Battalion
Serving the Texas A&M University community
Vol. 75 No.
20 Pages
Thursday, September 3, 1981
College Station, Texas
USPS 045 360
Phone 845-2611
The Weather
Today
Tomorrow
High
88 High
... .90
Low
75 Low
....75
Chance of rain.
30% Chance of rairi. . .
. . 30%
Corps Commander Kelly Castleberry, Dr.
Charles H. Samson, Samson’s wife, Ruth, and
Dr. John Koldus, vice president for student
services, review the Texas A&M Corps of
Cadets Wednesday during a passby
recognizing Samson’s service to the
University. During a dinner with the Corps
following the passby, Samson, who was the
University acting president until Tuesday, was
also presented with an honorary saber.
150 need temporary shelters
No-shows forfeit rooms
to walk-ins and triples
By DENISE RICHTER
Battalion Staff
All students who were originally
assigned three-to-a-room in Texas A&M
residence halls have been assigned to
permanent quarters.
The 100 women who were assigned
three-to-a-room in Clements Hall and
the 85 men who were tripled in North
and Central areas’ Corps-style dormi
tories and in the Commons Area all have
been assigned to new spaces on campus.
A large number of no-shows (stu
dents who sign up for an on-campus
space but never claim it) made it possi
ble for all “triplets” to be assigned to
two-to-a-room quarters.
“Everyone who was tripled has
moved or is in the process of moving, ”
said Dena Todd, housing services su
pervisor.
A greater number of no-shows than
triples has created some vacancies in
both the men’s and women’s dorms, she
said.
These spaces will be filled by walk-
ins, people who didn’t receive a dorm
space but who are still interested in on-
campus housing. Those assignments
will be made Friday starting at 1 p.m.
Priority for these on-campus spaces
will be determined by the date the ori
ginal application was filed, Todd said.
For example, a student who filed his
campus housing application in January
will have priority over a student who
filed his application in June.
However, starting next year, stu
dents who file their applications early
will be given no special consideration. A
lottery system will be used to assign
residence hall spaces.
The female athletes who were tripled
in Mosher Hall earlier this week also
have been moved into permanent quar
ters.
Linda K. Don, assistant athletic dire
ctor for women, said: “There were four
female athletes that we didn’t have
space for in the basement (of Mosher).
We tripled four women until spaces in
the basement opened.
“There was no emergency. We could
have put them on the second, third or
fourth floors. We decided to triple them
instead and they were moved into
rooms in the basement Monday and
Tuesday.”
For two years female athletes have
been assigned to rooms in the basement
of Mosher in order for them to live
together.
Reagan sticks to his guns
United Press International
CHICAGO — President Reagan is challenging the Soviets
to negotiate legitimate reductions in nuclear arsenals or face
an arms race “they can’t win. ”
Fired up at an Illinois Republican fund-raising gathering
Wednesday night, Reagan also pledged no retreat from his
military build-up despite announced plans to cut Pentagon
spending by a total of $30 billion in fiscal 1983 and 1984.
The president remained overnight in Chicago to address
the AFL-CIO of Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners at
their 100th anniversary convention and aides indicated a cool
reception could be awaiting him because of his tough hand
ling of the air controllers’ strike.
Reagan was to return to Washington later today.
The president was met by boos and chants from more than
100 picketing controllers when he arrived in Chicago from
Los Angeles Wednesday.
In remarks prepared for delivery at the union convention,
Reagan defended the firing of 11,400 controllers on grounds
they broke their no-strike oath with the federal government.
“The American Federation of Labor supported municipal,
county, state and federal employees when they decided to
organize,” Reagan said. “But from the very first, organized
labor predicated its support and help on the premise public
employees do not have the right to strike.”
The president denied being a union buster. “Some people
forget I was the first man to achieve this high office after
having been president of an AFL-CIO union,” he said in
reference to his six terms as president of the Screen Actors
Guild, noting he led the guild “in its first major strike.”
In his remarks to his fellow Republicans Wednesday,
Reagan appeared particularly irked by a Washington Post
article that indicated he was retreating on promises to vastly
increase military spending.
He explained that although cuts are projected for the
Defense Department, he intends to keep his commitment to
7 percent real annual growth in military spending to restore
“defensive capability.”
At the same time, he said, “we are going to continue to
urge” the Soviets “to sit down with us in a program of realistic,
strategic arms reductions.”
“But it will be the first time we will ever have sat on our
side of the table and let them know there is a new chip on the
table,” Reagan said. “And that chip is: There will be legiti
mate arms reduction, verifiable arms reductions, or they will
be in an arms race they can’t win.”
Local crime stoppers program
seeking community sponsor
!
Riverside cities evacuated
United Press International
VICTORIA — Another round of
pounding rains posed the threat of addi
tional flooding in watersoaked portions
of south central and southeast Texas ear-
Jy today.
I Water from upriver rains that pushed
the Guadalupe River to its second high-
’ est level in history worked its way past
the city late Wednesday, leaving 150
t people in need of temporary shelters.
No deaths or injuries were reported.
However, the National Weather Ser
vice at 4 a.m. reported thunderstorms
ranging across an area bounded by Col-
! lege Station, Laredo, Seguin, Lampas-
sas, Victoria, and Alice.
A flash flood watch was issued for
I Burnett, Williamson, Goliad, LaVaca,
: | Jackson, Victoria and Travis counties.
Pre-dawn storms dumped between 6
and 8 inches of rain north of Liberty
Hill, touching off flooding in sections of
western Williamson and eastern Burnet
counties, the weather service said.
Heavy thunderstorms also hit the
San Antonio area, causing some flood
ing of low lying areas.
Early morning thundershowers also
prompted a flash flood watch for a por
tion of north Texas south of a line from
Kileen to Palestine to Marshall.
The flooding began earlier this week
when a tropical depression drifted in
land and triggered heavy thunder
storms.
The water from the 19-inch down
pours caused officials in cities along the
Guadalupe and Lavaca rivers to evacu
ate people from low lying areas. The
final city threatened by the swelling wa
terways was Victoria, just up from
where the Guadalupe empties into the
Gulf of Mexico.
“This the second worst they’ve re
corded,” said Victoria County deputy
Claude Hawkins. “The highest was in
1936. I don’t recall the river ever going
above 31 feet.”
For several hours Wednesday the
Guadalupe ran at 31.1 feet. At 4 a.m.
today the Guadalupe was at 30.2 feet
and was expected to crest at 30.5 feet,
the weather service said.
Today’s forecast called for showers
and thunderstorms over most of south
central and east Texas. Barring ex
tended heavy rains, the weather service
said, it appeared the worst of the flood
ing was over for sections hit the hardest
earlier in the week.
Fall semester
deadlines
approaching
Friday is the last day for Texas
A&M students to add new courses to
their class schedules. It is also the
last day for students to enroll in the i
University for fall semester classes.
The following is a list of other fall
semester dates and deadlines for stu
dents, faculty and staff to mark on
their calendars:
Sept. 11 — deadline for applying
for undergraduate and graduate de
grees to be awarded in December
Sept. 15 — last day for dropping
courses with no record
Oct. 2 — last day for dropping
courses with no penalty (Q-drop)
Oct. 19 — mid-semester grade
reports
Nov. 26-29 inclusive — Thank
sgiving holidays
Dec. 11 — last day offall semester
classes; commencement
Dec. 12 — commencement
Dec. 14 — first day offall semester
exams
Dec. 18 — last day offall semester
exams
Spring semester classes will begin
Jan. 18, 1982.
Bible required textbook
for archaeology class
More than two dozen Texas A&M stu
dents will be totin’ Bibles to class this
fall — not as a religious text, but as a
historical reference for a new class
which will explore ancient civilizations
in the Holy Land.
Response to the course has been ter
rific, said course instructor Dr. Bruce
Dickson, an anthropologist.
Dickson said he’s not sure how much
of the interest in the class has been spur
red by the movie “Raiders of the Lost
Ark,” which depicts the search for a
Hebrew religious artifact in Egypt as
World War II approaches.
But Dickson, who went to high
school with “Raiders” star Harrison
Ford in Chicago, half jokingly says the
“rob-and-run” approach to archaeology
taken by the film “could set the profes
sion back 100 years.”
Dickson has emphasized to students
that the class will not approach the Bible
on a spiritual basis, but as a valuable
contemporary account of the events in
Palestine, Syria, Mesopotamia and
Egypt—the “fertile crescent” that gave
rise to civilization as it is known today.
The archaeological period studied
will include the years from about 8000
B.C. to just before the birth of Christ
and the arrival of Roman legions in the
area.
“This course is designed to introduce
the interested student to the archaeolo
gy of the Near East which figures prom
inently in the Old Testament,” Dickson
said.
He said the class will steer away from
being too technical and could be taken
by any student with no prerequisites.
Dickson said no one can really under
stand the history and archaeology of
Palestine without understanding the
role of Egypt and Mesopotamia, but
that the Bible is often lacks details on
surrounding civilizations.
“The Bible mentions in detail events
in Palestine, but not those in the rest of
the Near East,” he explained. “It’s like
trying to learn American history by
studying only the history of Texas. ”
To compensate, the class will also use
texts by two of the world’s foremost au
thorities on Near East archaeology,
“Archaeology in the Holy Land” by
Kathleen Kenyon and “The Rise of Civi
lization” by Charles Redman.
The problems of trying to identify
such Biblical peoples as the Canaanites,
Moabites and Philistines will also be
discussed, he added.
By DENISE RICHTER
Battalion Staff
Crime Stoppers, the program geared
toward public involvement in the fight
against crime, needs a sponsor in the
Brazos Valley.
University Police Chief Russ McDo
nald called a press conference in July to
acquaint representatives of law enforce
ment agencies and the media with the
proposed Crime Stoppers program and
how it would work in the Brazos Valley.
However, no action has yet been
taken to implement the program.
“Most Crime Stoppers programs
have gotten started through the local
chamber of commerce,” McDonald
said. “The Brazos County program
would be no different — it would have
to depend on private donations of
money, office space and typewriters.
No city or state money would be used. ”
“The delay lies in the (Bryan-College
Station) Chamber of Commerce,”
McDonald said. “I had a meeting with
two people from the Chamber of Com
merce and ... they said they would
bring it up during their next meeting.
They met Aug. 25 and again today
(Tuesday) but never brought it up.
“They (the Chamber of Commerce)
don’t have to support Crime Stoppers. I
suppose this could be done without
their support. Any organization could
get behind this and help provide the
office space and equipment.
“But, all we can say right now is that
the program is in the mill — it’s not
going anywhere until we get support
from some civic organization. ”
Steve Melton, chairman of the public
recognition committee of the Chamber
of Commerce, said the plan would be
brought up before the Chamber’s ex
ecutive committee in two weeks.
“I’ll make my recommendation (to
the executive committee) then,” Mel
ton said. “I’m very high on the project
— it seems like it would be a great thing
for our area. But, the executive commit
tee has to make the final decision.”
During its five-year history, the
nationwide Crime Stoppers program
has compiled an impressive set of statis
tics. More than 6,000 felonies have
been solved, 2,071 defendants have
been brought to trial, 2,059 convictions
have been made (a conviction rate of
99.4 percent) and $19.5 million worth of
property has been recovered.
As proposed, the local Crime Stop
pers program would have a civilian
board of directors who would oversee
general operations and would decide
how to administer the reward funds.
The county sheriff*s office would fur
nish one criminal deputy to be the pro
ject coordinator. The deputy would be a
non-voting member of the board and
would serve as a liaison between the
police departments, the board of dire
ctors and the news media.
Initially, the program will deal with
unsolved felonies including homicides,
rapes, armed robberies, burglaries,
aggravated assaults and arsons, McDo
nald said.
Each week, a specific unsolved crime
would be selected as the crime of the
week by the board of directors and a
$1,000 cash reward offered for informa
tion leading to the arrest and indictment
of the criminal.
The crime of the week is then re
enacted during a television news broad
cast, on the radio and in newspaper arti
cles.
Anyone contacting the Crime Stop
pers office with information about the
crime is given a code number. If the tip
leads to the arrest and indictment of the
criminal, the board of directors then
decides how much to pay the informant.
The informant’s code number is
broadcast over television, radio and in
the newspapers so that the informant
can then contact the Crime Stoppers
office to be paid. Complete anonymity
is guaranteed, McDonald said.
The Crime Stoppers program was
started in Albuquerque, N.M. in 1976.
It is now used in more than 90 cities.
Texas cities with Crime Stoppers prog
rams include Austin, El Paso, Dallas,
Houston, Waco and San Marcos.