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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (March 25, 1987)
Wednesday, March 25,1987/The Battalion/Page 3 State and Local Police Beat tism to the s survey, ah dents are fa® ihould not Hi he survey coij some of the so was intere ing to theijii hange at A| A&M have ealth centti better done iglish." Alxi', ler student mer at the hi the comnief; y were writ} rammar and -out classes, c to do on iti was this (]ue s the niostpra that TAI old pursuer’ espouses fra (ermine whe pressing isss re conservats yde riden aality of aa dent Sent The following were reported to the University Police Depart ment: MISDEMEANOR THEFT: • Five bicycles were reported stolen. • A backpack and a textbook left unattended were reported stolen from Lounge F. • Two backpacks left unat tended were reported stolen from storage areas in Sbisa and Commons dining halls. • An officer noticed a stop sign w'as removed from a campus parking lot exit. • A sapphire ring with di amonds was found on the floor in the shelving department of the Sterling C. Evans Library after being reported stolen from a lost- and-found safe in the circulation department. • A student reported that her moped had been stolen after she’d lent it to a friend who never returned it. An officer found the moped undamaged two days later, parked near a delicatessen on Boyett Street. BURGLARY OF A BUILDING: • Several hundred dollars worth of equipment were re ported stolen from a grounds maintenance building. BURGLARY OF A HABITA TION: • Someone came in through the window of a Hart Hall room and removed the master keys to the building. HARASSMENT: • A student confessed to mak ing obscene phone calls after an other student reported to police that she suspected him of making the calls. • A Krueger Hall resident re- E orted receiving phone calls at all ours of the day and night since the beginning of the semester. • A student reported receiv ing five harassing phone calls be tween 3:30 p.m. and 5 p.m. ASSAULT: • Two women reported they were assaulted while visiting friends in Cain Hall. Three Uni versity police officers investigat ing the incident the next day also were assaulted by a man in Cain Hall. INDECENT EXPOSURE: • A student reported that, while studying in a second floor lounge of Sterling C. Evans li brary, the man sitting next to her was masturbating. PLACES WEAPONS PROHIB ITED: • An officer found a pistol in the glove compartment of the ve hicle he was towing. Police ar rested the vehicle’s owner after finding he had six outstanding Department of Public Safety war rants. • Patroling officers stopped a car traveling near the Research Park and found a T 2-gauge shot gun and a .22-caliber pistol inside the car. • A student reported seeing a rifle hanging in the gun rack of a pickup truck parked in a campus parking lot. Researcher working to facilitate use of computers in work with children By Sandra Saldivar Reporter If a child can learn to work on a personal computer, then any adult also should be able to operate the machine, a computer scientist for Apple Computer Corp. told over 100 people in Rudder Auditorium Tuesday night. Alan Kay is working with chil dren, trying to discover how they learn to use computers, in order to try to help him build machines that are easier for everyone to use. Kay, who sometimes is referred to as “the father of the personal com puter,” has done research for over 10 years. When Kay was at the Palo Alto Research Center of Xerox Corp. (PARC), he headed a group of young computer scientists who de veloped one of the very first per sonal computers. “None of us (researchers) ever knew the computer could be used sensibly at such young ages,” Kay said. The youngest user of a personal computer Kay has seen was 17 months old. The child found it easier to use the “mouse,” a computer writing tool, instead of a pencil to draw the various designs on the screen. A 22-month-old girl, who also used the mouse, learned to store and erase her designs on the screen. These children didn’t know the technical names of the keys they T'™" " ? ■HBHBBHI IL % . > - - 1 v > sfm Tsfaji SSlllfiR -v ' 1 l 1 : : Hk i*©? fig mlmsm i; Alan Kay, computer scientist for Apple Computers, speaks in Rudder Auditorium Tuesday night. were using, but they understood how to work them, Kay said. Children may find computers easy to work with because they can just plunge into new tasks without worrying about doing the task incor rectly, Kay said. When people begin thinking too much about a task, their bodies don’t know what to do, he added. Natural learning abilities occur when a person concentrates on a task and ignores any doubts over success, Kay said. “The parts of the body don’t know English, so our minds must teach the body,” Kay said. The American education system shouldn’t just teach about math and science, but should force children to apply what they learn, he said. With computers, the brain not only absorbs information but also puts it to use, he added. Kay’s latest computer concepts have been adopted for the Macin tosh by Apple Computer — where he is now a research fellow — to keep the personal computers easy to use and versatile for everyone’s use. The computers of tomorrow will have what Kay calls “agents” software that can do any number of specified jobs, such as assembling a personalized newspaper from data bases or automatically shepherding a memo through a bureaucracy and letting its author know where it is. Kay’s visit was sponsored by the Texas A&M Macintosh Users Group and the Apple Computer Corp. , Brownsville tries to attract teachers with beach climate in Page etfitp ■ SOUTH PADRE ISLAND (AP) — One of t he state’s fastest growing school districts, -*|<imbling to find 200 new teachers by fall, Am: hopes the beach here that attracts college <SWHa«> stuc j ents on spring break will bring them back after graduation to work. ■ The Brownsville Independent School District says it can’t find enough graduates Ibcallv to fill its growing need for teachers. So this year, it turned to the students party ing in this Gulf Coast resort town. ■ “Love the beach, live and teach,” says a billboard on the highway between Port Isa bel and Brownsville. The school district also bought radio time and newspaper advertisements and has placed brochures in businesses fre quented by students. “If I can get 15, I’d be really happy; 15 or 20, every little bit helps,” said Oscar Bar bour, assistant superintendent for person nel for the school district, on the border with Matamoros, Mexico. The BSID began recruiting students on spring break last year and received more than 5 50 responses were hired. Barbour said. A few “We’re not getting the teachers (locally) we need to staff our schools,” he said. “For the last several years, we’ve had to go out of state. There’s a shortage in Texas and rapid growth in Brownsville.” The school district has more than 2,000 professional teachers on its staff now and is growing at the rate of a new school a year, he said. A middle school will open this year, two elementary schools opened last year, and the city’s fourth high school will open in 1988-1989, Barbour said. Another elemen tary school is on the drawing board. “As long as economic problems in Mex ico continue and the maquiladoras keep growing, we’ll continue to grow at the same rate or more,” Barbour said. He said the maquiladoras, or twin plants, which operate on both sides of the border, are responsible for part of the district’s growth, along with a surge in people from Mexico and a trickle from Central America. The school district, in trying to convince college graduates to move to Brownsville, is promoting the sub-tropical climate, “the beach, a good salary schedule, good work ing conditions — we’re trying to keep class sizes low,” Barbour said. lartmenf: nor finals is sday durinj! ial while no break lays! The inal exams (lights and not to a ken i impliestli >ne last timt hectic ones ?ssary place to list ict thatsooi known oftl al and 1 on this /e can onlf >w that toe egrudgetl emption in theHoii® ion 175, a lymenttoil ng, only 17 ither sideo! under 16 formative -y for the for the - right to til must beiigiid 1 JIJL. nr MSC OPERA and PERFORMING ARTS SOCIETY Presents CLASSICAL AND BROADWAY PERFORMANCES AND WE WANT YOU WHO: ANYONE INTERESTED IN APPLYING FOR THE OPAS STUDENT COMMITTEE WHAT, A MANDATORY NEW MEMBER INFORMATION SESSION (IT IS ONLY NECESSARY TO ATTEND ONE SESSION) WHEN AND WHERE: MONDAY, MARCH 30, ROOM 410 RUDDER TOWER AT 7:00 P.M. or TUESDAY, MARCH 31, ROOM 701 RUDDER TOWER AT 7:00 P.M. FOR MORE INFORMATION CALL: SARA WALL 764-8279 OR 845-1515 Constitution & Foreign Policy: A Question of Control Moderator Howard K. Smith Dr. leane Kirkpatrick Former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Dean Rusk Former Secretary of State under Kennedy and johnson Senator Edmund S. Muskie Member of the Tower Commission, Former Secretary of State ) Wednesday, April 1, 1987 Rudder Auditorium 8:00 pm Texas A&M University . ibMSC Wiley Lecture Series Texas A&M University Officially fect>gni/<*d on the Bkenrenmdl of Ticket Information: Rudder Box Office and Dillards Ticketron Students: $6, $8, $10 the United States Constitution Non-Students: $8, $10, $12