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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 1, 2002)
i RAL, Agcielife: A taste of Italia • Page 3 Opinion: Hitler on primetime • Page 7 t TMftfEK H A1£ Ia, J h Mlume 108 • Issue 177 • 8 pages Him Thursday, August 1, 2002 A TT ATI jHl X 1 l 108 Years Serving Texas A&M University www.thebatt.com A New Era obert Gates assumes role as Texas A8dVTs 22nd president Students want to have input during Gates' term en found imp dents andfacul >n has to be Je sure that nond said, be president, ns to take ays he classroom!’ red not for ors rought theAggit ed his love and mondsaid. By True Brown THE BATTALION Following through with Vision 2020 should be the biggest concern for incoming University President Dr. Robert M. Gates upon taking office, said Barry Hammond, Memorial Student Center president and a senior economics major. “I’m a big believer in Vision 2020,” Hammond said. “[Gates] has to make a road map of Vision 2020 that (outgoing President Dr.) Ray Bowen and others have laid down. It will be his job to follow through with it.” Vision 2020, unveiled under Bowen’s tenure, is aimed at making A&M a top-10 universi ty by the year 2020, including increasing racial diversity and A&M’s academic standing com pared to other universities. To do this, Gates will have to rely on large amounts of student input, said Zac Coventry, A&M student body president. See related editorial on Page 7 “Regardless of his positions on Vision 2020 or Bonfire, it is important that he get out and talk to students as much as possible,” said Coventry, a senior agricul tural development major. “He has to connect on a personal level with the student body. He has to show that the values he holds and practices are aligned with our values as Aggies.” In addition to Vision 2020, the fate of Bonfire will be one of Gates’ biggest challenges during his presidency. The 90-year-old See Students on page 2 RANDAL FORD • THE BATTALION Dr. Robert M. Gates will begin his tenure as president of Texas A&M on Thursday. Gates is replacing Dr. Ray M. Bowen, who left office Wednesday. Gates takes familiar ride down road of new obstacles 55 es. By Kevin Espenlaub THE BATTALION Vith a head full of ideas and itching to :e over the reigns of Texas A&M Thursday, sident Dr. Robert M. Gates could not help notice that Monday’s road trip from chita, Kan. to Texas was familiar. “My wife and I were joking on the ride wn here the other day that the trip was y similar to one we took back in October 56,” Gates said. “At the end of that trip to n Antonio for Air Force officer training, I vq her a ring and asked her to marry me. I t think she was too excited to accept, but did.” | After meeting on a blind date, Gates took ■ly three months to propose to his wife Becky. Gates and the first lady have two own children and Gates has tried to model s family after his childhood in Kansas. “We had a middle-class family,” Gates aid. ‘My dad had a small business selling olesale auto parts, and we went to public ools growing up. We were a very close oily and our lives revolved around family, |hool, church and Boy Scouts.” When Gates debated where to go to col- he decided to look east for an education gat would allow him to become a college Professor. He chose William and Mary in Virginia f received his bachelor’s degree in 1965. However, his goal of becoming a teacher panned out after he transferred to |diana University to work on his master’s , a . nd doctorate at the height of the Vietnam War. My draft board in Kansas said they only ranted deferments through two degrees d I had already gotten my bachelor’s and as ter s degrees,” Gates said. “I chose then to join the CIA, but I couldn’t get a defer ment for that either, so I joined the Air Force and spent some time working intelli gence for them.” Gates’ career in the CIA continued for 27 years and he became the only person in CIA history to work up from an entry-level job to Director. He served on the National Security Council under four Presidents and served as the Director of the CIA from 1991-1993. He then began speaking across the nation about his experiences, before receiving an offer to serve as interim Dean at the George Bush School of Government and Public Service. £lf The real challenge is to increase the academic process of A&M with the Vision 2020plan. n Dr. Robert M. Gates A&M president lit the plans style for University bombing kills 7 n “I had been speaking a lot around the nation and I got a call from the former President (George Bush),” Gates said. “I’ve always thought that if you are lucky, there will be two or three people in your life besides family that you would do anything they asked you to do. I did not want to take the job at the Bush School because I lived in the Midwest and was very busy speaking and everything else, but the former President was one of those people for me, and the fact he wanted me to do it led me to accept the job.” Gates served as the interim dean from 1999-2001, which helped his name in the consideration for A&M’s new president after Dr. Ray M. Bowen announced he would step down. “I decided to put it in the hands of the regents,” Gates said. “I had been offered jobs to be president of other universities, and wasn’t interested at all in doing that. In fact, at first I wasn’t interested in being a presi dent here. But as I became more accustomed to the tradition and the culture that A&M has to offer, I began to become more interested in the position. There is a great community here of faculty and students that is unique to A&M and is nothing like any other University in the nation.” Gates is pleased with where Bowen brought the University and is ready to focus on maintaining the quality of education A&M provides. He is also ready to prove A&M can become one of the top 10 schools in the nation while still preserving its tradi tions and culture. “There are not many problems left to be solved here at A&M as Ray Bowen is leav ing,” Gates said. “We want to keep all of that going and keep the University running smoothly on a day-to-day basis. “The real challenge is to increase the aca demic progress of A&M with the Vision 2020 plan. We want to preserve that which makes A&M unique, it’s culture and tradi tion, while at the same time improving it’s academic standing. I think that can be done.” However, Gates also sees A&M as a place of opportunity and will direct his efforts in reaching the goals of Vision 2020 while still providing citizens of Texas an affordable place to attend. “One of the things that impresses me the See Gates on page 2 Gates' years leading to A&M 1965 1966 . Joined 1967 * Married his 1 974 • Doctorate from Georgetown 1991-93 . IMiiiiiiilil 1 999-01 . Interim Dean of Bu; August 1 - ? • University President TRAVIS SWENSON • THE BATTALION Alumni, administration react to Gates' new agenda By Christina Hoffman THE BATTALION Administrators and alumni alike have met with Dr. Robert M. Gates and said he will bring excellence to all aspects of Texas A&M. Miles Marks, executive director and CEO of the 12th Man Foundation said Gates is naming excellent people to serve with him in office. When the 12th Man Foundation met with Gates after he was named president, he chose to join the organization. Miles said. The foundation fully supports Gates and is excited to work with him. “We expect he will hit the ground running,” Marks said. “I think he will listen to the needs and challenges that will put ath letics [and academic programs] at the same level as our opponents.” Rodney P. McClendon, assis tant provost and recently appointed chief of staff by Gates, said students and the University can expect Gates to continue building unifying goals. “I think that Gates is an indi vidual of keen vision and strong integrity,” McClendon said. “He has wholeheartedly embraced Vision 2020.” Despite the Board of Regents not voting unanimously for Gates, a consensus among administration and former stu dents names Gates as the best man for the presidency. At the Board of Regents meeting in May, minutes before Gates was named the sole final ist, the 12th Man Foundation and the Association of Former Students endorsed Sen. Phil See Reaction on page 2 (JERUSALEM (AP) — A bomb * den in a bag ripped through a busy eteria at Hebrew University e nesday, killing seven people, c uding three Americans, in an ; a ck that shattered the peace in one , ^ dew places where young Jews Tenths still mixed freely. ore than 80 people were also unded in the second bombing to ^nisalem in two days. v re P orts said two of the dead i e Srae lis and the others were for- eu, natdon als. The injured included . s and Arabs, but no overall break- was available. taifo 66 ^ rner i cans were killed in ) e ast an H four were injured. State : ar , tmen t spokeswoman Lynn U Sa iH in Washington. Their 'atj„ S ^ ere withheld pending notifi- P 1 ® Of their families Hamas claimed responsibility for the bombing and said it was revenge for Israel’s air raid last week on Gaza City that killed the organization's military chief, Salah Shehadeh, and 14 civilians, including nine children. Israel has tried to end Palestinian attacks by sending troops to impose a curfew in most West Bank cities and towns for the past six weeks. After a lull, there’s been an outbreak of shootings and bombings in the past Israel’s Security Cabinet, meeting after Wednesday’s blast, decided Israel would retaliate within hours, Israel Radio said. The report could not be independently confirmed. President Bush condemned the bombing “in the strongest possible terms,” and said it was perpetrated by “killers who hate the thought of peace." Bomb k Jed 7, mjlilreiS more Shan SCI sriSd&ntj&mHm , t/ w a * A H&M&w IJmvwrstiy Mmtm campus W&st J Bank 'j .--T km 'Yw -^3 7 o'-'v / J«,ru«i*n X:— 2k . School of Rural Public Health adds new certificate program SOURCES- HisEtfew U'*'*«'«*ly Bmi By Sarah Walch THE BATTALION The Texas A&M University Health Science Center School of Rural Public Health (SRPH) will offer courses this fall for a Rural Public Health Certificate. Dr. Alicia M. Dorsey, administrator of aca demic programs and acting assistant for student affairs of SRPH, said the certificate will offer an introduction to the core functions of rural pub lic health and provide students with the funda mental tools to address the needs of smaller communities. “This program is designed for two types of students,” Dorsey said. “For those individuals who are not interested in graduate work but do want additional public health expertise, and for those who are interested but for one reason or another are unable to make the time commit ment.” “If a student is interested in completing a degree [after taking the fifth graduate-level core courses], they can apply those courses toward a Master’s or a Ph.D. when accepted in to the program,” she said. Dr. Giro V. Sumaya, dean of the SRPH, said the certificate will benefit many students and is a great opportunity to earn a useful degree. “The certificate program is a great opportu nity for two reasons,” he said. “First, it can reach individuals that want to obtain a public health degree at a slower pace (because they have full-time jobs); second, it can reach indi viduals that desire additional public health edu cation but not necessarily a full degree.” See Certificate on page 2
