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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 24, 2015)
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2015 I SERVING TEXAS A&M SINCE 1893 I ©2015 STUDENT MEDIA I ©THEBATTONLINE THE BATT THE BATTALION I THEBATT.COM • 'ip mfrj: ' \ i ■ % . *■ f: .It During the spring, general engineering freshman will apply for m entry to specific majors. Shelby Knowles — THE BATTALION Common First Year policy draws scrutiny Engineering freshmen apply to enter specific departments By Josh Hopkins Many freshmen engineering students face an important decision this spring as a new policy within the 25 by 25 Initia tive has them again filling out admissions applications — this time to specific engi neering majors. The Common First Year policy, CFY, delays a student’s admission into a specific engineering department until at least one completed semester in the hopes of edu cating freshmen about the different fields. The move has drawn criticism, however, from students who say they didn’t receive the guidance they wanted and from pro fessors who are concerned it may hold students back from gaining necessary ex perience. Frank Shipman, computer science pro fessor, said CFY has the potential to cause difficulty for students during registration. “The College of Engineering appears to be enforcing the Common First Year by limiting the courses that freshmen can sign up for even if they already have credit for some of the freshman require ments,” Shipman said. “Freshmen seem to have to get special dispensation to take additional courses offered within the College of Engineering, unless they have already met all the outside of engi neering requirements from the univer sity.” Shipman said CFY also presents diffi culty for many majors because students will not focus on their majors until the second year. “The main concern with the poten tial resulting change to undergraduate degrees is that the students will have less knowledge and experience in their core discipline,” Shipman said. A survey conducted last semester by the Student Engineers’ Council showed that while most students agreed with 25X25 ON PG. 4 RESEARCH TEXAS A&M AT ARKANSAS A&M effort helps preserve Civil War ship Team works to conserve major artifacts from the shipwrecked CSS Georgia Tanner Garza — THE BATTALION An A&M research team received a porthole cover from the ship that had folded over time. By Sam Scott The remains of a Civil War ironclad at the bot- tom of Georgia’s Savannah River are being un earthed, and A&M faculty and students have been contacted to help preserve artifacts. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began exca vating the ship in January. The Corps plans to dredge and deepen the Savannah Shipping Channel, where the CSS Georgia rests. To continue forward with the plans, the Confederate ship had to be moved. Artifacts from the ship are in the process of being excavated, processed and shipped to the Conserva tion Research Laboratory on Riverside Campus, where they will be conserved. Jim Jobling, project manager at CRL, said small items are being received at the moment, such as nails and spikes, but the team expects to receive larger items in the oncoming months, such as propellers, cannons and even the engines. “We’re going to get four cannons — three of them are big ones, between eight to nine feet long and one of them is about six feet long,” Jobling said. “We’re also going to get a propeller and shaft. The shaft is 12 feet long and the propeller is about six feet in diameter.” CRL expects to conserve artifacts from the CSS Georgia over the next three to four years due to the comprehensive process involved in conserving each item. “These things are going to take time,” Jobling said. “They’ve got to be cleaned, and then they go through their electrolytic reduction process, and that’ll take a couple of years because they’re big — SHIP ON PG. 2 CAMPUS NO SILVER TAPS TO BE HELD IN MARCH Silver Taps, held for a student who dies while enrolled at A&M, will not be March in March. Kelley Raye Miller Herman will be honored in the April Silver Taps ceremony on April 7. Battle for SEC’s No. 2 Vanessa Pena — THE BATTALION Junior guard Danuel House, shown in a recent home win over Florida, made seven 3-pointers on the road Saturday against Tennessee. Razorbacks major hurdle on road to NCAA Tourney By Alex Scott f’Vpf exas A&M visits Arkansas seek- I ing its first win against the RPI top 50, which could help land Billy Kennedy’s first NCAA Tournament appearance in his time with the Aggies. The men’s basketball team travels to Fayetteville, Arkansas, at 8 p.m. T uesday in a battle for second place in the SEC. No. 18 Arkansas (22-5, 11-3 SEC) leads Texas A&M in the SEC standings by a single game. The Razorbacks, which have won six consecutive games, rank No. 14 in the country in points per game (79.5). The most standout facet to their game, however, might be how they spread the wealth, as they average 17 assists per game — No. 6 in the country. The Aggies (19-7, 10-4 SEC) are rid ing a three-game win streak in which they have knocked off conference opponents and climbed the ladder of the SEC stand ings. A&M sits at a tie for third place with Ole Miss. A&M head coach Billy Kennedy said both teams play great basketball, and the game will pose a challenge for each team. “We are coming off of a good win against South Carolina and are going to play one of the hottest teams in the league in Arkansas,” Kennedy said. “They are playing with a lot of confidence and are very tough to beat at home. We are going to have to take care of the ball and be able to attack their press right away.” The Razorbacks are led by Bobby Por- tis and Michaels Qualls, who both average more than 15 points and five rebounds per game. Portis is shooting almost 56 percent from the field, while averaging above 47 percent from 3-point range. Danuel House has been the go-to guy for the Aggies as of late. In A&M’s last game versus South Carolina, House hit 7-of-l 1 shots from beyond the arc en route to a 25-point outing, tying his season high. In the past five games, the junior guard has ARKANSAS ON PG. 3 ■ 1 SCIENCE ‘Science Unshackled’: Prof talks astronomy James communicates science concepts to the public By Wade Feielin Renee James visited Texas A&M ^ Monday to discuss her new book, “Science Unshackled,” and the vari ous branches of science in general. James has been a professor at Sam Houston State University since 1999 and largely teaches astronomy classes. Originally trained in stellar spec troscopy, which splits the light from stars into individual wavelengths that can then be analyzed to determine a star’s characteristics, she eventually decided she wanted to do more to get students interested in scientific study. “Somewhere around the time I got tenure I also realized I really enjoyed communicating the science to the public — not just to other scientists but to my students,” James said. “I needed to get it across to them so I started finding analogies I could use in my classes and that would lead to, ‘This isn’t found in a textbook, I’d like to write an article about this.’” From there, James said her writ ing began to blossom. She has two published books — “Seven Wonders of the Universe That You Prob ably Took For Granted,” released in 2010, and “Science Unshackled,” released this year. James said “Science Unshackled” contains five basic stories on curios ity, creativity and the endless poten tial that comes along with them. One particular chapter follows a man’s re search into cone snails. “These snails in the Pacific are quite venomous and can kill you but they haven’t exactly been a plague upon humankind — there’s been maybe a dozen deaths ever from them, but he was still curious about why they did what they did,” James said. “One of the components of the cone snail venom is now used in a very potent painkiller, but that wasn’t where he was heading with this. ” JAMES ON PG. 4 Tanner Garza —THE BATTALION Renee James, author and Sam Houston State astronomy professor, spoke on campus Monday.
