The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 71, No. 17, Ed. 1 Friday, January 27, 1984 Page: 2 of 24
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Rice 38, Texas 7? Don't believe
it unless you see it in print
This year's Rose Bowl game provided an interesting retort to
President Hackerman's remark last semester that he would
prefer to improve Rice's reputation through a good football
program rather than, perhaps, getting a few Nobel Prize-
winning professors. Hackerman commented, "No, I don't want
to buy faculty members; the (prize) doesn't make them good
professors...I would much prefer to have 'hype' in the paper
about football...It's the football that attracts the outsiders. A
good football program helps me to get people to listen to me."
With the score UCLA 38, Illinois 7, some crafty California
Institute of Technology students electronically took control of
the scoreboard and changed the readout to 'Caltech 38, MIT 7'.
Aside from pulling off one of the most ingenious and gutsy
college hoaxes since the Aggies managed to cram eight cadets
into a cow, the CIT hackers received nationwide television
coverage and intellectual recognition for their university (while
also barbing their East Coast technological rivals).
My hat comes off to these hackers. (I hereby resolve to be
more understanding to Rice's computer jocks/nerds in the
future. I may even stop referring to the Mudd Building as
GEEKSA.) Oh, sure they broke some laws to effect their prank,
but who hasn't on occasion? Given their intellectual abilities, I
wouldn't have hesitated a nanosecond to gamble on such a joke
and gain such recognition for Rice University. The hilarity of
the hoax is amplified when one realizes that CIT does not have
a football team and that the students involved received some
academic credit for the stunt in "Experimental Projects in
Electrical Circuits" class!
And now for a deftly clever explanation of why academic
achievements will better further Rice's reputation than an
overpaid, media-slick, football team. Unfortunately, this is not
an easy tie-in. The problem stems from the differing views Dr.
Hackerman and I hold regarding Rice's past and present
reputations, purpose, and potential as a university.
While any university is to some extent multi-faceted, all have
their clear strengths. Rice's strength is its commitment to a high
quality undergraduate education by both the students and
faculty. We must fervently uphold and improve this
undertaking; to do otherwise would be to accept the blanket
mediocrity of a state university.
Quite obviously, Dr. Hackerman has a wealth of experience
on me in administering a university; I must respectfully submit,
however, that perhaps he still longs for the University of Texas
campus.
Rice's endowment size and endowment per student size
(currently within the top ten and top four nationwide,
respectively) put us in the enviable position of being financially
sound enough to accept, with discretion, alumni contributions;
our size and alleged admission standards absolutely dictate
that we do so. This is not to imply that we should ever refuse a
donation but, rather, selectively discourage certain strings and
clauses pertaining to use of gifts.
It is high time that influential alumni stopped reminiscing
(through rose-colored glasses) and started realizing that the
true tests of a university's excellence occur in the laboratory, at
the computer terminal, and on the word processor, and not on
the gridiron. The outcries over the last academic year demand
such an awakening.
—Mark Mitchell
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EXPANDING THE HEDGES by Chris Ekren
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The Rice Thresher, January 27, 1984, page 2
Thank God for pamphleteers.
Yes, even the Lyndon LaRouche
disciples that clutter the Hobby
Airport concourse with tables
bearing "nuke the whales" decals
and bridge-related Kennedy
memorabilia. Despite the massive
growth of America's media since
the days of Thomas Paine, there
are still instances when a well
written brochure is the only way to
get the message out.
Consider the brochures left all
over the Rice campus last week by
the "Committee to Stop Chemical
Atrocities." Entitled "Do You
Support Slave Labor?, "the cream
colored broadside attempts to tell
Rice what Dan Rather prefers not
to. Citing evidence from both
foreign news sources and refugee
groups, the report documents the
use of slave labor in the Soviet
Union to complete the delayed,
controversial natural gas pipeline
from Siberia to Western Europe.
Serious followers of this column
will remember that a year and a
half ago I reported the first bits of
evidence of slave labor as
arguments against helping the
Soviets through cheap loans to
build the pipeline. Today the
evidence grows stronger daily.
The respected Japanese
newspaper Yomiuri has joined the
international outcry, citing
diplomatic sources confirming
that the Soviet Union is importing
Vietnamese political prisoners as a
means of retiring Vietnam's
massive war debt. The British
financial magazine Economist
along with the London Daily
Telegraph have independently
confirmed that the Vietnamese
government is exporting young
men rounded up in month long
house-to-house raids in areas of
what once was South Vietnam.
Soviet political prisoners released
through American diplomatic
pressure such as recently arrived
Dr. Makhmet Kulmagambetov
uniformly affirm that the Gulag is
not yet history.
Given the amount of lives and
moral issue involved, one would
expect at least a hint of outrage
from America's liberal press
establishment. One would think
that Germany's sensationalistic
Stern magazine could find some
way to package hundreds of
thousands of ethnic Russians and
Asians uprooted, beaten and left to
freeze to death in Siberia. To
expect news coverage like that in
the West is to be naive.
Of import to the communica-
tions giants are Cabbage Patch
dolls and better color sports
graphics. When an American dies
advising in El Salvador he makes
prime time news; when fifty
thousand starving Vietnamese die
each month trying to get out of a
despotic state, they dont even
make That's Incredible!
Sure, I get pissed off when
people press leaflets on me. During
election campaigns entire subway
stations in New York are littered
with campaign missives. My anger
is tempered, however, when I
realize that even the minority of
nuts that pass out/shout out
Philippics have a point: most of the
real news never makes it to print.
Mark M. MitcheU
Editor
Todd A. Cornett
Business Manager
Dave Collins News Editor
Ian Hersey Fine Arts Editor
Tony Soltero Sports Editor
Hal Wiedeman Back Page Editor
Jeanne Cooper Senior Editor
Tom Morgan, Chris Ekren Senior Editors
Jay Grob Copy Editor
Jason Binford Advertising Manager
Jeanne Cooper Production Manager
Chip Clay Photography Editor
Associate Editors Deborah Knaff (Fine Arts), Paul Havlak
Assistant Editors Melissa Cox, Frances Egler, David
Friesenhahn (News), Robert Adams (Fine Arts),
Bob Terry (Copy), Steve Mollenkamp (Sports),
Pam Truzinski (Photography), Ian Neath (Fine Arts)
Graphics Ian Hersey, Lynn Lytton
Contributing Editors John Cunyus, A1 Eynon, Jonathan Berk
News Staff Patty Cleary, Scott Snyder, Rebecca Monroy,
Becky Basch, Cheryl Smith, Scheleen Johnson,
Mark Benningfield, Brock Wagner, James Greenlee III,
Melissa Durbin, Earl Peterson, Shelina Shariff,
Patty Baron, Ian Davidson, Paul Havlak
Fine Arts Staff Harry Wade, Geoff Spradley, Michael Manson,
Kathryn Tomasek, Greg Holies, Theresa Brown,
Carrie Blum, Vincent W. Uher, Karin Murphy,
Cheryl Smith, Wiggy Martin, Albert Throckmorton,
Jennifer Cooper, David S. Teager, Kathleen Robertson,
R. Michael Hunt, Gene Spears, Jennifer Juday
Sports Staff Sheri Rieke, Lisa Widner, John Lane,
Art Rabeau, Howard Gerwin, A1 Mathiowetz
Production Staff Robyn Klahr, Melissa Durbin,
Susan Balagna, Sarah Jordan
Binineu Staff
Assistant Business Manager Susan Brown
Assistant Advertising Manager David Koralek
Circulation Jay Grob, Tom Morgan
Student Staff Assistant Mark Benningfield
Subscription Manager David Steffens
The Rke Thresher. the official student newspaper at Rice University since 1916, is
published each Friday 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 Rice Memorial Center, P.O. Box 1892, Houston, Texas 77251.
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opinions expressed herein are not necessarily those of anyone except the writer. Obviously.
«1984, The Rke Thresher. All right* reserved.
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Mitchell, Mark M. The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 71, No. 17, Ed. 1 Friday, January 27, 1984, newspaper, January 27, 1984; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth245549/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.