‘Rocky Horror cultists star
at midnight anniversary show
By RICHARD OLIVER
Battalion Staff
Some movies bring out the best in
people, and some movies bring out the
worst in people. The Rocky Horror Pic
ture Show, however, just brings out the
“weird” in people.
Saturday night at the Campus Theater
on University Drive more than 400 Aggies
and assorted other Rocky Horror Picture
Show cultists gathered for the first an
niversary of the movie’s reign in the thea
ter.
The movie has been the featured mid
night movie at the Campus Theater for a
year, and manager Mark Schulman was
excited on the eve of the anniversary
showing.
“We’ve had great success with the
movie,” he said. “Several times we’ve
filled the theater on a Friday night, and
that’s about 714 people. This is going to be
great.”
The mood for the evening was set when
Bill Schulman, owner of the theater,
spurned the fire marshal’s warning about
lighting candles in the theater. Schulman
told the crowd “to hell with it,” and the
tone was set.
The movie centers around a young,,
engaged, and very normal couple named
Brad and Janet. They have a flat tire in a
lonely area one rainy night, and go for help
at an old castle.
There they encounter the transsexual
mad scientist, Dr. Frankenfurter, and a
number of his equally unusual friends.
Frankenfurter is developing a monster of
sorts — a tanned muscleman named
Rocky.
Audience participation has been in
strumental in forming the movie’s cult,
many members of which go watch the
show every week.
The crowd came prepared, throwing
rice in the air during the wedding scene at
the beginning of the movie to getting up
and dancing and singing at the end.
The movie was peppered with dialogue
from the audience along with quite a bit of
physical participation.
When the heroine was forced to trek
through a rainstorm with a newspaper on
her head, the audience followed suit,
drawing out newspapers and covering
their heads. Later in the movie, the news
papers were torn up and thrown in the air.
The crowd sang and danced along with
the movie in parts, anticipating familiar
lines and shouting them out in unison.
People unfamiliar with the movie glanced
around bewildered, as if more interested
in the crowd reactions than the movie it
self.
In a sense, the movie itself did finish
second during the evening. The crowd was
the real show, joyously dancing and having
a good time.
“That’s the whole reason everyone is
here,” said one Horror Show Fan. “It’s an
entire celebration in itself. The movie
gives everyone an outlet to have a good
time and generally be together.”
Bill Ferguson, a local hairdresser and an
ardent Horror Show Fan, said, “I just like
the audience participation. It’s all one big
party.”
The “party” lasted well after the movie
was over, with people milling around and
talking, as if bound by a common bond.
One Aggie threaded his way through
the crowd with his girlfriend, glancing left
and right at the various costumes. He
looked at his girlfriend curiously, and she
simply shrugged and pointed at the door.
Weirdness isn’t for everyone.
In a costume contest was held prior to
the movie, the costumes presented varied
form a representation of Magenta, a
female character in the movie, to a man in
sequined bikini briefs.
Susan Doerge, a winner in the women’s
section of the contest, was excited about
the movie.
“It’s just fun to do. I’m a fan to the end”
she said following the movie. “I love the
crowd, the atmosphere and the movie. It’s
just like a club.”
The crowd finally drifted out, and Mark
and Bill Schulmango. Before Doerge went
out the door, she turned and said, “It’s a
real experience going to this movie. Be
sides, where else besides a wedding can
you get rice thrown on you?”
Battalion
Monday, April 30, 1979
College Station, Texas
News Dept. 845-2611
Business Dept. 845-2611
Food for thought
Ever wondered what goes on be
hind the scenes at the restaurants
where you eat? It’s the business of
the Texas Department of Health to
find out. See page 8.
leavings for bill begin today
eacher tenure threatened
g
By JANE LYON
Battalion Reporter
Today could be the beginning of the end
ir a system that dates back to medieval
imes.
After postponement last Monday, hear-
igs wore rescheduled for today in the
lighar Education Committee of the Texas
-egislature for House Bill 145, which
oula eliminate tenure as it is known at
exasA&M.
Briefly, tenure is a status granted to
achers after a probation period of six
ears) protecting them from dismissal up
| retirement. Dismissing a teacher with
enure is almost impossible without a
Jgthy and complex hearing to show
ause At most colleges and universities, if
nure is not granted, the teacher is fired.
Rep. Frank Gaston, R-Dallas, filed
H.B. 145 last December. The bill would
abolish tenure as of September 1, 1980,
and replace it with a system of renewable
contracts for five or seven years. A “grand
father clause’ in the bill would allow
teachers currently tenured to keep this
status until Sept. 1, 1990.
Dr. Jack Campbell, a professor of edu
cational curriculum and instruction at
Texas A&M and a member of the Univer
sity’s Academic Freedom, Tenure, and
Responsibility Panel, says that abolition of
tenure will threaten academic freedom.
If 145 should not survive, Gaston filed
H.B. 1337 in March as a substitute. This
bill would not abolish tenure but would
require a continuous evaluation process of
tenured teachers with more specific rea
Get it just right
Battalion photo by Lynn Blanco
sons for their dismissal. Hearings for it also
begin today.
“The tenure system was originally
begun by professors to protect them
selves,” Gaston said last week. “There was
no due process in the courts.”
From a historical point of view, tenure
in America gained support when the
American Association of University Pro
fessors was created at Johns Hopkins Uni
versity in 1913 to halt a trend of dismissing
professors without cause. Between 1860
and 1914, 68 teachers were fired from 122
schools. Only six of the terminations were
preceeded by hearings.
In 1940, the AAUP’s Statement of Prin
ciples was prepared and gave a definition
of academic freedom and guidelines for
dismissing a teacher that are accepted
today by all but a few of the nation’s four-
year institutions.
Gaston illustrated several examples of
what he called “tragedies of tenure.”
“Tenure is a one-way street,” he said.
“It protects the professor but not the uni
versity.”
He explained that once tenured, a pro
fessor has full rights to all resources within
the university. He can even leave the uni
versity and teach elsewhere, but the uni
versity cannot do anything about it or dis
pose of the professor.
Gaston also said that professors who are
applicants for tenure and do not receive it
are black-spotted for life. They might be
hired at other universities, but the fact
that they did not receive tenure at the last
school weighs heavily against their
chances of getting another teaching posi
tion.
Finally, Gaston said that tenure denies
academic freedom for teachers under the
probation period. The schools tend to
favor those who follow and stay in line with
the school’s accepted ideologies, thus
limiting any creativity those teachers may
have, he said.
As for the effect such a bill would have
upon the state, Gaston commented, “It
will have absolutely none, because there
are too many good professors with applica
tions in for teaching at schools in Texas
right now.”
He added that in recent years, there has
been a flood of Ph.D.’s with nowhere to
go-
Dr. Haskell Monroe, dean of faculties
here, said he had not seen the bill or heard
anything about it. He said he would want
to study it before making any statement
about the bill. He did say the bill would
make it difficult for Texas to recruit good
professors.
Campbell, a member of the Texas A&M
Academic Freedom, Tenure and Respon
sibility Panel, said the panel had been
asked to send in opinions about the bills to
TACT (Texas Association for College
Teachers). Campbell is also a representa
tive from Texas A&M for TACT.
“Ultimately, academic freedom will be
threatened if tenure is abolished,”
Campbell said. “If they’re trying to get rid
of ‘deadwood’ (professors who exist on
tenure with only a minimum amount of
work), it will still be with us for years be
cause of the grandfather clause. ”
He also said that many professors would
be hesitant about starting research. Some
research projects require an indefinite
amount of time. With renewable con
tracts, a teacher would worry about having
his research ended in midstream.
“In America, academic freedom has al
lowed for new experimentation and inven
tion that has never been seen in other
countries. In this way society has bene
fited.”
Campbell said the system of tenure
sometimes does protect deadwood and
that it might hot always protect the young
professor during the probation period, but
that there were abuses to be found in
every system today.
“Teaching should be the highest prece
dent. That’s what we re here for,”
Campbell said.
In the Feb. 9 issue of the Fortnightly, a
newsletter for the faculty and staff at Texas
A&M, it was announced that the Coor
dinating Board, Texas College and Uni
versity System in Austin, had modified its
policy on academic freedom, tenure and
responsibility but that it has no direct ef
fect on Texas A&M’s policy.
The University’s present policy will be
re-examined, but any decision regarding a
change rests with Board of Regents.
The original Coordinating Board policy
said that the only valid reasons for termi
nation of tenured teachers were “profes
sional incompetence, moral turpitude,
gross negligence of professional responsi
bility or gross repeated failure to abide by
the rules and regulations” of the Texas
A&M University System.
In addition to these, the Coordinating
Board has added “mental or physical dis
ablement of a continuing nature, bona fide
financial exigency or phasing out of institu
tional programs.”
It has always been Texas A&M’s posi
tion that a decision regarding tenure must
be made during the next-to-last year of
probation.
Currently 43.6 percent of the total fac
ulty tenured at Texas A&M that could be
affected by either of the bills. It can only
be speculated what would happen to the
whole state of Texas since it would be the
only state in the union with such legisla
tion.
Info leak suspect
moved to new office
iennis Berthold, banjo player for the King s English String Band, was
Part of the entertainment at the College Station Arts Festival at Oak
Park Saturday. Members of the band are all English professors at Texas
i&M University.
United Press Internationa]
WASHINGTON — John A. Tucci, the
man suspected of “leaking” Supreme
Court opinions from the court’s closely
guarded print shop, is being moved to
another government office.
Chief Justice Warren Burger personally
asked Tucci’s boss, John Boyle, to move
him, so Tucci will be reassigned without
loss of status to his former linotype job —
this time at the Government Printing Of
fice’s main plant instead of the court’s pri
vate shop.
“I don’t know what the man has done.
The only thing I have done is acceded to
the wishes of the chief justice,” Boyle said.
“Burger just wanted this man out,” he
said.
The printing office personnel branch
will investigate for possible regulations
violations, but a spokesman said the office
had no evidence to initiate any action
against Tucci.
Burger acted in an apparent attempt to
plug a rare leak in the high court’s internal
security after ABC-TV reporter Tim O’B
rien last week reported in advance the
outcome of two high court rulings.
Battalion photo by Liz Bailey
Balance, strength, nerve
Mike Norman of Stephen F. Austin State University competes in the bull
riding Saturday morning at the National Intercollegiate Rodeo Associa
tion’s rodeo. The rodeo was at the Texas A&M Equestrian Center on
FM 2818. Competition began Friday night; the last performance was
Sunday morning.
Carter touted.
Brown booted
United Press International
DETROIT — Most U.S. state Demo
cratic chairpersons believe President Car
ter will be nominated for a second term
but faces a tough campaign in 1980, a De
troit News survey shows.
In a copyright story in Sunday’s edi
tions, the News said 83 percent of the
Democratic leaders expected Carter’s
nomination next year with 88 percent
wanting to see Vice President Walter
Mondale on the ticket again because of the
“deep respect” party leaders hold for him.
The survey, the newspaper said, was
taken during the spring meeting of the As
sociation of State Democratic Chairper
sons ini San Juan, Puerto Rico.
The News said Carter’s wide support
among the chairpersons came even though
more than one-third said they thought
Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., could
win more popular votes than Carter in
their home states.
Most of those surveyed, though, con
sidered Kennedy’s strength as academic
because they did not expected him to fight
Carter for the nomination.
The survey also said most of the party
chairpersons thought a presidential cam
paign by Gov. Edmund Brown Jr. of
California would fizzle.
“People think he’s a little weird,” said
Nevada chairwoman Didi Carson. “It’s his
lifestyle and his apparent switch of princi
ples from a liberal to somebody who wants
a constitutional convention to balance the
budget.”
Although most of the chairpersons sup
ported the Carter-Mondale team, the sur
vey said most of them agreed it would be a
tough campaign.
Regarding front-runners for the Repub
lican presidential nomination, the survey
showed the Democratic leaders with con
flicting opinions.
Former California Gov. Ronald Reagan
was seen as a strong candidate in the
Plains states while former CIA Director
George Bush of Texas labeled strong in his
native New England.
Former Texas Gov. John Connally was
seen by the Democratic chairpersons as
strong throughout much of the South.
The newspaper said it viewed the opin
ions of the 50 chairpersons as important
“because they reflect the grassroots at
titudes within the Democratic Party.”
Services for
Ag pending
Services are pending in Meridian,
Miss., for Charla Gwin, 21, a Texas A&M
University veterinary medicine student
found dead in her apartment here Wed
nesday night.
A ruling is pending with Justice of the
Peace Mike Calliham. Police said the exact
cause of death is still under investigation.
Gwin, a first-year veterinary student,
was a former first sergeant and later com
pany commander of the all-female W-l
unit in the Texas A&M Corps of Cadets.
Since Silver Taps ceremonies are not
held after the Aggie Muster on April 21,
the traditional student memorial service is
expected to be this fall and will honor all
students who die after Muster.
Gwin is the 12th student fatality of the
current academic year.