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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 26, 1988)
lary 25, ce plar The Battalion ^resident idinista rural Amers xico is vis: f thrcfHVol. 87 No. 81 GSRS 045360 16 Pages College Station, Texas Tuesday, January 26, 1988 on aid to t ay be then •tigress for aid I n Nicarap •eace proctJ toil it of Indian Party's lescribed t a choice! ar and suJ illion traditioni industrials| . a colder i ors. tpectancys cled assoici published kly maf that s the avert ten fell t vnwardtrt versed 2 committees begin search for president of: ise imcations n. Steen ) lessors 198 s conferi rr men npus it Univ t by gum ot polii ;r ridfj manufactL'l to meeii ; ports, so^ at least il r — coil er inllatir tes, more I iwth at i slowing ling expil :zle out I xports. is By Richard Williams Senior Staff Writer The search is officially on to find a eplacement for outgoing Texas JcM President Frank E. Vandiver. During Monday’s Texas A&rM ioard of Regents meeting Chair- lan David Eller appointed the nembers of two committees that will search for A&M’s next president. Eller appointed himself, Board ice Chairman Joe H. Reynolds, re- ;ents Douglas R. DeCluitt, William McKenzie, John Mobley and lhancellor Perry L. Adkisson to the (residential search committee. The intire Board is welcome to attend md provide their input at all presi- Idential search committee meetings, lEller said. A small committee was necessary, [Eller said, because it is easier for a smaller group to meet and because expediency is important at this time. A second committee called the I search advisory committee also was named by Eller at the regents meet ing. Appointed to this second com mittee were Vandiver; Adkisson; Dr. Daniel Fallon, Dean of the College of Liberal Arts; Dr. Edward A. jHiler, head of the Agricultural Engi neering department; Dr. Don Hel- Iriegel, professor of management; Dr. C. Richard Shumway, Speaker of the faculty senate; Dr. Williams J. Merrell, president Texas A&M at [Galveston; Mason Hogan, A&M stu- | dent body president; Joe Clayton, president of the association of for mer students. Hiler will serve as chairman of the advisory committee, Eller said. Bill C. Presnal, executive secretary to the Board, will serve as secretary to the search advisory com mittee. Eller said the search advisory committee “will -review the applica tions and nominations of the pros pects and identify those it believes to be qualified to serve as president of Texas A&M University.” After this step is taken the entire list of names and the committee eval uations will be given to Adkisson, El ler said. The chancellor will then give the presidential search commit tee of the Board “the recommenda tions of the search advisory commit tee and his official recommendation as may be deemed appropriate,” he said. The presidential search commit tee will then forward their selection to the entire Board, Eller said. Vandiver said his definition of re quirements for the next president are that he must have, “the wisdom of Solomon, the patience of Job and the stomach of a goat.” The next president of A&M doesn’t necessarily have to be an A&M graduate; instead, Vandiver said a more important requirement is that they meet “the internal and external requirements for the job.” During the meeting Vandiver served notice to the Board that he does not intend “to fulfill the role of lameduck” because “lameducks have a way of getting run around, and shot to pieces and otherwise eaten up. I don’t intend to be in that role. I’m going to be president right up until the day I step out. I just wanted to serve notice to everybody on that.” Vandiver, who will step down on Sept. 1 to become director of the Mosher Institute of Defense Studies, said he would like to remain at A&M for around another five years. During the meeting the regents also adopted a resolution that cre ated the position of Distinguished university Professor and appointed him to serve as the first holder of the John H. and Sara H. Lindsey En dowed Chair in Liberal Arts. The re gents also confered the title of Presi dent Emeritus to Vandiver upon his retirement from A&M. Lt.Humphreys of College Station Fire Dept. 1 surveys fire damage in Dorm 12. Photo by Mike C. Mulvey Lamp shorts out, causing blaze that destroys part of dorm room By Sam B. Myers Reporter A fire damaged a room in newly-renovated Dorm 12 Mon day evening while residents were returning from dinner, acting Capt. Fred Rapczyk of the Col lege Station Fire Department said. University Police Chief Elmer Schneider said students had con trolled the blaze with dry-chemi cal fire extinguishers and water by the time the fire department arrived at 7:14 p.m. The apparent cause of the fire was a desk lamp that shorted out and ignited other articles on the desk, Rapczyk said. The fire en gulfed the desk, destroying it and damaging the corner of the room, he said. Rapczyk said the room suf fered moderate smoke and chem ical damage. The dorm’s electrical system was eliminated as a possible cause because it was checked before ca dets were allowed to move in, Sar- geant Major Larry Kirkland of the Corps Housing Department said. Brian Hormberg, a senior en gineering technology major of Company G-2, and Chris Rollins, a senior building construction major of Company S-2, were the first to open the door and try to extinguish the fire. Hormberg said he opened the door using a passkey. The room’s residents said all of their exposed belongings were ei ther ruined or heavily damaged. David Baron, a civil engineering major, and Neill Connelly, a bio chemistry major, said the only things unaffected by the fire were the belongings in the dresser drawers. Baron and Connelly, both freshmen in Company E-2, had just moved into the newly reno vated dorm along with three other outfits. iral rules, s will lx Officials suspect test caused drop of reading scores round o ).00 p« an's ami fiereai! : emales lam w® jleswii eredi jns.AI apply] ’•eakeJ , F eb i Sports I ;an off in f will nui' pen i f °4 /Ion j 2* Den | m lo* irtsj jinN inis i fexsl osH WASHINGTON (AP) — A gov ernment-backed testing age;ncy de layed release of 1986 reading-exam results because scores among 9- and 17-year-olds dropped sharply, and embarrassed officials suspect testing procedures, not students’ reading abilities, may have slumped. The drop was in the reading por tion of the National Assessment of Educational Progress, an exam given to 70,000 students ages 9, 13 and 17 selected to represent their entire age group. Scores for 13-year-olds did not fall. The assessment, calling itself “the nation’s report card,” is run under a $4 million-a-year federal contract by Operation goes well for Goswick The director of Texas A&M’s A.P. Beutel Health Center was in stable condition late Monday night after undergoing bypass surgery in St. Joseph Hospital, according to the hospital’s assis tant director of nursing. Dr. Claude B. Goswick Jr. was taken to St. Joseph Hospital Wednesday after he suffered a dizzy spell at the University health center. Subsequent tests revealed Goswick’s previous problems with hard arteries made open-heart surgery necessary. Dr. Gordon Mitchell, a Bryan cardiologist and Class of ‘77, said Goswick would be recovering from the surgery for between six weeks and two months. While Goswick is recovering, Dr. John M. Moore, a physician at the health center, will serve as di rector of the facility. Educational Testing Service of Law rence Township, N.J. “We have, it’s embarrassing to say, a real mystery here. We haven’t come up with any ideas that solve the problem,” Archie E. Lapointe, exec utive director of the testing pro gram, said Monday in a telephone interview from ETS headquarters. “If we were to accept that data, it would look as though kids have lost a year or more’s performance . . . from 1984,” Lapointe said. “It’s such a sharp loss that had it occurred, just about every teacher of those young sters in the country would have per ceived (it).” Chester E. Finn Jr., the Education Department’s assistant secretary for educational research and im provement, said: “It’s a combination of a disappointment and a mystery. . . . It’s either a glitch in the NAEP in strument or a glitch in American reading.” The reviewers at ETS considered — but discounted — a wide range of possibilities that could have skewed the results, including the fact that some youngsters took the exam on Jan. 28, 1986, the day the Chal lenger space shuttle blew up. “There was some minor drop of 9-year-olds that afternoon, but noth ing that would explain the signifi cance of what we found,” Lapointe said. Reagan’s WASHINGTON (AP) — Presi dent Reagan said Monday night in his final State of the Union message that the United States was “strong, prosperous, at peace,” and he asked Congress to help make his last year in office “the best of eight.” “I don’t buy the idea that this is the last year of anything,” Reagan said. The president said he has a full People support police department after vagrant shoots Dallas officer See related story, Page 8 Disparities in opportunities hinder minorities DALLAS (AP) — Hundreds of people rallied to support the belea guered police department on Mon day as authorities said they would try to prosecute bystanders who yelled “Shoot him, shoot him” before a va grant killed a police officer. “It’s good to see this support in the community for a change. Most of the time we only see the negative side,” said officer Thomas Cicio, obobserving the crowd of about 400 who marched from the John F. Ken nedy Memorial to City Hall and back. Some carried signs reading “God Bless Our Men and Women in Blue” and “Police Are People, Too.” The shooting of the white officer by the black vagrant Saturday has heightened a growing tension be tween the mostly white department and the city’s minority community, whose leaders have criticized the de partment for several police shoot ings of blacks. Meanwhile, police Capt. John Holt said officers were trying to identify the two to 10 onlookers who, according to witnesses, yelled “Shoot him, shoot him,”- encourag ing the vagrant to shoot officer John Chase after he took Chase’s revolver. If any are identified, murder DALLAS (AP) — A landmark re port on racial separation outlines disparities in education, housing and employment opportunities between whites and minorities in Dallas.' “It spells out specifically what the needs are,” said Dallas Mayor An nette Strauss. “It was done by re sponsible people and will not simply be put on a shelf to gather dust.” The report comes at a time when relations between police and mi nority leaders are strained, most re cently over the weekend shooting of charges could be brought against them, Holt said. “We’re going to have to delve into that further,” he said. “Just because we can identify someone doesn’t mean we can come up with a name and a picture.” Holt said police have statements from 45 people in the area when the shooting occurred, but that they don’t have names of those who goaded the suspect. “The officer was saying, ‘Don’t shoot me. I’ll help you whatever way I can.’ But the guy shot him in the head,’” said one witness, Melitha a white policeman by a black home less man. The Dallas Alliance, a 12-year-old organization, commissioned the $500,000 report called “The State of the Community: Implications for In tergroup Relations.” The report concludes that pov erty, crime, unemployment, a lack of decent and affordable housing and student dropout rates are keeping many blacks and Hispanics from moving into the economic mains tream. Johnson, who was interviewed at the scene. Said Holt, “Members of the crowd encouraged him (the suspect) to run away, and then he returned to offi cer Chase’s body and fired twice more into officer Chase’s face at point-blank range.” The vagrant, who later was killed by police, had a history of mental problems. Police officials do not believe the shooting was racially motivated, though Holt said most of the onlook ers were black. The vagrant had a lengthy criminal record dating to 1978, including an assault on a po- Among the key findings: • The percentage of black fami lies living below poverty level is al most five times that of whites, and the percentage of Hispanics below poverty level is almost 3.5 times that of Anglos. • Blacks and Hispanics are “sig nificantly more likely to live in defi cient housing” than whites. • Minority children, who make up the majority of Dallas school stu dents, suffer from a “devastatingly high” dropout rate. lice officer last August, Holt said. Chase had stopped a man driving a car that police computers said was owned by someone with an out standing warrant, Holt said. The driver turned out not to be the per son wanted on the warrant. Holt said the driver told investiga tors Chase was polite and didn’t mis treat him, and that when the vagrant arrived he told the driver to leave. The driver complied and did not see the shooting. The vagrant, Carl Dudley Wil liams, 34, began arguing with Chase, police spokesman Vicki Hawkins said. speech full of goals for final months agenda for his final months in power: keeping the economy strong, maintaining peace, attacking social problems, particularly in education, and promoting the spread of democ racy worldwide. Without specifying a figure, Rea gan urged Congress to approve more aid for the Contra rebels in Ni caragua. He also called on the Sen ate to ratify the recently signed agreement with the Soviet Union to abolish intermediate-range nuclear weapons. A senior administration official, briefing reporters at the White House on condition of anonymity, said the aid request would be “under $50 million,” with about 10 percent of the figure earmarked for “lethal” military aid and the rest for non-le- thal aid. Reversing course from last year, Reagan called for increased spend ing for education and the war against drugs. He claimed for his administration “an untold success story” — an in crease in the number of young peo ple who are willing to turn away -from drugs. He praised his wife, Nancy, for that development: “She has helped so many of our young people to say ‘no’ to drugs. Nancy, much credit belongs to you, and I want to express to you your hus band’s pride and your country’s thanks.” In a separate legislative message transmitted to Congress, he re quested $1.5 billion — roughly a 50 percent increase — to fight the deadly AIDS virus.