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Student owned and operated Student business owners balance academics, company management By Michelle Milstead @mmilsteadd

M Morgan Engel — THE BATTALION

Senior defensive end Daeshon Hall recorded five tackles and forced a fumble against Ole Miss.

SALVAGING THE SEASON Texas A&M looks to move forward after third loss in last 4 games By Lawrence Smelser @LawrenceSmelser Two days after losing to Ole Miss Saturday, Texas A&M’s coaches have collectively emphasized the need to move on and finish the season strong. The loss at Kyle Field stung bitterly for the maroon and white due to the ramifications the game had on the team’s future and its goals. Had the Aggies won, they would have moved up from No. 8 and been in position to move up the College Football Playoff rankings after Clemson, Michigan and Washington (all in the Top 4) fell Saturday. Instead, the outcome gave A&M its third loss in the last four games and reminded Aggie fans of the past three seasons where the first half of the season schedule is filled with wins but the second half with losses. “The mindset of the team is that nobody is happy,” A&M head coach Kevin Sumlin said. “There’s more anger than frustration. As a coach, that’s a good thing in this situation. In critical situations in the last couple of weeks, we were a different team. We were tight. We didn’t make the plays the last two weeks at the end of the games like we did earlier in the year.” Backup quarterback Jake Hubenak started his first game at Kyle Field and went 16-of-27 for FOOTBALL ON PG. 4

Aimee Rodriguez — THE BATTALION

When he’s not studying, petroleum engineering senior Ramon Yu doubles as the general manager of Lupa’s Coffee, a student friendly cafe located on Texas Ave.

any students are going to classes, studying to earn their degree in hopes of someday owning their own business — but some students have decided to do both at the same time. While working at an Ernst & Young firm this summer, economics junior Danial Kordi came up with the idea of opening his own consulting company. With the help of Richard Lester, A&M management professor, his dream became a reality and his business, Texas Aggies in Business, officially went live three weeks ago. Although Kordi recently started working toward his masters degree in financial econometrics and is involved in student government, he said he knew this was the time to act. “I guess just turning age 20 I thought if I wait one or two years, I’m stagnating what could be a possible new avenue on the A&M campus, and I don’t know if anyone would have had the idea by then,” Kordi said. “I was worried that these companies are about to go out of revenue if somebody doesn’t help them out so I thought I might as well implement on the side and see how it goes.” Kordi said the company recently completed a project for a client previously in Aggie 100 — a honoree program featuring successful entrepreneurs — and he was encouraged by the feedback the client gave. “He could have gone to big industry professionals and talk to them, but he was impressed with the work we’d done and came back to us to finish out his work for him,” Kordi said. “He was an Aggie 100 head-honcho guy telling us we did a fantastic job, so that’s really good on our end and motivation to go in and know we can do this. It’s going to show really well post-graduation in the workforce.” Hanna Hausman, psychology senior and photographer for The Battalion, is the owner of Hanna Kristine Photography. Hausman said she turned her passion into a business because she believes God has given her this talent to love people better. “I’m starting to realize I can bring both psychology and photography together,” Hausman said. “I think that pictures that turn out the best are when clients feel most comfortable with you, and so I try really hard to sit down with them and understand them and know their insecurities so I can make them feel better in front of the camera, because that’s when they’re going to be happiest with the product.” Maddie Becker, theater arts senior, is the owner of a non-profit found space theater STUDENT BUSINESSES ON PG. 2

Campus group fights human trafficking in US

CREATIVE COMMONS

Recent flooding devastated the Baton Rouge area, including local students at LSU.

Rivals in the SEC, allies off the field

Hanna Hausman — THE BATTALION

A&M ‘Side-By-Side’ initiative asks students to donate to LSU relief

(Left to right) Horticulture sophomore Kelsey Wentling, nutritional sciences senior Carissa Elk and business sophomore Britton Carter are leaders in the Texas A&M’s “No Slave November” movement to raise awareness about the sex trafficking.

By Chevall Pryce @ChevallP

‘No Slave November’ to raise awareness of modern day slavery

Although the Aggies and the LSU Tigers will be opponents on Kyle Field in the Thanksgiving Day game, A&M has initiated an effort to aid LSU in relief efforts for the floods that affected much of the Baton Rouge area. Student Body President Hannah Wimberly emailed the A&M student body Tuesday with information about Side-By-Side, which asks A&M students and members of the Bryan-College Station community to donate to LSU. The proceeds will be given to LSU following the Thanksgiving game, with hopes to help the community rebuild the area. Wimberly said the campaign was created to aid LSU with getting back to normal, especially students who were directly affected by the storm. “It was just beyond devastating. Billions of dollars of damage in the Baton Rouge area and in the LSU community,” Wimberly said. “A SIDE-BY-SIDE ON PG. 3

By Brooklyn Figueiredo @brooklyn_fig More than 5,000 cases of human trafficking have been reported in the United States this year, and Texas has the second highest number of reports according to the National Human Trafficking Hotline. The No Slave November campaign hopes to raise awareness on campus of human trafficking. The A&M chapter of the International Justice Mission (IJM) is in the middle of its No Slave November campaign — a monthlong push to raise awareness for human trafficking and modern day slavery throughout the month of November. IJM, a global Christian organization, is the world’s largest anti-slavery group. It

aims to protect the poor from violence in the developing world by focusing on fighting sex trafficking, violence, slavery, police brutality, property grabbing and citizens’ rights abuse. “Modern slavery is roughly defined as basically someone being forced to do work that they wouldn’t otherwise do,” said Carissa Elk, vice president of the A&M chapter. “That can look like someone taking away someone’s property and force that person to work at their brick kiln factory in order to stay at your property or else they are going to take it away. That can look like a lack of protection from the government or even sex slavery.” Carter said there are an estimated 45 million slaves worldwide today and very few countries are exempt from this issue, including the United States. Houston is the second fastest growing hot spot for human trafficking. “The United States — especially in sex

slavery — is one of the worst offenders,” Elk said. “Even us when we talk about it, you become numb to it at times or forget what it is. But it’s very real and destroys lives. [No Slave November] is a good reminder that while we sit here relaxing, it’s happening every day to women and men.” Once a month, the A&M chapter of IJM reaches out to businesses that are at risk for human trafficking. They also reach out to hotels, educating them on the signs to look for that could point to a human trafficking case. The chapter goes to nail salons and massage parlors, which have a higher rate of being fronts for human trafficking. Two of the businesses they went to were closed down in February for trafficking and are open again — within a mere five months. “There are different ways that trafficking can take place here in our community and in Texas,” said Kelsey Wenting, A&M chapter community outreach chair. “Houston and NO SLAVE NOVEMBER ON PG. 4