Image provided by: Texas A&M University
About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 30, 2001)
TUESDAY January 30,2001 Volume 107 ~ Issue 83 12 pages ttalion News Radio: 1:57 p.m. KAMU 90,9 m mT ; cta a i i'j i • j u i k’j =t: w i i' www.thebatt.com ining halls change hours dSUo Dininq Halls Sunday dinner replaces Saturday meal imnons an . - F>i. ftpcakfast 7-10:15 a.m. Huncli 10:15-3 p.m. Vinner 4:30-7:30 p.m Bfli. Kc t'jMasf 8-10:30 a.mllr wg Bundi 10:30-2 p.m 1 Vinner closed preakfasl 8-10:30 o.m. ftiinck 10:30-2 p.m. Vinner 5-7:30 p.m. Vommons closed for dinner f ri. f eb. 2 KATIE EASTERLING/The Battalion By Maureen Kane The Battalion With hundreds of students herding into the Sbisa and Com mons dining halls Sunday evenings, officials said the re vised dining schedule has been a success. Beginning this semester, Food Services Department has offered an evening meal on Sunday and eliminated the Saturday evening meal. The increased numbers of students eating in the dining halls on the weekend shows this change appears to be popular. Ron Beard, director of Food Services, said that 1,000 people were served at Sbisa during the evening meal Sunday — a much larger crowd than the average 300 people served at the evening meal on Saturdays. Beard said the low numbers of people served by Food Services on Saturday nights reflects the fact that many students go out on Saturdays. Cynthia Zawieja, associate di rector for Food Services, agreed that the new hours at Sbisa and the Commons will benefit students. “This is the time to make a change to provide better service to students,” Zawieja said. “Only 200-300 students eat on Saturday evenings — that’s almost not worth opening the dining halls. But many students are coming back into town on Sundays, and we thought it would be a better idea to trade our low-night service for Sunday service.” Beard said the new hours of op eration are an attempt to respond to student needs. He said he be lieves the hours will be more con venient for students. “We regularly meet several times a semester with the Resi dence Hall Association (RHA) and Student Body President Forrest Lane to discuss student requests,” See Sbisa on Page 2. STUART VILLAIMUEVA/The Battalion College Station residents James Johnson and Jamey Kaiser smoke at a local restaurant. Phi. Batk intasi Practice makes perfect BERNARDO GARZA/The Battalion ML Todd Reinders, a member of the men's pole vaulting team and a freshman business administration major, runs through exercises at Anderson Track on Monday. Student leaders increase |y Rolando Garcia The Battalion VNew-risk management guide- ines will change the way many tudent organizations plan their ‘-vents by requiring safety as a top :ohcern. | To educate student leaders ibout the new guidelines, Student ation Activities will host eight work- lops for organization leaders that vill tackle many of the safety is- ues that confront student organi- ■ions. • ■' We want to make sure they un- tatlOfl lerstand the direction the Univer- 3 w is taking with regard to risk aanagement. This will be a facili- ated relationship in which we vork with groups to plan their vents,” said Kim Novak, Student Activities risk coordinator. I The eight workshops will be- ;in today and run until Feb. 22. Ibey will cover topics such as isk management, legal liability, ravel guidelines, event planning nd alcohol. A few student organizations are Iready implementing the new irns afety restrictions, and their feed- ack has influenced the topics in he workshops, Novak said. See Safety on Page 2. 1 Probe into misplaced voter cards continues By Elizabeth Raines The Battalion After nearly three months, the Brazos County District Attor ney’s office is still investigating the missing voter registration cards of Texas A&M students. Students who registered to vote in Brazos County with the Texas A&M College Republi cans were unable to vote on Elec tion Day because their voter reg istration cards were not processed by the office of Buddy Winn, Brazos County’s voter registrar and tax assessor-collector. Neither Buddy Winn nor the College Republicans said they lost the voter registration cards. When students went to Winn’s office on Election Day with re ceipts showing that they had reg istered, Winn said he never re ceived their applications. Winn said he thought that the applications were lost when they changed hands among the Col lege Republicans. Jack Long, president of the A&M College Republicans and a junior political science major, said that he turned in more than 1,500 voter registration applica tions and watched an employee of the voter registrar’s office hand-check each of the applica tions. He later learned that some of the applications were thrown out because of incorrect infor mation on the cards. Other students filled out the registration cards before the deadline,which would have al lowed them to vote in the 2000 presidential election, but they re ceived the cards back stating they could begin voting on the day af ter the election. The office of county tax as sessor-collector is an elected position. Winn, a Democrat, ran against Republican candidate Art King on Nov. 7, 2000, win ning by a 2 percent margin. A student who registered with the College Republicans was told his application never made it to Winn’s office. He found out that his name was taken off of the voter registra tion list in his hometown, and the only way a name can be re moved from the list is when a voter registrar removes it. The Brazos County District Attorney’s office has been in vestigating the case since Elec tion Day. District Attorney Bill Turner would not comment on the investigation, except to say that his office is still looking into the matter. Commode explodes in Fowler By Mariano Castillo The Battalion Jessica Mendoza got more than she bargained for after flushing her Fowler residence hall room toilet Monday afternoon. Shortly after flushing the commode, Mendoza, a freshman business major, heard a small explosion immediately followed by a gush of water. “It just poured and poured,” she said. “It was all nasty toilet water.” The water flowed continuously for 15 minutes before a Physical Plant worker arrived to shut it off, Mendoza said. By the time the toilet was stopped, Mendoza’s and her suitemates’ floors were covered with two inches of water. She swept the water out with a broom with the help of her resident adviser (RA). Nothing was damaged by the flooding. The toilet had shown signs of trouble for a week, Mendoza said. She reported the problem to her RA, who contacted maintenance workers. Their re sponse was that “there was nothing they could do,” Mendoza said. Mendoza said her plumbing problem was not an isolated incident. Last week, other Fowler resi dents had a similar problem with their showers. Physical Plant personnel were unavailable for comment Monday night. As for the cause of Mendoza’s toilet explosion, she said, “the University employee who shut it off told me, ‘It’s dorm life.’ ” B-CS may see smoking ban in public places By Bryan Blanton The Battalion A joint legislative committee from the cities of Bryan and College Station will meet today at 4:30 p.m. to discuss an ordinance that would restrict smok ing in public places. The discussions at the joint legisla tive committee meetings stated that the new ordinance will be adopted only if both cities agree on it. A public place is an enclosed, in door area to which the public has ac cess, such as commercial establish ments, public and private secondary schools, colleges and universities, hospitals, city buses, city buildings and restaurants. “If passed, there will be a complete ban on smoking in all restaurants be tween the times of 6 a.m. to 10 p.m.,” said Brooke Brandenburg, assistant to the city manager of College Station. “Bars will be excluded from this ordi nance, but bar areas within a restaurant will have to adhere.” A bar, according to the draft ordi nance, is an establishment physical ly separated from a food-serving area that is dedicated mainly to serv ing alcohol. College campuses would also be affected by the new ordinance, said Harvey Cargill, city attorney for Col lege Station. “Students at Texas A&M will be able to smoke on campus while walking to class, but will have to obey the ordi nance (if passed) of not smoking in pub lic buildings and being at least 20 feet away from the exterior of the building,” Cargill said. The administrator in charge of a pub lic building will have to designate areas as smoking or nonsmoking, Cargill added. Refer to related article on page 9. “The city of College Station and the city of Bryan currently provide that the owners are not responsible to enforce the smoking ordinance,” said Tom Brymer, College Station city manager. Violation of the ordinance would be a misdemeanor, punishable by a fine of up to $2,000. Each time the offense is committed, it will be considered a separate offense, according to the draft ordinance. The ordinance will become effec tive 10 days after its approval if it is adopted. Engineering career fair to host 100 companies By Emily Hendrickson The Battalion More than 100 compa nies from across the na tion will come to Texas A&M today for the Stu dent Engineers Council (SEC) Career Fair. The companies, which include NASA, Microsoft and IBM, will recruit em ployees and interns. The event will take place in the Memorial Student Center (MSC) from 10 a.m to 6 p.m. Andrea Theriot, mar keting director for the career fair and a senior industrial engineering major, said students should take advantage of the career fair. “We want as many students as possible to show up so companies know we are serious,” Theriot said. “It is a good opportu nity to find out all op tions available to engi neers,” Theriot said. Daniel Orozco, assis tant director of the Career Center, said going to a ca reer fair is a big step for engineers who want to get their foot in the door at major companies. “Students are begin ning a presentation of who they are,” Orozco said. “Companies get a chance to meet a lot of students who are willing see what they have to offer.” The companies will be handing out fliers, collecting resumes and making appointments for interviews. To get an interview during the career fair, stu dents must make an im pression and show initia tive, Orozco said. Justin Kugler, a senior aerospace engineering- major, is among many; students hoping to medt potential employers. “I’m trying to network with companies to set ujpf interviews for intend ships;'’ Kugler said. U Orozco advises stu dents to look presentable ifi they plan to make arrange** ments for an interview, v He said slacks and; shirts are acceptable, but suits are not necessary. ■' Because of their ii|C> creasing size, future ca£ reer fairs will be held in Reed Arena. This year, the SEC had to decline offers from 30 companies who wanted to attend, be cause of limited space. Companies pay to re serve their spaces and benefit by being able to recruit students and ad vertise for their business, Theriot said. The SEC and the Of fice of Cooperative Edu cation host an engineering career fair during the spring and fall semesters. Today’s event will be the second-largest student-mn career fair in the nation. A bus route will be running from the Zachry Engineering Center to the MSC. i