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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 11, 2000)
WEDNESDAY October 11,2000 Volume 107 ~ Issue 33 12 pages Parking to be changed or science convention f blacks and Hispanicskfa itnesses as criminal suspa ic mayor did not say wla ige of stop-and-frisksiof from witness com] tared to those done alii m of officers, and the'' ot release the figures. ie N YPD's stop-and-frii ave been under reviewln encies, as well. InJui Commission on Civil! tided that the departmei rly used racial profili ind question people, er, the state attorney get issued a report saying! ispanics are more...... s ui be stoppedandfrii 'SommerBuncb I ficers ^ atta ^ on iliani and Police CoJ More than 1,000 commuter Bernard Kerik defenif ;irkill g s P aces wiI l be closed by officers. The Street(fhday as 5,000 science teachers :omprised of undercovJ°werge on the Texas A&M cam- /ho patrol high-crimei en credited for greatlvn» )lent crime in the 1991)^™™^'^ spaces surrounding Reed Arena relocated to Post Oak Mall lus for the Conference for the Ad vancement of Science Teaching (CAST). Parking lots surrounding Reed Arena will be reserved for CAST members Friday and 19 buses will be pulled out of regular service to accommodate the conference, said News in Brief rther convict child’s deal 3POKANE. Wash. (API n accused of smothe 9-year-old daughter se she did not get a i the woman he loved victed of murder Thura Villiam Brad Jackson, | es 20 to 28 years in pc entencing. No sentem 3 was set. ackson had reported ghter, Valiree, missing >ber on the day she hing off a monthlong olunteers and police, this trial Jackson adi ouried Valiree but del g her. He said he panii ■ finding her lifeless BRANDON HENDERSON/The Battauon Angela Newman, Parking, Traffic and Transportation Services (PTTS) communications specialist. Lot 101, a new lot, will remain closed to students until next week. Lot 102S (regularly a student parking lot) will be closed to student parking Thursday and Friday. In addition, lots 101, 102N, 102W and 102E will be closed Friday as more conference participants ar rive.Lots 56, 61, 63, 97, 103, 104 and the Zachry lot will remain open, said Doug Williams, PTTS associate director. Friday’s lot clo sures will be a “major ordeal” for students and PTTS alike, Newman said. Students are di rected to carpool to campus or park at Post Oak Mall in the J.C. Penney parking lot. Nine shuttles from Coach USA of Houston were char tered by PTTS and will run non stop routes between the mall and three sites on campus from 7. a.m. to 7 p.m.: Clark Street on the west side of the Memorial Student Cen ter (MSC), the Wehrier Building and the water tower on Asbury Street. All off-campus buses will be free both days, but because of the conference's use of buses, New man said, PTTS cannot guarantee regular operation of the buses, nor the frequency of the routes. All lots not closed off will be functional for blue commuter parking, Newman said. A&M President Dr. Ray M. Bowen invited the conference to the campus, said PTTS Director Tom Williams, and A&M stu dents, faculty and staff must ac commodate the conference as a guest. CAST, which is geared toward science teachers, hosts more than 600 short courses, including field See Parking on Page 2. Judo trip KEVIN BURNS/The Battalion Jim Jaggers, a freshman general studies major, gets thrown by Roy Carniato, a sophomore mechanical engineering major, at the Texas A&M Judo team practice. The team will compete at the Go Shibata Memorial Judo competition Saturday at the Student Recreation Center. Students begin petition to alter Bonfire’s future ;gie Riii A Tota ger Cry, s ago, l was in ik in a local bar. An oldn" By Rolando Garcia The Battalion f Concerned that a hallowed tradi tion will turn into a hollow gesture, a roup of students is circulating a pe- tion urging Texas A&M adminis- ators to reconsider the limitations laced on future Aggie Bonfires. The petition is protesting the elim- ihation of “cut,” limited student in volvement and leadership in building 1 Bonfire, and the two-year hiatus of lie tradition. According to parameters set by A&M President Dr. Ray M. Bowen, when Bonfire resumes in 2002, it will be built with precut lumber un der the close supervision of a profes sional engineer. “In talking to other students, I found that most don’t support an off-campus bonfire, but they don’t support Bowen’s restrictions ei ther,” said Becky Bartschmid, a pe tition organizer and sophomore journalism major. “But so far, the administration isn’t listening, and the Student Senate hasn’t really spoken for the students.” The petition was initiated and al ready has 300 signatures, Bartschmid said. What most concerns petition sup porters is that Bonfire built under the new restrictions will offer few op- 6 4] / found that most [students] don't sup port an off-campus bonfire, but they don't support Bowen's restrictions, either." — Becky Bartschmid petition organizer and sophomore journalism major portunities for student involvement and leadership. Without cut, the teamwork and camaraderie that char acterized past Bonfires will be lost, they said. “One person can’t cut down a tree and carry it out of the woods,” said Suzanne Hill, a junior meteorology major. “Everyone has to work to gether, and when you get worn out, you rely on each other for motiva tion. It’s just a great bonding experi ence, and you make so many friends.” Petition supporters also assert that one year should be sufficient time to plan a safe Bonfire, and that waiting until 2002 would threaten the tradL tion’s future. “We need to have more supervi sion, but cut had nothing to do with why Bonfire fell,” Bartschmid said. “The restrictions seem intended to let Bonfire die quietly and gradually, be cause student enthusiasm for it will disappear.” Bowen defended his decision and said that, while his plan allows for some flexibility regarding the imple mentation of the new rules, the basic tenets the petition is challenging are unlikely to change. “I wouldn’t rule it out for any fu ture Bonfires, but we just can’t go back to how it used to be. We spent a lot of time getting'the facts on the table before reaching this decision,” Bowen said. Student Body President Forrest Lane, a senior political science ma jor, said that because most of the in juries and accidents in the history of Bonfire occurred during cut, its elim ination is justified. Instead of chal lenging the decision, students should try to come up with new ways to par ticipate in a scaled-back Bonfire, Lane said. “But we need to think outside the box and think of new and creative ways for students to participate with out cut,” Lane said. ked to see my Ring, k ars began to flow from y he was crying, during. World War II lief illy starving to death# from the German Arnifi Technological advances ake over college classes y Elizabeth Raines he Battalion ■ Although some professors still prefer a er rescued them. He blackboard and chalk, many have moved no The elderly nPntNl leir classrooms int0 the information a g e |ypostingasyllabus, class notes, practice le looks for the Aggie l| xams or grades on the Internet. i “I put notes and practice exams on the m he leaned over andfli|Veb because it is an easy way to distribute I lot of material to individual students,” s Aggies . Then we Mi. aid Mike Nelson, an economics professor, dding that Texas A&M provides profes- ors with space, on the TAMU server to ve the Aqqie Spirit is o'f ost sll PP* ement ' s ' n tbeir classes. The attempt to reach students has led e I did that night is soMfrofessors n the colleges of agriculture 1.1 am The Aggie Net and life sciences, business and liberal arts to use Web Course Tool version 3.0 Test Server for TAMU (WebCT) for their classes. Students in these classes receive a user name and password to log into WebCT, where professors have supplements for their classes, including practice problems, homework help, grades and classroom discussions. “I use the WebCT for my ag leadership class and it has been pretty helpful,” said Tara Sherrod, a junior agricultural devel opment major. “Although they have had a few problems with the server crashing See Classroom on Page 6. KEVIN BURNS/The Battalion Students are able to use laptops with modems in class. Teachers are now able to instruct with multimedia presentations, including PowerPoint. >mithsonian plane exhibit lands at Stark Gallery oaation R STUDENTS \gg(&A/efoo>tkl Aggie Network y@afs.tamu.edu, ight use it in an ng issue. 15-7514 Yetwork.com Smithsonian airplane models will be on display in the J. Wayne Stark University Center Gallery until Dec. 9. By Maureen Kane The Battalion The Smithsonian Museum in Washington D.C. receives thou sands of visitors each year, but not many people can say that the Smithsonian has come to visit them. Residents of Bryan-Col- lege Station are among the few. Beginning today, the J. Wayne Stark University Cen ter Gallery in the Memorial Student Center (MSC) is hosting “On Minia ture Wings,” an exhibit about the his tory of air flight. ■teg. The Smithsonian Museum |||||l is being renovated, requiring ■JL tkie collection to be moved and providing this oppor tunity for the Stark Gallery. “This is a permanent collection in the National Air and Space Museum in the Smithsonian,” said Beverly Wag ner, administrative secretary of University Art Collections. “While work is being done on the Smithsonian, some things that are not usually shipped are on exhibit.” “On Miniature Wings” depicts the history of the airplane us ing replicas. Wagner said replicas are built exactly to scale in contrast to models that are simply miniatures. The process can take anywhere from 45 minutes to months. Cathy Hastdet, curator of the Stark Gallery, said that all sorts of replicas will be shown in the exhibit. “All of the replicas are really neat,” she said. “One is a Unit ed Airlines model used for advertising purposes. We have repli cas that fly and replicas built just to look at, as well as recogni tion models, which were used in WWII to teach pilots to identify planes by silhouette. We also have wind tunnel models that are used for testing in wind tunnels, and they are all made by hand by masteT model-makers.” • See Planes on Page 6. Tech SGA pres apologizes for vandalism In response to the vandalism on the side of the Jack K. Williams Administration Building after the Texas A&M- Texas Tech football game, the Tech Student Government Association president wrote an apology letter to the stu dents of A&M. Dear Texas A&M Students: It was very disheartening to learn that, following the Texas A&M victory against Texas Tech University on Sept. 30, some Red Raider fans took it upon themselves to spray paint a handful of Double Ts on your campus’s buildings. This type of behavior is certainly not representative of the great relationship and tremendous respect that exists be tween Texas Tech and Texas A&M. On behalf of the Texas Tech student body, I would like to extend a sincere apology to you and your fellow Aggies for the actions taken by a few individuals. Their decision to deface your campus’s buildings following the football game between Texas A&M and Texas Tech is a gross mis representation of the students at Texas Tech. Football contests and other sporting events between two outstanding universities such as ours are always something to look forward to. The high level of competition and the tremendous display of sportsmanship that occur between the athletes representing our universities are admirable and should be embraced by athletes and fans alike. May this be the only time that some individuals decide to break the bonds of good sportsmanship and fellowship held between Aggies and Red Raiders. In the future, we hope to extend to you the same warm Texas hospitality that you showed us during the Texas Tech vs. Texas A&M game. Best wishes, Andrew Schoppe SGA President