Issue date: 4/17/08 Section: News

Sherman invites students to open forum, press conference

Texas A&M football Head Coach Mike Sherman will have an open forum and press conference at 1:30 p.m. Thursday in the Memorial Student Center Flag Room. Chief operating officer for the MSC, senior business management major Harrison Oldham, said Sherman does not have any specific questions he wants to answer; he just wants to meet the student body, and the student body to meet him. "Sherman wants to talk. He's bringing some players and he wants to see students and answer our questions. We want to see lots of students show up to meet our new coach conference," he said. The purpose of the event is so he can have the opportunity "to open up a dialogue with students about spring training and football season," Oldham said. "Coach Sherman has been very vocal about his feelings that Texas A&M football is about the 12th Man, and the purpose of this is for students to ask him questions in person," Executive Vice President Beth Brinker said.

Nathan Ball, staff writer

Texas A&M Business Fellows strives to inspire leaders

The Business Fellows is an organization on campus working to create a name for itself. Their website boasts that 50 of the brightest and most promising business students are selected and presented with the challenge of searching within themselves to figure out what being a leader truly means to them. Students apply in the fall of their junior year by completing an extensive application and interview process. "Fellows [then] participate in a semester of rigorous development and testing featuring weekly seminars, team-building exercises and real world experiences," said Todd Hunter, a member of the Business Fellows Professional Development team. The team is one of seven within the Fellows class that is working on a project to meet a need of $5,000 or more towards an approved subject. "[The team is] a class within Mays Business School that teaches and explains professionalism to students that they will one day need to portray," said the senior finance major. "The intent of the class is to develop the professional behavior among business students so that they can be better prepared to meet the expectations that they will soon face in the business world." Huntner said that he and his team mates, junior finance major Lauren Nyquist, senior finance major Chris Tuohy, senior marketing major Chris Eisenlohr, senior finance major Kyle Schielack, junior accounting major Carrie-Ann Stepien and junior accounting major Jennifer Ford, are working to carry out plans to research and create curriculum for 10 different topics that focus on business professionalism. The class is expected to be implemented in the fall at A&M's Mays Business School.

Katie O'Connor, staff writer

Astronomy department grows, develops own identity

Students looking to register for an astronomy class won't find them listed under physics, as they have been in previous years. This fall, the department of physic's astronomy classes will fall under the most logical heading: astronomy. Now that the department has seven astronomers teaching various classes, said physics and astronomy lecturer Kevin Krisciunas, it wanted to make the astronomy class numbers more accurately represent those classes. Originally, the introductory astronomy class was listed as physics (PHYS) 306. That led students to believe it more advanced than basic astronomy, Krisciunas said. "[Physics 306] sounds like a hard thing, and I think that scared away a lot of freshmen and sophomores," he said. "But it's just a basic, non-algebraic, non-calculus class." Now, the class is listed - more accurately, Krisciunas said - as ASTR 101. The calculus-based astronomy class, previously listed as PHYS 314, was switched to ASTR 314. Krisciunas, who teaches PHYS 304/ASTR 101, said the department is pushing for the class to become part of the classes available for the University Core Curriculum-required science credits. That, along with the listing change, should encourage more students to take astronomy courses who would have been intimidated by the previous 300-level listing. "Our goal is to teach astronomy in one form or another to more than 1,000 students each semester," he said. "Just as Biology 101 and Chemistry 101 are standard science credits, we want Astronomy 101 to become one as well."

Chris Hokanson, staff writer

Food Safety, Nutrition, Health conference begins Thursday

The worldwide incidence of obesity, health claims and nutritional labeling related to consumer research will be the lead discussion topics at the conference and panel discussion in the Memorial Student Center Thursday and Friday. "Food Safety, Nutrition and Health: A Transatlantic Partnership," is sponsored by Texas A&M's European Union Center of Excellence, and will feature panel discussions and speeches by Robert Brown, director of nutrition at Frito-Lay, Maurizio Canavari, an associate professor of agricultural economics and appraisal at the Alma Mater Studiorum University of Bologna, and Chung-Tung Jordan Lin, the senior consumer science specialist at the at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. A panel of national and international experts will give presentations on the globalization of food safety management and will address the measurability of food protection and quality assurance systems.

Former interim president Davis wins Commonfund award

Eddie Davis, former interim president of Texas A&M and president of the Texas A&M Foundation, was awarded for his work leading A&M's fundraising arm. Along with Susan Kubik, vice president for institutional advancement and executive director of Northampton Community College Foundation, Davis won the 2008 CASE Commonfund Institutionally Related Foundation Award. The award is presented by Commonfund, a nonprofit corporation that provides fund management services and investment advice to educational institutions, hospitals, foundations and other nonprofits. Davis, working as president of the A&M Foundation for 14 years, has led such fundraising efforts as the One Spirit One Vision campaign, which raised more than $1.5 billion for the University.

Aggie Players performs civil rights play "House Arrest"

The Aggie Players, the theatre troupe under A&M's department of performance studies, presents "House Arrest: A Search for American Character In and Around the White House, Past and Present." The play, displaying a fascinating look at the American civil rights movement, slavery and racism, will be shown at 8 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday and at 2 p.m. Sunday in Rudder Forum. There will be no late seating. Tickets are available at the MSC Box Office and are $10 for the general public and $5 for students. For more information, call 845-2621.

Texas A&M News & Information, Compiled and re-written by Chris Hokanson

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