THURSDAY, JANUARY 31 | SERVING TEXAS A&M SINCE 1893 | © 2019 STUDENT MEDIA
SEEING DOUBLE Women’s basketball looks to maintain streak in second Vanderbilt matchup By Hannah Underwood @hannahbunderwoo After topping No. 15 Kentucky on Sunday, the No. 20 Texas A&M women’s basketball team is looking to extend its winning streak to six straight games as the Aggies take on Vanderbilt on Thursday. Vanderbilt (6-14, 1-6 SEC) has had only one Southeastern Conference win this season — an 80-68 win over Ole Miss — and is coming off an 80-69 loss to South Carolina. The Aggies and the Commodores last met three weeks ago, with A&M coming out on top 50-43. The victory at Memorial Gym in Nashville ignited the Aggies’ hot streak. However, the difference this time is a healthier Vanderbilt team, according to A&M head coach Gary Blair. In December, Vanderbilt had only seven active players on its roster due to various injuries. “We’re going to have our work cut out against Vanderbilt,” Blair said. “We struggled to win that ball game in Nashville 50-43 and there hasn’t been too many games in my 16 years where we’ve won a game by only scoring 50 points. I’m in charge of the offense. I’ve got to find some more points.” Junior guard LeaLea Carter is emerging as one of Vanderbilt’s top scorers, having racked up 20 points in three of her last four games. Blair compared her to Kentucky’s BASKETBALL ON PG. 2 Cassie Stricker— THE BATTALION
Sophomore guard Chennedy Carter leads the Aggies in points with 346 and a 21.6-point season average.
Aggie softball to kick off 2019 season as No. 20 team Texas A&M one of 10 SEC teams to be ranked in preseason polls By Angel Franco @angelmadison_ The start of the Texas A&M softball season is around the corner, meaning the preseason rankings are now out. The Aggies came in at No. 20 on both the USA Today Coaches Poll and the ESPN/USA Softball Collegiate polls. A&M opens its season next weekend as it hosts the Aggie Classic in its new stadium starting Feb. 8. Along with A&M, 10 of the 13 SEC schools made an appearance on the preseason poll. Florida, which eliminated the Aggies in the super regional round of last year’s NCAA Tournament, is the highest ranked SEC team on the poll, at No. 5 overall (USA Today/ESPN). Georgia directly follows at No. 6 on USA Today and No. 7 on ESPN. Rounding out the top 11 teams on the poll are Tennessee (No. 8 USA Today/ESPN), Alabama (No.9 USA Today/ No. 11 ESPN), South Carolina (No. 10 USA Today/ No. 9 ESPN) and LSU (No. 11 USA Today/ No. 10 ESPN).
NO FEBRUARY SILVER TAPS Silver Taps, typically held on the first Tuesday of each month during the fall and spring semesters, will not be observed this February. The tradition honors Texas A&M students who have passed away since the previous Silver Taps ceremony. According to a statement from Student Assistance Services, the following students will be honored on March 5 as per their families’ requests: Noah Joseph Gunhouse, Grant Jacson Hernandez, Hannah Michalski and Kristen Lane Moss.
Meredith Seaver — THE BATTALION
Third baseman Riley Sartain is the lone senior on the Aggie’s 2019 roster. A&M opens its season with the Aggie Classic Feb. 8-10 at Davis Diamond.
PROVIDED
Professor Kennicutt will co-chair Astro 2020 Decadal Survey.
Texas A&M students gear up for Big Event Shaping the future Registration for annual day of B-CS service stays open through Feb. 15 By Savannah Mehrtens @SJMehrtens The Big Event is an annual international day of service that originated at Texas A&M as a time to give back to Bryan-College Station community residents. Job requests opened on Jan. 1. Organization and student sign-ups for The Big Event opened during MSC Open House on Jan. 20 and will close on Feb. 15. On March 30, around 20,000 students are expected to gather in front of the 12th Man statue for early morning activities before picking up their tools and heading out into the community to serve over 2,500 residents of Bryan-College Station. Both organizations and indiFILE
viduals can sign up to participate. Reese Svetgoff, business honors senior and director of The Big Event, said students and organizations are required to have an organizational leader attend one meeting before the event date. This year, students can also sign up individually with a college or department if they do not have an organization they would like to serve with. “We’re hoping to see a bit more comradery under the individual sign-ups because when people sign up randomly, it’s kind of hard to make that connection,” Svetgoff said. Svetgoff said there will be a unique experience for each student who serves in The Big Event, no matter what their assigned resident needs. “I think it’s kind of our way of showing the community and the nation that service matters to us,” Svetgoff said. “We have 2,500 unique service projects, and each student has a different experience, so I just think that’s one of the coolest things about it.” On the day of The Big Event, students will have their group leader sign in. After that, students can spend their time at various events held near the 12th Man statue before going to pick up the tools required for their service projects. BIG EVENT ON PG. 4
of star exploration A&M professor to co-chair Astro 2020 survey of scientific research projects
By Giselle Warren @GiselleWarren16 Texas A&M professor Robert Kennicutt has been selected to serve as co-chair of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Astro 2020 Decadal Survey. Every 10 years, the U.S. Congress commissions a survey to assess recent astronomical discoveries and prioritize research projects for funding, Kennicutt said. He will be at the forefront of deciding which projects are most deserving of financial support. More than 100 projects are pitched and the survey must narrow them down to about 10 projects to present to Congress, giving the survey significant political influence and prestige. Kennicutt’s experience in this field has put him at the cutting edge of new developments in astronomy. He said the opportunity to be part ASTRO 2020 ON PG. 4
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THE BATTALION is published Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays during the 2018 spring semester and Tuesday and Thursday during the summer session (except University holidays and exam periods) at Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843. Offices are in Suite L400 of the Memorial Student Center. Newsroom phone: 979-845-3315; E-mail: editor@ thebatt.com; website: http://www.thebatt. com. For campus, local, and national display advertising call 979-845-2687. For classified advertising, call 979-845-0569. Office hours are 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. Email: battads@thebatt.com.
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Senior forward Aja Ellison celebrates with teammates. The Aggies look to continue their win streak as they take on the Commodores on Thursday.
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Rhyne Howard, who scored 21 points against A&M on Saturday. Blair said one thing his team is focusing on is free throw percentage in the second half. Against Auburn on Jan. 24, the Aggies made nine of 10 free throws in the first half. After halftime, however, their success rate fell to 60 percent. “Can you shoot under pressure when something’s on the line? That’s the whole key to any level,” Blair said. “What’s your shooting percentage from free throws in the last five minutes or two minutes of the game? You’re going to find a championship team that can shoot well in those situations.”
Sophomore Chennedy Carter contributed 20 points to A&M’s win over Kentucky. The sophomore guard leads the Aggies with 346 points and 28 three-pointers. “Teams cannot stop Chennedy,” Blair said. “They try to slow her down and they try to make her shoot a low percentage, but her percentages are getting higher. I’m very pleased to have Chennedy Carter on my team.” A&M is 16-4 on the season and 5-2 against conference opponents. This is A&M’s longest conference win streak since a six-game streak in the 2015-16 season. The Aggies and Commodores will tip off at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday at Reed Arena. The game will be broadcast on SEC Network.
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HELP WANTED Part-time cleaning, day and evening, Monday-Friday. Call 979-823-1614 for interview. Looking to get real-estate license or have license but looking for a company to work for? Call 979-693-4900 or send resume to curtis@aafbcs.com Work around your class schedule! No Saturday or Sundays, off during the holidays. The Battalion Advertising Office is hiring an Advertising Sales Representative. Must be enrolled at A&M and have reliable transportation. Interested applicants should come by our office located in the MSC, Suite 400, from 8am-4pm, ask to speak with Joseph.
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New garage on Northside Facility on Polo Road to contain parking, food, recreation facility By Sanna Bhai @BhaiSanna
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The Polo Road Garage will be located near ETB and completed around July 2020.
As the student population in College Station continues to rise, the Board of Regents has approved the construction of a new parking garage on Polo Road, adjacent to the Emerging Technologies Building. The parking garage will also include a satellite recreation center, dining options for students and an office for transportation services. With approximately 1,700 parking spaces, this project will cost a total of $78.4 million. The Polo Road Garage construction will begin in March with substantial completion of the parking garage sched-
uled for July 2020, said Melissa Maraj, communications manager for Transportation Services. The recreation and dining portion is scheduled for completion in late fall of 2020. A portion of Lot 50 will be used for the creation of the garage, but Lots 51 and 47 will remain unchanged. As the construction begins in March, Lot 50 pass holders will be able to park at West Campus Garage until the lot reopens or until the pass expires in July 2019. Night pass users will be able to continue parking in Lot 50 after the construction of the garage complex, but not in the garage itself. At the start of permit registration, Lot 50X users will be unable to renew their pass and may request Lot 50 or any other lot pass.
Safe cycling in Aggieland Transportation Services, UPD discuss state and campus-wide bike policies By Marina Garcia @margar211 Many of Texas A&M’s nearly 70,000 students use bikes on campus to get to their destination, so learning the rules and laws about cycling is crucial. Blake Hosler, a mechanical engineering sophomore, was hit by a car last semester while riding his bike across a crosswalk on campus. While he was not seriously injured, Hosler said the experience helped him learn more about bike safety. “Now I wear a helmet when I’m biking to class, it makes me feel a bit safer,” Hosler said. While helmets are not required, there are other mandatory regulations students must follow on campus. Bikes must follow Texas Traffic Laws A&M follows The Uniform Act of the Texas Traffic Laws, which means bikes operating on the road are seen as a vehicle and are obligated to follow the same laws cars do. This includes stopping at stop signs and yielding to pedestrians, not riding bikes on the sidewalk and dismounting when crossing a crosswalk. University Police Department Lieutenant Bobby Richardson said violations can result in citations. Fees can vary depending on the of-
fense, but students should be aware that if they break the laws, they can be charged. “If you receive a citation, you would have to go to court or pay a fine,” Richardson said. Finding a space to park Bikes must be properly parked and secured by cyclists in one of the 1,300 total racks or 13,000 bike parking spaces on campus. Manager of Alternative Transportation Services Ron Steedly said the frame and wheels of the bike should be locked together to the rack to help prevent bikes from being stolen in parts or as a whole. Bike Registration Students can register their bikes online through the transportation services website. Students are required to place the proper registration sticker visibly on their bikes. Registering bicycles can help the transportation services find stolen bikes and inform students when they need to move their bikes from a bike rack. The fee is $10 for students. Dismount zones Dismount zones are found around the MSC and Rudder Plaza. Cyclists are asked to walk their bikes in these zones to make it safe for other students walking through the area. Steedly said students are typically respectful of the dismount zones and follow the rule. More information about bike rules can be found at transport.tamu.edu/alternative/bicycles/statelaw.aspx.
GUEST COLUMN
Finding opportunities for good What we can learn from Andy Duffie, Class of 1978, and his Century Tree Project
Tyson Voelkel ‘96 @TysonVoelkel Howdy Ags, Welcome back to campus! It’s been a few weeks since winter break, and I look forward to once again sharing stories of Aggies who are leading by example as the spring semester unfolds. This month I’d like to focus on Andy Duffie ’78, who found an opportunity to better his life and the lives of the Aggie community right here on campus. His story illuminates a great truth about the hidden opportunities for giving all around us. Andy was visiting Texas A&M for his 30th class reunion in September 2008 when he strolled past one of his favorite campus landmarks: the Century Tree. Below the tree, he noticed hundreds of fallen acorns scattering the ground — and he had an idea. He collected acorns from the site and attempted to nurture them into mini-replicas of the Century Tree. After learning lessons from initial setbacks, he kept at it. Soon enough, he found himself gathering thousands of acorns and growing more than 500 seedlings in his backyard. He sold every single tree he grew to Aggies across Texas and used the proceeds to establish a President’s Endowed Scholarship through the Texas A&M Foundation in 2012.
Since then, Andy has continued growing and selling Century Tree seedlings to create an Aggie Ring Scholarship at The Association of Former Students and is currently working to endow a Sul Ross Scholarship at the Foundation. Today, offspring of the Century Tree can be found from Virginia to Washington State, and in places like the Governor’s Mansion in Austin, the Texas A&M at Galveston campus, Blue Bell Creamery in Brenham, Texas, at the home of former Texas A&M head football coach R.C. Slocum, and in The Gardens at Texas A&M on West Campus. Surely, Andy couldn’t have predicted he would make a difference the way he has when he walked across campus in 2008. But life is like that. When you open your mind to a broader set of possibilities, you find that chances to make the world a better place are all around you. With a different perspective, you may even look down and find them scattered around your feet. All you have to do is pick one up and let it grow. Thanks and Gig ’em, Tyson Voelkel ’96 President, Texas A&M Foundation Watch more of Andy’s story at give.am/ WhyIGive. To purchase Century Tree seedlings, visit aggiecenturytreeproject.com.
Paul Burke — THE BATTALION
To prevent a bike from being stolen, the frame and wheels should be locked to one of 1,300 bike racks across campus.
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Capcom’s Resident Evil 2 demo was released Jan. 11, and the game officially hit stories on Jan. 25.
Resident Evil 2 demo offers taste of newest release The long-awaited remake appears poised to become an acclaimed best seller Ronaldo Mata
R
@ronniemata12
esident Evil 2’s demo is a promising first look at the latest remake in all of its bloody glory. The Resident Evil series pioneered the horror game genre with its first installment back in 1996. Since then, the franchise has branched out to dozens of games, comics and a couple of lovably bad movies. 2017 was a big year for RE as its five-year hiatus broke with the release of “RE7: Biohazard,” the series’ first foray in the first-person horror survival genre. 2019 won’t be any different, as the hype surrounding a remake of the fan favorite “Resident Evil 2” is astronomical. Aware of this excitement, Capcom decided to tease fans with a little demo on Jan. 11. Those in the know remember seeing this game announced back in 2015 following the successful remake of the original Resident Evil. Last summer, fans were treated with the first glimpses of gameplay at the Electronic Entertainment Expo. Gone are the low-res polygonal character models, as Capcom
ASTRO 2020 CONTINUED of the Astro 2020 survey is especially significant because of the project’s scope and magnitude. “Nobel Prize winning research is being done all the time,” Kennicutt said. “Astronomers, like all scientists, have more ideas of ways to spend the government’s money than we can afford.” Kennicutt said experts should look at the costs, risks, technical requirements and overall
reused the game engine which gave RE7 its detailed, modern graphics. Fast forward eight months later and there I am, launching the demo in my welllit room, hesitantly excited to “Press Start.” However, I was a little disappointed to find out that the demo was pretty much what was shown off at E3. Our rookie cop hero Leon Kennedy gets to the overridden Raccoon City Police Station, and from there it’s just open the door, get stuck, try to save a dude, fail, shoot zombies, run, solve the puzzle in the foyer, meet Marvin, roll credits. I figured that I should take a different approach to the demo, looking at what we didn’t see and commenting on what we could not get a feel for from last year’s snippet of gameplay. The first thing I noticed after starting the demo is the beautiful, dark look that has become a signature aesthetic for the Resident Evil games. Flickering lights, intricate interior decorations and a lighting system that really justifies reusing the engine from RE7. Raccoon City looks more terrifying than ever before, and any fan of the series or the genre will be geeking out. Even though
scientific importance of each proposed idea. “It’s a very complicated and complex process, but it’s essential,” Kennicutt said. “I think we owe it to the taxpayers to do the most vigorous job we can.” Professor and head of the A&M’s physics and astronomy department Grigory Rogachev said he sees the impact of having a member of A&M’s astronomy team serving as co-chair of the decadal survey.
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Meagan Banowsky, Class of 2018, was one of over 22,000 Big Event participants.
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“We do a huge kickoff ceremony,” said Brayden Petroshus, professional program of accounting junior and Big Event recruitment executive. “There, we have a DJ, a guest speaker that is yet to be named this year, and tons of companies come in and bring their products to promote food, magazine companies, whatever it might be. But really the goal of that is just to get everyone pumped up for the day — get the juices flowing.” Petroshus said The Big Event is a way for he and his fellow students to do their part in giving back to the community. “As Aggies, we have a responsibility to leave College Station a better place than we found it,” Petroshus said. “You can do that through small interactions all the time, but Big Event is the tangible way to do that.” Morgan Bell, university studies senior and financial director of The Big Event, said she has spent an extra year on campus to complete a certificate and is still participating on staff because she couldn’t imagine her college experience without it. “People should prepare for a great day filled with selfless service and basically just being able to go and meet all the residents,” Bell said. “Be prepared to go and serve and work in whatever capacity the residents need. … Sometimes it’s easy, sometimes it’s hard, but in the end it’s always for the residents, so that’s super important to keep in mind.” To learn more or sign up for The Big Event, visit bigevent.tamu.edu.
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Leon has a dreamy Zac Efron look now, I would have loved to see the silly shoulder pads make a return for the remake. Regardless, there is nothing evil about the way this Resident Evil looks. The remake took some liberties with how the controls work this time around. The fixed camera tank controls from Resident Evil’s early entries have been replaced with a more conventional over-the-shoulder camera more in accordance with the third-person action games of this generation. Along with the new control scheme, other mechanics had to be renovated to add a dimension of modernity to the game while not losing the classic feel. The shooting mechanics felt familiar and very appropriate, though I am not sure the zombies liked them too much. Verdict? If this whole game is as good as the demo, then Capcom has another gold standard remake on its hands. Being able to experience RE2 through a new, current-generation lens is truly a joy for fans new and old.
Ronaldo Mata is a journalism freshman and Life & Arts writer for The Battalion.
“This survey determines a large extent of research and development,” Rogachev said. “It is very important that one of our faculty members is actually shaping those priorities and shaping the future of astronomy. So obviously, it is very significant for us and it is great that we will have a faculty member to have that knowledge of development.” Chemistry Sophomore Caden LaFontaine said he is minoring in astrophysics and is ex-
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cited about the opportunities Kennicutt’s appointment presents to him as a student in the physics and astronomy department. “My career goal is to work at NASA, and this is big because it is increasing the popularity and scope of the physics and astronomy department,” LaFontaine said. “It opens a lot of new doors, especially for people who are interested in that type of career path, and it’s something that I am really excited about.”