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Inside today:
Solar chills? They’re coming from
the mechanical engineering depart
ment. Page 6.
Aggies will have 14,600 more
chances of getting a seat in Kyle
Field. News analysis, page 2.
Football: On the brink of the most
important road tip. Page 8.
The Battalion
Vol. 71 No. 22
8 Pages
Friday, September 30, 1977
College Station, Texas
News Dept. 845-2611
Business Dept. 845-2611
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Bryan Hospital opposes
Carter’s containment act
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By STEVE MAYER
The Bryan Hospital is now mailing
mething besides hills to its discharged
itients.
The hospital is distributing letters ex-
aining their objections to President Car
rs proposed Hospital Cost Containment
it 011977 (H.R. 6575).
But St. Joseph Hospital, also located in
^an, has not taken action concerning the
sue.
The act would permit the nation’s 6,000
meral-care hospitals^(Bryan and St.
seph included) to raise their total reve-
nine per cent next year — slightly
igher than the rate of inflation.
Any service cost exceeding the nine per
■nt increase would be operating at a defi-
t.
Sister Norbertine, administrator for St.
iseph Hospital, says they won’t take ac-
<5
£
tion until the many health cost control bills
have gone through debate in Congress.
“There are so many reactions — we
would rather wait and not confuse the is
sue, she says.
“Everyone says something has to be
done about rising health costs, and we
(Bryan Hospital) agree,” Frederick Bailey,
administrator says. “But this act doesn’t
control costs.”
Bailey explains that many expenses on
the hospital budget, such as taxes,
utilities, drugs, and malpractice insur
ance, are uncontrollable.
Both administrators agree that if ex
penses increase under a nine per cent cap,
then it would be difficult for the hospitals
to provide a high quality of care for their
patients.
Because of Medicare and other govern
ment aid to hospitals, Bailey feels the gov
ernment should have a voice in how its
money is spent, but believes there is a bet
ter alternative to controlling costs.
A bill proposed by Senator Herman
Talmadge (D-Ga.) would reimburse hospi
tals for routine Medicare and Medicaid
service based on average costs for a partic
ular procedure.
Bailey favors this bill and explains that
institutions exceeding the mean could
keep a portion of their savings; those that
do worse would have no choice but to
economize.
“It would reward hospitals that are
cost-conscious,” Bailey says. “Allowing
nine per cent revenue increases to all hos
pitals doesn’t distinguish between ineffi
cient and ineffective hospitals and those
which are already cost-effective.”
Sister Norbertine says she is against too
much government regulation, and is not
bills
Con-
satisfied with present cost
gress.
Proponents of the cost containment act
argue that there are three major cost fac
tors which could be eliminated without
cutting the quality of medical care.
They say an oversupply of beds and
rooms is costly to build and maintain; that
patients are provided services that don’t
yield any real medical benefits; and that in
order to attract physicians and patients,
hospitals compete with luxury — class cap
ital expenditures.
Bryan Hospital has 65 beds and 72 per
cent occupancy. St. Joseph has 148 beds
and 60 per cent occupancy.
Both administrators say their hospitals
provide only those services to the patient
only when ordered by a physician.
Comptroller
to be illegal;
position claimed
injunction issued
re r
I V
ba
By GLENN A WHITLEY
Bnttalion Staff
A temporary injunction restraining the
vly-appointed Student Senate comp
iler from signing checks for Student
jvernment at Texas A&M University
is issued Thursday.
|At the request of Lynn Gibson, presi-
[ntofthe Memorial Student Center, and
lott Gregson, comptroller Stuart Kings-
[ry must “desist in the action of engaging
Ifiriancial business (i.e. check signing)
■til a hearing can be held to obtain a
|rmanent injunction.
Kingsbery was appointed by Robert
irvey, student body president, to the
sition of comptroller created and ap-
iivecl by the Senate Sept. 22.
It is my opinion that the position of
mptroller contradicts the constitution
at the student body approved, and 1
m t believe the Student Senate has the
ithority to do what they did, Gibson
id. “It’s not right for him (Kingsbery) to
until it’s decided if it’s constitutional or
l>t."
“Originally what the comptroller was
Opposed to do was to give reports to the
ecutive and legislative branches and also
ibe a check on money handling,” Greg-
n said. He is a former vice president for
jiance.
I He said that allowing the comptroller
B power to sign cheeks would require a
[institutional change in the duties of the
|ce president for finance as prescribed,
fe added that students voted for the pres
et vice president for finance on the as-
umption that he would be in charge of the
jtudent Government’s funds.
“They changed the duties in midstream
ithout giving the students an opportunity
) vote on it, ” Gregson said.
As far as I’m concerned, they’re just
playing games, Kingsbery said. “We
need to straighten up the records and this
is hindering the process.
He said the office of the comptroller was
implemented before the constitutionality
could be decided on because of the
“urgency of the situation. If we hadn’t
started it right then, we wouldn’t have had
any records to look back on three months
from now.”
"I’d like to keep the wheels in motion
right now. We hope the injunction is over
turned,” Kingsbery said.
Checks paid out of Student Government
funds must have a dual signature. Harvey
and the comptroller must sign each check.
As a result of the injunction, the proce
dure will probably require Mike Springer,
the current vice president for finance, to
sign with Harvey, Kingsbery said.
Harvey said the comptroller’s signature
on each Student Government check was to
help maintain accurate records of where
money was spent, but the signature has no
other importance.
“Student Government books are in ter
rible shape,” he said.
Texas A&M system auditors reviewed
the books for the Student Government’s
refrigerator rental service and reported
the records were very inaccurate and
haphazard, Harvey said. The auditors
suggested ways to improve the handling of
the books and most of the suggestions
Library’s curriculum
collection "disappears’
By TERESA HUDDLESTON
Some faculty and students at Texas
A&M are concerned about their library.
There have been rumors since spring that
the library is destroying books and replac
ing them with microfilms.
Although library director Dr. Irene-
Hoadley has been quoted in a recent Bat
talion article and subsequent editorial as
saying “not one book had been removed,
she said in a Wednesday interview that
about 1,600 items have been taken from
the shelves.
Dr. James Rollins, associate professor of
educational curriculum and instruction,
said last week that he returned to campus
this fall to find the curriculum collection
Rudder’s Wrangler
Battalion photo by Dick Wells
oe Dutton, a junior from Junction, takes a wild ride in front of the Rudder
Wer Thursday to promote the TAMU Rodeo club’s rodeo scheduled for
'riday through Sunday. Tickets are $2 at the MSC and $2.25 at the gate.
that he has used for years missing.
The collection contained copies of all
state-adopted material, of other exemplary
text materials, and of all the publications of
the major curriculum reform groups used
by Rollins’ department.
In addition, Rollins said he requested
that the library buy, in the field of mathe
matics, some National Council of Teachers
of Mathematics publications. He has kept
the publications up to date since he has
been at Texas A&M.
The library had classified the publica
tions as “curriculum material” and had put
them in the curriculum collection. Rollins
said he did not believe the publications
belonged in the collection.
“I didn’t protest it because I assumed
the curriculum collection was a permanent
collection,” he said. Rollins added that col
lection materials were accessible to stu
dents.
But the collection has disappeared, ac
cording to Rollins.
“They’re not there now,” he said.
‘They’re gone.”
Rollins said the library personnel
“weeded the collection of all materials ex
cept the current state-adopted materials.”
A Social Science librarian, he said, told
him she had received an intra-office memo
instructing her to remove everything from
the collection but the current texts.
“I don’t know how they got rid of them, ”
Rollins said. “But they are not on the shelf
and they are not in the card catalog. ”
“I am saddened by the whole thing.”
The only way that much of what was re
moved can be replaced would be to hope
that we could find it in a second-hand
store.”
A librarian told Rollins that if he would
give her a list of the things that were really
important to him she would give them
high priority on her requests when the li
brary received funds to buy new books.
He has not given her a list yet because
most of the curriculum collection is out of
print.
When asked to comment on the situa
tion, Hoadley said, ‘Things were getting
tight in the curriculum collection and the
person in charge of the area decided to
remove those books no longer on the
state-adopted lists.”
“The project was turned over to one of
the staff members,” she said, “and there
was either a miscommunication between
the individual and her supervisor or the
individual got overly ambitious.
“So not only were superseded and du
plicate state-adopted textbooks pulled
from the collection,” Hoadley said, “but
also a number of other things. ”
She said some of the things Rollins
thought were not in the collection are in
the collection or exist at some other place
in the library. Some other materials have
been reclassified and put in the regular
part of the collection, she said.
were incorporated into the plan for the
comptrolle r’s office.
"It’s just going to set me back," Harvey
said of the temporary injunction.
Harvey said he believes the position of
comptroller is constitutional. As he inter
prets it, the legislative branch decides how
much money is to be spent on what. The
executive branch makes no decisions
about the use of the money, it just
provides the bookkeeping.
“There’s an inherent advantage in hav
ing an appointed comptroller instead of an
elected one because of special training,
Harvey said. Kingsbery is a senior ac
counting major.
The constitutionality must be decided
by the judicial board, but the date of that
hearing is unknown at this time. The hear
ing for the permanent injunction will be
held Oct. 10, Harvey said.
If the office is ruled unconstitutional,
there will probably be an attempt to
amend the constitution by a vote of the
student body. The vote could be com
pleted during the fall semester, but the
office probably would not be active until
the beginning of January even if it passed.
Battalion photo by Dick Wells
She’s hanging in there
Sara Kemker, a freshman from Bellaire, begins her descent at the Rappelling
Clinic held this week at the Fireman Training Center. Faculty from the
military science department supervised the training for both cadets and
civilian students.
Profs design floral
set ups for inaugural
By ELLIE LAPORTE
Say it with flowers.
In a sense, the horticulture departments of Texas A&M Uni
versity is doing just that as the department makes its contribu
tion to the celebration on President Jarvis E. Miller’s inaugura
tion on Oct. 4 by designing and constructing floral arrange
ments.
James L. Johnson, a horticultural sciences professor and
former florist, is collaborating on the design of the arrange
ments with Professor Robert Rucker, who is representing the
department of horticultural sciences on the Inauguration
Committee.
The arrangements will be featured at the reception for the
new presidents Oct. 3 and at the luncheon served on inaugura
tion day.
“Since we have a fairly new area of floral design and flower
shop management courses, this opens the door for students to
participate, ” Johnson said. “And I think our University officials
seem to stress that participation of students in university ac
tivities is a great way for the students to get a little experience
and have a little extra excitement put into their classes.
Students in Johnson’s advanced floral design class will be
designing and constructing the floral anangments for use at the
inaugural luncheon on Oct. 4. A group of two to three students
will plan and design each arrangement to represent a particular
college of area of the University, Johnson said.
In addition, each of the honored guests will be greeted with
a pot of fresh chrysanthemums decorated and delivered by
student members of the Floriculture Club. Guests will also
receive corsages and boutonnieres constructed by the stu
dents.
Monday evening, at the president’s reception, three floral
arrangements, designed and constructed by Rucker, Johnson
and Johnson’s students, will be featured. Each of these ar
rangements will represent different areas of agricultural and
horticultural research being conducted by the University,
Johnson said.
One arrangement will feature fruits and flowers. “Possibly,
we will be making use of contrived fruits, ” said Johnson. “In
other words, we will put a fruit within a fruit and carve it to
look like a flower, so that we can give an interpretation of the
possible combinations of plants that can be acheived through
hybridizing and genetics. ”
A second arrangement will dramatize cheese and grape re
search under way at Texas A&M. The highlight of the ar
rangement will be a 100-year-old gnarled grape stump, which
the department received from a family in Fairfield, Texas.
“This grape stump put its roots down in Fairfield, Texas, just
about the same time that A&M put its roots down here in
Brazos County, Johnson said. “That plant has watched Aggies
come and go, and it was growing on land that has been owned
by an old Texas familv since before the Civil War.
The arrangement will include fresh grapes and several dif
ferent kinds of cheese that have been developed at A&M, as
well as a number of Texas grasses and field crops, such as
cotton and sorghum, that are all grown on University land,
Johnson said. _
The horticulture department not only “says it
with flowers’' hut also with fruits, field crops,
grasses, grapes and even grape stumps all used, in
floral arrangements for President Miller's inaugu
ration, to represent agricultural research being
conducted by the University.
The third arrangement will feature exotic flowers flown in
from different parts of the world, including Hawaii and Africa.
“These plants and flowers will be representing new, exotic
and floral materials that are being introduced into the Ameri
can markets now, many of which will undoubtedly be grown in
Texas as horticultural crops in the near future, Johnson said.
“I felt very honored to be able to work on a project like this,
and very excited, particularly from the standpoint of being able
to work with students and to have them participate.
“Part of anybody fulfilling their dream in their major, or with
any goal in life, is to have a little inspiration — I think that s
necessary; and it s exciting times, like inaugurations and other
events that come along, that provide a little bit of inspiration to
keep out batteries charged up.
Johnson majored in floriculture and graduated from Michi
gan State University in 1959. He was a florist for 14 years
before joining the A&M staff two years ago.