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106 YEARS AT TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY
^^Eesclay • September i, 1^9 College Station, Texas Volume U)^ • Issue ^ • 14 Pages
INSIDE
aggielife
I Odd Couples
Aggi 3s share
horror stories
about former
roommates.
Lower BAC-level law
goes into effect today
opinion
I Rush forces conformity
on Greeks
Columnist explores the drawbacks
of Greek life.
BY JULIE ZUCKER
The Battalion
sports
Wild and Woolsey
Senior women’s
volleyball player looks
forw. rd to successful
final year.
new feature
The Baffa//on now has a daily
crossword puzzle.
Page 10
A law passed by the Texas State
Legislature that lowering the legal
limit of blood alcohol content
(BAG) from 0.10 to 0.08 goes into
effect today.
With one drink being 1-ounce of
80-proof liquor, a 12-ounce beer, an
8-ounce wine cooler or a 4-o.unce
glass of wine, a 175-pound male is
JKin^^^Anow legally intoxicated after ap-
"* approximately three drinks. A 125-
pound female is now legally drunk
after two drinks.
Dr. Maurice Dennis, director of
Center for Alcohol and Drug Edu
cation Studies, said with the past
BAG level of 0.10, there are 10 drops
of alcohol for every 10,000 drops of
blood, whereas with the new law,
there will be eight drops of alcohol
for every 10,000 drops of blood.
Page 13
Page 9
Dennis said the law deals with
blood alcohol concentration, not
content.
“If a 250-pound man and a 120-
pound girl each have one beer,”
Dennis says, “then their alcohol
content will be the same. However,
the concentration of the alcohol in
their systems may differ.”
Laban Toscano, a sergeant at the
Texas Alcohol Beverage Commis
sion (TABC) said there is no law in
Texas against being drunk, but a
BAG below 0.08 merits an arrest.
“You will be presumed legally
intoxicated at the new level of
0.08,” Toscano said. “But you will
be issued a DWI [driving while in
toxicated] based on impairment of
mental or physical faculties, if you
are 21.”
Toscano said driving under the
influence under age 21 is a class C
misdemeanor. For a first offense, it
merits a fine up to $500, 20 to 40
hours of community service, an
awareness class and suspension of
driver’s license for 60 days.
Toscano said the new law will
help to a certain degree.
“The injury and fatality rate due
to drunk driving has not been im
proving,” he said. “I think lowering
the level will raise the drinker’s
conscience level, making him or
her more aware of his or her ac
tions.”
Texas is following 16 other
states by lowering the legal BAG
limit. According to statistics pro
vided by Dennis, California has
seen an 8 to 10 percent reduction in
vehicle fatalities since the reduc
tion of the BAG level.
"There are more deaths from al
cohol-related accidents [in cars],”
he said. “Brains are the greatest
computers we have, and by drink
ing and driving, we short circuit
them in a way. Quick thinking and
reaction time is severely impaired
when someone is drinking.”
Dennis said involuntary and
voluntary reactions are distorted by
alcohol.
“If a car swerves in front of a
drunk driver and there is no way
out of the situation but to run into
the vehicle, a person impaired by
alcohol will react slowly and make
the wrong decision,” Dennis said.
Don Martin, a Department of
Public Safety trooper, said the
number of alcohol-related acci
dents is too high.
“There are 50,000 Americans a
year who die from alcohol-relat
ed crashes,” he said. “Anything
will help to try to lower the num
bers. A designated driver is the
safest, most logical way to avoid
casualties.”
Sr ant helps
college to offer
new certificate
BY RACHEL HOLLAND
The Battalion
The College of Architecture will of
fer a facility management certificate
through the CRS Center beginning
this Ball with the help of a $120,000
educational grant from software de-
velojper ARCHIBUS Inc.
The grant includes a site license
or [facility management software
'VRCII1BUS/FM.
Robert Johnson, CRS Center di-
ector and a professor, and Mark
Jlayton, assistant professor, will de-
)ut dhe software during the 2000
ipring semester as part of their new
:ourse, Facilities Information Tech-
tology (ARCH 689).
Johnson said adding the facility
nariagement certificate gives another
:aiwer option to architecture students.
“Only 5 percent of buildings are
constructed each year,” Johnson
said. “The other 95 percent are in ex
istence, and so 95 percent need to be
repaired, renovated, restored and re
designed by facility managers.”
Johnson said facility managers su
pervise all aspects of a building, in
cluding security, architecture, com
puter systems, interior design and
real estate. He said using technology
like ARCHIBUS/FM and the Internet
in the classroom will give students
practical skills and expertise that fa
cility managers needed to utilize to
day’s information technology.
“ARCHIBUS is a major program
that will serve as a tool for students
to apply information technology and
to better understand the concepts of
SEE ARCHITECTURE ON PAGE 2.
State officials ready
for year 2000 glitch
’ More than 90
Percent of computer
ystems for Texas
government agencies
ire now compliant.
BY CHRIS MENCZER
The Battalion
According to a statement released
y the Texas Department of Informa-
on Resources (DIR),Texas govern-
aent computer systems are 96 per-
ent Y2K compliant.
Jo Moss, public information offi-
er of the Texas Division of Emer-
ency Management, said all priority
late computer systems, such as
ealth and safety, child support, reg-
latory agencies and the state uni-
ersity systems, have been updated
> safeguard against the Y2K glitch.
“You are never going to see 100-
ercent compliance,” said Moss, “but
ow we are down to troubleshooting
ersonal software, and individual
esktop computers.”
Moss said this degree of success
ame through the cooperation of over
00 state agencies reporting to the
ear 2000 project office of DIR.
“This is perhaps the first time in
tate history that so many agencies
ave put politics aside to work to
other,” Moss said.
Statewide work began in 1997
/hen the Texas Legislature and Gov.
ieorge W. Bush appropriated $110
million for use by state agencies to
prepare for the millennium date ar
rival.
Moss said while some additional
financial assistance has came from
the Federal Emergency Management
Fund, most additional funds have
come from within the individual
agencies themselves. Moss said the
actual cost of the work is much more
than $110 million.
After a recent visit with all critical
state agencies, Jim Pitts (R-Waxa-
hachie), chair of the House Subcom
mittee on Major Information Sys
tems, said the state is getting
prepared for the new year.
“I believe that our state agencies
and universities are making every rea
sonable effort to be ready for Jan. 1.”
One of the state universities to
which Pitts referred to was Texas
A&M. Kim Reverman, Computer In
formation Systems (CIS) Y2K team
leader, said University systems are
97.6 percent compliant.
Reverman said, although there a
few minor bugs to be worked out, the
Student Information Management
Systems (SIMS) is compliant in tran
scripts, records, financial aid and ad
missions.
“At this time we are not anticipat
ing any major problems,” said Rever
man.
“We are mostly looking at contin
gency plans to provide campus re
sources: power, water, security.”
, Reverman said that while the Y2K
team was not only established until
1996, the University has been re
searching the problem for almost 10
years.
When it counts
Josh Cook, a sophomore political science major, takes a guess at the number of Coca-Cola cans it took to fill the inside of Mus
tang Tuesday outside the MSC. The person whose guess is closest to the actual number of cans will win the car when the contest
ends in November.
New exhibit makes a‘splash 5
Vibrant colors dominate Brazos Valley Art League’s display
BY RYAN WEST
The Battalion
A number of the walls in the Horticulture/
Forest Science Building will be a little more
colorful since the arrival of “Color Splash,” the
Brazos Valley Art League’s exhibit in the M.
Benz Gallery of Floral Art.
The exhibit features 29 artistic pieces filled
with vibrant splashes of pastels, crayons, ink
and other forms of artistic mediums enhanced
with gold accessories from the Benz collection
Aug. 30 to Oct. 28.
Olive Black, program chairman for the Brazos
Valley Art League, said the league holds an ex
hibit in the Benz Gallery two months every year.
Black said in order to raise funds for an ex
hibit such as “Color Splash,” the art league, a
non-profit organization, holds art shows, fea
turing paintings, photographs and other en
tries provided by artists within a 100-mile ra
dius. The artists are charged six dollars per
entry for members and 10 dollars per entry for
non-members. The entries are judged by ju
rors from outside the Brazos County, and
monetary prizes are awarded.
Helen Perry, trustee on the Board of Direc
tors for the Brazos Valley Art League, said the
league is pleased to hold the exhibit in the M.
Benz Gallery.
Each year there are themes ranging from
rain forests to deserts.
BRADLEY ATCHISON/ I'm: Battalion
The “Color Splash exhibit is housed at the
M. Benz Gallery in the Horticulture Building.
Perry said limited parking availability is a
problem for those hoping to enjoy the art
work.
“The University is amiss here,” he said.
SEE COLOR ON PAGE 2.
Engineers try to bridge gap in passageway safety
BY BROOKE HODGES
The Battalion
Scientists in the Department
of Civil Engineering have been
researching the subject of bridge
collapse for the last 10 years due
to the 1987 collapse of of the
Schoharie Creek Bridge in New
York which killed 10 people.
Dr. Jean-Louis Briaud, the
Spencer J. Buchanan, professor
of civil engineering, said 10 years
of research is required after any
bridge collapse in the United
States. The research has con
cluded that scour is the most
common cause of collapse.
“[Scour] is the erosion of the
soil at the bridge’s foundation by
water,” Briaud said.
"In our country
we've identified
problems with our
highway bridges.”
—Jean-Louis Briand
Bridge-collapse researcher
He said of the 500,000 bridges
that are over-water in the United
States, 20,000 have been classi
fied as scour critical, and thus are
in danger of collapsing.
Briaud developed a patented
apparatus that extracts a sample
of the soil from a bridge’s foun
dation. Water is then run through
the sample to see how much of
the foundation has eroded.
Briaud said erosion causes
holes in the bridge’s foundation
which may remain until they
reach a specific size. Bridge foun
dations are designed to with
stand a certain amount of erosion
damage, which is decided in the
original design.
“You can have fairly large
holes, but these holes are ac
ceptable because they’ve been
included in the design,” he said.
Due to his work in this study,
Briaud was appointed chair of
the International Commission on
Scour of Foundations, and has to
traveled to other countries to ob
serve erosion situations.
Briaud said England and
Japan have concerns about their
railroad bridges, but the United
States has different concerns.
“In our country we’ve identi
fied problems with our highway
bridges,” he said.
Briaud said countries around
the world are at different levels
of sophistication in the construc
tion of their infrastructure.
Dr. Hamn-Ching Chen, associ
ate civil engineering professor,
has been working with Briaud
SEE BRIDGE ON PAGE 2.