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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (March 6, 1987)
Tl^^D _ 4. j. ^ 12 ^ m 1 lie tsattalion N.82 No.l 13 GSPS 045360 12 pages College Station, Texas Friday, March 6,1987 Reagan asks for more aid for Contras Whaddaya Mean, Strike? Aggie baseball announcer Derrick Grubbs turns to Carrie Heightly, Lady Aggie catcher, for help after two strikes during an exhibition Thursday. Despite his efforts, Grubbs was unable to get a hit against Photo by Bill Hughes the Lady Aggie softball team. The Lady Aggies are hosting the Aggie Spring Invitational at the Southwood Valley Athletic Complex today and tomorrow. Student under local, federal investigations By Olivier Uyttebrouck Senior Staff Writer Computer and communications quipment confiscated from a Texas i&M student’s apartment may have been used for illegal “hacking,” Bra- :os County Attorney Jim Kuboviak aid Thursday. No charges had been filed as of Thursday, Kuboviak said, but the equipment is being examined in con nection with a federal investigation. Investigators seized stolen AT&T telephones and automatic dialing equipment, computer disks and other equipment and data, including a list of numbers Kuboviak said may be MCI Telecommunications Cor poration access codes. Kuboviak said that the U.S. Secret Service is involved in the investiga tion because the case involves possi ble access code abuse. MCI investiga tors, the county attorney’s office and the College Station Police Depart ment are also involved, he said. The A&M student came to the at tention of the county attorney’s of fice after a photo of the student’s room was published in The Battal ion Feb.26. The photo, printed in an issue of At Ease, showed traffic signs, a road- construction barricade, a public tele phone and a six-foot replica of Ron ald McDonald along one wall of the apartment. Investigators also confis cated these items when they entered the apartment with a search warrant, Kuboviak said. The apartment’s resident wasn’t identified when the photo ran in The Battalion. Kevin Morgan, chief investigator of the county attorney’s office, said that after the photo was published he made phone calls to students he considered “reasonable informants” and learned that the apartment was in the Briarwood apartment com plex. Kuboviak didn’t discover that other agencies already were investi gating the student until after the county attorney’s office began its in vestigation. He said MCI investigators had in terviewed the resident of the apart ment before local law enforcement officials became involved with the in vestigation. Kuboviak said much of the equip ment, including floppy disks and a hard disk drive, has been sent to an MCI facility in Dallas for analysis but he wouldn’t estimate when the tests will be finished or if criminal charges might be filed. WASHINGTON (AP) — Presi dent Reagan asked Congress on Thursday for the final installment in a $100 million aid package for Nica ragua’s Contra rebels, while House Democrats sought to drive home the point that past aid money remains unaccounted for. Meanwhile, Attorney General Ed win Meese said he was taking action to secure the authority of Lawrence Walsh, the independent counsel in vestigating the Iran-Contra affair. Walsh supported the move although there had been criticism in advance that the action could compromise his independence. The president, one day after say ing in a major speech that the Ira nian initiative was a mistake, de clared it was time to move on to other matters. Vice President George Bush said he was “catching the dickens” from some people for not stopping the Iran initiative but declared the ad ministration wouldn’t be judged in the long run on “the agony of the Iran affair.” On the subject of U.S. aid for the Contras, Reagan sent Congress a certification that there is “no rea sonable prospect” of peaceful set tlement and a democratic Nicaragua unless the aid is continued. The cer tification automatically triggers $40 million in additional aid unless Con gress disapproves it within 15 days. The Democratic proposal, on the other hand, would shut off aid to the rebels until previous aid is accounted for, including any money diverted from Iranian arms sales or solicited from private sources. “We as a party need to make a statement on this issue,” said Rep. David Bonior, D-Mich. However, he said, aid opponents probably do not have the votes to override an almost certain presidential veto of their ac tion, which is expected to pass in the See Aid, page 12 Congressman seeks Reagan impeachment WASHINGTON (AP) — Articles of impeachment charging President Reagan with misconduct in office be cause of his actions in the Iran-Con tra affair were introduced in the House on Thursday by a Texas Democrat. But they were given vir tually no chance of being approved. The impeachment resolution was introduced by Rep. Henry B. Gonza lez, D-Texas, who also asked the House to impeach Reagan after the U.S. invasion of Grenada in 1983. The six-article resolution accuses Reagan of violating U.S. law and of acting “in a manner contrary to his trust as president and subversive of constitutional government.” Specifically, it accuses Reagan of misconduct in secretly selling arms to Iran, of allegedly diverting the arms sale payments to Nicaragua’s Contra guerillas and for failing to in form congressional intelligence com mittees of his activities. “The Congress must stop a presi dent who has a heedless disregard for the constitutional responsibility of the Congress . . .,” Gonzalez said. The articles were not expected to be approved and were not presented in a forum to be taken seriously by the House leadership. Gonzalez made his remarks at a time in which the House had con cluded its official business for the day and a handful of members were making speeches. Gonzalez told reporters he de cided to introduce the impeachment resolution after reading the Tower commission report on White House involvement in the Iran-Contra ac tivities and after viewing Reagan’s address to the nation Wednesday evening. Clements seeks ouster of UT system chairman I AUSTIN (AP) — Gov. Bill Clem ents has told Jess Hay, chairman of the University of Texas System that qe will do everything he can to get Hay replaced as chairman, accord- ing to Hay. I Hay told several Texas newspa- pers that Clements called him portly after the governor’s Feb. 4 State of the State budget speech and jsaid he was “very upset” with the ag gressive, high-profile campaign Hay had waged to try to restore higher education funding. ; Hay, an active Democratic fund raiser who has been regents chair man for two years, said the Republi can governor probably will succeed in persuading a majority of the nine- member board to vote against him. The chairman of the board is elected by the cither board members. The campaign by Hay, which in cluded establishing a political action committee to raise money to help legislative candidates whd favored higher education funding increases, implied support for additional taxes, Hay said Clements told him. “He was most upset by my reac tion to his proposal in the budget message that a portion of the Perma- See Chairman, page 12 College of Architecture plans degree to emphasize fine arts applications By Frank C. Hada Reporter Although the Texas University and College Coordinating Board won’t allow Texas A&M to have a fine arts department, the College of Ar chitecture and Environmental Design is devel oping a visual studies degree program that will emphasize fine arts. Edwin R. Hoag, associate dean of academic af fairs in the college, said the board policy, which was enacted when Texas’ higher education sys tem was conceived, is designed to avoid duplica tion of programs. The Coordinating Board won’t let A&M de velop a fine arts department because the Univer sity of Texas already has one, Hoag said. “It makes as much sense as saying UT teaches English, therefore we should not otter it,” Hoag said. The issue, he said, is a question of values and priorities in education. “It’s a question of the quality of life led here in Bryan-College Station,” he said. “There is no tell ing how much good a fine arts program includ ing music, dance and theater could do for the community.” Some people feel a fine arts department could improve the University, Hoag said, so there cur rently are steps being taken toward establishing some form of art department at A&M, even if it is only in the strictest technical sense, he said. The architecture college is developing a pro- osal for a new program that will emphasize a ighly technical application of graphic and visual communication using computers and video cam eras, Hoag said. Before the proposal is authorized, however, it must first be approved by several administrative entities, including the architecture executive committee, the University curriculum commit tee, the president’s and chancellor’s offices and the Coordinating Board, he said. If it passes all these hurdles, it still won’t go into effect until Spring 1989, Hoag added. Bureau reports Harris County has most debt WASHINGTON (AP) — Nearly 15 percent of the nation’s county government debt is con centrated in seven metropolitan areas, and Houston’s Harris County is the deepest in debt, according to the Commerce De partment’s Census Bureau. Overall, the nation’s county governments owed $72.3 billion in fiscal 1985, the most recent de tailed figures available, the Cen sus Bureau reported. That total was up $8.5 billion from the year before. The report says Harris County owed more than $2.2 billion in long-term debt, which works out to $828 for each person living in the county. Of that, $101 million, or $37 per person, was ear marked for interest on the debt. That debt was up from $1.2 bil lion a year earlier. Nationally, counties had debt averaging $339 per resident, with the highest amount at $408 per person in counties with more than a 500,000 residents. Officials say truancy, skipping class aren't same Truants ‘don’t realize importance’ of school 73 percent of females who are truant are from single parent and step-par ent families. Ron Burk, eighth-grade assistant principle of Stephen F". Austin Ju nior High School in Bryan, says problem students usually come from poor home environments in which education isn’t a priority. “(The child’s) parents probably were not successful in school and have hard feelings toward school,” he says. Burk also has seen many cases where both parents, as well as the children, have to work to support the family. “The children are needed to work for extra income,” he said, “and to the parents this is a top priority.” Sandra Petty, eighth-grade assis tant principal for girls at the junior high, says sometimes the parents work late and just don’t take the re- sponsiblity to get their child to school. Powell says she has seen few par ents who don’t care, but has seen many who have given up. She says it’s easy to give up on these kids be cause not many of them reform. And the success rate of reforming truants is only 20 percent. “It takes a big attitude change and that doesn’t happen much,” she says. Ellis says the rate is about the same in BISD, but says at sixth, sev enth, and eighth grade, the salvage rate is higher because this is where the problems start. “Most of the older kids have va lues already set,” he says. “They think they know what is best.” Powell says it’s harder to break a habit like truancy in high school be cause the student has been into the behavior longer. Truancy starts in the junior high and is more preve- lant because there are more children under 16 and under the compulsory attendence law, she says. By J anet Goode Reporter Children who are real truants are having a difficult time realizing what they want out of life and probably don’t understand the importance of an education, a local school official says. Dianna Frieda, associate director of personnel in the Bryan Indepen dent School District, says truancy is an extended intentional absence from school, which should be distin guished from skipping out for just one period. Jerry Ellis, assistant principal of Bryan High School, agrees, saying when a child is really truant, the problem runs deep, and detention hall won’t work — the children just skip out of detention. “We want kids to come to school,” he says, “but we can’t drag them up here. “We have to put the burden on the parents. If we can’t get the par ents to cooperate, were fighting a losing battle.” Lora Pow'ell, a counselor for the College Station Independent School District, says if children are absent constantly, it can mean that either they are sick and not getting the medical attention they need, or their parents just don’t care if they attend school. “Cutting out of school is the symp tom, not the problem,” Powell says. “We could be looking at a possible victim of neglect.” At Bryan High, Ellis says, the par ents are contacted on every level of discipline, either by a letter, a phone Truancy among local children Part two of a two-part series call or if necessary a visit to the home. Gloria Collins, a juvenile proba tion officer for Brazos County, says although some kids are just rebel lious, there are usually other prob lems that come into play. “It’s usually spniething going on in the home, or it’s the child’s low self-esteem,” she says. “These kids are not involved in school, church, or anything. They are not motivated to do anything.” According to the summer 1986 edition of the journal Adolescence, most truant youth have disruptive family backgrounds. The article shows that 48 percent of males and “A child who has to get himself up and fix breakfast will be less likely to go to school,” Petty says. “It’s pretty hard for a 14-year old kid to be that responsible.” But, she says, ninth graders are the trouble spot. In CSISD these children attend high school, but in BISD, ninth graders are in junior high. Burk says he feels serious truancy occurs more often in junior high but that “skipping” class is more a high- school preoccupation. The children in junior high don’t have cars and can’t really go anywhere, he says. Although Powell agrees, she says kids in junior high are braver, more adventurous and more prone to peer pressure. Ellis says some students skip school because of family and emo tional problems, but the biggest problem is that kids are just mixed up. They don’t know if they want to go to school or not, he says. “At the high school age, children are where they have to start making decisions for themselves,” Ellis says. Powell says she used to think the problem always stemmed from the family, but now she feels a lot of times it is due to peer pressure. “A kid will get mixed in with the wrong group, especially if he’s a new student,” she says. “There’s one group that will go out and recruit new members — its the trouble See Truancy, page 12