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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (July 16, 2002)
^ Nl HE battaj Accielife: Calling all fish • Page 3 Opinion: Pilots should carry guns in the air • Page 7 ATT AT TOM /jL Jl A jTLJL#Jl 1II I ii 1, Volume 108 • Issue 167 • 8 pages uilty plea spares Lindh from life in prison 108 Years Serving Texas A&M University www.thebatt.com Tuesday, July 16, 2002 ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) — John i Tilker Lindh, the young convert to Tlam who left California to fight longside the Taliban, pleaded guilty to |vo felonies Monday in a surprise deal that spares him life in prison and ensures his cooperation with terrorism ihvestigators. I Lindh faces a maximum of 20 years Ii prison under the agreement struck ; Between prosecutors and defense Ijftwyers after a weekend of negotiations |Biat ended after midnight — just hours I Before he was set to appear for court I learing. I I “I provided my services as a soldier to Wood project the Taliban last year from about August to November,” Lindh told U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III, recounting the two crimes to which he pleaded guilty. “During the course of doing so I car ried a rifle and two grenades. And I did so knowingly and willingly,” he said. In accepting the plea, prosecutors foreclosed the chance for the public to see evidence in the first major trial scheduled from the war on terrorism. U.S. Attorney Paul McNulty said pros ecutors had a strong case against Lindh but wanted to reserve “limited and very vital resources” for other terrorism cases. “This is a tough sentence. This is an appropriate punishment and this case proves that the criminal justice system can be an effective tool in the fight against terrorism,” McNulty said. Chief defense lawyer James Brosnahan said Lindh joined the Taliban because he was a devout Muslim. He never fired his rifle and never intended to hurt Americans, the lawyer said. “This is not Rambo we’re talking about here,” Brosnahan said. Lindh’s mother, Marilyn Walker, broke down outside the courthouse as she called him an “honest, kind, hum ble and a loving son.” Lindh was set to be tried Aug. 26, and now will be sentenced Oct. 4. Monday’s events leaves Zacarias Moussaoui, the Frenchman charged with conspiring with the Sept. 1 1 hijackers, as the lone marquee defen dant awaiting trial on terrorism charges. His trial is to begin at the end of September. Lindh, 21, entered the courtroom wearing a green prison jumpsuit and offered a quick smile to his parents, older brother and younger sister sitting in the second row. The judge had planned to hold hear ings this week on whether Lindh’s statements to investigators and the news media in Afghanistan should be kept out of his trial. Ellis, who learned of the plea deal shortly before the hearing began, opened court by discussing arrange ments for the hearing before Brosnahan interjected, “There is a change in plea.” An hour later, Lindh entered his two guilty pleas and ended talks that went so late Sunday that Lindh’s lawyers had to make special arrangements to return to his cell so he could sign off on the deal. President Bush was told of a possi ble deal last Thursday, administration officials said. THE BATTALION 300 gallons of Jly in Bryan. 22 years i l afterward, lied of hear!fail: au Clinic, wtieie since July 4 In el Bello AniMl sident ofBaldjW i Party. isses said the g® : extreme, exit Ther right that RANDAL FORD • THE BATTALION Woodshop assistant and psychology major, Chad Waller, trims a piece of wood for the making of Japanese joints in the woodshop next to the Langford complex. Japanese joinery is used to piece wood together without the use of nails. The pieces he makes will be used as test models for a course on building furniture in the fall. Stroustrup accepts endowed chair By Mariano Castillo THE BATTALION Bjarne Stroustrup, the world- renowned creator of the C++ programming language, will move his research to Texas A&M after accepting the College of Engineering Endowed Chair in Computer Science. Stroustrup officially began the job July 9. Stroustrup said Vision 2020, a University-wide blueprint to make A&M a top 10 public school, helped lure him to Aggieland. “(Vision 2020’s) level of ambition and its honesty about weaknesses to be addressed were among the factors that con vinced me that Texas A&M was a place in the process of rapid progress,” he said. “TAMU is a place where I can contribute to serious positive change.”. His research will encompass C++, program transformation. distributed programming, and the general area of programming languages, tools and techniques. See related story on Page 2 His initial focus, Stroustrup said, will be on distributed program ming, where he hopes to make a contribution. “More and more applica tions involve many proces sors and our tools and tech- STROUSTRUP mques writing testing systems for and such are not up to the challenges that face us,” he said. “We need something that makes programming-distrib uted systems simpler, safer and more easily demonstrated to be See Chair on page 2 Bush School offers distance education Study says MBA offers no career advantage By Melissa McKeon THE BATTALION ate. : that if a mad at the presid ^was"from Business 2.0 magazine’s July ' I e Pen said ;£ 0Ver story “What’s an MBA ton Chirac coif eal, Y Worth ?” examined two coini | lew controversial reports from sf 16 Stanford University Jjpraduate School of Business iropean esurgence in ^ won votei anc ^ the Association to Advance ive Collegiate Schools of Business, oth which claim an MBA pro vides no real advantage in career advancement. Dan Naegeli, director of Graduate Business Career rs of immigr 31 tiomic stagnati pe July >rary pecial! 694-^ Services disagreed and said MBA’s do give students a jump- start to their career. “An MBA pushes you up a few notches other students skip,” Naegeli said. The Lowry Mays College and Graduate School of Business, along with other busi ness schools, require a mini mum of two years work experi ence before being admitted into the program. Upon receiving an MBA and reentering the work force, your success is ultimately based upon performance, Naegeli said. “You are ahead of the bache lor’s degree students,” Naegeli said. “If you continue to per form [in the work force], you are always given the benefit of the doubt.” The MBA program at A&M lasts two years, but will change to a 16-month program this fall, he said. With a bachelor’s degree, a business student can expect to have a starting salary in the $30,000 range. After a mini mum of two years work experi ence and an MBA, a student can expect to make around $74,000 on average, Naegeli said. Dan Robertson, director of the MBA program, said if he were a student and saw the Business 2.0 article, he would question the opportunity cost of paying for graduate school while not working. “People who have been working would temporarily be giving up income for a degree,” Robertson said. “I would have to See MBA on page 2 By Diane Xavier THE BATTALION The George Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M will provide courses online through a new distance education program that will allow the opportunity to learn about world affairs and international relations via the World Wide Web beginning in Fall 2002. Online course work for a cer tificate in advanced international affairs will also be available beginning this fall. The online courses will be delivered through WebCT, an interactive online classroom, including communication with professors, field experts and other Bush School graduate students. Students can enroll in the certificate courses on their own timetable, said Nancy Small, ■ coordinator of the Distance Education Program. Occasionally, guest lectures by experts in their field may be held via live online technology such as a chat room or live streaming audio/video. All courses will be interactive, requiring participants to discuss issues with one another and with the professor, but these courses generally will be asynchronous, meaning there will be no required class times. However, all distance educa tion courses will be on a 15- week semester schedule, includ ing deadlines for written work and tests. Small said the school’s cer tificate program in advanced international affairs has grown in popularity and this is the rea son why the school is currently implementing the program online. See Online on page 2 Undergraduate credit card ownership, debt on the rise By Ruth Ihde THE BATTALION According to a study published in %il 2002" by the Nellie Mae Corporation, a leading national Provider of student loans, the num- ber of undergraduate students with Cr edit cards is on the rise. The study, “Undergraduate Rodents and Credit Cards: An ^nalysis of Usage Rates and rends,” analyzes the credit card behavior of Nellie Mae loan appli cants during the last calendar year, bis is the third year the study has been conducted. In 1998, credit card usage among college students was at 67 percent. n 2001 it jumped to 83 percent, a 24 Percent increase. The Nellie Mae Corporation ran domly selected credit reports from 600 undergraduate students ages 18 to 24 that applied for a credit based loan with Nellie Mae during the summer and fall of 2001. Bob Piwonka, director of finan cial services at Texas A&M said that typically the students at A&M are more conservative than at other institutions, therefore, student debt at A&M seems to be lower. He said that there has been a strong concern about credit card debt at A&M since the Aggie card program was partnered with Wells Fargo Bank in 1998. A&M made an agreement with Wells Fargo offering lower credit limits to students aiming to prevent students from falling into credit card debt, he said. The Nellie Mae study also found that 54 percent of freshmen students possess a credit card and 92 percent of sophomores own at least one credit card. “It is interesting to note that while 54 percent of freshman stu dents own a credit card, only 23 per cent have a student loan, (which is) much less expensive debt that is often considered to be a positive investment in one’s future,” said Nina Prikazsky, vice president of operations at Nellie Mae. Piwonka agrees with this senti ment, said short term loans are great ly underutilized by students at A&M. While short term loans are underused, Piwonka said the rate of applicants for the Federal Stafford Loan has remained at a steady rate See Credit Cards on page 2 College students with credit cards on the rise 1998 -1 87% of students had at least one credit card. 2001 -1 83% of students had at least one credit card. - 54% of freshman own a credit card - 92% of sophomores have at least one credit card ^ | Average Interest rate I on credit cards is currently 13% G iFederal Stafford Loans are at an ! ail-time low of 3.46% *4% Increase All accordiina to tl»o Hollis Mao Corporation stady tltlod: ~tladoreradaato Stodonto oad Crodlt Cards.: Aa Analysis of Uoapo Hats* aad Troods.’* TRAVIS SWENSON • THE BATTALION