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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 30, 2000)
November 30, 2000 Volume 107 ~ Issue 68 2 Sections A 8 pages B 6 pages • (•>*'4 *J t * I aHfiV-WiT.-l iU 3 r MI kV •sintt r 0KE, B'l ' A tour cfi a transpB n the TraP '^'ng atW ! §ionalof| 17 peopi ospital 'ailaher.rf: rum exposes lack of dormitory cohesion ndo Garcia J ''alt on nating Bonfire leadership positions "•t of thef r^idcnee halls has undermined theca- bulance pfe of dorm life this year, several stu- 7 Vid at open forum Wednesday to dis- nadian! thl future of Bonfire. ■'ot comm® dorms are dying,” said Luke lay in tlv ^ i, a sophomore civil engineering > r - r n British I a F iear 'y t ' 1i ee l* 0111 " meeting that occa- -10 mile® turned heated, a small but vocal 3 S h. ® students vented their frustrations at n imagirtl ■' Dan H,:®- le Revels!:® I There we® | It was not: the forum hosted by the Student Leadership and Participation Task Force, one of six sub committees planning Bonfire 2002 within the parameters set by Texas A&M President Dr. Ray Bowen. The other subcommittees, composed of stu dents, faculty and staff, are examining other is sues such as safety, design and construction. Prohibiting dorms from appointing pots and crew chiefs has left a gap in the social hi erarchy of dorm life, the students said. “They're (crew chiefs) the leaders, they’re your friends, the people you respect. They’re the ones that take the freshmen to Silver Taps, who teach them about the traditions and ba sically make them Aggies,” Cheatham said. Hall councils have not shown the leader ship necessary to repair dorm unity, and the University has been overly hostile to any pro gram or project involving former Bonfire leaders, Cheatham said. Don Sweeney, an architecture professor and co-chair of the subcommittee, said the students’ frustration was understandable be cause the Bonfire tradition is undergoing rad ical changes. “We’ve found that Bonfire was run [by] a relatively small, tight-knit group that were the most excited about building it. As part of the old Bonfire structure, they feel disen franchised, like they haven’t been heard as the University tries to distance itself from the past,” Sweeney said. The open forum capped two days of al most non-stop meetings with students in volved in Bonfire in an effort to identify im portant issues and gather input as the subcommittee develops a plan for student leadership and participation in Bonfire. No decisions have been made, but the committee has gotten an earful from students about the concepts that must be included in any future Bonfire, said Josh Kaylor, sub committee co-chair and junior agricultural development major. “In every focus group, they tell us the qualities we need to hold on to, like compe tition and working hard toward a common goal. What made Bonfire special was not the burning, that was just an afterthought, but See Bonfire on Page 2A. >s reed lesfoil ass oices ay go line vette Simpson Ittalion •vayf.AP | iader ( I be spee] dartlia Lc. augtiteroffj ;en Sonia; ns of cl® )dcas(fr work NRK. | is being: ilryTaleL >scame::® n g ° n hne registration less ot a ogramsc fpnd more of a reality has become loved fa':®nt focus of Texas A&M adminis- ®nd student groups. ______®lnesday evening the Student Sen- HBnimously approved the Comput- jcgess/Instructional Technology Fee Increase Bill, which enables Mto move forward in creating a Web fiction system. The bill allows an in- ase of $1 per semester credit hour to pirrent fee of $8.25 per credit hour. Of the $1 increase, 75 cents per se tter credit hour will go to Computer •-related items, which would bring ■ount devoted to the Computer Ac- sjjoihon to $7.75 per semester credit ■This money is used to support 0®ent and services to students for HHting and networking. ®th the money from this fee in- HH, we will be able to increase stu- itlle and email disk space by double, ciioatviding them [students] with 40 iher sofsgalytes total storage,” said Dr. Pierce 7; 111® 11, associate provost for instruc- £■' lal technology. t |he fee also provides for an increased ' ®une, hardware and code to create ■ Bine registration system. Be hope to run a pilot online regis- io| program in the summer of 2001, Bve a full system ready for the Fall H registration system,” Cantrell said. Student Body President Forrest Lane, nior political science major, said the increase will match the money al- Ballocated for online registration. The additional 25 cents from the $1 se will be added to the $1.25 per Iter credit hour for Instructional ology, and will be used to support loom instructional technology and |n faculty in the use of the instruc- technology. M President Dr. Ray M. Bowen ecommend that the bill be placed 4 agenda of the Board pf Regents for liileration at its March 2001 meeting. Board of Regents must then approve fee increase for it to take effect. ■e Senate approved the University See Senate on Page 6A. “Prickin’ later beamt” Jeffrey Katz, a graduate research assistant, watches as Gang Yao Xiao, a post doctorial asso ciate, adjusts a green laser beam in the Engineer- STUART VILLANUEVA/The Battai ion ing Physics Building on Wednesday. The laser is used in remote sensing to test the properties of ocean water. RHA: A&M should be alcohol free To include The Zone, administrators' housing Former student group against Bowen’s Bonfire 2002 criteria By Richard Bray Tire Battalion Keep the Tradition, an organization of former students, is continuing its goal of resurrecting Bonfire as soon as possible, despite University President Dr. Ray M. Bowen’s decision that Bonfire will not continue until 2002. Keep the Fire Burning, a student group, did not build an off-campus bonfire this fall. Keep the Tradition now hopes to have a bonfire, with or without the Uni versity’s sanction, in 2001. Robert Steinhagen, Keep the Tradi tion’s founder and Class of ’93, said neither the lack of University sanc tioning nor of having bonfire off cam pus in 2001 would make the proposed bonfire any less meaningful than in previous years. He pointed out that, in Bonfire’s early years, it was not sanc tioned by the University or on campus. Steinhagen said Keep the Tradition does not believe building a bonfire be fore . 2002 disrespects family and friends of those killed in the accident. “It wasn’t the Bonfire tradition that caused the tragic structural collapse; it was a faulty design,” he said. “Don’t eliminate the tradition based on faulty “Honor the Aggies who died by build ing a safer Bonfire” — Robert Steinhagen founder of Keep the Tradition design. Like everything else, make the necessary changes to assure safety. Hon or the Aggies who died by building a safer Bonfire. It shows greater disrespect to the Aggies who died in the Bonfire collapse to kill a tradition they were working to continue.” In a letter written by Steinhagen on behalf of Keep the Tradition in late September, he said the organization asked Bowen to reconsider his position regarding Bonfire and to enact the fol lowing changes: • Any faculty member who did not graduate from Texas A&M in College Station may not oversee this or any oth er tradition. • Any firm hired to directly assist in the planning, development or construc tion of Aggie Bonfire must be owned and/or operated by graduates of the A&M College Station campus. • Retract the design constraints and two-week time limit for construction placed on Bonfire. Appoint a committee made entirely of Aggies (current and for mer students) to plan this process. Cynthia Lawson, executive director of University Relations, said accord ing to records, Bowen never received this letter. By Sommer Bunge The Battalion The Texas A&M Student Affairs subcommittee on al cohol, aimed at ending alco hol-related injuries and deaths on and near cumpus, made five recommendations to Vice President of Student Affairs Dr. J. Malon Southerland this summer. At the top of that list was a recommendation to make all on-campus residence halls alcohol free beginning in Fall 2001. Southerland said he will decide on the proposal on Feb. 1. His decision may go against a resolution by the Residence Hall Association (RHA) that would make the entire campus, including Kyle Field and adminstra- tors’ on-campus houses, dry. Director of Residence Life Ron Sasse and the exec utive board of RHA have considered student input and will draft a resolution in re sponse to the subcommit tee’s proposal. The RHA surveyed stu dents by phone and met with on-campus residents Wednes day night in an open forum. Members of the administra tion, including Sasse, sat in the audience to address questions and hear students’ concerns. “Addressing alcohol is sues in dorm rooms on cam pus is only addressing part of a very big problem,” said Dennis Reardon, a represen tative of the Alcohol Drug Education Program (ADEP). “This is not a black-and-white issue though it has a black- and-white end. This is one part of the constellation of ef forts to solve alcohol prob lems; we are trying to effect a change in people’s thinking.” Alcohol abuse and under age drinking are the No. 1 problems on campuses across the country, Reardon said. A campus wide task force formed in 1998 researched and sought solutions to alco hol problems at A&M. The CORE survey con ducted that year found that 64 percent of the student body surveyed consumed be tween zero and three drinks a week. However, half of A&M students surveyed re ported they had suffered an uncomfortable alcohol-relat ed incident, from being in- “Addressing alcohol issues in dorm rooms on campus is only addressing part of a very big problem” — Dennis Reardon Alcohol Drug Education Program representative suited to receiving unwanted sexual advances and worse, Reardon said. The roughly 20 percent of the student population who have been found to abuse alcohol is a problem, Reardon said. The subcommittee’s pro posal to make halls alcohol- free is an attempt to prevent See RHA on Page 6A. A.P. Beutel to not offer abortion pill your ced irehase ersotf \P) \| (Jure raced between TV interviews Wednes asking, “Will w e com it all the votes or notwhile his vers urgently sought a high court ruling with the an i he wanted. Both Democrat (lore and COP rival ugeW, Bush pressed forward w ith separate blueprints building a presidency. On Jan 30, I’re si dent Bush will be ready to take the is of the government said top adviser Andy f arc! tiding his boss a title that (lore still hopes v ill be his. Tracing the public for more legal wrangling, the vice ; ileu! said lie w as prepared to light until "the middle teeembet ‘ and suggested the dispute could drag p:ut I )ec 12 deadline for appointing state electors to sis. s later when the Electoral ( Allege meets, \\ith the stakes so high, the Republican dominated 1 itla I egislatme inched closet to seem ing Bush a back plan: I louse Speaket lorn I eenev said Wednesday he See ! ,t i r itMN on Page 2A. By Elizabeth Raines The Battalion Colleges and universities around the nation, including Texas A&M, have an nounced they will not offer the RU-486 abortion pill. “Texas A&M University is taking no position on the RU-486 abortion pill,” said nurse practitioner of the A.R Beutel Women’s Clinic Regan Brown. “Howev er, we will not be offering the pill to our patients.” Since the Sept. 28 approval of RU-486 by the Food and Drug Administration, many colleges will not offer the pill be cause abortion is not typically a part of the of the primary health services offered by colleges. “We are not involved in abortions at all,“ said Dr. Lucille Isdale, director of A&M Student Health Services. “It would be inappropriate for us to offer the pill be cause we are not equipped to do a surgical abortion if something were to go wrong.” Southwest Texas State University as sistant director of health services Karen Gorden-Sosby said the University is tak ing the same route as A&M. “Right now we don’t offer abortion be cause we are a primary health care facili ty, not a special health care facility,” Gor- den-Sosby said. “So the change has not affected tis in any way.” Unlike A&M and Southwest Texas State, the University of Virginia has taken a stance against the RU-486 issue. University of Virginia director of Stu dent Health Dr. Christine Peterson has spo ken out against offering the pill. “It’s an extremely dangerous process,” Peterson said. The American Life League surveyed colleges on the East Coast to find out whether colleges and universities will of fer the pill. Most colleges said they would not. Universities that will not offer the pill include the University of Maine, the Uni versity of Vermont, Boston University, Yale University, the University of South Carolina and Georgia Tech. The RU-486 abortion pill was invent ed in 19§0 by Dr. Etienne-Emile Baulieu for the French pharmaceutical company Roussel-Uclaf. It has been used in France since 1989 and accounts for 30 percent of all abortions in France. It must be taken within the first seven weeks of pregnancy. When used in con junction with a prostagladin, it is 95.5 per- • cent effective. The pill became available for doctors in the United States to order Nov. 17 under the trade name Mifeprix. RU-486 is administered in four doctor visits. FDA officials insist that the decision to approve the drug was nonpolitical and based on the determination that RU-486 is safe and effective. ^^f / all r aDOfflons»ifnFfaff^r ‘Must be tafebfi withirt the fifSt seven weeks §f bfegriabby. 'Apjsfbved by im f=©A Sept. IB. ‘Available to U.S. dootofsj to §fP£f ©ft NOV 1? RUBEN DELUNAAThe Battalion