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Volume 110 • Issue 65 • 12 pages
A Texas A&M Tradition Since 1893
www.thebattaIion.net
A&M could host Hispanic studies
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forces has
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By Erin Price
THE BATTALION
A new Hispanic studies department could be
oming to Texas A&M in the fall of 2004 as part
of the campuswide goal of becoming a top-10
ic university by 2020.
The new department would include courses in
(he Spanish language, Hispanic cultures and the
Jniversity’s first courses in Portuguese, pending
nal approval.
“Students whom I have talked to are enthusi-
istic supporters,” said Stephen Miller, chair of
reorganization subcommittee for Hispanic
tudies and a professor of modem and classical
languages. “They understand how the new
lepartment will be able to help them attain their
icademic and professional goals.”
The Department of Modern and Classical
Languages would be divided into two new
departments: the Department of Hispanic Studies
and the Department of European and Classical
Studies, Miller said. The current budget for the
Department of Modern and Classical Languages
will be split proportionately to fund the two
departments, he said.
“Most universities like ours don’t have one sin
gle language department,” said Craig Kallendorf,
interim head of the modern and classical language
department. “It’s part of our effort to bring our
department in line with the Vision 2020 goals.”
Many Hispanic students say they feel that this
new degree program could help A&M become a
more well-rounded University.
“It’s about time that A&M offered this type of
program,” said Phillip De La Pena, a junior histo
ry major. “Texas A&M is a flagship university
and needs to offer more multicultural programs.”
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De La Pena said anyone who enters the profes
sional field needs to know Spanish, especially in
the Southwest where trade with Hispanic countries
is increasing. It is a good idea for A&M to recog
nize the Hispanic influence in society, he said.
“In the future, A&M will eventually represent
the demographic of the state and a Hispanic studies
department is essential to have,” De La Pena said.
A Hispanic studies doctoral program will also
be offered in conjunction with Texas A&M
System universities in Corpus Christi, Kingsville
and Laredo, Miller said.
Attracting Hispanic studies graduate students
will directly affect many students on the A&M
campus by provided new resources for teaching,
Kallendorf said.
“The more graduate students we have means
See Studies on page 2
Monday, December X, 2003
/Hispanic Studies Department\
A new Hispanic studies department could
be coming to Texas A&M in the fall of 2004,
pending final approval by the Texas Higher
Education Coordinating Board.
i The department will include courses
in the Spanish language, Hispanic cultures
and Portugese.
i The Department of Modern and Classical
Languages will be divided into the
Department of Hispanic Studies and the
Department of European and Classical
Studies.
The department will offer a bachelor's
degree and Master of Arts.
i A doctorate program will also be offered in
conjunction with A&M System universities
in Corpus Christi, Kingsville and Laredo.
RUBEN DELUNA • THE BATTALION
SOURCE : DEPARTMENT OF MODERN AND CLASSICAL LANGUAGES
JP BEATO III • THE BATTALION
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Former President George Bush and University President they pass the reviewing stand just before the Texas A&M vs.
Robert M. Gates review members of the Corps of Cadets as University of Texas game Friday afternoon at Kyle Field.
Students help improve
Indonesian agriculture
By Dan Orth
THE BATTALION
In the summer of 2001, Andres
Barahona, a senior agricultural economics
major, traveled to Bali, Indonesia, for an
internship and started a fresh fruit process
ing business with a group of Indonesians.
By the end of the trip he could converse in
Bahasa Indonesia, the country’s official lan
guage. He said the experience opened his eyes.
“(It) helped me understand the need for
help in the world,” Bahasa said.
He and other Texas A&M students
worked with Indonesians to set up business
es aimed at improving Indonesia’s food pro
duction and moving its economy forward.
These students were involved in part of
a larger project that the International Ag
Office has recently completed called the
Education for community food Enterprise
Development (ECFED).
The food development program had two
main goals: to improve small-and medium
sized food enterprises and to strengthen
Indonesian universities’ abilities to
research while improving collaboration
with private businesses.
Cliff Hoelscher, the project leader of
ECFED, said the group’s biggest focus was
to improve Indonesia’s food technology to
increase food production efficiency.
“Indonesia’s greatest need is food tech
nology and through the project, we provid
ed it,” Hoelscher said.
Ninety-five million of Indonesia’s 223
million people work in food production,
which is extremely high in comparison to the
United States’ 2 percent to 3 percent. Simple
economics shows that if food production was
to become more efficient, it would free mass
amounts of labor that Indonesia could put to
other productive uses.
Hoelscher said Indonesia could have a
more productive economy if its food system
did not involve so many people.
“When you go to Indonesia, everywhere
you look you see small subsistence farms,
but they do have pockets of high technolo
gy,” Hoelscher said.
Hoelscher said Indonesia is not the only
beneficiary for the project.
“Most of our project focuses on building up
Indonesia’s food systems, but we are driven to
create a market for U.S. exports,” he said.
Hoelscher said some exports include
Texas cotton and wheat.
Twenty-five A&M professors from a
wide array of fields traveled to Indonesia
during the project’s five-year span to put on
workshops that “trained the trainers” of
Indonesia. Workshop topics focused on food
nutrition, food safety, packaging techniques
and new product development.
Barahona and other interns from A&M
began their trip with a 10-day crash course in
Bahas, Indonesia, at an Indonesian universi
ty. They then spread out to different universi
ties to begin their project. Barahona worked
with Indonesians to draw up a business plan
which focused on processing fresh fruit, and
they began carrying out the business plan.
Mangoes are an example of why
Indonesia needs better food processing
facilities. Indonesians feed 30 percent of the
country’s mangoes to animals because they
are bruised and not edible for fresh con
sumption Hoelscher said. These bruised
mangoes can be canned or processed and
then used by Indonesians.
Other current projects focus on training
more students and improving Indonesia’s
cold storage and cold transportation.
Ed Price, associate vice chancellor for
International Agriculture and Federal
Relations, said several former students con
tributed to the creation of ECFED.
“The project idea began with a student
who was on an internship in an embassy in
Indonesia,” Price said. “When he came
back, we began development on a program
to deal with issues that he saw in Indonesia
and issues we had been focusing on.”
Price said students can make a difference
by working on projects such as these.
“Students are incredibly productive on
international projects and are a real asset,”
he said.
Pinching pounds
| Gastric bypass surgery -
commonly known as stomach
stapling - curtails the absorption
of nutrients from food, thereby
1 causing a person to lose weight.
The stomach
is separated
into two parts.
The upper
part forms a
small egg
sized pouch.
It is then
connected to
the lower part
of the small
intestines.
In order for
digestive
juices from
the lower
stomach to
assist in
digestion, the
duodenum is
reconnected to the lower
section of the small intestine.
NOTE: The surgery shown, a Roux-
en-Y gastric bypass, is one of four
types of gastric bypass surgeries.
[SOURCES: U.S. Bariatric Inc.;
[ Forest Health Services Corp.;
' The Surgical Weight Loss Center
Obesity surgery popularity
makes dramatic gains
By Karen Testa
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
BOSTON — Ken Powers
knew the potential dangers of
having his stomach stapled, but
to a man who had tipped the
scales at 475 pounds, those risks
didn’t much matter.
“I had this thought: If I die
on the operating table, having
the surgery to try to better my
life, I thought it was a better
thing to do than to live the way I
was living, which, in my opin
ion, I was kind of waiting to die
anyway,” he said.
By the tens of thousands,
morbidly obese people who have
failed at diets, support groups
and exercise programs are turn
ing to surgery to lose weight.
In 1998, there were 25,800
obesity-related operations, most
of them gastric-bypass procedures
commonly known as stomach sta
pling. This year, the American
Society for Bariatric Surgery esti
mates 103,200 operations.
Questions about the risks and
growing use of the procedures
surfaced in recent weeks after
two patients in New England
died during stomach-stapling
surgeries. However, obesity spe
cialists say the procedure is
safer than it has ever been —
and that is contributing to the
growing popularity.
And for most patients, the
risk of not having the surgery
is greater.
“It’s an operation that helps
cure people of this disease which
is life-threatening. People see it
as some type of cosmetic surgery,
when it’s not. More patients die
waiting for surgery than die after
surgery,” said Dr. Janey Pratt, a
surgeon at the Massachusetts
General Hospital Weight Center
in Boston, which does about 300
gastric bypasses a year.
The operation involves using
staples or stitches to close off
part of the stomach to form a
small pouch about the size of an
egg, which limits how much
See Obesity on page 2
U.S. troops repel
coordinated attacks
U.S. troops repelled simultaneous
attacks by Iraqi forces in Samarra,
killing at least 46 Iraqis and
wounding at least 18. Five
American soldiers and a civilian
were wounded during the fighting.
TURKEY
losul •
Samarra
SYRIA
Baghdad
SAUDI ''
ARABIA
0 100 mi
0 Too km
SOURCES: Associated Press: ESRI AP
Rebel attacks spur firefight
By Niko Price
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
BAGHDAD, Iraq — In the dead
liest reported firefight since the fall of
Saddam Hussein’s regime, U.S. sol
diers fought back coordinated attacks
Sunday using tanks, cannons and
small arms in running battles through
out the northern city of Samarra. The
troops killed 46 Iraqi fighters, and five
Americans were wounded.
Minutes later, two South Korean
contractors were killed nearby in a
roadside ambush in what U.S. offi
cials called a new campaign aimed
at undermining international support
for the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq.
Attacks on Saturday killed seven
Spaniards, two Japanese diplomats
and a Colombian oil worker.
Lt. Col. William MacDonald of the
4th Infantry Division said attackers,
many wearing uniforms of Saddam’s
Fedayeen militia, opened fire simulta
neously on two U.S. supply convoys
on opposite sides of Samarra.
After barricading a road, the
See Attacks on page 2
Experts fear proposed penal code changes
HOUSTON (AP) — Lawmakers who tinker
with the state’s penal code unintentionally could
cause future prison overcrowding, a state senator
and some legal experts worry.
State Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, who
served as the chairman of the Criminal Justice
Committee and rewrote the code in 1993, said
lawmakers’ good intentions could have unintend
ed consequences. He said each time the code is
altered, interpretation becomes more difficult.
“The idea of a penal code is to have broad
categories and leave it to prosecutors,”
Williamson County District Attorney John
Bradley said. “You can’t come up with a list of
all the dumb things people do.”
The code was rewritten in 1993 based on an
American Law Institute model. When the rewrite
occurred the state’s guidelines had been amended
so many times they were unmanageable. Since
that time, the amendments have begun once again,
Whitmire said.
“There are literally hundreds of bills passed
which reach into the penal code of 1993,” he said.
A council formed by the Legislature in 1983
See Penal code on page 2