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Page 7
Redshirt freshman
Greg Hill
could be the Aggies
main man Saturday
against LSU.
Page 2
Engineering Ethics
"The point is to sensitize students to
the kinds of situations they’ll find
themselves in later on and convince
them there are others who have dealt
with it.”
Dr. Michael Rabins
Page 11
"It's not everyday you get to
see real people die! And it's
not everyday you get to see
real hardened criminals fry!"
Stacy Feducia, on televised
state executions
e / Fagan
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The Battalion
"Serving Texas A&M since 1893"
12 Pages Monday, Septembers, 1991
End of Communist rule alters education in Soviet Union
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By Jayme Blaschke
The Battalion
While economists and political scien
tists try to figure what effects the end of
! communist rule will have in the Soviet
Union, the impact on education is already
evident in Soviet universities, says a visit
ing Soviet history professor.
Dr. Tatana Smolova, professor of
American history at Kazan State Universi
ty, says most Americans do not realize the
severe restrictions the Soviet bureaucracy'
places upon education.
Even minor changes in the format of a
class must be approved by the adminis
tration before they can be implemented.
But the recent upheaval has enabled the
system to be altered in ways that were
unheard of only a few years ago, she says.
"I introduced a class where Russian
students learn English and American his
tory simultaneously/' Smolova says.
"This is the single biggest thing in the his
tory of the university.
"My students study American history
through the language. I will teach them
American English, with all the phrases
used here in the United States."
Although combining language and
history classes might seem insignificant to
students and faculty at Texas A&M,
Smolova insists it is a major step for Rus
sian universities.
"This combination of history and lan
guage is the first experience of reform in
our system of higher education, and I
struggled for it for many years," she says.
"It wasn't very easy, because our bureau
cracy — our administration — wasn't
happy with change."
The content of the classes has notice
ably changed too, Smolova says, opening
up areas of history previously closed to
Russians.
"Scholars try to show that the best in
terpretation of their history," she says.
"For many years we had only the Marxist
view of history. In general, this view
chose not to depict the (American) peo
ple's history.
"For example, all the poor were good
and all the rich were bad," Smolova says.
"That was the general view on all the his
tory. Everything was depicted as the ex
ploiters and the people who were exploit
ed."
That attitude toward history ham
pered research and resulted in the loss of
much information, she says.
"In that narrow corridor of interpreta
tion, we lost much information we never
knew of," Smolova says. "Documents
concerning our history were never avail
able to us. They were either hidden in the
Kremlin archives, lost in the libraries, or
just destroyed by the Communist Party
leaders."
The changing collegiate atmosphere
has also directly affected student life, she
says. In the short time Smolova has to
spend in America, she is looking at stu
dent activities at A&M to take ideas back
to Kazan.
"We had only one youth organization,
Conzumal, which was highly politicized,
and we called it the junior brother of the
Communist Party," she says. "And the
Communist Party was hated by every
body, so no one wants to be a member of
Conzumal.
"Now Conzumal is gone and we don't
have any other student organizations in
stead," Smolova says. "Our students are
all disorganized and don't know what to
do. Here you have 700 clubs of interest,
and they're all coordinated and exciting,
while our students do nothing."
Smolova says she believes the lack of
student programs is a major shortcoming
in Kazan, one she hopes to help remedy.
"A&M calls organizations the second
higher education and that's very true,"
she says. "I'm very close to the students
and know their problems, so they asked
me to see what students do at A&M and
help them organize, because they trust
me.
"There's so much to learn, but I don't
have enough time to do everything I need
to," she says. "I'm grateful for the time
I've had in America, but I need a sabbati
cal to accomplish everything."
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Thousands attend 1991 Open House
By Jayme Blaschke
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Texas A&M's student organiza
tions were out in force Sunday at
the 1991 Open House, giving
thousands of students the oppor
tunity to find out about groups
with interests ranging from the
environment to opera.
Jason Rowntree, a sophomore
agricultural education major
from Kingwood and director of
external public relations for the
MSC Council, said few events on
campus generate as much inter
est as Open House.
"Our slogan for Open House
this year is 'Come aboard and
get involved,'" he said. "Hope
fully the organizations will en
tice the students to do just that."
Craig Bradford, a junior
aerospace engineering major
from Lumberton and chairman
of MSC Aggie Cinema, said this
year's Open House was one of
the most successful ever for his
group.
"I couldn't believe how success
ful we were this year," Bradford
said. "We gave away hundreds
of posters, calenders and fliers.
"We were able to reach out and
give thousands of students infor
mation on what Aggie Cinema is
all about," he said. "Hopefully,
this will mean a large turnout for
our first meeting for new meet
ings."
Jason Scott, a senior history ma
jor from Houston and Executive
Director of Aggie Leaders of To
morrow, said Open House gave
his committee excellent expo
sure.
"Our committee has had a fan
tastic response, and we've given
out more than 1,500 applications
to people wanting to join," Scott
said. "The best thing about this
is that it gives people a chance to
find out what we're all about.
"Open House allows freshmen
who've never been here before to
sit back and ask questions," he
said.
Delinda Chapa, a senior math
major from Lakewood, Colo.,
and chairwoman of MSC Com
mittee for the Awareness of Mex-
ican-American Culture, said
Open House gave her organiza
tion a boost going into the new
year.
"We usually don't get many
members to join at Open* House
every year, out tonight we had
over 150 people sign up/' Chapa
said. "We've also been able to
distribute a lot of information on
events of the upcoming
semester."
Rowntree said planning for this
year's Open House began last
spring with 12 people working to
coordinate the event and all the
committees involved.
"What we've tried to do is allow
the A&M student body, as well
the community in general, to
come and look at what A&M has
to offer," he said. "The Corps,
fraternities, religious groups and
Student Programs Committees -
pretty much every campus orga
nization the University recog
nizes was represented, and com
bined, there was something that
appeals to just about any taste or
culture."
Israel vows
to increase
occupation
U.S. opposition to Jewish settlements
could endanger Middle East peace talks
JERUSALEM (AP) - A defi
ant Yitzhak Shamir vowed Sun
day that Israel will build more
Jewish settlements in the occu
pied Arab lands and hinted that
U.S. pressure to halt construction
could endanger Middle East
peace talks.
Contradicting previous Israeli
assurances, Shamir also said set
tlement expansion is necessary to
absorb Soviet Jews.
His remarks apparently were
aimed at President Bush, who has
asked Congress to delay consider
ation of an Israeli request for the
United States to guarantee $10
billion in loans Israel needs to pay
for the absorption of Soviet Jews.
The guarantees would allow Is
rael to borrow at cheaper rates.
Bush wants to get a Middle
East peace conference off the
ground in October before dis
cussing the guarantees and re
portedly has insisted Israel stop
building settlements before the
talks.
Washington considers them a
major obstacle to peace.
But Shamir said on Sunday:
''All the territories of Eretz Israel
must be settled by Jews, more and
more," Shamir said, pounding his
fist on the table at a meeting of ac
tivists from his right-wing Likud
bloc.
Eretz Israel is the Hebrew
term for the biblical land of Israel,
which includes the occupied West
Bank and Gaza Strip.
Palestinians and Arab nations
say the settlements, and Israel's
drive to expand them, undercut
the Palestinians' goal of establish
ing an independent homeland in
the territories.
Secretary of State James A.
Baker III has been trying to get all
sides to agree to a regional peace
conference and is due to return to
the region next week for further
talks.
Palestinian leader Faisal Hus
sein!, who has participated in pre
vious talks with Baker, welcomed
Washington's decision on delay
ing the loans.
"For a long time the Ameri
cans have been sending advice
and aid," Husseini told The Asso
ciated Press. "Israel was refusing
the advice and receiving the aid.
Now is the time to say to Israel,
you cannot take one without the
other."
Since capturing the territories
from Jordan and Egypt in the
1967 Middle East war, Israel has
settled about 100,000 Jews in the
West Bank and Gaza Strip, which
are home to about 1.7 million
Palestinians.
Shamir was quoted Sunday as
arguing that if Israel agreed to
halt further settlement, it would
send the wrong signal.
"If today we agree we will
settle no more, this would mean
we are giving up these territories.
This is how the Arabs would un
derstand it. This is how others
would understand it," Shamir
said in an interview published by
the daily Maariv.
His government insists Israel
will not give up the occupied ter
ritories.
Shamir also contradicted Is
rael's earlier stated position and
said more settlements are needed
to absorb Soviet Jews.
Soviet state retains old ways
IGYANGA, U.S.S.R. (AP) -
The old way is dying hard on the
back roads of Azerbaijan, where
billboards still exhort people to
work forever for Communism.
There was little indication that
Sunday was an election day.
In Baku, the capital of the pre
dominantly Muslim republic, rau
cous street demonstrations had
sought to put off the presidential
vote until another candidate could
make a serious challenge to Azer
baijan's durable leader, Ayaz Mu-
talibov — the only person on the
ballot.
In towns and villages, howev
er, Mutalibov's continued firm
hand on Azerbaijani affairs was a
foregone conclusion. People vot
ed calmly, then went back to busi
ness as usual.
"Who's going to win?" repeat
ed one young man at a roadside
market along the highway from
Tbilisi, Georgia, when asked
about the elections. He looked at
his friends and laughed.
Azerbaijan, one of 10 Soviet re
publics that have declared inde
pendence, has made concessions
to the eclipse of communism
across the union.
Gyanga, 240 miles west of
Baku, was until recently named
Kirovabad, after the Bolshevik
leader Sergei Kirov.
Russian has all but disap
peared from public signs, a conse
quence of Soviet military interven
tion to quell pogroms against
Christian Armenians in Baku in
January 1990.
But along the roads, the old
symbols remain unchanged.
On one billboard, a strong-
armed, smiling farm woman
holds aloft grapes the size of
Christmas tree bulbs. On another,
a Soviet couple embraces under a
slogan praising their dedication to
the common cause.
French president's response to coup
results in falling support, poll shows
PARIS (AP) — In power since May 1981, Presi
dent Francois Mitterrand will become France's
longest-serving president on Monday. Increasingly,
his compatriots are wondering if it's time for a
change.
The president's less-than-deft response to the
abortive Soviet coup fueled debate on whether his
judgment was failing. This week, the nation's fore
most news magazine, L'Express, carries a cover story
depicting him as weary and discredited.
Mitterrand, 74, has four years left in his second
seven-year term, but his recent problems have
prompted speculation that he may step aside in 1993
or, at the least, dump his controversial leftist prime
minister, Edith Cresson.
The man viewed as the Socialists' most likely sav
ior is Jacques Delors, a moderate who is now presi
dent of the European Commission.
"The French feel that Francois Mitterrand is at
the end of the road ... that he's no longer an infallible
chief of state," L'Express said. "Ten years is
enough."
L'Express based its conclusions on a poll of 1,000
adults in which 61 percent described Mitterrand as
worn out. The magazine noted that similar problems
led Britain's Margaret Thatcher to step down last
year after a decade as prime minister.
Mitterrand says he will not seek a third term but
he has never suggested publicly that he would con
sider leaving office before his term expires in 1995.
See Mtterand/Page 10