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The Battalion
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to drifts J vol. 88 No. 111 USPS 045360 12 pages
College Station, Texas
Wednesday, March 8,1989
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Bill will propose altering regent choice policy
By Stephen Masters
SENIOR STAFF WRITER
A bill designed to prevent contro
versy surrounding regent appoint
ments will be proposed in the state
Legislature “any day now,” the presi
dent of the Texas Faculty Associa
tion said Tuesday.
Dr. Kenneth Margerison, presi
dent of the Texas Faculty Associa
tion and a history professor at
Southwest Texas State University in
San Marcos, said a bill to create a 24-
member governor’s advisory board
will be introduced by Sen. Gonzalo
Barrientos, D-Austin.
The advisory board would com
pile a list of candidates from which
the governor could select regents,
Margerison said.
Barrientos and members of his
legislative team were not available
for comment Tuesday afternoon.
Margerison said there are still “a
number of individuals” considering
sponsoring the bill in the House of
Representatives.
He said the bill would create an
advisory council of 24 individuals
appointed by the governor, lieuten
ant governor and speaker of the
house.
Each would select eight members
of the board, he said.
The board would consider several
different factors for each candidate,
he said.
I hey (the members of
the proposed board) would
not just look for their racial
or ethnic characteristics,
but those would
presumably be taken into
consideration.”
— Kenneth Margerison
president,
Faculty Association
“They would not just look for
their racial or ethnic characteristics,
but those would presumably be
taken into consideration,” Margeri
son said. “Also such qualities as
knowledge of higher education and
expertise in some facet or activity
that might be useful for institutions
of higher education (would be
looked at).
“But likewise it’s also useful to
have people who represent certain
ethnic or minority groups and it’s
useful to have people who know
something about higher education.
The bill comes in response to the
controversy surrounding Gov. Bill
Clements’ selections to the Univer
sity of Texas Board of Regents, Mar
gerison said.
Clements was charged with cron
yism after he selected three white
males to serve on the Board. Critics
charged that Clements should have
appointed a minority group member
to the Board because UT regents in
October approved a merger with
Pan American University, located in
predominantly Hispanic South
Texas.
As the criticism grew, one candi
date, Chester Upham, withdrew his
name from consideration. Within an
hour after Upham’s announcement,
Clements selected Dr. Mario Ram
irez of Rio Grande City.
Ramirez, Robert Cruikshank of
Houston and Tom Loeffler of San
Antonio were confirmed by the Sen-
Group wants representative regents
By Stephen Masters
SENIOR STAFF WRITER
The Board of Regents of any state school should be
representative of the state that it serves, the president
of the Texas Faculty Association said Tuesday.
“We didn’t have any objection to any of them (UT re
gent nominees) in particular,” Dr. Kenneth Margerison
said. “We just thought the fact that the Board was going
to be entirely white Anglo male was the problem. It was
then that Dr. Ramirez was put up in addition to the
other two.”
Margerison, president of the Texas Faculty Associa
tion and a history professor at Southwest Texas State
University in San Marcos, voiced his concerns over the
delay in selecting Ramirez in a letter to The Battalion
dated Feb. 23.
In the letter he states, “TFA strongly believes that to
the extent that it is feasible, regental boards should re
flect the diversity which characterizes this state. We also
believe that persons appointed to regental boards
should be highly qualified to higher education. Political
partisanship should not be the primary consideration.
In our experience, universities are rarely any better
than their governing boards.”
Margerison said improving regental boards is one of
the concerns of TFA.
“The Board of Regents is supposed to oversee the in
stitutions for the people of Texas,” he said. “They are
the state’s means of governing the institutions with citi
zens. Of course, these are not just ordinary citizens.
They have to have certain skills and characteristics to do
it properly.
See Regents/Page 8
appointed oy me governor, lieuten- expertise in some tacet or activity Antonio were contirmed oy tne sei
Officials say recruiting law
would help stop violations
ate Feb. 16.
Critics in the Senate implied that
confirmation would be difficult if
Clements did not select a member of
a minority group for one of the two
openings on Texas A&M’s Board of
Regents. Clements selected Raul
Fernandez of San Antonio and Ross
Margraves Jr. of Houston, but was
criticized for not selecting a black for
the A&M Board.
The A&M System includes Prairie
View A&M University, a predomi
nantly black school. The Senate re
cently approved a merger adding
Corpus Christi State University,
Texas A&I University in Kingsville,
and Laredo State University to the
A&M System. CCSU, A&I and LSU
all have predominantly Hispanic stu
dent bodies.
By Alan Sembera
SENIOR STAFF WRITER
Texas A&M athletic officials
agree that legislation aimed at crimi
nalizing improper college athletic re
cruiting would help prevent viola
tions, but they expressed
reservations about it because of re
ported NCAA opposition.
The state Senate passed a bill
Monday to make it a third-degree
felony to pay student-athletes as part
of college recruitment The bill
would make it a misdemeanor for
students to accept or solicit such pay
ments.
R.C. Slocum, A&M’s football
coach, said the bill has good inten
tions and could have a positive effect
on Southwest Conference schools.
But he added he won’t completely
support the bill because of reported
NCAA opposition to it.
John David Crow, A&M’s athletic
director, also expressed qualified
support for the bill.
“Obviously we’d like to get all the
help we could to stop the so-called il
legal recruiting,” Crow said, “so we
would have to be pleased that it
passed the Senate.”
He added that he is waiting for
the NCAA to take a position on the
bill, so he can’t completely support it
at this time.
The Associated Press reported
Tuesday that NCAA officials said
criminal penalties would inhibit
their ability to gather voluntary testi
mony and investigate cases.
But an NCAA spokesman said
Tuesday afternoon it has not taken a
stance on the bill, and will not take
one until it has had more time to re
view the bill.
A spokesman for Sen. John Glas
gow, author of the bill, said the legis
lation is designed to help restore the
reputation and integrity of Texas
universities.
“The problem comes from
alumni, not universities,” he said.
“Colleges can’t regulate behavior of
alumni.”
A third-degree felony carries a
penalty of two to 10 years in prison
and/or a maximum fine of $5,000.
Senator Ken Caperton, who rep
resents the district encompassing
Texas A&M, said he supports the
bill.
Governor Bill Clements, who was
at the center of a recruiting scandal
at SMU that led the NCAA to im
pose the “death penalty,” also has
expressed support for the bill.
A similar bill has been introduced
into the House.
A&M was placed on probation last
season for several violations of
NCAA recruiting rules.
UH ex-financial officer faces
charges of taking kickbacks
HOUSTON (AP) — The Harris County district at
torney’s office is trying to determine whether the for
mer top fmanical officer for the University of Houston
System received kickbacks in exchange for granting lu
crative consulting contracts to an ex-employee.
Assistant District Attorney Terry Wilson confirmed
that investigators were looking into the business deal
ings between former finance official George Huxel and
consultant Lee B. Polanco and his business, MFC & As
sociates, the Houston Post reported Tuesday.
“I can confirm that we are looking at the entire
relationship between George Huxel and Lee Polanco,
including whether or not any kickbacks were given,”
Wilson said.
Wilson said an estimated $600,000 to $800,000 in
consulting business paid to Polanco and MFC by the
University of Houston System between 1981 and 1987
is in question. Three other consultants also are under
investigation, he said.
Huxel, who left the UH system in December 1987, is
vice president for finance at Cornell University. Po
lanco worked under Huxel at Houston’s downtown
branch for about eight months in late 1980 and 1981 as
assistant vice chancellor for financial services.
Huxel and Polanco were not immediately available
for comment, but Huxel’s attorney, Carol Vance, den
ied his client did anything illegal.
“George did not get any kickbacks for giving business
to Polanco,” Vance said.
Wilson and university officials said Polanco and MFC
& Associates — an Austin-based consulting firm for fi
nance, computing and management — began receiving
work from the University of Houston System shortly af
ter Huxel became vice president for finance and ad
ministration in August 1981.
Bug-eyed
A woman passes by the mural of an insect in
the hallway of the Herman Heep Building as
Photo by Dean Saito
she leaves the vending machine area Tues
day afternoon.
Prairie View refuses
to fire football coach
PRAIRIE VIEW (AP) — Prai
rie View A&M President Percy
Pierre refused Tuesday to fire
football coach Haney Catchings,
and striking players who vowed
not to play for the embattled
coach said they would bring forth
charges of NCAA rules viola
tions.
Catchings expressed satisfac
tion at keeping his job.
“It meant kind of a sigh of re
lief,” Catchings said of the
month-long ordeal. “I still do not
think the team as a whole feels ex
actly the same way as some of
those who have spoken.”
Catchings denied charges of
rules violations brought by the
some of the team members.
“That’s not true,” he said. “I
think the way things are now,
they will do anything they can to
take a shot at me.”
Players reacted angrily after
Pierre announced the results of a
university investigation into
player complaints that Catchings
interferred with their academic
progress, held unsafe workouts
and withheld textbooks as pun
ishment.
“They were half-stepping on
some of the things that have been
going on,” defensive tackle Scot-
tie Fizer, a junior from Shreve
port, La, said.
“I think a lot of things they
found out, they didn’t tell the
story like it was,” he said. “It’s a
joke. I think they are just stalling,
hoping things will cool down.”
Fizer said he was interviewed
by the investigating committee
and told them of NCAA rules vio
lations committed by Catchings.
There was no mention of any
such violations in the report is
sued by Pierre.
“I’m not allowed to say what
they were because the NCAA is
involved,” Fizer said.
Pierre acknowledged that
player grades had declined since
the fall of 1988, Catchings’ first
full season as coach.
He also said a study hall for the
players had been discontinued
but an alternative had been pro
posed.
Abusive relationships affect many students
By Denise Thompson
Staff Writer
Although hair pulling, slapping and verbal
slander are indicative of late-night wrestling pro
grams, more than 20 percent of college students
experience these activities in abusive romantic
relationships.
Abusive relationships are what Nancy Spence,
director of the Office of Women’s Programs and
Services at the University of Cincinnati, calls
hurtful relationships.
“Hurtful relationships don’t only include
physically painful ones but emotionally and psy
chologically painful relationships also,” Spence
said. “It can run the gamut from verbal abuse
such as belittling, making hurtful jokes, putting
the other person down to physical abuse such as
punching, slapping and pinching.”
To educate and inform students about abusive
relationships and their effect, Spence started a
program that includes a 70-minute presentation,
“Loving Too Much: Relationships That Hurt.”
During the presentation, scenarios are provided
to enable students to identify the characteristics
of an abusive relationship.
“One of the examples we use in the program I
got from a book about these relationships,” she
said. “It was about a woman who had an abusive
relationship and she said when the relationship
started, her partner was extremely romantic and
had swept her away with his charm. Her partner
seemed interested in everything about her and
wanted to know about her.
“However, regardless of the initial romanti
cism, the relationship turned abusive.
“This example helps us illustrate that there
seems to be a tendency for the abuser to start out
the relationship as an extremely romantic per
son.”
To help Texas A&M students understand abu
sive relationships, Student Counseling Services
offers several programs.
“We offer individual and group counseling,
and we offer crisis intervention 24 hours a day,”
counseling psychologist Dr. Mary Olona said.
“Besides that, we have a relationship group — a
specific group that teaches people how to handle
rejection.”
The women’s transition group is specifically
aimed at helping women who have been in abu
sive relationships, which Olona describes as one
where a person isn’t being respected as a human
being.
“We call it the women-in-transition group be
cause lots of times it’s transitioning from one
thing to another,” she said. “In this case, it would
be from the old relationship to the new
relationship. The group is not just for abused
women, but it is just for women.”
Unless there is a crisis situation, appointments
are necessary to visit the Student Counseling
Services and can be made by calling 845-4427.
Spence said several signs can point to a poten
tially abusive relationship.
“In most abusive relationships, there seems to
be an element of the need for instant bonding,”
she said. “Sometimes you’ll see a couple who has
just met two weeks before and they’re already
planning to settle down and get married. Things
just move too quickly.
“T here also seems to be a need of the person
who ends up getting hurt to rescue the abuser.
This sometimes takes the form of excessive jeal
ousy or possessiveness that’s mistaken for con
cern.”
Although victims and abusers have different
characteristics, Spence said one characteristic is
common in both.
“Low self-esteem is almost always present in
abusers, but does not usually appear in the victim
until after they experience the abuse,” she said.
“Many times victims will start believing they de
serve the pain they’re suffering.
“As far as characteristics of abusers, there of
ten seems to be a history of violence within the
abuser’s family. Either the person was abused as
a child or witnessed abuse from one parent to the
other. There also can be signs of dysfunction
within the family such as alcoholism or drug
abuse or even something as simple as having a
parent who was a workaholic.
“Often abusers have rigid sex-role expecta
tions. One study found that males who would be
identified as masculine or macho are more likely
to be abusers. This is sad because in our culture,
we’re supposed to be Arnold Schwarzenegger-
types and not men with a wide range of emo
tions.”
Although the relationship can be painful to
See Abusive/Page 8