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Sports: Knight vies for 800th victory • Page 7
Opinion: Merits should count • Page 11
Volume 109 • Issue 86 • 12 pages
Texas A&M University
www.thebatt.com
Friday, January 31, 2003
Additional cuts to help trim
A&M’s $16 million deficit
By Rolando Garcia
THE BATTALION
The staff hiring freeze imposed by Texas A&M
President Robert M. Gates is only expected to net
a small portion of the $16 million A&M must
slash from its budget.
Gates said an early estimate calculates the freeze
could save approximately $5 million, although the
precise figure is still being determined.
ITMtag !
• Expected to net a small portion of the
$16 million Texas A&M must cut from
its budget
• A&M has about 240 vacant staff
positions Z
• Does not apply to faculty
Travis Swf.nson • IHb bAt IALiuN
Source: OFFICE OF THE VICE PRESIDENT FOR FINANCE
“It’s been a frustration for everyone because
the numbers keep jumping around,” Gates said.
With the state government facing a budget
shortfall this year, Gov. Rick Perry requested all
state agencies cut spending by 7 percent. A&M
receives one-third of its budget from state funding.
Dr. Jerry Strawser, chair of the finance com
mittee tasked with recommending budget cuts to
Gates, said his group would meet Monday to
begin considering options and prepare its list of
spending cuts.
“We need to have a better handle of what’s out
there to see where spending can be cut,” said
Strawser, the dean of the Mays College of
Business. “Its going to be a very busy Monday.”
The University must present its cost-cutting
measures to the state by Feb. 6, Strawser said. He
added it was unlikely the spending cuts would
result in layoffs.
Gates also said that if the freeze is still in place
when a candidate is found to fill the newly
See Freeze on page 2
MSC president named
By Janet McLaren
THE BATTALION
Elizabeth Dacus was chosen as Memorial
Student Center (MSC) Council President for
the 2003-2004 academic year on Saturday by an
interviewing team of four students and three
staff members.
Dacus, a junior accounting major, will contin
ue serving as executive vice president for Human
Resources on this year’s MSC Council until her
inauguration April 14.
In the meantime, Dacus will work with the
current MSC Council President Barry Hammond
in transitioning from the 53rd council to the 54th.
“We will be discussing the priorities for the
MSC,” said Hammond, a senior economics
major, “and Elizabeth will select her staff for
the next council.”
Dacus said she will take her position seriously.
“I see this as a job of service to the MSC, its
committees and volunteers as well as to the cam
pus and the community,” she said.
MSC Director Jim Reynolds, who served on
the interviewing committee,
said Dacus was chosen
based on her interview and
strong performance in other
positions in the MSC.
“Elizabeth has a broad
base of experience in various
areas,” Reynolds said. “She
DACUS has performed well on com
mittees, in intermediate posi
tions, and ultimately as vice president.”
Hammond said he was confident in Dacus’
ability to perform well in the new position.
“Elizabeth has a high level of skill, experience,
and empathy,” Hammond said.
Hammond said she is well-equipped to handle
the presidency.
“She is a very people-focused individual
which will help her sell her ideas and strategies to
improve the MSC,” he said.
Dacus said students can expect to see changes
in the MSC next year.
“I would like to see an increase in
See President on page 2
Would-be shoe-bomber
Richard Reid sentenced
By Denise Lavoie
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Richard Reid, the al-Qaida follower
who tried to blow up a trans-Atlantic jet
liner with explosives hidden in his shoes,
was sentenced to life in prison Thursday
byajudge who warned him: “We are not
afraid... We are Americans. We have
taithrough the fire before.”
The 29-year-old British citizen cried,
I “Youwill be judged by Allah!” before
r kins lagged from the courtroom in
handcuffs.
Reid received the maximum sentence
iter declaring himself a soldier of war
and denouncing U.S. foreign policy
Inward Islamic countries.
“Your government has sponsored the
rape and torture of Muslims in the pris
ons of Egypt and Turkey and Syria and
Jordan with their money and with their
weapons,” said Reid, who converted to
Islam eight years ago.
U.S. District Judge William Young
would have none of it.
“We are not afraid of any of your ter
rorist co-conspirators, Mr. Reid,” said
the judge. “We are Americans. We have
been through the fire before.”
The judge then pointed to the
American flag behind him and said:
“You see that flag, Mr. Reid? That’s the
flag of the United States of America.
That flag will fly there long after this is
long forgotten.”
“That flag will be brought down on
the day of judgment,” Reid replied.
Reid had faced 60 years to life for try
ing to blow up an American Airlines flight
bound from Paris to Miami just three
months after the Sept. 11 attacks.
Prosecutors said Reid had enough plastic
explosives in his shoes to blow a hole in
the fuselage and kill all 197 people aboard.
Passengers and crew members over
powered Reid, using seat belts and their
own belts to strap him to his seat. Two
doctors aboard the flight injected him
with sedatives and the jet was diverted
to Boston.
Federal prosecutor Gerard Leone Jr.
told the judge that in Reid’s mind “the
religion of Islam justifies the killing of
innocent civilians. In his mind, the hor
rific and homicidal attacks of Sept. 11
were but a missed opportunity.”
As Reid sought to justify his actions,
several crew members who were on the
flight looked stunned, glancing at each
other in the courtroom and shaking their
heads. One woman wept.
In Washington, Attorney General
John Ashcroft praised the sentence and
called the passengers and crew heroes
who averted a disaster.
“The sentence imposed on Richard
Reid says to the world that terrorists can
not escape American justice,” Ashcroft
said. “We will hunt them down, stop
them and we will put them away.”
When Reid pleaded guilty last
October, he said he was a member of al-
Qaida, pledged his support to Osama bin
Laden and declared himself an enemy of
the United States! •
Prosecutors and the FBI said witness
es had reported Reid was present at al-
Qaida training camps, and that he had
help making the bomb from an al-Qaida
bomb maker.
Defense attorneys said Reid was trying
to defend Islam, which he credits with sav
ing him from a life of drug use and
despair. They described a troubled child
hood and young adulthood, when Reid
was plagued by poverty, racism and crime.
In arguing for a life sentence, prosecu
tors this month submitted a videotaped
simulation of what Reid might have
accomplished, showing a fiery explosion
causing severe damage to a wide-body jet.
Reid tried furiously to light a match to
his shoes but he was unable to ignite the
fuse. Authorities have speculated the shoes
were moist from sweat. One of the flight
attendants, Carole Nelson, said there were
more than 20 children on the plane.
“I can still see the fearful look on
their faces as they huddled together after
Richard Reid tried to blow them out of
the sky with their families,” she said.
During his speech, Reid said there
was no comparison between the children
on the plane and the number of children
he believes have been killed because of
U.S. policies.
On the way up
Joshua Hobson • THE BATTALION
Brett Boissevain, a senior at Clariden High School in out by the U.S. Army. The "Army Virtual Tour" is an
South Lake, rings the bell at the top of the rock climb- educational tool that incorporates interactive technol-
ing structure in front of Rudder Tower. It was brought ogy and models of what a future soldier will look like.
University of Maryland students admit
to using cell phones to cheat on exams
Cushing Library archives
Sen. Phil Gramms papers
By Stephen Manning
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Six University of Maryland students
have admitted cheating on an accounting
exam by using their cell phones to receive
text messages with the answers, the school
said Thursday. Another six students were
implicated in the case.
The scheme worked this way: Test-tak
ers brought their cell phones into the exam
with them. They used the phones to con
tact friends outside the classroom. The
friends looked up the exam answer key
that had been posted on the Internet by the
professor once the test had started. Then
the friends messaged the answers back to
the test-takers.
Officials with the university business
school said they caught the students in a
sting: A fake answer key with bogus
answers was posted online after the exam
began last month; then the exams were
checked to see which test-takers put down
the bogus answers.
It appears most of the 12 students
hatched the plan independently of each
other, said John Zacker, head of the uni
versity’s office of judicial programs. He
said it was the biggest cheating scheme
uncovered on campus involving cell
phones.
‘‘We’ve had isolated cases in past
semesters, but not in these numbers,” he
said.
The case highlights the struggle schools
face as they try to keep up with technologi
cally savvy students. Hitotsubashi University
in Japan failed 26 students in December for
receiving e-mailed exam answers on their
cell phones.
The scope of the Maryland case is
unprecedented nationally, said Diane
Waryold, executive director of Duke
University’s Center for Academic
Integrity. It is also a sign that students
might have a technological edge on their
older professors, she said.
‘‘It’s a generational issue,” she said.
“It’s safe to say our students are far more
sophisticated.”
The six Maryland students who con
fessed will fail the class and have a mark
placed on their transcript that indicates
they cheated. Five others either met with
school officials or are awaiting trial by the
school’s student honor council.
See Maryland on page 2
By Nicole M. Jones
THE BATTALION
Sen. Phil
Gramm has
sent 1,000
boxes of
papers to be
archived at
Texas A&M’s
Cushing
Memorial GRAMM
Library.
The papers contain corre
spondence, press releases, files,
audio and video tapes, clippings
and memorabilia and other
materials documenting
Gramm’s 24 years in the United
States House of Representatives
and Senate.
Gramm made a deal with
A&M in the 1980s to give his
archives to the University when
his career came to a close, and
now the documents are at
Cushing Memorial Library for
the use of A&M students.
“We’ve been in contact with
Mr. Gramm off and on ever
since he was first elected to
Congress,” said Charles Schultz,
curator for Cushing Memorial
Library. “Just before his term
ended, he reiterated his promise
to give us the papers.”
Storing the archives of polit
ical figures at major universities
See Gramm on page 2