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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (July 31, 1987)
Friday, July 31,1987/The Battalion/Page 3 ' State and Local fill! Vontoft number hen I had to the wall r obstacle ettytncl t forgot,- ockedir Bills to enlarge national park in West Texas glad I in’thavtl those ire tor helpr. Kperienci tnnstiel, nd wouit there, wasn’t k' lust tot from Go: no wav,!' if it, W' whom I in’tjust r-ash thei: y riskilic : end ther aeophi :m. And lining ewed land e leaditii ghtenit t. cityt® WASHINGTON (AP) — Iwo bills aimed at enlarging Big Bend ational Park and adding to three ast Texas wilderness areas were he subject of a House Interior sub- ommittee hearing Thursday. The Big Bend bill, the first mea- ure introduced by freshman Rep. amar Smith, R-San Angelo, calls upon the federal government to ac- ept a 67,000-acre gift from the Txas Nature Conservancy adja- |cent to Big Bend. The wilderness bill seeks the ac quisition by the federal government of 690 acres of private land adja cent to three wilderness areas in East Texas. The bill stipulates that the fed eral government acquire the land by either purchasing it or using land swaps if trading is unsuccess ful after two years. The three wilderness areas are [Turkey Hill and Upland Island, part of Angelina National Forest, and Big Slough, part of Davy Crockett National Forest. The Reagan administration op- Iposes the wilderness bill, contend- ing that in times of tight budgets the federal government should not be buying more park lands. “Our primary reason for oppos ing the bill is cost,” said Dale Rob ertson, chief of the U.S. Forestry Service. “We simply object to the man- j dated purchase of these prop erties,” he said. He said that with the govern ment trying to save every chance it can, spending the money to buy the land would be wrong and wasteful. Robertson estimates it would cost between $800,000 and $900,000 to purchase the land. The measure is sponsored by Reps. Charles Wilson, D-Lufkin; John Bryant, D-Dallas; Steve Bart- llett, R-Dallas; and Joe Barton, R- i Ennis. hey land; if not all, willTk* rinded to the government for land of comparable worth elsewhere. The Big Bend property was do nated to the conservancy in late 1984 and early 1985 by brothers Houston and Ed Harte. They stipulated that the land had to be preserved in its natural state as a part of Big Bend. “Thanks to the generosity of the Harte brothers we have an excel lent opportunity to acquire this land at no cost to the taxpayers and thereby preserve an important part of our natural heritage for future generations,” Smith said in a pre pared statement. The land is a mixture of desert, mountains and prairie and includes a large portion of the Rosillas Mountains and Buttrill Springs. It supports an oasis in the middle of the Rosillas range, Smith said. Traces of former Indian cultures and prehistoric peoples can be found on the land. The Texas Natural Heritage Program also has identified the area as containing more than one- third of the globally significant spe cies it has found. Until recently there were two oil and gas leases on the property, both of which have expirea, Smith said. “I am glad to note that (the bill) has the support oT the administra tion, and that 11 of my colleagues from Texas have joined me in co sponsoring this measure,” Smith said. Making Chemistry Chris Guide, who graduated from A&M with a biochemistry degree in May, reaches for a solution in a laboratory located on the third Photo by Karen Kroesche floor of the Heap Building where he works for the Texas Agricultural Experiment Station. University police deal with much more than writing tickets By Kathryn McMinn Reporter Murder is not the only crime com mitted by man and as long as this re mains the case, the Texas A&M Uni versity police will always have plenty to do. There has never been a crime as serious as murder committed on campus in the 17 years University Police Chief Elmer Schneider Jr. has served with the department. The most disastrous incident he wit nessed was an attempted murder and suicide that occurred in the early ’70s. “T his boy pumped two rounds . . . into his girlfriend and then turned the gun on himself in the All Faiths Chapel,” Schneider says. “Both of them were students.” Burglaries and auto thefts are two of the more severe crimes the police department has learned to deal with. “Our department was responsible for knocking out two auto theft rings based out of Houston this past year,” Schneider says. “We can’t rid the campus of criminals, but at least we put a dent in the problem.” In addition to the regular duties the 48 'officers perform, many of them have other responsibilities. Officer Cabrina Scott has com pleted her college education in the five and one-half years she has been employed by the department and is now concentrating on starting a fam- ily. “I received my associate’s degree in criminal justice in Michigan and then moved to College Station to work as a secretary, Scott says. “When the officer position opened up, I decided to train for it and take- it. “With the opportunity to com plete a degree virtually at my feet, I decided to take advantage of it and graduated from A&M in August of ’86.” Motivation plays an all-important part of sticking with law enforce ment, Scott says. “Hostile feelings toward police of ficers on campus come with the uni form, but I can cope with it because I’ve been in the student’s position,” she says. “Every job has its good points and its bad points. If the good didn’t outweigh the bad then I wouldn’t be here.” Schneider says, “People are often under the impression that the cam pus is not a part of the rest of the earth. “There are no primary differ ences between the University Police Department and the city police de partment. But we always seem to run into those individuals who do not heed handicapped or no-parking signs on campus and our fines for these offenses are just as expensive as the city’s.” The citations students often grumble about are issued by Univer sity-trained parking patrol officers, one of the two divisions of police em ployed by the University. The other type of officer is the patrolman. Schneider says, “We end up wear ing that double hat that goes with be ing a security agency and yet having to tow cars or write out citations, too.” The requirements involved in be ing a police officer on campus in clude taking a 400-hour intensive- training program, passing a state exam in one of three given opportu nities, passing a medical and psycho logical exam, meeting the required educational standards — a high school diploma — and passing an ex tensive background check con ducted by the state, Schneider says. “The University police officer must be mentally and physically equipped to handle the same type of regular emergencies faced by any city officer,” he says. Architecture college considers buying Italian monastery By George Weissenberger Reporter Texas A&M may turn from tenant to landlord if it purchases a monastery in Italy where the Uhiversity leases space for its study abroad program. Although plans for Spring 1988 are still being made, Daniel F. MacGilvray, associate dean of the College of Architecture and En vironmental Design, says the Roman Catho lic Church probably will allow the program to lease I.a Poggerina monastery until it’s sold, MacGilvray says. | The Church, he says, just decided they no longer needed La Poggerina, called “4’he Pogge” by the architecture college. A&M faculty members and students who have participated in the program say they’d like'to see A&|M buy the monastery. Mary Hamby, a junior English major who went therfc this summer, says it’s in the mountains, surrounded by vineyards and olive trees. 1 “It’s a real pretty place,” she says. The Pogge, converted for student use, has dormitory rooms for students and pri vate rooms for faculty. It also has design studios, classrooms, an administrative of fice, kitchen, dining room, art gallery, small recreation room and a photography lab. Mary Ann Marshall, a graduate student in cultural geography who went with the study abroad group this summer for inde pendent study, says the facility and pro gram are integrated and interwoven. Forcing the University to buy a new fa cility would cause the study abroad pro gram to start all over again, Marshall says. While options have been considered, MacGilvray says, no decisions have been made. MacGilvray says the facility would cost about $2 million to purchase and maintain with an endowed fund. The normal process of passing such a purchase through the state Legislature could take a long time and be found unjus tified by the Legislature or the Texas vot ers, he says. MacGilvray says he heard that some peo ple in Milan, Italy, were interested in buy ing the monastery, implying that some ur gency in a decision is needed. One option is to persuade former stu dents, friends or businesses to donate the money to A&M to buy the facility, he says. This way the University, not the state, would own the facility. Although the money could be raised through donations and be used to buy the monastery, MacGilvray says, such an ex penditure would have to be justified by the architecture college. The architecture college, which sponsors the study abroad program, could use the money to improve the college’s facilities at A&M, he says. He says, however, that the facility is at a wonderful location. “We would like to keep it,” he says. Meanwhile, he says, Professor Paolo Bar- ucchieri, the director for the study abroad program at the monastery, is looking for other possible locations. MacGilvray says if purchased, the facility, used mainly by the architecture college and the College of Liberal Arts, probably would be opened to a wider A&M audience. He says the purchase also would reduce the cost for students whose fees have paid for the lease. About $2,000 of each stu dent’s cost goes toward paying for the lease, room and board, he says. If one multiplies this amount by the ap proximately 40 students a year who use the monastery and the eight years the program has been in operation, $640,000 already has been spent to use the facility. Once bought, The Pogge could be con verted to house 120 people which, in the same eight-year period, could save the stu dents $1,920,000. This amount is about equal to the cost of buying the facility. Carole Fulbright, a senior environmental design student who participated with the study abroad program this summer, says she would be “thrilled to death” if A&M bought the monastery. “If you went up there . . . you would say ‘Buy it immediately,’ ” she says. “(A&M) could do so much with it. It would really be worth it.” Danny Sparks, a junior accounting stu dent who went on the trip this summer, says he thought it would be ridiculous if A&M didn’t buy the facility, since it’s near Flor ence, the center of the Renaissance, and people could go there and study all the time. Marshall says the monastery could easily be used as a research facility. She says it could be used as a home base for faculty and students doing research in Italy and other parts of Europe. She strongly stresses how such an opera tion could be used by many of the colleges and departments at A&M. The antiquity of the Italian culture, she says, provides an endless array of research possibilities. It would be a shame for A&M, which wants to have world-class programs, not to sponsor such a learning program, she says. a|m The 1987-88 Aggieland Video Yearbook ■■•••••■•■•■•■•nr -mm riotic.Fo' ltd agai® 5 )f armifr ■ German id where 1 zi siege h :ss and sal 1 iet masses jiupareil* iombeca 1 howpre 5 still take' any. hansaflif ed its «l |(i niericait' 1 utintoa Is looking for hard-working, dependable students for staff positions. The Assistant Producer and some camera people will be put on the pay roll this summer for immediate training. Following positions will be filled in the Fall: * Camera people * Artistic Director * Secretary * Script Writer * Research Assistant Applications will be considered immediately for any of the above, but payroll for these job categories will not start generally until September. Applications are available in Student Publications Office, 230 Reed Mc Donald. Deadline for summer position applications is Friday, July 31 at 5 p.m. For additional information contact: Greg Keith 846-6949 Contact Lenses Only Quality Name Brands (Bausch & Lomb, Ciba, Barnes-Hinds-Hydrocurve) *$79 00 ' STD - DA,LYWEARSOFTLENSES $99. 00 -STD. EXTENDED WEAR SOFT LENSES * CfcQQ 00 -STD. TINTED SOFT LENSES yW* DAILY WEAR OR EXTENDED WEAR Call 696-3754 For Appointment Same day delivery on most soft contact lenses *Eye exam and care kit not included CHARLES C. SCHROEPPEL, O.D., P.C. 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