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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (June 20, 2000)
Monday, J« Decision Continued from] Bowen said students win pate petitioning for changt conditions laid out in his should understand thatth made in his announcement? negotiable conditions for bonfire." Rules and regulat well as a plan for the 2002 will be developed by a fast students, faculty and staff, Howard D. Graves, chanj the A&M University Syste; "The Texas A&M University commends President Rayh decision regarding the fut®! Texas A&M Bonfire. Weap[ Texas A&M University adi tion, faculty, students, fonni dents and extended family ongoing commitment to the I of the University andasktl continued support." I One question still or :i minds is the fate of bonfire | Rusty Thompson. Listen to KAMI! 90.9 FM at 1:57 p.m. or details on the collision of a car with a cow on FM 50. • Check out The Battalion online at battalion.tamu.edu. Perfectly Orchestrated Texas Music Festival brings culture, talent to A&M Weather: Partly cloudy with a hiqh of 90 and a low of 76. TUESDAY June 20,2000 Volume 106-Issue 155 6 pages F MVi =f:l ft < Uk'lk’J =1 r WI &M-area parking to change Parkins changes in the Nerthgate Area Adrienne Ballare The Battalion Different parking changes on campus and in eNorthgatearea will take effect Fall 2000. The epartmentof Parking, Traffic and Transporta- )n Services (PTTS) and the city of College Sta- tion are working to make Texas A&M Univer- \ice President for Sti; s j t and College Station a less confusing traffic lairs Dr. J. Malon Souther a | ea anc j sa f er f or pedestrians and cyclists. Ihompson will play an actiB Douglas Williams, associate director of in the determination of thaJA'] 5, ggj^ (j ur j n g the upcoming fall semester uation of bonfire, butth students with red parking permits will only has not been made as to fallowed to park on main campus. Students I hompson will be bonfirwB^yyg permits will only be allowed tbparkon West Campus, with the exception of "He will definitely bean tbt , b[ue Zachary Lot tant part of the process, n Williams said they are making lot changes land said. Butwewillseeab(M ietot | ie cons t ruc tion of the future 932-space (the adviser position) when« estCampus parkiri g garage, which will be lo- comes." cated between John Kimbrough and the Recre ation Center and the pedestrian passage way. "We want to reduce the vehicles and pedes- trians from crossing Wellborn Road during construction, because the roadway capacity will not accommodate the expected demand," Williams said. Williams said in order to complete this pro ject they will have to close John Kimbrough from Olsen to Wellborn. During construction Wellborn Road will reduce its five lanes to two lanes northbound, one lane southbound and no turning lanes. "There will be less options available to en ter West Campus," Williams said. "A tempo rary railroad track will be built to accommo date construction of the passageway." Williams says there will be more parking available for off-campus students and, during the evenings, students with blue parking per mits will only be allowed to park in staff lots that are not 24-hour reserved. "Overall there will be more blue physical spaces on campus, and during the evenings students with blue permits will have more op tions of parking on main campus, because you will not have red and green permits compet ing for staff lots," Williams said. Student Body President Forrest Lane said student government is working with PITS to develop a concrete solution for parking. Lane said to help enhance the options of parking on main campus in the evenings, stu dents with blue permits will be allotted free parking in the University Center Garage. Kofi Barkoh, a junior biomedical engineer ing major said he feels the changes being made on campus are ridiculous. "Parking and traffic is going to be outra geous. We're going to have detours around f” — Parking removed | — 3 free 15-minute spaces on Patricia Street east of College Main 6 free 15~minute spaces on Patricia Street west of College Main | - 30 free one-hour spaces in the Promenade Parking Lot from 7:00 a m. to 6 p.m. I® — Paid parking m .1 — „ A campus and it's going to be a big horrendous problem for those living off- campus," Barkoh said. "I don't see how it's going to decrease traffic too much or safe ty. You have all those people commuting off- campus. You're going to have a congested Wellborn and a congested George Bush," Barkoh said. Williams said the desired objective is to re duce the competition for spaces on campus. "It will reduce the competition for spaces and MW \ i . ■ alvtrsity Dr. *«•: it It It i I I t i 1 1 r I: the blue permit population will not add to traf fic congestion on main campus," Williams said. Williams said the benefits of these new lot changes are less pedestrian and vehicle traffic See Parking on Page 2. led to w'ait so long before haul It is good that they are taking* ickerson said, ki said he hopes the.admin::'* le with the terms laid outinBo* i that they did not flat-outaW ave been wrong," Gratkowskiaj ision is not set in stone ai e about it." Printing fees jML4 #1 (HuinouatioiiM: Bedroom Acc<mimodation or Locks Bath Area Dresser bedrooms) 1 Closets Very Bedroom Access Line Available able Package has access to: ing taff e Parking on Center er Lab Rooms Students to be charged for excessive copies Joseph Pleasant The Battalion I Students accustomed to multiple-copy printing in the student computing labs on iampus will notice changes this fall. Beginning Fall 2000, students printing more than 150 pages per semester wi 11 be charged for each additional page they print. I Thomas Putnam, director of Computing and Informa tion Services, said the increase ■suits from the rising volume of printing on campus. ■ Putnam said printing costs have risen from $600,000 in 1998 to an estimated $850,000 in fiscal year 2000. "We are trying to recover cost of printing," Put- m said. Currently, students have unlimited printing privileges in the computer labs. Begin ning this fall, each student will receive an allocation of 150 black and white pages per semester to print. The cost of printing is included in the student computing fees. Dnce the number of pages las exceeded this amount, a charge of 4.9 cents per page will be added to the student's fee statement. ■ Putnam said the charges will be added at the end of :he semester, so students will need to pay the charge to ; Station, Texas 77840 1: info@callawayhouse.c on> CHANGES TO COMPUTING CENTER PRINTING POLICY - Chars* 4.9 cent* p#r copy for Black and Whil# + 8,25% in state tax for each copy over allotted amount - Black and White, Color and apadatty printing billed together - No need to *at up a separate account for color or specialty printing COMPARED TO : University of Texas at Austin -10 cents per copy - no etlocation Kinko's - 49 cents per printed page - 20 cents per minute CPU usage , Copy Comer - 50 centt per printed page - Pages printed from disk by Copy Corner avoid being blocked from registering. Onedia Sylvest, associate director of Computing and In formation Services, said the new policy is designed to affect only the students who print ex cessive amounts of pages. "Most students will not re ceive a bill," Sylvest said. Syl vest also said safeguards have been added to computers so students do not accidentally print more than they want. "Computers in the labs around campus are equipped with pauses that prompt the student before it continues printing when the job is in ex cess of 100 pages," Sylvest said. "We want to protect stu dents with the pause from using their allocation by mis take," she said. Student reaction toward the change is mixed. Emily Funkhouser, a se nior recreation, parks and tourism major, said a type of printing regulation is neces sary on campus. "Some people go crazy printing out things that have nothing to do with school, and that is wasteful," she said. Michelle Nafegar, a senior speech communication major, said the allocation is too low when considering the amount of printing students must do for certain classes. "Some students have to print in the labs, and if they need to get something off of reserve and the professor has eight chapters, that can be 100 pages," Nafegar said. Marie Johnson, a senior agricultur al development major, said stu dents already pay enough in comput er fees for printing. "There is so much that we have to print for class, and I think our fees cover that substantial ly," she said., Firing up the pit Marcel Quintero, a grill and sautee chef at a local restaurant, prepares chicken on the barbie for a customer. Work hour increase proposed April Young The Battalion Student workers who have been ac cepted into the college work-study pro gram through financial aid may be able to work more hours if a proposal made by Student Financial Aid Services is passed. Jim Lane, assistant director of financial aid, said some student workers on the work-study program have expressed con cern because work-study hours are cur rently limited to 20 hours per week. Lane said the 20-hour limit was a problem for students because they were getting paid less than regular student workers who have no limit on the amount of hours they can work. "Because of the University policy, stu dents would cancel their work study and get loans because [the hours] weren't enough to make it worth their while," Lane said. Nora Cargo, student employment ad ministrator, said the increase in work- study hours was also brought on by a change in federal policy. "Federal regulations no longer regulate the number of hours a student can work," Cargo said. "It's now defined by the amount of financial aid the student has been awarded. For example, if someone is allotted $1,500 in work study, and they are making $5.15 per hour, they would be al lowed to work more hours than someone making $7 per hour who has been award ed the same amount." “If I ever needed to work more hours, I would just drop work study and take out more loans” — Layne Bryant junior computer science major and work-study employee Lane said the increase in student work er hours would offer students on work study the same opportunities as students not on work study, as far as the number of hours they would be able to work. Cargo said if the proposal is passed, students will be able to maximize their work-study privileges. "The proposal would increase hours and also increase award, meaning [stu dents] will have the opportunity to earn more," she said. "We are hoping this will make them more attractive to employers on campus and, instead of taking on more loans, we are hoping to give them more work study so they can decrease their debt. This will be less for [students] to pay back when they graduate." But Layne Bryant, a work-study em ployee and junior computer science ma jor, said he is unaffected by the hour limit because he has never worked more than 20 hours per week. "1 have always been able to meet my costs, but I can see how if people wanted to v/ork more, the limit could be prohibi tive," he said. "If I ever needed to work more hours, I would just drop work study and take out more loans." From Fall 1999 to Fall 2000, approxi mately 800 students were on the work- study program and, this summer, more than 260 students are enrolled in the work- study program. Currently, the Office of Financial Aid is waiting to hear whether the proposal will be passed from Vice President for Student Affairs Dr. J. Malon Southerland. Court rules on prayer SANTA FE, Texas (AP) — The U.S. Supreme Court's decision Monday to limit student-led prayer at football games left school board members disappointed, confused and a little defiant, while oppo nents of the invocations celebrated. "We were hoping to get some delin eation from the Supreme Court, and what we got was a blurring of what citizens' free-speech rights are," said John Couch II, president of the Santa Fe Independent School District board for the last two years. He was reacting to the court's 6-3 rul ing that the high school in this southeast Texas town improperly sponsored reli gion by allowing the majority-Baptist student body to elect someone to give an invocation before football games. Two women, whose names have not been made public, sued the district to eliminate prayer from pfegame activi ties. Both still have children in the district and’ were elated by the decision, said friend Debbie Mason. "Thank God, thank God," said Ma son, an American Baptist who has put four children through the district. "This time it was football games, next it could have been the classroom," Ma son continued. "It is a slippery slope. This school district knew what it was do ing and kept pushing and pushing." During a news conference Monday in the school administration building, just a few yards from the football stadium, three members of the seven-person board decried the ruling that student speech in such a public forum is not protected. Board member Robin Clayton indi- , cated that formal pregame prayers might be a thing of the past, but noted that the school district cannot control what stu dents or others say on their own. "Spontaneous things happen, don't they," Clayton said. Board members added that they would address the now-defunct policy at a future meeting and did not know what kind of rules would replace it. Asked whether a student might be disciplined for trying to pray over a loudspeaker at a football game or other venue. Couch became emotional and broke down as he spoke. "There could just be no way I would be involved in disciplining a student for their free-speech rights," he said. A lawsuit filed by Marian Ward, a graduated senior who won an injunction last fall to continue delivering pregame prayers despite a similar appellate court ruling, remains pending. Neither board members nor her father, the Rev. Bob Ward, knew what the Supreme Court ruling meant for the lawsuit.