Image provided by: Texas A&M University
About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (March 29, 1989)
Texas A&M The Battalion WEATHER FORECAST for THURSDAY: Decreasing clouds and cooler HIGH:73 LOW:52 Dli - Vol. 88 No. 121 USPS 045360 12pages College Station, Texas “g av tr , an ywner ■lostay, 'anted '"'ed fjj ‘■I'eia Regents approve Spence Park as location for Corps Center By Stephen Masters _ 'eywam player, j Hinds :R ' M. WAV SENIOR STAFF WRITER Texas A&M’s Board of Regents Tuesday finalized the site of the Corps of Cadets Center. The Board’s Planning and Build ing Committee approved the Spence Park South site Monday, pending approval by the full Board. The Board previously allotted $2 million for the proposed 10,000- square-foot center, which would in clude a Corps recruiting office, a Hall of Honor and offices for Corps staff. After landscaping, the center will occupy about 18,000 square feet. The site was selected from several locations, each rated by Austin ar chitect Chattier Newton, one of two architects studying the different se lections. Newton rated several different qualities for each site on a scale of zero to 10. Under the rating system, the Spence Park South scored a 105 and the site at the north end of the park rated a 102. The third possible site, the northwest corner of Duncan Field, rated a 73. Regents said they preferred the southern park site because it allows for a park area that likely will be a lone “green space” when construc tion in the area is completed. Planned construction for the area includes a 1,500-car parking garage to the west, the center to the south, renovations to the campus utilities plant to the north, and Corps resi dence halls to the east. The committee postponed any de- A&M Board increases student fees By Stephen Masters SENIOR STAFF WRITER Texas A&M Regents Tuesday increased several stu dent-related fees, including the student service fee and housing fees, for the 1989-90 school year. In response to a question posed by regent Bill Clay ton, Robert Smith, vice president for finance and ad ministration, said the fee increases would produce about $20 million in revenues, which would be used to pay debt service on bonds issued for new residence halls and the expansion of the Commons Dining Center. The student service fee increase from $67 to $73 stems from a resolution adopted at the March 8 Student Senate meeting. The Senate’s recommendation was based on a com prehensive study compiled by its Finance Committee. Student senators say the increase is necessary to com pensate for inflation and, even after the increase, A&M’s fee is still one of the lowest in the state. Chairman William McKenzie expressed concern Monday that no signs of lowering fees are in sight. “We need to make some kind of effort to bring fees down,” McKenzie said. But University President William Mobley said at Monday’s meeting the fee increases are necessary. Other fee increases approved by the Board were a 5 percent across-the-board increase of both housing fees and costs for all board plans, a 3 percent increase for monthly rental rates at student apartments and a $4 in crease in the shuttle-bus fee. Residence-hall fees continue the trend of increasing annually, with rates for halls without air conditioning increasing from 03504602$366 to $384 per semester. Rates for Corps-style dorms will go up $30 per semester to $620 and the cost of rooms in Legett Hall will in crease from $680 to $714. Rates for balcony-style halls will be raised from $649 to $681. The cost of modular and Commons-area halls will go up from $909 to $954. A decrease in fees was approved by the Board for student identification cards. Under the present system, students are charged $5 per year for a new card while replacements cost $8. Beginning in the fall, students will be issued a permanent ID card for $5 and wifi pay a $4 annual maintenance fee to have the card updated. Replacement cards will cost $ 12. cision on the center at the January meeting. Instead, the regents asked Newton and Gene Shrickle of Ar lington, an architect responsible for A&M’s master plan, to select the best location for the center. In other action Tuesday, the Board: • Appropriated $265,000 to de sign Phase IV of the Corps-style resi dence hall renovations. The renova tions are for Corps dorms 1 through 4. The project includes four phases of renovating four residence halls. The first phase was Corps dorms 6, 8, 10 and 12. The second phase, now in progress, began with the renova tion of Crocker and Moore halls on the north side of campus in Septem ber 1988. Phase II is expected to be completed before Fall 1989. Phase III will be the renovation of Corps dorms 5, 7, 9 and 11. • Granted University President William Mobley authorization to be gin negotiations and enter an agreement with the city of Ko- riyama, Japan, for the A&M-Ko- riyama Pilot Program. The pro gram, ten weeks of English language instruction, is scheduled to begin in late May, Mobley said Monday. In non-voting action, the Board heard two reports from student groups. Wednesday, March 29,1989 ■<* *& 'S 1 d l Regents may include non-voting student Mosbacher: First priority for U.S. must be to produce quality goods By Sherri Roberts STAFF WRITER Increased exporting of high- quality products is the key to helping the United States remain industrially competitive with other countries, U.S. Department of Commerce Secretary Robert Mosbacher said Tuesday. “The country’s number one goal should be quality — it’s not optional,” Mosbacher said in a luncheon at the College Station Hilton sponsored by the Republi can Party of Brazos County. The manufacturing of high- quality products is necessary to bridge the gap between the level of exporting and importing in the United States, he said. That goal is slowly being achieved, he said, as government officials are working closely with Japan and other Pacific countries to broaden the market for Ameri can-manufactured goods. Mosbacher quoted President Bush as saying, “We must see that, although the United States has been the world’s market for all these years, the world must also be the United States’ mar ket.” Mosbacher said he wants the commerce department to have more contact with small and mid dle-sized businesses, to help them better target their sales to the countries most interested in their products. “We have to be the engine for business,” he said. “It’s up to us to make sure we’re there to help keep a level playing field — a competitive background and foreground for you so you can compete.” Noting that Texas is second only to California in the quantity of exports it manufactures, Mos bacher urged Texas to continue expanding its export base. However, increased manufac turing shouldn’t occur at the costly destruction of the environ ment, he said. “As business people, we haven’t been in the forefront of taking care of our environment,” said Mosbacher, who was an inde pendent oil and gas producer in Houston before his appointment to President Bush’s Cabinet in December. Mosbacher praised DuPont, a chemical-manufacturing com pany, for its efforts in environ mental protection, noting the company voluntarily stopped producing environmentally- Robert Mosbacher harmful chlorofluorocarbons. Representatives from the Na tional Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which is operated by the commerce de partment, are working with Texas A&M officials to further prevent pollution, he said. NOAA administers A&M’s Sea Grant Program, which was estab lished in 1966 to monitor ocean, coastal and fisheries resources through marine research, educa Photo by Fredrick D. Joe tion, and advisory services. Mosbacher declined to com ment on the oil and gas industry, saying Washington officials had advised him to avoid discussing the issue at the luncheon. “It’s against the first law of Washington — that is, of course, if you know anything about the problem, you’re precluded from being any part of the answer,” he said, drawing laughs from the au dience. A&M football player charged with assault By Richard Tijerina STAFF WRITER Police charged a Texas A&M foot ball player with three counts of as sault and one count of criminal mis chief because of an incident involving three intramural referees at a basketball game March 21. Tight end Mike Jones, a junior from Bridgeport, Conn., was charged Friday with three counts of assault, a Class C misdemeanor car rying a possible fine of $20-$200, and one count of criminal mischief, a Class B misdemeanor with a possi ble fine of $20-$200. Bob Wiatt, director of campus se curity and University Police, said all of the charges were filed in the Jus tice of the Peace office. The criminal mischief charge was filed the same day in the county attorney’s office. The charges were filed by Chad Whitacre, a senior geophysics major from Capon Bridge, W.Va.; Emilio Viera, a senior marketing major from San Antonio; and Michael Battalion file photo Mike Jones Bowles, a senior geography major from Austin. The assault charges stem from in cidents at an intramural basketball game March 21 in the men’s inde pendent A division involving Easy Money, Jones’ team, and the Pum- mellers. Whitacre and Viera said more than 100 fans were watching the game. Whitacre, one of two referees for the game, said Jones gradually be came abusive toward the referees as the game progressed and his team was losing. He said Jones’ team was disqual ified from the game because it had four technical fouls called against it. Whitacre said the trouble began in the second half when Jones tackled an opposing player who was driving to the basket for a layup shot. Whi tacre assessed an intentional foul on Jones and gave the Pummellers two points. He said Jones was penalized again for pushing an opponent with a forearm. Whitacre called a player- control foul on Jones. The first technical foul was called when the Easy Money bench dis puted the second foul called on Jones. The Pummellers were given two more points because of the tech nical foul. The second technical foul was called on Jones by Viera, when Jones verbally assaulted him with profan ity while arguing an out-of-bounds call, Whitacre said. The third technical foul was called on Jones with 10 seconds remaining in the game. Whitacre said that while the Pummellers were shooting foul shots, the 6-foot-3-inch, 220-pound Jones approached Whitacre to dis pute a call, and pushed his forearm into Whitacre’s chin and shoved him back two feet. Whitacre ejected Jones after call- ‘ ing the technical foul and said he was prepared to disqualify Easy Money because the game had gotten out of control. But, he said, before he could call the game, an Easy Money player on the court began to yell profanities at Whitacre. Whitacre called the fourth technical foul of the game and ejected the player. Whitacre then ended the game because under in tramural rules a team automatically is disqualified after being called for four technical fouls. Whitacre said he was prepared to end the game after Jones’ attack on him because he felt the officials had lost control of the situation. “As I was leaving (the scene), By Alan Sembera SENIOR STAFF WRITER Texas A&M students could gain a voice on the Board of Regents if a bill to put a non-voting student member on university-governing bodies passes the state Legislature. The bill, authored by Sen. Kent Caperton, D-Bryan, would create one advisory student-regent position for each university system. Representatives from the student governments at A&M and the Uni versity of Texas went to Austin last week to lobby for the bill, saying it would increase representation of student interests and perspectives at governing board meetings. Ty Clevenger, a member of the A&M Student Government’s Legis lative Study Group, said that under the current system there is a lack of communication between students and the Board. “There’s no student input into some of Board’s decisions that have a significant impact on the student body,” Clevenger said. One of the major instances of this, he said, was in 1987 when the re gents implemented a computer-use fee of $3 per credit-hour without the knowlege of most students. Students had no warning about the new fee, Clevenger said, and many were angry because they had Jones came up behind me and said, ‘I’ll close this whole gym down,’ Whitacre said. “The game was over, but the festivities weren’t.” Whitacre said he left the gym af ter the game to collect his thoughts but, he said, Jones continued to ver bally assault Viera and Bowles, the game’s scorekeeper. Whitacre said it is virtually impos sible for the officials to control a situ ation such as this. He said intramu ral referees often have to rely on the team to control their own player but that Easy Money did not try to stop Jones. “None of their players moved an inch to help me in any way, to con trol (Jones) in any way or to stop him,” he said. “We can’t control somebody like that on the court. We have to rely on his team to control him, and his team didn’t. None of them did a thing. “I can’t really blame them, be cause I don’t think any one of them could have done anything either.” Viera said, “We don’t get paid enough to take that. There’s a point where you have to call a technical.” See Assault/Page 10 no way to prepare for or argue against it. Jerry Hadickan, president-elect of the UT student body, said his school has experienced similar problems. “Three days before their mee ting,” Hadickan said, “the (UT Sys tem) regents announced they would raise law school tuition by 90 per cent, and would raise tuition for the graduate school of business by 100 percent.” This action took place during law school exams, he added, and stu dents had no way to argue against it. Students need a representative on the regent board to act as a filter, he said, to make sure their most impor tant concerns are heard. The stu dent regent also could inform stu dents about how regent decisions affect them, he added. Texas is one of only 11 states that do not have at least one student on a university-governing board. But most regents in the state don’t like the idea. ’ A&M regent John Mobley, of See Student regent/Page 10 Student dies in car wreck on Saturday By Richard Tijerina STAFF WRITER A Texas A&M student was killed Easter weekend in a traffic accident on Highway 21. Dale Hastings, a freshman aerospace engineering major from San Antonio, was pro nounced dead on the scene by the Bastrop justice of the peace at 6 a.m. March 25. Bastrop Department of Public Safety officials said Hastings died of massive head and chest injuries from hitting the steering column and dashboard. DPS officials said evidence in dicated Hastings fell asleep at the wheel. Hastings was driving his 1985 Oldsmobile northbound on State Highway 21 toward Highway 71 when his car ran off the road into a ditch and struck a large tree. DPS officials said Hastings was wearing a seat belt and no evasive action was taken. The car was travelling at about 60 miles per hour at the time of impact. Funeral services will be 10 a.m. Friday at Brewer Funeral Home in Lake Luzerne, N.Y.