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July 16, 2001
ume 107 ~ Issue 171
6 pages 9
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than
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mid be another
allow the rese
egulated again.
;OrAews in Brief -
, a private fertilirB” Campus
isibk ^mkkeeper admits
,y. The findingIteahng $200,000
ednesday intl!;Ha r y /\ nn Ruether faces up
ility and Sten 2< years in prison and a
m of the Amen 0,000 fine after admitting
eproducrive.Mc t luesday to stealing nearly
miety said it 00,000 while performing
rchers are thi 'Okfoeeping duties for the
d States to hav ; xa A&M Faculty Club.
Rt ether, who has worked
■the Faculty Club since
admitted to the theft af-
I^Mscovering that A&M was
using W*j uct j n g an investigation
society spot^ 0 missing funds,
ton said. ThenB&fvl officials said Thursday
as to what you-jat such theft is usually pre-
with these ei rnt< d by employing two inde-
ing to the indn frlient bookkeepers for each
’ ' rf Hersity account, and that this
| Han isolated incident.
|»e Faculty Club is a
4 Rurant on the 11 th floor of
| Clflllder Tower open only to
I. X X VI J e-paying A&M faculty, staff
XHalumni.
tens and two c M State
>st wereableto * , ,
rs or otherwise Rename charged
jl officer's death
identified thee
,fEllen s b«r.®BBOCK (AP) - An un-
>f Yakim; fcf***? aut ° mechanic has
,, t dfl n charged with capital
i.am (.ss.i nufder'in the death of police
H Kevin Cox, who was shot
n the head in an exchange of
ise stands ol Afire at the man's home.
5,700 feetelergRond for Richard Robinson,
be in handr: 47, was set at $1 million. Assis
erating wind: tant Chief Randy McGuire said
h a ruggedar Robinson, who was wounded,
orestmnoitl wou Id remain hospitalized for
several days.
£Cox was the second Lub
bock officer to die in five days.
—- todney Kendricks, 33, died July
fpf injuries suffered in a mo-
Kcyde accident during a fu-
teral procession.
■Dfficer Jonny Hutson was
r eated and released after a
Jucar, a
/ the son
indo De la
nprofit groups u || et q raze d his head during
sed $250,000 » a y-5 shootout,
omputerstob :;|) 0 |j ce were conducting a
.cess to everyp J r0U gp 1 investigation at the
in Argentina. ome Saturday Walker said it
s speaking fee )av ^^g en tj re weekend
>e ° the crime scene
ivestigation.
panatee spotted
H orpus christi ( Ap ) — A
lanatee, the endangered
larnmal thought to have in-
)ir< I mermaid folklore
Hng sailors, is paying a rare
sit to the Texas coast.
Xlarine watchers have re-
orted seeing the walrus-like
tanatee three times, said
JhyAmos, a research associ-
:e with the University of
?xas Marine Science Institute
i Rort Aransas.
Rnda May, area coordinator
•r the Texas Marine Mammal
rranding Network, said the
lanatee sightings have been
Raters off Galveston, Port
ransas and Rockport.
Dry
j i
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INSIDE
Mb s P 0fts
• A Lone St.ir
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> i flavor to A A
% AM St,„.
RounH B.vrt
0 All Stars;
Round Rock
pi a vs host to gamei
svith Tevasl
• Until death
us do part:
PropostHl
amendment:
is closemindesl
uni awful!
Bj ' '■«»'
Jttalien News Radio:
57 p.m. KAMI) 90.9
ww.thebatt.com
Professor fired
Stuart Hutson
The Battalion
Tenured agricultural economics pro
fessor Mary Zey was officially fired, ef
fective July 2002, by Texas A&M
Provost Ronald Douglas last Friday for
plagiarizing the work of two of her for
mer colleagues.
T he move comes after the recom
mendation to fire Zey by a University
committee that initially was charged
with investigating charges made by Zey
that Harland Prechel and John Boies
had plagiarized a 1999 paper.
'The committee instead found that
Zey had included falsified work as well
as unattributed information that was
provided by Prechel and Boies.
In her response to the committee’s
findings, which were issued in June, Zey
produced more than 100 pieces of evi
dence that she claimed proved that Boies
was only a paid employee and not a co
author to the material. In an addendum,
the committee noted that two photo
copied sets of checks made out in Boies’
name were falsified.
Zey’s attorney, Andrew S. Golub of
Houston, said in an interview with The
Biyan-College Station Eagle that the checks
were merely annotated to clarify to the
committee that Boies was an employee.
Douglas has declined to comment on
the matter, and Zey only has responded
for plagiarism
through an issued statement in which
she maintains her innocence.
“I have been convicted of an offense I
did not commit,” Zey said. “I have been
wronged at the hands of vindictive ac
cusers, an uninformed and biased com
mittee and an irresponsible TAMU ad
ministration.”
This investigation was one of many
internal inquires performed on behalf of
Prechel, Boies and Zey over the last six
years in which Prechel and Boies have
maintained that Zey plagiarized them —
and in which Zey stated that Prechel and
Boies have plagiarized her.
All previous investigations concluded
no plagiarism, as defined by either the
University or the National Science
Foundation, had taken place.
However, Boies maintains that Zey
and her husband Steve Murdock, head
of A&M’s Department of Rural Sociol
ogy, improperly exerted political influ
ence during Boies’ application for tenure
two years ago to ensure that he was not
granted tenure — effectively dismissing
him from the University.
A faculty senate committee agreed, but
Boies’ tenure was still denied by Douglas.
Boies now works for the US. Depart
ment of Census in Washington, D.C.
“It came as a bit of a shock that [the
See Zey on Page 2.
The mummy
STUART VILLANUEVA/7h£ Battalion
Teenagers Ryan Keim and Kyle Tilton wrap Blake was part of "Hands On" Summer at the EXIT Teen
Maddox from head to toe in toilet paper during an Center, a program to provide recreational activities
obstacle race at Southwood Park Thursday. The race for teens in College Station.
Bush administration may
grant Mexicans residency
WASHINGTON (AP) —
The Bush administration is
considering granting legal res
idency to mil
lions of un
documented
Mexican im
migrants liv
ing in the
United
States.
Such
amnesty would give a perma
nent reprieve to certain Mexi
cans living undercover in this
country, largely in the border
states. It also could be a polit
ical boon to the Republican
president as he seeks Hispanic
support.
There are 3 million Mexican-
born people living illegally in
the United States, according to
a report last week by Mexico’s
National Population Council.
An immigration task force of
top Justice and State Depart
ment officials planned to send
President Bush a report Mon
day on the broad outlines of
U.S.-Mexico border issues. It
will recommend that the Unit
ed States take action to address
illegal immigration, but will
stop short of offering concrete
proposals, a Justice Department
official said Sunday.
The task force is considering
several options, including a pro
posal to give the illegal Mexican
immigrants pennanent residen
cy, said the official, speaking on
condition of anonymity. That is
what Mexican President Vicente
Fox has been pressing Bush for.
Major questions remain
unanswered about how the ad
ministration would administer
such a program. The official
said issues under consideration
include how quickly the immi
grants could earn legal status,
and whether they would gain
such status based on date of
entry into the United States,
or by occupation, such as farm
worker.
The working group was
formed after Bush and Fox met
in February. Attorney General
John Ashcroft and Secretary of
State Colin Powell head the
See Mexicans on Page 2.
Houston recovering from flood
HOUSTON (AP) — Kathy Vossler
has no illusions about returning to life as
it was before Tropical Storm Allison blew
into her world.
For now, she would settle for more than
one pair of shoes.
“It’s just depressing,” said the self-em
ployed attorney of a life still in limbo more
than four weeks after the storm destroyed
her home and everything in it.
“I’ve got my practice here. I’ve got kids
to raise,” she says. “I lost all my clothes. All
my suits came back from the dry cleaners
with a little tag on them that said, ‘Sorry,
this is the best we can do.’ ”
Ruined suits may seem like a small com
plaint from a storm that left 22 dead and
nearly $5 billion in damage in the Houston
area. But for Vossler, it is just one more hur
dle among what seems like hundreds as she
tries to regain some sense of normalcy.
“There’s nothing you can just reach for
and it’s there,” she said.
It also will be a long time before she can
sleep comfortably through a thunderstorm
—- and there she has plenty of company.
The 2001 hurricane season’s first named
storm so saturated the nation’s fourth-
largest city that four days after it first came
ashore on June 5, the water had nowhere to
go but up.
Allison damaged 48,000 homes — de
stroying 4,500 — and so swamped the
downtown area that Harris County’s court
system and theater district remain in sham
bles a month later.
Nine hospitals at the world-famous
Texas Medical Center either partially or
fully closed. Two medical schools lost near
ly 3 5,000 mice, rats, rabbits, dogs and mon
keys and countless tissue and cell samples
used in medical research that had, in some
cases, stretched on for decades.
The 47 rhesus monkeys that were
among the thousands of animals drowned
in the basement of University of Texas
Medical School were more than living tools
for research into autism, memory and in
fantile amnesia for Dr. Jocelyn Bachevalier,
the neurobiology and anatomy professor
who worked with them. She calls the ani
mals “my babies.”
“It’s like having a little kid with you,” said
Bachevalier, a former National Institutes of
Health researcher who has been at the
Houston facility for 10 years. “They are not
human beings, but they’re close.”
Bachevalier rushed to the medical school
See Allison on Page 2.
Special
Services
building
closed
Stuart Hutson
The Battalion
Underneath the "Texas A&M
campus lies the most datnaging
enemy to A&M’s buildings — an
8-foot-deep layer of unstable
clay soil.
According to the Physical
Plant, the shifting of this soil is
responsible tor the sinking oi a
major portion of Ross Street, the
water main burst near Agrono
my Road in June, and now has
made the Special Services Build
ing near Lechner Hall suscepti
ble to sudden collapse.
Workers spent this past week
end moving supplies and equip
ment out of the building, which
housed the Texas Agricultural
Extension Services’ information
ii
The risk of
sudden collapse of
a major portion of
the building is
extremely remote,
but not zero."
— Richard Robertson
head of Robertson
Consulting Engineers
technology office, the Depart
ment of Rural Sociology and the
Department of Residence Life
custodial staff.
The 80 staff members who
occupied the building will be
moved to temporary offices.
The 84-year-old building,
which displays gaping cracks in
its walls and flaking plaster, was
found to have sunk as much as
one inch in some places over a
five-month survey by the Col
lege Station-based Robertson
Consulting Engineers.
“The risk of sudden collapse
of a major portion of the build
ing is extremely remote, but not
zero,” said Richard Robertson,
head of the consulting company,
in a Physical Plant report.
“Based upon solely what is visi
ble and measurable today, I
would say zero. Taking into ac
count the age, type of construc
tion and possible hidden dam
ages raises the risk above zero.”
Vice President for Adminis
tration Charles A. Sippial said
the building was closed down as
soon as the danger was reported,
and plans to dismantle the struc
ture will soon be finalized.
“We thought it the prudent
thing to do to close the building
immediately if there were any
indication that the safety of fac
ulty and staff housed there could
be in question,” Sippial said. “So
we immediately took action.”
Sippial also said that other
buildings are being investigated
for stability, most notably the
See Building on Page 2.