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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 25, 1979)
mu! ’ONS! 'DNlClii ■USS! The Battalion Vol. 73 No. 38 Thursday, October 25, 1979 USPS 045 360 22 Pages in 2 Sections College Station, Texas Phone 845-2611 Hotard Hall to close for spring term? A hallway on a landing of Texas A&M University’s Hotard Hall shows the need for renovation. Presi dent Jarvis Miller gave the Department of Student Battalion photo by Sam Stroder Affairs the go-ahead to close the dorm in the spring for possible renovation. A&M’s Board of Regents has recognized the need for repairs in Hotard. By CAROL HANCOCK Battalion Reporter When Hotard Hall residents move out of their rooms for Christmas break in De cember, they won’t be coming back. Not until next fall, anyway. Texas A&M University President Jarvis Miller gave the Department of Student Af fairs the go-ahead early last week to close Hotard during the spring semester for possible renovation. Although no formal renovation proposal has been presented to the Board of Re gents, some members of the board and Chancellor Frank W. R. Hubert looked at the dorm after viewing nearby construc- ton. The board has recognized Hotard’s need for repairs and has been discussing the idea informally, said Robert Cherry, assis tant to the chancellor and secretary to the board. There is, however, no renovation item on the agenda for the November board meeting, he said. The Department of Student Affairs has drawn up a proposal that includes renova tion plans for Hotard — basically the same as those done to Legett Hall last spring. “What we really want to do is make it a nice, livable place,” said Ron Sasse, as sociate director of student affairs. The proposal suggests all new furniture, new doors and locks, aluminum windows, air-conditioning, phones, carpeting, a drop ceiling and new roofing. The dorm would also be waterproofed and repainted. The bathrooms would be totally redone and some areas would be converted into study rooms. The proposal has been sent to the De partment of Business Services to arrange the financial aspect of it. Howard Vestal, vice president for business affairs, was un available for comment as to when the pro posal would be submitted to the board. Cherry said there is ample time for the proposal to be presented to the regents before the meeting in November. There is also a possibility the board will have a spe cial meeting in early November to discuss the idea, he said. There have been definite indications Hotard will be renovated, Sasse said. Ap proval for the dorm closing from President Miller and the board’s interest in the pro posal point toward the regents’ approval of the plan, he said. Many things were considered before the request for permission to close Hotard was submitted to Miller, Sasse said. If Hotard is renovated, he said, work will have to begin in the spring in order to complete the dorm in time for the fall 1980 semester. Room reservation cards for the spring semester must be turned in next week, Sasse said. “Even though the proposal has not been approved, we would hate for he guys to sign up for Hotard and then have to move them out if the proposal was accepted, ” he said. Another factor in the decision to close Hotard was the inconvenience Hotard res idents would have to put up with as the two new modular dorms were built. The construction of the two dorms paral lel to Hotard is extremely noisy, Sasse said. The noise would increase in the spring, he said. A high amount of dust and dirt can col lect in the rooms. Windows are usually left open because the dorm is not air- conditioned. Nolen Mears, area coordinator for Hotard Hall, said all the discomfort and noise might promote lower grades. “With all things considered, I think we took the best approach to the problem,” he said. Another inconvenience is the relocation of water, sewer and electrical lines. Each service will have to be cut off when relo cated for the modular dorms. Hotard residents have mixed feelings about the dorm renovation proposal. The immediate reaction was negative. Slowly they’re beginning to accept the idea, Mears said. Head resident David Bergen is all in favor the idea. “Hotard is physically in worse shape than any (dorm) on campus,” he said. Jeff Buzek said he wished Hotard could be renovated during the summer. “It’s going to be a big hassle having to move out,” he said. Alan Gragg, fourth floor resident ad viser, said he thought the dorm physically needed renovation but feels the people in Student Affairs are unconcerned about the opinions of the students . “They have good intentions but it’s ap parent we residents have been caught up in the budget game,” he said. One suspicion Gragg and others have is the possibility that Hotard might be made into a women’s dorm if it is renovated. Mears said the men in Legett were told the dorm would be made a women’s dor mitory after renovation. There has been no proposal to make Hotard a women’s dorm. Mears said Hotard residents will be given first priority to dorm room vacancies in the spring. There is no guarantee there will be spaces where students want them, he said, but all head residents are working with Student Affairs to reserve spaces and keep roommates together. etv campus fire alarms still ‘getting the kinks out’ By ANGIE JONES ... 4 J Battalion Reporter IIOi 4b A new campus fire detection system is lJ| almost finished. Although it is safer, a few MOi ti l ^ Se a l arrns are inevitable. Ml |Records from the Physical Plant, in I40n[i charge of campus maintenance, show 20 M* 1 fire alarms have gone off on campus be- 60i f| tween Oct. 1 and Oct. 21. Harry Stiteler, to' 1 safety and health officer at the Physical Plant, says an average of one alarm per day is not unusual, considering the number of buildings on campus and the sensitive fire LJ equipment being installed. Last year only 35 buildings had fire alarm systems, Stiteler said. So the Physi- It ks cal Plant business office recommended that the systems be upgraded. The propo sal was approved and now 85 buildings will have had some form of added fire detec tion by December. Every building is connected to a main monitor, called “Hawkeye,” which regis ters a signal at the Physical Plant and at the University Police dispatcher’s office when an alarm goes off. A campus police man is sent to the site and if there is a fire, the College Station Fire Department is called. Some of the buildings which have just been connected to the Hawkeye system Eighty-five buildings will have had some form of added fire detection by December — Harry Stiteler, safety and health officer at the physical plant. are going through a “burning in” period. This is the time it takes to “get the kinks out of the equipment,” Stiteler explained. Rudder Center is going through its burn ing in period; three false alarms have gone off there. The Soil and Crop Center has had two real fires. One began in the hay sampling room and another was caused by a faulty light fixture. University police have determined that five fire alarms were set maliciously by • • • F.Y.I. Miscellaneous notes s , • r i.ll* ■ overlap ' ...Eodi Joeli ‘Fall back’ It’s time to change the clocks again. Sunday at 2 a.m. we will officially go off Central Daylight Time and back to Central Standard Time. So set your clocks one hour back — i.e., to 1 a.m. If this confuses you (as it does most people), just remember you’re getting an extra hour of sleep. Freshman elections Votes from Wednesday’s freshmen elections have been counted, but re sults aren’t official yet. Some top vote-getters may not qualify for office because of low mid term grades. Bruce Russell, student government election commissioner, said grades were to be checked today. Early Thursday morning Russell said turnout appeared “pretty good” with 1,500-2,000 voting out of about 7,000 in the class. Turnout was higher than last fall, Russell said. “There were more candidates (97) than last year,” he said. “Maybe they just knew more people.” Q-drop: last chance Students have until Monday to drop classes with no penalty. A student’s record will show a “Q” for classes dropped through that day. A “Q” does not figure into the grade point ratio. Students who drop a course after Monday will receive an “F” unless unusual circumstances exist. To drop a course, students must first see their academic advisers. Change in grading system possible this semester people either burning the heat detectors, removing them or pulling the alarms where fire extinguishers are located. Capt. Elmer Schneider, University Police dispatcher, said a false fire alarm is a Class A misdemeanor. The penalty is a fine not to exceed $2,000, or a jail term not to exceed one year, or both. John White, coordinator of special serv ices, said if a student is caught tampering with fire alarm equipment he will be billed for the damages. A different type of fire protection sys tem is being installed in the Data Process ing Center, though it is still connected to the main Hawkeye system. The Halon Fire Protection system dis perses pressurized liquid halon through a network of pipes when a fire is detected. The halon costs $7 per pound, Restivo said, and there are 6,072 pounds of the gas in the system here. Because of the high cost of the gas, the fire detection system is designed with a two-step alarm signal. The heat detector sends a signal to the control panel in the computer room. Here the signal stays in a “holding pattern” in case of false alarm. At the same time a signal is sent to the Haw keye monitor. If the first signal is not voi ded a second signal releases the gas after 30 seconds. By ELLEN EIDELBACH Battalion Reporter Texas A&M University’s student senate will recommend a change in the Univer sity grading system before the end of the semester. The Academic Affairs committee will consider several different proposals to alter the present four-point scale of grad ing before making a recommendation to the senate, said John C. Calhoun, student government vice president for academic affairs. Senators heard one such proposal at Wednesday’s meeting, presented by Dr. John A. McIntyre, professor of physics. Under McIntyre’s system, students would receive grades beginning at 0.0, or the equivalent of a 55, and ending at 4.5, which would be equal to 100. Every point in between 0.0 and 4.5 would relate to the numbers 55 through 100 on an increasing scale. For example, a 56 would be 0.1 and a 57 would be 0.2. “The trouble is now, the man who made the 98 gets the same grade as the man with a 92,” McIntyre said. “I’m not changing the scale at all I’m just making it finer, so it’ll represent what the student did.” There is not much difference between a student with an 89 and one with a 90, but there is between a B and an A, McIntyre said. The new system would point these differences out. This grading system proposal and others are being considered by student senators in an effort to improve the present one. “What we re trying to do is get a more accurate grading system,” Calhoun ex plained. Another item being considered by the rules and regulations committee would ban bicycles from the central campus from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays. “The number of bicycle accidents has been going up lately,” Paul Bettencourt, vice president for rules and regulations, explained. “I’ve heard of eight to 10 acci dents happening a day.” Bettencourt added that any bill would be a recommendation to the University Traffic Panel if it is passed. In other action, the senate passed three bills which would: — provide staplers and scissors for stu dent use near copying machines in the li brary — change student seating for baseball games to both upper and lower decks on the first base side of Olsen Field (Pres ently, students occupy all of the upper deck only) B-CS gas stations plan to stay open (through SMU-A&M game weekend By SANDRA SEFCIK Battalion Reporter 1 Even though area gasoline dealers won’t iget their allocation figures for November (until the first, most are going to be open (the weekend of the Texas A&M-SMU vgame. Most of the station owners said they are meager for the football weekend to arrive. They are planning to be open all weekend, (although on a regular weekend some close [ at noon on Saturday or all day Sunday. Bryan-College Station is one of the few areas in Texas where gasoline prices have not risen to over $1 per gallon. According to an American Automobile Association survey released October 18, average gasoline prices for premium un leaded in Texas reached $1 a gallon for the first time. Gasoline was over $1 at many full-service pumps in Austin, Beaumont, Port Arthur, Waco and Midland-Odessa, the report said. However, availability has improved over last month. The cities surveyed by the AAA had regular gasoline prices under a dollar, as is the case with stations in this area. In addition to lower prices here, there is more gasoline available. Prices, however, will soon increase, said Dick Broach, an area wholesaler. “There is a grim forecast concerning gasoline, but there is gasoline at the pumps,” Broach said. Broach said he noticed prices in Bryan-College Station rose about three cents per gallon this week. He added that the price to the wholesaler rose five cents last week. “If people don’t panic and start filling their tanks and keeping them full, then the shortage won’t be felt as much as it was this summer,” he said. There was a definite shortage this sum mer, Broach said, and people who nor mally don’t fill their tanks started keeping them full, making the shortage more noticeable. We should be thankful that not all cars rim on diesel fuel, Broach said. Diesel fuel prices have increased 10 percent within the last month. Dispatcher Nicole Marshal operates “Hawkeye,” a main monitor to which all campus fire alarms will be connected. Hawkeye registers a signal at the Physical Plant and at the University Police dispatcher’s office when an alarm goes off. Battalion photo by Lynn Blanco