The Rice Thresher, Vol. 94, No. 12, Ed. 1 Friday, November 17, 2006 Page: 2 of 20
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THE RICE THRESHER OPINION FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 17,2006
the Rice Thresher
Don't mess with
Texas admissions
As the university looks to begin a 30-percent undergraduate
enrollment increase in 2009, the administration must work to
acquire an applicant pool large and impressive enough to help
Rice remain one of the United States' elite private universities.
(See story, page 7.) As Vice President for Enrollment Chris
Munoz discussed at this week's Faculty Senate meeting, this goal
will be challenged by decreasing mean national SAT scores and
national high school graduation rates. As our enrollment expands,
it seems the national body from which we can draw is going to
shrink. And competition from peer and public universities will
only grow fiercer.
But there is a subset of our prospective applicant pool that
does look promising, and it is growing up right beneath our
bayous: As Rice's population grows, we must not discount our
resources in the Lone Star State.
Texas is the second largest state in America, trailing only Alaska
in landmass and California in headcount. And with our state's
population continuing its rapid growth, especially on the Mexican
border and among young adult minorities, the administration's
current plan to put a hard cap on the percentage of Texas natives
admitted to Rice simply does not make sense.
If the best available students — and the students Rice can best
help — happen to come from Texas, why should we ignore them
in favor of less-desired, hard-to-attract Eastern Seaboarders or
Midwesterners? Those regions' populations are holding steady,
while Texas' population has risen nearly 10 percent since 2000.
Predictions about the United States' changing demographics
over the upcoming decade further underscore the potential
availability of high-quality Texas applicants.
Yes, Rice does need to increase its national and international
visibility. Yes, we need to do our best to appeal to a diverse body
of students from a diverse body of birthplaces. But with about
22.8 million people within Texas' borders, it would be absurd
not to allow ourselves to take full advantage of our native, yel-
low-rose resources.
So how can we foster a more nationally recognizable name
in the meantime? Publicity comes in many forms, and sending
representatives across the country to speak at high schools is
only one of them. We certainly appreciate the national exposure
garnered by research and athletic accomplishments, from the
Nobel Prize-winning discovery of buckminsterfullerene to the
baseball team's 2003 national championship. Our football team
may even have a bowl bid on the way, and we continue to be a
national leader in nanotechnology. Rice is showing up on a wide
range of radar screens and should be using its publicity resources
to reach all of them — this will benefit the university infinitely
more than simply pouring money into out-of-state undergraduate
applicant recruiting.
Texas itself provides a wealth of diversity. Last year, Texas
became the fourth minority-majority state in the nation. Whether
more than 50 percent of our students are from out-of-state is not the
question we should be asking. Whether they represent a diverse
range of backgrounds, ethnicities and life experiences is.
Good things happen at Rice, and we should not discount our
location's influence on our campus. When it comes to evaluating
applicants, let's give Texans and their out-of-state counterparts
an even playing field. Let's not force ourselves to conform to
rigid geographic quotas.
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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Coming home for
the holidays
Today marks the first clay of Homecoming Weekend 2006, and
the football team is two home wins away from going to a bowl
game for the first time in 45 years. The serveries will be closed
anyway, so there is no good reason not to head to Rice Stadium
tomorrow morning to tailgate, catch up with some alumni and
support the Owls as they take on East Carolina at 2 p.m.
If you are in town next weekend, you can repeat the process
and catch the last game of the regular season against Southern
Methodist University at 2 p.m at Rice Stadium. If you're not at the
game, we hope you are spending the time with family, catching
up on sleep or making yourself a scrumptulescent leftover-tur-
key-and-cranberry-sauce sandwich.
Happy Homecoming and have a great Thanksgiving break. We
know we will be enjoying our week off, and we'll see you Dec. 1.
Unsigned editorials represent the majority opinion of the Thresher
editorial staff.
Humanities merger
would harm Spanish
To the editor:
In response to David Brown's
article, we, the master's students of
the Hispanic Studies department,
would like to voice our concerns
regarding the department merger
proposed by Dean of Humanities
Gary Wihl ("Humanities Considers
Department Merger," Nov. 10). Let
us begin by stating that we strongly
oppose such a merger.
We are not convinced this
merger would be beneficial to the
Hispanic Studies department, nor
do we believe that it is anything
more than a cost-cutting measure. If
it is "not to save money or cut back
on staff as French Studies Profes-
sor Deborah Nelson-Campbell sug-
gests, then why has Wihl resisted
approving our department's mul-
tiple requests to fill the two vacant
positions resulting from the depar-
tures of professors Kate Jenckes
and Rafael Salaberry? The timing
of Wihl's refusal to fill the vacancies
in the Hispanic Studies department
coupled with his announced desire
to merge the language departments
strongly suggests that the motiva-
tion is indeed monetary.
Jenckes and Salaberry special-
ized in L'ltin American literature and
Hispanic linguistics, respectively.
These two areas are fundamental to
a complete Hispanic Studies educa-
tion. With the imminent departure of
Professor Van I )elden. Rice will have
only one Hispanic Studies faculty
member specialized in Latin Ameri-
ca. Does this foster the "major new
focus on Latin America" proposed
by President David Leebron in his
August 2005 Call to Conversation?
In addition, thelossofSalaberry,
the department's only linguist,
has resulted in a purely literature-
based program. Furthermore, it
has eliminated our master's peda-
gogy class, which means that next
year's Spanish language teaching
assistants will have no training to
prepare them to teach Rice's SPAN
101 and 102 courses.
The recent changes that the
Hispanic Studies department has
seen and will continue to see if
the proposed merger occurs will
adversely affect every Rice student
interested in taking Spanish classes
at any level.
Andrea Holman
Jon Palin
Lorena Gauthereau-Bryson
Marite Preti
MonicaTrevino
Renee Rasmussen
Viviana Diaz
Hispanic Studies graduate students
Wihl exposes Rice's
communication ills
To the editor:
As students who have braved
Rice's labyrinthine bureaucratic
system know, we are directed to a
variety of people, organizations and
"channels" to voice our concerns.
Often, at each person's office, organi-
zational meeting and channel, we are
directed elsewhere or simply away.
Answers are sparse and cryptic,
and solutions appear out-of-reach.
Channels feel more like ditches,
with stagnant water and the same
old putrid problems.
I am not surprised that Dean
of Humanities Gary Wihl, as an
administrator, chose to bypass the
bureaucratic channels through
which we must slog. I am not even
surprised that news of the funda-
mental change slithered out of an
e-mail. And I am certainly not sur-
prised that "appropriate channels"
are now being pursued only due to
faculty objections.
If the Classical Studies de-
partment chair can offhandedly
announce a fundamental change to
our School of Humanities through
an e-mail, something is the matter
with Rice's channels. If overwhelm-
ing interest for or against a change
in a Rice program does not, within
a reasonable timeframe, result in a
change — something is the matter
with our channels. Repeated abuse
or failure of the channels calls for a
change in our bureaucratic channels
or in those who abuse them.
Rice needsa properly functioning
bureaucratic structure with clear
channels. We, administrators and
students, must follow the rules we
have set for ourselves or establish
new rules to be followed. Some of
the putrid water must be drained
from this ditch. Apparently, even
the administrators are avoiding the
stench now.
Meghan Jones
Martel junior
Lecture addressed
Turks unfairly
To the editor:
I also attended Samantha Pow-
er's lecture at the J ames A. Baker 111
Institute on Oct. 28 ("Pulitzer win-
ner Power: States' inaction marks
history of genocide," Nov. 3).
See LETTERS, page 4
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Brown, David. The Rice Thresher, Vol. 94, No. 12, Ed. 1 Friday, November 17, 2006, newspaper, November 17, 2006; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth443126/m1/2/: accessed July 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Rice University Woodson Research Center.