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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (April 23, 1969)
GARRY MAURO (Continued From Page 1) AL REINERT (Continued From Page 1) ANDY SCOTT (Continued From Page 1) things student government was already working on, but they had no idea of this. If I get elected, I’m going to work to eliminate that communications gap and try to create an atmos phere where student government is trying to find out what the average student thinks and try ing to respond to his views and problems. Like I say in my plat form, I’m talking about respon sive student government. Q. What do you think ought to be done about the current speakers policy? A. It’s obvious that the present policy is not quite what it ought to be for a major university. This has been reiterated many times. I think college - level students ought to be mature enough to hear both sides of a story. In fact, they really need to hear both sides of the story so they can form an opinion and be justi fied in that opinion. I think we need to change the policy to allow any speaker come on campus who talks in a positive light. I don’t think we ought to have negative people on campus. Some people are just asking to tear things down; that’s negativism. We shouldn’t have people here who condone violence, or people who are under indictment; we don’t need criminals. Those are the only restrictions I think we ought to have. Q. What do you think about the appeals committee proposals talked about in the Senate last week? A. I think the proposal we had looked real good, but I think that after studying the issue we can find one that is more acceptable to both sides. I think we can pro bably work under the existing system and just add students to it. Basically, what we want to do is make sure that there is student representation on the committee. In fact, hopefully close to a majority, where a student is appealing to his peers. That point is basic in America. Q. What are your views on student housing, especially off campus? What do you think needs to be done, if anything? A. Well, I think a lot of places off campus are pretty lousy; I think there ought to be some restrictions. In our situ ation—maybe I’m missing the boat somewhere—I don’t see how the university or student govern ment can control the private owners off campus. Maybe we could have some informal agree ments, but I don’t see any way in the near future where we can actually say “you own an apart ment, therefore you must meet certain requirements.” Q. What do you think needs to be done about the laundry system at A&M? A. They’ve got the best equip ment over there, but they’re out moded in their ideas of manage ment. I think the student laundry committee is moving forward in a lot of these areas. So many of the things you hear about are just minor hang-ups that the stu dents have, like the button-crush ing bit. Things that have been destroyed can be appealed. We’re moving well in this area, and I think the Senate and the Civilian Student Council and the laundry committee did a good job this year, and made things a lot bet ter. I believe it ought to be easier for students to turn in pieces of laundry that they actually wear; many of the things on the present laundry slip most students don’t even own, much less wear. Q. What are your views on the compulsory board at A&M? A* I’m against compulsory board one hundred percent. When I was a freshman here, I didn’t pay board for the second semes ter. I ate off campus, saved quite a bit of money, and ate a little better quality food. The philos ophy here at Texas A&M has always been to try to give the majority of the students an edu cation, room and board as cheaply as possible. We can either pro duce volume or quality; so far, we’ve been able to get our food at a reasonable rate because we’ve had volume. If we go to non- compulsory board, I think it would shoot the price up to about double what it is. For the good of the majority of students, I think we ought to keep compulsory board. I also think we ought to work closer with the students; the stu dent menu committee, for ex ample. We need to find out stu dent grievances and do what we can about the food. Q. What do you think about the polling places controversy that has been coming up lately? A. I really don’t think it’s just the last few weeks. Ever since I’ve been here I’ve heard about it, and I’ve been here three years. I remember last year in the class elections if you wanted to vote, with only one polling place, you had to wait as long as an hour and a half. We only had 800-900 people vote. I think it’s an Amer ican principle of democracy to make voting as easy as pos sible. I’d like to have multiple polling places, polling places ac cording to housing unit. If you live in the Sbisa or Duncan area, there ought to be a polling place close to you. I’ve been keeping up with the Election Commission this year, and every election this problem has come up and been whitewashed over. Q. What are your views con cerning student representation on faculty and administration com mittees? A. I think this is the trend throughout the nation. We’ve done quite a bit of study of this on the Senate this year, and most of your major universities have some sort of student representa tion on committees. We need to have students influence the de cisions here because, after all, they directly affect us. Communi cations between the students and the administration would be im proved, and we would be assured of having the student voice heard and taken into consideration. Q. What do you think can be done about civilian involvement on campus? It seems they do more complaining than anyone else, but do less as far as action goes. A. I think you have to realize that the class of ’70 was the first class that ever started out with a large civilian student body out side the Corps of Cadets. We started out with 700; the year before, they had 70. Now I think that in three years, considering that that’s how long we’ve had, the civilian student body has moved forward. I think there’s student apathy here at Texas A&M and student involvement is at a low pitch. I believe student government is a vehicle of ex pression for all students’ thoughts, and it ought to cover all areas. Some students feel student gov ernment ought to work to reform some of the academic programs; others want it to make sure they have hot and cold running water. Student government ought to al low students to express their feel ings in all areas; that’s where it’s falling down. Q. What do you think about published professor-course evalu ations? A. I think that having pub lished evaluation of the professors would allow not only the student to know what he’s getting into, but would possibly allow the prof to see where he is letting down. I think this would eliminate some of the really bad teachers we have—we don’t have many, but they should be eliminated if pos sible. Student selection of profs is basic; different people are susceptible to different ways of being taught, and we ought to be able to decide which way we can learn the most, which way we want to learn. You’ve got to make the effort to bring student government to the student body and show them it will be successful, and make it worth their while to take an interest. The way to do this is through standing up for the stu dents and through action and ac complishment. Q. What do you think ought to be done about the current speakers policy? A. In the past, people have complained, but they haven’t of fered any alternatives. What I’ve tried to offer is an application of the speakers of the University of Texas at Austin policy, which allows anybody on the campus except those advocating viola tion of state laws or overthrow of the government. To this, I added persons who advocate vio lence. Hopefully, we can substi tute this for the present speakers policy. Then we would have guidelines, and the arbitrary de cision would be a thing of the past. Q. What do you think about the appeals committee proposals talked about in the Senate last week? A. I like the earlier proposal in that it would have provided for a lot more student participa tion. There are objections to it, like lack of continuity, that I can understand. I don’t think our new proposal is quite as good as the first one from the student’s viewpoint, but I would be more than willing to accept it. As long as there is some provision made for a student voice — an effective student voice — I think it ought to work out fairly well. Q. What are your views on student housing, especially off- campus? What do you think needs to be done, if anything? A. There is absolutely no reg ulation of it. I don’t mean regu lation of hours, but of rent and rent increases. There is no guaranteed lease. It’s a com pletely arbitrary decision on the part of the apartment manager as to whether a student can even stay in an apartment the next day. How can he go to classes if his apartment manager can throw him out anytime ? He can double your rent or anything like that. If you’re going to have primarily student housing, you should have some sort of regula tions which will provide the stu dent with some kind of guaran tee that he is not at the mercy of the manager. Q. What do you think needs to be done about the laundry system at A&M? A. I think a lot of it’s got to be updated. Not the equipment — which is first-rate — but the policies concerning the number of pieces allowed, and which pieces, need to be changed. The appeals procedure is a lot better now, since the laundry commit tee setup allows the students to have final say on appeals. Q. What are your views on the compulsory board at A&M? A. I’m against it as a phil osophy. I would say that of everything on my platform, that would be the most difficult to implement. It’s tied closely with the Texas minimum wage law, and I don’t think I can change that. I am against compulsory board simply because a student comes here to study. He doesn’t come here to live in the univer sity campus, or because he wants to eat in Sbisa or Duncan mess halls. He comes here simply be cause he wants to go to school. Board should be his decision; it shouldn’t be made for him. Q. What do you think about the polling places controversy that has been coming up lately? A. I think it’s a real impor tant topic for consideration, but I think now is a pretty poor time to consider it — just before the elections. I think a committee should be set up at the beginning of the year to determine polling places and procedures for oper ating them, and continue these policies all year for all elections. I think it’s something the Elec tion Commission should have done this year and should do next year. Q. What are your views con cerning student representation on faculty and administration com mittees? A. I think it is without a doubt necessary. After talking recently with representatives of 30 student governments in Texas, I can pretty honestly say that we have the least representation in campus decision - making. Whether it concerns academics or anything else, we really have very little to say about it. I think we ought to have institution alized procedures whereby the students will be allowed to voice, their opinions on anything that’s going to affect them; it’s just common sense. Everybody com plains about lack of communica tions; how else are you going to get communication unless you get a student who can sit there and give his opinions ? Whether the administration chooses to pay much attention to them or not is their decision, but I think the fact that students have the op portunity to express their opin ions will eliminate much of the resentment on campus. I also think it’s a good idea to have students on the board of directors. It’s a little difficult to implement here because our board is also the board of direc tors for the Texas A&M Univer sity system, and I don’t think many students are qualified to make decisions that would af fect Tarleton State, for instance. I do think it’s necessary to have students on the board so the stu dents can make their views known in areas they think important. If this requires a member of the board, I’m for it. Q. What do you think can be done about civilian involvement on campus? It seems they do more complaining than anyone else, but do less as far as action goes. A. I don’t think it’s a prob lem with just the civilians. I think the Corps has much the same problem. The MSC, and its committees, is the main source of student involvement, and rep resentation from either side of the campus is noticeably slim. Involvement is a campus-wide problem, and the way to do some thing about it is to show people it’s worth their while to partici pate. Q. What do you think about published professor-course eval uations? A. I definitely think it ought to be done. The chances of get ting it this semester or next are pretty slim because of all the research and work involved. You need to have some sort of stand ard to grade courses on; this takes research from sources other than the university. We have the best Civil Engineering depart ment in the nation, but how can we evaluate it unless we have some type of standard for civil engineering courses ? How many students here have ever taken civil engineering elsewhere and would be able to evaluate us ? A lot of time and capital input will be required to come up with some thing like this, and it will take some students who are willing to work on it. I think the admin istration is amenable to some thing like this, and will help us. Q. Do you have any other comments you would like to make? A. I think it’s really impor tant to the university to have an active, responsible student gov ernment. I think student govern ment has come a long way from ten years ago, when all it was, as stated in the college catalog, was “training students in the use of democracy.” It’s up to us to make student government a little better than that at Texas A&M. way is found to generate enough interest for the senators to go to their constituents and, in turn, their constituents to go to them, the problem is almost impossible to solve. As far as other things I’d like to see done, there are a couple of things I’m pushing as a student. I believe that unity on the campus is a word that’s been kicked around and given a lot of lip service, yet in essence very little has been done to really accomplish this. I think that unity on the campus will simply require time, and is an evolutionary type thing. I think this could be noted by the progress that has been made in the past four years. The Corps and the civilian student body have come closer together, more so each year. There are some things that could be done to speed up this process. The es tablishment of some all-university traditions, with both civilians and Corps participating in an activity to accomplish a desired end. Another thing is possibly having a car smash in the fall, immedi ately proceeding the Texas Tech game, and calling it simply “Wreck Tech.” Have both Corps and civilians smashing cars; have yell leaders there, and have a yell practice. Let people actually ex hibit some physical—and emotion al—spirit. Something could also be done along the lines of residence halls, and that is a combined outfit- residence hall activity; a party, mixer, or get-together. On this informal basis, people who feel strongly one way or the other would be allowed to see that civilians and Corps members are all Aggies. The Student Senate should provide for the students at A&M what they desire. In no way, shape, or form do I think the Senate should be any type of “rubber stamp” for the ad ministration’s policies, now or in the future. Q. What do you think ought to be done about the current speakers policy? A. I think that the policies on other state-supported cam puses show how conservative the A&M policy is, and it needs to be liberalized. I am in favor of a free selection of speakers on the campus. I think it’s fairly well substantiated that this would not be detrimental to A&M’s academic excellence, if you would, by affecting the amount of money allocated to us. Q. What do you think about the appeals committee proposals talked about in the Senate last week? A. Well, as I see it, the big question is, will this really per form a vital service that is not already being done by the Civil ian Honor Council? How many cases has the Civilian Honor Council had brought before it for appeal? The Civilian Honor Council acts as an appeals board in any type of judgment handed down to an individual at the present time. I don’t know how well this is known, but this is the case. I think there should be a more adequate way of selecting these people. Q. What are your views on student housing, especially off campus? What do you think needs to be done, if anything? A. The primary interest, as I see it, is approved housing for women students as it exists now, considering the fact that there are no women’s residence halls on campus. I think that this might possibly be an aid to re cruiting, if you will, young ladies to attend A&M. As to the prob lems it would encounter, I think they would be vast. You would have to have administration peo ple to go out and approve housing. I know of campuses where this is not done, and they seem to func tion okay. Q. What do you think needs to be done about the laundry sys tem at A&M? A. Something definitely needs to be done about the number of pieces allowed. There has been a discrepancy all year long in that a person is not allowed enough to sustain him through out the week as far as clean clothes go. It’s obvious that the number needs to be increased, especially in the number of shirts and pants. I think that the num ber of whites is ample. Another thing that should be improved,' if at all possible, is to have the shirts delivered on hangers. This would vastly improve the quality of the service. As I understand it, the shirts look okay after they’ve been pressed, but once they go through the folder they degenerate in quality. Q. What are your views on the compulsory board at A&M? A. As I see it, the administra tion is deadlocked on the pro gram, and it would take a major student-supported boycot of Sbisa to obtain non-compulsory board on this campus. I think if people are going to live on campus, they’re going to have to “grin and bear it,” and try to improve the program as much as they can. If an increase in board payments is the only way, then possibly this is what needs to be done. Q. What do you think about the polling places controversy that has been coming up lately? A. I’m really critical of the Election Commission. I think the Election Commission has no for mat, no constitution, nothing it has to adhere to; it simply does as it feels and goes its own little way, as the people who manipu late it seem to desire it to go. I’m for a strong Election Com mission format, responsible to the Senate. As things are now, the Senate can override what the Election Commission says, but if there were some rules they would have something to go on. I think that that is the trouble with the Election Commission. As to how many polling places should be set up, I think one of the major pur poses of the Election Commission is to get out as many people as they can to vote. They should provide enough places so the stu dent population can and will vote. I was strongly in favor of the additional polling places if they could be properly manned by re sponsible personnel in an above board manner. Q. What are your views con cerning student representation on faculty and administration com mittees? A. I’m strongly in favor of this. I’m chairman of the menu committee, and the past few meet ings I’ve been allowed to actually chair the committee, presiding over it and having an agenda that I make out myself and send out to the student and staff members of the committee. I bring up the proposals, the feedback I receive from the students, and we go from there. I think that the efficiency of the system has vastly improved in the last two meetings. So, I am very much in favor of student representation on all committees, if only for a communications aid. Q. What do you think can be done about civilian involvement on campus? It seems they do more complaining than anyone else, but do less as far as action goes. A. I’ve been confronted with apathy all year long. It’s very frustrating at times to try and work out a program for the peo ple who say they would like to do something, but who just don’t turn out. The only think I know to do is to keep plugging. You’ve got to build interest and work on a personal contact basis with people. You’ve got to convince people that they should do some thing. Q. What do you think about published professor-course evalu ations? A. I’m strongly in favor of such a program. I know that some schools up north have it, and the evaluations are sold in the college bookstore. The fac ulty and staff are strongly op posed to it, but it provides an impartial evaluation of the courses and the profs. I think that this is something that could aid all students. If the students are not allowed to select their profs, though, this becomes of limited value. INTERVIEWER: DAVID MIDDLEBROOKE “Attention: Students with majors in Engineering, Mathematics, Economics, Physics, Sci ences, Social Sciences, and other Non- Business, as well as Business Disci plines, who would like information re garding The Graduate School Of Business The University Of Texas At Austin Mr. Jack A. Griggs will be on campus Thursday, April 24, 1969, to provide information regarding managerial careers through a Master of Business Administration Degree. Tuition scholarships are available for the ex clusive use of three graduates of Texas A&M Univer sity. An individual interview can be arranged by con tacting the Placement Office.” THE BATTALION Wednesday, April 23, 1969 College Station, Texas Page 3 SOSOLIKS TV & RADIO SERVICE Zenith - Color & B&W - TV All Makes B&W TV Repairs 713 S. MAIN 822-1941 When you think dining comfort, think PENISTON CAFETERIA 7:00 a. m. to 1:15 p. m. Monday through Friday 11:00 a. m. to 1:15 p. m. Sunday DR. G. A. SMITH OPTOMETRIST SPECIALIZING IN EYE EXAMINATION and CONTACT LENSES 105 NORTH MAIN Downtown Bryan DIAL 822-3557 John F. Ferguson ’67 (College Master Representative) Fidelity Union Life Insurance Co. 303 College Main — 846-8228 (Hole-BHaan n SHOES |fun Stnrnce umbersitp men’s; toear 329 University Drive 713/846-2706 College Station, Texas 77840 PALACE STARTS TODAY Show Times 1:30 p.nt.-4:00 p.m.-6:30 p.m. Walt Disney’s “SMITH” Also “THE INCREDIBLE JOURNEY” STARTS TODAY “HELGA” QUEEN LAST NITE — 7:15 - 9:15 ADULT ART SERIES “GIRL IN LEATHER SUIT” CIRCLE TONITE AT 7:15 P. M. “THE IMPOSSIBLE YEARS” With David Niven At 9:10 p. m. “THE ROUNDERS” With Glenn Ford . li t 1 DRIVE-IN THEATHt HU 0MN irvrABS-IRft TONITE AT 7:15 P. M. Steve McQueen In “BULLITT” At 9:25 p. m. “COOL HAND LUKE” With Paul Newman