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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (July 16, 1991)
“On the morning of July 4, A&M graduate Paul Broussard was beaten to death by 10 youths wielding boards with nails protruding from them. If you haven’t heard about this, you’re not alone.” ____ e —Ellen Hobbs page 5 Beutel Health Center offers tips to help fight depression. page 2 The Battalion Vol. 90 No. 169 tISPS 045360 6 Pages College Station, Texas "Serving Texas A&M since 1893" Tuesday, July Local group questions validity of TCA-MTV controversy By Susan Maguire The Battalion Bryan-College Station cable viewers will get their MTV back, but at least one local group doesn't know why the TCA-MTV controversy even began. Gwynne Ash, spokeswoman for Cit izens Against Censorship, said CAC is pleased with TCA's announcement Fri day to bring MTV back to its cable lineup but added that TCA and Vi acom, MTV's parent company, have the same deal they had before. "(TCA) seems to be talking out of both sides of their mouth," Ash said. "I don't understand why they put their customers through all this trouble. "TCA claimed their goal was a posi tive option of being able to tell custom ers about blocking, but customers knew of that option." Ash said CAC will form a cable watchdog committee to monitor future cable franchise agreements. She said CAC began because of the TCA-MTV problem but its purpose is to monitor all forms of censorship. TCA's area manager Randy Rogers said MTV will return to TCA Cable as soon as a blocking option can be in stalled. "Customers will now have a choice about whether they want their MTV," Rogers said. Credit will be issued to customers due to the temporary loss of MTV with the amount to be determined at a later date, he said. The cable company, however, got what it was originally aiming for, he said. "Earlier we had to wait until custom ers complained before we could inform them of the option of blocking," Rog ers said. "Now we're able to inform them about this choice as soon as they sign up." Rogers said TCA will begin the proc ess or returning MTV to its lineup by sending out letters to customers later this week. In the letter, TCA will explain what has been done up to this point and in clude a postcard that customers can send back if they do not want MTV. He said TCA will try to have MTV on the air in mid-August. "It really depends on the number of requests for blocking we receive," he said. MTV will not return to cable channel 36, though, because it will be easier to block on a different channel. "After some of the initial complaints, we tried to block MTV, but it interfered with channel 35," Rogers said. The new channel, however, has not been selected, he said. MTV officials were not available for comment. '*:\l SCOTT D. WEAVER/The Battalion Me and my shadow A cyclist rides down Asbury Street late Monday evening. The photo was taken from the roof of the Northside Parking Garage. A&M faces low funds University officials seek to maintain current service levels during 1992-93 By Greg Mt Joy The Battalion Texas A&M officials have decided to just try to stay afloat with State Comptroller John Sharp's budget-slashing report sinking hopes for generous future funding. Dr. E. Dean Gage, provost and vice president for academic af fairs, told student leaders Friday A&M could lose as much as $52 million in the 1992-93 biennium but would ask only for enough funding to maintain the current service level of the University. "We don't expect the cuts to be anywhere near the proposed level," Gage said. "We think our legislators see the benefits educa tion promises the future of the state, but we are desperately asking for the same level of funding we recieved during the last bien nium." Gage said University officials think the resulting tuition jump to $32 per semester hour is reasonable and a jump as high as $40 could be supported. A tuition increase would probably not come before Spring 1992, See Tuition/Page 6 College of Geosciences searches for successor Dean stays in office after resigning By K. Lee Davis The Battalion After eight years as dean of Texas A&M's College of Geosci ences, Dr. Melvin Friedman de cided to go back to teaching, but a lack of a successor has kept him in his office for 18 months. Friedman tendered his resig nation in January 1990 and is awaiting his replacement before he leaves the position. An international search for his successor, which included an in- house search, has been under way since his decision to step down. An offer was made to one "gentleman" who would not be able to come to A&M until Jan uary 1992, Friedman said. Dr. E. Dean Gage, provost and vice president for Academic Af fairs, is in charge of the search. Gage, however, could not be reached for comment. Friedman is the college's fifth dean, having served the second longest term in the college's 25- year history. When Friedman steps down, A&M will lose a dean that has set high standards for the person chosen to follow him and one that has garnered much praise for his list of achievements. Friedman's accomplishments during his tenure as dean in clude increasing total research expenditures from all sources from $12 million to more than $60 million a year. 1 He also added six endowed professorship/fellowships and i Maintained student scholarships and other forms of financial aid at constant levels despite a 40 percent drop in the college's stu dent enrollment. All five of the present depart ment heads within the college and 38 of the 100 present faculty members were recruited and ap pointed during Friedman's time as dean. The College of Geosciences is among the top colleges within the University in sponsored re search and is also at the top in le veraging research seed money. Research seed money is money given to a college on the basis of its ability, not money as aid or grants from a governmen tal body for the sole purpose of maintaining the program. Friedman has also overseen a major buildup of the infrastruc ture of the five departments in the college, including much greater research capability in ge ochemistry, improved computer facilities, doppler radar in the meteorology department and sa tellite data analysis capability in oceanography, geography and meteorology. Friedman said he is resigning so a new dean can come in and run the college. A&M's College of Geosciences will merge with the maritime program at Texas A&M-Galveston on Sept. 1. The name of the new ex- E anded program will be the Col- ;ge of Geosciences and Mari time Studies. The expanded college will entail more responsi bility for the person chosen as the new dean, Friedman said. "Knowing that there was going to be some kind of search process involved, I knew that it (the hiring of the new dean) would happen sometime in 1991, even though I let them know about it in 1990," he said. "By 1991 I will have served eight or nine whole years here in the dean's office, and that is long enough for any dean as far as I'm concerned." Friedman plans to step down as dean and return to his profes sor's chair in the Department of Geology where he can concen trate on teaching and research. There will be a greater ex change of students because of the new merger, Friedman said. He added that the merger will af ford unique opportunities to A&M students in oceanography and the other geosciences that other universities cannot match. Friedman received his bache lor's and master's degrees from Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J., and later re ceived his doctorate from Rice University in Houston. He spent 15 years in the pri vate sector before coming to A&M in 1967 as an associate pro fessor of geology. He achieved mil professorship in 1969 and reached the title of associate dean of geosciences by 1982, before ascending to the dean's office in 1983. Faculty member relationships to benefit by campus merger By Karen Praslicka The Battalion Texas A&M at Galveston will join with the main campus at College Station giving faculty members at both universities a closer working relationship, a local A&M official said. Texas A&M's Board of Re gents recently adopted a reso lution suggesting the change be completed by Sept. 1. Dr. Jerry Gaston, associate provost for academic affairs at A&M, said that after the change, the head administrator of the Galveston campus will become the "CEO on location" and report to the dean of A&M's College of Geosciences. Also after the change, A&M's College of Geosciences will be renamed the College of Geosciences and Maritime Studies. Though A&M students will not encounter any significant changes because of the integra tion, faculty from both univer sities will benefit from change, Gaston said. "There will be a closer relationship between the fac ulty with teaching and re search," he said. "Inis will im prove the opportunity for faculty at both campuses to work with each other." The maritime and oceanog raphy programs at A&M-Gal- veston and College Station are compatible with University fac ulty involved in a large amount of research at Galveston, Gas ton said. Among the differences be tween the Galveston and Col lege Station campuses is the Maritime College at A&M-Gal- veston. "The college is an important component of the (Galveston) University," Gaston said. "The unit is devoted to special mari time programs with ocean en gineering and the licensing of Coast Guard personnel a part of it. It's heavily oriented to-* ward the ocean." Another difference between the campuses is size. The Gal veston campus has about 1,100 students compared to about 40,000 at the College Station campus. Additionally, no majors at A&M-Galveston are equivalent to any degree programs at the University in College Station. Officials at the Galveston campus could not be reached for comment. 1990 census adjustment rejected WASHINGTON (AP) — Com merce Secretary Robert Mos- bacher today refused to adjust the census to include more than half a million Texans who were missed in the 1990 count, a deci sion that could cost the state $1 billion in fed eral aid. Mosbacher said that to adjust the count that overlooked more than 5 million people nationwide would be to "abandon a 200-year tradi tion of how we actually count people." The government has never jettisoned official cen sus numbers in favor of popula tion estimates in the two centu ries that it has been counting Americans. The Census Bureau said in June that it had missed an esti mated 560,000 Texans, many of the minorities in the state's ma jor metropolitan areas or colo- nias on the border, and an ad justment to include them would have pushed the state's popula tion from 16.9 million to 17.5 mil lion. Lawmakers say a failure to in clude more than a half-million Texans in the census could cost the state $1 billion in federal aid over the decade for programs based on population, including spending on education, the envi ronment, health care and trans portation. Secretary of Commerce Rob ert Mosbacher re fuses to readjust the census.
