1
'lor;
i line su
iktr-i
sysit:
M, it v
*kh i
task
■date an(
out a
P.
accbin
Texas A&M
The Battalion
WEATHER
'////////■
mm
/■'Art
FORECAST for WEDNESDAY:
Mostly cloudy with rain continuing
through midday, clearing and
cooler by evening.
HIGH:78
LOW:55
Tuesday, March 28,1989
College Station, Texas
Vol. 88 No. 120USPS 045360 14pages
Regents pick site for Corps of Cadets Center
By Stephen Masters
SENIOR STAFF WRITER
mnersj
TEAM
sc teai
I wow,
Cate
mu
WS.ii
iperstt;
sully a
on wil'
of the
obstaii
ting.Cj
i, Volte
Dbsia:i
iorfe
clingi
?S:H
itiom
Inlra'-,
meeSi
B4Rei
aelm:
■S:
)ffi<
Slovid
Dlass
5eneii
igibi
’racfei
io hat
isamt
(Dotti
:udes
ecB
artina
The Texas A&M Board of Re
gents Planning and Building Com
mittee Monday selected Spence Park
South as the site for the proposed $2
million Corps of Cadets Center.
The decision must be finalized
when the regents meet today.
Site proposals were presented by
architect Chat tier Newton of Austin
and Gene Shrickle of Arlington.
Shrickle is in charge of developing
the Master Plan for A&M’s campus.
Both Newton and Shrickle recom
mended the Spence Park South site.
University President William
Mobley and Corps Commandant
Thomas Darling agreed, saying they
are “comfortable” with the site.
Newton used a numerical system
to rate each site on a scale of zero to
10 for several different criteria. The
Spence Park South site scored high
est on this scale, followed by Spence
Park North and a site on the north
west corner of Duncan Field.
Newton and Shrickle agreed that
locating the center at the south end
of the park would leave an area of
“green space” for future use.
When planned construction in the
area is completed, the park will be
surrounded by the Corps residence
halls to the east, the Corps Center to
the south, a proposed 1,500-car
parking garage to the west and a
renovated utilities plant to the north.
Shrickle said leaving the park
would allow a needed recreation
area near the Corps Quadrangle,
something he said has been decreas
ing during A&M’s rapid growth.
The Master Plan was initiated to
control the University’s growth and
retain some green spaces, he said.
“What we don’t build is at least as
important as what we do (build),”
Shrickle said.
The Board postponed a decision
on the location of the center at the
January meeting, although it nar
rowed the choice to three prinicipal
locations.
The Board also heard a report
from Mobley on the quality of un
dergraduate instruction, which con
tinued a discussion from the January
meeting on the quality of English
spoken by A&M instructors.
The report showed 1 percent of
all lecture courses and 5 percent of
both lecture and lab courses are
taught by foreign teaching assistants.
But Mobley and the regents agreed
there is no causal relationship of stu
dents having difficulty understand
ing material because a foreign TA
teaches a class.
Mobley said the Center for Teach
ing Excellence and English Profi
ciency Certification all are being
used to promote better classroom
communication for teaching assis
tants. He said all foreign students
are required to be certified for their
communications skills. Department
heads also are responsible for mak
ing certain there are not faults in the
system, he said.
In other action, the Board’s Com
mittee for Academic Campuses:
• Approved increasing the stu
dent services fee from $67 to $73
per semester beginning with the
1989-90 academic year. This item
was recommended by the Student
Senate at the March 8 meeting.
• Approved increasing the shut
tle-bus use fee to $50, an increase of
$4.
• Approved increasing semester
room fees for all residence halls by 5
percent.
• Approved increasing board
fees for all meal plans by 5 percent.
• Approved increasing rental
rates for student apartments by 3
percent.
• Approved changing the Stu
dent Identification Card Fee to the
Student Verification Fee. Under the
current system, students are charged
Board members select
McKenzie as chairman
By Stephen Masters
University News Service
From left, Regents Vice Chairman Wayne Showers, A&M
System Chancellor Perry Atkisson, and new Board Chair
man William McKenzie.
$5 each year for an original identifi
cation card and $8 for each replace
ment card. The revised system
would charge $5 for the original
card and a $4 annual maintenance
fee. Replacements cards would cost
$12 under the revised system.
• Approved a resolution autho
rizing Mobley to enter a contract
agreement for the A&M-Koriyama
Pilot Program. This program would
establish a 10-week English language
instruction in Koriyama, Japan, be
ginning in late May.
SENIOR STAFF WRITER
Texas A&M regents Monday
unanimously elected William McK
enzie to serve as chairman.
A Dallas resident and eight-year
member of the Board, McKenzie
succeeds Houston businessman Da
vid G. Eller as chairman. Eller’s term
expired Feb. 1.
The Board also unanimously
elected Wayne Showers as vice chair
man.
In his acceptance speech, McKen
zie said titles mean little in terms of
power once on the Board.
“I always have maintained that
each Board member has the same
strength and power as the chairman
or vice chairman,” he said. “Whether
someone sits in the chairman’s chair,
the vice chairman’s chair or is chair
man of a committee — any member
of the Board of Regents speaks with
the same authority as any other
member.”
McKenzie took the opportunity to
chastise the anonymous source
quoted in a story in Sunday’s Bryan-
College Station Eagle.
An unnamed source said Mobley
typed a letter of resignation after his
control of the A&M Athletic Depart
ment and the Jackie Sherrill investi
gation was questioned, according to
the Eagle story. The story saidre-
gents had discussed firing Mobley
when he refused to back down over
the Sherrill conflict.
McKenzie said the story was “re
prehensible” and “totally calculated
to harm.
“Whoever is the ‘unknown’ ad-
Yeltsin, other reformers win big in Soviet election
MOSCOW (AP) — Boris N. Yeltsin and
other anti-establishment candidates rode a
wave of popular discontent to victory in par
liamentary elections that gave Soviet voters
their first real choice, according to incom
plete results Monday.
The candidates chosen in nationwide elec
tions Sunday will join those picked earlier by
the Communist Party and other organizations
in a new 2,250-member Congress of People’s
Deputies.
The parliament is still certain to be domi
nated by the ruling party and an entrenched
Kremlin leadership that assured itself of seats
without having to face opposition at the polls.
But Yeltsin’s landslide victory and the tri
umph of other independent-minded candi
dates indicated widespread dissatisfaction
with chronic shortages of food and consumer
goods, rising prices and the bureaucracy’s
control over Soviet life.
Yeltsin, the tough-talking, 58-year-old for
mer Moscow party boss, had campaigned to
cheering crowds against the special privileges
afforded the party elite at at time when most
people can find practically nothing in the
stores.
Igor N. Orlov, chairman of Moscow’s elec
tion commission, said the burly, one-time
Gorbachev protege amassed 89.4 percent of
the vote against Yevgeny Brakov, a factory di
rector, in a race for a seat to represent all of
Moscow.
Brakov, 51, who also campaigned for im
provements in the food supply but whose fac
tory makes the ZIL limousines that symbolize
privilege, received just 6.9 percent of the
vote, Orlov said.
Voters had the option of voting against
candidates by crossing their names off the
ballot.
Yeltsin’s win marked a stunning political
comeback following his dramatic fall from
grace in 1987, when he was ousted as Moscow
party chief and later fired as a non-voting
member of the ruling Politburo. He was ac
cused of political mistakes and personal ambi
tion after he criticized his fellow leaders and
complained that perestroika, Gorbachev’s re
form program, had not fulfilled the people’s
needs.
“It’s hard to say what my spirit is more full
of, joy or concern, about what I realistically
can do to help Muscovites,” Yeltsin told hun
dreds of workers at the State Construction
Committee, where he still holds ministerial
rank despite his ouster from the party’s top
ranks. The workers applauded warmly,
But Yeltsin’s victory carries little power.
The congress to which he was elected will
meet just once a year to elect a president and
a fraction of its own membership to a full
time legislature, the Supreme Soviet.
Despite the victory of other congressional
candidates with non-traditional views, Yeltsin
is pot assured of a seat in the legislature,
whose members may exercise more power
than the larger Congress of People’s Dep
uties.
The congress will be made up of 1,500
deputies elected in Sunday’s territorial ballot
ing and 750 members chosen earlier by va
rious party, social and professional organiza
tions.
In the Baltic republics, candidates from
grassroots movements that have tapped pop
ular dissatisfaction with Moscow’s control
over their economies, cultures and politics
generally fared well in the election.
In Washington, State Department spokes
man Margaret Tutwiler praised the Soviet
elections as a “move in the right direction.”
She said that although the elections “were
neither free nor democratic by Western stan
dards,” they do represent a change from past
practices.
Nationwide figures on turnout were not
available, but Orlov said 83.5 percent of Mos
cow’s 6.9 million eligible voters took part.
That represents a drop from the 99.9 percent
turnout usually reported in Soviet elections in
which volunteers go into neighborhoods to
force people to vote.
Yeltsin had expressed fears that ruling
party officials would steal the election after
the polls closed by stuffing ballot boxes or
throwing out opposition votes; but no com
plaints of fraud surfaced Monday.
Finance panel
approves hike
in faculty pay
AUSTIN (AP) — Senate bud
get writers Monday approved a
proposed $400 million increase to
public higher education that in
cludes a 7.1 percent faculty pay
raise for each of the next two fis
cal years.
“We have recommitted this
state to two more years to have a
forward looking approach to
higher education,” said Sen. Kent
Caperton, chairman of the Senate
Finance Committee.
Caperton, D-Bryan, said the
funding level, approved by the fi
nance panel without dissent, was
not as much as higher education
officials wanted, but is enough to
keep “the momentum going.”
If approved by the Legislature
and signed by Gov. Bill Clements,
the Finance Committee proposal
would increase faculty salaries at
public colleges and universities by
7.1 percent for each year of the
1990-91 biennium.
Faculty members at public se
nior colleges received an average
6.7 percent increase in the 1987-
88 budget year, said Randy Wal
lace, director of financial plan
ning for the Texas Higher Edu
cation Coordinating Board.
Lobbyists for the Foundation
for Higher Education had re
quested a $1 billion increase, in
cluding a 10.1 percent faculty pay
raise for each year of the 1990-91
biennium.
Texas Democrats oppose cuts in Medicare
WASHINGTON (AP) — Pro
posed Medicare budget cuts would
intensify the grave rural health care
crisis in Texas and cripple more of
the state’s marginally healthy rural
hospitals, two Democrats say.
Sen. Lloyd Bentsen, chairman of
the Senate Finance Committee, and
Rep. John Bryant, a member of the
House Budget Committee, are
asking President Bush to reconsider
his recommendation that the Medi
care budget be cut by $5 billion.
“While some Medicare reductions
are likely, we cannot allow the ad
ministration to take a sledgehammer
to the program,” said Bentsen,
whose committee has jurisdiction
over Medicare, the government’s
primary health insurance program
for 32 million elderly and disabled
Americans.
Thousands of hospitals rely on
Medicare reimbursements for their
elderly patients to stay in business.
Rural hospitals, which have many
older patients, often rely on Medi
care for up to 80 percent of their an
nual income, said Bentsen.
Bentsen said the financial strain
on many hospitals would not withs
tand the proposed $5 billion Medi
care cut, of which some $3.3 billion
would come from reduced Medicare
payments to hospitals.
“The numbers we’re looking at
now. . . . (indicate) many are at the
break-even point and this is further
complicated by the substantial num
ber of hospitals that have had to
close their doors and haven’t been
able to make ends meet,” Bentsen
said.
Bentsen said a recent survey of
rural hospital administrators sug
gests as many as 600 hospitals could
close within the next five years.
At the end of 1988, 48 of Texas’
254 counties were without a single
hospital, said Bryant, a Dallas Demo
crat.
“Over half of the record 72 hospi
tals Texas has lost in the past five
Activists remember date of nuclear disaster
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Anti-nuclear ac
tivists marked the 10th anniversary of the Three
Mile Island nuclear plant accident with renewed
warnings Monday that the health effects were
hidden and the lessons forgotten.
Scientists and nearby residents held news con
ferences at the state Capitol ahd a vigil was
planned outside the plant late Monday and for 4
a.m. Tuesday, the time the accident began.
“The so-called accident at TMI was an act of
violence againt mankind, an act of violence
against the unborn,” said Jane Lee, an activist
from nearby Etters, referring to the March 28,
1979, incident.
The nation’s worst nuclear accident occurred
when a series of human and mechnical errors al
lowed the plant’s 150-ton radioactive core to lose
cooling water. Half the core melted and 20 tons
of molten material raced to the bottom of the re
actor before it was held in check by a remaining
pool of water. Radioactive gas was released to the
atmosphere.
“This marks a decade of false denials and out
right lies on the part of the utility that owns and
operates Three Mile Island . . . and on the part of
the state of Pennsylvania, which has systemically
hidden any real statistics about the-deaths that
have occurred in the wake of the accident at
TMI,” said Harvey Wasserman, who wrote a
book, “Killing Our Own,” about the health ef
fects of nuclear power.
He said 75 percent of the nation’s commercial
reactors haven’t completed modifications re
quired in the wake of the accident.
A spokesman for the federal Nuclear Regula
tory Commission said he could not immediately
respond to Wasserman’s charge.
Ernest Sternglass, a University of Pittsburgh
radiation physics professor, reiterated claims that
the federal and state governments are covering
up the true health effects of the accident.
He said information has been suppressed that
would show radiation from Three Mile Island in
creased infant mortality in Pennsylvania, New
York and Maryland and caused thousands of
other excessive deaths by lowering people’s im
munity.
“This needs to be investigated by Congress,”
he said. “We have a scandal here of incredible
proportion.”
“His allegations are not new,” George Toku-
hata, research director for the Pennsylvania
Health Department, said. “They are absolutely
untrue. It’s ridiculous. We don’t have an ax to
grind. We’re trying to report what we find.”
About 2,000 damage claims are still pending
against the plant owner, General Public Utilities
Corp.
ministration ‘source’ should be se
verely reprimanded or perhaps dis
charged,” he said.
Prior to electing the chairman,
three new regents were sworn in :
Billy Clayton, Raul Fernandez and
Ross Margraves Jr.
Clayton was appointed after for
mer vice chairman Joe Reynolds re
signed Dec. 12. Fernandez and Mar
graves were appointed Feb. 21,
replacing Eller and Dr. John B. Co
leman. The Senate confirmed the
three nominees last week.
McKenzie announced his selec
tions for several Board subcommit
tees. None of the new regents were
appointed chairman of a subcom
mittee, but each was named to at
least four.
The subcommittees are:
• Planning and Building Com
mittee, chaired by Royce Wisen-
baker of Tyler.
• Committee for Academic Cam
puses, chaired by Douglas DeCluitt
of Waco.
• Committee for Service Units,
chaired by Showqrs.
• Audit Committee, chaired by
John Mobley of Austin.
• Budget and Fiscal Affairs Com
mittee, chaired by Lowry Mays of
San Antonio.
• Presidential Selection Commit
tee for Prarie View A&M University,
chaired by McKenzie. Former re
gent Coleman and A&M System
Chancellor Perry Adkisson also will
sit on this committee.
• Committee for Art and Statues,
chaired by DeCluitt.
• Executive Committee, chaired
by McKenzie.
years have been small, rural facilities
with fewer than 100 beds,” Bryant
wrote Bush and Health and Human
Services Secretary Dr. Louis Sulli-
Rural hospitals are among the
most marginal hospital operations in
Texas, Bryant said, “and these cuts
will spell the end for many of them.”
“For the past three years, Texas
has had the dubious distinction of
leading the nation in hospital clos
ings — most of which have been fa
cilities serving small, rural commu
nities,” Bryant wrote. “In 1988
alone, 19 hospitals totaling 1,400
beds shut their doors in Texas.”
Committee
backs expansion
of A&M system
AUSTIN (AP) — The House
Higher Education Committee on
Monday endorsed making three
South Texas universities part of
the Texas A&M System after uni
versity officials said there is a
need to expand educational op
portunity in the region.
The bill sent to the House
would add Texas A&I University
at Kingsville, Corpus Christi State
University and Laredo State Uni
versity to the A&M University
System.
“As our population grows, the
state must provide better educa
tional opportunities to the His
panic population that prepare
them for future leadership of the
state,” A&M Chancellor Perry
Adkisson said.
“One thing we do well in the
Texas A&M University System is
train students to be leaders, and
we want to be fully involved in the
training of the leaders of the next
century,” he said.
Bias Martinez of Laredo, presi
dent of the University System of
South Texas board of directors,
said, “There must be a commit
ment to the youth of South Texas
and opportunity for a college ed
ucation made available.
“No longer can South Texas be
categorized as a group of second-
class citizens headed down a
dead-end road”
The University System of
South Texas includes the three
universities that would be
merged.
Bills to change Corpus Christi
State University from an upper-
level to a four-year institution
and create a law school at Texas
A&I also were sent to the House.
A measure to merge Pan
American University at Edinburg
and Brownsville with the Univer
sity of Texas System was sent to a
subcommittee, along with bills
that would upgrade Pan Ameri
can at Brownsville, an upper-level
institution.
Measures merging the five
South Texas institutions with the
A&M and UT systems, and a bill
to make CCSU a four-year school
have been approved by the Sen
ate.
Sen. Hector Uribe, D-
Brownsville, expressed disap
pointment that the Pan American
merger proposal was sent to sub
committee.
Among those speaking on the
A&M merger plan were two pro
fessors from A&I who said they
had encountered discrimination
at that school.