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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 9, 1994)
ptember 9,1994 jj£ K September 9, 1994 - land. They can igorously solicit etings and recruit he last week these injured or killed it Catholics and nn Fein’s Belfast empt to derail the Itocker Affair to it-to-kill” death ive committed es- ass a ssinations, - [overnment has pursued a hard ish nationalism, e IRA has good trust the British ise fire of 1975 ace of British oh m forces swept holic neighbor up suspects tar ish intelligence was obeying thi British security 1 sily preparing fot| ease fire, •secution is not .ary affairs. Asa ih terrorist, you or up to 7 days a lawyer, durinp iu are stripped, miliated in order ifession. g the right tosi- oresumed guilty, i do not have the by jury and must stem overwhelm- [■Votestants. t the IRA is will- cease fire does ho deserves cred- ag Irish republi- •e is a future in md foremost the an community, a ever vigilant in • Northern Irish ' mmmt Mt £<i m ■ m OfilNION mm The Battalion • Page 13 ■*—-—imam The Battalion Editorial Board Belinda Blancarte, Editor in chief Mark Evans, Managing editor Jay Robbins, Opinion editor Jenny Magee, Assistant opinion editor Editorials appearing in The Battalion reflect the views of the editorial board. They do not necessarily reflect the opinions of other Battalion staff members, the Texas A&M student body, regents, administration, faculty or staff. Columns, guest columns, cartoons and letters express the opinions of the authors. Contact the opinion editor for information on submitting guest columns. MAfWiK I4J4 IHf xoxw NEW OElWf The patient died, hut the operation wis# successL.” ; after a sh-American po- isiness leaders, ler Congressman n, returned from with Sinn Fein he cease fire was lelming amount this particular to our president, action campaign, 3 take action by special envoy to situation, the face of fierce ion, Bill Cite Fein, Presided md several othet ilists into the now Clinton has self to taking an in this peace e that America ere is to be a so- n unequivocally lent Clinton has sful headway nts Reagan and and completely last Republican d have stood up ike Clinton has, lere this peace •e right now. Sean O’Donnell Class of ‘95 iould pay i to real oblems state our coun- id of working to e and improve leaders are too ; and worrying a. on dominates i the massacres the former Yu- legated to sec- Violence and zed on TV and fe to walk down starving and n and battered, ur backs. What ral responsibili- impassion? ople play God h life is worthy which is not? all the apathy? urdered in the en. gridlock are the gton. What are best country in i I believe it is, ppening? Stop id start to do ipinion, vote, ed representa- r ed in govern- 3r help because eed it! iver - have a VLarcel LeJeune Class of ’95 each them to fish and hey 11 eat every day Volunteer heads back to school, this time to teach overlooked kids Ac -Me s the second week of school is coming to a close, the mood on campus is changing. Fresh man are starting to leave their maps in their dorm rooms, seniors are con sidering buying books and almost everyone has been hit with the real ization that first rounds aren’t that far away. We are starting to get a little nervous about the reading schedules on our syllabi, professors who don’t curve and scantron tests in calculus. Across the country, just outside of Los Angeles, Katy Farrar, a recent graduate of the University of South ern California, is experiencing much of the same anxiety. School starts for‘her* oh We‘dndfe‘day.‘''Or\ly thih" ' time, she is the teacher. As a part of the Teach for America national teaching corps, Katy will teach English and psychology to eighth grade students in Compton, an area of South Central Los Ange les. The district is plagued by crime, drugs and poverty. “It really hit me when I was at a parents meeting and saw one father wearing a T -shirt that said ‘Stop the Violence. Stop the Drive by Shoot ings,” she said. “ The problems here are for real.” Still, Katy aspires to bring hope to her students. Teach for America is “based upon the idea that all chil dren deserve the opportunity for an excellent education,” she said. “I re ally believe in that,” The job ahead of her is intimidat ing. Because her school does not have enough teachers, she has been told to expect classes of 40 to 50 stu dents. She will not see the English curriculum until Tuesday and is ex pected to design her own psychology course. Because of overcrowding, two middle schools are being com bined for the year - her class will meet in an old storage room. Her biggest challenge, she confesses, will be to convince her students that ‘‘1 am the teacher. I am in control.” Katy is 5 feet 2 inches tall, always wears a big smile and at 22 years old still resembles a high school cheer leader. Because the teachers placed by Teach for America never formally studied education, they spend one month in training before being sent to their new schools. This year, train ing was held in Houston. The roughly 500 new corps members attended seminars on teaching styles and cur riculum development and also team- taught a summer enrichment pro gram. The program was designed to both provide practical experience for the corps members and offer supple mental education for interested stu dents in the Houston Independent School District. The program was MELISSA MEGLIOLA Columnist purely voluntary for the students, and they received no academic credit for their participation. Team members took turns teaching two-hour lessons and worked together on daily lesson plans. Classes met four hours a day. They were limited to 20 students but were available to students throughout Houston schools. Each class was taught on one subject area. Katy’s team taught language arts. Teach for America strongly advo cates centering education around the community. To incorporate this ideef, each class worked 6n a service project related to their classwork. Blending their study of poetry, let ter-writing and journalism, Katy’s class produced a collage that will hang in a transition home for expec tant teenage mothers in Houston’s third ward. Such a project was par ticularly valuable to the students be cause it helped them fight a problem they are faced with every day in their own communities. “Teenage pregnancies were a huge problem in our school this summer. One of my students was only 14 years younger than his mother,” Katy said. When asked why she committed two years of her life to the corps, Katy said, “Amazing students in un der-resourced schools are not getting the attention they deserve. I don’t think they should be overlooked be cause of their socioeconomic back ground, their race or anything else.” This summer, on the last day of class Katy allowed Edward, one of her brightest students and also a gang member with a bullet wound in his left leg, to leave the library where the class was watching a movie to supposedly go to the bath room. Later when she returned to the classroom, she discovered Ed ward had been there. Across the board in big white letters was scrawled simply, “I’ll miss you.” “That’s what it is all about,” said Katy. “That’s why I’m here.” While we seldom think of the Bryan-College Station area as an un der-resourced population, there are still students who need academic guidance, encouragement and atten tion. Opportunities are available to help students through our communi ty through programs like Volunteers in Public Schools and the Hosts Vol unteer Program. Time commitments are as little as 30 minutes a week. Making a difference in the communi ty begins with each of us. Melissa Megliola is a senior industrial engineering major Should Pattie Gilbert have received football tickets? Vpq 1 LYNN BOOMER Columnist On Sept. 4, banned i A&M booster Warren Gilbert told The Dallas Morning News that former A&M vice president for finance and administra tion Robert Smith and head football coach R. C. Slocum asked him not to reveal any- 4/,.;... thing about paying nine football players for work not performed until they got their “final report in to the NCAA.” His exact quote was, “Every time Robert Smith would call, his state ment to me was, Tou do not reveal anything to anybody or talk to any body until I tell you.’” Gilbert said that Coach Slocum told him which football players to hire. He also contends that he didn’t know the players weren’t working. Gilbert’s man agement company runs 23 Dal las projects for the Department of Housing and Urban Develop ment; a company whose size could support that contention. Obviously, if all of this is true, A&M is responsible for the millions of dollars lost after it was suspended from television air time and a probable Cot ton Bowl game, not Warren Gilbert. He is just a man whose loyalty to the school he loves has been taken advan tage of by officials of that school. Regardless of whether Gilbert’s alle gations are true, his wife Pattie should have had no problem obtaining the re served football tickets to which thd Gilberts’ 1978 12th Man Foundation donation of $30,000 entitles them. By making that donation, they are entitled to four reserved tickets and parking for Aggie football games for life. The Gilberts say that other previously disas sociated boosters have not been restricted from their preferred seating, according to The Dal las Morning News. If this is true, then all ef fort on A&M’s part to deny the Gilberts their tickets was uncalled for. The University tried to deny that the “tickets for life” constitute a legal contract. When A&M President Ray Bowen asked the NCAA to send in an arbitrator to settle the dispute, however, the NCAA didn’t see the need for arbitration. Is it possible that they recognized the contract and saw no further need for argument? Pattie Gilbert said, “No one has ^ said one word to me about arbitration.” Some question the timing of Warren Gilbert’s confes sions to The Dallas Morning News. They think he was just mad about the tickets , and should reconsider Gilbert’s motivation. Perhaps the tickets were just the final straw in an excruciat ing ordeal that left him standing alone as the Beelzebub of the A&M football program while everyone else involved in the game played on. It is not Warren Gilbert who betrayed A&M, but A&M who betrayed him. The ticket incident may be over, but determining who’s at fault is just beginning. Lynn Booher is a junior English and psychology major No. ELIZABETH PRESTON Pattie Gilbert should not have received preferred seating tickets, or any tickets at all, to football games this fall. In the first place, regardless of the scandal, $30,000 given over 16 years ago to a uni versity of this size is a pit tance. That they are still receiving preferred seating and other perks is a problem with policy though, and not with the Gilberts. The Gilberts in particular should have graciously accepted Texas A&M’s offer of a re fund. Instead, Mrs. Gilbert insisted on receiving her tickets. Her argument was based on the idea that she should not be punished for her husband’s alleged mistakes. Offhand, that looks like an appropriate argument, but upon closer in spection it falls apart completely. The Gilberts gave the money together, and they were granted the tickets as a couple, not as two separate entities. Marriage is a part nership, for better or worse. The money came from their joint account, and it is improbable to expect the university to treat them differently now. Mrs. Gilbert should not have received the tickets in the first place because they were entitled to them from the same money, therefore they should both lose them. The scandal that Gilbert is ac cused of orchestrating rocked the entire University’s structure and embarrassed Texas A&M nation ally. Though he did not originally deny his guilt, since the football ticket scandal he has come for ward with several startling new allegations. In the latest round of childish accusations, Mr. and Mrs. Gilbert are saying they were asked to cover up A&M’s role in the payment of foot ball players. They are telling the media listen that Mrs. Gilbert met with coach R.C. Slocum in a dark parking garage after the NCAA forbade her husband to meet with him, amid other vio lations. If this is true, than she was involved in the whole mess, and the basis for her whole argument is destroyed. Even if she was not intimately involved, the entire affair is very cut and dried. Warren Gilbert was judged guilty by the NCAA and Texas A&M did not to send him his priority seating tickets in x;1 ,, order to comply with the probation sentence. The University cannot separate the $30,000 dollars into “his” and “hers” and thus it appropriately did not send any of the tickets. Mrs. Gilbert’s temper tantrum should not have been re warded. If she wanted A&M to'treat her differently from her husband, she should have donated money on her own. The way it stands now A&M just looks, once again, like a university that tried to take a stand and failed. 12gMAN FOUNOATION ***• r rmr***** Elizabeth Preston is a junior English major % ffttlUE, ifW mu Mis ML A&M owes tickets to Gilbert It is my opinion that Mrs. Pat Gilbert should lave the A&M football tickets awarded to donors ac cording to legal contracting. Legally, it appears that the University is bound, but ethically, should A&M be threatened by legal recourse surrounding an event of violation that was clearly known and perpe trated anyway? I think that Warren Gilbert has proven that he has no allegiance to the University or football pro gram when it comes to following the rules. He should not, therefore, be given the benefit of the doubt, giving him the opportunity to violate any ad ditional NCAA rules or receive the benefits of a con tract whose honor he violated. It is finally time, given the Gilbert’s use of contractual threatening, to follow legal guide lines. Warren Gilbert should be banned from the campus for life. This action would be proper punishment for the suffering inflicted upon Ag- illlllilllll gies everywhere who follow the rules. I am unsure of the legalities of barring someone from A&M as state property, but violation of under stood guidelines should be sufficient. I believe that in such cases, privileges should be terminated. I fol low the rules, but now I don’t get all the benefits of the program I love and support along with several tens of thousands of other Aggies. It appears that the NCAA has again given A&M the opportunity to demonstrate their commitment to the rules accepted for Division I sports. Mr. Gilbert has violated the school’s agreements with the NCAA, sacrificed the school’s integrity and ultimate ly, broken the Aggie Code of Honor. The statement should be made to the nation of A&M’s conviction to adhere NCAA rules. This will ' ' lilli WMIllilllifg 15 r-'*' V s '' ' * result in favorable standing with the NCAA, and be a landmark action for other schools to follow. J.P. Bach Class of ’94 David Britt Class of ’94 Ttic Battalion encourages let ters to the editor and will print as many as space allows. Letters must be 300 words or less and include the author's name, class, and phone number. We reserve the right to edit letters for length, style, and ac curacy. Address letters to: The Battalion Mail Call 013 Reed McDonald Texas A&M University College Station, TX 77843-t 111 Fax: (409) 845-2647 E-mail: 8att@Iamvin1.tamu.edu