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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (July 17, 2003)
NEWS THE BATTALION hramm tinued from pageS ie use of replacement plat, break a strike. NFLpla Tt gone on strike since, .'spite his high-profile rolts the league, Schramm mat ar his loyalty was to toys. t was the Cowboys firstaitl thing else second,” Net Giants owner Wt said. “That’s why hews :cessful.” xas Earnest Schramm It om June 2,1920- xas. He grew up in Sa el, Calif. Texas was \s name, and where his pal let. 147-pound fullback in , Schramm earned a jouii- gree from the University if imd became a sports write stint in the U.S. Air Force, the 1970s, the Cowboys' ar became among the dzable images in prospotts nm was the driving font by daring to be different 1966, Schramm veto to host a second NFL part mksgiving Day and dir. >est crowd in franchisete 0,259). The holiday ante remains a team stas rational tradition, most risque move wasr - hen he replaced highsebre aders with profession . The seven-member squal changed the sidelines, ew years later, an producer working on Ik annual highlight I the Cowboys of fans wherever tip so he dubbed ca’s Team.” e reform of elementaiy ami lush signed in 2002. lards of teachers-n» easier for people rs. the National union claims thefedei- that they won't haves mded student testing, tey're making noise! are not." 110 India Aggielife: Juggling textbooks and checkbooks • Page 3 Opinion: Offensive decision • Page 5 iphalitis kills Indian children ims were mostly poor, ished children from rural i sudden change in from intense summer nonsoon rains resulted gher than normal te. ATTALION Volume 109 • Issue 171 *6 pages 109 Years Serving Texas A&M University www.thebatt.com Thursday, July 17, 2003 Johnson to media members: decision stands By Melissa Sullivan THE BATTALION Dean of the College of Liberal Arts Charles Johnson said he will not recon sider his recommendation to close the journalism department, despite meeting with former journalism students and members of the journalism industry Wednesday. Members of the Former Journalists Students Association, The Associated Press, the Dallas Morning News, Bloomberg News, the San Antonio Express-News, Texas Aggie Magazine and other media organizations met with Johnson in hopes that he would recon sider his decision and find a department head or merge journalism with the Department of Communication. “It is true not everyone (in the field) is a journalism major; in fact, I advised students who asked me if it is crucial to be a journalism major and said it is not crucial at all,” said Stu Wilk, vice president and managing editor for the Dallas Morning News. “However, it is one thing to not major in journalism and another thing to go to a university that doesn’t have a journalism department.” Johnson said when he made his decision he did not consult people in the journalism industry to see how they recruit graduates and what experience they are looking for. “I did have a fair amount of input from the external review team,” he said. A consulting team evaluated the journalism program in 2001 to suggest possibilities for the department. Johnson said he consulted other uni versities, but did not reach out to those who taught on the high school level to see what they looked for when recom mending a journalism program. Sue Smith, deputy managing editor and recru he Dallas Morning News, said she employs graduates with a variety of degrees, but that they come from schools that have journalism pro grams. “I think there is a lot you can learn through the journalism department, even if it is not your major,” she said. John Lumpkin, Dallas bureau chief for The Associated Press, said he went to the University of Virginia, a school that did not have a journalism program, and has been successful, but that he would not be hired by the AP in today’s competitive market. “How I am (with the AP) is a fluke,” he said. “That would basically be how someone from Texas A&M could get to where (Smith or Wilk) is.” Lumpkin said other schools are See Journalism on page 2 ‘Maggie the Aggie’ Dean named Griffith counsels students on sexual health, awareness ^0 Qatar A&M By Megan Orton THE BATTALION H ealth Education Coordinator Margaret “Maggie” Griffith said her passion in life lies in helping peo ple. “You get so much more than you ever give when you help peo ple,” she said. 0 350 is V CHINA oi^ o w Delhi Bay of Bengal isociated Press AP n 10 of the 23 districts Pradesh. /mptoms start wilb fever, followed by ing, then vomiting of I finally, coma, Tlierc anges of behavior and bout claim as been worth pa ed States and S' :ve North Korea •ods at its Griffith serves as a counselor to students who have questions or concerns about sexual health and problems. Griffith has been teaching at A&M for almost six years, but liv ing here the past few years is defi nitely not her first taste of College Station or Aggie life. Raised in College Station for most of her childhood and teen years, Griffith was one of the first women to attend A&M. “It was different because I was the only girl in all of my classes and the guys acted as though they didn’t want the girls here in pub lic,” she said. “In private, they were really glad you were here.” Griffith said she is proud of her Aggie background. That pride has carried on through her family. Not only is she married to an Aggie, but her son is an A&M graduate. “Just like every other Aggie, one of the proudest moments of my life was when I got my Aggie ring,” Griffith said. Griffith left A&M during her undergraduate studies when she married her husband. After his 22- year military career, they returned to College Station, and Griffith went back to A&M to get her master’s in health education. “One of the motivating factors for me to go back and get my masters’ was that I could get my Aggie Ring,” she said. Griffith’s office is adorned with A&M paraphernalia and the nameplate on her desk reads “Maggie the Aggie.” “The best thing about A&M is absolutely, positively the stu- RYAN WALSH • THE BATTALION Margaret Griffith, health education coordinator for the A.P. Beutel Health Center, was one of the first women to attend Texas A&M. She has taught at A&M for six years, and hosted student participation programs. One program that earned Griffith her nickname as “Maggie the Aggie” was inspired by MTV’s sexual issues talk show “Loveline.” dents,” Griffith said. “The stu dents are the reason we’re all here.” Griffith is involved with stu dents campus-wide. She has served as an Memorial Student Center Fall Leadership Conference Focus Group leader and also leads the Aggie Reach peer health educators group. “We have some of the most outstanding people at this University who are students,” Griffith said, “and getting to meet with them, to be with them and getting to know them has just been an incredible experience.” Griffith said it is important to help students when they have health concerns, such as an STD, or have just discovered they are pregnant. “It’s nice doing what I do,” Griffith said. “We can talk about their options and how to talk to people in their lives about it.” Last spring, Griffith taught Texas A&M’s human sexuality class, an elective that students can take. “The most wonderful thing about that class is that everyone was there because they wanted to be there,” Griffith said. “It’s a whole different thing than a major class because you’re not just there because you have to be.” As a Howdy Camp namesake in 2000, she attended Howdy Camp with her husband, who attended A&M before women became a part of the student body. Griffith said that he said the students never had anything like Howdy Camp when he was at A&M. See Griffith on page 2 By Jacquelyn Spruce THE BATTALION Charles Bowman, professor emeritus of petrole um engineering, was appointed interim dean and CEO of Texas A&M at Qatar until a permanent dean is appointed, said Executive Vice President and Provost Dr. David Prior. Bowman served as the executive coordinator for the Qatar project. He said the planning team consist ed of six faculty members. “I basically negotiated the agreement,” Bowman said. “My background is not in academ ics; it’s in business.” Prior said Bowman understands the economic development taking place with the Qatar project and is the most qualified person for the position. “The success of the Texas A&M team in securing this agreement is due, in great part, to his commit ment, tireless effort and leadership,” Prior said. “He’s been operating as coordinator of the Qatar project over several months and he knows what it’s all about.” Bowman said he predicts the Qatar campus will be a great success. It will have curricula in mechan ical, electrical, petroleum and chemical engineering, degrees identical to those offered in College Station. He said a Qatar graduate school program is already being considered. “The thing that excites me in this whole project is the opportunity to bring knowledge of study and research we can’t even visualize,” he said. Bowman said this is a great opportunity to further research in the science and engineering fields for faculty and students at A&M, but that the University will also attempt to appeal to other students. “We proposed a center in the study of cultures that liberal arts’ faculty would find appealing,” he See Qatar on page 2 Dr. Charles Bowman: Interim dean and CEO • Professor emeritus of petroleum engineering • Executive coordinator for the Qatar project • Will serve until a permanent dean is appointed RUBEN DELUNA • THE BATTALION SOURCE: OFFICE OF THE PROVOST Iraqi mayor gunned down, guerrilla hostilities escalate Pro-American mayor, son killed Mohammed Nayil al-Jurayfi, a pro-American mayor of Hadithah, and his son were shot and killed Wednesday by attackers as he drove through the city. Texas cleans up after Claudette ials said Tuesday tM iternational commuf its nuclear ambitioits- iolation and loader ’ime in Pyongyang.' Richard Boucher said- programs veriftabl) ave made clear tM th Korea about a bet id if it were prepared By Steven R. Hurst THE ASSOCIATED PRESS BAGHDAD, Iraq — In a marked escalation in attacks, suspected insur gents tried to shoot down a U.S. transport plane with a surface-to-air missile Wednesday, killed an American soldier in a con voy and gunned down the mayor of an Iraqi city. The new American com mander in Iraq acknowl edged for the first time Wednesday that coalition forces are facing a “classical guerrilla-type war situation” against opponents ranging from members of Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party to ion-Iraqi fighters from ter rorist groups. Gen. John Abizaid spoke on the eve of a banned holiday Saddam loyalists could use to demonstrate their power. The U.S. military said one surface-to-air missile was fired on a C-130 trans port as it landed at Baghdad International Airport. It was only the second known mis sile attack on a plane using the airport since Baghdad fell to U.S. forces on April 9, said Spc. Giovani Lorente. He said he did not know where the plane came from or whether it was carrying passengers, cargo or both. Meanwhile, Mohammed Nayil al-Jurayfi, who had actively cooperated with U.S. forces as the new mayor of Hadithah, was killed when his car was ambushed by attackers fir ing automatic rifles as he drove away from his office in the city 150 miles north west of Baghdad, police Capt. Khudhier Mohammed said. One of the mayor’s sons also was killed. Mohammed said the mayor, who took office after Saddam’s fall, was slain because he was “seiz ing cars” from Saddam loy alists who used to work in the deposed Iraqi leader’s offices in Hadithah, a city in the restive “Sunni Triangle” that is home to many supporters of the ousted dictator. TURKEY SYRIA ^ Hadithah 0 100 mi 0 100 km IFtAN / Mayor and son shot and killed ^Baghdad IRAQ -- ^ KUWAIT SAUDI ARABIA SOURCE: Associated Press AP The American soldier was killed and three others were injured in a rocket- propelled grenade attack west of Baghdad near the Abu Ghraib prison, a U.S. military spokesman said. In a separate attack, See Iraq on page 2 By Mark Babineck THE ASSOCIATED PRESS PORT LAVACA, Texas — Dodging persistent thunderstorms trailing the wake of what was Hurricane Claudette, Texans in her path spent Wednesday cleaning up and surveying the damage done by what turned out to be a wicked Category 1 system. James P. Rizzo, a researcher at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, spent Wednesday on a Port Lavaca fishing pier with two assistants who helped him dismantle and cart away remnants of a destroyed weather and tide monitoring station val ued at $40,000. “Events like these are the ones we’re here trying to measure,” said Rizzo, who said another of the nearly three dozen monitoring stations that line the Texas coast was washed away at San Luis Pass by Claudette. “It’s the nature of the business,” he said. “That’s what we have to deal with.” American Electric Power worked to Claudette weakens as it moves intabd All weather warnings for the Texas coast were • Dallas discontinued after Claudette weakened - / \ Tuesday night. A woman in Victoria and a 13- - year-boy near San Antonio were killed due to faking trues. TEXAS $ \ '' Austin f \ ,-JdSek.. -\ J ^Hourtcnl 9r QQ San Antonio *' T MEX. Position: 28.5 N, 98.9 W Sustained wind: 50 mph Movement: W14 mph As of ft p.m. EOT Tuesday SOURCES: AccuWeather; National Weather Service: Associated Press; ESRI reduce the approximately 30,000 cus tomers who woke up in the dark in Victoria and elsewhere Wednesday, send ing an armada of tree-cutting trucks and cherry pickers to repair damage. The storm first stumped forecasters by hitting much further north than anticipat ed, then pulled another trick when it unex pectedly picked up speed early Tuesday See Claudette on page 2