The Battalion
Vol. 88 No. 17 GSPS 045360 14 Pages
College Station, Texas
Tuesday, September 20, 1988
orps enrollment decreases for Fall
freshman class cited as primary reason for fewer number of
’89
cadets
By Kathleen Reilly
Staff Writer
I ^ttnrollment in the Corps of Cadets decreased
this year, with 2,169 cadets enrolled at the end of
the first week of school, as compared with 2,252
at the same time last fall.
^H.t. Col. Donald Johnson, assistant Corps com
mandant, said the decreased enrollment in the
entire freshman class is the primary reason for
the decreased Corps enrollment.
^■'his year, 691 freshmen are Corps members,
■tyear, 888 freshmen joined.
^Fhe number of women joining the Corps this
year remained almost the same, with 100 enroll
ing, compared with 103 last year.
I ^Jamily, friends and former Corps members all
mel)> to recruit students to the Corps.
^Et. Col. Donald R. Henderson, deputy assis
tant commandant, said that more than 2,000 in-
iquines are received each year from high school
students interested in the Corps.
The Corps of Cadets Development Council in
forms alumni and friends about activities in the
Corps. The council consists of 67 people who are
former Corps members, friends or mothers of
former Corps commandants.
The Corps recruiting officer will be working
with a statewide network of former students to
identify and recruit outstanding high school stu
dents. This network should be set up completely
by the beginning of next year.
Recruiting activities include dinners and spe
cial days spent with the Corps.
Twenty-two former students in Austin host an
“Accept the Challenge” dinner for students ac
cepted to A&M. Students from Travis, Williams
and Hayes counties who may be interested in
joining the Corps are invited to listen to speakers
discuss the Corps and the leadership opportuni
ties it offers.
Since 1972, the “Aggie for a Day” program has
brought junior ROTC units from Texas and
Louisiana to the University to spend a day with
the Corps. Last year, the Corps hosted 33 units.
Members of the units were given tours of the
campus and were taken to a football game.
Prospective students also can “Spend the
Night with the Corps.” Juniors and seniors in
high school can get a first-hand look at life in the
Corps by eating, sleeping and studying with ca
dets. Funds for these visits come from non-state
funds available tq the Corps Development Coun
cil
This year, 197 Sul Ross scholarships were of
fered to eligible cadets. These scholarships pro
vide $500 a semester for two years to high school
seniors with outstanding athletic and extracurri
cular records. Recipients must remain in the
Corps to receive the funds.
A permanent endowment fund is set up for
the scholarships. The San Antonio A&M Moth
er’s Club, the Dallas A&M Mother’s Club, the San
Antonio A&M Club and the Classes of 1960,
1967 and 1984 all have endowed scholarships.
Corps Enrollment
i
i.—/
:
|
I
ilfi
—78
2500
2000
1500
0 Total Members
1000 hj Freshmen
1U Women
500
1987-88
Year
1988-89
Graphic by Elva Nolan
AT scores fall
espite increase
r minority rates
100,000 children remain homeless
YORK (AP) — Average
SA l scores lost ground in 1988 for
the first time in eight years, but mi
nority students continued a decade-
long pattern of impressive gains, the
: College Board reported Monday.
^Bcores on the verbal section of the
^ftolastic Aptitude Test fell two
Bnts to an average 428, while the
average on the math section was un
changed at 476, according to the
^ftrd’s annual report.
portions of the multiple-
||g)ice exam taken each year by 1.1
^■lion college-bound students are
scored on a scale of 200-800, with a
combined 1600 being perfect.
■The combined math-verbal aver
age of 904 marked the first decline
in eight years. The national average
hit a low of 890 in 1980, recovered a
bit to 906 by 1985 and was un-
^■inged until this year’s slight de-
cline.
^■.ronicaWy, the release of the SAT
averages coincided with the planned
dej iture Tuesday of U.S. Educa-
tion Secretary William J. Bennett,
who during his 3 years in office had
^■dited the Reagan administration
witli spurring reforms which until
[this year had helped produce grad
ually improving SAT scores.
a statement Monday, Bennett
’blamed the school establishment for
the falloff in scores: “No medals for
America in this news. I said in April
thai ‘the absolute level at which our
improvements are taking place is un
acceptably low.’ Today it’s a bit
lower, and still not acceptable.
C’mon, team! Back into training.”
College Board officials nonethe
less cheered the “stability” of test
scores in recent years.
“We’re pleased, frankly, that
there is as much stability in the
scores as the data suggests,” board
President Donald M. Stewart told re
porters. He noted that scores were
generally holding up even though
the number of test-takers has risen
13 percent since 1986 and the num
ber of minority test-takers was up
23,066, or 1 percent, in the last year
alone.
Minority students in the class of
’88, especially blacks, posted the
strongest gains. Verbal scores
among blacks last year rose an aver
age of two points to 353, and math
scores rose seven points to 384 —
doubly impressive since the number
of black test-takers rose 39 percent
in three years from 70,156 in 1985
to 97,483 last year, said the board’s
research director, Robert G. Cam
eron.
Stewart said it was unclear why
minority students were gaining. One
explanation is that federal programs
such as Head Start begun in the
1960s and 1970s and aimed at assist
ing poor students are now paying off
in higher minority SAT scores.
WASHINGTON (AP) — At least
100,000 of America’s children are
homeless on any given night and
that doesn’t include those who have
run away from home or been kicked
out by their parents, the National
Academy of Sciences estimated
Monday.
While male alcoholics and former
mental patients still make up a large
portion of the homeless, the fastest
growing group of people with no
place to live are children under 18,
said the academy’s Institute of Medi-
“The committee feels strongly
that the growing phenomenon of
homeless children is nothing short
of a national disgrace that must be
treated with the urgency that such a
situation demands,” the report said.
One recommendation aimed di
rectly at helping children: Federal
support for enriched day care and
Head Start programs should be ex
panded and coupled with outreach
efforts to make homeless parents
aware of help available for their chil
dren.
A recommendation for the home
less in general: Permit the use of
food stamps at restaurants so pre
pared meals will be available to peo
ple who don’t have kitchens.
The committee formed by the in
stitute to do the study, which was or
dered by Congress, applauded
changes that allow use of food
stamps at shelters and soup kitchens.
But it said operators of those facili
ties need to be educated in the prin
ciples of sound nutrition and the
special nutritional needs of the
homeless.
The committee also sought to dis
miss fears of city government offi
cials who might conclude that in
creasing their efforts to help the
homeless would only draw more
homeless people to their cities.
The great majority of homeless
people are long-term residents of
the city where they live, the commit
tee said. What’s more, it said, what
causes homeless people to move to
another city is the prospect for work,
not the prospect for welfare. If jobs
aren’t available, they tend not to stay
long.
New students receive ‘celebrity calls’
By Juliette Rizzo
Staff Writer
New Texas A&M students may re
ceive a call some evening from the
University president, the vice presi
dent for student services or the RHA
president.
They will be “celebrity” callers for
the First-Time Aggie Contact Team
(FACT), an outreach program estab
lished to contact every new Texas
A&M student personally to find out
how he is doing.
Jan Winniford, assistant director
of student affairs, said the program
was created to target those students
who have problems and those likely
to drop out of school after their first
semester or year.
“Since the University is growing at
such a fast rate, our growing con
cern is that A&M is getting away
from its friendly, personal nature,”
Winniford said. “The program is
geared to give individual contact to
new students and to give them the
opportunity to talk to somebody.”
The program’s goals are to iden
tify aoy problems the students may
be having and to assist the student in
solving the problems through the
use of referrals to appropriate de
partments on campus, she said.
“We will try to identify the stu
dents with problems and also iden
tify the students’ positive experi
ences with the campus,” she said.
“The program will help identify
‘high risk’ students who are having a
hard time adjusting to the University
and may consider dropping out.”
The FACT program, conducted
by the Division of Student Services
and the Aggie Peer Orientation
Leaders, will be conducted over a
10-day period beginning Sunday
and continuing through Oct. 6. Calls
will be made to approximately 3,000
new students from 5:00 p.m.- 9:30
p.m. by orientation leaders and the
“celebrity” callers.
The celebrity callers, including
University mentors, student govern
ment leaders, yell leaders and Stu
dent Services staff, will publicize the
event by contacting students to them
about the program and notify them
that an orientation leader will call.
The information will be recorded,
and if the student identifies a prob
lem and wishes it to be referred, a
referral card will be sent to the ap
propriate university official or men
tor.
“We will refer the students’ prob
lems to faculty and appropriate of
fices such as Financial Aid, Area Of
fices or the Off Campus Center,”
Winniford said.
Betsy Benson, FACT committee
member, said the program also will
help identify the things that should
be emphasized more at new-student
orientation programs.
“Orientation leaders will do the
calling, because they have already
been trained to answer such ques
tions,” Benson said. “This program
will extend the role of orientation
leader year-round and help us to de
termine what we should stress mo
re.”
At the end of the program, callers
will mail follow-up cards to each stu
dent to remind them that if they
have further problems they can con
tact Student Affairs or the orienta
tion leaders.
Winniford said the program is
modeled after a program established
by the University of Florida.
“The program was successful
there in terms of student retention,”
she said. “Students are more likely to
stay in school if they feel that the
university does really care about
them as individuals.”
An Aggienizing sound???
The “Aggienizers,” members of the singing cadets, perform in front
of Rudder fountain Monday. The performance was presented by the
Photo by Fredrick D.Joe
Stark Series, a division of MSC OPAS that programs cultural perfor
mances for students.
A&M donation sites
for new blood drive
set up this week
By George Watson
Staff Writer
Students will be asked to roll up
their sleeves this week and donate to
the semiannual Aggie Blood Drive,
which runs from Wednesday to Fri
day.
Blood will be collected at Rudder
Tower from 10 a.m.-4 p.m. and at
the Commons from 11 a.m.-7 p.m.
Wednesday and Thursday and 11
a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday.
The drive, sponsored by the
Texas A&M Student Government,
the Red Cross and Alpha Phi
Omega, is a contest between A&M
and Baylor University to see which
university can donate the most blood
Margie Lasek, blood drive commit
tee vice chairman, said.
The school that collects the most
blood will be recognized during the
pre-game festivities of the A&M-
Baylor football game on Oct. 15.
Baylor won the contest last year
with a turnout of four percent of the
student body compared with A&M’s
two percent.
“There is no particular goal we
are trying to meet,” Lasek says. “We
hope to get students to donate and
get as much as we can.”
Donated blood is tested as soon as
it is given, and any bad blood is de
stroyed. All diseased blood is de
stroyed, and the donors are notified
immediately.
The blood is sent to the Central
Texas Red Cross blood bank in
Waco to replenish dwindling sup
plies.
During the blood drive, the APO
will register donors and serve re-
“There is no particular
goal we are trying to meet.
We hope to get students to
donate and get as much as
we can. ”
— Margie Lasek,
committee vice chairman
freshments. Domino’s Pizza will
serve free pizza and give coupons,
and McDonalds will give fruit juice
and coupons.
Blood donors must be at least 18
years old and weigh at least 110
pounds. Blood center workers rec
ommend having a meal before do
nating blood.
The Red Cross and the Wadley
Blood Center of Dallas both hold
blood drives during the semester. It
is required that 56 days elapse be
tween blood donations.
However, the two drives were
scheduled only 52 days apart, so stu
dents who give to the Red Cross will
not be able to donate at the Wadley
drive scheduled for November 7
through 11.
Carol Hill, Wadley’s A&M rep
resentative, said that it is unfortu
nate that the two drives run to
gether, but the important part of the
drive is that students donate to at
least one of the banks.
For more information contact
Student Government at 845-1133.