The Battalion
Estate & local 3
Tuesday, July 25,1989
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Program stresses that skills
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By Mia B. Moody
STAFF WRITER
■ In an effort to improve the skills of students taking
statistics courses, Texas A&M is serving as a host for
one of the eight programs offered in the nation that will
give teachers of grades kindergarten through 12 point
ers on how to make the subject more interesting for stu
dents.
I The Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Founda
tion Summer Institute in Statistics is sponsoring the
one-week workshop that began Monday.
I Dr. James F. McNamara, coordinator of the program
and a professor in the educational psychology depart-
ment at A&M, said, “Because of a report released by the
Mathematics and Statistics Educational Board we felt
like students need to start learning the basics of statistics
beginning as early as kindergarten. The workshop is
one of the measures that is being used to give teachers
the skills necessary to implement the teaching of statis
tics into their curriculum.”
I Gail Burrill, chairman of the joint committee of sta
tistics and mathematics teachers for the Mathematics
jand Statistics Educational Board, said the program, “E-
perybody Counts,” was formed to bring students up to a
llevel where they can compete with students in other
ountries in statistics literacy.
“We have found that students who have graduated
from high schools in America in the past generally
aren’t able to work with numbers at the level equivalent
to students in Japan, for example,” Burrill said. “We
hope that by introducing students to intuitive and the
oretical courses at an earlier age we will increase their
competency to a level that is competitive with other
countries.”
McNamara said statistics is an important part of the
modern student’s life because its techniques are used in
determining quality control in manufacturing and food
preparation, and in sampling to estimate voter and con
sumer behavior.
Murray Siegal, site coordinator of the workshop, said
he and three other teachers from across the country
were chosen to direct the workshop.
“We are a group of mathematics teachers from high-
schools and junior high schools who were chosen by the
Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation
Summer Institute in Statistics, in order to instruct teach
ers on how to bring the user-friendly statistics system
into the classroom,” Siegal said.
Siegal said the current method in which statistics is
being taught is difficult for students to grasp. The
method that the workshop utilizes is simple, but power
ful, he said.
PD will resume hiring officers
fter three years of no recruiting
■ HOUSTON (AP) — As Houston
■olice prepare to resume hiring ofFi-
.■ers after a three-year lapse, several
nservnt« ;C r U iti n g experts say it is doubtful
(jie department can Find enough
ualified applicants for a scheduled
Ctober cadet class.
The Houston Police Department’s
iecruiting division, dormant since
1986, will conduct a three-day job
fair this week. Recruiters expect
|bout 1,500 people to attend —
lteniel1 Shout the number of applicants
iw an:./®ceded to Find 70 who qualify for
i non- admission to the Oct. 5 class,
dits s Subsequent classes are scheduled
‘xasAiM or N° ve mh )er > December and Jan-
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Police Chief Lee P. Brown vehe
mently denied that the department
will take any shortcuts and said the
selection of cadets will not be com
promised for any reason.
“It’s incorrect to make the accusa
tion that we’re compromising any as
pect of our selection process,”
Brown said.
Among those skeptical of plans
for the Oct. 5 class were several re
cruiters for other police depart
ments.
“I don’t think that they can do it
and have a quality police officer,”
San Antonio recruiter C.E. King told
the Houston Chronicle. “Sure, you
can get bodies and out them in a
Abandoned newborn boy
found in Austin church
AUSTIN (AP) — A baby named
William, who is estimated to be
about 2 weeks old, was found wrap
ped in a blanket in a pastor’s study,
the third baby abandoned in Austin
in less than two weeks.
The infant was found Sunday just
before 11 a.m. at the Faith United
Methodist Church, the Rev. Floyd
Vick said.
A burlap bundle containing dia
pers was placed on the sofa next to
the child, Vick said.
“We’re grateful that they found
the church, and glad he was brought
here, instead of put in a Dumpster,”
Vick said.
A note made from words cut out
Iof various publications and glued to
a sheet of paper accompanied the in
fant.
It read: “Homeless and can’t take
care of William. Flelp find a family.”
No food was left with the baby,
but a mother rushed out for for
mula, Vick said.
The baby was taken by police to
the Children’s Hospital at Bracken-
ridge, where he was admitted to re
ceive additional nourishment, Larry
BeSaw, a hospital spokesman said.
“He appeared a little thin and a little
dehydrated, but otherwise in good
shape,” he said.
Police Sgt. Sam Cox said, “It’s get
ting to be a regular thing.”
class, but how many nuts are you
going to get? People are going to be
scared to be stopped by police.”
Others pointed to new, stricter ed
ucational requirements for recruits
as a potential problem in finding a
pool of qualified applicants in time
for the October class. The depart
ment now requires applicants to
have 60 hours of college credit with
a C average.
Racial tension
leads to death
of prisoner
MIDWAY (AP) — A Texas prison
inmate died after suffering stab
wounds during a racially-motivated
fight among about 120 prisoners,
prison officials said.
The disturbance Sunday af
ternoon in a dayroom at the Texas
Department of Corrections Fergu
son Unit erupted as a result of a dis
pute between black and Hispanic in
mates, prison spokesman David
Nunnelee said.
Donovan Fitzgerald Ingram, 24,
received two stab wounds in the inci
dent and later died at Huntsville Me
morial Hospital, Nunnelee said. In
gram was serving a 10-year term for
aggravated robbery with a deadly
weapon from Montgomery County.
During the disturbance, inmates
broke furniture and broke out win
dows, using the glass as a weapon,
Nunnelee said.
Writer tells A&M audience
what a real author’s life is like
By Mia B. Moody
STAFF WRITER
All writers aren’t rich grad
uates from Ivy League schools
who wear tweed jackets and
smoke pipes, Joe R. Lansdale,
vice president of the Horror
Writers of America, said in a Fri
day presentation in the Sterling
C. Evans Library.
Lansdale said he hopes that by
telling of his struggle to become a
successful writer he can clear up
the stereotypes that many people
have of writers.
Lansdale has written books and
short stories that have been cat
egorized as horror, folk-tale and
mystery stories. Two titles of Lan-
sdale’s books, “A ‘B’ Movie with
Blood and Popcorn” and “Tight
Little Stitches in a Dead Man’s
Back,” give people a sense of his
style.
“Television is probably respon
sible for the image that most peo
ple have of authors,” Lansdale
said. “In movies, authors are
usually graduates from schools in
New York or California who
drive fancy cars and live glamo
rous, easy lives. In reality, there
are probably only four or five
writers in the whole world who
live like that.”
Lansdale said television shows
portray writing as an easy task.
He said Angela Lansbury in the
television show, “Murder, She
Wrote” will often say, “Well I
have a free weekend so I had bet
ter try to get a story written.” He
said this is unrealistic.
“When I write a story I usually
write only two or three pages a
day and then I sometimes tear
those pages up and start over,” he
said.
The other image people have
of writers is the college professor
who publishes one story every
five years, he said.
“I don’t want to step on any
body’s toes, but you all know the
type of professors who I’m talk
ing about, the kind who have sto
ries published in college literary
magazines about dogs, a bad sex
life or a weird childhood,” he
said. “They consider everbody
else hacks and themselves literary
geniuses.”
Photo by Kathy Haveman
Joe R. Lansdale, author of horror, folktale and mystery books,
speaks at the A&M library about “real life” as an author.
Lansdale doesn’t fit into either
stereotype. He is from East Texas
and is an archaeology graduate
from the University of Texas.
Lansdale said people who want
to live a glamorous lifestyle
should probably choose a profes
sion other than writing.
“The average income of writ
ers is $4,000,” Lansdale said. “I
made less than that for several
years and around that for a cou
ple of years and now I make way
above that.”
Lansdale said that to supple
ment his salary as a writer, he has
been a garbage collector and a
waiter.i i
“For several years I didn’t
make any money from my wri
ting,” Lansdale said. “In fact, the
IRS said that if I didn’t start mak
ing money soon, then I could de
clare writing as my hobby and not
a profession. My publisher even
had to go with me to the bank in
order for me to get them to fi
nance my house. Eventually I did
make enough money to make a
career out of writing.”
The best experience a writer
can get is not at school, Lansdale
said, but at the typewriter.
“I took a writer’s course at the
University of Texas, where I got
my degree in archeology, and
that was one the worst mistakes of
my life,” he said. “Professors can
teach you the basics, but they
can’t give you ideas; and the im
portant thing in writing is good,
original ideas.”
UH English professor, fiction writer
dies at 58 after battle against cancer
HOUSTON (AP) — A private memorial service was
pending Monday for Donald Barthelme, an award-win
ning modern Fiction writer and Cullen Professor of En
glish at the University of Houston, who died of cancer.
Barthelme was best-known for his wry humor and in
novative techniques in writing short stories, many of
which were published in The New Yorker, Atlantic and
the Paris Review.
Barthelme had undergone successful surgery for
throat cancer 17 months ago. But he became ill with a
form of blood cancer while living in Rome this summer
and was admitted to M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in
Houston three weeks ago.
He died Sunday at the age of 58.
“He was a reigning presence in the (UH English)
program,” Edward Hirsch, poet and professor of En
glish at UH said. “Donald was the kindest man I’ve
known. He had a deep-bred Southern courtesy and a
kind attitude toward life, personally and professionally.
“I’ve looked to him often as a mentor, teacher and
friend.”
A former newspaper man, Barthelme wrote 15
books, including several novels and collections of short
stories. His awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship in
1967, National Institutes of Arts and Letters Award in
1972, National Book Award in 1972 and the Rea Award
for the Short Story in 1988.
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