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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (March 1, 1995)
ONE LAST TIME Five seniors play their last game at G. Rollie White tonight. Sports, Page 7 THE TIME FOR A NEW PROPOSAL Elchanan: Competing agendas on campus have prompted the creation of a more plausible plan. Opinion, Page 9 ART AT A&M Three art galleries in the MSC give artists exposure on campus. AggieUfe, Page Vol. 101, No. 105 (10 pages) ‘Serving Texas AdrM since 1893 Wednesday • March 1, 1995 ■aw® Law enforcement officials look to Food COUTt’s SUCCCSS challenges reduce accidents, increase tickets dining facilities, local restaurants 3 The College Station Police Department will monitor areas where speeding is a problem. ByKasie Byers The Battalion The College Station Police Depart ment will begin cracking down on speed ers today as part of program to reduce traffic accidents. , Last year 1,657 traffic accidents oc- I curred in the College Station area. The Speed Selective Traffic Enforce ment Program will monitor four areas in College Station where speeding is a ma jor problem. ' The areas involved are Highway 6, the 1100 through the 600 blocks of University I Drive, FM 2818 from Dowling Road to the I north city limits and FM 2818 from High- j way 6 to Texas Avenue. Speed STEP, which grants each city | $25,000, is funded by the National High way Traffic Safety Administration and ad ministered through the Texas Depart ment of Transportation. The program’s goals are to reduce the number of speeding vehicles by five per cent and to increase the number of cita tions and warnings given to speeders by 35 percent. Lt. Scott McCollum of the College Sta tion Police Department said Speed STEP will change how officers handle speeding violations. See Tickets, Page 1 0 Bart Mitchell/THE Battalion A local police officer uses a radar gun to monitor motorists’ speed. □ The Underground Food Court has decreased business at other dining facilities and restaurants. By Wes Swift The Battalion The Underground Food Court’s success has decreased business at some nearby restaurants and other on-campus dining facilities. The food court opened Feb. 20, af ter more than a year of construc tion, with four fast-food restau rants: Whataburger, Chick-Fil-A, Alonti Deli and Taco Bueno. Ron Beard, interim director of food services, said the response to the food court has been good. “We are very encouraged,” Beard said. “We’re just delighted with the response from the students, faculty and staff.” Beard said the food court, attracted students from everywhere on campus. “There were a lot of people who said ‘Let’s go see the new place,”’ Beard said. “I’ve talked to several people from Southside dorms that have come to the food court at least once.” Beard said the food court sales have caused a noticeable drop in business at some on-campus restaurants. “We did see an affect in sales in the MSC, especially in Hullabaloo.” Beard said. “There was also a dip in Sbisa, since some students opted to use their meal credits. The Bus Stop Snack Bar was also affected because it’s only three blocks away.” But the new food court has some off-campus restaurants’ attention too. Nasser Ham dan, owner and man ager of the M&M Grill, said the food court has had a large effect on his restaurant’s sales. “Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday business was not good,” he said. George Sopasakas, owner and manager of Burger Boy, said his busi ness was affected slightly, but he ex pected the food court will have a greater effect on the on-campus restaurants. “It has af fected us a lit- tie,” Sopasakas said. “I came to the conclu sion that the University is really just redirecting their own traf fic. We don’t really worry about it.” Some restaurants are not affect ed at all. Ahmed Motay, manager of the Northgate Cafe, said his restaurant has not been changed. “It’s had little or no effect,” Mo tay said. “It’s taken some business.” Nick Rodnicki/THE Battalion Celebrating culture Brad Wilson, a junior political science major tional Japanese dress, at the Japan Club’s and Deven Rohrer, a sophomore geology major booth in the MSC during International Week pose after being dressed in kimono, the tradi- Tuesday afternoon. Democrats hold out on balanced-budget amendment 0 Republicans make concessions to gain Democratic support but still come up short. WASHINGTON (AP) — In a tense drama blending constitu tional principle with raw politics, the Senate moved toward a show down Tuesday on a balanced-bud get amendment designed to end chronic federal deficits. Republicans coughed up a last- minute concession barring feder al judges from ordering tax hikes cr spending cuts to balance the budget, and pocketed two Democ rat votes in return. Still short of the support necessary to prevail, they negotiated with other De mocrats over companion legisla tion that would leave Social Secu rity trust funds off-limits to bud get-cutters. “It’s a cliffhanger,” said Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, a leading supporter. The centerpiece of the Republi can revolution in Congress, the proposed amendment to the Con stitution is designed to end the run-up in federal debt that ex ceeds $4.8 trillion. It calls for a balanced budget by 2002 and re quires a three-fifths vote of both houses to run a deficit in future years. A similar measure cleared the GOP-controlled House in Jan uary. Senate passage would mean the House would have to vote on the newly modified ver sion before submitting it to the states for ratification. At the White House, President Clinton renewed his objections. Pressed on whether Clinton would campaign to defeat ratifi cation in the states, press secre tary Mike McCurry said the pres ident would make sure state leg islators “have the information they need to judge the merits.” Bowen, Southerland hold open forums with students □ A&M students can voice their concerns to University officials today. By Gretchen Perrenot The Battalion The president of Texas A&M and the vice president of student affairs are opening their doors to students today in an effort to find out what is on students’ minds. Students can meet with Dr. Ray Bowen, A&M president, and Dr. J. Malon Southerland, vice president for student affairs, today without an appointment to talk or ask questions. Bowen’s Open House is in his office on the eighth floor of Rudder from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Southerland’s third Open Forum starts at 3 p.m. today and lasts approximately an hour and a half. It is in Rudder 404. Bowen said he hopes students take advantage of the Open House and voice their concerns. “I hope they are interested in the state bud get and how we are going to support the li brary,” he said, “and maybe even talk about baseball and basketball.” Jeff Wilson, student body vice president, said the Open House is an example of Bowen’s open ness to the student body. “The new restructured administration has been so much better,” Wilson said. “This Open House is something that is unheard of in high er education.” Bowen said he hosted a similar Open House at Oklahoma State and had a well-represented showing of students. There were 19,000 stu dents at Oklahoma State and 300 showed for Open House, he said. He said he hopes there is also a good showing at A&M today. “I don’t want to sit up here all by myself,” Bowen said. Southerland said he will not be concerned if many students do not attend his forum today. “It’s not my agenda,” Southerland said. “They may not have any questions, but I want to be available if they do.” There have been two other open forums in the past. Last Fall, the open forum had to be rescheduled because Bonfire fell the day it was planned. About four or five people showed dur ing the rescheduled event. Wilson said not as many students attend as should. “Who bettef* to talk to than the vice presi dent for student affairs or the president of A&M,” he said. Southerland’s third Open Forum starts at 3 p.m. today and lasts approximately an hour and a half. It is in Rudder 404. Southerland said the two events are on the same day by coincidence, but he will be attend ing Bowen’s Open House before his own forum begins. The events have the same purpose of finding out more about students’ concerns. “It all relates together when you’re at a school this size,” Southerland said. “We’re doing Open Forum and Chat and Chew and the presi dent is doing Open House.” The Open Forum will be more formal than the Chat and Chew, Southerland said, and may be represented more by groups and organiza tions than individual students. However, any one is welcome to come, he said. See Forum, Page 10 Beutel discontinues overnight care O Officials say they offer many valuable services for students. By Cheryl Heller The Battalion A&M students no longer have the option of staying overnight at the A.P. Beutel Health Center. Until this semester, the health center provided overnight care for students who needed it, hut the ser vices were discontinued for fi nancial reasons. Dr. Kenneth Dirks, director of the health center, said. “We used to keep some stu dents several days depending on how sick they were, but the service wasn’t being utilized enough,” he said. “We had on the average of zero to three students using the overnight services at a time and it was not cost-effective to have a full-time nurse to care for only a few students.” The center does have an ob servatory room where stu dents can rest for several hours and remain under a nurse’s watch. Students need ing overnight care must go to a hospital. Sharon Arnold, assistant director of nursing services, said the health center, which receives funding from part of the student services fee, still offers a wide range of services for students for minimal charges. “I don’t think a lot of stu dents realize the amount of services we actually provide for them,” she said. “We have excellent facilities compared to what I’ve seen at other col leges and I think we provide an excellent level of care to students.” The center is open Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. and provides general care for sore throats, sprains, fractures and minor sutures, Arnold said. An urgent care clinic, which provides services for students from 4 p.m. to 7:30 a.m. and on weekends, usually sees between 40 and 50 stu dents a night, Arnold said. “We won’t turn anyone away,” she said, “but we ask that students try to limit themselves to urgent problems because we get really busy and sometimes we only have one doctor working.” The center also provides allergy injections to more than 300 students a week, Arnold said. “They bring their orders, ex tracts and syringes and receive the injections for free, which is a really good arrangement for them,” she said. The center provides work man’s compensation benefits for employees who suffer minor injuries on campus and pro vides courtesy care to visitors who are in sports tournaments on campus, Arnold said. “We charge them what we charge our own students,” she said. The center also provides counseling services for stu dents suffering from stress or eating disorders, Arnold said, and refers them to the coun seling center or outpatient services. The health education de partment provides peer educa tion and classes on various See Beutel, Page 10