Texas A & M University
V
YEAR‘ISSUE 134*8 PAGES
COLLEGE STATION • TX
TODAY TOMORROW
FRIDAY* APRIL 24* 1998
ling Dance to take center stage in MSC
By Colleen Kavanagh
Staff ivriter
tHeir last class event before gradua-
1members of the Class of ’98 will cel-
1 sate Ring Dance Saturday at 9 p.m. in
,MSC and Rudder Tower.
Celeste Falcon, a Ring Dance co-chair
[alenior psychology major, said Ring
ace is a fun social event that helps raise
peyfor the class gift.
put the entertainment there,” she
.iWe want everyone to see the faces
they’ve seen for the last four years and to re
member what holds us together. The class
gift will also be revealed and displayed in
the Faculty Club of Rudder Tower.”
Tickets are $35 per individual and $60
per couple. Everyone is welcome to at
tend, Falcon said.
“You don’t have to have a ring to attend,”
she said. “We don’t check rings at the door
or count hours or anything. A lot of times,
students who missed the year before or will
not be here in the spring attend.”
Seven rooms at Ring Dance will follow
“Ring Dance is a time to
celebrate the spirit of Ag-
gieland and everything the
ring itself symbolizes.”
Celeste Falcon
Ring Dance co-chair
the theme, “Aggie Spirit... A Timeless Tra
dition.” Bobby D & the Rockhouse Band
will perform in the Motown Nights room,
and Bill Ingram will perform in the Roar
ing Twenties room.
Nolan Barkhouse, senior class presi
dent and an international studies major,
said Ring Dance is a time for seniors to see
others in their class and listen to the vari
ety of performers.
Senior Ring Dance began in 1937 when
a group of seniors decided that a dance
with the ring as a theme would be appro
priate as the senior class’ final function.
A giant replica of the Aggie ring is at Ring
Dance, and as each seniors step into it, they
turn their rings so that the class year no
longer faces them — it faces the world.
Falcon said that Ring Dance honors
those who are about to leave A&M, ready
to face the challenges of the world, and it
is a time to remember the years spent in
Aggieland.
“Ring Dance is a time to celebrate the
spirit of Aggieland and everything the ring
itself symbolizes,” Falcon said.
ish
ROBERT MCKAY/The Battalion
In Bhel Ann Thompson, a senior exercise technology major, works out on the leg press at the Student Recreation Center Thursday morning.
17th time's a charm
Ted Baglin to accompany Corps of Cadets march
By Rachel Dawley
Staff writer
When the Corps of Cadets marches to
the Brazos River to raise money for birth
defect research on Saturday, they will be
joined by 69-year-old Ted Baglin, who has
marched in the event for the past 16 years.
Baglin, who went to college in New York,
learned about A&M and the Corps of
Cadets when he was working as an engi
neer in Fort Worth. He said most of his co
workers were either from Texas A&M or the
University of Texas, and he learned about
the rivalry between the two schools and the
traditions at A&M.
“I liked A&M because of the traditions,”
Baglin said. “It was what set the school
apart from all of the others in the country.”
Through a friend in Company E-l,
Baglin became associated with the outfit
and the Corps in 1981. When he learned
about March to the Brazos, Baglin asked E-
1 if he could join them in the march. This
began a tradition that Baglin said he looks
forward to each year.
“March to the Brazos is fun,” Baglin said.
“You really get to know the people and
learn about the cadets. I come back cov
ered in mud like everyone else.”
Baglin, who now livers in California,
comes to A&M each year for the march and
in the fall semester to meet the freshmen
in E-1. He is an associate member of the As
sociation of Former Students.
This is the 22nd March to the Brazos and
it will mark the informal change of com
mand for the next year. All cadets march to
the river, which is seven miles. After the
change of command, seniors ride busses
back and the new commanders will lead
the cadets in the march back.
“March to the Brazos is the single great
est community service event that the Corps
performs,” said Joel Harrison, coordinator
of the march and a senior English major.
“Everyone knows it is for a worthwhile
cause, and it shows our dedication to the
community.”
The Corps originally made a trip to the
Brazos River on April 1, 1911, to keep
cadets from playing April Fool’s jokes.
In 1977, the Corps begin using the
march as its service project and has raised
$750,000 for the foundation. Last year, the
Corps raised $50,000.
Uniformed cadets go around the com
munity and ask for flat donations to donate
to the March of Dimes. Some outfits also
hold car washes and fund raisers.
Barbara Bell-Seals, division director for
the local March of Dimes and Class of ’88,
said the foundation is looking forward to a
successful March to the Brazos event.
“I knew about the Corps’ involvement
March to the Brazos when I was at A&M,
but I have a different feel for it now that Tm
directly involved,” Bell-Seals said. “I have a
greater respect for it now that I am a part of
the foundation.”
In addition to March to the Brazos, the
local March of Dimes will participate in the
national Walk America drive on Saturday,
beginning at 9 a.m. in the Southwood Ath
letic Park.
The March of Dimes Birth Defects
Foundation centers its efforts on the health
of infants. The organization worked to dis
cover a vaccine for polio and now focuses
on conquering birth defects.
lable modems to aid
ii eed for Net speed
By Suzanne Riggs
Staff writer
I'ilW
ryan-College Station comput-
ISevers can access the Internet up
) times faster than before by
ki^ganewcable modem service,
t is going to cost,
cable modem is a box that
Is and receives data from the
met though the same coaxial
le lines that bring television
homes and offices. It replaces
standard telephone modems
|p Wj are used by most computers,
linating the need to dial into
Internet each time it is used,
s offers a continuous connec-
ito the Internet.
aclyn Giles, a TCA Internet
ieting/design specialist, ex
ited the impact of cable mo-
Uechnology.
So many people use the Inter-
as a business and educational
and time is everything nowa-
[s,” she said. “The speed differ-
|e is incredibly important.”
Sreg Futrell, TCA Internet Di
or of Broadband Access, said
cable modem can save users
eral hours of downloading.
Downloading files or some
er piece of software that is con
ned a large program or file can
eup to five hours to download
a telephone modem,” he said,
would take less than 30 min-
sonacable modem.”
Murphy Hawkin of TCA Inter-
Corporate Services said that
speed of a modem depends on
size of its bandwidth.
“Bandwidth is like the size of a
he said. “The bigger the
le the more signals can pass
ough. A cable line has a lot larg-
bandwidth than a telephone
2 so it can transmit more data.”
‘This does not have any affect
your television services and
leaves your telephone line totally
free.”
Futrell said the added band
width will open up an array of
multimedia applications that re
quire speed such as full-motion
graphics, online gaming and vir
tual reality modeling language.
“All these future developments
have more complicated files with
a lot more data than the telephone
lines can handle,” he said. “With
cable lines opening up, all these
things that have been on the back
burner can now come of age.”
However, these benefits bring
higher costs than that of regular
telephone modems.
Sebastian Nienhuis, technical
support technician for University
CIS and a junior management and
information services major, said the
expense is a major deterrent for
switching to a cable modem. It runs
about $15 more than the average
telephone modem cost of $20 per
month in addition to the setup fee.
“It’s a premium Internet service
that will cover all of your needs,
but your are going to pay for what
you get,” he said.
Futrell said the idea for the ca
ble modem has been around for
about two years.
“Getting all the kinks out and
figuring how it is going to work is
difficult,” he said. “The reason that
a lot of the other cities like Dallas
and Houston don’t have cable
modems is because they don’t
have one conglomerate that owns
all the cable.”
Nienhuis said that as cable
modems become more and more
popular, the cable systems may
slow down.
As a result, telephone compa
nies have already started to create
their own services for high-speed
data transfer including the digital
subscriber line service.
Whoopstock swoops in to campus
By Jennifer Wilson
Staffwriter
The Whoopstock Unity Festival,
one of the newer Texas A&M tradi
tions, will bring students together in
a celebration of diversity while lis
tening to bands, playing games and
sampling foods this Saturday at O.R.
Simpson Drill Field.
Whoopstock started five years
ago in response to a KKK rally in
College Station. Instead of going to
the rally and protesting, students
decided to organize a festival cele
brating diversity.
Dima Mousselli, chair ofWhoop-
stock and a senior biology major, said
the festival aims to promote diversi
ty and unity in a relaxed atmosphere.
“We are not trying to shove diver
sity down anyone’s throat,” she said.
Mousselli said she hopes partici
pants open their minds expand their
cultural knowledge.
“We are reaching beyond our
selves to embrace our differences
and share our similarities in a cele
bration of unity,” she said.
Kristina Wright, director of ad
ministration for Whoopstock and a
senior anthropology major, said the
festival presents opinions and other
ideas about many cultures.
“We want to get people out who
want to try something different or
who might not normally come,” she
said.
Wright said diversity is an impor
tant issue on campus because A&M
lacks diversity compared to other
universities.
“This [Whoopstock] helps us un
derstand the diversity we do have,”
she said.
Comedians, dancing groups, mu
sic, games, art and food will highliglit
the festival’s entertainment.
Holly Doughti, public relations di
rector for Whoopstock and a senior
agriculture development and ento
mology major, said some of the eth
nic music that will be featured in
cludes ska band Evil Skanevil, music
SWT students protest school’s
treatment of rape suspects
from the band Vim, which is com
posed of three professors from the
engineering department, Indian mu
sic and a reggae band from Houston.
She said Mexican dancers and the
AggieWranglers will perform, and in
ternational associations will provide
food from their respective countries.
Doughti said some of the more in
teresting foods will be ethnic candies
provided by the Baja student organi
zation, and cooked insects offered by
the entomology club. Some local
restaurants also will provide food.
She said the Indian student as
sociation will provide mehndi,
which is the popular hand and body
painting art form.
INSIDE
SAN MARCOS (AP) — Southwest
Texas State University’s handling of
rape allegations against three black
athletes is drawing protests from
black students who say they face a
hostile environment on campus.
“This case did not start racism on
campus. This is the history, and we
must work to break it,” student Kei-
thon Kerley told a Wednesday rally.
University officials, while express
ing concern about that perception,
said they did not mishandle the rape
allegations and they do not think the
school’s environment is hostile.
“Whenever you have a diverse
student body... there are going to be
situations where people have diffi
culty dealing with differences in oth
ers,” James Studer, vice president of
student affairs, told the Austin Amer-
ican-Statesman. “We’re trying to turn
that around.”
White students make up 74 per
cent of the student body; Hispanics,
18 percent; and blacks, 5 percent.
The rally comes after three foot
ball players were charged April 1 with
raping two white students after a
March 23 dormitory party.
‘This case did not
start racism on
aggielifc
Kyle Field gears up for its
first country concert this
Saturday.
campus.
Keithon Kerley
SWT student
Leaders of black groups at South
west Texas contend that black stu
dents long have met with harass
ment from the university police
force, which includes no blacks
among its 27 officers.
They say they face insensitivity
from an all-white group of top ad
ministrators, racial slurs from some
faculty members and student gov
ernment refusal to fund some black
organizations.
Several hundred students attend
ed the rally to listen to the students
who organized it and state Rep. Ron
Wilson, D-Houston, who came to
support them.
Black student leaders had asked
to meet with university President
Jerome Supple about their concerns
shortly before the rape allegations.
Since the allegations, the lead
ers have defended the suspects,
saying they deserve due process
and are innocent until proven
guilty. They said they did not know
what happened but they have rea
son to believe the women con
sented to sex.
The women, according to affi
davits, told police they were too in
toxicated to consent and didn’t re
member what had happened. Under
state law, sex with someone who is
unable to consent is considered sex
ual assault.
See Page 3
sports
A&M Coach Melvin Watkins
plans to produce winners in
the game of life.
See Page 6
opinion
Saloma: Scheduling a concert
to coincide with Ring Dance
shows lack of consideration
See Page 7
online
http://battalion.tamu.edu
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