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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 8, 1994)
nALIGN • Page oter ’s Guide |ze up the candidates with an election idethat includes platforms and a imple ballot. Pages 5&6 Opinion JOSEF ELCHANAN: America's tolerance for scandal has reached what many are saying are its limits, for the very overheating of our bureaucracy may fuel the violence of our land. p ^ THE Aggielife gg Comedy show "Mystery Science Theater 3000" comes to Rudder Auditorium Wednesday. Page 3 TUESDAY November 8, 1994 Vol. 101, No. 52 (10 pages) “Serving Texas A&M since 1893” Briefs Smith denied dismissal of misconduct trial herland, (vice presi- it affairs).” id committee mem- i the presentations :h department and i with how they jus- ley. ally use an integrity aid. d each allocation ke a presentation to e. see where the bud ding preliminary e' where the fee is said. d a lot of the time 3 in excess and the go up 10 percents e where students mey to go and see ^ment needs to be dd. iaid the committee s specific dollar ach department and a committee recom- d total. id total causes each ly more, we recom- ir amount per stu- nd makes decisions, past, his dollar student has never •ent from ours," d. “The adminis- lects our decision tudents’ money ent.” iaid the committee •ing break to make looding in Europe akes 74 lives ALBA, Italy (AP) — As they eared a carpet of mud from regions med for wine, truffles and Fiat cars, ite Italians criticized the government onday for its response to the floods at killed 51 people. Another 23 people died in three iys of driving rain across southern ance, Spain and Morocco. Hardest hit was Italy’s northern iedmont area, which received its aviest rainfall since 1913, officials iid. They estimated damage at $3.5 lion to the region where fine Barolo d wines, truffles, Asti spumante and at cars are produced. At least 41 people were missing, id thousands were homeless, said e civil defense agency. ’s a mega-disaster,” said ivironment Minister Altero Matteoli. ears Roebuck to ut Tower up for sale CHICAGO (AP) — Sears Roebuck id Co. said Monday it will give up vnership of Sears Tower, the orld’s tallest building, in a structuring of the building’s lancing. But the name will remain e same. The building has 110 stories rising 1,454 feet. Two TV antennae bring . , r height to 1,707 feet. The building id takes the recom- )uses sears’ national headquarters. orporate offices will remain in the wer under a lease that expires in eyear 2000. The agreement to transfer wnership to a pension fund artnership managed by Boston- ased Aldrich, Eastman & Waltch will iduce Sears’ debt by $850 million, ears said. Sears'will record a $195 million in, after taxes, in the fourth quarter idations. “The rec-lsaresultof the transaction, s affect the next fis-1 Construction on the tower was said. rar/ed/r? August 1970 and completed May 1973. Ikeleton found on lalloween identified Banking es ■ge DONNA, Texas (AP) — A skeleton Hind on Halloween has been entified as the remains of Cipriana odriguez, an 84-year-old cafe owner ho was reported kidnapped more an two months ago. Police investigator David odriguez said Monday that the n had been positively identified era week of lab work. The skeleton was found Oct. 31 in lick brush about 1,000 feet from the ne-story home where Rodriguez lived, odriguez, longtime owner of the lonte Carlo Cafe next to her home, isappeared from the home on Aug. 29. Family members reported that she as kidnapped and that they tempted to pay ransom to people in lexico claiming to hold Rodriguez. Donna Municipal Judge Jose arza, the victim’s son-in-law, told he (McAllen) Monitor that he now elieves the men in Mexico did not ave Rodriguez captive when they emanded the money. He said he elieves she died shortly after the eparent abduction. een faces prison for nurder of foui^year-old BATH, N.Y. (AP) — Heeding a eartbroken father’s plea, a judge entenced a teen-ager Monday to ine years to life in prison — the laximum — for luring a 4-year-old oy into the woods and crushing his ill with a rock. The 14-year-old killer, Eric Smith, ast his eyes downward but showed io emotion. Eric confessed in 1993 to leading lerrick Robie on a supposed shortcut oa day camp they attended in the testem New York village of Savona, an overgrown lot, Eric choked the xiy and bashed his head with a 26- )ound rock. He then sodomized the tody with a stick. When Derrick came into this vorld I cried and when Derrick left tils world I cried,” Dale Robie, his roice trembling, said in asking the xwrtforthe maximum. have felt the whole realm of oving and losing.” MasterCard*' a’ 1 h Corporation - Today's Batt Classified 8 Coupons TO Opinion 9 Sports 7 Toons i i 4 A By Michele Brinkmann The Battalion Judge Oliver Kitzman denied a motion by the defense Monday to dismiss the trial of former Texas A&M Vice President Robert Smith because the prose cution lacked sufficient evidence that proved Smith solicited gifts while in office. Dick DeGuerin, Smith’s de fense attorney, asked the judge to order the jury to hand down a verdict of not guilty because the state failed to provide any evi dence that Smith solicited gifts from Barnes and Noble Book stores Inc. Smith is accused of soliciting trips to New York City for himself and his wife Pat while negotiating contracts with Barnes and Noble between 1990 and 1993. Smith made several trips along with his wife along with former Board of Regents Chairman Ross Margraves and his wife. The Smiths and the Margraves were treated by Barnes and No- Smith bles to Broad way shows, French dinners, limousine rides and yacht tours of Manhattan Island. Barnes and Noble paid for nearly all of their expenses including $38,000 on en tertainment and accommodations. The company spent $12,610 on the trip Smith is on trial for. Smith was demoted to direc tor of special operations after he was indicted in June on a misde meanor charge of using his pub lic office to solicit gifts. Brazos County District Attor ney Bill Turner said he is not surprised the judge ruled to con tinue the trial. “We can take it to the jury,” Turner said. “The trial is not over until it is over.” Turner said the law states that each element of a case can be proved by direct or or circum stantial evidence. “Nobody at Barnes and Noble asked the wives to go to New York,” Turner said. “That leaves the jury to conclude Smith asked for it. That is direct solicitation and there is a lot of circumstan tial evidence we have brought in.” Kitzman ruled that a taped interview the Texas Rangers held with Smith could not be admissible as evidence because the tapes were not relevant to the indictment. He said the potential prejudice the tapes might cause the jury to outweighed the probative value. DeGuerin said the interview did not indicate Smith solicited gifts. He also argued that the con tents of the tape were irrelevant and misleading. Turner argued the tapes ex plained the negotiations and gave evidence Smith knew what he did was wrong. The questioning on Monday centered on A&M’s decision to choose Barnes and Noble to run the campus bookstore. Jane Schneider, senior man agement analyst at A&M, testi fied that Barnes and Noble was chosen over Follett College Stores, another company that submitted a proposal to take over the bookstore, because its contract offered A&M more mon ey than Follett. The contract gives A&M $1.5 million or 11 percent of the book store’s sales annually, whichever is more. A&M also received a $500,000 bonus for extending the contract with Barnes and Noble until 2005. William Maloney, a vice presi dent for Barnes and Noble, said he began negotiating with A&M in 1988 through Don Powell, di rector of business services. Maloney said Smith called him later to tell him that he had been appointed by the Regents to be the negotiator for the privatiza tion of the bookstore and he was the only one they should contact for negotiations. Powell said he assumed that as business services director he would negotiate the contract but was denied a travel request to visit Barnes and Noble because Smith said it was not necessary. Powell did negotiate original ly with both companies and said he did not prefer either company to run the bookstore. “My only interest is in doing what is right for the University,” he said. DeGuerin questioned Powell about his personal feelings for Smith. DeGuerin has said throughout the trial Powell was a bitter employee who did not like Smith. “I don’t either like or dislike him,” Powell said. Powell said that in a memo Smith told him not to further ne gotiate with Barnes and Noble. “I ... ask that you not further contract with Barnes and Noble or Follett,” the memo stated. “I was cut out of the loop,” See Trial/Page 2 A&M court decision may aid SFA student group By Lisa Messer The Battalion A 1984 Supreme Court ruling forcing Texas A&M to rec ognize Gay Student Services (GSS) as a student organiza tion may be used to appeal Stephen F. Austin State Univer sity’s Student Government’s decision to end funding for their school’s gay student association. SFA’s Student Senate voted last week to stop funding the Gay and Lesbian Student Association (GLSA) beginning next school year. SFA Student Senator Bryan Simmons, who led the effort against the gay group, said funding was ended on grounds that members are violating the state sodomy law. “The majority of GLSA members are gay and in order to be homosexual, more than likely you have violated 21.06 of the Texas penal code (the sodomy law),” Simmons said. “We didn’t want to have a group on campus that might in some way champion violation of Texas law. What if (a nation al pedophile club) wanted to start a campus pedophile club? That’s as much against the law as homosexual conduct.” The sodomy law makes it a misdemeanor, punishable by fine, for people of the same gender to have “deviant sexual intercourse.” Dr. Jim Mazzullo, faculty adviser for A&M’s Gay, Les bian and Bisexual Aggies, said the SFA Student Senate’s decision is unconstitutional. “The Student Senate did a very bad thing,” Mazzullo said. “They’re rejecting funding because people are probably break ing the law. Nobody can presume you’re breaking the law. That’s a violation of due process, and that’s unconstitutional.” Mazzullo said the nine-year court battle that A&M’s gay student association fought when it first attempted to orga nize as the Gay Student Services in 1976 will probably be See SFA/Page 2 Blake Griggs/ The Battalion Practice makes perfect Tony He and his mother practice an Asian art form called the Traditional Chinese Sword in Rudder Ex hibition Hall on Monday afternoon. Cults mind harmful to By Amanda Fowle The Battalion A cult expert told Texas A&M students Monday night that cults are harmful to indi viduals and to society because they control people’s minds. Ronald N. Loomis, a past na tional president of a cult aware ness network, told the group about the murders, suicides and criminal acts of cults, in cluding the Branch Davidians and People’s Temple. Loomis said he became in volved in cult awareness when he was director of the student union at Cornell University. “I came to realize that some of the organizations we had registered as student groups were cults,” he said. Many people think that cults exist only in large cities, but Loomis said they actually are present everywhere. “I want to confirm that the problem of cult phenomenon is very real and present here,” he said. He said people notice groups like the Branch Davidi ans when something horrible happens, but these groups ex ist for long periods of time without being noticed. “There are groups all over the world that we do not know about until something crazy happens,” he said. Loomis said there are sev eral different types of cults. “The cult phenomenon is not controlling techniques society, expert says just a reli gious issue,” he said. “It is an issue of mind control.” He said some cults in volve medita tion and self- improvement. Others are political groups or commercial cults. Some are new age groups or Sa tanic group while some are white su- premacist groups. The key to all of these cults, he said, is that they use mind control Photo by Carrie Thompson/THE Battalion Ronald Loomis, a past president of a cult awareness group said college students are a to'kee^their likely tar 9 et ^ or recruitment into cult groups members. Loomis said the cult leaders are usually very charismatic and deceptive. He said they are very secre tive and believe all other be liefs are wrong. Loomis said that anyone is susceptible to being taken in by a cult. “The profile of a typical cult recruit is the profile of a typical Texas A&M student,” he said. He said that people are most susceptible to cults when they are in a new situation, like college, or have just been through a personal trauma, like losing a loved one. “Many former cult members can pinpoint a trauma or time of transition that they had not quite recovered from when they were recruited by the cult,” Loomis said. He said the cults use many methods to control the minds of the members. See Cults/page 2 College of Medicine dean to step down By Tracy Smith The Battalion Dr. Richard DeVaul announced Monday that he will resign as dean of the Texas A&M College of Medi cine and vice president for health affairs effective Jan. 1,1995. DeVaul said he will be a visit ing senior scholar with the Asso ciation of Academic Health Cen ters in Washington D.C. to work on national health issues. “I’m excited about the opportu nity to be in the center of discus sion and policy making in the rapidly changing health care en vironment,” DeVaul said. Before coming to A&M in 1988, DeVaul was dean of medicine at West Virginia University and asso ciate dean for student and curricu lum affairs at the University of Texas Medical School in Houston He said he is pleased to have had the opportunity to provide leadership for the Texas A&M Health Science Center. “When I assumed the position, the College of Medicine was at an important crossroads in develop ment,” he said. “My deanship has evolved through a period of growth and change over the last six and a half years. “However, now it’s time to pass the baton to another,” he said. Dr. Don Cauthen, head of the Family and Community Medi cine Department in Temple, said he has worked with DeVaul and that a college dean position is a very difficult position to have. “Dr. DeVaul has an extremely complex job,” Cauthen said. “However, he has made impor tant strides as far as geU’-'~ recognition for the college.” DeVaul plans to return to the A&M faculty, after finishing his work in Washington, as a profes sor of psychiatry and behavioral science and family and communi ty medicine. Cauthen said he hopes he is able to welcome DeVaul as a pro fessor of family and community medicine upon his return from Washington D.C., but definite plans are still up in the air. DeVaul said the milestone of his career for which he is proud est is the formal approval for the initiation of a new Texas A&M University Health Science Center Education and Research Building in Temple. “This milestone was reached through contributions from the private contributors and the Texas A&M University System,” he said “The building will solidify the relationship between the Uni versity, Scott & White Memorial Hospital & Clinic, and the Olin E. Teague Veteran’s Center. “I believe that the University health science center and its affil iates are poised to make signifi cant strides in the future,” De Vaul said. “It is my belief that this opportunity will be best real ized through new leadership.” i