The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 68, No. 22, Ed. 1 Thursday, February 5, 1981 Page: 2 of 16
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Cultivating gardens
How has the College System failed?
1. It lacks a means of including non-residents in activities.
2. The problem of noise in the residential halls has not been
effectively solved.
3. A certain amount of unhealthy rivalry has been engendered
among the colleges, which serves to diminish overall school spirit.
It is hoped that solutions to these problems is merely a matter of
time.
That statement was written in 1958 by Meyer Nathan for the
Thresher as a summary of the conclusions of a survey taken about the
College System after its first year. Twenty-three years later, those
problems still remain.
Noise in colleges is certainly not major problem, but it does still
occur. Off-campus members are treated poorly. At best, they are
second-class citizens; at worst, they are ostracized from the college,
unable to participate in college life. And "unhealthy rivalry" between
the colleges remains, sometimes causing physical damage to both
people and buildings.
To be sure, the colleges have changed dramatically since 1958. Most
strikingly, some of them are now coed—an idea that would have
been considered radical in 1958. Despite the changes coed colleges
have brought (which, I feel, have been for the better) some of the basic
problems of college life still remain. The fact that three relatively
minor problems have yet to be resolved indicates the general
difficulties of effecting changes in the system. Larger problems are
usually not even addressed.
Back to 1958:
The masters of the five colleges agreed that apathy—student apathy
tow ards college functions—was the major stumbling block of the
College System.
The system, felt Dr. Calvin Class, master of Jones College, is an
experiment in education; an attempt to raise the level of intellectual
interest of the Rice student.
In 1981, not surprisingly, most students are still apathetic, but,
more importantly, the colleges do painfully little to develop the
intellectual atmosphere that many hoped the colleges would engender.
Tim Griffy expressed it again in 1979:
The colleges are floundering in a "no man's land" between
dormitories and the actualized college systems which were our
original models. The colleges can be a meeting place for "art and
life"—a place where less formal, but no less important learning can
take place. They can make a significant contribution to "educating"
the people who pass through Rice.
Why is the College System so important? Because it is supposed to
be one of the unique features about this place. Rice is a university that
is supposed to attract some of the best minds in the country. But being
around smart people does not help the education process if no
interaction occurs. The very existence of the colleges help people to
interact in certain ways. But, sometimes, they set up barriers: between
on- and off-campus students and between residents of different
colleges. What problems exist are not insoluble; they merely require the
effort of the students to attempt solve them.
If this university is ever to become a "university of the first class,"—
as Thresher Editor Jim Bernhard maintained it was in 1958 and as 1
have maintained it is not throughout this year—the colleges must
become more than just pretty PR fixtures on campus. They must
become real and vital forces. As Bernhard said in 1958:
At another Texas institution, there is now a great deal of effort to
become "a university of the first class." It is rather commonly accepted
that Rice has already attained this goal. We hope that students will
realize the responsibility to increase the Institute's stature through
their own operation of their college system, their student government,
and their activities.
Let us cultivate our garden.
—Richard Dees
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SPANNING THE HEDGES/bv David Dow
Jefferson's most famous
words,"that all men are created
equal," have a majestic ring to
them which Americans from Abe
Lincoln to Martin Luther King, Jr.
have proudly proclaimed. They
presumably indicate a radical
American commitment to
egalitarianism, radical because it
differs so markedly from the
stratified, hierarchical society
which American colonists left
behind in Britain. But what is
egalitarianism? And irrespective of
our affinity for quoting Jefferson,
do we believe in it?
Perhaps that depends on how
the concept is defined. One
possibility is to regard^
egalitarianism as requiring
equality of condition: Everyone
must have the same wealth, the
same power, the same status.
Alternatively, we can construe its
meaning to permit economic and
social differences to arise on the
condition that the opportunities
for success remain equally open to
all.
Americans, as a rule, espouse
the latter formulation of
egalitarianism. The former, more
stringent interpretation suggestion
an aggressive Communism which
undercuts individual incentive
and results in stagnation,
oppression, and worse. The
American version, usually
referred to as equality of
opportunity, presumably lies
midway between an absolute
levelling and a rigid hierarchy
where status is fixed and mobility
impossible.
Our rhetoric and mythology
effusively praise egalitarian
virtues, but our practices reflect
different values which actually
belie egalitarian pretentions. Even
if we interpret egalitarianism as
meaning simply equality of
opportunity, we believe in that
version no more than we believe in
an egalitarianism which demands
equality of condition.
Popular folklore lauds the
industriousness of fictional
Horatio Alger characters who rise
from rags to riches, and the
historically oriented point to
Andrew Jackson as evidence that
Alger heroes are not confined to
pages of novels. Yet the very
noteworthiness of any individual
who manages to overcome abject
poverty is very revealing; it
acknowledges that the massive
barriers faced by the poor in our
society utterly skew the idea of
equal opportunity; The wealthy
have an immeasurable if
intangible advantage. Opportun-
ities for success vary drastically.
If Americans strongly and truly
believed in equality of
opportunity, then social policies
would seek to equalize the factors
which unfairly advantage some
over others. Instead of striving to
achieve an egalitarian society,
however, programs like
Affirmative Action and the
progressive income tax simply
redefine the parameters which lead
to the creation of unequal
opportunity. Money is deemed an
unfair advantage; mental ability is
not. That makes no sense because
genes determine at least part of
one's intellectual capability.
Children inherit brains from their
parents as much as they share in
the family wealth. So attaching a
reward to mental acumen unfairly
advantages intellectual giants vis-
a-vis society's less intelligent.
Hereditary differences mean that
no social policy can approach true
equality of opportunity by relying
on education as the great levelling
force. Moreover, even if the
environment totally determines
IQ, the factors comprising one's
milieu are so numerous as to be
unamenable to social control. In
short, insofar as our society
continues to link success to mental
acuity, it cannot honestly claim to
believe in equality of opportunity.
Jefferson, of course, empha-
tically denied that men are
intellectual equals, inherently or
otherwise. Nor did he favor an
absolute social levelling to achieve
an objective standard of equality.
By equality, Jefferson meant to
refer to man's moral capacity.
Hence, his belief, whether right or
wrong, is not particularly germane
to our modern view of
egalitarianism. Actually, merely
examining America does not at all
indicate what a modern view of
egalitarianism entails. The United
States exhibits neither equality of
. condition nor equality of
opportunity. More important,
government policies do not aim at
achieving either. Still we are
reluctant to dismiss Jefferson's
insistence that "all men are created
equal" as a vapid claim; its
attraction is too powerful. We
want to believe it. Indeed,
egalitarianism can have a meaning
applicable to contemporary
America, but it requires a new
understanding of the idea that men
are created equal. Next week I will
explore the implications of a new
view of equality.
richard dees
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HlKEOnCK Business Manager
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The Rice Thresher, the official student newspape. at Rice University since 1916, is
published on Thursdays during the school year, except during examination periods and
holidays, by the students of Rice University. Editorial and business offices are located on
the second floor of the Rioe Memorial Center, P.O. Box 1892, Houston, TX 77001.
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Mail subscription rate: SIS per year. The opinions expressed herein are not necessarily
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c198IThe Rke Thresher. All rights reserved.
The Rice Thresher, February 5, 1981, page 2
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Dees, Richard. The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 68, No. 22, Ed. 1 Thursday, February 5, 1981, newspaper, February 5, 1981; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth245462/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.