The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 73, No. 16, Ed. 1 Friday, November 22, 1985 Page: 4 of 20
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THRESHING IT OUT
Wiener supports strict
punishment for Gibbs
To the editor:
Grady Gibbs, John Thornburgh and the
other hooligans who disrupted the meeting
of the Central American Peace Forum
should be expelled from the university.
Pretending to support democracy, they have
behaved like Nazis; pretending to respect the
university, they have formed a vigilante
group; pretending to respect freedom, they
have sought to deny others' freedoms. They
must not be allowed to continue their
educations as part of the Rice University
community.
Ronald A. Wiener
Graduate Student
Student Association
bound to make decision
To the editor:
Recently letters and opinion columns
have appeared in the Thresher which
criticize the Student Association's decision
to vote on a resolution concerning apartheid
in South Africa. I want to reply to these
criticisms, first by arguing that we as Rice
students cannot ignore the issue, and second
by arguing that the SA is the appropriate
body to consider the question.
Why is the issue of apartheid one that the
members of the Rice community cannot
ignore? For the simple reason that silence on
this issue says as much as any statement. As
members of this university, we have some
say in what it does. And because we have this
say, we have the responsibility to exercise it;
we have the responsibility to care what our
Doonesbury
university does. By remaining silent here, we
shrug off this responsibility. We can't do
that; it's just not right.
The Board of Governors has made a stand
on the issue. Do we support their decision? If
we do, let's support it openly, not tacitly.
And I am not questioning the Board's ability
to make a reasonable decision, I am claiming
that we, as intelligent students, have a
viewpoint to bring to the question. Student
concerns certainly do not coincide with the
Board's, and for that reason the
representative body for the students should
feel called upon to make a statement, if only
for the reason that the Board did. And for
that same reason, 1 am quite pleased that
Charles Duncan is going to come to an SA
meeting to explain the reasoning of the
Board in making its decision before the SA
votes on a resolution. And I would be quite
happy with an SA resolution that concurred
with the Board's — though I will say
honestly that 1 support divestment and can
hardly see myself changing my mind on it —
but this does not rid us of our responsibility
to consider the issue.
One more thing about being silent here.
To discuss this issue in the SA does not set a
precedent for discussion of any political
issue. It seems to me that the nature of this
issue, as opposed to some political issues, is
such that it demands discussion, for by
remaining silent we tacitly approve of the
investment of our money in South African
interests. There are issues in which, of
course, the SA has no business. A mayoral
race, for instance. However, if by ignoring
an issue we are making a political statement
anyway, as in the present case, we have not
the right but the responsibility to consider
the issue in the open; we have the
responsibility to make it an issue that can be
reasonably debated and decided upon in
public, no matter if we step on toes.
Assuming I've shown why we as Rice
members should address this issue, I have to
turn to this question: why should the SA be
considering this issue instead of leaving it up
to the individuals who are interested enough
to take it up privately? The most telling
objection to SA discussion of the issue
asserts that those on the SA are not elected
for political reasons and are not there to
represent their constituents on political
issues, This is a weighty objection and
deserves careful consideration. There is a
strong and pragmatic rebuttal to it,
however. The position that the SA is elected
to debate students' concerns — and not
political concerns — derives from the
laissez-faire attitude that, should the
individual student care enough about an
issue, he will act in the appropriate
individual way, will form a group to protest
administration policy, or will petition for a
referendum, etc. From the practical view,
though, this is ineffective.
An individual who writes the Board of
Governors is going to get much less
consideration than an elected representative
body. A newly formed protest group does
not have the legitimacy and hence, the
influence, that the SA as the traditional
student institution does. A referendum will
say to the Board, that, no, the Student
Association doesn't have the interest in the
issue to take a stand on it, so we will pass it
on to the students in a referendum, which
has the great virtue of eliminating all
individual responsibility. I don't think that a
referendum could signify more than an
exercise in opinion polling for the Board.
And a poll indicates that no collective group
action is going to be made. It quantifies
without any aim the opinions of an
anonymous collection of individuals.
BY GARRY TRUDEAU
WHEN THE PRESIDENT SAID
. DEPLOY" YESTERDAY, HE
r - REALLY MEANT"SHARE."
W HIS LATER STATEMENT ON
piL ABM'S WAS NOT A CHANGE
Ur OF POLICY, BUTOFFEREPAS
-JLONE POSSIBLE POLICY.
i
ALSO, MR.RBAGANS COM
MENTS ON VERIFICATION
WERE NOTME/WTO BE
TAKEN SERIOUSLY. ANP
HIS USE OF THE WORD
"LIMITS'WA<? REALLY
SHORTHAND FOR. "NO
LIMITS.
FINALLY,
, v SUBSTITUTE
THE WORD
_U "RESPONSE'FOR ,
NUKS-FEST.
GOOD MORNING.
THE FOLLOWING
ARB TODAY'S
CLARIFICATIONS
a
MR. PRESIDENT, ALMOST
ALL OUR SCIENTISTS, IN
CLUDING THOSE WORKING
-r ON THE PROJECT PONT
JL BELIEVE A "STAR WARS"
,r DEFENSE IS REALLY
" FEASIBLE. WHY PO
YOU7 f
-BIZZ/ =
.AND MY
FAITH IN
AMERICAN
TECHNOLOGY!
CI WW ,
pi m
L 0/lMf
WELL
I.
BIZZl
-THAT NO, ITS JUST ME,
y0u MIKE. MY TV'S
5mo'UJ. DOWN. COULD YOU
MAM? TELL ME HOW IT'S
^ / GOING IN
6ENEVA ?
THERE'S BEEN A
FRANK BUT COR- DAMN.
DIAL EXCHANGE 1 WAS
OF VIEWS. AFRAID
OF THAT.
X
HOLD ON,
MAN. I'LL THANKS
CHECK.
%
A resolution that comes straight out of the
Senate would have, on the other hand, the
specific backing of and the explicit
assumption of responsibility by the SA
Senate for the students of Rice, and to the
students of Rice. We in the SA should put
ourselves on the line, not out of arrogance
nor from a sense of self-importance, two
attitudes which admittedly are all too
common among us politico-types, but in
conscious and careful recognition of the
power we are assuming. And this decision to
go out on a limb has to be made, I feel, for
the practical reason that this kind of action
will have a real effect and for the reason that
this horrible issue is not going to go away if
we ignore it. Ignoring this issue will in no
way keep us innocent of the issue.
Steve Findley
Hsnszen '86
Teaching evaluations
important in many ways
To the editor:
I recently came across this letter, printed
in the Thresher some years ago. As teacher
evaluation time draws near, perhaps some in
the Rice community would be interested in
its message.
Mark Kulstad
Chairman, Committee on Undergraduate
Teaching
"What is the point of teacher evaluations?
I criticize a professor one semester and he is
still doing the same things the next semester.
Teachers dont seem to improve as a result of
the teacher evaluations, so why should I
waste my time with them?"
Since becoming chairman of the
committee which administers the teacher
evaluations, I have heard objections like the
above expressed by quite a few students, and
it has become clear that many students do
not understand how the evaluations are used
or the impact that they have upon this
campus. Let me try to make a fuller
explanation.
The teaching evaluations provide
virtually the only information available
about the quality of a person's teaching. This
information plays an important part in
determining whether an Assistant Professor
is promoted or given tenure. Low teaching
ratings can keep a person from being
promoted, and thus cost him his job, while
excellent teaching ratings can save the job of
a person who might not otherwise be
promoted. The handwritten portions of the
teaching evaluations of each person
considered for promotion are read carefully
by the Committee on undergraduate
Teaching, which prepares a summary of
these evaluations. These summaries, along
with the computer print-outs from the
objective past of the evaluation, form part of
the credentials examined by the University
Council in deciding on promotion.
"That's all very fine," you say, "but most
professors already have tenure, so the
evaluations don't matter to them." Wrong
again. The amount of each person's yearly
salary increase can be influenced by the
quality of his teaching evaluations. How
much influence this has varies from
department to department, but in some
cases it can play a major role. Since faculty
salaries at Rice are low to begin with, and
since inflation makes it harder to live on
these salaries each year, the salary increases
are vital to many of us, and several years of
small increases can be devastating.
In addition to these financial
considerations, most teachers take pride in
doing their job well, and get great
satisfaction from having this recognized by
their students in the form of good
evaluation.
Thus, it is important to most faculty
members to receive good teaching
evaluations. And this means that the
evaluation system is important to the quality
of the education that you receive.
Remember that there are other pressures on
faculty members. We know that we are
evaluated on how much research we produce
see Threshing it out, page 8
The Rice Thresher, November 22, 1985, page 4
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Snyder, Scott. The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 73, No. 16, Ed. 1 Friday, November 22, 1985, newspaper, November 22, 1985; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth245621/m1/4/?rotate=270: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Rice University Woodson Research Center.