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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (April 23, 1998)
Texas A & M University "WWW- TODAY TOMORROW COLLEGE STATION • TX [ H YEAR • ISSUE 133 • 12 PAGES ew class examines obal effects of NAFTA urology allows teleconferencing with students in Canada and Mexico WEDNESDAY • APRIL 23 • 1998 By Jennifer Wilson Staff writer (uflents now have the opportunity to Bands-onand see new perspectives liek ffects of the North American Free ■agreement (NAFTA) in a new class |liju;raclively links them with other pits in Canada and Mexico, lie dass, offered by the Lowry Mays je® and Graduate School of Business jthi George Bush School of Govern- j||tiKl Public Service, uses the tech- ■ of video teleconferencing. Haine Eden, faculty coordinator of lernational Affairs in the Americas ush School and an associate pro- )f management, coordinates and is the class that connects A&M to on University in Ottawa, Canada, ! Instit u to Technologico Autonomo ico in Mexico City, Mexico, jn said the class helps students bout Mexican and Canadian per- es on NAFTA and touches on diffi- rics in international management, e class enabled us to take students ally expose them to the culture and economics of Mexico and Canada,” she said. The class organizes students into teams with members from each country. The students work on projects with their members through the use of the Internet “The class enabled us to take students and really expose them to the culture and economics of Mexico and Canada.” Lorraine Eden Faculty coordinator of t he International Affairs in the Americas and e-mail. They present their projects during class when all three countries are linked by the video teleconference. Eden said the class met with the two countries 10 times during the semester to share and discuss assignments. She said the class is very beneficial to students be cause it provides them skills they could not get any other way. “It brings the world into the classroom instead of taking them to Mexico or Cana da,” she said. Eden said the class is assigned three projects. The international teams work on all three together which explore the im pacts of NAFTA on countries, industries and firms. She said for the analysis of NAFTA on firms, the teams analyzed different auto mobile companies and used new software that was donated to them that simulated software actually used by automobile companies. Eden said many students had the op portunity to personally work with advi sors at Chrysler and GM. “In the workplace, most people will end up working in cross-country and cross-cultural teams, and this class is a way to give students those skills to prepare them for international business,” she said. Please see NAFTA on Page 6. Students trek across the world with study abroad program By Kelly Hackworth Staff writer While many students are planning to take classes in their hometowns, others are stay ing in College Station this summer and some have chosen to study abroad. Mona Rizk-Finne, director of Study Abroad programs, said about 700 Aggies studied abroad last year. “It’s a wonderful experience and opportunity for students to learn about other cultures and make wonderful friend ships,” she said. Dr. Howard Marchitello, associate professor of English, has taken groups of Aggies to Castiglion Fiorentino, Italy in the summers of 1994 and J it q 1997 and is taking another group in the summer of 1999. Marchitello encourages students to consider studying abroad for the experience. “It’s actually living, rather than visiting, a COSTA RICA ITALY FRANC! MIXICO CITY culture,” he said. “Students actually live and learn the culture from within as compared to the tourist model.” Kim Bailey, a senior civil engineering ma jor who studied in Italy, said the study abroad experience made her more marketable. “It helps with job inter viewing because a lot of em ployers see it as a positive ex perience,” she said. Cathy Frysinger, a secre- taiy with the Study Abroad of fice, said option packages in clude 5-6 week summer programs in Ital;, Normandy, France; and Mexico City. Prices start at $2,300 for the Mexico City package. Interested students can ap ply for financial aid, grants and scholarships, Frysinger said. ' A 12-week orientation class is required the semester before the stu dents are to study abroad. Please see Abroad on Page 6. arion takes charge Big 12 commissioner may leave position MIKE FUENTES/The Battalion role Grafe, a member of the archery team and freshman general studies major, practices Wednesday afternoon for an upcoming tourna- nt this weekend. KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Steve Hatchell, who helped form the Big 12 Conference and became its first commis sioner, may soon be leaving under pres sure, sources told The Associated Press. Hatchell has recently interviewed for a top position with the Salt Lake Orga nizing Committee which will oversee the Winter Olympics in 2002. “I would not be surprised if we are interviewing candidates to be com missioner when we hold our spring meetings (May 18-21),” a source close to the situation told The AP. “There may be a vacancy.” Dr. Ray Bowen, president of Texas A&M University, has been appointed spokesperson for Big 12 presidents on the matter and could not immediately be reached. Bowen was quoted by the Fox affiliate in Kansas City Wednesday night as saying that Hatchell was “in terested in change. We’ve got some management problems there and there might be some people glad to see him go. He’s very demanding.” Bush supports Clinton with Secret Service letter WASHINGTON — Former President George Bush jumped unexpectedly be hind Secret Service efforts to keep agents from testifying about what they saw while protecting President WSSMM Clinton. The nation’s largest women’s group, however, stayed out of the fray and decided not to Bush support Paula Jones’ lawsuit. Just days after toying with the idea, the National Organization for Women an nounced it would not file a court brief in support of Jones’ effort to reinstate her sex ual harassment civil suit against Clinton. NOW President Patricia Ireland said the group’s national board and local chapters were overwhelmingly against filing a friend-of-the-court brief be cause the “highly charged political” lawsuit should not be used as a test case on sexual harassment. “The disreputable right-wing orga nizations and individuals advancing her cause...have a long-standing polit ical interest in undermining our movement to strengthen women’s rights and weakening the laws that protect those rights,” Ireland said at a news conference. idge dismisses appeal ve STIN (AP) — A federal judge took a slap Drney General Dan Morales’ representa- f the University of Texas in an affirmative i case but dismissed a bid by Hispanic lack groups to intervene. . District Judge Sam Sparks, in an order edWednesday, said the groups should in seek to intervene in the case at the ap- court level because proceedings in his are concluded. arks recently issued an injunction against sing racial preferences in law school ad- ons while considering attorney fees and iges in the so-called Hopwood case. It was named after one of four students who sued af ter being denied admission to the law school. The case, decided in 1996 by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, has left Texas universities unable to consider race in admissions or financial aid. UT has requested that Morales use Sparks’ injunction to mount a fresh appeal of the case. But Morales, citing his opposition to racial preferences, said he hasn’t decided whether to pursue an appeal. Please see Hopwood on Page 6. Six million remembered Holocaust Remembrance Day prompts reflection HOLOCAUST harity donates $50 million leli W ANTONIO (AP) — A atefoundationwentto one ie poorest parts of San An- o Wednesday to launch a million school voucher tam for low-income stu- sto attend private schools, he Children’s Educational ortunity Foundation said ill provide $5 million annu- for 10 years for students in Edgewood School District a to a school of their choice, t is the first time in the ted States school vouchers e been offered to students a entire district. “We are doing it now be cause the time is right, the funding is secured and, more importantly, because the need is great,” said Robert Aguirre, managing director of the non profit CEO Foundation. Nearly all of the 14,000 stu dents in the Edgewood district would qualify for the program. Critics immediately cried foul, claiming the program will not help all the district’s poor children and that it is merely a gimmick to pressure Texas law makers into passing a state- funded school voucher plan. “This is, I think, a huge public relations stunt. But frankly, I think the people of Texas are smarter than this,” said John O’Sullivan, secre tary-treasurer of the Texas Federation of Teachers, which opposes publicly funded voucher programs. Voucher opponents also questioned why the CEO Foundation chose Edgewood, a predominantly Hispanic district where the landmark legal fight for equalizing pub lic school financing in Texas was begun. SPRINGFIELD, N.J. (AP) — Norman Sal- sitz met his wife-to-be in early 1945. He had come to kill her. Amalie Petranker, a Polish Jew mas querading as a Christian to stay alive, was working for a German business that had planted mines throughout Krakow, Poland. The Germans planned to blow up the city before Soviet forces arrived. Salsitz, also a Polish Jew passing as a Christian, was a member of a Soviet-con- trolled Polish resistance group. He had been ordered to obtain the plans for the mines and then kill the person who sup plied them. Petranker looked at Salsitz and thought he might be Jewish. She tried to prove that she was, too, by reciting the prayer Kol Nidre in Hebrew. Suspicious that she might be a German who had learned Hebrew, Sal sitz asked her when Jews observe Kol Nidre — the eve ofYom Kippur. She answered correctly. And then, eyes filling with tears, she pointed a finger at him. “She said, “You? You? You too?,”’ Salsitz recalled. “I said, ‘Yes. I too.’” “I tell and I tell and I write and I speak,” says Salsitz, 77. “We shouldn’t let people forget.” His latest project is the collection of six million pennies — one for each Jew killed by the Nazis. He began the collection in Jan uary and had hoped to raise the $60,000 by Thursday, Holocaust Remembrance Day, AP/ Wm. J. Castell but so far has come up with only $11,000. He plans to give the money to the New York-based Jewish Foundation for the Righteous, which pays 1,400 monthly stipends to Christians or Muslims in 26 countries who rescued Jews from death. By posing as a non-Jew during the war, Salsitz was able to rise through the ranks of the Polish resistance. The Poles, he says, al ways thought that Jews had dark, sad eyes. His eyes are light blue. “I survived because I did not have a sad face,” he says. Twenty-one members of Salsitz’s imme diate family were shot in raids or died in concentration camps. His wife was the only member of her family to survive in Poland. She lost her parents, her sister, cousins, nieces and nephews. “God wanted me to live,” she says, “to bear witness and to tell the world what happened to my brothers and sisters.” Salsitz can still hear his father’s screams the day the older man was shot in front of an outhouse in his village of Kolbuszowa, Poland. INSIDE aggie life —— Game of bridge offers players chance to relax and challenge eachother in competition. See Page 3 sports Senior Larry Wade tries to end his career on a high note at USA Championships. See Page 7 opinion :■» A I Voss: Mother hood is a viable profession, not an easy way out for women. See Page 11 online http://battalion.tamu.edu Hook up with state and na tional news through The Wire, AP’s 24-hour online news service.