State election official
hands in resignation
- See page 3
Venezuelan plane
hijackers killed
See page 3
American gymnasts
win Olympic gold
See page 7
Te x asA &M V •
The Battalion
Vol 79 No. 178 USPS 045360 8 pages
Serving the University community
College Station, Texas
Wednesday, August 1,1984
12 A&M women
ait for housing
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By KARI FLUEGEL
Staff Writer
I For the first time in several years.
Itlie housing office has gone through
Itlie original fall waiting list for men’s
dorms, but 412 women are still wait
ing to get a space, Tom Murray,
ousing services supervisor, said.
I Lower apartment rates, rising
dorm costs and rumors about the
^difficulty of getting into a dormitory
may have contributed to fewer stu
dents seeking a dormitory space thus
treating a shorter wailing list,
i Fewer students participated in the
housing lottery this year. For the
1983-84 school year, 2,400 women
ami 2,300 men participated in the
housing lottery. In this year’s lottery,
2,215 women and 1,760 men partici
pated.
I The drop in the number of stu
dents participating in the housing
lottery may be accounted for in tfie
Combination of the affordability of
off-campus housing rates and rises
dormitory rates, Murray said,
i Students also are not applying for
housing as early, he said. To partici
pate in the fall lottery, students must
apply and pay their $200 deposit be-
iween Nov. .1 and Dec. 15, ten
months before school begins.
I "A lot of students are not ready to
ommit to a university yet,” Murray
aid.
J While the $200 deposit may dis
courage some students from apply
ing for housing, it has increased the
number of students meeting dead
lines to cancel housing reservations.
■ “The earlier we know, the better,”
Murray said.
I Since the July 2 report, more stu
dents have applied for housing cre-
ting a new fall waiting list.
The Texas A&M residence halls
ave spaces for 9,781 students —
,487 for civilian students and 2,294
orps members. After the fall sign
up by returning civilian students,
there were 1,062 spaces open for
omen and 719 for men.
In 1983-84, there was a small in-
rease in the number of students
moving off-campus after living in
the dormitories. While the number
of women moving of stayed about
the same, the number of men mov
ing off campus increased.
“That’s a trend we’re concerned
about,” Murray said. To combat the
problem, the housing office has
been implementing programs to
make on-campus living more desira
ble. Such programs include renovat
ing and updating the residence halls,
Murray said.
This year the housing office has
overassigned 340 students. Fifty-two
students will be housed in study car-
rells in Mosher and Aston Halls, the
rest will be assigned to triples.
Overassigning students is not a
miscalculation or an accident made
by the housing office, Murray said.
Overassignments are based on statis
tics of the past year. Overassigning
students assures there will be stu
dents ready and available to fill
places not claimed by the first class
day.
Dormitories will officially open
Aug. 20 at 10 a.m. Summer resi
dence halls will close at 6 p.m. Aug.
17.
Students living on-campus for
summer school will be allowed to
check into their fall assignment the
afternoon and evening of Aug. 17.
Students must have a paid fee rec
eipt to check into their hall.
In the past, the housing office
used the week between the summer
session and fall semester to clean
summer residence halls and train
staff.
“We won’t have that luxury this
year,” Murray said.
This year, the summer session will
end two days before fall check in be
gins leaving the housing office to
close and open dormitories simulta
neously, Murray said.
With no break, housing office
personnel will not be able to clean
and check rooms and also will not be
able to inform staff members about
procedures.
Photo by JAIME LOPEZ
Closing the door on Spence Street
Rick Tucker, left, and Frank Tucker put up a fence across
Spence Street at the intersection of Ross Street and Spence
Street. The intersection is not closed, but a short section of
Spence Street from the Ross Street intersection south has
been closed because of construction of the new Chemistry
Building.
A&M plans west campus growth
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By SARAH OATES
Staff Writer
he Texas A&M University campus
will someday include a major re
search park and may extend all the
way out to FM 2818, thanks to an
ambitious expansion plan, said a
'University vice-chancellor.
Gen. Wesley Peel, vice-chancellor
lof facilities and planning, recently
•discussed the West Campus Master
Expansion plan.
“We can only expand west be
cause there’s nowhere else to go,” he
said. “Texas A&M owns all that land.
“The idea is for big companies,
such as Shell, to lease the land from
the University and build pure re
search buildings here.”
The plan includes construction of
a Research Park, a new Systems Ad
ministration Building, a new Physi
cal Plant and a Track and Field
Events Center with adjacent intra
mural fields.
The Research Park will be built
behind what is now West Campus,
bound by Jersey Street, FM 60 and
FM 2818. Construction work for the
Park, to include an Ocean Drilling
Program Building worth $4.8 mil
lion, will be contracted this Septem
ber. The Park will cost an estimated
$7 million.
Peel said the Park will be com
pletely devoted to research, not aca
demics, although it is probable that
students and University faculty will
be employed there.
Early plans place the new Poultry
Science Center at the corner of West
Campus bound by FM 2818, near
the Sewage Treatment Plant.
There also are tentative plans for
a Track and Field Events Center,
which would be located at the corner
of Beef Cattle Road and Jersey
Street. The Center would be funded
by donations.
A new Systems Administration
See EXPANSION, page 4
Problems face all graduate students
ephone 0^'
Foreign TA’s fight status, not culture
ssified
By REBECCA DIMEO
Reporter
j (Editor’s note: This is the second
in a three-part series about foreign
| graduate students who teach.)
Almost one-sixth of Texas A&M
| graduate students are foreign.
Nearly one-third of the university-
| supported graduate students —
I those on teaching and research
I assistantships or fellowships — are
[ foreign.
One, Pablo Gottret, 24, is a doc
toral candidate in economics from
Bolivia. He taught Economics 203,
Principles of Economics, Spring
1983. He is teaching it the second
summer session and is scheduled to
teach it again in the fall. He says his
difficulties with teaching are not a
problem of culture but one of status.
“I think the problems I have with
teaching are shared with American
graduate students,” Gottret says. Be
cause students are skeptical of all
graduate teaching assistants, he says,
TA’s must work to prove compe
tence in the subject before students
take them seriously. As an interna
tional student, he has an extra prob
lem.
“When you speak with an accent
students say, ‘Maybe this guy knows
what he’s teaching, but I don’t know
if I’ll be able to understand what he
says,”’ Gottret says.
Although Gottret has an accent,
after six years he no longer has any
trouble speaking or understanding
English. He says the language differ
ences don’t interfere with his teach
ing ability, especially since he
learned economics in English and is
only now studying the Spanish
equivalents of economic terms.
“Being a foreigner brings a lot to
your teaching ability,” he says.
“When I’m teaching economics and
talking about the United States defi
cit or economic development. I’m
able to compare it with that of third
world countries.”
Being able to bring personal expe
riences from abroad to the class
room means something to Gottret,
who, in addition to his childhood in
Bolivia, as a youth spent a year and a
half in Paris with his aunt and uncle.
“You don’t go to a foreign country
just to go to school,” he says. “You go
to live the culture. I don’t think peo
ple can become bicultural, but they
should be able to understand, share
and enjoy another culture.”
Gottret, who received his bache
lor’s degree in economics at Texas
A&M, says he’s well adjusted to life
in College Station. Although he’s
met a few rude students, he doesn’t
feel he’s been discriminated against.
“I don’t think they’re disrespect
ful because I’m a foreigner or I’m
not a professor,” he says. “I think
they’re disrespectful because they
don’t like the material.”
Another foreign graduate student
with the same ideas is Chung-Ping
(Peter) Chung, a doctoral candidate
in electrical engineering from Tai
wan. More foreign students at Texas
A&M are from Taiwan than any
other country.
Chung, 29, plans to graduate in
Jet hijackers
turn to Beirut
United Press International
GENEVA, Switzerland — Three
Arabic-speaking hijackers Tuesday
seized an Air France jetliner with 64
people aboard, apparently killing a
hostage and forcing the terrified pi
lot to fly to Beirut after a refueling
stop in Geneva.
“Just do what they want,” the pilot
told local government official Robert
Ducret. “There has already been one
death and if you do not hurry there
will be more.”
The Air France Boeing 737 was
en route from Frankfurt, West Ger
many, to Paris with 64 people
aboard when the hijackers, appar
ently armed with grenades, forced it
down for refueling at Geneva’s
Cointrin airportjust after 6 p.m.
It was the second airliner hijack
ing this week, beginning just hours
after Venezuelan commandos
stormed an aircraft on the Carib
bean island of Curacao and killed
two men who had threatened to
blow up a plane and 79 hostages.
Swiss airport and police
spokesmen said there were three hi
jackers aboard the Air France plane,
which took off at 7:37 p.m for Bei
rut. Lebanese officials said the plane
would be denied permission to land
and the airport would be closed if
necessary.
Ducret said he was told there had
been gunfire in the cabin of the air
liner and asked the pilot if he
needed help.
“No, no,” Ducret said the fright
ened pilot replied. “They are very
threatening. Just refuel the aircraft
and let us take off. You do not real
ize the situation we are in.”
Swiss police said, however, they
could not be sure anyone was dead.
The hijackers may have forced the
pilot to report the killing in order to
place additional pressure on airport
authorities, they said.
The hijackers first demanded to
go to Tehran, Iran, when the air
craft landed at Geneva with its 58
passengers and six crew — a pilot,
copilot and four stewardesses.
Iran said it would refuse them
permission to land, however, and
the hijackers decided to go to Beirut
instead.
Police spokesman Jean-Claude
Ducrot said the air pirates claimed in
radio conversations with airport offi
cials to be armed with grenades.
“The three men speak Arabic and
also speak some English although
with a heavy accent,” he said.
Soviet missiles
to counter U.S.’s
United Press International
MOSCOW — The Soviet Union
Tuesday said it was testing long-
range cruise missiles to counter the
American nuclear missile program
and warned the United States it
would be “naive to assume” they
would not be deployed.
“Cruise missiles are something
that cut both ways,” an editorial in
the Communist Party newspaper
Pravda warned. “It is naive to as
sume that their massive deployment
will remain unanswered.”
Moscow walked out of the talks in
Geneva on strategic and medium
range nuclear missies last year to
protest the NATO deployment of a
new generation of U.S. Pershing 2
and cruise missiles in Western Eu
rope.
The missiles were deployed to
counter previously installed Soviet
SS-20 missiles.
Pravda said the cruise missile pro
gram of the United States was the
latest in a series of unsuccessful at
tempts to gain military superiority
over the Soviet Union.
“They are heading for a washout
this time too,” Pravda said. “Since
the United States lias refused to re
nounce the new type of weapons,
long-range cruise missiles are al
ready being tested in the U.S.S.R. as
well.”
Because of its superiority in com
puter technology, the United States
is generally believed to have a lead of
several years in development of
cruise missiles.
However, the U.S. Defense De
partment survey of Soviet forces this
year said Moscow was developing
five long-range cruise missile sys
tems with ranges estimated at 1,800
miles. American cruise missiles,
some already deployed in Europe,
have a range of 1,500 miles.
The Soviet cruise missiles would
be fitted with nuclear warheads ini
tially but could eventually carry con
ventional warheads if improvements
are made in their accuracy.
The Kremlin has said the Septem
ber talks in Vienna are “impossible”
because the United States insists on
broadening the talks on space weap
ons to include discussions on limit
ing long-range and medium-range
missiles.
In Today’s Battalion
August. Although he originally had
a tough lime adapting to classes in
English, after five years he speaks it
slowly but effectively.
“If they really don’t understand
me,” he says of his engineering lab
students, “it’s because they don’t un
derstand the content of the subject
— so if they’re lost, I know why
they’re lost.”
Chung came with his wife to
Texas A&M for graduate work after
one semester at the University of De
troit. He came because his brother, a
professor of chemistry at the Uni
versity of Taiwan, sent Chung favor
able reports from his former Texas
A&M students who had returned to
Taiwan.
“I guess if one department is
good, the others aren’t too bad,”
Chung says with a grin.
Chung says his subject matter, en
gineering, may be easier to teach as a
foreign student than some others be-
See GRADUATE STUDENTS,
page 6
Local
• For the first time in a year, a Texas A&M Emergency
Medical Services paramedic was allowed to start an IV. See
story page 3.
State
• A Houston girl has contracted rabies, and is in a coma.
See story page 5.
National
• Mondale and Ferraro open their campaign tour to
gether at a rally in New York. See story page 5.