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A&M to pursue engineering branch in Qatar
Texas A&M University
www.thebatt.com
Wednesday, April 23, 2003
Staff &Wire
THE BATTALION
DALLAS — Howdy, Doha.
Qataris soon might get the chance
:o become Aggies if Texas A&M gets
tate approval this week to open a
iranch campus in the Middle Eastern
:ountry.
A&M wants to join an unusual
venture known as Education City in
oha, the capital of Qatar. The oil-
ich nation has been home to the U.S.
ilitary's Central Command during
he war with Iraq.
Qatar's rulers recruited A&M to pro-
ide the engineering school for
ducation City, a high-profile project
n a Muslim country that some say is
ietermined to become more democrat-
cand modem.
T
u
Texas Higher Education
Coordinating Board members will vote
Thursday on A&M's proposal, which
won't cost the state or the University a
cent. The private, nonprofit Qatar
Foundation will foot the bill with a 10-
year, multimillion-dollar contract that
covers faculty pay, housing and a man
agement fee for the university. The final
amount is being negotiated.
State officials say the proposal prob
ably will pass, but predict some inter
esting discussion about the concept of
plunking down a branch of A&M -
home to the Bush Presidential Library -
in the Middle East.
Other American universities have set
up campuses overseas, particularly in
Japan because that nation sought
American colleges in the 1980s.
A&M ran a two-year program in
Japan from 1989-1995. It shutdown the
program when the Japanese economy
crashed and the mayor who supported
the idea lost re-election. The Japanese
city paid for the branch.
The Qatar program is rare, partly
because of its location and because the
universities are offering full degree pro
grams.
“The real difference is where it is,”
said Marshall Hill, an assistant com
missioner of universities at the Texas
Higher Education Coordinating Board.
“The world has not paid much attention
to Qatar until recently. We see daily
briefings from Armed Forces delivered
from Qatar.
“The idea that a Texas public uni
versity would establish a branch cam
pus in such a place grabs your atten
tion.”
State officials are concerned about
the timing because the hostilities in Iraq
Education City, Qatar
A&M would provide
tor Education City
pr
ring school
The nonprofit
Qatar Foundation will
foot the bill for the
10-year contract
Travis Swenson • THE BATTALION
are not over, said Don Brown, the Texas faculty there,” Brown said.
Higher Education Commissioner. But A&M officials have done a lot to
“Everybody expects that one of the
challenges will be to get the necessary See Qatar on page 8A
Source: KRT Campus
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THE BATTALION
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Bill 1542
- Raises tutrion
J$12 per credit hour
- Students won
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each year
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April 24
ir office.
Tuition deregulation suffered
a serious setback last week in
the State Senate, but the issue is
still alive in the Texas House as
legislators debate how to grap
ple with budget cuts in higher
education.
State Sen. Florence Shapiro,
R-Plano and chair of the
Senate’s education committee,
introduced a bill that would have
allowed universities to raise
tuition by up to three times what
is currently charged without leg
islative approval. The bill was
supported by leaders of the
state’s public universities,
including Texas A&M System
Chancellor Howard Graves.
However, the proposal found
little support in the Senate and
in the version approved by the
committee, senators gutted the
deregulation measure in the bill,
opting instead for a modest
tuition increase.
“The Senate is not ready to
give universities carte blanche to
let them charge whatever they
want,” said Jennifer Rice,
spokeswoman for Shapiro.
The revised Senate Bill 1542
would allow state universities to
increase tuition by up to $12 per
credit hour, effective next
January. Coupled with a previ
ously approved $4 hike, students
taking 15 hours a semester could
see their tuition bills go up by
$480 a year.
The committee will conduct
a study on tuition deregulation
and will revisit the issue in two
years during the next legislative
session, Rice said.
The House higher education
committee is still considering
deregulation. A bill introduced
by the panel’s chair, Rep.
Geanie Morrison, R-Victoria,
would allow universities to set
their own tuition as long as they
invest more in scholarships and
grants. The goal is for families
not to spend more than 5 percent
of their gross income on college
See Tuition on page 2A
Travis Swenson • THE BATTALION
Source: OFFICE OF STATE SEN FLORENCE SHAPIRO
To mom with love
George Balias, a senior environmental
design major, drills screw holes in the side of
a frame for a king size poster bed in the
JP BEATO III • THE BATTALION
Architecture Woodshop on Tuesday. Balias
hopes to finish in time to give the bed to his
mother for Mother's Day.
Bush greets
landmark
visitor
By Melissa Sullivan
THE BATTALION
At 9:33 a.m. Tuesday,
Barbara Maxwell and her hus
band walked through the doors
of the George Bush Presidential
Library and Museum ready for a
day of touring the 5-year-old
library. As soon as the couple,
visiting from Florida, walked
through the metal detectors,
museum staff told Maxwell she
was the one millionth visitor to
the Bush Library.
Former President George
Bush and first lady Barbara
greeted the couple in the
library’s rotunda, where
Maxwell was presented with a
bust of the former president
and a basket of goodies that
included Texas A&M
memorabilia.
“Both the president and first
lady chatted about Florida with
(the couple) for 15 minutes and
even autographed a few pho
tos,” said Brian Blake,
spokesman for the Bush
Library. “It was a great day,
they had no clue because they
had not listened to all the
hoopla.”
Blake said one million visi
tors in five years is an
“admirable accomplishment,”
and the museum always has
something new and exciting for
the visitors to see.
The John F. Kennedy Library
See Library on page 2A
Shiite pilgrims worship
at Iraq’s holy shrines
By Bassem Mroue
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
KARBALA, Iraq— Swaying
and chanting, some bleeding
from self-inflicted wounds of
ritual mourning, an estimated 1
million Shiite Muslims marched
to this city’s holy shrine
Tuesday, celebrating their free
dom from years of repression by
Saddam Hussein’s regime.
The large turnout for the pil
grimage, which ends Thursday,
highlighted the power and
potential of Iraq’s majority
Shiite community. Despite bit
ter internal differences the
Shiites, who represent 60 per
cent of Iraq’s 24 million people,
were able to pull off the event
on short notice and thus far
without violence.
It showed how once again,
upheaval in a Middle East coun
try has brought followers of the
Shiite branch of Islam to the
forefront. It happened in 1979
when Ayatollah Ruhollah
Khomeini founded a Shiite
theocracy in neighboring Iran,
and three years later when Israel
invaded Lebanon, drove out
Yasser Arafat and ended up fac
ing the Shiite fighters of
Hezbollah.
Pilgrims, many with heads
bleeding and limping from long
journeys in 90-degree heat,
pressed up against each other on
roads. U.S. troops were largely
out of sight, with a few members
of the U.S.-backed Iraqi National
Congress at checkpoints.
The collapse of Saddam’s
rule left a political vacuum, “So
we moved in a specialized and
organized way to face this prob
lem,” said a Shiite official,
Sheik Sadeq Jaafar al-Tarfi.
“All the religious leaders,
Sistani and Sadr, united to make
it successful and had it not been
for this unity it would have
failed,” he said, referring to
Karbala pilgrimage
Hundreds of thousands of Shiite
pilgrims marched to this city’s
holy shrine Tuesday to mark the
death of one of their most
revered saints. They chanted,
swayed and even cut their
bodies in an emotional ritual that
had been banned for decades
under Saddam Hussein.
Editors nominated for 2003-2004
Mosul
> # Tikrit
IRAQ
Baghdad ©
Karbala +
0 100 mi
BIE!!F 111
0 100 km
❖
fft.
Destination of
Shiite piigrims
Najaf ’73
Basra *
Kuwait City©
SOURCE: Associated Press
AP
Grand Ayatollah Ali Hussein al-
Sistani, Iraq’s top Shiite cleric,
and Muqtada al-Sadr, the son of
al-Sistani’s slain predecessor.
He said the Hawza al-Ilmiya,
a center of Shiite learning head
ed by Sistani in the holy city of
See Shiites on page 2A
By Lauren Smith
THE BATTALION
Summer and fall Battalion
editors in chief and the 2003
Aggieland editor have been
nominated by the Student Media
Board. Sommer Bunce (fall)
and True Brown (summer) were
tapped as The Battalion’s new
editors and Heath Taylor
Crawford as the Aggieland edi
tor for. 2003.
Applicants for editor are con
sidered by members of the
Student Media Board, who vote
and collectively nominate a can
didate for each position. Before
officially being offered the posi
tion, the board’s nominees must
be approved by the executive vice
president and provost.
The application process for
candidates include essays
describing their qualifications
and their intentions if presented
with the offer to hold the posi
tion, a requirement of previous
experience, samples of their
work and an interview with the
Student Media Board.
Bunce’s .days of working at
The Battalion began even before
she attended freshman orienta
tion as she covered a secret off-
campus Bonfire planning meet
ing equipped with a hidden
recording device.
That assignment was the first
of many in her three year career
at The Battalion, in which she
was assistant news editor, news
editor and is currently serving as
managing editor.
“My plans for next year are
very big. I want to make this
paper as accountable to this
community as possible,” said
Bunce, a junior journalism
major from Aransas Pass, Texas.
See Editors on page 6A
JP BEATO III • THE BATTALION
From left: Heath Taylor Crawford, True Brown and Sommer Bunce.