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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 11, 1983)
Texas A&M tahon Serving the University community . 76 No. 185 USPS 045360 8 Pages College Station, Texas Thursday, August 11, 1983 inority enrollment up in vet, med schools by Jennifer Carr Battalion Staff ^Minority enrollment is up in both j«$Bs A&M’s medical schools this • win. although their minority recruit- Jljkat has been directed primarily to- y eras high school and undergradu- te-saidents. Both Lyndon Kurtz of the College ^Jeterinary Medicine and Dr. Wil- “Ward of the College of Medicine that recruitment of minorities medical profession must start in school. Jurtz, assistant to the dean of the ;ge of Veterinary Medicine, says Bimportant to get students in- tr ' limport pted early because if they haven’t begun to prepare themselves in high school and early in college, they may never be competitive in the admis sions process. Ward, associate dean of the Col lege of Medicine, said the best bet in recruiting minorities is starting young. It gives students support and helps them gain confidence that they can get into medical schools and be come doctors. The College of Veterinary Medi cine has admitted two black and five hispanic students to the school this year. While the number of hispanic students has remained fairly con stant, the only other black student to attend the veterinary college was admitted in 1967. The medical school has admitted 11 minorities in a class of 48, includ ing four blacks, one hispanic and six Asians, Ward said. That is a substan tial increase over last year’s minority enrollment of one hispanic and one Asian. Both colleges have stepped up minority recruitment, especially on the high school level, in the last few years. For the first time this year, the Col lege of Veterinary Medicine held a four-day open house for minority high school students from all over the state, Kurtz said. The session was a ‘show and tell’ for students already interested in veterinary medicine, and the program was designed to Ilo bv Hri Bond proposal lall pot Jents, Election to decide CS growth for next 5 years f he Rtissi by Bill Conaway Battalion Reporter On Aug. 13 College Station resi- ents will decide the future of the ^1 growth for the next five years, ^■hey will vote on a $48.2 million as madi yh proposal designed to cover a e, a pnvi! V e|year capital improvements plan. J P ^ he lionds would provide funds for ;ssion inikBjng an( l future expansion of the ties. fadlities and services, ihistorybfjrhe jq bond proposals are divided :rch is M® two sections. The first section KGBai Plains five utility revenue bonds Hh could affect utility rates. The he said,®^ section of the bond proposal indateto«j ns to bonds that would affect nciple yiecity’s tax base. ;f and tlifB'he revenue bonds are targeted wherever■ m p rovements 0 f t be city’s elec ted. U, water and sewer systems. The Hs also would cover ahe city’s cost Participating with developers in ■construction of oversized water ■sewer lines in certain areas. gThe revenue bonds also would pro- ■ funds for the construction of a Q(B utility service center that would X cl W'd 6 additional office and storage 1 Be. The service center would pro- ide a centralized location for better mmainoiBnty of stored materials, nment of® 16 tax base bonds would be used h e gou > r improvements of streets, drain- jie Uni#’ parks and public buildings. fdefens tl B reet improvements throughout .j 0 n bt K city comprise the largest portion ' |n - S up|) f the overall bond proposal, $11.5 Chall ■ ie sent® zone is f* Powers an aircrf ie “nornDj will prt'® secretan million. Street improvements in clude: construction of traffic signals, bus turnouts, gutters, curbs and bridge participation with developers. The construction of Appomattox Drive to serve the subdivisions east of the bypass is outlined as a separate bond issue from street improve ments. Public buildings improvements in clude: construction of a new police building; renovation of the existing police/municipal court building; ex pansion of the Central Fire Station and contruction of a new fire substa tion. Park improvements under the tax base bonds include: building a recrea tion center at Bee Creek Park; overall community and neighborhood park development; renovation of Lincoln Recreation Center; and construction of a maintenance facility at the South- wood Athletic Park presently under construction. The drain improvements call for a master plan for drainage problems facing the city. This proposal pro vides for replacement of the Bee Creek Bridge at Southwest Parkway to make the crossing safer for the heavy traffic flow. Deciding on the 10 bond proposal was not an easy task for the city. Twelve months of hard work by city officals produced the bond package. Elrey Ash, director of capital im provements, said all the bond p als are important. Every propos- one is Josh 113 rook’ don B el s being U T. nAf! fhe n rn in Privy problems photo by Tammy Jones Ion Nelson, director of special programs s|X )r the Texas State Board of Plumbing .julcjol xaminers, demonstrates to fellow belie'* lumbing inspectors the problems that were' uintS' contaminated water causes to city sewage systems. Plumbers from around the state will be here until Friday attending seminars presented by the TSBPE. build on this interest, he said. In addition, he said, the college re cruits through sessions with Texas Southern University and Prairie View A&M University professors to find out about possible qualified appli cants. The college also has contacted high school counselors in Bryan and College Station to find competitive students and let them know about the veterinary school. Ward said the college of medicine currently has a program sponsored through a National Institute of Health grant which allows three local high school minority students to work for 10 weeks in the summer at the medical school. Out of the nine students who have participated in the last three years, Ward said, not one has been a loser, and all have the potential to make it to medical school. About half of the stu dents are from A&M Consolidated High School and the other half are from Bryan High School, but next year, students from Snook High School will be considered. The college also pays five under graduate minority students from Texas A&M to work at the school in the summer in hopes of encouraging them to go to medical school, if not here, then somewhere else. In addition. Ward said the college uses the Office of School Relations as a resource for identifying minority pre-med students. They are then re cruited in the same way as non- minority students. Both Ward and Kurtz emphasized that their colleges do not lower their standards to increase minority enroll ment. Ward said the College of Medicine had done no special recruiting for minority students this year, but attri buted some of the increase to recruit ing success in the Office of School Relations. Students recruited three or four years ago by that office are now looking for professional schools and the medical school is benefiting. Kurtz said he could give no reason for the increase in black enrollment this year except to say that the stu dents admitted were competitive with non-minority students. needed to keep up with the city’s pro jected growth rate, he says. Ash said the city’s professional staff began putting the bond proposal together for review by 16 citizens appointed to the Capital Improve ments Committee. Cindy Urbanik, a housewife and member of the committee, said the group was representative of the com munity, comprised of working women, businessmen, and housing developers. The committee met each night for a week to discuss the bond proposals with each other and city officials. Urbanik said the committee rank ed the proposals using a range of low, medium, and high marks for each proposal. Not one proposal was low enough to be eliminated from the package, she said. After review by the citizen’s com mittee, the bond proposal was sent to the Planning and Zoning Commission for its approval. The College Station City Council was next to review the bond proposal. Aug. 3, Mayor Gary Halter and the council voted on a resolution endors ing the entire bond package. Howev er, some College Station citizens do not support the bond proposal. Jim Gardner, a Texas A&M profes sor of urban and regional planning, said the bond package hinges too much on the city’s growth. see BONDS page 8 Pipe Painting staff photo by Brenda Davidson Alex Neveu, an employee of Lone Star Gas Co. in Bryan, keeps the pipes in shape on campus. Many buildings are receiving special care this summer. Formal speaker not scheduled for Saturday’s commencement by Brigette Crossland Battalion Reporter Approximately 1,300 students will graduate during commencement ex ercises Saturday morning at 9 a.m. in G. Rollie White Coliseum, but this year there will not be a formal speaker. Lane Stephenson, director of pub lic information, says that although a speaker could have been found, the president’s office decided to try to shorten the ceremony. “Of course we could get a com mencement speaker for an institution like A&M,” Stephenson said. “A few individuals were contacted who could not make it, and on this basis it was decided that maybe this would be a good time to try it without one.” Graduating classes at Texas A&M are getting larger and the ceremonies are getting longer. Stephenson said that President Frank E. Vandiver felt that shortening the speaker section of the ceremony would be better than shortening the student participation section. Although there will be' no formal commencement speaker, President Vandiver will address the students for about five minutes. Also, Joe Reynolds of the Board of Regents and A. W. Davis, president of the Associa tion of Former Students will speak. Saturday officer commissions in the armed forces will be awarded to approximately 20 graduates. Lebanese leaders held hostage United Press International BEIRUT, Lebanon — Threatening a new civil war, Druze Moslems today held three Cabinet members hostage to demand the resignation of Presi dent Amin Gemayel, shelled the Beirut airport for a second day, and attacked besieged Lebanese army units. In the Israeli-occupied mountains east of Beirut, the Druze militias traded heavy artillery fire with rival Christian forces and fought with Lebanese troops near the village of Kfar Matta, state-run Beirut radio' said. The Israeli military command ordered an immediate cease-fire to end the open warfare, the Christian Phalange Voice of Lebanon radio said, asking all sides to observe the order. The Lebanese army said one sol dier was killed and two others were wounded. The Voice of Lebanon said two were killed and five wounded. Lebanese Foreign Minister Elie Salem summoned U.S. officials for emergency talks on the deteriorating situation and met with Richard Fair banks, a member of U.S. envoy Robert McFarlane’s mediation team, state-run Beirut radio said. In Jerusalem today, with American efforts to revive the peace process overshadowed by the Beirut fighting, McFarlane met with Israeli leaders to report on his talks in four Arab coun tries on winning the withdrawal of foreign forces from Lebanon. McFarlane met with Prime Minis ter Menachem Begin and Foreign Minister Yitzhak Shamir. He flew in from Beirut Wednesday after meet ing with Salem. A meeting with Gemayel had been canceled. Government sources said the Druze attack began hours after Israeli tanks and troops, which moved into the hills around Lebanese army posi tions Wednesday to stop the fighting, withdrew from the troubled region. Power failure paralyzes New York garment center United Press International NEW YORK — Officials said it may be Monday before power is restored to parts of the world’s largest garment center, blacked out by a fire in an underground substation. Manufac turers, facing huge losses during one of the year’s busiest selling weeks, set up showrooms in hotels, apartments and on sidewalks. Six hundred police officers patrol led the 12-block area, which includes the flagship stores of the Macy’s and Gimbel’s department store chains, Wednesday night to prevent looting. No incidents were reported. A Con Edison spokesman said the blackout, caused by a fire early Wednesday in a power substation 50 feet underground, affected 10,246 businesses and residential customers. Garment center executives pre dicted losses in the millions of dollars. Because of the damage from the fire, which took 16 hours to bring under control, Con Edison officials said power might not be restored to the area until Monday, which would make the blackout the worst since the entire city was left without power in 1977. The fire that caused the blackout was discovered at 1:29 a.m. Wednes day, about an hour after a 75-year-old water main burst at 38th Street and Seventh Avenue, sending water gushing into the substation that houses seven transformers. inside Classified : 6 Local 3 Opinions 2 Sports 7 State 5 forecast Partly cloudy skies today with a 40 percent chance of thundershowers and a high of 92. A 20 percent chance of showers tonight with a low near 73. Partly cloudy Friday with a 30 percent chance of scat tered thundershowers and a high of 91.