The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 51, No. 20, Ed. 1 Wednesday, February 26, 1964 Page: 2 of 10
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'Pcci&uit S*ceMwcc
Last Thursday night a folk singer in a local bar
dedicated a song of racial protest to the Trustees
of Rice University. Just before 2 pm the next day,
seven men and five women gave the right answers
to all eight questions put to them by State District
Judge William Holland, bringing to an end the
first phase of the University's attempt to admit
Negroes and charge tuition.
No one knows with any certainty how long
the school's suit will remain in the courts, but this
much is clear: Those eight questions the jury
answered last week were relatively simple com-
pared to the questions the University itself will
have to answer in the months and years to come.
It was our founder's intention, the jury said,
to create a university of the first class, and the
restrictions he imposed on admission and tuition
were incompatible with that intention and im-
practicable under present conditions. I he prohibi-
tion against qualified applicants solely on the basis
of their race was repugnant to most of us and had
no part in any academic community worth its
name. It is a tradition we are better without.
Surely this legal restriction will not be replaced
by one less formal but no less effective, and we
will observe the spirit as well as the letter of our
new freedom.
But there was also much in the Rice tradition
that was line and even noble, and the freedom
from tuition that we all enjoy is a part of that
tradition we give up reluctantly, even painfully.
We have always been attracted, as our founder
undoubtedly was, to the notion of a privately en-
dowed university good enough to draw the best
students and rich enough to maintain them here
without tuition and without fee.
Had the realities of educational economics been
any different, Rice might have become a truly
national university, a center for superior students
everywhere who sought admission without fear that
their place among the best of their fellows might
be denied them for lack of funds. v
We live in an age in which more undergraduates
are sustained by financial assistance than ever be-
fore, but we know that even now only the very
rich and the brightest of the very poor find
attendance at the best schools little of a financial
burden. Rice might have provided this opportunity
for everyone, but we all know that it can no
longer. Without tuition and the grants from private
foundations and the federal government it will
make possible, we cannot maintain our present
standards much less improve upon them. Between
an education that is mediocre but free and one
that l.-, iirst-class but reasonably priced, we will
inevitably choose the latter.
And yet tuition is not without its problems. Its
presence here involves two great questions for the
Rice future: How will it effect the University's
student body and how can it. best be used?
f hose who believe that Rice with tuition will
draw the same number of qualified applicants as
the same Rice without it have spent too much time
reading their own press releases and not enough
lime talking to the students. If we teach them no
better and we charge them more, how many will
come and how many coming will stay? Fewer
than at present, we are convinced, and of lesser
ability.
In terms of raw intelligence, the Rice student
body is probably as good as any other in the
country. Most who applied elsewhere were and
most "who applied only to Rice could have been
accepted by a number of the "best" schools. If
all other things were equal, the deciding factor
would be cost, and a Rice with tuition but close
to home and giving some financial assistance would
still be less expensive, at leasl for the residents of
this area, than the comparable schools of the
east or west.
But all other things are not equal. We are
behind now, and, unlesl?, we make a concerted
effort, we will fall further behind. As an under-
graduate leaching institution, Rice is at the "take-
off" stage; it will remain poised there forever,
always full of promise but never quite able to
make ihe leap to excellence, unless it receives a
significant portion of the capital and effort the
school plans to invest in the process of its future
development.
This more than anything else is the crux of the
problem. Its an old theme with us, but one more
relevant now than ever and much more urgent.
With or without tuition, our resources here are
finite and the possibilities for expansion are bounded
by realities as hard and unyielding as those which
forced us to change our charter in the first place.
We have been promised by the administration
that none now enrolled will pay tuition. It is a
promise unsatisfying precisely because it is so
important. We all know how much our free school-
ing has meant to us—many, if not most, would
be unable or unwilling to continue here if required
to pay—and we are acutely aware of the effect of
tuition on those who follow us.
We were asked during the campaign for student
signatures in support of the Trustees' position if
tuition would not substitute financial discrimination
for racial discrimination. We had no really satis-
factory answer. A large scholarship program is
planned, but how many students will participate in
it and how much money will they get, how will
the recipients be determined and how much effect
will an application for scholarship have on an
application for admission are questions that ap-
parently remain open.
There is significant evidence that the size of
both graduate and undergraduate student bodies
will be expanded in the near future. Since nearly
all graduates expect and receive substantial fellow-
ships, the school will have to expend a large amount
of mnoey for their financial assistance. How much
is left over for an undergraduate student body of
the present size, much less an expanded one, will
be dependent in part on the University's com-
mittment to the undergraduate program.
Ihe question of committment has even more
far-reaching consequences. When University of-
ficials speak of Rice as something less than a
first-class school, they are not talking about the
undergraduate program. In the academic world,
a university is measured by the value of its
advanced degrees, the quality and quantity of its
research, and the weight of its collective publica-
tions. The production of one highly-trained Ph.D.
is more important than the commencement of a
host of well-educated Bachelors; the acquisition
of one well-published scholar is more prestigous
than the promotion of three less-published but
highly competent teachers. 1 his emphasis was clear
in last week's testimony, and it is equally clear
in what is known of the University's plans for
the future.
It is a well-known if little publicized fact that
by and large the graduate programs here are
weaker than their undergraduate counterparts and
that the quality of graduate students is generally
less than that of the undergraduates. To build a
graduate program of any real status will require
larger amounts of work and money than a cor-
responding improvement in undergraduate teach-
ing. If the base on which we hope to build is so
small, how little we can build and how slowly,
and how much we will lose in the process if we
concentrate on the former. We will achieve real
excellence in either only at the price of a total
committment of our resources and our energies
to one or the other; if we choose both, both
will suffer. And, if a choice is to be made, we
must argue for the choice of undergraduate teach-
ing.
Our choice is neither merely sentimental nor a
product of our own current involvement in the
undergraduate process. It is, instead, what we feel
to be a realistic estimate of the potential here. The/e
is no inherent conflict between graduate and
undergraduate instruction; other schools with a
different tradition and larger resources may well
be able to encompass both with no real loss to
either. But Rice has too far to go and tojo little
with which to work to attempt it.
To select as our goal the first-class education
of the undergraduate is to settle on permanent
minor league status only if we accept the rating
system peculiar to so many professional scholars
but incomprehensible to the man who esteems
breadth of knowledge for its own sake. EJK
Its not so much the reading load—its these damn
labs that kill me."
THRESHING-IT-OUT
Bergman Opposes Change In Senate
To the Editor,
On Thursday of this week, an
amendment to the Senate Con-
stitution will be referred to the
students for approval.
As president of the Freshman
Class, it is my responsibility to
show these defects in the
amendment:
(1) The student senate is not
hampered by its present
size.
(2) The deleting- of the
Freshman Class president
would be very unfavor-
able.
(3) Serious thought was nev-
er given to the amend-
ment from the beginning.
These faults are strong rea-
sons why the amendment should
not be passed.
In explanation consider this—
the amendment will remove
from the Senate one representa-
tive from each college, the coun-
cilman-at-large, and the presi-
dent of the Freshman Class.
The Senate hopes tljat this cut
will increase effectiveness and
concentrate ideas, but this will
not solve the real problem.
POSITIVE ACTION is block-
ed by personality clashes, petty
animosities between senators.
Only a few people block the ac-
tion of the whole; cutting the
size would not have any effect.
If we could amend the atti-
tudes of some of the senators,
only then would we have a posi-
tive, quick-acting Senate. Only
then would senators vote on
an issue, not on the person pre-
senting it. But deleting mem-
bers will not help the Senate's
condition.
FURTHERMORE, in support
of my second point, the removal
of the Freshman president
would leave the entire Fresh-
man class without a direct rep-
resentative on the Senate; the
Class had no vote for college
senators and 110 vote for S$iate
officers. It is one of the larg-
est student bodies, if not the
largest, on campus, and yet it
has no direct representative on
the Senate.
If the president is removed,
the Senate will have no import-
ance for Freshmen until a year
later, when they finally receive
a vote. The class needs the
feeling of being a part of the
school; this, creates interest in
the system. The deletion of the
president would only cause
harm; the positive value of in-
creased legislative efficiency
would be completely oversha-
dowed.
IT IS ALSO a point of in-
terest that the Freshman view
was not even Considered when
the amendment was drawn up.
The committee of college presi-
dents never discussed the ad-
vantages of keeping the Fresh-
man President before they sub-
mitted the amendment to the
Senate.
The Presidents only consid-
ered the point, a very unstable
one, that a cut in size would
be an advantage. The amend-
ment was rushed through the
Senate with minimum considera-
tion in order for the colleges to
have time to amend their con-
stitutions. The Senate never had
time for thought.
THE AMENDMENT can
have no real value when observ-
ed in the light of its disadvan-
tages. It proposes action which
will have no real effect on the
basic problem of the Senate,
personality conflicts. It proposes
removal of the Freshman presi-
dent, an action which can only
hurt the class and its forma-
tion of political ideas.
The Senate should reconsider
its proposed amendment, this
time taking longer to find the
best method of streamlining.
Maybe if the senators would not
rush through the issues, they
could, find a solution which
would not cause as much harm
and would accomplish more for
Rice.
In this light the amendment
must be defeated, eventually to
be replaced by a much more ad-
vantageous amendment for the
good of all concerned.
President, Class of '67
Johnny Bergman
Doyle Scores
Baker-Broth Equation
To the Editor:
I note that the persistent but
vaguely-defined feeling that
something is wrong with the op-
eration of the Student Senate
has resulted in a proposal to
limit the size and representa-
tion of the Senate to one repre-
sentative from each college,
plus four officers elected at
large. I question the wisdom of
these aspects of the proposal—
as well as the rush in which it
was passed and is to be voted
on.
THE LOGIC of the proposal
seems to be that the Senate is
not doing what it should and
that this is "related to having too
many cooks in the kitchen, some
of whom hold full-time jobs
elsewhere as college presidents.
Of the presidents' being too
busy to serve on the Senate
there should be no question. But
for the rest of the argument,
the problem of the Senate does
not seem-to be that it has too
many members. Instead, it
seems to be that the Senate
doesn't know what to do with
however many it has. The prob-
lem is in organization, not in
numbers.
THERE IS neither room here
nor time before the election to
•consider this fundamental prob-
lem, though I Will suggest that
the solution may lie in a stand-
ing committee system on the
order of the U. S. Congress,
which would assume many df
the functions the.: Senate now
farms out to semi-independent
committees like SCEP.
(Continued on Page 4)
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Keilin, Eugene. The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 51, No. 20, Ed. 1 Wednesday, February 26, 1964, newspaper, February 26, 1964; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth244909/m1/2/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Rice University Woodson Research Center.