tandards raised
Honor grads to need higher GPRs at A&M
THE BATTALION Page 7
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 1978
/ honors standards for
jaduating seniors have been estab-
jlied at Texas A&M University to
Jeet a student government request
Iraise the requirements.
■The higher standards will affect
l)re than 12,000 freshmen and
Insfer students this fall and could
It the number of honor graduates
I half. Approximately one-third of
|e Texas A&M seniors graduated
th honors this past year.
The idea of making it tougher to
aduate with honors came from the
adent senate, explained Dr. J. M.
1 rescott, vice president for
academic affairs. “The student lead
ers felt that so many students were
graduating with the title that it was
starting to lose its meaning.”
“The new requirements will affect
any student wbo entered the uni
versity after June, he continued.
The old requirements made it
possible for any student to graduate
with honors by having a grade point
average of 3.25 or better on Texas
A&M s 4.0 grading scale. Dr. Pre
scott noted.
The new requirements raised the
mininum grade point average for a
cum laude graduate to 3.5. Magna
cum laude distinction went from 3.5
to 3.7 under the stricter standards.
To obtain the highest academic
distinction of all, summa cum laude,
Texas A&M students must now have
an average of at least 3.9. The old
average was 3.75.
“These new requirements could
cut the number of honor graduates
in half, ” said Robert Baine, assistant
registrar. “Some 30 percent of the
students who graduated with
bachelor s degrees this spring were
honor graduates.
“That means roughly one out of
every three received honor status,”
he added. “How many will graduate
with honors under the new re
quirements is anyone’s guess.”
University officials said, however,
that high grades don’t necessarily
point to “grade inflation,” a situation
that occurs when professors give
high grades when not academically
merited.
A study conducted within Texas
A&M’s College of Engineering,
which accounts for some 25 percent
of all students at the university,
showed that since 1970 students’
grades dropped one-tenth of one
percent.
Some students welcome the stric
ter academic requirements.
“I’m all for it,” said Tom Pater
son, executive vice president of the
Texas A&M Student Senate. “If
you’re going to have an honor, it
should actually by one.”
“This will say to students that
Texas A&M demands excellence,”
said Patterson, a senior agricultural
economics major. “If people want
the distinction of graduating with
honors, then they’re going to have
to work for it.”
1 Texans might could ^ CotlYltvy of 'p&V&doXCS
like talking thataway
nd
Cam-
United Press International
AlSTIN — Twenty years ago
bases such as “might could” and
night ought to were used only by
wt Texas farmers and other rural
■ But according to Marianna Di
laola, a University of Texas linguis-
Bcs instructor, more and more
piddle-class
people are using
night could and "might ought to
- called double modal auxiliaries
- in their conversations.
Ms. Di Paola said Texans — espe-
ially under 35 — are resorting to
ialectial speech to declare them-
dves different from newcomers to
Lone Star State.
And the linguistics instructor has
vidence that dialectial speech is
ecoming common in the every day
wiversaton of many Texans.
Over the past two years, students
Ms. Di Paola s classes have asked
ieir parents and friends to fill in
blanks of dialogues such as the
mowing:
if someone says to you, “I’m
loing to the store, can you use some
Ms. Di Paola said most of the par
ticipants answered with might
could" or “might ought to” — and
they were anything but backwoods
farmers. Most of the participants
were urban residents, well educated
and native Texans.
Ms. Di Paola explained said the
use of double modal auxiliaries
among educated urbanites is a
phenomenon that has been ob
served only recently. Prior to the
dialect projects of her classes, most
When you say, you might
could do that,' you're also saying
you're a Texan and proud of it.
Texam are resorting to dialec-
8 P eec ^ 1 declare themselves
afferent from newcomers to the
[one Star State.
” you answer: “I might
fuse some.
—il you think someone has a job
|to do but you’re not sure, you might
suggest.“You might do this.”
liguists considered use of double
modal auxiliaries to be a colloquial,
rural phenomenon.
It means that colloquial speech
has become a "prestige ruralism, ”
Ms. Di Paola said. “It’s a sign that
Texans are more aware than ever
before of their heritage and proud of
it.
She said the Texas dialect survey
compares with one conducted
Martha’s Vineyard, an old Mas
sachusetts sailing community that
has become a resort area. Ms. Di
Paola said that younger native resi
dents of the community were using
words and sounds that were com
mon among the ofd-time sailors of
the island.
“When you say, ‘I might could do
that,’ you’re also saying you’re a
Texan and proud of it.”
finds racial accord
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United Press International
MANZINI, Swaziland — It is a
land of sharp contrasts between
white and black, rich and poor, but
Swaziland in 10 years of indepen
dence has struck a racial accommo
dation that is rare in Africa.
Britain granted independence to
the tiny, 10,000-square-miles king
dom on Sept. 6, 1968, and the capi
tal city of Manzini this month was
bedecked with brilliantly colored
banners marking the decade of self-
rule.
King Sobhuza II, the Ngwanyama
(Lion) of Swaziland, has managed
since independence to maintain a
sense of unity and stability despite
the startling — and sometimes
bizarre — contrasts that charac
terize his nation.
White South Africans flock to
elegant hotels and casinos in
Mbabane, where they can see
back-to-back pornographic movies
and Las Vegas style nightclub acts
prohibited in their own country.
But only miles away, young Swazi
girls walk bare-breasted carrying tall
veeds to celebrate tbe “{estival of
virgins marking their entrance into
puberty.
There is also a stark contrast bet
ween tbe vast sugar cane plantations
that exist side by side with subsis
tence agriculture.
It is a land of grinding poverty
and shining elegance, ancient ways
of life mixed with the 20th century.
It is sandwiched between apartheid
South Africa and socialist Mozam
bique — and maintains friendly re
lations with both.
Ionian
oestit*
iitw
Study shows
pss visibility
h compacts
I Drivers of compact cars and many
ptermediate and full- size autos
Wd take extra care on hills and
^rves, a Texas A&M U ersity
nows.
Their choice of automobile has
igcAficantiy lowered tbe level at
™ich they view traffic. They there-
nresee less, increasing the chances
f accident.
Highway grade and no-passing
one disign assumes driver eye
might of 3.75 feet, an average ob
tained from 1960 studies.
A 1978 investigation by Texas
M researchers Wiley Cunagin
ind Tony Abrahamson found it is
Ifpow critically lower.
For many drivers, eye height is
marly less than 3.5 feet,” com
mented Cunagin, a research as-
°ciate with the Texas Transporta
tion Institute.
Some drivers therefore have less
’ight distance on vertical curves
to a lesser degree, on horizon-
al curves, the researchers’ report
mdicates.
Their study indicates considera-
ion should be given to modification
^striping for no passing zones and
tesign of curves.
Current standards do not allow
sufficient time for lower cars to re-
ro to their lane,” Cunagin com
mented. “The sight distance is just
insufficient. ”
Abrahamson and Cunagin
ev aluated driver eye height mea
surements from 161 side view
Photographs of different passenger
$rs and pickup trucks. Their sam
ple included 62 small and subcom-
Pact cars, 86 intermediate and full-
size models and 13 pickup trucks.
the
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846-7401
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CHRISTIAN ACADEMICS
The ICA includes:
• Ten thought-jogging hours of instruction and discussion.
• A help-filled notebook of essays, outlines and resource
materials.
In schools and universities alike, issues and entire fields of
study are often presented in conflict with biblical Christianity.
Most Christians are neither equipped nor well enough in
formed to resolve these areas of tension. Today there is a
growing need for Christians to build a foundation upon which
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STUDENTS*. . . who encounter these tensions almost daily,
who are often ridiculed in their attempts to
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How To Relate
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Date: September 22-23
Cost: $15.00 per couple
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Fr jg a v ’ 7:00 PM-9:30 PM
Saturday: 8:45 AM-4:30 PM
7:00 PM-9:00 PM
Despite the abounding contrasts,
a visitor discovers that white and
black have struck an understanding
which makes Swaziland refreshingly
free of the racism practiced
elsewhere in Africa.
“We are all brothers here,” a
black hotel matron in Manzini tells a
white visitor. “We eat together from
the same plate.”
One key to Swaziland’s success is
that the 10,000 or so whites have
been allowed to retain their
economic dominance while political
power is lodged in the hands of the
79-year-old Sobhuza. There are
roughly half a million Swazis.
Whites hold the top positions in
the hotels and casinos, in the shops
and department stores and on the
sugar cane plantations that provide
Swaziland with its largest export.
“Swaziland is governed by blacks,
but it is run by whites,” said one
white Swazi.
To be sure, Sobhuza is pressing
his localization program, which calls
for the gradual replacement of
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whites by blacks. He issued a veiled
warning to whites in his speech on
Sept. 6 commemorating the 10
years of independence from Britain.
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than one.
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BUSINESS COLLEGE
Inquire About Our Term Startingl
September 26
Phone 822-6423 or 822-2368
French's
Care-A-Lot
OPEN FOR
A&M
FOOTBALL
LOCATED BEHIND
BEEF & BREW OFF HWY. 30
CALL 846-1037
FOR RESERVATIONS!
jTIHEAIE CILAjfJf
Backs the Aggies!
Lunch time in the patio of our La Rojefui distdlei'y.
When our workers sit down to lunch
they sit down to a tradition.
When they make Cuervo Gold
it’s the same.
Every day at just about eleven the wives from Tequila
arrive at the Cuervo distillery bearing their husbands 1
lunches.
Lunches that have been lovingly prepared in the
same proud manner since men first began working here
in 1795.
It is this same pride in a job well-done that makes
Cuervo Gold truly special. Any way you drink it, Cuervo
Gold will bring you back to a time when quality ruled
the world. liMN
cmfifil
Cuervo.The Gold standard since1795.
CUERVO ESPECIAL® TEQUILA. 80 PROOF. IMPORTED AND BOTTLED BY © 1977 HEUBLEIN, INC., HARTFORD, CONN.