PATRIC SCHNEIDER/The Battalion
Nine-year-old Drew Nelson competes for a 5-pound Hershey
Kfes during a timeout at the women's basketball game Tuesday.
MjfcCTION
m ■ Continued from Page 1A
f Id,[therefore, the winner of the presidential election. And to stretch it out,
ittqe President Gore is doing ... is really unprecedented and it's going
i create some problems.”
HHHecretary of State Katherine Harris, a Bush partisan, certified the Texas
. ovknor's 537-vote victory Sunday. If the totals stand. Bush would be
fHH'ded the state's 25 electors, putting him a single vole over the 270 elec-
yr 3ra votes required to win the presidency.
^ An NBC poll showed the country divided.
gnivith a fraction of those polled having watched Gore's Monday night
raBfor patience, half said he should concede and half said he should
fight.
NEWS ^
THE BATTALION
Free Internet kiosk comes to Post Oak
By Maureen Kane 1 ,
The Battalion
The Internet can be accessed through portable
computers," desktop organizers, even cellular
phones, and by the end of January 2001, students
and residents of College Station will be able to ac
cess the Internet at the mall.
CBL & Associates Properties Inc., the compa
ny that owns Post Oak Mall, has signed an agree
ment with BigFatWow, a company that provides
installation of free, high-speed Internet access
kiosks, said Kelly Sargent, director of investor re
lations for CBL. Post Oak Mall in College Station
will be one of 29 CBL malls to receive an Internet
access kiosk.
BigFatWow generates income through adver
tisements that will be viewed on television screens
near the kiosk, Sargent said.
Bryan LeBlanc, assistant general manager of
Pest Oak Mall, said the implementation project has
been under way for about a year and there are a
few more details to be worked out.
LeBlanc said the largest kiosk model available
has 12 Internet “wow stations,” but Post Oak does
not have that much space.
“There will be a 10-foot-by-20-foot kiosk that
will have a couple of 42-inch plasma screens
showing advertisements, and six to eight units
with 27-inch monitors that you can actually use to
get on the Internet,” LeBlanc said. “It is a pretty
impressive unit.”
LeBlanc said the kiosk should be installed and
available to customers by the end of January 2001.
The kiosk will be in the food court.
LeBlanc and Sargent said they have seen free
Internet kiosks in other malls and they think the
project will be successful.
“I’ve seen an Internet kiosk at another mall and
it was a busy place,” Sargent said. “Especially with
the holidays coming, I think it will be successful.”
LeBlanc said the Houston Woodlands Mall has
an Internet service station that has benefited cus
tomers.
“We are doing this as a convenience to our cus
tomers,” LeBlanc said. “The Internet is a big part
of society now. This is another way to enhance our
properties and services.”
Shoppers will be able to check email, visit store
Websites and access the Web in general. Proper se
curity measures will be exercised, LeBlanc said.
Neither LeBlanc or Sargent anticipates any
problems with misuse of the Internet kiosk.
“In every location, there may be a person who
uses this as their primary Internet,” Sargent said.
“As far as using it for negative or destructive pur
poses, with a full-time BigFatWow attendant there,
it will prevent some of that.”
One Post Oak Mall shopper, Ashkan Moghad-
dam, a junior electrical engineering major, said he
thinks that free Internet access at the mall might
make shopping easier.
“It would be cool, but I don’t know if 1 would
use it at the mall because it is kind of busy and
there would probably be a long line,” Moghaddam
said. “If I forgot my Christmas list at home, I
could check my emails to see what people want.”
Sargent said the service will benefit customers
and stores.
“It’s only a net positive for everyone,” he said.
“Hopefully it will keep them at the mall and they
will spend more money.”
Enrollment
Continued from Page 1A
we need to at least be getting 5,000-
plus minority applications.”
Joey Aviles, executive director of
multicultural services for the Student
Government Association (SGA), said
minprity figures have declined be
cause of less grant money coming to
A&M.
“Since [the Hopwood decision],
we can’t recruit minority students for
the sake of recruiting minorities to
A&M,” said Aviles, a sophomore
business major. “Instead we have to
use terms like ‘at risk’ or ‘socioeco
nomic levels.’ ”
The Hopwood decision mandates
that universities cannot consider race
for the admissions process.
Arekere said African-American
students do not receive as much aid
from A&M because they have to
compete with students of other back
grounds.
“The end result makes A&M get
relatively less-qualified minority ap
plicants,” Arekere said. “The better
students get larger scholarships and
go elsewhere.”
Reports have indicated that minor
ity students who are admitted to A&M
but choose not to enroll have above-
average SAT scores and class ranks.
Historically, African-American
students have preferred attending
African-American-dominated col
leges, or they choose schools that are
cheaper and closer to home, Arekere
said.
“They tend to choose schools
where they feel more comfortable,
maybe University of Houston down
town or Prairie View A&M,”
Arekere said.
The departmental breakdown of
the African-American students has
also declined. According to A&M re
ports, although there has been a 7.2
percent decline in African-American
enrollment campuswide, individual
colleges have been hit harder.
There has been a more than 25
percent drop in the business college,
a 40 percent decline in geosciences
and an 18.2 percent decrease in the
college of veterinary medicine.
Arekere said African-American
enrollment in the engineering college
and departments like computer sci
ence have increased because minori
ty students are now realizing the im
portance of the economy and where
the larger demand for jobs is.
A campus climate study indicated
that the primary reason fewer minor
ity students attend A&M is that in
coming freshmen do not receive
enough financial aid. Arekere said the
problem of reaching out to minorities
“We can definite
ly benefit from
more outreach
programs/'
— Jay Arekere
Race and Ethnic Studies Institute
member
via financial aid, perhaps even more
than the stigma of A&M’s “country
school image,” is keeping minority
enrollment low.
“We can definitely benefit from
more outreach programs,” Arekere
said. “African-American and His
panic students are actually more com
petitive than their white and Asian
counterparts. Since they generally
have less resources and lack of expo
sure, they have to put in the extra ef
fort to excel. Many inner-city mi
norities haven’t even seen computers
until they get to college.”
According to University reports,
there are 43 percent more African-
American females than African-
American males at A&M. Arekere
said the number of men and women
is fairly even in the freshmen class.
He said the unbalanced ratio is prob
ably due to more African-American
men dropping out.
“The Corps of Cadets and athletic
programs are two major minority re
cruitment devices,” Arekere said.
Arekere said a 1999 study showed
that 33 percent of minority students
admitted to A&M choose to go out of
state.
“States in the south, such as Mis
sissippi, attract a lot of the African-
American students,” Arekere said.
“They hand out more race-based
scholarships, which we cannot do di
rectly from A&M’s public funds,
since the Hopwood decision.”
The admissions office created a
target-school approach to inner-city
schools last year. Although a signifi
cant difference cannot be seen *in
African-American enrollment, since
then, University reports show a sig
nificant increase in Hispanic enroll
ment. Arekere said minority enroll
ment will increase in the future if
similiar efforts are taken.
KM
era
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