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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 18, 1991)
Partly cloudy with a 20 percent chance of rain. High in the low 90s. Page 7 "Its ridiculous that the University has been keeping the settlement with 19 female professors under wraps, and female professors contacted about the story felt pressured not to talk." - Holly Becka on salary discrimination. The Battalion Page 5 Tulsa Preview: Freshman Wilbert Biggens holds a bright future at A&M. Vol. 91 No. 13 (ISPS 045360 College Station, Texas "Serving Texas A&M since 1893" 8 Pages Wednesday, September 18, 1991 piscovery makes nighttime landing in California I EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. (IP) — Discovery was diverted from Florida because of bad weather and glid- ■1 instead to a night landing in the Cali- llrnia desert today, capping a mission to put an ozone-studying satellite in space. I "We're glad you're back. Discovery. Your mission will pave the way for a bet ter understanding of our planet Earth," ■ission Control said as the shuttle and its fl/e-man crew landed at Edwards Air Fprce Base at 2:38 a.m. CDT. I Six giant searchlights illuminated the concrete runway as Discovery glided to the ground, the fifth time a shuttle landed in darkness in the Mojave Desert. Discov ery traveled 2.2 million miles in orbiting Earth 81 times. The shuttle was to have made the first nighttime landing at Kennedy Space Cen ter at Cape Canaveral, Fla., but cloudy skies prompted NASA to wave off Dis covery for an extra orbit around the Earth, then detour it to California. • "We weren't expecting it, but we're happy to be able to react so fast," Don Ha ley, a NASA spokesman at Edwards. NASA feared Discovery might run into rain if it landed in Florida. Rain smacking into the shuttle at high speed can damage the thermal tiles that keep the spacecraft from burning up when it re-en ters the Earth's atmosphere. The five-day flight began with a launch from Florida last Thursday night and was highlighted by Saturday's launch of the $740 million Upper Atmosphere Satellite. The satellite will study how pol lutants damage Earth's ozone layer, which blocks ultraviolet light that can cause skin cancer and kill crops. The satellite ushered in NASA's Mis sion to Planet Earth program, in which several dozen environmental spacecraft will study the planet during the decade. During Discovery's descent, it flew over the Pacific, crossed the U.S. coast near Newport, Ore., and zoomed down the middle of California. Its characteristic twin sonic booms heralded the return of the shuttle with commander John Creighton, pilot Ken neth Reightler Jr., and astronauts James F. Buchli, Mark Brown and Charles "Sam" Gemar. "Our 911 lines just lit up," Sacramento police dispatcher Dafna Vann said. "Peo ple heard their windows rattling and thought their homes were being broken into." The landing was televised using an in frared camera on NASA's closed-circuit network. The camera detects heat, so the bottom of the shuttle glowed brightly from the heat of re-entry. Puffs of hot ex haust were visible near the tail. Edwards was virtually deserted. Design of iare center Important By Mark Evans The Battalion I A study conducted by a Texas AiVM faculty member suggests ar- ■itectural design plays an impor- Bnt role in increasing the effec- titeness of health care centers wl ile cutting their costs. ■ The project by Dr. Shirley ■me, an assistant professor of re gional and urban planning, exam- ISes the effects of facility design on ■tients undergoing kidney dialy- B and the staff tending to them. I These patients often spend 12 ■ 20 hours a week hooked up to a hemodialysis machine receiving treatment, she said. I "A lot of concern of the federal government has to do with the cost of medical care," Bame said, "jply concern is to help understand ■ays to contain costs without compromising quality. If we can reduce the cost by changing the fa- Bity design which could be inex pensive to do, if that would im prove the efficiency of the staff and the effectiveness of care, then we've made a major dent in the problem without having to sacri- ibe any of the quality." I Kidney dialysis patients must follow a strict regimen to stay Hell. This requires them to control their diet and fluid intake, under- |o regular dialysis treatment, and ■ke as many as 15 medications a By. I "With kidney disease the pa tients have very definite things they have to do, otherwise they ei ther get very sick, and end up in the hospital, or they die," Bame said. I In a pilot study, Bame found pat during a six month period 94 percent of the dialysis patients did not keep up with their treatment program. As a result, they re quired more health care than would have normally been need- p, the study found. I She believes a facility's design can motivate patients to comply See Study/Page 2 RICHARD S. JAMES/The Battalion Down under Bobby Grona with the Texas State Department of Wellborn Road Tuesday afternoon. Grona and the other Highways and Public Transportation works on a derrick that workers are taking soil samples to determine permeability retrieves soil samples in the gravel parking lot along and bearing capacity of the soil for the LoTrakproject.O Baker gives support to home loans Bush administration will back Israeli housing plan agree to," said the official. After his meeting with Shamir. Baker flew to Egypt to confer with President Hosni Mubarak. Before he returns to Washington, Baker also plans to visit Syria and Jor dan. The furor over the loan guar antees has reverberated both do mestically and internationally and has prompted unusually harsh ex changes between the president and U.S. supporters of Israel as well as between Bush and Israeli government officials. At a news conference last week. Bush called his request for a 120-day delay a "pause for peace" in the Middle East and threatened to veto legislation that would ap prove the guarantees immediately. Asked if he were willing to commit himself to supporting the loan guarantees in January, the president replied: "Absolutely not." En route to Cairo from Israel, Baker outlined the main points in the U.S. offer. "We would agree that we would not ask for further delay beyond January," he said. The U.S. proposal also includes a promise to work with supporters of the loan guarantees to find "a suitable legislative vehicle" for obtaining swift congressional approval. The administration would re state its commitment to the princi ple of providing Israel aid for set tling Soviet immigrants and would work to minimize the im pact of the guarantees on the U.S. budget. CAIRO (AP) — Secretary of State James A. Baker III told Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir Tuesday the Bush adminis tration will support the housing-loan guarantees Is rael is vigor ously seeking — if Israel ac cepts a four- month delay and limits on where the money can be spent. Baker's proposal was part of an effort to end an acrimonious squabble that has upset U.S.-Is raeli relations and threatened ef forts to convene a Middle East peace conference next month. Shamir said after the talks, "We have achieved a certain progress," but he added that the question of the $10 billion in loan guarantees was "not yet re solved." Baker, rejecting a main Shamir demand, said the United States would insist on a condition that none of the money be used for set tlements in the disputed territories of the West Bank and Gaza. A senior administration official traveling on Baker's plane said the secretary of state believes that if that condition is dropped Arab countries "won't come to the table" for the talks Baker has been struggling to arrange. "That just is something we are not going to James Baker Prof promotes international business By Aiysia Woods The Battalion Dr. S. Kerry Cooper is good at what he | does - helping students who want to pursue a career in international business. And in recognition of his accomplish ments, Cooper has been named recipient of the Cullen Trust for Higher Education Chair in Business Administration. But Cooper cannot stress enough the im- jportance of developing relationships with in ternational students at A&M. "The first thing I ask a student who comes to me and wants to study abroad is, 'Have I you met any international students here on |campus?'" Cooper says. "That's the most convenient way to learn about other coun- I tries." Cooper heads one of the most successful international business studies centers in the nation and helps students with a variety of in ternational interests every day. The Center for International Business Services (CIBS) at A&M presently directs about 700 A&M stu dents who want to enter the international business field. Because the CIBS has grown during the past three years, it was selected in 1990 as a Center for International Business Education and Research (CIBER) by the U.S. Depart ment of Education. Only sixteen universities in the nation □ Hugh Roy CullenChair Recipient/ Page 3 were chosen to share the annual Congression al appropriation, which amounts to $250,000 a year per school. As a result of the funding, the center has been able to expand its services and offer more programs to students and faculty. The center also receives funds through private sector donations. One of the most beneficial programs for the students is the new courses in internation al business that are being offered this year. They include courses in international fi nance, international marketing, multinational marketing management, and business cours es relating to the current state of the Soviet Union. These courses will be taught by a vis iting professor from the Soviet Union, he says. "The classes are very popular - they fill up almost instantly," Cooper says. A course on current Middle Eastern busi ness relations will be offered in the spring. It will be taught by Ronald Hatchett, associate director for programs at A&M's Mosher In stitute for Defense Studies, and by Weldon Krueger, former president of the large corpo ration called Esso-Middle East. Other activities the CIBS coordinates are study abroad programs for both students and faculty, a consortium to create an internation al center in Germany for the purpose of train ing faculty, and faculty workshops. The CIBS is currently working on a study abroad program in Castiglion Florentine, Italy. The program will be used to teach busi ness and liberal arts courses in Japanese and European culture and commerce. See Cooper/Page 2 Crash of Williams-owned plane blamed on pilot error PUTNAM (AP) - A report by the National Transportation Safety Board says the February 1990 crash of an airplane owned by Midland businessman Clayton Williams, which killed five men, was due to "improper planning by the pilot." The two-page report, released from NTSB headquarters in Wash ington, D.C, says the pilot did not have much experience in the Mit subishi MU-2 turboprop and failed to get a comprehensive fore cast of weather conditions before takeoff and during the flight. "Excessive accumulation of structural icing on the aircraft's wings, stabilizers, fuselage and en gine inlets" caused the pilot to lose control of the aircraft, the re port said. According to the report, the MU-2 turboprop descended from more than 14,000 feet to 9,700 feet during a 24-second period before crashing nose first in a fiery explo sion in a field roughly 35 miles east of Abilene. The men took off from Mid land shortly after 7 a.m. on Feb. 14, 1990, en route to Love Field in Dallas. The pilot attempted to get a forecast from the Automated Flight Service Station in San Ange lo, but computers there were down, and the pilot failed to con tact any other local weather ser vices for information, the report said. Freezing temperatures were occurring that day at 10,000 to 12,000 feet, and the aircraft was cruising at an altitude of 15,000 feet, the report said. The crash claimed the lives of Williams Aviation Co. pilot Ken Mardis, 52, and four business as sociates of Williams.