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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 27, 2000)
V "V THURSDAY January 27, 2000 Volume 106 ~ Issue 78 14 pages part oft»r 'es A(ec«n(Europ*any ttfope needs weipiMts)! ire sprinkler inadequacies found in dorms BY BRADY CREEL The Battalion I Tuesday’s fires at Texas A& M and a recent fa- nl fire at Seton Hall University, have sparked im >re than just flames—they have raised an eye- pi i >w of concern about fire safety among students and University officials. I The Krueger Hall fire was the lifih dormitory fiie in the nation since the spring semester began Over a week ago - and the second at Texas A& M I) the past fourteen months. The Jan. 19 fire at Seton 1 lall claimed the lives Hfthree students and injured 58 others. Seton Hall o ticials hired a firm to do a surv ey of colleges’ fii • safety, which revealed that, of the 37 colleges surveyed, only 55 percent of dormitories were equipped with fire sprinkler systems. Texas A&M is part of the 45 percent that is not fully equipped with fire sprinkler systems. “As far as student rooms, at this point we don’t have any rooms that are sprinkled,” Dan Mi/er, assistant director in the Department of Residence Life, said. The fire in Krueger began when a towel was overheated in a microwave and thrown into a stu dent's clothes hamper in the room. Hie only sprinkler systems in dormitories on the A&M campus tire in the trash chutes and trash rooms, and these systems are not in all residence halls. The only residence halls currently equipped with trash sprinkler systems are the Commons dorms, balcony-style donns, and conidor-style dorms. Mclnnis Hall, a balcony-style residence hall on Northside, is currently undergoing renovation. A complete sprinkler system will be installed as a part of this project. Five residence halls are scheduled for this renovation over the next sev eral years. “Mclnnis will be our test hall,” Mizer said. “We will be able to determine actual cost and see how [the sprinklers] work in practice.” Texas A&M University is not the only uni versity in Texas to realize the need for fire sprin kler systems in residence halls. Jim Mecklin, fire safety inspector for the Uni versity of Texas-Austin, said UT is currently in the process of installing a sprinkler system in Jester Hall, the high-rise dormitory that houses almost 3,000 students. “It’s a retrofit, and it’s difficult,” Mecklin said. “It’s not as easy as it is on new construction.” The project began in December 1999, and is expected to be completed in a year. The Residence Life staff first began to take a closer look at installing fire sprinkler systems when a fire erupted on Nov. 2, 1998 on the third floor of Dorm 9, which houses part of the Corps of Cadets. The room in which the fire originated was de stroyed, and there was extensive damage to the room above it. Mizer said adding sprinklers to the buildings will be a long, laborious process. Residence Life has taken action to improve fire safety in other ways. “Because of that fire, we started to look at some issues that needed to be addressed,” Mizer said. Door-closing devices were installed on all doors in all halls, with the exception of halls with doors that open to the outside. If the room door is open, the device provides enough pressure to close it. “In the Dorm 9 fire, when the fire department discovered the fire, the door was wide open,” See Sprinklers on Page 2. omstock no longer n critical condition Monkey Business BY TRAVIS PRICHETT The Battalion rehabilitation will be decided upon in the upcoming weeks. A'ii COG S22.SJ IMS 300 000 $228! | I John Comstock, the last of tf die 1999 Aggie Bonfire collapse Sod, was upgraded from critical vksterday. victims injured in o remain hospital- ) serious condition $ 7 8$ m s-sw m $*9.34 JttJ romiBHiMi I Comstock, a freshman biotechnology major ’ifih >m Richardson, spent seventy days in the intensive Kirc unit of the College Station Medical Center. a'.mg a &}*» (** rorwfing * WfS nee cuW* Hnci wmsayrriucr,: KBwfWft ptame; * eqiWTien! and a t I Comstock has undergone se\ dibit to stabilize his condition. I In a press release. I )r. Joseph Fe leads the team of physicians and ni for Comstock's care) said Comstoc need of respiratory support or hem now able to receive nutrition by m< I “I fe has continued to make prog tamed the last few days without a rei feu ions or complications,” Fedorcl | The matter of when and where C ral surgeries in an "I am very grateful to the staff at the Med — they are the reason I'm here today. So, when do I get to go home?" — John Comstock 1999 Aggie Bonfire collapse victim orchik Jr. (who ses responsible is no longer in dialysis, and is In the press release, Comstock expressed grati tude to the Aggie community and the Medical Cen ter staff. “I’m overwhelmed with the outpouring of con cern from Aggies everywhere and from the com munity,” he said. “I’m very grateful to the staff at the Med—they tire the reason I’m here today. So, when do I get to go home?” too AgsHobby Hall coed next fall BY RICHARD BRAY The Battalion following arei Dair if I lobby Hall — an all women’s residence hall on Northside — will be coed by Fall 2000, the Residence Hall Association (RHA) announced at Wednes day's meeting. ■ “We listen to the residents, and create legislation according to what they tell us,” Julie Cast, president of RHA and a junior marketing major, said. “We talked to Northside students and they expressed a desire for more coed and male dorms.” 1 Recent changes made by the Department of Food Services to replace Sbisa Cafeteria, closed for the semester due to extensive renovations, were also addressed at the meeting. Council members agreed that Sbisa I fut and the expanded out bound programs were success ful, but were concerned about the shortage of outbound meals on Northside on Sunday. “Sbisa I hit was not expecting the overwhelming response from students, so they are doing better to have more options this week end,” Cindy Zawieja, associate director of Food Services, said at the meeting. Council members also sug gested that signs be posted in the 12th Man International Food Court, so students can avoid con fusion about where to get out bound meals for breakfast. “The meal plan is only on the lefl side [of the 12th Man during breakfast] and the other side is just cash operations,” Zawieja said. Zawieja also asked the coun cil for its opinion on the “Wheels to Meals” busing pro gram, which provides students with busing to the MSC and the Commons. “It’s quite expensive to keep the buses running,” Zawieja said. “We want responses to see if the program is working.” The council decided to post pone discussion on the matter for a few weeks to see if the busing program is necessary. GUY ROGERS/THE Batiai.ion Tony Park, lead vocals/trumpet, and Howie Behrens, guitarist, of Push Monkey, work the audience into a fan frenzy at Hurricane Harry’s Wednesday night. The crowd was persuaded into stage dives and mosh pits. te training, fodder Tower >r. Blinn grows in Spring ’00 BY DANA JAMUS The Battalion j|; Texas A&M University may be slow- ng down in terms of admitting new stu- lents, but Blinn College is going full peed ahead. . 1 ; Approximately 500 more students en- ees, fill out Sidled at Blinn’s Bryan campus in all 1999 as compared to Fall 1998, ac- tording to Barbara Pearson, vice president )f Blinn College. iiMJnly 193 additional undergraduate ttudents enrolled at A&M in Fall 1999 as :ompared to Fall 1998, according to s at a later UNDERGRADUATE ENROLLMENT BLINN Up by 680 in Spring 2000 9% II Total Enrollment: 8,277 unofficial from Blinn for Spring ?0C*0 Clinton to give last State of Union WASHINGTON (AP) — Wedged between the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary, President Clinton grabs the spot- JEFF SMITH/The Battalion ies. le elevators \&M’s Office of Institutional Studies and ^hning’s Fal I 1999 enrollment record, and 4 p.m. ^ p his spring semester, enrollment at Jlinn increased by 680 students as com- )ared to Spring 1999— making the total enrollment 8,277 students. Pearson said he official enrollment is not determined mtil the 12th day of classes to allow for Iropouts. Hi he additional number of students cn- olkd at A&M this spring is not available or distribution until the 12th dayofclass- :s,iccording to the Olfice of Planning and nstitutional Research at A&M. KrOne of the attractions to Blinn is that he cost ofattending a junior college is al- .vays lower than a four year university,” ’earson said. “Blinn charges $27 for every credit hour and this will be rising, but there is always a limit where the cost of a col lege is lower than a university.” Pearson said she does not believe that Blinn is taking students away from A&M, but rather that A&M’s reputation is bring ing students into the area and this is having a positive effect on Blinn’s student count. Pearson said she believes that more and more students are joining Blinn’s two- year program because the college is be coming more visible in the community. Blinn has attempted to improve the registration process by cutting the waiting time and long lines that caused students frustration in the Fall 1999. “The surge of students applying to Blinn took us by surprise in the fall,” Pear son said. “The college has added extra reg istration days to make the process more convenient for the students.” CLINTON light Thursday night with a State of the Union address intended to pro mote the last year of his pres idency and the political ambi tions of his part ner, A1 Gore. It will be a speech watched by millions of Americans, probably Clinton’s biggest audience of the year. Clinton will boast about the nation’s extraordinary prosperity, which in Feb ruary will turn into the longest eco nomic expansion in history. He’ll cat alog hundreds of billions of dollars worth of programs he’d like to see Congress approve to crown the final year of his presidency — from health insurance and medical research to ed ucation initiatives and tax breaks for the working poor. It’s Clinton’s night and his big speech. But the president probably will he thinking, at least in part, about how his remarks could help Gore, the man sitting behind him at the rostrum of the cavernous I louse chamber. Five days before the New Hamp shire primary, Gore will rush back to Washington to occupy that seat and lead the applause for Clinton. One of the most important contri butions Clinton can make to his legacy is to help Gore become president arid carry on the work of the Clinton-Gore administration. It is a factor in devel oping Clinton’s own agenda. But on the other hand, she said, that doesn’t mean Gore gets to write Clin ton’s script. “This is still the Clinton administration and they are very firm ly in charge.” “Gore also realizes the strongest thing going for him in this election are the governing successes of the Clinton administration and the broad successes in the economy and improvements in American society,” Mann said. “It would be foolish to run away from those,’ he said.’ Clinton also has his mind on the Senate race of his wife, Hillary. “I think she’s done a good job with this and she’s getting into it,” he said Tues day. “I think it would be a good thing for New York and a good thing for our country.” Lockhart said Clinton’s administra tion was “not in the business of micro- managing our policies to try to help or hurt any campaign.” But he acknowl edged there is coordination between the Clinton and Gore teams. “There always is. We talk to their staff all the time,” Lockhart said. “But the agenda that the president’s going to lay out is the president’s agenda.” The spokesman would not say how much of it came from Gore. “There’s a long list of people in that category who want things,” he said, but it is the president who decides how to lay out the speech. Clinton will offer a boost in the minimum wage, a prescription drug benefit under Medicare, tougher gun controls and a patients’ bill of rights. In health care coverage, alone, Clin ton is proposing a $110 billion initia tive — saying it would be the largest investment in health coverage since Medicare was established in 1965. Under a section headed “White House budget leaks,” the committee keeps a running tab of the cost of Clin ton proposals “tallied from about 50 leaks.” The latest estimate was that Clin ton’s program would increase spending next year by $30.4 billion over current totals. • Shut Down B-CS clubs frequently go out of business. • Collateral Damage Government should allo cate more money for soldier wages. Page 1 3 • Aggies losing streak con tinues No. 23 Sooners down the Ags. • Listen to KAMU-FM 90.9 at 1:57 p.m. for details on Texas Sea Grant.