Mil Bai T.H|| cte )no shas ^modey ' he said. ny,44ci nor. yell leader, e Corps as *1 u^ercertir, busier Iasi J a Disiiajjj V. senedoift Vorld War ex as Hon* the Texas Sa jpation fi * A&M is strong contender for security center ms and I in Univeri :e Civil er; n and otki die scbi e builder i! d Honor i:. ; Class of I of 1943.il lltl! loin 1 ladder orporatecfe /ears. uneSO i one ormo’:|: te officers Aggielife: Chi Omega hosts Songfest • Page 3 Opinion: RHA dresscode ruling mindless • Page 11 nrum 1 LLEj Volume 109 • Issue 59 • 12 pages www.thebatt.com Wednesday, November 20, 2002 By Rolando Garcia THE BATTALION Texas A&M is a strong competitor to jecome the center of homeland security esearch efforts after the Senate moved toward final passage of a bill Tuesday which ivould grant President Bush’s demand for a lew Cabinet agency to protect Americans Tom terrorists. The Senate voted 52-47 to reject an would have removed from the bill that T' ■:. B)emocrats said were favors to friends of leisamb, mend merit which even provisions Republicans. Among the disputed provi- iions was a proposal to create a university research center to study security issues that ivas drafted, critics said, to give A&M an Uvedur. ■ l unfair advantage over other institutions. In order to gain the votes necessary to lass the bill. Senate Republican Leader jaoo uiw L/iii, i iciiv- iwcui i—CUU1C1 lllCd, SUG11 dS Bush urges allies to join U.S. fight to disarm Iraq PRAGUE, Czech Republic Threats surroundine Trent Lott promised to rescind three provi sions next year when Congress reconvenes in January, including the A&M provision. Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, inserted the language in the bill and said while A&M was a front-runner, other schools would have the opportunity to compete for federal research dollars. “We have the best and brightest minds already in place,” said Brady, whose district includes College Station. “If Texas universi ties work together to present a state-of-the- art proposal, we can land a national research center in College Station.” At stake is an estimated $3 billion in new federal research funds for homeland securi ty, Brady said. To be selected as the center for homeland security, the provision Brady drafted estab lished a set of criteria few schools but A&M could meet, such as affiliations with emer gency response and rescue teams and with veterinary diagnostic labs, as well as strong programs in engineering and food safety. A&M recently formed a consortium with the University of Texas, the University of Houston and Texas Tech University to lobby for homeland security research funds. This cooperation will give a crucial advantage to Texas schools in the competition for research dollars, Brady said. If the consor tium is designated as the national research center, each school would get a small slice of the research pie, but A&M will likely be the headquarters of the research center, Brady said. “Science can make Americans safer, and this new research center would be a major step forward,” Brady said. With Democratic challenges to the bill Department of Homeland Security The Senate worked on the final touches Tuesday for legislation that will create a new federal agency dedicated to protecting the United States. A look at how the organization may take shape: ► Border security Human ► Transportation capital security ► Finance ► Information technology ► Procurement ► Preparedness ► Mitigation ► Response ► Recovery ► Science and ► Infrastructure ► Immigration technology protection services development (Includes tele- (Includes visa ► Chemical communications and » Rinioninni/ and cyber- naturalization agricultural security) processing) ► Radiological/ ^ Threat nuclear analysis See Security on page 2 SOURCE: Associated Press ; women® ■ senior offe ire c put wonw 1 retch them to? id get the lowest nale corpo engineer: omotive and m i, insur® and fit 1 '’ :ctors : of top' 13 ves. PRAGUE, Czech Republic (AP) — President Bush urged NATO allies to “come with us” and help disarm Saddam Hussein, even as summit diplo mats said Tuesday the alliance will not take up arms collective ly against Iraq. Bush, arriving first among 19 NATO leaders for a two-day gathering shadowed by intense security, said alliance nations can find ways individually to [support his campaign against Saddam. “Everybody can contribute something,” he told Czech TV as White House aides sought to lower expectations for concrete action by NATO against Iraq. “It all has got to be done within the strategy of the true threats we face in the 21st cen tury, which is global terrorism. That’s the biggest threat to free dom right now,” Bush said. NATO intends on Thursday to create a 21,000-strong rapid response force that could mobi lize in seven to 30 days to con front threats from terrorists, renegade governments or regional crises. In a historic reach toward Russia, the alliance also plans to invite seven former commu nist states into NATO — Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia a nd Bulgaria. The threat of terrorism loomed over the summit as the Czech government mobilized 12,000 police officers, 2,200 heavily armed soldiers and special anti-terrorist units to Protect the presidents and prime ministers. Engines growling from above, U.S. warplanes helped Czech airmen in small, aging Soviet-era planes protect the Prague airspace. Intelligence officials fear the leaders are an inviting target for al-Qaida and other terrorist organizations. Threats surrounding a Bush speech to students on Wednesday about the planned NATO force were so serious that it was moved from Radio Free Europe’s headquarters to a sequestered hotel along the riverfront, law enforcement officials said. “Terrorist attacks can happen wherever and whenever,” Czech President Vaclav Havel said. “Our police and security forces have prepared a wide network of measures and have done the maximum so that nothing like that would happen. But 100 per cent certainty cannot be found in the world today.” Railway workers found an explosive device on railroad tracks within the city limits while checking a section of track that appeared to have been sabotaged, police spokeswoman Eva Brozova said. Police are worried, too, about how to handle the thousands of protesters who have said they will demonstrate. NATO’s new rapid response force, proposed in September by U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, will not be ready for action in Iraq should Saddam defy a United Nations Security Council reso lution to disarm. Still, Bush seemed eager for NATO nations’ help to confront Saddam. “If he refuses to disarm,, then we will lead a coalition of the willing and disarm him,” Bush said. “And of course, I hope our NATO friends will come with us.” “I think they will realize it’s in the interest of peace and sta bility that that happen,” the president said. “But we’re not close to that decision point yet because we’re just beginning the process of allowing Saddam the See NATO on page 2 Here it is Chemical engineering PhD student Rubayat Mahmud gives a geographic explanation of his hometown, Mirpur Dhaka, Bangladesh as Jibran Khan, a freshman computer science major, looks on. Mahmud and Khan, members of the JOHN C. LIYAS •THE BATTALION Bangladesh Student Association, joined various other inter national student associations in the MSC Flagroom as part of the "International Living Room" promoting international education week. Academics important to all ethnicities WASHINGTON (AP) — Black and Hispanic students surveyed in diverse, upper-income communities have as much desire to succeed in school as their white and Asian peers, says a study that challenges the idea that some minority groups are less focused on school. Researchers for the Minority Student Achievement Network study said the find ings released Tuesday, based on a survey of 40,000 middle, junior and high school stu dents in 15 school districts across the coun try, show that black and Hispanic students are actually more likely than white students to report that their friends think it is very important to study hard and get good grades. But nearly half of the black and Hispanic students surveyed said they understood their teachers’ lessons about half the time or less, compared with 27 percent of white students and 32 percent of Asian students. “As we present these data to teachers, we find that it sort of gets their attention,” said Ronald Ferguson, senior research associate at Harvard’s Wiener Center for Social Policy. “And I think we’re better able to engage teachers and communities to say we need to do something about it.” Ferguson, who helped analyze the responses for the network, said some teach ers were surprised and even questioned the accuracy of the data when told that for stu dents within the same course level, there was virtually no difference in the amount of time that blacks, Hispanics and whites devoted to their homework. Only Asians spent significantly more time on homework. “How well students understand what they’re being taught or what they’re asked to read for school depends a great deal on how they are being taught and what kinds of sup ports are in place to encourage learning,” said Allan Alson, superintendent of Evanston Township High School District 202 in Illinois and founder of MSAN. The survey — the first major study by the suburban school network — was conducted in the fall and winter of the 2000-01 school year. It also covered issues such as teacher- student relationships, students’ understand ing of classroom material, homework and peer pressure. See Minorities on page 2