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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 6, 2003)
SP0R1 THE BATTALIO State 1 Downey-Wallace, 2 Libero of theYeatli ids the Big 12 in has company at the irts, as K-State ads the Big 12 and centage and has eami le Week honors. 1 g with her four ns this year, ne of the heavy h Valeria Heijas, who Is against the Sock : 12 Player of the Wed ; really nice athlete Ye all returners and j we know what we ■ handled their tom :o this point, but hi nst ranked opponer ;ainst No.l Southei Nebraska, and thim /ednesday night agai® > went up two game: imoked or anything 'ere very friendly aa lice present andlthinl t ourselves, and no e anger and frustratioi the Aggies hai igures in kills, contin- ub has set of late, ler also continued her ;r fourth straight doe ; in kills, while senio team with 19 digs, night against K-Stat e White Coliseum. ir Meghan 5t 10 goals in 1,00? counter with goal- tie Jo Spisak, who ensive player of the irs from the Big 12 e last month ol after posting her out of the season unday Accieufe: School House Rock! • Page 3 Opinion: Cookie crumble • Page 11 THF RATTAT TON 1 llJ-j mjJlyL 1 Vyli A Texas A&M Tradition Since 1893 www.thebattalion.net Monday, October 6, 2003 Volume 110 • Issue 27 • 12 pages Student EMS volunteers save man’s life The student-run Emergency Medical Services responded to a call when a man went into cardiac arrest outside Kyle Field at the A&M v. Pittsburgh game Sept. 27. Operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week, including holidays Answers 600 to 800 calls for emergency assistance a year Completely run by student volunteers Started in 1980 with the acquisition of its first ambulance Was one of the first ambulance services in the Brazos Valley Answers to an average on- campus population during the fall and spring semesters of 80,000 students, faculty, staff and visitors h the acquisition of & RUBEN DELUNA • THE BATTALION SOURCE : EMS.TAMU.EDU By Eric Ambroso THE BATTALION The Texas A&M Emergency Medical Services, a group of 60 stu dent volunteers, saved a man’s life after the Aggie football game against Pittsburgh Sept. 27. The 75-year-old former student from Gladewater, who could not be contacted due to privacy issues, was clinically dead for almost two minutes before EMS arrived at the scene. Approximately five minutes after the game ended, EMS received a call for a cardiac arrest. They responded and were on location within three minutes. “It’s all about timing,” said Jared Cosper, paramedic and student volun teer. “You usually have about four minutes when someone’s heart stops beating, and he only had a couple more minutes.” When the man’s son realized that his father was unresponsive while leaving a parking lot in West Campus, he notified an officer from Transportation Services and called 911. The TS officer performed CPR until the ambulance arrived and EMS took over, Cosper said. Cosper, the first to arrive on the scene, found the man unconscious and without a pulse. EMS volunteers immediately shocked the man three times before they were able to get his heart beating at a normal rhythm. He was then given an IV and intu bated so that paramedics could con trol his breathing. “Some of our medics are young and don’t have a lot of experience,” said Cosper, who has been a paramedic for nine years. “When they are challenged with calls like that, it is amazing how well they are able to do their jobs.” Many of the student volunteers join EMS because they plan to go to med ical school and need experience. Others say they want to help people around campus. To become a paramedic takes at least a year and involves classroom and clinical components. Most of the EMS staff, however, is trained at the EMP level, which takes about three months, more than 100 hours of class room instruction and 24 to 48 hours of clinical instruction. “I had a desire to do something that was useful and helpful on campus,” said Brad Mitschke, a senior psychol ogy major and volunteer for EMS. Mitschke is part of a bike team for EMS that responds to emergency calls on campus. He was the next to arrive at the scene after Cosper, and he helped to maintain the man’s airway. Mitschke said it was his first life- threatening emergency, but he was happy with the job EMS did. “It’s a good feeling,” Mitschke said. “It’s great that the system totally worked. We were alerted about the sit uation before the first 911 calls by a traffic officer, and we had great response time. It was like a textbook exercise, everything was perfect.” After the man’s heartbeat was sta bilized and he was provided adequate oxygenation, EMS transported him to St. Joseph Regional Health Center in Bryan. When he had fully recovered, Cosper visited him in the hospital. The man and his family were ecstatic to see Cosper and thanked him for the serv ice that EMS provided, he said. “I’ve treated hundreds of cardiac arrests,” Cosper said, “but I’ve never had a chance to meet one of them. It was pretty cool, his family was very thankful.” Department awards 100 to high-scoring GRE test takers Hammer time tory icostal Church Wednesday 7:00 p.m. I Brothers C.S. Wal-Mart) -4180 tion Korean an Church rarie Rd., CS 0403 lip - 2:00p.m. jyterian Churcli ’rairie Road )4-7700 Steele - Pastor Service: 11 a.m. School: a.m. /Velcome resbyterian.org FIRST iBYTERIAN HURCH ggies grow in faith hip 10:30 a.m. ;h School 9:00 on the Patio 10 a.m. er Creek Parkway fpcbryan.org tise on ;e call on today! 696 By Justin Smith THE BATTALION The Texas A&M College of Education and Human Development has enacted a new policy that will give $100 to stu dents who score 1200 or higher on the Graduate Record Examinations. The GRE has three parts: verbal, quantitative and analyti cal writing, each of which can count up to 800 points. To get this scholarship, students are required to score 1200 com bined points from the verbal and quantitative sections. To receive the scholarship, which covers the cost of taking the test, students must submit their scores to the college to be put on file. “We are trying to encourage students to not only go to gradu ate school, but also to take the test early,” said Associate Dean of the College of Education and Human Development Becky Carr. “Students do better on the GRE when they take it right at the end of (their undergraduate years) rather than waiting a few years.” Carr said the scores will be accepted for several years after the test has been taken, so even if a student was planning to wait to go to graduate school, the scholarship will still apply. For this program, which currently has more than 1,200 graduate students, Carr said they are hop ing to recruit and talk to 100 more students. Jane Conoley, dean of the College of Education and Human Development, said the money for this program comes from privately donated funds, primarily from alumni. Conoley also said while the program is intended to encour age students to enroll in the graduate program at A&M, they are not limited to do only that. Students who decide to do this are not committing them selves to join the College of Education and Human Development graduate program. Rather, students can receive the scholarship and then decide to go to another university for graduate school or not go to graduate school at all. “If our students go other places and do well, it reflects well on (Texas A&M),” Carr said. Tim Dosch, Class of 2003, from Houston, hammers nails in top plates across two walls in to hold them in place while building the first house for Texas Aggies Building Spirit and Aggie Habitat for Humanity. The new house is )P BEATO III • THE BATTALION located in Bryan, Texas, and will take approximately eight weeks and $30,000 in donations to build. Dosch founded TABS as a way to unify the student body and bring Aggies together to do things for less privileged people. Breast cancer awareness issues raised this month By Pammy Ramji THE BATTALION This year, 39,800 women are expected to die m breast cancer, the second most common form of cancer in women in the United States. October is National Breast Cancer Awareness , which aims to increase attention given to s form of cancer and early detection methods. Texas A&M Director of Health Services Dr. Linda Lekawsi said one out of every eight to nine women will develop breast cancer at some point in her lifetime. “We always try and educate our young ladies about how important it is that they get an annual exam, whether it be a self exam or a mammogram, and about how important it is to know about breast cancer in general,” Lekawsi said. “Young women need to learn how to do self exams at home and at the age of 40 get yearly mammograms.” According to the National Association of Breast Cancer Organizations Web site, breast cancer death rates would drop up to 30 percent if all women ages 40 and older took advantage of early detection meth ods, such as mammograms and clinical breast exams. “(It’s important for students) to understand the See Awareness on page 2 CHANCES OF DEVELOPING BREAST CANCER The likelihood that you will develop breast cancer increases with age. ACE UNITED STATES 25 One out of 19,608 35 One out of 622 45 One out of 93 55 One out of 33 65 One out of 17 75 One out of 11 85 One out of nine New partnership helps prepare SA high school students By Jacquelyn Spruce THE BATTALION CRACIE ARENAS • THE BATTALION SOURCE : WWW.HABCO.ORG ^districting battle may delay presidential primary By April Castro THE ASSOCIATED PRESS AUSTIN — The state’s role in presidential politics could be damaged by bitter Republican infighting over congressional redistricting. As the clock ticked Sunday without a deal redistricting, a delay in the March 2 Texas primary became increasingly likely. That could leave state Democrats without ich influence in picking their party’s nomi nee to challenge President Bush next year — one of the Democratic candidates might already have his party’s nomination sewn up before the delayed Texas vote. Lawmakers on both sides of the Capitol had hoped to have an agreement in place by Saturday. Instead, weary lawmakers left the Capitol Saturday evening with no map. Gov. Rick Perry has cited Monday as the “drop dead date” for him to sign a map agreed on by lawmakers. By Sunday afternoon, no map had been filed. Once a map has been filed, the legislation will have to go through a constitutionally required 24-hour waiting period before it can be considered for a vote, making the Monday deadline nearly impossible. The office of Secretary of State Geoff Connor has said the Legislature must adjourn and the bill must be signed no later than a It is apriority for members of the Senate to avoid moving the election date. — Todd Staples Republican state senator Monday to maintain the March 2 primary with new congressional districts. “It is a priority for members of the Senate to avoid moving the election date,” said Sen. Todd Staples, R-Palestine, a key Senate negotiator. “We think it is unfair to the can- didates, both Republican and Democratic alike, as well as the voters, and we’re continuing to negotiate in good faith in order to avoid” moving the primary. Staples and Sen. Robert Duncan, R-Lubbock, See Delay on page 2 San Antonio high school students will have extra help preparing for college thanks to a new partnership between Texas A&M and three San Antonio school dis tricts, said David Byrd, director of recruitment for the College of Education and Human Development. The partnership was announced during a press confer ence last week and is geared to not only prepare students for college, but to help teachers get those students ready. The San Antonio school districts included in the partnership are East Central ISD, Southside ISD and Southwest ISD. As of now, the partnership is focused on those three San Antonio school districts, because the north side of San Antonio has experienced an economic boom recent ly, Byrd said. “The mayor is trying to help the south side school districts,” he said. “He is focusing more on the eco nomic development of a part of town that has not seen much growth.” Patti Birney, assistant superintendent for curriculum instruction for East Central ISD, said the partnership will provide academic preparation in multiple areas. “Because teachers are in demand, that is one of the areas they are focusing on,” Birney said. “We hope it will help enhance teacher recruitment, as well.” Plans to form a partnership that will help the south side of San Antonio have been discussed by many peo ple, including Ed Garza, the city’s mayor. See Partnership on page 2