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Sports: Matijevic looks for tennis success • Page 5 Opinion: Coalition for Life's threat a poor motivator • Page 9
THE BATTALION
Volume 109 • Issue 39 • 10 pages
www.thebatt.com
Wednesday, October 23, 2002
Professor resigns from minority subcommittee
By Sarah Walch
THE BATTALION
Dr. Ruth Schaffer, professor emeritus of
sociology, resigned from the Minority
Conditions Subcommittee of the Faculty
Senate after the senate twice failed to pass
her annual report.
Schaffer said she received an e-mail from
Dr. Robert Strawser, speaker of the Faculty
Senate and professor of accounting, stating
he did not accept her resignation.
However, Schaffer said, it was a firm
resignation.
Schaffer has worked on the annual report
tor more than 20 years. She chaired the first
Minority Conditions committee under the
president’s auspices in 1981, before the
Faculty Senate became a reality, she said.
This report included a longitudinal com
parison between 1981, 1991 and 2001, pro
viding the opportunity to assess long-term
changes.
Schaffer listed several issues she felt were
unnecessarily dismissed.
The^ underrepresentation of two primary
minority groups in Texas, African
Americans and Hispanics, was a key point
some senators felt were discriminatory.
Schaffer said for Texas A&M, this emphasis
is appropriate.
“A very small percentage of the popula
tion is Asian American or other. These stu
dents are usually international students, and
in my original report I addressed this prob
lem in my study of A&M’s graduate
schools,” she said.
Furthermore, Schaffer included in her
study the drastic increase in students while
faculty has shrunk.
See Schaffer on page 2
RUTH SCHAFFER'S CONCERNS:
|uail«r$klp Has been lacklag
[Between 1981 and 2001: FacRltf shrank 13%,
statfeat population grew 28%
[Facility salarlos are frozta
African American anil Hispanic stndents
[are nnderrepresented
international students overrepresented in graduate
school
Sourcot Ruth Scheffer, professor of sociology
Bin
i
RUBEN DELUNA • THE BATTALION
Physicists
help fight
bioterror
By Lauren Smith
THE BATTALION
If terrorists decide to strike
!he United States with biological
weapons, a team of physicists at
Texas A&M is currently devel
oping a method that could iden
tify what type of airborne bacte
ria is being used more quickly.
The rate at which scientists
could detect the particular form
ofbacterial spore presents a life
or death issue for an indetermi
nate amount of victims, and
A&M physicists are working
towards faster identification.
The Femtosecond Adaptive
Spectroscopic Techniques
I Coherent Anti-Stokes
ISpectroscopy (FAST CARS)
L®!, a collaboration of Texas
I A&M physicists, is led by
Marian 0. Scully and includes
department of physics staff
members George Kattawar,
Robert Lucht, Toman Opatrny,
Mark Pilloff, Alexei Sokolov
and Muhammed Zubairy.
Usually airborne contami
nants, such as bacterial spores,
are analyzed through time-con
suming microscopic, chemical
and biological examinations,
Scully said, but the FAST CARS
technique would use lasers to
detect and identify the different
strains of bacteria in record time.
The beginning results of the
teams research have been
reported in the Proceedings of
See Bioterror on page 2
The itsy bitsy
RANDAL FORD •THE BATTALION
Freshman speech communications major Elizabeth Arts Gallery Tuesday. The gallery is hosting an exhibit
Jurewicz adjusts a piece of artwork in the MSC Visual which displays the work of artist John Cunningham.
Archeologists
expect debate
on burial box
WASHINGTON (AP) — Archaeologists are
expecting a long-running debate over the reported
discovery of a first-century inscription naming
Jesus of Nazareth.
Writing in the new issue of Biblical
Archaeology Review, Andre Lemaire of France’s
Practical School of Higher Studies says it’s “very
probable” that an inscription on a burial box for
bones refers to Jesus of Nazareth and was written
around A.D. 63.
The inscription reads, “James, son of Joseph,
brother of Jesus.” That would fit the New
Testament account that Jesus had a brother named
James, and the tradition that James was the son of
Joseph, the husband of Jesus’ mother Mary.
The sensational claim, if true, could become
one of the great archaeological discoveries in
modern times.
But there’s this major question: Did this box
name Jesus of Nazareth or some other Jesus? After
all, that name was common in the first century, as
were James and Joseph?
Lemaire pins his circumstantial case on the
unusual naming of both the father and brother on
a burial box, known as an ossuary. There’s only
one other known example with three names, so he
figures something about the brother must have
stood out. Jesus would certainly qualify.
However, archaeologist Kyle McCarter of Johns
Hopkins University noted at a news conference
Monday that the brother might have been named
because he conducted the burial or owned the tomb.
Under Christian teaching that would rule out
Jesus of Nazareth, who rose from the grave and
ascended into heaven decades before James was
stoned to death as a Jewish heretic in A.D. 62.
Two reactions quickly emerged Monday.
Rev. Ben Witherington III of Asbury
Theological Seminary in Kentucky, another news
conference speaker, sided fully with Lemaire’s
claim. He’s a conservative evangelical who takes
the New Testament as reliable history.
A&M students anticipate consequences of war with Iraq
By Jeremy Osborne
the battalion
Dennis Crawford, a sophomore civil
engineering major, is one of many
e xasA&M students currently enlisted
military reserve member that may
wiled to active duty if the United
at( js goes to war with Iraq,
b , on t really care to get activated,
lb m not going to be disappointed if
o. know it’s eminent, but I try not to
sa H “ CCt 111 y ever yday life,” Crawford
1 • There’s a chance that it could
PR fhen there’s a chance that I
be just worrying myself about it.”
said if he is called up, he
be moved within 72 hours. He
, e bas already made arrangements
•'ft the dean's office.
epending on how far along in the
semester, I might receive all Q drops or
receive incompletes,” said Crawford,
“Then I’d pick up where I left off after
six months to two years (of service).”
On Oct. 16, President Bush signed
the congressional Iraq war resolution in
a ceremony at the White House sur
rounded by congressional supporters.
The bill, granting Bush the neces
sary authority to disarm Iraq, was
passed by the House of Representatives
and the Senate on Oct. 10.
This follows an address the president
gave in Cincinnati, Ohio on Oct. 7,
detailing the threat Saddam Hussein
poses and the United States’ intention of
removing possible weapons of mass
destruction from Iraq.
“For the young guys fighting this
war, it’s a very scary thing, but I believe
it’s something that has to be done, said
Oct. 1997
Iraq demands
Americans
working on
the inspection
team leave.
Americans leave.
Nov. 1997 Jan. 1998
Americans
return
Iraq temporarily
withefraws
co-operation,
later bans
access to
presidential
Oct. 1998
Iraq
ends
cooperation
with
UNSCOM.
Nqv. 1998
Inspections
resume
2000 & 2002
Source: Foxnews.com
Iraq
refects
inspection
I proposals.
Sep, is 2002
Iraq agrees
uncon-
ditionaity
to return
U.N.
inspectors.
TRAVIS SWENSON • THE BATTALION
Ben Cairns, sophomore animal science
major and Corps member.
Cairns said the war would alter
everyday life.
“Friends having to go (fight) would
definitely disrupt everyday life. Family
members of mine are in the military
too,” Cairns said. “Living this lifestyle,
though, it’s something that you learn to
live with.”
Triwahyu Widodo, senior industrial
engineering major from Indonesia and
the International Student Association’s
vice president for public relations, said
he too would be affected.
“As one of the international students
from Indonesia, I feel worried about the
war,” he said. “I totally understand the
standpoint of the United States here,
but my concern is how the decision will
impact countries other than Iraq.”
Widodo said foreign students will be
affected by related events which take
place in their home countries such as the
bombing in Bali, Indonesia on Oct. 14.
Dr. Lynne Walters, international
studies department head, believes the
war will encourage students to become
better aware of foreign cultures and
events. She said the war will likely
cause more courses to have an interna
tional perspective or focus.
“I think it’s absolutely critical that if
we are ever going to have anything
See War on page 2
JOHN C. LIVAS • THE BATTALION
- University professor Dr. Robert Davis addressed stu-
Rudder Tower Monday night. Davis presentation,
^8 Slavery," examined recent research on the slavery o
Christians during the late 1400s and early 1700s.
Slavery extends beyond American borders
By Eric Ambroso
the battalion
A million to a quarter of a million
European Christians were enslaved by
Muslims of the Barbary Coast from 1530 to
1780, said Robert Davis of Ohio State
University in a lecture about “Celebrating
Slavery” Tuesday night in Rudder Tower.
The lecture was the second in a series of
three to examine cultural issues across
Europe’s southern boarder. Davis offered
information featured in his new book about
European Christian slaves in North African
ports. Most of the slaves were taken from
Spain, France and Italy. It is estimated that
half of the slaves died in captivation due to
miserable rations, hard work, beatings or
plagues, he said.
“Starting in 1500, the idea of slavery
became a strategy of warfare,” Davis said.
“It became a standard operation between
countries around the Mediterranean.”
Davis said many slaves were taken due to
war between the Turks and the Spanish, who
fought to a standstill for almost 200 years.
Slavery around the Mediterranean was dif
ferent than American slavery, but the prac
tice started about the same time. Nations at
war started systematically taking thousands
of people as slaves around 1500.
The tactics were used specifically by
Algiers and Tunisia, two nations that were
known for staging slave raids. Oar-driven
galleys were used to raid fishing and mer
chant boats around European coasts.
Christians were taken in shore raids, which
meant they were taken from their houses.
Algerians conducted raids in Britain,
America, Russia and Japan. Davis said the
practice was referred to as “fishing for
Spaniards” and there was a saying in Algiers
that one could trade Christians for onions.
By the late 1600s, European organiza
tions began ransoming slaves to bring them
back to Europe. The Trinitarians, a Catholic
order based in Italy, had unusual success in
freeing slaves by coordinating with Muslims
in North Africa. The sect collected money to
See Slavery on page 2