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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (April 23, 1975)
r Weather, Mostly cloudy and mild today and tomorrow be coming partly cloudy Thursday afternoon. 30 percent chance of showers Wednesday. Winds from the south 12-22 mph. High today 84; low tonight 68; high tomorrow 79. Cbe Battalion Vol. 68 No. 109 College Station, Texas Wednesday, April 23, 1975 Inside Rock notes p* 4 First 100 years p. 5 Fish bites . .. p. 16 Dunn prefers persuasion over pressure techniques By JERRY GEARY Campus Editor "Our university is giving students a deal ear to our comments, yet we at Student Government tee! that it must stop." - Jett Dunn at his press conference, April 22, 1975. Stressing that pressure tactics may do more harm than good in achieving active student participa tion in university affairs, Student Body President Jeff Dunn did not call for an investigation of the TAMU Board of Directors concern ing possible abuse of student funds. But Dunn left this option open, saying if the administration did not respond to his requests for more student input into decision-making, he might call for an investigation of the Board by the Texas Legislature. “Our goal is not to scold or criti cize the board for past actions — our goal is to insure that future actions will be allowed student considera tions,” said Dunn. Dunn also called on TAMU Pres ident Jack K. Williams to meet with the Senate Executive Committee and answer questions regarding greater student participation in decision-making. It had been previously reported in The Battalion (April 18, 1975) that Dunn favored a Board of Directors investigation by the Texas Legisla ture. By Tuesday afternoon, after talking to the Senate Executive Committee and members of the administration, including President Williams, Dunn said he had changed his mind. “The reason I changed my mind was because of internal complica tions within Student Government,” said Dunn. Dunn argued that he had no proof that a majority of students were upset over the abuse of funds or lack of student input in to the MSC de corations, but as the “voice of the student body” he believed that it was worth student government s time and effort to seek out answers for the student body. Later, Dunn was asked in what manner did Student Government evaluate student opinion. “All we can do is guess and per ceive what student opinion is,” re plied Dunn. Dunn suggested that the money spent on the MSC project was “perhaps spent on priorities which did not lead to academic excellence, which is what these funds are set by law to provide.” Citing that the current method of persuasion techniques is more ef fective in dealing with adminis trators than pressure, Dunn said, “We may hurt ourselves more than we realize” by requesting an inves tigation. Dunn also pointed out that cur rent student input into administra tive planning was not being utilized. As an example, he said the Long Range Campus Planning Commit tee whose purpose is to place stu dent participation into campus planning, has not met in the past year. jygyHHy, Wh jrj* Fish Swallower Photo by Glen Johnson How would you like to try out a wheelchair for an hour? Tomorrow is the day to put your skills at navigating the streets, buildings and sidewalks ofA&M in a wheelchair to good use as part of the Student’s Concerned for the Hand icapped (SCH) second annual Wheelchair Awareness Day. TAMU students can check out wheelchairs at the MSC from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m. for an hour’s use. After the hour, students will be asked their reactions to the campus’s accessibility for the hand icapped. The yearly program acquaints non-handicapped students with the barriers that seem insignificant to average students but are impossible to the not so fortunate. Presently the main architectural barriers on the TAMU campus are the lack of ramps to several build ings and the current construction programs. “Curb-cuts,” small ramps placed at curbs are also needed at various sites around the campus commented Don Gardner, vocational counselor for the Texas Rehabilitation Commission. Later in the day, wheelchair bas ketball will be featured in DeWare Field House at 7:30 p.m. The first game will pit two state finalists in the wheelchair cage match. The teams from Dallas and Houston are both veterans of championship play. The winner of the first match will be opposed by the Southwest Con ference champion Aggie cagers. the game will last “as long as the Aggies can go,” said Gardner. Presently there are only a few students using wheelchairs on cam pus but the number will increase Gardner said. Construction near the A.P. Beutel Health Center has caused some disturbance; the eye and ear pollution distracts the patients and students in the area. The construction in volves the resurfacing of Hous ton St. from the Main Drive in front of the Health Center. Photo by Glen Johnson Dunn accused the administration and specifically the board of direc tors with “wrongdoings ’ concerning the MSC furnishings, saying that the “wrongdoing is lack of student input.” He stated that some of the cur rent problems could be solved through better communication with the Board of Directors by placing “an ex-officio student member on the board.” Citing the Northgate Wall as an example, Dunn said he could only assume that “many members of the board didn’t realize student discon tent with the wall. ” Consequently, Dunn Wants to work with the administration in order to gain active student partici pation in campus affairs. As his first step toward this objective, he asked, and Dr. Williams has agreed, to meet with the Senate Executive Committee and the Senate itself. In other matters, Dunn men tioned that Room and Board pay ments for students are going to be raised nine per cent or approxi mately $50 more. Dunn mentioned that if one-third of the student body refused to pay the increase, he would consider fighting the price hike, which has been attributed to the rise in the cost of living. CAMAC Presents Dr. Cisneros Cisneros condemns Class shortages plight of poor Latins cause new hours By WILL ANDERSON Staff Writer Some TAMU students will be getting up earlier and staying on campus longer next semester be cause of a shortage of classrooms. Additional classes have been scheduled for Monday- Wednesday-Friday at 7 a.m., Monday-Wednesday from 4 p.m. to 5:15 p.m. and from 5 p.m. to 6:15 p.m. and Tuesday-Thursday from 5 p.m. to 6:15 p.m. I'he courses scheduled in the new afternoon slots are Mathematics 130, Political Science 206 and Economics 203. The economics course is also scheduled for a 7 a. m. section. Brenda Luther, a clerk in the Re gistration Center, said the addi tional classes were needed because the enrollment has increased while the number of available classrooms has decreased. Classrooms were lost in the Academic Building to provide space for the English Lan guage Institute which provides spe cial classes for foreign students who are not proficient in English, she said. Additional offices were made from one classroom in the Harring ton Center and one in Bolton Hall, Luther said. She said the new class slots were indicated in the registration booklet for the fall semester. There will be an estimated 23,800 students next fall, almost 2,400 more than this year, said Dr. Charles E. McCandless, director of academic planning and services. “We re expecting no relief this year,” he said. “We expect another increase in enrollment and no new buildings in 1976.” The demands on classroom space should be eased in 1977, he said, with the addition of several new buildings. They are the new Ar chitecture Building, the two Ag riculture Buildings on the west campus (beyond the railroad tracks) and a Science Lab Building still being designed. Dr. McCandless said the main need is laboratories. There have been night sections for labs for sev eral years. In theory, there is classroom space for almost 10,000 students at any hour, he said. The scheduling is designed to provide as little conflict as possible with other student ac tivities. By DON MIDDLETON Staff Writer The plight of poor Mexican- American families was the subject of a talk Wednesday night by Dr. Henry Cisneros, professor of Urban Economics at the University of Texas at San Antonio. The lecture was sponsored by CAMAC, the Committee for Awareness of the Mexican-American culture. “The fundamental problem of poverty is one of economics,” said Cisneros, “and until recently the as sumption was that poverty was mainly related to productivity — if a man is poor it’s the fault of his pro ductivity.” Cisneros said several government programs were established in the 60 s with the goal of educating the poor minorities in order to increase their ability to acquire and hold jobs. But such programs dealt only with the symptoms of the problem rather than the problem itself— the relegation of the minorities to what Cisneros characterized as the “Sec- ondaiy Labor Market”. The labor market, according to Cisneros, is divided into two strata — primary and secondary level jobs. The level of jobs is charac terized by wage level, working con ditions, skill requirements and other parameters. Primary jobs are those with rigid skill requirements, union affiliation or other organization and competi tive wages. Secondary jobs are un skilled without any form of organiza tion and pay only a high enough wage to attract minority workers. “The secondary level labor mar ket is just about completely minor ity, ” Cisneros said, “Whereas in the primary labor market we find the opposite situation.” “The fight,” continued Cisneros, “is trying to create a situation where the ethnic differences between the primary and secondary labor mar kets is not distinguishable. We re out of the era of Martin Luther King and whether or not you can ride in the front of the bus and we re going into the board rooms where the de cisions are made. ” Cisneros proposed two solutions to the current situation. First, to give poor people the money through programs such as negative income tax; or, second, to open up the labor market and give everyone an equal chance at jobs. Rejecting the first solution as bas ically unacceptable to the American people, Cisneros said that “our goal is to eliminate the condition that ex ists where a Mexican-American is placed into the secondary labor market because his economic situa tion prevents him from joining the primary level.” CS utilities Supplying own still in future By KATHY MORGAN Contributor Four College Station City Coun- cilmen say the only way to deter mine the advantages of College Sta tion supplying its own utilities is to try it someday and see what hap pens. The city has contracted with Bryan for water, sewage and elec tricity since 1950. The contract ex pires in January, 1979. The possibility of the city having its own utilities is being studied by a city council committee. The com mittee is presently investigating possible future water provisions. “There are three possibilities for water,” North Bardell, College Sta tion city manager, said. “One is a water-well field in Bryan and another is using water from the upper Navasota River Reservoir. The third would be the Millican Re servoir if it was a reality now. ” (The Millican Reservoir is under pre construction planning.) There are also problems in get ting good water sources. “There’s not enough good ground water. Councilman Gary Halter said. “Most of it is in north Bryan and that’s where they’ll drill test wells. ” Halter described the water situation as “rather complicated.” Halter said there are other pos sibilities for water supplies. “There’s a lake being built on the Upper Navasota River that could serve as a water supply for private use,” Halter said. “College Station could buy water from Navasota and put in a small holding lake, outside the city, pumping it out to a filtra tion plant and water system. It’s re latively inexpensive.” Another alternative. Halter said, would be to bring water from Lake Somerville. “But pumping uphill might cost more,” he said. The top prize in the MSC gas week goldfish eating contest was taken by fish Ted Slem- mons. He downed 27 goldfish in one minute. Students observe world of handicapped first-hand Halter also said Bryan makes money when they sell water to the city. L. P. Dulaney, Director of Col lege Station Public Works, said Bryan puts a No. 2 demand charge on each monthly bill. Dulaney de fined the demand charge as the sum of the greatest average number of kilowatts registered on each indi vidual meter during any 30-minute interval of the current month. “The energy charge varies,” Dulaney said, “but it’s about $.55 per kilowatt hour.” Water sells for $35 per 1,000 gal lons, he said. The possibility of College Sation supplying its own electricity is “an extremely expensive proposition at this time, Halter said. He cited Gulf States Utilities as one source of electricity. “I doubt it would be any cheaper to buy from an electric company than Bryan,” he said, however. J. Louis Odle, Bryan city man ager, said building a generating plant for electricity would be ex tremely expensive. “There are problems to consider with an electric plant,” he said. “It costs money. A 105,000 megawatt plant would cost about $27 million to construct. You need transmission and distribution facilities. College Station has part of it already, the production and transmission ends. But they have to consider if they can afford to generate their own.” North Bardell said the possibility of College Station building its own generating plant is “highly improb able because of the high cost of capi tal involved in operating.” He said other alternatives would be to buy from independent utility companies both privately and publicly owned. “These are possibilities, not plans, ” Bardell emphasized. “These ideas are being studied for future reference: monumental sort of plans.”