Monda\
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• A passing grade
Mark Farris gets starting nod
for season opener
Page 11
Weather:
Partly cloudy with a
hiqh of 95 and a low
of 72.
WEDNESDAY
August 23, 2000
Volume 107 ~ Issue 1
16 pages
Freshman Welcome Day eases moving pains
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ANDY HANCOCK/The Battalion
Brett Owens, a Lechner Hall resi
dent adviser and a sophomore polit
ical science and biomedical science
major, helps Billy Dowley, a fresh
man international studies major, un
pack and move in Monday evening.
By Brady Creel
The Battalion
Many people told Jim Dwyer and his family
that moving his children from high school to col
lege would be terrible. That was before he arrived
at Texas A&M last fall to find volunteers wait
ing to assist with the move-in process during
Freshman Welcome Day.
“1 had heard the horror stories about moving
into the dorms,” said Dwyer, a parent of two Ag
gies. When Dwyer and his family drove their
Suburban onto the A&M campus, they were sur
prised at what they found.
“[The volunteers] all got an armload of stuff
and walked up to the second floor of Spence and
we were done,” Dwyer said.
Today, Dwyer is driving back to College Station
from Tyler. This time it is not to move in his children
— he is coming to help other freshmen move in.
“I felt like I needed to come back because it was
payback time,” he said.
The department of Residence Life’s Freshman
Welcome Day is in its second year and coordinates
more than 400 volunteers such as Dwyer to assist in
coming freshmen who Residence Life expects to ar
rive today. The volunteers will help students unload
vehicles and move their belongings into their rooms
in the residence hall rooms.
Laura Balkum, a graduate assistant for Residence
Life and coordinator of this year’s Freshman Wel
come Day, said that the volunteers were recruited
throughout the summer and consist of mainly stu
dents, faculty, staff and members of the Bryan-Col-
lege Station community.
Last year’s event assisted more than 2000 stu
dents, and a larger group is expected this year.
“This year we are obviously hoping to increase
the numbers,” Balkum said.
Students can park their vehicles in one of the
assisted loading zone parking spaces and the vol
unteers will unload the vehicle. After they have
parked their vehicles in parking lots, freshmen
can return to their rooms to find all of their be
longings moved in, Balkum said.
“It really puts a lot of parents at ease,”
Balkum said.
During the official eight-day move-in period
— which began Sunday —- areas surrounding
residence halls are often crowded, and unloading
and moving in can be very difficult.
“Traditionally, we’ve had such a large influx
on Sunday that'we overwhelmed campus ser
vices,” said Ron Sasse, director of Residence Life.
Sunday was a busy day. In addition to students
moving into their residence halls, 700 freshmen ar
rived for the Corps of Cadets Freshman Orienta
tion Week (FOW) — 120 more than last year.
“One of the reasons we are wanting to do fresh
man check-in is because the Corps does move in
on Sunday, and it is so packed,” Balkum said.
But, not all of the cadets had arrived Sunday.
Cadets not on campus for FOW will arrive today.
“We only have a cadre of upperclassmen
here,” said Major Doc Mills, media relations co
ordinator for the Office of the Commandant, on
Monday. “During FOW, we don’t really need the
full Coips in place.”
See Welcome on Page 2.
Log removal
oa
ty
nt
Students avoid
‘Freshman 15’
Aggies find ways to evade gaining
weight during their first year
Several
ON-CAMPUS services
will be operational for the remainder
of this week before the first day of classes:
■Information compiled by Brian Ruff
BRADLEY ATCHISON/The Battalion
Tony Thrasher, a log crane operator from a lumber company in Jasper,
loads Bonfire logs onto a tractor trailer Aug. 11. The logs were trans
ported to an old waste management site off campus.
By Joseph Pleasant
The Battalion
Attention freshmen: Mom’s
home cooking and teenage me
tabolism will no longer be
available to ward off the un
wanted pounds called the
“Freshman 15.”
The Freshman 15 is the ten
dency among college freshmen
to gain weight during their first
semester away from home.
Freshman weight gain is usual
ly an effect of changes in
lifestyle, said Rhonda Rahn, a
health nutrition educator at A.P.
Beutel Health Center.
“Most are active in high
school with football or marching
band, but when they move away
they usually are not involved in
those same activities,” she said.
Rahn added that a stu
dent’s diet contributes to
gaining weight during the
first semester.
“A lot of freshmen take ad
vantage of the all-you-can-eat
style cafeterias we have on cam
pus,” she said. “Students usual
ly choose to eat pizza and other
types of unhealthy foods off the
buffet instead of having a salad
or vegetables; students also tend
to eat junk food late at night
while studying.”
Rahn said students should
try to make wise diet choices
when snacking and also while
eating on and off campus. She
added that drinking alcohol
greatly increases the chances of
gaining weight..
“Alcohol has a lot of useless
calories, which are stored as fat
by the body because they have
no other use,” Rahn said.
Beer, even light beer, has
a large amount of useless
calories.
“When I returned home af
ter my first year of college 1 no- '
ticed my friends from other uni
versities looked different,” said
Renee Edminston, a junior en
vironmental design major.
“Some of my friends from
high school gained a lot of
weight.”
However, there are ways to
keep students from falling prey
to the Freshman 15.
Edminston said she kept the
weight off by remaining active.
“I went to the [Student
Recreation Center] a lot and *
stayed away from the cafete
ria,” she said.
See Freshman on Page 8.
Various food services
will be available for
students on campus
this week. Duncan,
Commons, and Outbound
Dining will be closed until
the fail semester begins.
Hours of operation:
•Common Market and Fish Pond Market
9 a m. to 6 p.m Mon.-Sun
•Pavilion Snack Bar: 7:30 a m. to 2 p.m. Mon.-Fri.
•Common Denominator:
8 a m. to 5 p.m. Mon.-Sat., 10 a m to 6 p.m. on Sun.
•Hullabaloo: 7:30 a m. to 3:15 p.m. Mon.-Fri.,
8 a m. to 5 p.m. on Sat. and Sun.
•Critical Care Cafe: 7:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Mon.-Fri.
•Stone Willy’s: 5 p.m. to 11 p.m. Mon.-Sat.,
5 p.m. to 1 a m. on Sun.
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Incoming Aggies participate in Fish Camp
Freshmen learn A&M traditions and establish new relationships
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By Maureen Kane
The Battalion
The last group of incoming fresh
men participating in Fish Camp left
this morning for the Lakeview camp
ground where the camps are held
each summer.
“Fish Camp has been going won
derfully,” said Chaethana Yalaman-
chili, a Fish Camp director and a se
nior biomedical engineering major.
“Nothing has gone wrong. You have
the little problems that always occur
with an organization of this size but
it’s going great. 1 think the freshmen
are having a wonderful time.”
According to Kasi Gray, a fresh
man business major, they are.
“I loved Fish Camp,” she said. “It
was so much fun getting to meet
everyone. The counselors did skits to
help us get to know about them, and to
teach us traditions. There were mixers
at night where we met more people.
“I went not knowing anyone,
which was good because I got to
know a lot more people than just the
ones I went to high school with,”
Gray said.
Fish Camp freshmen learn Texas
A&M traditions, build leadership
skills, and establish friendships to
ease the transition from high school
to college.
Fish Camp is a 46-year-old tradi
tion that has evolved into a student-
run organization with 900 counselors,
74 chairpersons and eight directors.
Fish Camp activities include yell
practice, putting it all together
(FIAT), skits, intermurals and mixers.
An important aspect of Fish
Camp is Discussion Group (DG)
time. About 12 freshmen and two
counselors constitute a DG, which
meets periodically throughout the
CODY WAGES/Tue Battalion
Pam Vazquez (left) and Valerie Stone (right), Fish Camp counselors
in Session B, prepare for the incoming freshmen. The counselors
met at 6:30 a.m. to welcome freshmen to Texas A&M.
day to discuss making the most of the
A&M experience.
“During DG time, you play games
to get to know the freshmen better, so
they do not feel as intimidated, and
they get a chance to talk within a
small group,” said Lindsay Isenberg,
a Fish Camp counselor and a sopho
more electrical engineering major.
“After camp DGs get together so the
freshmen do not feel like they are on
their own.”
Although the Class of 2004 will
be one of the largest to enter A&M,
the number of new freshmen did not
affect Fish Camp.
“Fish Camp is accommodating
about the same number of partici
pants,” Yalamanchili said. “We’re
still functioning the same way as we
always have. We served about 4500
students this year.”
Isenberg and Vanessa Roberts, a
Fish Camp co-chair and a senior nutri
tional science major, expressed simi
lar opinions about the camp size, but
Isenberg said each DG had more peo
ple than in previous years.
Roberts added that there seemed to
be more women than men, with about
77 women and 46 men in one camp.
Students will be permitted to
park in red and blue lots without
permits for the rest of the week.
Visitor parking will be available at
all four on-campus parking
garages.
•Informational Website:
http://www-ptts.tamu.edu
•Bus services will be available for students
looking for transportation on and off campus
throughout the week. The Rudder route will run]
every 30 minutes from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. for the
remainder of the week. The Centerpole,
Aggieland and Of Army routes will run three
times in the morning, afternoon,
and evening.
Open Access Computer Labs
Open Access computer labs will be
available to students needing Internet
access, account setup, scanning and
film recording, and other computer
services. On Sunday the lab at the
SCC will open at 1 p.m. and resume
its normal 24-hour schedule.
•Informational website:
iSal http://cis.tamu.edu/oal/
Hours of operation:
SCC: 8 a m. to 7 p.m. Mon.-Thu, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Friday, and will open at 1 p.m. Sun. |
Blocker: 8 a m. to 7 p.m. Mon.-Thu. 8 a m. to 5 p.m. on Friday, and dosed Sat. and Sun 8
Read: 8 a m. to 5 p.m. Mon.-Fri.. closed Sat. and Sun.
West Campus: 8 a m. to 5 p.m. Mon.-Fri., 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Sat. and Sun.
Wisenbaker: 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Mon.-Fri. 1