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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (April 23, 2004)
Friday, April 23, 2004 he Battalion v'olume 110 • Issue 135 • 10 pages A Texas A&M Tradition Since 1893 Opinion: Dishonest blood donors deserve strict punishment. Page 9 www.thebatt.com PAGE DESIGN BY: EMILY HENDRICKSON lix shares views about war in Iraq HANS BUX Hans Blix, former chief U.N. weapons inspector, will speak to students and faculty Friday night about his experiences as weapons inspector in Iraq. By Rhiannon Meyers THE BATTALION Hans Blix, former chief U.N. leapons inspector, will speak to Texas l&M students and faculty Friday light about his experiences as a kapons inspector in Iraq. I Blix was appointed in 2000 to head ie U.N. Monitoring, Verification and nspections Commission. Blix will be at A&M as part of the Wiley Lecture Series and will be discussing the events leading up to the war with Iraq and promoting his first book “Disarming Iraq,” released in March 2004. Steven Pena, MSC Wiley Lecture Series media contact, said Blix was chosen to speak because his topic is timely and supplements the current debate and congressional investigation on whether the United States was justi fied in going to war with Iraq. “It will be interesting to get all sides of the story, and this speech can bring to the table a unique perspective on what was going on in Iraq,” Peiia said. Pena said Blix will focus on his work in Iraq, his experiences working with President Bush and the Saddam Hussein regime, and that he will give insight into how the weapons inspec tors went about looking for WMDs. Pena said he doesn’t expect protests at the speech, but encouraged students to turn in written questions before the speech that Blix will respond to in a question-and-answer period following the speech. “(Blix) didn’t get where he is by not being thrown in the fire before,” Pena said. “We welcome anyone from the See Blix on page 2 Ruben DeLuna • THE BATTALION Source : STEVEN PENA, MSC WILEY LECTURE SERIES MEDIA CONTACT Ring power Columbia loss hard on NASA WIDNALL Evan O'Connell • THE BATTALION conomics major Andrew Perry, (from left to right) biology major Benjamin Wilson, aerospace engineering major Jacob Bonnot and political science hajor Nicholas Taylor, show off their new Aggie rings inside the Clayton W. Williams Jr. Alumni Center Thursday afternoon. 2,872 Aggies received their rings Thursday, making it the largest distribution ever. Rings that were not picked up will be mailed. By Elizabeth Knapp THE BATTALION The unex- p e c t e d becomes the expected, which then becomes the accepted, said Sheila W i d n a 1 1 , Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor for aeronautics and astronautics. Widnall, secretary of the Air Force from 1993 to 1997, and the current vice president of the National Academy of Engineering, Thursday spoke in Rudder Theater evening about the Colombia accident that occurred last spring. Widnall was one of 13 people who served in the board that investi gated the Columbia incident. “This incident was extreme ly hard for everyone on the organization,” Widnall said. Widnall described the inci dent as an organizational system failure and said it had shared many similarities with the Challenger incident. “The launch videos estab lished that a sizable piece of foam left the external tank and impacted the orbiter near the leading edge,” Widnall said. “Almost immediately after the launch, people knew that some thing had happened.” The piece of foam that had come off weighed about two pounds, and the rest of the debris that spread across Texas contained large amounts of information, Widnall said. The most important piece of evidence that was found was the flight data recorder around March 20, which was about two months following the incident and gave the investigation board 100 times more data. Many tests were performed to see if the board’s conclusions about the accident were plausible. “By far the most spectacular was our test where we shot foam at the leading edge to see whether or not the leading edge was strong enough to withstand the foam impact,” Widnall said. “The question of the size of the foam and the velocity was an important issue.” Scientists and committee See Columbia on page 10 shirt A&M fencing looks to win SWIFA Saturday dominate By Natalie Younts THE BATTALION The Texas A&M Fencing Club is determined to win the Southwest Intercollegiate Fencing Association (SWIFA) championship tour nament which will take place at 11 a.m. Saturday at the Student Recreation Center, said Liz Machol, a junior history major and secretary of the club. We basically (SWIFA),” she said. SWIFA has four tourna ments per school year: two in the fall and two in the spring. The fourth tournament deter mines the champions of the school year. A&M has won all three of [this school year’s SWIFA tour naments and won the champi onship tournament last year, iMachol said. “One of the reasons that we do so well is because our [club members, by and large, [are more competitive than a ot of the people from other chools,” she said. Machol said fencing is the afest sport and that fencers ;et injured even less frequent- y than golfers. “The swords are not sharp f all,” she said. “There’s a >lunt tip.” Machol said the University fTexas-Austin, University of exas-San Antonio, niversity of Houston, Baylor University, Texas State University and Gary Job Corps will participate. Patrick Moore, a freshman computer engineering major and vice president of the A&M Fencing Club, said three types weapons are used in fencing: foil, epee and saber. He said fencers may devel op their skills in one, two or all three weapons. The weapons have different blades and call for different styles of fencing, he said. Moore said he likes fencing because it is an individual sport. “It’s more dependent upon me,” he said. “There isn’t a team. If I win, I did it by myself.” Machol said the A&M Fencing Club has 20 to 30 active members. She said any student can join. Tom Dyson, a senior mechanical engineering major, began fencing when he was a child and is now a member of the A&M Fencing Club. “My dad had done (fenc ing) in college,” he said. “When me and my friends started going at each other with broomsticks, he sug gested that we learn how to actually fence and not just hurt each other with long wooden poles.” ‘Project Playhouse’ to hold silent auction Saturday By Kyle Ross THE BATTALION This Saturday on Riverside Campus, cas tles and pirate ships will be on sale to the highest bidder. Participating in a venture sponsored by the construction science department called “Project Playhouse,” groups of students will assemble and display their self-built, miniature, architec tural structures. Each playhouse will then be up for a public silent auction. “We have 19 teams of students that have gone through all the steps of a real-world proj ect,” said Russ Peterson, professor of the mate rials and methods class where the students were assigned the project. “From submitting plans, to getting approvals, to dealing with a limited budget, these students are learning what it’s like to be a real construction company.” Each playhouse cannot exceed eight feet in all dimensions and must meet certain safety requirements. A starting budget of $200 was given to each group, but the students were allowed to raise money and gather discounted supplies from local stores and associations, Peterson said. “The students did an incredible job of get ting creative and raising money from places like the Local Homebuilder’s Association, Home Depot and Ellis Homes,” he said. “Some of the groups have gotten sponsorship for their play houses, while one group in particular has raised over a thousand dollars and will even feature fully operating windows.” Chris Psencik, a sophomore landscape archi tecture major, said the most difficult aspect of the project is not actually the construction, but getting everyone together on a plan and work ing around a limited budget. “Our team went around to different con struction sites in town and was able to get sup plies and scraps from those companies,” said Psencik, whose team will be displaying one of See Auction on page 2 BUILD DAY Construction science students will be building playhouses to be auctioned off on Saturday. The proceeds will go toward the Department of Construction Science and unsold houses will be donated to local children's organizations. WHIN: • Saturday, April 24 • Construction begins at 9 a.m. • Judging begins at 3 p.m. rs lyr.i-t. I • Baseball field, Texas A&M Riverside Campus WHAT: • Public is invited to view construction and bid on playhouses • Playhouses start at $250 Ruben DeLuna • THE BATTALION Source : RUSS PETERSON, CONSTRUCTION SCIENCE PROFESSOR Hispanic summit praises Gates’ diversity efforts By Michael Player THE BATTALION Texas A&M President Robert M. Gates outlined many of his initiatives to increase diversity at Texas A&M and gave summit attendees statistics that indicated the need for diversity. “I want to create measures that would force this University to become more diverse,” Gates said in his keynote address at the Texas A&M Hispanic Network Summit Thursday. The Texas A&M Hispanic Network Summit is an event established to bring former stu dents of Hispanic heritage togeth er to discuss diversity at A&M. The summit consisted of busi nessmen, former students, faculty and staff and University officials. Hector Gutierrez, chair of the TAMHN and Class of 1969, opened the summit and said in his welcoming speech that the Summit was in fact at the behest of Gates. “In all of my years working with the University, Dr. Gates is the only president to seriously address the issue of diversity,” Gutierrez said. “Our primary focus is the stu dent: young Hispanic men and women,” Gutierrez said. Gutierrez said the future of the state and the University depends on A&M’s ability to become diverse. “We want to make sure that our outreach programs are more active than any other school in the entire nation,” Gutierrez said. Gutierrez said one of the main obstacles of the TAMHN is administrative. “Our main goal at this time is to organize our database in a manner that will allow us to iden tify former Hispanic student of A&M in order to broaden our network,” Gutierrez said. “Currently the database we have only goes back to 1988.” Gates enumerated the issues regarding diversity at A&M. “When I took office, I was told that diversity had become a four-letter word here,” Gates said. “Our weakness is the fact that we are behind in the recruit ment of minorities and minority enrollment has been down in past several years. The reason is that our University has done nothing.” Gates said the University’s strength is that minorities who do enroll at A&M have a high grad uation rate.” Gates said Hispanic enroll ment is going to be larger this coming school year and that there have already been $12 million reallocated to be offered as schol arships and programs. Gates said he wanted to increase assistance for students whose families earn $40,000 or less. Gates said more emphasis will be placed on A&M’s reputation. “We will use the entire University system to increase our presence throughout the state,” Gates said.
