The Rice Thresher, Vol. 95, No. 25, Ed. 1 Friday, April 11, 2008 Page: 3 of 24
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THE RICE THRESHER OPINION FRIDAY, APRIL 11, 2008
Guest column
Housing and Dining staff deserve respect
Looking back at my freshman year,
I have two regrets: Not being very in-
volved in Rice University or my college
and not getting to know the staff that
I interacted with each day.
Today, some of the most
rewarding daily interactions
I have are with the housing
and servery staff of Sid
Richardson College.
When I had a horrible
case of the flu, Custodian
J ulia Hernandez, who works
on the fifth floor, came in to
check on me. Food Produc-
tion Associates Gabriel
Aguilar, Mary Tibbs and
everyone else at the Sid
Rich servery always ask about my
day at every lunch and dinner and
worry about me when I am not there
for meals. Chef Gabe will make me a
grilled peanut butterand jelly sandwich
whenever I crave it. When I got my
first job and finished my first gigantic
paper, Mary celebrated with me. And
those specific examples are not excep-
tions to the rule: The staff members of
Rice — from my college coordinator
to the Community Involvement Center
staff to Housing and Dining — enrich
my life as much anyone else here.
Unfortunately, not ever yone at Rice,
students, faculty and administrators
included make the effort to befriend the
staff responsible for making our lives
as comfortable as possible. And even
worse, some students show blatant
disrespect for the staffs hard work.
Iivingoncampus, I have seen students
leave horrible messes of spilt alcohol,
vomit and trash with no attempt to
Anna
Roberts
clean upafterthemselves. Afterreading
President David Leebron's message
reminding Rice about the culture of
respect in our community, I felt the
need to go further and re-
mind my fellow students of
reasons to respect the staff
everywhere on campus.
After my first Beer-Bike
weekend, I went to class on
Monday a few minutes ear-
lier than usual and met up
with my history professor,
Edward Cox. While I was
talking with him, I learned
of some disgusting Beer-
Bike antics.
When the H&D staff
of the Humanities Building went to
clean up die incidental messes from
the weekend, they found a purposeful,
disgusting pile of mud and feces in the
men's room on the third floor. Mud was
on the walls, caked in the shower, on the
toilets and left in the sink. Mud tracks
were in die carpeted hallways and die
tiled landing on tli ird floor. N ot only did
this unnecessary gigantic mess divert
the staff from its regular duties, but
it inconvenienced other staff, faculty
and students because the restroom
had to be closed for three hours. Why
didn't diese muddy students use die
water hose at tiie bike race to rinse
themselves off? Why didn't they use
their own showers? Why did they
purposefully wreck property and show
disrespect to the staff?
1 think the answer best comes
from Eric Silberman's 2007 column
about students leaving Baker 13
messes across campus for H&D to
clean: 'Truthfully, I think there is
only one possible explanation left:
These people do not want to clean
up after themselves. They think it is
disgusting. They think it is beneath
them. Someone else will clean it up.
And, if it is beneath some people
to clean, and other people do the
cleaning, then the implicit feeling
is that the cleaning staff is beneath
the students."
Maybe I'm oversimplifying the
issue. I am sure people are going
to try to tell me that this is not a big
deal. But I think it is. This type of
behavior is indicative of the sense
of entitlement some Rice students
feel. What I love about Rice and what
ultimately made me come here was
how students deemphasize signs of
class and wealth among themselves.
Unlike at other universities of Rice's
intellectual caliber, no one can tell
just by looking at students who is
on scholarship, who is solidly middle
class, whose parent is an alum or
whose family income is in the high-
est tax bracket.
I^et's extend that sense of equality
to the people who work so hard to
make our lives cleaner. If you spill
something in the servery, ask for
a napkin to clean it up the best you
can, just as you would do in your own
house. Wipe your shoes before you
go into a building. Don't treat the
bathrooms like trash dumps. H&D
works hard enough for us; let's make
it a little easier on them.
Anna Roberts is a Sid Richardson
College sophomore.
Grits and gesundheit
Government partly at fault for tuition hikes
Americans tend to link a college
education to financial success. Some-
times I wonder whether a college
education is worth the price we pay,
or, to put it in the language
of economics majors, if what
we pay in time and money
is an economically efficient
useof resources. While poli-
ticians, interest groups and
certain segments of society
accuse and condemn oil
companies and pharma-
ceutical enterprises of price
gouging, it always strikes
me as odd that colleges
and universities are able to
escape such criticism.
The net price of college tuition in
the United States has consistently
been rising at a rate far faster than
inflation. In the last five years, the cost
of four-year colleges rose 31 percent
above the general inflation rate. A
press release published by the House
Democrats in 2006 pointed out that
since the year 2001, tuition at public
universities has increased by $2,000
(or 57 percent) and at private universi-
ties by $5,000 (32 percent).
The increase in the price of oil has
nothing on the skyrocketing price
of higher education. Dan Lips of the
Maryland Public Policy Institute
compared the cost of college tuition
with the price of gasoline from 1986to
2006. In that time frame, after adjust-
ing for inflation, tuition and fees rose
122 percent at public universities rose
and n)se 80 percent at private universi-
ties. I feel it is safe to say diat this is
a rather large increase. lips further
calculated that the real cost of a gallon
of gasoline increased from $1.58 in
1986 to $2.50 in 2006, and if die price
of gasoline had risen at the same rate
as college tuition, consumers would
have been pumping gasoline at $3.51
a gallon instead.
As college students we all face
this reality as we watch thousands of
our dollars slip out of our accounts
and into the hands of the university
cashier. What is causing this drastic
increase in price? Despite the numer-
ous conspiracy theories propagated
by those hostile to capitalism, die
Caroline
May
high price of gasoline is primarily clue
to market forces. The rise in college
tuition, on die other hand, has some
other factors at work.
To be sure, demand
for college education is on
die rise: more Americans
are attending secondary
schools than ever before.
Further, tiiere is increased
competition for good fac-
ulty, and the fast pace of
technological advancement
has required consistent
university spending to keep
systems current. Such fac-
tors alone cannot, however,
explain the massive price
escalation. In a different response than
their reaction to oil prices, the govern-
ment is enabling these institutions to
continue raising their costs by way of
federal subsidies. The College Board
reports that from2005-'06, t< >tal federal
college aid amounted to $94 billion.
'Hiis represents a 95 percent increase
in aid since 1995, after adjusting for
inflation. Far from solving die problem,
the government's money-dumping is
merely serving to aggravate it.
Federal aid allows for colleges
to continue raising die price of their
product widi less consumer outcry.
With a less elastic demand, colleges
feel a minimized need to lower their
prices to compete in the market Ohio
University economist Richard Vedder
put it well: "Students receivinggrantsor
subsidized loans are far less sensitive
to tuition increases tiian they would
be if tiiey were paying tiieir own way."
Vedder argues "where entrepreneurs
in a free, unsubsidized market seek to
cut costs and lower their prices to lure
new customers away from businesses
that are raising theirs, there is ver y litde
of that in higher education."
Although the presence of tiiird
party payers causes price increases,
access to higher education ought
not be exclusive to die wealthy. Yet,
while the government allows tiiose
who would otherwise be absolutely
unable to pay the opportunity to attain
a degree, the College Board reports
that "changes in student aid policies
have benefited those in the upper half
of die income distribution more than
those in the lower half." Ironically, the
majority of those footing the bill for
such student aid, i.e. the taxpayers,
do not have a college diploma. In fact
USA Today reported tiiat only 29 per-
cent of Americans can lay claim to an
undergraduate degree. As Iips wrote,
these taxpayers are "subsidizing stu-
dents from upper- mid middle-income
families, who can go on to expect far
higher lifetime earnings."
All who have shown commitment,
talent and merit ought to be given an
opportunity to attain a college degree
and strive to reach their highest poten-
tial. 'fhis being the case, colleges must
remain accountable for the prices tiiey
charge, and die government ought
not to act as an accomplice, allowing
colleges to continue to squeeze tiieir
students' wallets seeking to extract
every last drop.
Caroline May is a Will Rice
College junior.
Sans serif soliloquies
Untapped power of college
system: shenanigans
In the rigmarole that is a Rice
education, it's easy to lose fo-
cus. We spend so much time
occupying the floors of Fondren
Library and pounding
cappuccino at Coffee-
house that schoolwork
overshadows the rest
of our lives. And, with
what little remains, we
fail to appreciate the
one thing that should
save us from the mun-
dane routine into which
each semester eventu-
ally falls: The college
system.
While many uni-
versities have their own local
rivalries, Rice finds itself in a
rather unique position. With
our proclaimed academic rivals
residing thousands of miles to
the northeast and our academic
equals spread across the south,
we find ourselves without any
unifying force to pull us together
as a student body.
And so, lacking the solidar-
ity provided by an antagonist, it
seems obvious that we should do
what people always do in this situ-
ation: We need to go to war. And
before you start taking offense,
this is just a metaphor. Mostly.
We've already got the nine
colleges. (Eight, depending
on how old-fashioned you
want to be.) But the college
system fails to live up to its
potential — which, in my opin-
ion, is beyond the scope of what
we imagine now. Today, the
system is a convenient way to
break down a student body of
2,800 into manageable chunks;
it creates intimacy amidst a rela-
tively large number of people.
What it should do is create more
intimacy among the consider-
ably smaller number of people
living at each college.
Sure, we chant and yell and
cheer during Orientation Week
and Willy Week. We jokingly
banter and mock our friends. We
all hate Lovett and acknowledge
that Mar tel isn't really a college,
that Brown is shit and Hanszen
is just another high school.
But beyond that, coming
together as a college is almost
exclusively a result of or an
excuse for drinking. The three
most popular events for most
colleges? I would bet they are
Beer-Bike, College Night and
Pub Night, in some order. I am
not suggesting that the drinking
stop; but the college life should
not stop there, either.
Sean
McBeath
All too often students bail on
their colleges, citing a lack of
involvement as their justification.
I don't know whether to laugh or
cry at the irony. There
is so much potential for
greatness here; we just
need a few good leaders.
It has been twenty years
since a handful of Rice
students, by methods
still uncertain, turned
Willy's statue toward
Fondren. I think that
should give us some
idea of how far we have
fallen and how far we
can still rise.
My dad went to the California
Institute of Technology. I don't
know if you know anything
about the school, but apart from
being ridiculously rigorous and
recently proclaimed the best
value education in America,
CalTech has a bit of a reputation
for admitting a disproportionate
number of pranksters. Growing
up, I heard fairytale-esque ac-
counts of students building cit-
rus catapults and filling nearby
reflecting pools with oranges
and dropping frozen pumpkins
13 stories.
Raised on these sorts of sto-
ries, I naturally assumed that all
colleges enjoyed the same sort
of ingenious prankings-on. And
we do, to a certain extent. We
get two weeks a year in which
we are "allowed" to do our jacks.
But, all too often, these are hastily
constructed and unoriginal acts
of vandalism. Past events have
indicated that a bit of oversight is
a good thing; I don't think anyone
wants a repeat of the Martel Raid
or the Fishing Line Fiasco.
But I'm going to be a bit of a
rebel and propose that these sort
of activities do not have to end at
Dis-0 and Beer-Bike. I want to
come back to the Martel Com-
mons at 4 a.m. any time of year and
discover a mountain of chairs and
tables ziptied together. Because,
as much of an inconvenience as it
may be, it lends a levity that my
day could certainly use.
I am sure there is enough
creativity here to pull off another
Willy-caliber prank. It's been
twenty years, after all. The next
time you find yourself saying,
"You know what would be fun-
ny..." you should make it happen.
Make school more fun and make
your college awesome.
Sean McBeath is a Martel College
sophomore and calendar editor.
the Rice Thresher
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Chun, Lily & Farmer, Dylan. The Rice Thresher, Vol. 95, No. 25, Ed. 1 Friday, April 11, 2008, newspaper, April 11, 2008; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth443166/m1/3/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Rice University Woodson Research Center.