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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (March 23, 1998)
larch’ ■» Texas A St M University TODAY m TOMORROW TH iYEAR • ISSUE 111 • 12 PAGES COLLEGE STATION • TX MONDAY • MARCH 23 • 1998 EWS Briefs at 11 N S I D E See Page 3 1 orts iie Baseball Team loses rt-breaker to Sooners but les away with series win. See Page 7 ett: The University should to more needs than child a center for students. See Page 11 online tp://battalion.tamu.edu Dk up with state and na- ial news through The ! 'e, AP’s 24-hour online /s service. Clinton clips controversies with comedy to ease ) hour cap crunch 5 state legislature has authorized universities and colleges to } students with 170 or more cred- s out-of-state tuition, which iscur- $248 per credit hour. state legislature, in its most re- session, enacted a 170 credit . :aeffective Sept. 1, 1999, to irage students at colleges and i Boer: sities receiving state financial as- 3rove ice to graduate sooner. I s | ese universities and colleges leo j d longer receive state support tudents exceeding the 170 ,| si : hour cap. <as ^&M University officials said will Offer more courses than usu- ; summer to help students avoid pending tuition increase, e University plans to add more v 75 courses and 4,000 seats be- i now and Sept. 1, 1999, said Executive Vice President and st Ronald G. Douglas, will i order to allow students to grad- 3arlierand progress through their ik.ar e programs more easily,” Douglas hev ‘additional courses will be offered coming summer, fall and spring sters at Texas A&M.” >uglas said courses in high de- I, in, which there is a backlog of mtsl attempting to enroll, and es needed for graduation will take dent in the additional offerings, s done on a smaller scale this l when approximately 20 courses added to the original schedule, S ummer’s program will be greatly ided,” Douglas said. WASHINGTON (AP) — Presi dent Clinton navigated an awk ward night by cracking wise on his lawyers, bemoaning the “March Madness” of scandal and promis ing with a flourishing disco pose that he will be “Staying Alive” through it all. The 113th annual Gridiron Club Dinner was a white-tie roast ing that briefly, gingerly turned the Monica Lewinsky inquiry into a laughing matter. Setting the tone with the first words of his monologue, Clinton gazed over the crowd of journalis tic and political elite Saturday night and quipped: “So, how was your week?” The audience erupted into laughter, knowing it was a rotten week for Clinton. It began with presidential accuser Kathleen Wil ley appearing on CBS-TV's “60 Minutes” and ended here — at a gathering of the fire-breathing Fourth Estate. “Please withhold subpoenas until till the jokes are told,” Clinton said. Just getting warmed up, he compared the controversy to this month’s NCAA basketball tourna ment: “This is an unusual time in Washington — sort of our version of’March Madness.'” For the next several minutes, Clinton deftly made light of the controversy without mentioning Lewinsky, Willey, Paula Jones or even Gennifer Flowers. The laughs, it turned out, were on his attorneys. His jokes “were a whole lot fun nier before the lawyers got ahold of them,” Clinton said. That launched him into a lighthearted routine poking fun at his no-com ment, no-details legal strategy. House Speaker Newt Gingrich preceded Clinton to the lectern, say ing it is sobering to realize that “dur ing this meal the president’s job ap proval rating will go up six points.” As usual, the staple of the night was a rash of skits put on by re porters roasting the officials they cover. “Please withhold subpoenas until all the jokes are told.” President Clinton But this year, many of the gibes, jokes and sharp elbows were being directed at the way they have cov ered this year of shared sex-scan dal stories. As one song said, in love and in the selling of newspa pers, “Anything Goes.” The biggest laugh probably went to Socks, the demoted presi dential pet who got in some digs at the expense of Buddy, the new first dog. To the tune, “Memories,” the feline whined, “Bud-dy! How’d he think up that dumb name?” Yet Clinton was the star. It would have been bad form to back out of a gala that has played out before al most every president since Benjamin Harrison attended in 1888, three years after the club was founded and started its annual dinners. It would have been nearly impossible to ig nore the controversy. So the president joked about le gal machinations that madden Re publicans, prosecutors and re porters — including ordering aides to cite executive privilege and re fusing himself to elaborate about his relationship with the women. According to a tongue-in-cheek Clinton, his lawyers approved just three jokes for the night: —’’Why did the chicken cross the road? Asked and answered.” Dirty work searchers survey M racial climate ivera! thousand undergraduate mts recently received a survey Ivill assist student affairs admin- . ors in understanding the campus ■ climate and other issues regard- livefsity'programs and services. ie undergraduate survey is the id phase of the project that was )d in the fall. Dr. Ray Bowen, Texas University president, authorized ffice of the Vice President for Stu- Wairs to initiate the assessment neans of being proactive in meet- :udent needs. Sylvia Hurtado, an expert on ssment of campus climate, a team from the University of igan Center for the Study of ar Education are conducting the long project. ncKAt the fall, the research team was Ijgj-impus conducting focus groups ove[r students, holding interviews ^campus administrators and at- v S af ing a variety of Aggie events. e visits helped frame the ques- 1 2nit , for the series of surveys being the 3d this spring. ams amprehensive surveys also have Oise designed for faculty, staff and ' firsuate students. Results from the ipeepys will be formulated into recom- 1 l ie dations for consideration by A&M nistration late spring. the.l t me oiffi! ma lei if I stars come a - , > s w in droves to fbrate the id It . . * rf j t cinematic ks and the t performances of ’97. v v , ■■ uni ■ W *• JAKE SCHRICKLING/The Battalion Randall Jay, an assistant superintendent for Bartlett and Cocke Construction, oversees the demolition of part of the horseshoe of Kyle Field Saturday afternoon. Mexican gun laws halt U.S. hunters FORT WORTH (AP) — Hundreds of U.S. citizens wind up in hand cuffs or prison each year for violat ing strict Mexican gun-control statutes, the Fort Worth Star- Telegram reported Sunday. Most Americans arrested for Mexican gun violations are inno cent tourists, say U.S. consular offi cials in the six districts along the 1,933-mile U.S.-Mexico border. Darrell Dowden, for example. The landscaper from Carrollton, a northeast Dallas suburb, was look ing forward to a two-day Mexican getaway Nov. 15 when he crossed the border. Problem was, Dowden had an unloaded .410-gauge shot gun behind his front seat, where it had been for the past five years. Mexican border officials arrested Dowden on suspicion of smuggling a military weapon into Mexico, a federal crime with a potential 30- year prison sentence. It would cost Dowden 103 days in a Mexican jail and more than $17,000. “I feel wronged,” Dowden said. “Hell, I wasn’t running weapons down to Chiapas or anything. They know it was a little old rabbit-shoot ing .410.1 don’t feel I did anything wrong, and they’re going to take three months of my life and all my money?” Darrell Dowden’s story is not unique. Mexico forbids the importation or possession of any gun or ammu nition without a permit. Its laws ban dozens of types of guns that are le gal in the border states of California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas, in cluding the .357-caliber Magnum pistol and any shotgun with a bar rel shorter than 25 inches. Dowden said he was unaware of the law until he crossed the border. In the frantic first days after her son’s arrest, his mother, Janice Dowden, called or wrote letters to lawyers, diplomats, senators, con gressmen, Mexican officials, even Ross Perot. Mexican officials acknowledge that some tourists who bring guns into the countiy are swept up acci dentally in arrests aimed at crimi nals involved in weapons smug gling. Still, her son remained in jail. Finally, at the suggestion of a pri vate investigator she hired a pair of Texas bounty hunters who negoti ated her son’s release. Clinton travels to Africa ACCRA, Ghana (AP) — Slowly, the driver edges his car- into the busy intersection, blasting his horn and flashing his lights before speeding past the darkened corner and mak ing it safely to the other side. The power is out, the traffic light is dead and automotive pandemo nium reigns. This is just a hint of the electrical nightmare that has been growing in Ghana since January. Industry has been hobbled, thousands of people have been laid off and rationing programs mean the electricity flips off in nearly every Accra neighborhood for 12 hours a day. Ghana, long one of Africa’s stronger economies, is struggling to get by on generators, candles and oil lamps. Water levels at the country’s main hydroelectric dam, Ghana’s prime source of electricity, have dropped drastically because of poor rainfall. Power output is down more than 45 percent. But with President Clinton arriv ing today to begin a 12-day swing through Africa, Ghanaian authori ties are leaving little to chance. Fearing an embarrassing elec tricity outage — even though most places the president will vis it already have priority for power — generators have been installed nearly everywhere that he and Hillary Rodham Clinton will visit, according to a top Ghanaian offi cial. Any sudden shutdown dur ing their nine-hour stop will be immediately corrected. “We cannot afford to let down our august visitor,” the official said on condition his name not be used. “This visit means a lot to Africa and to Ghana in particular.” Clinton’s six-nation tour, which will focus on a plan to bol ster trade and investment in Africa, also includes stops in Uganda, Rwanda, South Africa, Botswana and Senegal. Presidential trip President Clinton’s trip to sub- Saharan Africa is the most extensive by any American president. A look at his itinerary: © Ghana: Visiting a Peace Corps project in the first nation where volunteers were sent. 01 3/23-3/25 p © Uganda: Meeting regional leaders to stress cooperation on conflict resolution, human rights, democracy and economic reforms. ©Rwanda: Airport stopover; will condemn 1994 ethnic killings and genocide worldwide. 3/29-3/31 |© 3/25-3/29 o ©South Africa: Visiting Robben Island prison — with Nelson Mandela where he spent 18 years as a political prisoner. • Visiting Cape Town and Johannesburg where Clinton will celebrate the 1994 end of apartheid. © Botswana: Going on two-night safari. © Senegal: Visiting Goree Island, the shipping point for slaves to the Americas, now a tourist destination. AP/Wm. J. Gastello —“A lawyer and a client walk into a bar. The lawyer turns to his client and says...” Clinton stopped himself, telling the crowd, “No, wait. It’s privileged...” — “Knock, Knock: Don’t answer that.” The legal beagles also ordered him not to include Whitewater pros ecutor Kenneth Starr in his mono logue. “People named Starr I can mention: Brenda, Bart and Ringo.” He talked about the new movie Primary Colors, in which John Tra volta portrays a philandering Southern governor running for president in 1992. “This is not the first time John Travolta has modeled a character on me,” Clinton said, striking an hilarious finger-pointing pose straight out of Travolta’s 1970s film Sa tu relay Nigh t Fever. “Yep. That's my song,” said the president, referring to the movie’s disco hit, “Staying Alive.” Court to rule case on appeal LAGO VISTA, Texas (AP) — Five years ago, a call from the cops stunned school superintendent Vir ginia Collier. One of the district’s teachers, a 52-year-old retired Ma rine, had been found naked in a se cluded, wooded area with a 15-year- old student. The teacher, Frank Waldrop, was eventually stripped of his teaching certificate and pleaded no contest to attempted sexual assault. The girl, now 20, went on to college. Collier su pervises a larger district 90 miles to the east. But the fallout continues with a lawsuit filed by the young woman and her mother against Lago Vista In dependent School District. The U.S. Supreme Court hears arguments Wednesday in a case that may deter mine whether a school district can be held liable for teachers’ sexual mis conduct-— even when it knows noth ing about the misbehavior and it oc curs off school property. The lawsuit, rejected by lower courts, contends Waldrop singled the girl out in 1992 when tire 14-year-old freshman took his social studies class. Just before spring break, Waldrop brought a book to her home. Finding her alone, he kissed and fondled her, according to legal briefs. That was “the first absolutely bla tant, no questions, no mistaking, sex ual advance that he had made to wards me,” the girl said in a deposition. But it was not the last: Waldrop en ticed the gifted, young student into further contact with advanced course work. She said she did not go to school officials about the developing sexual relationship because “then I wouldn’t be able to have this person as a teacher anymore and that was my main interest in any relationship with him.” The same year, the parents or guardians of at least two other girls complained to Collier about what they called inappropriate remarks Waldrop made to their daughters. Waldrop met with the parents and said he had meant no offense. The principal admonished the teacher and felt the matter was resolved, ac cording to legal briefs in this case. But the young woman’s lawyers contend deeper investigation by the district might have revealed his con duct with the freshman student. A federal judge in Austin dis missed her suit against the district, saying no school official knew of the teacher’s misconduct. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed last year, saying a district cannot be liable unless a supervi sory administrator knows about misconduct and fails to act. The young woman’s appeal says that standard falls short. “We characterize that as the ‘igno rance is salvation’ approach,” said Samuel Issacharoff, a University of Texas law professor helping her. The Supreme Court ruled in 1992 that students sexually harassed by teachers may collect monetary dam ages from their schools and school officials under Title DC of the Educa tion Amendments of 1972, which for bids discrimination in education programs receiving federal money.