T—
The Battalion
Serving the University community
'ol 76 No. 001 USPS 045360 20 Pages College Station, lexas Wednesday, September 1, 1982
^andiver reflects on first year
staff photos by Octavio Garcia
University President Frank E. Vandiver discusses his administration after a year in office.
by Denise Richter
Battalion Staff
l)r. Frank E. Vandiver has been
exas A&M’s president one year to-
lay. And after 365 days in office, he
ees a University:
Bursting at the seams with stu-
lents.
In dire need of an expanded com-
>uter system.
Blessed with impressive faculty and
mthusiastic students.
Defining the role of athletics.
Searching for a vice president for
Bdemic affairs.
■To say that I am impressed with
in all its facets is an understate-
nent,” Vandiver said. “But it does
jjjve problems and one of the most
wious is that we are facing an enroll
ment crunch.' And our new attempt to
mnage the enrollment by raising en-
■nce standards doesn’t seem to be
tliwing things down very much."
■Noofficialenrollment figures have
len compiled, but University offi-
pls have predicted this semester’s
enrollment will reach 36,000, surpas
sing last fall’s record enrollment of
sli. htly more than 35,000.
x But Vandiver said he knows why
jj|e enrollment hasn’t slowed down.
j||“How do you knock a good thing?”
ht said. “A&M has become very well
jlceived among all Texas high
Bools. It’s become the place to go.”
B Unfortunately, Texas A&M’s
popularity is causing problems with
registration.
“Our first problem is to get some
administrative computing figured
out so the registration process doesn’t
crater on us,” Vandiver said. “We’ve
got to bring registration into the 20th
century. We have an old system, an
old set of software that we’ve patched
and taped and glued and cut time
after time and it’s about to go down
the tubes.
"I think the people who work in
(registration) are heroic — they’re
doing the process themselves.
They’re making a quill pen do the
work of a modern computer.”
But replacing those “quill pens”
won’t be cheap. Software and hard
ware for a computer programmed for
registration will cost about $1.5 mil
lion, Vandiver said. Using the hard
ware already in place at the Data Pro
cessing Center will bring the cost
down to about $750,000, he said.
But usin£ the DPC presents prob
lems, he said.
“We have a fine computer center
with two great big Amoahls but we
have problems with access ... because
the University does not control the
computer center,” he said. “It is run
by the Texas Engineering Experi
ment Station and not by us. So we are
tenants there; we hire the equipment,
and the rates are high.”
System officials are studying ways
to eliminate access and cost problems,
he said.
Vandiver speaks frequently of
making Texas A&M a world universi
ty. And one way this can be done is by
hiring “stellar” faculty who will “move
their college into international prom
inence,” he said.
“I’d like to see us in the next five
years try to hire at least 20 very dis
tinguished faculty members in all
fields and work very carefully with
the deans to see where we need them
the most,” Vandiver said.
Once again, money enters the pic
ture, he said.
“Each one of these are going to re
quire a chair; and chairs are no longer
cheap — anything under a million
dollars won’t do it,” he said. “Right
there, you’re talking about $20 mil
lion. But you’re also talking about all
that goes with it ... lab equipment,
graduate students, post-doctoral stu
dents, space and research funds. So
around each chair you’re talking ab
out another million dollars to put the
man in place.”
And money also must be spent to
keep current faculty members at
Texas A&M, Vandiver said.
“The worst thing that can happen
in a period of development is that
you’re galloping off to bring in all
these new people and you just leave
the old people in the dust,” he said.
“So we’ve got to be sure we’ve got
money to keep these people produc
tive and happy.”
One thing that may make faculty
members happy is the creation of a
faculty senate, ne said.
The move to establish a faculty sen
ate began in May 1981. The final
draft of a faculty senate constitution
has been completed and the faculty is
expected to vote on it this semester.
“There’s some division of opinion
over whether there ought to be a fa
culty senate,” Vandiver said. “But it
seems to me to be the best way to get
faculty participation in University
governance, which A&M badly
needs.”
The Academic Council is the only
University-wide body dealing with
academic matters. The Council pri
marily is made up of administrators,
deans and department heads — only
34 of the 16/ members are elected
faculty members.
A bicameral governing body, with a
faculty senate and the Academic
Council, had been proposed. But the
proposed faculty senate constitution
calls for a unicameral body.
“What I’m hoping for is to reconsti
tute the Academic Council into some
thing that misfit be called an adminis
trative council,” Vandiver said. “We
could have all the administrators on
that ... and have all the faculty repre
sentation through the faculty senate.
see VANDIVER page 16
Panel agrees on insanity defense changes
United Press International
; NEW ORLEANS — A panel
agreed Tuesday there is dire need for
tightening the insanity defense —
which onepanelist called “the stone in
the shoe or the criminal justice system
— and making all criminals account
able for their acts.
| Abraham Halpern, a New York
psychiatrist who is president-elect of
the American Academy of Psychiatry
and the Law, called for abolition of
the insanity plea, saying it does harm
to the victim, the suspect and to
society.
Arkansas Attorney General Steve
Clark said a “guilty, but mentally ill”
verdict should be available to a jury,
while District Attorney Arthur “Gap
py” Eads of Belton, Texas, said use of
the insanity plea should be tightened.
Maxene Kleier, a Florida woman
whose mentally ill daughter killed
another daughter and was found in
nocent by reason of insanity, said the
entire system for treating mentally ill
people must be changed.
Much of the discussion at the
Southern Legislative Conference cen
tered around the recent acquittal of
John Hinckley, who successfully
argued he was insane when he shot
President Reagan and three Other
men in Washington in 1981.
“You’re going to have more Hinc-
kleys. You’re putting them on the
street,” said Kleier, who claimed doc
tors tried to release her daughter
within a few months after she stabbed
her sister to death.
“I will never let my daughter out
until she can look me in the eye and
say, ‘I killed my sister.’”
Kleier said mentally ill people who
commit crimes should be treated
while institutionalized and not be re
leased until they are able to cope in
society. Treatment of the mentally ill
is now worthless, she said.
Kleier and Clark agreed the ver
dict of “guilty, but mentally ill” should
be available to a jury, so a defendant
acquitted of a crime because of insan
ity cannot quickly be released from an
institution.
The insanity defense now allows
an Arkansas criminal to walk free an
average of 48 days after conviction,
Clark said.
“If you are committed (today), you
will be out in time for Halloween,
trick-or-treating,” Clark said.
Eads, district attorney for Bell and
Lampasas counties in Texas, said
psychiatrists should not be allowed to
make the moral decisions intended
forjudges, jurors and legislators. The
burden of proof in an insanity case
should be on the defendant, he said.
“When someone escapes accounta
bility for their actions, it strikes at the
very basis of our legal system and our
society,” Eads said. “The insanity de
fense has become the stone in the
shoe of the criminal justice system.”
Halpern said the insanity defense
should be abolished because it pro
vides a chance for serious abuse of
psychiatry and creates a stigma for all
mentally ill people, who are regarded
as criminals.
“Abolition of the insanity defense
would also benefit the public,” Hal
pern said, “because it assures the gov
ernment maintains control of a man
who has broken the law.”
A farewell to arms
The retirement of Corps Commandant James
Woodall was honored with a cannon salute and
ceremony on the main drill field Tuesday. From
left, new Corps Commandant Donald Burton,
Corps Commander Mike Holmes and Woodall
inspect the cadets. Woodall served as comman
dant of the Texas A&M Corps of Cadets for five
years.
Recovery ‘under way,’
government, others say
United Press International
WASHINGTON — The government’s leading econo
mic indicators rose for the fourth straight month in July,
and the Administration said Tuesday that means recov
ery from the recession is “indeed under way.”
The composite index of leading indicators was up 1.3
percent in July and promises to show sharp improvement
in August because of the stock market surge, the Com
merce Department reported.
“The July increase provides an encouraging sign that
an economic recovery of at least moderate strength is
indeed under way,” Deputy Press Secretary Larry
Speakes told reporters in Santa Barbara, Calif., where
President Reagan is vacationing.
It was the strongest White House assertion yet that the
recession has ended.
President Reagan first declared the nation to be in
recession Oct. 11 and independent analysts later said it
actually had begun in July 1981.
For the first time the administration’s prediction of
better times ahead is supported from several indepen
dent directions.
Stock market performance, interest rate declines and
the views of most private forecasters in addition to the
composite index of future trends all point to an improve
ment of some dimension near the end of the year.
The Dow Jones average of selected industrial stocks
soared to a 12-month high Monday and kept improving
on Tuesday.
Jerry Jasinowski, chief economist of the National Asso
ciation of Manufacturers, said, “These latest figures pro
vide further evidence that we are on the road to economic
activity.”
More optimistic was Jack Albertine, president of the
American Business Conference, a lobbying group repre
senting high growth companies listed on the American
stock exchange. “The substantial increase shows that the
recovery is gaining strength,” he said. .
Private forecaster Michael Evans, now chief economist
of a New York securities dealer, McMahon, Brafman,
Morgan and Company, agreed the recovery is on the way,
but predicted it will be brief: “The indicators are pretty
strong now. We are going to have a recovery and it’s going
to last all of two quarters.”
Seven of the 10 available indicators that influence the
composite index showed improvement in July and three
were negative, including stock prices which turned
around in a record rally in August.
The indicators showing improvement were led upward
by an increase in building permits. Also improved was the
length of the average workweek.
New unemployment insurance claims decreased.
Orders for consumer goods adjusted for inflation went
up, as did orders for factory equipment.
Polish riots mark
Solidarity’s anniversary
United Press International
WARSAW, Poland — Riot police
using concussion grenades, tear gas
and water cannons clashed Tuesday
' with thousands of Poles who defied
martial law and marched in nine cities
to mark Solidarity’s second anniver
sary. Several hundred arrests were re
ported.
Officials said injuries had been re
ported but gave no details.
Some of the protesters chanted
“Gestapo, Gestapo” and “Free Lech
Walesa” in the rallies that defied repe
ated government warnings it would
use full force to break up protests cal
led by the suspended union’s under
ground leaders.
The official news agency PAP re
ported hundreds were arrested, in
cluding Zbigniew Romaszewski, dire
ctor of the clandestine Solidarity
Radio who had been in hiding since
martial law was imposed last Dec. 13.
Security forces also cut intercity
E hone links, slapped a curfew on the
ey southwestern city of Wroclaw and
planned similar measures in other re
gions.
In Warsaw, angry young demon
strators among 20,000 protesters
hurled rocks and occasionally gaso
line bombs from behind improvised
barricades before riot police battled
back with tear gas.
Street clashes raged until 11 p.m. in
Gdansk, Solidarity’s birthplace. Police
broke up the last barricade there by
firing tear gas at youths holding
Molotov cocktails at a barricade 300
yards from the suspended trade un
ion’s headquarters, where someone
placed a lighted candle and a bouquet
of flowers on the doorstep.
An Interior Ministry spokesman
claimed the rallies were a blow to Soli
darity because fewer than 100,000
people participated nationwide — a
small fraction of Solidarity’s 10 mil
lion members.
“Despite good preparation and
propaganda, the organizers of the de
monstrations did not manage to
achieve their aim,” he said. “The fact
that workers did not take part, that
there were no strikes, is important.”
The underground leaders of the
suspended trade union did not im
mediately offer an assessment of the
protests. They had staked the future
of the movement on a massive
turnout.
The U.S. State Department said
the second anniversary demonstra
tions showed “once again that repre
ssion will not solve Poland’s prob
lems” and wished Solidarity “a long,
fruitful and successful life.”
The Soviet Union condemned
them, however, and hinted the result
would be an extension and tightening
of the martial law imposed in Poland
last Dec. 13.
“Today’s developments in Poland
showed the anti-socialist under
ground forces who were dealt a se
rious blow as a result of the introduc
tion of martial law are not fully
broken as yet,” the official news agen
cy Tass said in Moscow.
As military helicopters circled
overhead and columns of armored
vehicles rumbled through city streets,
peaceful rallies erupted into near
riots.
In Wroclaw, Warsaw and Nowa
Huta, the Krakow suburb that is
home of the giant Lenin Steel Works,
thousands of demonstrators fought
back as authorities tried to disperse
them, hurling rocks at police from
behind improvised barricades.
Fighting also was reported in
Gdansk, site of the Lenin shipyard
Strike that ended when the govern
ment sanctioned Solidarity on Aug.
31,1980, making it the East bloc’s first
independent trade union.
The boom of concussion grenades
echoed through city streets in Warsaw
and Gdansk, but government spokes
man Jerzy Urban told an evening
news conference, “I can assure you
that before today is over there will be
calm all over the country.”
Peaceful pro-Solidarity demon
strations were held in New York City
and in at least two cities in West Ger
many.
The Gdansk clashes still were going
on three hours after riot police used
tear gas and water cannons to dis
perse more than 5,000 shipyard
workers gathered at a monument
commemorating workers killed in
December 1970 riots.
Barricades were set up and one
building was briefly set afire. A wit
ness said it was the residence of the
Rev. Henryk Jankowski, priest of in
terned Solidarity chief Lech Walesa.
One soldier apologized to a de
monstrator, “If you were in my posi
tion, you would obey orders too.”
inside
Classified 8
National 10
Opinions 2
Sports 17
State 5
Whatsup 4
forecast
Today’s Forecast: Same as usual.
Very slight chance of afternoon
showers. High in the high 90s, low
in the mid-70s.