Concert promoter to stage
sixth Texxas Jam Saturday
— Page 3
Texas' population may shift
if Reagan's tax proposals pass
— Page 6
■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■
Lack of thoroughbred Ponies
means SWC a 6-horse race
— Page 9
■MMM
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Serving the University community
380 No. 193 USPS 045360 10 pages
College Station, Texas
Wednesday August 21,1985
egents approve 1985-86 system budget
(1
By JERRY OSLIN
Assistant City Editor
lie Texas A&M Board of Re-
Is gave final approval Tuesday to
ord $689 million Texas A&M
liversity System operating budget
jcl\ also eliminates more than 700
tbin positions.
Alihough the fiscal 1985-86 TA-
LJS budget is an increase of 3.6
lent over the current year’s $665
million budget, it is the smallest per-,
centage increase in 21 years.
Most of the personnel reductions
have been through attrition, not
filling positions when they become
vacant, said TAM US chancellor, Ar
thur Hansen. He also said almost all
the eliminated positions have been
in non-teaching areas.
Included in the 1985-86 system
budget is Texas A&M’s $407 million
budget, an increase of 2.3 percent
above this year’s $398 million oper
ating budget.
In other business, the Board ap
proved an agenda item that allows
the four TAMUS universities to
charge a fee to students who decide
to pay their tuition and fees in instal
lments during the semester rather
than pay before the start of the se
mester.
House Bill 1 147, the law which
raised tuition for students attending
l PP< , _
sities, allows students to pay tuition
and fees in either two or four semes
ter installments. The bill also allows
colleges and universities to charge
students, who pay in installments, a
fee for handling those installments.
Beginning in the 1985 fall semes
ter, A&M will charge a $10 fee to
students who pay in installments and
a $10 penalty to any student who
does not pay his installment by the
due date.
The Board also approved an item
allowing the TAMUS universities to
establish an emergency loan pro
gram to help students who can snow
an inability to pay their tuition and
fees.
House Bill 1147 directs each state-
supported college and university to
set aside 15 percent of its resident
student’s tuition and 5 percent of its
nonresident student’s tuition for
grants and loans.
According to loan eligibility rules,
A&M undergraduates and profes
sional students must have a mini
mum gradepoint of 2.0 and grad
uate students must have a 3.0 to be
eligible. A&M students must also
show a lack of financial ability to pay
tuition and fees and must not be on
conduct or academic probation to be
eligible for a grant or loan.
Sikh leader shot
to death, three
men wounded
The 'most ambitious space effort so far'
Firm to construct first space factory
I Associated Press
IaSHINGTON — A Houston
Ki, using no government money
3f its multimillion-dollar venture,
von the space agency’s approval
Thday to build and operate the
rsi commercial factory in space.
■he facility will operate automat-
cally, with only periodic mainte-
lajjce visits by astronauts.
■This agreement initiates the most
mjbitious space effort undertaken
Tu. far by the United States private
lector,” said Isaac Gillam, head of
■commercial projects office of the
Atonal.Aeronautics and Space Ad-
ninistration.
Tlax Faget, a space pioneer who is
Isiclent of Space Industries Inc.,
the space platform — to be
id an “Industrial Space Facility”
— is expected to be ready to be car
ried into orbit by a shuttle in 1989.
It then will be leased to manufac
turers of products such as pharma
ceuticals, electronic crystals and met
als which can be produced only in
the gravity-free environment of
space.
T he platform is designed to be
used either as a free-flying craft cast
adrift in orbit and visited two or
three times annually by the shuttle,
or as a module that can be attached
to the space station the United States
hopes to send aloft by 1994.
Faget estimated the cost of pro
ducing the tube-shaped spacecraft at
between $250 million and $500 mil
lion. He declined to discuss the fi
nancing, saying that there will be no
federal investment.
Faget played an important role in
the design of the Mercury, Gemini
and Apollo spacecraft that propelled
America into the space age and to lu
nar landings.
He also was a leader in developing
the space shuttle as head of engi
neering and technology at the John
son Space Center in Houston.
Space Industries Inc. was estab
lished three years ago with a goal of
owning one of the major commercial
facilities that will become part of the
space station complex. Faget said no
customers for his facility had yet
been signed.
NASA initially will carry two of
the platforms into orbit, deferring
reimbursement for the launches un
til Space Industries begins earning
money. When that happens, the
company will pay the government 12
percent of its revenue each year un
til NASA is paid in full.
“We hope the ISF will be the first
of many such platforms to be built
by private industry to complement
the permanently manned space sta
tion and to lead eventually to an in
dustrial park in space,” said NASA
administrator James M. Beggs.
“We believe business in space is al
ready taking off,” he said, adding
that NASA has agreements with 20
companies and is negotiating with 24
others for commercial activities in
space.
Each module will be 35 feet long
and 14.5 feet in diameter, offering
2,500 cubic feet of pressurized inter
nal volume. The size makes it possi
ble for the shuttle to carry one cylin
der-shaped factory aloft in its 60-
foot hold.
Associated Press
NEW DELHI, India — Sikh ter
rorists assassinated top Sikh political
leader Harchand Singh Longowal
on Tuesday, authorities said, less
than a month after he signed an
accord with the government to settle
the three-year Punjab crisis.
Police said an unidentified man
was killed and three others were crit
ically wounded in the hail of gunfire
when extremists shot Longowal,
president of the Sikhs’ main Akali
Dal party, as he addressed a village
temple meeting in his home district
of Sangrur in Punjab state.
Authorities said they arrested two
of Longowal’s killers and were
searching for two others.
The 57-year-old Longowal, called
“sant” or saint by his followers, died
after undergoing emergency sur
gery, performed by senior doctors
who were flown in by the govern
ment.
The killing, which prompted a na
tionwide security alert, occurred
hours after Sikh gunmen killed a
Hindu leader of Gandhi’s governing
Congress Party and wounded two
other Congress members in Punjab’s
Jullundur city.
Longowal advocated non-violence
and condemned the call by some
Sikh militants for an idependent na
tion for India’s 13-million Sikhs,
who are a religious minority in every
state except Punjab.
His assassination could plunge the
state into renewed political turmoil.
The settlement reached last
month was aimed at ending a Punjab
agitation launched by Longowal’s
party in August 1982. The campaign
for greater religious and political au
tonomy for Punjab was eclipsed by
Sikh militants and claimed about
4,500 lives in the past three years.
The Punjab violence reached a
peak in June 1984 when the army at
tacked the Golden Temple in Amrit
sar, the holiest Sikh shrine, killing
hundreds of Sikh militants who lived
in the temple complex. The antago
nism between the Sikhs and the gov
ernment of this predominantly
Hindu nation exploded into violence
again in a wave of Hindu revenge
killings when Prime Minister Indira
Gandhi was assassinated last Oct. 31
— allegedly by some of her Sikh
guards.
On Sunday, Prime Minister Rajiv
Gandhi called for elections Sept. 22
in Punjab, which has been under di
rect federal rule since the state gov
ernment was dismissed two years
ago for failing to stop terrorism.
It was not immediately clear if the
election would still be held.
“Sant Longowal is Dead,” the gov
ernment television said in a message
Hashed across the screens. Mourn
ing songs were broadcast and the
Punjab government declared a two-
day state mourning.
Authorities identified the two ar
rested suspects as Halwinder Singh
and Gian Singh. Police were seach-
ing for the two others. The United
News of India said Longowal’s body
guards opened fire at the assailants
and wounded Halwinder Singh.
Dr. Harnik Singh, a spokesman
for the Sungrur Civil Hospital, told
the Associated Press by telephone
that Longowal died at 8:40 p.m.
(11:10 EDT). “He had been shot on
both the left and right side of his ab
domen,” he said.
Senior government surgeons and
medical supplies were airlifted to
Sangrur in an effort to save Longo
wal’s life. Indian Home Affairs Min
ister Shankarrao B. Chavan and
Punjab governor Arjun Singh also
rushed to the scene.
See Sikhs, page 8
resident OKs testing
ill new ASAT weapon
3
Associated Press
|L0S ANGELES — President Rea
gave the go-ahead Tuesday for
first tests of an anti-satellite
tpon in space.
Presidential spokesman Larry
akes said, “We have to test, and
l now, to restore the military hal
ite.”
Reagan made the weapon testing
Jcision Monday, Speakes said, and
■tified Congress on Tuesday by is-
ng a required certification.
So far, Congress has approved re-
rch and development funds for
weapon, but it has balked at sup-
rting unlimited tests against ob-
ts in space in the hope of achiev-
limits on such weapons at the
tis control talks in Geneva, Swit-
land.
Some Reagan critics contend
re should be no testing at all be-
e the November summit meeting
[tween Reagan and Mikhail S. Gor
chev, the new Soviet leader.
Speakes said the first of three tests
‘ take place after 15 days from
lesday, the notification period set
■ Congress. Speakes refused to give
any dates for the tests, saying they
were classified.
Speakes said the tests were nec
essary to counter a similar system
operated by the Soviet Union, which
he said “constituted a clear threat” to
the United States and its allies.
The anti-satellite, or ASAT,
weapon system includes a two-stage
main rocket carried high into the at
mosphere by an F-15 fighter plane,
where it is launched into space.
The warhead, equipped with tiny
rocket motors, is then released and
homes in on a low-orbit satellite, de
stroying it by impact without explo-
Speakes said the first test would
be conducted against “an old satellite
that no longer has any use.” He gave
no further details.
Congress specified in the current
defense budget that a space test
could not proceed unless president
had filed such a certification.
Grads get advice from Vandiver, Eller
By KAREN BLOCH
City Editor
August 1985 graduates were
copgratulated and given some ad-
Sdce at Saturday’s commencement
in G. Rollie White Coliseum.
Texas A&M President Frank
E. Vandiver told the more than
1,400 students who were awarded
diplomas that the most important
thing they have learned at the
University is how to learn.
“You learned here the indivisi
bility of knowledge — every disci
pline and thought combined,” he
said. “You haven’t learned ever-
thing. But you’ve learned how to
look at everything.”
The chairman of the Texas
A&M Board of Regents, David G.
Eller, expressed the Board’s
pride in the graduates but re
minded them of the responsibili
ties that accompany their college
degrees.
“The Board of Regents takes
great pride in knowing that you
will represent Texas A&M,” Eller
said. “By meeting the high stan
dards of the University, you have
earned the distinctions that go
“You are Texas AScM to
the people you come in
contact with. People judge
the University on what
they see in you." — David
Eller, chairman of the
Texas A&M Board of Re
gents. '•
along with the I exas A&M de-
gree.”
But, Eller said, graduates must
continue to meet these standards.
“You are ambassadors for the
University,” he said. “You are
Texas A&M to the people you
come in contact with. People
judge the University on what they
see in you.”
Also, Eller told the graduates
that they have a more direct re
sponsibility to the University.
Because of budget cuts, he
said, graduates should “shoulder
more of the (financial) load and
encourage others to do the sa
me.”
Davis L. Ford, president of the
Association of Former Students,
welcomed the graduates to the as
sociation and stressed the impor
tance of new graduates to the as
sociation.
“You are foundations for a
new era of the association,” Ford
said. “In the past few years the
graduating classes have been
larger than the graduating classes
of the first 60 years of Texas
A&M combined,” Ford said.
“You are for a new era of the as
sociation. You need us and we
need you and, with that, there is
nothing we can’t accomplish.”
Vandiver told the graduates to
be proud of their University.
“You are now and forever an
Aggie,” he said. “The product of
a unique University.
“And, A&M is truly unique. It’s
a people place. A place that cares
about you and will live in your
shadow forever,” Vandiver
added.
At the commencement cere
mony, more than 1,000 students
received bachelor’s degrees, more
than 300 received master’s de
grees and about 100 received
doctorates.
Summa Cum Laude honors,
given to students graduating with
a grade point ratio of 3.9 or
above, were recieved by Melanie
Ann Ayers, Karen Elaine Eisen,
Denise Elizabeth Ference, David
Randall Glimp, Amy Patricia
Hauck, Robert Lewis Little, Meri
Krystal Major, Kathryn Drews
Moore, Gretchen Rosanne Poet-
*schke, Doris Elaine Stallings,
Cynthia Kay Stroud, Whitney
Ryan White and Gregory Scott
Woodward.
Also, 19 students graduated
Magna Cum Laude, a GPR rang-.
ing from 3.7 through 3.899. And,
41 students graduated Cum
Laude, a GPR ranging from 3.5
through 3.699.
Commissioning ceremonies for
19 students also took place Satur
day, with retired Lt. Gen. Or
mond R. Simpson presiding.
James Gatlen Sisk and David
Charles Waugh were named dis
tinguished Naval graduates and
James David Mask was named a
distinguished Air Force graduate.