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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 20, 1987)
I THE UNITED NATIONS I purpose vs. politics MSCSCONA ROUND TABLE HOST INFORMATIONAL MEETING: Wednesday, Jan. 21 7p.m. Rudder APPLICATIONS: Available 216 MSC Due Friday, Jan. 23 5p.m. For more info: 845-7625 Page 8/The Battalion/Tuesday, January 20, 1987 Applications now available for the 4rMSC Wiley Lecture Series in Room 216 MSC Applications Due Friday, January 30, 1987 by 2:00 p.m. Interviews Sunday, February 1, 1987 NAKAMICHI KLIPSCHl BOSTON S o N Y Back to School SALE N E C TDK SA 90 $1." ea JVC T120 $4" ea AUDIOWO® 707 Texas Ave. 696-5719 Full Repair Shop Free Delivery Best Prices Major Credit Cards World and Nation Pentagon opposes testing of fees for medical servic« • r; . “> ‘ ’T OMB says military dependents should pay WASHINGTON (AP) — The Of fice of Management and Budget, over strong Pentagon opposition, has forced the Defense Department test a plan next year to charge fees for outpatient medical care deliv ered to military dependents and re tirees. Although the description of the planned test in the fiscal 1988 bud get calls only for “nominal” fees, Pentagon officials are viewing the matter with trepidation. They worry the test could lead to a permanent system of outpatient fees, reducing a key military benefit and in the process undermining mo rale and damaging recruiting and retention efforts. The size and location of the ex periment have yet to be decided. Pentagon officials are deter mined, however, to keep it small and to have proceeds from fees plowed back to military personnel as contri butions to the morale and recreation fund or improvements to medical fa cilities. Internationally, 7 million retirees and military dependents are eligible to use military hospitals and clinics without charge if space is available. Active-duty personnel are guar anteed free medical care at all times, and the new test would not affect them. Military medical facilities handle some 50 million outpatient visits ev ery year. “This is rather obscurely buried in the budget,” said one top Pentagon official who requested anonymity. “The word is only, now starting to seep out. “But it’s already sending people up the walls. The general public “We’re good soldiers and we’ll do it if we’re told to. ” — Chapman Cox, Pentagon official might view this as reasonable. But it’s an incredibly emotional thing to the military. Rational people get un- rational on this.” Another Pentagon source ac knowledged "that from the stand point of health care policy, it’s prob ably sound. “You can understand the genesis of it. But the military has certain ob ligations to its people. “For example, the sailor goes off to sea, leaving behind a teen-age wife and new baby. The wife doesn’t know how’ to take the baby’s temper ature so she brings him to a clinic. It happens. So how are youi charge her for that?" Chapman Cox, the Pemagi official for personnel issues,ii “We’re very concerned aboui| he said. “It was absolutely not sun by the Defense Departmej said. “We’re good soldiersi do it (the test) if we’re toldioj will do the best we cantoprt interests of our people." The plan to test outpaticmj outlined in a single paragi supporting documentation! Congress with the 1988 bui refers to two projects “to i conditions for servicemn women and their families as^ to reduce costs." One project will involve arid ment to determine if privatil can do a more efficient jobd ning military commissaries The other "is a plan tot a test basis, nominal fees for^ dent medical care providedi active-duty patients to d« whether such fees can redu and improve the qualitvofa military medical facilities,” get states. Ed Dale, a spokesman foil acknowledged “there wis| back-and-forth” internallv his agency and the Pentagi the idea. Computer field losing student enrollment, industry prominence BOSTON (AP) — Enrollment in computer science programs is drop ping as students become disillu sioned by the computer industry slump and discover the field is more demanding than they thought, uni versity officials say. “Five years ago, computers looked like they were the land of good money and easy opportunity,” Paul Kalaghan, dean of the College of Computer Science at Northeastern University, said in a telephone inter view Monday. “I think today people understand it’s a scientific discipline,” he said. "Students found it was more diffi cult, that the mathematical rigor was large. It’s not an easy business, really, when you couple that to the negative press the computer indus try is getting.” John Rice, chairman of Purdue University’s Department of Com puter Science, added, "They found that they had to take calculus, they had to take physics. It’s not a video games major.” Northeastern’s 5-year-old com puter science program saw its fresh man class drop 40 percent, to 120 students last fall, Kalaghan said. “When we started, we had up wards of 300 freshmen come in,” he said. Annapia Niedzielski, a 22-year- old Northeastern University stu dent, said she transferred from the computer shience program to the business college after two years be- ALPINE! YAMAHAI HAFLER cause computer science was not what she expected, not because she couldn’t do well. “I had taken a BASIC (computer language) course in high school and I liked that,” Niedzielski said. But once in the Northeastern pro gram, “I didn’t like the fact that it seemed very narrow-minded. It’s very technical, and that’s all that you did,” she said. A survey of 552 colleges by the University of California at Los An geles found that about 1.6 percent of students who started college last fall wanted to major in computer sci ence. That compares with 2.1 per cent in 1985 and 4 percent in 1982. Jay Nievergelt, chairman of the Department of Computer Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said computer science for a long time was a “fairly special ized, technical field. Then five years ago, personal computers hit the home and everybody thought you had to be a student in computer sci ence. It was a fad.” Enrollment in UNC’s computer science program has dropped by half in the past few years, from a high of about 100 students a year, Nievergelt said. Kalaghan said some students ap parently confused computer science with computer programming, a less scientific endeavor by which people translate the work of the computer scientist into instructions for the computer. Winter storm wreaks havot: across Midwe (AF) — A snowstorm! for at least 30 deaths across the Midwest on Mi with more snow and ice,sh down several Indiana couna ter stranding hundreds ofu ers and closing schools aci Plains states. Winter storm warnings^ up for parts of Missouri, I Indiana, Ohio, New Yorkj and Pennsylvania, and a' storm watcn was extended ii of Massachusetts. In the storm’s wake.Okla dug out after one of its* snowstorms in decades,! Mexico’s National Guard( ued hauling supplies torurali dents snowbound by up sj inches of snow and 7-footdr.f Slippery roads and and drifting snow in Indiaml officials in six counties tof roads to all but emergency* cles Monday. Travelers had to wait storm at truck stops, chut and restaurants in OklahomU northwestern Texas. About 200 schools andcc were closed in Oklahoma. Schools also were cW| parts of Texas, Missourian diana. Rain, freezing rain and caused a rash of accidenu] Ohio, and at least two hit were closed by overturrf jackknif ed tractor-trailer rigs I pm wjw THE WRATH OF K.HMS 0 THE- SeAfcCFt FO^