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Aggielife: Getting and staying fit for the summer • Page 3
Opinion: Prejudicial practices • Page 5
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109 Years Serving Texas A&M University
www.thebatt.com
Volume 109 • Issue 165 • 6 pages
Rules change for parking citations
By Justin Smith
THE BATTALION
Starting this month. Transportation Services
will implement a new set of policy changes
affecting parking citations and fines.
Rodney Weis, director of Transportation
Services, said there will be no more late fees for
students who pay their fines in a timely manner.
Transportation Services will take $10 off cita
tions that are paid within 14 days. For example, if
a fine is $50, the violator only has to pay $40
through the 14th day.
“Fourteen days is simpler than saying people
have 10 business days to pay, and the discount
encourages students to pay sooner. Also, other
universities have tried it and it has been success
ful,” he said.
Weis said another change is in the appearance
of citations. Tickets will no longer be left in the
familiar yellow envelopes. Now, the citations
themselves are weatherproof and will be placed
alone under a windshield wiper.
“We will save about $20,000 alone just with
changing away from the yellow envelopes,” he
said.
Transportation Services has also consolidated
the number of fines as well as changing the
amounts of some of the fines, Weis said.
Some fines will go up, some will go down and
others will not change at all, he said.
Weis said examples of fine changes are an
increase in the fine for parking in fire lanes and a
decrease in the fine for parking too long in timed
spaces, such as the 30 minute parking spaces
located around campus.
Weis said the reason for the changes came
because it had been a long time since the citations
and fines had been reviewed as well as trying to
simplify things and make things more compatible
with their new business software.
“We are trying to get everything ready for the
Web by 2004,” he said.
Some students believe these changes are a
good thing, but some feel Transportation Services
needs to go further.
See Parking on page 2
Tuesday, July 8, 2003
PARKING CHANGES MM
$10 off citation if paid
within 14 days
Tickets now
weatherproof; no more
yellow envelopes
Increase in fines for
parking in fire lanes
and decrease in
fines for timed
parking, such
as 30 minute
^ parking
RUBEN DELUNA • THE BATTALION
SOURCE: TRANSPORTATION SERVICES
NASA: Insulation may be
Columbia’s ‘smoking gun’
By Marcia Dunn
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
down the arbiter.
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SAN ANTONIO — A chunk of foam
insulation fired at shuttle wing parts
Monday blew open a gaping 16-inch hole,
yielding what one member of the Columbia
investigation team said was the “smoking
that proves what brought down the
spaceship.
The crowd of about 100 watching the
I test gasped and cried, “Wow!” when the
foam hit — the impact so violent that it
popped a lens off one of
the cameras recording the
event.
The foam struck
roughly the same spot
where insulation that
broke off Columbia’s
external fuel tank
smashed into the shuttle’s
(eft wing during launch.
Investigators had specu
lated that the damage led
to the shuttle’s destruc
tion during re-entry over
Texas in February, but
Monday’s test offered the
strongest proof yet.
“We have found the smoking gun,”
Columbia Accident Investigation Board
member Scott Hubbard said of the panel’s
| seventh and final foam-impact test.
The 1.67-pound piece of fuel-tank foam
| insulation shot out of a 35-foot nitrogen-
i pressurized gun and slammed into a carbon-
I reinforced panel removed from shuttle
Atlantis.
The countdown boomed through loud
speakers, and the crack of the foam coming
out at more than 530 mph reverberated in
the field where the test was conducted.
Sixteen high-speed cameras captured
the impact, and hundreds of sensors regis
tered movements, stresses and other con
ditions. The impact was so strong —
Easterwood
opens new
restaurant
By Melissa Sullivan
THE BATTALION
Overlooking the George Bush
; Presidential Library Complex, a
new restaurant and gift shop have
opened at Easterwood Airport,
making traveling a little easier
and convenient for passengers.
Sully’s Landing and Reveille’s
News and Gifts, opened in
March, have been long overdue
and have gotten positive feedback
from employees and passengers,
said Kim Sutphen, assistant
director for administration.
“It has been five years since
we had fresh beverages and food
for our passengers,” she said.
Sully’s Landing opens at 5
a.m. every day and closes at 6
p.m. The restaurant is open to the
public and parking is free for the
first hour.
“With the great view, you can
eat lunch and watch the planes,”
Sutphen said. “We have great
hamburgers and chicken plates,
as well as a blue plate special
everyday.”
Sutphen said the restaurant is
great for passengers who have a
long delay or a diversion from
a
It is the kind of
damage, type of
damage, that must have
occurred to bring to
19
packing a full ton of force — that it dam
aged some of the gauges.
“There’s a lot of collateral damage,” said
Hubbard, a high-ranking NASA official.
Hubbard said the test results showed it
would have been extremely difficult, if not
impossible, for Columbia’s astronauts to
have repaired such a large hole in orbit. He
stressed that the actual gap in Columbia’s
wing may have been a bit smaller — or pos
sibly a bit bigger.
“We know that almost surely there was a
breach on the order of 10 inches in diame
ter,” he said. “Here we’ve
got one 16, so that’s in the
same ballpark in my book.”
He added: “The board’s
goal was to connect the dots
between the foam-shedding
event and the proximate or
the direct cause of the acci
dent, and that’s what this
whole test program has been
about. I think today we
made that connection.”
Monday’s test at
the Southwest Research
Institute — barely beating
out an afternoon thunder
storm — best replicated the
blow from debris that occurred 82 seconds
into Columbia’s liftoff in January.
Nonetheless, Hubbard expressed sur
prise at the results.
“It was in here,” he said, smacking his
fist into his belly. “It was like, ‘ah,’ like
that. It was a visceral reaction. It was short
ly followed by ‘Oh, my God.’... I felt sur
prise at how it appeared, such a dramatic
punch-through. But it is the kind of dam
age, type of damage, that must have
occurred to bring down the orbiter.”
Two weeks ago, the investigation board
identified the blow from the foam as the
most probable cause of the accident that
See Shuttle on page 6
— Scott Hubbard
Columbia Accident
Investigation Board
Weird science
Junior entomology major Kelly Felderhoff transplants flies
from a petri dish into sponge-like vials in the Systematics
Research Laboratory and Collection Room in the Heep
JOSHUA HOBSON • THE BATTALION
Center on Monday. Insects are moved to vials to absorb
preserving liquid before being dehydrated, which leaves
the insects in a more natural state before being displayed.
Ag journalism program grows
Can get a homestyle
meal for less than $6
Open from 5 a.m. to
6 p.m. daily
SHARON AESCHBACH & RUBEN DELUNA • THE BATTALION
SOURCE: ARTIST MOORE, GENERAL MANAGER
places such as Houston.
“Those people have been on
a plane three or four hours with
out anything to eat,” she said.
“Now they have the option to
get a hot cup of coffee.”
Artist Moore, general man
ager of the restaurant, said
before the restaurant opened, the
only option for any type of food
was a vending machine.
“I am happy to know the
restaurant serves a hot full
course meal,” he said.
Moore said the restaurant has
plans to open a bar, but needs
the TABC to approve the bar for
an alcohol license.
When the bar opens, the
restaurant will be open later,
he said.
Moore said Sully’s Landing
is not expensive and a customer
can get a hot home-style meal
for less than $6.
Sutphen said she is happy the
restaurant has opened and that it
gives the employees a chance to
mingle with the passengers more.
“I’m really excited,” she
said. “This is another way the
airport can provide service to
our customers.”
The grand opening will be
held when the restaurant
receives the alcohol license,
Sutphen said.
By Jodi Rogers
THE BATTALION
With 88 undergraduates,
Texas A&M’s agricultural com
munications and journalism pro
gram was recognized as the
third largest of its kind at the
Agricultural Communicators in
Educators in Education
Academic Swap Meet in June.
Oklahoma State University
and Texas Tech University
boast larger numbers, with
more than 150 and 130 majors,
respectively.
“When I got here two years
ago, there were 35 (majors),”
said Gary Wingenbach, assistant
professor of agricultural com
munications and journalism.
Wingenbach said administra
tors plan to enroll 200 students
within the next few years.
“This is a manageable num
ber, given our current number of
faculty, classroom space, admin
istrative support and job out
look,” he said.
Before 2001, the Department
of Journalism housed agricultur
al communications and journal
ism, then called agricultural
journalism.
Students enrolled in the pro
gram said the program is grow
ing with the demand in the mar
ket of agricultural journalism
majors.
“I wanted to mix my two
passions, agriculture and writ
ing,” said Lacey Love, a senior
agricultural communications
and journalism major. “The
agricultural communications
and journalism program is
growing, and before long we
will have just as many majors as
journalism. Without agricultural
communications and journalism
majors, who would write for the
breed magazines and work for
the Beef Council?”
Students enrolled in other
majors have also been looking at
agricultural journalism as a
career option.
“I was originally a zoology
See Journalism on page 2
Teens arrested in alleged killing plot
By Geoff Mulvihill
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
OAKLYN, N.J. — Matthew Lovett was known
as an angry young man: He dressed all in black,
drew violent pictures and walked around town
with a baseball bat. Acquaintances said he kept a
list of people who had teased him as far back as
grade school.
Early Sunday, Lovett, 18, was arrested with
two other teenagers on charges they plotted to kill
three teens and open fire randomly on other peo
ple with a cache of guns and ammunition they
were carrying. Lovett was being held on $1 mil
lion bail Monday.
Authorities would not discuss a possible
motive, but people who knew the teens believe
Lovett was fed up with the teasing that he and his
younger brother had endured. James Lovett was
constantly tormented for a speech impediment
caused by a cleft palate, according to schoolmates.
“They’d all make fun of the way he talked,”
said Joe Oldham, a 14-year-old who had a class
with the younger boy.
See Teens on page 6