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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 24, 2002)
TERNATICM "HE BATTAt Indi onsibili THURSDAYJANUARY 24, 2002 VOLUME 108 • ISSUE 79 HPT YT" > 1 HE 0 30'j CHINA TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY \IEPAL Calcutta Alumni to y give Bonfire ^edback Shootout; # the U S. governs building it three men dead By Rolando Garcia THE BATTALION he it a' >n polic porizinj e facts iran, eavy i Jaff i arte __ I they fell. ; eumnan la/ed Pres; former students now have an oppor- un ty to provide feedback on the M -Iki evimped 2002 Aggie Bonfire at an it u inline survey sponsored by The ^^^Hociation of Former Students. ■he Association will analyze the Bouses and send a report to A&M Kident Dr. Ray M. Bowen, who is ■ected to decide Feb. 8 whether will burn next fall, survey to gauge the attitudes of current S Bents toward Bonfire was completed last 1 and the results were released Tuesday. | Q^jlPf §l ie Association’s survey, accessible ^ trough its Website, w'ww.aggienet- ^^■k.com. is open to the public and asks ■- ;sf indents whether they support the svi inped tradition with its strict safety ^ matures and whether they are willing to upport Bonfire financially. Bonfire >.*■2 could cost as much as $2 million, ut the price tag of future Bonfires will e between $500,000 to $750,000, said tonfire 2002 Steering Committee Coordinator Dr. Bryan Cole. B'he survey also asks respondents to ank Bonfire against other programs The Hociation supports, such as the Aggie hurtandn l ani1 . student scholarships and the sup- treated for-* 011 f un d for Reveille, least 20 peopkfWormer students can also vote for vhich of one of three potential stack o run away.Mesigns they prefer. In the student survey, succeeded in non than 95 percent voted for the wed- aid Jerusalen ling cake-like structure, and Cole said hat is the design the steering committee villi recommend to Bowen. All logs touch Ini’round, but are cut to different lengths bra multi-level appearance, jarhe survey also allows alumni respon- ... j-, Jent^ a space to provide additional com- gJ^jnjjients. The survey will be open until mid- ™^Bt .Ian. 27, and the results will be posted 02 ^ JpBhe Association's Website Jan. 31. ntu for. the area .* number scene, id si fhere was rifle is in acuated." Rock and a hard place STUART VILLANUEVA • THE BATTALIOInT Senior history major Emily Arakelian scratches an Wednesday morning. Scratches on the glass will unidentified rock on a small plate of glass during a help determine the hardness of the rock and help geology lab in Halbouty Geosciences Building on identify it. ^A&M ranked 10th in nation’s design schools G? The Hiltc 9:00 p.m. Oxford Street) 0:00 p.m. p Ten USi-rankings for Cornell University Harvard University University of Cincinnati Syracuse University Georgia Tech University of Michigan Iowa State University University of Illinois University of Virginia 0. Texas A&M University & Yale University tm At manat or rmto* ADRIAN CALCANEO • THE BATTALION By Carol Treece THE BATTALION Texas A&M's College of Architecture was No. 10 in the Almanac of Architecture and Design’s annual survey of the nation’s top design schools. A&M tied with Yale University. No other Texas school made the list. The survey asked 3,000 U.S. design professionals to name schools from the 1 1 1 architecture programs currently accredited by the National Architectural Accrediting Board that best prepared their students to be successful in the architectural profession. The respon dents were asked to answer based on their experience over the last 10 years. “Though there are many outstand ing design schools that did not make the list, the relevance of the surveys cannot easily be dismissed,” said J. Thomas Regan, dean of the College of Architecture. “The rankings amount to a cus tomer satisfaction survey from the industry that will help A&M recruit faculty and students and increase the size of the college’s career fairs,” Regan said. Among the factors considered in the survey are study abroad pro grams, opportunities for practical design experience and a low teacher- student ratio. A&M advanced from No. 15 in the Almanac’s 2001 top design list. Dr. Philip Tabb, head of the architecture department, said this was caused by the school’s study abroad programs in Italy, Spain, Guatemala and Mexico. The college is in the process of designing a more structured work study program. “Texas A&M’s isolated location in a small city like College Station allows professors to focus full time on their classes, rather than working on design projects,” Tabb said. A&M has the largest architecture doctorate program in the nation, with an enrollment of 60 students. The Almanac of Architecture and Design is an annual reference book for professionals in all areas of the architecture industry. 3w! SCS offers academic support groups for students By Melissa Sullivan rench pi THE battalion ncina P^ r Students experiencing academic diffi- y E jiilties are offered counseling programs f the WOHat teach study skills, stress-combat lauaae nll> chnit l ues > and may increase student ^ ^ « rade-point ratios higher than a 2.0. g plus W Tl le Student Counseling Service ffeis two academic support groups this imester open to all students — the LCademic Survival series, which begins b. 19 after the first round of exams, and demies Anonymous, which begins in. 30 with an emphasis on study strate- ies. Both programs will run until April. P“These groups are aimed at students who are suffering from inconsistent performance, whether that be academ ic probation, or probation from a stu dent organization,” said Patti Collins, professional counselor for SCS. Academic Survival is used in the fall as an aid for freshmen in the transition from high school to college. “Both of these nine-week sessions focus on areas students have had the most trouble with in the past, including student motivation, attitude, study skills, and exam-day anxiety,” Collins said. “We try to find a student’s weaknesses as well as their strengths and target them,” Collins said. Each session has students setting academic goals and sharing success with the group. The programs also pro vide students with academic advisers We try to find a student’s weaknesses as well as their strengths and target them. — Patti Collins professional counselor for SCS and options for students who are strug gling with their studies. “The College of Education requires that a student on‘academic probation take four learning skills courses offered by the SCS, as well as complete a Learning Certificate Program,” said Vida Wilhelm, director of recruitment of Academic Services. “Several kids took the sessions and quite a few learned a lot, found them very beneficial and pulled their GPR well over 2.0,” Wilhelm said. Though not every college requires students on academic probation to complete the programs, Collins said she suggests Academic Survival to stu dents who feels their grades are lower than expected. S on A.&M receives grant for birth defect research JJL By Tanya Nading THE BATTALION KA $5.6 million research grant to he Texas A&M Health Science Center’s Institute of Biosciences and fechnology could save billions of ollars in health care costs for new- ')orns with heart defects — and could iave lives. The grant for research of congenital heart defects in infants, from the National Institute of Health, is shared by the institute, the University of Nebraska Medical Center and the California Birth Defects Monitoring Program. The three teams will use different methods in an attempt to determine the relationship between heart defects. drugs, environmental exposures and vitamin deficiencies in human babies. The research team, led by Dr. Richard H. Finnell, director of the insti tute, will study mice that have under gone genetic engineering to alter their susceptibility to congenital defects. “We take molecular approaches to modify the mice so they are unable to take in folic acid on their own,” Finnell said. “This modification causes the mice to give birth to babies that have heart defects.” Finnell’s team will then attempt to correct the problem with extensive quantities of vitamins to the mice, hop ing to correct the birth defect problem. See Research on page 2 Faculty reviews SACS standing By Emily Peters THE BATTALION A team of faculty is busy com piling data that an outside commit tee will review in April to determine if Texas A&M will be re-accredited with the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. The association is the recognized regional accrediting body for higher education in 11 U.S. Southern states. A&M is currently accredited, but an updated review is required every 10 years. Dr. Arthur M. Hobbs, a mathe matics professor and a member of the University’s re-accreditation effort, said accreditation means the University was formally reviewed and verified as a legiti mate institution. “They examine a roomful of material and certify that we are doing the job people expect from a university like ours, and that we are not a university more focused on research than students,” he said. Accreditation is vital to a school because many government and pri vate funding agencies will not grant funds to unaccredited univer sities, Hobbs said. “They want to make sure we aren’t a fly-by-night place that hands out diplomas with no expec- tation from qur students.’’ he :>uL Accreditation is based on both the university’s compliance with current standards and strategic plans for the future, like Vision 2020. A&M’s last re-accreditation was in 1993, but the University was invited to conduct this review early to take part in a pilot program with nine other colleges to restructure the accreditation process. The University’s self-review process usually takes three years, with a roomful of paper for the review committee to go through during a campus visit, Hobbs said. “The process was very time-con suming with enormous expendi tures of effort by a lot of people,” Hobbs said. This year, A&M was the first uni versity to submit its report online, significantly simplifying the system. The revised program has two stages. The university compiles the information to send to an off-site See SACS on page 2