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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (July 2, 1986)
Wednesday, July 2, 1986/The Battalion/Page 3 stra State and Local ua Organizers urge Farm Aid il fans to form car pools Helping international students adjust By Carla Crawford Reporter Leaving home to go to college is hard for anyone, but for the 1600 international students at tending Texas A&M, the Interna tional Student Services Depart ment makes things a little easier. Tina Watkins, international student adviser, says many sup port groups at A&M and in the community help students adjust. Students from more than 100 countries attend A&M and 47 clubs have formed to represent particular countries, Watkins says. She says the clubs offer a sup port system by helping new stu dents find housing and meet peo ple from their own country. Amer Benali, a senior environ mental design major from Libya, has been in America for four years, but says leaving home was difficult. “You wouldn’t believe how much I cried when I was coming here,” he says. “Every mile the plane took, I wondered if I’d ever go home.” He says he still has occasional battles with homesickness, but feels that College Station is his second home. During the recent Libyan con flict, Benali, Who is active in SCONA, says he received a lot of support and concern from other members wanting to know how he was doing. But Benali says he sometimes has problems communicating with American students. One big communication gap for foreign students is American humor, he says. “I’ve tried reading the cartoons in the paper and I don’t under stand them so they’re not funny,” he says. “Things that are funny to us are not funny to Americans.” The International Student As sociation is open to all interna tional students and has a council made up of the presidents of each country’s club, Watkins says. Tau Kappa, a junior honor so ciety, helps integrate foreign stu dents into the University by help ing students with their English before the students begin classes. The members also meet indi vidually with students once a week to talk, Watkins says. “Not only does this help them learn English, but they learn about the school, how to do things American and slang ex pressions,” she says. Friendship International, a group of interested students on campus, has also taken foreign students as English partners and does much the same thing as Tau Kappa, she says. A&M student volunteers provide medical aid By Cheryl Clements Reporter The Texas A&M Emergency Care Team (TAMECT) is a group of 80 volunteer students who provide medical assistance for student orga nization activities and operate the University ambulance service. TAMECT Deputy Chief Ken Hutchenrider says that the care team provides emergency medical attention for A&M football games, bonfire, sorority and fraternity events and all University functions. The group also operates the two A&M ambulances. All students who have paid their health center fees are entitled to free ambulance service on campus and, if needed, free transportation to a lo cal hospital, Hutchenrider adds. Nathan Schwade, chief of ambu lance operations, said that TA MECT has the quickest response time of any medical team in this area for the students. If a student was to dial the emergency 911 number, Schwade says, TAMECT would be the first ambulance to respond. The students in TAMECT are trained in medical care, but they don’t have to be pre-med majors. “TAMECT is an extremely di verse group of students. Members range from business majors to pre- vet students. Most of the people be come involved in TAMECT because they have an interest in community service. Very few of them have aspi rations of being an ambulance driver for the rest of their life,” Schwade says. To become a member of the team a student must be interviewed by one of the organization’s elected of ficials. Phillip Nessler, a care team cap tain, says the interview’s main pur pose is to give the interviewee an idea of what the care team is like and what is expected of its members. “TAMECT takes up a lot of a stu dent’s time, so when people are in terviewed for the team, the elected officials try to let people know just how much time in the week TA MECT will consume,” Nessler says. “Most of the people who interview for TAMECT are accepted,” he says. “The people interviewed who are not accepted usually reach an agreement with TAMECT officials that they aren’t right for the team. They may not have realized exactly what TAMECT was.” Schwade says that students who are accepted are considered proba tionary members of the team for their first semester. During this probationary semes ter, the students are trained in stan dard first aid and CPR, he says, and many of them continue their medi cal training and become certified by the T exas Department of Health. Dr. Claude Goswick has been TA- MECT’s faculty adviser during the team’s ten-year existence. “TAMECT is a dedicated group of young adults,” Goswick says. “They have accepted a great amount of responsibility, and I have at no time questioned the competence of the students. “The organization has been an ab solute success. The students are doing an excellent job. Absolutely unqualified!” AUSTIN (AP) — Farm Aid II or ganizers are urging the thousands of music fans expected to attend the concert to form car pools to head off a traffic jam around the concert site. More than 28,000 tickets have been sold for the 18-hour concert, which will be held Friday at the Manor Downs race track east of Aus tin, said Sally Hinkle, a Farm Aid spokeswoman. Gates open at 6 a.m. for the con cert, which begins at 7 a.m. Even at that early hour, however, fans are being encouraged to share cars to keep traffic down as much as possi ble, Hinkle said. “When they see what is going to go on, they will have wished they had,” she said. Farm Aid organizers also are ad vising motorists planning to travel from Austin to Houston to take al ternate routes and avoid U.S. 290, which is expected to be packed with Farm Aid traffic. To help ease congestion, Austin’s Capital Metropolitan Transporta tion Authority was considering of fering shuttle bus service to and from the concert. Farm Aid organiz ers said. Landowners in the Manor Downs area have donated use of their land for parking within walking distance of the concert site. Motorists will be allowed to park beginning at 6 a.m., Hinkle said. Farm Aid II originally was planned for Memorial Stadium on the University of Texas campus. In ability to obtain liability insurance forced organizers to announce that it would move to South Park Mead ows, a 60-acre outdoor concert site six miles south of Austin. But insur ance problems also developed, and the Manor Downs site finally was se lected. The concert, headed up by singer Willie Nelson, is the second Farm Aid benefit held in less than a year. The first Farm Aid event was held last September at Champaign, Ill., and raised about $9 million for America’s family farmers, Nelson said. Farm Aid II will feature some 75 musical acts, including the Beach Boys, Alabama, Roseanne Cash, Judy Collins, Rita Coolidge, Mac Da vis, Joe Ely, Arlo Guthrie, Emmylou Harris, Ray Wylie Hubbard, Julio Iglesis, Waylon Jennings, Kris Kris- tofferson, Delbert McClinton, John Cougar Mellencamp, Gary P. Nunn, Bonnie Raitt, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Jerry Jeff Walker, X and Neil Young. The strain on the Manor tele phone system was eased this week with installation of a microwave tower system to transmit telephone signals to more sophisticated equip ment at Pflugerville. Farm Aid II corflmunications coordinator Mark Woodward said the microwave tower was needed to handle the increased volume and features needed by the press, tele vision and production crews cover ing the concert. What’s up Wednesday STUDENT GOVERNMENT: anpl ications for External Communications and Public Relations will be available through the summer months. Please come by 221 Pavilion from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. to pick up applications. For more in formation call 845-3051. A&M CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIP: will present “The Ul timate Cost of Freedom” at 7:30 p.m. in 102 Blocker. SAILING CLUB: will meet at 7 p.m, in 302 Rudder. For more information call Tim, 696-8642. Thursday BRAZOS DUPLICATE BRIDGE CLUB: meets every Thursday at 7 p.m. at the College Station Community Cen ter. Beginners are welcome. Saturday SAILING CLUB: will sponsor a weekend outing on Lake Somerville at Overlook Park all day Saturday until noon Sunday. For more information call T im, 696-8642. Items for What’s Up should be submitted to The Battal ion, 216 Reed McDonald, no less than three days prior to desired publication date. Hermann estate seeks $3.8 million from former trustee HOUSTON (AP) — Attorneys for the Hermann Hospital Estate want a judge to issue a $3.8 million judgment against former trustee John B. Coffee in connection with a stock sale that a jury found he bene- fitted from personally. Attorneys for the state’s largest charitable foundation on Monday also asked State District Judge Wil liam N. Blanton to order Coffee’s co defendant, Neill Amsler Jr., a for mer estate executive vice president, to pay $200,000. In May, a jury found that Coffee, 74, engaged in self-dealing while serving as a trustee. The estate ac quired $2.8 million in unmarketable stocks under Coffee’s direction, according to the jury findings. T he jury also assessed $1 million in exemplary damages against Cof fee and $200,000 against Amsler. But Mike Caddell, Amsler’s attor ney, argued that his client should not be legally liable for any damages in the case because a two-year statue of limitation expired before the es tate sued Amsler. The statue, there fore, would nullify the $200,000 award, he said. Public TV problems Stations in oil-producing states get ready for tighter budgets (AP) — When the oil industry hurts, public television yells “ouch!” It’s not so much the national pro gramming that has suffered, how ever, but the stations in states where oil once was king. The rapid drop in world oil prices has cut into state revenues in Alaska, Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana, and many public TV stations will be living with tighter budgets in the new fiscal year which began Tues day. Farm problems have hurt stations in Idaho, Iowa, Nebraska and Kan sas. “We’re in the oil and gas business and we just didn’t know it,” said Ter rell L. Cass, president and general manager of KEDT in Corpus Christi, where more than half the staff has been laid off since January. Donations to KUHT in Houston fell $500,000 during the past fiscal year, or nearly 30 percent, and its budget is being cut 11 percent for the new year. General manager James L. Bauer- said, “We are reflecting what is hap pening in the oil industry, and it looks like it is going to be trouble.” In Dallas, however, KERA will spend $12.5 million in the new fiscal year, compared with $9.9 million last year. More than half the increase is for production of national program ming, including the fall series “The West of the Imagination,” and the new productions are fully under written by corporate and foundation grants, said Richard Meyer, the sta tion’s president. Nationally, Mobil is continuing to support “Masterpiece Theater” and Chevron is not cutting its support for the National Geographic spe cials, but Exxon will phase out its support for “Great Performances.” Exxon will contribute $3.6 million for “Great Performances” again this fiscal year, but that will fall to $1.2 million in the next year and nothing the year after. However, Exxon is committed to $1.2 million per year for “Live from Lincoln Center” through the 1989-90 fiscal year, said communications manager Ken Kan sas. Among the major producers, WNET in New York has cut its bud get and staff for the new year, but WGBH in Boston, KERA in Dallas, WTTW in Chicago, WQED in Pitts burgh and KCET in Los Angeles will be spending more than last year. Henry Becton, WGBH president and general manager, said, “I don’t think there is a general cutback in public broadcasting.” It’s a different story in the oil belt. Alaska’s public broadcasters get up to 90 percent of their funds from the state, which in turn gets 85 per cent of its money from North Slope oil revenues. Every $1 drop in the price of a barrel of crude oil deprives the state of $150 million a year. With oil prices down nearly 50 percent since December, Alaskan officials expect to cut more than $1.1 billion from operating and capital budgets by the end of fiscal 1987. The OtIier Eclips Hair DcsiqN / TANNinq SaIon Perm SpeciAl 10% discount on aIL Perms Coupon qood wirh PauI BhuixAN Jacque TAyloR Connie LopEZ ShERRI WiIUams Faye Lane Coli AhMAdi LInJa Rosas ExpiRts July 71, 1986 $ 9.00 1 discount on Hct./BIow Dny Men/Women CoupoN qood wirli PxyE Lane Jacoue TAyloR PauI Bh uixAN ConnIe LopEZ Coli AiiMAdi LiNdA Rosas ExpiREs July 71, 1986 TANNiNq 1st 1 J^mIn. SessIon FREE 9'20 mIn. SessIon *20.00 REq. *29.00 Expires July 71, 1986 ± Tues., WecI., TIiurs. tII 2951 S. Texas Ave • 7:00 SpecIaLs Mon. &Tues. OnIy Shiloh PLace • ColUqE StatIon 696^8700 TASTE.. ■something different SIP.. ■your favorite mixed drink RELAX.. ■in our garden atmosphere ENJOY.. ■contemporary jazz Now open Sunday 5-10 HAPPY HOUR M Mon.-Fri. 4-8, All Day Sat. Northgate (next to the Campus Theater) 846-7275 Orders to go