The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 85, No. 18, Ed. 1 Friday, February 13, 1998 Page: 2 of 24
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KWDAY. FEBRUARY 13.1998
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Joel Hardi
Editor in Chief
Brian Stoler
Opinion Editc
***«
Too many elections
This campus suffers from a glut of democracy. Just grab the five-
page elections insert and see if you disagree. Starting today, the
student body has the democratic privilege of electing no fewer than
34 positions across campus, everything from Student Association
president to University Court sophomore representative to Rice
Program Council treasurer.
In theory, the logic for this mass of elections is sound — if an
organization receives students' blanket tax money, then students
should be able to maintain control over those organizations. In
practice, however, this system compels mostly indifferent students
to vote in elections and assume an uninformed preference as to the
winner.
The Thresher does not oppose democracy, but — as any Political
Science student can tell you — democracy only functions correctly
when the electorate is educated. Blurbs are an insufficient method
of informing the voting public on who best can fill the job of Rice
Student Volunteer Program Secretary, and expecting any student to
inform herself about the candidates for this and 33 other positions is
expecting too much. It's not that positions such as these are unim-
portant; they are, in fact, too important to be determined by those
whose only knowledge of the candidate comes from two paragraphs
and an unflattering picture.
We believe in electing each of the officers of the SA; every student
is a member of the SA and has the right to determine its represen-
tative officers. But the student body should elect only the chairper-
sons of RSVP and RFC, not every officer. Let the chair and the other
members of those organizations decide which candidates are the
most qualified to fill out their administrative staff.
Honor Council atones for
By all accounts, the Honor Council had its share of problems last
semester. Faced with a backlog of cases from the previous spring,
the council spent three months on the first of those cases, transfixed
by requests for delays, it says.
After the council concluded the first case with a verdict of "in
violation," the accused students immediately filed an intent to appeal
with Assistant Dean for Student Judicial Programs Patricia Bass. But
Bass never received the requisite audiotapes and other trial docu-
mentation from the council, so, in December, she dismissed the
whole case out of fairness for the accused students. Bass also
ordered the council to throw out the other cases that remained from
spring semester 1997.
It is simply a miscarriage of justice for the Honor Council to
dismiss cases brought before it without even hearing them Its
laxness this year is no more excusable than its abuses of the late
1980s.
But we commend the council for making a concerted effort to
rectify the institutional failures that led it to abrogate its duty to
students last year. The recently adopted internal procedural changes
and amendments to the council's charter (which will be voted on in
the spring elections) are a bold, well-reasoned response to the
problems that plagued the council last year.
At the heart of those changes is the council's move to reverse its
practice of earlier this year and allow its two vice chairpersons to
preside over trials, in addition to its chair The proposed amend-
ments to the counci [^constitution are meant to facilitate the council's
new ability to hold as many as three trials simultaneously.
The Honor Council has had problems handling its caseload
before. In 1996, students voted not to approve the addition of four
more members to the council. The Honor Code, like many of Rice's
fragile student traditions, is only as strong as the students who
administer it. With the procedural and institutional changes they
have proposed, this year's council members show that, despite last
semester's failures, they are worthy guardians of Rice's honor
system.
Progress on'Thresher Inc.'
The Thresher is happy to report that Student Association Presi-
dent Daryl Shorter is leading the SA in a more careful consideration
of the Thresher ad hoc committee's proposal to incorporate the paper
than it appeared to us last week. The committee's report is now
publicly accessible at http;//www-ce. rice, edu/ce/members/jkb/htdocs/
tkrmher&dhac^repart.htnil, and. the SAwillbegintodiscu&s it at next
Monday's meeting.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Immature column
denies our dirty nature
To the editor:
Arine Kknbol's column on the
laundering of undergarments ("Con-
troversy surrounds boxers," Feb. 6)
brought a smile to triy face arid fond
memories to mind. Fond memories
of washing my own underwear? No.
Fond memories of fift h grade, when
little girls, taking their cues no doubt
from older friends and siblings, de-
cided that boys were — and I'm
quoting Kimbol here — "ick." Most
of us, on both sides of the sexual
fence, overcame our ignorance: Boys
realized that girls actually do fart
and girls realized that boys were not
composed wholly of festering pus-
tules of filth. Kimbol, I am sorry to
report, appears not to have made
this leap.
Anne, I have some bad news for
you; people are smelly. Dirt is every-
where. And perhaps most disturb-
ing of all, soil is composed almost
ent irely of rotting animal feces. The
world is a dirty place, and those who
(lefty it are ultimately doomed to a
life of futile impotence, pitting ever
more violent solvents against ever-
more adamant stains.
If it's any consolation, you're
clearly not alone here. Many Ameri-
cans harbor a completely illogical
fear of the unclean. I hate to sound
self-righteous and politically correct
about this, but the sooner you come
to terms with your own body and the
various oozes and squelches it li-
mits— nay, rejoices in — the sooner
you'll be able to spend your days on
more worthwhile pursuits than "that
sick feeling of wondering whether
the man next to [you] is having a
repeat day."
Unless you're planning cm shar-
ing my boxers with me, why not let
them be something that only I worry
about,
John Clements
Graduate student, Computer
Science
Article, editorial wrong
about 'Thresher Inc.'
To the editor:
I write because I am disappointed
with the inaccuracy in the staff edi-
torial ("Incorporated Thresher'?",
Feb. 6) as well as with Editor in
Chief Joel H*ardi's statements in a
related article ("'Rice Thresher' may
become Thresher Inc.", Feb. 6).
Following are several points of con-
tention:
■ The committee was never "faI
secret Student Affairs committee "
The committee does not currently
have a "plan to incorporate 7The Rice
Thresher as a legal entity separate
from the university"; it wrote a re-
port in which that course of action
was recommended. (Its text has re-
cently been published ■M http://www-
ce. rice, edu/ce/members/jkb/htdocs/
thresher-adhoe-report.html for any
interested party to read.) In fact, the
point was made at the start of the
committee that the proceedings
would remain on the record to be
fair to all concerned. Hardi and I
decided at that time that we would
not report on the committee in the
Thresher until the committee had
written a report, because we said
that until that time, the committee's
proceedings were probably not of
interest to the student body.
n The writers of the staff editorial
also claim that "students were out-
numbered by an approximately 2:1
ratio by faculty and staff." Why not
let readers decide?
The committee had three faculty
members: committee chair and Sid
Richardson College Master John
Bennett; History Professor Jack
Zammito; and English Professor and
former journalist Susan Wood.
There were four from the staff:
Director of Communications Mike
Cinelli; Rice Counseling Center Di-
rector Lindley Doran; Wiess Col
lege Master, former journalist and
adjunct professor of media law Paula
Hutchinson; and Associate General
Counsel Carlos Garcia (who was
actually an ex officio member).
The five undergraduates were
Brown College senior and former
Editor in Chief Marty Beard, Ixrvett
College senior and Editor in Chief
Joel Hardi, Baker College President
and senior Stella Hines, Student
Association President and Hanszen
College senior Daryl Shorter and
Sid junior and former Editor in Chief
Angelique Siy. GraduateStudent As-
sociation President Anthony Postert
and Houston Press Associate Editor,
former Thresher Editor in Chief and
alumna Lisa Gray (Brown *88) also
served on the committee.
Most committee members would
be happy to answer questions about
the committee's proceedings.
■ The staff editorial also reads:
'The Thresher decries the charter of
any administration-controlled com-
mittee to determine its future." This
committee was not administration-
controlled. In fact, there were no
members of the admin istration serv-
ing on the committee, and Bennett
agreed to chair the committee only
when he received a guarantee from
Camacho that the administration
would not attempt to influence the
outcome of the committee's work.
Whether there will in the future be
an administration-controlled com-
mittee that will determine the
ThresAe^sjiiture remains to be seen.
Hopefully, such a .committee will
never exist.
■ In paragraphs five through seven,
the staff editorial criticizes the re-
port in several ways. One of those
ways is that "the proposed plan is
alarmingly vague." I would like to
point out that the committee's
charge was to "meet as necessary
and prepare an advisory report to
the Vice President for Student Af-
fairs ... (in order to J ... clarify the
responsibility of the Thresher in their
relationship with the University,
determine the financial relationship
between the Thresher and the Uni-
versity, including whether the
Thresher should operate as an orga-
nization independent of the Univer-
sity and make recommendations (ital-
ics" added) concerning the establish-
ment of an ongoing committee to
explore'issues important to the suc-
cess of the Thresher." The commit-
tee wrote a report, not a proposal. It
is vague so that those who do write
the final proposal can do that on
their own, whoever may end up writ-
ing that proposal.
■ At this time, it is important to
emphasize that Hardi served on that
See SIY, Page 4
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request.
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longer than 500 words in
length. The Jhresher reserves
the/ight to edit letters for
both content and length.
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Hardi, Joel. The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 85, No. 18, Ed. 1 Friday, February 13, 1998, newspaper, February 13, 1998; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth246614/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.