thebattalion ● wednesday,
september 7, 2011
● serving
texas a&m since 1893
● first paper free – additional copies $1 ● © 2011 student media
Jay Kapadia — THE BATTALION
Safety for fire and bikes Housing fires pose threat to dormitory living Justin Mathers
An example of a bike permit
Bike permits identify stolen cycles in case of theft Amber Jaura The Battalion Throughout the year bike accidents thefts affect many students on campus. Neglecting bicycle traffic laws and safety measures aren’t worth the trouble of putting yourself and others in danger. Debbie Hoffman, associate director for Transportation Services,, said a new bike program has been put in place this year to accommodate for bikes and improve safety. “For decades there was no established bike proBicycles that have gram and no organization been recovered that agreed to take on the since January. expense or responsibility
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campus SEC to meet, vote on invitation Sports Illustrated reported Tuesday afternoon that the presidents of the members of the Southeastern Conference will meet today to vote on admitting Texas A&M. By tonight, A&M might know whether nine presidents voted to extend the invitation, the magic number for the SEC to act. Texas A&M President Bowen Loftin notified the Big 12 last week that A&M intends to exit in July 2012 to enter an unidentified athletic conference. If the Aggies receive an invitation, they will announce their intent to join the SEC as early as Wednesday. Justin Mathers, special to The Battalion
associated with managing bike parking,” Hoffman said. “There was no funding source for purBicycles reported chasing new bike racks, stolen on campus maintenance stations, or since January. to pay staff for addressing any issues related to bike program management, such as planning educational programs, monitoring the campus to ensure bikes are parked in racks, communication of rules, or removing the more than 1,800 bikes abandoned at the end of the spring semester.” Hoffman said the ultimate goal of the program is for the University to earn the League
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See Bike safety on page 8
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Percentage of university housing fires started by cooking.
BASTROP, Texas — One of the most devastating wildfire outbreaks in Texas history left more than 1,000 homes in ruins Tuesday and stretched the state’s firefighting ranks to the limit. More than 180 fires have erupted in the past week Natalee Blanchat — THE BATTALION across the rain-starved Lone Star Wildfires burn in brush outside State, and nearly 600 of the homes Spicewood, Texas while emergency destroyed since then were lost responders battle the blaze. in one catastrophic blaze in and around Bastrop, near Austin, that killed at least two people, bringing the raged out of control for a third day. overall death toll from the outbreak to at Whipped into an inferno by Tropical Storm Lee’s winds over the weekend, the least four. The Associated Press blaze burned at least 40 square miles, forced the evacuation of thousands and
campus
Library catalogs go modern Justin Mathers Special to The Battalion Texas A&M has officially upgraded the library’s digital database. Inserting a number of features and a new interface, University Libraries sought to modernize and simplify the catalog search process. The complete revision of the Libcat and Medical Sciences Library (MSL) catalogs, the first since 1995, was a work in progress for several months, requiring the attention
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Percentage of university housing fires that occur in dormitories or in dormitorytype residences. information office at the College Station Fire Department, said this success is attributable to the collaboration between the University’s Environmental Health and Safety Department and the CSFD. “We work a lot with the University to ensure new students who are living away from home for the first time have the proper information so they can prevent these types of fires themselves,” Humphreys said. “In addition, newly constructed buildings adhere to strict fire codes, and after construction we always receive a detailed walkthrough of the building so we here at the station can be better prepared for any emergency.” The United States Fire Department report also states that cooking is the leading cause of university housing fires, accounting for 88 percent. The report added that university housing fires occur most fre-
Dorm on Fire Want to watch a dorm on fire? Check out the video footage online this Friday at the batt.com to see what a burning dorm room looks like.
See Fire safety on page 8
research
texas Wildfires rage in central Texas
of several subsections of A&M’s library technical staff. Bennett Ponsford, a member of the web services department, explained the background of the catalog upgrade. “The software in use now, known as Voyager, was created by a third party company called Ex Libris. About a year ago, they created a new version of the Voyager
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Special to The Battalion Ninety-five percent of university housing fires occur in dormitories or dormitory-type residences, and five percent occur in fraternity and sorority houses, according to a report by The United States Fire Administration, The report also states that an average of 3,800 university housing fires occur each year. Annually, these fires are responsible for 25 injuries and $9 million in property loss. Texas A&M, however, has maintained a respectable record with regard to on-campus housing fires, according to the Environmental Health and Safety Department’s record logs. Nathan Jennings, Safety Supervisor at the EHSD, noted that “Although a few incidents without injuries have occurred as recently as February, the most recent major fire in a campus housing residency was during the mid 90s.” In a short interview, Bart Humphreys, head of the public
See Library on page 4
Study questions research funding Jessica Orwig The Battalion Texas A&M was found to be one of the least efficient universities from 1989 to 2004 at publishing research according to a study conducted by Jeffrey M. Litwin that measured the average cost of publishing research. “I focused on a macroeconomic assessment of what are considered to be some of the most research-intensive universities in the United States,” said Litwin, an associate dean at George Brown College in Toronto, Canada. Looking at a total of 72 universities, Litwin determined the average expense each publication costs to produce by comparing the total number of publications per year with the total funding the university received that year. The least productive universities were considered to be the schools spending the most amount of money per research paper. The average cost for Texas A&M was $128,269 per paper. Following close behind were Carnegie Mellon University ($118,344/paper) and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) ($110,349/ paper). The two most productive universities, according to the study, were University of Pennsylvania ($28,547/
Program dollars ◗ Texas A&M $128,269 per paper ◗ Carnegie Mellon University $118,344 per paper ◗ Massachusetts Institute of Technology $110,349 per paper ◗ University of Pennsylvania $28,547 per paper ◗ Harvard University $31,231 per paper
See Paper on page 3
At Christ United Methodist Church SEPT 16th @ 7PM For Tickets go to itickets.com or visit Christ-UMC.org
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