University Press (Beaumont, Tex.), Vol. 66, No. 17, Ed. 1 Wednesday, October 25, 1989 Page: 1 of 6
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Wednesday, October 25, 1989
University Press
_ Serving Lamar and the community for 66 years
Vol. 66, No. 17
SGA position
on pay raises
still unknown
By Bryan Murley
UP editor
The Student Government Association is not taking a stand on recent ad-
ministrative pay raises at the present time, Anthony Holmes, president, said
Monday.
Holmes, who spoke with Chancellor George McLaughlin recently, said
McLaughlin told him the raises were due to a good year in the state
legislature as well as increased fundraising gains.
Anthony Holmes
“After seeing the salary of some
of the staff, I don’t know how they
make it.”
— Anthony Holmes
McLaughlin received an $18,000 pay
raise to bring his salary to $121,000. Ad-
ministrators on each campus also received
raises.
However, Holmes said that the regents
should have looked into other factors
before giving the raises.
“The percentage of the pay raise as op-
posed to the gratuities (administrators)
receive from the university ” should have
been considered, Holmes said.
But the SGA has heard no complaints
about the raises from students coming to
their meetings or the office, Holmes said.
“The only complaints we’ve heard thus
far have been in the UP. No one has ap-
proached me or the Student Government
Association,” Holmes said.
Holmes agreed that the $18,000 increases given to McLaughlin and Vice
Chancellor for Finance Oscar Baxley were “a substantial increase,” saying
that some funding “maybe should have been shifted to the lower level staff.”
Good salaries are important to keep quality administrators and faculty at
Lamar, Holmes said.
But “Even though we want to compete with other universities and keep top
administrators and faculty, we have to look out for those lower on the totem
pole,” he said.
“Those are the backbone of the university.”
Starting salaries for the lowest-level staff members are $10,000, a figure
Holmes said may be too low.
“After seeing the salary of some of the staff, I don’t know how they make
it,” he said.
Holmes sees the main problem with the pay raises as one of public rela-
tions.
“As far as PR, in a negative aspect, it looks bad for Lamar when they look
for potential employees,” Holmes said.
“If some guy is looking in the paper and says ... ‘they’re paying this guy
$121,000 per year plus a free house and other things, and I’ve got a friend
working for Lamar making $10,000; what are they going to pay me?’,”
Holmes said, “it doesn’t look good.”
The answer to the problem, as Holmes sees it, is in better education of the
community “as to why the pay scales are so far apart as they are.”
But before the SGA will take a stand on the issue, Holmes said the question
must be asked, “What do the students feel should be done?”
Poll shows Lamar
enjoys local favor
By David Barr as
UP senior staff writer
According to a poll conducted by
Higginbotham Associates, Lamar
has a very good image in Southeast
Texas.
Bill Maddox, director of public af-
fairs at the John Gray Institute, said
Lamar University hired the firm to
conduct a survey to determine
Lamar’s standing in the community.
“We were trying to determine the
exact image Lamar had in its
primary market,” Maddox said.
Maddox said that the firm had
been recommended and had done
similar work for other universities
such as Rice, the University of
Houston and Texas Southern Univer-
sity.
The poll was conducted by
telephone from June 26 to July 8 and
cost the university $6,750. Polled
were 402 people from Jefferson,
Orange and Hardin counties.
Maddox said that one of the fac-
tors contributing to this good image
is Lamar’s local recognition.
When asked to name the first
university that came to their minds,
69.2 percent of those polled named
Lamar. The next most frequently
named university was Texas A&M
with 9.2 percent.
Maddox said that, according to
Higginbotham Associates, these
numbers show that Lamar has a
strong image in the region.
Of those surveyed, 32.3 percent
rated the quality of education at
Lamar as excellent, while 48.3 per-
cent gave toe school a good ratify.
Because 72 percent of the
households polled had members that
have attended Lamar University,
Higginbotham Associates said that
these figures on the quality of educa-
tion at Lamar are a “strong in-
dicator.”
Almost 46 percent of those polled
said their children would attend a
college or university in the future.
Of those whose children will at-
tend college, 33.2 percent said it was
Bill Maddox
“extremely” likely that their
children would attend Lamar and
23.4 percent said it was very likely
their children would attend Lamar.
Maddox said that while toe univer-
sity was pleased that 45.8 percent of
those polled said their children
would go to college, they feel the
number should be higher.
“To work with our public schools
to improve the awareness of the
need for higher education, toe need
for young people to go to college” is
one practical use of toe survey, he
said.
Another correlation toe poll found
was between toe amount of educa-
tion toe respondent had and the
amount of money he earned. Those
polled with the most education were
most likely to be in toe higher salary
brackets.
The study also showed that while
42 percent of those polled saw
Lamar as a teaching institution, 44.3
percent saw toe university as a
teaching and research institute.
“It (toe study) can help us,” Mad-
dox said, “in our efforts to seek fun-
See POLL, page 6
Carhenge controversy
Carhenge, a sculpture of junked cars reminiscent of supporters are trying to raise funds to build a paved
England’s prehistoric Stonehenge, sits on land road to toe site as required in toe sculpture’s special
about two miles north of Alliance, Neb. Carhenge use permit.
Q 2$ ZZ
Schoolslfail by depending on facts
“If students know how to learn and have a desire for learn-
ing, their education will never cease. Students will be able to
educate themselves for a lifetime.”
—Charles Burke
From staff and wire reports
Public schools often fail to teach
students how to learn because
schools concentrate on factual
knowledge, a Texas A&M resear-
cher has found in a two-year study of
public school students.
The study also found that classes
in which low-ability students are
consistently grouped together may
actually inhibit their learning and
thinking capabilities, said: Patricia
Alexander, who is conducting the
study for the National Academy of
Education.
Schools falter in stressing im-
mediate low-level basic knowledge
and by failing to reward strategic
learning and problem-solving
abilities, Alexander said. No single
solution to toe problem exists, she
said.
“What we have found is that there
is nothing simple about learning —
it’s very, Very complex — and no
simple hard-and-fast rule that can
apply to every student in all situa-
tions exists,” Alexander said. “It is
much easier to teach factual infor-
mation than it is to teach the
strategies on how to use that infor-
mation.”
The public school education
system, including teacher prepara-
tion programs at universities,
misinterprets toe teacher’s role by
focusing on facts rather than
strategic learning, Alexander said.
Students then misperceive their role
and center on regurgitating details
instead on learning how to use such
knowledge.
Members of toe administration
and toe faculty of the College of
By Bryan Murley
UP editor
The Texas State Student Associa-
tion resolved this past weekend to
support cuts in athletic funding,
strengthen student service fee ad-
visory committee recommendations
and allow hardship cases to waive
mandatory fees without penalty, An-
thony Holmes, Lamar Student
Government Association president,
said Monday.
TSSA, a coalition of student
governments from 13 member
universities, met at Texas A&M
University Oct. 24-26 for its annual
fall convention.
The organization attempts to deal
with problems, issues and concerns
of students throughout Texas as well
as fostering communication bet-
ween toe member schools.
Lamar University’s contingent,
including Holmes, SGA Vice Presi-
dent Andy Hemmings and TSSA
Secretary Maggie Weir, was active
in the passage of several resolutions
at toe convention.
Resolution 13, adopted on a vote of
37 for, 18 against and 1 abstention,
seeks to amend the Texas State Code
of Higher Education, Section 54.503,
Subsection (e) to read: “Each
governing board will determine toe
amount of student service fees to be
allocated to intercollegiate athletics,
Education and Human Development
on toe Lamar-Beaumont campus
agree with Alexander’s findings.
Charles Hodge, dean of the col-
lege, says Alexander’s study verifies
other research done over the last
few years.
“I would agree with her findings,”
Hodge said. “I think in a real sense
she has confirmed what some of toe
other researchers have concluded
over toe last few years.
“We have concluded, and known,
and, I guess before this kind of
research came out, sort of suspected
that a truly educated person is able
to think and take facts and apply
them to real situations. As long as
we teach only toe facts without some
idea as to how those facts become
meaningful, a person really is not a
truly educated person.”
Charles Burke, director of toe
Lamar Teacher Center, believes
that giving a student a desire for
learning should be a teacher’s top
priority.
“I agree with toe fact that
teachers should teach,” Burke said.
“Teaching public school students
how to learn and instilling within
them a desire for learning should be
the most important goal of a
teacher.
“If students know how to learn and
and that such amount shall not ex-
ceed 50 percent of the total student
service fee allocations for that fiscal
year.”
“At all universities, most students
feel that athletics takes up too much
of toe student service fees, and they
don’t get to see the results,” Holmes
said. “We feel the money could be
shifted to other areas and influence
student life as a whole, other than
just athletics.”
Resolution 10, one of three resolu-
tions brought to the floor by Texas
A&I University, seeks to amend Sec-
tion 54.503, subsection (g) of the
higher education code to read: “The
president shall not modify nor delete
any part of the student service fees
advisory committee’s recommenda-
tions, and must submit those recom-
mendations as toe recoinmenda-
tions of the university.”
Student service fees advisory
committees attempt to recommend
student service fees budget expen-
ditures to toe president of toe
university, prior to his recommen-
dation to toe board of regents.
Holmes, who served on Lamar’s
student service fees advisory com-
mittee this past summer, said toe
resolution attempts to correct a
glaring problem in toe budgetary
process.
“A lot of students serve on the
have a desire for learning, their
education will never cease. Students
will be able to educate themselves
for a lifetime.”
Alexander’s study confirmed that
consistently placing low-ability
students together in classes may
make little or no positive difference
in their learning, especially if the
purpose is to have these students
become strategic learners. Low-
competence students make their
greatest gains in average mixed-
ability classrooms, toe study found.
“It’s not to the kid’s advantage to
be in low-ability classes,” Alexander
said. “When low-competence
students are grouped together, not
only do they feel labeled ‘stupid and
failures,’ they also lack models for
alternative learning and thinking
styles.”
How well students learn depends
on what they already know, their
strategic abilities, gender as related
to age, and even toe subject content,
toe study found. Schools currently
pick just one educational approach,
but toe solution to better learning is
not that simple, Alexander said.
Her study also found toe longer
students remain in school toe more
routine their learning habits become
and toe harder it is for them to adapt
to better methods, whether they are
committees and put in many man-
hours only to see their recommenda-
tions filed away and never seen
again,” Holmes said. “This says
that the recommendations are
legitimate and should be seen by toe
regents when they are making final
decisions on the budget.”
The resolutions will be forwarded
to toe state legislature, said Holmes,
where they will hopefully be ad-
dressed in the 1990 session.
In addition, TSSA voted to drop ar-
ticle I, section 5 from its constitu-
tion. The article stated that “The
Association shall not act as a lobby-
ing entity. Upon unanimous vote of
all member schools calling for toe
Association’s support on behalf of a
particular issue, toe Association
may support a lobbying group in-
dependent of the Association.”
The delegates to toe convention
argued long and hard over toe pro-
posal, meant to allow the TSSA to
lobby legislators for pending legisla-
tion.
Susan Hayes, a University of
Texas at Austin delegate, argued
that the change would be against
Texas law, which prohibits use of
student sendee fees for lobbying
purposes.
Mikal Belicove of toe University of
Houston said that the organization
was responsible for representing toe
willing. Sixth-grade students were
more successful in absorbing new
learning strategies than toe high
school and college students in toe
study, Alexander said.
Currently, schools are arranged
primarily to teach and assess im-
mediate rudimentary data, the
educational curriculum and instruc-
tion, Alexander said.
Burke says he understands why
schools emphasize teaching these
facts.
“Teachers are becoming more ac-
countable for students’ learning,”
Burke said. “Students must pass
certain tests at different levels in
order to progress through school. If
a student fails, he cannot move to
toe next grade level or cannot
graduate.”
“Much of toe test is based on fac-
tual information,” he said.
“Therefore, teachers strive to make
sure that factual information is
taught.”
Hodge cited a state law dealing
with teacher preparation cur-
riculum that has prompted changes
in the Lamar College of Education
and Human Development that are
occurring presently.
“Senate Bill 994 requires that
students who are preparing to
become teachers have to take a ma-
jor in a teaching area such as
history, English, etc.,” Hodge said.
“The other part of that law is that it
reduces the number of classes that a
student can take in how-to-teach
courses.”
Hodge sees this new law as having
an effect on toe department’s ability
See LEARNING, page 4
funding
views of Texas’ students. He ex-
pressed a need to discontinue
dependence on the Texas Student
Coalition for lobbying efforts.
The Texas Student Coalition is an
organization composed of students
from UT-Austin and Texas A&M
who lobby state legislators.
Holmes said the removal of toe
clause would give the TSSA greater
leeway in attempting to sway
legislators to TSSA positions.
Hie TSSA will be lobbying for the
resolutions adopted this fall as well
as attempting to reintroduce a bill
that would give students a non-
voting member of their respective
boards of regents.
Other Lamar students who attend-
ed toe convention were Daucy
Crizer, Humble sophomore; Octavia
Brown, Beaumont senior; Renee An-
toine, Beaumont sophomore; Ann
Gentle, Omaha, Neb., junior; and
Immanuel Morris, Houston
freshman.
Other schools present at the con-
vention included I-arrmr University-
Orange, Lee College, Stephen F.
Austin State University, Southwest
Texas State, Texas Southern Univer-
sity, Texas Tech, University of
Houston-University Park, UH-
Downtown, University of North
Texas and University of St. Thomas.
State convention
TSSA votes to curb athletic
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Murley, Bryan. University Press (Beaumont, Tex.), Vol. 66, No. 17, Ed. 1 Wednesday, October 25, 1989, newspaper, October 25, 1989; Beaumont, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth499601/m1/1/?q=Lamar+University: accessed June 6, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Lamar University.