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Battalion
Thursday, February 18, 1988
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draws few faculty
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For whom the bell tolls
Freshmen James Ezell, left, and Chris DeCluitt
read Albritton Tower’s inscription. It says, “I ring
Photo by Jay Janner
with pride and honor for all past, present, and fu
ture students of Texas A&M University.”
By Karen Kroesche
Senior Staff Writer
An open hearing for faculty on
the senior finals issue drew a full
house of students Wednesday — but
very few faculty.
The hearing was scheduled by the
Executive Committee of the Faculty
Senate to give all faculty members a
chance to express their opinions to
the Faculty Senate on the scheduling
of finals.
Around a dozen faculty members
showed up for the meeting, only one
of whom was not a faculty senator.
However, approximately 100 stu
dents filled the packed room of the
MSC where the hearing was held,
around half wearing Corps uni
forms.
Prior to the open hearing, Faculty
Senate Speaker C. Richard Shum-
way said the hearing was scheduled
strictly as a forum for faculty, and
that he had invited some student
leaders to answer questions from the
faculty. Afterwards, he said he was
disappointed in the faculty turnout
and that he had not anticipated the
large student attendance.
The Faculty Senate called the
hearing to discuss an alternative fi
nals plan to the one that is in place.
The alternative plan is a compro
mise that Student Senate and Fac
ulty Senate leaders arrived at during
a recent meeting between the two
groups.
The compromise has already been
approved by the Student Senate,
and will be presented for discussion
and possible endorsement at the
next Faculty Senate meeting, March
7.
If implemented this spring, the
proposal would move undergrad
uate finals to May 9-13. Seniors
would take finals with undergrad
uates May 9-10, but would take fi
nals not scheduled on those days ei
ther the previous Saturday (May 7)
or at another time.
The compromise proposal, for
the most part, was criticized by the
faculty members present at the
meeting as being impractical. Stu
dents maintained that while it would
create some logistical problems, the
See Finals, page 7
Israelis kill one,
wound 4 as crowd
impedes arrests
Gunmen kidnap Marine in Lebanon
BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) — Gun
men on Wednesday kidnapped a
U.S. Marine officer serving with the
U.N. peacekeeping force in south
Lebanon as he drove along a high
way. It brought to nine the number
of Americans held hostage in Leb
anon.
U.N. and Pentagon officials iden
tified the victim as Lt. Col. William
R. Higgins, 43, a native of Danville,
Ky., and chief of an observer group
attached to the U.N. Interim Force
in Lebanon.
The 76-officer U.N. group from
16 countries monitors cease-fire vio
lations on the Lebanon-Israel bor
der. Higgins was the top-ranking
American officer assigned to the
force’s observer group, holding the
title of senior U.S. military observer.
There was no immediate claim of
responsibility for the abduction,
which occurred about 4:15 p.m. on
the coastal highway between Leb
anon’s southernmost port of Tyre
and the border town of Naqoura, the
location of UNIFIL’s headquarters.
“Higgins was driving in a U.N.
jeep station wagon from Tyre to Na
qoura behind a similar vehicle in
which two other observers were trav
eling,” U.N. spokesman Timur Gok-
sel said.
He said the first vehicle went
around a bend in the road, “and
when the two observers noticed that
Higgins’ car was not following them,
they stopped and drove back, only to
find Higgins’ station wagon aban
doned.”
He said Higgins was alone in his
vehicle. Goksel said UNIFIL heli
copters and ground troops were
searching for Higgins.
The observers in the other station
wagon were another American and a
Dane, but UNIFIL officials did not
name them.
Security sources in Tyre said two
gunmen in a brown Volvo passed
Higgins’ car, blocked the road,
forced Higgins into their car and
drove north toward Tyre.
They said the abduction occurred
between the villages of Ras el-Ein
and Deir Qanoun. The two villages
are controlled by Justice Minister
Nabih Bern’s Shiite Amal militia.
U.N. sources said Amal was helping
UNIFIL search for Higgins.
Reporters in Tyre say the influ
ence of the Iranian-backed Hezbol
lah, or Party of God, has been stead
ily growing in the two villages.
Hezbollah is believed to be the um
brella group for Shiite Moslem fac
tions holding most of the foreign
hostages in Lebanon.
Higgins was returning from a
meeting in Tyre with Abdel Majid
Saleh, a political leader of Amal in
the area, Saleh told reporters. One
of the things they discussed was ef
forts to free foreign hostages in Leb
anon, Saleh said.
HEBRON, Occupied West Bank
(AP) — Israeli soldiers fired on a
crowd trying to stop them from
making arrests during a pre-dawn
raid on an Arab village Wednesday,
killing one and wounding four, wit
nesses and the army reported.
A merchants’ strike in the occu
pied West Bank and Gaza Strip kept
most Arab businesses closed except
for the three hours from 8 a.m. to 11
a.m. Numerous cases have been re
ported of threats to shopowners who
remained open.
Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir
returned from Italy and rejected a
trade of territory for peace with the
Arabs. Secretary of State George P.
Shultz proposed the idea and it was
accepted by Foreign Minister Shi
mon Peres, Shamir’s partner and ri
val in the governing coalition.
Neighbors identified the Palestin
ian killed in Shuyukh village, 20
miles south of Jerusalem, as Ismail
Hussein Mohammed al-Halaiga, 21,
a university student. The army con
firmed the death.
An army officer at the village said
the soldiers aimed at legs only, but
doctors said the victim was shot
through the heart.
One of the wounded, 16-year-old
Khaled Abu Rumei, was in a Hebron
hospital with a bullet wound in a
thigh. A doctor said he had ex
tracted a metal bullet.
Rumei’s mother said soldiers
broke into her house about 5 a.m.
while the family was sleeping and
dragged another of her sons out into
the cold rain.
“I tried to protect him, and they
beat me with clubs,” she said at the
hospital. “Later they started shoot
ing”
CS announces
reduced hours
for post offices
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Killer says
ad brought
crime offers
HOUSTON (AP) — A convicted
killer whose classified ad in Soldier
of Fortune magazine is the source of
a $22.5 million suit after the murder
of a Bryan woman, says most re
sponses were for illegal activities
such as bombings, assaults, jail
breaks and murder for hire.
John Wayne Hearn, serving three
life terms in Florida for murder, said
in a deposition Wednesday that ac
tivities also included political assassi
nation involving the president of
Canada.
Hearn’s deposition was the first
evidence presented in a civil suit ac
cusing the magazine, a self-pro-
claimed “Journal for Professional
Adventurers,” of negligence.
Sandra Black of Bryan was shot to
death in 1985. Her husband, Robert,
is on Texas’ death row for paying
Hearn $ 10,000 to do out the killing.
They are seeking $2.5 million in
actual damages and $20 million in
punitive damages.
Hearn said the ad generated 10 to
20 calls a day, so many he had to hire
an answering service to handle
them.
“When I was home, the calls came
24 hours a day,” he said. “I had to
get an answering service so I could
get some sleep.”
Hearn, who at the time was a
truck driver living in the Atlanta
area, said it cost him $ 1,000 a month
in long-distance charges just to re
turn all the calls.
“Probably 90 percent of the calls I
received concerned illegal activities,”
he said. Three to five of those daily
concerned killings, he said, while
others were for drug transportation
and sales, illegal arms transportation
and sales and assaults.
The deposition, as read in court,
did not go into any detail about the
Canadian assassination request.
By Jeff Pollard
Staff Writer
For College Station Postmaster
Clinton Matcek, it’s time to put Plan
2 into action. After announcing a
new, reduced schedule for College
Station post offices, Matcek was told
Tuesday by U.S. Postal Service offi
cials that his cutbacks were not
enough and more cuts were needed.
Last week, Bryan and College Sta
tion postmasters received word that
they would have to reduce retail win
dow service by the equivalent of one
half day per week. New hours were
put into effect on Tuesday, but
Tuesday afternoon, Matcek received
word that his plan had not been ap
proved by the director of field oper
ations in Houston.
“Basically, it was a misunderstan
ding,” Matcek said. “Originally, I
thought that they wanted work-
hours, but they wanted window-
hours cut. I thought that, if I cut
back one hour when four people
were working, we would cut four
hours.”
Matcek said Tuesday that they
started working on a schedule as
soon as he heard the first one had
not been approved. He said they
sent the new schedule to the Postal
Service Division office in Houston
Wednesday morning and received
word that it had been approved.
The schedule calls for closing the
main post office at Northgate one
hour early (4:30 p.m. instead of 5:30
p.m.) and changing the Redmond
Terrace hours, which are 8:30 a.m.
to 5 p.m., to 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. The
hours at the Aggieland Station in the
MSC will remain the same.
“They (Postal Service officials)
wanted to cut the hours at the MSC
also,” Matcek said, “but I talked
them out of it. I convinced them that
the hours there were at a minimum
already.”
Matcek said the new schedule al
lows for the main post office to re
main open on Saturdays from 9 a.m.
to noon and the cutbacks will not af
fect regular postal delivery.
Bryan Postmaster Earl Pophin
told a different story about the af
fects of the budget cuts. While Bry
an’s retail window schedule was ap
proved, the cutbacks caused the
Post Office Hours
COLLEGE STATION
• Main Post Office:
8 a.m.-4:30 p.m. M-F
9 a.m.-Noon Sat.
• Redmond Terrace:
9 a.m.-4:30 p.m. M-F
(Closed on Saturday)
• Aggieland Station (MSC):
10 a.m.-3 p.m. M-F
(Closed on Saturday)
BRYAN
• Main Post Office:
8 a.m.-4:30 p.m. M-F
9 a.m.-Noon Sat.
• Downtown (201 W. 25 St.)
9 a.m.-4:30 p.m. M-F
(Closed on Saturday)
Speakers: A&M students fail
to take proper precautions
By Tracy Hamm
Reporter
Speakers at the presentation
“Lock it up or Lose it” agreed that
student apathy toward crime is
the major contributor to its in
crease.
The Wednesday night pro
gram was sponsored by the Texas
A&M University Security Aware
ness Task Force and was part of
C.A.R.E. week.
“The rise in thefts and burglar
ies is because of apathy and the
lack of responsibility of victims
who are not taking precautions,”
Bob Wiatt, director of the Uni
versity Police Department, said.
“People here don’t lock their
doors,” he said. “Unless the locks
are utilized they are useless.”
Bernie Kapella of the College
Station Police Department
agreed.
“Many students leave things in
their vechicles and think that they
are perfectly safe,” Kapella said.
“I can guarantee you that if you
leave anything in your vechicle,
somebody will take advantage of
it.”
Kapella said burglaries have in
creased 120 percent in the last
year in College Station.
In 1987, there were 484 bur
glaries.This year, 86 burglaries
have been reported already.Wiatt
said A&M leads the other 37
Texas academic institutions in
burglary and theft.
“Since September, there have
been 276 misdemeanor thefts,”'
he said. “Of these, 132 were bicy
cles.”
Tony Taylor, the Bryan police
officer in charge of the Neighbor
hood Watch program, said the
key to combatting crime was to
remove the opportunity for the
thief.
“The only way to prevent you
See Theft, page 7
suspension of work being done on
Bryan’s new 124,000 square-foot
postal station.
Pophin said the budget cuts also
cut off funds for new construction
and equipment. Not only was con
struction halted on the Bryan sta
tion, but plans for post offices in
Houston and Dallas have been
stopped.
“This new station would have met
our needs locally for at least the next
ten years,” Pophin said. “The
ground work will be completed be
cause we already have a contract, but
the building will probably have to
wait for about two years.”
Matcek said that work on the new
station is about 99 percent complete.
Because all contracts have been
signed, he said, it probably will open
on schedule in late March. The new
station is located on F.M. 2818 near
Texas Avenue.
These cutbacks were mandated by
the Postal Service after the U.S. Con
gress, in December, told the postal
service they owed the U.S. govern
ment $1.4 billion and it had to be re
paid in 21 months. The U.S. Postal
Service is an independent govern
ment corporation, not included in
the federal budget since 1971.
“Congress decided that we owed
them for pension and retirement
benefits for all postal employees who
retired before 1971,” Pophin said.
“We have to cut the budget to pay
that money back.”
Student Senate officers say
smoking ban threat to rights
By Karen Kroesche
Senior Staff Writer
Student Senate officers say students’ rights are being
threatened by a resolution that calls for a complete ban
on smoking on the Texas A&M campus.
The resolution was approved by the Faculty Senate
in December and is now under consideration by Presi
dent Frank E. Vandiver.
“We will agree on the part of the resolution that is
banning smoking in public buildings, but we will go
against the part that bans smoking in the dorm rooms,”
said Melinda Moore, chairman of the Student Services
Committee of the Student Senate. “We felt like — and I
think Mason (Hogan) and Jay (Hays) have felt the same
way — it’s an infringement on your rights to be told that
you can’t smoke in your own room.”
The resolution recommends “that smoking be
banned in all buildings on the Texas A&M University
campus, including classrooms, dormitories, eating
places, student and faculty lounges, lavatories, hallways
and athletic facilities (including seating areas in Kyle
Field and Olsen Field).”
Moore said her committee is still studying the resolu
tion, but some preliminary determinations have already
been made.
The Faculty Senate’s resolution cited evidence from
the American Cancer Society linking passive smoking to
lung cancer and heart disease. Dr. Benton Storey, pro
fessor of horticultural sciences and chairman of the
Faculty Senate Personnel and Welfare Committee, told
The Battalion that second-hand smoke is a problem in
most buildings on campus — including dormitories.
Because of the way the ventilation systems in most
campus buildings are designed, Storey said, cigarette
smoke is not confined to “smoking” areas, but is circu
lated throughout entire buildings.
Illustration by Carol
An alternative to a complete ban on smoking in dorm
rooms might be to improve the air circulation in the res
idence halls by introducing more new air, Moore said.
But she added that such a process would be costly.
Moore said the committee hasn’t formed an opinion
yet on the athletic facilities included in the resolution.
She said a formal resolution probably will be presented
to the Student Senate by her committee at Wednesday’s
regular meeting. If the Senate passes the revised ver
sion of the resolution, it will be sent to President Frank
See Smoking,page 7