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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (June 19, 1991)
1 8,199l arts ^ I stick, r °m the i said. "F rc . y> Hispar !Cr in\inaw e °pener:| ce there," dzed eai is weighs aorities, ii°n incom are the ni thinkingW Vol. 90 No. 156 CJSPS 045360 6 Pages said. Texas A&M Sailing Club looking to build ' upon the past year's successes. pages "Gas is too cheap!" - Tim Truesdale pages Protect yourself against the ultra-violet rays this summer. — T page 2 maintat The Battalion College Station, Texas "Serving Texas A&M since 1893" Wednesday, 19, 1991 ays onsult wit a nearly; the Sovit lett said i be caret to the Soy 'e put into: said. "Ty put so®' average o: ve rnustnt etions. The to best hel: 1\S rban area; nearly i gated.’ late Depar sman fcd ned thef trie mome: afiik \1 mum—* 1 V). LB. vyBORGER TH FRIES + U\RGE SOFT drimk + SUPER iUMDAE ONLV 4.99 WITH OUPOH ZA id it 1393 High school students experience A&M at summer program By Tammy Bryson The Battalion While most high school juniors are spending the summer waiting anx iously for their senior year to begin, a select few are preparing for a more dis tant future at Texas A&M's Honors In vitational summer program. Top high school students from across the state participate in this two- day program designed to highlight the unique opportunities available at A&M. Students invited to the Honors Invi tational are selected on the basis of their Pre-Scholastic Achievement Test (PSAT) scores, progress in National Merit, Achievement and Hispanic competitions and recommendations by their high school counselors. "This program is an effective recruit ing tool for top high school students," said Dr. Dale Knobel, director of A&M's Honors Program. Students involved in the program are looking at colleges on a national level, he said. "We want them to fully understand our honors program before they make a final decision on which college to at tend," he said. The Honors Invitational program has become so popular that many eligi ble students cannot be accepted, Kno bel said. Of the more than 1,500 stu dents who apply for the program, only 800 can be accommodated. The five weekly sessions take place every Monday and Tuesday in June and continue through the first week of July. The session has 160 students and in cludes a general presentation of the honors and scholarship opportunities at A&M. The deans of various colleges also talk to the students about courses, degree requirements and career choices. An important part of the program is that visiting students are divided into smaller groups so they get a chance to talk with professors and ask questions, Knobel added. One reason for the popularity of the program is that the students get to stay on campus and experience firsthand what A&M is all about, he said. Participants also get the chance to discuss extra-curricular activities with A&M students who have been in volved in the honors program. These orientation leaders encourage the stu dents to take part in their "other" edu cation. "We have hundreds of clubs and or ganizations where you can meet new people, learn new skills and have a great time," said Dylan Stafford, an orientation leader and Class of '91. Stafford was involved in the honors program while completing a degree in history. He also attended the Honors Invitational before he came to A&M. "The program definitely influenced my decision to come to A&M," he said. "It exposed me to the many opportuni ties available here, and everyone was very friendly." Craig Blessing, a high school senior from Arlington, said he has enjoyed the two-day program. "It has given me a good idea of what the honors program is all about," he said. "I haven't decided for sure about which college to attend, but Texas A&M is a definite possibility." Military exclusion Officials still reluctant to allow women to fly combat missions despite Gulf War WASHINGTON (AP) — Top military officials on Tuesday said they would be reluctant to allow women to fly combat missions, even though women performed well during the Persian Gulf War. However, the Pentagon's top personnel official said the mili tary would be willing to stop ex cluding women from combat flights as long as effectiveness was not impaired. "I am not enthusiastic about increasing the exposure of women to combat," said Gen. Merrill McPeak, the Air Force chief of staff. He said he found "great comfort in the law" that bars women in the Air Force, Navy and Marines from flying combat aircraft. The Army is not covered by the legal prohibition, but main tains an internal policy banning women from combat. McPeak said that despite his "personal reluctance" to allow ing women in combat roles, the military will move toward "gender-neutral" standards for combat pilots if the law is changed. McPeak's comments were echoed by Gen. Alfred Gray, the Marine commandant; Gen. Carl Vuono, the Army chief of staff; and Adm. Frank Kelso, chief of naval operations. "We in the corps see no need to change anything," Gray said. "Things seem to be going ex tremely well." The service chiefs appeared before the Senate Armed Serv ices Committee's manpower and ersonnel subcommittee, which card testimony on the emotion ally charged issue of whether to change the law excluding women from combat assign ments. Christopher Jehn, assistant secretary of defense for person nel, told the panel that the mili tary supports giving women more opportunities, but the De fense Department wants "maxi mum flexibility in regulating women in combat." "We must ensure there is no adverse impact on readiness or combat effectiveness," he said. The House last month in cluded a provision in its version of the 1992 defense budget bill that would permit women to fly combat missions. The Senate this summer will consider whether to go along, or perhaps give women even more leeway. The Army is not covered by the combat law, but maintains an internal policy barring women from combat. The drive to open more mili tary doors to women stemmed from their high-profile perfor mance in Operations Desert Storm and Desert Shield. Of the 540,000 troops assigned to the Persian Gulf, 35,000 were women. Eleven of them died; five in hostile action. Gray cautioned that the Gulf War was not an accurate mea sure of how women will perform in all cases because that conflict was unique. "This was not the ultimate test of sustained combat ... it was a short war," Gray said. The chiefs conceded a combat ban is not always fair to women who aspire to the prestige flying jobs, but they said it presents lo gistical problems such as having women on naval ships where space is tight. Salim Zachem, a junior business major from London, collided with a pickup. Zachem had just pulled out of surveys the damage to the car he was driving when he his parking spot on Olsen Drive when the truck hit him. Reforms may mean reduced insurance costs By Karen Praslicka The Battalion Insurance industry observers say reforms in the insurance in- dustiy mean increased competi tion for Texas insurance compa nies, and eventually lower prices for consumers. The reforms making up House Bill 2 were recently signed into law by Gov. Ann Richards. The reforms were debated throughout the legislative ses sion, a period of almost 5 months. Chuck McDonald with the governor's press office said a voice vote taken in the House of Representatives "overwhel mingly approved" the bill, with only about four dissenting votes. A chance for increased compe tition among insurance compa nies is the primary benefit of the bill by redefining flex-band rat ing. But the bill also provides for a more stable insurance indus try, McDonald said. Flex-band rating now allows the State Board of Insurance to set a maximum and minimum price for policies. Previously, only a maximum price could be set. "Rates have been increasing rapidly," McDonald said. "But it will be a while before rates go down and there may still be some slight increases." Bill Keck, assistant lecturer in economics at Texas A&M, said the price competition set up by the bill will be better for every body because present policy rates are probably inflated. Keck said he believes state agencies are not given much au thority, so some of the new Of fice of Public Insurance Coun sel's powers might not be effective. The OPIC, created by the bill, operates two toll-free hotlines See Insurance/Page 6 AIDS threat reassessed Disease instills more fear than other STDs Editor's note: This is the sec ond story in a two-part series on sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). The first article dis cussed the symptoms of various STDs and how they are con tracted. By Shannon Britt The Battalion While many people worry about contracting a sexually transmitted disease, perhaps the most feared STD is the Acquired ImmuneDeficiency Syndrome, commonly known as AIDS. STDs a two-part series EH Monday: The dangers of STDs H Tuesday: AIDS Anyone can contract the deadly virus, and as of today, there is no treatment or cure for the virus. The fatal malady is an infectious disease caused by a vi rus called Human Immunodefi ciency Virus. The virus attacks the body's immune system, making it un able to fight off other diseases, - which in turn might be fatal. The AIDS virus can live in the human body for years before ac tual symptoms appear, so that a person might be unaware of in fection. "There is no telling how many people have AIDS," Health Edu cator Tracy Anderson of the Texas State Department of Health said. "They may not ever get AIDS-related complex when- they are sick. "They may not get it for 10 years," she continued. "But, in See Health/Page 6 Scientists look for lost ships By Susan Maguire The Battalion Texas A&M scientists are us ing geology to help in the search for two of Christopher Columbus' ships lost off the northern coast of Jamaica. Dr. Michael Waters and Dr. Richard Giardino, A&M fac ulty and researchers with the Columbus Caravels Project, say they might have pieced to gether what the beach of St. Ann's Bay looked like when Columbus grounded his leaky ships there m 1503. Understanding where the shoreline was in 1503 is an im portant clue to where the ships are most likely to be found. Waters said. The ships were beached dur ing Columbus' fourth and final voyage to the New World. The Italian explorer and more than 100 of his crew lived on the decaying ships for more than a year, while tney waited for rescue ships to arrive from Spain. Archaeologists and other specialists from the A&M- based Institute of Nautical Ar chaeology (INA) began investi- e a ting several sites in the bay ist summer. Last fall. Waters and Giar dino went to Jamaica and col lected ground samples of the shore and in the shallows where records suggest the car avels might be resting. "Each of those cores is sort of a window into time/' Giardino said. According to the voyage's logs, the vessels were grounded "a crossbow shot," or about 100 yards, off the beach. Giardino said that if the ocean had deposited sediment beyond that point in the 500 See Explorers/Page 6