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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (April 13, 2015)
NEWS The Battalion I 4.13.15 4 Guest speaker Arthur B. Cohn talks about the "Spitfire," a ship that sunk in Lake Champlain, Vermont during the American Revolution. Talks shed light on nautical archeology Speaker discusses sunken ship during American Revolution By Bethany Irvine Texas A&M anthropology de partment hosted its 16th annual “Shipwreck Weekend” this weekend to promote new developments within the field of nautical archeology. The event included guest speakers Wendy Van Duivenvoorde and Ar thur B. Cohn. In addition, Shipwreck Weekend also granted public access to laboratories and information about current research within the Texas A&M anthropology department. Guests were provided opportuni ties to explore the anthropology build ing and gain an inside look into a field that often goes unrecognized. The keynote speaker, Arthur B. Cohn, has worked in the field for over 35 years on the preservation of nauti cal archaeological sites. Cohn’s discus sion focused on the management of shipwrecks, specifically Benedict Ar nold’s gunboat “Spitfir,e,„” which sunk in Lake Champlain, Vemiont, during the American Revolution. “Here’s a boat that is literally frozen in the early morning hours of Octo ber 12, 1776,” Cohn said., “The guys abandoned the boats, sank it perfectly on its bottom, to the point where, on the inside where the battle stations are, there is a wooden box with all the am munition that hasn’t shifted at all, so it’s a quite extraordinary architectural find.” Cohn said an issue, however, is that while the boat remains in good condi tion, the infiltration of mussels in the lakes surrounding the archeological site poses a threat to its preservation. “This boat will not last where it is,” Cohn said. “It is under an environ mental sentence that will ultimately turn into a pile of loose planks at the bottom.” Although there is not a system in place to. prevent the mussels from causing damage, Cohn believes it is the responsibility of the next generation of archaeologists to preserve these pieces of history. “We have an obligation to make the case that there intrinsic values here. V "We have an obligation to make the case that there intrinsic values here. We need this stuff," Cohn said. "It's not just that we, as a society, should value our past and cultural connections. I'm saying that we need these sacred places that remind us of basic things, and this boat is one of them." Arthur B. Cohn, nautical archaeologist We need this stuff,” Cohn said. “It’s not just that we, as a society, should value our past and cultural connec tions. I’m saying that we need these sacred places that remind us of basic things, and this boat is one of them.” George Bass, professor emeritus and founder of the Institute of Nautical Archeology, attended the event and said Shipwreck Weekend has contin ued to gain public attention through the years. “I’ve been retired for 15 years but they’ve been going on for a while,” Bass said. “The whole idea was to bring in people, townspeople espe cially, and make them aware of what we are doing. Just sorta of get the word out and tell them what it’s all about, and it always seems to draw and fair amount of people.” Karl Krusell, nautical archeology graduate student, said the event was a good way to shed light on the distin guished nautical archeology program at the university. “What was cool was that we were able to advocate the management of shipwrecks to the public audience,” Krussel said. “In the world of nautical archeology, we all know these things and find them important, but a lot of times the public doesn’t. Texas A&M and is one of the only places in the world where you can study nautical archeology. I would argue it’s the best place in the world.” Filipe Castro, associate professor in nautical archeology, said much of the general public is unaware of the ad vances made within the field. “Archeologists publish only about 25 percent what they dig, so arche ologist still do not publish enough, and the cost of this is that the general public still has no idea what we do,” Castro said. Castro said the anthropology de partment is working with the College of Architecture and the Department of Visualization to digitally reconstract archeological sites. “Once we make this beautiful mesh of points, then the sky’s the limit,” Castro said. “In the viz lab, we are experimenting with computer graph ics to reconstruct the sites and show people very clearly that a archeological site is not just a jumble of rotten tim ber, but we can. really make it speak, and bring us back to that time.” CULTURE Hour-long slam concludes SCOLA conference 200 delegates gathered to discuss individuality By Keeley Wirries Elizabeth Acevedo closed the 27th annual SCOLA conference with an hour-long slam poetry performance ded icated to “Unmasking Your Identity.” The conference hosted over 200 delegates from A&M and other Texas colleges, as well as multiple speakers, includ ing Christine Stanley, and Joe Feagin. The conference fo cused on expressing individu ality of the Latino community through writing and art. “It really surprised me how well taken care of I was, I mean I’m completely spoiled and ruined for any other school,” Acevedo said. “People were just so nice and responsive — it was great.” Selena Mares, entertain ment coordinator for SCO LA, said attendees took away a better understanding of what it means to be a Latino and to be a part of the world com munity. “SCOLA’s dual-faceted mission is to provide a forum for students to discuss sig nificant issues that impact the growing Latino population in our nation, and to foster ex emplary leadership develop ment among its members,” Mares said. At the conference, dele gates were able to take poetry workshops, explore campus, listen to speakers, engage in networking opportunities and go to scheduled entertainment events, as well as spend one- on-one time with Acevedo. “We all got to have dinner together so we got to sit down and talk about our families and talk about our upbringings and so I think it was a really personal and intimate way to get to know the people who put on the conference,” Ace vedo said. “It was more than I thought it would be. They were all super respectful and they really just have a great working relationship and part nership and it showed that they have been working on this conference since Septem ber, and that they put a lot of thought into it.” Although some of Acev edo’s poetry could be con sidered controversial, she still brought a new and fresh per spective to A&M, said Gonza- lo Rodriguez, political science senior and SCOLA conference director. “Just like with any other form of entertainment, her poetry is award winning be cause it makes you feel un comfortable,” Rodriguez said. “It challenges you to question conventional thoughts and conventional conceptions. It makes us analyze situations.” Mirroring Acevedo’s chal lenging societal norms, some of the delegates took their workshops as a time to express themselves through poetry. “I was incredibly impressed with the workshops,” Acev- "There was a guy who even wrote about his love handles. I mean, we have these conceptions of men talking about their bodies and everything was just so vulnerable. I think that's what I found remarkable about all of the writing — it was really vulnerable and thoughtful." Elizabeth Acevedo, poet ’ • IOl1193 i.' j edo said. “I mean, the poems that people wrote in just 30 to 40 minutes were remarkable. This one girl wrote a poem about sheep, and so often we think of sheep as being follow ers and she completely flipped the metaphor on its head and that was wonderful.” Acevedo said the work shops allowed students to talk about aspects of their life not commonly talked about. “There was a guy who even wrote about his love handles,” Acevedo said. “I mean, we have these conceptions of men talking about their bod ies and everything was just so vulnerable. I think that’s what I found remarkable about all of the writing — it was really vulnerable and thoughtful.” CHILIFEST CONTINUED Luxion said. Luxion said the final count for tickets and sales will be confirmed within the next two weeks. Zach Houchins, junior supply chain management major and vice president of volunteer relations for Chilifest, said all proceeds from the event are donat ed to specific nonprofits in the community based on the charities volunteers at Chilifest are associated with. “Everything we do goes back to the com munity at the end of the year,” Houchins said. “Nobody benefits in it in any way except for our charities. Every dollar you spend out here and before with your ticket goes to a good cause.” Some of the nonprof its Chilifest serves include the Boys and Girls Club, Big Brothers and Big Sis ters, Down Syndrome Association of Brazos Val ley, Children’s Museum, Coach Blair Charities, Go Texan and St. Joseph EMS, Luxion said. Luxion said the Chil ifest officers calculate how much is donated to each charity based on the total hours worked at Chilifest by volunteers from each organization. “We reward volunteers for coming out here and helping out by donat ing back to their causes,” Luxion said. This year, Houchins said over 800 volunteered at Chilifest, both for set up and for the actual event. “We have volunteers who have been com ing out here for 24 years and they’re the backbone of our organization,” Houchins said. “The vol unteers are the only thing that keep the event run ning at the end of the day. We have a lot of people from Burleson County, Snook, Brazos County and all over Texas with Go Texan area organiza tions.” While Chilifest is a huge country music fes tival for the Aggie com munity, it means so much more for the beneficiaries of the donations, Luxion said. He said the purchase of each ticket eventually ends up improving the lives of people in the com munity because of how the money is donated. “A lot of people see it as a lawless, fenced-in oa sis in Snook for a weekend where people just come out here and drink — granted they have a good time, but the focus really is where the money goes,” Luxion said. B ATT ASKS # - "Chilifest provides an opportunity to meet a diverse multitude of people within the A&M student community." "Building a Chilifest build with my fraternity brothers .YG-.T; and seeing it all come together.” Corey Pursell. wildlife and fisheries senior TIPA CONTINUED and what our weaknesses are — and build on that.” Mark Dore, editor-in-chief for The Battalion and English senior, won four page de sign awards and an honorable mention in the sports column category. The Battalion s com bined points across all catego The Battalion this year. “I think winning these awards serves as an affirma tion of how many stories are in science and technology at A&M,” Rangel said. “A&M has such huge engineering and science colleges so there’s plenty of stories out there that relate directly to it and now we have more capability of ries earned it the sweepstakes award. “There are some categories that we don’t do as much of, but it shows the strength of our publication that we had several good, strong contend ers for many different catego ries,” Dore said. John Rangel, science and technology editor for The Bat talion and aerospace engineer ing junior, won first place in the headline category and third place in news feature category. Rangel said he was pleased to see science and technology content place in three catego ries, as the section is new to doing more in-depth report ing of them and the students involved in them.” Breaux said a first place award in overall excellence is testament to the work the en tire staff puts into The Battalion on a daily basis. “There are lots of catego ries that individuals win, but overall excellence reflects not just on editors, not just on a single writer, but on every one’s ability to design pages, edit them, put in legwork, in terview people and think criti cally about the content we’re producing,” Breaux said. 'J