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United Press International
EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE,
talif. — Four astronauts flew the
■pace shuttle to a smooth landing at
'■awn today from a $250 million mis-
ffion that proved the Columbia can
igaunch satellites but raised questions
■bout its spacewalking gear.
I The winged space freighter broke
■trough thin clouds and touched
■own at 8:33 a.m. for a flawless con
clusion to its fifth orbital flight.
I Vance Brand, Robert Overmyer,
Boseph Allen and William Lenoir
Bnded just eight minutes after the
Bun rose over the Mojave Desert 60
miles north of Los Angeles.
I “Hey, Roy, are we down now?”
),Bsked co-pilot Overmyer, suggesting
°Bielanding was so smooth he couldn’t
peel it.
I “Absolutely, it was beautiful, and
|ou certainly lived up to your motto
is flight,” replied Roy Bridges in
ouston Control. “Welcome home.”
Bridges was referring to the “We
Jeliver” motto the astronauts
|dopted during their satellite laun-
ling operations.
The Columbia, which now has
aveled more than 10 million miles in
lace, was directed to the 15,000-
lot-long concrete runway used for
b July 4 landing because the'long,
road, normally dry lakebed runways
tere muddy from recent rains.
It came to a stop right in the mid-
lie of the runway, with plenty of un-
sed rollout space ahead of them.
The ship, protected from the fiery
Je-entry heat by a layer of glassy in
sul.ition tiles, slowed from more than
' rSy 'leld’ 000 mph t() the landin g s P eed <)f
J 111 /, fen airliner in less than an hour,
hearing 5 astronauts pre-
lared for the trip home when they
closed the ship’s big payload bay
doors at 4:31 a.m. for the re-entry
back into the atmosphere.
Closure of the 60-foot-long doors
was a key step in landing preparations
and took on even greater significance
after Monday’s space walk cancella
tion. If the doors had failed to close,
Lenoir would have had to walk in
space to close them, wearing a space-
suit that was not working normally.
But — “They are closed and but
toned up,” Overmyer reported.
The five-day, 2.1-million-mile
flight was the fifth mission of the Col
umbia in 19 months and the last for
nearly a year. The $1.2 billion ship
will be modified at the Kennedy
Space Center in Florida for launch
next Oct. 30, when it will carry a big
European-built laboratory module
called Spacelab and a six-man crew.
Columbia set out on its initial oper
ational mission when it took off from
Cape Canaveral Thursday. It laun
ched the first of two commercial com
munications satellites eight hours la
ter and deployed the second Friday.
Those dual launchings were the
primary objective of the mission and
they demonstrated the Columbia can
serve both as a space freighter and a
stable launching platform high above
the Earth.
The one big disappointment was
the cancellation of a planned two-
man, 3!/2-hour space walk Monday
because of troubles with the $2 mil
lion spacesuits the astronauts were to
wear outside.
Project officials said it was possible
one could be added to a 1983 mission
to test the suits and rehearse satellite
repair operations.
staff photo by Irene Mees
Readin’ and ridin’
Dungeons and Dragons can be obsessive, so much so
that its devotees can’t put it down. In fact, freshman
Mike Kana of El Campo reads the rules of the fantasy
role-playing game even while riding his bicycle. Kana is
an electrical engineering major.
College Station, Texas
Tuesday, November 16, 1982
Rudder Exhibit Hall, usually deserted, wasn’t empty
Monday morning, as shown in this photo, shot through
a wide-angle lens. Pre-registration started, and so did the
crowding inside — and outside — Rudder. Students
above are waiting to turn in their card packets.
Pre-registration continues through Friday.
A&M grades not inflated: deans
GPRs rise as SAT falls
by Kathleen Hart
Battalion Reporter
College diplomas may mean less
than they once did because of grade
inflation — higher grades for lower
quality work — which decreases the
value and reliability of a grade.
But Dr. Terry . Shoup, assistant
dean of the College of Engineering,
says Texas A&M University doesn’t
have a major grade inflation problem.
“We’ve always strived for a high
level of excellence in our programs,
and it’s possible that while the grades
may be easier to get, our programs
may have gotten more difficult so the
net effect is the same,” he said.
Scores on the Scholastic Aptitude
Test have declined consistently for 15
years — rising slightly this year for the
first time. But grades here have risen
during the same 15-year period,
which many University officials trans
late to mean grades are being in
flated.
Dr. Rand Watson, associate dean of
the College of Science, said grade in
flation occurs because some profes
sors grade on a curve that changes
with the quality of the students.
Dr. Bryan Cole, associate dean of
the College of Education, said grad
ing curves are outdated quickly by
changing technology, changing en
vironments and an increase in the
amount of information to which peo
ple are exposed.
If grades rise at an institution, it’s
because “the folks that we have com
ing here are much better prepared
than they have been in the past,” Cole
said.
Higher admission standards have
been aimed at increasing the number
of better-prepared students here.
Standards for honor graduates also
have been raised. A student must
have a grade point ratio of 3.5 to
3.699 to graduate cum laude. Before
the change in May, cum laude gradu
ates needed a GPR of 3.25 to 3.699.
Dr. Charles McCandless, interim
vice president for academic affairs,
said grade inflation didn’t cause the
changes; students asked for them.
“I think there was concern that
there might be a demeaning of the
coin,” he said. “That if there were too
many students graduating with hon
ors, then graduating with honors be
came less meaningful.”
Other standards also have been
raised.
The College of Engineering re
cently raised the minimum require
ments students need to enroll in
junior- and senior-level courses.
Dr. Candida Lutes, associate dean
of students for the College of Liberal
Arts, said standards for honor gradu
ates and enrollment in upper-level
courses must be high or the “really
good students are penalized because
graduate schools and employers can’t
tell them from the mediocre stu
dents.”
For many employers and graduate
schools, individual grades may not be
as important as the general trend of a
student’s grades.
Louis J. Van Pelt, director of the
Texas A&M Placement Center, said
some students even draw graphs for
prospective employers showing a
general increase in their grades
throughout their college career.
The student’s GPR often is com
pared with the average GPR for the
school in which the student is enrolled
because some grades can be above av
erage at some schools and below aver
age at others, Van Pelt said.
Dr. William Ward, associate dean
of the College of Medicine, said the
medical school often looks at the
number of Q-drops a person has.
Those drops often indicate that a stu
dent is trying to manipulate the sys
tem to get an A instead of a B in a
class, he said.
Van Pelt said extracurricular activi
ties also are considered by employers
and graduate Schools, but grades
make the difference.
“One could expect a higher likeli
hood of employer offers versus inter
views as his grade point average goes
up, but that’s a generalization because
not every candidate is right for every
job any more than every job is right
for every candidate,” he said. “A per
son can generate a flush (rejection)
letter with a 2.0 or a 4.0.”
Lutes said employers and graduate
schools are “going to be a little bit
leery of someone who manages to
scrape through with a 2.0.” But if a
person can “land that first job, even
with lousy grades, and if fie can do
well in that job, then he has undone
the damage of low grades,” she said.
Shoup said grades often are the
only measurable indicator available.
Watson said such factors as bad
teachers, illness and emotional prob
lems average out over a student’s col
lege career, and the overall record are
reliable when judging the academic
ability of a student.
“We try to hire good people and we
constantly evaluate their teaching abi
lities,” he said. “These procedures
assure that the grading system will be
more or less uniform, consistent and
fair.”
Walesa visits friends, dodges press
United Press International
GDANSK, Poland — Former Solidarity chief
Lech Walesa, welcomed home by jubilant suppor
ters and tearful family members after 11 montfis of
martial law internment, left his apartment Monday
to meet with friends and former union advisers.
Family sources said Walesa dodged reporters by
ducking into other buildings in the big high-rise
suburb where he lives, leaving home to visit his
former chauffeur, Miatek Wacfiowski, who is ailing
in a Gdansk hospital.
Walesa returned to his six-room apartment to
meet with reporters, flanked by former Solidarity
advisers Andrzej Wielowiejski and Wladyslaw Sila
Nowicki, as well as his family priest, Rev. Henryk
Jankowski.
Mrs. Walesa said her husband told her he had
been held in Warsaw for more than a day after his
release while he was lectured by Polish officials on
martial law.
The former union chief had dropped from sight
for more than 24 hours after officials announced
he left the government lodge in remote Arlamowo
on the southeast border.
Walesa, who arrived home Sunday, did not try to
explain the absence. But he said the final order for
his release was not signed until Sunday night.
Polish authorities, in an official PAP news agency
report on Walesa’s return, stressed that he was a
private person now and suggested they would not
allow him to take up a political role.
But Walesa, in a speech Sunday from his apart
ment window to a crowd of thousands of Poles
chanting his name, insisted, “We shall win.
“We will need strength,” Walesa said, his fingers
raised in a V-for-victory sign. “We won’t be down
on our knees.”
But he never mentioned Solidarity, the trade
union he led until it was banned by parliament Oct.
8.
Nuke plant ‘whistle-blower’
fired three times this year
United Press International
DALLAS — A man who says he is
being blacklisted by the nuclear in
dustry because he reports safety viola
tions was fired from his third job this
year at a nuclear power plant.
The third firing, like the previous
two, has been ruled illegal by the U.S.
Department of Labor.
A spokesman for the Labor De
partment said Monday that Charles
A. Atchison was dismissed in violation
of the federal law designed to protect
“whistleblowers.”
Atchison was fired from the Com
anche Peak nuclear power plant near
Glen Rose on April 12 and from the
Waterford III nuclear power plant
near Taft, La., hours after he was
hired on Sept. 27.
In both cases, the Labor Depart
ment ruled the firings were a result of
testimony Atchison gave to a federal
board about alleged safety problems
at Comanche Peak.
Atchison told the U.S. Atomic Safe
ty and Licensing Board about sup
posed safety defects at the controver
sial Texas plant.
The third firing happened in Au
gust by Mercury of Northwood Inc., a
subcontractor at the Louisiana plant.
The Labor Department has also ruled
that the firing was illegal because it
was in punishment for Atchison’s tes
timony.
Atchison said he was fired from his
Comanche Peakjob for reporting too
many pipe welding flaws.
“They’re essentially trying to black
ball him from the nuclear industry,”
said Atchison’s lawyer, J. Marshall
Gilmore. “It’s a situation where a guy
is being blackballed for doing a good
job.”
All three companies have denied
charges of wrongdoing. The three
also fiave appealed the rulings by the
Labor Department.
inside
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forecast
Mostly cloudy with a 20 percent
chance of rain. Highs in the 60s,
with southeast winds near 10
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Cloudy tonight with a 40 percent
chance of rain. Low tonight
in the
upper 50s.