The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current, September 02, 1996, Image 1

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    A&M aims to keep
All-U Night clean
By Mkianie D. Smith
The Battalion
Vulgarity and violence may
threaten the long-standing Texas
A&M tradition All-University Night
that acquaints new students with
the University.
Students will gather at Kyle Field
at? p.m. for an annual assembly to
spotlight fall sports. Several stu
dent and university leaders,
induding Texas A&M President ray
Bowen and Student Body President
Carl Baggett, will address students.
The festivities will also
include the season’s first yell
practice at A&M.
Ironically, though, yells are what
gave All-U Night trouble.
In past years, All-U Night has
been marred by obscene “grode”
yells and lighting between on-cam-
pus residents.
Rusty Thompson, assistant
director of Residence Life and
Housing, said that this year,
measures are being taken to
eliminate negative behavior
from the tradition.
"Three years ago, All-U Night
was really in jeopardy because of
yells with vulgar language,"
Thompson said. “The event is
held to show freshmen the spirit
of Aggieland, but this behavior
See Tradition, Page 9
Hiring faculty may mean fee hike
By Wesley Poston
The Battalion
An aging faculty may mean that hiring fac
ulty in the future will translate into tuition and
fee increases for Texas A&M students today.
In five years, almost 22 percent of tenured
and tenure-track faculty will fall in that range
and beyond. According to 1995 figures, that is
almost 400 faculty members.
Normally, between 30 and 40 A&M faculty
members retire each year. In the 1994-1995
school year, 38 retired.
On a national level, the average age of
retirement for university faculty is 62 or 63.
Dr. Bill Perry, dean of faculties, said the
problem stems from a tremendous growth in
faculty in the 60s and 70s.
“I came to A&M in ’71 and the size of the
faculty has doubled since then,” Perry said.
In general, the faculty retiring previously
was hired before the rapid expansion. Soon,
however, the large numbers hired in the early
60s will be nearing retirement.
“There is no mandatory age for retirement,”
he said. “Studies have shown the most impor
tant factor for retirement is whether or not you
can afford it.”
However, there is some national concern
for replacing these professors if they retire
according to the statistics and in the expected
numbers, Perry said.
New faculty hiring begins with recruit
ment committees within each department.
Prospects are approved by the committee
and the applications are presented then to
the department head and the dean of the
college. The A&M Executive Vice President
and Provost, Dr. Ronald Douglas, has final
approval.
Dr. Steve Oberhelman, head of the modern
and classical languages department and
speaker of the Faculty Senate, said the prob
lem with recruiting quality replacement facul
ty is the competition with other institutions for
the best prospects.
See Faculty, Page 9
TAMU Age Distribution
o £ Tenure Facul ty
Range
26-35
36-45 46-55 56-65
Amoun
t 177
545 676 339
% of Tol
al 9.9
30.4 37.8 1S.9
SUts liuui I'all
Tim Moog, The Battalion
Taking a break
Alan Wann rests outside of Keathley Hall.
Iraqi troops still control Irbil
U.S. troops in the Persian Gulf remain on high alert
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) — Iraq
ordered its troops Sunday to withdraw
from Irbil, the main city in the U.S.-
protected Kurdish “safe haven” in
northern Iraq. But there was no sign of
a pullout in the city, where the Iraqi
army and an allied Kurdish faction
appeared in full control.
Iraq captured the city on Saturday in
Saddam Hussein’s largest military
action since the end of the Gulf War in
1991. The attack sparked alarm in
Washington, and President Clinton put
U.S. troops in the Persian Gulf region
on high alert.
After a Cabinet meeting in Baghdad
late Sunday, the Iraqi defense minister,
Lt. Gen. Sultan Hashim Ahmed, said
Saddam had ordered him to withdraw
all his troops from Irbil.
There was no immediate sign that
this had taken place.
White House spokesman Mike
McCurry, asked about the reported
pull-out order, answered: “It’s not
words, it’s actions we’re looking at.” He
spoke in Little Rock, Ark., where Clinton
was on a campaign stop.
Iraq’s state-run media had warned
the United States and its Western allies
on Sunday not to intervene on behalf of
the Kurds.
“The Iraqi people... are ready to pro
vide an example that will inevitably
remind the Americans of the Vietnam
complex,” the newspaper al-
Jumhouriya said.
Saddam’s forces stormed Irbil on
Saturday to dislodge one Kurdish fac
tion, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan,
and allow a second, the Kurdistan
Democratic Party, to move in.
No casualties were confirmed. But
speaking from the Kurdish region,
PUK leader Jalal Talabani said on
ABC’s This Week with David Brinkley,
that “hundreds of people were killed
or injured” during the 12-hour
onslaught of artillery, missiles and
tank fire.
Separately, the PUK claimed Sunday
that Iraqi forces “summarily executed”
96 members of the opposition Iraqi
National Congress at a base near Irbil.
Iran’s official Islamic Republic
News Agency said Iraqi forces also
captured Sulaymaniya, the area’s sec
ond-largest city. The report, which
quoted “sources close to Iraqi Kurds,”
could not be confirmed.
In the wake of the fighting, the
United Nations said it would delay
sending personnel to implement an
Iraqi oil-for-food deal.
Iraq has been under U.N. sanctions
since its 1990 invasion of Kuwait. The
U.N. deal would permit the sale of $2
billion worth of oil for an initial 180-day
period to buy food and medicine for the
Iraqi people.
U.N. spokesman Sylvana Foa said
the action was not intended as pun
ishment for Iraq, but that the organi
zation did not want to risk the safety
of the personnel.
There was no heavy fighting in Irbil
on Sunday, and Iraqi troops and allied
KDP fighters appeared to be in control.
Boenig recovering from accident
By Erica Roy
The Battalion
Former Student Body President
Toby Boenig has one simple answer
when asked what has helped him
come back from a tragic, paralyzing
accident: God.
“He’s (God) used my family and
friends to help me,” he said. “They’ve
been nothing but amazing.”
While rafting with friends on the
Guadalupe River in late May, Boenig
rolled out of his raft into shallow water
and hit a large rock underneath the
water’s surface. He dislocated the C4
and C5 vertebrae in his neck.
Boenig is now recovering at Warm
Springs Rehabilitation Center in
Gonzalez. No part of Boenig’s body is
fully paralyzed, but there is limited
movement in his legs. Each day, he
regains more movement and feeling in
his legs.
“They (the doctors) can’t guarantee
I’ll walk again, but I know myself,”
Boenig
Boenig said. “I will
walk again.”
Boenig can
stand in a pool with
leg braces for 30 to
40 seconds. His
goal is to stand
using his own
strength by himself
within a month.
The key to walk
ing again, Boenig
said, is balance. After he can regain
his balance in the pool, he will start
working outside the pool.
Toby’s mother, Joyce Boenig, said
Toby has kept up his spirits through
out the accident.
“Toby’s attitude has been great,”
she said. “When people come, they
leave positive because of him.
“Toby’s always had such a positive
outlook. That hasn’t changed.”
Boenig said he has tried to keep
his attitude upbeat.
“It’s not going to help me to get
down,” he said.
“It’s about keeping your faith in
God. That’s what is going to get me
through this.”
Amanda Cochran, assistant to the
vice president and a sophomore
marketing major, worked with
Boenig as a freshman Student
Government assistant while he was
student body president.
Boenig, Cochran said, has kept a
remarkable attitude throughout the
accident.
“He’s been more concerned with
how it’s (the accident) affecting his
friends and family,” she said.
Cochran helped organize a benefit
concert on Boenig’s behalf to be held
Sept. 11 at 7 p.m.
The Singing Cadets will perform,
and a reception will be held after
ward. All proceeds from the concert
will be used to cover Boenig’s med
ical expenses.
See Boenig, Page 9
The Battalion
TODAY
Laughing it up
Freudian Slip begins
the semester with
auditions for new
members.
Aggie life, Page 3
World Class
Aggie basketball for
ward Calvin Davis
competed on Nike All-
Star Team in Taiwan.
Sports, Page 11
Funding Foes
Consumer ignorance
is a double-edged
razor.
Opinion, Page 13
Rush ’96 reaches record high
By Tauma Wiggins
The Battalion
For Amy Barton and 782 other Texas A&M
women, Saturday was the big day.
With excitement and thousands of jubilant
cheers in the air Saturday evening, months of
hard work and planning for Texas A&M’s 1996
Panhellenic Fall Rush were rewarded as A&M
sororities welcomed their new members.
“Right now I’m just excited and over
whelmed,” Barton said.
Saturday’s Bid Day festivities ended a
week of parties, mingling and skits designed
to match the right women with the right
sororities. New members received their bids
Pat James, The Battalion
Rushees race toward prospective houses.
and sprinted down the street toward their
respective sororities.
Lanita Hanson, assistant director of student
activities and Greek activities coordinator, said
this fall rush was the largest in A&M’s history.
“Texas A&M has had sororities for 21 years,”
she said. “(This year) we had 783 women go
through, which is the largest rush my records
indicate we’ve ever had.”
She also said a larger number of rushees
received bids than ever before.
The Panhellenic rush team, Hanson said,
invested hours of hard work and planning to
prepare for the annual event.
“We had an outstanding Panhellenic rush
team and staff that has worked hard since
January,” Hanson said, adding that the
Panhellenic rush team went beyond its many
surface duties to help rushees.
“Their help extended beyond making sure
you get to your parties on time,” she said.
“They developed personal relationships with
the women and made friends.”
Juliet Wright, a new sorority member and a
freshman biomedical science major, said the
entire rush program was well constructed and
choosing a sorority was difficult because of the
excellent choices.
“It’s been so much fun, but it’s been diffi
cult deciding,” she said. “Everyone’s been so
welcoming and more than friendly — it’s
been hard to put my finger on what was’ the
perfect fit for me.”
Big 12 brings
small changes
By Gretchen Perrenot
The Battalion
By Aggie definition, traditions don’t
change. However, the evolving
University and joining the Big 12
Conference caused slight changes with
in Texas A&M’s established traditions
and may initiate new ones.
As Corps Commander Steve Foster
said, “We only have to do something
twice as Aggies for it to be a tradition.”
Freshman Spurs
One tradition that will take on new
meaning is the tradition of Corps fresh
men wearing homemade spurs the
week before the football game against
the Southern Methodist University
Mustangs.
The tradition, traced back to the
1920s, is a token of spirit by freshman
cadets who show they are ready to “spur
the ponies,” Foster said.
This year, the freshmen will transfer
that tradition to the Texas Tech
University Raiders.
See Changes, Page 14
Today The Battalion commem
orates the inaugural season of
the Big 1 2 with a special sec
ond section, see inside.