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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (May 6, 1987)
$ ; Wednesday, May 6, 1987/The Battalion/Page 7 Coupon Judge rules convicted killer con file appeal HOUSTON (AP) — A Texas death row inmate who came within hours of being executed last week is entitled to file a new appeal because his attorneys didn’t hotifiy him of court proceedings, a judge said. U.S. District Judge Norman Black said Monday that Clifford X. Phillips did not receive adequate notice last winter after the judge had rejected an appeal of Phillips’ conviction. Black issued a written order say ing he will consider Phillips’ case again. Last week, Phillips, 52, was hours away from being executed for the 1982 slaying of Alley Theatre direc tor Iris Siff when he received a stay from U.S. District Judge Gabrielle McDonald. Phillips submitted a handwritten plea arguing that his lawyers had given up on him. Phillips claimed his two Houston lawyers — Jim Skelton and Robert Pelton — did not follow up on an August 1986 appeal of his convic tion. He did not find out Black had rejected his appeal until it was too late for him to go to a higher court, Phillips contended. But the lawyers said they were re tained to stop Phillips’ scheduled Aug. 18, 1986, execution, not to con test the capital murder conviction. Attorney Michael Charlton, who agreed a few days ago to represent Phillips, said Monday that certain is sues had not been raised in previous appeals by Phillips. Charlton told Black that every death row inmate deserves “one good shot” at challenging his convic tion. But Assistant Attorney General Robert Walt said granting Phillips relief would “sanction endless, end less dilatory tactics” by death row in mates seeking to block their execu tions. Phillips, who prefers to be called by the Islamic name of Abdullah Ba shir, was convicted of robbing and strangling Siff, 58, while she was working late at the. Houston theater. e nioiPl viljusik] it more j lulled J njtm J ■tied nl xperimental TV class faces changes; students react negatively to course By Drew Leder StnlI Writer I Three times a week at I p.m., Kyle m'ilsun tnyns on a television, tunes in His desired station and watches in tently for an hour. ■ Kyle isn’t a couch potato and he iln’t a soap opera junkie — he’s a freshman business administration Hiajor and one of about 1,000 stu dents enrolled in Management 211 at Texas AK.M this spring. ■ Management 211, the Legal Envi- i|)nnlent of Business, is televised five Hines a day each Monday, Wednes day and Friday on Channel 31 and videotaped lectures are available in the Sterling C. Evans Library and at the Academic Computer Center. I The management department im- Blemented the program f ive days be fore classes began this semester, af ter a request from the Associate Dean of Engineering, but adminis trators involved with the experimen tal program now say some changes at e needed. ■ “There will be no decision to sim ply repeat what we’ve done — it didn’t work,” said Dr. Don Hellrie- gel, interim dean of business admin istration. I Hellriegel said that while the fate H this experiment will not be de cided until the summer, the contin uation of the televised classes will have to involve some changes. Dr. A1 Ringleb, associate manage ment professor and course coordi nator for Management 211, said that although he was not content with the program and would like to see im provement with it, it was a worth while experiment and he wants to continue the class on television. “It was an attempt to determine how effective educational television would be,” Ringleb said. Hellriegel said student response to the televised class, indicated by class evaluation questionnaires, was negative. “We’re aware from student feed back that there are patterns of sig nificant concern,” he said. Hellriegel said there will be a thorough evaluation of the student responses before a final decision is made about the f uture of the class. Ringleb said that due to the large number of students who enroll in Management 21 1 each semester, there are certain advantages to pre senting the class on television. For instance, he said, students can watch the lectures at their leisure instead of having to walk across the railroad tracks to the Kleberg Animal and Food Science Center to attend class. The lectures had been held there in the past because of the accomoda tions there for large classes. Another advantage of televising the class, Ringleb said, is that it pro vides the opportunity for several guest speakers to address the class. This was not feasible in the past be cause of the number of class sections a guest would have to attend and the number of students he would have to encounter. This spring, eight guest speakers were presented on the program. Despite these advantages and an increase in grades of an average of five percentage points, many stu dents have expressed dissatisfaction over watching classes on television. Wilson, who is taking the class this semester said, “I’ve done worse in this class than in any other because it’s on television. You don’t pay as much attention to something you can’t talk back to.” Sophomore Robin Summers said, “T he professors have done a good job in their lectures, but there’s a big weakness — no discussion.” The lack of two-way communica tion also is noted as a problem by Hellriegel. If the class is to be tele vised in the fall, he said, “a minimum condition is that it’s televised with a live class,” Hellriegel said the choice to implement a televised class is that of the college in which the class is of fered. “The college of business will not expapd the program (to other clas ses),” he said, “and if we continue, there will be major changes.” In addition to Management 211, Educational Technology 645 classes at A&M are partially presented in a video format. The idea for broadcasting classes on televison is by no means a new one. Other colleges and universities have been doing it for years and, in fact, A&M had an extensive lecture broadcasting system in tbe 1960s and early 1970s. KAMU-TV’s General Manager and Director of Educational Broad cast Services Mel Chastain said classes ranging from English to ac counting to engineering were pre sented on closed-circuit television as early as 1964. Chastain said that A&M signifi cantly reduced the number of classes taught this way in the early 1970s, after the influx of low-cost video re corders and tape recorders made it easy to make tapes in class, he said. CASH : ’• 'V -. ■F TntY 0A ■' ; ; r ;j" It -4f f | i ipjC;.. for your USED BOOKS at TEXAS A&M BOOKSTORE STORE HOURS 7:45 a.m.-6:00 p.m. PRE-LEASE SPECIALS FURNISH YOUR ENTIRE APARTMENT FOR AS LITTLE AS $39 00 PER MONTH PRELEASE FOR SUMMER OR FALL AND PAY NO SECURITY DEPOSIT NEW & USED FURNITURE FOR SALE GENERAL FURNITURE LEASING FORMALLY CERTIFIED FURNITURE RENTALS THE STUDENT BODY SPECIALISTS 913-D HARVEY ROAD WOODSTONE SHOPPING CENTER 764-0721 INTERNATIONAL HOUSE <?' 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