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eported missing
HOUSTON (AP) - Seven
undred pounds of explo
res used in seismic explo-
s ' oca '§°vn ation for drilling are report-
mandmitiej td missing from a company
Harris County and federal
tary and terrafc officers are investigating
lie apparent thefts.
Officials of AirJac Drilling
nc. says the explosives were
between Saturday and
Way. It's too early to
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terrorist-related, officials say.
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inside. They were
lieingkept in a rural area in
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KORKTOWN, Va. (AP) - A
larine was killed when he
tell from a third-story window
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lapons Station, authorities
said Thursday.
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Rodriguez died at the
scene. Griesmer said.
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K
SPORTS |
v Page 7
Clash in
le mountains
No. 25 A&M’s
undefeated record
on the line against
Colorado
A&M not
planning
ceremony
By Rolando Garcia
THE BATTALION
No University-sponsored memorial ceremony to
commemorate the second anniversary of the 1999 Aggie
Bonfire collapse is planned. University officials said.
‘'Having a ceremony was the right thing to do last
year, but that doesn't mean it’s the right thing to do
now,” said Vice President for Student Affairs Dr. J.
Malon Southerland.
A candlelight ceremony was held Nov. 18, 2000 at
2:42 a.m. on the Polo Fields to remember the 12 stu
dents killed in the collapse.
Although no similar event is scheduled, Nov. 18
will not pass unnoticed. Southerland said. The four
finalists in the Bonfire Memorial design competition
will be unveiled and put on display, and other Bonfire-
related events are in the works.
“We'll always remember Nov. 18, and the best way
to do that is through the permanent memorial,”
Southerland said.
Student Body President Schuyler Houser, a senior
industrial engineering major, said the feedback she has
received indicates students would prefer a more pri
vate and discrete remembrance this year.
“We can't let the week come and go without rec
ognizing what happened, but students don't want to
have to relive it again and again,” Houser said.
“Students just want to get through it in their own
way and not go through another big ceremony and
relive those painful memories.”
See Bonfire page 2.
PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY CHAD MALI AM • THE BATTALION
Students, professors continue to archive Bonfire items
By NONI SRIDHARA
THE BATTALION
This November marks the
two-year anniversary of the 1999
Aggie Bonfire collapse, and the
archiving of memorial items left
at the site after the tragedy is an
ongoing project for Dr. Sylvia
Grider, an associate professor of
anthropology, and her graduate
student assistants.
“With the recent events, we
can see that spontaneous shrines
are a worldwide response to
tragedy,” Grider said.
Grider is chairwoman of
“Archives of Grief: Bonfire
Memorabilia Collection” and
gave a presentation Thursday
night sponsored by the Brazos
Valley Aggie Moms Club
(BVAMC)."
After the collapse, many stu
dents expressed concern that the
artifacts and memorabilia left at
the site would be thrown away,
Grider said. She initiated a
request to Texas A&M President
Dr. Ray M. Bowen to head a
project in which the students
See Archive on page 6.
BRETT MARETH • THE BATTALION
Dr. Sylvia Grider presents a slideshow on items that were archived
in the “Archives of Grief: Bonfire Memorabilia Collection”
Liberal Arts
shows new
growth
By Melissa Sullivan
THE BATTALION
A key element in reaching
the University’s goal of Vision
2020 is enhancing the College
of Liberal Arts, Dean Charles
Johnson said at a reception din
ner held Thursday to celebrate
the history and advancement of
the college.
“We are going in a positive
direction,” Johnson said. “We
started off with 150 faculty and
a budget of $3 million, and have
grown to a faculty of 400 and a
budget of $30 million.”
The College of Liberal Arts
is one of the largest colleges and
has the same number of under
graduates as the Colleges of
Architecture and Engineering.
Liberal arts also teaches one-
third of the classes in the core
curriculum.
“During the next two years,
we are hiring 25 new faculty
members as well as establishing
a merit program for faculty who
have reached national promi
nence,” Johnson said.
See Li bArts on page 7.
On-campus student
alcohol violations down
By Eric Ambroso
THE BATTALION
On-campus student alcohol
violations for the 2000-2001
academic year are down, said
Laura Sosh-Lightsy, coordinator
of Student Judicial Services.
“We must take a many-lay
ered approach in order to com
bat underage drinking at Texas
A&M,” said Sosh-Lightsy.
“Students found responsible for
an M1P charge must all attend
alcohol education classes at the
University. They may also be
put on conduct probation or
even suspended. During the
2000-2001 school year we had a
total of 160 alcohol cases in our
office, which was down from
229 the previous year, which
means that the policies must be
making a difference.”
The University has imple
mented stricter penalties for stu
dents convicted of possessing
alcohol as a minor. Sosh-Lightsy
said first-time offenders face
conduct probation, which places
the student in bad standing with
the University and makes them
ineligible to hold any offices
with student organizations.
Second and third-time offenders
often face deferred suspension or
even indefinite suspension.
“Over the last two academic
years only two students have
had repeat alcohol offenses,”
said Mike Collins, assistant
director of Student Life at Texas
A&M. “I believe that this is due
See Alcohol on page 6.
Number of cases
involving alcohol
that were taken
to student fudiclal
1999 - 2000
Information from Laura Sash-Lightsy,
coordinator for student judicial s'ervices
CHAD MALLAM • THE BATTALION
Daylight
air raid
sweeps
Kabul
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP)
— The first daylight raid on the
Afghan capital in the 5-day-old,
U.S.-led air campaign sent shop
pers scattering in panic
Thursday, jumping on donkey
carts and bicycles to flee heavy
explosions. In the Taliban
stronghold of Kandahar, a hit on
a munitions dump set off a series
of deafening blasts — and an
exodus of civilians toward the
Pakistani border. .
U.S. planes returned to the
skies over Kabul late Thursday,
and a huge fireball lit up the sky
over the eastern part of the city
in the direction of a training base
of Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida
terror network.
Huge detonations accompa
nied by a howling wind could
also be heard Thursday evening
from the Afghan side of the bor
der in the Pakistani frontier town
of Chaman, about 70 miles
south of Kandahar.
One month after the terror
attacks against the World Trade
Center and the Pentagon,
Pakistani officials acknowl
edged for the first time that U.S.
planes and personnel were on
the ground as part of the
American-led campaign against
the Taliban and Osama bin
Laden and that the United States
See Kabul on page 2.
Hundreds of
possible anthrax
sources probed
(AP) — The anthrax bacteria
that killed an editor at a Florida
tabloid last week could have
come from countless places,
including hundreds of laborato
ries worldwide.
Most of those labs either
develop vaccines and treatments
against the disease, or serve as
general repositories for bacteria
and viruses. A few rogue labs
probably do biological weapons
research as well.
Until a few years ago, none
of the laboratories have faced
serious restrictions on who has
access to anthrax and other
potential biological weapons.
Since 1997, however, the United
States have put restrictions on
who can possess anthrax or
order it from the handful of bio
logical suppliers that provide
microbes to laboratories.
The anthrax in laboratories
today originated from animals
that died of the disease or soil
contaminated by the bacteria. To
collect anthrax, scientists would
visit a farm with a livestock out
break of the disease and take a
small piece of tissue from an
animal that had died from it.
Back in the lab, the
researchers would then isolate
the anthrax bacteria from the tis
sue and keep the microorgan
isms alive in a liquid culture. For
decades, that one sample can
spawn subsequent generations
of the same anthrax strain.
See Anthrax on page 2.
Officials, workers hold 1-month memorial
(AP) — At a still-smoking ruin, before a
still-ravaged military headquarters, in far-
flung places still reeling from unthinkable
acts, they stopped to mark a milestone
Thursday: A month had passed since terror
ists made their indelible mark.
At the Pentagon service, there was a red
rose on the seat of each relative of each
victim — 125 workers, and the 60 passen
gers and crew of the hijacked jet that
crashed there.
“On Sept. 1 1, great sorrow came to our
country, and from that sorrow has come
great resolve,” said President Bush.
At the World Trade Center, there was a
moment of silence at 8:48 a.m., the time of
the first attack on Sept. 11. Workers at the
massive grave paused from the cleanup
duties, took off their helmets and joined arm
in arm. “Don’t look at the terrorism over
there, look at the heroism over here,” said
Rabbi Joseph Potasnik, a Fire Department
chaplain.
At St. Paul’s Cathedral in London,
British firefighters mourned their fallen
See Memorial on page 7.