The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current, February 26, 2015, Image 4

Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page. It is also available as plain text as well as XML.

    NEWS
The Battalion I 2.26.15
4
Timothy Lai — THE BATTALION
From top left to bottom left clockwise: allied health freshman Madeleine Jenkyn, kinesiology
junior Mckenna Hares, nursing student Kristin Smith and engineering freshman Thomas
Achee climb the rockwall at the Student Rec Center.
Club scales new heights
in ■ | fii f i f'i f f rl HlitiM
John ?! htoofcof
Shelby Knowles—THE BATTALION
Nutritional sciences senior Sarah Bermudez attempts to connect
to the Wi-Fi around Blocker, which should soon be upgraded.
Wi-Fi revamp in the
works around campus
A&M spreads Internet access to busier outdoor areas
Craggieslook to climb to
the top in the Collegiate
Climbing Series
By Spencer Davis
Those who walk into the Stu
dent Recreation Center are
immediately faced with the monu
mental sight of a 44-foot vertical
rock-climbing wall. Pockmarked
with hand holds and strung with
climbing rope, the wall is criss
crossed every day by student
climbers.
Some of those climbers are a
part of Craggies, Texas A&M’s
competitive climbing club. The
team was founded in 2004 and has
since grown, winning more and
more competitions across Texas.
Darren Jones, nutritional sciences
senior and Craggies social chair,
said the organization has focused
on growth in the past, and is now
looking to secure competition
titles.
“Our goal at the end of last year
really was to grow,” Jones said.
“We have almost doubled since
then. Now we are pushing climb
ers to get them into our Collegiate
Climbing Series.”
Most major Texas universities
compete nationally at the Colle
giate Climbing Series. The lineup
typically includes Texas Tech,
Southern Methodist University
and the University of Texas.
The Craggies have doubled
their numbers in the last year with
an open-arms policy, said presi
dent and anthropology senior Re
nee Costello.
“It’s a really good way for be
ginners to get to know one anoth
er,” Costello said. “We have two
groups — the beginners and then
the advanced climbers who want
to compete — so we try to provide
an environment for both. So a new
person who has never gone to the
wall before can learn the ropes and
meet other climbers and become
part of the community.”
This open-arms approach has
developed Texas A&M’s climbing
community and drawn in new
comers who otherwise would not
have known where to start. The
team wants to continue this policy,
but it also wants to excel in the
national competitions.
One of the advanced climbers
who joined the Craggies is Ryan
Schmidt, a management informa
tion systems junior who began
climbing at 11 years old. Schmidt
placed first this year at a Univer
sity of Houston meet and hopes
to make nationals this year in San
Diego.
“Being a part of this club is re
ally important to me because it’s
the community that I feel like I
belong in,” Schmidt said. “It felt
really natural to me to join an or
ganization about climbing. It felt
right to make it grow as much as
it can.”
The team hopes to extend this
growth by obtaining official status
from the university. The Crag
gies raise their own funds, but as a
university-sanctioned club w'ould
have the resources available to
make the team more competitive
nationally.
“Our goal is, so now that we
have the people, how can we
make the club official and provide
the climbers with the resources
they want?” Costello said.
The Craggies will head to Bay
lor this weekend to compete in the
next Collegiate Climbing Series
event. They hope the competition
will be a strong lead-in to the rest
of the season, especially for region-
als at the end of March against a
strong UT team.
By Connor Paetzold
Texas A&M is trying to make life
easier for students on the go by
improving Wi-Fi access around cam
pus. The A&M Information Tech
nology department has started add
ing outdoor Wi-Fi access to highly
trafficked areas around campus and
popular bus stops.
Lacey Baze, assistant director of
product strategy and communica
tion for the A&M IT department,
said outdoor Wi-Fi has already been
added to the Rudder Fountain area,
the MSC bus stops and the Fish
Pond area: The IT department also
upgraded the wireless Internet infra
structure in the Blocker building.
Baze said the IT department plans
to make more outdoor wireless ac
cess points available soon, and will
continue upgrading the Wi-Fi capa
bilities of some older buildings.
“With the explosion of mobile
devices, students need Internet ac
cess in places they haven’t needed it
before,” Baze said.
Baze said the IT department has
already started working on creating
wireless access points at the Sbisa bus
stop, the West Campus green space
between Kleberg and the Horticul
ture building and the Trigon bus
stop. Baze said the Sbisa bus stop Wi
Fi should be completed in the next
few weeks, while the West Campus
green space Wi-Fi should be com
pleted by the end of the summer se
mester.
Willis Marti, director of network
ing and information security for the
IT department, said although the IT
department has planned to add out
door Wi-Fi around buildings for a
few years, the idea to add Wi-Fi to
bus stops is fairly recent.
By sharing the power and data
infrastructure already running to the
automated gate-arms that block the
streets at the large bus stops, the IT
department can install new Wi-Fi ac
cess points fairly simply, Marti said.
Although it may take months to
install a Wi-Fi access point on the
outside of a building, Marti said Wi
Fi can be added to the bus gates in
only a day.
Marti said the locations for the
new Wi-Fi points were chosen and
prioritized based on a survey con
ducted by student government about
where students would like to see
more internet access.
Marti said the A&M IT depart
ment’s recent improvement of
Blocker’s Wi-Fi was more of an
update than an installment. Blocker
was one of the earliest buildings on
campus to get wireless Internet ac
cess, so its capabilities were outdated
and needed to be upgraded.
“We expect each student to have
three devices with them, so to keep
up with that demand we needed to
upgrade,” Baze said.
Peter Jarboe, meteorology soph
omore, regularly attends classes in
Blocker. Jarboe said he could only
get Wi-Fi in Blocker’s main front
hallway before the building was up
graded, but now he can get online
both in the big lecture halls and in
the smaller classrooms.
“It’s nice to have Wi-Fi I can use
and actually count on being there,”
Jarboe said.
Baze said the IT department con
stantly upgrades older buildings on a
cycle. Baze said student input plays a
role in which buildings are scheduled
for the next round of improvements.
PROVIDED
Q&A: Dancing on ‘Sacred Earth’
The Battalion Life &Arts reporter
Cassidy Hudson spoke with
Aparna Ramaswamy, member of
the Ragamala Dance Company,
which will be performing "Sacred
Earth " at 7 p.m. Thursday in
Rudder Theatre.
THE BATTALION: What
can be expected from the
performance?
RAMASWAMY: We will be
performing "Sacred Earth,"
which underscores the
relationship between man and
the environments that surround
them. The works that our
company does are based on an
Indian classic dance form. We
use that form as a language to
create new works that explore
themes that are relevant and
universal to audiences and to all
of us today.
THE BATTALION: Can you
describe the style of dance?
RAMASWAMY: The dance
form is rhythmically complex.
We always interpret the music.
There are intricate movements of
the entire body. There are hand
gestures and expressiveness
where the dancer becomes an
actor playing different characters
on stage. It is at once dynamic,
poetic, rhythmically complex
and joyful. There is so much
spontaneity that happens on the
stage of live performances and
so much freedom for the dancers
to interact with the musicians.
THE BATTALION: Where do you
draw your inspiration?
RAMASWAMY: I’ve dedicated
my whole life to working in
this dance form. My mother
and I have a teacher in India
who is world famous. We are
totally inspired by her and our
relationship with her, and the
depth of the study. When you
study a great art form — be it
literature, music, dance — the
wonderful thing to realize is we
are all just a small part of that
form. The form is bigger than
us. The universe is much bigger
than us. The fact that we have
the privilege of being part of a
tradition or a form with so much
greatness and potential is very
inspiring and very moving. There
is so much more to learn and
create. The joy that one feels
internally, the joy of nice, the
joy of relationships, the joy of
surrender, all of those things can
manifest in your art. On top of
that, I work with my family.
THE BATTALION: What is it like
working with your family?
RAMASWAMY It works for us. It
is very exciting because we have
the same experiences that we
can draw from in certain ways.
But, we are our own people
so we each bring who we are
and our own experiences in the
world to our creativity. You trust
their feedback. You always have
someone to bounce your ideas
off of. It is very important in
the world to have people who
support you and can be honest
with you. Of course you are
going to argue and you're going
to fight, but it all comes from a
really good place where you all
know you are bonded together.
MUSTER CONTINUED
as the speaker because of his dedication to
Texas A&M.
“He was really involved when he was a
student here — he was the president of the
student body during the Bonfire collapse, and
everybody I talked to that was here while that
happened said he was put under a lot of pres
sure during that time and all eyes were kind
of on him and he just really stepped up to the
plate and was a really good face for A&M and
a really good student body president during
this really difficult time,” Potter said.
Potter said Hurd’s participation in this
year’s Muster will bring something different
to the table than in years past.
“I think that Will is really unique because
he’s a litde bit on the younger side — he
brings a different vibe to Muster this year,”
Potter said. “I think a lot of the time it’s older.
‘Old Ag’ guys that were in the Corps, Old
Army, and I think that Will is kind of the op
posite of that. He’s younger, he’s involved in
politics, he wasn’t in the Corps. So I think that
his kind of new and different side of it — it is
going to be awesome.”
Cromer said it is an honor to have Hurd as
this year’s speaker.
“We’re all super excited to have such a
dynamic individual speaking, an individual
who is making a big impact, on not just the
Texas A&M community or even the state of
Texas, but the entire nation,” Cromer said.
“We know he’s super busy and it’s such an
honor. I think it speaks to the power of the
Muster ceremony and the closeness of the Ag
gie family that he’s willing to take the time out
of his extremely busy schedule to take time
to write the speech [and] to come down for
the speaker dinner on [April] 20 and the cer
emony on [April] 21. We’re so honored to
have him come speak.”