THURSDAY
October 26, 2000
Volume 107 ~ Issue 45
2 Sections
A 8 pages
B 6 pages
Imusi
ed or distributed. Four
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technology company-
tm invisible watermark
ie detected by a digitak
Two other measures inv;
it technology,
security measures art
to prevent illegal cop:
cut over the Internet fra
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at comply with SDMb
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ct kids
'E PARK, Maine (AP)-
rching for the bodies of
missing from a religious
ly located a pair of s:
'uesday.
»Wmi A t WlV'VlWi I»J OlUi 4; WI i’i
The heat is on
STUART VILLANUEVA/Tm Battalion
Firefighting recruits Scott Howard of Plano and Chad Dismukes of Brenham crouch under the smoke
while extinguishing a fire during a drill at the Brayton Fire School on Wednesday. Temperatures in the
house reach up to 800 degrees.
A&M, Verizon offer
discount DSL deal
“What the contract really al
lows is for a student or faculty or
staff member who wants to get
DSL service at their home, to
first, get a slightly better rate be
cause they are going through the
contract, and secondly, to have a
link come directly through cam
pus instead of an ISP,” he said.
Magnussen said A&M ap
proached Verizon in order to of
fer students, faculty and staff
with an alternative to a cable mo
dem connection.
“Anything that makes sense
for our students, faculty and staff,
we want to be able to support,”
he said. “Since Verizon is really
the only company in town that
can provide DSL service, and
since we knew people would
want DSL service, we went to
them and put together a contract
that would provide some benefit
•to the students.”
Verizon will provide asym
metric DSL (ADSL), which is
See DSL on Page 6A.
By Richard Bray
T/je Battalion
In order to provide off-campus
students with faster Internet ac
cess, Computing and Information
Services (CIS) and the Telecom
munications Department have
signed a contract with Verizon to
provide off-campus students,
faculty and staff with digital sub
scriber line (DSL) service.
DSL differs from .cable
modems because DSL uses tele
phone lines as opposed to cable
television connections, said
Chris Noynaert, an associate re
search engineer for CIS.
“Basically, it’s a method the
phone company has to put data
communications over your reg
ular telephone line,” he said.
“On the cable modems, the data
is multiplexed with your televi
sion service, and in the case of
DSL, the data is multiplexed in
with your voice.”
Noynaert said the advantage
to using DSL is that cable con
nections slow down when many
people use the network at once,
but DSL will remain at a consis
tent speed regardless of how
many people are online.
“The main difference between
the two is that the DSL is essen
tially a private line, whereas the
cable data service is more like a
party line where you are sharing
the bandwidth with a number of
other users,” he said. “On cable,
if everyone else is using the con
nection real heavily, you are es
sentially sharing that bandwidth
with those other people. If every
one else is asleep, it will go just
as fast as the DSL link.”
Through the contract with
Verizon, students will be able to
receive the service at a lower
price and will be able to use DSL
with the A&M network rather
than having to pay for a separate
Internet service provider (ISP) to
provide access, said Walt Mag
nussen, associate director for
telecommunications.
mber of the Massachm
he search team to thesfi
itate Park after repoi
a deal with prosecutors
: Warden Lt. Pat Dorian
believed to be coffins
kvith the help of cada
Jogs and probes that
ground. Wardens were
o the site with shovels
•gs-
have found the
»oing to try to exhum
is afternoon,” Dorian a d
arch of the Rou ^o Garcia
V&M athlete
graduation rate
ichind others
iuren pi me j
»s preserve begaw'A to^ ,e
lember David Comead Student athletes’ accom-
eofthe two missing banishments on the field can
lead authorities to the tieetrify crowds, but, accord-
hange for immunity fi g to recently released fig-
- -• “es by the Registrar’s Office,
eir performance in the
assroom lags behind the rest
the Texas A&M student
filiation.
According to the 1993-’94
>n for himself and his«
s part of a search team
i into a remote area vial
d Mark Latti, spokes
aine Department of In.
at least five miles
on tips from former
police searched Bi
several times last yea'
ling.
lirois, chief of staff for
attorney Paul F. Wals
and Wildlife. The nea lro i[ ment fig Ure s, the gradu-
ron rate for student athletes
as 63 percent, compared to
percent for all students,
hese are the most recent
available figures because grad-
idon rates are determined six
ars after a class enrolls ac-
They have
nd the site
that Walsh, prosecutorsj)rding to NCAA procedures.
In some cases, when indi-
pdual sports are examined,
e gap widens even more,
he graduation rates for foot-
til players and men’s basket-
iz an ino fl? 1 P la y ers ^ 38 P ercent and
y r t, g\jin£ lu |3percent, respectively.
to exhumt I ^ data t ts f 16
Riation record of students en-
hodieS Med in the 1993-’94 school
|ear and counts student ath-
rternoon. pes as those students who re-
ieived athletic scholarships.
p a tDorii| Bait Childs, chairman of
ine Warden LieuteJ le Athletic Council and a
—— lomputer science professor,
laid the failure of many ath-
accompaniedComeati tes to graduate is partly the
Robert George, to I* Kult of different priorities.
:r, Sirois would noli “There’s too many peo-
ast and newspaper re? diat came here to play
about an agreemefli
ecutors and Corneae.
ies have been looking
)f Corneau’s son, let
, and Samuel Robid®
lly starved to deaths
after he stopped
concerned that
ejection of convenlii)
id other beliefs mayf
to their deaths,
nbers, based intheso*
isachusetts city ofA®*
recognize the legal?
lained silent for m
nd jury investigating
icarance.
33, was one of eij
the group jailed for?
pond to the grand
Ie was freed last iW
:he Fifth Amendm#
s pregnant wife. Rd
ecently held instate
udge expressed coi»|
1-being of the
ave birth last week ft
lains in state custody
decided by the 0#
nd never really intended to
e students,” Childs said.
It's easy to get caught in
he hoopla and forget the
student’ part of ‘student
Ithlete.’ ”
Although the NCAA re
quires athletes to make
some progress toward grad
uation each year to remain
eligible, compliance with
the guidelines does not
guarantee enough hours to
graduate, even after six
years, Childs said.
The grades of student ath
letes tend to be lower than
those of other students. In Fall
1999, 63 percent of athletes
posted a grade-point ratio of
3.0 or lowdr, according to the
Athletic Department, com
pared to 49 percent of all stu
dents, according to the Regis-
trar’s Office.
Childs said the main factor
behind the lackluster academ
ic performance of many stu
dent athletes is the lower ad
missions criteria set for
athletes.
Athletes must meet mini
mal NCAA standards, and not
the more stringent standards
that A&M applies to other
students. High school students
graduating in the first quarter
must have at least a'920 on
their SAT. According to
NCAA requirements, student
athletes can get into A&M
with a score as low as 820. As
a result, many athletes’ acad
emic skills lag behind those of
the rest of the student body.
“Like every major uni
versity, athletes are admitted
with lower academic stan
dards than other students,”
Childs said. “Particularly for
[football and basketball],
many of the athletes we re
cruit were not great students
in high school.”
See Athletes on Page 2A.
71°/o
63%
38%
33%
iJATION RATES
student body
student athlete
football athlete
men s basketball athlete
student athletes
GPR < 3.0
other fl&M students
(1999 figures)
tfccordmg fo '93 - '94
(most n?c«?nt figures
available)
RUBEN DELUNA/The Battalion
Board to improve Wolf Pen Creek
Plans indude drainage, street extension and bridge connection
By Kristin Rostran ’ - ■
The Battalion
From shabby to chic — development projects to im
prove the Wolf Pen Creek district are in the works. A
proposal to add man-made lakes to the area has grown
into plans for a recreational area focused on arts, parks
and commerce.
A plan was developed in 1988 to take full advantage
of the undeveloped area from Harvey Road to Colgate
Circle and from Texas Avenue to the feeder on the Earl
Rudder Freeway bypass. Since then, the area of Wolf
Pen Creek has been growing, but at a slow pace.
Trails for jogging and biking were built, along with
the first of the man-made lakes. However, bad drainage
hindered further development.
Kay Henryson, chair of Wolf Pen Creek advising re
view board, said bad drainage caused large amounts of
silt deposits to fall into the lake and cover trails.
“The lake around the amphitheater kept being filled
with the silt deposits,” Henryson said. “The water com
ing from campus and the rest of College Station got
trapped in that area, and it didn’t look nice.”
McClure Engineering was hired to resolve the
drainage issues and create the remaining lakes. Howev
er, the firm found that an area near the southwest corner
of Dartmouth Street and Holleman Drive is a wetlands
area. Building in a wetlands area requires special permits.
“We are looking at protecting the area and using it
to educate kids about wetlands,” Henryson said.
The first signs of progress will be drainage im
provements and the extension of George Bush East.
The city is still in the process of obtaining bids for
the George Bush Drive extension, but construction
should begin by May.
A plan to extend Dartmouth Street to City Park
was also proposed.
A bridge spanning the creek wilLconnect Harvey
Road to Holleman Drive, which is currently an un
developed area.
Students from the architecture department, archi
tects and architect interns presented several ideas for
the future of Wolf Pen Creek Saturday. Business and
private owners volunteered ideas to benefit the area.
Instead of contracting a company to develop these
ideas, the city uses the volunteers and donates the saved
money to.scholarships for A&M students. This year,
See Wolf Pen on Page 6A.
Harvey Rd.
WOLF PEN CREEK
MASTER PUN
Dartmouth
TEAMS:
1 - Upper Corridor - North
2 - Upper Corridor - South
3 - South Quadrant
4 - North Quadrant
5 - Festival Area
6 - lower Corridor
RUBEN DELUNA/The Battalion
RHA proposes resolution Gramm,
to clear hall Bonfire closets Hutchl ! on
By Sommer Bunce
The Battalion
Hart Hall representatives presented a
resolution to Residence Life to clear
, Bonfire closets in residence halls. The
resolution, presented at the Residence
Hall Association (RHA) General As
sembly Wednesday proposed donating
the Bonfire items to the Department of
Anthropology.
The closets contain Bonfire equip
ment— such as axes, machetes and oth
er gear — owned by each hall. Resi
dence Life originally planned to clean
out the closets during the summer and
give the items to Dr. Sylvia Greider, who
had been overseeing the collection of
other Bonfire memorabilia, including
items placed along the fence at the site
of the 1999 Aggie Bonfire collapse.
RHA President Josh Kaylor, a junior
agricultural development major, request
ed that Residence Life delay the action
until the residence halls have time to con
sider the action. Residence Life original
ly set the deadline for 5:30 p.m. today for
halls to contact Kaylor to have a hold
placed on the donation of closet items.
Hart Hall Council President Stephen
Blaskey asked the assembly of hall
council presidents and voting delegates
to consider giving halls more time to re
view their closets.
“Right now, in our hall, a 5:30 dead
line coming up is not enough time to
look at something this serious in that
short an amount of time,” Blaskey said.
“I’m coming up here to ask for a little
more time to deal with this.”
Proposed by Blaskey, the Hall Clos
et Resolution was not on the agenda.
Hart Hall representatives handed out
“And, there's the
axes and machetes
and everything else
in the closet”
— Josh Kaylor
RHA president and a junior
agricultural development major
copies of their resolution to attendees
and requested that it be considered be
fore the assembly. Representatives of
Schumacher Hall seconded the motion.
The majority of halls do not have Bon
fire closets, Kaylor said, explaining that
most house their supplies off campus. The
proposed resolution would affect no more
than 10 halls. In the view of Residence
Life, those hall closets are departmental
closets now because Bonfire leadership
no longer exists within the halls.
Removing the equipment from the
closets would give each hall’s closet
back, Kaylor said. The basic reason the
decision was made by Residence Life
and not the hall councils was lack of
proof of ownership, he said.
He said that, even though he bought
items for his hall’s Bonfire closet, he
could not prove which equipment was
his without a receipt.
“And, there’s the axes and machetes
and everything else in the closet,” he
.said. “If you were the department of
Residence Life, you wouldn’t want to
put that back in the hands of everyone
who says he owns it and have it in the
residence halls, because it’s now con
sidered a weapon. There’s no need for it.
“It’s not like you’re going to use [the
weapons] for any hall council activities,”
Kaylor said, referring to the programs
and different events each hall sets up for
its residents.
“But it doesn’t matter,” he said. “It’s
a good idea.”
All halls voted to pass the Hall Closet
Resolution, making inventory of the clos
ets the responsibility of each hall council
See RHA on Page 6A.
Gramm,
Hutchison
support
Bush record
WASHINGTON (AP) — Texas
Sens. Kay Bailey Hutchison and
Phil Gramm took to the Senate floor
Wednesday to defend the Lone Star
State and GOP candidate George W.
Bush from criticism by Sen. Edward
Kennedy of Massachusetts.
Kennedy, using time set aside
for personal business, discussed a
host of issues including health care
and education but focused his re
marks on Texas.
He cited a recent study released by
Rand, a California-based think tank,
that said Texas students’ progress on
national tests was about as good as
other students. And he criticized the
state’s record on providing health in
surance for children.
He had hardly finished his com
ments when Hutchison took the
floor to defend Texas and Bush.
“I am not going to stand here, and
I am not going to sit in my office and
listen to anyone else that uses Texas
as a whipping boy,” Hutchison said.
“It is absolutely unconscionable to
trash Texas to get an advantage in
the presidential race.”