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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 1, 1995)
Texas A. Sc JVI University Showtime? Clark: Rap is nothing to be afraid of, yet The Show st\W isn't playing in B-CS. Aggielife, Page 3 Exciting Season Editorial: It's football season, and the Aggies are gearing up for their gridiron fight. Opinion, Page 17 if® T- rri' aJm V m\ The First Step Dennis Allen is ready for the first test on the road to a title. Sports, Page 16 The Battalio 1102, No. 5(18 pages) bard Revenue will be I sedto fill a $10 ion budget ificit and fund a culty and staff lary increase. lames Bernsen •Battalion lie Texas A&M Board of Re- | as increased the general use I:Thursday, reaching a com- Established in 1893 Friday * September 1, 1995 of Regents increases general use fee promise that they hope will fill the University’s budget deficit and at the same time, not take too heavy a toll on students. The A&M System Board of Re gents approved an increase in the fee for all A&M System schools Thursday, rather than waiting for the scheduled vote Friday. See related EDITORIAL, Page 17 The adopted fee increase dif fers from the original proposal from Dr. Ray Bowen, Texas A&M president, ’and will be phased-in over two semesters. Bowen’s proposal was to in crease the fee by SlO per semester credit hour, to S22 semester credit hour for fiscal year 1995-1996. However, the fee will only be increased by S8, to $20 for this fall. Next semester, the fee will be raised another $4 per semes ter credit hour, to $24. The in crease will generate the same amount of revenue for the fiscal year as the original proposal, but the some of the money will be deferred until spring. Students, for example, taking 15 hours each semester, the old proposal would cost an addition al $150 each semester, for a total of $300 for two semesters. Under the new proposal, the students will still pay $300 over both semesters, but they will pay $120 this semester and $180 in the spring. Although fall enrollment is higher than that of the spring, Bowen estimates that summer income added on to spring will balance them out. The regents changed the pro posal after concerns arose that students were being hit with too much of an increase at one time. Toby Boenig, Texas A&M stu dent body president, told the See Regents, Page 18 □ The fee will be raised by $8 per semester credit hour this fall. i By James Bernsen The Battalion Texas A&M students will re ceive another fee statement be cause of the increased general use fee, and many of them don’t like it. The Texas A&M Board of Re- : gents on Thursday approved an increase of $8 per semester cred- ■ it hour in the general use fee for the fall semester, and another $4 increase for the spring. The revenue from the in- ; creased fee will be used to fill a | $10 million budget deficit and I fund a 3 percent faculty and j staff salary increase. 1 Daniel Applegate, a sopho- | more chemical engineering ma- j jor, said he can see the need for j See Fee, Page 12 j Louis Craig, T he Battalion Gearin' up for cut tyleCowen, a freshman mechanical engineering major, sands his pot for this year's Bonfire activi- lies. Cut will begin Sept. 30. Center pole will go up Nov. 9, and Bonfire will burn Dec. 1. A&M System to operate on $623 million budget □ Aggieland represents 47.9 percent of the total funds. The Texas A&M University System Board of Regents approved a $1.3 billion budget for the 1996 fiscal year at its meeting Thursday. The budget represents an increase of 8 percent over last year’s figure. Texas A&M will operate on a budget of $623 million for the coming fiscal year, with an additional $19 million for the Galveston campus. State appropriations increased slightly over the previous year’s numbers to $455 million. A&M represent 47.9 percent of the overall System budget. Funding for Debt Service Requirements includes $193,700 of PUF Bond Proceeds for Equipment Allocation. Funds allocated to the Texas Agricultural Extension Service do not include those directly disbursed by counties. System Member FY 1996 System Administrative and General Offices 14,260,240 Debt Service Requirements 79,693,777 Center for Leadership 229,848 System Aircraft 424,459 Trusteed Accounts 36,047,965 Prairie View A&M University 66,845,616 Tarleton State University 41,948,525 Texas A&M International University 17,284,387 Texas A&M University 623,753,694 Texas A&M University-Corpus Chrjsti 38,605,935 Texas A&M University at Galveston 19,333,832 Texas A&M University-Kingsville 41,931,343 West Texas A&M University 39,983,379 Texas Agricultural Experiment Station 103,902,926 Texas Agricultural Extension Service 63,452,302 Texas Animal Damage Control Service 4,946,758 Texas Forest Service 19,109,813 Texas Vet Med Diagnostic Lab 7,485,914 Texas Engineering Experiment Station 50,701,344 Texas Engineering Extension Service 45,254,484 Texas Transportation Institute 27,150,000 TOTAL, Texas A&M University System 1,342,346,541 KAMU brings Student Senate to living room this semester □ Student Senate meetings will be aired on KAMU every other Wednesday. By Tara Wilkinson The Battalion It is no longer necessary to leave the comfort of home and the remote control in order to stay up dated on Texas A&M Student Senate activity. Student Senate meetings will be broadcast four times a month this semester on KAMU cable channel 15, an educational broadcasting service. Senate meetings, held the second and fourth Wednesday of each month, will be broadcast the following Monday from 8-11 p.m. and Tuesday from 3-6 p.m. The first Senate meeting is scheduled for Sept. 6 at 7 p.m. and will air Sept. 11. Becky Silloway, Senate speaker, said the Television Com munications Bill was passed last se mester because of a desire to increase public awareness of Senate activity, and television was deter mined as the appro priate medium for reaching that goal. Jill Newman, Senate press secretary, said the three-hour TV time slot will probably not always match the length of Senate meetings. “The length varies from meeting to meeting, anywhere from 30 minutes to five hours,” New man said. “But whenever KAMU can squeeze us See KAMU, Page 12 Ithletic department dedicates Twelfth Man Plaza he plaza is part of A&M's during the Spirit fund ing campaign. It honors landing contributors to Aggie football team. Swift Battalion 'Wtly before Texas A&M takes e Field to battle Louisiana State '^fsity Saturday, the A&M Athletic tortment w iU unveil a new team "dll stand permanently outside Radium. ae Twelfth Man Plaza, a new JUftient to honor outstanding con dors to the A&M football team, he dedicated tomorrow at the ; Fth Man Statue before the first home football game. The monument’s three granite walls will surround the E. King Gill statue in front of Kyle Field and list the 23 posi tions of a football team. One wall will have the 11 offensive positions, and second wall will have the 11 defensive positions. A third wall, be hind the statue, will represent the head coach position. Each position will be accompanied by the name of the person who en dowed money for the department. Only one contributor will be associated with each position. A name on the player position wall requires a contribution of $100,000. The head coach endowment requires a $3 million donation. When the plaza is dedicated tomor row, it will have 13 player positions filled. Two more slots have been re served and will be added later. Wally Groff, athletic director, said the plaza shows the importance of ath letics to former students. “This says it’s not just current A&M students that care about our program,” Groff said. “It says that former students equally support football.” Groff said that the department has received an exceptional response from contributors, especially considering the lack of publicity. “All the donations came almost completely by word of mouth,” Groff said. “I think its really something that we’ve had this kind of success with very little publicity.” Frank Shannon, executive director of the 12th Man Foundation, said that the 13 slots have been filled by indi viduals or families. No corporations have contributed. The $5.4 million generated by the plaza will be used to cover costs of run ning the football team. Uniforms, weight equipment or tutorial services for the team can be purchased with the endowment funds. The money cannot be used for scholarships. Shannon said the plaza reflects well on the University because contributors often don’t limit their contributions to the athletic department. “Most people that give to athletics also give to other parts of the Universi ty,” he said. Groff said he would like to use the plaza as a model for similar monuments for other sports. “Depending on the success of the plaza,” Groff said, “we would like to maybe endow other sports, both men’s and women’s.” The plaza is part of the Capturing the Spirit fund-raising campaign that will generate $500 million for all parts of the University. Saturday Evan Zimmerman, The Battalion The Twelfth Man Plaza is located at the north end of Kyle Field. 0 S *■ I * tr (