kitchen restau rants and Class of ’66; Michael T. Hal- bouty, oil businessman and Class of’30; and Anne Armstrong, member of the A&M System Board of Regents and a former U.S. ambassador to Great Britain. A first for this year’s SLT trip is the ca reer match-up program, which will give students the opportunity to spend a morning at work with former A&M stu dents that are working in their field of interest. Cari Pope, SLT director of operations and a senior industrial engineering ma jor, said this program will help students understand life in the workplace. “While most of these students prob ably have done an internship,” she said, “the program will provide a different view that will open their eyes to the fact that not everything is like what their in ternships were like.” Pope said the students will also get a taste of Houston’s cultural scene. For example, they will attend a play at the Alley Theater, visit the the Holo caust Museum, explore Space Center Houston and see the Native American Art collection of Bud Adams, owner of the Tennessee Oilers football team. The students will stay with former students during the first two nights of the trip. “Some of the students may be from a town of 500 and then they go to a big city like Houston and are afraid of the traffic,” she said. “They can talk about what it is like to go to a city they have never been to.” Healing touch discredited CHICAGO (AP) — A study conducted by a 9-year-old girl for a science project and pub lished in a distinguished med ical journal concludes that “therapeutic touch,” in which a healer supposedly manipulates a patient’s energy field, is bunk. Emily Rosa, the daughter of a registered nurse and an inven tor, found that 21 experienced practitioners were unable to de tect the field they supposedly manipulate to heal. Her study was published in Wednesday’s Journal of the American Medical Association and immediately drew fire from supporters of the practice, who say it is respected worldwide. Therapeutic touch has been used to treat problems ranging from burns to cancer. The technique is practiced in at least 80 North American hos pitals and taught in more than 100 colleges and universities in 75 countries, said the study, written by the Loveland, Colo., fourth-grader, her parents and a Pennsylvania doctor who works to uncover quackery. Those who practice the tech nique say an energy field em anates from every person and is detectable above the skin through a tingling sensation or a feeling of hot or cold. The healer moves his or her hands over the patient’s body to modify the field. More than 100,000 people worldwide have been taught the technique, including at least 43,000 health-care profession als, the study said. Emily set up a cardboard screen through which practi tioners put their hands. With their sight blocked, she asked them to identify which of their hands was near one of hers. The 21 practitioners chose the correct hand 44 percent of the time. That was slightly less "I do sot believe jige should be a bar on an\“dii.n.g.. voun.g or old.." than the 50 percent chance they would have had of choosing the correct hand by guessing, au thors said. “To our knowledge, no other objective, quantitative study in volving more than a few thera peutic touch practitioners has been published, and no well-de signed study demonstrates any health benefit from therapeutic touch,” the study concluded. “These facts, together with our experimental findings, suggest that therapeutic touch claims are groundless and that further use of therapeutic touch by health pro fessionals is unjustified.” The research was never in tended to be published, Rosa said. But word spread, and the PBS show “Scientific American Frontiers” featured Emily’s tests on Nov. 19. Dr. Stephen Barrett of Quackwatch Inc., based in Allentown, Pa., suggested sub mitting the findings to JAMA. Dolores Krieger, professor emeritus of nursing science at New York University and co- founder of therapeutic touch in 1972, scoffed at Emily’s findings and said she was “astounded” JAMA published the study. “It’s poor in terms of design and methodology,” she said. She said the designer of the study — Emily — should not have been the one to conduct it, and the 21 subjects were too few and unrepresentative. Dr. George D. Lundberg, editor of JAMA for 16 years, said he han dled the editing of Emily’s report and the research is sound. “I do not believe age should be a bar on anything, either young or old,” he said. “It’s the quality of the science that matters.” Patricia W. Abrams, 59, said therapeutic touch saved her life 17 years ago after conventional doc tors had given up on treating her for agnogenic myloid fibrosis, a fa tal, incurable blood disorder. “I’ve never been healthier,” said Abrams, co-owner of an educational publishing compa ny in Washington, Conn. “It truly changed my life,” Abrams said.