•s Texas A&M - - TM • The Battalion Serving the Gniversity community Vol. 80 No. 67 USPS 045360 12 pages College Station, Texas Tuesday, December 4, 1984 """ ■' ■ 11 11 '' " ' ' l '' '' M ' "n. ; 'V ' - ^ :V:J JO//N MAKELl ut mv opinions should be representa tive of the students as a whole.” i Royall said the idea of a core cur- rkulum is not limited to Texas A&M. ■ “It’s a national movement about what the baccalaureate degree should be," he said. “The liberal arts ■eople aren’t getting enough techni cal background and vice-versa. Most ol the people I’ve talked to are pro core curriculum. I was surprised that a number of engineering stu dents I’ve talked to thought they needed a broader education. But pit doesn’t necessarily represent the opinion of the entire College of Engineering. “There are students who say, SVho are you to tell me what I need to take?’ but the University is offer ing something to the students and if they don’t like it then they can go elsewhere. So the University does have a say.” But Royall said he is concerned that the Faculty Senate will press to get the final proposal through by February, which is the University- deadline for changing policies. “That’s what happened with the issue of seniors taking finals,” he said. “They rushed through with it. “The main concern I’ve voiced with them (the committee members) is that I’m leery of adding hours, and that is what they’re talking about. In theory, most people, in cluding me, would be in favor of a core curriculum, but in practice, I just don’t know. If they (the commit tee members) in any way disenfran chise the students then it won’t work.” Charles Stegernoeller, president of the Student Engineering Council, said. “The initial opinion is that the preliminary proposals seem to be - more lenient for liberal arts and more rigid for engineering and sci ence.” Stegernoeller said engineering de grees already average 130 to 136 hours and the drafts he has seen would add several hours, pushing the total number of hours close to 150. Stegernoeller said that if this happens, the number and quality of students will drop. “What the Senate decides will se riously affect students in the future,” Stegernoeller said. “And it’s impor tant that it is given more consider ation than the location of a bell tower (the recently completed Al britton carillion), or the pettiness of the colleges fighting over whose cur riculum is the best.” Although the core curriculum will affect only those students entering the University after the proposal takes effect, Stegernoeller said that it’s important to use the student so ciety’s position to influence the fu ture and not let important issues drown in bureaucracy. “There are lots of good points about a core curriculum,” Stege- moeller said. “It would bring every one (in the University) up to the same level. But nothing has been de cided yet so we are holding off until il has.” Perry Cortese, a member of the Student Agriculture Council, said the College of Agriculture has al ways been progressive and compet itive and that it has a curriculum to match. “We have to in order to be mar ketable,” Cortese said. “I have to have a basis in agriculture. I need economics and math, but I need it to relate to my field. I go over and take classes in business but I do this be cause I know 1 need to. However, nothing’s good when it’s mandato- ry.” Dr. Donald McDonald, former in terim dean of the College of Engi neering, said he recently gathered opinions from former civil engi neering students about the needs of undergraduates. renada has first election in 8 years United Press International |ST. GEORGE’S, Grenada — Gre nadians elected a new Parliament Monday in the island’s first elections in eight years, held 13 months after a U.S. invasion toppled a radical Marxist government. ■ Voters were standing in lines at Bany of the 197 polling stations when they opened at 7 a.m. local time, despite a downpour that mud died dirt paths throughout the lush. 133-square mile island. The polls closed at 5 p.m. A light but steady late turnout was reported in rural areas. The island’s residents chose 15 representatives to Parliament who will replace an interim governing council that has ruled since the over throw of the Marxists. Sir Paul Scoon, the island’s gover nor-general, will ask the winning party to form a government. There were 48,000 people regis tered to vote. Grenadians were al lowed by law to take time off from work to vote. Some 200 police and troops f rom neighboring Caribbean states en forced security throughout the is land, maintaining a low profile with intermittantjeep patrols. The major contenders were the New National Party, a moderate co alition led by former Chief Minister Herbert Blaize, 66, and the right- wing Grenada United Labor Party led by Sir Edward Gairy, the island’s last prime minister. Both major parties have called for a continued U.S. presence, but Blaize has said the 250 U.S. support troops who remained on the island after the invasion should stay only until Grenada can take care of its own security. Indian plant leaks poison over 20,000 The opinions were generally di vided into three areas. The recent graduates recommended more tech nical courses. The people who had been out several years said more management courses were needed. McDonald said this is probably be cause they were at a stage in their ca reers when they were moving into management positions. Former stu dents who were close to retirement age recommended more liberal arts, science and free electives. An article, “The High-Tech Pay off,” from the March 1984 issue of Newsweek — On Campus, said: “The best bet for success in a com puter career is a technical person with fine communications skills. The now and f uture kings of the job mar ket will probably be those who un derstand both science and art: engi neers who can write, writers who can program.” The students’ academic future is now in the hands of the Texas A&M Faculty Senate. Whether a core curriculum is nec essary does not seem to be the stu dents’ major worry. They seem more worried about the amount of fore thought, care and wisdom that the Faculty Senate will put into the final decision than the issue itself. Royall stressed that his position is not to pacify or to alarm students — just to let them see how it will affect them or future students at Texas A&M. “I’m not here to make policy changes,” he said, “but to encourage student interest in a very serious is sue.” United Press International NEW DELHI, India — A cloud of poisonous gas spewed from a U.S.- owned pesticide plant and enve loped the sleeping city of Bhopal Monday, killing at least 375 people and injuring more than 20,000 oth ers in one of the worst industrial ac cidents in Indian history. Authorities said they feared the death toll would rise because 2,000 of the injured were in serious condi tion. Officials said most of the dead were children and old men. The furiies of methyl isocyanate descended on the city of 628,000 about 2:30 a.m., sparking mass panic as sleeping residents jolted awake and fled their homes to escape the blinding, choking gas. “Women with babies in their arms and children clinging to their saris were seen moving out of the city by all modes of transport,” one witness said. The gas escaped from a pesticide plant owned by the Danbury, Conn, based Union Carbide Co. on the outskirts of Bhopal, the capital of Madhya Pradesh state, 360 miles southwest of New Delhi, the Press Trust of India said. The corpses of sacred cows and other animals littered streets around the plant, which Union Carbide said has been in operation for five years. Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Arjun Singh and other state and city officials put the death toll at 375. They sain it was one of the worst in dustrial accidents in the history of independent India. Singh closed the facility, called for a judicial inquiry and ordered the ar rest of five officers of Union Car bide, India Ltd., the U.S. firm’s In dian subsidiary. The five, all believed to be Indian citizens, were charged with causing death by neg ligence and placed under house ar rest, officials said. Most of the dead were taken to Hamidia government hospital and Jayaprakash hospitals. Seven bodies were counted at Kaju Hospital and 20 more bodies were found in the railway station area, officials said. Hospitals, able to admit only 2,000 of the most seriously injured, set up makeshift treatment centers on their grounds to treat some 18,000 others'suffering from eye in flammations, vomiting and breath ing difficulties. Doctors from the police, military and nearby towns were rushed in to help the injured. Rumors of a new gas leak during the day triggered a mass panic and “a number of women and children were hart in a stampede” that fol lowed, the United News of India re ported. Singh appealed in a radio broad cast for people to remain calm. “I am shocked and deeply grieved at the terrible tragedy in Bhopal,” said Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, faced by the first major industrial mishap since succeeding his mother, Indira Gandhi, who was assasinated Oct. 31 by Sikh members of her bodyguard. “The huge toll that it lias taken is horrifying.” The government pledged $500 to the f amilies of each person killed by the gas leak and $100 to each of the injured. Plant officials said the methyl iso cyanate leaked from an under ground storage tank containing 45 tons of the gas and was stopped within minutes. No plant employees were injured. S. Kumaraswamy, regional man ager of Union Carbide India Ltd., said the leak occurred when pres sure suddenly rose inside the storage tank and a valve ruptured. He said a safety system designed to neutralize the gas with caustic soda failed to operate properly be cause of the huge pressure buildup. A statement released by Union Carbide in Danbury called the acci dent “unprecedented,” pointing out the firm has manufactured the same gas at a plant in Institute. W.Va., for more than. 25 years without mishap. Future of health shown in models By DAINAH BULLARD Staff Writer Environmental design students at Texas A&M are presenting their versions of futuristic health care with a display of 33 models depicting the Health Facility of the Future: The Year 2000. The models will be displayed tomorrow from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the second floor gallery of the Langford Architecture Center. More than 100 professionals from architecture and health care fields will attend the display and discuss the projects with the 33 students who designed the mod els. The display is open to the public. Among the models which will be displayed are an eye hospital aboard a DC-10, a medic-space unit, a birthing development cen ter, a hospice and a retirement complex. The models are the result of a , semester-long project assigned to students enrolled in Environmen tal Design 403, Architectural De sign V. The students developed their designs after interpreting ideas presented in a day-long brainstorming session with rep resentatives of health care facili ties from across the United States. “What we did was to present a problem that’s relevant to the en tire United States,” said George Mann, a professor of environ mental design and of architecture and director of the project. “Then we let the students use their imagination and creativity to solve it (the problem).” Besides constructing scale models of their projects, the stu dents had to prepare posters with photographs or drawings and a program which explains the idea behing their projects. Each stu dent’s project represents a differ ent concept of health care in the year 2000. Keith Fleming, creator of the Alief Emergency Clinic/Diagnos tic Center, designed his project with the premise that health care will become more specialized in the future. “In the future, as medical tech nology increases, the general hos pital isn’t going to be able to take care of the patients as well,” Fleming said. “The clinic/diag nostic center will be the first place anyone who’s sick or has an acci dent will go. They’ll be treated, stabilized and have diagnostic tests. Then they’ll be taken to spe cialized facilities, like burn cen ters.” Other students concentrated on specialized facilities, such as See HEALTH, page 7