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Sports: Women s basketball wins exhibition • Page 1 B Opinion: NOW no longer represents women • Page 5B
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Volume 109 • Issue 55 • 14 pages
www.thebatt.com
Thursday, November 14, 2002
MSC Council decides fate of vice president
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By Rolando Garcia
THE BATTALION
The Memorial Student Center Council will
decide Monday whether to begin disciplinary pro
cedures against Chris Duke, a
top MSC student leader who told
police he had been kidnapped
and robbed and later said he fab
ricated the story.
Duke, the MSC executive
vice president for marketing,
faces removal from his position.
Dr. Dave Parrott, dean of
student life, investigated the
incident at the request of MSC Council President
Barry Hammond and provided a report to MSC
DUKE
leaders last week. Parrott declined to comment
on the report.
Hammond said the report will be shared with
the MSC Council, which is composed of students
and senior MSC staff, in a closed session. Any
council member can then call for an internal
investigation of Duke to determine whether he
will face any sanctions.
“(The MSC council) will have the information
they need to make an informed decision,” said
Hammond, a senior marketing major.
Hammond said the report includes a summa
tion of facts gathered from police reports and
Parrott’s analysis of whether Duke’s actions vio
lated student rules or the MSC constitution.
Duke could not be reached for comment.
Duke contacted Corpus Christ! Police shortly
after midnight Oct. 8 and said he had been
approached that afternoon outside his College
Station apartment by a Hispanic man with a gun.
The two got into Duke’s pickup truck and the
assailant directed Duke to Corpus Christi, he said.
There, Duke reported, they stopped at a quiet park
ing lot and he passed out when the man pointed the
gun at him. Duke said when he awoke, his laptop
computer, cash and credit cards were missing.
College Station police said they noticed incon
sistencies in Duke’s story. When police ques
tioned Duke about the incident, he decided to
obtain an attorney after confronted with problems
in his story. At a second interview on Oct. 18,
Duke, with his attorney present, admitted the story
was false. Duke threw away his credit cards, but
was not robbed of any property, said Lt. Rodney
Sigler, spokesman for the College Station Police
Department.
This is the second time an MSC leader has
faced the possibility of removal after public reve
lations of bad behavior. In 2001, Josh Rowan was
removed as MSC president for inappropriate con
duct during a University-sponsored trip to Italy.
Rowan was accused of excessive drinking and
making unwanted sexual advances to another stu
dent on the trip.
If the council decides to begin disciplinary pro
cedures against Duke, it would mark a very rare
instance of an MSC officer facing an internal
investigation, Hammond said.
“In the 50 year history of the MSC, I would
guess this has happened less than five times,” he
said.
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ReveilleVII
banned from
restaurants
By Melissa Sullivan
THE BATTALION
Reveille VII is the first of Texas
A&M’s mascots not to be allowed in pub
lic restaurants, a call passed down from
the administration after the first-ranked
lady took office last year.
Corps Commandant Gen. John Van
Alstyne said the reason for the call was the
violation of a health code that says dogs
are not allowed in dining institutions.
“We don’t want to jeopardize our rela
tionship with the restaurant owners,” Van
Alstyne said. “Rev is so full of life, she
would want to visit with everyone and
everyone would want to visit with her.”
The 2-year-old purebred Collie, who
has been in and out of obedience school
after she proved nervous in front of Kyle
Field’s more than 80,000 fans, can now be
seen wearing what looks like a muzzle —
a “gentle leader” that’s designed to help
Reveille hold her head high when she
marches into the field.
“It is not a muzzle for preventing bit
ing: it keeps her head straight while she
marches so she can look forward,” Corps
public relations, spokesman Burke Wilson
said. “It also teaches good posture.”
Reveille has not tried to bite anyone,
Wilson said.
Following A&M’s win over the first-
ranked University of Oklahoma on
Saturday, Reveille broke free from Caddick
during the yell practice, ran 20 feet and sat
down to get away from a bass drum. She
w as simply bothered by the noise, which
See Reveille on page 2A
Fire alarm
JP BEATO III • THE BATTALION
Johnny Rosser of Drake's Towing and Scott Giffen of the College Station Fire
Department look on as gasoline is drained from the tank of a burned '97 Ford
Escort in the Exxon parking lot at the intersection of Holleman Drive and
Wellborn Road. Junior history major Brenda Bare noticed smoke coming
from under the passenger seat while driving on Wellborn Wednesday after
noon and was preparing to turn off the road when the car's airbags unex
pectedly deployed. Bare pulled into the gas station and got out of the car
uninjured, where the fire continued to escalate until it was put out by
some
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A&M geologist to
help preserve Egypt
By Lecia Baker
THE BATTALION
The ancient lands of Egypt along
the Nile River are eroding as urban
development increases, posing a
challenge for scientists who hope to
direct new areas of growth while
Preserving the underlying bedrock
that provides information about the
Earth’s stages of development.
By examining the orientation of
layers of bedrock and the types of
rock underneath the Nile Valley
and Delta’s rich soil, geologists
can construct a historical record.
Eut for Texas A&M geologist
Mohamed Aly, the most important
aspect of his research in Egypt has
been predicting and avoiding foun
dation problems that could harm
human dwellings
Aly used Geographic
•nformation System (GIS) tech-
niques to capture, study, integrate
and model data coming from a
^ariety of underground sources in
Egypt.
Almost 96 percent of the
Egyptian population is concentrat
ed in the Nile Valley and Delta,
which places increasing pressure
on their resources and environ
ment, Aly said. As a result, the
Egyptian government is encourag
ing the development of new cities
and communities within the
desert, away from the Nile.
New Minia City, located above
decaying bedrock, is a develop
ment community in Egypt that sci
entists are researching for alterna
tive building techniques.
Construction on the rocks located
under New Minia, which include
decomposing and cave-like lime
stone, could result in the collapse
of buildings and other engineering
structures, Aly said.
To assess the main geo-envi
ronmental problems, a GIS model
was developed and adopted. Aly
said that after a variety of GIS
See Egypt on page 2A
Mexico, A&M sign health care pact
PRESERVING EGYPT’S FOUNDATION
Nile River delta lands are eroding
underground, but more people
are moving there
A&M scientists want to find a way
to construct more stable
buildings for human habitation
MANDY ROUQUETTE • THE BATTALION
By Melissa Mckeon
THE BATTALION
The Texas A&M Health Science Center
has signed an agreement with Mexico to
unite in addressing issues concerning
immigrant health care on the United States
and Mexican border.
Among the issues being studied are the
health of immigrants, citizens immigrating
legally and illegally, and Mexicans who
cross into the United States to get health
care, said Dr. Nancy Dickey, president and
vice chancellor for Health Affairs at the
Texas A&M Health Science Center.
Dickey said another group being stud
ied are Americans who cross into Mexico
to buy cheaper drugs, as well as the qual
ity of those drugs as compared to their
U.S. counterparts.
Dr. Enrique Ruelas Barajas, senior
undersecretary of Health for Mexico, came
to the A&M campus in October to sign the
pact and said “border regions tend to be
places of intense contact and migrants are
a particularly vulnerable population.”
The partnership hopes to create long-
lasting effects that will benefit both sides.
“From this agreement, we will have
the ability to sit'~cIown with legislators
with good data and have an impact on
policy,” Dickey said.
Other areas of research include the
School of Rural Public Health and the
College of Medicine’s studies in diabetes
in the McAllen area. There will also be
efforts to increase access to health care in
the Rio Grande Valley through the Robert
Wood Johnson Act.
“The cooperation will extend over sev
eral years setting up studies that also
include measuring volume (of people in
and out of Mexico) and why people cross
the border,” Dickey said.
The project is expected to run for a
.course of two years and be funded with
several hundred thousand dollars in grant
money, Dickey said.
Dr. Giro Sumaya, dean of the School of
Rural Public Health, said he is looking for
funding in several areas including private,
federal and state funds as well as from pri
vate foundations.
Mexican cooperation and influence is
an important factor in increasing the
See Mexico on page 2A
A&M Mexico Target Health
- Project wiU run for a course of two years
- First meeting is scheduled to be held in
three to four months
- Committee will be composed of
members from the U.S. and Mexico
- Undetermined amount of funding will
be provided by private, federal and
state funds and private foundations
TRAVIS SWENSON • THE BATTALION
Proposed bill to support military efforts
WASHINGTON (AP) —
The Senate gave final approval
Wednesday to a bill authoriz
ing $393 billion in 2003
defense programs that lawmak
ers said will give the military
the support it needs to keep
fighting the war on terror while
preparing for a possible inva
sion of Iraq.
The bill was approved by
voice vote one day after a
monthslong dispute over retire
ment benefits for disabled vet
erans ended in a compromise
by House-Senate negotiators.
The bill was quickly approved
by the House Tuesday evening
and now goes to the White
House, where President Bush
is expected to sign it.
It is about 15 percent higher
than the 2002 bill. It includes a
minimum 4.1 percent pay raise
for personnel, $10 billion for
fighting the war on terrorism
and $5.2 billion requested by
the Defense Department for the
F-22 stealth fighter.
“This bill will provide our
men and women in uniform
with the tools they need and the
pay and benefits they deserve,”
said Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich.,
chairman of the Armed
Services Committee.
The veterans benefits com
promise angered the American
Legion and other groups that
wanted to eliminate a 19th cen
tury law reducing retirement
benefits of disabled veterans by
the amount they are receiving
in disability pay.
Both the House and Senate,
in their earlier, separate ver
sions of the bill, had voted to
give disabled veterans their full
benefits. The White House
threatened a veto, saying both
proposals were too costly:
$18.5 billion over 10 years in
the House version, $58 billion
in the Senate.
Under a compromise
worked out by Sen. John
Warner, R-Va., the benefits
would be limited to military
retirees who were awarded the
Purple Heart for combat
injuries and to certain other
See Defense on page 2A
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