nation Director of Peace Corps mourned R. Sargent Shriver, the exuberant public servant and Kennedy in-law whose career included directing the Peace Corps, fighting the War on Poverty, functioning as ambassador to France and, less successfully, running for office, died Tuesday. He was 95. Shriver, who announced in 2003 that he had Alzheimer’s disease, had been hospitalized for several days. The family said he died surrounded by those he loved. One of the last links to President Kennedy’s administration, Shriver’s death comes less than two years after his wife, Special Olympics founder Eunice Kennedy Shriver, died on Aug. 11, 2009, at age 88.
Associated Press
campus news
Campus scavanger hunt Texas A&M University is teaming up with The Collegiate Licensing Company to launch a campus-wide social media scavenger hunt using smart phones. The scavenger hunt, scheduled for Jan. 25-26, is designed to encourage students to explore their 5,200acre campus. Using integrated social media, Texas A&M will use Facebook, Twitter and the location-based service Foursquare to promote the hunt, distribute clues and reward winners, explained Diane C. McDonald, the university’s director of social media and marketing programs. To win, the students must check in to the predetermined campus venues on Foursquare during the given time slot. Prizes will be awarded. Students can play by following Texas A&M on Twitter and Foursquare and must present a valid student ID at the destinations. The university will promote the hunt on its Facebook page. Foursquare users can follow Texas A&M’s profile (http:// foursquare.com/ tamutalk). Texas A&M Newswire
thebattalion ● wednesday,
january 19, 2011
● serving
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administration Howdy portal and only takes The Battalion a few minutes to complete. This Senioritis will be joining forces must be done by Jan. 28 for with Spring Fever this semester to those planning to graduate in plague students preparing to graduMay. ate in May. Although there have For those in the midst of never been any reported casualties job searching, students can from Senioritis, there have been utilize all networking outlets countless instances of poor grades by logging onto Aggienetwork. and excessive laziness. Tuesday com and searching for Aggies ggies marked the beginning of who work in your desired red the end for this year’s industry. Use this tool to seniors, but don’t allow seek guidance on how Senioritis to keep you to go about entering the out of the loop on these industry and what these important potential jobs entail. wmust-knows. Consider creating As obvious as this an account on LinkeA few tidbits dIn.com. LinkedIn is a may sound, make sure you are actually eligible networking tool used to to chew to graduate. form connections with on before “I’ve always heard business professionals about ab advisers saying walking the through mutual friends. that th each year there Information about given stage in aare a handful of stucompanies is available on ddents who are unable Reed Arena, this website, as well as tto graduate at the last the ability to see Linkeminute because of preculminating dIn members who work ventable mistakes,” said your college at the company. Meghan Hillary, senior Other items on the graduate accounting experience. pre-graduation checklist student. include obtaining letCheck and double ters of recommendation check degree evaluaand references. Most tions to make sure grade job applications require exclusions and Q-drops multiple references and/ have gone through, or letters of recommendatransfer credits have been tion, so consider meeting transferred and residency with the people you may hours and ‘W,’ writing seek recommendations intensive, courses have from prior to graduation. been completed. Without It is also not be a bad meeting these credentials, idea to pick up a few candidacy to graduate will extra copies of your not be approved. transcript. You might “I didn’t know that you not think you will need actually had to apply to o graduate,” said them but you may be surprised, d, and ducaAlyssa Schulze, senior educaalready having some at hand will save tion major. the hassle of ordering one later. Applications to graduate ate Some professionals require job appliee can be found on the degree See Seniors on page 9 evaluation section of the Victoria Daugherty Victo
Illustration by Josh McKenna — THE BATTALION
basketball
New framework for A&M Distinguished professors lead recruitment of faculty Haley Lawson The Battalion Texas A&M University has a growing academic reputation and is known throughout the country for its many traditions and its academics. A&M is planning to build on that reputation by increasing its faculty recruitment through a new framework, Texas A&M University Institute for Advanced Study, also known as TIAS. TIAS is hoped to “attract pre-eminent scholars from throughout the nation and abroad for appointments of at least a year during which they will engage Texas A&M faculty and students in ways intended to enhance the University’s teaching and scholarly endeavors by means not otherwise feasible,” said Lane Stephenson, director of news & information services. The TIAS will be a valuable resource for Texas A&M in regards to recruitment and its overall academic reputation. The TIAS Fellows will assist our Aggie community in many areas including mentoring students and faculty and conducting research. “TIAS will serve as a valuable venue for attracting some oof the best faculty-researchers See Faculty on page 9
ttextbooks
Students save on books Gayle Gabriel
A history of losing and winning Women’s teams have fared well of late against arch rivals
Men’s squad has not won in Austin since 2002
Beau Holder
Beau Holder
The Battalion Head Coach Gary Blair is a man reputed for not mincing words; that hasn’t changed. Yet as the Aggies welcome archrival Texas to Reed Arena tonight, it’s implicitly known that the times have. “We are not overlooking Texas,” he said dryly. “That’s our rival. We may not be their rival, but they’re our rival.” Blair’s seeming reference to the school-in-Austin’s usual insistence that it takes Oklahoma far more seriously than A&M said nothing of the fact that since his arrival as the coach in Aggieland, the Longhorns are 5-9 against the Aggies in the regular season alone. The past season, A&M swept Texas for the fourth straight year. It’s a far cry from the bygone era before Blair. “I took the job and I saw that they were about 116-12 against us,” he said. “That’s about what it was, I don’t know
The Battalion He was hitting shots from the locker room. Or, at least that’s how it felt. Here was one All-American refusing to yield to another. Acie Law, the 2007 Cousy Award winner, dueled with 2007 National Player of the Year Kevin Durant for nearly three hours in a time-ceasing night in Austin four years ago. The two monoliths weren’t long for the collegiate ranks; the next season, both would be in the NBA. Now, the spread of one of the NCAA’s best rivalries from the football field to the hardwood? That didn’t leave with them. The recent history of Texas and Texas A&M in the Frank Erwin Center would indicate that the eyes of all college basketball fans should be on Austin tonight. “There’s a lot of respect between both programs,” senior forward Nathan Walkup said.
Senior forward Danielle Adams and the Aggies look to continue their run of success against Texas. the exact number. We’ve won 10 of 11 and the last eight. We weren’t their rival when this streak started.” He didn’t finish the thought, because the divide has never been more apparent. Texas will enter Reed with statistically one of its worst teams since 20052006, when it finished 13-15. The final record might not be so drastic when the current season See Home stand on page 8
Junior guard Dash Harris and No. 10 A&M hopes to end a nine-game losing streak in Austin. “Both [teams] have a lot of Texas kids, it should be a lot of fun. It’s a good matchup every time we play. They haven’t won [in College Station], and we haven’t won there. Hopefully that can change.” The Aggies have only beaten the Longhorns on the road once since Texas Head Coach Rick Barnes took the job, but that depicts a much more lop-
The Battalion Every student wants to have the perfect schedule, the most efficient commute to and between classes and perhaps most of all, the cheapest and best way to pay for textbooks every semester. Saving money and receiving quality materials has been a dilemma that students have tried to fix since seeing that first textbook bill. Receiving a textbook bill ranging anywhere from $400$800 is not the ideal situation for students. To help cut the cost of textbooks, the Texas A&M MSC Bookstore has expanded its options from not only buying new or used textbooks, which can still be a little pricey, to include rentals and digital copies of books at almost half the normal price available to students. “[Book purchasing] is no longer ‘here’s your only option,’ now students get to choose the way in which they want to learn,” said Holley Scott, store manager of the Texas A&M Bookstore. “We’ve added choices. They can choose to buy or rent new, used or digital copies of their books, whichever they feel is best for them.” The MSC Bookstore is not the only option available to stu-
See Road test on page 8
See Books on page 9
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