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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 17, 1983)
Wednesday, August 17,19837The Battalion/Page 3 Council discusses Highway 30 future llJ by Tim Widdison | | Battalion Reporter ^ Round 1. In the near corner stands Mike Martinsen, owner i ( of Mike’s Discount Liquor, rep- n nA , resenting merchants from the Woodstone and Post Oak Vil lage shopping centers. ie greate: fc. , u . •pelertinn 1 t “ e °pP osl te corner stands Elrev Ash, College Station dire- , ctor of capital improvements, representing the city staff. Hart andili comb H In a ver bal struggle that •ii | could determine the future of fexas Highway 30, also known as Harvey Road, Martinsen and ‘ or P ! Ash presented their views to the ie realitn*:; College Station City Council last Thursday on the recently con structed raised medians in the middle of the highway between Munson and Dartmouth in tersections. The two intersections were designed by the city staff, Ash said. The state highway depart ment already has installed the medians, but the traffic signals will not be installed for about three months. The two intersections were designed to operate like one in tersection which has been split and separated by 300 feet, Ash said. The medians are the most effective and safest method of handling the large amount of traffic in the area, Ash said. However, because of the de sign of the intersections, there is no left turn lane off Highway 30 westbound at the Munson in tersection and no left turn lane off Highway 30 eastbound at the Dartmouth intersection. Also, cars coming off Munson or Dartmouth streets cannot go straight across Highway 30, but must merge into Highway 30 in the same way they do at the in tersection of Dominic street and Texas Avenue. As a result of this design, en try to Post Oak Village and Woodstone shopping centers is restricted, Martinsen said. For cars having to turn left to enter either shopping center, the only way into the centers is to turn left before reaching the center or to turn left after pas sing the center, Martinsen said. Many drivers won’t bother with taking the indirect route, he said, but instead will drive on to the next business down the street. Martinsen said he and the other merchants feel that would hurt business. Martinsen and other mer chants then proposed other ways to construct the intersec tions, but all proposals were dis missed by the city staff as not workable for the situation in volved. “All this could have been solved many years ago if Dart mouth had been lined up with Munson to begin with,” Ash said. Mayor Gary Halter said that wasn’t done because of the con cern that once Dartmouth is connected with the east bypass, the potential would have existed for another cross town road from University Drive to the East bypass through the middle of town. . Halter urged the council to consider the needs of the mer chants, the movement of traffic on a heavily-traveled road and the safety of motorists when making their decision. Halter and councilmen Vicky Reinke, Pat Boughton and Lynn Mcllhaney voted in favor of con tinuing construction of the in tersections. Councilmen Gary Anderson and Alvin Prause voted against continuing construction because they felt an alternate plan for the intersection should be de veloped. The council agreed to study the situation after two months to see if other modifications are possible. Councilman Mcllhaney said she was concerned that the in tersections would not have traf fic signals for three months. She felt students coming back to town in the fall would not be used to the medians and would run over them. That could be a very unsafe situation, she said. uitchinjit | eii 2 perte I Blind student earns doctorate in sociology e time to a Hampshire by Mary Laura McNair Battalion Reporter I Clarence Parks decided to ma jor in sociology because most of the lecture notes are not written on the blackboard. Parks, 38, . who is legally blind, received his gggj^Hi.D. from Texas A&M Titurday. ■ “I was originally interested in physics and mathematics for my college major but that’s virtually an impossible situation when you can’t see the blackboards,” Htrks said. “I essentially ma- tered in sociology at the begin ning because you didn’t have to lead things off the blackboard. ;fhat was the main reason, but then I became interested in the field.” ■ Parks, who has 5 percent vi sion, received his bachelor’s de gree in 1969 from Sam Houston State University. I Parks was married in 1971, and he and his wife moved to |ermont where he taught social sciences in high school for five years. Parks said he and his wife liked Vermont and especially enjoyed being 2,000 miles away from relatives. ■ “I highly recommend that when you get married to move 2)000 miles away from all rela tives,” he said. “It is a remark able bonding mechanism.” K Later, they returned to Texas. Being tired of teaching, Parks looked at the graduate prog rams at several colleges in the state and enrolled at Stephen F. Austin in 1975. A year later he came to Texas A&M. “I decided to come to Texas A&M because of money,” he said. “They offered me a gradu ate college merit fellowship so I took it and here I am.” Parks received his master’s degree in May 1977 and began working on his doctorate in sociology. Being a student was difficult for him at times because he has to read using a magnifying glass and that takes lot of time. “I always figured that it took me twice as long to do my read ing than it took anybody else,” he said. The second problem, he said, was reading things off the black board. “I had to take three graduate level statistics courses,” he said, “and I had to learn it by ear be cause I couldn’t see what was written on the board. I had to learn statistics all on my own.” While at Texas A&M, Parks taught as a graduate assistant and was a research assistant at the Center for Energy and Min eral Resources. Parks said the only problem he faced in teaching was that he was over-trusting of his stu dents. “Unfortunately a small per centage of Aggies will indeed cheat,” he said. “I believed ev erybody was honest. I never che ated on anything in my life and I just assumed that everybody else was as honest, but they’re not.” Parks started taking a friend to class with him on test days to help him monitor the students. Parks said although he is leg ally blind — having 10 percent or less vision that can’t be cor rected — he doesn’t consider himself different. “It’s just a normal part of my life,” he said. “I’ve been this way for 32 years and to me, it’s just like being left-handed.” Parks said he used to assume that his students were aware of his poor vision but in the spring he started putting it on the syl labus. “One time a student came to me and said that he heard from another student that I was un friendly,” Parks said. “It seems that another student had told him that when he passes me on campus and I never say hello to him. The fact is that I never saw him. “I’ve taught 12 classes here and everything else about an in structor gets around so I just assumed that the students knew I was almost blind.” Parks and his family will be moving to Colorado where he will teach at Adams State Uni versity. There, he will work with the sociology department and with handicapped students. “I’ve learned the tricks of the trade of how people associated with difficult problems going to school can make it,” he said. “I also want to give the handicap ped students the emotional sup port they need to get through college.” Parks said handicapped stu dents benefit more by attending a small school that stresses prog rams that work with such stu dents. “I think for the most part that the problems handicapped stu dents have are too profoundly difficult for them to handle en tirely on their own,” he said. “They have got to have some ex perienced help and in most large institutions you are not going to get that help.” Parks said handicapped stu dents need the support from the college, the professors and from the secretaries in their depart ments. He said most handicapped students are good students be cause they realize their options are limited. “Higher education in many instances is the only thing they can have going said. “They realize that they are kind of painted in a corner and they have to do well in school — they can’t just chunk the whole thing and join the army or do construction work. Once they overcome their problem, they are pretty good students.” Welcome to Oran Hamburgers G vJuliu Ranch Fries POST OAK MALL Now Introducing: Strawberry Yogurt Julius. It’s a natural. o \ui ii 4J, >'1 H ew oil project to be funded Buy Va pound Ham burger and order of Ranch Fries and get a FREE 12 oz. Julius of your choice! Good only with coupon Expires 8/31/83 Post Oak Mall only ionedinfl ations ol by Bill Conaway Battalion Reporter Texas A&M will receive $18,000 from each of 10 energy ms to begin research to in- , ™- ase the information content snog® :roin seismic data recorded for md nano oil exploration. Dr. Terry Spencer, professor of geophysics and the project’s director, says the Vertical Seis mic Profile Project will use infor- irdingi mat 'on derived from a three- anly ai: isdiction ; Comn® bably ide witlil longresi, ady has® part sensor lowered into a bore hole. The waves of surfaced generated sources will be mea sured by sensors attached to the rock in the borehole at different depths, he says. The information, along with other data recorded at the sur face, will give more insight to the nature and shape of geological features and rock layers, Spencer says. The information will help oil companies decide where to drill, he says. Besides aiding oil explora tion, the new VSP sensors can generate more interest in the study of action below the earth’s surface, Spencer says. Scientist will be able to increase the inves tigation of geophysical problems with the help of industry. The project, scheduled to be gin in September, will consist of a six-member research team. m, re pi. 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