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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 4, 1984)
Tuesday, September 4, 1984/The Battalion/Page 3 li Registration of voters made easier at A&M By KARI FLUEGEL Staff Writer Resulting from the recommen dation of Governor Mark White, voter registration will be made easier for Texas A&M employees, ■fin a recent letter to state agency heads, White encourages state agencies to commit man power to provide voter registra tion to Texans. ■Following White’s suggestion, Texas A&M President Frank E. Vandiver has announced that voter registration materials are now available in the Personnel Department on the second floor of the YMCA building. I “We want to make registering to vote among the most accessible services provided by state govern ment to agency employees and clients,” White said in the letter. ■“Since 1960, citizen involve ment in the electoral process has declined. Such non-participation strikes at the very roots of our democratic system of govern ment. With large blocks of citi zens not participating, it becomes impossible tor government to act in their interest. As more people abstain from stating political choices, the range of opinion and debate in our representative form of governement narrows.” Vandiver supports White’s rec ommendation, and said he also feels voter registration should be made as easy as possible. “After all, a democracy mostly depends on its electorate,” Van diver said. “We need a broader electoral base for the consensus we need.” All vice presidents, deans, di rectors and department heads have been directed to pick up a supply of voter registration forms for their department and to make employees aware of the opportu nity to register. The service has been well re ceived by the employees, Charles Gillespie, assistant director of the personnel department, said. “A lot of people have picked them (the cards) up,” Gillespie said. “I mean a whole lot.” The University originally or dered 3,000 registration forms and may have to order more. “We’ve been suprised that so many people are taking advan tage of it,” Margaret A. Smith, as sistant for management analysis to the vice president for fiscal af fairs, said. The office of the vice president for Fiscal Affairs was responsible for ordering the registration forms. Voter registration cards also will be available for employees, students and visitors at the Visitor Information Center in Rudder Tower, the Memorial Student Center hotel desk and the Admis sions and Records Of fice. “Employees should under stand that their voter registration service shall be scrupulously non partisan,” White said. “This pol icy follows the legislative directive in the Texas Election Code which encourages state employees to register eligible citizens.” Service fraternity hopes to raise $2,000 a APO works for handicapped By CHAREAN WILLIAMS Reporter II Alpha Phi Omega members are aiming to give an extra “push” to u " ,arn r»lp [he handicapped in October. 1 his tins! About 60 of the service fraternity it, bulrembers will push wheelchairs from ille^*' Station to Hc.n Creek Park tttiiudt.fiff ouslwn * n an e ^ orl to ra * se oney for handicapped students at exas A&M Aatstin 'I’h,. g r o U p will leave campus on onvents ct. 12. Each participant will push ir thnmSr about four hours before being issedup’.'heved. le y hope to arrive in Houston ... “; 8 p.m. on Oct. 13, after camping ernight in Hempstead. The 9(3 ess whi j| e t ri p w j|| take anout 35 hours if a Demo: to the ini the members push 2.75 mph, said Mark Board, the chairman of the project. On Oct. 14, the participants will meet at the Astrodome for the Texas A&M — University of Houston foot ball game to celebrate their accom plishment. “We are doing the push to raise money for the handicapped students on our campus, but we look forward to the idea of expanding to other campuses,” Board said. One of APO’s goals for the project is to increase awareness about the handicapped. “Awareness is very important,” said Rhonda Rubin, assistant chair man of the push. “Most people don’t know about the handicapped. If people know what they go through maybe they will give an ‘extra push’ to help them out.” The group hopes to raise at least $2,000 from donations. "The first $2,000 will go for wheelchair parts," said Dr. Charles W. Powell, coordinator of hand icapped and veteran services on campus. “If additional money is raised, it will go into an account set up for handicapped students and at tendants. If they need money for school purposes, they can borrow from this account.” Time management an asset for success in academics By KIM JENSEN Reporter You had good intentions when you strapped yourself in the chair to E our over Chemistry 101 all night, ut when Joe knocked on the door and asked you to grab a few beers at the Chicken, your Chemistry 101 faded into the zone of unfinished homework. Balancing a social life with a full academic schedule is a mystery to some students, but effective time management can mean the differ ence between a successful semester or scholastic probation. Dr. Anne C.P. Schroer, counsel ing psychologist at the Student Counseling Center at Texas A&M, said students who do not follow a time schedule probably are headed for academic disaster. “A lot of wishful thinking goes on, especially for freshmen students with their new feelings of indepen dence,” she said. Schroer said a mistake many stu dents make is just allowing things to happen and hoping everything works itself out in the long run, in stead of being in charge of their time. She advises students to mon itor their time for one week and then draw up a schedule with slots for sleeping, eating, studying and work ing. Looking at this, students can tell where to tighten their schedule to accomplish everything. “I see time management very much like being on a diet,” Schroer said. “It takes a few weeks of making mistakes before everything begins to fall in place. By the fourth week things should begin to feel natural.” The Student Counseling Center in the YMCA Building conducts study skills clinics twice a week throughout the semester to help stu dents learn to find time for study and fun. Schroer said approximately 30 students take advantage of these weekly sessions. If a student wants additional help after the clinic, peer counselors ire available to work on a one-to-one basis. Each summer, the center sends counselors to Fish Camp to give seminars on effective time manage ment and study skills. Students have found many bene fits from using the counseling cen ter’s advice. Belton Lim, a senior industrial en gineering major from Houston, pledge master for the Alpha Phi Omega service organization, mem ber of the Kappa Sigma social frater nity and part-time employee at Ru mours, said students should join something they are really interested in and then plan all events on a cal endar. “If you spread yourself too thin, you’re not going to do a good job at any of it.” Lim said. Radioactive gas cloud dissipates United Press International AIKEN, S.C. — A mile-wide cloud of radioactive tritium oxide gas released by an accident at the Energy Department’s top-secret Sa vannah River Plant dissipated harm lessly into the atmosphere Monday, plant officials said. The tritium oxide gas — a key in gredient of hydrogen bombs — es caped Sunday night and drifted northward over the South Carolina Piedmont. Neither the 300-square mile plant nor the nearby city of Aiken was evacuated and SRP spokesman Cliff Webb said only trace amounts of ra diation reached the ground. Plant officials said the radiation dose at the border of the facility which produces tritium and pluto nium for America’s nuclear arsenal was estimated at 7 millirem — about a third the dose in a chest X-ray. “In terms of it being a threat, it was not a threat from the begin ning,” Webb said. “But in terms of what had been released previously, it was significant.” Plant officials refused to reveal details of the accident, but sbid the radioactive cloud was released when a liquid by-product of the tritium ox ide production process accidentally spilled and evaporated in a plant building. Richard Tait, SRP’s tritium opera tions supervisor, said the spill oc curred in a matter of seconds and ra dioactive gas was released for 90 minutes. Two workers in the room where the spill occurred were tested for ra diation, but officials said protective suits kept them from absorbing dan gerous levels of tritium. “The nature of the incident that occured is under investigation at this point. Due to classification, we really can’t get into details of the incident,” said Joseph Spencer, general techin- ical superintendent for Dupont, which operates the tritium division at SRP. Tait said the largest previous re lease of tritium in March 1981 pro duced a dosage estimated at .3 milli rem, about 25 times less radiation than Sunday night’s accident. The radioactive cloud from the lant on the Savannah River was lown northward by 9 mph winds and was charted by computers. Offi cials said the gas cloud was a half- mile wide when it reached Aiken and the dosage had decreased to 2 to 3 millirem. About five hours after the gas re lease, the cloud had traveled 100 miles and was about one mile wide, Webb said. “The dose to a person standing at the plant boundary throughout the release is estimated 7 millirem by computer calcuations,” an SRP statement said. “By comparison the dose for a chest X-ray is about 20 millirem.” Kitty Tucker of the Washington- based Health and Energy Institute said the type of radiation emitted by tritium makes the severity of the ac cident hard to gauge. “Beta radiation does not pen etrate the outer layer of skin, but once it’s in the body, either by being eaten or inhaled, it concentrates in the reproductive organs,” she said. “In lab tests they’ve found re duced fertility in animals exposed to tritium in water and food. It’s possi ble you’d not see these effects in hu mans for many, many years, but such a release can’t be regarded as not harmful to humans,” she said. hlicai ike (I • convcs to theirs: icn all it# -'cry tin* ) on tlx icn barlf i Dallas'' tequila i t to sleep, ppxirtunr THE BOOT BARN Justin Ropers 1 $7EOO Everyday Low Price! The Lowest Prices & Largest Selection In The Brazos Valley rrcnce Board , Editor .ditor ^ Editor ditor Editor Editor itor litor 2.5 Miles East Of The Brazos Center On FM 1179 (Briarcrest Drive) In Bryan. 822-0247 [iclicllePt aczyk, Rtd ravis Tiny Bill Angel Stok Robin B |ae awn Bel*' nab Bulk* ony CorjJJ Patricia» Wiesej Karla Ma* Sarah Of esR.W John Hall* Caren VC Pahtnf Peter i, Dean tinif those war/7)'rtf" s. hcultr ,,10 Iff* 5 otfrapof cW credit^ j rein rescr^ nnrdsif>r Icuersf"'* H id must iw 1 * for jfL «»/«*** iJ Hl0 :i Welcome Back, Ags! ^| It’s time for a PARTY! We have party supplies and decorations to make all your parties a success. 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