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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 21, 1979)
Wr V V'4 he Battalion |ol, 72 No. 101 .Pages Wednesday, February 21, 1979 College Station, Texas News Dept. 845-2611 Business Dept. 845-2611 Wee-hour action The A&M Consolidated School Board ended a marathon executive session Tuesday morn ing, missing The Battalion’s deadline. Today’s story on page 5 details the surprising results. ardi Gras axed; dice pickets joyful United Press International |nEW ORLEANS — The parades of lardi Gras that annually draw a million lurists and $250 million worth of income | the city were abruptly canceled Tues- iy because striking police refused to [ndle massive security problems of the ucous weeklong celebration. The surprising cancellations, by leaders i carnival parades, effectively ended li Gras 1979 in the city. However, at ast one of the carnival organizations, town as “krewes,' vowed to parade in suburbs and indications were iveral others would follow. Texas A&M University’s Ross Volun- ersand the Fish Drill Team make annual Igrimages to New Orleans to march in ardi Gras parades. Ross Volunteer ompany Commander Glen Sliva said, it now, we re undecided as to what ere going to do. ” Lloyd Walker, Fish Drill Team Com- ander, said, “We’re still going. As long we’ve got a place to stay and a meet to j to, we 1 be going. The FDT is scheduled to compete in a drill competi tion Friday at Tulane University. More than 1,300 police officers walked off their jobs for the second time in two weeks last Friday. Since then, marathon negotiations have failed to bring an end to the sti ike although a federal arbitrator said Tuesday night progress has been made. “The pace is picking up and tensions are being relieved,” said Ansel Garrett. I think we had an excellent meeting and I asked both parties to return (Wednes day).” However, Garrett said moments later he was unaware of the decision by the 18 krewes to cancel their parades. He refused comment on whether the move would harm or help negotiations. Cancellation of the parades — including Rex, the King of Carnival — came after officers of the 18 groups met and an nounced they would not be held as pawns in the struggle between the city and the Teamster-affiliated police group. “We’re not going to let Mardi Gras be held hostage by the Teamsters,” the offi- ihoto by Cbjt ated Tigen io. hinese planes hit inside Vietnam United Press International » ». BANGKOK, Thailand — Chinese I Kilt rplanes struck deep inside Vietnam esday but Peking’s ground forces held lir positions 6 miles across the border, Hendrict diligence sources said, the Alai ^ n ese troops near the Russian border II have Ft nt on combat alert in anticipation of iss with Hi iS '^ e reprisals by Hanoi’s Soviet ally, j. Trinity* iChinese civilians in at least two border Fown, Cia« asw ere either relocated or evacuated, like Davids Ianese news reports from Peking said, s has been fhe Chinese invasion, which began recent ye® lll( ^ a y> came in retaliation for Vietnam’s Texas march through Cambodia. Texas Frii :tnam ese troops Tuesday were reported na Saturdf drawing from key areas of Cambodia i at 1:30p cause °f rearguard fighting from Cam- dian loyalists. Both China and Vietnam indicated fight- ! was continuing, but their accounts ind tni H sketchy. the German news agency reported A skeet* Im Peking that Chinese troops were thdrawing, but the Chinese Foreign e in the tri il Skeet in Dente he trap Jp rf Universil! rrsity al» Intf utu hstry denied the report, and the official v China News Atrencv issued a one- mstr lw China News Agency issued a one- ragraph dispatch saying: “Frontier ces of the Chinese People’s Liberatfo'n ^yin Kwangsi and Yunnan are continu- to hit back at Vietnamese aggressor Kips.” Hanoi claimed its militia forces and ir regular units had hit the Chinese bard, wiping out 5,000 soldiers in three days of fighting and forcing them to regroup. Intelligence sources in Bangkok said Chinese bombing and strafing attacks — which earlier were limited to the mountainous border region —- had now been extended well into the Vietnamese interior. They said the targets of the strikes ap peared to be Vietnamese anti-aircraft missile positions between the border and the capital of Hanoi. The Chinese have about 700 warplanes in the area, outnumbering the Vietnamese nearly 10 to 1. But intelligence analysts say Vietnam’s modern missile defense sys tem and more advanced aircraft even the odds substantially. So far there have been no reports of air craft losses by either side. Radio Hanoi, monitored in Bangkok, claimed its border force put 1,500 Chinese soldiers out of action in stepped up fight ing Monday. It reported 3,500 killed or wounded in the first two days of fighting. The Chinese, who are hypersensitive to the threat of a Soviet attack on their north ern border, have put troops on combat alert in the region, Japan’s Kyodo news agency reported from Peking. cials said in their statement. Bourbon Street tavern owners, who cater to the tourist industry, were stunned by the decision. “It’s going to cost us more money than I even care to estimate,” said “Little” Eddie D’Lair, a barker at a Bourbon Street strip joint. “The tourists are leary. Many of them have told me they came down for a week or two weeks, but they are leaving early. They are just scared to stay.” Dennis Corcoran, a tourist from Rockville, Ill., said he and his group in tended to stay. He said they would attend the regularly scheduled parades in the suburbs and hoped more New Orleans parades would shift to the suburbs. “We are to the point that we are going to have to rent a car and go out to the suburbs to see parades,” Corcoran said. “It’s the first time we’ve come down here and this is the first year they’ve canceled Mardi Gras. Parades were one of the rea sons we came down — to enjoy Mardi Gras.” Striking police officers, marching the picket lines in a steady rain, showed little remorse at the decision to cancel Mardi Gras. “We didn’t cancel Mardi Gras,” said one officer who refused to give his name. “The krewes canceled Mardi Gras. We’ll go back to work tomorrow if they want us to. ” Another officer outside police headquar ters across town smiled when he heard the news. “You’re talking to the wrong people if you think we have any sympathies,” he said. “They could have avoided all this if they had given us what we wanted.” Although state police and National Guardsmen had been brought in as substi tutes for police, Mayor Ernest Morial said he could not allow the parades to take to the streets. He said the troopers and guardsmen were unprepared for the spe cial problems of Mardi Gras. Morial had canceled 10 parades on a day-by-day basis since the walkout began last Friday, but the leaders of the remain ing 18 organizations said a more definite decision needed to be made. “Nothing but harm can come to the spirit of New Orleans Mardi Gras through the day-by-day suspense of these cancella tions,” the 18 carnival groups said in their joint statement. “It is wrong to use Mardi Gras as blackmail in this dispute. The same proce dure can be used each year and we’re not going to let our organizations be used as puppets in such a plan. ” The Chamber of Commerce filed suit Tuesday to prevent Morial from submit ting to binding arbitration, one of the union’s demands for a contract settlement, but a state judge refused to issue a tempo rary restraining order. Sunset fishin Rick Thompson, a Texas A&M University graduate, is joining many other anxious hass fishermen in pursuit of the wily bass as the hass spring spawning season gets into full swing in the coming weeks. Battalion photo by Larry Parker Academic Council lowers GPR needed for business By DIANE BLAKE Battalion Staff Although there is a national push to stif fen standards in business administration colleges, Texas A&M University last week lowered those requirements. The Academic Council changed transfer requirements from a 2.5 grade point ratio to a 2.0 GPR. Also lowered were SAT score require ments for entering freshmen, to match the requirements to the rest of the University. The change was made to bring the col lege of business administration into line with the rest of the University, said Dr. C. D. Stolle, assistant dean of the business administration college. “Our college was somewhat alone in having higher SAT and transfer require ments,” he said. The assistant dean said that 10 years ago don’t like the word lobbyist,’ liaison says A&M has good buddies in state legislature By LIZ NEWLIN Battalion Staff At first, the small blackboard in his of- :e seems unusual — out of place for a top llv ersity administrator. Most executives se aesk calendars and embossed leather ite books. ...(■L Cherry uses those too, but the irtur# ree n, wood-frame blackboard is for THE lily iflt^ ates ' Tbit’s when representatives of the Mas A&M University System will appear wore the state Legislature to ask for Wney. Ve said many times that we all work r a n institution that goes broke every 3 Of year,” said Cherry, secretary to the Board of Regents and legislative liaison. On Aug. 31, the end of the fiscal year, the budget also ends. The next day, the Legislature’s appropriations fund all state agencies, including universities and col leges. The agencies prosper or perish, finally, by the decisions of 31 senators, 150 repre sentatives, a lieutenant governor and a governor. So the lawmakers are worth the attention. Cherry says he educates the legislators — doesn’t lobby them — just like other state university liaisons do. an use Cherry is legislative liaison for Texas A&M University ^ ls scheduled to meet with the external affairs committee of stu ^" t g h ^nment at 4 p.m. Friday in Room 502, Rudder Tower, to ? x P“" n , Permanent University Fund and Texas A&M’s involvement m the 66th k^gislature. Battalion photo by Lynn Blanco “I don’t like the word ‘lobbyist,’” he said, smiling behind his desk in the Sys tems Building. “I never want to appear as a lobbyist. I never want them (legislators) to see me as a lobbyist.” But ask anybody else — senator, bureaucrat or journalist — and since the sixties Robert C. Cherry has been iden tified as an effective lobbyist for Texas A&M. Most are quick to add that “lob byist” is not a dirty word; they see lob byists as information brokers who also try to ensure favorable treatment of their agency. The lobbyists’ methods vary. Bo Byers, a long-time Austin observer and reporter for the Houston Chronicle, says “an awful lot of politicking” goes on. Sam Kinch of the Dallas Morning News says that almost all the state universities of “decent” size employ lobbyists. The list of state universities with liaisons includes The University of Texas, The University of Houston, Texas Tech Uni versity, Southwest Texas State University and East Texas State University. The lobbyists wine and dine the legis lators, Kinch says, and they coordinate the testimony of univeristy representatives be fore government committees. Cherry says he occasionally takes a legis lator out to lunch. If they’re talking and it’s mealtime and they eat, he tries to pick up the tab. His expenses run about $1,000 during the January-May session, he said. This year an assistant, Cliff Laywell, will help Cherry. This is Laywell’s first session with the Texas A&M System, but he was legislative liaison for the Texas Farm Bureau a few years. Now he’s on leave from the Agricultural Extension Service. Texas A&M does not maintain an office in Austin as some universities do. Ramon Dasch, an attorney in the Secre tary of State’s Office, says the universities’ legislative liaisons are not required to reg ister as official lobbyists because they’re part of the executive branch. Records show that none of the major state universi ties’ lobbyists is registered. Even though the lobbyists are part of the system, they are not allowed to spend state funds to influence the Legislature. Another attorney, Bob Heath in the state Attorney General’s Office, cites the Texas Appropriations Act, which states that offi cials can’t use tax dollars to influence elec tions or legislation. Legislators inter viewed said the information provided by university lobbyists is helpful in making their decisions. Heath noted that the University of Texas in Austin invites all the legislators to an annual luncheon fiananced by an anonymous Texas-Ex. “It’s all handled privately,” Heath says. Texas A&M has hosted — but not paid for — banquets in the past, Cherry says. Like UT, alumni helped. This year, though, the banquet has been dropped because the legislators already have more dinner invitations than they can accept. They would feel obligated to come — the wrong response. Cherry said. One avenue still open, though, is through local chapters of the Association of Former Students. Richard “Buck” Weirus, executive director of Former Stu dents, says his organization will continue to host appreciation dinners for local legis lators. The dinners are a way to say thanks and let the legislator know who the local Aggies are, Weirus says — but not to lobby. “Next to scholarships, it’s the most im portant thing we do, ” Weirus said. The right atmosphere for lobbying is the appearance of infomality, it seems. One man who studied Austin and the University of Texas as a student and jour nalist notes that much lobbying is informal — regents talking to legislators, having parties for legislators, and alumni contact. And then there are the more formal hear ings. Texas A&M will appear before at least five committees before the appropri ations bill becomes law. “I’ve never known of anything like brib ery,” recalls Ronnie Dugger, now pub lisher of the Texas Observer. “It’s just a buddy system.” And Texas A&M has very good buddies: Not only are the powers in both houses Aggies, but they are from Bryan. (Please turn to page 5.) the college experienced a “very, very great growth” and was having trouble ac commodating the boom with enough class rooms and teachers. The standards were raised to slow down the growth, he said. But the problem was not solved, Stolle said, because students began taking busi ness administration courses — while they were still registered in other colleges. “The burden of counseling was on the assistant and associate deans in other col leges, and we still had the space and teach ing load problems.” He said about 400-500 students will be affected by the change. The change will not affect the college’s accreditation with the American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business, Stolle said. “We cleared this with the AACSB. They understand the difficulties it was creating in this University.” Stolle said the AACSB allows colleges to set their own standards, so long as the school does not graduate inferior students. In accrediting a college, the AACSB re view includes the quality of teaching, per centage of teachers with doctorates, teach ing load and course content. It also recommends a common core of business subjects and looks at the difficulty of the program -— whether all students are making A s or B’s. “It is also very supportive of the profes sional school concept,” Stolle said. This would require students to post a certain GPR for a year or two before admission to a college of business administration, simi lar to programs offered in medicine or law. Some schools, such as the one at North Texas State University, have switched to a five-year program. Stolle said that in the past six or seven years, semesters have been getting shorter, and experts say more information should be included in the courses. “Several professional agencies that deal with business administration think the five-year program is needed to get the necessary amount of knowlege,” he said. Texas A&M’s program will not be changed until the new dean arrives in July — if then. To transfer, a student should first pick up his folder from the dean of his current college. Each student should also sign a change of curriculum form before going to the College of Business Administration office. Iran’s new chief of staff says Americans needed to run military equipment United Press International TEHRAN — Iran Tuesday executed four more generals by firing squad and began a diplomatic campaign to extradite Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi. There were indications Iran would ask U. S. mili tary advisers and oil experts to return. In a news briefing, Gen. Mohammed Vali Qaraney, the new chief of staff, indi cated hundreds of American military ad visers eventually would be asked to return to the country to help manage the $70 bil lion worth of military equipment pur chased from the United States. The equipment includes sophisticated F14 fighters and he said “we cannot do without foreigner advisers” to help run them. During Khomeini’s rise to supreme power in Iran, American military advisers were perhaps the most hated of all foreign symbols and the ayatollah’s camp re peatedly asserted these advisers would be thrown out of the country. It now appeared, however, the govern ment was softening its previous statements and taking a more practical view. On Monday Prime Minister Mehdi Bazargan named a lawyer, Hassan Nazih, to run the oil industry and indicated that foreign oil workers might be invited back to Iran. He warned that failure of Iran to resume full oil production could wreck Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomein s revolution. The National Front political party de manded the establishment of both a gov ernment of national unity and a national guard to dilute the power of the army and lessen the chances of a military coup d’etat. The Front warned that unless those measures were undertaken immediately Iran would face “serious difficulties” from internal unrest. The country’s new military leaders fired another 20 senior Air Force officers and announced that the current purge and reorganization of the armed forces was now 50 percent complete. More than 100 field grade officers have been executed, fired, demoted or retired. In a second major move to return Iran to normalcy, schools reopened for the first time in many weeks. Khomeini Saturday had ordered 3.5 million striking workers back to their jobs in his first major effort to get the country moving again. Iran’s revolutionary radio announced the four generals were executed by Islamic firing squad at 2:40 a. m., less than three hours after being found guilty in secret trials of crimes against the people. Four other senior generals, including the former head of SAVAK, Gen. Nematollah Nassiri, were executed Fri day, bringing to eight the total number of military figures executed since the new government took power. Government sources said moderate Prime Minister Mehdi Bazargan was un aware of both sets of executions until after the event and was “furious.” The government also stepped up its ef forts to try to “corner” the shah and bring him back to Iran to face trial. A Foreign Ministry statement said the government will bring pressure — pre sumably via its oil exports — on any coun try offering asylum to the shah, currently vacationing in Morocco.