105 YEARS AT TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY
WEDNESDAY
July 14, 1999
Volume 105 • Issue 169 • 6 Pages
College Station, Texas
opinion
• Getting rid of the television
may be the best remedy for
students’ procrastination.
PAGE 5
today’s issue
News 6
Battalion Radio
Tune in to 90.9 KAMU-FM at
1:57 p.m. to hear how College
Station plans to lower speed
limits near Northgate next
week.
sports
• Texas A&M signs Georgia
assistant Steve Bultman as the
womens swimming coach.
PAGE 3
tormer Pulitzer nominee
o discuss race relations
BY STUART HUTSON
The Battalion
■’ulitzer Prize-nominated legal colum-
ist for the Wall Street Journal Paul Bar-
■Bwill speak in College Station today
But his experiences
Bering legal affairs
|B race-relation is-
Hs.
Marrett will speak
:But his new book,
Mcood Black: A True
Mry of Race in Ameri-
■ which covers his
Miner college room-
naie’s experience as
■African-American lawyer who files a
acial discrimination lawsuit against his
)wn firm.
BARRETT
“Many whites do not understand the
difficulties their African-American col
leagues have to go through,” Barrett
said.
Exa York, vice president of the Inter
national Association of Business Com
municators, said her organization,
which is hosting a session with Barrett
along with the Brazos Valley Society of
Professional Journalists at the College
Station Hilton, is very pleased to be
able to learn from such an experienced
journalist.
“His coming here gives us an oppor
tunity to gain insight into a working
journalist’s motivations and methodol
ogy for transforming a personal story
and expanding it into a professional,
full-length work that serves the public,”
she said.
Ed Walraven, coordinator of under
graduate advising and student services
for A&M’s journalism department, said
he feels journalism students are privi
leged to be able to interact with a possi
ble journalistic roll-model who has both
excelled in a specific classification of
journalistic writing and who has au
thored a successful book.
Barrett’s agenda today begins with an
appearance on television station KBTX’s
“Brazos Valley This Morning.” He will
then speak to journalism students at
A&M, followed by a speech to a joint
meeting of the International Association
of Business Communicators and the So
ciety of Professional Journalists. He will
end the day by signing copies of his new
book at the Barnes and Noble bookstore
on Texas Avenue.
Board readies for Washington
mest!
30/99
South
7845
Mart
BY CARRIE BENNETT
The Battalion
■ Texas A&M students on The Chancel
lor's Student Advisory Board (CSAB) are
compiling ideas and issues pertinent to all
opuses in the A&M University System to
‘sent to the National Legislature in Wash-
[ton, D.C., this spring.
ICSAB consists of three representatives
Im each of the 10 Texas A&M University
item schools. Representatives from A&M
r eStudent Body President Will Hurd, and
jtildent senators Rob Ferguson and Ashli
iiihpson. Ferguson will serve as CSAB vice-
hair for administration and Simpson has
Bn appointed as his alternate.
■The student body presidents from each
f jhe system schools will also act as repre-
entatives, and a second representative will
■appointed by the president of each cam-
Hs. The third representative is chosen by
le president of each campus and will serve
sian alternate.
■Members from CSAB will have an infor-
lal meeting on July 23 in Corpus Christ!
rith the Board of- Regents where they will
leet General Howard Graves, the incom-
rg chancellor.
■Verna Dewees, system liaison director
)r CSAB and director of academic pro-
ranis for the A&M System, said that as the
evv chancellor. Graves may have different
expectations for CSAB members.
“It will be interesting to see what special
expectations [Graves] will have for the stu
dent leaders,” Dewees said. “Dr. [Barry]
Thompson has been very supportive to
ward students throughout the last five years
as chancellor, and consequently, they’ve
gotten more recognition.”
She said that last year, CSAB presented
'It will be interesting
to see what special
expectations [incoming
chancellor Gen. Howard
Graves] will have for
the student leaders.”
— Verna Dewees
CSAB system liaison director
“white papers,” the written position CSAB
takes on issues they choose, to the state
legislature.
She said the annual trips to Austin and
Washington, D.C., are funded by the
Chancellor’s 21st Century Council of Ad
visors, who host one representative from
each campus.
She said students qre able to meet with
state representatives from their district or
U.S. congressmen and senators from Texas.
Ferguson, a junior political science ma
jor, said two broad topics brought up at the
CSAB meeting in May included financial aid
and campus safety.
“It’s part of an effort to try to combat
juvenile crime across the country,” Fer
guson said.
Hurd said CSAB is a good forum to dis
cuss and understand different issues going
on at a college campus and also to formu
late a plan to show the importance of high
er education in the state of Texas.
“The direction I’d like to see CSAB move
into is an outreach to the youth of Texas so
they understand the importance of college
and accomplish this by getting college stu
dents to go into the community and serve
as representatives to youth,” Hurd said.
CSAB began in the early 1980s under
Arthur Hansen, who served as chancellor
from 1982-1986.
Dewees said that in the last 10 years,
CSAB has slowly evolved and become bet
ter structured and more constant.
“Because of support and funding
sources made available by the chancellors
over the years, CSAB has evolved into a
much more mature of a group that is better
organized,” she said.
Passing the Bucks
Texas A&M planning expansion
if Aggie Bucks payment service
L!
looy
BY SUZANNE BRABECK
The Battalion
[■Although Aggie Buck sales are
p 25 percent from last year, they
re being used less on campus
ecause more Bryan-College Sta-
iojn vendors, ranging from food
stablishment to tanning salons,
re accepting Aggie Bucks as a
tiethod of payment.
ITo help combat this problem,
’ekas A&M is planning to ex
tend Aggie Bucks services start-
ng this fall.
iAggie Bucks will be accepted
it washing machines in the
hree freestanding laundry
ounges on campus, on conces
sions at Kyle Field and at A.P.
Bethel Health Center.
■ Steven Pace, Aggie Card Ad
ministrator, said they are also
Planning to implement Aggie
Bucks on the washing machines
in residence halls and possibly
at the athletic ticket office.
Pace said that eventually,
they hope Aggie Bucks will be
come A&M’s currency.
Grocery stores and dry clean
ers are also being considered as
possible places to accept Aggie
Bucks.
Pace said Aggie Bucks are
beneficial because there is not a
surcharge for the service.
However, because students
cannot withdraw cash from
their accounts, A&M joined
with Norwest Bank and Ag-
gieland Credit Union in 1996 in
forming the Aggie Card. These
establishments benefit from this
union because they are the only
ones allowed to advertise to stu
dents at registration and at oth
er times during the year.
“There is no reason that oth
er banks can get upset because
everyone had the chance to get
involved with the project,” Pace
said.
Ron Beard, director of food
Driven to give
TERRY ROBERSON/Thf. Battalion
Rachel McConnell, a junior chemistry major, gives blood in the American Red
Cross van near Rudder Fountain Tuesday as part of the 1999 A&M Blood Drive.
The drive, sponsored by Red Cross, Carter Blood Care and the Alpha Phi Omega
service organization, will continue through Friday.
Bryan council receives
visitor center proposal
services, said even though Aggie
Bucks usage has gone down in
their department, sales have not.
“Students have a lot of op
tions and are using their Aggie
Bucks more off-campus and us
ing cash and other means at our
facilities,” he said. “We have
banners and pamphlets as ad
vertising to increase Aggie Buck
usage because they are more
convenient for us, and we want
to stay ahead of what is hap
pening.”
BY MATT WEBER
The Battalion
The Bryan City Council heard a pro
posal for a visitors’ center and muse
um at the Council’s meeting last night.
If the proposal is approved by the
council, the visitor center and muse
um would be built on the site of the
Hoppess estate at 502 East 26th Street
in Bryan. It would be built in the
“Texas period style” and would offer
information about Texas A&M Univer
sity, The George Bush Presidential Li
brary and Museum and other local at
tractions.
Dr. John Blackburn, director of
community services for the city of
Bryan, said the museum would offer a
venue for the city to exhibit public art
and other local projects.
Originally planned to be part of the
Texas Golf Hall of Fame, the museum
would instead house a transportation
exhibit. A possible exhibition would be
a rotating collection of locally owned
antique cars. Blackburn said the pro
ject would also refurbish the estate’s
original carriage houses, which cur
rently stand on the museum’s pro
posed site. He said funding from the
site would come in part from the
Hoppess family.
Bryan resident Jason Bienski said
that although he supported the idea of
a visitor center, he thinks it would be
more effective and accessible to
tourists if it were built in a more cen
tral area such as downtown Bryan.
“I do hope [the City Council] would
consider other options for the location
of the visitor center,” he said.
The Council also officially an
nounced a project to build a new golf
course in Bryan. The course, being
built in partnership with course de
signer GolfCorp of America and devel
oper C.F. Jordan Residential, is pro
jected to open in 2001.
The city was also presented with a
plaque for being selected as a finalist
in the All-America City competition
held last month in Philadelphia.
Mayor Lonnie Stabler said he hoped
the city would continue to earn na
tional recognition.
“It (the competition) was a lot of
fun, a great experience, and I know
someday, we’ll be doing it again,” he
said.