The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current, April 18, 1979, Image 1

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    Parking,, dorms
topics of forum
By PHYLLIS PONDER
Battalion Reporter
More day-student parking, a new
modular women’s dorm and more late
classes for students is evidence of increas
ing enrollment at Texas A&M University,
said President Jarvis Miller in a question
and answer session Tuesday.
Hassle-Free presented an open forum
for students to ask Miller questions. Due
to the rain, the noon session was moved
from Rudder fountain to the Memorial
Student Center lounge.
Miller said a new day-student lot will be
built where the old baseball field is. The
lot, to be built after completion of Kyle
Field, will have room for 500 cars. An
upper level has been proposed for the
Zachry parking lot and the lot south of
Rudder, Miller said.
Classes won’t be scheduled any earlier
in the morning, but they will extend fur
ther into the afternoon and evening.
“A 7 o’clock class is not a new phenome
non at A&M,” Miller said. “When I was a
freshman, 32 years ago, we started at 7.”
The renovation of Legett, which housed
177, and the new 500-bed modular wo
men’s dorms will help the housing situa
tion next year, Miller said.
“We are looking at the feasibility of
building additional space — the pros and
cons. The biggest problem we have is to
day’s prices of construction,” Miller said.
Although there is a shortage of on-
campus housing, there are no proposals to
limit enrollement, Miller said.
There is a proposal to revise the Q-drop
system.
“There has been what we consider un
wise use of the Q-drop,” Miller said. “We
think a student with a lot of Q-drops on his
or her record might be at a disadvantage to
his employer.”
Battalion
Radio Prairie View
KPVU — the radio station at
Prairie View A&M University —
has been in the planning stages
since 1967, was scheduled to go
on the air in May. Now it seems
the stations will be operating by
t men
January 1980.
See page 10.
News Dept. 845-2611
Business Dept. 845-2611
upreme
vealed
Court decisions
N ews
United Press International
byP,.0fifHINGTON — The Sup re me
lurt [reportedly will reverse a lower
urt-d( cision holding that prison inmates
ifcHbarole must lx? afforded certain pro-
enFietjJurel under due process of law.
swept In|ts second disclosure in two days of
San bat it says are impending high court de
ions, ABC News said Tuesday night that
nstiti ional due process will apply only
, ring the trial stage of the accused. Once
j] ivjctc d, more restrictive rules will ap-
Leaks of Supreme Court decisions have
been extremely rare in the past, and as yet
no justice or any court official has con
firmed that ABC’s reports are correct.
The decisions, reported by ABC News
correspondent Tim O’Brien, will not be
law until released, and the full implica
tions either of this ruling or one reported
Monday, will not be known until the main
opinions can be studied.
O’Brien reported Monday the Supreme
Court will soon rule that public officials
suing for libel may force journalists to tell
what their thoughts, opinions and conclu
sions were while they prepared news
stories.
Formerly in defending published arti
cles against libel a journalist could prove
lack of actual malice, which is virtually the
only libel possible against a public official,
by showing that certain normal journalistic
procedures had been adequately per
formed.
If the ABC report proves accurate it
would now appear that any time a jour
nalist is sued for libel his thought pro
cesses could come into question, and if the
veracity of any. information source is “in
doubt” in the writer’s mind, reporting
what that source said could be dangerous
to the writer’s defense.
In the due-process decision, ABC said,
the court is reversing a lower-court ruling
that held that state prison inmates up for
parole must, among other things, have the
right to appear in person at a parole hear
ing, the right to offer evidence in their
own behalf and the right to confront and
cross-examine adverse witneses.
ABC said it did not know when either
the due process decision, written by Chief
Justice Warren Burger, or the libel deci
sion, reportedly being written by Justice
Byron White, is due.
The due process case, Greenholtz vs.
Inmates of the Nebraska Penal and Cor
rectional Complex, was a class-action suit
brought by inmates who complained they
were denied due process in getting dis
cretionary paroles.
Both lower courts agreed with the in
mates, but to varying degrees.
The decision would not mean states
cannot allow due process procedures, only
that they don’t have to if they don’t want
to, ABC said.
In other action Tuesday, the high court
ruled New York can bar resident aliens
from teaching in public schools. By a one-
vote margin, the high court held the
state’s interest in furthering education
bears a “rational relationship” to its citi
zenship requirement for teachers.
“This retreat is difficult to understand in
light of prior judicial precedents and may
simply reflect the court’s being affected by
a more general society-wide intensification
of anti-alien sentiment, ” said Dale Swartz,
of the Washington Lawyers’ Committee
for Civil Rights Under Law.
The case was brought by Mrs. Susan
Norwich, 38, and Mrs. Tarja Dachinger,
33, who said they were willing to profess
allegiance to the United States but would
not seek citizenship.
The high court also:
—Ruled, 7-2, a municipality may sue
real-estate firms under the 1968 civil
rights law for allegedly “steering” home
buyers on the basis of race.
—Decided, 9-0, a six-person state court
jury must be unanimous when it convicts
someone of a crime.
Council changes
admission policy
named Quacker, follows its master down University
every minute of the rain, puddles and attention.
By DIANE BLAKE
Battalion Staff
Kyle Field will be ready for the Oct. 13
University of Houston game, despite re
cent reports to the contrary. Dr. Jarvis E.
Miller said Tuesday at the Academic
Council meeting.
“The contractor assured me that it will
be ready,” the president said.
Texas A&M could get four new pro
grams if the Coordinating Board approves,
Miller said. The board will be looking at
bachelor of fine arts, master of science in
journalism, mining engineering and engi
neering geology programs at the end of
this month.
Dr. J.M. Prescott, vice president for
academic affairs, said if the programs are
approved, two of them might be im
plemented by September.
In business action the council voted to
approve a change in the admissions re
quirements for incoming freshmen.
In order to attract high-achieving stu
dents, the requirements were changed to
disregard SAT scores for students who are
in the top 10 percent of their high school
class.
“This change entails small risks because
Smelly job open
to only the nosy
United Press International
KANSAS CITY — Thirty employees
here are earning their pay through the
nose.
The men and women work for Hallmark
Cards, which also markets bath oils, lo
tions, soaps and shampoos. The sensitivity
of these select nostrils, says a company
spokesman, can determine the success of
the products. To qualify for this work the
individuals had to smell their way through
different scents in a variety of forms.
Because these people are not profes
sionals, the company feels this collection
of noses constitutes an unbiased consumer
panel that can offer invaluable advice on
how the bath products will perform.
only high achievers rank in the top 10 per
cent and they quickly adapt to university
life,” Prescott said.
“We want to place more weight on what
a student has done in high school than on
any test score,” said Dr. Billy G. Lay, di
rector of admissions.
Lay said the change would affect only a
few students, mainly from small high
schools, but that a follow-up study will be
made to make the that students entering
under the policy can do the work.
Miller also told faculty members to be
neutral in student government campaigns.
^ He said some professors have allowed
candidates to address their classes, “which
is an abuse of academic freedom.”
The president told the council he was
concerned .about a bill in the Texas House
which would require that all state funds be
deposited in the state treasury. About 45
percent of all Texas A&M’s non-general
revenue funds — like dorm fees and tui
tion funds — would earn lower interest
rates.
He said the bill would result in more
red tape and less fund use flexibility for
Texas A&M.
In other remarks Miller said he will
meet with Lt. Gov. William P. Hobby
Thursday concerning budget appropria
tions for Texas A&M now pending in the
legislature.
Prescott announced that 12 black high
school students and 6 Mexican-American
students have accepted $4,000 schol
arships to Texas A&M. This semester 25
scholarships were established to encour
age minority enrollment.
In other business, the Academic Coun
cil voted to withdraw the curriculum in
pre-pharmacy from the catalog. Students
will still be able to follow the pre
pharmacy plan, but the professional
pharmacy schools change requirements
too much for the catalog to keep up.
The council also voted to award degrees
posthumously to Patrick W. Flores, John
Robert McCord, and James Stuart
McCaine. These students died this school
year and would have graduated in May.
Wanna date?
It takes more than a little bad weather to stop the Texas A&M University
rugby team from practicing. Wayne Schrier takes a breather in Tuesday’s
slop on the drill field. Schrier is a graduate student in biochemistry and
has been on the rugby team for about a year. Battalion photo by Lyle Lovett
Egypt suspended
from OAPEC
United Press International
KUWAIT — The Organization of Arab
Petroleum Exporting countries suspended
Egypt’s membership Tuesday and im
posed an embargo on the flow of all Arab
oil to Egypt in retaliation for the signing of
the peace treaty with Israel.
The embargo was expected to have little
more than symbolic effect on Egypt, since
the Egyptians produce some 90,000 bar
rels a day, more than enough to meet
domestic demand and provide a small
amount for export.
However, Egypt imports some oil
products such as butane, lubricating oils
and special petroleum products, valued in
1977 at some $55.5 million, according to
official figures.
But Oil sources in Kuwait estimated
Tuesday that Egypt requires some $159
million in imported oil products, which
have come mainly from Saudi Arabia, in
order to meet domestic needs. The em
bargo may force Egypt to turn elsewhere
for these imports.
Since 1975 Egypt has been a member of
OAPEC, which was founded in 1968.
The unanimous decision by the other
nine OAPEC members to expel Egypt
came on the final day of a three-day ex
traordinary session called by Iraq specifi
cally to take action against Egypt for sign
ing the March 26 peace treaty with Israel.
Industry sources said the expulsion
would effectively bar Egypt from par
ticipating in projects by OAPEC which
commands capital estimated at nearly $3
billion.
Bill to insure student loans
tentatively OK’d by House
United Press International
AUSTIN — The House Tuesday tenta
tively approved a measure by Rep. Arnold
Gonzales, D-Corpus Christi, establishing
a public non-profit corporation to guaran
tee loans by private lending institutions to
college students.
Gonzales said establishing the Texas
Guaranteed Student Loan Corp. would
cut down on the high default rate federal
programs are experiencing, which is mak
ing it difficult for eligible students to ob
tain college loans.
“The demand for college loans is not
being met in Texas,” he said.
Under the program, if a student bor
rower defaults on a loan, the corporation
would be required to file suit against the
borrower. The comptroller also would be
prohibited from paying money to any per
son who has defaulted on a loan.
Gonzales said the program would be
self-sustaining once an initial $1.5 million
is transferred to the corporation from fed
eral lender’s allowance funds of the
Hinson-Hazelwood College Student Loan
Program.
The two-term legislator said the state
would receive 1 percent of all loans given
by the private lending institutions to cover
administrative costs.