Texas A&M
Battalion
Finals
Survival Guide
Study tips, ways to
procrastinate, eye-openers, and
exam schedule S ee Section B
Vol.89 No.144 USPS 045360 12 Pages
College Station, Texas
Wednesday, May 2,1990
niversity of Houston confirms choice for president
■anon
preser
i Lain
hat tin
k’s leal
* froi! J HOUSTON (AP) — Marguerite Ross
M,,l: Barnett was confirmed Tuesday as presi-
«nt of the University of Houston, making
the first woman and first black to serve
JCt ^ in the position.
rki1IH“It * s w * t h enthusiasm and confidence
Jl' "■at I accept the challenges and responsibi-
-te, ut jjkgj as president of the University of
ouston,” Barnett said following a unani-
ous vote by the University of Houston
stem’s board of regents.
Con-
amoiij
3 Mon'
ttion oi
>kesw(,
Barnett, 47, who has been chancellor of
e University of Missouri-St. Louis since
l‘i86, became the lone finalist in the eight-
EsiOiliMonth search for a new school president af
rits be.
Wort:
nnexee
Up jUJi
ationo:
iblishei
govern-
aid that
d favotjy JULIE MEYERS
™»ilhe Battalion Staff
repub-4
>r mat Ia democratic victory and the col
ter two other candidates withdrew last
month.
The new president of the 32,500-student
university said it did not bother her that she
was the only candidate for the board to in
terview.
Barnett pledged to make the university a
partnership with the community and indus
try to secure the school’s development
going into the next century. She also hopes
to implement a retention program for stu
dents, especially minorities.
Barnett said one of her main concerns is
to encourage high school students to get a
college education.
Board Chairman Kenneth Lay said Bar
nett was “a nationally recognized leader in
education whose experience at first-rate ur
ban and research-oriented universities
make her a perfect match for UH. Barnett’s
abilities as a teacher, researcher, adminis
trator, and fund raiser can only be de
scribed as ‘brilliant.’”
Barnett, who is scheduled to take office
Sept. 1, succeeds Richard Van Horn, who
left in July to become president of the Uni
versity of Oklahoma. Barnett is the eighth
president of the 63-year-old school.
Alex Schilt, chancellor of the University
of Houston, said he and Barnett had
agreed upon a multi-year contract which
will pay $ 152,000 annually.
Eva Frazer, president of the University
of Missouri System’s nine-member board of
curators, said last week the system had
hopes of keeping Barnett at the 15,000-stu
dent university.
“The curators and I were eager to keep
Chancellor Barnett in Missouri, but the
Houston offer — and the scope of the ca
reer opportunity and the new challenge for
her there —far outweighed anything we
were able to offer,” said University of Mis
souri President C. Peter Magrath. “Hous
ton is fortunate to acquire her services; the
University of Missouri System was fortu
nate to have had them.”
Barnett received a B.A. in political sci
ence from Antioch College and her mas
ter’s and Ph.D. degrees in political science
from the University of Chicago. She has
taught at the University of Chicago, Prince
ton, Howard and Columbia universities.
She also has worked as a community de
velopment worker in Turkey, an exchange
student in England, and a researcher in In
dia.
Barnett served as vice chancellor for aca
demic affairs at City University of New
York before going to St. Louis.
isiting prof discusses likelihood
of democratic victory in China
?nt
o folk
ora the
dak
publicii
ic trail-
apse of the communist dictatorship
ee darijj t h e People’s Republic of China are
ian Sujoih inevitable, said a visiting pro-
was to-^sor from China,
ululate Dr. Ming Shen Zhou, a guest lec-
laratio£ ur er in the sociology and political
ence departments, said the force
democracy in China has never
n stronger than today.
“Democracy has proved to be an
e atij#estible historical trend in the
rid,” Zhou said.
The Chinese Communists are
ck in a vicious cycle.
The experience in the Soviet
:s men; Jnion and China has proved that
irch Economic efficiency can be achieved
voterijnly at the expense of political stabil-
aboiqy and political stability can be
M|Biieved at the expense of economic
predkiffidency, Zhou said.
•ybattlt “Communist political and eco-
ue lattiiomic assistance cannot provide
H^Jrk incentive,” Zhou said. “The re-
igtobtulting economic inefficiency has
Andiloomed generations to miserable
idepecjonditions. Political or economic re-
Front'orm will cause great disorder and
the Silly crackdown would push the
hddiaftnomy into recession or depres-
n, which provokes still greater dis-
ler."
ast summer’s Tianamen Square
ssacre in Beijing was not the first
n of a democratic movement in
movements have appeared again
and again, and the intervals have be
come shorter and shorter,” Zhou
said.
In 1956 and 1957, Western
trained Chinese intellectuals and
university students led an attack on
the party state.
Zhou said the party was attacked
for breaking its promises to practice
hail S.|
ied Lat-
ild offai
in art
tion ba;
-ight Si
ma.
Since
1949, democracy
Photo by Eric H. Roalson
Mingshen Zhou
democracy and for its treachery and
hypocrisy.
“When we look at the Tianamen
Square event from a historical point
of view, we see that it was the nec
essary continuation of these series of
democracy movements,” he said.
The Chinese people began to rec
ognize that all Communist or social
ist oriented governments were poor.
“The Chinese peasants said social
ism means poverty,” Zhou said.
Additionally, by 1989 all class ti
tles and castes had been abolished,
not by the Communist government,
but by the peasants themselves.
Zhou said that because the peas
ants had been awakened to the cor
ruption of the party members who
encouraged the caste system, they
realized that there was no reason to
hate each other or monitor every
one’s activities.
The Communists encouraged the
use of a hierarchical class system to
divide people and destroy unity
thereby hoping to prevent uprisings.
“The Tianamen Event was evi
dence that the rigid hierarchical, dic
tatorial system had totally collap
sed,” Zhou said. “Party officials were
panic stricken.”
Profiteering party officials were
also used as a rallying cry of the stu
dents at Tianamen Square.
These officials made money by
selling commodities many times be
fore they were used. With each suc
ceeding sale, the price increased. By
the time the goods filtered down to
the lower classes, the prices were
outrageous, Zhou said.
Further signs of the Communist
collapse are readily apparent. The
Muslim minority in China is revolt
ing as well as the people of Inner
Mongolia.
The Chinese Communist leaders
only hasten their demise by their un-
precendented isolation from the
outside world, he said.
Chinese people are still outraged
over the massacre, Zhou said, but he
said he hopes he lives to see the day
when he can go back.
Squadron 4 guidon bearer Enrique Arroyo prac
tices his guidon routine Tuesday near Dorm 6.
Photo byJayJanner
He will perform the routine at the Final Review,
which is scheduled for May 12th.
ublic criticism about economy mars Soviet May Day parade
year as preferring a parade like
those before the 1917 revolution,
when May Day was marked with
smaller, spontaneous affairs aimed
at voicing workers’ grievances about
the czarist regime.
{MOSCOW (AP) — Tens of thou-
ds of protesters in Red Square
leashed their fury at Mikhail S.
rbachev Tuesday, turning the tra-
ional May Day parade into an out-
puring of complaints about the
conomy and the blockade of Lithu-
■The Soviet president has allowed
pe debate in the press and politics
Id endured public criticism. But
Iver before has he had to person-
Jy face such an outburst of discon-
ent over his policies, from both
ight and left.
IfThe criticism included jeers to the
l:es of Soviet leaders.
|jGorbachev, 59, tapped his fingers
)n the parapet of the red granite re
dwing stand during the protest,
lowing his impatience, but other
wise was impassive. He and the other
officials left after enduring the unof
ficial demonstrators for about 20
minutes.
Neither Gorbachev nor any of the
other Communist or government
leaders on the reviewing stand spoke
to the crowd.
Dozens of the demonstrators car
ried the yellow, red and green na
tional flags of the breakaway Lithua
nian republic and shouted “Shame!”
and “Freedom For Lithuania!”
Some waved their fists at the lead
ers, numbering about two dozen,
and shouted “Resign!” over the holi
day music blaring from loudspeak
ers.
One caustic sign likened the So
viet leadership to Nicolae Ceausescu,
the Romanian dictator executed in
December after a popular uprising.
“Kremlin Ceausescus: From Arm
chairs to Prison Beds,” it read.
The leaders clearly expected some
criticism. They authorized the unof
ficial demonstration, and took con
trol of the traditional parade that
preceded it from local Communist
Party and government officials.
But they likely did not expect the
tone to be quite so angry or the scale
quite so large.
Gorbachev’s popularity has waned
during his five years in office be
cause his reforms have failed to re
solve chronic economic problems.
Many people believe supplies of
food, housing and consumer goods
actually are worse under Gorbachev.
He also is under fire for the block
ade of oil, raw materials and other
goods he imposed on Lithuania to
force the Baltic republic to back off
its March 11 declaration of indepen
dence.
For decades, the Red Square rally
on May Day has been an orches
trated show of support for official
policies. Entry onto Red Square was
rigidly controlled. This year, there
was little of the usual polite praise.
Just about anyone could join the
march on the gray cobblestone
stretching from the Historical Mu
seum to the multi-colored St. Basil’s
Cathedral.
“We are all so very tired of these
formal galas, when long before the
holiday the lists of demonstration
participants were put out,” said the
official news agency Tass.
Soviet leaders went on record this
: regime.
What they got instead were post
ers that declared, “Down with the
Empire of Red Fascism,” and “To
day a Blockade of Lithuania, To
morrow a Blockade of Moscow.”
The black flags of an anarchist
group stood out in the sea of colors.
The wave of protesters continued
to file through Red Square, which
holds about 50,000 marchers, for
more than an hour after the leaders
left. Police gradually, and appar
ently gently, moved them along.
A Landfill protesters
Geologist: Sea walls
will destroy beaches
By BILL HETHCOCK
Of The Battalion Staff
ike Worsham, Bryan resident, protests the
pening of the Bryan-College Station joint landfill,
brsham is a proponent of recycling a wide vari-
ty of materials including aluminum, glass, metal,
Photo by Eric H. Roalson
all types of paper products, plastics and waste oil.
There are locations in the Bryan-College Station
area to recycle all of these materials.
If Americans don’t carefully mon
itor their beaches, future genera
tions of beach-goers will find them
selves sunbathing on concrete
seawalls instead of sandy shorelines,
a coastal geologist said in a seminar
Tuesday.
Orrin Pilkey, a naturalist from
Duke University, said sea walls are
destroying beaches in the United
States and advocated “natural”
beach management. Natural beach
management prohibits further
building of sea walls and prohibits
people from rebuilding beach-front
property after it is destroyed in a
storm.
Rising sea levels over time lead
beaches with sea walls to be squeezed
between the waterline and the wall,
causing beaches to become narrower
and eventually disappear, Pilkey
said.
If sea walls are not built, beaches
and barrier islands migrate natu
rally, he said. Pilkey, speaking at a
seminar sponsored by the Texas
A&M geology department, advo
cated not building along the shore
line and letting nature take its course
with existing beaches.
“There is no shoreline erosion
problem until we are there,” he said.
“Let’s not blame mother nature. It’s
not nature’s problem, it’s our prob
lem.”
Four states - New Jersey, Maine,
North Carolina and South Carolina -
now have laws prohibiting further
construction of sea walls, Pilkey said.
Texas does not have such a law, but
does have the Open Beaches Act
which provides for access to beaches
and restricts sea wall building.
Galveston and South Padre Island
are the two main problem areas in
Texas, Pilkey said. Overall, however,
the Texas beachline is in good condi
tion with a low percentage of shore
line behind sea walls compared to
other states, he said.
Pilkey said people should not be
allowed to rebuild after their house
is destroyed in a storm, because this
is a sign that the house was too close
to the beach. This has led to contro
versy between beach-front property
owners and proponents of natural
beach management, he said.
“The problem is that people will
fight tooth and nail to rebuild in the
exact same place where their house
was just destroyed by a hurricane,”
he said. “Nature could hardly de
liver a clearer message than total de
struction of your house, but people
insist on rebuilding.”
Pilkey also delivered a warning to
prospective owners of beach-front
property.
“If you have a house and can see
the sea, the sea can see you too.”
Man protests
high utilities,
starts fast
By CHRIS VAUGHN
Of The Battalion Staff
A former Texas A&M student
began a hunger strike Tuesday in
protest of high utility costs, but
College Station Mayor Larry
Ringer said the city has tried to
help him and can do no more.
Charles Schoonover, who was
sitting at the corner of Texas
Avenue and Francis Drive hold
ing a sign that read, “I’m starting
my hunger strike,” said his
friends are dying because they
must choose between paying the
electric bill and eating.
“The point is that people have
to make a choice between eating
and their electricity,” Schoonover
He has this fixed
idea that he can be
excused from paying the
bills everybody else has
to pay,”
—Larry Ringer,
College Station Mayor
said. “That’s ridiculous. The sys
tem is only getting worse. But no
one will admit there is a prob
lem.”
But Ringer said he has met
with Schoonover and said the for
mer student refuses help of agen
cies designed to assist those who
cannot pay utility bills on time.
“I don’t know what else I can
do,” Ringer said. “We’ve tried to
help him.”
Schoonover said he has gone
four weeks without electricity, but
Ringer said his electricity was
shut off because he made late
payments and wrote a bad check
to the electric company.
Ringer said he referred Schoo
nover to the Red Cross and other
community action groups for
help with the utility bill, but he re
fuses the help.
“He has this fixed idea that he
See Protest/Page 4