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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (July 17, 2002)
nb| battmi Sports: Baytown Lee looking for repeat • Page 3 Opinion: Facts needed in brutality case • Page 5 HTT¥T? 1 tlEj 108 Years Serving Texas A&M University www.thebatt.com Wednesday, July 17, 2002 jkolume 108 • Issue 168 • 6 pages I • •s. / Architecture school ranked 10th in nation HE BATTALIOH chicken as els. By Sarah Walch THE BATTALION The College of Architecture at Texas A&M University was ecently ranked 10th nationally >y the Almanac of Architecture nd Design. One of the reasons for the rank- ng includes its requirement that ach student spend a semester away from the A&M campus in arder to earn their undergraduate legree. Students may satisfy this A'ith an internship, a work abroad ar out-of-state position, a co-op arogram or a study abroad course hrough A& M. Students from the College of Architecture are working and studying all over the world this summer in places such as Guatemala, Hong Kong, Australia, Greece and Thailand. A&M students have also stud ied and traveled in Spain, Mexico and Italy during the fall and spring semesters. “Within the last five years this program has really expanded a lot,” said Tom Woodfin, associate dean for international and off- campus programs. “We started developing the program at the campus in Italy and participating in a reciprocal exchange program with Guatemala in the 1980s, but recently we’ve added several more countries as options. .“For those students who may not be able to afford study abroad, we work very hard to find intern ships, co-ops or work opportuni ties for them either abroad or in the states.” For example, A&M sends many students to Alexandria, Va., to participate in the Washington- Alexandria Architecture Consortium. The Department of Construction Science (within the College of Architecture) has also recently revamped its internship program. According to the recently pub lished Newsletter for the College of Architecture, for the first time, aca demic credit will be awarded for the internship in conjunction with students writing and submitting daily logs, progress reports and a final report electronically. Students will work with Dr. David Bilb, the new internship coordinator. “Travel broadens people’s per ceptions and makes them more open to different cultures and dif ferent people,” Woodfin said. “When you see something built a thousand years ago still standing today, and how it creates a certain type of environment for that cul ture, that experience goes beyond anything you could ever learn See Architecture on page 2 Top 15 Architecture Program* t.Cornell University 2, Harvard University S.Unlvemity of Cincinnati 4.Syracuse University 3. Georgia Institute of Technology University of Michigan 7,Iowa State University 8.University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign University of Virginia 10.Texas A&M University Yale University 1 2.Massachusetts Institute of Technology 1 3. C o 1 u m b i a University 1 4.University of Notre Dame i 1 3.University of Pennsylvania \ [ Sources Almanac of Architecture it Design 3rd edition TRAVIS SWENSON • THE BATTALION Talk time Junior history and political science major, Kevin Capps, discusses politics on KANM's Maroon Politics show in the MSC with his younger brother. The show RANDAL FORD • THE BATTALION discusses everything from issues ranging from Texas A&M to the world. The show airs on Tuesdays at 4 p.m. and can be heard on 1600 AM. Yell leaders to work with MSC bookstore By Melissa McKeon THE BATTALION The Texas A&M Bookstore, located in the Memorial Student Center (MSC), and the yell leaders will collaborate this fall in an effort to benefit both parties. The bookstore will supply the cur rent yell leaders with new shoes to wear throughout the year in exchange for promotional support. The yell leaders are currently wear ing hand-me-down shoes that are four years old. This is because of the diffi culty in finding shoes that are both maroon and good-looking, said head yell leader Cardo Walthall. The shoes are reused each year with the hope that new yell leaders will be comfortable in them. “I’m wearing Sam’s (Seidel) old shoes right now and luckily they fit me,” said senior yell leader Scott Goble. The yell leaders started looking for a sponsorship for new shoes last spring. They spoke to Nike and other compa nies, but the A&M Bookstore gave them the best offer, Goble said. In the past, the yell leader’s shoes have been Adidas, Nike and Puma. The new manufacturer is Customatix. “Our shoes right now are Adidas Superstars and they’re really old,” Walthall said, “If you have bigger feet | than the shoe size] then you just have to try and stretch them out.” Marc Eckhart, general manager of the Texas A&M Bookstore, said the idea to help came when the store heard the yell leaders were having a hard time finding shoes. “We already sell A&M shoes, so we put two and two together when we heard the yell leaders were wearing ones that were handed down,” Eckhart said. The design is unique and easily See Collaboration on page 2 Houston a hotbed for Texas lightning Blood shortage grips Brazos Valley . I 3tion 55 3 irie Rd. nter » * l ' P ining, By Jessi Watkins THE BATTALION The Brazos Valley is facing short ies in the blood supply this month, said Theresa Evangelista, territory manager for the American Red Cross Blood Center. “This past week, we were struggling ! w ith ‘O’ and ‘A’ types, both positive and negative,” Evangelista said. “It has ; been hard keeping up with the needs of the hospital.” The blood shortage is not only affecting the Brazos Valley. Shortages are happening all over, Evangelista said. “People are so busy during the sum mer months,” Evangelista said. “June, July and August are the toughest months for getting blood in." Last week the American Red Cross held blood drives at three campus loca tions: Rudder Tower, Sbisa Dining Hall and the Student Recreation Center. “Rudder had a steady flow, but it was slow at Sbisa and the Rec,” Evangelista said. “As for how much we collected, we got 287 pints. We were hoping to collect 400 pints.” A shortage in the blood supply can cause cancellations in surgeries and other medical procedures requiring blood supplement. Junior marketing and fisheries major Matt Roberts said he gives blood all the time now for the benefit of other people. See Blood on page 2 By Melissa Sullivan THE BATTALION After conducting a 12 year study, researchers at Texas A&M University have found that lightning occurs more in Houston than other surrounding metro politan areas, making it what scientists call the “Lightning Capital of Texas." The study was co-authored by A&M graduate Scott Steiger, A&M atmos pheric scientist Richard Orville and Gary Huffmes of Wright-Paterson Air Force Base in Ohio. “The four to five million people who live in the Houston area, plus the 50 percent of the petroleum refining capac ity in the U.S. located there, create a powerful heat island effect, resulting in more intense cumulus cloud formation and more intense thunderstorms,” Orville said. Lightning occurs when electric charges build in clouds and then dis charge to the ground. The polarity of lightning varies with 90 percent of flashes bringing negative charges to ground and 10 percent posi tive to ground. During the study, the Houston area experienced 1.6 million cloud-to- ground lightning flashes, with 75 per cent of them occurring during the months of June, July and August, 12 percent in December, January and February and the rest distributed throughout the remainder of the year. Unlike other states, Texas experi ences lightning throughout the year, not just in the summer months, Orville said. For example, during the winter, northern states do not have lightning with snow and ice storms. Data suggests Houston’s urban heat island effect causes clouds and thunder storms, resulting in the flow of cooler sea air inland towards the city’s center. As the cooler air rushes in, the warmer air rises and the moisture in it forms clouds and thunderstorms occur. “Because of this, Houston has 40 to 50 percent more lightning than any other place in Texas,” Orville said. Air pollution also has been consid ered a factor contributing to the fre quent lightning. “Air pollution changes water and ice into a thunderstorm which effects the electrical charging process that produces See Lightning on page 2 PITS raises parking garage prices for fall semester /er -A By Ruth Ihde THE BATTALION An increase in fees will be applied all parking garages on campus as VVe ll as the surface lot located near the Wehner building effective August 2^02, said Robert Bisor, interim director for Parking Traffic and Transportation Services (PTTS). Instead of the usual fee of $1 per hour, parking in the on-campus pay lots will begin at $1.50 each hour for the first two hours and $ 1 for each additional hour. According to Debbie Hoffmann, customer services representative for PTTS, A&M will use the money from these fees for expenses such as cleaning and painting the garages, and for the cost of hiring mainte nance crews and security guards to monitor the garages. Last year, other state mandated costs as well as a cost of living expense were ordered for A&M to increase pay f° r some such University employees. These higher prices for parking also will help to cover those expenses needed for repairs and maintenance for all of the es, including the one being on West campus near the garages built Student Recreation Center. Hoffmann said PTTS met internal ly to discuss issues about the rising costs of equipment and repair to the garages. Kenny Kimball, finance and accounting director for PTTS, was in charge of reviewing and analyzing the expenses of PTTS last year and to assist in finding out what could be done to cover rising expenses. Hoffmann said when they reviewed the PTTS expense report, raising the cost of parking in the garages around campus was the best way to compensate for the expenses. For students who commute to campus, free parking is offered to those wanting to use the garages in the evening hours. The free rates will continue for the next year. There does not seem to a be a huge concern about whether students will want to pay the higher prices, but Hoffmann said assessing the impact that the prices changes will have on the number of people who still want to park in the garages will be difficult. But PTTS does not anticipate a decrease in the number of students who park in the garages. “As for the students who normally park in the garages in the daytime, it wifi be hard to predict what their behavior will be,” Hoffmann said. GARAGE PARKING PRICES WILL. INCREASE • New fees will be $1.50 per Hour for the first 2 hours l—then $1 per hour after • New fees will begin In August • Foes will go toward cleaning, painting, and maintenance of garages * Will occur in all garages and in PA 72 y a surface tot behind Wohnor RUBEN DELUNA • THE BATTALION
