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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 1, 1993)
i Mobley names Groff as A&M athletic director By Mark Smith THE BATTALION Texas A&M University's search for a jew athletic director came to end Tues- iaywhen President William H. Mobley mounced Wally Groff would take over kvacancy left by departed athletic di- dor, John David Crow. Groff, who has been acting as interim iirector since Crow left in May, has torked for the University for 27 years ad said that he is honored to have been amed to the post of a department that is ftenthe most visible to the public. "The athletic department is the front srch of the school, it's what people see then they drive by," he said. "1 want the ililetic department at Texas A&M to pro ject a first-class image that will reflect positively on A&M." Mobley said Groff has demonstrated his leadership skills while serving as as sociate athletic director and will use these skills to carry the department forward in the 1990s. "Wally is well-respected and has the qualities we were looking for to lead our athletic department," Mobley said. "He is a man of utmost integrity and without question has sound business credentials and has proven himself as an administra tor." Interim President Dr. E. Dean Gage agreed and said, "Wally Groff is an out standing individual, and I look forward to working very closely with him." A 12-member search committee chose Groff from a field of 31 applicants from around the country. Dr. Tom Adair, chairman of the search committee, said the committee decided last week to focus the search on Groff and his qualifications for the job. "The procedure started in late May or early June with the committee writing a position specification that described the ideal candidate for the job as we saw it," he said. "And as weeks have gone by we came to the conclusion that Wally Groff fit that position specification better than anybody else." Steve Hatchell, commissioner of the Southwest Conference, said, "I know the description of Wally Groff from people that I have spoken with last night. They said things (about Wally) that all of us would like to have said about us in our professional careers." Groff said Crow left the department in good shape and that he plans to make no major changes in the immediate future. "I think our program as it stands is in excellent shape," he said. However, Groff said, one of the main points he wants to stress is compliance with conference and league policies. "I'm going to single out compliance in particular, because I as athletic director, and we as the Aggie community, will not tolerate anyone who breaks the rules or regulations of the Southwest Conference or the National Collegiate Athletic Asso ciation," he said. Groff also mentioned a renewed inter est in building the proposed special events center. "The university has conducted a feasi bility study," he said. "I think we'll prob ably look at conducting other studies about what we might be able to do in the future. Right now, we're just in the study phase." Mobley said that when G. Rollie White Coliseum was built the student body to taled 7,000 students, one-sixth of its cur rent enrollment. It was not designed to serve a university the size that A&M has grown to. "We need an additional facility that will accommodate larger events such as our commencement. Muster, some enter tainment that the students would like to bring to this campus, as well as men's and women's basketball," he said. "The climate is changing and what is happening internally is an evaluation of See Groff/Page 6 Mary Macmanus/THE Battalion Faculty, friends honor Koldus as 'one of a kind' By Geneen Pipher THE BATTALION Words like "legend," "great individual," and "one of a kind" were the fare of the day Tuesday at a reception honoring Dr. John J. Koldus III, retiring vice president of student services, and his wife Mary Dell. System Chancellor William Mobley and Mrs. Jane Mobley along with A&M faculty, students, family and friends paid tribute to the couple at a reception held at the Clayton Williams Alumni Center. Koldus, who retired Tuesday after 20 years of service as vice presi dent, was called a legend and a great man by many of his peers. "He will be missed," Southerland said. "He has had 20 great years and during that time he has touched thousands of lives. He is a man whose top priority was always the students." Mobley said Koldus has helped increase the reputation of the stu dent services department. "This is a historic day at A&M," Mobley said. "He is a legend. They both are (Koldus and his wife). The reputation of the student services department has developed greatly since he has been here. We have the highest student retention rates in the state and that could be greatly attributed to John and his staff." In his speech, Mobley told of a young woman who was involved in a car accident. Her mother and her doctor wanted her to go home for a semester, but the woman wished to stay at A&M. The woman was asked to stay with the Kolduses at their home on campus while she made her recovery and attended school. E. Dean Gage, interim University president, said Koldus has a spe cial quality not often found in administrators. "I am here today to honor, not only a legend, but a man who has given his heart and soul to the University," Gage said in his speech. "He will be missed simply by his presence not being here. The pro grams he created will be here, but his warm, friendly smile will be missed." Koldus said he has enjoyed his years at A&M and intends to stay MSCdirector Jim Reynolds congratulates Dr. John Koldus on his retirement at a reception Tuesday at the Clayton Williams Alumni Center. See Koldus/Page 2 Eckels to run as land commissioner The Associated Press HOUSTON — Republican state Rep. Robert Eckels says he will run for Texas land commissioner, a job held by Democrat Garry Mauro since 1982. "Issues that affect that office are really interesting to me,” Eck els said Monday in announcing his candidacy. 'T think nothing de fines Texans better than the land, and I'd like to be a part of that.” Eckels said Monday he will announce a steering committee for his campaign in a few weeks. "The bottom line is that I'm just ready to get on with it,” he said. "At this point, there aren't any other GOP candidates in the running, and Mauro hasn't said what he's going to do.” But Mauro said Monday he will run for a fourth term. Another potential Republican candidate for the job. Public Utili ty Commissioner Marta Greytok, said she's not ready to announce her plans. TCA cable subscribers may not receive CBS By Kim McGuire The Battalion TCA Cable-TV subscribers won't be viewing any CBS sta tions on cable unless local station KBTX-TV grants written consent for carriage rights by Oct. 6, TCA General Manager Randy Rogers said. Under the 1992 Cable Act, ca ble companies are forbidden to carry any broadcast signals with out the broadcaster's consent. Federal law requires TCA to re move any broadcast stations they do not have permission to carry by Oct. 6, Rogers said. KBTX General Manager Jim Baronet said their station is re questing TCA pay 30 cents per customer for viewing rights which equates to $10,000 annual- 1 y- Rogers said TCA will not pay See Editorial, Page 13 cash for carriage rights. "KBTX is trying to drum up support to force us to pay for car riage,” Rogers said. "TCA does not feel it's fair for KBTX to charge cable subscribers a fee for programming they can get free over public airwaves." Baronet said cable subscribers should realize they are already paying TCA for what should be free viewing rights. "When you pay your cable bill you're paying for a service that should be free," Baronet said. "This is not about money. It's about maintaining a basic free dom." Rogers said TCA has reached agreements to continue carrying KXXV-ABC-Waco, KCEN-NBC- Temple and KHTV-IND-Houston. In addition to KBTX, TCA still is negotiating with KWKT-Fox- Waco, KTRH-ABC-Houston and KXAN-NBC-Austin for carriage rights. Rogers said TCA is prohibited from airing any other CBS affiliate because of an agreement between KBTX and CBS. "Basically it's a monopoly," Rogers said. "We can't transmit the CBS affiliates in Austin or Houston because of the. agree ment between KBTX and CBS." He said KBTX isn't charging other cable companies for its car riage rights and KBTX's Waco- based parent company, Brazos See TCA/Page 6 Multiculturalism: Hot topic for Texas colleges The Associated Press DALLAS — The temperature may still be near the century mark, but summer is over for nearly one million Texans. Classes have either already started or are about to open at colleges and universities across the state. Enrollment statewide is ex pected to be right above the 900,000 mark this year, including a record number of minority students, educators say. Some 48,500.students have been back at the state's largest school, the University of Texas at Austin, for nearly a week. At the state's second-largest college, Texas A&M University in College Station, 43,000 students went back to school Monday. So did students at Texas Tech in Lubbock and the University of North Texas in Denton. Freshmen in many cases went early to take part in orientations that included everything from study tips to A&M's "Fish Camp,” where Aggies go to learn all the important things about being an Aggie, such as the fa mous Aggie yells. Prompted in part by the growing national debate over whether colleges should require students to take "multi-cultural'' classes, a number of colleges are including optional courses in orientation that focus on ethnic dif ferences this year. So far, Texas A&M is the only university in Texas that makes such courses a requirement. Texas A&M's College of Liberal Arts voted this summer to require all of its students en tering school in 1994 or later to take at least six hours of class work focusing on ethnic groups or countries and international topics other than the Western culture that has long domi nated American curriculum. Such requirements have sparked intense debates on campuses in Texas and across the country, and the A&M debate is likely to kick in again later this year when the faculty is ex pected to vote on whether to require students in all of its colleges to meet the multi-cultural prerequisites. The University of Texas at Austin fiercely argued the issue last year. The proposed re quirement was finally rejected by the faculty senate, which decided that its curriculum al ready had a broad range of required classes of See Colleges/Page 10 Inside State & Local • Highway 6 frontage roads to undergo construction Page 2 Sports •Coaches react to new athletic director hiring Page 7 Opinion •Editorial: Both sides wrong in cable debate Page 13 Weather •Wednesday:mostly cloudy with scattered showers, highs in the 90s •Forecast for Thursday: partly cloudy, highs in the 90s •Extended forecast: partly cloudy, highs in the 90s Fomorrow in Aggielife Feature: Journalism professor retrieves his adopted Romanian son after months of negotiation and red-tape Reviews. Garth Brooks’ In Pieces,’ Mariah Carey’s ‘Music Box’ & M (iihon’s Man Without a Face’