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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 16, 1988)
ids ig e Texas A&M The Battalion Wednesday, November 1988 College Station, Texas USPS 045360 .ey roles in inert farmers in nd increasing child-nutritiolu s in the Tl DPI releases candidate names part we don't n new money,” l about redistril t’s already there baptersinBritj Australia andCj nterviewed in president search up has five me w: a pharmaceii: ative, an airlinet the operator of mates low-incoi By Stephen Masters Senior Staff Writer Texas A&M’s Office of Public In- lirmation released the names of the iIk i idisi B' ur candidates interviewed during ooerator of 1^^ s P res *cl ent i a l search this sum- ler. James C. Miller, director of the Iffice of Management and Budget Washington D.C.; James Howell, nior vice president of the First Na- [onal Bank of Boston, and James eindl, senior vice president for ademic affairs and Provost for ensselaer Polytechnic Institute |ere interviewed in New York in tejune. Former executive deputy tancellor William Mobley was in- rviewed a week later. Mobley was anted president July 18. o have a group ial district in i! v said. incident, een trying to bui never able to t The Board released a list of 57 ndidates updated monthly during ie summer, but more than 25 per cent of those listed told The Battal ion they were not actively pursuing the position. Two candidates told The Battal ion they were not aware they had been nominated for the position, al though their names appeared on lists dating back to March 31. Mob ley, Meindl and Howell all referred questions on the matter to the Board, but Bill Presnal, executive secretary of the Board, said no in structions were given to the intervie wees. Miller was not available for comment. The Battalion repeatedly re quested lists of candidates inter viewed, but Presnal and James Bond, deputy chancellor for legal and external affairs, said the infor mation was exempted under Texas Open Records Act. The law states that the entity with the requested information has 10 days to respond to written requests, either to approve the request, deny the request or ask for a new opinion. If the information is denied, a pre vious Attorney General’s opinion is to be cited as the reason, or a new opinion is to be requested within 10 days. If the request is agreed to, the information must be surrendered within 10 days. After 10 days, all in formation is considered open. The Battalion ran a story based on anonymous sources July 15 that said Mobley would be the new president. During the following weekend, the Eagle confirmed these reports with two Regents. The Battalion and the Eagle re quested a list of candidates inter viewed for the position after Mobley was appointed. Bond requested an Attorney General’s opinion on whether the candidates’ names could be withheld under exemptions of •utation fortbn lating hunters I “I think we the woods.’ area, he said, n, some gates well miters going rhidden to enter, I ents in the T( >ver the weeW ms deer hunti: year, Ball Forest escapedit Editors note: I he following is (he ie shot outthelet rst0 ^ a two-part series that will con- . inciH,. ™nue Thursday. By Scot O. Walker Angelina Nationii Staff Writer vas marked wifl j t j s not uncommon to hear a stu- i ie pit )Ik toresu^ ent sa y t h at t j ie p rocesss 0 f buying d selling textbooks is a conspiracy ong professors, publishers and tailers to rip off students. But the [ublishers, local bookstore man- ;ers and Texas A&M professors y that perception is completely Iin, ^ kJ | Lawrence E.. Cremer, former esident of William C. Brown Col- Publishing Division, said that ublishers should not be made out villains because of the increase in ew book prices. According to a National Associa- on of College Stores comparative ricing study of 30 basic texts in use 7 ance taxes, Shan of the Texas It cers and F n; East Texas Pro v Owners Assoct Continent Oil an: md Amoco Cor: t the bill. Julia ;e< alive vice pres eal future in i ill enhanced oil it in 1965 and still in use in 1985, the average cost of a new text has risen from $7.93 to $28.27, an increase of 365 percent. But Cremer said that those numbers don’t tell the whole story. “Figures don’t lie, and the infor mation (the 365 percent price in crease) is absolutely true,” Cremer said. But he listed several reasons that he said helped to explain the price increase. “Just 10 years ago, an average in troductory text was 400-700 pages, revised every four to five years, and made minimal use of color,” Cremer said. “Printing costs were cheaper, il lustrations were simple and the free instructor’s manual was usually around 50 pages.” He said that in comparison, the average text is now 700-1,200 pages and is revised every three years. “There are also more full-color il lustrations, and the quality of the il lustrations are better,” he said. “The free instructor’s manual usually runs to 200 pages, and the publishers usually include a free lecture kit with suggestions for lectures, acetate (overhead) reproductions of selected concepts and computerized testing services.” Cremer said that those facts indi cate that today’s books are better and that the array of free extras is sub stantial. “But what is ‘free’? ” Cremer said. “When publishers provide an item free (to an instructor) it should say, ‘Free thanks to the students or their parents.’ ” Cremer said that several other in tangible factors add to the value of a text. He said that the author spends years planning and writing, then the publisher works with the author throughout a lengthy developmental mala dally increasestb nhanced recover done by active financiall 1 s, senior govert ■presentative ness rib. 5-2611 ertise an washed up Photo by Kathy Ha veman Charles McCaleb, senior geography major, stead- Andy Townend, senior civil engineering major. It ies a fire hose aimed at the bonfire with the help of is being wettened in preparation for lighting. period using the collective talents of many professionals. “And then there is the money in vested and risked, which for an in troductory textbook can exceed $500,000 before printing even be gins,” Cremer said. Dr. Larry Christensen, professor of psychology and author of two textbooks, said that the benefits to an instructor for writing a textbook are not as great as some might think. “From beginning to end, writing a book can be a three- to five-year pro cess,” Christensen said. “But writing a textbook is not viewed among the academic community as a scholarly activity like research is.” Christensen said that he decided to write his first book, Experimental Methodology, because he saw a void in the market of available texts. Be cause that work was well-received, his publisher asked him to write an other book, Introduction to Statistics for the Social and Behavioral Sci ences. He said that the monetary reward for writing a text is not always great. “The standard royalty is usually around 8 to 15 percent,” he said, “but you don’t write textbooks to make a fortune.” John Raney, manager of the Texas Aggie Bookstore in North- gate, said that his store charges the customer 25 percent more than it pays for books from the publisher. He said that a 25 percent markup is average compared to what other area stores charge for books and how other products are marked up. According to MacWorld Mag azine, an Apple Macintosh SE com puter is marked up 300 percent when Apple sells it to a dealer, and the dealer usually adds an average of 45 percent to make the retail price. Based on the average markup on books in context of marketing, Ra ney said, a 25 percent increase on textbooks is not unreasonable. “We have to hope that 25 percent is going to cover all of our overhead and then leave us a little margin of profit,” Raney said. Rosalyn Mauk, textbook manager of the Texas A&M Bookstore in the MSC, said that the store marks up used books by 50 percent, but that used books are still a good deal for students. “As long as a used book is in good condition, we pay the student 50 percent of the new book price,” Mauk said. “So the student might pay $20 for a new book, use it and then sell it back to us for $10. After the 50 percent markup, we sell it for $15, so that is a good deal for us, for the student selling the used book and the student who buys it.” Raney said that Texas Aggie Bookstore doesn’t necessarily pay 50 percent of the new book value when buying a used book. “There are a lot of factors to con sider when we decide what a book is worth to us,” Raney said. He cited the age and condition of this book, its wholesale value, and the number of books needed for the next semester compared with the number the store already has on hand as variables that influence the price he is willing to pay for a used book. Mauk said that some students make the mistake of waiting until af ter Christmas or until the beginning of a new semester to sell their text books. “By that time, we probably have all the books we need for that semes ter, so the student can get stuck holding a book they want to sell but can’t,” she said. Pages the Texas Open Meetings Act. The Attorney General’s office sent a let ter opinion dated Sept. 27 stating that the exemption did not apply. Presnal said his office received the opinion letter from Bond’s office Thursday and received approval to release the vitae of the four intervie wees Sunday from Board Vice Chairman Joe Reynolds. Presnal said the candidates inter viewed do not comprise a list of fi nalists. He said a list of finalists would have included more people, but would not say how many or who. He said it is increasingly difficult to find quality candidates during searches when nominees are made public. “It’s a bad policy to have the peo ple you interview made public be cause you won’t have some of the best qualified people interview be cause they’re not willing to take the risk,” he said. ’ublishers, bookstore managers >ay students aren’t getting burned Proposal to end loan program draws heavy fire HOUSTON (AP) — Higher education officials are preparing to fight a state commission’s staff recommendation to abolish a stu dent loan program that has helped more than 160,000 needy Texans go to college. The Texas Sunset Advisory Commission staff has recom mended that the Hinson-Hazle- wood loan program be shut down and its multimillion dollar assets be sold, the Houston Chronicle reported Tuesday. A hearing on the proposal is scheduled for Friday in Austin. A staff report recently released by the Sunset commission, the state’s oversight agency, suggests that the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board close out its student financial aid activities and that lending powers be handed over to the Texas Guaranteed Student Loan Corp. The Hinson-Hazlewood pro gram issues up to $25 million in federally guaranteed student loans yearly to Texas college stu dents. It was named for the late state Rep. George Hinson and former state Sen. Grady Hazle- wood, who sponsored the legis lation that created the program in 1965. It was originally financed by selling $205 million in bonds dur ing the 1960s and 1970s but now relies on loan repayments and federal allowances to make new loans. The recommendation to abol ish it is drawing heavy fire from financial aid administrators, who charge that the state should be doing more — not less — to en courage students to go to college. The one-time profit the state would gain from liquidating the loan program, administrators contend, would come at the ex pense of future generations of Texas college students. Accord ing to the report, the state loan portfolio could be worth $102 million if sold by competitive bid. Some college officials also said it would be inappropriate to give lending authority to the TGSLC, the non-profit entity that guar antees most student loans. The TGSLC is one of 58 agen cies across the country that insure student loans made by private lenders. In turn, the federal gov ernment reinsures the loans backed by the guarantee agen cies. Some officials involved in student loan programs argue that guarantors should not be lenders because there is a potential con flict of interest. “Student loan programs should be operated in a carefully controlled environment,” Carol McDonald, executive director of Independent Colleges and Uni versities of Texas, said. McDonald said the TGSLC is not a state agency and does not function under the extraordinary oversight that the coordinating ^oard does. College financial aid adminis trators praise the Hinson-Hazle wood program, saying it offers students certain advantages over guaranteed student loans from a private lender. The state’s 7 percent interest rate, compared to 8 percent from a private lender that increases to 10 percent four years after repay ment begins, is one advantage. U.S. called upon to make next move for Mideast peace ALGIERS, Algeria (AP) — PLO chief Yasser Arafat said Tuesday it was up to the United States to make the next move toward Middle East peace now that the Palestinians have formed an independent state that implicitly recognizes Israel. “The ball is now in the American court,” Arafat said a few hours after the Palestine National Council, the PLO’s parliament-in-exile, solemnly proclaimed Palestinian indepen dence in a ceremony early Tuesday. The declaration accepted U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, which implicitly recognizes Israel when it refers to the right of all countries in the region to live within secure and recognized borders. The proclamation topped the list of issues taken up during the coun cil’s four-day special session in Alge ria, which ended Tuesday. The 450- member council also voted to form a provisional government at a future date and pledged to restrict guerrilla operations to military targets in Is raeli-occupied territories. The council’s move, largely sym bolic and clearly aimed at capitaliz ing on the 11-month-old Palestinian uprising in Israeli-occupied lands, sought to remove obstacles to U.S. and Israeli dealings with the Pales tine Liberation Organization. Referring to the intefadeh, or uprising, Arafat told a news confer ence: “It is true that this is the intefa deh session of the (council), but it also could be the session of peace with the U.S. administration and Is rael.” The PLO chief said the council had given him a mandate to pursue a political settlement. “But if we are met with a rebuff,” he said, “only God knows the outcome.” “Let it also be clear, I can always come back to our (council) and de clare that moderation does not pay,” Arafat said. Israel immediately rejected Ar afat’s declaration, calling it “double talk” and denying that it recognized Israel or truly renounced terrorism. “They mentioned rejection of ter rorism outside Israel, but they did not denounce terrorism inside Is rael,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Alon Liel said. “So we still see the PLO as a terror organization, and the government decision not to ne gotiate with the PLO stands.” Washington also rejected the move, saying that the Middle East conflict had to be resolved by nego tiations, not a unilateral act on either side. The United States has demanded the PLO recognize Israel and re nounce terrorism before there could be any dealings. The declaration did not specif ically describe the new state’s bor ders. Commuter jet almost hits Air Force One WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal investigators on Tuesday called for an immediate review of air traffic control procedures in the Northeast after finding that a string of errors allowed a commuter plane to fly alarmingly close to Air Force One last month. The incident, which had been re ported previously without detail, oc curred Oct. 12 when Air Force One with President Reagan aboard and a Bar Harbor Airlines commuter plane flew within 500 feet vertically and 1.5 miles horizontally as both planes were preparing to descend to Newark, NJ. Standard separation for aircraft is 1,000 feet vertically and five miles horizontally. At the time of the inci dent, White House officials said the president was never in danger. But the incident prompted a broad investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board which said Tuesday that numerous man agerial, operational and training de ficiencies at four Federal Aviation Administration facilities near Wash ington, at Philadelphia and near New York were at fault. These errors reflected a serious lack of effective management and quality assurance, the NTSB said. It called on the FA A to conduct an in dependent investigation of air traffic control performance at the facilities involved similar to a probe recently concluded after a series of controller errors at Chicago. The board also said it was partic ularly concerned about its findings because the FAA on a number of oc casions dating back to 1986 had in vestigated similar shortcomings at the facilities and indicated im provements had been made.