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of San Franciso
The Battalion
ffCSiPf 102, No. 170 (6 pages)
Serving Texas A&M University Since 1893
THE BATT ON-LINE: http://bat-web.tamu.edu
Wednesday • July 24, 1996
Officials still have no
dues to bomb theory
Falmouth, Mas 1
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i n^!!5!/ il ii EAST MORICHES, N.Y. (AP) —
i _ „ .f livers descended from the Navy’s best
.nan a. rGcord i i • np j j
Lition rolvage ship Tuesday and recovered
gore victims from the wreckage of TWA
plight 800, but officials acknowledged
ehind 36 pointMat nothing found so far in the debris
goslavia beat::.d? bodies shows traces of explosives,
entina stunniiil Also, Pentagon analysts have found
10 points and : H0 sign on radar tapes or high-altitude
rail Blazers ce-Aotographs of a missile or anything else
feat might have brought down the jum-
appointed Ame: If jet, spokesman Kenneth Bacon said.
I President Clinton, traveling in Cali-
team, which a: forma, said that based on regular re-
to capture goljlprts he’s receiving, none of the evi-
gainst Belarus,!®nee establishes a cause.
! at remaining J “Finding various traces of things
epechage. feay indicate that something happened
nited States’tojfed it ma y not but right now, the peo-
is wiped out r: Pie we have looking at this have not
ht competition feawn a firm conclusion that’s been re
al Rob Harbirstayed to any of us,” Clinton said,
ic bronze on k|' Working over target areas mapped
seventh when ou t by sonar equipment, scores of
en the first U.:ii vers searched in the silt kicked up
by their own movements Tuesday. To
complicate matters, sharks had been
seen in the area.
Three more bodies were pulled up
Tuesday, and divers believe 60 to 100
more are under the debris, New York
Gov. George Pataki said.
‘There’s a very big chunk of plane on
the floor and there are bodies caught
within that wreckage,” Pataki said.
A portable testing device at the scene
initially suggested there might be
chemical bomb residues on a piece of
wing, but that machine is designed for
only the roughest initial screening and
is known to display false positives,
sources told The Associated Press.
“Nobody would rely on it alone
without the full testing,” said a fed
eral official in Washington, speaking
on condition of anonymity. No traces
of explosives have been confirmed in
FBI lab tests of the wing fragment,
other wreckage or bodies through
Tuesday evening.
Ogden: No more money
for higher education
By Heather R. Rosenfeld
The Battalion
Texas A&M students are likely to face
more difficulty in obtaining required lib
eral arts classes because of budgetary
restraints, state officials and A&M ad
ministrators said recently.
In an interview with The Battalion,
state Rep. Steve Ogden, vice chairman of
the Senate Committee on Higher Educa
tion, said social issues may be to blame for
higher education’s budget shortages.
“We would rather put money in higher
education, but there is so much put into
prisons and welfare [and] monies allocat
ed to cure societal pathologies instead,”
Ogden said. “If we didn’t have to put the
money into those matters, more could be
redirected into higher education.”
Dr. Ray Bowen, Texas A&M presi
dent, blamed the financial crunch, at
least in part, on Texans’ unwillingness
to pay higher taxes in the face of a
weak economy.
“The Texas economy has been bad since
the late ’80s,” Bowen
said. “As a result, there
has been a massive
movement against tax
increases that could
have put money into
higher education, and
therefore higher educa
tion suffers.”
Matt Kimbrough,
president of the Liberal
Arts Student Council
and a junior English
major, said although he
believes money alone is not the solution,
he sees the effects of the limited funds.
“I have had trouble getting the class
es, and sometimes the only way to get
OGDEN
into a class is if you are a graduating se
nior,” Kimbrough said.
Ogden said although understanding
the frustration of unavailable classes,
the state cannot simply spend more
money to fix the problem.
“Texas, unlike the federal govern
ment, must balance its budget,” Ogden
said. “The state says how much we can
spend, and we have to allocate it as effi
ciently as possible.”
Ogden offered a suggestion to stu
dents who want an increase in Univer
sity funding.
“There is good news and bad news re
garding adequate funding. ... The Uni
versity can raise funding substantially,
but students will have to pay for it
through the General Use Fee,” Ogden
said. “If students really wanted to see an
' See Ogden, Page 2
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LOOKING TO THE FUTURE
Grad student helps shape
space-age communications
By James Fowler
The Battalion
Pat James, The Battalion
redrag Spasojevic", an electrical engineering
graduate student, is helping design features
On a satellite communications network.
Predrag Spasojevic', an electrical en
gineering graduate student at Texas
A&M, has been long separated from
home — in both space and time. Spaso-
jevic' is originally from Sarajevo,
Bosnia-Herzegovina but came to Texas
A&M in 1990 to work with space-based
communications.
He chose A&M because his bachelor’s
thesis at the University of Sarajevo’s
School of Engineering involved collabora
tive work with a Texas A&M professor.
“At that time, especially in Yu
goslavia, you did not have the opportuni
ty to find out a great deal about many
American universities,” Spasojevic' said.
“You knew about the top schools, but it
helps to know someone there. So it came
naturally to go to A&M.”
Spasojevic', a doctoral candidate,
works with Dr. Costas Georghiades, a
professor of electrical engineering, to
implement modem design features on
a new satellite communications net
work for a small company.
In 1994, the company was working
on spacecraft power concerns with the
Texas Engineering Extension Service
(TEES) Center for Space Power when
questions arose on the communica
tions subsystem. The company’s con
cerns came to a head two years ago
when problems plagued their first ex
perimental satellite.
Dr. David Boyle, deputy director of
the Center for Space Power, worked
with the company as the technical liai
son between A&M and Final Analysis
Inc. (FAI), the developer of the satel
lite communications system. He sug
gested that Georghiades review FAI’s
communications payload.
“They (FAI) are amazed at the
impressive work that Predrag and
Dr. Georghiades are doing correct
ing some problems discovered earli
er,” Boyle said.
Spasojevic’ and Georghiades have
become key contributors to the design
of communications software to com
pensate for the rapid relative speed
between the satellites and their earth-
bound terminals.
See Satellite, Page 2
A&M/B-CS Council helps bridge
gap between university, community
3
yAnn Marie Hauser and Melissa Nunnery
he Battalion
The Texas A&M/Bryan-College Station Council
ield their summer meeting last night at the Sam
louston Sanders Corps of Cadets Center Museum.
The purpose of the Council is to develop communi-
ation and cooperation between Bryan-College Sta-
ion, Texas A&M University and the Texas A&M Uni-
'ersity System.
The Council toured the Corps Center Museum be-
ore being updated by Texas A&M University System
Chancellor Barry B. Thompson and Texas A&M Pres-
dent Ray Bowen.
To continue the University and community link,
wo faculty members presented their roles as profes-
iors to the Council.
Dr. Marilyn Kem-Foxworth, an associate professor
a the Department of Journalism, said she was invit-
to clear up any misconceptions the community
sight have about professors.
“I am speaking to give a better understanding of
Kdiat we as a faculty do,” Kem-Foxworth said.
She explained even though professors do not teach
Wery day, they are busy with research and plans for
he semester.
Kern-Foxworth is a known for her book, “Aunt
jemima, Uncle Ben and Rastus: Blacks in Advertis-
hg, Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow.”
“As professors, you need to carve out a niche, be an
■Xpert in something,” Kem-Foxworth said.
Dr. Pam Matthews, an associate professor in the
department of English and director of the Women’s
Studies FYogram, said there is an important connec
tion between the community and the University.
“I think it’s high time that universities and the
communities they are a part of have much more im
portant and varied and frequent connections to each
other,” Matthews said. “Universities and communities
can’t be separate.”
Matthews emphasized the importance of
teaching humanities in relation to family values
and everyday life.
“We talk, for example, about family values and var
ious other social problems,” Matthews said. “At the
same time, we’re saying we don’t really need the hu-
Oianities; we need something practical. I think that’s
a major contradiction. Those are the very things we
talk about, so there is a kind of practical side to what
foes on in a literature class.”
Dr. Barry B. Thompson, chancellor of the
Texas A&M University System, said the fol
lowing about the growth of the A&M system
at the Council summer meeting:
• Regents will have more authority over tuition and fees.
• Administrators will create an understandable code for
the tuition and fees. For example, an index system re
garding who pays for what.
• Faculty recruiting will be made a priority since 28
percent of the faculty will be eligible for retirement
in six years.
Gwendolyn Struve, The Battalion
Dr. Pam Matthews and Dr. Kern-Foxworth, A&M professors, spoke at
the Texas A&M/Bryan-College Station Council meeting last night.
Pat James, The Battalion
POTTERY PASSION
Susana Bernadi, an exchange student from Barcelona, Spain, works on a pot
tery project as part of a University Plus class Tuesday.
Atlanta ’96
Women’s U.S. gymnastics
team captures Olympic gold
ATLANTA (AP) — Make way for the
Dream Teens.
The U.S. women’s gymnastics squad, with no
member over the age of 19, captured its first
team Olympic gold medal after a dramatic vault
by 18-year-old Kerri Strug. She collapsed in
pain with a badly sprained ankle within sec
onds of landing.
The victory highlighted kids’ day for the Amer
icans in Atlanta, with 14-year-old Amanda Beard
winning her second silver of the games in the
200-meter breaststroke and a 17-year-old Cali
fornian capturing a trap-shooting gold.
There was room for some veterans, too: 29-
year-old Ruthie Bolton led the women’s hoops
team to another win, and Barcelona medalist
Angel Martino captured her second bronze of
the Atlanta Games. Martino’s medal was one of
five won Tuesday by the swim team, including
three golds, that raised its Olympic haul to 17.
“Oh my God! It’s so awesome!” said Amy
van Dyken, 23, a first-time Olympian who
won the 100-meter butterfly. “It doesn’t get
any better than this.”
The ground-breaking gymnastics gold be
longed to the young, the work of Strug and her
tiny teammates — 19-year-olds Shannon Miller
and Dominique Dawes, and 14-year-old pixie
Dominique Moceanu.
Strug, before a wildly cheering crowd of
See Olympics, Page 6
%
1996 OLYMPIC
TELEVISION
SCHEDULE
WEDNESDAY
JULY 24
09 a.m. - noon
Swimming-Qualifying heats
Rowing
Cycling-Final
6:30 p.m.-11:00 p.m.
Gymnastics-Men's individual all-
around final
Swimming-Finals
-Men’s 200m breaststroke
-Women’s 200m individual medley
-Men’s 100m butterfly
-Women’s 4x100m medley relay
Basketball-U.S. men vs. Lithuania
Equestrian-Three-day jumping, team
11:41 am-1:11 am.
Volleyball-U.S. women's game
Cycling
Boxing
Water poio-U.S. vs. Croatia
Wrestling-Middleweight final