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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 13, 1988)
FyfM Texas A&M m m w # The Battalion Vol. 87 No. 74 GSPS 045360 12 Pages College Station, Texas ■" Wednesday, January 13, 1988 Ibraeli troops kill oslem, deter .N. inspection IgAZA CITY, Occupied Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli troops shot and killed a Moslem fundamentalist in a violent demonstration Tuesday, and a U.N. envoy’s attempts to inspect rei igee camps were frustrated by sol liers and protesters. ■ Military spokesmen said the army imposed curfews on five of the eight Ga a Palestinian refugee camps. Iln the Israeli parliament, Foreign ^■nister Shimon Peres appealed for ail effort to end the violence by polit ical means. Hawkish members ac- Hsed him of caving in to Arab de mands. ^■At least 32 Arabs have been killed since violent protest began Dec. 8 in ^■e West Bank and Gaza Strip, which Israel captured from Jordan aid Egypt in the 1967 Middle East ^Bar. About 1.5 million Palestinians lire in the territories. JlMThe military command said sol diers opened tire when their lives were threatened by a crowd of knife- wielding Arabs in Rafah, at the southern end of the Gaza Strip. One Arab died and three were wounded, while a soldier was treated for a mi nor stab wound, a communique said. The army identified the dead man as Muhammed Yusuf El Ya- zouri, a member of the Moslem fun damentalist Islamic Jihad group, who was freed from prison last year after serving three years on unspeci fied charges. In the Jabaliya refugee camp, troops fired on rioters brandishing nail-studded sticks, slightly injuring two people, the military said. Doc tors in Jabaliya said they treated two people for gunshot wounds. Soldiers barred Marrack Gould- ing, the U.N. undersecretary gen- See Israeli, page 11 Stone improving following surgery lo transplant liver Board reports accident increase for airlines ■ Former T exas A&.-M student John Slone remains in serious condition a week after his second liver trans- plunt operation, a spokesman at the Baylor University Medical Center in ■alias said Tuesday. ■ Susan Hall, the Baylor spokes- ■an, said Tuesday evening that Slone was still in the intensive care ■nit and that his doctors say he is im proving slowly. I Stone, a 1984 A&M graduate and second-year medical student at the ■niversity of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, received his second liv er transplant Jan. 5 after his first transplanted liver became infected. I Stone’s original liver was de stroyed by Alpha-1 Anti-Trypsin ■leficiency, which kept his body from controlling his digestive en zymes and resulted in cirrhosis of the liver. He received his first liver trans plant Dec. 1 after a two-month wait. Donations from the A&M commu nity helped to pay $45,000 of the es timated $250,000 needed for the first transplant. The second trans plant will cost about the same as the first. Anyone wishing to contribute money can write to the American Transplant Association, Box 822123, Dallas, TX 75382-2123, or to the American Transplant Associa tion, care of the John Stone Fund, Post Oak Branch of First State Bank in Caldwell, P.O. Box 10130, College Station, TX 77840. WASHINGTON (AP) — Major U.S. airlines in 1987 had the highest number of accidents in 13 years and the most deaths in five years while commuter carriers ,had their worst safety record of this decade, the Na tional Transportation Safety Board reported Tuesday. The board said the large airlines had 31 accidents last year, including four crashes involving fatalities, ac counting for 231 deaths. The com muter airlines, which fly smaller planes, had 35 accidents and 58 deaths in 1987, the largest number for that segment of the industry since 1979, when 66 people died. The 31 accidents among the U.S. airlines flying large jet aircraft w'as the highest figure since 1974, when the airlines had 42 accidents. The 231 fatalities were topped during the past decade only by 1979, when 351 people died, and 1982 when 233 were killed, according to the board. Airline industry officials sug gested, Jiowever, that the total acci dent and fatality figures are mislead- ing. They say the rate of accidents in volving fatalities — 0.043 per 100,000 departures — was lower in 1987 than in most years although significantly higher than the rate in 1986 when there was only one fatal ity involving major U.S. air carriers. “There were only six other years since the beginning of safety regula tions in 1926 that had a lower (fatal accident) rate,” said William F. Bolger, president of the Air Trans port Association, which represents the major air carriers. Bolger said the airlines carried more than 450 million passengers op nearly 7 million flights during 1987 and that 17 of the 31 accidents in volved some sort of injury. 1 he NTSB counts ah accident whenever there is a significant injury or air craft damage. Heavy turbulence in which there is a significant injury also is classified as an accident. During 1987, the major airline ac cident rate — covering fatal and non-fatal accidents — was 0.43 per 100,000 departures compared with 0.31 the previous year, the safety board said. The accident rate foi commuters was 1.43 per 100,000 de partures, the highest since 1981. Dr. Frank E. Vandiver, in an August interview with The Battalion explains the changing role of the University in its quest for world status. Battalion file photos Vandiver’s resignation provokes mixed reactions at A&M Conflict compromise mark presidents University career By Karen Kroesche and Lee Schexnaider By Karen Kroesche and Lee Schexnaider Staff Writers Members of the Texas A&M com- nunity expressed varied reactions to President Frank E. Vandiver’s sur prise announcement last week that le will leave his post to assume the directorship of a new military think Lank at A&M. “I certainly have mixed emotions about (Vandiver) stepping down, primarily because I think he’s done an exceptional job as president,” said Dr. John B. Coleman, a member of the Board of Regents. “I don’t think we could have had a better president for Texas A&M during this period of time.” Vandiver, 62, announced Thurs day that he w ill resign effective Sept. 1 and will head the proposed Mosher Institute for Defense Stud ies. He also will hold the title of dis tinguished university professor and fill an endowed chair to be created for him. Deputy Chancellor James B. Bond said his regret at Vandiver’s departure after seven years as presi- Staff Writers President Frank Vandiver was praised extensively by his colleagues after he announced his resignation last week, but his 7-year tenure at A&M has not been immune to con flict. James B. Bond, deputy chancellor for legal and external affairs, said that Vandiver has made great strides during his presidency. Among the dent is countered by his sense of re lief that Vandiver will remain in a leadership role at A&M. “You know that in the life of any body they get to a point where they’re ready to hand over the mantle, but we’re so happy that he is going to stay here and do what he is so good at doing,” Bond said. “I think that the University is going to be a real beneficiary even though strong points he listed were Vandiv er’s interest in the humanities and liberal arts and his determination to involve the faculty. “But I think the best thing, his best contribution to the University is his leadership in attracting a high- quality faculty,” Bond said. “We have been able to attract and retain some of the best faculty of any university in the country, and I think that’s a credit to his administration and probably the most important thing that he’s don^ for the University. Bond also said that there have we’re losing a person who has been our standard-bearer and has done it extremely well.” Fellow regents Douglas R. DeCl- uitt, L. Lowry Mays and Joe H. Rey nolds as well as Bill C. Presnal, exec utive secretary for the Board and vice chancellor for state affairs, also spoke highly of Vandiver’s accom plishments during his term of office. The defense studies institute is been some “rocky times” in the Van diver presidency. But one conflict, involving the hiring of head football coach and Athletic Director Jackie Sherrill, was pointed to as an accom plishment by Dr. Richard Shumway, speaker of the Faculty Senate. In January 1982, the Board of Re gents hired Sherrill without consult ing Vandiver and then asked him to fire Tom Wilson, head football coach at the time. Vandiver offered to resign twice because of the Board’s actions, but the matter was dropped after Van- scheduled for formal approval at the Jan. 25 regents’ meeting. Coleman said it is expected to attract more graduate students and funding to A&M. “It is one of our goals to increase our graduate-level activity, and as we increase the graduate-level activity we also increase the research dol lars,” Coleman said. “A&M has al ways gotten its fair share of many re diver received a retroactive raise that increased his salary to $100,000 — $5,000 more than Sherrill’s salary. aised Vandiver’s ability to “bite the bullet” in the situation. “I think it was an extremely im portant one (accomplishment), to draw the line and say ‘that is not ac ceptable,’ even to the point of being willing to give up his office if nec essary,” Shumway said. Shumway also said conflict with the regents has been a source of search dollars, but we got less than our fair share of so-called ‘federal dollars.’ ” Vandiver has been praised by his contemporaries for his efforts to ex pand A&M’s research and graduate student programs, but Student Body President Mason Hogan worries that undergraduate programs might have been sacrificed in this process. “Right now, they’re trying to build up the graduate students on cam pus, and my fear is they’re going to put so much emphasis on graduate students and the field of research that we’re going to just become an other t.u.; that’s their big impact,” he said. “An undergraduate . student at Texas is nothing, and at A&M he’s everything, or at least that’s what we’ve always been known (for),” he said, “and I just hope we don’t get geared so much that way that we fall in the same category with them, to where we don’t really care about the undergraduate student.” One of Vandiver’s most fre quently cited accomplishments was his role in the establishment of the Faculty Senate. Dr. Richard Shum way, current speaker of the Senate, praised Vandiver’s efforts. “He’s been an extremely strong advocate of participative govern ment,” Shumway said. “lie has brought an attitude, a demeanor that has greatly affected faculty mo rale positively.” Hogan agreed that it is definitely See Reactions, page 11 See Career, page 11