The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 54, No. 11, Ed. 1 Thursday, December 1, 1966 Page: 2 of 8
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The Rice Thresher
Sandy Coyner, Editor
<?' ' ' '
Phil Garon, Managing Editor
Chris Curran, News Editor
Dennis Bahler, Make-up Editor
Threshing-it-out
Oi
Ulrich defends freshman initiation
tfaouQH me
"One might contend," the students
sponsoring- next Monday's teach-in sug-
gest, ''that Rice's surface sobriety reflects
a mature conviction that there are more
valid and effective means to power than
militant altruism. It seems likely, however,
that Rice's calm reflects a general dis-
interest in social concerns.
"If an issue does not have an immedi-
ate personal relevance, it is likely to be
ignored. The pressure to compete suc-
cessfully for academic recognition pre-
cludes social involvement. Involvement de-
mands time, and time is the sacred com-
modity. It must be used with great dis-
cretion.
"But if the Rice student is not disposed
to be involved," they continue, "he can at
least be informed." Hence they have or-
ganized a teach-in, a program designed to
disseminate a vast amount of informa-
tion from a variety of viewpoints in a
short time.
The organizing students have planned
the teach-in as a direct attack on what
they see as Rice's unwillingness—perhaps
inability—to depart from structure. "We
are awed by our own creations and are too
cautious and unimaginative in operating
outside of them," they say.
"In our complaints about the tone of
intellectual life at Rice, we'too often for-
get that governmental and administrative
structures are channels for forces, which
are generated from within the community,
not bv the structures themselves.' If a
real, not an artificial, change in atmos-
phere is to come about, it must originate
outside of the traditional pattern and
existing framework."
And yet, as the organizers of this effort
fully realize, the success of the teach-in
will be found not in the quality of the
program, nor in the size of the audience,
nor in the depth of communication be-
tween speakers and students, but in the
involvement which may result.
"For some, this information will be
merely more data to be intellectually as-
similated and stored. For others, it may
serve as a compelling plea for social com-
mitment. The purpose of this teach-in is
admittedly two-pronged: to inform and to
involve."
The students of the Rice community
have too long been encl'oistered within
neatly-trimmed hedges. The city now
penetrates the campus itself. It remains
only for the campus to respond.
Stitl Tfo (2£attye
The Curriculum Committee's recom-
mendation concerning the third-year
language requirement (the compromise
outlined in last week's editorial) proposes
so little change that it is hardly worth
consideration. Particularly distressing in
the committee's report is the complete
absence of any discussion of rationale or
reasoning behind the conclusions: the pro-
posal is clearly a patchwork product, de-
signed to .avoid , angering anybody too
much.
This incident illustrates once again that
faculty committees, even with students
and excellent professors for members, are
nearly incapable of initiative, innovation,
or even daring.
USSPA votes censure for Aggies
The United Stales Student
IVesK Association voted nation-
al censure on administrative of-
ficials involved in the censor-
ship of the Texas A&M Batta-
lion. The action was taken in
a national meeting held in
Washington, D. C'., over the
Thanksgiving holidays.
Phil Garon, Thresher manag-
ing editor and... chairman of
USSPA's standing • committee
on censorship, presented a re-
port 071 the events of the case,
which involved the arbitary
dismissal of three members of
the Battalion's editorial staff,
to a meeting of the organiza-
tion's National Executive Board.
Unanimous Consent
After the presentation of a
report of the details concern-
ing the firing of Tommy De-
Frank, Dani Presswood, and
Gerald Garcia from the Battal-
ion staff, Garon read a motion
which stated that the basic
freedom of the student publica-
tion had been violated by ad-
ministrative officials, who had
taken issue with DeFrank over
the publication of an anony-
mous letter-to-the-editor and an
article on political forums.
The Board members voted
unanimous consent to the de-
claration 'of censure, which in-
cluded the names of President
Earl Rudder, Jim Lindsey, the
director of university publi-
cations who, for an interim
period, had taken over the
editorship of the paper, and
the A&M Publications Board,
an all-faculty group which
screens the Battalion copy.
To the editor:
There seems to be noticeable
ferment on the Rice campus as
to the direction the Thresher
of late has been taking. The
tendency to which I refer can
best be described as a half-
academic pessimism with the
college system and attendant
accountrements.
As I see it, the basis of the
Thresher's vituperation seems
to be the naive belief that cut-
ting down a system will create
the necessary forces of change
to constructively remedy the
ills of that system and there-
by positively augment it.
What the above proposition
blatantly asserts is that an
infinite series of negativisms
produces a miraculously hoped
for positive result. I, for one,
cannot accept such an assertion.
Constructive criticism, not de-
tractive criticsm, is the pre-
requisite for a positive de-
velopment.
At this point, an example is
in order. The latest and most
classic example is the infamous
description of freshman indoc-
trination, FI, as "education
or intimidation." Such descrip-
tions have a unique personal
flavor of their very own.
At any rate, the primary
point to be made in this example
is that neither of the descrip-
tive terms used could in any
way responsibly describe the
aims or effects of freshmen
indoctrination. In fact the term
"indoctrination" is a misnomer.
Guidance is the term almost
universally used.
What this particular epithet
has attempted to do is discredit
the case for freshmen guidance
before the reader has a chance
to read the article. • ■ >
The example I have cited is
a <flrime instance of how a
shrewd editorial staff can twist
news to their collective bias.
"Tti this particular regard, how-
ever, the Thresher has dealt
with a fragment of what we
at Rice accept as a part of
ourselves, the college system.
In Hanszen, and I am sure
in the other men's residential
colleges as well, I can unequi-
vocally say that we have pride
in our college's development
and our own development with-
in its influences.
I have good and personal
reasons to believe that the same
holds for the women of Jones
and Brown. We will not stand
idly by and listen to a venomous
tongue negatively lash at cer-
tain cherished things which
have come to symbolize the best
things at Rice to us.
Of course I assume that the
Thresher stands for a positively
directed student body and col-
lege community. If that be the
case, why not accent the posi-
tive.
If this be not done, the stud-
ents of the Rice community
will indeed accept the word of
the Thresher, to wit, that they
are apathetic, bound to a
static tradition, incapable of
initiative and orginality, and
students of a University with
grandiose but foolish adminis-
trative and educational policies.
CARL W. ULRICH
Hanszen '67
The Thresher described the
programs often known as
"Guidance" as Freshman Ini-
tiation, not Freshman Indoc-
trination.
If the "guidance" program of
any college was discredited by
the article, it was incriminated
by 'evidence presented therein,
not by dextrous management.
<5S5
*
Needham calls Alum duns moronic
~ c&Murree.
U6
pCijta&0yij
Garon noted that the officials
involved had accused DeFrank
of editorial irresponsibility, but
the two "articles cited were
not of the type to warrant such
a chai'ge.
Journalistic Workshop
He also expressed criticism of
the stated desire to run the
Battalion as a "journalistic
workshop" as being "entirely
countrary to the purposes of
a newspaper and unfair both
to the staff and to its readers."
Notification of the censure
will be sent out to papers
across the country, as well as
to certain governmental officials
and groups concerned with
academic freedom, such as the
American Association of Uni-
versity Professors.
Senate Commended
At the national meeting men-
tion was made of the efforts
of the Rice University Student
Senate, which sent a resolution
to A&M expressing its own
sense of displeasure at the
censorship, and advocating that
the case of DeFrank and his
colleagues be re-opened before
an impartial board of students
and faculty.
The Rice senate was the only
one among the college govern-
ments of the Southwest Con-
ference schools to take such
action.
To the editor:
The past six months have
been good and rich ones. Up un-
til last week when fny mail
caught up with me, I had been
learning all over again how to
think outside the constrictions
of a Rice atmosphere.
There among the bills and the
letters from other people whom
I was fondly hoping never to
hear from again were three
communications from Rice. With
trembling fingers, I opened
each of them. Had Jerry Hafter
seized control of the school and
revoked my diploma?
No, nothing quite so promis-
ing. Two of the letters were
somewhat thinly disguised ex-
tortion notes and the third, oh
irony of-ironies, was an attempt
to sell me tickets to the Jess
'Neely Appreciation Dinner. No
comment could possibly do just-
ice to that latter exquisite bit of
black humor, but I would like to
make an observation or two on
the former.
During my years behind the
ivy curtain I was aware of
Rice's attempts to seduce the
Texas business establishment,
but I was confident that they
could not possibly believe that
money would really solve all
their problems. I was generally
able to overcome a nagging seed
of doubt and write the whole
thing off as an attempt to play
ball with the system. Surely
they could not believe their own
cliches.
,vYet now I receive through the
Alumni Office pages and pages
of the identical cliches as rea-
sons why I should immediately
send a check. One of the duns
came quickly to the point. Send
us a check now, it said, or you
•will keep hearing from us until
you do. That surely, I thought,
is language that will appeal to
the average Texan. Accompany-
ing this was a sort of a homey
contemporary card containing a
number of half-witted cartoons
depicting a little man looking
suspiciously like Mr. Zip turned
bill collector.
The point became clear. Good
Lord, they really believe their
own propaganda. They really
think money is the critical prob-
lem facing Rice.
As to the manner in which
the appeal was couched, it now
appears that it may be all right
to think of yourself as uniquely
a Rice student until you get
out, but then you had better
just join the commercial estab-
lishment and pretend that you
are an Aggie who happens to
know a couple of four syllable
words. Then you will really have
it made.
Well, dear Alumni Office, this
is just a note to let you know
that I haven't yet bought a
raccoon skin coat and am not
really spending very much time
singing Rice's Honor. Conse-
quently, your moronic appeal
for funds sickens me. I hope
I am correct in predicting that
it will have the same effect on
many other alumni.
It will, I am sure, unless of
course I have been victimized
by another article of undergrad-
uate faith, confidence in the
basic intelligence of most Rice
graduates.
RAY NEEDHAM
Wiess '66
"f
j ■
THE RICE THRESHER, DECEMBER 1, 196 6—P AGE 2
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Coyner, Sandy. The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 54, No. 11, Ed. 1 Thursday, December 1, 1966, newspaper, December 1, 1966; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth244986/m1/2/: accessed June 30, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Rice University Woodson Research Center.