Image provided by: Texas A&M University
About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (March 25, 1975)
r Weather Fair and warmer today with a high of 79. Increas ing cloudiness tonight and tomorrow. Low tonight 59; high Wednesday 79. Che Battalion Inside Injunction City council Vol. 68 No. 92 College Station, Texas Tuesday, March 25, 1975 Directors okay gifts, approve construction By JIM CRAWLEY Staff Writer The TAMU Board of Directors unanimously passed all parts of an agenda which one administrator cal led, “the shortest of the past few years.” In a morning session, the board approved the use of approximately $491,000 for construction. The For construction details, see story below board also accepted gifts and grants totaling nearly $1.5 million. Addi tionally, the directors agreed to a $495,000 lease agreement in south Texas. With an unusually short agenda, the board wasn’t confronted with any controversial issues. The board approved the assign ment of three oil, gas and sulfur leases, in Erath County. The leases cover 2,355 acres. All three leases will be assigned to Coke L. Gage. The eight man, one woman group approved the appointment of 30 new faculty and staff members within the TAMU system. The gov erning body also approved the promotion of three system staff members. The gifts accepted by the Board ★★★ included a $1.2 million donation from the Association of Former Stu dents. A total of slightly more than $39,000 was received from 47 cor porate donors. The Texas College and University Coordinating Board will be asked to approve the establishment of a Mas ter of Science program in Building Construction, according to a resolu tion passed by the Board in the Tuesday morning session. The board approved the leasing of a 10,443 acre tract for 10 years for the Agricultural Experiment Sta tion. The leased ranch will be used in research projects concerning the ★★★ management of range lands for cat tle production. Dr. Jack Williams, TAMU Sys tem president, was named by the Board to become executive ad ministrator for The Mattie Briscoe Little and Ben T. Little Scholarship Fund. A revolving fund account was es tablished by the Board to cover the cost of a copying machine for three administrative offices in the Teague building. In business concerning the other schools within the TAMU System, the Board okayed a vending con tract for Tarleton State University. ★★★ Makeshift sign marks detour Students expecting to eat breakfast in the board students will be allowed to use the Sbisa Hall annex Monday morning, were Penniston Cafe while Sbisa is being remodel- met by closed doors. Actually, they didn’t ed. Construction has caused the annex and go away with the munchies though because part of Sbisa to be closed. Arabian assassinated ‘Inaccurate’ Directors discuss Batt, Observer BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) — King Faisal of Saudi Arabia, a staunch friend of the United States and at the same time a bankroller of Arab wars against Israel, was assassinated today by a “mentally deranged” nephew, the official Saudi radio an nounced. His 62-year-old brother, Crown Prince Khaled Ibn Abdul Aziz, was proclaimed king of the oil-rich na tion a few hours later. Carroll charges ended by Army The Army dropped charges against 1st Lt. Matthew R. Carroll, 27, of El Paso after he offered to leave the service on an honorable discharge. Carroll, a 1970 graduate in ar chitecture of Texas A&M and former commander of the Corps of Cadets, was charged with refusing to obey an order to cut his hair last April. He contended that the hair- length regulations were a form of sexual discrimination because they did not apply to Army women. He said the regulations “infringed on an individual’s constitutional rights and has no relevance to job perfor mance. ” The Army also agreed to give Carroll $3,600 severance pay and let him continue to wear his hair long during the three weeks he is being processed out of uniform. “It’s a very great personal vic tory,” Carroll told newsmen. “The haircut question has not been ans wered, but I’ve done everything I can do except to go to jail. ” Assigned to the 3rd Armored Di vision in Hanau, Germany, near Frankfurt with his wife and two small children, Carroll said he re quested discharge because “I have a family and certain responsibilities I cannot ignore. “I am sure soldiers won’t leave the hair issue alone,” he added. “In fact, I’d like to throw out the ball for them to carry on with it.” Pretrial proceedings for Carroll started in December, but his case had not yet come to trial before a general court-martial. The gunshot slaying further clouded the future of the Middle East, following shortly after the col lapse of an U. S. effort to find a peace settlement in the area. The official radio in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, said Faisal’s nephew, Prince Faisal Ibn Musaed Ibn Abdul Aziz, pulled a gun and shot the king several times after ap proaching him to offer salutations on the occasion of Prophet Mohammed’s birthday, being celebrated throughout the Moslem world today. The broadcast added that Faisal died later in a hospital. It did not mention the fate of the nephew. Pre-meeting discussion centered around The Battalion and Texas Ob server at the Building Studies Committee of the TAMU Board of Directors meeting, Monday after noon. Before the meeting, Board member H. C. Bell passed around a copy of this week’s Texas Observer. The tabloid contained a story on the $28 million University Center. Bell said the article, criticizing the high cost, was not truthful and highly opinionated. Bell and other members expressed their dislike for the style in which the advocate journal presented the story. The discussion progressed to The Battalion when it was noted that The Battalion had supplied pictures of the Center interior to the Ob server. Bell complained to mem bers and administrators present that The Battalion had printed several “inaccurate” stories, this year. A suggestion, by Bell, to Dr. Jack Williams, TAMU president, was to force The Battalion to print retrac tions for those articles. “Shivers does it at Texas,” said Bell, referring to the head of the University of Texas Regents and The Daily Texan. Williams told the Board that dur ing his recent appearance before a legislature committee he was asked about the Observer story and the cost of the University Center. In actual committee business, the four present members discussed various construction projects total ing $492,000 in future expendi tures. The largest expenditure brought before the committee was a prop osed appropriation for Phase IV of the street renovation program. The project will include construction on Coke and Houston streets. The Board resolution approves the let ting of bids for the project. An additional $75,000 was ap propriated to supplement the de tailed design costs of the Phase II renovation at Sbisa Hall. The committee received a report describing the bids received for carpeting of tbe second floor of the Administration Building. The ex ecutive office suite is located on that floor. A.R. Luedecke, executive vice president, told the members that the low bid of $11,930 was ap proximately $6,000 less than the architect’s estimate. The board approved the future letting of bids for the relocation or construction of three greenhouses. The present greenhouses are lo cated on the site of the future Classroom/Laboratory Building. The new site will be located north of the Agronomy Field Laboratory. The board was told by Luedecke that bids were received for air con ditioning of the A&M Press Bldg. The committee heard a one-half hour presentaHon on the design of a new auditorium-classroom- research center at the TAMU Ex tension Center, north of Dallas. A preliminary design for the in dustrial education and technology expansion at Tarleton State Univer sity, was also discussed by the committee and approved by the en tire board. The committee revised an earlier resolution agreeing to swap sewage services with College Station on a 50 acre tract land, west of campus. Col lege Station would then provide sewage service for an identical area of east part of the main campus. The last item before the commit tee was the discussion of an applica tion for government funds to help build an additional sewage treat ment plant for the campus. Williams told the committee members the university would have to begin planning for a new library, to double the size of the present library'. Preliminary requests defended Williams takes TAMU budget to Austin Matthew Carroll in 1970 By WILL ANDERSON Assistant editor Texas A&M University’s requests for state money for the school year 1975-76 were explained and de fended in Austin Wednesday by Dr. Jack K. Williams, president of the TAMU system. His presentation was an initial report and no im mediate action was taken. The president was accompanied by several university officials, in cluding Robert G. Cherry, assistant to the president; William Clyde Freeman, executive vice president for administration and Clyde H. Wells, president of the Board of Di rectors. The Appropriations Committee of the Texas House of Representa- ★★★ tives is reviewing the requests of all the state organizations and schools. The committee is headed by Rep. Bill Presnal of Bryan and has 21 members. Williams began by asking an in creased budget for the administra tive and general offices. That area expended a total of $581,398 last year and has been budgeted for $617,289 this year. A total of $1,054,327 for 1976 and $1,147,765 for 1977 is requested. The legislative budget recommen dation is $712,783 and $778,357, re spectively. Williams said the increases are necessary because of the university’s growth and increased demands by regulating bodies. The administrative offices had 40 full-time employes 20 years ago, he said. The offices now employ 46 people full-time while the size of the university has increased several times. The Board of Control is “showing some muscle” they haven’t shown before, the president said. “We’re having to re-do procedures that were once simple.” “We must now compile informa tion on every employe in the system but that’s not budgeted in any way. ” “I’m not questioning the ideas for change recommended by the LBB (Legislative Budget Board); I’m just saying that to do them, it will re quire more money.” Williams also presented the re quested budget for the main univer sity campus at College Station. The other parts of the system include Agricultural Extension Service, Ag ricultural Experiment Station, En gineering Extension Service, En gineering Experiment Station, Texas Forest Service, Tarleton State College, Prairie View A&M University, Moody College of Marine Sciences and Maritime Re sources and the Texas Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Laboratory. The total expended by the uni versity last year was $29,013,666 and the amount budgeted for this year is $33,328,395. Williams said the amount requested is $60,337,967 for 1976 and $65,700,714 for 1977. The legislative budget recom mendation is $46,716,664 and $49,997,763 respectively. Williams listed TAMU’s strong points and said its best single attri bute is its phenominal rate of growth, from 14,500 in 1971 to 21,000 this year. (See REQUEST, p. 6) Texas Observer slapped at A&M budget hearing The Texas Observer was con demned by the concensus of the Texas House of Representatives Appropriations Committee when TAMU President Jack Williams spoke to them Wednesday. The March 28 Observer ran a re port of the Memorial Student Center’s appearance and costs as its lead story and got most of its infor mation from the Battalion. The story relied mostly on facts, listing items and expenses, but the tone of the story was described by its head line, “The biggest Aggie joke of all. ” The story specifies the animal heads (now removed), the cowhide benches, the $19,000 worth of etched glass around the dining area, the $1.4 million Board of Directors annex and other controversial items. The furnishings of the Annex are an additional $765,000, the story says, but the wing stands vacant most of the year since the Board (for whom it was exclusively built) meets only six times a year. The story adds that special permission from the administration is required to tour the area. A lack of planning for recreational facilities (bowling lanes, pool tables, table tennis) and rooms for student activities (the Singing Cadets and the Basement coffeehouse) is also noted in the story. When Williams was asked by a representative to comment on the story (all the committee members were given copies when they re ceived their other papers), he did not give a direct answer. Williams said the lounge was a matter of taste and discounted the Observer as a reliable newspaper because of an incident a few years ago concerning the TAMU student ship, the Texas Clipper. The Observer said the Clipper was not seaworthy and the univer sity went to great expense to drydock her and prove she was. Rep. Dick Slack ’38, speaker pro tern of the House, was then recog nized by the chairman. “This is a blatant example of yellow jour nalism,” he said, “and I don’t think it is worthy of an explanation.” His remark received a voice of approval from the other representatives. The Battalion called Williams Monday afternoon and again asked for his opinion of the story. He said he did not wish to comment. The Batt asked if he found any inac curacies in the story and he again said he preferred not to comment. Williams said he had mentioned the story the Texas Observer did on the Texas Clipper to “set the stage for what kind of publication it is.” Bill Presnal, chairman of the committee, was asked for his opin ion of the Observer’s story. “The Texas Observer is nothing but trash,” Presnal said. “They use very vile language. I’m not saying the story’s that way because I haven’t read it I don’t know.” State Senator Bill Moore ’40 said he had not read the story either but that the Observer was radical and always trying to destroy something. Speaker of the House Bill Clayton ’50 said he had seen only the front page of the story. “I wouldn’t pay any attention to what the Observer has to say about Texas A&M,” he said. Photo by Will Anderson At the appropriations committee meeting are (L to R) Clyde H. Wells, Jack Williams, Wm. Clyde Freeman, and Robert Cherry.