THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 27 | SERVING TEXAS A&M SINCE 1893 | © 2020 STUDENT MEDIA
PUBLICATION NOTICE The Battalion will print next week on Wednesday, March 4 due to Spring Break. Print production will be cancelled during Spring Break and will resume the following week on Thursday, March 19.
Speaking for the people
Kaylee Cogbill — THE BATTALION XX — THE BATTALION
A&M reported almost 65,000 students This is the cutline. You bold the name of a enrolled during the Spring 2020 semester. Texas A&M STUDENT only.
A&Mgoes makes Hede here hede goes here enrollment headhistory goes here Deck always stays in whitney. Even if Headline is in Kepler More students on Texas A&M’s campus now than ever before By Myranda Campanella @MCampanella_ Texas A&M set a record high for enrollment this spring semester with a total of 64,961 students, as reported on by the Division of Enrollment & Academic Services on the 20th class day. This enrollment encompasses the main campus and Health Center in College Station, as well as the Galveston and Doha, Qatar campuses. The figure includes undergraduate, masters, doctoral and professional degree students. In College Station alone, 59,837 students were reported, marking an additional record for the flagship campus. The growing number of students in College Station poses both pros and cons for the community. Phoebe Latham, environmental design sophomore, said though she likes the opportunities that come with an increasing population on campus, it comes at the expense of a more crowded campus with longer lines for food and more traffic around town. “The more [students] you have, the less space you have in dorms, and you have to expand more, and that’s going to cost a lot of money,” Latham said. “But, A&M is all about tradition, so the more people that come here, then the more opportunity there is for us to expand the Aggie family.” Hannah Pierdolla, psychology sophomore, said she has trouble finding parking on the growing campus, and the Aggie Spirit buses are often overcrowded, forcing students to stand shoulder-to-shoulder. The university is in the process of remedying this parking issue with the construction of a new parking garage along Polo Road across from Century Square. Despite the current parking problems, Pierdolla said she is in favor of admitting and enrolling more students. “There’s more people to meet from different backgrounds and different cultures, so that’s always good,” Pierdolla said. “I like meeting new people, and it’s good to have more Aggies out there in the world … to expand the Aggie Network.” Higher enrollment also poses a problem for class registration time, Latham said. With more and more students enrolled, it makes registration time more competitive for students to get into the classes they need, and it pushes students’ registration times further back on the calendar. “You have more people getting into honors, which means more people in earlier registration,” Latham said. “That means less opportunities for some people to get classes because there are so many people on each half — honors and non-honors — and it slows everything down. I think we need to have a cap.”
Meredith Seaver — THE BATTALION
Eric Mendoza was elected 2020-21 student body president on Feb. 21. Mendoza’s term will begin in April.
Eric Mendoza will serve as 2020-21 Texas A&M student body president By Julia Potts @juliaapotts
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conomics junior Eric Mendoza was elected student body president for the 2020-21 school year. Students, faculty and candidates gathered at the E. King Gill statue on Friday, Feb. 21 awaiting the announcement to reveal the leadership positions for next school year, including the SBP.
Mendoza most recently served as Speaker of Student Senate and has interacted with many groups on campus. In addition to his Bachelor of Science in economics, Mendoza is pursuing his master’s in finance at Mays Business School. Political science junior Zach McCue, Mendoza’s campaign manager, said he could see Mendoza’s leadership potential from early in their friendship. McCue said Mendoza could do more for Texas A&M as SBP than as speaker of Student Senate. “He stood up there, and his humility and ability to explain his vision was something that instantly caught my eye,” McCue said. “I could tell this was a leader who was going to do something special.” Mendoza said those around him, in-
cluding those working on his campaign, should receive recognition in the wake of his victory. He said the relationships built before he started running aided him when he started his campaign. “I was certainly overwhelmed with support that I got from my team and from the community around us,” Mendoza said. “I would say that it was very much a humbling experience for many reasons. I think from the start, I really felt blessed to have people around me that supported me.” In the two and a half years Mendoza has attended A&M, he has been involved in multiple groups on campus, including Student Government Association and the MENDOZA ON PG. 6
Hannah Falcon — THE BATTALION
Meteorology junior Grace Leis prepares her broadcast before it will air online.
New club to broadcast with KAMU
Program offers meteorology students real-world experience By Hannah Falcon @hannahfalcon_
On the 12th floor of the tallest building at Texas A&M, the Oceanography and Meteorology building, meteorology students spend about an hour each night putting together a weather broadcast to air the next day on KAMU-TV. In the fall 2019 semester, KAMU approached Professor Don Conlee, Ph.D., to inquire about a student-run broadcast after they lost one of their full-time meteorologists. Meteorology students previously only had the opportunity to practice broadcast-
ing through radio with KAMU on 90.9 FM. However, Conlee put together a team of over 30 capable, experienced meteorology students who spent last semester planning for their first on-air weather segment, which was posted online Feb. 17. Student broadcasts will be aired Monday through Friday on KAMU 2. Head coordinator Mia Montgomery, meteorology senior, was the lead in the first broadcast. Since meteorology is a relatively small major, there is a lot of bonding, working together and opportunities for leadership, Montgomery said. However, she said there was one thing they have been lacking. “The one thing that we really, really wanted — something that we haven’t really had before — was a TV broadcasting club,” Montgomery said. “When it was brought
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to our attention that we had the potential opportunity to create something like this, we knew that we needed to do it.” Montgomery said her interest in broadcast began in Shel Winkley’s one-hour class, most often taken during the junior year of the meteorology major. Winkley, Class of 2007, works as an on-air meteorologist at KBTX, where he has mentored several students involved in the A&M program through internships. Winkley said the program is entirely student-run and advises everyone to turn their attention away from phone apps and toward broadcast programs with trusted meteorologists. “[The students] have completely, from the ground-up figured out what the format METEOROLOGY ON PG. 2
Courses that fit ON PG. X yourMETEOROLOGY schedule. Tuition that fits your budget.