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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 29, 1984)
1 1 No surprises for Ags I against hapless Owls See page 9 Bryan's LaSalle Hotel to haunt students See page 6 ■■MU Rice continues to make Brown blue See page 10 flHHHIVI Texas ASM ^ <«■ A The Battalion Serving the University community 81 No. 42 C1SPS 045360 12 pages College Station, Texas Monday, October 29, 1984 Twelfth Man kickoff team members are re flected in a pool of water created on the side lines by rain that fell during the A&M-Rice oto by DEAN SAITO game Saturday. Although their expressions seem to indicate otherwise, A&M had a com fortable lead in the fourth quarter. UT pledges hazed; SAE f rat suspended By DAINAH BULLARD Staff Writer While four former Texas A&M students indicted on charges of hazing prepare for their Dec. 14 pre-trial hearings, members of a University of Texas fraternity are adjusting to a year-long suspension of the fraternity resulting from a similar hazing incident. Attorney W.W. “Bill” Vance, who is representing juniors Anthony D’Alessandro, Louis Fancher III and Jason Miles, pleaded not guilty on all charges Friday before Brazos County Court-at-Law Judge Carolyn Ruffino. The three juniors were indicted Sept. 28 on charges of hazing and criminally negligent homicide by a Brazos County Grand Jury. Attorney Henry “Hank” Paine, who is representing senior Gabriel Cuadra, also pleaded not guilty for his client Friday. Cuadra was indicted Sept. 28 on charges of hazing and tampering with evidence. The charges against the students stem from the Aug. 30 death of Bruce Dean Goodrich, 20, a cadet who collapsed and later died after participating in a 2:30 a.m. exercise session. According to police reports, D’A- lessandro, Fancher and Miles, three junior cadets in Goodrich’s outfit, conducted the exercise session for Goodrich and another sophomore cadet. Cuadra withdrew from the Corps, and later the University, after Good rich’s death. D’Alessandro, Fancher and Miles were dismissed from the University after the conclusion of a series of University disciplinary hearings into the incident. Meanwhile, UT officials have sus pended the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity for one year because of a hazing incident which resulted in the hospitalization of one person. Punishment for individual frater nity members may be decided this week. A UT spokesman said about 40 freshman pledges were required to participate in pushups, situps and other exercises for about 20 min utes. The exercises took place Sept. 20 and 21. The Houston Post reported that Glenn Maloney, a representative in the dean of students’ office, said the fraternities termed the hazing “com petitive exercises.” One pledge, who has not been identified, admitted himself to a hos pital two days later complaining of pains in his arms. The university’s spokesman said tests show the student may have suf fered a breakdown in muscle tissue. The student was released from the hospital about 10 hours after he was admitted. The Interfraternity Council voted to suspend the SAE fraternity, which will be barred from participating in intramural sports or using school fa cilities. A&M will offer degrees in oral communication By KARI FLUEGEL Staff Writer The Coordinating Board of the Texas College and University Sys tem approved a new degree speciali zation at Texas A&M Friday — a Bachelor’s of Arts degree in Speech Communincation. “The purpose of the degree is to provide a liberal arts education with a concentration on the theory and practice in oral communication,” said Kurt Ritter, associate professor and coordinator of the speech com munication program. “As technology expands and knowledge becomes more special ized, business and industry requires people who can communicate effec tively,” he said. Recent surveys indicate that effec tive communication is the quality most desired by employers offering positions to liberal arts graduates, Ritter said. Liberal arts majors also have a broader long-term flexibility on the job, he said. Ritter, the new degree’s architect, has been working on the project for two years. “It gives us a sense of accomplish ment because it is going to allow the speech faculty to contribute to the liberal arts of the University,” he said. “Until this, we have not been able to give the University every thing we have to give. That’s an ex citing feeling.” The speech program now consists of 15 faculty members. Ritter says he expects between 50 and 75 students to utilize the new degree next semes ter, and about 200 students in three to four years. Students can begin enrolling in the new speech program immedi ately, he said. “A major in speech communica tion is different from journalism and English,” Ritter said. “It deals with speaking in a broad range of topics.” Besides the general course re quirements for the College of Lib eral Arts, the speech degree will in clude 15 hours of required speech courses and 15 hours of speech elec tives. The required speech courses are Principles of Speech Communica tion, Rhetoric in Western Thought, Speech Communication Theory, Group Communication and Dis cussion and Public Speaking. The 1 1 options for elective courses will include Language and Communication, American Oratory, Voice and Articulation, Technical and Professional Speaking, Organi zational Communication, Persuasion and Interpersonal Communication. Students also will have the option of obtaining certification to teach speech in secondary schools. be research industry home Park to EJiditor’s note: This is the first of a Impart series on the Texas A&M Re- Mrch Park. By ROBIN BLACK Senior Staff Writer i An engagement party was thrown °nTexas A&M’s west campus a little over a week ago. The pending mar riage is not to be one joining two in- diviluals, but one between the Uni- 'erlity and Industry. And the Engagement party was not really a party, but a groundbreaking cere mony for the marriage that will he roine the Texas A&M Research Park. The park, just past its second year of planning, will allow a 318-acre chunk of the west campus to become home for research — and technol ogy-oriented — industries. The University will provide space in the park for private industries to build facilities on campus, and work in the park will likely create close links between park occupants and the faculty, staff and students of the University. The first plans for the park were initiated in 1982 by H.R. “Bum" Bright, chairman of the A&M Board of Regents, as part of the Universi ty’s ongoing effort to improve its reputation as a big research institu tion. The University spared nothing in its plans. Mark Money, the country’s top research park expert, was re cruited to help plan A&M’s park. Money, now A&M’s vice chan cellor for the research park and cor porate relations, developed a similar park at the University of Utah. Utah’s park, about 12 years in the making, is one of the most successful parks in the country. Money’s task at A&M is similar to the one he faced 12 years ago. Utah had appropriated 320 acres of land for its research park. The land was at the foot of the Wasatch Mountains and previously had been a military firing range. Through Money’s guidance, the firing range was turned into an attractive, well- landscaped research park. The land that A&M has desig nated as its research park site is scar cely more than a scraggly pasture dotted with post oaks, and is as much a challenge to Money as the Utah site was. But help is on the way. The groundbreaking ceremony marked the first phase of development of the park —- the construction of streets, bridges, utilities and lighting. The regents appropriated a $5.5 million contract to a Houston con struction company for the park’s ini tial facelift. The only other concrete, plans for the park so far are for a new admin istration building and the first re search facility, which will house the Advanced Ocean Drilling Program. The program, which also w ill have its headquarters at the park, is a deep-sea core sampling project that will be managed by A&M for the Joint Oceanographic Institutions, Inc. See RESEARCH, page 8 Mark Money Grenada opens ■ United Press International the southern tip of the tiny Garth United Press International I, POINT SALINES, Grenada — Khe international airport President Reagan once charged was being built h Cuba as a military base opened Sunday with high government hopes that the U.S.-financed project would mean economic prosperity for Gre- nada ^Bhis is a momentous day,” said Richard Gherman, tourism minister foilthe interim government, as he [Bented spice-filled baskets to the first passengers arriving at Point Sa line International Airport. ^■he airport at Point Salines, on bean island, came three days after the first anniversary of the Oct. 25, 1983, U.S.-led invasion that ousted hard-line Marxists who had assassi nated leftist Prime Minister Maurice Bishop and seized power. At the time of the invasion, which left 19 Americans dead, Reagan charged that Cuban President Fidel Castro, a friend of Bishop’s, was helping build the airport to use as a military base. Bishop started the airport project in 1980, saying it was to boost tou rism. Gov. Gen. Sir Paul Scoon officially international ‘milestone’ airport opened the airport with a 20-minute speech in the bunting-decked one- third of the airport that has been completed. Police estimated some 5,000 Gre nadians attended the ceremony, which took place under a persistent drizzle. Scoon said the airport rep resented a “new take-off” for the is land’s democratic institutions and economic development. Leaving out any specific reference to the Cubans who began the airport in 1980, Scoon called the airport a “splendid example” of international cooperation. Grenada has one other interna tional airport, Pearls Airport, but it cannot handle jumbo jets. Reagan sent Grenadian authori ties a congratulatory message Sun day. “The dedication of this airport to which the United States and other other countries have been so proud to contribute marks the fulfillment of a Grenadian dream of many years,” Reagan said. The airport is a milestone for Gre nada, whose leaders have dreamed for two decades of boosting tourism and exports of the island’s major ag ricultural commodities — tropical fruits and spices, chiefly nutmeg. Gherman said the government hopes the airport, which has re ceived $19 million in U.S. funds since the invasion, will bring enough business to ease the troubled econ omy. “Our goals with this airport are to get tourism back on stream, to re gain business we lost and to get hotel occupancy levels back up,” a smiling Gherman said. Some 200 people, including offi cials, passengers, and security per sonnel, were at the facility as the first commercial plane landed — a twin- engine Avro-748 owned by Leeward Island Air Transport. The first planes began landing be fore official afternoon ceremonies marking the opening, presided over by Governor-General Sir Paul Scoon. The first big jet to land at the air port was British West Indies Airlines Flight 400, arriving 15 minutes later than its scheduled touchdown from Port of Spain, Trinidad, en route to Miami. The first commercial passenger to disembark was Bob Francis, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration’s chief of international programs for Latin American and the Caribbean.