Viewpoint
The Battalion
Texas A&M University
Monday
March 2, 1981
Some subsidies not necessary
In the long run, the student service fee
allocation process is going to run into an
irresistible force vs. immovable object
dilemma.
On the one hand, students have come to
expect the University to provide them with
many “essential” services: intramurals, a
health center, legal counsel, personal coun
seling and a shuttle bus, to name only a few.
On the other, the wish to maintain a
reasonable, controllable ceiling on at least
one area of college expenses might soon
prompt some students to view these ser
vices as expendable.
There’s an easy compromise that can be
reached between these two extremes: insti
tution of user fees for some of the services
which receive student service fees.
Consider:
— The student service fee subsidizes
several services which generate some of
their own income, and which could be cap
able of generating more (student publica
tions, intramurals, shuttle bus, health
center).
— Those users who can generate no
income of their own could benefit by receiv-
Sidebars
By Dillard Stone
ing a bigger slice of the pie.
— In the interests of fairness, is it equit
able for on-campus students to continue
paying for shuttle bus service? Is it equit
able for some to participate in several intra
mural sports, others in only a few, and still
others in no sports at all — while the intra
mural department receives the same share
from all students’ service fees? Is it equit
able to demand that students who don’t use
the health center pay the same as those who
go five times per semester?
While specific recommendations are out
of the question before they’re studied, two
areas deserve specific attention.
Currently, intramural teams pay a $5-
per-team fee. In softball, that amounts to
somewhere around 30 cents per man. Sup
pose that were raised to about $1 or $1.2
per man: How many could object to payiiij
less than the cost of a pitcher of beer i
order to play three softball games? Ail
there’s certainly nothing unreasonable 4
out charging $1 per entry in individd
sports.
The health center is doing its best!
provide quality health care at low coi
Some sort of user fees should be institute!
for all prescriptions, for x-ray, forsomes|)(
cialized treatment. Rather than beingab
den on those who use the center, such fa
could serve to relieve the burden on thoii
who use the center infrequently.
So long as the health center keeps use
costs below whatever they would be fi
student went to an area doctor, it’s fulfil^
its duty of providing low-cost medical cart
Sure, Texas A&M has a low studeii
service fee rate, when compared to otkei
schools. But keeping up with the Joneses
isn’t a sound basis for blatant fee increases.
And it’s best to examine the viable op
tions now, before we trap ourselves inti
having to use the student service fee to
keep up with the services’ demands. 5
a
Talented minds also vp responds about service fees
are musically adept
By PATRICIA McCORMACK
United Press International
What has one bugle, nine pianos, two
guitars, two violins, one flute, two French
horns, one madrigal singer and, for good
measure, one composer and organist?
Some new musical group called the odd
balls? Wrong.
It’s the high school science wizards —
the winners in the 40th Westinghouse Sci
ence Talent Search. It turns out that a big 40
percent of the science brains are also good
at music — with the talents listed at the
start of this story.
Some of the young scientists play two
instruments or three. One, a French horn
player, toured Europe last summer, con-
certizing with a group.
The music-science-and-math combo
doesn’t come as a shock to educators. The
most obvious proof of a link in this century
came from the man who gave the world the
theory of relativity — Albert Einstein spoke
the universal language of music via a violin.
A space theme, incidentally, won for one
young scientist who also happens to be a
musician.
John Scott Penberthy, the French horn
player who toured Europe, won by invent
ing a galactic battle game. It demonstrated
something almost as impossible to under
stand as Einstein’s theory of relativity.
That is: “interterminal interactive com
puter systems providing simultaneous ac
cess.”
Penberthy, 15, from Midlothian, Va.,
says the complex computer game “might
have some practical application in science
and business information systems.”
The “Starship” game allows two to nine
players to communicate with each other in
battle.
Each player has simultaneous access to
35 commands. These include information
on speed, fuel consumption and laser fire.
When a spaceship is hit, the player must
size up the damage, including number of
crew killed. When a ship no longer can
move, its captain has lost.
Scott intends to go to Massachusetts In
stitute of Technology. His music shouldn’t
suffer. The high-tech school, further pro
ving the link between science and music,
has its own student symphony orchestra,
concert band, jazz band, musical ensembles
and chamber music society.
Other winning projects from gifted high
school science students who also happen to
be musicians included:
— Composer, guitarist Michael F.
Reidy, 18, of Springfield, Va., performed
experiments to determine how plasma
membrane ATPase transports molecules
and particles across living cell surface
boundaries. The musician-scientist, who
plays football at West Springfield High, is
headed for Yale and biochemistry or medi-
— Pianist and flutist Kori Ellen Kaplo-
witz, 17, of Hewlett, N.Y., won with a pro
ject in microbial genetics. She also is an
award-winning puppeteer. Headed for
Harvard.
— Trombonist William Shelton Chit
wood, 17, of Moulton, Ala., won by looking
into how red light stimulates root growth in
lettuce seeds. Chitwood is trombone sec
tion leader in the school marching and con
cert bands and pianist-organist at church.
He’ll go to Auburn University or the Uni
versity of Alabama in Birmingham.
— Pianist Joan Ivul Chu, 17, of Lafayet
te, Calif, won by separating genes from one
circular piece of DNA and recombined
these with a circular piece of bacteria DNA.
She will study math and theoretical econo
mics at Stanford. She believes work such as
hers will point the way that research roads
to cloning may take in years ahead.
Among other winners Tan Dinh Ngo, 16,
of John F. Kennedy High in the Bronx sec
tion of New York City, overcame his lan
guage difficulty by submitting a project in
project in the universal language of mathe
matics. A Vietnam refugee and native of
Saigon, he has been in America two years.
He’s aiming for MIT and will keep on the
math trail.
John Marion Geppert, 18, of Omaha,
Neb., won with a solar energy concentra
tor. He hopes it will bring more affordable
heating to most homeowners. Geppert will
go to Iowa State and study engineering or
computer science.
The 40 winners started meetings with a
panel of scientists in Washington, D.C.,
Thursday. During the interviews that ran
through Sunday, the 40 competed for 10
major prizes.
The top is a $12,000 scholarship. The
next nine scholarships are lesser amounts,
ranging down to $5,000. The 30 who don’t
make the top 10 will be given a one-time
award of $500.
With today’s college bills ranging up to
$10,000 and above at top private schools,
even the No. 1 winner won’t get a four-year
ride on his scholarship.
But it’s the glory — and the promise.
Some past winners of the coveted nation
al prizes for distinguished high school scien
tists have gone on to win Nobel prizes.
By TRACY COX
In response to the recent allegations of
incompetency the editor has awarded me
and the Finance Committee, I have to com
ment.
First, I will respond to the reason for our
closed hearing. If you’ll remember, we held
four hearings open to the public in which
everyone could attend and hear how the
student service fee users justified their re
quested budget. You thought that the pur
pose of our closed meeting was to hide our
incompetence — wrong. Under state law, a
committee such as ours is allowed to close
our meetings to the public because we are
only making recommendations — not
actual allocations. Whenever a group meets
to discuss budgets someone is going to end
up with less money. For a reporter to be
leaning over our shoulder verifying every
nickel and dime we cut would have been
stifling to the budget process. Our commit
tee had to work in an atmosphere of free
dom — free to express personal beliefs, free
to express opinions on budget cuts, and free
to know that whatever a member in our
metting said would not be quoted in the
Battalion. Whenever you cut a depart
ment’s budget, someone’s not going to like
it, and that someone doesn’t need to know
the student that instigated their cuts. I hold
our whole committee accountable for our
actions, not any one individual committee
member. All of our supportive facts that
came out of our closed meeting will be pre
sented to the student senate; therefore, a
M
Guest
Column
closed meeting is irrelevant when the stu
dent senate will be the body that makes the
actual recommendation. You mentioned
the lack of student input on the committee.
If you haven’t forgotten, the Finance Com
mittee is made up solely of students. Our
committee’s recommendation goes to the
student senate; that is where direct student
input is possible. If any of the committee’s
recommendations are felt to be unfair or
unjust, then a student should contact his
senator.
Secondly, I will respond to your claim of
the committee’s “incompetence and lack of
preparation.” During the fall semester, our
committee split up into individual subcom
mittees to make a special effort to get to
know each user’s budget and to visit with
each administrator. Each person met with
the administrator and openly discussed
their budgets. We were prepared for our
meeting, even though it was closed. As for
competence, I will simply speak for myself
and not my committee members. As a
senior I have been involved with these
budgets since I was a freshman. The two
vice presidents before me met with me
James Bom
contract oi
part of the
■ personally at separate times and trained
me for the budgeting process. I have been
a member of the Finance Committee fm
three years. Personally, I know these
budgets better than any other student on
this campus. If you still feel that with this
much experience I am incompetent, thenl
feel you’re shortsighted.
Thirdly, I will respond to the $7 or $1
mix-up. Our committee knew on Saturday
that the possibility of a $7 increase could be
be imminent. As students ourselves, we
simply wanted to look out for the whole
student body, and not raise the fees as
much. We came up with our own estimate
and increased the fee $1, and then disclosed
this to your reporter on Sunday. All the
time, we knew that our estimate had hif
possibilities of being inflated and possibly |
wrong. On Monday I found out our esti- are «
mate was wrong, and on Tuesday we voted I
on the $7 increase. We knew the commit-1
tee’s credibility would be questioned over
this $6 difference, but in the interest of the
students, we felt our credibility was unim
portant when we decided to disclose the$l
increase. Now, after the fact, I can say that
the credibility of our committee has been
hurt, I feel it’s unimportant. What is im
portant is that our allocation to each useris
credible, and we’re willing to justify every
number,
blr
Tracy Cox is a senior finance major, and
Student Government vice president ford-
Felh
appl
gin
198:
It’s your turn
Rah, rah, rah! to Vernon and Rynn
Editor:
As the end of the season draws near, I
wish to thank two individuals for the contri
butions that they have made. I am referring
to Vernon Smith and Rynn Wright. With
the help of these two fine gentlemen, Texas
A&M basketball has come of age. Watching
these two players perform has been a great
enjoyment.
However, pure athletic ability is not all
that they possess. I can think of many out
standing players who I would not want on a
Texas A&M basketball team. They lack an
entity which only some individuals strive
for and few possess. In my opinion, though,
Vernon and Rynn have this entity. They
have class.
The basketball team is now receiving the
respect that it has so long deserved. The
team has made great strides in the last few
years. Hopefully, future players will be able
to push the A&M program to even greater
heights. But, for right now we should
appreciate the efforts that Vernon and Rynn
have made for the last four years. I hope
that Vernon and Rynn enjoyed playing for
Texas A&M as much as I enjoyed watching
them. I want to once again thank them and
wish them much luck in the future.
John J. Collins ’83
The letters to the editor are too few and
the space doesn’t need to be used for more
“Warped Humor!”
While you were “editing” the “Letters’
into the trash, you should have included the
“Hostage Movies” column!
Randy Barron ’81
Trash McCullar!
Editor:
There is one movie that Scott McCullar
left out of yesterday’s Battalion that a lot of
Battalion readers would like to see,
“Warped Meets Psycho” in the shower!
Editor’s note: The death of letters to the
qditor isn’t because we throw them into the
trash; The Battalion runs about 90 percent
of the letters it receives. Any discernible
lack of letters can be attributed to a lackol
reader initiative, not to overzealous cen
sorship.
Warped
By Scott McCullar
The Battalion
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Editor . Dillard Stone within the Department of Communications.
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Asst. City Editor Marcy Boyce LETTERS POUCY
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Scot K Mever Letters to the Editor should not exceed 350 words in
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r? tpj.. c .u rr editorial stan reserves the nght to edit letters lor style and
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Asst Focus Editor ^Susan Hopkins intent Each , etter must a]so be si d show the address
Staff Writers . .. Carolyn Barnes, and phone number of the writer
Jane G. Brust, Terry Duran, Bernie Fette, Columns and guest editorials are also welcome, and are
Cindy Gee, Kathleen McElroy, Belinda McCoy, not subject to the same length constraints as letters.
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