The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 84, No. 21, Ed. 1 Friday, March 14, 1997 Page: 2 of 24
twenty four pages : ill. ; page 19 x 15 in.View a full description of this newspaper.
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2 FRIDAY, MARCH 14, 1997
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THE RtCE THRESHER ■ ^ UPINIC
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A card reader in the Pub to charge
food could be a magic bullet.
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With Beer-Bike just a day away, now is an appropriate time to
direct attention toward another of Rice's well-loved institutions — Willy's
Pub.
Fver since the minimum drinking age in Texas was raised to 21, Willy's
Pub lias had difficulty making ends meet. Those who have been closely
involved with The Pub in recent years have constantly worried about the
Pub having to close due to financial problems.
During the 1993-94 school year, efforts*-were made in the form of the
Save the Pub Club — organized by a group of seniors. The club was a fund-
raising organization. Fortunately they caught President Gillis' eye and he
was able to reduce the cost of the lease.
While this helped "save the Pub," students are forgetting the effort and
ignoring an almost 22-year-old Rice fixture. Maybe we are too busy. Maybe
we are caught up in a college system that works too well. These may be
contributing factors to the decease in Pub attendance, but it is our opinion
that the facility just gets overlooked — not only by students, but by the
administration. .>
Why is it that the Coffee-House is able to have a card reader and the Pub
does not? The Pub carries larger overhead as it is open during the regular
weekday hours live days a week. It cannot select ively open and close during
the daytime when business is slow. A card reader might kill two birds with
one stone
First,'the Pub would be able to attract a larger business clientele and
greatly increase the daytime shift's potential for profitability, 'lilt* current
lunch crowd is mostly grad students and Sammy's overflow (a quick
etiquette tip: bringing food from Sammy's into the Pub at lunchtinie is rude.
Most of the crowd doing this are graduate students who are older and
should,know better). Making lunch available by card reader will bring in
more undergrads tot something beside alcohol. That is the second benefit.
1'he Pub could be seen as a place where people are encouraged to meet. Not
I and drink, just meet and maybe grab a sandwich.
After the April 1995 lire which destroyed the Pub. the administration
showed how much it recognizes the value of the Pub by committing to
rebuild il and provide it with more space: Hopefully, they will now go a step
lu i ther'and give the Pub die same privileges it recently gatfe'the Coffee House:
.i i ai d readei.
liy doing so, the administration would enable the Pub to draw the
revenue necessary to become a place known for more than just alcohol.
Archaic Cards
Expanding student ID card benefits
would bring Rice to the '90s.
The student identification card ol the 1990s can be a wonderful thing.
Witness the explosion of services accessible with just one swipe of a card:
food, drink, library books, building access, security and shopping, both on
and oil campus.
Yet such multi-purpose II) cards are miracles of convenience that do not
exist at Nice yet. Our II) card system lags behind that of other top-notch
Anient an universities such as Harvard, Dartmouth. Duke and Georgetown.
Rice ID cards are good only for
opening buildings (and very few al-
ter midnight), library services and
C entral Kitchen food. But our food
purchases are restricted to meals at
C K. Sammy's and'the Coffee House,
while food at the Pub is inexplicably
excluded. Worst of all. building ac cess is restricted to one's college after
midnight forpbtuse and self-defeating security reasons. As for off-campus
deals with businesses, they are uuheard-ol.
It would benefit Rice to substantially expand services available via the
student II). These options are not impossible. After all, they are in place at
universities across the nation on a much broader scope than this proposal.
Students and administrators at Rice have already looked into a "universal
card," Rice owes its students a student ID card that is more that a plastic
card with a picture. And there's no reason to wait any longer.
pinionS
Letter Policy
TO SUBMIT - Letters may be sent in by ...
e mail: icellerwnec edu
campus mail: Fetter to the Fditor, c/o The Rice Thresher
U S, Mail: l etter to the Fditor, The Hire Thresher,
0100 Main St., MS-524. Houston, TX 77005-1892
in person Thresher Office, Second Floor. Student Center
DEADLINE Deadline tor all letters is 5 p.m. on Monday, letters
.received alter the deadline are generally not .considered for
publication until the following week
RULES —
I All letters must include your name, college, year of
graduattbn and phone number. s
2. We resetliy-the right to edit for length, spelling, grammar
and stvle "
3 Letters to the Editor
To the editor:
Having been featured for fwo
weeks on the Backpage, I write to
thank you for catapulting me into
my 15 minutes of celebrity. After
years of professorial anonymity, it is
exciting to have my own faculty trad-
ing' card and to be invited to appear
on both Oprah and Geraldo.
Then; is an important error jn
your reporting, however. You claim
that I am sensitive about my ears.
On the contrary, I have always glo-
ried in them, feeling a special affin-
ity with I.B.I and Ross Perot.
On a more seriousnote, you have
depicted me as wanting to censor
the Thresher because I oppose bu-
rnt >r thai doesn't conform to my taste.
Friends have asked me to explain
why. In fact, I don't wish to censor
the Thresher or have others censor
it. 1 do want the Thresher itself to
adopt a policy that conforms to ac-
cepted journalistic standards.
As I understand it, your Backpage
editors' animus toward me grew out
of events last fall, when students put
up posters and called a campus-wide
meeting to protest the Nov. 8 issue
of the Thresher, which many people
thought went far beyond the bounds
of acceptable journalism. The target
of Backpage "humor" was'Rice
women in general, who were de-
picted in insulting stereotypes.
At that meeting, which filled
Farnswortb Pavilion and was mod-
erated by Chemistry Professor John
Hutchinson, many students of both
genders protested the Backpage,
which has a long history of insulting
people and minority groups and
women in particular. Others de-
fended it.
I was among the faculty, students
and staff who were asked by the
organizers to speak.
I noted that over the years the
editors,-when criticized, have typi-
cally tried to defend the Backpage
by saying they were just joking.
However, I pointed to a substan-
tial literature in social psychology
and anthropology that interprets as
thinly-veiled aggression much jok-
ing behavior — especially when di-
rected against traditional targets of
prejudice, such as women and eth-
nic minorities, and when employing
common derogatory stereotypes. *
I have never
advocated censorship
of the Thresher, even
when the Backpage
has caused what I
considered to be
great injury to some
of. its victims.
Although many on the Thresher
staff were there, including-its edi-
tors in chief, its Backpage editors
and a photographer, the Thresher
chose not to report this unprec-
edented meeting in its pages or to
respond to the issue in print.
It is tempting, I am sure, to por-
tray me as someone who wants to
impose political correctness on the
Thresher, spoiling the fun and violat-
ing the free-speech rights of Rice
students.
But that portrayal would be inac-
curate. I have never advocated cen-
sorship of the Thresher, even when
the Backpage has caused what I
considered to be great injury to some
of its Victims.
Nor am I against humor directed
at, among other targets, the faculty.
In fact, one of my long-standing
complaints about the Thresher\sthi\i
it is woefully short on good satire:
witty, hard-hitting humor of the sort
that historically has been the stock-
in-trade of good campus journalism.
Instead, what the Backpage has
all too"often served dp is drivel. 1
have always thought Rice students
were capable of appreciating more
sophisticated humor in their news-
paper.
Who should establish Thresher
policy, and what should it be? The
editors should establish it, thereby
taking responsibility for the news-
paper anA acknowledging that the
public trust vested in them as jour-
nalists is premised on the expecta-
tion that the newspaper be accurate^.
fair and civil.
Should the Thresher forbid hu-
mor that is painful? No. Effective
satire has a target, and the target
will probably feel hurt or at least
extreme discomfort. This is true of
all good satire, whether that of
Jonathan Swift, Mark Twain, Molly
Ivins or P.J. O'Rourke.
Should satiric humor be based
on the actual behavior of the target?
Yes. Making up falsehoods about
people's actions that intentionally
mislead the reader is simply not re
sponsible journalism. Butthishardly
SEE BACKPAGE. PAGE 3
Sexual assault still deserves attention
To the editor:
This coming week is Sexual As-
sault Awareness Week. Some people
are probably wondering about the
purpose of this. Who doesn't think
sexual-assault is bad? Wliat's the
point of cramming more of this down
our throats?
The problem with this attitude is
that while Rice students are capable
of making responsible decisions,
they simply don't have all the facts 4
available to fhem. I certainly did not' .
expect to learn the statistics I was
taught when I joined Students Orga-
nized Against Rape .three years ago.
Most people envision sexual assault
as something that iak'es place in
poorly lit parking lots at 3 a.m. This
image is reinforced by police bulle-*
tins that report only stranger rapes,
creating the impression that this is
the most common form of sexual
assault on campus.
hi fact* you are five times morels
likely to be raped by someone you
know than by a stranger. One in six
women will be sexually assaulted
during their time at college. .
People are skeptical of national
statistics applied to Rice. We all know
Rice is different from other schools,
so we #resist being preached to for
the ills of some national trend. Here
are the facts. From mid-October to
the end of classes last -semester,
three acquaintance rapes were re-
ported, according to the Campus
Police and Student Affairs. All of
these assaults were between two
Rice students and involved the use
of alcbhol. Keep in mind that these
are only the reported incidents of
sexual assault. The actual number
of assaults tends to be about 10 to 20
times the number of reported as-
saults. Forty percent of assault sur-
vivors never tell anyone of fheir ex-
perience. And we ate talking about
only one half of one semester.
Next week we will be presenting
a recording of the experience of an
actual Rice student who was raped.
Hie recording powerfully empha-
sizes the fact that this is very much
an issue that occurs at Rice. We
invite anyone who is interested to
attend. We will first play the tape
March 18 at 8:45 p.m. in Sammy's
PDR. If you are unable to make that
presentation, we hope to present
once at each college with college-
specific facilitators to lead the dis-
cussion and provide information.
The first of these will be at Sid
Richardson College.
Sexual Assault Awareness Week
exists to provide the Rice commu-
nity with a resource to learn about
and discuss sexual assault. It is de-
signed to open up a dialogue about
the serious issue of sexual commu-
nication; If you have any further
questions, feel free to contact one of
the SOAR officers or stop by the
Health Education Office.
Ravi fcohal
Coordinator
SOAR
SRC'98
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Beard, Marty & Rao, Vivek. The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 84, No. 21, Ed. 1 Friday, March 14, 1997, newspaper, March 14, 1997; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth246563/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.