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105 YEARS AT TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY
THURSDAY
July 29, 1999
Volume 105 • Issue 178 • 6 Pages
College Station, Texas
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PAGE 5
today’s issue
News 2
Battalion Radio
Tune in to 90.9 KAMU-FM at
l :57 p.m. for more on College
Stations plans for a new hotel
in the Wolf Pen Creek area.
aggielife
• Texas Music Coalition looks
to open doors for new Lone
Star State musicians.
PAGE 3
Corps officials to examine
issues facing female cadets
FILE PHOTO/The Battalion
A&M Corps of Cadets is looking into issues concerning the
of women in the Corps.
BY CARRIE BENNETT
AND RYAN WEST
The Battalion
Officials in the Texas A&M Corps
of Cadets and the Department of
Student Life will begin an investiga
tion into the the overall climate for
female cadets beginning Aug. 30.
Maj. Joseph “Doc” Mills, media re
lations coordinator for the Corps, said
the investigation will begin this fall,
when students have returned, in re
sponse to allegations of harassment
and incidents of vandalism. Officials
will examine not only harassment re
ports compiled by Student Life but all
facets of female life in the Corps.
One such incident occurred dur
ing April’s Parents Weekend. An
intoxicated male cadet entered a
women’s bathroom and broke two
stall dividers, one toilet and tore
down two shower curtains, caus
ing more than $800 in damages.
In another incident, a male
cadet was caught “peeping” into a
women’s restroom; when ques
tioned, the cadet claimed he en
tered the restroom to wash his arm.
Colonel Lee McCleskey, assis
tant commandant for discipline,
said neither property destruction
nor the “peeping Tom” incidents
are common within the Corps.
He said in the case of the peep
ing Tom, the Commandant’s office
staff determined the disciplinary
action taken: The cadet was placed
on probation and ordered to write
apology letters.
McCleskey said the case of the
vandalized women’s restroom was
handled by the Cadet Court, a pan
el of nine junior and senior cadets
who operate the proceedings,
which ordered the cadet to pay
$800 in restitution. He was also
placed on University probation,
ordered to receive counseling and
perform community service. The
court’s decisions were validated by
McCleskey.
Mills said that out of the I2l dis
ciplinary cases last year, nine were
gender related. He-said all investi
gations concerning harassment
against females have been closed.
“[Cadet Court] shows that our
cadets, as a whole, do not approve
of that kind of behavior,” Mills
said. “The cadets have mecha
nisms for self-policing, and they
have shown they will use them.”
Sgt Allan Baron, of the University
Police Department Crime Prevention
Unit, said that as with any other or
ganization on campus, the correct
thing for leaders to do is to instruct
the victim to file a police report.
see Cadets on Page 2.
ommissioner OKs
ush independence
hool of government to report to provost
I, Bush,
School
BY VERONICA SERRANO
The Battalion
845-2647
J •
i the Fall:
he Texas Higher Education Co-
Winating Board’s Commissioner
on Brown approved Texas A&M’s
uest to make the George Bush
icliool of Government and Public
^tvice an independent academic
It that will report to the Universi-
§ Provost .
■The commissioner’s approval,
wded down Tuesday, is the final
Ip required to remove the Bush
Bool from A&M’s College of Liber-
lArts.
■The Texas Higher Education Co-
‘"'■inating Board considered the
jnge to be a “nonsubstantive ad-
"Mnistrative request,” which does
°t require as much information as
^substantive administrative request.
Bn a substantive administrative
B n 8 e request, the University must
Aplain the exact administrative
Bnge proposed, project for five
nrp mtwm Ts the current administrative load
1 '‘‘/'lier the present organizational
mr top ctoBicture and explain what would be
Bected under the new system as
veil as among other details regard
ing the change.
■n a nonsubtantive change pro-
Bal, the University has only to
'fiefly describe the change.
s Desk
rtist
t
of Government
& Public Service
Janis Stout, dean of faculties and
acting executive vice president and
provost, said the whole board ap
proval was not required because the
change was considered non-sub-
stantial.
She said she is pleased with the
commissioner’s decision.
In his letter to current provost Ron
Douglas, Brown said the board un
derstood the administrative change
will enable A&M to make use of the
$1,242,707 set aside by the Texas
Legislature for the Bush School,
which was contingent upon the
School attaining independent status,
and that the board understood other
benefits the University would gain by
allowing the change.
see Bush on Page 2.
Under control
CODY WAGES/The Battalion
Air traffic controller Wes Turnbow radios coordinates and flight information to incoming planes at Easterwood Airport Wednesday.
; Desk
de page&
gner
technical majors
to offer training
sggn language skills
- BY STUART HUTSON aram fnr pnpinpprincr stiirlpnt-c a
The Battalion
A $180,000 grant from the U.S.
'partment of Education will al-
v students to have a foreign lan-
7 (include &|age and culture certificate train-
K oriented toward students’
Bhnical majors starting this fall.
■ The program is a cooperative
Bort between the College of Lib-
,|al Art’s Department of Modern
cial attend and Classical Languages and the
BUeges of Engineering, Agricul-
|te and Life Sciences and Vet-
r publicOW in * r y Medicine.
t, The P r °g rams to be offered in-
1,n l nL ' dude a German certificate pro
gram for engineering
Spanish certificate program f
veterinary medicine studen
and Spanish and Russian certi
cate programs for agriculture ai
life sciences students.
Richard Curry, director of u
dergraduate programs for t
Department of Modern and Ch
sical Languages, said studer
participating in the program w
take 15 hours of language cou:
es with additional hours in inti
national education courses.
Curry said the language ai
international education cours
will be tailored to each major
including learning tools such
Languages
Colleges
German
Engineering
Spanish
Veterinary
Medicine
Russian Agriculture and
Life Sciences
GABRIEL RUENES/The Battalion
technically oriented reading ma
terial and speakers discussing
the topic of working internation
ally in their areas of interest.
Students will have the oppor
tunity to spend a semester par
ticipating in study abroad pro
grams and internships.
Curry said that this expanded
education will be invaluable to
those students who decide to en
ter the international workplace
after they graduate from Texas
A&M.
see Language on Page 2.
Researchers target
gene-based defects
MINNEAPOLIS (U-WIRE) — Ge
neticists at the University of Min
nesota are one step closer to finding
a way to remove human defects.
The university is one of two
schools chosen in July from a pool of
90 institutions to receive a $2.5 mil
lion grant for genetic research.
The money would further the de
velopment for what has been dubbed
the “Sleeping Beauty” genetic re
search, a system of genetic transfer
discovered at the university.
The grant, which begins Sept. 1,
was handed out by the California-
based Arnold and Mabel Beckman
Foundation Technology Development
Grant.
Sleeping Beauty is an artificial
DNA construction that will allow sci
entists to study genes through muta
tions, according to Perry Hacked, a
professor of the Department of Ge
netics, Cpll Biology and Development
at the University.
Sleeping Beauty works as a trans
fer agent of genes. A modified version
of a gene no longer found in fish, it
has been awakened by Hackett’s
team, who named it after the fairy
tale princess.
The Sleeping Beauty transposon is
a segment of DNA that moves to a
new location in a chromosome. Once
it marks the gene by causing it to mu
tate, scientists can pinpoint defects.
Ekker said this allows the re
searchers to locate genetic defects
that are almost impossible to find.
“If you have the opportunity to de
velop a drug that rescues possible de
fects people have, you have a mora
obligation to do something,” he said
Benjamin Ganje is a reporter witl
the Minnesota Daily (U. Minnesota.