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Vol.89 No.89 USPS 045360 12 Pages
College Station, Texas
Wednesday, February 7,1990
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Clap clout
A&M President William H. Mobley shouts words of en
couragement to the Lady Aggies basketball team Tues-
Photo by Phelan M. Ebenhack
day night at G. Rollie White Coliseum. Mobley was the
honorary head coach for the game. See game/Page 7.
X-rated foreign film
prompts petition
By SUZANNE CALDERON
Of The Battalion Staff
Controversy continues to surround the
showing of an X-rated movie two weeks ago
as part of Aggie Cinema’s International
Film Series.
The showing of the Italian-French movie
“The Last Woman” has prompted two
A&M students to start a petition calling for
a boycott of Aggie Cinema for showing
what the students call pornography.
Jennifer Wolling and Matt DeWoody,
who are distributing the petition, didn’t see
the movie. They said it was unnecessary for
them to see it to know that it contained ob
jectionable material.
“Clearly it was offensive with all the
warnings — the X rating and the preview in
The Battalion were enough,” Wolling, a
sophomore political science major, said.
DeWoody, a senior marketing major,
also had objections to the movie.
“We don’t want to be associated with an
institution that in any way supports any
form of pornography,” he said. “We don’t
want to financially support, through our tu
ition and taxes, an institution that shows
pornography.”
Lance Parr, a senior engineering tech
nology major and chairman of Aggie Cin
ema, said the complaints he has received
concerning the movie have dealt with the is
sue of pornography.
Parr said he doesn’t consider the movie
to be pornographic. He said he’s talked to
several people who saw the movie, and they
don’t consider it pornographic either.
“This was not a pornographic movie,”
Parr said. “It did carry an X rating, but that
in itself does not mean the movie was por
nographic. An X rating can be obtained by
violence, male-frontal nudity (no matter
how' brief), or excessive nudity. The movie
did not showcase the nudity, nor did it
showcase the sexual scenes that would have
been typical of a pornographic movie.”
The movie would not have been brought
to the Texas A&M campus if anyone
thought it was pornographic, Parr said.
But Wolling and DeWoody believe other
wise.
The petition they are circulating states:
“I am 100 percent against the advance
ment and promotion of pornography of
any kind and resolve to boycott the Aggie
Cinema the remainder of the semester for
their decision to feature a rated X movie on
January 23, 1990.”
DeWoody said the goal is to get 1,000 or
more signatures by March 1. At that time
the petition will be presented to Parr.
The petition is working like a chain,
mainly being distributed among friends.
See Movie/Page 4
n
ommunists debate Gorbachev’s plans to revamp party powers
MOSCOW (AP) — Communist Party leaders added
n unexpected third day to their pivotal meeting Tues-
ay and sent Mikhail S. Gorbachev back to the drawing
ioard to fill in holes in his blueprint for ending the
arty’s monopoly on power.
The extension of the party session, which was sup-
osed to end Tuesday, was a clear sign of the contro
versy generated by Gorbachev’s proposals to revamp
■he country’s political structure.
I Central Committee sources said most speakers
greed with Gorbachev’s proposal that the party’s mo-
lopolyon power, enshrined in the Soviet Constitution,
lust end.
“All unanimously think it has become obsolete. It
as no meaning,” Central Committee member Vladi-
lir P. Anishchev told reporters who gathered outside
he Kremlin’s Spasky Gate to await news. The session
ras closed to journalists.
However, partial transcripts of two days of the ses
sion, in which 51 speakers took the floor, indicated
hat neither radical reformers nor hard-liners were
atisfied with Gorbachev’s proposal.
Delegates said Tuesday night’s Central Committee
ession was suspended so a commission, headed by
iorbachev, could complete changes to his nearly 20-
age platform. A Central Committee source quoted
}orbachev as saying that the 60-member commission
was only half-finished, even though it met all night
Monday.
He said the meeting would resume Wednesday
morning.
Delegates interviewed Monday and Tuesday as they
filed out onto Red Square indicated a common objec
tion: the platform contains few specifics.
“A lot of its points, and this is what has been said by
many speakers, need major changes and reinforce
ment, especially in the direction of stepping up deci
sive action,” Leonid A. Bibin, a non-voting Central
Committee member, said in a Soviet TV interview
Tuesday. *
Bibin said he and others want the platform to stress
that the party must remain united.
Gorbachev has placed himself in the middle, trying
to forge compromises.
Still, the Soviet leader’s platform has yielded to the
demands of political reformers — including the thou
sands of people who gathered near the Kremlin wall
Sunday — by removing the party’s monopoly and ad
vancing to this summer a Party congress that will be
empowered to clear out conservatives on the Central
Committee.
Formally, the Central Committee has the power to
replace the party leader.
Indrek Toome, premier of the Baltic republic of Es
tonia and a guest at the party meeting, emphasized the
threat from hard-liners.
“I am worried about the wish of a fairly large pro
portion of the people in this hall to reverse things, so
as to clamp down on things and return to the old or
der,” Toome told Soviet TV.
Other speakers worried out loud about Gorbachev’s
political standing. Y.A. Gankovsky, a Siberian party
secretary, suggested Gorbachev’s position was weak
ened because he had taken on too many jobs.
“While you, Mikhail Sergeyevich, were only the
(party) general secretary — absolutely without flattery
I will say -— we felt that new ideas were born in the
party, that some kind of reformation work was under
way to break up the outlived and outdated,” Gan
kovsky said.“Now you have four posts. One gets the
impression that someone wants the general not to be
successful at any of them, scattering powers.”
In addition to being party general secretary, Gorba
chev is the Soviet president, chairman of the Defense
Council and a Politburo member.
Politburo member Yegor K. Ligachev, widely identi
fied as its leading conservative, received warm ap
plause for a speech criticizing failings in perestroika,
Gorbachev’s reform program, the Central Committee
source said.
“After somewhat of an enlivening in the first two
years of perestroika, the economy began to decline, in
ter-ethnic feuds reached bloodshed, people began to
experience fear, and in some places there is practically
dual power,” Ligachev said in remarks reported by the
Soviet news agency, Tass.
He said the Politburo, led by Gorbachev, and the
government committed “serious oversights and mis
takes.” He cited monetary problems that worsened
consumer goods shortages, a lack of supervision of
new economic forms and a “weakness of governent
discipline.”
“The gap between the word and deed is intolera
ble,” he continued.
On political reform, Ligachev demanded the plat
form include a clause emphasizing the sacredness of
party unity, and he said he firmly opposes allowing
private property, a demand of radical reformers.
Ligachev, 69, has generally taken a cautious ap
proach to reforming the country and last week came
under attack in a Soviet newspaper for his conservative
views. But in his speech Tuesday, he said he wants re
form quickly, denied he was a conservative, and said-
people who call him one are trying to divert the peo
ple’s attention.
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ienate elects
new speaker
)ro-tempore
Creates committee
to work with Food Services
By PAM MOOMAN
Of The Battalion Staff
I The Student Senate elected Leanne Rog-
its, a student senator for three years, as the
new speaker pro-tempore Tuesday.
| In other business, the Senate accepted a
Student Information Center bill and cre
ated the Food Services Ad-Hoc Committee
to work with Texas A&M Food Services.
E Ty Clevenger, speaker of the Senate, said
that the Student Senate has been trying to
gei a copy of the Food Services budget for a
couple of months, and finally succeeded.
I The new Food Services Committee will
look into the cost of food on campus, MSC
catering, policies that don’t allow student
groups to bring food on campus, campus
competition and the confiscation of funds,
siprh as Aggie Bucks, at the end of the se
mester.
|| In addition, Dick Britten, Republican
candidate for Precinct Four County Com
missioner, spoke at the meeting, saying that
loday’s Aggies are important because they
are stepping stones for future Aggies.
1 He said A&M students have a big impact
on the Bryan-College Station economy and
should get involved in Brazos County poli
tics.
I “County government is big business,”
Britten said. Brazos County will operate
nth a budget over $21 million this year, he
lid.
J County commissioner is the most impor
tant elected office in county government
ftcause of the many duties this office in
volves, he said.
■ Later, Jeff Starr, a student senator in-
vOlved in Bryan’s Sister City Association
with the Soviet Union, presented a slide
snow of the Soviet Union taken when he
■as there over the Christmas holidays.
B “They’re really anxious to send students
t<| the United States,” Starr said.
The best ambassadors for the United
lee Senate/Page 6
‘Permanent’ overassignments
cramp on-campus student life
By JILL BUTLER
Of The Battalion Staff
PART 1 OF A 3-PART SERIES
Many people live on campus to enjoy the benefits of being
centrally located and having everything nearby, including
friends. But even the closest roommates can get a little too close
when living quarters are cramped because of overassignments.
The biggest on-campus housing problem at Texas A&M is
the high demand for a limited number of rooms, Tom Murray,
associate director of student affairs for residence life at A&M,
said.
“Students want to live on campus because they are afraid if
they don’t, they will miss out on many of Texas A&M’s tradi
tions and activities,” Murray said.
To handle the high demand for on-campus housing, A&M
opened five new residence halls in Fall 1989.
Despite the extra rooms, almost 400 students, not including
Corps of Cadets members, were overassigned in the fall. These
residents lived in a study lounge or shared rooms with two
other people.
“We want to overassign at the beginning of the semester,”
Murray said. “It’s not a mistake.”
He said many students with on-campus rooms don’t show up
to live in these rooms each semester. If there aren’t overas
signed students to fill these unexpected vacancies, the rooms
remain empty or half-full.
“To operate at close to 100 percent occupancy, we go
through the overassignment process,” Murray said.
Every fall, 200 to 300 students begin the semester as overas
signments and usually are assigned permanent rooms within
the first three weeks of school, he said.
But last semester the number of overassignments reached a
record high because more students than expected accepted
housing contracts, and there were fewer housing cancellations
and no-shows.
Seven hundred students began the semester as overassign
ments and though some were reassigned to permanent rooms,
394 students remained overassigned the entire semester.
Leah Capel, a freshman general studies major from Little
Rock, Ark., was overassigned and lived with two other girls in
Neeley Hall.
“It wasn’t too bad at first,” Capel said. “But after a while it
was too much for me. There were too many people in one
room.”
All overassignments were notified of their status before
moving into their rooms and were given a partial refund of
their housing fee.
“I thought that since I was out of state and paying more
money for tuition, the least they could’ve done was give me a
room with just one other person,” Capel said.
She bought her own desk because, although there were
three roommates sharing a room, there was only enough furni
ture for two people.
The housing office tried to provide extra furniture for over-
assigned students but was unable to offer the furniture until
mid-November because of problems with organizing the pro
ject. .
This spring, no students have been overassigned. Now 126
spaces in women’s residence halls and 50 spaces in men’s halls,
not including Corps dormitories, are available.
Some residents live alone because there are not enough peo
ple to completely fill all rooms on campus.
Murray said a problem facing A&M four or five years from
now is the possibility that there will not be enough students liv-
“I
It wasn’t too bad at first. But after a while it
was too much for me. There were too many
people in one room."
— Leah Capel,
freshman
ing on-campus to fill existing residence halls during either se
mester.
Murray said more underclassmen than ever before are mov
ing off campus.
“We have begun to look at ways to make students want to live
on-campus,” he said.
One possible solution is additional co-ed housing, Murray
said.
There are 2,342 on-campus women’s rooms and 1,914 men’s
rooms, not including Corps dormitories.
Twenty-one residence halls are on north and central cam
pus, while on the Southside of campus there are 10, excluding
Corps dormitories.
Southside and Northside residence halls offer different
housing alternatives.
Leah Hanselka, president of the student-operated Residence
Hall Association, said some students find the advantages of liv
ing on Northside include the convenience of restaurants and
copying centers at Northgate.
Hanselka also said there is more action and more people on
Northside because more dorms are there.
She said some students like living on Southside because mail
delivery, on-campus dining facilities and games, such as pool
and table tennis, are all in one place.
The RHA governs A&M’s 31 residence halls and informs the
Department of Student Affairs about the needs and wants of
on-campus residents.
Wood secures
MSC Council
presidency
Win ends rigorous process
for applicants, judges
By SEAN FRERKING
Of The Battalion Staff
Mathew Wood, a junior political science
major from College Station, was selected as
MSC Council president last night.
Wood, currently the chairman of the
MSC Political Forum committee, was cho
sen after a rigorous process during which
candidates submitted applications stating
their experience, goals, leadership qualities
and reasons why they are running for the
office.
Following the initial application phase,
potential applicants are screened through
two 20-minute interviews by a panel of four
or five people. People seeking office also
are required to submit three performance
appraisals.
Anyone applying for office in the MSC
Council must go through the same applica
tion process, said Catherine Valenzuela, the
MSC Council executive vice-president of
marketing and personnel.
Valenzuela said Wood will be the council
representative to the student body and the
community and will give the organization
direction.
She said Wood will take over the office of
president from Jason Wilcox, a junior fi
nance major, on April 8 during Parents’
Weekend. All selected officers serve the
council for one year.
Valenzuela said the MSC Council oper
ates on a $3.5 million annual budget.
Student service fees provide $1.6 million
with the remaining money being raised
through ticket sales and fund-raising
events.
The council directs 1,400 programs
through its 27 committees.
Wood will head the council’s corporate
structure and delegate decisions through
the council, Valenzuela said.
Students having questions about the MSC
council should contact Catherine Valen
zuela at 845-0709.