_ THe Battalion
Vol. 87 No. 30 CJSPS 045360 14 pages College Station, Texas Monday, October 12, 1987
Plane crash
in Burma kills
all on board
RANGOON, Burma (AP) — A
[Burma Airways plane caught fire
and crashed about 20 miles short of
a popular tourist town in central
Burma Sunday, killing all 49 people
aboard, including 14 Americans,
[the government said.
The official News Agency of
[Burma said 36 foreigners, nine
Burmese passengers and four crew-
|men were aboard.
It was the airline’s second disas-
|ter in less than four months.
The agency said twin-turboprop
[Fokker Friendship 27 “caught fire
|n midair” and crashed southeast of
[its destination of Pagan, a town
vhose ancient Buddhist temples at
tract many foreign tourists.
The brief announcement did not
five the cause of the crash.
The agency said besides the
Americans, seven Swiss citizens,
[Five Britons, four Australians, three
Vest Germans, two French citizens
[and one Thai died.
The crash came one day after
diplomatic sources reported in
creased police protection of the
U.S. Embassy in Rangoon because
of reports that an an anti-American
terrorist group had entered
Burma.
Officials would not speculate on
possible links between crash and
terrorists, and no further informa
tion was available on the alleged ar
rival of terrorists.
Government sources, who spoke
on condition of anonymity, said the
plane was on a two-hour, regularly
scheduled flight from the national
capital of Rangoon to Pagan, about
306 miles to the north.
Pagan has about 5,000 residents.
It lies on flat terrain on the east
bank of the Irrawaddy River, which
crosses most of Burma. The town
and surrounding area has hun
dreds of temples built during the
11th and 12th centuries.
[Computer breakdown
delays runoff results
A computer breakdown forced
Ithe candidates in the runoff election
Ifor freshman class president and
jvice president to wait until today to
[find out the outcome of last Thurs-
[day’s election.
Brian Banner, vice president for
[administration in student govern-
Iment, said the election results,
(scheduled to be announced at noon
(last Friday, will be posted in the stu-
(dent government offices in the Pavil-
(ion this morning.
“We’ll have the results out Mon-
iday for sure,” Banner said.
Banner said the election commit
tee will count the estimated 600
votes by hand if the computers are
not working today.
The freshman candidates for
president, Steven Werheim and
Heather Glenn, and vice president
candidates Steve Miller and Jason
Wilcox, were told Friday they would
have to wait until Monday for the re
sults of the election.
Banner said the election commit
tee will count the ballots first thing
this morning.
1- . 1
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■
Looking for daylight
Texas A&M tailback Keith Woodside (33) takes a handoff from fresh
man quarterback Bucky Rich^j-dson and prepares jto run up the mid
dle as Houston’s Johnny Jackson (10) moves in. The Aggies managed
[Legislators address student leaders
Study group sponsors symposium on higher education
By Drew Leder
Staff Writer
Texas A&M’s Legislative Study
Group brought together legis
lators from around the state in
Dallas Friday to discuss higher
education in Texas at a sympo
sium of the Texas State Student
Association.
State Rep. Richard Smith, R-
Bryan, a 1959 A&M graduate,
state senator Eddie Bernice John
son, D-Dallas, and state Rep. Alex
Moreno, D-Edinburg, addressed
student government representa
tives from 20 Texas colleges and
universities at a convention of the
TSSA, an organization that tries
to establish a network among stu
dent governments at higher edu-
[ cation institutions in the state.
LSG directors Mark Browning,
| a senior finance major, and Caro
lyn Foster, a senior political sci
ence major, moderated the dis
cussion that focused on
legislation that affected higher
education in the 70th Texas Leg
islature, which was from Jan. 1 to
! May 31 this year.
The three legislators agreed
[that the concerns of higher edu-
[cation met with success in the past
[session, but they made it clear
jthat problems still exist in the
[area.
“Higher education fared well,”
(Johnson said, but she also noted
(that no single item in higher edu-
Jcation was funded at its request
[this year.
Overall, higher education re-
[ceived a 9 percent increase in
(funding over last year, Johnson
[said. General revenue funds allo-
|cated to higher education by the
Legislature this year total $27.1
(billion.
Moreno said this year’s in
crease in funding will make up
for the cuts made in the area in
|1985 and 1986, but he warned
students not to think the in
creased funding will be enough to
iieet the demands of higher edu
cation.
“Do we have enough resources
Ito provide a top quality education
In every part of the state?”
h loreno asked, and then an
swered his question, “The state
doesn’t. We are not going to be
pble to provide higher education
vithout limits in all areas of the
Jtate. There are some dark clouds
Jurkingon the horizon.”
III
■IBIbb
State Rep. Richard Smith
Moreno said there have been
proposals to merge, or even shut
down, some smaller state institu
tions in order to eliminate the
costs required for their opera
tions.
In the past, higher education
hasn’t been a high priority when
legislators have decided how to
allocate the state’s money, Smith
said. In 1985 and 1986, while
other areas of state funding —
highway construction and main
tenance, public education, pris
ons, and human services — re
ceived increases, higher
education was left out, he said.
This year’s increase is because of
more and better lobbying, he
said.
“Higher education, in the past,
has not had a strong lobby,”
Smith said, “but there was a
strong effort in this session by
people interested to reverse this
trend.”
One group that will benefit
from the additional funding is
faculty. The legislators agreed
that faculty salary increases are
needed to attract top researchers
to Texas.
Johnson said, “We need to fo
cus on more research so it could
be commercialized, so we can get
some revenues coming from that
commercialization.”
Smith also said getting and
Photo by Drew Leder
keeping faculty researchers
should be a top priority of higher
education.
State universities in Texas have
been losing faculty members in
many areas because of their mod
est pay incentives compared to
other states, Moreno said. Texas
ranks 24th in money spent on fac
ulty compensation this year, but
the past Legislature adopted a
plan designed to bring Texas’ fac
ulty salaries up to the average of
the 10 most populous states by
1990. The plan calls for a 10 per
cent increase in funds available
for faculty salaries in 1988 and a
15 percent increase in 1989.
According to the plan, salary in
creases will be based on merit.
The legislators also discussed
the possibility of appointing stu
dents to the governing boards of
state universities, something the
LSG and A&M’s Student Senate
have backed. Moreno said this is
an issue that would not be accom
plished any time soon.
“At the present time it would
be unrealistic to put a student on
the (A&M) Board of Regents,” he
said, “it would be much more rea
listic to put a student in an advi
sory capacity.”
The regents fear they will lose
some of their cohesiveness if a
student is given a position on the
Board, he said.
Although Moreno didn’t ad
dress the legitimacy of the issue,
Johnson vehemently opposed
giving* students a voting seat on
the boards.
“Students are there for the cu-
riculum,” she said. “Sometimes
students forget what they’re there
for when they want to run the
universities.”
It isn’t the role of students to
make long-range decisions, often
involving huge amounts of
money, that will have a major im
pact on higher education, she
said.
Discussion also centered on
how much authority the govern
ing boards should have. In partic
ular, undergraduate tuition-set
ting authority shouldn’t be given
to the boards, the three legislators
said.
In the past session, the boards
were given authority to set grad
uate tuition rates, a move the LSG
opposed, but undergraduate tu
ition authority remained in the
Legislature.
Smith said if undergraduate
tuition authority was given to the
boards, tuition rates would rise to
whatever amount market forces
dictated. He said although it
would provide a way to raise tu
ition rates without voters holding
the Legislature responsible, he is
opposed to the idea.
“The fundamental issue is that
there is a need to raise tuition,”
Smith said. “The purpose (of this
proposal) is to get tuition out of
the political arena and into the
hands of some appointed officials
who could stand the heat to raise
tuition without having to be re
sponsible to the people.”
When asked what the most sig
nificant emerging issue in higher
education is, Moreno said it is the
failure of state institutions to de
segregate. Pledges by colleges
and universities in 1983 to in
crease the recruitment of minori
ties have not been carried out, he
said, and he vowed to see that the
pledges are met by filing lawsuits
against the schools.
“In the same way the federal
courts have forced us to deal with
the issues of prisons and with the
issues of the mentally ill, we are
going to be forced with the issues
of minorities in this state in terms
of higher education,” Moreno
said.
Photo by Robert W. Rizzo
a 22-17 victory over the Cougars for their first SWC win. The win im
proved the Aggies’ conference record to 1-L The Aggies will face
Baylor in Waco this weekend. See story, page 11.
A&M pays money
to state in dispute
over utility costs
By Doug Driskell
Staff Writer
A disagreement between state au
ditors and Texas A&M officials over
a law regarding utility payments re
sulted in a $167,871 payment to the
state by A&M in August, an A&M
official said.
This payment covered utility costs
originally paid by the state for fiscal
years 1986 and 1987, said Tom Tay
lor, controller of Texas A&M. But
the auditors found that certain A&M
areas used for non-educational pur
poses were using state-appropriated
funds to pay utility costs.
This is illegal according to the
state appropriations bill, Taylor said.
Since 1981, A&M has worked un
der guidelines, set by the state audi
tors, for allocating utility costs to
non-educational enterprises, Taylor
said. In 1986, the state auditors
came back and reviewed the Univer
sity process for allocating state ap
propriations.
“They reviewed us again and de
termined there were certain areas
that had been added since that time
(1981) which were not paying their
share,” Taylor said.
An opinion by the attorney gen
eral says any organization supported
by student service fees should pay
for total operating costs, Taylor said.
Such organizations include intra
murals and the student programs of
fice, he said.
“We feel intramurals should pay
their share when they use Read
Building facilities,” Taylor said. “We
don’t feel like they should pay any
for the facility when it is locked up
from midnight to 8 a.m. The state
auditors believe intramurals should
be allocated for the full 24 hours.”
This difference in opinion has re
sulted in discussions between A&M
and state auditors on what a fair
method of allocating costs is, Taylor
said.
“We have maintained over the
years that what student groups do
on this campus are a part of the edu
cation process,” Taylor said. “But,
with the attorney general’s opinion,
it is hard to argue.”
Previously, many non-educational
areas, such as the A.P. Beutel Health
Center, were paying their utility
costs, Taylor said.
“If we were trying to get away
with something, we wouldn’t have
been paying any of these utilities,”
he said.
Howard Perry, associate vice pres
ident for student services, said this
crackdown by the state auditors is
the result of the budget problems in
Texas.
“In a tight money situation the
state auditors are looking for every
way in the world to reduce state ex
penditures,” Perry said.
The Pavilion is a good example,
he said. The second floor is divided
between student financial aid and
student activities. Student activities is
funded totally by student service
fees, he said.
“They may get around to finding
out that there is another outfit up
there that is being funded by student
service fees,” Perry said. “Student
service fee organizations should be
paying their utilities instead of the
state of Texas. They will latch on to
that and we will have to put some
thing in that budget for utility costs.”
Perry said it can only get worse if
the state continues to have economic-
problems.
The fact that organizations often
move around also makes it difficult
to allocate utility costs, Taylor said.
“It may be that they were in an
auxiliary operation some place else
and they moved into a non-auxiliary
enterprise,” Taylor said.
An example of this is the Pavilion
snack bar, he said.
“When they moved in and set up a
snack bar it was an educational facili
ty,” he said. “We knew it was there,
but from a utility allocation stand
point it never registered with any
body that they were now occupying
that small area.
“We are working toward a proce
dure that will help us monitor this
on a continuing basis.”
To show the auditors A&M is co
operating with this problem,
$82,198 of the payment made in Au
gust was to cover fiscal 1987, Taylor
said.
“Since they pointed out our past
mistakes, we decided to go ahead
and pay for 1987 so it wouldn’t show
up in their audit next year,” he said.