fATiir-'B % Friday, January 30,2004
,;The Battalion
olume 110 • Issue 81 • 10 pages
A Texas A&M Tradition Since 1893
enate votes against fee proposal
By Anthony Woolstrum
THE BATTALION
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wthtfl
iwasBlhe Student Senate voted
vani Wednesday against a proposal to
’lart B 86 stu ^ ent service fees beyond the
st; e cap, and voted to send the issue
la referendum in the spring.
■ “With this first vote we’ve said
it the fees are high enough and we
use to increase them anymore”
lid Matthew Wilkins, speaker of
the Student Senate. “But we are
onesBnding the issue to referendum so
that ultimately the student body w ill
h; e the final say.”
The Student Service Fee
visory Board (SSFAB), which
hored the proposal, can propose
_ increase in student ser\ ice fees up
to 10 percent per year with a state-
mandated cap of $150. Any increas
es of 10 percent must be voted on by
students in a referendum.
Currently students pay $11.86
per semester credit hour in student
service fees.* The proposed
increase to $12.51 per semester
credit hour would increase fees to
$150.12, which is just 12 cents
more than the cap.
If the student body does accept
the fee increase, a new cap of $250
will go into effect, allowing the
board to raise fees less than 10 per
cent per year without a referendum.
It would take the SSFAB five
years to reach this cap if it raised it
as much as possible each year.
“Based on my understanding
of the budget situation for the
division of student affairs, I
would have preferred the Senate
voted to endorse the bill,” said Dr.
Kevin Jackson, director of student
activities.
Many organizations have
trimmed their budgets due to finan
cial restrictions last year. Will
McAdams, Corps commander of
the Corps of Cadets, spoke in favor
of raising the fee, citing tlfat these
student organizations can only sur
vive so long before they will die
due to money restraints.
Later in the meeting, the Student
Senate voted against the Voting
Disclosure Bill, which would effec
tively remove secret ballots. The
arguments against the bill pointed
out that many senators would be
susceptible to the influence of their
peers on sensitive subjects if they
weren’t allowed to vote in a secret
ballot.
The bill’s authors, Lindsey
Shanklin, Jason Sherrieb and
Dustin Teems said allowing stu
dents to vote on a secret ballot is
not representing the student body
fairly.
The Student Senate also
announced a number of vacancies
that can be filled by any student
who is in the College of
Architecture, Business, Agriculture
and Life Sciences, lives off cam
pus, or is a member of the Corps.
Applications are available in
Koldus 127.
Sports:
Aggie tennis
heads to North
Carolina to
face Duke.
Page 7
www.tliebatt.eoni
Page design by Lauren Rouse
ISTUDENT SERVICE FEES
If students vote in April to
approve the raise in
Student Service Fees (SSF),
the Board of Regents can
increase fees up to 10 percent
without a referendum.
Current SSF
• $11.86 per credit hour
• The current fee cap is $150
Proposed SSF:
•$12
• Th<
Lmbh
$12.51 per credit hour
The $250 cap will go into effect
RUBEN DELUNA • THE BATTALION
SOURCE : STUDENT SERVICE FEE ADVISORY BOARD
Martial dance
JOHN C. LIVAS • THE BATTALION
icon Martial Arts and Dance artists Kilindi lyi (left)
id James Washington demonstrate Zulu izinduku, a
m of dance that uses two sticks to mimics move
nts of traditional South African spear and shield
combat Thursday night at Rudder Theater. The
demonstration was sponsored by the departments of
Anthropology, Performance Studies and Visual and
Performing Arts Academy.
V*
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bp 10 percent
By Pammy Ramji
THE BATTALION
Statistics for the University of Texas last year
lowed 75 percent of the freshmen admitted were
the top 10 percent of their high school class.
Texas A&M hopes not to be in the same boat,
id Frank Ashley, associate provost for enrollment.
On average, about 5,300 of 18,000 applica-
ns received by A&M are applications of stu
nts who are in the top 10 percent of their high
|hool graduating class.
In the fall of 2003, more than 50 percent of
ernflWidents admitted to A&M were in the top 10
e MBrcent, Ashley said.
jh stfjl According to the top 10 percent rule, students
indedffho are in the top 10 percent of their graduating
ss are qualified for automatic admission to any
Bxas public university. Although the students are
pg ci llniitted to the university, the policy does not
cerf^omise admission to a college within the univer-
I All
d i ,, si
incef
:y of their choice.
In addition to graduating in the top 10 percent,
dents must attend a public or private high
rule criticized
school in Texas, enroll in a college no more than
two years after graduation and submit an applica
tion before the deadline. Students may still be
required to take the SAT or ACT, Ashley said.
Ashley said he believes the top 10 percent rule
is a good rule, but it needs some changes. He said
he believes every student should take a college
preparatory course, because some students may
not take more rigorous courses in high school.
Students not admitted in the top 10 percent of their
class support the rule, but only to a certain extent.
“In some regards, the top 10 percent rule is
good,” said junior international studies major
Leslie Lane. “Those students worked hard to get
those grades for four years. But what about those
who had to work or were busy with extracurric
ular activities?”
Lane said she believes A&M is focused on
modeling Aggies who are well rounded, and if a
prospective student only has the grades, A&M is
missing out on a student who can add so much to
the Aggie family. If a prospective student has both
See Top 10 on page 8
640 cadets head to Houston
to volunteer for Super Bowl
By Carrie Pierce
THE BATTALION
Six hundred and forty members of Texas
A&M’s Corps of Cadets will be trading in their
khakis, boots and camo for collared shirts and secu
rity jackets when they head to Reliant Stadium in
Houston on Sunday for Super Bowl XXXVIII.
As the New England Patriots take on the
Carolina Panthers, 300 cadets will be working secu
rity and 340 will be selling programs in the stadium.
"The company that provides security at the
Super Bowl is employing 2,200 people,” said
Jonathan Platt, a senior political science major.
“This same company (Contemporary Services
Corporation Inc.) employs security at Kyle field so
they asked the Corps of Cadets to help.”
Tim Shanks, a junior kinesiology major, said
anyone in the Corps could volunteer to work. The
volunteers were then divided between security
and program sales.
“The cadets working security will be working
the gates, searching people and manning the metal
detectors,” Platt said.
The Corps will also be providing security
inside the stadium.
All of the security volunteers had to undergo
vigorous training and background checks to be
eligible to work at the Super Bowl.
“We attended two five-hour training sessions,”
See Cadets on page 2
New department head
hopes to increase funding
By Carrie Pierce
THE BATTALION
The Texas A&M Department
of English has appointed Dr.
Paul A. Parrish as the new
department head.
Former head Dr. J. Lawrence
Mitchell had occupied the posi
tion since 1989.
“I hope to continue the tra
jectory that my predecessor. Dr.
Mitchell, had laid out,” Parrish
said. "I want to continue to work
with the faculty and students to
make the department one of the
centerpieces of the University.”
Parrish has been a part of
the faculty since 1974. He
received a Bachelor of Arts in
PARRISH
English from
Abilene
Christian
University in
1966, a mas
ter’s degree in
English from
the University
of Kansas in
1968 and a
Ph.D. in English from Rice
University in 1971.
Since coming to A&M, he
has served as associate dean for
the College of Liberal Arts, arts
development coordinator for
the College of Liberal Arts and
on the Faculty Senate. He has
been a distinguished regents
professor, a designation made
by the A&M University System
Board of Regents given to two
A&M professors each year,
Parrish said.
Parrish has taught 15 English
courses at A&M. including
Renaissance and Early Modem
Literature, Shakespeare, Milton
and 17th Century Literature.
“I like all of the courses that
I’ve taught, and I like them
equally well,” Parrish said.
Mitchell described the head
of the English department’s
main responsibilities as over
seeing the large graduate pro
gram and the 600-plus students in
See Parrish on page 2
EU leaders oppose death penalty
By Michael Player
THE BATTALION
Jordan Steiker, Cooper H. Regents Professor in
Law of the University of Texas, predicted the
future demise of capital punishment at The Eye
The Hon. Szabolcs Kerek-Barczy speaks on the death
penalty at the George Bush Presidential Conference
Center Thursday night. Kerek-Barczy is the Consul
General of Hungary and holds two bachelors degrees
from the College of Foreign Trade in Budapest.
For An Eye Death Penalty Symposium, which
presented historical aspects of the death penalty
from viewpoints of representatives of Hungary,
France and Texas,
The symposium, presented by the European
Union Center and the Aggie International
Ambassadors, was held at the George Bush
Presidential Library Conference Center.
Ben Crouch, executive associate dean of the
College of Liberal Arts, opened the forum with
questions about the death penalty. Crouch said
people have a “morbid fascination” with the death
penalty.
“If the trend of only regional enforcement of
the death penalty continues, it is only a matter of
time before the (U.S.) Supreme Court steps in and
abolishes it again,” Steiker said.
Steiker said the southern United States sen
tences criminals to death and carries it out, while
other states that sentence inmates to death do not.
Szabolcs Kerek-Barczy, consul general of
Hungary, depicted the abuses of the death penalty
in Hungary under the former Communist regime.
“I found it interesting that even after the
Communists lost power, their victims were not
bloodthirsty for revenge,” Kerek-Barczy said.
Kerek-Barczy said capital punishment is more
of a moral issue than a political one.
The last speaker to address the audience,
Dennis Simonneau, consul general of France in
See Leaders on page 8