A&M fall 2023 classes began monday

Texas A&M University students walk through the Memorial Student Center during the first day of school on Monday.

Texas A&M University students hold banners outside of the Memorial Student Center during the first day of school on Monday.

Texas A&M University students walk through the Memorial Student Center during the first day of school on Monday.

Over 70,000 students returned to campus Monday as Texas A&M University began its first day of classes for the fall 2023 semester.

While some students struggled to navigate traffic and find a parking spot among the packed lots, others began advertising their student organizations and promoting their causes in front of a fresh new crop of Aggies.

Animal Science pre-med sophomore Lily Lax, who was standing outside the Memorial Student Center (MSC) bantering with some fellow students, said she had to get to campus early to find a parking spot for her 8 a.m. meat science class.

“It was terrible, terrible; I thought it was going to make me late honestly,” Lax said regarding the morning traffic. “[I park] in lot 100 and it was terrible. I had to circle around a couple times, but I found a spot.”

Having lived on campus her freshman year, Lax said that getting to class on time is more difficult when living off-campus.

“It was so much more convenient living on campus, everything’s so much closer,” she said. “I live in a sorority house now, so I live not that far off-campus and so traffic is bad. I didn’t have to drive anywhere when I was on campus, so [the] buses were great.”

With more than 40 consecutive days of over 100-degree weather, Lax said she was not looking forward to walking around campus for her afternoon classes.

“Right when it hit 9, that’s when I started sweating,” she said. “At 8 a.m. it was kind of nice, not too bad … but I know later on, having classes in the afternoon is going to be terrible, just in the heat.”

Even though exact enrollment numbers for fall 2023 have not yet been released, A&M’s student population has continued to grow year over year with a reported population of 74,829 in fall 2022.

Joshua Van Dyke, an environmental plant sciences graduate student and member of the Cannabis Hemp Innovation League (CHIL), said that the campus and surrounding area do not seem to be able to keep up with the compounding student population growth.

“I think it’s safe to say it’s growing too fast,” said Van Dyke, as he stood inside the MSC holding a large inflatable blunt promoting a petition to decriminalize marijuana. “Crowded classes, crowded parking lots, not enough infrastructure to allow people in here, it kind of makes things depersonalized.”

Van Dyke, who works at Texas A&M’s hemp research lab, said that what he studies every day should not be illegal.

“Hemp that is legal to grow in America doesn’t grow well in Texas at all because it comes from Europe and Europe’s a lot colder than Texas and a lot less humid,” he said. “We’re trying to breed hemp that can actually grow here. So, like a lot of the varieties that grow well here are Chinese, but they have a higher [tetrahydrocannabinol] THC limit than we do.”

Currently in Texas, it is only legal to grow hemp that contains less than 0.3% THC based on dry weight, and Van Dyke said it can be used for many different applications even when the THC level is too low for recreational use.

“You can make plastic composites; I have one here,” he said as he displayed a small marijuana-leaf-shaped keychain made out of hemp fiber. “You can make paper with it. You can make clothes with it and the seeds are a really nutritious source of fatty acids … omega three and omega six. It’s super healthy for you.”

Last Wednesday, the Texas A&M University Police Department announced it would defer possession charges for marijuana in amounts under 2 ounces to the Brazos County Attorney’s Office. While Van Dyke said he believed this was a small step in the right direction, his fellow CHIL member Ian McGrath said, realistically, it won’t change anything.

“It’s a deferment of responsibility, so it makes the university look better,” McGrath said. “It makes them look more progressive when in reality they’re just letting the county prosecute rather than the police station. … It doesn’t change anything.”

Van Dyke said they have already collected around 1,900 signatures as of late afternoon and that they would need 2,500 more to have an amendment to the College Station City charter to be voted on to decriminalize recreational use.

“We’re trying to get 4,00 total,” he said. “We’re trying to get it voted on citywide. It’s very similar to how they did it in Austin and Denton and San Marcos.”

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Courtesy of Texas A&M Athletics.