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HE BATTalI Sports: Volleyball ready for showdown • Page 1 B Opinion: Corps must discuss hazing with community • Page 5B THE BATTALION Volume 109 • Issue 29 • 16 pages Fund drive not hurt by drop in rank www.thebatt.eoin Wednesday, October 9, 2002 Finger lickin’ good • THE BATTALION Garage during oon. aui ;andal. ers, WorldCor.] pleaded guilt) securities fra as instructed ement to falsi ;r, David Schei Tad argued ass* ; tricks, but f periors. e raised : was told aved by the 14 WorldCom Tertler said efl By Brad Bennett THE BATTALION Texas A&M's recent drop in US News and World Report's rankings of Best American Universities will not hurt the The One Spirit One Vision” campaign drive to raise $2.3 bil lion dollars by 2020, said Rose Ann McFAdden, head of the "One Spirit One Vision” cam paign drive. A&M’s admittance last year into the American Association of Universities will offset the effects of the lower rankings. McFadden said. “It is a challenge to all sup porters of Texas A&M University,” McFadden said. "(But) most people will take one ranking with a grain of salt.” Started in January 2000. it is the first of two campaigns out lined in Vision 2020 to raise A&M’s private endowment from $700 million to $3 billion by 2020. It is the first campaign indirect support of Vision 2020, the plan to put A&M in the top 10public universities by 2020. The seven-year “One Spirit One Vision” campaign is designed as a cooperation between The Association of Former Students, 12th Man Foundation and Texas A&M and the campus community cam- pa/gn. It includes faculty, staff and student donations to the University. Student members of the Memorial Student Center's OPAS have pledged $ 10,000 to the campus community cam paign, the student part of the One Spirit One Vision , faces 10 yes] conspiracy ch on fine at senti e SEC also ® jainst Yates for ■ spirit One Vision campaign 'H 1 ^6 seal t * r ' ve - sa >d Bill Perry, associate ecutive to pi assistant P r ovost and chair of the steering committee for the cam pus community campaign. The campus community campaign officially begins in November, but includes all gifts given to the University by stu dents, faculty, or staff since January 2000. “It will be interesting to see how student involvement in a capital campaign will work. We think it will be focused around student groups,” Perry said. A&M’s last capital cam paign, “Capturing the Spirit”, included a faculty and staff cam paign which raised $5 million. So far the campus cofnmunity campaign has raised $6 million. Nick McGuire, head of Championship Vision, the 12th Man’s $100 million pledge to the campaign, said One Spirit One Vision is an important fund raiser for the University. “Any donation to Championship Vision counts toward 'One Spirit One Vision.”’ McGuire said. “The One Spirit One Vision” campaign will fund chairs and professorships, which will in future years strengthen A&M’s academics and improve the school’s overall rankings with US News, she said. McGuire said the 12th Man Foundation currently receives $12 million a year in donations, but would benefit from high- profile A&M athletic victories. “Our donors are dedicated,” he said. “But for the most part, victories just make our donors dig a little deeper into their pockets.” The campaign encompasses all private gifts, money or gifts- in-kind, given to the University. The only money not counted toward “One Spirit One Vision” is research grants with contrac tual requirements. Donors to the A&M Foundation and the 12th Man Foundation may decide what programs their donations bene fit, but the destination of money given to the Association of Former Students is determined by The Association’s Board of Directors. RANDAL FORD • THE BATTALION Senior education major Katie Hastings and sophomore biomedical science major Amanda Amador finger paint on an easel in front of the MSC Tuesday afternoon. The painting opportunity was part of Art Awareness Week, sponsored by the Visual Arts Committee. The theme of the week is "pop art." Professors develop model on ag terrorism By Jeremy Osborne THE BATTALION Texas A&M professors developed a new model detailing potential agricultural terror ism targets and emergency response proce dures to be used in local jurisdictions across the country. The project includes two phases, said Dr. Donald B. Lawhorn, a veterinary medicine professor and extension specialist. First, the plan provides local jurisdictions with a generic list of potential terrorist targets. Potential targets include grain elevators, food processing plants and cattle ranches, said Dr. Travis Miller, a soil and crop sci ence professor and extension specialist. The plan will then provide training to local response teams in case of an attack. “This doesn’t have a lot do do with inventing technology or developing technol ogy to prevent attacks,” Miller said. “All it says is, ‘What do I look for to see whether I have a high potential target to attack and how do I use local resources if one (an attack) did occur?”’ County and municipal officials will assess their jurisdictions for risks. Then officials will need to determine what resources they poses to counteract such attacks. “Some jurisdiction will have to depend on area or state wide teams in case of an attack,” Lawhorn said. A&M was selected to help develop this model because funding for the project came from a grant by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the USDA to the Texas Engineering Extension (TEEX), a service of A&M. Originally, the DOJ asked the National Emergency Rescue and Response Training Center, a division of the TEEX, to put together a plan to assess the vulnerability of terrorist attacks in the United States. “They’re the ones that do emergency response training. So they have all that background, and they were involved in 9- 1 1 ” said Kathleen Phillips, TEEX commu nication specialist, on why the Training Center was chosen. Philips said once the initial report was finished, TEEX was charged to work with the University to develop a plan to combat agricultural terrorism and protect the nation al food supply. The project brought together officials from the Institute for Countermeasures Against Bioterrorism, the National Emergency Rescue and Response Training Center at the Texas Engineering Extension, and Texas A&M faculty members Miller said. TEEX assembled a panel of experts See Ag terrorism on page 2A Lecturer announced for workshop By Brad Bennett THE BATTALION This spring, Texas A&M will be the site °f physics discussions including a guest lec ture from “Big Bang” theorist Stephen Hawking as part of its newly approved ^orge P. and Cynthia W. Mitchell Institute w Fundamental Physics. Christopher Pope, holder of the Stephen Hawking Chair in Fundamental Physics, s aid the upcoming Mitchell Institute work shop will deal primarily with holography, a theoretical field that explores the cosmolo- §y °f the universe. Holography relates str ing-theory, the use of one-dimensional str ings, to explain interactions of quantum Mechanics, to Einstein’s theory of relativity. The workshop, which will take place bom Feb. 24 to o i o™.._ Physics 24 to March 21, is the first annu- program put on by the George P. and Cynthia W. Mitchell Institute for Fundamental Physics. The Institute is fund ed by a $2.5 million endowment from Cynthia and alumni George MitcheH, the CEO of Houston-based Mitchell Energy. The institute will hold other non-annual workshops, and $1 million of the $2.5 mil lion donations will go toward the Stephen Hawking Chair in Fundamental Physics. A&M matches the $1 million endowment for the Hawking Chair, awarded to Pope this year. Hawking, for whom the chair is named, is holder of the Lucasian Professorship in Mathematics at Cambridge University. He gained world-wide acclaim in the 1970s and 80s for his theories concerning black holes. Dr. Edward Fry, professor and head of A&M’s physics department, said Hawking is considered the most influential physicist since Albert Einstein. Pope worked with Hawking as a graduate student in the 1970s. Hawking will visit College Station for the duration of the month-long confer ence and is scheduled to speak. He has an increasingly severe case of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, commonly referred to as Lou Gehrig’s disease, which makes him unable to walk. He cannot speak without computer assistance. Public appearances by Hawking are rare. Ten additional renowned researchers will be attending the workshop with Hawking to speak about their research in string-theory. Pope said their presence will put the insti tute on par with Ivy League programs. “This institute will be the place in the southern United States for string-theory and other research,” Pope said. See Hawking on page 2A Kuwaiti gunmen attack U.S. forces, Marine dead Mice reports indicate rise in car break-ins :ake York Style e of any adult Slice Pizza) in By Brad Bennett THE BATTALION A College Station Police Department report indicates car break- Tty 6 lntrease d 26 percent from last year. Is statistic, taken from a period between January^ to 5 Prevention Tin* A 1 Lock your doors \ -• Fat k in u cll-lit \ *« Activate alarms j Never leave valuables in plain sight 5- Immediately report suspicious activity. Ik TRAVIS SWENSON • THE BATTALION September of 2002, shows an increase from 496 to 625 break-ins reported during the same period last year. Lt. Rodney Sigler, public information officer for the College Station Police Department (CSPD), said most of the burglaries happen at night in apartment complex parking lots. The Texas A&M campus, which falls under the jurisdiction of the University Police Department (UPD), also reported an increase in car break-ins. The campus has experienced a 13 percent increase from January to August of 2001, going up from 51 to 64 percent in the same period, said Bob Wiatt, director of security and the University Police Department. Parking Area 88, a red lot near the Southside residence halls off George Bush Drive, is where most of the vehicle burglaries on campus took place, Wiatt said. Wiatt said PA 88 is the most common target for thieves because of its vicinity to George Bush. “People can come in from out of town, just turn in off George Bush and not have to go through campus,” Wiatt said. The most common items stolen from vehicles, both on and off campus, are CDs, car stereos and radar detectors, Wiatt said. One See Break-ins on naee 2A KUWAIT (AP) — Two Kuwaiti gunmen in a pickup truck attacked U.S. forces during war games Tuesday on an island in the Persian Gulf, killing one Marine and wounding another before they were shot to death by U.S. troops. Kuwait called the assault a “terrorist act.” The Pentagon said the assailants pulled up to a group of Marines conducting urban assault training on Failaka, an uninhabited island off Kuwait’s coast, and opened fire with small arms. They then drove to another site, stopped and attacked again before being killed by Marines, the Pentagon said. Marines later found three AK-47s and ammunition inside the vehicle, according to a state ment released in Washington by the Bahrain-based U.S. Fifth Fleet. It said the injured Marine was hit in the arm. In a brief statement, the Kuwaiti Interior Ministry con demned the attack and identified the assailants as Anas al- Kandari, born in 1981, and Jassem al-Hajiri, born in 1976. It said both were Kuwaiti civil ians. U.S. intelligence has not determined if the attackers had any terrorist links, said an intel ligence official, speaking on the condition of anonymity. An Interior Ministry official, speaking on condition of anonymity, described the two men as fundamentalist Muslims. More than 30 of their friends and relatives were detained for questioning, he said. “The ministry announces that this is a terrorist act,” the Interior Ministry said in a statement. “It will not allow anyone to under mine the country’s security.” Pentagon spokesman Lt. Daniel Hetlage said the Marines returned to their ships shortly after the attack, but would resume exercises on the island Wednesday. Failaka Island, about 10 miles east of Kuwait City, was aban doned by its inhabitants when Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, and Iraqi forces heavily mined it during their occupation. SOURCES: Associated Press; ESRI AP