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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 7, 2004)
The Battalion Volume 111* Issue 8 • 14 pages ATexas A&M Tradition Since 1893 OPINION: An issue of privacy. page 5B www.thebatt.com PACE DESIGN BY: LAUREN ROUSE Victim of University apartment fire dies By Jibran Najmi THE BATTALION The mother of a Texas A&M doctoral student, whose apartment caught fire this summer, died Monday afternoon at approximately 1:30 p.m. Rabeya Chaudhury had been recovering from bum injuries that covered 50 percent of her body sustained in the July 31 explosion at the Univer sity Apartments off Hensel Drive. Chaudhury had come to College Station from Bangladesh to visit her son Saquib Ejaz, a doctoral student at Texas A&M, when the incident occurred. Ejaz had left to meet some friends on the eve ning of July 31 when his apartment exploded in flames, injuring his parents, pregnant wife and 4- year-old daughter. 1 ja/'s daughter Lamiya Zahin died Aug. 2 at John Sealy Hospital in Galveston. “(Saquib’s) father remains in critical condition, but is making major improvements, as (...) I’m told (he’s) now able to sit up,” said Rahul Ribeiro, president of the University Apartments Commu nity Council and a close family friend. Ribeiro said Ejaz’s wife is walking again, her overall health is improving and her unborn child is doing well. “We are very saddened to learn of the death of Rabeya Chaudhury, Saquib Ejaz’s mother,” said Cynthia Lawson, executive director of the Office of University Relations. “Our thoughts and prayers continue to be with them during this difficult time.” Jerry Higgins, spokesman for the Texas State Fire Marshal’s Office, said on Tuesday that the fire mar shal is continuing to investigate the cause of the fire. “We still need to complete follow-up interviews with the victims and other survivors and tic up some loose ends before we can issue a final report,” Higgins said. No date has been set for the completion of the fire marshal’s report. Meanwhile, Brazos County District Attorney Bill Turner has opened a criminal investigation into this incident and requested that A&M suspend its Presidential Task Force investigations until the criminal investigation is complete. “Public release of records related to the University Apartments at this time will interfere with the investi gation and detection of crime,” Turner said. “Howev er, as soon as our investigation is complete, the public will be made privy to all of those documents.” Faisal Chaudhry, president of the Islamic Commu nity of Bryan/College Station (ICBCS) told The Battal ion that Muslim funeral services for Rabeya Chaudhury would be held in Houston on Wednesday at the South East Zone Mosque. Chaudhry said the funeral would follow Duhr, the early afternoon prayer in Islam. “In Islam, it is recommended that the deceased be buried within 24 hours of their death. Sometimes it’s out of our control, and it cannot be helped, however it is recommended,” Chaudhry said. The Janaaza funeral services will be held at 8830 Old Galveston Road, Houston, Texas 77034. Chaud hury will be buried in Houston at the Forest Lawn Cemetery. The Duhr prayer is scheduled for 1:20 p.m. on Wednesday. “Events like this are heartbreaking and part of the continuing tragedy that’s unfolded upon this family,” Chaudhry said. “Our prayers are with the family, and with Saquib, of course, during this ex cruciating part of his life.” In perspective Freshman environmental design major Heather Holly, work on their 2D perspective drawing for ENDS 115 on freshman environmental design major Tess Kroeger the second floor of the Langford Architecture building and sophomore architecture major Steven Castaneda Monday afternoon. A&M weather radars enlisted to track Frances By Liang Liang THE BATTALION Texas A&M was called on for its weather expertise to help Florida moni tor Hurricane Frances, which reached the Florida Panhandle Monday morning and has cut power and water for six million residents in Florida in the past few days. Two Shared Mobile Atmospheric Research & Teaching (SMART) radar units, designed by Jerry Guynes and Rick O’Neill, instrumentation spe cialists at A&M, were being used in a research project at Texas Tech before the arrival of Hurricane Frances. The SMART system is a joint operation of A&M, Texas Tech, the University of Oklahoma and the National Severe Storm Lab in Norman, Okla. The op eration system has reserved fees for a prompt action to dispatch its radar sys tem where it is needed. The radars, which are housed at A&M, were called on by the National Weather Service Radar Operations Center to replace the main radar sys tem of the National Hurricane Center in Miami, which was disabled by a lightning strike before the arrival of Frances. Most parts of south Florida were in a desperate need for a complete radar system to monitor the hurricane. “It’s a scary situation when you realize you have a Category 4 hurricane heading your way, and you have no radar,” said Richard Orville, professor and interim chair of the Department of Atmospheric Sciences in Texas A&M’s College of Geosciences. “The SMART radar sys tem is the only one of its kind that can get to Miami in a hurry,” The two SMART radars are housed on two flatbed diesel trucks, and were ready to go on call. SMART Radar TexEis A&M"s SMART radar is the only mobile radar of its kind. The SMART radar: o Can withstand 100 m.p.h. winds o FHas extremely sensitive electronics that minimize noise o Is part of a joint operation between Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Oklahoma University arid the National Severe Storm Lab ANDREW BURLESON • THE BATTALION SOURCE & PHOTO COURTESY OF: JERRY GUYNES, INSTRUMENTATION SPECIALIST AT A&M “Being mobile also enables the SMART radars to get very close to storms and catch (the motion of) the bottom of storms (and) therefore per form tasks that other radars can not perform,” Guynes said. “The SMART radars are designed to withstand 100 mph wind speed of a land-falling hurricane. The higher out put power not only enables the radars to penetrate storms, but also enables the systems to be deployed at a safer distance during a tornado research. In See Weather on page 2A Playhouses to be raffled to help raise money for Voices for Children By Pam my Ramji THE BATTALION Six playhouses, five of which were de signed and built by Texas A&M affiliates, will be raffled off Sept. 25 at Post Oak Mall to help raise money for Voices For Children, Inc., Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) of the Brazos Valley. Four of the playhouses were donated to Voices of Children from the A&M construc tion science department; two were first-place winners in a judging competition. The Texas A&M Chapter of the National Association of New Homebuilders and Stylecraft Builders, Inc. built two other playhouses. The proceeds from the raffle will go to sup port CASA, an organization that trains and supports volunteers to advocate for the best interest of abused and neglected children under See Playhouse on page 2A Aggie Marine teaches calc in Iraq By Lacy Ledford THE BATTALION A Math 151 textbook from Loupot’s Bookstore is currently en route to Iraq. Texas A&M Class of 2005 electrical engineering major and U.S. Marine Reserves Cpl. Charles Holland recently requested a textbook to guide him in teaching calculus to his fellow marines. His mother, Marti Holland, received his call about the textbook the night before his deployment Aug. 23. “Some of the other soldiers there wanted to CLEP out of calculus when they got back from Iraq,” Marti Holland said. “Charles absolutely loves anything to do with math, and loves teaching calculus.” Marti Holland and her daugh ter Rebecca, a freshman general studies major, asked a College Station bookstore for a book do nation and were instead offered a 20 percent discount. Declin ing the offer, they next went to Southgate Loupot’s. HOLLAND “I thought I might as well ask,” Marti Holland said. “Before I could barely finish my sentence, the manager said ‘absolutely.’” See Calc on page 2A M ver Tap s The Silver Taps Ceremony will be conducted in front of the Academic Building on Tuesday, September 7.2004, at 10:30 p.m. In memory of the following students. Courtney Karl Tullier Earth Science Chase Nicholas McCool General Studies Peter Frederick Meier Biomedical Science Sergui Jourine Petroleum Engineering Kathryn Marie McLellan Nutritional Science Kara Lyn Grouthues Economics Ronald Ian Hord Psychology Robert Edward Brabham Political Science Kyle Dean Ferguson Construction Science Gates keeps students informed of University improvements By Lacy Ledford THE BATTALION A&M President Robert Gates sent an e-mail Thursday with the full text of his State of the University Address made at the end of August to keep students abreast to the significant im provements to the University. “1 think Dr. Gates sending out a mass e-mail is an obvious statement that he wants students to know what’s going on in the University,” said Stu dent Body President Jack Flildebrand. In addition to other issues affecting students, Gates announced progress on the priorities of elevating the faculty and improving undergraduate and graduate education, diversity and space. Gates said A&M’s diversity en rollment efforts have been a major source of controversy over the past year, but that they ultimately resulted in success and recognition as minor ity enrollment has increased across the board over the past year. Gates said that based on enroll ment data of Aug. 14, of the 6,800 incoming freshman, there has been a 39 percent increase in African- American student enrollment, a 26 percent increase in Hispanic enroll ment and an 18 percent increase in Asian-American enrollment. “Dr. Gates has supported diversi fying the student body philosophical ly, and he has included resources to recruit previously underrepresented students,” said Interim Assistant Pro vost for Enrollment Alice Reinarz. Over the past months, more than 600 of the new Regents’ Scholarships have been awarded. These scholar ships aid first-generation college stu dents and low-income families. Reinarz said the new scholarships have improved recruitment. “1 think we have momentum and we are going to be putting enormous energy into building that momentum to further increase the diversity of undergraduate and graduate popula tions,” Reinarz said. In the convocation address, Gates said faculty reinvestment, a pro gram designed to hire 447 net new tenured or tenure-track faculty by the year 2008, is going well. More new faculty has been hired in the past 18 months than the 115 positions that were lost between 1992 and 2002. One goal is to help ensure a com mon academic experience for all students during their freshman year. The efforts made to accomplish this include the expansion of learning communities such as the freshman Aggie ACCESS program. In the convocation address, Gates said progress has also been made in eliminating the space shortage at A&M. Space issues have been ad dressed through the addition of the See Gates on page 7A