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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 29, 1984)
Texas ASM - - V • The Battalion Serving the University community Vol 79 No. 187 (JSPS 045360 22 pages College Station, Texas Wednesday, August 29, 1984 Bell tower complicates, elays traffic By KARI FLUEGEL Stuff Writer With the beginning of school ev- Iry year, traffic throughout campus sually increases as students relearn the streets and parking lots. ■ This year, however, traffic con gestion has an added complication ■- construction of the Ford D. Al- Iritton Bell Tower. I When construction began on the bell tower last spring, the north side ol Old Main Drive was closed and all affic was detoured into the two ties on the south side. Lamar Itreet, in front of the Grove, also Bas closed to accommodate con- Hruction of the tower. I Since last spring the detour lias Bianged — from the south side to [ the north side of the tower. Lamar is still closed. I Stipulations were made in the [ builder’s contract to keep one side of I Old Main open at all times, Bob Hiatt, director of the University Po lite, said. “Whenever you have construc tion, you’re going to have prob lems,” Wiatt said. “It hasn’t affected ing, except delaying traffic.” No accidents have resulted from - invth the traffic being squeezed into a bot- ■ieneck, but a few tempers have Bared which always happens when ■here is an obstruction in the traffic flow, Wiatt said. ■So far the problems, because of the construction, have not been in stil mountable, Wiatt said. ■“But I’ll be glad when it’s com- Beted,” he said. ■The roads will return to normal the week of Sept. 17, Conrad Loz ano, assistant project achitect of Morris-Aubry Architects in Hous ton, said. At that time only minor work — such as street repair, lights and landscaping — will remain. ■The tower currently is about 80 Hrcent completed. The tower will ■ dedicated Oct. 6 before the Texas Tech football game. ■During the summer, work on the tower was delayed, but not halted, Intracampus shuttle offers general public three route options By ALIS MAHENA Reporter A new intracampus shuttle bus sys tem began operating Monday at Texas A&M. The free Park and Ride shuttle service travels three dif ferent routes around campus Mon day through Friday. And transpor tation is available to everyone — no bus passes are necessary. The Park and Ride shuttle service consists of 10 small buses, capable of carrying 26 to 28 seated passengers, and two larger buses, capable of car rying 46 passengers. The buses will run at 10 to 12 minute intervals. Two of the bus routes, the Aca demic Run and the Rudder Run, will operate from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. The third, the Express Run, stops on campus at the Blocker Building and the Engineering Research Center only, and will be operating from 7 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. and 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. The buses for all three routes start out from Olsen Field each morning. At present, there are few marked bus stops along the Rudder and Aca demic runs, therefore the buses will pick up and drop off passengers at most stop signs along the routes. Douglas Williams, assistant manager of Shuttle Bus Operations, said bus stops will be designated and signs marking the stops will be put up later in the semester. The Express Run is designed to carry large numbers of students quickly to the Blocker Building and the Engineering Research Center. It will travel down Beef Cattle Road to Agronomy Road to University Drive. It will stop at the Blocker Building and the Engineering Re search Center. The shuttle will re turn the same way. The Academic Run will leave Ol sen Field and travel to the campus via Old Main and Houston. The shuttle will cross to Jones street at the fountain and run east on Ross Street to Bizell. It will return to Ol sen Field via University Drive and Agronomy Road. Rudder Run will leave Olsen Field and travel on Joe Routt to Coke Street. The shuttle will then turn north onto Lubbock Street, travel down Lubbock to Bizell Street and from Bizell, head south on Lamar Street to Nagle Street. The Shuttle will then travel around to Lamar Ex tension (the street between the phys ics building and the Trigon) and west on Joe Routt back to Olsen. Check cashing policy tightens; 2 ID’s needed • Photo by JOHN R YAN The Ford D. Albritton Bell Tower. when difficulties arose with the bell shipment from France. Weather has not caused any delays, Lozano said, but due to the size of the tower, it has been difficult to have workers working in the same area at the same time. Though traffic around the tower is heavy, John Lake, bus operation^ manager, said the operation of the Park and Ride system, the new intra campus shuttle service, has not been affected by the blocked streets. “Everything is going according to plan,” Lake said. The system is running into some tmffic problems at other areas across campus, but not around the bell tower, Lake said. Traffic currently is a problem around the Rudder, Blocker and Commons areas. By LISA SPILLER Reporter Check forgery at Texas A&M is the cause of a new, more stringent check cashing policy. The policy be gan this summer when Texas A&M signed a contract with Check Worthy of Bryan, said Bob Piwonka, man ager of Student Financial Services. The new check cashing policy re quires two sources of identification. At least one of these must be a pic ture ID. The fiscal office and Check Worthy prefer the forms of identifi cation to be a student ID and a Texas driver’s license, Piwonka said. The additional identification is ac tually for the protection of the stu dent, Piwonka said. The student ID picture is often blurry which makes its validity questionable, he said. T he extra ID also provides more sources for investigation if there is a prob lem. Personal checks still can be cashed at the MSC main desk for up to $25. Check cashing has, however, been discontinued at the Coke Building. “The fiscal office has physically outgrown the building,” Piwonka said. “We simply do not have the space to continue the check cashing service.” But, he said, students now have the PULSE and MPACT machines for 24 hour service and can with draw greater amounts through the machines. Piwonka said forgery has been a problem on this campus for several years and seems to be increasing. Many checks are forged after they are stolen from someone else. The greatest amount of check theft usually occurs in the dorms at the beginning of the semester, Piwonka said. The worst part of this type of theft is that it goes undetected for so long, he said. The checks are usually stolen in a batch from the middle of the checkbook or singly from differ ent places in the book. Many stu dents do not notice that checks have been stolen until their account has been overdrawn, Piwonka said. elief on way for student tripples in dorms By ROBIN BLACK Senior Staff Writer he deadline for checking into Imitories was Monday at 5 p.m. Amone who failed to check in by that time lost their space, housing Coordinator Toni Murray said Tjesday. ■‘We’re still frantically trying to J»cess all the head counts we got in ay,” Murray said. nee the number of no-shows is lermined the housing office can in reassigning those students who have been temporarily tripled- upm dorm rooms. Murray said that as of Tuesday mbrning, approximately 250 men and 200 women have been assigned to rooms on a temporary basis. That means those students share — on a temporary basis — a dorm room with two other students. Of those listed as temporaries, Murray said, about 45 men and 35 women have been moved into study carrels in the commons area. Murray and the three dorm area coordinators (commons, central and northside dorms) will meet today to evaluate the number of no-shows so that students temporarily assigned to dorms can be moved to a normal two-occupant situation. There were fewer no-shows this year than in the past, Murray said, and that may interfere with resolv ing the dprm room over-assigning situation. “Last year we had no triples after the first week of classes,” he said, “So even though we had fewer no-shows, we hope the same thing happens this year.” Students are not tripled up in non-air conditioned or balcony dorms, he said. “We think it would just be too un comfortable for the students to be tripled in the non-air conditioned dorms,” Murray said, “and the fur niture in the balcony dorms cannot be moved around to make more room for an extra roommate.” But all estimates are just that, Murray said, because exact figures won’t be in»until today. Murray said that the campus housing office intentionally over-as signs students in order to compen sate for those who don’t show up. If there are empty dorm rooms, it costs the University money, and as a result the cost of dorm rooms must be increased to make up for the loss. Respective resident hall advisors will notify students of any housing changes by early this evening. If there are still empty rooms af ter all students already on campus have been reassigned as needed, stu dents may apply for the rooms on a walk-on basis, he said! “We started taking walk-on candi dates on the 22nd, and we’ll con tinue accepting them through noon Thursday,” Murray said. “These stu dents will be given rooms only after the triples have been moved out, so we’ve told not to be optimistic since there’s no guarantee that they’ll get a room.” There is no waiting list right now, Murray said, because a waiting list for any given semester becomes de funct when the semester begins. “We have to assume that 99.9 per cent of the students on the list have already made other arrangements,” he said. Daniel Mizer, housing coordina tor for the commons area dorms, said that the moving-in process has gone smoothly this semester. “We’ve had a steady flow so far,” he said, “and there’s not been any real rush. People have been trickling in steadily to check in to their rooms.” Denise Heitkamp, head resident advisor for Briggs Hall, said she’s having little trouble with the tripling situation. “I think all of our temporaries will be put into rooms,” she said, “and the women temporaries have been limited to freshmen women.” More inmate violence in TDC; death count to 125, stabbing count to 265 United Press International | Uni ■HUNSTVILLE — Four separate Ribbing attacks in Texas Depart- Pem of Corrections units pushed At inmate death count to 12 and the n Umber of stabbing incidents to 265 Ai' year, officials said Tuesday. ■Two inmates died in attacks Mon- U night, a third was hospitalized in Hical condition and a fourth was Hiatal for a minor wound Tuesday, BC spokesmen Charles Brown and ■I Guthrie said. ■Terry Black, 21, was stabbed in Ae shoulder about 7 a.m. Tuesday l the Barrington Unit as a guard B searching a cell for weapons. Bother inmate ran out of the cell and attacked Black, Guthrie said. Both Black and the suspect, Rolando Bolano, are black and prison offi cials have no motive, he said. The dead inmates from Monday’s stabbings were Curtis Ray Williams, 22, serving a 5-year Howard County burglary sentence at the Clemens Unit in Brazoria, and Raymond Ma thias, 25, a convicted murderer serv ing a 99-year sentence at the Wynne Unit in Huntsville. Everitt Matthews, 20, was in crit ical condition at John Sealy Hospital in Galveston Tuesday with multiple stab wounds he received during an incident at the Darrington Unit at Rosharon about 10 p.m. Monday. Brown said the fatal stabbing at the Clemens Unit and the Monday night assault at the Darrington Unit appeared racially motivated. A white suspect was being questioned about the death of Williams, who is black. Three Hispanics were being ques tioned about the attack on Matthews, also a black. Brown said authorities had no ex planation for the killing at the Wynne Unit. Authorities locked down an esti mated 180 inmates in cell blocks on both the Clemens and Wynne Units and guards Tuesday were searching for weapons. So far this year, 12 inmates have been killed inside the walls of Texas’ 26 prison units. TDC reported a to tal of nine inmate homicides last year and eight the year before. Thirty-nine stabbings have occurred in August. Ray Procunier, who took over as TDC director in June, attributes the increased inmate violence to a short age of guards and poor inmate clas sification in which hardened crimi nals live alongside younger, weaker inmates. Officials also cite the eliminaton of the use of inmates as building ten ders, as ordered in a federal reform mandate, as another factor in prison violence. In Today’s Battalion Local • A special phone number offers emergency help. See story page 4. State • Study shows elderly Texans going hungry. See story page 5. National • The Agriculture Department plans to continue an emer gency disaster program. See story page 6.