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.”
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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