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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (March 8, 1984)
Escaped convicts caught 2 dead See page 4 Texas A&M The j 78 No. 111 CISPS 0453110 16 pages Catcher Jerry Schniepp congratulates pitcher Kelly Keahey af ter he threw a one-hitter against North Texas State Wednesday. The Aggies won 4-1 in the first game of the double header. See story page 15. Midterms available today at Pavilion Mondale receives King endorsement See page 6 Battalion Serving the University community College Station, Texas Thursday, March 8, 1984 Padre predicts 200,000 United Press International SOUTH PADRE ISLAND — Tourism officials are predicting 200,000 sun-loving students will cram onto Padre Island for the an nual Spring Break beach bash begin ning this weekend. The influx is expected to be evenly divided between each end of the bar rier island which stretches 100 miles along the South Texas coast, with 100,000 lighting in the Port Isabel- South Padre Island area and another 100,000 cramming Jnto the Port Ar- ansas-Mustang Island area up the coast near Corpus Christi. Joe “King” Carrasco opens the lo cal activities with a concert on March 11 and the the longtime favorite beach music group Jan and Dean will play On March 15, while old beach films such as “Ghost of the Invisible Bikini” and “Attack of the Killer To matoes” will be screened nightly. ’’We’re talking classic films here,” laughed Coleen Carnevale of the Port Isabel-South Padre Island Chamber of Commerce. “Frankie and Anette, forever.” Many of the students are finan cially well heeled and are predicted to spend about $2 million in each of the resort areas, shaking anxious merchants from the winter doldrums and opening a brisk tourist business that will continue through next La bor Day. “The merchants down here live for Spring Break. By January, that’s all you hear the talking about: It won’t be long until Spring Break,” said Carnevale. A survey showed that 36 percent of the students bring $300 to $1,000 to spend during one week and that some report in a survey they bring over $10,000 they get from “mommy and daddy,” Carnevale said. Students from Texas and Midwest colleges book every available room each spring vacation for a few days sunning, surfing, swigging beer or smoking marijuana, partying and at tending several free events spon sored by beer and cigarette compa nies. Perhap surprisingly to some par ents and teachers, officials say many of the students bring along their books, seek out isolation somewhere between the two bee-hives of activity, do some studying and attend church services on Sunday. Law enforcement officers report that, for the most part, the students are well behaved and simply want to cruise along the beaches looking for romance or fun. “I enjoy these kids coming down. The 500 or so that come down here don’t come to party. They come to relax and lie on the beach in the sun. Surprisingly, you see a lot of them cracking meir school books. I’ve had them come and ask me where the nearest church is,” said Park Ranger Charles Pearson at the isolated Padre Island National Seashore. “Unfortunately, the whole is judged by the parts that do the party ing. This is not the true picture.” South Padre Island Police Chief Art Garcia said his main problem is youngsters “getting boozed up too much. We don’t have that much drugs. We’re not running into as much marijuana.” Besides that, Justice of the Peace Bennie Ochoa’s legal secretary, Au rora Moreau, said marijuana arrests have dwindled in recent years be cause Cameron County law enforce ment is not as strict on small amounts as they used to be. Garcia said offi cers are reluctant to charge anyone with less than 4 ounces of marijuana and “tarnish their lives forever.” “Ordinarily they do behave pretty well for such a crowd. Our Father at church always comments what a nice crowd of visitors we have. It isn’t just a wild party,” Moreau said. “The kids get tired of going to school. They want a change and want to be where the action is. The ones that misbe have are really in the minority.” “I would say there has been a gen eral decline in marijuana. It doesn’t seem to be as exciting to them any more,” added court clerk Patsy Grimes in Port Aransas. Law officers in both South Padre Island and Port Aransas say much of the trouble they have is with high school, rather than college, students because of the problems of under aged drinking and driving over pro tected sand dunes. Jack Hushong, director of the Convention and Visitors Bureau up the coast in Galveston, says its beach no longer attracts the Spring Break crowd since it was closed to vehicular traffic last decade. students to vote on proposed use fee hike df By LYNN RAF POVEC Reporter llhe University Center Fee Refer- idum to increase the current $10 a tnester use fee will be subject to stu- Jnt approval March 27-28 in the student elections. ■The use fee, 35 percent of the cen ter' income, is used to maintain, ■nip, and operate the center, which plrnles the Rudder Complex and Memorial Student Center. To in- ase the fee, a majority of students Would have to approve the referen dum. ■ The student fee has not been in- ■eased in over 10 years,” University Center Manager Steve Hodge said, jnd the students do not now pay leirfair share of the cost of operat- jgthe University Center.” [If the student fee had been in- leasing in proportion to inflation, s[i;dcnts would now pay about $23 a ■mester, said Eric Conner, executive ice president for administration and Indent coordinator of the referen- (jtmi. I The fee increase is needed for the Met to break even on operating ists, Conner said, adding that the nter had a deficit of $121,000 last Some of the money used to oper ate the center comes from a reserve fund into which money was put in past years when the center operated at a profit, Hodge said. “Come Sept. 1, the reserve fund will be at a level that will not permit us to continue offering all the serv ices we offer at the rate we now charge for them,” Hodge said. Students and center directors dis cussed several options before agreeing on the referendum that will appear on the ballot in the upcoming student election. “We chose the most feasible option that we thought would be the most marketable to the student and would still maintain the current level of services within the center,” Conner said. The referendum gives the voter three choices: • Option A, which calls for a $2 a year fee increase for each of the next three years, will provide the center with sufficient funds to continue pro viding its current level of services. • Under Option B, the fee will in crease $4 a year in both 1985 and 1986, but will then increase $2 in 1987. In 1985 and 1986, the additional $2 above the $2 required to operate the center would go toward a new re serve fund. • Option C provides a third choice for those voters who prefer no fee increase. “Because increasing our fee be yond the current $10 required an act of the Texas Legislature, we have therefore been working on (the ref erendum) for quite a long period of time,” Hodge said. The Legislature approved the in crease with the provision that the fee per semester not exceed $20. It is because of this provision that Option B provides for a fee increase of only $2 in 1987, Conner said. Op tion B allows for a $10 increase over the next three years, which would bring the use fee to the maximum $20 a semester. “A $20 fee still doesn’t bring us up to what we said would be inflationary increases,” Conner said. “If a fee increase is not approved, we’ll have to individually charge more for the services we offer,” Don Powell, director for Business Serv ices, said. “Other areas that benefit from the University Center, such as Town Hall, OPAS and Aggie Cinema, to a lesser or greater extent are supple mented by reduced rates for the fa cilities they use,” Hodge said. “This reduced rate is possible because of the student fees. If we don’t have the student fees, we’re going to have to raise the rates for those groups, and I presume they’ll have to raise the price of tickets.” Fee hike to be voted on in student election By TAMMY KIRK Reporter The decision that a referendum on the Student Center Complex Fee be held in conjunction with the March 27-28 general student elec tion was passed by the Student Sen ate Wednesday night. Students currently pay a $10 user fee per semester to operate and maintain the University Center. There has been no increase in the fee since 1973, though expenses have increased. The proposal will include a choice of two options for increasing the fees or a choice of no increase at all, says Eric Conner, MSC Council vice president for administration. Conner is also student coordinator of the referendum. “The students are going to have to pay for it (the maintenance of the Unversity center) one way or ano ther,” says Joe Jordan, student body president. The question is not whether more money is needed, says Jor dan, but how much is needed and how to get the money. The projec tions for future fiscal years show that reserves will run out by Sept. 1. Without the increase, the charges to student users, such as the theater or meeting rooms, would increase, or there would be a decrease in stu dent services. The Senate did not take a stand on which of the three options they endorsed. Of the three, Conner leaned towards the option includ ing the reserve fund. This way, he said, the students would benefit from the increase in that they would have a say in how the money was used. The reserve fund is used for the “planning and construction of addi tions and expansions to the exisitng facilities,” says Conner. “My opinion, and this is my opin ion only,” says Jordan supporting Conner, “is that part of our (Sen ate’s) responsibility is to give some direction.” Jordan says that most of the students look to the Senate for guidance. On the ballot, students will be able to vote for an increase, choose which type of increase, or vote against the increase. A&M recruiting female professors In Today’s Battalion By ROBIN BLACK Stall Writer Editor’s note: This is the second in two-part series concerning women, oth students ami faculty, at Texas University. There’s some awfully good talent w there, but Texas A&M just isn’t Wing it, Dean of Faculties Clinton hillips says. Talented women administrators, latis. System-wide, Texas A&M has an %me shortage of women in high Aching and administrative positions ■asituation Phillips said is slowly nproving. There are qualified women in the Jentpool, he said, but up until now ley have been overlooked for the lost part when people are being |kedatto fill positions at the Uni- ersity. T think there has been a real con- fntrated effort to hire more women t A&M,” he said. “Especially since 'ere are more female students here ow," Until the early 1970s, when the iniversily started to see a real influx fwomen students, there was only a andful of women at the University, nd most of those had jobs with the brary department. “Only in the last four or five years have women been hired outside the liberal arts college and the libraries,” Phillips said. “Now we have women as professors in areas from engi neering to business to oceanography and geosciences.” Phillips said one reason women have just recently been getting jobs in those areas is most women just don’t get degrees in engineering and geos ciences. “Those are, for the most part, male-dominated fields,” he said. One way to get more eligible women in those fields, he said, is to encourage them to go on to get grad uate degrees. “And even doing this would re quire offering some handsome grad uate fellowships for women and mi norities as well,” he said. Even when qualified women ad ministrators are available, Phillips said, he thinks some women don’t seek out Texas A&M for employ ment because it has traditionally been so male-dominated. “I would hope we would overcome that tradition,” he said. “The situa tion hasn’t changed as much as some of us would like to change, but I’m an optimist and I think the situation will continue to improve. We’ve got a long way to go.” Phillips said that there really isn’t any resistance from other faculty and administrators when it comes to hir ing women. “In fact, a number of administra tors and professors — female and male — are frustrated that so few women are available for us to hire,” he said. Although the ratio of women pro fessors and administrators to women students is way out of balance, he said, it really hasn’t affected the stu dent body or even the female stu dents. “We’ve still got more students than we know what to do with,” he said, “and the number of women students at A&M increases every year. I do think it is important to have to have more women on the faculty, how ever, because the female students need a kind of role model in that area.” The Texas Plan requiring the Uni versity to hire a certain number of minorities in administative positions by the 1987-88 school year does not include women as minorities. This raised consciousness in hiring minorities will ultimately effect the hiring of women in a very positive way, Phillips said. The administrators are not alone in their concern on this issue. The Faculty Senate has set up a long- range committee to study women’s is sues at Texas A&M. Ethel Tsutsui, chairman of the committee, said they are making their objectives broad enough so they are able to attack any issue, especially those concerning women on the Uni versity staff and faculty as well as women students. The committee, made up of three men and 12 women, not all of whom are on the Faculty Senate, was set up last month following the establish- ment of a similar committee de signed to study problems facing ra cial minorities at the University. “There are many areas where the campus is behind the times where women are concerned,” Tsutsui said, “and that’s what we’re going to be looking at.” Local • A&M students are spending the semester touring the country as Sam, the Olympic Eagle. See story page 3. • A new club has been formed on the A&M campus with a new twist — absolutely no alcohol will be served at any of their functions. See story page 4. • A.A. Wilbanks has been cutting hair at the North- gate Barber Shop for as long as anyone can remember. See story page9. State • An SMU Kappa Alpha fraternity pledge suffered al cohol poisoning at a fraternity party February 29. Nobody noticed until the next day. They have been suspended by the university from serving alcohol until further notice. Nation • Abortions actually save some lives, some doctors say. See story page 10. T/V ,-A