The Rice Thresher, Vol. 90, No. 29, Ed. 1 Friday, May 16, 2003 Page: 2 of 28
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THE RICE THRESHER OPINION FRIDAY, MAY 16,2003
—
the Rice Thresher
Campus safety requires
high-quality dispatchers
Student safety is at risk as long as dispatchers remain underpaid,
undertrained and overworked. (See Story, Page 4.)
The Thresher photographed a dispatcher asleep in the early morning
hours of April 24, and although this dispatcher has resigned, his
behavior is indicative of larger problems with the dispatcher position.
That night, the dispatcher failed to dispatch three non-emergency calls
to the main police line. Clearly, this is a risk because the same dis-
patcher is responsible for answering emergency calls.
Rice can attract better candidates by increasing the salary of the
dispatcher them more. Currently, dispatchers are paid less than $26,000
per year for full-time work, significantly less than dispatchers in compa-
rable jobs in Houston.
Rice University Police Department is currently working to fill the two
open dispatcher positions, which will decrease the number of dispatch-
ers working long shifts. Once enough dispatchers are hired to allow
each to work only eight-hour shifts, these dispatchers should also
receive more training.
Dispatchers should be more familiar with the Rice campus. RUPD,
dispatchers and Rice Emergency Medical Services should work to-
gether to establish a standard set of procedures and develop a common
vocabulary.
Training should be extended so new dispatchers receive more
oversight from more experienced dispatchers. In addition, they should
continue skill development. Such development should include mock
emergency situations so they can become familiar with how to handle
more stressful scenarios.
At this week's Board of Trustees meeting, the board voted on next
year's capital budget, which included a police department request for a
$30,000 upgrade of the dispatch center. The results of the vote were not
available at press time. If the request was not approved, it should be
reevaluated because the current conditions present a safety hazard for
the Rice community.
For example, if dispatchers had a foot pedal to activate a microphone
to dispatch calls, their hands would be freed to contact REMS using the
EMS pager. Similarly, a hands-free headset for emergency calls coming
in to the police line would allow dispatchers to simultaneously log
incidents and respond to emergencies.
Additionally, RUPD should seek out feedback from Mimi Mokarzel,
the driver of the night escort service van, about dispatcher perfor-
mance. Her comments should go to a competent, accountable dispatch
overseer who constantly seeks feedback and improvements to the
dispatching service.
Finally, there should always be at least two dispatchers during major
events. RUPD has a good idea in beginning this procedure, and it should
be fully implemented.
Rice community members who are concerned about safety on cam-
pus should notify President Malcolm Gillis (mgillis@rice.edu) of their
support for increasing funding in this critical area, and they should
always complain to RUPD if a call is not dispatched or if they encounter
other problems. One complaint can make a difference in the way a
system works.
Thanking our own
Commencement is a bittersweet time for everyone at Rice, as one-
quarter of the student body leaves us for (hopefully) a better place. The
Thresher is no exception. Every year, the Ihresher loses experience,
dedication and sheer talent when Commencement comes and our seniors
graduate. Some of our seniors caught the journalism bug late in their
college experience and only recently joined the Thresher staff, while
others expressed their love of the press in their Newcomer's Guide
blurbs. However, we are grateful to the contribution of all of our seniors.
Olivia Allison and Liora Danan both started on the News staff as
freshmen, and by second semester of their freshmen year had already
joined the News editorial staff. While each took a semester hiatus from
the Thresher to study abroad, their influence at the Thresher was both
broad and deep; at least two Editors in Chief owe a tremendous debt of
gratitude for all that Olivia and Liora taught them. The Thresher would
not be (and would not continue to be) the high-quality publication it is
without their experience and dedication, which we thank them for. We
wish them the best of luck in their future pursuits, both journalistic and
otherwise.
But Olivia and Liora were not the only graduates who spent innumer-
able Wednesday nights in the Thresher office.
We would also like to recognize these recent graduates who have
made substantial contributions to the Thresher during their time at Rice:
Olivia Allison
Liora Danan
Corey Devine
Renata Escovar
Rob Gaddi
Grace Hu
Kijana Knight
Robert Lee
Emily Meyer
Meghan Miller
News, Senior Editor
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Lifestyles
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What do you mean the people might associate
the Republican Party with September 11th?
V AFC,
-
"
Read it, don't weep
Elephants are crude convention schedulers
In presidential politics, it's all
about the ride. You want to ride a
mandate when coming in, ride high
approval ratings when
making policy and ride
past accomplishments
when going up for re-elec-
tion. But no one wants to
see a politician riding a
tragedy, particularly the
country's worst ever.
That rather explicitly
seems to be what the Re-
publican party is planning
to do in September 2004.
The next Republican
presidential convention
has been scheduled to
start Aug. 30 and run until Sept. 2 —
the latest dates in the party's 148 year
history — for two purposes that "Re-
publicans close to the White House"
revealed to the New York Times on
April 22: first, "to enhance [Bush's]
fund raising advantage," and sec-
ond, "so the event would flow into
the commemorations marking the
third anniversary of the World T rade
Center attacks."
Not only does the Bush adminis-
tration hope the timing of the con-
vention will strike a sentimental
chord of gratitude for the govern-
ment that responded to the attacks,
but it also hopes coverage of the
approaching anniversary will com-
bine with that of the convention to
"deprive the Democratic nominee
of critical news coverage during the
opening weeks of the campaign."
Are Republican party operatives
trying to join Bush's axis of evil?
Their strategy is one of the crudest
political moves I've seen.
It would be one thing if the Grand
Old Party was trying to ride a purely
Republican accomplishment by mak-
ing this move — as I said earlier,
riding on prior accomplishments is
part of what presidential politics is
Nathan
Black
Sept. 11 terrorist attacks really be
considered an accomplishment
pulled off solely by Republicans?
Didn't the ordinary people
of the United States and
even the Democratic lead-
ers also have a great deal
to do with the way we
pulled ourselves back to-
gether?
Further, it is difficult
to argue that the Republi-
can administration's re-
sponse to Sept. 11 was one
that could have been
achieved only by a Repub-
lican administration. I
know A1 Gore is stiff and can't do the
Macarena, and I know Bush's down-
home Texas accent calmed us all
when we were glued to our televi-
sions a year-and-a-half ago, and I
know Rudy Giuliani truly was a hero
those first few days. But I thought,
seemingly incorrectly, that Republi-
cans would admit they were just
doing their jobs in a time of crisis.
Any president would comfort his
nation; any mayor would regroup
his city; any administration would
ferociously pursue the cowards who
gave us terror that day.
What was it about the Republi-
can response to the attacks that was
so exceptional, and what was it about
the Republicans that made them the
only ones suited to pull it off?
It is deplorable enough that Re-
publicans are attempting to cash in
on the gratitude for a feat for which
all of this country — not just the
GOP — is (or could have been) re-
sponsible; what is equally as ugly is
the Bush administration's attempt
to jockey the 9/11 media frenzy in
order to shut out the Democratic
nominee's exposure.
'Hiere are plenty of less evil ways
to get an opponent's mug off camera.
Unveil a major health care package.
into hiding. But don't break into his
party's hotel and don't exploit the
emotions of millions of ordinary
Americans for personal gain.
Of course, it is too late for the
Republicans to reschedule the 2004
convention, even if they wanted to. I
can only hope now that for the sake
of morality and good taste, they will
reconsider their attempted play on
the sentiments and media frenzy that
will coincide with Sept. ll's third
anniversary.
Instead of trumping up the trag-
edy, claiming America recovered
mostly because of their inimitable
leadership and then using the me-
dia hype to wipe its opponent off the
airwaves, Republicans should come
up with a different "accomplishment"
to ride on in late August and early
September of next year.
Hey, how about an economic
stimulus package that actually
works? If we're uneasy about the
economy now, and there's no solu-
tion in the meantime, we'll be des-
perate by 2004. But maybe I'm ask-
ing too much of our upstanding Re-
publican administration.
We could just take out Syria in
mid-August, 2004.
Nathan Black is a Ij)vett College fresh-
man and opinion editor.
all about. But can the reaction to the Use smear ads to drive the Democrat
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Unsigned editorials represent the majority opinion of the Thresher
editorial staff.
Newspaper alienates
student-athletes with rule
To the editor:
In the same week the Thresher
published my column regarding the
way students are referenced in
sports articles ("Harm caused by
Thresher's double standard,"
April 25), it also decided to formal-
ize a new policy of referring to stu-
dents who play varsity sports as "stu-
dent-athletes" and everybody else
as just plain "students." How curi-
ous that it could implement that
policy but not the one I have re-
quested for quite some time.
To refer to students who don't
play sports as "students" and those
who do as "student-athletes" im-
plies that the former are pure,
whole, 100 percent students while
the hyphenated latter are half-stu-
dent and half-athlete. This is anti-
thetical to the message I was try-
ing to convey, yet the Thresher
filled my column with that divi-
sive language anyway.
Max Starkenburg
Hanszen senior
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Berenson, Mark. The Rice Thresher, Vol. 90, No. 29, Ed. 1 Friday, May 16, 2003, newspaper, May 16, 2003; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth398503/m1/2/?q=%22%22~1: accessed July 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Rice University Woodson Research Center.