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
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