Image provided by: Texas A&M University
About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 3, 1998)
TUESDAY November 3, 1998 Volume 105 • Issue 48 • 10 Pages oils call Sh!j iree bombs la he campus of 4 Technical Ins ?tt, the school officer, said buildings we ling a statep Iding and il ■ Planetarii quad gavetl aut 2 1/2 hoc led up no?; anticipate this police It. Ji have to disruptive to places, but them." ’s shows during anetarium.T planned iday, but Mo ded. nbs werefoit ity and state nb started the city injured, have said ?d to place undisclosed many pul reeled or the state, ere found Salt vas a telephoi a i nst Conci ned .iced to a ti le state ties said of the Flame Beau Voelkel, commander of the Aggie Band and a senior biomedical sciences major, displays fire damage in Eli L. Whiteley Hall (Dorm 9) to Bob Boudreaux, a reporter from Houston’s KTRK-TV Monday afternoon. After an early-morning fire erupted on the third floor of Dorm 9, members of the Corps of Cadets were evacuated; damage to the building may cause some students to be displaced from the hall for the rest of the semester. Bob Wiatt, director of University Police Department, said when emergency teams arrived on the scene, flames were seen coming out of the back window of a third floor room, and the third and fourth floor halls were filled with smoke. Nine students who were unable to evacuate the building relocated to a fourth-floor room and sig naled emergency personnel who later evacuated them using a ladder. Two students were taken to College Sta tion Medical Center for treatment for smoke inhalation and were later released. Dorm 9 residents are members of the A Battery and B Battery of the Aggie Band and some members of Company F-2. Wiatt said residents of the room where the fire began awoke and saw flames com ing from underneath the bed. “Room 309, the point of origin, was completely destroyed, and room 409, the room directly above it, suffered severe heat damage,” Wiatt said. He said the cause of the fire is still be ing investigated. “We are interviewing everyone in the dorm who was awake or may have seen something to indicate how the fire got started,” Wiatt said. Kristin Harper, associate director of Stu dent Life, said members of the depart ment’s Critical Incidence Response Team arrived on the scene immediately. “The first thing we did was make sure all of the students were accounted for, and then we asked them to contact their fami lies,” she said. The students were temporarily relocat ed to Dorm 11. Col. Ray Toler, director of bands in the Corps, said students who live on the first two floors would be allowed back into the dorm once the College Station Fire De partment determines it is safe to re-enter. “The fire department wants to make sure the fire alarms are working, but after that point, the first two floors will be al lowed back in,” Toler said. Toler said third floor residents may have to be relocated to other dorms for the rest of the semester but will still live in rooms on the Quadrangle. Dr. J. Malon Southerland, vice president for Student Affairs, said the band director will be making a list of textbooks that were lost in the fire, and the Texas A&M Book store will donate books to replace those that were damaged. Wiatt said students in Dorm 9 respond ed appropriately to the fire. “The procedure we have for emergency situations worked well; everyone respond ed with discipline,” Wiatt said. “We had students running up and down the hall banging on doors even though the hall was filled with smoke to make sure everyone realized that this was not a drill but a real fire. Discipline on past fire drills made the evacuation a success.” Statue aims to celebrate, promote diversity BY 1VIEGAN WRIGHT The Battalion During the next Presidential Advisory Committee on Art Policy meeting, a sub committee will be selected to begin plans on a work of art to be placed on campus to represent diversity at Texas A&M. Dr. Jerry Gaston, vice president for Administration, said the sub-committee is the first step in the process of estab lishing a tribute to campus diversity. “The president has approved a rec ommendation from the Presidential Ad visory Committee on Art Policy (PACAPj to commission a work of art celebrating diversity,” Gaston said. “It will include Student Body President Laurie Nickel and myself as co-chairs on this subcommittee of PACAP to go through the process of gathering ideas and examples of kinds of art expression that would adequately de pict the great diversity including cultural, geo graphic, racial, ethnic and. gender groups.” Gaston said the ap pointed subcommit tee will not make the final decision con cerning the artwork. “We will oversee a process that will ultimately make a recommendation to PACAP,” Gaston said. “Funding for the project will come from a fund estab lished to provide art on campus. The money came out of set aside money from earlier building projects.” Gaston said a recommendation to the PACAP can be expected sometime near the end of the Spring semester. “We have to have our potential ideas and deal with prospective artists,” Gas ton said. “My estimation is that by the end of spring, we should know what we are going to suggest to PACAP and the direction we think we should be going. After that, the creation of the art itself is the function of the artist and however long they would take. ” Gaston said the Academic Building plaza is being considered for the site of the artwork. “The desire is to place this art in the area between the Cushing Library and the Academic Building,” Gaston said. “It hasn’t been approved, but that is the desire because it is an attractive and heavily trafficked area. ” Nickel said the idea of a tribute to di versity has been an important issue even before she came into office. “Before campaigning, Matthew Gaines and a diversity sculpture has been a huge issue with a number of the student body,” Nickel said. see Statue on Page 2. NICKEL CAMAC honors Nobel winner BY NON! SRIDHARA The Battalion Octavio Paz, the 1990 Nobel Prize Winner for literature, was honored last night by the Committee for the Awareness of Mexican- American Culture through a program called “El Dia de los Muertos.” The celebration of “El Dia de los Muertos,” which translates to “Day of the Dead,” began when the Catholic feast of All Soul’s Day merged with native pre-Columbian rituals of death after the Spanish conquered Mexico in 1521. CAMAC’s program started off with a can dlelight procession from the Academic Build ing to the MSC where participants were, dressed in ghostly attire. Chris Fernandez, programs chair for CA MAC and a junior construction science major, gave a brief history of the event. Fernandez said the celebration usually has an altar which contains favorite belongings of the deceased which can include items such as food, ciga rettes and liquor. “The skulls that adorn the stage are not here to be frightening, but they represent the promise of a new life,” Fernandez said. Stephen Miller, professor of Spanish, lectured on Paz’s ideas and what they meant to Paz as well as modern society. Miller said the main fo cus of Paz’s ideas centered around fiestas and how they help break down political models and promote community within the culture. Miller said Paz’s visits to Spain during the Spanish Civ il War and work as an ambassador of Mexico to India influenced his writings. “Paz tried to explore the notion of cultural and theological difference and went through meditation of what these difference meant,” Miller said. Miller said “El Dia de los Muertos” repre sents the center of Mexican life and cultural identity. “Paz felt that the modern vision of death was that life is all and death is nothingness,” he said. “Celebrations such as this provide a link between the pre-Colombian society and today’s society in the Mexican culture.” Gil Saldivar (left), a senior Spanish ma jor; Jason Cedillo (center), a junior manufacturing technology major and Joel Rugerio III (right), a sopho more engineering major, ready to join the procession from the Academic Building to the MSC in honor of El Dia de los Muertos Monday night. BRANDON BOLLOM/The Battalion
