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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (July 19, 1990)
^THe Battalion I Vol. 89 No. 175 USPS 045360 8 Pages College Station, Texas 4&i Stage Center Stage Center grips audience with adult drama “Rain.” See Lifestyles Page 4 Thursday, July 19,1990 I Woman endorsed only ail ^ P? for dean position for sireJ JL bl" By CHRIS VAUGHN Of The Battalion Staff ^ exas A&M could have a woman e hnwI'B ^ ean ' n t ^ ie College of Education be- » S' nn ‘ n S this fall if the Texas A&M t 50 University System Board of Regents „ « ■ approves the appointment of Dr. n t J Jane A. Stallings. a/ji-B Stallings, who presently is chair- if.-iu iB w °nian of the Department of Cur- „ I riculum and Instruction in the Uni- p ', J| versity of Houston’s College of ,, , e 7B Education, accepted A&M’s offer a J herC; few days ago. If the Board of Regents approves . P’lB her nomination next week, she will JrtwB become the first woman to serve as a ■ ^ ean at University. She would become dean effective Sept. 1. Stallings also would hold a ten- i McanitB ure( j p 0sll i 0n 0 f professor of educa- I tional curriculum and instruction at I A&M. “We are very excited to get some one of her stature and administra tive abilities,” Dr. E. Dean Gage, A&M Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs, said. “She is a na tionally recognized professional.” Stallings holds a bachelor of sci ence degree in elementary and sci ence education from Ball State Uni versity and a Ph.D. in education and child development from Stanford University. After receiving her doctorate from Stanford in 1970, Stallings was a staff member at the Stanford Re search Institute. She helped develop an observation instrument to eval uate the implementation of the Head Start and follow-through edu cation models. She remained there until 1980, when she began her own research institute, the Stallings Teacher and Learning Institute. In 1983, she became a professor of education and director of the Pea body Center for Effective Teaching at Vanderbilt University. She joined UH in 1986. Stallings serves on editorial boards of several professional jour nals, including the Journal of Re search in Childhood Education, Journal of Educational Psychology, and Teacher and Teacher Educa tion. She belongs to the American Edu cational Research Association, American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education and the As sociation of Teacher Educators. She also serves on the Board of the National Association of Second ary School Principals Curriculum Advisory Council and the U.S. De partment of Education’s program effectiveness panel of the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Educatio nal Research and Improvement. A rainbow broke through the clouds between showers over Briar- crest Drive in Bryan Wednesday afternoon. A 40 percent chance of rain is in the forecast for today. The rain which is expected to Photo by Mike C. Mulvey last through the end of the week has brought cooler tempera tures to the Brazos Valley. Those temperatures have been a wel come reprieve from the recent 100 degree heat. lairman i the pi I thinl'i se of s.:l approp' funds S ,$169 beginnr projecis: it Grain allow i finish i the sup* sen said gnets 4-mile ij i hoi sn tneo: undamf replatf iew shut i in Cal. idasha diameis 46-f “EXAS DN CNN newscast adds call-ins to program By ELIZABETH TISCH Of The Battalion Staff Media mogul Ted Turner has done it again. First he added color to classic black-and-white movies. Now he has added viewer choice to conven tional news pro- -p, .oMr-m grams. TURNER Turner’s Cable News Network, which started in 1980, announced the first experiment in “interac tive news” by a national network based on the concept of two-way communication between viewers and programmers. Jeff Braun, KBTX-TV news director, said establishing “one- on-one” contact with the viewers is a plus for any TV station. The experiment will begin Monday on CNN’s “Newsnight,” an hour-long newscast at mid night. At the beginning of the pro gram, viewers will see a list of sec ondary news topics or feature sto ries across the screen. Viewers then vote for their choice by dialing a 900 number. The call costs 95 cents. The story with the most votes will be aired. In an Associated Press article, CNN’s spokesman was quoted as saying viewers will not dictate the news, but viewer participation will indicate to CNN what topics interest them. Braun said the interaction builds loyalty between the station and the audience. However, he said CNN’s new interactive news program is ac tually not very new at all. “I think that it is just now out of the closet,” he said. “KBTX has done research to find what types of stories our audience would like to see, and then we tailor our product to that. “I think all CNN is doing is say ing to their viewers, ‘We want to do some research here on open airwaves and find out what you would like to see.’ ” Although Braun does not see interactive news in KBTX’s fu ture, he is not opposed to CNN’s approach in delivering the news, because it involves the audience in the program. Dr. Don Tomlinson, A&M pro fessor of media law, said the in teractive news program is a won derful approach to getting viewers involved. He added, however, that one downfall of the program and to any other program involving poll results is the possibility of invalid generalizations, because the sam ple may not be representative of the whole public. There has not been any word of similar interactive news pro grams with the Big Three net works — ABC, CBS or NBC — according to a recent interview with the Associated Press. Emissions issue concerns state By KATHY COX Of The Battalion Staff Texas faces a potentially no-win situation about the issue of government control of carbon dioxide emis sions. Carbon dioxide emissions have been under scrutiny because of the global warming theory. The theory says carbon dioxide built up in Earth’s at mosphere is causing a warming trend by trapping the sun’s heat. “It’s an important issue in Texas, and one we should try to keep better tabs on,” Dr. Bruce McCarl, an econo mist with the Texas Agricultural Experiment Station, said. Texas produces about 12 percent of the nation’s total carbon dioxide emissions, according to “Reducing the Rate of Global Warming: The States’ Role,” a Novem ber 1988 report by Renew America, a Washington D.C. organization. Restrictions on carbon dioxide emissions would af fect Texas’ petrochemical industry, which is largely re sponsible for the high level of emissions. If no restrictions are imposed and global warming continues, however, the agricultural industry in Texas could suffer in the next 50 to 75 years. McCarl said the present level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which is the highest in history, will double in the next 50 to 75 years if output is not changed. McCarl and a group of scientists used national agri cultural, climatic and agroeconomic models in a project for the Environmental Protection Agency to examine the effects of expected carbon dioxide levels on U.S. ag riculture. Because reductions in carbon dioxide output may take years to show any real impact, McCarl said the EPA wants research to see what the situation could be years from now. “We can’t wait to see what it will do,” he said. “The EPA would like to see if the costs of regulation now are outweighed by future benefits.” If climatic changes calculated by the NASA Goddard Institute of Space Studies and the Princeton Geophysi cal Fluid Dynamics Laboratory are correct, U.S. agricul ture could change significantly and Texas agriculture’s output could be reduced drastically. From a best-case scenario, McCarl said U.S. agricul tural output could remain the same. But his studies also show that one-third of the total value of U.S. agricul ture possibly could be wiped out. “This doesn’t adversely affect our ability to feed our selves,” McCarl said. “But it does affect exports.” Agricultural exports would be greatly reduced in this case, he said. Climatic changes also will affect the location of U.S. crops. U.S. agriculture will see regional changes, McCarl said, including a northward shift of crop production. Texas is one of the areas that will be adversely af fected, he said. At best, McCarl’s projections show a 10-percent loss in Texas agriculture. Projections reveal a 40-percent decline in Texas production at the worst. Texas should play a part in carbon dioxide emission regulation, McCarl said, because the state, which relies on petrochemicals and agriculture, is affected both ways. “If they do nothing, we lose ... and if they do some thing, we lose,” he said. “We should pay attention and try to come out of this as good as possible.” Battalion poll shows concern over school’s research emphasis By MIKE LUMAN Of The Battalion Staff An overwhelming number of stu dents think research is emphasized more than teaching at Texas A&M, according to a Battalion poll. The majority also feel they have had an instructor whose perfor mance was hindered by his or her re search. The Battalion poll is a survey of Texas A&M students intended to measure opinions about campus-re lated issues. The poll, which will be conducted periodically, is taken from a random sample of students attending sum mer school. A sample of 442 stu dents was obtained from telephone interviews. A total of 81 percent of students polled said research received more attention than teaching did at A&M. Ten percent said teaching was emphasized more than research, and nine percent had no opinion. When asked if they had ever had an instuctor whose performance was hindered by his or her research, 60 percent of the students polled said yes. A total of 29 percent said they never had an instuctor whose per formance was affected by research while 11 percent had no opinion. University President William H. Mobley said in an April article in The Battalion that there is a conflict between teaching and research. The issue is too simply put if it’s teaching versus researcn though, he Which do you think is em phasized more at Texas A&M — research or teaching? ■ Research — 81 percent H Teaching — 10 percent □ No opinion — 9 percent said. He said a major university has multiple roles including undergrad uate teaching, research, and services such as continuing education. Mobley added research brings in income that is used for state-of-the- art equipment, and the equipment frequently benefits undergraduate students. A random sample of 400 yields a margin of error of plus or minus five percentage points with 95 percent confidence. This implies that if the total stu dent population were surveyed, the Have you ever had an instructor whose performance you felt was hindered by his/her research? ■ Yes — 60 percent f§ No — 29 percent □ No opinion — 11 percent results obtained in the present sam ple would be within plus or minus five percentage points. The poll was conducted exclu sively for The Battalion by Research Associates, a firm operated by A&M students Alister Miller and Mitch Peck. Miller and Peck are graduate stu dents in the sociology department. Monique Threadgill, editor of The Battalion and senior journalism major, asks students to call The Bat talion office at 845-2647 if students who participate in the poll encoun ter any problems. Officials, manufacturer disagree on accuracy, uses of radar equipment By MIKE LUMAN Of The Battalion Staff Local law enforcement officials and a leading manufacturer of radar detectors are on opposite sides of the road when it comes to interpreting facts about the accuracy of police ra dar. Cincinnati Microwave, the com pany that makes the Escort detector, claims up to 30 percent of radar- • Radar banning/Page 3 based tickets are in error. The publication that makes the claim explains the operation of traf fic radar and lists several failings in herent to any radar unit small enough to be used from a car. Most charges hinge on the fact traffic radar displays only one read out, and human error is possible when deciding which vehicle on a crowded road is the source. Law enforcement officers said the technical information in the report was correct. Lt. Mike Mathews, commander of technical services for the College Station Police Department, said there is a possibility of bias in the conclusions. “They are selling a product, radar detectors, to defeat traffic radar,” Mathews said. “Naturally, they will point out everything they can think of that’s bad or at fault.” The CM I report states a skilled operator would not write a ticket without being absolutely sure, but a less-skilled operator might write the ticket and be wrong. “A careless operator intent on filling his quota might see the num ber and single out a likely perpetra tor — the red sports car — and be done with it,” the report reads. Terry Field, a trooper with the lo cal office for the Department of Public Safety, said traffic radar does have limitations. “Accuracy comes from training and experience,” Field said. “We don’t just turn the radar on and pick out a car,” he said. “We ob serve the vehicles approaching and make a determination of approxi mate speed. “We know which vehicle we think is speeding before we ever turn the radar on,” he said. Field said officers are retrained and certified on radar about every two years. The CMI report contains infor- Graphic by J. Richard Ellis mation from the state DPS manual used in radar training. Nine situations recognized by the DPS that can produce “error read ings” are listed. Field said there is considerable room for operator error if adequate training is not available. He added that poorly trained op erators certainly exist in some places. “I would rather let somebody go who is speeding than write some body up for speeding who is not,” Field said. “I think that’s true of most officers.” Mathews agreed operator skill must come into play and an officer’s judgement is important for an accu rate reading on a crowded road. Field said he was curious where CMI got its 30 percent error figure. The officer who wrote a ticket and the person who received it are the only two who know for sure, he said. A CMI representative said com pany engineers prepared the report and estimated the figure. Some officers, including Sgt. Greg Lewis of the CSPD, refused to com ment on the report because of its na ture. “I don’t have to answer a claim by a radar detector manufacturer to de fend our use of radar,” Lewis said. The report is free by mail from CMI, 1-800-543-1608. Correction A story in Tuesday’s issue of The Battalion incorrectly quoted Steve Ogden, Republican candi date for state representative, about maximum terms for state senators and representatives. Ogden said the maximum length a Texas representative should be in office is six terms, while a state senator’s stay in of fice should not exceed three terms. Representatives’ terms are two years, and senators’ terms are four years. The Battalion regrets the er ror.