The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 85, No. 26, Ed. 1 Friday, April 24, 1998 Page: 2 of 16
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Brian Stoler
Editor in Chief
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Managing E
SAIOKO IOARASHI
Hasty vote on curriculum
reform dangerous
The Ad Hoc Curriculum Review Committee recently revised its
"Proposal for University-Wide Requirements." The document —
posted on the World Wide Web Monday and published in this week's
Rice News — gives more details on the plan ,that, if approved and
implemented, would dramatically change the general education
requirements at Rice.
But a more careful look at the Curriculum Review Web site
(http://www. ruf rice. edu/-currre^reveals an alarming fact that has
not been publicized elsewhere: this proposal will be considered and
voted on "at a special faculty meeting" Wednesday afternoon. The
extreme haste of this vote—which will occur only nine days after the
revised proposal was made available — is as hard to understand as
it is shocking.
Few students are aware of this impending vote, which would be
the first step in enacting changes that would have a significant
impact on the future of undergraduate education at Rice. At the
forums organized by the committee, many students expressed
concerns about the details of potential changes to the general
education requirements — even though it is unlikely that anyone,
•ntlv at Rice will be effected. But the students were not aware of
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
the immediacy of the debate at the time.
There has not been enough time for the Rice community —
faculty, staff, alumni and students — to read the new draft to justify
immediate ac tion toward its implementation. Most students, and
pet haps some faculty and staff members, do not even know that this
new version has been released. For changes of the magnitude that
this proposal would bring, there should be more informed discus-
sion.
New distribution proposal
raises old questions
Hie courses envisioned by the proposal look promising on paper.
The question remains, (hough, how well they can be implemented.
Alter all. the current distribution/foundation/coherent minors sys-
tem looked very good when President Hupp implemented it. But a
""variety of issues made''it work quite differently in practice. Coherent
minors never took off. The Social Sciences and Natural Sciences
foundation courses were bedeviled by complaints about teaching;
SO St was eliminated and replaced by a less rigid system.
SOSC, iii many ways, resembled (he courses being proposed: it
was a broad, interdisciplinary course, taught by a team of faculty
from the different fields of social science. But half of the professors
quit the course, leaving it a fairly conventional history of philosophy.
The course quality suffered to the point where most students put
virtually no work, into the class and got good grades anyway.
'Iliis new proposal, like the old system, tries to transcend depart
mental divisions. That is perhaps its greatest strength — and its
greatest weakness. Fven if departments are reimbursed for the time
their professors spend teaching university-wide classes, their inter-
ests still lie in research and their own curriculum, and those profes-
sors are often pushed to minimize their investment in non-depart-
mental courses Alternately, those courses are assigned to the
youngest or least qualified professors, which negates many of the
advantages of the interdisciplinary approach. This sort of thing has
sunk many promising interdepartmental courses.
Another problem is tRat of overall courseload. One of the faculty's
biggest complaints about distribution — disinterested students —
relates directly to the amount of other class work Rice students hiive.
While the proposal claims that it will not force students to take more
classes, our reading does not back that up. For example, several of
the examples the committee gave of "Ways of Knowing" classes
have prerequisites. (l inguistics 300 requires Linguistics 200, and
Psychology 101 is a prerequisite for Psychology 202.)
Also, the recently separated but closely related proposal on
foreign language requirements is not up for consideration by the
faculty, That proposal needs to be a part of the current discussion
since it also impacts the number of courses students are required to
take outside of their majors.
The question is, can this proposal overcome the same problems
which sunk previous attempts at interdisciplinary education? That's
Aquestiofi we can't answer on the basis of this report.
To quote the proposal, "All these are quite legitimate questions
and concerns, and not all can be answered with assurance at this
time " The lesson of the past is that a new system should not be
impteriie
Shakespeare's sister
phenomenon at Rice
To the editor:
Anyone who has taken a women's
studies class or read Virginia Wolfe
is familiar with the idea of
Shakespeare's sister. The idea is
that, If Will had had a sister, even if
she had been as talented as her
brother, the bard, we would not re-
member her today. To begin with,
she wouldn't have been given the
benefit of as much education,
wouldn't have been encouraged to
express herself creatively in writ
ing, and might not even have had
access to quill and parchment. It's a
compelling idea.
There are amazing people every
where, but we can't see them most
nl the time because of the glare of
mainstream culture. Would any of
us guess that an employee currently
working for Facilities and Engineer-
ing was, before immigrating to the
United States, the president of a
university in the Philippines that is
comparable in both size and pres-
tige to Rice? Would anyone imagine
that a member of the F & E staff
escaped from Itjy war-torn country
on foot, traveling through the jungle
with his young daughter on his back?
Would any of us believe that there is
a woman on the custodial staff with
so thorough an understanding of
psychology and human dynamics
that she could put a Ph.D. to shame?
(Actually, there are several.)
It's something to ponder the next
time someone unobtrusively enters
the room to empty the trash.
Leslie Holmes
User Services Associate
Fondren Library
Responsibility a part of
Rice education
To the editor
Getting a Rice education is ex-
tremely valuable. Companies and
graduate schools know that the av
erage Rice student is a very smart,
hardworking person.
However, having a Rice educa-
tion should also mean that we have
learned resjmnsibility and critical-
reason idg skills. We govern our-
selves through college cabinets and
University Court. We obey the
Honor Code, which holds us to the
highest academic standards. Yet
somehow these codes of conduct
have not reached individual minds.
Students storing water balloons
have returned to their rooms to find
the balloons broken, leaving a sop-
ping, ruined carpet . So, it seems that
breaking into the masters' house is
.only a small jump from the currently
accepted forms of, Beer-Hike
jacking.
However, this particular act
crosses the line between acceptable
Beer-Bike violence and criminal
behavior. While the masters' house
may seem like another part of our
giant playground, a real family lives
there. There Were kids sleeping up-
stairs while this event occupied. In
many states, including Texas. John
Hutchinson could have come down-
stairs, killed the intruders.and been
legally justified in defending his
home.
At least five years of the
Hutchinsons' fives will takeplace+n
this house, already overpopulated
by students. The masters take part
in our lives because they believe
that we are good people, worth a
significant fraction of their time.
They deserve our respect. The
Hutchinsons left their door open
because they trusted us. All of us. 1
wonder if they will ever leave their
door open-again.
I invite you to evaluate what per-
sonal responsibility means, Is the
integrity described in the Honor
Code something that Rice students
really believe in? Is ignorance an
excuse? Should we allow mindless
acts to continue at the cost of a dwin-
dling pool of master candidates?
These and similar questions are
worth consideration, Please make
them a part of your Rice education.
Catherine Mcintosh
Wiess senior
Students show support
for Arabic professor
To the editor:
We submit this letter in support
of our Arabic teacher, Mehdi Abedi.
In the past two years, Rice has made
an effort to expand its course offer-
ings to include modern Middle East-
ern history and Islamic banking.
Palestinians Hanan Ashrawi and
Edward Said have presented
speeches. I* st week's Pbrum on the
Iraqi Crisis, organized by the Stu-
dent Steering Committee on Near-
Eastern Affairs, received widespread
university and community support.
We would like to remind the Rice
community that at the root of this
recent interest in the Middle East is
the Arabic language. Arabic is the
language of the religion of one bil-
lion Muslims worldwide, in addition
to the millions of non-Muslim Ara-
bic speakers. Abedi founded the
Arabic language program at Rice
■ University almost a decade ago and
continues to teach all of its courses
on a shoestring budget.
Arabic began as a college course,
first at Will Rice and then at Hans/en
in Spring 1995, Since then, it has
been added to the regular schedule
and has blossomed, litis success is
in spite of the fact tliat each semes-
ter we have struggled to continue
our courses, to gain access to a class-
room, to have the correct course
nunibers listed in the computer sys-
tem, to have our teacher compen-
sated, in effect, to achieve any mea-
sure of institutional recognition.
Through all of this, Abedi has taught
us Arabic, sometimes without pay,
but always with pride and dignity.
Many of you know that Abedi has
been a member of the Rice Commu-
nity since 1981. He earned his Ph.D.
in cultural anthropology here, taught
Rice's first courses on Islam, and co-
authored Debating Muslims with
Michael Fisher. Abedi read and
wrote in Arabic before lie entered
primary school in Iran and had
memorized the Koran by age nine.
He is a reciter of poetry and other
classical texts, an expert etymolo-
gist and a grammarian. He is a pro-
fessional translator. He is a master
of Arabic calligraphy. He is also a
practicing cultural anthropologist
who performs the rites of passage
for Houston's 30,000-member Ira-
nian community. In short, Abedi is
one of Rice University's most valu-
able assets.
Sec AHKDI, fagi- t
CONTACTING THE
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Stoler, Brian. The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 85, No. 26, Ed. 1 Friday, April 24, 1998, newspaper, April 24, 1998; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth246622/m1/2/?rotate=90: accessed June 22, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Rice University Woodson Research Center.