Thursday
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‘If he (Bush) would just quit
spending money to fight nice
guys like Saddam, we could do
so much good! —Thom Ives
Man can/page i
AGS SWEEP
i-ranked Texas A&M base
ball team sweeps UTA, pre
pares for SWC opener.
page 7
All Cleared Up
Rep. Steve Ogden clarifies
voter registration card
election confusion page
The Battalion
90 No. 113 USPS 045360 10 Pages College Station, Texas
'Serving Texas A&M since 1893'
Wednesday, March 20,1991
State revenue restraints freeze hiring of A&M personnel
By Timm Doolen
The Battalion
A major revenue cut prompted
Texas A&M to freeze the creation of
new positions, and administrators said
although cuts will hurt, they will not
drastically affect academic programs.
Dr. E. Dean Gage, provost and vice
president for academic affairs, said the
state comptroller's office informed
A&M March 11 that $3.2 million must
be returned to the state. The cuts are
intended to help offset the state's $296
million budget shortfall this year.
The returned revenue will be taken
from all departments that receive state
appropriations, but will not affect re
search grants, business services and
most student services.
The $3.2 million is about 1.5 percent
of A&M's $209 million in appropria
tions and revenues. But because the
fiscal year is half over, the cut will feel
more like a 3 percent cut for depart
ments and colleges. Gage said.
The freeze, which calls for no new
positions to be created until Aug. 31 —
the end of the fiscal year — is a result
of the administration having to look at
every possible mechanism and source
to come up with the revenue. Gage
said.
He said this freeze is not the same as
a complete hiring freeze because open
positions can be filled.
He said he did not know how it
would affect student worker positions
since each department and college has
autonomy over how it will make its
cuts.
He said there will be some cuts in
workforce and wages, but it is impossi
ble to determine now each individual
department will make those reduc
tions.
Assistant Provost Dan Parker said
the cuts in the academic colleges will
be closer to 1.1 percent because of the
use of reserve funds to compensate for
some cuts.
A memorandum from University
President William Mobley dated March
5 called for the new position freeze and
also urged deans and department
heads to leave open positions vacant.
But Parker said this should not be
viewed as a de facto hiring freeze. He
said faculty recruiting is not affected,
critical positions will be filled and peo
ple with a good case for working prob
ably will not be denied jobs.
Mobley said the new position freeze
and the budget cuts are necessary to
meet this year's shortfall and also to
anticipate possible cuts in next year's
budget.
"We don't know what our budget for
next year will be, and we won't know
until the summer," Mobley said. "We
need to be careful we don't overcom
mit."
Mobley said he wanted to stress
See Budget/Page 5
'We need to be very careful'
Committee
aids search
for new coach
By Scott Wudel
The Battalion
Texas A&M Athletic Director
John David Crow said Tuesday a
newly formed advisory commit
tee wall help in the search for
Kermit Davis Jr.'s replacement.
Crow said he conferred with
A&M President William Mobley
and created a five-member panel
composed of members from the
Athletic Council, the administra
tion and faculty.
The Search Advisory Commit
tee and Crow will evaluate all
coaching applicants before rec
ommending a candidate to Mob
ley.
Crow would not release the
names of the committee mem
bers.
The committee met for the first
time Tuesday afternoon to
"draw the picture of the coach
we'd like to nave," Crow said.
He said he would like the com
mittee to interview top candi
dates this year. Last year Davis
was not interviewed by an advi
sory committee before he was
hired.
The athletic director said inter
est in the coaching vacancy has
been intense since Davis' resig
nation last Friday.
Crow said no timetable has
been set for hiring a new coach,
but that he has been bombarded
with phone messages, resumes
and tapes from interested candi
dates.
"This is a funny business,"
Crow said. "You don't have to
announce the job and say we're
accepting applications — they
come to us.
"We've got to decide what is
best for A&M and go from there.
We need to be very careful. We
cannot afford another setback —
we just can't."
Crow said interest in the job is
See Search/Page 8
M. MULVEY/The Battalion
J. JANNER/The Battalion
F. JOE/The Battalion
Former A&M basketball coach Kermit Davis Jr. (above, right) has performed at Texas. Davis said it
(above) warned against hoping for a quick turnaround would take him two or three years to revive the pro
of the basketball program, like the one Tom Penders gram, but he resigned shortly after his first year.
Crow hopes troubled
program stabilizes
By Richard Tijerina
The Battalion
The revitalization of Texas
A&M basketball was one of John
David Crow's top priorities
when he became athletic director
in 1988. But Crow — three years
and three head coaches later —
still is waiting for the great revi
val.
Scandal, coaching changes
and losing seasons have tainted
a once proud Aggie basketball
program. With the possibility of
NCAA probation now looming
over A&M's future. Crow began
the search process Monday for a
head coach.
Kermit Davis Jr.'s resignation
last Friday left the Aggies with
out a coach for the third time in a
little more than one year. But
Crow said Tuesday that he is
hesitant to find a coach too
quickly: his three-year old
agenda still waits, and rushing
to find Davis' replacement might
do more harm than good.
"We need to take our time and
hire a person that has the same
goals that the University and the
administration has," Crow said.
"That goal is to build a solid
foundation and be patient. (Da
vis' resignation) is a setback.
What has happened to the bas
ketball program is a setback.
"There's been an awful lot of
interest in the job, but we've got
to decide what's best for A&M
and go from there. We need to
be very, very careful. We cannot
afford another setback. We just
can't."
When asked if the list of appli
cants was as qualified as last
year's when A&M hired Davis,
Crow said, "Yes." When asked if
any of those coaches were the
same as last year, he said, "I
think there are some coaches out
there looking for jobs every year.
If they don't get one this year,
they'll look to the next year."
□ We Asked and You Said/Page 4
□ Crow weathers storm/Page 7
Several big names were men
tioned in the Aggie coaching sce
nario in 1990, including Georgia
Tech's Bobby Cremins, the Uni
versity of Alabama-Birming-
ham's Gene Bartow and Xavier's
Pete Gillen.
Oklahoma State's Eddie Sut
ton, also rumored as a possible
candidate in 1990, described
A&M as one of the last places in
the country where a coach could
come in and build a great pro
gram. Sutton's no stranger to
program revivals — he is the
only coach in history to take four
different teams to the NCAA
Tournament — and his Cowboys
still are going strong in the Tour
nament.
"Eddie Sutton is right," Crow
said. "This (program) is a sleep
ing giant. If we can do it in foot
ball, we can do it in basketball."
Crow said he knows the an
swers to A&M's basketball di
lemma. To build a successful
program, the Aggies need to
start with a coach who will give
the program its much needed
stability.
Arkansas' departure from the
Southwest Conference only
makes the need more important
for A&M to get its basketball
program back on track. Without
the Razorbacks, Texas and
Houston remain as the only
SWC teams that have legitimate
NCAA hopes next season.
A&M has a large number of
former students in major reve
nue markets across the state,
and a successful basketball pro
gram to go along with its football
success would be a boon to the
SWC.
"Texas in just three years has
increased their income in basket
ball probably tenfold," Crow
See Crow/Page 10
Kuwaiti professor details
four months of atrocities
By Timm Doolen
The Battalion
A Kuwaiti political science professor
who was in Kuwait for the first four
months of the Iraqi occupation de
scribed some of the atrocities he wit
nessed while in Kuwait.
Speaking to the Young Conserva
tives in the MSC Tuesday night. Dr.
Abdullah Alshayeji described the three
things he will never forget about the
time he spent in occupied Kuwait.
"I saw a four-year-old girl shot be
fore my eyes," he said. "Her crime was
she was wearing a dress with a Kuwaiti
flag on it."
Another thing he said he would
never forget is seeing the last embrace
of an American wife to her husband
before she left for freedom while he
stayed behind. Iraqi president Saddam
Hussein allowed American and British
women and children to leave Kuwait
several weeks into the siege.
The Western women had to decide
whether they would take their chance
on freedom or stay by their husbands,
Alshayeji said. He said many women
had to say goodbye to their husbands
whom they might never see again.
See Professor/Page 10
Board of Regents considers
plan to increase campus fees
A&M President Bill Mobley has pro
posed to the Board of Regents that 10
campus fees be increased.
By Mike Luman
The Battalion
The Texas A&M University System
Board of Regents is scheduled to raise
10 campus fees this week, including a
sizable graduate tuition rate hike and a
computer access fee increase.
The Board will consider fee increases,
submitted by University President Wil
liam Mobley, during a meeting Thurs
day. Regents will vote to authorize the
increased rates Friday.
Other proposed rate hikes are to
A&M's off-campus bus system, diploma
fee, transcript fee, elective and achieve
ment test charges and existing field trip
fees.
The Board also will consider estab
lishing field trip fees for horticulture
and forest science courses and will de
cide the fate of a proposed Commons
mailbox rental fee.
All fee hikes will be effective before
the end of the year if approved, except
the graduate tuition increase, which will
begin Fall 1992.
See A&M/Page 10