The Battalion
Serving the University community
Vol. 80 No. 71 CISPS 045360 14 pages
College Station, Texas
Monday, December 10, 1984
Hijack ends
as Iranians
storm airliner
Editor’s note: This is the first arti-
de in a three part series on scholastic
probation.
By SUZANNA YBARRA
Reporter
Scholastic probation to some stu
dents means no more than going to
summer school to make up a few bad
I grades from the regular semester.
|; But to others, probation is a night
mare. They feel like the flunked-out
! fat boy in the television commercial
! who comes home on the train, de-
' feated at school because his parents
I failed to buy him a computer.
Unless students are actually in-
| volved in the probation process, they
I probably could care less about it.
| More than 4,000 students cared
I about it last spring. These students
I each had cumulativejjrade point ra
tios of less than 2.0. That doesn’t
necessarily mean a student is on
scholastic probation. That’s up to the
student’s college to decide. But if all
4,000 students had been put on pro
bation last spring, that would have
been about one of every 10 students
at Texas A&M.
Why do so many students find
themselves facing the possibility of
probation? The reasons vary as
much as the students do.
Samuel M. Gillespie, assistant
dean for the college of business, says
he sees students who are having
love, drug, money, roommate or
family problems. Gillespie, who is in
charge of the undergraduate stu
dents on scholastic probation, says
he’s heard all kinds of reasons why
students are having academic diffi
culties, but family problems are the
most prominent.
“Family unhappiness — most stu
dents have difficulty coping with
that,” Gillespie says. Many students’
grades fall when their parents are
etting divorced or a family member
ies, he says.
Sometimes it’s helpful if students
come to explain why their grades are
slipping, he says. But he usually isn’t
aware a student is having problems
until the end of the semester.
“Some have too much pride,” Gil
lespie says. “They try to work it out
for themselves and we’re their last
resort.”
For example, one student jeopar
dized her grades while she was try
ing to cope with her roommate’s ill
ness, bulimia. She waited like most
students until the end of the semes
ter to bring her problem to his atten
tion.
Bulimia is the abnormal and con
stant craving for food. Its victims,
called bulimics, gorge themselves on
food then force themselves to vomit
soon after the binge. Sometimes bu
limics don’t even have to force them
selves to vomit; it comes naturally.
All semester the student watched
her roommate binge, then vomit —
sometimes in their living room and
bedroom. She was a bundle of
nerves by the time she came to Gil
lespie’s office.
While most students don’t have
bulimic roommates who help to de
stroy their GPRs, they probably con-
See Probation, page 12
United Press International
BEIRUT, Lebanon — Iranian se
curity men disguised as cleaners
stormed a hijacked Kuwaiti jetliner
in a blaze of gunfire in Tehran Sun
day, freed nine hostages and cap
tured the four air pirates who had
threatened to blow up the plane with
everyone on board, Iran said.
Iran’s official Islamic Republic
News Agency said the nearly six days
of terror at Tehran airport ended
with the Arabic-speaking hijackers
and the hostages seen leaving the
plane with their hands raised.
Businessman John Costa, 50, one
of two Americans reported freed,
described the rescue operation as
“excellent,” the agency reported in a
dispatch monitored in Beirut. The
British pilot also was released.
“The operation went by so fast
and unexpectedly that I didn’t no
tice it,” Costa told IRNA from a hos
pital bed.
The agency said Costa, whose
hometown was not given, was being
treated for bruised eyes in the Iran
Air medical center at Tehran’s Meh-
rabad International Airport.
The unidentified air pirates were
reported to have terrorized the hos
tages with beatings and death threats
at gunpoint, at one point threaten
ing to put the Americans “on trial”
for their life.
The Foreign Ministry in Tehran
said the rescue began after a top Ira
nian official announced Iran’s plans
in an airport meeting with the
charge d’affaires of Kuwait and
Saudi Arabia and the ambassadors
of Syria, Pakistan and Switzerland.
IRNA said the hijackers “are said
to have been severely beaten up dur
ing the raid. But latest reports have
not indicated if they were also suf
fering from gunshot wounds.”
Iranian security men stormed the
Kuwait Airways A-300 Airbus at
11:45 p.m., seven hours after the hi
jackers told the control tower they
had packed the plane with explo
sives and were saying their “final
prayers” before blowing up the
plane with all aboard, IRNA said.
“The hijackers had asked for serv
ice men to clean up the plane,”
IRNA said. “When they (security
men) arrived in disguise, they
grabbed one of the hijackers and
pushed him down the stairs.”
IRNA said the operation was car
ried out “swiftly enough to prevent
any counter actions by the armed hi
jackers. Seconds later, everyone in
side came out while bursts of gunfire
were being heard all arouhd the
plane,” IRNA said.
Just hours before the plane was
stormed, the hijackers freed seven
crew members, including the British
flight engineer, but then radioed the
control tower and repeated their
threat to blow up the plane.
Asked before the jetliner was
stormed whether he thought the hi
jackers would have blown up . the
plane, flight engineer Beeston said,
“Yes. They were planning to blow
the plane up. Yes. Whatever they
say, they will do.”
The hijackers seized the jetliner
Tuesday shortly after takeoff from
Dubai, United Arab Emirates, vith
166 people aboard on a flight to Ka
rachi, Pakistan, and forced the pilot
to fly to Tehran’s Mehrabad Air
port.
Once in Tehran, the hijackers de
manded that the Kuwaiti govern
ment free 17 people convicted of
carrying out a wave of bombings of
U.S. and French facilities in Kuwait
last December.
Falwell not
libeled by
publisher
United Press International
ROANOKE, Va. — Sex magazine
publisher Larry Flynt did not libel
the Rev. Jerry Falwell by printing an
advertisement parody marking the
evangelist as an incestuous drunk,
but he did intentionally inflict emo
tional distress, a federal jury decided
Saturday night.
The jury ruled there was no libel
because the ad’s claims, published in
the sexually explicit Hustler mag
azine, were too outrageous to be be
lieved, but it said Falwell was entitled
to $100,000 in actual damages for
emotional distress and $100,000 in
punitive damages for what it said
was a malicious parody.
Flynt’s lawyers planned to ask
U.S. Judge James Turk to set aside
the award and said they were pre
pared to appeal to the Supreme
Court if necessary.
The jurors deliberated about six
hours in reaching their verdict on
emotional distress and actual dam
ages, then resumed work to deter
mine the punitive damages.
The jury said Flynt, Hustler mag
azine and the publication’s distribu
tor must pay $100,000 in actual
damages, then ordered Flynt and
the magazine to pay an additional
|$50,000 each in punitive damages.
K t The distributor was not ordered to
I shoulder any of the punitive dam-
S a ges.
“I consider it a victory in many
| ways,” Flynt said. “He was asking for
$45 million, and we feel there’s
| enough error in the case that it will
be set aside on appeal.”
| Flynt claimed the jury’s rejection
I of the libel charge upheld his First
■ Amendment right to poke fun at hy-
I pocrisy in sex, politics and religion.
! Arch enemies for a decade, Fal-
Iwell and Flynt had never met until
f the trial. Both said Saturday they
s plan to continue their legal battle to
1 the Supreme Court.
| “The jury made it clear that Larry
Flynt and the other sleaze merchants
j; of America can no longer mali-
, dously attack public figures and get
| away with it,” Falwell said.
Along these lines
Photo by JOHN MAKELY
Cathy Smith and Michele Hawkes take ad
vantage of warm weather by sitting under
the lines of the Down’s Natatorium window
to follow their own lines of conversation.
Campus check-cashing limited to MSC
Large checks difficult to cash
By KENNETH SURY
Reporter
“How am I supposed to get cash
these days?”
That’s been the question on the
minds of many Texas A&M students
this semester since the fiscal office
stopped cashing checks in the Coke
Building.
Many students have wondered
why this handy service for getting
cash was suddenly stripped away
from them, for no apparent reason.
Bob Piwonka, manager of Student
Financial Services, said there was a
very good reason for the cancella
tion of the service.
“We had a physical space problem
here the last seven and eight years,”
Piwonka said. The biggest problem
caused by the long lines, he said, was
the inability to help the students who
needed to pay their fee slips or take
care of any financial aid problems.
“Everybody has to pay fees,” Pi
wonka said. “We just want to help
them get in and out.” The long lines
to cash checks at times really pressed
students for time, he said.
Piwonka said he feels the automa
ted teller machines near the Memo
rial Student Center have probably
alleviated some of the students’
problems in trying to get cash.
Virginia Arnold, manager of the
MSC Main Desk, said she also feels
the automated teller machines have
eased the situation.
Arnold said that when the Coke
Building stopped cashing checks she
expected to be swamped with stu
dents waiting checks at the MSC. But
the percentage of checks and the to
tal amount of money given out this
October was actually less than the
amount given out during October
1983 when checks could still be
cashed at the Coke Building, she
said.
The MSC main desk cashes per
sonal checks for $5, $10, $15, $20
and $25.
The problem of getting cash
really hits those students who don’t
See Checks, page 12
Probation a student’s nightmare
Cautionary steps
for holiday break
By PAMELA WENT
WORTH
Reporter
Due to energy related prob
lems suffered from last winter’s
below freezing temperatures,
dorm residents and apartment
renters are advised to take all nec
essary precautions before leaving
for the holidays.
Glen Ferris, housing opera
tions supervisor, said a radiator
pipe broke in Walton Hall last
year because some radiators were
turned off, causing the circula
tion of water to stop.
“When it got so cold last year,
the pipe broke on the third
floor,” Ferris said. “Nobody
knows how many hours the water
had been flowing,” Ferris said. “It
was like a gully of water coming
down the stairwell all the way to
the floor.”
Ferris said Underwood Hall
experienced water damage on the
first floor last year.
“The power plant shut down
and stopped hot water from com
ing on campus. This caused the
coil unit in Underwood to break
and parts of the first floor were
flooded.
This year, Ferris said housing
operations hope to resolve these
problems through preventive
maintenance.
“As soon as the students leave,
a maintenance team will go
around to all radiator operated
dorms to make sure they are not
turned off,” he said. “This will al
low the hot water to circulate.”
In the modular dormitories,
Ferris said the maintenance crew
will keep the fans at low tempera
tures to keep the air circulating.
Also, maintenance personnel will
monitor all residence halls peri
odically during the holidays to
check tor any possible damages.
Energy Specialist Charlie
Shear said the best way for off-
campus students to save energy is
to turn off the electricity com
pletely. However, this can cause
frozen pipe damage and refriger
ator compressor accumulation.
Shear suggests alternative solu
tions to saving energy while away.
Close all windows tightly and
make sure the weatherstripping
on all doors and windows is secu
rely sealed, Shear said. Newspa
pers, towels and blankets can be
used to stop air infiltration.
If the heater is turned off com
pletely, Shear said it is best to
make arrangements with the
apartment manager to turn the
heater on in case of low tempa-
tures.
However, if the heater is left
on, it is best to keep the thermos
tat on 55 F.
Shear said students not keep
ing food in their refrigerators
should set the temperature at the
warmest setting and defrost the
freezer.
Other helpful tips include un
plugging all small appliances,
placing insulation wrap on out
side faucets and writing down the
electric meter and water meter
readings prior to departing.