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Sci-Tech: The whole enchilada • Page 4
Opinion: The tax man cometh • Page 9
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folume 110 • Issue 53 • 10 pages
A Texas A&M Tradition Since 1893
www.thebattalion.net
Tuesday, November 11, 2003
nothalpouthside Garage Task Force
Transportation Services Director
Rodney Weis has enlisted the help of
students in planning his proposal to
eliminate reserved spaces in the
Southside Garage.
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Weis has composed a 14-
member task force of
Southside Garage permit
holders, people on the waiting
list red lot permit holders and
commuter students.
The garage currently serves
about 900 students and 120
faculty and staff members.
P) More than 500 people are on the
waiting list for the garage.
ANDREW BURLESON • THE BATTALION
SOURCE : TRANSPORTATION SERVICES
By Natalie Younts
THE BATTALION
Transportation Services Director
Rodney Weis is working with a 14-
member task force that will recom
mend if and when reserved numbered
spaces should be eliminated in the
Southside Parking Garage.
“We tried to get a cross section of
everybody who is currently using the
garage or could use it if the policy
changed,” Weis said.
Weis said his proposed plan to
eliminate reserved numbered spaces
would allow for the accommodation
of more people while still guarantee
ing every person with a Southside
Garage permit an open space.
Southside Student Senator Logan
Renfrew, a member of the task force
and a Southside Garage permit holder,
said he believes in Weis’ guarantee.
“I think he can do that because he
has the proven track record,” Renfrew
said. “What people don’t realize is
that people from around the nation
were calling him at Georgia Tech and
saying ‘How can we have the same
system at our University ?’”
Weis said reserved numbered
spaces are inefficient because they sit
empty all the time. For example, he
said, there were 460 empty spaces in
the garage at kick-off time at the last
home football game against the
University of Kansas.
Currently, the Southside Garage is
the only campus garage without visi
tor parking, but Weis said visitor park
ing could be implemented if reserved
numbered spaces were eliminated.
Weis said the garage has about 900
students, 120 faculty and staff mem
bers and more than 500 people wait
ing for a garage spot.
The Southside Garage Task Force
includes representatives for student
garage permit holders, faculty and
staff garage permit holders, people on
the garage waiting list, people who
park in red lots by Southside resi
dence halls and commuter students.
Weis said the task force was
assembled by picking groups of stu
dents who had expressed an interest
and randomly picking people from the
garage waiting list and from other lots.
“We just kept calling people until
they said, ‘Yeah, I’m interested, and
Fd like to serve,”’ Weis said.
Only five of the 14 task force
members showed up to the first meet
ing. There will be a second meeting
later this month.
Renfrew said he thinks the plan is
a good idea and would alleviate
many parking issues, although the
Student Senate has not taken a posi
tion on the plan yet.
“I personally am waiting to see
how other Southside residents react to
it so that I can effectively represent
them,” Renfrew said.
Weis’s proposed plan for the
Southside Garage is part of the cam
puswide parking distribution plan for
all garages and lots on campus: People
would buy a permit for a certain
garage or lot, not for a certain space.
“It’s going to a place, not a
space,” he said.
Renfrew said effectively commu
nicating the plan to students will be a
major issue, since it is a detailed plan
See Task force on page 2
^&M says Parsons’
students were aware
Around we go
By Kim Katopodis
THE BATTALION
Testimony continued in the
il suit members of the Texas
i° n Parsons Mounted Cavalry
leoftr® lave brought against the
University Monday, as attorney
Ronald Hole attempted to dis
credit evidence complied by the
Department of Student Life in
its finding that cavalry members
violated hazing rules.
Members of the cavalry are
ing A&M for violating their
individual rights and denying
them adequate access to both
case files and witnesses in a haz
ing trial held by the Department
of Student Life last spring.
Jacquie Vargas, an A&M
Department of Student Life con-
resolution specialist, contin-
her testimony regarding
which acts constitute hazing and
which rights were discussed with
members of the cavalry in pre
hearings. Vargas said the
students were informed of rules
24,26 and 27, which include the
student conduct code, student
ights and sanctions.
Testimony from Laura Sosh-
A Lightsy, coordinator of Student
Vp ludicial and Mediation
Services, followed. Hole ques-
ioned Sosh-Lightsy about the
evidence binder to which the
cavalry students had access
before their trials. The binder
included descriptions of video
tapes provided to Student Life
by other cavalry members.
Hole alleged that the written
descriptions of the videotapes
may have been inaccurately
interpreted. Sosh-Lightsy main
tained they were accurate
because she saw them. Hole
then referred to Sosh-Lightsy
and supervisor Michael Collins’
notes on the pre-trial hearing of
cavalry member Michael Garza.
Collins’ notes said Garza felt
what they had done was wrong,
while Sosh-Lightsy’s said Garza
“didn’t see it as wrong.” Hole
connected this to his assertion
that the videotapes could have
been interpreted differently by
different people.
Hole also attacked the way in
which the Department of
Student Life determined which
members of the cavalry violated
hazing rules.
Sosh-Lightsy said that in the
case of cavalry member Drake
Prowse, they determined fault
by combining information from
several different sources.
Prowse was the first student to
testify in the trial and a member
See Parsons on page 2
RANDAL FORD • THE BATTALION
The Yoyo swing at the carnival off Highway 6 spins riders around Monday
night. The carnival is run by Wrights Amusement Parks and usually lasts around
three weeks,
of Colorado,
This is the last week for the fair in College Station area. Based out
Wrights Amusement Parks tour Colorado, New Mexico and Texas.
Transfer students can earn
admission through BIMS
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By Nicole M. Jones
THE BATTALION
Students from community colleges across
Texas can now earn admission to Texas A&M
under a new agreement initiated by the
Department of Biomedical Science.
The 2+2 Articulation Agreement began for
undergraduate transfer students so they would
know what courses to take in preparation for
entry to the biomedical science program, said
F.H. Landis, director of the biomedical science
program.
This agreement, which was first signed three
years ago, has since involved eight Texas com
munity colleges, Landis said.
The A&M biomedical science department
will now admit up to 10 Odessa College students
each year who have taken a designated curricu
lum and have earned a minimum 3.6 grade point
ratio, according to the Odessa American. The
required curriculum is heavy on sciences —
biology, chemistry and physics — and includes
general education requirements. Students will
start at the community college level, then enroll
at A&M after two years.
Clayton Aired, the vice president for instruc
tion at Odessa College, signed the official agree
ment on Oct. 24 at a luncheon at A&M. Students
and college representatives from other commu
nity colleges already participating in the pro
gram were present.
Landis said these agreements will not affect
other undergraduate students applying to A&M
or the biomedical science department, as long as
the students are competitive for admission to the
University and the program.
Transfer Student Agreement
A new agreement will grant select Odessa
College students admittance into Texas
A&M's biomedical science department.
n A&M will admit up to 10 Odessa
College students each year.
^ A designated curriculum and
minimum 3.6 GPR will be required.
hi Those eligible will enroll at A&M
after two years. m
^ fay]
ANDREW BURLESON • THE BATTALION
SOURCE : THE ODESSA AMERICAN
This program benefits community college
students because they will not only save money
by first attending a more affordable school, but
will be taking classes that will transfer to A&M,
said Steven Sofge, a biology professor at Odessa
College who was key in initiating the agreement.
The initiative clarifies the transfer expectations
See BIMS on page 2
c CineStudenf offers
movie discounts
By Jenna Jones
THE BATTALION
Cinemark Theaters has. teamed up with Texas
A&M’s Memorial Student Center Film Society this
semester to offer students a new blockbuster film each
month for a discount rate.
The program, named “CineStudent,” sells tickets for
$3 each at the MSC Box Office in Rudder Tower for
showings at Cinemark Theaters.
Michael Venner, a senior political science major and
CineStudent chair, said the first two showings were
completely sold out.
“The event is 100 percent for students and we usu
ally have one CineStudent program a month: the first
was ‘Once Upon a Time in Mexico’ in September and
then ‘Kill Bill: Volume T in October,” Venner said.
This month’s showing
FBI agents testify in trial of Texas Tech professor
By Betsy Blaney
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
LUBBOCK, Texas — An FBI
agent testified Monday that at one
point he feared a Texas Tech pro
fessor was growing plague bacteria
like a farmer.
“We don’t believe he brought
back that much. My fear was he
was growing it like a farmer grows
hothouse tomatoes,” FBI agent
Miles Burden told jurors in the fed
eral trial of Dr. Thomas Butler.
Butler faces 69 charges that he
smuggled plague samples from
Tanzania in April 2002 and illegal
ly transported them in the United
States and overseas. Other charges
include lying to FBI agents about
the missing vials, theft, embezzle
ment and fraud.
On Jan. 14, Butler reported the
vials stolen to police. Within hours,
scores of federal agents descended
on the city and a frantic search for
the vials ensued. President Bush was
even briefed about the situation.
The search ended when Butler
gave FBI agents a written statement
in which he admitted a “misjudg-
ment” in not telling his supervisor
that the vials had been “accidentally
destroyed,” according to testimony.
Burden said that another agent
had spoken with Butler’s wife. He
said that agent told him that
Elisabeth Butler said her husband
was dissatisfied with the university
and that he wasn’t receiving the
recognition that he deserved.
“He believed that the people at
Texas Tech were trying to sabotage
him,” Burden said.
Butler, 62, had told agents that
disgruntled employees, terrorists or
the cleaning crew could have taken
the missing vials.
Burden said that “the disgruntled
employee might indeed be Butler.”
When agents were interviewing
Butler before he gave his state
ment, Butler was involved in a
conference call in which he
learned that the director of the FBI
and the president would be noti
fied of the missing vials.
See FBI on page 2
a
It’s kind of like
pulling a sports
ticket with a sports
pass.
— Michael Venner
senior CineStudent chair
is “Matrix Revolutions’
on Nov. 20 at 7 p.m.
Tickets will go on sale
Nov. 13 at 11 a.m.
A student I.D. must
be present for each
ticket purchased.
“It’s kind of like
pulling a sports ticket
with a sports pass,”
Venner said.
After the showings, a
survey is issued to each
student to vote for the next
month’s show from a list of 20 different movies coming
out, starting the day leading up to the next program.
Becky Ivey, a junior history major and the film soci
ety’s director of co-programming, said CineStudent is
already expanding this month’s viewing to the large
233-seat theater from a medium 160-seat theater at
Cinemark Theaters.
See Discounts on page 2