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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 31, 1985)
h The Battalion Vol. 80 No. 86 CJSPS 045360 16 pages College Station, Texas Thursday, January 31,1985 Cadet says Cuadra probably ruined roster By DAINAH BULLARD Staff Writer Texas A&M cadet John Havel tes tified Wednesday he saw Gabriel Cuadra destroy what he thought was an exercise roster requested by Uni versity Police for evidence in an in vestigation. Cuadra, 21, is charged with tam pering with evidence and hazing in connection with the Aug. 30 death of Bruce Dean Goodrich. Wednes day’s trial, which recessed at 6 p.m., was concerned with the tampering with evidence charge. Havel, former commanding offi cer of Company F-l, testified Cua dra gave him the paper after he re quested the exercise roster Aug. 31. Check cashing limit at MSC raised to $50 By MARY ANN HARVEY Reporter The check cashing limit will he raised to $50 at the Memorial Stu dent Center said student govern ment leader Mike Kelley after meet ing with fiscal department officials Wednesday. “We’ve been negotiating since last semester,” said Kelley, vice-presi dent of finance. “The fiscal depart ment has been very helpful.” The limit on cashing checks has been $25 and the limit will be raised beginnning Friday, Feb. 1. Kelley said the fiscal department has done the students a big favor in providing this service. “They liave put their necks out on the line because we told them this is what the students needed,” he said. “A lot of students have been com plaining about the service and now that it’s been partially restored, we expect those students to use it.” Kelley said if the students do not utilize this service, it could be re turned to the $25 limit. >P addition of the automatic teller ma chines in front of the MSC. “The teller machines must be pro viding the service,” he said. For this reason, the fiscal depart ment was able to absorb the new $50 limit on checks without greatly in creasing the amount of money the MSC handles daily. “I think this will solve any prob lems that the students might have with mohey,” Powell said. The MSC main desk is open from 8:30 a.m. until 8 p.m. seven days a week and there is no charge for check cashing. “That’s better than any bank,” Powell said. “I made it known that I needed the list and I was given a folded-up piece of paper,” Havel said. How ever, he said he never unfolded the paper or examined it. Havel said he put the paper on his desk and left the room. When he re turned, Cuadra and Jason Miles were in the room, he said. Cuadra told him he was looking for the list, then destroyed it when Havel gave it to him, Havel said. “I asked him what he was doing, and he said he was ripping it up,” he said. “I asked him if he didn’t need to talk to someone, and he said he’d already talked to his lawyer.” Havel said he received a phone call from officials looking for the list right after Cuadra destroyed the pa per. When Havel returned from the phone call, Cuadra had Hushed the pieces of paper down the toilet, Ha vel said. “I informed him I had just re ceived a phone call looking for the list,” Havel said. “Cuadra said to tell the Trigon that he tore it up. I went to the Trigon and told them within a five-minute period.” Havel saici cadets in F-l were ner vous and upset after Goodrich’s death, and pressure from the media added to the tension. He said he pa trolled the hall and answered phones in underclassmen’s rooms so they wouldn’t have to deal with the press. Cadets in Company M-l set up an all-night guard to keep report ers from disturbing his outfit, Havel said. “I felt half the time that we were all frustrated,” he said. “I know we were all frustrated. I was the com mander. I watched the men.” Havel said Cuadra might have thought he was protecting the com pany when he destroyed the paper. Or he might just have been scared, he said. Havel’s testimony was suppli- mented by a tape recorded during a Brazos County Grand Jury investi gation in late September. The tape, which was presented by County At torney Jim Kuboviak, gave Cuadra’s account of the destruction of the exercise roster. On tape, Cuadra said the exercise roster was compiled by Anthony D’Alessandro, who, along with Miles and Louis Fancher III, is now charged with hazing and criminally negligent homicide. Cuadra said on tape that push-ups, set-ups and wheelbarrows were among the exer cises on the list. The exercise session was origi nally scheduled to last two hours, but on the tape Cuadra said he had in sisted that the session last only one hour, to begin between 2 a.m. and 3 a.m. Cuadra said on tape that Havel woke him up when Goodrich re turned to the dorm. Cuadra said on tape he went to Saint Joseph Hospi tal and stayed for several hours after Goodrich was admitted, then went to the University Police station where he gave his statement. Then he re turned to his dorm. “I went to John Havel’s room, and I found the list and I tore it up,” Cuadra said on the tape. He said on tape that he destroyed the list after it had been requested by University police. He had also talked to his law yer, Henry Paine, about the list, Cuadra said on tape. “1 called him (Paine) and 1 asked him what 1 should do about the list,” See Cadet, page 15 Checks will still be cashed at the main desk in the Memorial Student Center and will use the same cashing procedure as before. Donald B. Powell, director of business services, said students, fac ulty, staff and hotel guests can cash checks with the proper identifica tion. The check cashing policy was started to provide emergency cash for students who needed it. Last September, the fiscal department discontinued check cashing at the Coke Building because the staff could no longer handle the large vol ume of business there, Powell said. “Something had to go,” he said. Although the Coke Building quit cashing checks, the number of checks being cashed at the MSC dropped, Powell said. “There has been 7,000 fewer checks cashed each month since Sep tember 1984,” he said. More companies are interviewing students this year Rig Painting "" > "' V£ ’ £4A ' SA,TO Gary Sapia, a sophomore Petroleum Engi- ternoon in the Doherty building. The model neering major, paints the hand rails of a is being put back up with a new derrick re model offshore drilling rig Wednesday af- placing the one that it was missing. By LYNN RAE POVEC Staff Writer It’s a good year for jobs. That’s the word from all kinds of employers in all sorts of places, and Judy Vulliet, assistant director of the Career Planning and Placement Center at Texas A&M, agrees. “There are more companies com ing and talking to more students, which would strongly connote that there would be more hirings,” Vul liet said. During the 1983-84 school year, 755 companies interviewed 2b,000 students through the placement cen ter. So far this year, the 1,004 com panies registered with the center have conducted 16,000 interviews. Vulliet said that although the cen ter has interview opportunities for every major, most companies are in terested in engineering and business graduates. But most of the inter views go to accounting, computer science and electrical engineering majcHrs, she said. “That is an absolute truth,” said Dr. William Beasley, associate pro fessor and undergraduate advisor in the Department of Electrical Engi neering. “The job offers for our typ ically good-to-better students are running $28,000-$32,000 right out of school.” Those figures are up from $26,000 last year, he said, and most electrical engineers find jobs through the placement center. Dr. Carlton Stolle, director of the accounting department’s Master of Science program, said the top half of graduating classes in accounting usually has success through the placement center. Beginning salaries for those graduates range from $20,500 to $22,000, he said. The Department of Finance gives out about 100 degrees each aca demic year, said Dr. Malcolm Rich ards, head of the Department of Fi nance. About a third of those — usually students with a grade-point ratio of at least 3.0 — find jobs through the placement center, he said. Students with a GPR between 2.0 and 3.0 usually find jobs with smaller companies, Richards said. Smaller companies don’t recruit through the placement center be cause they don’t need many new em ployees, he said, and students have to let those companies know they’re looking. More than 50 percent of those who find jobs through the place ment center majored in some kind of engineering, Vulliet said, but that doesn’t mean students will succeed if they choose a major that is in de mand. Vulliet cautions students against choosing a major because job oppor tunities are promising in that field. She tells them to go with something they’re good at. “People who are good in their field are hired before the worst peo ple in a field that’s in demand,” she said. Vulliet said students who aren’t sure what they’d like to do should narrow their interests, instead of in terviewing with companiesjust to see what comes along. “Get yourself a ballpark that’s a feasible ballpark to work in,” she said. Since most companies fill entry- level positions through the place ment center, they usually provide new employees with some type of training, Vulliet said. “People who recruit on college campuses lean heavily on the ‘Grow your own’ philosopny,” she said. “Companies hire graduates with the idea that they will grow with the company...There usually is some type of training, but you’re paid well while you’re trained.” Dr. Lyle Schoenfeldt, head of the Department of Management, said students can find a job if they try hard enough. “My own experience is that the students don’t mount as great an ef fort as they might in terms of job search,” he said. Banks, public accounting firms and corporations offer opportuni ties for management graduates, and the jobs are out there, Schoenfeldt said. “I do know that I’m getting a lot of calls from companies that are in terested,” he said. See Companies, page 15 OPEC agreement calls for decrease in prices Associated Press GENEVA, Switzerland — A di vided OPEC agreed Wednesday to lower some of its prices by as much as $1.41 a barrel. The move followed the lead of its competitors and marked only the second round of cuts in the cartel’s 25-year history. Analysts said consumers, who have enjoyed savings from earlier price cuts by such OPEC competitors as Britain, Norway, Canada and U.S. oil companies, should not expect ad ditional savings at the gas pump soon. But they said they expected prices to continue to drift lower in the months and years ahead. The turbulent three-day special meeting ended with a new split in the ranks of the Organization of Pe troleum Exporting Countries, as four of the cartel’s 13 members re jected the deal and said they would go their own way on prices. Algeria, Iran and Libya, which had resisted cuts in OPEC’s high-priced oils, dis sented from the decision, while Ga bon abstained. The net effect of Wednesday’s modest cuts would be a 29-cent drop in the average OPEC price, to $27.96 a barrel, Saudi Arabian Oil Minister Ahmed Zaki Yamani said. Yamani said his calculation was adjusted to account for the share of total OPEC production held by the producers whose oil is affected by the price changes — Ecuador, Indo- raq, K Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emi rates and Venezuela. Nigeria, which broke ranks with OPEC in October by slashing its Bonny Light oil $2 a barrel to follow cuts oy competitors Norway and Britain, agreed to rescind 65 cents of that reduction. T hat put its price up to $28.65 a barrel. Campus leaders say budget would hurt students By JERRY OSLIN Staff Writer The budget crunch in Texas is forcing state legislators to consider raising college tuition, but some Texas A&M student leaders feel the legislature is unfairly dumping the budget problem on the backs of col lege students. “We have a state government that’s facing tremendous budget problems and in my opinion the way they are going to try and fix it is to dump the biggest load on the group with the least influence, and that of course is college students,” says stu dent body president David Alders. Young Democrat’s president, Garry Young, agreed that the legis lature is taking advantage of stu dents. “The legislature is trying to look for the area where there is least re sistance,” Young says. “If you try to increase liquor taxes, you have to deal with the liquor lobby. If you try to raise oil taxes, you have to deal with the oil lobby. But students are not quite the same in terms of lobby ing strength, so it’s going to be a lot easier to raise tuition than it is to raise taxes.” The Legislative Study Group, the part of student government that represents A&M students in Austin, says a tuition hike would hurt over 15,000 students here. “For the 1982-83 school year, there were over 15,000 students at A&M who were on some type of grant or financial aid or were em ployed by the university,” says LSG’s tuition coordinator, Chris Gavras. “If tuition were to be raised, there would definitely be some students New budget would ease cuts ortjilglier education L» Gov. Bill Hobby pointed out raised might not be channeled back to the universities. “Currently, tuition revenues go into the general fund and who knows if it is going to pay for higher education,” he says. “What it’s going to pay for is the billion dollar deficit which may or may not be created by higher education.” squeezed out of higher education.” A tuition increase would espe cially hurt low-income peopl : who attend school during the su rimer, Young says. “People who want to go u sum mer school won’t be able to because they will have to work full time to pay for their fall and spring semes ters,” he says. Alders says he is against any large tuition increase because the money mina Delco D-Austin would put the money raised by a tuition increase into a special fund designed to pay for higher education. But even with the Delco Plan, A&M might not get back all the money it puts in, Gavras says. “The higher education fund that the Delco plan calls for will be split up among all the state-supported schools,” Gavras says. “If Texas A&M puts three million dollars into the fund, there is no guarantee that it will get three million dollars back.” Even though he disagrees with a tuition increase, Alders says he is realistic about the situation. “The budget situation in Texas is a mess right now and I think we as students would be tremendously ide alistic and tremendously unrealistic if we went down to Austin and said ‘hold that tuition right where it is,’ ” he says. LSG also is taking a realistic ap proach to the increase. “As it looks now, there is going to be some kind of tuition hike,” Gav ras says. “If we walked in there and argued for no tuition increase, we would lose our credibility so we are going to argue for the bill that hurts students least.” See Campus, page!5