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Aggielife: Singing a different tune • Page 3 Opinion: Eyes wide shut • Page 9
THE BATTALION
A Texas A&M Tradition Since 1893
Volume 110 • Issue 33 • 10 pages www.thebattalion.net Tuesday, October 14, 2003
A&M professor indicted for soliciting sex
By Bart Shirley
THE BATTALION
Andrew Spicer, an associate professor at the
Institute of Biosciences and Technology at the
Texas A&M Health Science Center in
Houston, was arrested Oct. 7 in Weatherford,
Texas, on charges of soliciting sex from a
minor. He was released Wednesday after post-
inga$35,000 bail.
Parker County officials said Spicer had driven
to Weatherford with the intention of having sexu
al intercourse with a 13-year-old he had met in a
chat room. However, the person
he had spoken to in the chat
room was actually a member of a
special task force formed to
combat this crime.
“We are all trying to catch up
and figure out how to deal with
(computer crime),” said Jerry
Blaisdell, Weatherford police
chief. “This is a new challenge.”
Spicer is now the subject of an internal investi
gation within the A&M System as well.
"He’s been placed on paid administrative leave
pending the outcome of an internal investigation,”
said Terri Parker, executive director of communi
cations for the A&M Health Science Center.
Parker said the investigation is being con
ducted by the Office of Internal Audit, and it
will be checking Spicer for any record of mis
conduct. The A&M System is cooperating with
the authorities through the Office of General
Counsel, he said.
The task force comprises members of the
Weatherford Police Department, the Springtown
Police Department, the Parker County Sheriff’s
Office, the Parker County District Attorney’s
Office and the Texas Rangers, and is headed by
Chief Investigator Larry Fowler.
Jeff Swain, assistant district attorney for
Parker County, said the task force’s focus is not
exclusive to computer crime.
The group also enforces drug laws and rounds
up fugitive criminals in Parker County. The task
force is needed because criminal activity is mutat
ing to include Internet infractions, and not just
those of a sexual nature.
“Computer crimes are something that take a lot
of training,” Swain said. “There is a whole lot of
computer crime.”
Land-ho!
JOSHUA HOBSON • THE BATTALION
The Children's Museum of the Brazos Valley worker Veronica Weaver of Booseum 2003 this Saturday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., which will include
North Zulch reads to children during story time Monday afternoon. More pictures with Reveille, live entertainment and activities such as go-cart
than 600 people will volunteer this weekend for the Fall Fest and races, crafts and a Moon bounce.
Women’s center forms
mentoring program,
promotes leadership
By Dan Orth
THE BATTALION
In response to a perceived
lack of women in formal leader
ship positions across campus,
Texas A&M’s Women’s Center
has launched the Aggie Women
in Leadership program, which
pairs female Aggies with women
mentors in the community.
When comparing the number
of female undergraduate stu
dents in formal leadership posi
tions at A&M to other universi
ties, women leaders at A&M are
disproportionately low, despite
the fact that just less than half
of the student body is female.
The leadership program,
modeled after a program from
the University of North
Carolina, focuses on exposing
first- and second-year students
to women leaders across the
University and from the Bryan-
College Station community.
This program’s administra
tors said they hope to use these
early connections to increase
women’s involvement in leader
ship positions across campus.
Brenda Bethman, the pro
gram’s coordinator, said the
program aims to help add
women leaders to A&M and to
solve the problem of the lack of
female students in formal lead
ership positions.
“The goal of AWIL is to fos
ter women's leadership and
increase the diversity of women
leaders, both on campus and in
the world,” Bethman said.
One of A&M President Robert
M. Gates’ priorities for the
University is to strengthen leader
ship programs across campus,
and the women’s leadership pro
gram is a step toward this goal.
Bethman said there was a defi
nite feeling across campus that
this was necessary. The program
has been well-received by the
University and its faculty, she said.
Each student gets a mentor
from her academic field of interest
in which she meets with one-on-
one regularly throughout the year.
In its first year, 125 students
have been paired with mentors.
Seventeen mentors came from
the community and the rest were
from A&M, mostly faculty.
See Women on page 2
Egyptian twins
remain in coma
after separation
By Jamie Stengle
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
DALLAS — Two-year-old Egyptian twins remained in
a drug-induced coma Monday and doctors said they were
recovering well from a marathon surgery that separated
them over the weekend.
Doctors have stressed that there are still concerns for
the boys born joined at the top of their heads: the possi
bility of stroke, infection and how the wounds will heal,
and long-term questions about brain damage.
“The longer that you go without the appearance of
complications, that’s always taken as a positive sign,” said
Dr. James Thomas, chief of critical care at Children’s
Medical Center Dallas. “But to let your guard down I
think would be a mistake.”
The 34-hour surgery to separate Ahmed and Mohamed
Ibrahim began Saturday morning at Children’s and ended
late Sunday afternoon. They were in adjacent rooms
See Twins on page 10
Surgery on twin boys
Two-year-old identical twins Ahmed and Mohamed Ibrahim, who
were conjoined at the skull, underwent complicated separation
surgery in Dallas with a team of 18 doctors. Doctors spent more than
a year planning the surgery.
SOURCE: Associated Press Illustration by Travis Vermilye, Medical Modeling LLC/AP
Tornado Precautions
In the event of a tornado, these
safety measures should be taken:
Leave auditoriums, gyms and
other large rooms
• Go to interior rooms and halls
on the lowest floor
Avoid halls that open to the
outside in any direction
$
Crouch down and make yourself
as small a target as possible
Cover your head with a protective
object or your hands
ANDREW BURLESON • THE BATTALION
SOURCE : WWW.TORNADOPROJECT.COM
A&M lacks tornado detector
despite inclement weather
By Sonia Moghe
THE BATTALION
Though Texas A&M was involved in the devel
opment of the Texas Radar Project, the first
weather radar network in the nation, there are no
sirens in place on campus to warn students of
approaching tornadoes.
The University only has a lightning detection
system, said Department of Environmental Health
and Safety Director Chris Meyer.
“The system that we purchased was for light
ning detection,” Meyer said. “It was purchased by
the recreation sports department to warn people*
who were out and about.”
The University chose a lightning detection and
warning system instead of one that warned for tor
nadoes because of the infrequency of impending
tornadoes in the Bryan-College Station area.
“We’ve considered (a tornado alert system) on
several occasions. I know that the citizens of
College Station and Bryan have voted against hav
ing one, and the University has chosen not to put
it in place,” Meyer said. “They need a great deal of
maintenance and testing.”
Despite the recent tornado that struck a Bryan
neighborhood, the University has no plans to pur
chase a warning system.
“We haven’t restarted those discussions
(regarding a tornado alert system) in light of
recent weather,” Meyer said.
The Texas A&M Mobile Severe Storms Data
Acquisition team, coordinated in part by Kevin
Walter, is trying to convince people otherwise.
See Tornado on page 10
Democrats plan lawsuit to halt new GOP map
By Kelley Shannon
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
AUSTIN —They blocked bills at the Capitol,
filed a federal lawsuit and bolted secretly from
the state to try to kill Republican redistricting.
It wasn’t enough.
The Democrats lost their six-month legisla
tive battle to stop the redrawing of congression
al district lines when the Texas House and
Senate approved a map over the weekend that
will likely give Republicans a solid majority in
the state’s 32-member delegation.
But the Democrats aren’t finished just yet.
They plan to file another lawsuit in hopes of
preventing the GOP congressional map from
taking effect for the 2004 election. They con
tend the Republican plan disenfranchises
minority and rural voters all over the state.
By splitting Webb County, where Laredo is
located, thus cutting from one district tens of
thousands of South Texans living along the
Mexico border, the Republicans have turned a
previously Hispanic district into a non-minori
ty district, Democrats say.
Democrats also complain about the three-
way division of Travis County, home to Austin
and the state Capitol, and the destruction of the
minority district held by Democratic U.S. Rep.
Martin Frost in the Dallas area.
“It’s to the courts, now, that we’ve got to
look,” said weary Democratic Rep. Jim
McReynolds of Lufkin.
But Republicans who pushed for redistrict
ing say they expect the new district boundaries
will stand up to a review by the U.S. Justice
Department and the courts.
“I, with all confidence, can tell you it not
only meets the letter of the law with regard to
the Voting Rights Act, but it entirely meets the
spirit of the Voting Rights Act,” Which protects
minority interests, said Republican Rep. Phil
King of Weatherford.
The map is expected to boost the Texas GOP
from its current 15 congressional districts to 21
or 22 seats in the delegation. Democrats want to
keep existing district lines and their 17-15
advantage in the congressional delegation.
The new map creates a new Hispanic dis
trict and a new black district, said Republican
House Speaker Tom Craddick, a key player in
defining the final map. But Democrats dispute
that. They say the plan results in a net loss of
one minority district.
All year long, Democrats pointed to
Republican U.S. House Majority Leader Tom
DeLay of Sugar Land as the instigator for
redistricting and said he mounted a “power
grab” in Texas to secure a Republican major
ity in Congress.
The new Texas Republican seats could solid
ify the current 229-205 GOP majority in the U.S.
House, where there is one independent.
See Halt on page 2