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The Battalion
Vol. 73 No. 45
14 Pages
Friday, November 2, 1979
College Station, Texas
USPS 045 360
Phone 845-2611
College seeks to decrease
Jtudent-to-faculty ratio
* By PAMELA RIMOLDI
Mg. Battalion Reporter
Tie [College of Business Administration
Hexps A&M University is considering
■ hening its standards in an attempt to
« eape the present student-faculty ratio,
le goal is one of several the college
it intends to achieve during the next
® years.
Where is a relationship between the
, Hr of faculty, the number of students
i Hw good a quality of education you
(provide,” said William Muse, dean of
^Hlege of Business Administration.
lH
^Hchieve the goal. Muse said the col-
® is considering requiring a student to
« a 2.5 grade point ratio to advance
i his sophomore to his junior year.
i, a 2.0 is required to continue in the
f
Another way of decreasing the faculty-
student ratio is to increase the number of
faculty. ‘‘We would prefer to have a fairly
large increase in the number of faculty,
but we don’t anticipate that we ll get
enough new faculty to achieve a balance
between student and faculty numbers,”
Muse said.
The ratio is important not only because
of the quality of education it allows a
school to provide but also because a col
lege must maintain a certain ratio in order
to remain accredited. Muse said.
“We are quite a bit over the allowed
ratio rate now,” he said, “so we are trying
to ensure that we are in adherence to
standards in order to maintain accredita
tion. ”
A task force has been assigned to formu
late a proposal on exactly how the goal of
decreasing the ratio is to be achieved.
Muse said he asked for a report from the
task force by Dec. 31. He said the proposal
will be reviewed by the executive commit
tee within the college.
Another of the college’s goals is increas
ing the enrollment of students in the Mas
ter of Business Administration program
from the present 266 to 500 by 1985, Muse
said.
A different task force has been assigned
to study other schools such as Penn State
and Cornell University to get ideas on how
to make the MBA program at Texas A&M
more attractive to prospective students,
Muse said.
One change being considered is the de
velopment of a “3-2 program,’’ which
would allow a superior student to be in the
College of Liberal Arts three years and
finish business foundation classes the
fourth year. After the fifth year, the stu
dent could obtain an MBA.
This permits a student to get an under
graduate degree in the College of Liberal
Arts and an MBA degree in five years,
whereas it usually takes six, Muse said.
This program should be attractive to
liberal arts students who decide their
major may not be very useful to them after
they graduate, he said.
Muse said the college also hopes to ex
pand continuing education programs for
the person already employed in the busi
ness industry.
All objectives and goals established by
the college lead to the improvement of the
reputation of Texas A&M in the business
community so that employment oppor
tunities for students are enhanced. Muse
said.
least 4 killed in fiery collision
tanker, freighter meet in Gulf
United Press International
ALVESTON — An oil-laden tanker
port and an empty freighter re-
ggin^. to sea collided Thursday in the
Mexico, spilling burning oil and
^^■tembers into the water in the pre-
ggHarkness.
**oii bodies were recovered, 30 men
Pe Jescued and 30 others were missing,
— Coast guard said at mid-afternoon. The
collision engulfed the 772-foot tanker
Burmah Agate and the 442-foot freighter
Mimosa in raging flames.
Although damage to the tanker was sub
stantial, the Coast Guard said only a few
thousand gallons of its 400,000-barrel
crude oil cargo leaked into the gulf.
The freighter, abandoned and aflame,
its engines running and its rudder stuck,
circled for hours amid oil drilling platforms
four miles offshore from Galveston Island.
The crew of the closest rig, located about
1,500 feet from the collision site, was
evacuated.
The Coast Guard stopped all traffic
along the 50-mile Houston ship channel
connecting the gulf with the nation’s third
busiest port.
Many of the Taiwanese crew members
of the Liberian-registered tanker and the
Cyprus-registered freighter arrived at the
hospital wet, smoke-blackened and
barefoot. Most had been asleep when the
collision occurred.
Kinney confirmed 26 crewmen from the
Mimosa were alive. Four bodies and four
survivors were locate from the 38 men
aboard the Burmah Agate.
Coast Guard Lt. Commander George
Davis said the weather was good when the
accident occurred. “It was clear. We don’t
know what happened,” he said.
Mamie Eisenhower dies
of heart failure at age 82
United Press International
WASHINGTON — Mamie
Eisenhower, seriously ill since suffering a
stroke in September, died of heart failure
early Thursday, 10 years after the death of
her husband, the 34th president.
Mrs. Eisenhower died in her sleep at
1:35 a.m. EST, said a spokesman for Wal
ter Reed Army Medical Center where she
had been treated since suffering the stroke
Sept. 25. She would have been 83 in two
weeks.
Peter Esker, information officer for
Walter Reed, said funeral plans were in
complete.
Esker said Mrs. Eisenhower, who suf
fered the stroke on her Gettysburg, Pa.,
farm, had a history of heart trouble and
had not shown any significant improve
ment since her admission.
“Her condition had remained essen
tially stable, and she did not show im
provement over the long run,” Esker said.
“She came in seriously ill but stable.”
The stroke had affected some of the;
functions on her right side.
She was last at Walter Reed Sept. 8-15
for a routine examination.
Her death left five living former first
ladies — Bess Truman, Jacqueline Ken
nedy Onassis, Lady Bird Johnson, Pat
Nixon and Bettv Ford.
While the family’s farmhouse, a national
monument maintained by the National
Park Serivce, was her home, friends said
late in life she became lonely living there.
When her husband, Dwight D.
Eisenhower, campaigned, she left her role
as the quiet woman behind the scenes and
took to the stump. Ike would introduce
her as “My Mamie.”
And while she liked to spend restful
weekends in the country during her hus
band’s two terms, she would often fill in
for him when national groups visited the
White House.
Mrs. Eisenhower, born Nov. 14, 1896,
in Boone, Iowa, never hid her preference
for the serene, country life of the farm dur
ing her eight years in the White House.
She did not miss the public life, she said
in an interview on the couple’s 50th wed
ding anniversary.
“No one who has ever been in that ter
rible limelight would ever seek it again,”
she said.
With a politician’s memory for names
and faces, she drew warm responses from
those she met, and her long training as an
Army wife served her well in the White
House, where she enjoyed entertaining.
After her husband’s death on March 28,
1969, Mrs. Eisenhower dedicated herself
to the ideals Ike championed.
Great Plains storm kills 10
Battalion photo by Sam Stroder
Rod O’Connor receives a Halloween trick — a bricked-up, decorated
office doorway. Although the situation perplexes O’Connor, his secre
tary, Nanette Cook, appears to find the situation amusing.
‘Brick-or-treat’
for chemistry prof
By RHONDA WATTERS
Battalion Staff
While most people got candy, gum and the other mundane surprises for
Halloween Wednesday night, Dr. Rod O’Connor, head of the first-year
chemistry program at Texas A&M University, got something a little different
— a brick wall in front of his office door.
The wall, held together by pieces of Styrofoam so it would stay tight against
the door, was built by a Texas A&M female faculty member and her freshman
students. The woman, who asked not to be named, said she pulled the prank
because of a friendly rivalry that has been going on between her, O’Connor and
their students.
Nanette Cook, O’Connor’s secretary, said the feud has been going on “for
quite awhile.”
“It started when he told her she wore formaldehyde as perfume,” Cook said,
laughing. “It’s been going ever since.”
Cook said O’Connor was not scheduled to come in Thursday because of a
meeting he was planning to attend in Fort Worth. She tricked him into coming
to his office by calling him at his home early Thursday morning and telling him
a pipe was missing in one of the chemistry labs and the floor was starting to
flood.
“When he saw it, he just said ‘Oh my God,’ and then stood there looking at it
for a while,” she said. “Then he said, ‘My coffee cup and cigarettes are in
there.
The female faculty member responsible for the prank said O’Connor had
been warned.
“He’s been asking for it,” she said. “This is only the beginning.”
She said the reason she didn’t use mortar for the wall was because “I will
probably be the one who will have to take it down.”
One thing she said she heard about O’Connor’s reaction was “he was silent
for the longest period ever, and that was still in the micro-second range.”
Her only other comment on the situation was, “It would have been better
had he been in the office.”
O’Connor, who was in Fort Worth, could not be reached for comment.
Battalion photo by Lynn Blanco
Tradition says that Texas A&M University freshmen in the Corps of
Cadets must wear spurs during the week before the SMU football game.
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i,000 more seats open
hr SMU-A&M game
Mud hampers cleanup after blizzard
An additional 3,000 seats have been
Heel to Kyle Field since the University
Houston game. The addition brings
idium capacity to approximately 62,000.
Tfexas A&M associate athletic director
ally Groff said the new seats are on the
ird deck of the east side of the stadium.
Groff said most of the seats will be for
:ket holders assigned to incomplete por-
>ns of the third deck on the stadium’s
sst side.
Spectators assigned to section 308 will
ove to 333, 307 to 334, 306 to 335, and
pto 336, Groff said. Other relocations
e from sections 313, 314, 315 and 316 to
ctions 337, 338 and 339.
Groff said these switches apply to the
4U game only. He said more seating will
i ready for the Arkansas game Nov. 17.
“We re getting there,” Groff said, “but
we still have a ways to go and request con
tinued understanding. We know there
have been, and will continue to be, incon
veniences, particularly for students, and
we deeply regret that. But progress most
assuredly is being made, and we will soon
have a facility that will serve us well for
years to come.”
Saftey precautions will be basically the
same for this game as they were for the
Houston game, said University Police
Chief Russ McDonald.
“We ll have about 100 officers at the
game,” McDonald said. “The temporary
barricades will still be up in dangerous
areas. We ll be checking the stadium out
again today (Thursday) to see what else
needs to be done. ”
United Press International
Snow piled 12 feet high by the season’s
first blizzard melted into mud and slush on
the Great Plains Thursday, hampering the
efforts of utility crews to restore electrial
power to more than 60,000 rural residents.
The storm, which swept out of the Roc
kies on Tuesday and moved into Canada
Thursday, left a trail of debris from north
Texas to North Dakota. Hardest-hit were
parts of eastern Colorado, western Kansas,
Nebraska and South Dakota.
The storm killed 10 people in New
Mexico, Oklahoma, Colorado and Ne
braska, and hundreds of head of cattle on
the open ranges of the Plains.
National Guardsmen cleaned up debris
left by swollen waterways in Kansas. In
Halstead, where 5,250 people were
evacuated. Mayor Dick Nearman said
water on the streets delayed the start of
cleanup operations. A spokesman for the
Kansas Electric Co-operatives estimated
that most of between 20,000 and 25,000
customers in northwest Kansas were still
without power Thursday.
Another 30,000 lost electricity in Ne
braska and utility officials said it may be
early next week before service is restored
to some of them.
The Southeast Colorado Power Associa
tion, which serves a 13,000-square-mile
area, reported 4,500 customers still with
out electricity Thursday night.
Another 2,500 customers waited for re
storation of power in South Dakota.
Hundreds of motorists who abandoned
their cars in eastern Colorado retrieved
their vehicles. All major roads and high
ways in the snow covered southeastern
portion of Colorado were reported open
by noon Thursday.
Rescuers who arrived too late to save a
New Mexico couple who died of carbon
monoxide poisoning revealed the contents
of a note found in the glove compartment
of their car. “I don’t want to go this way, ”
wrote Mary Sawyer, 56. Their car was
found a few feet from a Continental Trail-
ways bus where 16 passengers shared food
and blankets to survive the night.
Elsewhere, a cold front spread rain from
Ohio, through eastern Kentucky and into
Alabama, and cold air replaced a belated
Indian summer in the Great Lakes region.
Light showers were scattered across Min
nesota, Wisconsin and Upper Mihigan.
Gale warnings were hoisted on Lakes
Superior, Michigan, and Huron, where
winds gusted past 35 mph.
Students asked to clear all fees
to prevent registration blocks
By JETTIE STEEN
Battalion Reporter
Students who went through drops and
ads this semester at Texas A&M Univer
sity are being advised by the Fiscal Office
to go to that department in the Coke
Building and clear any outstanding fees
before pre-registration for the spring 1980
semester.
“It’s going to be one big mess when stu
dents start trying to pre-register only to
find that they are blocked from registra
tion for not having paid this semester’s
fees, ” said Robert Smith of the Fiscal De
partment.
There are about 5,000 students who
have not taken care of charges or credits
with the University. About 75 percent of
these cases are students who owe the
school for added courses, Smith said.
“In most instances, students have failed
to notify housing or the registrar’s office of
a change of address and we just can’t track
them down to send notices,” Smith said.
Smith said it would be much easier on
the students to clear themselves with the
Fiscal Department now rather than wait
until pre-registration Nov. 12-16.
Payment of the outstanding fees in
Room 100 of the Coke Building will pre
vent blocked registration, said Smith.