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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (March 29, 1989)
The Battalion STATE & LOCAL Wednesday, March 29,1989 Agricultural college adds new twist to previous title College changes name to match current courses By Sharon Maberry STAFF WRITER Texas A&M’s agricultural college changed its name recently to the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (obetter represent what the college has to offer. “The idea of just a college of agriculture did not rep resent what our college is,” said Executive Associate Dean of A&M’s College of Agriculture and Life Sci ences Jim Wild. “We’re a multi-dimensional college with a wide variety of issues that relate to agriculture. “Changing the name doesn’t denote a change in the college, but a more appropriate representation of where we’ve been for a long time. The name change is positive, particularly in areas that aren’t mainline agri cultural production.” The request for the name change was made in Jan uary 1987 and was formally approved in February, Wild said. Wild said life sciences, including genetics, biochemis try, molecular biology, nutrition, ecology, microbiology, physiology and food engineering, have played a major role in A&M’s College of Agriculture for a long time. "There’s been a changing perspective of colleges of agriculture nationwide for the past 10 years,” Wild said. “Agriculture has undergone economic stress and change and our technologies have outstripped the so cial balance. We’ve ended up with a situation where changes have developed so quickly that we’ve lost our overall balance between economics and agricultural production. For a long time, agriculture has been inter preted simply as agricultural production, but there’s a lot more to it than that.” Wild said attendance at colleges of agriculture na tionwide has declined about 40 percent since 1980. “Our attendance has declined much less than the na tional average, partly because of the expanded role of life sciences in the college,” Wild said. “The whole col lege has a breadth much wider than the traditional agri cultural colleges across the country. “We’re the only college in the University with a higher number of freshmen accepted for the Class of ’98 than last year. We believe that we’ll move right back to the forefront of colleges of our nature.” One way the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences may achieve that goal is by working with other colleges in the University, Wild said. “We have new life sciences programs, including mo lecular and cell biology and genetics, in which the Col leges of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Science, Medi cine and Veterinary Medicine are working together,” he said. “We’re also working on jointly hiring new fac ulty across different departments. “It’s a whole new world and the cooperation is excit ing. All the deans of those colleges are talking and working together. We’re trying to integrate what’s going on in the individual colleges. “I can see a major payoff for the University five years down the road.” \ se von :m, or them, ? cow imnist n prore nts to other :. The natu- thou- iidues Euro- irplus don't ed an mall) 1 ’exas rcent actu- cans, iunds what And ibun- ainly cide- ) eat l rink n or- ited" rpes, >f us pre safe /ash ood. are try- Do TOW lies, and get hey rate ;jpe- Ex- nisi 3d i A r =,0 Disabled demonstrators stage bus ‘crawl on’ DALLAS (AP) — Disabled dem onstrators, who in the past have blocked Greyhound buses with wheelchairs, staged a “crawl on” at the carrier’s Dallas terminal. Four people crawled on a Grey hound bus Monday, leaving their wheelchairs to be stored in the bag gage compartment. The bus arrived 20 minutes late in Arlington, a city about 20 miles west of Dallas. When the bus arrived, it took the protesters 15 minutes to slide from the bus. Disabled groups have staged various protests nationwide to get public and private transportation companies to equip vehicles with wheelchair lifts. “1 was scared,” George Cooper, 61, a demonstrator who is paralyzed from the chest down, said. “Para plegics and quadriplegics are subject to pressure sores that can go all the way down to the bone. And those steps have no cushions.” “It’s not really my fight,” Cooper, a grandfather of two, said. “It’s for the young ones who will come after me. I don’t want to do it again, but I will.” The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Ap peals in Philadelphia has ruled all buses bought with federal money must be equipped with wheelchair lifts. The U.S. Department of Trans portation has said it may appeal the court ruling. Organizations working for the in terests of the disabled say the ruling should go further. Frank Lozano, a community orga nizer for American Disabled For Ac cessible Public Transportation, said public and private transit should be equally responsive to the concerns of the disabled. Dallas, Fort Worth and Arlington have minibuses for elderly and dis abled riders, but none of the special transit systems travel outside their jurisdictions. Rides must be sched uled 24 hours in advance and some times riders are turned away because buses are booked. Greyhound is the only national carrier that travels, across county lines in the area. The MSC Wiley Lecture Series presents THE MIDDLE EAST: Peace or Powder Keg PRO-AM PPMPOP/A Dr. Clement Henry U.S. Policy in the Middle East March 28,7 p.m. WO stZrMOSSO&n pss Room 701 Rudder The Honorable William Crawford Fmr. Amb. to Yemen-Arab Republic, and Cyprus Islam: Culture and Religion March 29, 7 p.m. Room 206 MSC The Program Symposia are preparatory lectures for our April 12th panel discussion. Dr. Henry is an authority on Middle Eastern affairs, especially Egypt, at the University of Texas. The Honorable William Crawford spent twenty-nine years in the area with the Foreign Service, and has remained at the forefront of his field through his work with the Middle East Institute’s Is lamic Affairs Programs. ’ . We would like to thank the Middle East Institute and the MSC Jordan Institute for their support and funding UT professor explains problems of Israeli-Arab crisis for Bush By Denise Thompson STAFF WRITER Reasons behind U.S. involvement in the Middle East and problems in the area facing the Bush administra tion were discussed by a University of Texas professor Tuesday. As part of the MSC’s Wiley Lec ture Series, “The Middle Fast: Peace or Powder Keg,” Dr. Henry Clement explained five factors behind U.S. involvement to about 60 listeners. Clement said the U.S. originally became interested in the Middle East after World War II. The initial con tact was made over the interest in Saudia Arabia’s oil reserves. “This area was important then be cause it contains about two-thirds of the world’s proven oil reserves,” Clement’s said. Clement said that because the Middle East is important in terms of naval capabilities, this became an other area of concern. “Naval theorists considered this part of the world strategic because whoever could control the lands above the area from the horn of Af rica to India would control the world,” he said. “We would need this area to maintain our naval presence and contain the expansion of the So viet empire.” Containing the Soviet Union con stituted another reason behind Mid dle East involvement, he said. “As the Cold War iced in around 1947, the United States had to look at the geopolitical terms,” he said. “We had to keep a foothold in the area to protect against the possibili ties of the Soviets gaining world su premacy.” Securing Israel presents the fifth and most involved reason behind U.S. involvement in the Middle East, Clements said. “Since 1948, the U.S. has had to secure Israel from aggression by its neighbors,” he said. “The problem the U.S. has faced has been to try and reconcile the objective of main taining Israeli security with the ob jective of maintaining friendly rela tions with other moderate regimes in the area.” ^ Clements covered several areas that the Bush administration will face as a result of U.S.-Middle East involvement. Most prominent, he said, would be the Israeli-Arab conflict. Clement said that although a cease-fire has been called in the Per sian Gulf War, Iraq and Iran have not settled boundary arguments or exchanged prisoners. This may sus tain the conflict, he said. The civil war in Lebanon and the Palestinian uprising against the Is raelis also will be issues for the Bush administration, Clements said. Clement’s discussion is the first of three lectures that will preceed the Middle East Symposium. Tonight, Ambassador William Crawford will By Stephen Masters SENIOR STAFF WRITER Problems and successes for three of the four schools in the Texas A&M System were the topic as the Chancellor’s Student Advisory Board addressed the A&M Board of Regents Tuesday. The presentation marks the first time in CSAB’s six-year history it has addressed the A&M System Board. Representatives of A&M, Prairie View A&M University and Tarleton State University spoke. Representa tives of Texas A&M at Galveston were unable to attend the meeting because of a prior engagement. Founded in 1983, the CSAB was designed to address System-wide problems as seen by students and re port to the chancellor. One of the principal concerns ex pressed by Prairie View Student Body President Carla Murray- Moore was that the university is lo cated in an area devoid of emer gency medical services. There are no emergency medical facilities within a speak about U.S. policy in Islam. April 5, Steve Gutow, a Dallas Jewish community leader, will speak about Jewish ethics and their impact on American Jews and the Israeli gov ernment. The main symposium will be held on April 12 at 8 p.m. in Rudder Au ditorium. Speakers for the sympo sium will include United Nations Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar, Adm. Stansfield Turner and Robert McFarlane, national se curity adviser for the Reagan admin istration. Ed Bradley of CBS’ “60 Minutes” will moderate. Tickets for the main symposium are on sale at the MSC box office. 30-mile radius of the university, she said. Murray-Moore said student are charged no less than $40 for any visit to the Prairie View Health Center af ter 6 p.m. and major hospitals will not accept students unless they are critically ill or have adequate insur ance coverage. Several worried students have called on EMS when not in life threatening situations, so EMS in the area no longer responds to call un less they are from “authorized per sonnel,” she said. To rectify the problem, Murray- Moore requested about $814,000 in addition to about $665,000 spent in fiscal year 1988 for medical services. Murray-Moore said although the university’s health center has the ca pacity to house an EMS facility on a 24-hour basis, help must come from the regents. Prairie View received only about $449,000 in fees and other revenue during fiscal year 1988, she said. A&M Student Body President Jay Hays outlined 11 points for the re : See CSAB/Page 8 Student advisory board addresses A&M regents CROSS THE ROAD FOR A GREAT DEAL ON A10 PIECE