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After serving as interim executive
ice president and provost for nine
•months, Dr. David B. Prior was named
Texas A&M’s new executive vice presi-
lent and provost Thursday.
Prior’s appointment was announced
itie||byA&M President Robert M. Gates fol-
owing a national search to select a suc-
:essor for Ronald G. Douglas, who
itepped down last year.
A&M’s Dean of the College of
Education and Human Development
ane Close Conoley was the other
finalist.
Prior said he will work closely with
all deans, faculty and Gates.
Gates said he was impressed with
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Volume 109 • Issue 140 • 14 pages
Texas A&M University
www.thebatt.com
Friday, April 25, 2003
Prior named executive vice president and provost
By Melissa Sullivan & Rob
Phillips
THE BATTALION
PRIOR
Prior’s work with faculty
and students during the
past nine months as well
as his competence and
integrity, two qualities
Gates said he looks
for in his peers.
“Then what I look for
is people who take the
work seriously but not themselves and
who have a great sense of humor,” Gates
said. “David fulfills all of that.”
Dr. Edward Hiler, dean of the
College of Agriculture and Life
Sciences, said Prior brings energy to
the position and has a great relationship
with Gates.
Prior said he looks forward to work
ing to achieve the goals of Vision 2020.
“We have begun to identify the criti
cal areas over the past few months to hire
new faculty and take care of student
issues,” he said.
Prior said with the recent budget cuts
looming, it is still uncertain what future
cuts might be because the state
Legislature is still in session.
No decisions have been made regard
ing specific cuts at this point, he said. No
tuition increases have been approved.
Deregulation is still “under construc
tion,” Prior said, and nothing has been
decided at this point regarding
tuition hikes.
Diversity, Prior said, is not just a
concern for the provost, but for all
faculty members. He said he will
specifically working with the deans to
hire a diverse faculty.
Prior said he looks forward to the
opportunity to serve in the
University’s second ranking and top
academic position.
“It has been wonderful and challeng
ing and I have enjoyed it greatly,” he
said. “Bob Gates is a great guy to
work for.”
Dr. Herbert Richardson, chairman of
the search advisory committee, said
Gates asked for a short list of candidates
and the committee decided not to choose
a finalist outside of A&M.
“We had a number of excellent candi
dates, but in the end we felt the two inter
nal candidates were the best choices,”
said Richardson, director of Texas
Transportation Institute and associate
vice chancellor for engineering.
Richardson said Prior has a strong
professional reputation and possesses
strong research credentials.
“As A&M moves ahead, he has the
kind of expertise to move us forward in
research,” Richardson said. “He’s also a
charismatic, exciting, motivated indi
vidual, and that’s what we need in
this environment.”
Prior joined A&M’s College of
Geosciences faculty in 1996, holding
professorships in geology, geophysics,
geography and oceanography. He served
as deputy dean of geosciences and mar
itime studies, becoming dean in 1997.
Before coming to A&M, Prior
served as director of the Bedford
Institute of Oceanography’s Atlantic
Geoscience Centre in Halifax, Nova
Scotia, Canada.
He has held teaching and research
professorships at Louisiana State
University and the Queen’s University
of Belfast, Northern Ireland.
Prior said coming to A&M, has been
an adjustment.
“This is a very big institution, and
there is a lot to learn,” he said. “Learning
about (the traditions) is a big challenge.”
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North Korea
talks tough
By Christopher Bodeen
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
BEIJING — North Korea
accused the United States of
leading the region toward war
Thursday in an apparent attempt
by the communist nation to
increase pressure on negotiators
holding a second day of talks on
its nuclear programs.
There was no indication
whether any progress had come
i the second day of meet
ings Thursday. The chief U.S.
negotiator, Assistant Secretary
of State James Kelly, declined
to answer questions upon
returning to his hotel in the
afternoon, saying only that the
sides “had talks.”
Discussions were scheduled
to end Friday. Kelly was to fly
to Seoul the same day to meet
with South Korean officials.
North Korea continued to try
to ratchet up the pressure and is
believed to want economic aid in
exchange for concessions.
Its leaders are outraged over
U.S. moves to cut off oil ship
ments because of its suspected
nuclear weapons program, and
fears it is next on Washington’s
list for military action.
“The situation on the
Korean Peninsula is so tense
that a war may break out any
moment due to 'the U.S.
moves,” the North’s KCNA
news agency.
It said relations with the
United States had hit “rock
bottom” because President
George W. Bush named North
Korea as part of an “axis of
evil,” along with Iran and Iraq.
KCNA said the war in Iraq
had shown the only way for a
country to protect itself was to
have a strong military deterrent.
Officials from Seoul and
Washington say the swift U.S.-
led victory in Iraq prompted
North Korea to agree to the
nuclear talks.
The North’s Korea People’s
Army vowed to put all people
under amis and turn the whole
country into a fortress and urged
its soldiers to become human
bombs and fighters ready to
blow up themselves to protect
North Korean Defense Minister
Kim Jong 11.
“If the U.S. imperialists and
their followers intrude into
even an inch of the inviolable
sky, land and sea of the (North)
... the (army) will deal merci
less deadly blows at the
See Korea on page 2A
Chop chop
Joshua Hobson • THE BATTALION
Sophomore civil engineering major, William Spencer, cuts cut down the bamboo, haul it off, and use it as a decorative
down bamboo at a College Station senior citizen's house effect for upcoming events.
Thursday afternoon. His local fraternity volunteered its time to
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Aussa Hollimon • THE BATTALION
I Former speech writer for President Ronald Reagan, Joshua Gilder
j speaks at the George Bush conference center on Thursday evening.
Reagan speech writer shares experiences
By Esther Robards-Forbes
THE BATTALION
Writing speeches for the leader of the free
world is a rewarding though daunting task,
former presidential speechwriter Joshua
Gildner said, recalling his years with Ronald
Reagan and his then-vice president.
Gildner spoke Thursday at the George
Bush Presidential Conference Center to a
packed auditorium of students and faculty.
Gildner, who was also a speechwriter for
former Vice President George Bush, said his
experiences in the White House consisted of
the responsibility of writing numerous
speeches for the president.
Gildner said Reagan was a gifted speaker.
“Reagan, who was labeled ‘The Great
Communicator’ during his presidency, was
great because he had great vision,” Gildner
said. “He had a very natural ability to make
every word his own.”
Gildner said one particular challenge
stood out while he was a speechwriter. He
was asked to write a short speech for Reagan
to present at the Bitberg Air Force Base in
Bitberg, Germany. The task should have
been simple and routine, he said, but it
turned out to be anything but.
Bitberg is home to a large World War II
cemetery, and those buried there include
thousands of Nazi soldiers and several dozen
SS officers. The proposed visit to the base
suddenly became a controversy, with veter
ans and members of the Jewish community
in an uproar, and Reagan’s junior speech-
writer had been assigned to write the speech,
Gildner said.
“This was a possible (public relations)
disaster,” he said. “People thought Reagan
was driving the administration off a cliff.”
Gildner admitted that he was against
Reagan giving the speech at first, but that he
came around in the end. The speech Gildner
wrote was strongly influenced by the man
who delivered it.
“The man was unmoving in his principles,”
See Writer on page 2A
: 1 Garner aims for operating
government next week
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By Charles]. Hanley
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
BAGHDAD, Iraq — Iraq’s American
administrator said Thursday he hopes to
get government ministries up and run
ning by late next week, and if necessary
“we’ll buy the furniture” for them in this
looted and burned-out capital.
Jay Gamer said little, however, in his
first Baghdad news conference about the
potentially explosive issue of naming a
top political leadership for Iraq. In a pos
sible sign of trouble, an important Shiite
Muslim cleric said that sect’s highest
authority would refuse to meet with
the Americans.
U.S. troops, meanwhile, made a new
catch in their pursuit of the top figures in
Saddam Hussein’s toppled regime. Tariq
Aziz, the former deputy prime minister
and one of the most visible members in
the leadership, was in custody, U.S.
Central Command announced Thursday.
Aziz’s capture meant 12 of the 55
most wanted members of the regime
were now in custody, and Sen. Bob
Graham, former chairman of the Senate
Intelligence Committee, said Thursday
night the arrest of another top Iraq offi
cial, in Syria, would be announced shortly.
See Garner on page 2A
Efforts to contain SARS intensifed
Efforts to contain the SARS virus intensified Thursday as a major
Beijing hospital closed and put its patients and more than 2,000
employees under observation. In Singapore, a medical camp was
prepared to hold anyone who violates home quarantine orders.
iH SARS cases worldwide: 4,439
AMERICAS
Canada
Brazil
United States 37
AFRICA
South Africa 1
Bulgaria
MIDDLE EAST
Kuwait
140 15 prance
2 0 Germany
Ireland
Italy
Romania
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
1,488 105
0
EUROPE
Britain
6 0
Hong
Kong
India 1 0
Indonesia 1 0
Japan 2 0
Malaysia 5 2
Mongolia 3 0
Philippines 2 i
Singapore 192 19
Taiwan 37 0
Thailand 8 2
5
ASIA/SOUTH PACIFIC
Australia 4 0 Vietnam 63
China 2.422 110
Internationa! figures as of April 24,4 p m. GMT
SOURCES: Associated Press; World Health Organization
AP
SARS closes major hospital
By Audra Ang
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
BEIJING — Authorities
closed two hospitals and put
patients and 2,000 workers
under observation for the SARS
virus, while across the city
Thursday, anxious residents
emptied grocery stores of rice,
oil and frozen food in a bout of
panic-buying.
The closures were the latest
action this week — along with
the closing of public schools
and plans for a quarantine — to
try to contain severe acute respi
ratory syndrome, which killed
four more people, raising
Beijing’s death toll to 39.
Nationwide, 110 people have
died from the disease, the
Health Ministry said.
On Friday, Beijing’s Ditan
Hospital was sealed off, with no
visitors allowed in, said an offi
cial in the hospital’s administra
tive office who declined to give
her name. Medical workers
were allowed to leave the build
ing.
Also closed, on Thursday,
was the People’s Hospital of
Peking University. The hospital
was being disinfected, and a
university official said an
See SARS on page 2A