LIGHTS AND SIRENS
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DIVE BOMBERS
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Tours with A&M EMS workers
and UPD officers offer insight.
Aggielife, Page 3
Vbl. 102, No. 84 (12 pages)
Brown: Student Service Fee Allocation Committee
lacks insight into organizations' budgets.
Opinion, Page 11
Two A&M divers keep the pressure
on the competition and themselves.
Sports, Page 7
Battalion
Serving Texas A&M University Since 1893
Thursday • February 1, 1996
Student retreat center
to be built near campus
J Plans for the student
retreat center include a
500-person assembly
hall and dormitories
with barracks.
By Heather Pace
The Battalion
From the site of a future stu
dent retreat center on Highway 60
near Easterwood Airport, Kyle
Field and Albritton Tower can be
seen in the horizon.
See related EDITORIAL, Page 11
The retreat center will give stu
dent organizations a place to es
cape, with the benefit of being
only 10 minutes from campus.
Dr. Carolyn Adair, director of
student activities, said plans for
the retreat center, which will be
nestled on 100 heavily wooded
acres, are still being developed.
“It will provide a meeting place
for students for retreats, meetings,
conferences, parties and anything
they want to do,” Adair said.
“We’re planning to have some
overnight facilities that will ac
commodate some of our orienta
tion camps.”
The center will accommodate
events like T-Camp and Howdy
Camp, but it will not be large
enough to facilitate Fish Camp.
Dr. William Kibler, associate vice
president for student affairs, said
making the center large enough for
Fish Camp
would not be eco
nomically viable.
“The idea
was never for
the center to be
large enough
for Fish
Camp,” Kibler
said, “because
the rare demand doesn’t make it
cost effective.”
Fund raising will provide the
majority of revenue for the project,
though some University money
may be used to develop the site.
“Some funding may be available
through reserves for infrastructure,
but it wouldn’t be funded by state
money,” Kibler said. “The reality is
probably that funding will come
from a combination of fund raising,
user fees and a student fee.”
Toby Boenig, student body presi
dent and a senior agricultural de
velopment major, said he supports
the student retreat center as long
as student fees are not increased to
fund the project.
“I think it would be a valuable
asset, although I wouldn’t support
fees being used for it,” Boenig said.
A target completion date for the
retreat center has not been set.
“We will start it when we can
fund it,” Adair said. “It is going to
be done piece by piece as we get
the money.”
The initial plan focuses around
a 500-person assembly hall with
dormitories featuring retreat-
style barracks.
Kibler emphasized that stu
dents will be given complete con
trol of their retreats, having ac
cess to features such as a large
kitchen in which students can
cook their own meals.
Some students said they think
other retreat centers, such as Lake-
view, are a more cost-effective op
tion than building a new one.
Matt Nowak, a freshman busi
ness major, said the current re
treat system is sufficient.
“I think what they have right
now is fine,” Nowak said.
“It’s a waste of money to build a
retreat center.”
"The reality is probably that funding will
come from a combination of fund raising,
user fees and a student fee."
— Dr. William Kibler
associate vice president for student affairs
Gwendolyn Struve, The Battalion
SOME LIKE IT HOT
Stacy Long, a freshman general studies major, tries to keep warm in the cold weather by
sipping hot chocolate while waiting for the shuttle bus outside the Underground
Wednesday. The temperature reached 34 degrees.
Utility rates decrease
for College Station
□ College Station officials said
the average residential utility bill
will drop to $67.43 per month.
By Kendra S. Rasmussen
The Battalion
When College Station consumers receive
their next utilities bills, they will notice a
substantial decrease in electricity rates.
Peggy Calliham, city of College Station
public relations and marketing manager,
said the expiration of the city’s contract with
the Texas Municipal Power Agency has al
lowed the city to decrease electricity rates.
When the contract, which provided Col
lege Station power services through 1990,
came up for renewal in 1995, city officials de
cided to accept a bid from a power supply
company with a lower rate.
The city negotiated a contract with Texas
Utilities, a large, well-established wholesale
electricity provider.
“Texas Utilities was selected to provide
wholesale electricity to College Station at an
estimated savings of S8 million annually for
at least four years,” she said. “That is a $32
million savings over what College Station
had been paying through the previous con
tract with TMPA.”
This translates into a 9-percent decrease
for the average residential customer and a 13-
percent decrease for commercial customers.
February utility bills will contain stick
ers analyzing each household’s electricity
consumption and projecting what each
household can expect to spend on electricity
in 1996.
Tim Ham, a senior marketing major, said
he welcomes the reductions because he has
paid utility bills as high as $150 per month
in College Station during summer months.
“As long as the service stays the same, it
can’t be a bad idea,” he said. “It’s very rare
that they drop the rates like that. It will defi
nitely help in the summer months.”
College Station residents are not the only
ones anticipating the savings.
"We feel the obligation to encour
age students to call our energy of
fice to let us help them as to why
their energy bill is high."
— /Vggy Calliham
city of College Station public relations
and marketing manager
Bill Silvis, Post Oak Mall general manager,
said business owners will get a needed break.
“I am looking forward to a substantial de
crease,” Silvis said. “The businesses all pay
for their own (electricity), so the (savings)
will be passed on to them as well.”
Calliham said half of the savings from
the new contract will be passed directly to
utility consumers.
“The city has chosen to give back 50 per
cent of the savings to the customers,” she
said. “The other 50 percent will be retained
by the city.”
Some of the money must be retained for
See Utility Rates, Page 5
Proposed rent increase would provide cable, ethernet in dorms
terms of residence hall rates in Texas,”
Lyons said.
"Even with the increases, we're still
one of the cheapest universities in
terms of residence hall rates in Texas."
— Suzanne Lyons
Residence Hall Association president
□ The proposed increase for
Fall 1996 will be presented
to Texas A&M's Board of
Regents in March.
By Greg Fahrenheit
The Battalion
A proposed increase in Texas A&M
residence hall rates that would go into
effect next semester was discussed at a
Residence Hall Association meeting
Wednesday night.
Most RHA members suppprt a propos
al by the Department of Residence Life
and Housing to increase hall rates by an
average of 9.5 percent per student.
The proposal will be brought be
fore the Board of Regents some time
in March.
Five percent of the rate increase
would be used to build a reserve to pay
for new residence halls and to develop
RHA programs, and the remaining
amount would be used to install cable
and ethernet connections into every res
idence hall room on campus.
The proposal was first suggested
last year, and RHA recommended in
stalling cable and ethernet connec
tions last semester.
Suzanne Lyons, RHA president and
a senior geophysics major, said she
does not expect much opposition to the
proposed rent increases.
“The general use fee and
the student services fee in
creases got a lot of negative
feedback because they were
more of a surprise,” Lyons
said. “Unlike those fees, we
can be sure of exactly where
this money will be going.
The room rent increases will
go to services that directly
benefit students.”
Lyons said the increase would not
make residence hall rates unreasonable
in comparison to other universities.
“Even with the increases, we’re still
one of the cheapest universities in
RHA is-reviewing bids from cable
companies to install cable in all resi
dence hall rooms as cheaply as possible,
at a maximum cost of S28 per student
per semester.
All rooms on campus would be cable-
ready by the fall semester.
Students would receive at least 32
channels and would have the option of
subscribing to premium channels.
Ethernet connections would be in
stalled in rooms at an estimated rate
of S9 per student per semester. These
connections would allow students to
connect directly into the campus com
puter network through their own per
sonal computers without having to use
a modem.
The ethernet project would take
about four years to complete.
Ethernet connections are presently
available in a limited number of residence
See Rent, Page 5