The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current, November 30, 2000, Image 1

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    November 30, 2000
Volume 107 ~ Issue 68
2 Sections
A 8 pages
B 6 pages
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rum exposes lack of dormitory cohesion
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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.
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>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.
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