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THE BATTALION
Volume 109 • Issue 106 • 10 pages
Texas A&M University
www.thebatt.com
Friday, February 28, 2003
Students vote down fee increases
By Nicole M. Jones
THE BATTALION
In a record turnout for voting referendums, students
voted down all three proposed referendum fee increas
es Wednesday and Thursday.
Out of 6.116 voters, 69 percent voted to not increase
the Recreation Sports fee referendum; 79 percent voted
no for the Student Service fee referendum; and 50 per
cent said no to the computer access fee referendum.
The Recreation Sports fee referendum would have
increased Rec Sports fees from $78 to $88 to cover the
cost of operation departmental programs and facilities
as well as expand the weight room.
The fee referendum would have raised the Student
Service fee $0.71 to a total of $12.57 per credit hour
per student for the first 12 credit hours each semester.
The computer access fee referendum would have
raised computer access/instructional technology fees
either $1.25 or $3.25 per credit hour. The money
would have been used to expand bandwith and wire
less network access at different campus locations.
Erin Eckhart, the election commissioner, said the
voting process was very smooth.
“We were very happy with the turnout,” she said.
Even though the votes were counted by the same
system that calculated the results of the freshman class
president elections, a new program was written specif
ically for this election to ensure accuracy, Eckhart said.
Thomas Pack, a junior sports management major,
was disappointed when he heard the results of the voting.
“I think the benefits of increasing fees outweigh
the costs,” he said.
In 1987, students voted to build the Student
Recreational Center at a higher cost than $ 10 per student.
Other students, such as senior psychology major
Karlen Moore, said that students are already on fixed
budgets, and raising fees to attend Texas A&M would
place a financial burden on many students.
Fee Referendum Results
Sport Fee
Student Service Fee
Computer Service Fee
20.78%, •N 0
H Yes: $1.25 Increase
H Yes: $3.25 increase
Total votes: 6,116
Ruben DeLuna • THE BATTALION
See Fee on page 2 source: department of student services
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Alissa Hollimon • THE BATTALION
Need Gear
For Spring Break
Destinations?
Painter Steve Gooding paints the flagpole by the
Academic Building Thursday afternoon. Gooding has
been painting flagpoles all across America for 27
years and owns a company specialising in painting
flagpoles. He will also paint the flagpoles at the
Systems building in front of Kyle Field.
Military buildup
reaches 200,000
BUSH
By Pauline Jelinek
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
The U.S. military buildup for war
topped 200,000 troops in the Gulf region
Thursday while inside Iraq Saddam
Hussein was said to be moving some of
his best-trained forces into new positions.
President Bush called anew for
Saddam’s “total, complete disarma
ment” and defended his
father for stopping short
of ousting the Iraqi
president in the 1991
Persian Gulf War.
Secretary of State
Colin Powell urged
Arab leaders who are
planning to hold a sum
mit meeting this weekend “to issue the
strongest possible statement” to
Saddam that he must comply with U.N.
Security Council disarmament resolu
tions. Powell also said the Arab League
meeting in Egypt might consider urging
Saddam to “step down and get out of
the way and let some responsible lead
ership take over in Baghdad.”
Meanwhile, Defense Secretary Donald
H. Rumsfeld rejected the U.S. Army
chief’s estimate this week that several hun
dred thousand troops would be needed for
a post-Saddam occupying force in Iraq.
“The idea that it would take several
hundred thousand U.S. forces is far off
the mark,” Rumsfeld said at a Pentagon
news conference.
Estimating how much a war with
Iraq would cost is impossible, Rumsfeld
said during a joint news conference with
Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
“If you don’t know if it’s going to
last six days, six weeks or six months,
how in the world can you come up with
a cost estimate?” Rumsfeld said.
“There are so many variables that the
numbers of possible point answers cre
ate a range that simply isn’t useful.”
Administration officials said that in
recent days members of Iraq’s north
ernmost Republican Guard division
have moved south in what the United
States interpreted as a further effort to
protect Saddam’s power centers — his
hometown of Tikrit and the capital of
Baghdad 100 miles south.
Significant parts of the Adnan
Republican Guard division, based near
the northern city of Mosul, were moving
toward Tikrit, according to the officials,
who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Word on that movement followed state
ments by a senior defense official
Wednesday that Saddam has concentrated
a substantial number of forces around the
Baghdad area in an attempt to draw U.S.
forces into high-risk urban combat.
Other such preparations included
digging trenches that could be filled
with oil to create fires in an attempt to
make airstrikes more difficult, Pentagon
officials said. Iraq has recently tested a
burning trench, the officials said.
The repositioning would leave only
one full Republican Guard division in
northern Iraq to oppose any invasion
from the north by U.S. and Turkish
forces as well as forces of Iraq’s Kurdish
minority, the U.S. officials noted. Seven
of Iraq’s regular army divisions remain in
the north, but they are not as well-
equipped and trained as the guard.
It is widely believed that American
war plans call for the U.S. Army’s 4th
Infantry Division, supported by elements
of the 1 st Infantry Division, to gather in
Turkey to Iraq’s north for a possible
thrust south toward Tikrit and Baghdad.
But the plan to base 60,000 American
combat troops in Turkey remained
stalled. Turkey’s ruling party Thursday
delayed a vote on the proposal.
The Pentagon said the number of
American troops now deployed to the
region stood at 225,000, which includes
some 16,000 in and around Afghanistan
and the Horn of Africa.
Spire chosen for Ground Zero
By Karen Matthews
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
A spire that would rise hun
dreds of feet higher than the
World Trade Center was chosen
Thursday to fill the yawning hole
in the city’s skyline, opening a
complex new phase in the
rebuilding of ground zero.
The plan by architect Daniel
Libeskind will restore “lower
Manhattan to its rightful place in
the world,” Mayor Michael
Bloomberg said.
The design calls for a cluster
of glassy, angled buildings and a
1,776-foot spire filled with gar
dens instead of office space. It
would preserve part of the pit that
was the foundation of the twin
towers for an as-yet undesigned
memorial to the nearly 2,800 peo
ple who died there Sept. 11.
“The plan succeeds both
when it rises into the sky and
when it descends into the
ground. In doing so, it captures
the soaring optimism of our
city and honors the eternal
spirit of our fallen heroes,” said
John Whitehead, chairman of
the Lower Manhattan
Development Corp., the agency
that picked the design.
Easterwood Airport
boosts development
By Bernhard Hall
THE BATTALION
Truman finalists announced
By Lauren Smith
THE BATTALION
It’s at
Burdett & Son
Outdoor
Adventure Shop
1055 Texas Ave. S
(next door to Chili’s)
695-2807
10% Student Discoid 1
Three Texas A&M students have been chosen
as finalists for the Truman Scholarship
Foundation, which seeks college juniors with
exceptional leadership potential and commitment
to careers in public service.
Derek Mercer, Sarah Rubenstein and Adam
Williams, are among the 212 finalists selected for
scholarships in this year’s competition
“The Truman Foundation asks universities to
nominate four students. The preliminary applica
tion process begins with eight to 10 students who
submit an application including awards won,
career aspirations, influences in their lives, and a
policy proposal,” said Marcella F. Ellis, student
development coordinator for the Office of Honors
Programs and Scholarships.
Of the four finalists from A&M, the three were
invited to continue in the process with an interview
in Dallas this week with a regional selection panel
made up of past Truman scholarship winners, uni
versity presidents and senior public servants.
For finalist Derek Mercer, a political science
major whose aspirations to be a foreign officer for
the Department of State in the developing coun
tries of Africa or South America fulfill the “likeli
hood of making a difference” requirement for the
scholarship, the interview process was more bear
able than expected.
See Truman on page 2
Since it opened in 1941,
Easterwood Airport has helped
Texas A&M and the surround
ing areas grow and develop.
The airport provides students
and faculty with national and
international transportation,
said Charles Sippial, vice pres
ident for administration.
The airport, named Texas
Airport of the Year by the
Federal Aviation Administration
in 1998, also provides students
and residents of the Bryan-
College Station area with an
alternative to driving to larger
airports.
“It is more convenient to use
Easterwood rather than drive
all the way to Houston or
Dallas,” said Cassie
Rutherford, a civil engineering
graduate student.
Airport passengers can
avoid large crowds in other air
ports without sacrificing safety.
“(Other aiiports) are more
crowded, plus it takes longer
to get through security,”
Rutherford said. “It is the
same security procedures (at
Easterwood), but there are less
people.”
An additional benefit of
the airport is the accessibility
of the University to interna
tional students.
“Many international stu
dents say that without the air
port, they may not have come
to A&M,” said John Happ,
director of aviation services.
International students are
an important part of initiatives
such as Vision 2020, and are
key to the diversity A&M is
See Airport on page 2
' 1
Randal Ford • THE BATTALION
A Continental Express plane prepares for departure at
Easterwood Airport.