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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 6, 1998)
FRIDAY November 6, 1998 Volume 105 • Issue 51 • 8 Pages 105 YEARS AT TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY iadets complain of not hearing alarms in fire itudents 'Study too link emphasize tls ling a balanci se, we impro vithin] theirs ; important to problems ir time to i tiool, ratherili r habits later the way yous do time mar. reflection of :he job," he zed you are ie to transit! be average stellar on the tival kTEDl After residents evacuated Dorm ! early Monday morning as a result |fa fire that had started on the third loor, some cadets questioned why |iey never heard the general alarm pey had attempted to activate. Andy Wheeler, a member of A pattery and a senior biology major, ved on the first floor of Dorm 9 and ras studying for a test when he heard ommotion outside his dorm room. Wheeler said after he went into he hallway and saw cadets kicking indoors and yelling “fire,” he saw a sophomore cadet pull the manual alarm switch. He said he was surprised when no alarm sounded. He ran up to the sec- 7 got up, and then I saw smoke in the hallway. — Matt Bauerschlag Commanding officer, A Battery ond floor and pulled another manu al alarm switch with the same result. Charles A. Sippial Sr., assistant vice president for Physical Plant, said when the fire alarm system is activated, either manually through the general detection sys tem, there is a three-minute delay before the alarm sounded. “What has happened over sever al years is that they have had a whole bunch of nuissance calls — and I think one year they had 200 nuisance calls,” Sippial said. An arrangement was made with the College Station Fire Chief al lowing the implementation of the three-minute delay. Although commanding officers and resident advisers are notified of the three-minute delay on the man- Campus crooners r OU Pt DU PtS ggggMNMMlil >u Pts Order Citizens prep Bill targets accuracy to present 0 f sexua t assault statistics Munson Ave. petition to city l b. 3 AJ> Lb OPEN 2^ SR FOOD SI’S'® JAKE SCHRICKLING/The Battalion Seth Walker, a junior agricultural development major and lead singer of Seth Walker and the Mojo Hands, plays a free concert at Rudder Fountain to preview their upcoming concert dates.j The group will be appearing at the Cow Hop on Nov. 12 at 9:30 p.m. BY MANDY CATER GRAEBER The Battalion A group of College Hills residents is presenting a petition to the College Station City Council today urging the council to let the voters decide what action to take on Munson Avenue. The petition, which calls for the council to give citizens the ability to vote on whether there should be a 4-1 barrier blocking Munson Av enue, comes after months of debate and experimental solutions to citi zen concerns regarding high-vol- tone traffic on Munson Avenue. Kayla Glover, College Hills resi lient and a supporter of the petition, s aid the city requires 1,010 signa ges for a petition to be presented the council. She and other citi zens have been collecting signatures since July, but she said interest has grown since the Munson Traffic Committee was disbanded and the i>arricades were erected. “We have 1,270 signatures veri fied with voter registration,” Glover said. “They’ll only take 1,010, but We got extras in case any of the sig natures are questioned.” see Munson on Page 2. BY BETH MILLER The Battalion University Police Department annual reports of sexual assault have, in the past, shown different statistics from those yielded by on- campus counseling services. Bob Wiatt, director of University Police Department, said an amendment to the 1990 National Campus Securi ty Act will take effect in January 1999 and allow for the UPD reports to be more accurate. Betty Lemay, sergeant in the crime prevention unit of UPD, said the de partment has recorded between zero and four sexual-assault cases annu ally in the past four academic years. Susan Vavra, HelpLine coordinator for Student Counseling Service, said they recorded 23 sexual-assault cases for the 1997-98 academic year. The discrepancy exists because state and national laws set for hos pitals differ from those set for on- campus institutions. Hospitals, in cluding St. Joseph Regional Health Center in Bryan and the College Station Medical Center, are re quired by law to report sexual-as sault statistics to the police, but ser vices, such as on-campus counseling centers and A.P. Beutel Health Center, are not currently re quired to report the statistics to UPD because they are not equipped to provide the services hospitals provide to rape victims. The amendment will require on- campus services to report to UPD, Wiatt said. “Those people will at least be ob ligated to say, ‘One girl has reported a rape. She does not want anyone to know about it, but she came in for [an examination],”’ Wiatt said. Lemay said when a student has reported a rape case to UPD, the case has been recorded regardless of whether it was pursued by the district attorney. Josie Holsher, assistant director of criminal investigations, said if the case has been proven unfound ed, it has been noted on the report, but the case is still reported. Vavra said the counselors at Stu dent Counseling Service inform rape victims of their options. “If it is something that occurred recently, one of our priorities is to encourage them to seek medical at tention,” she said. “If, in the future, they want to press charges, they would need that evidence from that medical exam.” Vavra said many of the students agree to seek medical attention but are not primarily concerned with the le gal aspects of the offenses, so they of ten do not report them to the police. see Statistics on Page 2. ual switch alarm, there is no posting to inform residents about the rule. Wheeler said five minutes after he pulled the second-floor manual switch and had evacuated, he heard an alarm. Matt Bauerschlag, commanding officer of A Battery and a senior pe troleum engineering major, said he was roused in his second-floor room of Dorm 9 by a popping sound. “My first thought was that someone was throwing something at the dorm,” Bauerschlag said. “I got up, and then I saw smoke in the hallway.” see Alarms on Page 2. Speaker: arms sales harm native people BY NONI SRIDHARA The Battalion Manuel Callahan, a representative of Accion Zapatista, said the North American Free TTade Agreement and the sale of arms by the United States to Mexico have had detrimental ef fects on the Zaptaistas, a an ethnic group native to Chiapas, a region of southern Mexico. Accion Zapatista is a group which helps facilitate learning about the Chiapas through the World Wide Web. Callahan said the Chiapas is one of the richest regions in Mexico. “Even though this is one of the wealthiest regions, if not the wealth iest, it is very impoverished in terms of how people live,” Callahan said. Callahan said the Zapatistas are against neo-liberal reforms. “The Zapatistas are known for their concept of indigenous au tonomy, but the government in sists that this is a separatist quo ta,” he said. Callahan said the United States has played a heavy role in influ encing the increase of military presence in Mexico using the drug war as a pretext. “President Clinton’s 1998 bud get allocated $21 million for anti drug trafficking and military train ing,” he said. “$1 million went towards military training.” Callahan said there was also a rise in paramilitary units which come out of the various commu nities around Chiapas. Callahan said it was these paramilitary groups that were responsible for the massacre in December of 1997 that occurred in Acteal, Chi apas, during a prayer meeting of local citizens. Workers ready to erect Centerpole today BY KRISTIN STOCKTON The Battalion The construction of Bonfire is now underway, with Centerpole being erected today at 4:03 p.m. With all the different things in volved in getting Centerpole up, an exact time cannot be given, so 4:03 is the Aggie Bonfire committee’s way of saying “somewhere in be tween 4 and 4:30.” Last Friday Centerpole was de livered to Polo Field from a mill in Lufkin. The Centerpole pots have spent this past week splicing to gether the two telephone poles that make up Centerpole, and now it is ready to be raised. Rusty Thompson, Assistant Director of the Department of Student Activities and the staff advisor to Aggie Bonfire, said Centerpole is important because it is very symbolic of Bonfire as a whole. “Centerpole is a very sacred thing. It is the first visible sign of Bonfire,” Thompson said. “With out it, Bonfire wouldn’t stand.” Once Centerpole goes up, there is still work to be done before stack begins. Centerpole has to be lev eled, secured to the perimeter poles and straightened. This should be completed by 6 p.m., and then stack begins. The first wrap will start Friday night and should take a couple of days to complete. The second wrap will begin when the Bonfire Committee feels the first wrap is thick enough. On Nov. 12, “push” begins. Push is when certain groups work on Bonfire from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. every night until it is completed. Each residence hall and Corps of Cadets outfit has a designated shift from 6 p.m. to midnight or from midnight to 6 a.m. See Bonfire on Page 2. Students collect supplies for hurricane victims BY JOE SCHUMACHER The Battalion Texas A&M student organiza tions are gathering supplies for re lief of the victims of Hurricane Mitch, a class 5 storm, that devas tated much of Central America. Students can drop off supplies at the MSC, the Commons Lobby and Wehner. Canned goods, clothing and medical supplies are all needed. Rogelio Pocasangre, a graduate civil engineer student from El Sal vador, has been involved in orga nizing other supply drives. He said rural areas of Central America are in dire need. He said the storm knocked out communications, leav ing individuals without information on relatives and friends. “Half of the population has somehow been affected,” Pocasan gre said. “The death tolls will nev er be exact.” Enrique Barcenus, member of the Nicaragua Student Association and a senior civil engineering major, has been working to organize the collec tion of supplies. He said he has been busy organizing a supply drive since the hurricane hit. He said there are re ports of over 70 percent of Nicaragua being greatly affected by the storm. “They [news reports] are saying that this hurricane has set these coun tries back by 20 years,” Barcenus said. ] Barcenus said they are working with the Nicaraguan consulate in Houston to coordinate relief efforts. Continental Airlines has volunteered to fly supplies to areas in Central America affected by the storm for free. Barcenus said the first transport is scheduled to fly out of Houston Saturday. He said the damage from the hurricane is just one of many prob lems that people in Central Ameri ca face. He said conditions are ripe for an epidemic and/or a famine. “If they do not get help as soon as possible, the number of deaths from the hurricane will pale when compared to those that die of sick ness and starvation,” Barcenus said. see Relief on Page 2. Deadline for dropping without record ends BY JOE SCHUMACHER The Battalion Today is the last day for students to Q-drop classes or switch kinesi ology classes to pass/fail. The deadline is 5 p.m. “We process almost 50 percent of Q-drops in the last two days [Thurs day and Friday],” Pam Reynolds, as sistant registrar, said. Reynolds said almost 3,000 Q-drops have been processed within the last two days. Reynolds said students can help by making sure their forms are filled out correctly. In other Q-drop news, the Stu dent Senate passed the 60-60-60 Q- drop bill on Wednesday. The bill will extend the Q-drop deadline to the 60th day of classes and give students two Q-drops per 60 hours. Q-drops that are not used in the first 60 hours will not carry over to the next 60 hours. Aaron Bigbee, chair for the acad emic affairs committee and a junior mathematics major, said if Q-drops carried over, this would add an ad ditional Q-drop, and the administra tion would probably not approve it. Bigbee said the bill will go before the Academic Organization Commit tee. The AOC will then discuss the bill and decide whether to pass it. The AOC subcommittee needs approval from the faculty senate to view the bill. If passed by the AOC, the bill then needs approval from the ad ministration before being enacted. Diane Kaplan, speaker of the Fac ulty Senate and assistant professor of educational curriculum and in struction, said the earliest the Senate could view the bill could be the fac ulty meeting in December. Bigbee said although there is op position to the bill he thinks that it will be approved. Amy Magee, speaker of the Stu dent Senate and a senior psychology major, said it is possible for the bill to go into effect as early as next fall. “If it goes through the appropri ate channels, it could be approved for next fall,” Magee said.
