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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (June 22, 1995)
’ J u ne 21,15;: hildre^d (6 pages) Established in 1893 Thursday • June 22, 1995 tudents question proposed use fee increase Jay Robbins, The Battalion President Bowen addresses the open forum on Wednesday afternoon where itudents, faculty and administrators discussed proposed fee increases. □ Approximately 1 75 students, administrators, faculty and staff attended an open forum to discuss the proposed in crease of the general use fee. By Wes Swift The Battalion The proposal to increase the general use fee came under intense criticism Wednes day during a public hearing in the MSC. Dr. J. Malon Southerland, vice president for student affairs, mediated the open fo rum to discuss the proposal, which would raise the general use fee from $12 to $26 per semester credit. The $15.4 million in revenue generated by the increase will be used to fund a 3- percent staff and faculty salary raise, $1 million increase to financial aid and will erase a $6.8 million budget deficit created by the Texas Legislature’s decrease in bud get appropriations for the University. An estimated 175 students, administra tors, faculty and staff packed the conference room and questioned many aspects of the proposal, from motivations to consequences. Toby Boenig, A&M student body presi dent, said that although there may be a need for an increase, the $14 dollar raise was too much, too fast. He explained that students are being asked to pull more than their weight. “We do understand that we have to take some of this burden,” Boenig said. “But the burden should not be as great as it is. It should not be as focused on one party as it is right now. We feel that the burden should be spread out over several different areas.” Many students spoke about the effects the fees would have and offered recommen dations to improve the proposal. Tracy Winnington, an A&M senior and single mother, said with the additional $210 per semester that she will have to pay, she could buy 928 diapers and 119 gallons of milk. “I understand they’re going to have to increase these fees sometime,” Winnington said. “But it’s such a large increase all at one time, and that is what hurts.” See FORUM, Page 6 University task force awaits results of telecommunications regulation bill >urse f Nails s Magazine □ A&M's electronic informa tion task force will publish its findings on Internet regula tion in August. By Scott McMahan The Battalion |||Texas A&M’s electronic information task force is watching the U.S. Con gress closely for the results of the telecommunications bill that would regulate the Internet. ■ The task force was appointed in Fall 1994 to cover Internet issues in cluding free speech, harassment, ob scenity, liability and enforcement. HA report on the group’s findings will be published in August, addressing the use of the Internet at A&M. UlJohn Dinkle, associate provost for A&M’s computing services and task force member, said sec tions of the report will be af- j|fected by what Congress decides. H Dinkle said he does not know who should be accountable for Internet transmission. ■; “If a person posts a message that someone deems inappropriate, who is li able?” he said. P It has not yet been determined if the University will be liable for what Inter- Inet users publish, he said. The bill cur rently being debated does not define en forcement procedures. I See related Editorial, Page 5 Dinkle said the Internet and tele phone communication cannot be com- Ipared to one another, because someone lean post a message on an Internet bul- lletin board that anyone who has access to the Internet can receive Dave Safford, director of the A&M Super computer Center, said the bill at tempts to regulate pri vate communi cation. “They are ex tending it to, what is in ef fect, private conversation,” Saf ford said. Obscenity is not clearly defined in the law and may even be more difficult to de fine on the Internet, he said. “The problem with the obscenity is sue is that the Supreme Court has applied it with local stan dards,” he said. “The Internet is global, it is not a U.S. thing. How can the U.S. regulate it?” Safford said there are other regulatory options that the Senate did not explore, such as rating Internet content similar to movie ratings. “I think this bill has good in tentions, but it’s flawed in its implementation,” Safford said. The U.S. Senate already has passed the Exon/Gorton Decency Act which criminalizes forms of expression on the Inter net that are indecent and obscene. The telecom munications bill will make it a criminal offense to communicate any comment, re quest, suggestion, pro posal, image or other communication which is obscene, lewd, filthy or inde cent, with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten or harass an other person.” Butch Kemper, project di rector for A&M’s computing and information services, said he expects the new bill will be challenged in the Supreme Court. “The stuff that the Exon Bill is tar geting is just a very small portion of what is out there.” Kemper added that there is less per sonal interaction for Internet users and more of a sense of anonymity than tele phone conversations. “People are less inhibited when they are on the Internet,” he said. Decrease in applications, funding cause graduate enrollment rates to drop □ The number of applica tions A&M received this year decreased 11 percent and acceptance decreased 5 percent. By Javier Hinojosa The Battalion Texas A&M graduate student en rollment dropped 7.1 percent from 1994 to 1995 because of decreases in funding for graduate researchers and fewer applicants. Dr. Dan H. Robertson, director of the A&M office of graduate studies, said that although the latest reports show nationwide graduate enroll ment has increased 1 percent, it is not unusual for institutions to be lev eling off at the graduate level or see ing slight declines. “Not all institutions carry the same disciplines, so it is not correct to assume that enrollment was up in every institution,” Robertson said. Universities can be more selective in choosing applicants if more appli cations are received, he said. “In the business of graduate studies, one of the things you do is keep in touch with what is happen ing with graduate applications,” he said. “They are a good lead in fore casting enrollment.” The ratio between applications and admitted students varies among the different colleges, he said. Overall, the number of appli cations A&M received decreased 11 percent this year, and acceptance decreased 5 percent. “Cases where the percent change in acceptance is higher than that of applications say two things,” Robert son said. “Either there are better quality appheants in here than there were previously, or the college has been more liberal in admissions.” Robertson said graduate enroll ments may be decreasing because colleges are being more selective and that there may be less-quali fied students. Acceptance to the graduate See Rates, Page 6 Graduate and Professional Student Enrollment Changes Spring '94 vs. Spring '95 COLLEGE: ^ Enrollment 'gS Enrollment Percent Change : Business Admin. 550 490 4-10.91% : Education 993 952 4-4.13% Engineering 1914 1652 4-13.69% Liberal Arts 773 727 4-5.95% Source: Office of Graduate Studies 40 This model for a proposed AIDS hospice was designed by senior envi ronmental design student Steve Shores. ac*h (Architecture students iSTi^design AIDS hospice □ The designs reflect the needs of patients in their final stages of AIDS. ler as man) ia l topp^i pizza. on with coupons. ler, please; Mr. Gatti s. By Katherine Arnold The Battalion E Making patients in their final Stages of AIDS as comfortable as possible was the goal of Texas A&M architecture students dur ing their class projects to design an AIDS hospice. I Dr. Mardelle Shepley, assis tant professor of architecture, led 17 students in the Architec ture 306, Architectural Design III class project. We had a client in Austin that wanted to build a hospice,” Shepley said. “Each student did their own design for the project.” The client. Project Transi tions, was a non-profit organiza tion who provides medical care for AIDS patients. The organiza tion was interested in building a hospice for eight people in the fi nal stages of AIDS. The facility would be adjacent to a long-term care facility which would treat HIV-positive people who do not require constant care. The students’ designs were compiled and presented to the organization for consideration. There are several factors to consider when constructing a See Hospice, Page 6 Career Center increases accessibility, services □ Students can now access the center's information from cam pus computer labs and their personal computers. By Eleanor Colvin The Battalion The Texas A&M Career Center has ex panded its services in an effort to simplify the job search for students and to reach a broader base of employers. Dr. Leigh Turner, director of the Career Center, said students can access job listings and interview information from campus computer labs and personal computers, in stead of having to come to the center. Turner said she hopes to make informa tion available to more students and employ ers through the use of computers and streamline all aspects of the job search. Turner said the center began networking with a few labs on campus two years ago. Now it is connected with all the major com puter labs and with some departmental labs, such as the College of Engineering. “Searching for a job takes time and is not an easy process,” Turner said. “We started networking with the College of Business be cause the students felt Blocker was a long way from the Career Center, and we wanted to do everything possible to make things eas ier. We especially need that service now that there are colleges on West Campus.” Turner said the Career Center is devel oping its home page on the Internet for students to access interview schedules and job information. “We are working on using the Internet be cause we definitely need to be in the fore front in terms of technology,” she said. “I’d like for students to have the option of placing resumes on the Internet.” Tami Bennett, Class of 1994, said she has benefited from the new computer services now that she is no longer on campus. “The computer system is good for con tacts, and you can use it during the sum mer and holidays,” Bennett said. “I’ve had lots of interviews through the Career Center that I may not have been able to find out about on my own.” Turner said students who begin working with the center before their last years in school will benefit the most from the new computer networks and other services. She recommends that students register with the center at least one year before they graduate, in order to make them selves more marketable and find careers they would like to target. Turner said she encourages students to find internships, cooperative work experi ences and summer jobs that will furnish them with professional skills. “Any work experience is better than none,” she said. “Students need to think broadly about the experience that various jobs provide. Professional experience is im perative for students to find jobs in such a competitive market.” Turner said the center, which works with about 800 recruiting companies, is one of the largest university career cen ters in the nation. During the 1994-95 school year there was a 14-percent increase in the number of com panies recruiting and a 22-percent increase in the number of interviews scheduled. “I don’t think anyone nationwide is do ing as much for their students as us,” Turner said. “My counterparts at a meet ing with other Big 12 schools were sur prised that we scheduled more than 21,000 interviews for the 5,200 students registered [with the Career Center] last year, not including the summer.” Don Birkelbach, of Dow Chemical in Freeport and a member of the Career Cen ter’s advisory committee, said he is pleased with the Career Center’s efforts. He said Dow has a long recruiting history with A&M and considers the University to be one of the top five schools from which the company recruits. “Dow has always had a close relationship with A&M,” he said. “We hire at least five to six stu dents a year from A&M and will continue to work with the Career Center.” Birkelbach said he is pleased with the im provements the center is making. “I am impressed with changes like the prese lection process for inter viewing,” he said. “A&M’s center is doing a good job of meeting our recruiting needs and looking at future hiring needs.” Erika Steffens, a senior agriculture busi ness major, said she wished she had started working with the career center sooner. “I came to the center because it’s hard to find many job openings without one central location,” she said. “I wish I would have started sooner because the Career Center of fers a fair chance for all students to inter view for jobs.” Turner