The Rice Thresher, Vol. 92, No. 24, Ed. 1 Friday, April 1, 2005 Page: 2 of 24
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THE RICE THRESHER OPINION FRIDAY. APRIL 1,2005
the Rice Thresher
Students need full access
to course evaluations
When students register for classes next week, what they don't
know may hurt them. So we hope the soon-to-be-formed Faculty
Senate will address the matter of course evaluations in the fall. (See
Story, Page 1.)
Currently, students can only view the quantitative part of
evaluations, presented in a massive, intimidating Microsoft Excel
spreadsheet. The written section of the evaluations, which would
give students more specific perspectives on the courses they are
considering, is not available to students.
We think teaching evaluations send the message to professors that
they are responsible not just to their departments but also to their
students. But the evaluation system could be improved.
We support any system in which students are privy to the cur-
rently restricted information, but we favor a system in which the
paper evaluations are abandoned completely. If students could fill
out evaluations online instead, the written comments could be ac-
cessed more quickly — and probably more inexpensively — than if
handwritten responses were scanned in.
To encourage response, students could be required to fill out
evaluations before viewing their grades on ESTHER. And to protect
students, a "check box" could be added to either a paper or an online
evaluation form, asking whether an individual wants to allow his
comments to be shared with other students.
We think the Registrar's Office should add this "check box" — or
a similar provision — this semester, so that if plans to allow students
to view the evaluations online are approved in the fall, students
will not have to wait any longer than necessary to see their peers'
comments.
Shuttle service increase
helpful to students
It may have been the "loser cruiser" in high school, but the bus is
now a tremendous convenience to students with and without cars. So
we were pleased to learn that Friday and Saturday shuttle service to the
Rice Village is being expanded to run from 5:30 p.m.-12:30 a.m.
This expansion will allow students to enjoy a late meal — or even
nightlife — in the Village without having to hurry to catch the 10:15
p.m. bus or make the dark trek back to campus on foot.
A viable shuttle system is essential to counterbalance an
eventual parking squeeze, as well as to keep students without
cars engaged in off-campus life. So we hope students will make
the transportation department's change worthwhile by making
frequent use of the extended shuttle hours, and we hope the
transportation department will continue to assess and respond
to student needs this well.
RUPD: Just wait
to close the gates
It's happened to many of us. You live off-campus, but you come
to Rice for an evening problem set or group meeting and park in
a faculty lot. You finish your homework, check the clock and rush
out to your car to make it out of Entrance 1, 2, 3 or 16 before the
gates close at midnight. Only after you've made the fateful turn
toward the closest exit do you realize that it's 11:50, and the gates
have been closed.
We realize all the gates cannot be closed simultaneously. And
it's not that there's anything sacred about the midnight closing
time. But the fact is: The Rice University Police Department
claims the gates are open until midnight, and students plan their
exit routes accordingly. If RUPD wants to start closing the gates
at 11:45, then it should publicize 11:45 as the closing time. But
given that the midnight closing time is already ingrained in stu-
dents' minds, this year. RUPD should wait until midnight to begin
closing the gates.
Sure, redesigning a route home isn't a big deal, but it's an incon-
venience we think could be easily avoided.
We've lost our masters,
our coordinator and five
RAs in the last year alone!
You know, there s
probably something
they're not telling you.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Unsigned editorials represent the majority opinion of the Thresher
editorial staff.
Thresher poorly
reports critical news
To the editor:
Perhaps the Thresher might want
to reevaluate what it gives priority
to reporting. One would think that
a "non-Rice visitor [being] arrested
for capital murder" in the south
college parking lot would prove
slightly more newsworthy than the
brief blurb it received in last week's
police blotter.
Underage students drinking in
Willy's Pub managed to get their own
article ("Five students referred to U.
Court for underage drinking at Pub,"
March 25), and as far as I know the
problem of underage drinking in pub
is hardly new. I may be wrong, but
I suspect that many students would
appreciate just a little reporting as to
why a capital murder suspect was a
visitor on campus.
It seems that there is some
obligation to the overall safety of
the community — and perhaps this
obligation falls upon Rice Univer-
sity Police Department as well — to
provide this community with more
information about the circumstances
surrounding what was described in
the police blotter last week.
Doug Kochelek
Baker junior
Worthy research alive
and well on campus
To the editor:
The state of undergraduate
research at Rice was grossly mis-
characterized in last week's guest
column ("Senior thesis could create
student unity," March 25). Milam
mentions that less than 1 percent
of undergraduates participate in re-
search specifically through the Rice
Undergraduate Scholars Program,
but this is meaningless as a reflection
of student and faculty involvement
in research.
Just about everyone I know who
has had a project has found funding
through a lab or received research
credit through his department. I
cannot think of a single person in
my bioengineering class who has not
conducted some sort of research at
Rice — that is more than 1 percent of
the Rice population right there.
Rice happens to be extraordinarily
friendly toward undergraduate re-
search. On three separate occasions,
all I had to do was simply send an
e-mail to a professor, and I subse-
quently worked in that lab anywhere
from a semester to 12 months.
In addition, I personally feel as
though I've had plenty of "collective
experience," at least with my fellow
classmates in my department As with
many other majors, we are working
together on a required senior project,
just as we have chugged through
many other required projects and
labs over these four years.
In terms of a senior thesis, many
undergraduates have already elected
to do one optionally for the sake of
exploring an idea. To do one for the
purpose of "commiserating" with
other students somehow gives the
impression that busy work will bring
us together — and that is not what
research is about.
Audrey Nath
Will Rice senior
Pain creates enough
academic unity for all
To the editor:
I am sorry, but if Searcy Milam
can't understand why people under
deadlines aren't chatty at 3 a.m. .then
she is more out of touch with the stu-
dent population than she seems.
I am baffled at her sense of aca-
demic isolation. I feel a connection to
my fellow biology majors because we
are all required to take some of the
same classes. Organic Chemistry is a
great unifier — through pain, suffer-
ing and evening exams. Anyone who
has spent the night on Matagorda
Island, purified proteins for eight
Lours without sunlight or witnessed
Biology Professor David Caprette's
rat decapitations will forever share
that bond of the abused.
Why is academic unity
necessary? There is already a unify-
ing factor across all Rice disciplines
It's called pain. We all suffer for our
degrees (Engineers and architects
a little more than others). Complet-
ing a Rice education in any field
represents a phenomenal amount
of work.
To try and standardize that by
making us complete a thesis elimi-
nates some of the great academic
freedoms Rice has: the lack of core
courses and the ability to choose
your course of study. Why give that
up so I can write 100 pages and
say I completed the same work as
everyone else? Rice students have
long celebrated our individuality, our
quirks and those things that made us
choose this place over an Ivy League
school. Academic homogeneity is not
a defining Rice characteristic, and
those who long for it may be at the
wrong school.
Amy Conley
Sid senior
Rice writing culture
needs overhaul
To the editior:
I read Searcy Milam's guest col-
umn with a lot of interest. The only
experience all Rice undergraduates
have in common is living in a college
— that is, together in different col-
leges. A senior thesis could be both a
common intellectual experience and
a capstone for each individual.
But by the time that thesis is due,
not everyone will have had a writing
course at Rice. There are no writing
courses that the university requires.
There is no writing culture at Rice
So there is no common intellectual
experience at the introductory level,
while so many of our peer institutions
require writing seminars spread
across the disciplines. Taking Eng-
lish 100 and learning to analyze a
sonnet is not going to be much help
three years later when your thesis is
in, oh, biochemistry or economics
and you've written little or nothing
in those disciplines.
Good writing has three ele-
ments: clear sentences, coherent
paragraphs and an effective pre-
sentation of the evidence. We can
all agree on the first two. But what
constitutes evidence in literature
is irrelevant in biochemistry. The
nature of evidence is determined
by the discipline, and each of the
university's disciplines has not only
different protocols but even differ-
ent epistemologies. You have to write
each one, as you have to understand
each one, by different rules. And this
always takes practice.
You do not just create a senior
thesis requirement. You have to
build into the university's whole cur-
riculum the preparations that would
make a senior thesis possible, valu-
able, desirable. Rice does not seem
to have the will or the imagination
for this undertaking right now. And
this is more than a shame.
Our lack of a writing requirement
appalls everybody but us.
Terrence Doody
Professor of English
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Obermeyer, Amber. The Rice Thresher, Vol. 92, No. 24, Ed. 1 Friday, April 1, 2005, newspaper, April 1, 2005; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth443016/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.