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TUESDAY
June 22, 1999
Volume 105 • Issue 156 • 8 Pages
College Station, Texas
aggielife
• A new exhibit at the J. Wayne
Stark Galleries shows Mexican
culture through masks.
PAGE 3
today’s issue
Nation
8
Battalion Radio
Tune in to 90.9 KAMU-FM at
1:57 p.m. for details on a Tokyo
officials visit to the Texas A&M
Department of Architecture.
opinion
• George Bush’s popularity
shows how former presidents
can strengthen public image.
PAGE 7
ies caught in Mexico quake
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BY BETH MILLER
Special to The Battalion
B MEXICO CITY — Texas A&M’s journalism
Himner study abroad program was rattled for
the second time in six days yesterday when a
second earthquake hit the city.
B Yesterday’s earthquake shook the city at ap
proximately 1 p.m. at a magnitude of 5.7, com-
paivd to the 6.7 earthquake that hit June 15. There
were no immediate reports of damage or injuries.
B The first of the two earthquakes killed 16
people and destroyed much of Puebla, south
east of Mexico City.
B Seventeen A&M students and one professor
have been in Mexico City since May 23, study
ing journalism at Universidad La Salle and trav
eling throughout the city and surrounding area.
Dr. Lynn Walters, an associate professor of
journalism, and six of the students will return
to the United States this Sunday. The other 11
will remain to intern at public relations offices
in the city.
Anne Hoar, one of the students who will stay
in Mexico City and a junior journalism major,
said she had never been in a major earthquake
until last week.
Hoar, who is from Katy, said the quake was
comparable to her experience during Hurricane
Alicia, which devastated Galveston and Hous
ton in 1984. She said the effects of the earth
quake were similar, but the difference was there
was no warning.
“In a hurricane, your house moves and the
lights go out, but you knew it was going to
happen because there is more warning,” she
said. “A hurricane doesn’t just pop up out of
nowhere. ”
Juan Carlos Pineda, a senior business ad
ministration major at Universidad La Salle,
was on the Metro, the Mexico City subway
system, during the June 15 earthquake. Pine
da said the crowd panicked as the electricity
went out, the train halted in the tunnel and
the cars began to shake.
“Sometimes, the electricity goes out, but [the
crowd does not usually panic],” he said. “It was
shaking, and you could hear a thunder, and I
guess that is what scared the people.”
Residents of Mexico City said they believe
the June 15 earthquake to be one of the
strongest since the 8.1 magnitude earthquake
that caused more than $4 billion in damage in
1985.
ould l. ;
JR BEATO/The Battalion
rsR Orientation Leaders Oliver Sims (left), a senior sports management major, and Beth Abelson, a senior elementary education major,
I lead a group of incoming freshmen and their parents on a campus tour through the rain Monday. The third session of freshman orien-
1 tation continues over the next three days.
Rank suggests
college success
BY SUZANNE BRABECK
The Battalion
The director of the Office of
Admissions and Records Admis
sions said one of the reasons
Texas A&M has a high retention
rate of its students is because ap
plicants are screened heavily, al
lowing only the most prepared
students to enter the University.
Joe Estrada said the best indi
cator of success in college is class
rank.
“A&M doesn’t look at grade
point averages (GPA) of appli
cants,” Estrada said, “we consid
er class rank.”
Last fall approximately 45 per
cent of incoming freshmen were
in the top-10 percent of their class.
Not only are grades important
to the admission process, but
A&M looks at course work and
college entrance exam scores.
Estrada said the most impor
tant thing high-school students
can do to prepare them for the
rigors of college is to take ad
vancement placement or college
preparatory classes.
“A good indication of the suc
cess level students will have in
college is based upon the types of
courses that students took in high
school, especially in the math
and science fields,” he said.
He said college preparatory
classes teach students how to
study, the difficulty of college
courses, how to discipline oneself
and how to develop critical think
ing abilities.
With Vision 2020 in motion,
Estrada said the admissions de
partment’s standards for appli-
see Success on Page 2.
Dream job
Engineering leads careers in demand
BY CARRIE BENNETT
The Battalion
Changes in society’s needs cre
ate demands for careers once un
popular, and as college students de
cide on a major and career path, job
placement is often a consideration.
Glen Payne, associate director of
placement services for the Career
Center at Texas A&M, said the
Lowry Mays College and Graduate
School of Business and Dwight
Look College of Engineering rank
among the top two colleges at A&M
from which students are recruited.
He said the industrial distribution
program under the College of Engi
neering is the “most desired major”
by recruiting companies and usually
has 100 percent job placement. He
said management information sys
tems under the School of Business is
ranked second.
Heather McNeil, academic ad
viser for the industrial distribution
program, said out of the 91 students
who graduated in May, the program
had 95 percent job placement. She
said the other 5 percent were of
fered jobs, but for various reasons,
they had not accepted offers yet.
“The average number of offers
were three per student,” McNeil
said. “The average starting salary is
$39,500 per year.”
She said students are recruited
for jobs most heavily in Texas but
are also sought nationally and
worldwide.
There are currently 700 students
in the industrial distribution pro
gram.
McNeil said the industrial distri
bution program, which began in
1956, is one of the oldest programs
in existence at A&M. The program
also has the largest student enroll
ment among industrial distribution
programs in the nation.
McNeil said industrial distribu
tion is an applied engineering with
a focus in business. She said the
major has become increasingly pop
ular during the last eight years.
“The increased popularity grew
out of the industries need to train
employees,” McNeil said.
Brant Jones, a senior industrial
distribution major, will graduate in
August and has already accepted a
job offer with Cutler-Hammer
Eaton.
Jones said the program is di
verse because it offers classes in
see Careers on Page 2.
NEWS IN BRIEF
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Educators prepare
for AP geography
gi Fifteen geography teachers from
beross Texas and around the nation
have gathered at Texas A&M to pre
pare to teach the nation’s first ad
vanced-placement geography cours
es by attending a two-week workshop.
■ The teachers from Texas,
Arkansas, New Mexico, Georgia
and Oklahoma are preparing to be
the first in the nation to teach AP
lc | u( jtgeography when the curriculum be
comes available at the beginning of
the 2000-01 school year.
I;: A&M geography professor
Robert Bednarz, who specializes in
geography education, said he ex-
atte'ipects many of the workshop par
ticipants to become teacher train
ers in their home districts.
M6 High-school juniors and seniors
who complete the course and pass
> the AP test would enter college with
geography credit.
Vet school to host
high-school camp
The College of Veterinary Medi
cine will host a veterinary enrichment
camp to give upper-level high school
students the opportunity to explore
veterinary medicine as a career.
Two sessions of the camp will be
offered. The first will be Tuesday
through Friday, and the second will be
June 29 through July 2.
The camp is open to sopho
mores, juniors and seniors in high
school who have an interest in sci
ence, mathematics and veterinary
medicine. Participants will attend
special classes, observe clinical di
agnoses and treatment of animals,
and learn about careers available for
graduates with medical degrees.
Campers will attend lectures on
topics such as veterinary dermatol
ogy and pathology. Students also will
attend tours of the Large and Small
Animal Clinics.
A&M license
brings funds
to students
TEXAS
TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY
JP BEATO/The Battalion
Texas A&M University’s Aggie Pride licensing program last year became the first collegiate license-
plate program to reach $1 million in sales.
BY STUART HUTSON
The Battalion
Licensing the Texas A&M logo is a lucrative
deal for both companies who use the logo and
students who attend A&M.
Toby Boenig, coordinator for the A&M colle
giate licensing program, said A&M’s licensing
program has raised $8.2 million since 1981,
which has been donated to numerous student
programs such as the A&M athletics program,
the Corps of Cadets, the Aggie Band and Muster.
Boenig said A&M has issued licenses to more
than 500 companies, which are required to give
7.5 percent of the money earned by selling logo
bearing items to the University. This amounts
to an average of more than $800,000 a year.
“The amount earned each year varies great
ly depending on how A&M’s sports teams are
doing,” Boenig said. “In 1993 and 1994, our
football team was doing great, so the licensing
program brought in $1.1 million.”
He said for the last five years, 65 percent of
the money earned from licensing A&M products
has gone to the stadium revenue fund, a fund
designed to aid the athletic department so A&M
does not have to charge the student body an
athletics fee, which many other universities
charge.
Any item featuring an A&M logo must be
submitted to the licensing department to ensure
see License on Page 2.