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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 21, 1994)
The Battalion Vol. 93 No. 78 (8 pages) 1893 — A Century of Service to Texas A&M — 1993 Friday, January 21,1994 > Shaping up for spring Amanda Sonlcy/Tut Battalion Andrea Lefever, a graduate student of geology, weight room in preparation for the warm days tones up Thursday afternoon in the Deware of spring coming soon. Local con artists swindle students with "free offer' False newspaper vendors sell deal too good to be true By James Bernsen The Battalion Texas A&M students who think they are getting a great deal on a newspaper may be getting far less than they were promised. Kelly Scott, a junior speech communication major, said a woman offering a "discount" rate on the Dallas Morning News and the Houston Post came to her apartment at Treehouse II in Col lege Station. The woman said Scott could re ceive free copies of the newspaper Monday through Saturday, and the A&M Dean of Students, a title which does not exist, would pay for it. The vendor claimed the dean wanted to further the educa tion of A&M students. All the student had to pay for was the Sunday edition. Scott wrote a check, but on the advice of a roommate, later tracked the woman down while she was still in the apartment complex and requested a refund. The woman returned the check, but when Scott requested for proof of identification, the woman said she had none, and left the complex immediately. "She said that she was new, but didn't have any I.D.," Scott said. Bill Kibler, interim assistant vice president for Student Ser vices, said A&M would never consider buying newspapers for students. "If they're saying that, it's a fabrication," he said. "It is cer tainly not true now or ever has been true." Kibler said A&M cannot pur sue legal action for solicitation off campus, but if a similar situation arose on campus, A&M would re voke the solicitor's permit imme diately. Andy Nelson, circulation sales and marketing manager for the Dallas Morning News, said his newspaper does not know of the claimed agreement with A&M. "We do not do discounts, peri od," he said. "What you have is someone down there bilking stu dents." Nelson said the newspaper has had several experiences with scam artists before in Dallas. "We caught one person in Dal las," he said. "We prosecuted them here, and we'll do it there." The Dallas Morning News con tracts with independent distribu tors, none of whom also sell the Houston Post, he said. "We're so far removed from A&M that it's easy for them to get away with things like that," he See Newspaper/Page 4 Record cold kills more than 100 The Associated Press The temperature was 20 below zero in northern Wisconsin; the gusts of bitter wind made it feel like 60 below. Toini and Erny Orberg were five miles from home when their car hit an icy rut and slid into a ditch. Toini Oberg was 74 and had undergone heart by pass surgery, but her husband was older and frailer, and needed a walker. Mrs. Oberg borrowed her husband's leather mit tens, wrapped her coat and scarf tightly around her, and set out for help. Her destination: their son-in- law's home, 500 yards away. From the car, 81-year-old Erny Oberg watched in horror as his wife trudged uphill into the wind and collapsed. Mrs. Oberg died Tuesday — one of 101 deaths blamed so far on the record cold weather that has battered much of the nation since late last week. The toll has been rising daily, even as temperatures edged above zero and reached double digits for the first time in a week Many have died in accidents on ice-slick roads. Some have suffered heart attacks while shoveling snow. A few have been killed by their efforts to k<?ep warm, such as a North Carolina man who died in a fire that began when he tried to thaw his water pipes with a blowtorch. The victims include a Minnesota woman who fell as she stepped outside to feed birds; a Pittsburgh woman who collapsed while retrieving mail; and a New York motorist, caught in a snowstorm, who knocked at a house for help and was turned away. With temperatures in some places 30 and 40 de grees below zero even the slightest exposure can be fatal. The weather is particularly hazardous for peo ple with heart conditions or diabetes, or those too frail to survive a fall. "Listen to your body," said Dr. Robert Posoz, a hypothermia specialist with the Naval Health Center in San Diego. "If your feet are cold, or your hands are cold, or you are cold, go inside. You're not going to beat Mother Nature on this one." Among the cold's victims: • Natalie Beroscak, 81, a retired tin sorter with hip problems, who left her Pittsburgh home Tuesday on the coldest night of the year to check her mailbox. She wore a winter coat, a dress and slippers. The temperature was 5 degrees below zero. • Ann Hubbard, 87, who locked herself out of her Woodstock, N.Y., home Monday night and froze to death on her front porch in minus-11 temperature. Police said Hubbard lived alone and suffered from Alzheimer's disease. • Marjorie Lagerwall, 69, a harpist in frail health, who ventured outside Tuesday in minus 18-degree weather to refill her bird feeder, 20 feet from her front door, and fell. Her sons, who share the home in a suburb of St. Paul, Minn., were asleep and did not hear her.Lagerwall's body was found about 90 minutes later. Higher education report details schools' failings By Mary Kujawa The Battalion A report revealing a dangerous mismatch between what society needs from higher education and | what it actually receives is gaining attention around the nation and at r Texas A&M. The report, titled "An American ; Imperative: Higher Expectations : for Higher Education," says some | faculties and institutions graduate many students who cannot read and write well, whose intellectual depth and breadth are unimpres- Isive, and whose skills are inade- I quate in the face of the demands of I contemporary life." "The essence of the report is less what's wrong and more of what 'we can do to make it better," said |M. Jon Vondracek, vice president "We need to re-emphasize a sense of community in the precincts of higher education." - M. Jon Vondracek, vice president of the Johnson Foundation leges and uni versities. The panel ex pressed concern that civic virtues, such as respect for the individual, com mitment to equal o opportu- d respect of the Johnson Foundation. The John son Founda tion, Inc., as well as The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Lilly Endow ment Inc. and The Pew Charitable Trusts funded the project that resulted in the re- S ort by the Wingspread Group on ligher Education, a 16-member panel comprised of college and university presidents, business and labor leaders. "Colleges should teach and practice a range of values," Von dracek said. "One of the things we're losing is a sense of communi ty. We need to re-emphasize a sense of community in the precincts of higher education." Although the panel provided no single formula for change, it con centrated on three central issues for colleges and universities to ad dress, including taking values seri ously, putting student learning first and creating a nation of learners. "The heart of the report is a 42- question checklist, so each institu tion can evaluate itself in three key areas," Vondracek said. The report was sent to 3,400 col- for the views of others, are not be ing taught and practiced on college campuses. Dr. Sallie Sheppard, associate provost for undergraduate pro grams and academic services at A&M, said it is very important to have values both in theory and practice. "At A&M, we do have an em phasis on values," she said. As for creating a nation of learners, the panel said all educa tors, from preschool to post-gradu ate, must be prepared to work to gether to align the entire education enterprise. 'Higher education needs to re engage with elementary and sec ondary schools," Vondracek said. "This would help to create a seam less system of lifetime education." The panel calls for a clear public definition of what students should know and be able to do at each ed ucational level, and it looks at col lege admissions practices and the potential for collaboration with K- 12 schools. Texas A&M already works with secondary schools in Houston, Dal las, Corpus Christi, McAllen, San Antonio and Austin with the Uni versity Outreach program. This program is a satellite center co sponsored by Texas A&M and the University of Texas. MSC sponsors Open House More than 2,000 students are expected to attend the Memorial Student Center Open House Sunday at the MSC from 2 to 6 p.m More than 200 organiza tions will be on hand to in form interested students about different clubs and or ganizations. There will be entertain ment, door prizes and food. The MSC Open House is held at the beginning of each semester to promote awareness, interest and par ticipation in extracurricular activities. More than 10,000 people attended the Open House last fall. Inside 1111® Sports •Bucky Richardson profile Page 5 •A&M home swim meet Page 6 Opinion •Whitley: '70s are back to haunt us • Vasquez: Getting a degree is only part of getting a job Page 7 Clinton's health care plan could mean major changes to A&M By Eloise Flint The Battalion T exas A&M health care offi cials are battling to keep the cost and structure of the cur rent health program under control amidst the uncertainty stemming from President Clinton's proposal of The Health Security Act of 1993. Dr. Kenneth Dirks, director of A&M's Beutel Health Center, said the proposal does not specifically state anything about university health care. Representatives of the American College Health Administration re cently traveled to Washington D.C. to visit with first lady Hillary Clin ton and to discuss the special needs of students. Dirks said that, with the current health program A&M is running. students are getting the best bar gain in the country. "What we do here is emphasize preventive care and health educa tion, and whatever happens we will try to preserve the benefits while keeping the cost as low as possible," Dirks said. Lt. Mike Buckley, chair of the Health Service Advisory Council said if the program is enacted, it could make the student health cen ter virtually obsolete. "Speculation is that you would need to have authorization from the government as far as spending goes, and the health center would not be able to accept funding from the University or its students," Buckley said. This would open up the health center to everyone, and if students have to suffer through other health care providers, A&M would have no control, he said. Students of the Collegiate Asso ciation for Student Health at the University of California at Berkeley have circulated a petition to en courage the Qinton administration to take a stance on student health care needs. The petition states, "Although the current administration has stressed the importance of edu cation and has recognized stu dents as the future leaders of our country, student health care has not specifically been addressed." The students believe that, be cause health and education are so interrelated, students need an on campus health center that serves their specific needs. Pat Mountain, a senior busi ness analysis and research major, said the program will have an impact on many aspects of health "What we do here is emphasize preventive care and health edu cation, and whatever happens we will try to preserve the bene fits while keeping the cost as low as possi ble." - Dr. Kenneth Dirks, director of A&M's Beutel Health Center See Health/Page 2