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Texas A&tA
Battalion
College Station, Texas
This issue of The Battalion fea
tures five back-to-school sections cov
ering such diverse topics as academics,
the arts, the community, traditions,
college survival and sports to start
A&M’s students off to another year.
lack miner’s strike in South Africa ends
■JOHANNESBURG, South Africa
(AP) — The black miner’s union
■dec! South Africa’s largest and
pdiest mine strike Sunday after
knagement fired tens of thousands
of strikers and refused to yield in ne
gations.
The National Union of Mine-
wt rkers settled for management’s
pre-strike wage offer, but it would
not admit defeat and described the
e-week walkout as “a dress re-
arsal for further action.” Several
companies reported former strikers
reported for work for the Sunday
right shift.
■Union General Secretary Cyril
Ramaphosa said “1988 is the year we
start marching forward.”
Nine miners were killed during
the strike, and the union said on
Sunday that more than 500 were in
jured and 400 arrested. Tens of mil
lions of dollars in wages and cor
porate profits were lost.
Most of the estimated 44,000 fired
strikers are expected to be rehired,
but at least 7,000 lost their jobs when
one company shut down two gold
mine shafts.
The end of the strike came during
a three-hour meeting between the
Chamber of Mines, which represents
the six targeted mining companies,
and a 30-member union delegation.
The offer accepted by the union
contained only slight improvements
in benefits and was virtually identical
to one that union members over
whelmingly rejected on Wednesday.
The chamber said the strike in
volved 230,000 miners at 31 gold
and coal mines at its peak, with
about 20,000 strikers returning to
work in recent days. The union said
340,000 men struck at 44 mines.
The biggest previous mine strike
was in 1946, when about 100,000
miners walked off for a few days be
fore troops broke up the strike.
“Both the union and the employ
ers have demonstrated their ability
to administer and withstand pain,”
said Bobby Godsell, industrial rela
tions chief for Anglo American
Corp. “None of my colleagues are
going to be celebrating victory.”
About 40,000 of the fired strikers
worked for Anglo, the largest and
worst hit of the affected companies.
Godsell said the company had been
prepared to continue the dismissals
to “defend our economic interests.”
He said Anglo would try to rehire
as many of the fired men as possible,
but made no guarantees. He said the
company would not dismiss replace
ments hired during the strike and
would not reopen two unprofitable
gold shafts it closed 10 days ago.
Godsell commended the union’s
leaders. “To take very large num
bers of people out on strike and
keep them out for three weeks is an
achievement,” he said.
The settlement called for strikers
to return to work starting with Sun
day’s night shift.
Chamber president Naas Steen-
kamp said the cost of the strike in vi
olence, lost income and mass dis
missals was high. But he said each
side may have gained a clearer per
ception of the other.
“The union has learned that the
industry is capable of setting limits,
sticking to them and showing a lot of
determination in the process,” he
said. “The employer has learned
that the union has muscle, organiza
tional capacity, determination and
skill.”
The settlement offer raises min
ers’ vacation pay by 10 percent and
provides death benefits for three
years, rather than two. Negotiators
said wages — the focus of the dis
pute — were not discussed Sunday.
Ramaphosa said there was no re
sentment among rank-and-file to
their leaders’ decision.
aw to allow schools troubled by NCAA to sue boosters
AUSTIN (AP) — Texas universities that
wind up in trouble with the NCAA because
of recruiting scandals can sue boosters or
ffijliers who were responsible under a new
law that takes effect this week.
■ The measure came in response to a foot-
fp&ll recruiting scandal at Southern Method-
fist University. The National Collegiate Ath-
latic Association canceled the university’s
|l|)87 football season as a penalty for pay
ments made to football recruits by alumni
and trustees. The NCAA also canceled part
of the 1988 season, which was later called
off by SMU.
The law is one of about 750 new mea
sures that go into effect Monday or Tues
day in Texas.
Under another, drinking alcoholic bever
ages while driving, a practice that one offi
cial called a deadly Texas tradition, be
comes illegal Monday. Violators can be
fined up to $200.
“It’s a weak bill,” said Ross Newby, exec
utive director of the Texas Commission on
Alcohol and Drug Abuse. “By allowing the
passenger to drink in the car, it makes it
easy for the driver to hand it over.”
In fact, a driver can legally carry an alco
holic beverage. The law only makes it illegal
to drink it and be “observed doing so by a
police officer.”
Newby said there is something tradition
ally Texan about downing a beer behind
the wheel, adding that the practice has
“killed a lot of us.”
Department of Public Safety spokesman
Mike Cox said it could prove difficult to en
force the “open container” law, but state
troopers will try.
Other laws on Texans’ new can’t-do list
— which seems to be longer than the can-do
list — include prohibitions on late-term
abortions, smoking at public schools and
keeping a vicious dog.
The vicious dog law includes a canine
capital punishment provision.
andiver: A&M making headway in status quest
Dr. Frank E. Vandiver, president of A&M, explains the changing roleof the University in its quest for world status.
By Carolyn Garcia
Assistant City Editor
■ In its quest to become a “world
University,” President Frank Van
diver says Texas A&M is making
headway.
■ And Vandiver says he sees the
Hie of the University changing with
the times.
H But those changes, definite and
positive as they are, are taking time.
■ “It’s going very well,” Vandiver
savs. “It’s' not going as well as I
would like. I would like to have it all
have happened last year. But, it’s an
idea whose time I think is slowly
coming.”
Through universities working to
gether on concentrated efforts, Van
diver says vast changes and im
provements can be made.
“The original idea was that I sus
pect there will be a group of univer
sities around the world within the
next 25 years,” he says. “I hope not
that long, but I think it will happen.
“They will have the human and
fiscal resources to sort of band to
gether in a loose network to address
these major problems the world will
face — wars, famine, pestilence, and
death.”
And despite the efforts of the few,
Vandiver says, the many will have to
attack the world’s problems.
“We don’t seem to beat those
problems back,” he says. “But we
have to keep fighting. And they are
becoming increasingly difficult to
fight.”
Universities have the opportunity
and the wherewithal to make gains
and changes where government’s
hands, for the most part, are tied, he
says.
“I think the more we learn, the
more we realize the problems are
larger than we thought they were,”
he says. “Governments either can’t
or won’t do it in the long run. The
governments are going to be too
concerned with other things. And
political restraints on borders are too
difficult to hop over.”
Vandiver says a university-based
approach to solving problems may
be the answer.
“We’re going to have to face these
things by university approaches —
research and technical answers to se-
nave nappenea iasi year, joui, us an tnese major prooiems me worm wm says. icsearcn ana tecnmcai answ
Leader of University says A&M
r eeps football program clean
By Carolyn Garcia a .u:
rious problems,” he says. “And these
universities are going to have to, in
some cases, operate above govern
ments, and they’re not all going to be
popular in that. But I think that’s the
wave of the future.”
Vandiver says that reaching the
goal of making A&M a world univer
sity is in sight, but it will require a
keen sense of expertise.
“We’re going into the information
age,” he says. “We’re also going into
an age where congregated expertise
will be increasingly necessary. And
that’s the way to get it.
Photos by Tracy Staton
“More and more I’m finding as we
sign agreements with various univer
sities around the world, and I talk to
the people involved, they all agree
and they get excited. They all think
it’s a great idea.
“I got a letter not long ago from
one of the people in the ministry of
education at Belgium, who is one of
the vice premiers, who had heard
about it and was all excited and said,
‘Can Belgium be involved?’
“I wrote back and said, ‘Hop
aboard.’ ”
lioi
By Carolyn Garcia
Assistant City Editor
During the wave of investigation
by the NCAA of Southwest Confer
ence schools, Texas A&M managed
to avoid the tide because its laundry
is dean, says A&M President Frank
Hindiver.
■Southern Methodist University
wis stripped of its football program
haven’t found enough to hang us, or
exactly why.”
Vandiver says that since the
NCAA keeps putting off its probe
into A&M’s athletic program, “it’s
obviously not on the front burner.”
credit for turning A&M’s football
program around and for the appar
ently favorable treatment by the
NCAA.
“I think the program has so vastly
improved and has become so much
See related story, Page 3
!61
foi two years for major football vio-
lations. The University of Texas re
ceived a two-year probation without
sanctions, although scholarships
have been cut from 25 to 20 next
y^ar. Texas Christian University got
a|hree-year probation through May
1989 and Texas Tech University was
handed a one-year probation
through February 1988 with the loss
of t hree scholarships.
TA&M escaped virtually unscathed
and the findings of its own investiga
tion have been turned over to the
NCAA.
H‘I think A&M is far cleaner than
most,” Vandiver says. “The NCAA is
still looking at us, but they keep de
ferring the investigation. We’ve
heard that it has been deferred
in. And I don’t know what that
ans, whether they’re too busy
h other schools or whether they
“I think A&M is far cleaner than most. The NCAA is
still looking at us, but they keep deferring the investi
gation. We’ve heard that it has been deferred again.
And I don’t know what that means, whether they’re
too busy with other schools or whether they haven’t
found enough to hang us, or exactly why. ”
— Dr. Frank E. Vandiver, A&M president
A&M’s own internal investigation
overturned a lot of rocks and
opened a lot of closets, but there was
little or nothing under them or in
them, he says.
“Our own investigation revealed
to me that if we’re guilty of anything,
it’s almost like biting our fingernails
compared to what may be out in
other schools,” Vandiver says. “I
don’t care to compare us to anybody.
I don’t think we should be guilty of
anything.”
Vandiver gives athletic director
and football coach Jackie Sherill
better under Jackie that that’s one of
the things that has impressed the
NCAA,” he says. “They’ve seen how
the program has become really great
things under him.”
Vandiver says some of the policies
and programs Sherill established
and enforced have made a big dif
ference in the way A&M is viewed
from afar and has been a driving
factor in A&M’s recent athletic suc
cess.
“He’s one of those who pioneered
a drug testing program, for instan
ce,” Vandiver says. “Some of the
things he put in are sort of part of
the national model.
“And all the things he instituted
when he first came here have made a
difference.
“When he came here, he came to
tell me that he was appalled at our
graduation rate of minority athletes,
that he thought it was unacceptable,
and that at Pittsburg he had
achieved an 85 percent graduation
rate and he expected nothing less
here. And he’s gotten that and I
think that’s wonderful. That sort of
thing impresses the NCAA.”
As A&M’s athletic director, Van
diver says, Sherill has worked for not
only double-A quality, but to build a
long-term successful team.
“He told me, ‘Look, I could give
— any coach could come in and give
you a winning team in a couple of
years, and break every rule the
NCAA has, which means in about
two years we’d be on probation and
wouldn’t be contending at all. But
why would anyone want that?’ ” he
says. “I told him I wouldn’t want that
for anything or any price.”
Vandiver says Sherill promised
him a “program that is absolutely
straight and solid, so once we get on
top we can stay there.”
And Vandiver says, “The proof of
the pudding is in the eating.”
A&M president calls
threat to med school
'shot in dark' tactic
By Carolyn Garcia
Assistant City Editor
Last session’s threats by the
Texas Legislature to padlock the
doors of Texas A&M’s medical
school, along with other A&M in
terests, proved to be just that.
A&M President Frank Van
diver says the Legislature was
grasping straws.
“I think they were facing an
emergency of serious propor
tions,” Vandiver says. “I don’t
know whether these were scare
tactics, or whether they were just
trying to sober the people up to
what might happen if they didn’t
pass a tax bill.”
Vandiver says the medical
school was singled out to try and
draw attention and reaction to
the Legislature’s fiscal problems.
“Closing the medical school, I
think, was just a shot in the dark
to show what they might do,” he
says.
Vandiver says one of the prob
lems with the Legislature is that it
tends to judge quality by quantity.
“Now, one of tne problems
with it (the medical school) I sup
pose from the eyes of a fiscal per
son in Austin, is that it is very
small,” Vandiver says. “And, is it
fiscally possible to sustain a very
small medical school, because it’s
very costly?
“My answer to that is that cer
tainly it is if you care about the
quality of medical products. We
are turning out some of the best
doctors in the state. And you real
ize that if you are gong to turn
out the best, it costs something.”
Although A&M is concerned
with the quality of the education
individual medical students re
ceive and tries to keep a tight
reign on that quality, Vandiver
says, if the Legislature were to in
sist that the University open the
doors a little wider, A&M would
comply.
“Now, if the legislature were to
tell us that we need to have more
students because it can’t stand the
strain, we would salute smartly
and march,” Vandiver says. “But
I would complain and gripe all
the way because I don’t think you
should water down the quality we
have.
“I don’t think they are getting
too little for their money. I think
they are getting a great deal. I
think we are doing great. The
medical school is outstanding.”