thebattalion
International Day of Peace Today
● tuesday
september 21, 2010
● serving
texas a&m since 1893
● first paper free – additional copies $1 ● © 2010 student media
Man kills woman, injures her son in CS Connie Thompson The Battalion Stanley Lamar Griffin, 45, was arrested Monday for the murder of College Station resident Jennifer Hailey, 29, less than five miles south of campus on the 2400 block of Pedernales in Hailey’s residence. College Station police responded to a call just before 5 a.m. Monday regarding a pos-
sible homicide. Hailey was pronounced dead at the scene and her 9-year-old son was immediately transported to the College Station Medical Center for surgery. Griffin was first arrested in 1990 for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and burglary with intent to commit other felony in Harris County. He was released on Feb. 5, 2003. On Nov. 28, 2004, he violated his parole by interfering with an emergency call,
a misdemeanor in the state of Texas and was put on probation. His parole was to expire in November of this year. Additional offenses of assault-bodily injury family violence, unlawful restraint and another interfering with an emergency call occurred in 2007. Hailey’s son was stable and recovering in the hospital’s ICU Monday evening. The cause of Hailey’s death will be released following autopsy results conducted by the
Travis County Medical Examiner’s Office. Local residents, who were afraid to have their names printed for the safety of their children whom played with Hailey’s son, described the area as a family-oriented neighborhood and said they were shocked by the news of Hailey’s death. The incident Monday occurred within two miles from the house where two Aggies were murdered in the spring of 2009.
Stanley Lamar Griffin
finance
TRIP program prepares students Rebecca Hutchinson Special to The Battalion With the national economy in a slump, jobs are difficult to get and for many soon-tobe college graduates it can be a frightening world to enter. The three-year-old Trading, Risk and Investment Program is giving Aggies the opportunity to graduate with the experience and resume to beat out the competition. “The purpose of TRIP would be to give the members both interactions with the board members, networking opportunities, and also overall job experience,” said Lauren Floyd, junior finance major and social chair for TRIP. Students involved in the program are able to participate in three internships, More take upper info level finance Informationals classes, and obtain a masfor TRIP will ter’s degree in be at 7 p.m. finance. Wednesday “All of and 7 p.m. our board Sept. 28 in 155 members are Wehner. at the point where they’re looking forward to passing their information on to the next generation,” said Detlef R. Hallermann, director of TRIP. There are 27 industry advisory board member companies that provide finances, mentors and internships for students. In addition, members have the unique opportunity of being able to visit actual trade floors. This allows participants to develop the skills that will allow them to succeed in a highly competitive and stressful environment. “As far as we know, there’s no other program like this anywhere else in the country,” said Corey Walter, student advisor and founding member of TRIP. Although it is only in its third year, TRIP is a highly competitive program to be admitted to. In order to guarantee each member with three internships, the number of students admitted into the program depends on how many internships board members provide.
Diving
deep Courtesy Photo/Illustration
Geography professor protects reefs Stephanie Massey Special to The Battalion The conservation of marine ecosystems through the relationships of people and their environments has been an ongoing study for Will Heyman, associate professor of geography at Texas A & M University. More recently, his research has focused on reef fish spawning aggregations with an effort to both conserve and manage them. Liam Carr, a first year Ph.D student focusing on a conservation-minded technique of overseeing tropical fisheries, has also worked with Heyman. “[W]hen [Heyman] described his approach to research and the need to be a responsible advocate not only for fish but also people, it felt like an absolutely perfect fit for what I’ve been pursuing since I started college,” Carr said. “I’ve always been trying to link humans to the natural world and ask if we can develop responsible behaviors that provide economic benefits without destroying the planet
in the process.” The Nature Conservancy sent Heyman to Belize in 1994 to research marine ecosystems in the vicinity as a way to further a conservation project, focused on creating a marine protected area that would help to sustain local aquatic resources. “We need to protect coral reefs and nursery grounds and we need to limit or prevent pollution from impacting the ecosystem,” Carr said. Local populations need more control over the resources they utilize. Greater jurisdiction would strengthen stewardship among indigenous people because they are dependent on aquatic ecosystems to sustain life. “The idea is that by increasing the participation of the fishers throughout the management process, you will generate a sense of ownership and stewardship within the fishing community for their resources,” Carr said. “They’ve seen the changes and they have a strong incentive to be on
the leading edge of conservation because it affects their livelihoods and families.” While working on the conservation effort in Belize, Heyman discovered and documented for the first time that whale sharks feed on fish eggs. Before this discovery, people had witnessed the thousands of cubera snappers breeding in the water, seen the mass of white eggs and semen, and noticed the whale shark’s presence, but never made the connection. “The paper that we published in Marine Ecology Progress series in 2001 documented scientifically for the first time that whale sharks were eating the spawn of fish eggs,” Heyman said. “We came up with that explanation of a phenomenon that people had seen, but not understood.” Whale sharks, one of the largest fish in the sea are filter feeders. They migrate between areas of See Deep on page 4
See Finance on page 2
Aggies help preserve sunken French ship Samantha Virnau Special to The Battalion In the year 1684, four French ships braved the Atlantic waters in search of the seaward route to the Mississippi River. 326 years later, one of those ships, La Belle, would end up frozen in a nautical archaeology lab at Texas A&M University. A&M scientists purchased an oversized freeze dryer that will eventually lead to the preservation and display of the historic ship. Using the dryer, they will be able to extract the water trapped inside the wood of the ship’s hull. “The French wanted to put a colony [along the Mississippi River’s coast] to be in direct opposition to the Spanish,”
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said Peter Fix, a staff member of the en, a freshman general studies major, Conservation Research Laboratory. referring to the nine graduate students Robert Cavelier, the Sieur de La and four full-time staff members inSalle who was responsible for the ex- volved. “It sounds like it would be pedition, was off on his very informative about life then and 326 calculations. Only La now, how different it is. It’d be years later, Belle reached what good just to learn everything was thought to be one of those ships, we can from the ship.” the destination, but La Belle, would end A&M’s Conservation she sunk in pres- up frozen in a nautical Research Laboratory is ent day Matagorda heading the conservation archaeology lab Bay. After 24 years process now that the majorat Texas A&M of searching, nautical ity of pieces have been colUniversity. archaeologists found La lected. The lab, one of the best Belle and began excavating in the country, Fix said, is entering all salvageable artifacts. the final stages of the 14-year project. “First of all, that would be an awesome job to have,” said Derek NguySee La Belle on page 8
Jeremy Northum — THE BATTALION
Nautical archeology graduate student John Albertson stands next to a large freeze dryer that will be used to restore La Belle, a 17th century ship used by French explorer La Salle.
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