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TODAY
TOMORROW
THURSDAY • APRIL 2 • 1998
Elementary my dear Watkins
0 ew basketball coach, Melvin Watkins leaves UNC-Charlotte to revive Aggies
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: By Jeff Schmidt
Assistant sports editor
“ \ new day has dawned for Texas A&M Men’s
■ball and Melvin Watkins will be the architect.
Abalkins, who led North Carolina-Charlotte to
i consecutive 20-win seasons and NCAATour-
neri appearances, was hired as head basket-
| 1 coach, Athletic Director Wally Groff an-
inced yesterday.
A/at ins spent 18 years as an assistant coach for
■ Hia mater after he took the 49ers to the Final
irin 1977 as a player.
Tm \ ery excited about this opportunity, and
vety proud to be a part of the (A&M) family,”
tkins said at a Wednesday press conference,
fefest few days have been tough for me. I’ve had
refeleepless nights, but the opportunity wakes
iub.”
Before the press conference, Watkins had an in-
nal meeting with the players, and he told them
luf his open-door policy and what he expects
nthem.
‘I law a group of men who are hungry and a
up who feels that passion,” Watkins said. “As we
ntp the new arena, we want to create a winning
losphere.
'You have to have a belief in yourself. Compo-
itsfof success are consistent and if you apply
them you have a chance to be successful,”
Watkins said. “I believe in hard work and rollin’
up the sleeves.”
Watkins, 43, replaced Jeff Mullins at UNCC be
fore the 1996-97 season and compiled a 42-20
overall record with a pair of NCAA Tournament vic
tories at UNCC. He was named Conference USA
Coach of the Year his first season after leading the
49ers to a 22-9 regular season and a first round win
against Georgetown in the NCAA Tournament.
This season, the 49ers defeated Illinois-Chica-
go in the first round of the NCAA Tournament and
pushed top-seeded North Carolina to overtime be
fore losing.
“Melvin was one of the top three candidates
from the start of what was a very thorough and ex
haustive coaching search,” Groff said. “I am ex
tremely pleased and excited that he has accepted
the position, and we look forward to working with
him and his staff. The primary goals for all of our
programs are to contend for Big 12 Championships
and to be competitive on a national level. I am con
fident in Melvin’s ability to lead us to those goals.”
A nine-person search committee decided on
Watkins when Mississippi Coach Robb Evans was
rejected by Groff. New Mexico Coach Dave Bliss
was then thought to be the leading candidate, but
he decided not to pursue the job.
Watkins was one of only two candidates to for-
RYAN ROGERS/The Battalion
New A&M men’s basketball coach, Melvin Watkins
speaks at a press conference yesterday,
mally interview for the position. Vanderbilt’s Jan
Van Breda Koff interviewed the day after Watkins
and was told Watkins likely would accept the va
cant position.
Perhaps Watkins’ first order of business will be
to persuade sophomore guard Brian Barone to stay
at A&M. Barone is the son of former Head Coach
Tony Barone, who was reassigned in February. Al
though Barone said he has no timetable for his de
cision, he does plan to talk with Watkins and de
cide pretty quickly whether to stay or not.
Please see Watkins on Page 9.
RHA delays vote
on visitation bill
By Amanda Smith
Staff writer
The Residence Hall Association
(RHA) tabled the resolution last
night that favors extending visita
tion from 9 a.m. to 2 a.m. daily in all
residence halls on campus.
RHA failed to meet the required
quorum of 50 RHA members to
vote on the resolution.
Peter Schulte, the RITA vice
president for administration and
a sophomore business major,
said the extended legislation is
well-developed.
“The committee has gotten a lot
of good input from the residents,”
Schulte said. "It is a good way for the
Department of Residence Life peo
ple to stay on campus.”
Schulte said RHA needs to vote
on the extended visitation pro
posal by the next general assem
bly, April 15.
“There is a lot of support for the
extended hours visitation bill with
in RHA but the legislation could go
either way,” Schulte said.
An addition to the extended
hours, the resolution supports the
right of each hall to vote for com
plete 24-hour visitation or 24-hour
visitation on weekends only.
Currently, only co-educational
residence halls allow 24-hour visi
tation. Northside co-ed halls in
clude Clements, the FHK complex
and Lechner. Southside co-ed halls
include Eppright and Wells.
All non co-ed halls currently al
low visitation from 10 a.m. to 2
a.m. daily.
Rusty Thompson, the assistant
director of residence education for
the Department of Residence Life,
said co-ed halls tend to have fewer
disciplinary problems. Thompson
said fewer problems may be due in
part to 24-hour visitation and oth
er factors.
Please see RHA on Page 2.
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Heightened experience
GREG MCREYNOLDS/The Battalion
Blair Halliwell, a University employee, touches up the stone flowers as part of a renovation project beneath the overhang of the
Academic Building on Wednesday afternoon.
< Big Event tackles 400 jobs Saturday
O
l
nt’
a
m
By Amanda Smith
Staffwriter
Helen Pugh is thankful for the help she re
jives from Big Event each year. The College
ation resident and Texas A&M supporter
B students have come to her home to help
can out the gutters and perform other
■res that she cannot do alone.
|fl appreciate the Big Event,” Pugh said,
ley didn’t mind getting up on the roof be-
ise I wouldn’t be able to get up there. The
udents do an excellent service to tire com-
lunity, and they always help with more than
fat I ask for.”
gMore than 3,000 volunteers are expected to
pplete more than 400 service jobs in the
Rtimunity Saturday for the annual Big Event.
Congressman Joe Barton will kick off the
ceremonies for Big Event at 8:30 a.m. in front
of the Jack K. William Administration building.
‘The students do an
excellent service to
the community...”
Helen Pugh
Colege Station resident
Debbie Emminger, Big Event director and
a senior community health major, said any
body in the Bryan-College Station area is eli
gible to apply for help.
“It is our way of saying ‘thank you’ to all so
cioeconomic backgrounds in the Bryan-Col-
lege Station community,” Emminger said. “A
lot of people have misconceptions about the
Big Event, but anybody is eligible.”
Big Event is the largest student-run com
munity service event in the nation and is co
ordinated by an executive committee of Stu
dent Government.
The history of Big Event can be traced to
1982 ,when Joe Nessbaum proposed a bill to
the Student Senate to develop a community
wide service event. The first event included
six students who cleaned up the grounds of a
local cemetery.
Please see Big Event on Page 2.
c ’anel examines future role of arts on campus
in
By Kelly Hackworth
Staffwriter
The English Language & Literature So-
|ety and Sigma Tan Delta presented an
ts panel last night to about 70 students
> discuss the future of the arts program at
exasA&M University.
I Dr. Woodrow Jones, Dean of the College
ot Liberal Arts, said the college needs a
Wronger arts program.
I “Arts are a reflection of liberal learning,”
h<‘ said. “It is through arts that we get a
pance to act out what life is all about.”
I Dr. Paul Parrish, arts development co-
|rdinator and a panelist, said the depart-
jjjpent wants to offer a music degree and a
jfombined theater and music department.
I "It would be the first time in the history
|f Texas A&M that there would be a de
partment whose mission would be the
Ins,” he said.
I Parrish said the arts program may help
I-
Texas A&M get a Phi Beta Kappa chapter, a
national honor society.
“The absence of developed academic
programs in arts was one of the criti
cisms,” he said. “This will be a positive
step forward, but no guarantees are built
into that.”
The process of implementing the arts
program will be long, Parrish said. It will
take about a month to move the proposal
up to the chain of command, he said.
“We should know within the next acad
emic year," he said.
Dr. Malon Southerland, vice president
for student affairs, said the Board of Re
gents is looking for a $5 million donor for
the Arts program.
“It may sound like a iot of money to us,
but when $5 million is an endowment,
that’s $250,000 a year to spend forever,”
he said.
The $5 million is needed to make the re
quest feasible to the coordinating board,
Jones said.
It is especially attractive because state
funding is not necessary, he said. The mon
ey will be used to underwrite the program,
and provide scholarship, and it will not
drain the state funds, Jones said.
“Since we are the only public universi
ty in the state without a music program, we
are asking them to allow us to duplicate
programs,” Jones said.
Dr. Peter Lieuwen, music section coor
dinator, said the music major will not em
phasize performance at this time.
“Many good Texas schools have perfor
mance degrees," he said. “A lot of the jobs
in music are not in the performance area
but music technology and music therapy.”
Southerland said the Aggie Band will
not be affected by the new music program.
“Colonel Toler supports this program,”
Southerland said. “The only way we
would have a problem is with a perfor
mance program.”
Sexual harassment suit
thrown out by judge
WASHINGTON (AP) — In a dramatic vic
tory for President Clinton, a judge threw out
Paula Jones’ lawsuit Wednesday and said her
claim of sexual harassment wasn’t worthy of
a trial even if the president’s alleged behavior
was “boorish and offensive.”
Jones “has failed to demonstrate that she
has a case and the court therefore finds that
there are no genuine issues for trial,” U.S. Dis
trict Judge Susan Webber Wright wrote in Lit
tle Rock, Ark.
“While the court will certainly agree tliat
plaintiffs’ allegations describe offensive con
duct, the court... has found that the gover
nor’s alleged conduct does not constitute
sexual assault,” she ruled.
Her 39-page ruling abruptly halted a sen
sational lawsuit that had haunted the White
House for more than three years and threat
ened to place his sexual conduct with a variety
of women before the nation in a historic trial.
Clinton, wrapping up a six-nation tour of
Africa, was so stunned by word of the ruling
that he asked if it was an April Fools’ joke. The
president is “pleased that he has received the
vindication he has long awaited,” press sec-
retary Mike McCurry said.
Jones’ lawyers said an appeal is “very like
ly” and that while they were disappointed
with the decision, “this ruling does not vin
dicate or exonerate Mr. Clinton.”
“It is a shame that unless the ruling is re
versed on appeal, there will now never be a
determination of who was telling the truth
and who was lying,” her law firm said in a
statement.
“I’m shocked,” said Susan Carpenter
McMillan, Jones’ spokesperson. “I’d be less
than honest if I didn’t tell you I was com
pletely blown away by this decision.”
While the White House cheered the deci
sion, Clinton’s legal woes are far from over.
Whitewater prosecutor Kenneth Starr is press
ing his criminal investigation into whetirer
Clinton lied about having sexual relations with
White House intern Monica Lewinsky and en
couraged her to
cover it up.
“Judge Wright’s
ruling today has no
effect on our au
thority and we will
continue working to
complete the inves
tigation as expedi
tiously as possible,”
Starr said in a state
ment just hours af-
Clinton t er the ruling.
The White House brushed off the linger
ing issues. “This has been a fact of life and no
doubt other things will remain a fact of life for
him,” McCurry said. He said Clinton had
shown “extraordinary discipline” in not be
ing distracted.
In her ruling, Wright said that whatever
went on in the Arkansas hotel room in 1991
between Jones and Clinton, then the state’s
governor, she had failed to prove she was
harmed emotionally or in her career as she
contended.
“The plaintiffs’ allegations fall far short of
the rigorous standards for establishing a claim
of outrage under Arkansas law,” Wright wrote.
Whatever went on in the Excelsior Hotel
in Little Rock “was brief and isolated; did not
result in any physical harm... did not result
in distress so severe that no reasonable per
son could be expected to endure it,” the
judge wrote.
Software takes
science to edge
By Jennifer Wilson
Staffwriter
Geophysics students now have the opportuni
ty to learn about their field in a hands-on learning
process thanks to a software donation.
Seismic Micro-Technology of Houston donat
ed $410,000 of software to Dr. Joel Watkins to
teach his geophysics students on computers in
stead of by textbooks.
The software helps locate oil and gas deposits
by examining pictures of layers of rock.
Bill Lance, director of marketing at Seismic Mi
cro-Technology, said the donation was a result of a
shared goal between the corporation and Texas
A&M to train students in the techniques of mod
ern technology.
“Our goal is to provide tools to educate young
geoscientists,” he said. “The three-year donation
offers the latest versions of the software to the stu
dents, and I imagine it will continue again after the
three year period ends.”
Lance said there is a shortage of trained geosci
entists and the software gives students the oppor
tunity to experience modern technology and learn
what otherwise would be taught by a textbook in a
practical way.
“The software gives students the ability to know
how to deal with the technical tools,” he said.
Dr. Joel Watkins, a geophysics professor, said the
technology makes it easier to explain concepts to
his students.
Please see Software on Page 2.
INSIDE
— aggie life —
‘Blue Suede
Shoes’ dances
into Rudder
Auditorium,
brings memorable Elvis
tunes to the stage.
See Page 3
sports
Senior tennis players Vanessa
Rooks and Monica Robolledo
lead young Aggie team.
See Page 7
opinion
Patton: Prospect of Al Gore
as president stands as a
frightening possibility.
See Page 11
online
http: / / battalion, tamu.edu
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