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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (April 24, 2002)
EDNESDAYAPRIL 24, 2002 VOLUME 108 • ISSUE 137 fects in Ij ts whi terinan >r ranki first ine; rical rank including ! P univers: their imp. - niversfcj t exceedirj asA&Vr ege Static 111 w BLmJ 1 rilj Board asked to support en. Gramm TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY By Brandie Liffick THE BATTALION ■Texas A&M Board of Regents members haVe received dozens of emails, faxes and lejteis asking that Sen. Phil Gramm be con- sijered as the next president of A&M, said Rigent Chairman Erie Nye. T ye said he has received somewhere GRAMM between 300 and 400 emails and faxes concerning the presi- defiiial position. ‘I have read or skimmed each of them. I would say the majority of them are in support of Senator Gramm,” he said. “The number has increased daily as the issue has gotten closer at hand.” Gramm’s wife, Wendy, serves as a member of the Board of Regents and is a director and board member for the Houston- based Enron Corporation. Nye said the letters do not fit Support OJ Senator the typical “write-in campaign” / have read or ^skimmed each of \them. I would say I the majority of them are in Gramm. 99 — Earl Nye I Board of Regents Chairman format, as each is different. “They each seem to be inde pendently written. Some are handwritten, some are typed. Some are from members of the Class of ‘38 and others are from freshmen,” he said. ;*?£^M- arr y Neal, spokesperson for the senator, said Gramm knew r'|l nothing of the campaign until members of the press contacted his office Monday. ■‘As much as I know about this I read in the newspaper,” I Neal said. “It’s flattering, but we’re not behind it. We’re simply infront of it.” ^■Neal said Gramm plans to fulfill his term in office, which ends in January. ■The Presidential Search Committee suggested three candi- dMeto the Board of Regents earlier this month. Nye previous ly Lis stated that the Board also is considering two undisclosed jBdidates for the position. ■Under state law, board members must make their decision publicly known no less than 21 days before Bowen steps down ,.„d, r F»*>>" nl " ne3() - See Gramm on page 2 rs ps) epted. Built for speed RANDAL FORD • THE BATTALION’ Senior mechanical engineering students Jon Wade and Tyler Herring perform final inspections on their high-powered race car in the mechanical engineering laboratory. The car, designed to go up to 90 mph and 0 to 60 mph in 3.61 seconds will be tested this week and then used in a worldwide competition in Detroit this May. In the past three years the A&M car has placed 12th, 1st and 5th, respectively, out of 125 cars. Housing limitations approved in Bryan By Anna Chaloupka THE BATTALION The Bryan City Council responded to residents’ complaints about raucous and messy college students by approv ing an ordinance Tuesday limiting the number of unrelated people allowed to live together in one house to four. The ordinance, approved unani mously with Councilman Mike Beal abstaining, attempts to reduce park ing and noise violations in residen tial neighborhoods, but contains a “grandfather clause” amendment that exempts current leases with more than four unrelated people until Sept. 1, 2003. All leases signed after 8 p.m. April 23, 2002, are subject to the ordinance. Two other amendments were added to the ordinance: Foster homes are exempt from the ordi nance, and a second family tem porarily may live with another for a period of six months. Several resi dents spoke in favor of the ordinance at the council meeting, saying they hoped it would alleviate problems that arise with a high number of col lege students living together. Residents said students’ failure to maintain their homes has reduced the property values of their houses. These residents said students keep their yards unmowed, block streets and driveways with their vehicles and leave trash unattended to, making adjacent and nearby properties unat tractive to prospective buyers. “We’re being invaded by students, and it’s ruining our property,” said See Bryan on page 2 Isen family sues A&M Foundation over estate By Rolando Garcia THE BATTALION The Texas A&M Foundation is fight- the family of the late C.E. “Pat" Ten over the multi-million dollar ^ate the foundation says the 1923 graduate left to the University. 1 James Palincsar, vice president of development for the foundation, declined to discuss the case, which is being disputed in Harris County pro bate court, but said Olsen, a long-time donor to A&M, did arrange in his will to leave his estate to the University. Olsen, for whom the University’s baseball facility Olsen Field is named, died last May at the age of 97. “The foundation wants to see that Mr. Olsen’s wishes are carried out,” said Liska Lusk, general counsel for the foundation. Lusk declined the discuss the exact amount of Olsen’s gift to the University, but said it was the bulk of Olsen’s multi-million dollar fortune. The Houston Chronicle reported April 22 several witnesses testified Monday that Olsen was mentally com petent in his later years and wanted to leave his estate to A&M. Olsen, who played baseball at A&M, went on to play in the New York Yankees’ minor- league system but failed to make it into the big leagues. He started a Houston- based oil exploration equipment com pany that earned him his wealth. He moved to the Bryan-College Station area in the early 1990s. Beatrice Chandler, the widow of for mer A&M baseball coach Tom Chandler, testified of their longtime friendship with Olsen and said Olsen had presence of mind even when he was bedridden, the Chronicle reported. “Pat just said because A&M had always been so good to him he wanted See Olsen on page 2 ngineering patents new flow meter re □lons.com '7a*' By Marianne Hudson THE BATTALION The Dwight Look College of ngineering recently contracted Nh a Houston-area company to pH the patent to its newly- lesigned flow meter, which will P n g royalties to the college, Allege officials said. Dr. Gerry Morrison, head J [ eve loper and professor of I Nchanical engineering, said low meters measure sub- fances that go through I PPelines such as natural gas, I later and steam. The sub- lances are measured during the Induction process and then |ackaged for distribution. Morrison said this flow meter measures substances more accu rately than the currently-used Orphus meter. The new meter works well if there is a mixture of liquid and gas in the pipelines, he said, and it has the potential of being one-fourth of a percent more accurate than the Orphus meter in the same conditions. Morrison said the meter’s development took about nine years, involving six graduate and four undergraduate students. Development was funded prima rily by the State of Texas Advanced Technology Program. The meter’s patent was sold to Flowline Meters Inc. because the state cannot partake in com mercial ventures, Morrison said. The meters will sell for about $5,000 for a two-inch line, he said, and the college will receive royalties from each meter sold. The meters will be used for industrial purposes in places such as petrochemical plants. He said some of the meter’s initial applications will be in South America. Dr. Ken Hall, the Jack E. and Frances Brown chair of chemical engineering, said the meters will sell because the marketplace needs a more accurate meter. “The marketplace is trying to find solutions to the problem, and alternatives haven’t worked, so it will give us an advantage,” Hall said. Morrison said the meter even tually will be used in production plants worldwide. :ition MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS*^ voting continues through April 30 • Positions open include College Station mayor and council positions for both cities . „ . .. • Voting locations can be found at www.ci-college-station.tx.us and www.ci.bryan.tx.us ■ ii ~ , p —-- .3^ Source: The cities of College Station and Bryan Election day is May 4 Evans Library offers e-books 30,000 books available online By Amy Dosch THE BATTALION For students who regard the library as hostile ter ritory and find searching the stacks a daunting task, a limited selection of books are available electroni cally, and A&M library officials have started a pro motional campaign to alert students of this resource. Since 1999, the library has subscribed to Netlibrary, a database containing more than 30,000 e-books. “A&M is upfront as far as access to electronic resources. We are the leader in the country as far as number of databases we have. Our interest in fur thering efficiency as far as bringing resources to the student’s desktop caused our interest in the e-book option,” said Diana Ramirez, a reference librarian at Sterling C. Evans Library. The system works like a regular library, in which a student must open an account to check out a book. If a book is checked out, it is unavailable to other users. Ramirez said this is an experimental period for the program, and the demand for it is being monitored. “We have ways of monitoring the number of accounts created, determining which subjects are demanded the most and even tum-away statistics,” Ramirez said. Turn-away statistics are a feature that allow the librarians to determine how many times a person has attempted to “check out” an e-book and has been denied because someone else already has AggieLife Pg. 3 A domino laid ... is a domino played Aggies spend time, earn money playing in domino tournaments WiATHIHt TODAY HIGH 89° F LOW 70° F THURSDAY 40% eooooooe HIGH 75° F LOW 62° F FORECASTS COURTESY OF www.collegeweather.com ■«. CHAD MALLAM • THE BATTALION See E-books on page 2