105 YEARS AT TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY
WEDNESDAY
August 4, 1999
Volume 105 • Issue 181 • 6 Pages
College Station, Texas
sports
• Texas A&M football re
cruits shine in the 1999 high-
school All-Star Game.
PAGE 3
i Dark Fanfe
he Dark Ftiiti
Up Records
mig trees
n, because fonkj
Mark Pickerel:: |
on a newprojei
nim, The Dart:
y soup of soira
esick Pip.
; dramatically f'
athers, Pickerel
rts in TmNoC
cted ByTheirP
,vo fast-pacedt
die dark lyrics'
isistentfytfiHK
and leave era
or aching forai
today’s issue
News 6
Battalion Radio
Listen to 90.9 KAMU-FM at 1:57
p.m. to hear how College Station
has been recognized for its
community relations efforts.
opinion
• A student profiling system
would help prevent serious
conflicts between roommates.
PAGE 5
rofif seeks academic director
BY CARRIE BENNETT
The Battalion
i With You" take
softer single-t
d is a perfect fit
itheheatofar
■Texas A&M’s athletic director is currently
looking for the "right person” to fill the position
of associate athletic director for academic af
fairs after a mutual agreement led to the resig
nation of Dr. Karl Mooney, effective Aug. 31.
■Texas A&M athletic director Wally Groff said
affcearch committee began looking through ap
plications yesterday to fill the position. He said
there is no deadline to find a replacement, and
the position will be filled when he finds the
most qualified person.
■ “The associate athletic director for academ-
ilaffairs is responsible for supervising the staff
of academic counselors,” he said. “As well as
making sure athletes have declared a major and
are on the right track toward graduation.”
Last football season, D’Andre “Tiki” Harde
man was found to be ineligible after he had
played in two games. The mistake was attrib
uted to a clerical error made by the registrar’s
office and was not discovered by the athletic de
partment before the season began. As a result
of Hardeman’s ineligibility, A&M had to forfeit
its Sept. 12 win (28-7) against Louisiana Tech.
“This was not the primary factor which led
to [Mooney’s resignation],” Groff said.
Mooney, who worked in the athletic depart
ment for 10 years, said he will continue to teach
at A&M.
“I’ve worked for two years in the Depart
ment of Educational Curriculum and Instruc
tion (EDCI) and I will now teach a combination
of classes from EDCI and the department of Ed
ucational Psychology, since the demand has
suddenly increased,” Mooney said.
He will work with high-school students who
want to attend college and be involved in ath
letics through his own company. Personalized
Athletic Academic Counseling and Evaluation.
“We’re working with high-school students
and young people and their parents who are
trying to get into colleges,” Mooney said. “And
in many cases, those students are trying to be
come eligible for athletic participation and
scholarships.”
School resources aid athletes
BY RYAN WEST
The Battalion
NCAA regulations as well as the
University’s academic standards
force coaches to look further than
athletic ability and take into ac
count a student athlete’s academic
abilities before accepting them into
Texas A&M.
For this reason, A&M student-
athletes competing in varsity sports
are offered a variety of sources to aid
them academically.
Bobby Kummer, A&M’s basket
ball coaching assistant, said ath
letes residing in Cain Hall have ac
cess to a computer lab within the
residence hall. Academic advisers
are made readily available to help
athletes with their schedules and
appointments to meet with tutors.
Kummer said, while the team is
on the road, an academic adviser
travels with the team, and around
finals, tutors join the adviser so the
student athletes can continue to be
held responsible for their work.
“The NCAA wants them to be
just like the rest of the student
body,” Kummer said. “We espe
cially feel this way at A&M.”
see Aid on Page 2.
non.
■re, the albumen
)dy procession!
oberts slow dr
n and Martin Ffi
ard.
im picks thebe:
‘Valentine," a si
re love song, an;
heme,” a tune:
:i! freak show,
rre antithesis!
n, listeners sW
e hidden trad:
Home improvement
i
similarly toad;
s up-beatbitis
:kle-pop.
kerel will debnii;
dependent rod::
k and mostly(3
e: A+)
— Hedw 1
1m
r | ALIMA#
! w/Firny
: all.
3-28, 1!
4427 ext 133
/volunteer/
\
^ km
dt
?dy
TERRY ROBERSON/The Battalion
Shannon Middleton, a senior environmental design major, builds a balsa-wood model of an existing
house to test design improvements yesterday in the Langford Architecture Center.
NEWS IN BRIEF
16 D RGBS to begin construction
sf housing research project
search indicates that the design of the house could
save enough electrical energy to eliminate the need
for commercial nuclear power in this country.
am
i The Texas A&M University Office of Residential Con
crete Building Systems (RGBS) will begin phase one
IIconstruction of the passive environmental engi-
Bering project today at 2 p.m.
[ The RGBS project includes the construction of a pas-
live environmental research facility which will use the
environment to maintain its own temperature profile.
[| The research project is designed to test the hy
pothesis that it is possible to use a home’s structural
pechanisms as passive heat transfer systems.
F The system will in turn maintain a home’s temper
ature profile using only the natural environmental con-
ptions where the structure is located.
[ According to a press release from the Office of Res
idential Concrete Building Systems, preliminary re-
Outback Steakhouse hosts
to raise scholarship money
The Outback Steakhouse is sponsoring a luncheon
to benefit the Texas A&M University Division of Ad
ministration Staff Scholarship today in College Station.
The scholarship provides assistance to employees
and their dependents within the Division of Adminis
tration. Scholarships are awarded on the basis of aca
demic achievement and financial need.
There will be two seatings for the $10 lunch, one
from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. and another from
12:30 to 1:30 p.m.
Tickets can be purchased by calling 862-1769.
Judge issues injunction
against law-school pact
HOUSTON (AP) — A judge yes
terday issued a state-requested
permanent injunction that blocks
Houston’s South Texas College of
Law from affiliating with Texas
A&M University.
The Texas Higher Education Co
ordinating Board got the permanent
injunction they were seeking against
private South Texas College of Law’s
affiliation with Texas A&M.
State District Judge Suzanne
Covington of Austin, in a nine-
page judgment, said the agreement
between the two schools was void
because it clashes with the au
thority given to the higher educa
tion board by law.
“The affiliation agreement is in
direct conflict with the statutory
scheme set out in the Texas Edu
cation Code,” Covington wrote,
adding that the pact, if allowed to
continue, “would render the role
of the Texas Higher Education Co
ordinating Board meaningless.”
“[The pact] would
render the role of the
Texas Higher Education
Coordinating Board
meaningless”
— Suzanne Covington
State District Judge
While the judge allowed the
two schools to continue working
together through library and facul
ty exchanges, Covington told
South Texas to cease using the
name of Texas A&M in all of the
law school’s logos and literature.
The school had been referring
to itself as “South Texas College of
Law affiliated with Texas A&M
University. ”
“We will appeal,” Roland Gar
cia Jr., attorney for South Texas
College of Law, said.
Texas A&M currently does not
have a law school in its mission
statement.
South Texas and A&M struck a
partnership in January 1998 that
would give the Houston law school
the A&M name while remaining a
$14,000-a-year private school.
While such private-public part
nerships do exist, Texas A&M’s
failure to £et permission from the
governing board has tripped up
the 41,000-student university’s at
tempt to add a law school.
Texas A&M officials said the
University could not immediately
comment on the matter.
Regents OK establishment
of cardiovascular institute
BY SUZANNE BRABECK
The Battalion
The Texas A&M Board of Regents approved the es
tablishment of the Michael E. DeBakey Institute for
Comparative Cardiovascular Science, which will be
based in the College of Veterinary Medicine.
The institute will use the intellectual and financial re
sources of the College of Veterinary Medicine, the
Dwight Look College of Engineering, the Texas A&M
University System Health Science Center’s Cardiovas
cular Institute and the Texas Children’s Hospital in
Houston to battle cardiovascular disease.
It is estimated that cardiovascular disease affects 4
million people annually, at a cost of $10 billion.
Richard Adams, dean of veterinary medicine admin
istration, said the DeBakey Institute will foster new part
nerships among Texas research institutions and private
industry.
“[Everyone will be] working in concert to better un
derstand and better manage circulatory disorders com
mon to humans and our animals,” Adams said.
Dr. Terry Possum, professor and chief of surgery in
the Department of Small Animal Medicine and Surgery,
said the program will be beneficial for humans and an
imals.
“I am a veterinarian, and want to make sure peo
ple understand that this is a reciprocal program that
helps both animals and people,” she said. “What we
learn from humans about cardiovascular disease we
use to help animals, and the information we get from
the device implemented in the animals will help hu
mans.”
The institute’s staff will be derived from the consol
idation of existing faculty who have been active in car
diovascular research. The funding the institute will be
gin with is $2 million in private donations and $2 million
for the endowment of two chairs, one for surgery and
another for cardiology. Other economic contributions
towards the institute will be supplied by the existing
grants and contracts of the professors and researchers
that join the institute.
Program goals:
1) To serve as a bridge between small com
panies involved with biomedical devices and
the government to help them gain approval
from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
2) To promote the collaboration of scientists,
health professionals and engineers in the field
3) To develop and implement animal models
4) To achieve FDA approval of pharmaceuticals
and biomedical devices
Adams said the engineering comes into play with the
development of implantable devices for vessels, valves
and even aortas.
Adams said the institute will bring more attention to
A&M and increase collaborations between the colleges.
Adams said A&M developed a relationship for
decades with DeBakey, a world-renowned surgeon
based out of Houston. A&M honored DeBakey by nam
ing the institute after him since his development of the
left ventricular assist device in conjunction with Mi-
croMed Technology.
A&M received a grant in November 1997 to inves
tigate the left ventricular assist device and has helped
modify it. The left ventricular assist device is different
than a pacemaker. While a pacemaker helps modify
the rhythm and pace the heart beats, the assist device
sits next to the heart and is a small pump that pushes
blood out of the heart into the blood stream up to ten
liters a minute. This lets the heart rest until a trans
plant can be found.
see Heart on Page 2.