Dr. Zhenchen Zhong, a former professor of physics at Louisiana Tech and Grambling State Universities pleaded guilty July 1 to a lesser charge of aggravated battery and was sentenced to eight and a half years in prison. Zhenchen Zhong hit his colleague, Dr. Jia Ping Liu, an assistant professor, over the head with a claw hammer on April 11, 2002 in an alleged act of jealousy over a grant He has been held at the Lincoln Parish Detention Center for the past 14 months, on a $250,000 bond, charged with attempted murder. Zhong, a national of the People's Republic of China, lives in the United States on a work visa and could face deportation. (Source: The Times, July 8, 2003).