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Texas A&MW 8 ^ mm V •
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College Station, Texas
Tuesday, September 29, 1987
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Fishin’ for votes
Heather Glenn, an accounting major from Dallas, paints her cam
paign sign for the freshman presidential election outside Hobby Hall.
Photo by Jay Janner
Nine candidates are running for the office and the polls will be open
Oct. 5, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., at the MSG, Pavilion and Sbisa Dining Hall.
Mudslide hits
in Columbia;
175 lose lives
MEDELLIN, Colombia (AP) —
An avalanche of red mud and rock
killed at least 175 people, including
43 children, when it thundered
down a mountainside and onto a
slum area, officials said Monday.
Some residents estimated up to
500 people were missing in the
scores of buried shacks.
“We heard the noise that sounded
like an explosion and soon afterward
a huge mass of rocks and mud de
scended upon us,” said Mary Mos-
quera, who lost three daughters in
the avalanche.
Mayor William Jaramillo Gomez
told the radio chain Todelar that
about 200 people were injured.
Exhausted workers dug through
20 feet of mud Monday but found
no survivors — just bodies. Slum
dwellers wandered through the area
searching for dead or missing rela
tives. Other residents tried to find
belongings lost in the mudslide.
Rescue workers said they were
guided in recovering many bodies by
dogs howling at the spots where
their owners were buried.
By nightfall, 175 bodies had been
recovered, some buried under more
than 36 feet of mud, a fire depart
ment spokesman said.
Jaramillo Gomez suspended work
later Monday as torrential rains for
the fourth consecutive day threat
ened to send more mud tumbling on
top of workers, according to Cara-
col, Colombia’s largest radio net
work.
Jaramillo Gomez told Caracol he
had ordered that all victims, many of
them unidentified, be interred im
mediately to prevent any outbreak
of disease. At least 50 people were
buried in a mass grave, while the re
maining bodies were to be buried to
day, he said.
The director of the Medellin
morgue, Oscar de Jesus Gomez, said
in an interview with radio Todelar
that at least 43 of the 120 bodies re
covered so far were children.
Archbishop Alfonso Lopez Tru
jillo told radio Todelar that five chil
dren were killed in a communion
party at one shack. Two of 25 chil
dren at another first communion
party also were killed.
The mudslide covered more than
60 dwellings at the foot of Sugar
Loaf Mountain, part of a mountain
chain that surrounds Medellin, a city
of more than 2 million people 160
miles northwest of Bogota.
Despite the continued rain, survi
vors searched for what was left of
their belongings — television sets,
radios, beds, furniture, kitchen
utensils — where their homes once
stood.
Torrential rains have soaked the
northern Andes mountains for the
past week.
Hospitals said Sunday they had
treated more than 150 people, most
of them children with multiple frac
tures and cuts.
By Cindy Milton
Staff Writer
Sixty-one female faculty members re
wed raises last year after the Faculty Sen
ile passed a resolution urging the Univer-
>ity to identify and correct individual cases
of salary inequity, said Dr. Clinton Phillips,
issociate provost and dean of faculties.
The resolution, introduced by the Fac-
ilty Senate Committee on the Status of
J V
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A&M offers female faculty raises to close
Gender-based pay equity
Part two of a two-part series
Women, called for immediate raises for fe-
nale faculty members found to be victims
)fdiscrimination. It also recommended an-
lual observation and evaluation of female
alaries to guard against discrimination.
Phillips said the 61 faculty members’ sala
ries were not raised because overt discrimi
nation was found, but because discrepan
ces due to a variety of reasons were
identified by the administration. The salary
adjustments were approved by President
Frank E. Vandiver.
The Senate women’s status committee,
whose members include both men and
women faculty and a student representative
as well as faculty senators, is working to
close an evident 10 percent salary gap be
tween male and female faculty at A&M.
Figures from the Office of Planning and
Institutional Analysis for the 1986-1987
academic year show that only 16 percent of
A&M’s faculty is female.
Although these numbers look small,
there doesn’t appear to be overt discrimina
tion at A&M, said Sallie Sheppard, associate
provost for the honors program and under
graduate studies. Instead, she said, there
are fewer women than men available for
some of the the tenured, higher-ranking
positions at A&M.
Tenure track positions, based on a seven-
year contract, require more qualifications
and generally are harder to get than non-
tenured positions, she said. Women, over
all, have not sought long-term careers in
higher education, so not many have ac
quired the necessary qualifications for ten
ure, she said.
In addition, there are few women in ca
reers like engineering and agriculture, so
hiring females for some positions isn’t al
ways possible, Dr. Carl Erdman, associate
dean of engineering, said.
“Out of 25 or 30 applications for a posi
tion, we rarely get female applicants due to
the small number of women with Ph.Ds in
these fields,” Erdman said.
The University is making an honest ef
fort to hire more women and minorities to
faculty positions, Erdman said, but diffi
culty arises because there are so few women
and minority applicants.
The non-tenured jobs, including instruc
tors and lecturers, often appeal to women
because they are contracted on a year-to-
year basis and allow flexibility for family
life, Shepperd said. Consequently, she
added, women tend to swell the ranks of
the non-tenured jobs.
In 1986, only 19 women held full profes
sor positions at A&M, while 745 men had
the rank of full professor. The same figures
show that 439 men held the rank of asso
ciate professor, while only 39 females held
this title.
However, in the rank of lecturer, which
is a non-tenured position, there is a higher
comparative percentage of females — 152
women and 240 men hold the title of lec
turer at A&M.
Another reason upper faculty ranks are
underpopulated with females, Sheppard
said, is that women usually don’t consider
academia as a career choice.
“I don’t think it even occurs to most
women to go into academia,” she said. “Part
of the reason is that women teaching on the
university level is not traditional. Teaching
at a college or university has not been a
built-in ambition for women.”
Dr. Walter Buenger, chair of the Com
mittee on the Status of Women, added that
industry is competitive and appealing for
women, so many women choose to go into
popular fields such as business and market
ing rather than seeking teaching jobs in
higher education.
Sheppard said women tend to take the
pay gap
higher-paying, short-term jobs, and many
still tend to place a high priority on their
husbands and families, putting their ca
reers in second place.
These trends, however, may be chang
ing, Sheppard said.
A subcommittee created last week is
looking into the hiring and retention prac
tices of women faculty members at A&M.
The goal of the subcommittee is to make
A&M a more attractive place for women to
pursue teaching careers.
Sheppard said women tend to get their
degrees and want to teach and raise their
families at the same time.
“We’re going to see about hiring couples
to teach,” Sheppard said. “I’ve seen couples
go to all sorts of extremes — including tem
porary separations and commuting — be
cause teaching positions are not available
for both of them.”
Sheppard added that hiring couples in
academia is difficult everywhere since it is
hard to find simultaneous positions, but
that the encouragement of hiring two in
stead of one may increase the number of
women at A&M.
ndependent physicians say HMOs
nay not provide best medical care
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By Mary-Lynne Rice
Staff Writer
As Texas A&M employees choose
tealth care insurance options, a
iroup of independent physicians is
oncerned that health maintenance
irganizations may not offer the best
taefits to patients, but an HMO of-
‘tcial says a comprehensive health
Ian can provide economical, conve-
tientand thorough care.
Dr. David Doss, a local obstetri-
ian and gynecologist helped orga-
lize a group of independent physi-
ians to inform A&M employees of
heir options regarding health care.
The group of about 50, Doss said,
institutes the majority of indepen-
bt practicing local physicians who
lave the goal of promoting the inde-
lendent practice of medicine.
With this goal comes indepen-
lence from large clinics, the govern
ment or anyone else, he said.
With new health care options this
'car open to A&M employees, they
low can choose between health
maintenance organizations and
icalth insurance, and Doss said the
•ption makes losing patients to
IMOs a concern to independent
•hysicians.
Under an HMO, a patient pays a
hied monthly charge and usually
ets unlimited office visits and treat
ment.
Before this fall, health insurance
where the patient often pays a
percentage of every office visit or
treatment — was the only plan avail
able.
Doss said the A&M faculty and
staff make up 20 percent to 30 per
cent of the Brazos Valley work force.
If all of them choose to join an
HMO, it will hurt independent phy
sicians, he said.
“Obviously, our livelihoods are at
stake,” he said.“The worst possible
scenario is that we might potentially
lose all of those (patients) ... If we
lose them as patients, it would put a
sizeable dent in our practice.
“We certainly didn’t think that
would happen, but we felt that any
one we lost would potentially be an
unnecessary loss.”
Independent physicians em
phasize the importance of thorough
research of medical care providers
and evaluation of their health care
needs before making a decision,
Doss said.
“The advantages of sticking with
independent physicians and riot
aligning with an HMO are primarily
in not losing your options, in the
ability to choose,” he said.
The primary advantage of using
an independent physician is having a
wide range of doctors and facilities
to choose from, he said.
“If they (patients) stay with inde-
endent providers,” Doss said, “they
ave the option of going to Houston
for cancer treatment; they can go to
Pittsburgh to have their liver trans-
lant; they can go to Stanford to
ave their heart transplant.
“I don’t think the majority of em
ployees out there at A&M, really,
when they think about it, want to
lose those things.”
Ron Gay, administrative director
of the Scott & White Health Plan
HMO, said that although HMO pa
tients select a doctor from those af
filiated with the clinic, there are
many physicians to choose from, and
care is monitored better under the
clinic’s staff.
“The whole concept behind an
HMO is that we have a list of doctors
you can choose from,” Gay said.
“Because if we know which doctor
you’re seeing and how they are pro
viding you with medical care, it’s a
lot easier for us to monitor costs and
to thereby keep everybody’s costs
under control,” he said.
Referrals to other clinics or hospi
tals, including M.D. Anderson in
Houston, are possible and paid for
under an HMO plan, Gay said.
When choosing a health care plan,
many people are drawn to HMOs
because tney allow unlimited —
usually free — office visits and treat
ment for the payment of one
monthly premium, he said.
Under the Lincoln National
health insurance program available
to A&M employees, the patient pays
20 percent of the charge of each of
fice visit or treatment.
But overall, it doesn’t make eco
nomic sense for most A&M employ
ees to go to an HMO, Doss said.
If they’re really that healthy, then
they’re spending more money to be
involoved in an HMO in the first
place, he said.
“Because if you’re healthy, you
don’t need any care,” he said.
“That’s how the HMO makes
money; the HMO is happy and
See HMOs, page 12
B-1B bomber crashes
after birds set engine
on fire; 3 land safely
LA JUNTA, Colo. (AP) — A B-
1B bomber with six people
aboard crashed Monday in a ball
of orange flame in the Colorado
prairie after birds were sucked
into the engines, but three crew
members parachuted to safety,
authorities said.
Hours after the crash, the Air
Force said only that the other
three crew members were miss
ing. It was the first crash of a reg
ular production model of the B-
1B, the nation’s newest long-
range strategic bomber.
The survivors were reported in
good condition with minor inju
ries at the U.S. Air Force Aca
demy hospital in Colorado
Springs.
The bomber, attached to the
96th Bombardment Wing, left
Dyess Air Force Base in Abilene
early Monday for the Strategic
Training Range Complex near
La Junta, 60 miles southeast of
Pueblo, the Strategic Air Com
mand said.
The plane went down two
miles south of La Junta at 9:34
a.m., said Capt. Dave Thurston of
SAC command headquarters in
Omaha, Neb.
Bob Buckhorn, a spokesman
lor trie federal Aviation Admin
istration in Washington, said the
E ilot radioed air-traffic control-
:rs that he had run into birds
during a low-level practice bomb
ing run.
The pilot immediately began
climbing and managed to reach
an altitude of roughly 15,500
feet, Buckhorn said, but then re
ported that the two engines on
the right side had caught fire be
cause of “bird ingestion.”
It was apparently at that point
that the crew attempted to eject
from the aircraft, he added.
“We’re going down,” the pilot
radioed, according to Laurie
King, spokesman at Dyess.
Sgt. Warren Wright, spokes
man for Petersen Air Force Base
near Colorado Springs, said the
B-1B is designed to carry four
crew members, but because it was
a training mission two people on
board probably were evaluators.
SAC officials said the plane was
equipped with four ejector seats.
Officials at Rockwell Interna
tional, the manufacturer of the
plane, called birds “one of the
hazards” facing the low-lying
bomber, which apparently hit the
birds at an altitude of about 500
feet.