The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current, February 02, 1979, Image 1

Texas A&M Newspaper Collection

The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current, February 02, 1979, Image 1

Newspaper Page Textome Ags attend Blinn in hopes of ‘easier’ classes i students are some of the 200 who attend both Blinn Junior College in Bryan and Texas A&M University. They must get special permission rom Texas A&M deans to attend the college. The deans cite schedule onflicts or the hope for easier classes as reasons for the dual enroll- fient. Blinn’s main campus is in Brenham. Battalion photo by day Cockrfll By ROY BRAGG Battalion StafT Blinn College’s Bryan branch has be come a kind of “second campus” for Texas A&M University students for a variety of reasons. About 200 Aggies enrolled simulta neously in courses at Blinn and Texas A&M last fall. Students and academic administrators say the reasons range from scheduling diffi culties to hopes for easier work in the Blinn courses. “One student said that (he) can get a course out of the way easier by taking it at Blinn,” said Dr. Carlton Stolle, assistant dean of the College of Business Adminis tration. “Typically, I have observed that students who have had a hard time with courses here have managed to pass them at Blinn,” said Dr. Diane Strommer, associate dean for student affairs in the College of Liberal Arts. “In some areas, they might find cer tain courses easier than at A&M.” The majority of Blinn’s courses, like those of other junior colleges, can transfer to Texas A&M. Before enrolling at Blinn, a Texas A&M student must have written permission from his academic dean. Strommer said she does not give liberal arts students permission to enroll at Blinn while attending Texas A&M because she feels a student should be a part of either university’s program — but not both. About 400 engineering students re quested permission for dual enrollment for this semester, said Dr. Ned E. Walton, assistant dean of the College of Engineer ing. Two hundred of the students were al lowed to do so. Students who have legitimate reasons for the dual enrollment usually receive per mission, Walton said. Students ask to enroll at Blinn to remedy time conflicts and or to take classes not offered at Texas A&M that semester. Math 307 and Math 308 are among the most popular courses chosen by engineer ing students, Walton said. The most popu lar courses for agriculture students at Blinn, Lard said, are in history, govern ment, biology and math. Walton said he “plans to get tighter” on allowing dual enrollment. “I want (students) to be in the main stream of our campus, not piddling around over there,” Walton said. The Bryan campus had a total enrollment of 998 for the fall semester according to William Perry, dean of admissions for the Brenham campus. Enrollment at the main campus in Brenham for the fall semester was 1,522. About 180 foreign students are enrolled at the Bryan campus, said J.B. Carrington, dean of the Bryan campus. The majority are from Lebanon, Israel, Iran and Pakistan. Most foreign students take English lan guage courses — especially designed for them — in order to meet the entrance re quirements of most senior colleges, said Anna Hoyle, an English instructor at the Bryan campus. Blinn’s entrance requirements are not as strict as Texas A&M’s, Carrington said. Students enrolling at Blinn are required to have a combined SAT score of 500 and a high school diploma. he Battalion Joi 72 No. 88 0 Pages Friday, February 2, 1979 College Station, Texas News Dept. 845-2611 Business Dept. 845-2611 Carrington said that many students enroll in Blinn attempting to make up miss ing high school credits required for entrance to Texas A&M. Blinn will not enroll a Texas A&M stu dent without the required letter of permis sion, Carrington said. All students who enroll at Blinn are checked to see if they are also enrolled at Texas A&M. Tuition at Blinn is $4 per credit hour. This is the same as Texas A&M, but the minimum tuition at Blinn is $25 as com pared to $50 at Texas A&M. Texas law forbids students who are enrolled at two state colleges to pay the minimum tuition of both schools, Car rington said. For example, a student who has paid the minimum tuition at Texas A&M and takes additional courses at Blinn is only charged $4 a credit hour for the courses at Blinn. Former Blinn students disagree about school Former students’ opinions concerning Blinn run the gamut — some are critical of the school’s operation while others say that it was well run while they were there. One advantage in attending Blinn, somzudents said, is that classes are smaller. “The instructors go out of their way to help you,” said one former student. “It was more like a high school-level class, but they were more apt to help.” However, a former Blinn student now at Texas A&M University disagrees. She said classes at Blinn were not as disciplined as classes at Texas A&M. “It was more rowdy than at A&M,” she said, adding that the older students caused the disturbances. “In most of the classes I was in,” she said,” there were lots of people from Bryan.” The people in the classes had known each other since high school and were used to kidding around in class, she added. Former Blinn student Rik Moen, from Bryan, disagreed. “There was no prob lem with discipline in the classes I was in. “Everyone listened to the lectures,” Moen said, adding that the classes were not very difficult. “The classes were not very well taught,” he said. “I really didn’t get anything out of it. ” Ags now tied for first The University of Texas lost to Arkansas Thursday night, put ting the Aggies in a tie for first place. See page 9 for details. M home ini vows to expel akhtiar, foreigners United Press International HRAN, Iran — Ayatollah Ruhollah meini stood on Iranian soil for the first in nearly 15 years Thursday, de led the government be handed over to ndsaid foreigners must be expelled to nt the return of the shah. am-ifications cow country e new Chinese “Year of the Ram is ear of Communist China, e Premier Teng Hsiao-ping arrives in s today to “Taiwan” on with barbecue odeo, after a three-day visit in Wash- 1. portant decisions have already been on weapons sales, trade and defend- le world against (Russian) aggression. |t the most important question may [‘'Will he eat ribs iwht chopsticks?” ttalion reporters, will cover the his- visit in the Bayou City and supply the Ils. More seriously, articles in Monday’s filion will examine the real implica- of Teng’s visit to America and the parent re-opening of “The Middle gdom,” China. “I beg to God to cut the hands off all those foreign advisers and helpers in Iran,” the 78-year-old Khomeini said, in an ap parent attack against Americans in Iran. His snow-white beard in stark contrast to his flowing black robes, Khomeini stepped from the Air France plane at 12:32 a. m. EST and was swept up in an embrace by Ayatollah Mahmoud Taleghani, the leading Shiite clergyman of Tehran. Premier Shahpour Bakhtiar, whom Khomeini has vowed to unseat, was not at the airport to greet the mullah, but 2 mil lion jubilant Iranians swarmed through the streets of Tehran, hoping for a glimpse of the high priest of Iran’s Shiite Moslems. Shortly after landing at Tehran’s Mehrabad Airport, Khomeini’s aide told reporters the holy man had decreed the current government “should step down today (Thursday) and hand over power.” Millions of Iranians shouting “Salute to Khomeini” and “Allah is great” surged around the airport. A security force of 50,000 men tried desperately to separate the mob from the Air France Boeing 747 that brought Khomeini from his suburban Paris retreat. A blue Mercedes drove him to the main VIP lounge building, where the ayatollah was mobbed by hundreds of admirers. The mullah’s bodyguards, fearful the crowd would crush him, kept the cheering horde from crossing the barriers set up at former monument to Persian kings, renamed “In dependence Square” when the shah left. In a brief address to clergymen at the airport, Khomeini continued to preach the message that drove Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi from his throne and Iran on Jan. 16. “This is only the first step. Our struggle continues after deporting the main crimi nal, the shah,” said the bearded leader of the Shiite Moslem sect who has vowed to topple Bakhtiar’s regime and set up a gov ernment based on the strict tenets of Islam. Referring to the shah whom he hated and eventually forced out of Iran, Khomeini said, “He is still trying to find some way to come back.” Khomeini said the shah — who left last month probably never to return — or ganized the Iranian army “so that it will only obey foreign advisers. “Therefore,” he said, “our final success will be when all foreigners leave and stop ruling our army.” The ayatollah called for unity among Ira nian opposition groups, saying, “We all should understand that our success has been through unification. “We must be careful that we are not divided as the shah is still trying to do,” Khomeini said. Iranian television, which was broadcast ing the arrival live, suddenly cut off trans mission and showed a portrait of the shah, followed by the National Anthem. Will he see his shadow? United Press International SUN PRAIRIE, Wis. — The great groundhog war resumes today and a snowbound world is awaiting the re sults. Jimmy, the Sun Prairie groun dhog, and Punxsutawney Phil, Pennsylvania’s answer to him, will emerge from their burrows to make their annual weather predictions. There are two groundhogs that hammer this out every year,” said Don Rouser, manager of the Sun Prairie Chamber of Commerce. “It is our contention there is so much coal dust out there in Pennsylvania, he can’t even see the sky.” Jimmy will make his prediction in the basement of the Erich Lenz home and, at least so far as Sun Prairie residents are concerned, that icon we’ll know how much winter we have left to bear, even if this rather still groundhog at the Brazos Valley Museum of Natural Science [can’t tell us. The museum is open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday-Friday. But ; there’s still the question: “How much ground could a groundhog grind Battalion photo by Clay Cockrill will be the official word as to whether spring is just around the corner or six weeks away. “Jimmy’s track record is excel lent,” Lenz said. “He has been right 17 years out of the last 20.” The current Jimmy — the fourth since the Chamber started the event in the early 1940s — has been on the job the past 10 years and, unlike most groundhogs, he doesn’t use his shadow for predictions. “Erich — the keeper of the groun dhog — will interpret Jimmy’s ac tions,” Rouser said. “Jimmy comes out of his burrow at 7 a.m.,” Rouser said. “Erich helps him along. Then we watch his actions and what he does. Sometimes he just turns around and runs. He may try to hide under a rug, or sometimes he plays the ham and poses for pictures. “After studying all this, Erich makes his announcement,” Rouser said. The burrow is inside a barn and the reason Jimmy does his act inside, Rouser said, is because the Depart ment of Natural Resources will not allow the animal outside during what could be cold weather. He said the department, 11 years ago, decided it was unkind to wake a sleeping groundhog before spring was at hand. The festivities were to start at 6 a.m. when Lenz, Rouser and anyone who cares to drop in gather in the Lenz basement for doughnuts, fruit juice, coffee and “moose milk.” The moose milk, Rouser said, was strictly for adults. Icefall This frozen stream of water exemplifies local the Harrington Education Building, iced over weather over the last few days — either cold, or Tuesday night and never thawed Wednesday, cold and wet. This drainspout, on the east side of Battalion photo by Lee Roy Leschper Jr. Lawyers agree: Read lease to avoid problems in renting By MARK HERRON Battalion Reporter Village Green tenants suffered inconve niences last fall when the apartment com plex was not completed by the expected date. After being forced to find other hous ing for awhile, these students have been reimbursed and housed, said apartment manager Lucille Nehrenz. Gaines West, former legal adviser for Texas A&M University, said most of the students could have avoided these prob lems if they had taken time to read their lease. West was referring to a clause in the Village Green lease that said the tenant could break the lease if the buildling was not completely finished within three days of the lease’s beginning date. Last November, West and displaced students met with B.F. Knapp, owner of Village Green, to negotiate reimburse ments for the students’ inconveniences. “This had all the earmarks of a dangerous situation, but the problems were settled with a minimum of dispute,” West said. Knapp said the money that students spent for hotel bills while waiting for their apartments to be completed was applied to the rent they owed. For example, one student said her bill, after a two-month stay in the Aggieland Inn, was $1,620. That amount was almost the equivalent of seven months rent (of a single bedroom apartment) at Village Green, so the student will not pay rent until March. “We did everything we could to make the students happy,” Knapp said. Derek Grootemaat, a sophomore from Tulsa, Okla., said he took part in the negotiations, but “the financial reim bursement I received wasn’t worth the has sles I went through.” “I’ll never sign another lease on an apartment that’s not built,” he said. One student, who asked not to iden tified, said she and her roommate signed a lease last spring. Their lease began on Aug. 15. The two students did not get to move into their two-bedroom, two-bath apart ment until December. The women lived in the Aggieland Inn for a month at a cost of almost $1,000. This proved inconvenient, they said, because on weekends of Texas A&M home football games, they had to find another place to stay. Their rooms had been reserved. Another inconvenience was having to eat out for every meal. “That alone cost quite a bit of money,” another student said. One of the students said she became ill from the instability of her living conditions. She moved home to Cleveland, Texas, a town 85 miles southeast of College Station, dropped her course load from 18 to 6 hours and commuted three days a week for classes. “It was finals week before I could move into the apartment,” she said. Winkler Construction Co. of San An tonio was the general contactor for the Vil lage Green complex. A spokesman for the company said the delays in construction were caused by a shortage of labor in the College Station area and a lack of sheet- rock. When signing a lease for an unfurnished apartment, West, now a staff attorney for the Texas A&M System, said the student can usually propose additional written agreements with the apartment manage ment. For example, West said, the student can propose a reduction in rent if the apartment is not finished by a certain date. This will give the apartment owner an incentive to complete the buildings on time. New student Legal Adviser Jim Locke said that sometimes wording on leases can be confusing, even to apartment managers. Locke invites students to come to his office and discuss their leases before sign ing them. “Most potential problems can be avoided by reading and understanding the lease,” he said. “If you sign your name to the lease, it better be the way you want it.” Some Village Green tenants learned the hard way.

Texas A&M Newspaper Collection

Texas A&M Newspaper Collection

The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current, February 02, 1979, Image 1

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