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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 2, 1998)
>CCER TEAM CKS INTO GH GEAR J in over UNT starts son on right foot. DRTS, PAGE 9 MISSYPLICITY • Columnist tracks the story of millionaire dog cloning plan. OPINION, PAGE 13 CHECK OUT THE BATTALION ON-LINE h ttp://ba ttalion. tarn u. edu WEDNESDAY September 2, 1998 105 YEARS AT TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY Registering late will cost students • Choosing classes in first twelve semester days assesses $100 fee. BY AARON MEIER The Battalion Students attempting to register for the fall semester during the first 12 days of class will be assessed a $100 late fee. This late fee will be applied to stu dents that have also failed to pay their tuition bill on time and subsequently were dropped from their classes. Mark Cangelose, the manager of the stu dent accounts and billing services, said those students whose scholarships or grant money has not arrived will not be assessed this penalty provided that the notification of the scholarship or grant is on the Student Information Management System (SIMS). “The only way they will be charged a late fee is if they failed to pay their tu ition, or they didn’t register for any class es,” Cangelose said. Students who try to add or drop a class during the standard add/drop pe riod can still do so without a fee. The add/drop period ends Friday. Students that try to register after the first 12 days of class will be assessed a $200 penalty. Cangelose said the University has to report enrollment to the State of Texas by the 12th day of class, so the fee is meant to discourage late enrollment. The University policy regarding these late fees is listed in the fall course sched ule book and the undergraduate and graduate catalogs. “We try to put it in as many as publi cations as possible,” Cangelose said, “but we do hold them accountable for knowing what is in the class schedule.” Cangelose said students can inquire into waiving the fee, but the official pol icy is printed in the class schedule. “If they have any questions, what we try to do is get them to refer to the class schedule,” Cangelose said. “The last word is what the class schedule says.” Freshman enrollment at A&M exceeds past figures RYUKYU ISLANOI would exprf inels. GREG MCREYNOLDS/The Battalion "irefighters Jimmy Yow and Joe Warren from College Station Fire Department put »ut a fire in the dumpster near the Zachry building. Firefighters speculate the fire vas caused by a cigarette butt in the dumpster. £ ISC food court reopens 1H th Man International Food Court offers students varied cuisine BY NON! SRIDHARA The Battalion 'he former 12th Man gers and Snacks located the main floor of the norial Student Center re- ned as the 12th Man In- ational Food Court, ack Cahill, division manag er for cash operations at Texas A&M, said the main reason for the renovation was because the space was being underused. The idea for the Interna tional Food Court came after a task force conducted a mar ket survey which was distrib uted to students. The results of this survey showed that students were very brand conscious, they wanted ethnic foods, and they wanted flavored foods as well. Renovations on the facility began this summer and were completed in time for the fall semester. see Food Court on Page 12. BY AMANDA STIRPE The Battalion Enrollment figures for Fall 1998 have risen, although the exact number will not be released until after the 12th day “Undergraduate enrollment is up and freshmen enrollment is also up from last year” — Lane B. Stephenson Deputy Director of University Relations of class, said Lane B. Stephenson, deputy director of university relations. “Undergraduate enrollment is up and freshman enrollment is also up from last year,” Stephenson. The enrollment for the semester will be held until all students are accounted for after classes start. Enrollment for the 1996-1997 school year, not including Texas A&M Univer sity at Galveston, was 41,461 students. Since Fall 1990, the largest enroll ment at Texas A&M, excluding Galve ston, was Fall 1993 with 42,524 stu dents. Texas A&M was ranked sixth nation wide for enrollment last year. This number was 234 fewer students than fifth-ranked University of Florida. Although schoolwide enrollment can not be published, the Corps of Cadets to tal is already known. The number of students joining the Corps of Cadets has risen to 2,107 cadets this fall, said Stephenson. Stephenson said 51 more cadets joined the Corps this year than last with a total of 775 freshmen enrolling this fall. bisa renovations aim to restore classical architecture BY JOE SCHUMACHER The Battalion bisa Dining Hall has not un- ,one a major renovation since 970s. This all came to an end GCllU'summer. The 86-year-old din- Acility is currently in the mid- of an upgrade that has been years in the planning, rchilecture professor Dr. Va- n Miranda’s 1996 Senior De- Class had a major role in the V AmericaPdeling of Sbisa. V c* stu dents presented their | for Study's to a Food Services committee a new design was agreed t. Projects like these are impor- to the students for a number _ ,' ( , asons,” Miranda said. “They : press Credit resource f 3e nefits liket edit informal help you geLgs Councils plan ntyears-ar financial »wdy Dance understand the problems as a user of this facility, they are able to con tribute and they get to see their ideas being utilized.” Andy Cronk, facilities manager of the Department of Food Ser vices, said that after the Commons and Duncan Dining Halls were re modeled in the 1980s, it was Sbisa’s turn. “Sbisa is a timeless building and one of the oldest on campus,” Cronk said. “The goal of the changes is to bring the classical ar chitecture on the outside to the in side, to bring back some of the tra dition and nostalgia to Sbisa.” Joseph Williams, an architect at the Facilities Planning and Con struction Department, said he wanted Sbisa to return to a more nostalgic and traditional look. “This is not a remodeling of Sbisa, this is a restoration,” said Williams. Ronald Beard, Director of the Department of Food Services said they have received many compliments on the changes that have already taken place. “We have received many fa vorable compliments as well as many ‘oohs,’ ‘aahs’ and ‘wows’ from students,” Beard said. One of the changes is the re turn of Military Walkway. Military Walkway was the former main entrance to Sbisa that the Corps of Cadets would march through. Another aesthetic change to the hall is the installation of a Texas A&M seal that is 13 feet, five inch es in diameter. Deborah Rogers, the faculty manager of Sbisa, said the seal is the biggest on campus. The seal Courtesy of EDI Architects, Inc. is made of various laser-cut woods and was installed directly into the floor. see Sbisa on Page 12. All-U Night to include Aggie Band, A&M leaders BY MEGAN WRIGHT The Battalion All University Night, traditionally held the first evening of classes every fall semester, will be held tonight at 7:30 p.m. All-U Night is the first yell practice of the season, hosted by head yell leader Brandon Neff. In addition to the change in date, this will be the first year that the Ag gie Band performs on Kyle Field dur ing All-U night. Rusty Thompson, assistant direc tor of the Memorial Student Center and Yell Leader Advisor, said the rea son for the change in date is a large number of the participants, including yell leaders, the football team and the band, were at the Kickoff Classic which was played in New Jersey on Monday night. In past years, the Aggie Band has not had enough time to practice for a performance at All-U Night, but this year they have been practicing in ad vance for the Kickoff Classic. Thompson said they felt ready to perform at All-U Night. Scheduled to speak tonight night are Texas A&M President Ray Bowen, Vice President for Student Affairs Dr. J. Malon Southerland, Student Body President Laurie Nickel, Senior Asso ciate Athletic Director Lynn Hickey and Head Football Coach R.C. Slocum. All-U Night coordinators ask stu dents to avoid the construction area near Kyle Field and to use the follow ing entrances to the stadium: South west (by the tennis courts). South east (next to the Read building), and Northeast(near the ticket windows of G. Rollie White Coliseum). NEWS IN BRIEF Library computer annex opens Evans expands with state-of-the-art computing facilities ure. ie Class Councils will host Howdy :e tonight from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m.at icane Harry’s. xas ranks low in ucation spending ?arly $276 billion (31 percent) of ’ state government expenditures to education and $203 billion (23 mt)were spent on public welfare, ac- hgtl new data released by the Corn- Department’s Census Bureau. |xas had the lowest per capita ex- (Tures of any other state and ranked in overall per capita revenues. BY BRYAN BUCKMAN The Battalion The Evans Library annex is home to a new computer center, meeting a long-standing need of the student body for a comprehensive computing facility. The new center offers 540 com puters equipped to handle the lat est multimedia needs. These include 499 Pentium IIs PCs, and 39 Macintosh computers. There are also two Silicon Graphics workstations and six Xe rox 4050 printers available. Richard Spiller, Computing and Information Services’ Open Access Labs Director, said help desk staff are available to assist students at the Evans annex. “The central location should draw a lot of students,” Spiller said. “The facility was requested and the computer access fee increase ap proved by the Student Senate in 1990.” A one dollar computer fee increase per student financed the annex. The computer center is located inside the Evans Library annex, which is attached to Evans Library by a fourth-floor skywalk. The annex includes print and electronic reserve collections, elec tronic database search facilities, a group study area and a collection of educational resources for teachers and education students. In spite of this confusion, turnout at the new facility has been brisk. “It’s a great center,” said Ken Webb, an employee of the Evans Help Desk. “We’ve had a lot of peo ple find us.” The center opens at 1 p.m. on Sundays and stays open 24 hours during the week. The facility closes at midnight on Fridays and operates from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturdays. JAMES FRANCIS/Thi-: Battalion Hong Dan, a sociology graduate student, works on her graduate dis sertation at the computing center in the Central Library Annex.