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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (March 12, 1999)
;ad arji lion FRIDAY March 12, 1999 Volume 105 • Issue 111 • 6 Pages College Station, Texas 105 YEARS AT TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY aggielife • Students pass on tips to avoid Spring Break disas ters from their own expe rience. PAGE 3 today’s issue Movie Review 4 Opinion 7 Reminder The Battalion will not be ^ Texas A&M's larch 15 - 19. • A&M Baseball Team heads to Lubbock to face Texas Tech Red Raiders in weekend se nes. PAGE 6 Dital r re ah:; daugfe i He: on the;( pring Break safety tudent should be aware of common, hidden dangers BY BETH MILLER •j,. It The Battalion ButiiiH Students leaving town for Spring ocon B rea ^ m ay put themselves in danger sonriH^hen they step into their cars. mM Dr. Dennis Reardon, senior pro ram coordinator of the Student Life Icohol and Drug Education Program, 1 said the most common mistakes made ticeij By students participating in Spring ■ » rea k activities are driving under the mute 1 influence of alcohol and driving fa- till Jmz ued - sa '^ two mistakes have ' l , S . " Been deemed the most dangerous stu- "'MBents make. JigB “I think what happens on Spring Break is students are ready to get away •ovedbi nd relax,” he said. i “They may have been up late work- Secf< ni, D-Lo' 1 >allas. Vrlingto Sens, t, and Park, ie par rreate^- store | ed in i ient s J sday’s I 46 pi .hem. I n, R-Fi e billrfl t. Serf ), sporJ ntalno:| » Veattie'i "odes ? hority':| shiid's J enfod I minor f mtalin'l jy the ^ .pener :so iculr. 1 jck oie: ing on projects or studying before leaving.” Reardon said he recommends stu dents relax before leaving for their destinations and drive in shifts if they are traveling with friends. Reardon said that another poten tially dangerous situation students put themselves in is possible exposure to Rohypnol and other date-rape drugs. He said many of the people students associate with during Spring Break are people they are not well acquainted with. He advises exercising good judg ment when drinking alcoholic bever ages around people they do not know. “[When someone has been given the date rape drug,] they simply don’t know what has happened to them un til the next day, and anything, literal ly, may have happened to them,” he said. “Don’t leave drinks unattended. It’s better to throw the drink away than to take a risk.” Reardon said other Spring Break concerns include dehydration, alcohol overdose and alcohol poisoning, which become greater when students expose themselves to heat and sun light. He said students should drink responsibly and avoid dangerous situ ations so they return in good condi tion. “Take the time as what it is meant to be — rest and relaxation,” he said. “Don’t let the time cost more than you are willing to invest in it.” Increase in inequality subject of conference BY MELISSA JORDAN The Battalion State legislators, business professionals, pro fessors and students will discuss the increasing income gap among American wage earners dur ing the Increasing Inequality Conference pre sented this weekend by the George Bush School of Government and Public Service and the De partment of Economics. Dr. Finis Welch, distinguished professor in the department of economics, said in a press re lease that as the American economy grew from the end of World War II to the 1970s, wages tended to rise for all levels of workers. Since that time, the bottom 10 percent of earners watched their real wages fall by 30 percent. The incomes of the top 10 percent of earners increased by more than 80 percent. Dr. James Griffin, professor of economics. said the motivation for the conference is the de cline in wages of lower-income workers in America while wages of higher income workers have risen over the past 20 years. Griffin said various theories have been pro posed to explain the increasing inequality of American workers’ wages. “The point of this conference is to look to see what the evidence is to support these explana tions,” Griffin said. The conference will bring together leading so cial scientists to address the facts surrounding income inequality, possible causes of the trend and the implications of the widening wage gap. Speakers at the conference will include Dr. Charles Murray, of the American Enterprise In stitute and author of The Bell Curve; Kevin Mur phy, from the University of Chicago and winner of the John Bates Clark Medal; and Angus Deaton, of Princeton University. oted experts slated or ‘Shipwreck Weekend’ | BY RICHARD PADDACK The Battalion I World-renowned nautical Brcheologists will bring in formation from the ocean Boor to the classrooms at Texas A&M’s second “Ship wreck Weekend” Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. in 206 MSG. I George F. Bass, distin guished professor of nauti- fal archeology and presi dent of the Institute of Nautical Archeology (INA) at A&M, will offer the pro gram’s keynote address. [ Bass, who has had im portant finds, such as the Class Wreck off the coast of ■Turkey, chronicled by PBS, iNova” and “20/20.” I Bass said he was im pressed with the attendance of last year’s “Shipwreck Weekend.” “A majority of those who attended last year were from out of town,” Bass said. “The crowd consisted of history buffs, skin divers and those who were just cu rious about what we do.” ‘Shipwreck Weekend’ is geared for anyone who has an interest in shipwrecks and/or archaeology.” Barto Arnold, director of Texas Operations for the In stitute of Nautical Archaeol ogy, said the mission of the weekend is to bring informa tion about A&M programs and research and increase their appreciation for ship wrecks and their heritage. “The [Nautical Archaeol ogy Department] is truly one of the jewels in the crown of Texas A&M Uni versity,” Barto said. “One of the things we do is try to make the public aware of this. Everyone is interested in shipwrecks.” The list of presenters also includes A&M associate professor and New World Laboratory Director, Kevin Crisman, who will discuss The Eagle, a shipwreck of the War of 1812. Speakers will share their discoveries and experiences through slides and film pre sentations relating to recent discoveries. After the presentations, participants will tour the INA and the four nautical archaeology teaching labs in the Anthropology Build ing. Visitors will have an op portunity to see current re search projects, and learn how the research is done. School choice, vouchers subject of Rudder debate 4 I i Ires' ion t 5h v l is | WA0 BY NONI SRIDHARA The Battalion Erik Hanushek, director of the W. Allen allis Institute of Political Economy, Ken Meier, director of the Texas Educational Ex cellence program and a political science pro fessor at Texas A&M, voiced their arguments concerning public and private schools at a school choice debate last night in Rudder Tower presented. Hanushek argued for school Choice and the option of vouchers, and Meier said they would have negative effects because the vouchers would create a competitive mar ket system. j The debate was sponsored by MSG Great Issues and the George Bush School of Gov- ernment and Public Service. I Hanushek said school choice and the op tion of school vouchers is important because the United States has some of the world’s most inefficient education systems. I Hanushek said three main elements sup port the idea of vouchers for school choice. He said school choice would be a mechanism for trying to improve public schools by elim inating the current public school monopoly. Would help improve competition education for the poor. “Many times people adjust their housing preferences according to the school district, but in some cases the families who are at the poverty level cannot afford to make this decision,” he said. Drawn out CARINO CASAS/The Battalion Joel Schwirtlich and Glenn Roberts, both freshman construction science majors, work on their Environmental Design 115 projects in the foyer of the Jack K. Williams Administration Building Thurs day. Students enrolled in ENDS 115 must draw a picture of the foyer from a perspective of their choice. A&M Cadets to march in Katy parade • Members ofC-1 Compa ny will participate to raise money for endowed scholarship. BY MEGAN E. WRIGHT The Battalion Texas A&M Corps of Cadets company C-l will march in Saturday’s Future Farmers of America (FFA) parade in Katy, Texas. Jarred Worth, company commander and a se nior agricultural economics major, said the outfit is participating to represent the Corps of Cadets and to raise money for an outfit scholarship. Worth said he spoke to the Katy A&M club this past summer and was approached by one of the directors, Randy Callender, Class of ’70. “Mr. Callender asked me if I would be inter ested in bringing the outfit down to the parade because in the past, the Corps has been repre sented by Parson’s Mounted Calvary a few years ago and Reveille last year,” Worth said. Worth said Callender has contributed mon ey throughout the year to the Corps scholarship fund. He said the Corps has accumulated $2,000 and needs $25,000. He said if fund-raising efforts are successful, C-l could have an endowed scholarship in five years. Worth said the Corps would benefit from marching in the FFA parade annually. “I would like this to be a tradition,” he said. “It is a good representation of the Corps of Cadets. ” Easterwood receives fire station SALLIE TURNER/The Battalion Eric Hanushek (left), director of the W. Allen Wallis Institute of Political Economy, and Ken Meier (right), director of the Texas Educational Excellence program and a political science pro fessor at Texas A&M, debate the pros and cons of school choice Thursday night. Hanushek said school choice is one of the reasons higher education in the United States is so highly regarded throughout the world; students have the choice of going to public or private universities. Meier said drawbacks in choosing schools include a lack of supply of students and a lack of information. He said an example of a lack of supply is an experiment in Milwaukee, Wis., where the school choice program was implemented in see Schools on Page 2. BY RICHARD PADDACK The Battalion College Station firefighters moved into a new Texas A&M-owned, jointly operated station at Easterwood Airport. The new facility, shared by Easter wood Airport and the College Station Fire Department, will serve the airport, A&M, the west and northwest sections of College Station and the FM 2818 and Highway 60 corridors. The station is in addition to the three facilities already serving the city, and it became operable Feb. 8. A press release provided by Kelley Chapman, public relations and market ing manager for College Station, said the structure was built and funded through the cooperative efforts of A&M, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), Easterwood Airport and the city of College Station. A&M provided the land and $800,000 in funds for design and con struction. FAA provided $900,000 and Easterwood Airport donated $100,000, the release said. College Station provided funds for ra- “The Easterwood [fire] station could decrease response times in the area as much as five or six minutes/ Thomas Goehl battalion chief dio communication equipment, com puter equipment and networking with city computers. The city will fund 80 percent of the maintenance and opera tional costs, provide one fire engine and staff the station. The FAA provided an additional $350,000 for the purchase of a new Air craft Rescue and Fire Fighting (ARFF) vehicle, which is one of two ARFF ve hicles at the airport. Thomas Goehl, battalion chief of the College Station Fire Department, said he is pleased with the added help the new station will provide. “The Easterwood station could de crease response times in the area as much as five or six minutes,” Goehl said. Harry Raisor, director of aviation for Easterwood Airport, said he is pleased with the close proximity of the station and immediate accessibility of the equipment. “With the increase in the size and amount of the jets coming into the air port, we felt the need to upgrade in emergency personnel and equipment, as required by Federal Aviation Admin istration,” Raisor said.