The Rice Thresher, Vol. 97, No. 18, Ed. 1 Friday, February 5, 2010 Page: 2 of 16
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the Rice (Ihresher
College courses should not
fall victim to budget cuts
The Office of the Dean of Undergraduates has announced
that college course budgets will be cut in accordance with next
school year's university-wide 5 percent budget cuts (see story,
page 1). In what was once a budget flush with $5,000 allotted
per college, the college course funds were hacked to $3,000 this
year, and will plummet to a proposed $250 next year. It is the
university's expectation that students will come to the cours-
es' rescue by opting to fund college courses from their general
college budgets.
While we understand the need to cut costs in an economy
as tepid as this, we are perplexed by the current trend of
dumping intellectually invigorating Rice traditions in lieu
of other means. For instance, it was just a year ago that we
had local and national newspapers scattered on our com-
mons' tables. But due to budget constraints, they are no
more. And it now appears that college courses, student-
taught or otherwise, are on a similar path, which is both
disturbing and disappointing.
In years past some colleges have not needed to spend
all of the money set aside for college courses, but others,
such as Lovett College, which traditionally offers an Intro-
duction to Law course — arguably the only pre-law course
offered at Rice and always at capacity — exhaust their
college course funds and sometimes even take additional
funds from their general budgets to pay for courses. The
university is under the impression that all of the colleges
will take Lovett's lead and fund courses from their general
budgets. But the same argument was applied with the cut-
ting of newspaper budgets, with poor results. Some colleg-
es were willing to set aside funds to purchase newspapers,
but others were not, making newspaper delivery to a select
few colleges nearly impossible.
After the recent success of college courses — the total
number offered has jumped from around 20 in years past
to more than /40 this year, with an estimated one-fourth
of Rice's student body either teaching or taking a college
course — it is worrisome that the university is cutting the
legs out from a program that is both highly successful and
wildly popular. We should be encouraging intellectual
growth, not undermining it. Punk rock may not be exam-
ined at the Shepherd School of Music and Batman may
not be taught in upper-level English courses, but their
presence within college courses expands the heady intel-
lectualism Rice already harbors. For them to disappear
due to a lack of funding would destroy an utterly unique
and spectacularly interesting facet of the educational
opportunities Rice purports to espouse.
Veto of Beer Bike
proposals commendable
On Monday, the proposed changes to this year's Beer Bike
parade were put to a vote to the college coordinators, who
proceeded to veto the proposal (see story, page 1). We com-
mend the college coordinators for reflecting the majority
student opinion, illustrated in the recent Student Associa-
tion poll, and for supporting the continuation of the original
parade format. We thank all the Beer Bike coordinators for
listening to the student voice. While on the subject of vot-
ing, we feel that in the future, it would be prudent to elect
campus-wide Beer Bike coordinators rather than appointing
them, in order to avoid a distinct disconnect between the
campus-wide coordinators and the rest of the student body
like the one which arose this year.
Decision to postpone
Willy's rings sensible
The administration has decided to postpone a final de-
cision regarding the potential installation of granite rings
around Willy's statue in the academic quad to commemorate
donors giving at least $4.6 million — the amount which Wil-
liam Marsh Rice originally left in his will to found the Rice
Institute (see story at www.ricethresher.org). We commend
the university's decision to put the brakes on the proposed
design. We continue to dislike the idea, as we originally ex-
pressed in our Apr. 17, 2009 staff editorial where we called the
idea "an abhorrent affront to [Willy's] legacy." Willy should
not be the center of a bull's-eye — and if there is another, less
grating option to honor the donors, we hope the university
will implement it.
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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR thresher-ops@rice. edu, twitter, com/thericethresher
Editorial overlooks
financial aid strides
To the Editor:
We were disappointed by the
Thresher's Jan. 29 superficial edito-
rial about The Princeton Review's most
recent "best value" rankings ("Slip in
'best value' rankings discouraging").
The editorial suggests that Rice has
not been sympathetic to the financial
needs of students and families, which
is preposterous. Even a review of the
Thresher's own articles about tuition
and financial aid proves otherwise.
Five years ago, Rice announced
that the university would no longer
require students from families with in-
comes under $30,000 to finance part
of their undergraduate education with
loans. Two years later, we doubled the
income threshold for the no-loan pol-
icy to $60,000, and that amount was
raised to $80,000 for students who en-
tered this past fall. The university also
lowered the cap on loans in financial
aid packages for need-eligible incom-
ing freshmen to $10,000 for their four
undergraduate years — down from
the limit of up to $14,500 for freshmen
who entered in fall 2008.
Since fiscal year 2004, the number
of our students on scholarship aid has
increased from just under 30 percent
to more than 41 percent, and the aver-
age scholarship award has increased
from $17,995 to $28,494. As a result of
our financial aid policies, more than
18 percent of current students come
from families with incomes below
$60,000, as compared with fewer than
14 percent in 2004. And more than
18 percent of the current freshman class
are recipients of Federal Pell Grants — a
record for Rice and higher than many of
our competitor schools. Among other
benefits, this increased support of low-
er-income students has helped foster
more diversity in our class.
Although nominal tuition has in-
creased, net tuition has grown much
more slowly, as we have implemented
these policies and increased support
to the families that most need it. Rice's
tuition has been approximately $6,000
less than that of other premier research
universities. We have not been able to
match the programs implemented by a
few schools that have much larger en-
dowments, but Rice's financial aid poli-
cies and support are among the most
generous in the country and have been
very significantly enhanced over the
last few years. Despite the decrease in
Rice's endowment caused by the reces-
sion, the university has increased finan-
cial aid to students, which was reported
in your front-page story on the "best
value" rankings.
The "best value" rankings from The
Princeton Review are based mostly on
information provided by educational
institutions and are issued separately
from The Princeton Review's best col-
leges guide, which is based on surveys
of students and is published in the
summer. The Thresher article blended
the two as if there were a cause and
effect, but the two rankings are inde-
pendent and use different criteria.
We're disappointed that the Thresher
did not spend more time researching
and analyzing what Rice has done to
merit a top-io placement on The Princ-
eton Re\ieWs "best value" list the past
four years in a row. In fact. Rice is the
only university to appear on The Princ-
eton Review's list of best-value private
schools five of the past six years. Rice
may have moved down a few notches
from No. 4 to No. 7 on the list, but that's
a reflection of variables being compared
with what other schools are doing. What
matters is that Rice continues to make
its high-quality education affordable
and accessible to people from all walks
of life. Perhaps that's why applications
to Rice this year have already exceeded
12,300 — more than 1,100 over the record
11,172 applications received last year.
Finally, Rice students benefit in the
classroom, in labs, in their residential
colleges and on campus from the fruits
of the Vision for the Second Century.
This includes two new residential col-
leges, enhancement of Hispanic Stud-
ies, Latin America engagement and
other academic programs, a new recre-
ation center, a pavilion, improved ven-
ues for baseball, basketball and other
sports and new academic and research
facilities like the Bioscience Research
Collaborative and the Brockman Hall
for Physics. These are investments in
their educations and in their lives. The
V2C will continue to serve Rice students
now and for decades, no matter what
the ups and downs of the economy may
be in the short term.
Kathy Collins
Vice President for Finance
Chris Munoz
Vice President for Enrollment
Robin Forman
Dean of Undergraduates
Prices dropping for
precious resources
To the Editor:
1 am responding to the Backpage
of Jan. 15, which noted that Student As-
sociation President Patrick McAnAnEy
didn't know about the hidden scheme
in Avatar wherein the "private military
contractors" (and their greedy corn
pany employer) were seeking the pre-
cious material under the Tree of Life,
a substance referred to in the Thresher
as carbon nanotubes. Nanotubes are
actually becoming less precious, and
some of the best single-walled carbon
nanotubes (indeed produced at Rice)
are now reduced in price to a mere
$225,000 per kilogram. In my life be-
fore Rice (hard though it is to imagine
a life before Rice), while working for the
United States Air Force Research Labo
ratory, we spent uncountable taxpayer
dollars seeking unobtainium (the ver-
sion from Pandora is apparently valued
at $20,000,000 per kilogram), but the
only material we ever received from
our contractors was determined to be
"balonyum," which was worthless.
Wade Adams
Director, Smalley Institute
Last week's online poll results:
Are you concerned about Rice's drop in The Princeton
Review's "best value" rankings?
□ Yes
78 RESPONSES RECEIVED
No
Let's wait and see where
Rice is next year
THIS WEEK'S POLL: SHOULD THE UNIVERSITY CUT COLLEGE COURSE BUDGETS?
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Michel, Casey. The Rice Thresher, Vol. 97, No. 18, Ed. 1 Friday, February 5, 2010, newspaper, February 5, 2010; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth443208/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.