The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current, February 08, 1985, Image 1

Texas A&M Newspaper Collection

The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current, February 08, 1985, Image 1

Newspaper Page TextWorld hunger Village of Hope Laureate talks about the future Other schools follow A&M's lead Page 5 Page5 MM« Texas m m V# The Battalion Vol. 80 No. 92 USPS 045360 14 pages College Station, Texas Friday, February 8, 1985 ublic universities in Texas offer acuity lower-than-average pay By JERRY OSLIN Stuff Writei A recent report said public nni- Iversities in Texas are falling behind Jthe rest of the country in terms of Jthe salary offered to faculty. 1 his report, from Texas College land University System Coordinating ■ Board, has at least one 1 exas A&M ■official worried. “We at Texas A&M have been ■ reasonably competitive in terms of ■ salary at hiring good people, but we ■can’t afford to fall benino,” said Dr. JClinton Phillips. Dean of Faculties at IjH lexas A&M. “We will lose our best ■and brightest people if we fail to ^■continue to of fer competitive pay.” The board's report said salaries fose 7 percent nationally this year for teachers in the first four faculty ranks - professor, associate profes at p tor. Salaries for the same ranks at public universities in Texas rose only 4.1 percent. “California salaries are up,” Phil lips said. “Michigan salaries are up. Massachusetts salaries are up. There is a general recognition of the fact that considerable damage was done to the universities in these states be cause of the recession. Now they (the universities) are instituting massive Salary adjustments to try and repair the damage.” These states are not only using higher faculty salaries to repair their universities but they also are using them to repair their economies, Phil lips said. “The rest of the country has come out of a recession and it has become abundantly evident to them that you can’t stifle your higher education system without severly damaging your economy,” Phillips said. “One of the ways to attract new business to a state is to have quality faculty at a quality university.” Texas A&M is already in trouble of losing its best faculty members be cause it is not staying up with the rest of the country in terms of salary, Phillips said. “We have not been increasing sal aries as much as we should have. We havejust been keeping up with infla tion,” he said. “I’m hearing from deans that some of our best young faculty are being looked at by other institutions and we’re are liable to lose some.” One of the reasons Texas A&M has not been able to raise salaries as high as it would like is because of its rapid growth, Phillips Said. “Part of our problem is that we have grown so much that we have had to spend our money to attract additional faculty members instead of raising existing salaries,” he said. Even though Texas A&M has not been able to pay the salaries it would like to, it still has its advantages, Phil lips said. “Texas doesn’t have a state in come tax and people don’t have to fight a traffic jam to get to the camp us,” he said. “It is also cheaper to buy a house here than it is in a place like Stanford. Stanford simply has to subsidize mortgages or provide fac ulty housing at a reduced price if it is going to get hew f aculty members.” Local bar owners protest law Drinking age bill hurts clubs By MICHABX CRAWFORD . Stuff Writei That frosty inug of brew enjoyed ■ by many college students may soon lira pleasure at the past tav W and 120 year old drinkers. Local bar owners are concerned ■ about economic effects that would I result if the Texas House follows the ■ Senate’s lead and raises the mint I mum drinking age from 19 to 21 I It’s a move local bar owners I dread. Dixie Chicken owner Don Ganter ■ said the effect of the raise vvil) not ■ only reduce sales, but also increase Ithe number of drunken drivers I “It’s going to be terrible.” Gamer ■ said. “We do cater to a considerable ■ crowd over 21, but still 1 can t be ■blind. There’s a whole pile of stu ■ dents at A&M that are 19 and 20 ■ who are going to be cut out bv this Icompleteiv ridiculous law. It’s so in satie that woi ds defy description. The very taw is going to do what they are trying to prevent. That is drink arid drive. It’s going to push U out into the streets and into the country. That s all it’s going to do ” If Texas fails to raise the legal age to 21, the state will lose $107 million in federal highway funds The change is being brought about by the Surface Transportation Act of 1984, which was passed by President Reagan last July 17 It es tablishes a national minimum drink ing age of 21 years and says states which don’t comply by Oct. 1, 1986, will lose 5 percent of certain federal highway funds for that fiscal year and 10 percent lor the next. The fund threat to Texas will end Sept. 30, 1988 if the U.S. Congress fails to renew the Act. T he Texas Senate Wednesday ap proved the bill which will become ef fective Sept. I, 1986. The nation wide federal requirement is being challenged by South Dakota. Should the courts declare the federal law unconstitutional, the state' drinking age would revert to 19. Beer sales are already depressed by the slump in the oil industry, said Jim Pillans, vice president of Brazos Beverages Inc. Pillans expects to lose 20 percent of his business if the new drinking age becomes law. Brazos Beverages distributes Miller beer products in the area. ‘ In 1981 and 1982 we w’ere still in the tail-end of an oil boom,” Pillans said. “In 1982 the oil boom was over and they started laying off a lot of their oil personnel. )For example, when .3,000 oil field workers are laid off. 3,000 of those people were good beer drinkers and they have all left town. I think that hurt us more than any thing else “If A&M were growing by leaps and bounds like it used to, it would tieip offset the oil field people leav ing Sales in 1983 were down 4.7 per ceni from previous years and Pillans expects the figure for 1984 to be still lower In 1984, i 5 million cases of beer were distributed in the Bryan /College Station. In spite of that vol ume consumed, Duddleys Draw owner Richard Bennmg said A&M students are not excessive drinkers.: I in not sure Aggies drink any more beer than any other college crowd at any other mar i universi ty, Bennings said. Ganter agreed, Texas A&M stu dents, In and large, are pretty con scientious about their studies. For hi st a n c e. this week we are experiencing an extremely low vol ume week due to the fact it’s the first round ot tests at A&M 1 hey know w hy they are here and they study.” Photo bv DEAN SAITO Revamping Rudder Workers cleaned the windows of Rudder Tower Thursday af ternoon using hanging scaffolding to allow them to reach all the windows easily. The tree branches provide a framing for the picture and aren’t as tall as the appear O’Neill criticizes Reagan’s address Pentagon gives forces top priority Associated Press WASHINGTON — T he Pen tagon’s special operations forces—the most elite fighting units in the U.S. military—are in the midst of a “high priority” buildup and revitalization, new budget documents show. The documents, issued this week along with President Rea gan’s fiscal 1986 spending plan, show the Pentagon is planning to activate additional Army Special Forces and Ranger units, includ ing a Psychological Operations battalion, as well as another Navy SEAL team. SEAL refers to the ability of the commandos to fight on sea ait and land. There are also plans to acquire additional MC-130H Combat Talon airplanes “to infiltrate, re supply and extract forces from hostile territory,” and add spe cialized troop-carrying shelters to three more submarines. Many of the details on the ex tent of the special forces buildup, and its cost, are considered secret. But the “Military Posture” statements released by the serv ices to justify their budget re quests provide an outline of what the Pentagon describes as one of its highest priority projects. The special forces are troops who have undergone rigorous physical and psychological condi tioning and who are trained in a variety of hand-to-hand combat techniques and tactics for infil trating and operating on their own behind enemy lines. Library services in danger if budget cuts win support By KIMBERLY PETTIBON Reporter The Texas Legislative Budget Board’s proposal for a 28 percent cut in the Sterling C. Evans Library budget could alter plans for extending library hours, Dr. Irene Hoadley, library director, said. ^ “The I BB s proposal would cut about $2 million from our budget,” Hoadley said Library officials had agreed with Student Govern ment to extend library hours by about 14 or 15 hours a week, she said. The extended hours would permit stu dents to use the library until 3 a m. during the week and earlier in the morning on weekends. “Because of the reductions in spending for this year, we had to inform Student Government that we would not extend those hours,” Hoadley said. But, Hoadley said, it is Student Government’s inten tion to raise enough money to extend the hours for the second half of the spring semester Student Government spokesman Tom Urban said, “We need to raise $1,700 in order to extend the hours.” Student Government could look to its cash account for funding and turn to former students for help if needed Urban said. However, no concrete funding plan has been decided on yet. Hoadley said besides library study hours, other areas of library services that could be af fected include the pe riodical department, the map room and the learning resources room A reduction m open hours and staff in those areas could be a possibility, she said Hoadley said the proposed budget cuts come at an awkward time for the University and library “We havejust gotten to a point where we ate able to provide a pretty good level of service for the l diversity community, she said. “But if we have to take some steps backward now. it will take a very long rime to catch up “Irreparable damage could be done to the library and the students if the budget cut would be maintained for a long period of time (4 to 6 years). I t. Gov. Bill Hobby recently proposed a 6 percent budget cut instead >f the previous 20 percent t his would be a substantial difference from the LBB’s pro posal. Hoadley said a composite budget would probably not be announced until this summer, after the state Legis lature committees meet Associated Press WASHINGTON — After weeks of holding lus punches, House Speaker 1 hooias P. O’Neill Jr. went on the attack again Thursday, dis missing President Reagan’s State of the Union address as generalities of “a kindly old man ” T he Massachusetts Democrat, in his harshest criticism since the presi dent's landslide re-election victory last November, said Reagan “hasn’t been honest with the American peo ple. They haven’t asked him for honesty.” Reagan delivered his State of the Union address Wednesday night on his 74th birthday But Thursday, O’Neill said Demo crats had been intentionally easy on the president in then initial reac tions to his speech. “We did not want to hurt this kindly old man that America loves on his 74rh birthday,” O'Neill, 72, said “T his kindly gentleman, this old man The American people are mes merized by him. But I think he should come out and sa\ what he s asking toi O’Neill took issue with Reagan’s assertion that current high deficits were caused bv nearly 50 years of government’s living beyond its means “He made somewhat of a simple statement,” O’Neill said. “It was very clever rhetoric. But it covered up the facts. Mr. President ... do not point the finger at the distant past, when you yourself have so much responsi bility for these deficits resting on your own shoulders.” When Reagan took office, O’Neill said, the national debt was just over $900 million. “By his own budget projections ... the national debt will be $3 trillion when he leaves office, triple what tt was w r hen the Reagan revolution began.” O’Neill also accused the president of having “a touch in his heart” that makes him “unfair to the poor of America, to the blacks erf America, and to other segments of Arherica.” O’Neill, a sharp critic of Reagan during the president’s first term subdued his criticism of the presi dent following Reagans 49-state sweep. Last month, O'Neill openly praised Reagan as the “most popu lar” president he d ever known and vowed to do nothing to block his programs from coining to the House floor. Reagan’s speech to the joint House-Senate session, in which he called for a “Second American Revo lution,” was “one of his better per formances,” O’Neill said Animal research advances medical science By PATTI FLINT Staff Writer “There isn’t an existence that I’m aware of that isn’t at the expense of something else,” said Dr. Duane Kraemer, professor of veterinary physiology and pharmacology. Food, clothing and cosmetics com prise only a few animal products used by people. And animal experi mentation has provided drugs and surgical techniques that have ad vanced medical science, and bene fited both humans and animals. “It’s very difficult to be a purist in this without being hypocrytical or at least being naive,” Kraemer said. The use of live animals in medical research is a very emotional issue in today’s society. The transplantation of a baboon heart into a human baby and the poisoning of candy bars in England by animal rights activists were recent animal rights' issues. Dr. David McMurray, professor of medical microbiology, said it is not only appropriate to use animals in research, but necessary He said ir is the only way to learn about dis eases and, thus, find remedies for them. If the use of biomedical research on experimental animals is halted, them humanity will pay the price,” McMurray said “If you accept that we have an ob ligation to alleviate this suffering and must generate this knowledge, then you must accept the use of ani mals. I’m also for the appropriate control of the w'ay animals are used. I think that reasonable guidelines for the care and , use of all animals are necessary “Unlike other animals, we have the intelligence and the abilities to manipulate other species for our good. But also unlike other animal species, humans have been blessed with altruism and compassion which also should be applied. “Just because we re smart enough to use animals, doesn t mean we can do anything w£ want with them. Those limits are defined by our sen sitivity to the suffering of others, ’ he said The Laboratory Animal Re sources and Research Facility at I exas A&M acts as a centralized aui mal care facility providing the bulk of small animal care. Jeff Sanford, assistant to the head of the facility, said LARR makes sure that anyone using their animals for research complies with the regula tions concerning the use of lab ani mals in the United States. “First and foremost, we re a watchdog facility,’ Sanford said. “Our first thought is for the ani mals.” The LARR accomplishes its task in several ways. One is a grant review processes in which a committee screens out all that would cause ani mals undue discomfort or pain, or See Animal, page 11

Texas A&M Newspaper Collection

Texas A&M Newspaper Collection

The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current, February 08, 1985, Image 1

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