Eqi
Management department
ranked first in nation
— Page 3
A&M study finds varying
regional sex discrimination
— Page 5
A&M track team fares well
at NCAA Championships
— Page 8
■mnv Texas A&M _ « a
The Battalion
Serving the University community
Vol. 83 No. 157 (JSPS 075360 12 pages
College Station, Texas
Tuesday, June 10, 1986
Train fire
may burn
lor days’
er Ri
i not
has
3AN ANTONIO (AP) — A che-
I ^Bal-fuelt'd blaze from a train de-
D i irailment that forced the evacuation
J[of2,0()0 people could burn for days,
I Vautnorities said Monday.
■But most of the evacuees were
p IBs in their homes and officials said
the i the smoke from a burning tank car
Man ( was not toxic. Six people were treated
link ircbiul released from area hospitals, in-
laking dueling a man who suffered second
he< degree burns, authorities said.
^Ktill in question was the cause of
Sunday’s derailment of 32 cars of an
80-car Missouri Pacific freight train,
which was initially linked to the
wisting bridge that could have been
"weakened by flood waters earlier in
*/sriv the week '
lUll« ncia ls with Union Pacific, the
patent company of Missouri Pacific,
». rnr sakl videotapes taken by helicopters
yl vl flying over the scene might provide
dues.
■l lie lire and smoke from the burn
ing tank car containing the flamm
able gas butadiene initially prevented
infestigators from determining how
the accident occurred. Butadiene is
used to make synthetic rubber and
plastics.
)f tfudcHBouf other cars containing formal-
rograni' deliyde, butadiene and unknown
. contaiiii contents, a i so caught fire when the
andguc accident occurred Sunday.
^^j||£\cting City Manager Lou Fox said
^^Ilthe bridge had been weakened by
waters from heavy rains that
^ flooded San Antonio last week. But
% two witnesses, Victor and Judy Black-
» bum of Ingram, told the San Antonio
1 Light they were sure the bridge did
■ not collapse.
judge
educatii
S6.5 bil
nald
I
JVERf
G
■H'he boxcar was tearing up the
tnlrkbed,” Blackburn said. “It was
not the bridge. It was the train that
calsed the trouble.”
IjjResiclents within a two-mile radius
of the Salado Creek bridge in north-
easi San Antonio were evacuated, but
mfest had returned to their homes by
Monday. Emergency officials said
onlv 46 were in emergency shelters,
bui they did not know how many
otlers might he staying at other loca-
tkiis.
loe Candelario, the city’s emergen-
cylnanagement coordinator, said the
aria still off-limits was reduced to a
2,|()0-foot radius Monday.
uthorities decided Sunday to let
thl fire burn itself out and built dams
on the muddy creekbed to contain
spills. They said there was no threat
tolhe city’s water supply.
■‘They are just going to let it die out
bet ause they don’t want to put water
on it,” said a spokesman at the city
emergency management office who
,'declined to be identified. “It has died
down quite a bit, though. I guess it is
in (the final stages.”
■The derailment occurred about
[( 500 yards from a runway at the San
Antonio International Airport, but
did not interrupt flights, airport offi
cials said.
Photo by Tom Ownbey
A Room With A View
Tom Sudell cuts a pre-fabricated window that will be placed
in a room in Moore Hall. The dorm’s windows are being
replaced with tinted, energy-efficient windows as part of
the renovation of several north campus dorms.
Report calls for NASA
return to ‘safety first’
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Ro
gers Commission said Monday a
breached booster rocket joint, whose
weaknesses were known but ignored,
destroyed the space shuttle Challen
ger, and that NASA must return to
the safety-first policy of the Apollo
moonflight days.
James C. Fletcher, a former head
of NASA only five weeks into his
second stint at the helm, promised to
respond to the conclusions “with an
open mind and without reserva
tions.”
The commission called the Jan. 28
Challenger tragedy, which claimed
seven lives, “an accident rooted in his
tory.”
William P. Rogers, chairman of the
presidential investigative panel, said,
“We know exactly how this accident
occurred. I certainly hope there will
be no nagging questions.”
The commission was not asked to
assess blame “and we have not asses
sed blame,” Rogers told a news con
ference. “Obviously, there was a se
rious failure. We are not going to go
beyond that.”
President Reagan, formally
accepting the report, said that be
cause of the commission’s work “our
shuttle program will be safer and bet
ter prepared for the challenges that
lie ahead.”
Because Americans “don’t hide
our mistakes, we are not condemned
to repeat them,” Reagan told mem
bers of the commission and others
gathered in the Rose Garden.
NASA Administrator James G.
Fletcher promised that the space
agency is prepared to study the Ro
gers Commission conclusions “with
an open mind and without reserva
tions.”
“There’s enough blame to go
around,” he said. “The fault was not
with any single person or group. It
was NASA’s fault. I don’t think we
should be assigning blame. We
should be assigning people to fix
what went wrong, and make sure it
doesn’t happen again.”
Fletcher told a late af ternoon news
conference that the space agency re
gards July 1987 as a realistic goal —
“not an optimistic one” — for re
sumption of shuttle flights, based on
all the recommendations made by the
commission.
One of the commission’s recom
mendations, the appointment of an
independent committee of experts to
review any new booster designs, came
into fruition Monday, when the Na
tional Research Council announced
formation of a panel of experts in the
fields of propulsion, materials, relia
bility and aerospace engineering.
“The unrelenting pressure to meet
the demands of an accelerating flight
schedule might have been adequately
handled by NASA if it had insisted
upon the exactingly thorough proce
dures that were its hallmark during
the Apollo program,” the report said
in a chapter titled “The Silent Safety
Program.”
The commission said the rocket
joints’ problems came to be regarded
as “unavoidable and an acceptable
flight risk,” showing that safety had
taken a back seat at NASA — tational
Aeronautics and Space Administra
tion.
Five men and two women perished
See Shuttle, page 11
Ban on cigarette ads proposed
WASHINGTON (AP) — Arguing
that cigarette advertising is not pro
tected by the First Amendment,
seven congressmen on Monday intro
duced legislation to ban all forms of
tobacco promotion, including news
paper and magazine ads, athletic
sponsorships, billboards, posters and
even matchbook covers.
Rep. Mike Synar, D-Okla, the
principal sponsor, said, “The right to
commercial free speech is not abso
lute. Gongress has the authority to
limit commercial speech when a sub
stantial government interest is in
volved.
“One could hardly imagine an
issue of greater government concern
than the loss of 350,000 lives annually
from a single product.”
But the bill was immediately
attacked by the Tobacco Institute, the
trade association for cigarette manu
facturers.
Spokesman Scott Stapf called the
proposal “blatantly unconstitution
al,” a position shared by the Amer
ican Civil Liberties Union.
Synar was joined in sponsoring the
bill by Reps. Mike Lowry, D-Wash.;
A1 Swift, D-Wash.; Jim Hansen, R-
Utah; Samuel Stratton, D-N.Y.; Ger
ry Studds, D-Mass.; and Chester
Atkins, D-Mass.
The measure would cover cigaret
tes, cigars, pipe tobacco, snuff and
chewing tobacco. Promotional activi
ties would be prohibited from the
manufacturer down to the retailer.
Synar said smoking is the chief
cause of preventable illness in the
United States and led to the deaths of
some 350,000 people last year. Treat
ing those illnesses cost Americans $22
billion last year, including $4 billion
from the federal Treasury, he said.
The country lost $43 billion of pro
ductivity because of smoking, he said.
“These statistics are mind-
boggling, but we have grown numb to
them — largely as a result of the
advertising techniques of tobacco
manufacturers,” who spend about $2
billion a year on ads, Synar added.
Synar said Rep. Henry Waxman,
D-Calif., chairman of the House
Energy and Commerce health sub
committee, has promised to hold
hearings on the bill. But he said
under questioning that chances for
passage this year are slim, due to
opposition both by powerful tobacco-
state politicians and by media con
cerned about losing advertising re-
“We don’t look at this as an easy
battle,” Synar acknowedged.
Fort Worth high school vigilantes sentenced
FORT WORTH (AP) — Seven
members of a high school vigilante
group known as the Legion of Doom
were sentenced Monday to a variety
of probation and jail terms that a
judge said were designed to show
their acts were “never justifiable.”
Five of the youths will spend some
time in jail — four of them for 30 days
— in addition to their probation
terms, State District Judge Don
Leonard said.
Legion of Doom members, includ
ing honor students, said they sought
to eliminate petty crime and drug
abuse at the 2,100-student Paschal
High School by intimidating people
they perceived as wrongdoers.
The swastika-toting group’s
methods drew fire after they pipe-
bombed a car and killed a cat that was
left in a student’s car as a threat in
early 1985.
Leonard’s sentences were based on
10 incidents that involved 17 felonies
and 16 misdemeanors by nine stu
dents and recent Paschal graduates.
Besides the seven sentenced Monday,
an eighth was ajuvenile and the ninth
had no felony violation, the judge
said. Those last two cases are still
pending.
“My main concern was there had
been a lot of talk that they were some
way indirectly justified in what they
did,” Leonard said. “But I wanted to
quash that. Violence is never justifi
able unless you’re under attack.”
Leonard said the two who received
no jail time embarked only on one or
two of the group’s escapades that in
cluded the firing of shots at a house
and the passing of notes signed with
swastikas. He saved the jail terms for
the ringleaders.
“If you’re going to put them on
probation — and that’s what every
body recommended, from the grand
jury to the victims and the probation
office — I at least wanted to give
those four the maximum jail time
possible,” he said.
“Those boys got some jail time to
see what violence begets,” he added.
Although surprised at the jail
terms, Leonard described the youth’s
reactions as “stoic.”
“Within the law, I thought this was
the best thing for everybody,”
Leonard said. “They still have the
opportunity to do whatever profes
sion they want, and they have lots of
capabilities.”
The seven must repay the esti
mated $8,000 in damages, he said.
The defendants were indicted on
graduation day last May on 33
charges stemming from a series of
crimes between Jan. 9 and March 24,
1985.
All seven received unadjudicated
probation terms on their felony
charges, which means they can be im
prisoned for the full term if they re
turn to court for any reason, said
Carol Christy, Leonard’s administra
tive clerk.
The seven pleaded guilty to the
charges in February.
HETtf
BERAf
Tenure
I Faculty Senate discusses broader criteria for promotion
Sondra Pickard
Senior Staff Writer
jeffofjq BAt its first meeting Monday, the
II Joflf newly elected 1986-87 Faculty Senate
1 discussed a report suggesting that fa-
cuptv members he considered for te-
mlre and promotion under much
broader criteria than those now in
D US(
** ■fhe three traditional promotion
and tenure evaluation areas are
, teaching, research and service. Two
proposed areas in the report are dis-
■nination of knowledge/creative
Avclrk and consulting/practice.
■After researching the subject for a
ye^r, the senate Committee on Te-
Itiiujre and Promotion drafted the re-
^B t and first presented it to the sen-
rewritleo ut e at its April meeting.
sarebF flAccorcling to the committee’s re-
ildii
port, the dissemination of knowledge
and creative work is not only generat
ing books, journals or paintings, but
also is the “transmittal of knowledge
or content from one individual to
another.”
The committee recommends the
University recognize other non-
traditional tvpes of publications
when evaluating faculty for promo
tion and tenure including the “dis
semination of knowledge” and crea
tive works such as computer output
and programs, architectural designs,
audiovisual productions and fiction.
Dr. Robert Shutes, professor of
curriculum and instruction and com
mittee chair, stressed that the report
was not a statement of University
poliev but rather one of a faculty posi
tion. It is meant to express the major
points of faculty concern on the cur
rent tenure and promotion policy, he
said.
“We need to broaden the categor
ies to be considered in promotion and
tenure,” Shutes said. “Not all parts of
the University should be considered
the same. The categories for per
formance may vary from college to
college."
Dr. Tom Kozik, professor of
mechanical engineering and a co
chair of the committee, said the re
port came about as a result of rhetoric
in the last few years.
“It defines what we as a faculty per-
ceive us to be,” Kozik said. “A ‘mul-
tiversitv’ versus a university.”
Kozik said the report should not
lecture the University on how to en
force or implement the new program
but should leave that up to the Uni
versity.
But Dr. John McDermott, disting
uished professor of philosophy and
professor and head of humanities in
medicine, said the senate should be
very specific on how to implement
the proposal. Otherwise, he said, the
entire policy the senate hopes for
may be rejected completely by the
administration.
Because many senators aren’t here
in the summer, Speaker Sam Black
said the report probably won’t be
officially approved by the senate until
the fall semester, at which time it will
be submitted to the president.
Warplane forces
Pan Am jet to land
LI MA, Peru (AP) — A Peruvian
warplane forced a Pan Am jumbo
jet to land at the Lima airport
Monday after the American plane
violated Peru’s air space, officials
reported.
The officials, who spoke with
the condition that they not be
identifed, said the Boeing 747 was
en route from Santiago, Chile, to
Los Angeles, Calif., when it was
intercepted by an air force jet
fighter and the airliner landed
here at 7 a.m.
Airport police told reporters
the plane departed for Los
Angeles at 3 p.m. after a fine of
$5,000 was paid.
Felix Ortello, an Argentine
journalist on the Pan American
World Airways flight, told repor
ters at the airport that the plane
had developed mechanical diffi
culties after leaving Buenos Aires
and mechanics worked on the
craft in Santiago.
He said the problems re-
emerged after the jetliner left San
tiago, and he believed the pilot was
flying to Lima, where the repairs
could again be made, when thejet
fighter appeared.
Ortello said that on a normal
Santiago-to-Los Angeles flight the
plane would have flown out over
the Pacific Ocean after leaving
Chile and would not have been
near Peruvian air space.