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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 1, 1999)
V Teshman falls to death . o,< BY MELISSA JORDAN The Battalion mends watch freshman ^ovuncoo: «")' Vail fall three ■ecefriberJar^/^5 after losing his mun Riley Jarwhen Straddling ® )le of ke * m outhside garage the Mth-TriMidrail ^ss intense wif siul the Longld — aring well in { ■e to some iniil =s coach Don\\:B arr y Joseph Vail II, a Texas “ormancestot freshman from Spring, Texas, petition is for * e w Saturday after a three-story ore wecompt‘U j n ff ie southwest stairwell of = hey become. le pouthside Parking Garage. ghest dual-me® 0 * 3 Wiatt, director of the Uni- Z;M.” Hity Police Department, said Vail “ae best match ld| two friends were exiting the — meet shoul oui iside garage at 3 a.m. Satur- show A&M «'H' 1 1 tei h ' 1vll| . i ’P''i ll'll then vein ■live in the Big!] 6 011 f° ur fh floor of the tournament. ar f8 e - wiatt said witnesses reported ail Ntraddled the handrail between , lejthird and fourth floors in the igersiL btree xtensr 1 CTON, Texas r l dm Crabtree, oest middle refe last season, I lion, two-yet? ^ht handed pitch ?e remaining aT layers who weit ail lion apart in i the team, ee’s two-year the 2000 sease: a total $1,69, a $100,000 id earmarking^ and $925,i h a $50,00( an for 2001 isvaf on. ption wouldi0 ion if Crabtree mes the next ttff dso earn nJOOO — $25,® il JO games. stairwell and began to slide down the rail. After losing his balance, he fell over the rail to the first floor of the building. Vail was taken to St. Joseph Re gional Health Center and was placed on life support due to mas sive head injuries. Wiatt said Vail was taken off life support after 12 hours. “They felt that it would do no good, so they removed the life support at 6:30 [Saturday],” he said. Wiatt said the incident may have been alcohol related, but of ficials are waiting for lab results be fore a determination can be made. “The preliminary investigation has indicated the possibility of al cohol involved in the young man’s death,” Wiatt said. Members of the University’s Student Affairs Critical Response Team provided counseling to stu dents Saturday and spoke to resi dents in Dunn Hall, the dorm in which Vail lived. Wiatt said officials will inter- Police investigate hazing incident TAMU investigators look into assault claims by former Corps of Cadets member, hazing practice Sallie Turner/Thk Battalion Exiting the Southside garage at 3 a.m., after parking on the fourth floor, freshman Barry Vail strad dled and slipped from the stair well handrail. Police hope the in vestigation of the incident will come to a close this week. view the students with Vail at the time of the accident tomorrow to gain information about events that occurred before the three returned to the Southside garage. Wiatt said the investigation of the incident will come to a close this week. “Hopefully we would have a conclusion reached by Tliesday or Wednesday,” he said. BY RONDA COOK The Battalion Texas A&M University police officers are conducting an inves tigation concerning the assault of a former freshman Corps of Cadets member. The 18-year-old woman was a member of Squadron 5 and at tributed the physical and emo tional assaults to hazing. Hazing, as defined in the Texas A&M Student Rules book, is any act that endangers the mental or physical health or safe ty of a student, or that destroys or removes public or private prop erty for the purpose of initiation, admission into, affiliation with or as a condition for continued membership in a group or orga nization. Such behavior includes but is not limited to misuse of authori ty by virtue of one’s class rank or leadership position, striking an other student by hand or with any instrument, any form of physical bondage of a student, taking of a student to an outlying area and dropping him/her off, forcing a student into a violation of the law or a University rule such as indecent exposure, tres passing, violation of visitation, or any form of “quadding.” Having first-hand knowledge of the planning of such activities or first-hand knowledge that an incident of this type has occurred and failing to report it to appro priate University officials is also a violation under this section. Officials said the woman was forced to perform rigorous exer cises at two different Midnight Yell Practices and at the site of Bonfire cut. “[Rigorous exercise is] any ex ercise beyond the pail of normal exercise, over and beyond normal exercise, to the point of physical exhaustion,” Bob Wiatt, director of the University Police Depart ment, said. An article in The Bryan-College Station Eagle said officials said the woman was grabbed and pushed against a wall in her dor mitory, another act of hazing. Wiatt said 20 witnesses or ac tive participants in the hazing are being investigated. Wiatt said once the investiga tion is complete, the results will be provided to the county attor ney to determine whether charges will be brought forth. 11th annual scholarship pageant crowns winner Miss Black and Gold plans to continue bntest Results Bryan-College Station mentoring iss Black and Gold: Tiffany Grant Jr. Journalism Major $1,000 scholarship 1 st runner up: Virginia Smith Jr. Biology Major $500 scholarship ilONI) DARLl v MAGE SALE IE.Briargate.Br; 2nd runner up: Adrienne Ballare Jr. Journalism Major $300 scholarship BY APRIL YOUNG The Battalion Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity crowned the new Texas A&M Miss Black and Gold Saturday at the 11th annual Miss Black and Gold Scholarship Pageant. Junior journalism major Tiffany Grant, Miss Black and Gold 1999-2000, said the achievement is an honor. “I share this title with every contestant in the pageant, ” she said. “We are all queens no matter who wins the crown. I hope to represent Alpha Phi Alpha with pride at the state competition in February.” Grant says she plans to con tinue to mentor in the com munity and use her title to ex hibit herself as a role model. “I want to encourage local teenagers that if they believe in themselves and strive for what they want, they can achieve it,” Grant said. Kyemba McMillian, presi dent of Alpha Phi Alpha, com plimented the job done by the contestants. “The contestants did great,” McMillian said. “I talked to a few of the judges after the pageant, and they said that it was hard to choose. Up until the winner was announced, it was still up in the air. ” Evan Gentry, chair of the pageant, said this year’s at tendance was higher than last year’s. Grant encouraged all inter ested . African-American women to get involved in the pageant. “The Black and Gold Pageant is a wonderful expe rience for the upliftment of our race and for women,” Grant said. “I look forward to working with next year’s contestants.” ISKi Katherine Stempien/Thk Battalion Junior journalism major Tiffany Grant was crowned Miss Black and Gold 1999-2000 Saturday night. Board of Regents appropriates funds for new building : : MEDALS conference encourages leadership ^Weekend hs^eadership I!>ip sanc v moat nmese nese hoagie san<f '%M ¥ 'ynference •^^ittracts jyAvailable iod , ^ «phoneschoolers hroughout he state. BY NONI SRIDHARA The Battalion |ligh-school students from ughout Texas were part of Minority Enrichment and elopment through Acade- and Leadership Skills DALS) conference this weekend. onference attendees par- ated in workshops dur- the two-day conference, Rch included topics such leadership skills, preparing )r college and adjusting to allege life. Flor Sifuentes, a conference participant from Houston, said she decided to come to the conference be cause she was interested in anything geared toward help ing minorities. “I was really surprised to see how many minorities have worked their way up to hold leadership positions here, since this is a predomi nantly white school,” Si fuentes said. Cassandra Solis, a confer ence participant from Katy, said one of the most impor tant things she learned at the conference came from the en tertainment Friday night. “Coming from Katy, you’re not very exposed to all the different cultures,” she said. “1 learned how important it is to learn from one another’s experiences. ” Texas A&M students had the opportunity to lead and assist participants with many of the events as peer advisers. Tracey Armstrong, a peer adviser for the conference and a junior accounting major. said the students were not the only people gaining knowl edge from the conference. “I learned that that there is such a diverse number of peo ple in such a limited area,” she said. “It is also interesting to see how everybody is unique in their own way. ” Dr. J. Malon Southerland, vice president for Student Af fairs, addressed the students at a banquet and told them how valuable they will be in the future. “If the young people in this room are not representa tive of the future, then all of us are in trouble,” he said. Dr. Mario Rivas, associate dean of undergraduate stud ies at San Francisco State Uni versity, was one of the keynote speakers at the con ference. Rivas said as a first-gen eration Latino in the United States, from a single parent family, he struggled throughout much of his ed ucation and wanted to help inspire and encourage the Sallie Turner /The Battalion Dr. Mario Rivas, associate dean of undergraduate studies at San Francisco State University, speaks to students Saturday at the MEDALS Conference. minorities of today. “We all have a powerful learning self, and not always are we in touch with that self—but when we are in touch, we fly,” Rivas said. Rivas told students to over come their fears, to dispel the myths about minorities not being as intelligent as white students and to further their education by going to college. “College will empower you to know yourself and speak yourself,” he said. Rivas shared his personal experiences and spoke of how he eventually had to see a psychologist, who helped him achieve his current posi tion. “We need others to help us find ourselves,” he said. “We need to look for people who are going to bring us closer to the light of hope and inspira tion that we all have in our lives.” BY AMANDA SMITH The Battalion The Texas A&M Universi ty Board of Regents appro priated funds for construc tion of a new architectural building, an expanded northeast campus parking lot and renovations to Sbisa Dining Hall in a list of items approved Friday. The Board of Regents ap proved an estimated $12 mil lion for a new architecture building between the two ex isting buildings of the Lang ford Architecture Center. The architectural firm of Philip Johnson and Alan Ritchie, Architects of New York has been selected to prepare the architectural de sign for the building. The 75,000-square-foot building will include a large auditorium and a large lec ture hall, a Technical Re source Center, electronic classrooms and laboratories and a defined main en trance. Funding for the new facil ity will come from private donations. The Board also appropri ated $1.4 million for the ad dition of 600 spaces to Park ing Area 50, located adjacent to the Zachry Engineering complex. The Board appropriated $1 million for the replace ment of the air-conditioning system and upgrades to the electrical and the plumbing systems of Mclnnis Hall. Other renovations will in clude compliance with fire- and-life safety code and handicap accessibility. In other business, the Board of Regents: • Appropriated $4.4 mil lion for the replacement of boiler No. 8 in the Central Utility Plant. The construction for the replacement of the boiler is scheduled to be completed by January 2001. • Appropriated $10 mil lion for the historical archi tectural work, roof replace- Approved Expenditures •$12 million -New architecture building •$10 million -Sbisa Dining Hall renovation •$4.4 million -Boiler No. 8 replacement •$1.4 million -Parking Area 50 expansion •$1 million -Mclnnis Hall renovation ment and the addition of a new heating and air-condi tioning system to Sbisa Din ing Hall. • Approved development of the Center for Environ mental and Rural Health (CERH), which will consist of faculty from the colleges of Veterinary Medicine, Sci ence, Agriculture, Life Sci ences, Medicine, the School of Rural Public Health and the Institute of Biosciences and Technology in the Texas A&M University Health Sci ence Center. CERH faculty will research cellular and molecular mechanisms of toxic injury caused by envi ronmental factors and devel op means to restrict harmful environmental exposure. •Authorized request ap proval from the Texas High er Education Coordinating Board for a Masters of Geo science degree from A&M. •Authorized establish ment of the Center for Hu manities Research at A&M, with an amendment to allow the Board of Regents chair to serve on the Development Council.