thebattalion ● thursday,
march 20, 2014
● serving
texas a&m since 1893
● first paper free – additional copies $1 ● © 2014 student media
NCAA CHAMPIONSHIPS
sga
Students initiate maintenance projects Organizations combine efforts to restore campus Annabelle Hutchinson The Battalion
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Shelby Knowles — THE BATTALION
Clay Koepke The Battalion
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ed by a pair of defending national champions, Breeja Larson and Cammile Adams, the No. 3 Texas A&M women’s swimming and diving team will be represented by 16 competitors at this year’s NCAA Championships. The championship meet will be held Thursday through Saturday at the Minnesota Aquatic Center in Minneapolis, Minn. A total of 322 student athletes — 281 swimmers and 41 divers — will compete in the championships after meeting established minimum time requirements
for their respective events. With 16 qualified swimmers attending the national meet, A&M trails only defending NCAA Champion — and this year’s SEC Champion — Georgia for the highest number of swimmers competing in the three-day meet. A&M’s 16 invitees top the 15 swimmers from A&M’s 2011 squad as the most in school history to compete at a national meet and marks the eighthstraight season the Aggies have sent double-digit qualifiers to the NCAAs. Larson and Adams are just two of the six seniors leading an experienced pool of swimmers to Minneapolis. Ten of the 13
William Guerra — THE BATTALION
A&M Olympians aim to defend swimming titles swimmers from last year’s fourth-place finish at the NCAA Championships will return to compete this year. As an Olympic gold medalist, NCAA champion and SEC champion, Larson is no stranger to the national stage. This
year’s NCAA Championships will mark Larson’s fourth consecutive trip to the national meet and second time as a defending champion. Following a second-place finish in the 100 breaststroke as a freshman in 2011, Larson has swept the event the past
two years. Under head coach Steve Bultman, A&M has finished in the top 10 of the NCAAs seven straight seasons since 2007, including fourth-place finishes in 2008 and 2013, the team’s best results.
tudent Government has been working with SSC Service Solutions, the organization that handles maintenance at A&M, to reinstall commemorative plaques at Simpson Drill Field and to solve Bonfire Memorial lighting issues. Matt Keller, SGA student services chair and senior industrial distribution major, said it was brought to Student Senate’s attention that there were once 55 plaques next to each oak tree around Simpson Drill Field to commemorate the 55 Aggies who died during WWI. Amanda Hatheway, SGA chief of staff and senior business major, introduced a bill calling for the return of the plaques and SGA began a search to find the missing plaques. “Basically, the plaques were being stored in the Corps Center,” Keller said. “They had been outside a lot so they had been corroded. We contacted the maintenance company, told them we found these plaques and that we wanted to fix them up and put them back out. They came up with the whole idea of putting them on stands and how to do it. So SGA is actually going to have another allocation bill to fund half of that refurbishing for the plaques, and the maintenance company is going to fund the See SGA on page 2
world
Speaker to clarify changes to China’s 1-child policy Lecture seeks to offer unbiased explanation Victoria Rivas The Battalion
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hina is the world’s most populous nation with 1.3 billion people and counting. For 34 years, the nation has implemented a one-child-per-couple policy that attracted both criticism and praise. The Confucius Institute at Texas A&M University will host “Exploring China’s One-Child Policy: Past, Present and Future” on Thursday, presented by visiting scholar Ruiwu Min. Kelly Kleinkort, director of the Confucius Institute, said the lecture was created to provide opportunities for students, faculty and staff to gain a greater understanding of the one-child policy in China. The lecture will focus on why China implemented these policies, its influence on the country, the side effects and the future of the policy, Min said. The policy was put in place to reduce the cost of food and living and create a sustainable
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job market, Min said, and the policy has been successful in reducing the country’s population growth by 400 million since its origin in 1980. Min said the family structure in China has changed drastically as a result of the policy. “There was a view of fertility in China — the more children, the more happiness you have,” Min said. “Only in the last 30 years did this change.” Min said the policy has been changed, due in part to the current skewed gender ratio, with 117 men for every 100 females. As part of the changes, if at least one member of a couple is an only child, they may have two children. Kleinkort said the lecture was structured to offer a nonbiased approach to explain the history, aspects and effects of the policy. “Our goal isn’t to give a political bias to the lecture, being pro or against the policy,” Kleinkort said. “We really just want to allow students to understand the history of the policy and its implications for the future.” See China on page 3
Ravi Zacharias, Christian apologist and founder of Zacharias International Ministries, spoke Tuesday at Breakway in Reed Arena. Matthew Wong — THE BATTALION
QUEST FOR MEANING
Q&A: Christian apologist preaches faith on campus
Photographer Matthew Wong sits down with Ravi Zacharias, Christian apologist and founder of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries, to discuss his thoughts on faith and spirituality in the 21st century.
Zacharias spoke Tuesday at Breakaway in Reed Arena and Wednesday in Rudder Auditorium to talk about “God or No God: The Quest for Absolute Meaning.” THE BATTALION: How did you become interested in apologetics? ZACHARIAS: Let me begin by saying “Howdy,” I hear that would cover a multitude of errors. I don’t think it’s uncommon, coming from the part of the world that I did, coming from India, where the Christian faith is clearly a minority. Whenever you are taking a move that is not in
the mainstream, or believing something that has cost you quite a bit, and you believe it out of deep conviction, then you have to answer the questions, there is no escaping it, either internally or externally. You are constantly surrounded by deepseated questions of truth, and of difference, so I got interested in apologetics; nobody pushed me into it, nobody dragged me into it, it was just a natural move of my own mind into the fact that these questions are not just mine, they are questions for many, so I got into it probably in my graduate work. See Zacharias on page 4
STUDENT RUSH TICKETS ONLY $20! TONIGHT & TOM’W NIGHT • 7:30 PM • Rudder Auditorium
A limited number of student rush tickets available. Available only at the MSC Box Office. Limit 2 tickets per student. Student ID is required. This offer not valid for tickets already purchased.
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