The Rice Thresher, Vol. 95, No. 12, Ed. 1 Friday, November 16, 2007 Page: 2 of 24
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THE RICE THRESHER OPINION FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 16,2007
___
——
e Rice Thresher
End PIN paternalism
One of the great things about Rice is that students are treated
like adults. From the Honor Code to the alcohol policy, students are
allowed to live their lives with little faculty or administration interfer-
ence. We wish this policy would extend to registration.
In order to receive a PIN to register for classes, students are
required to get the signature of an academic advisor.
This current system is a broken one. The method of advising
within each department is inconsistent — some majors designate
faculty members for each class, while others allow students to choose
any faculty member as an advisor. On top of that, many students
and faculty alike seem to avoid meeting altogether, exchanging PIN
release data via e-mail without any actual advising.
In light of these ongoing problems, it is clear that the system
needs an overhaul.
Advisors are supposed to provide two services: Offer advice on
what classes to take and make sure students meet major and gradu-
ation requirements. Both of these services can be better provided by
other sources. Fellow students, peer academic advisors and online
course evaluations offer insight into classes from people who have
actually attended them and know what is important to students. And
if students want advice from faculty, they can always seek it out.
Also, students can check their major and graduation requirements
either by looking at their own transcripts or through online degree
audits. After all, students do not need advisors to make sure they do
their homework or get enough sleep. They should not need them
to register for classes.
After freshman year, meeting with faculty advisors should be
voluntary. While freshmen may need a little guidance to understand
Rice's course structure, there are only so many times you can hear
which classes are good and which are not.
To act as a safety net, ESTHER should employ an active checking
system to show students what graduation requirements they have
met and which they still need. Programming this checking system
would not be difficult and would relieve advisors from doing the
job of a computer.
And with students allowed to register without compulsory advis-
ing, there is no need for multiple PINs. All students should need to
register is their usual ESTHER log-in PIN.
Admission to Rice should be sufficient evidence that students are
smart enough to make the right choices, and something is wrong
with the university if students need multiple PINs to prove that point.
So let's put an end to this academic paternalism.
Give students power over
distribution status
Students do not have to make fun of Rice's distribution
system — it already makes a mockery of itself. After all, it cannot
be taken seriously that, for some random reason, HIST 295: The
American South counts for distribution credit, while HIST 265:
American Revolution does not.
Many classes do not count for distribution credit not because
they lack the necessary qualities, but because professors simply do
not submit the applications for their courses to receive distribution
status. After all, it is students, not professors, who are affected by
distribution status. So, students should do the work: They should
have some say in a class' distribution status.
There needs to be an infrastructure put in place for students to
appeal for classes to be given distribution status. We suggest that if
a majority of students in a class sign a petition before midterms, the
class must undergo the distribution approval process. This system
would fix the seemingly random allocation of distribution credit and
allow students to take classes based on what interests them rather
than arbitrary distribution credits.
One way or another, the distribution system needs to make sense.
And the best method would be one that follows the Rice tradition of
putting responsibility in students' hands.
Thresher giving thanks
Thursday is Thanksgiving, and the Thresher has a lot to be thank-
ful for. We are thankful for the Rice University Police Department,
who keep us safe. We are thankful for the Rice Emergency Medical
Service, who make Rice's wet campus policy possible. We are thank-
ful for the administrators who uphold the wet campus policy. We are
thankful for our loyal readers, columnists, writers, photographers
and editors. We are thankful for the late-night pizza, cookies and
coffee, which get us through that weekly all-nighter.
And most of all, we are thankful that we have a break from the
Thresher this week.
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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Unsigned editorials represent the majority opinion of the Thresher editorial staff.
Mintz's columns
thought-provoking
To the editor:
In response to Scott Berger's
letter: Piease do not fire Evan Mintz
("Evan Mintz should be fired imme-
diately," Nov. 9).
Mintz is not afraid of dealing with
hot potatoes. I am not surprised
that the views he has put forth in
his articles have angered a large
number of readers. On occasion,
I have been irked by what he has
written. At the same time, though,
Mintz often deals with controversial
issues that are commonly avoided. I
am convinced that this style has also
garnered him a group of supporters
who look forward to reading his
articles every week.
Mintz has written about on-
campus affairs, NOD and nudity,
politics, religion and abortion. I
have not always agreed with his
views, but I have accepted them
as valid, well-researched positions.
Firing Mintz would rob Thresher
readers of daring, well-written and
often entertaining articles that can
broaden horizons.
Reading an opinion article about a
controversial issue is an opportunity
to evaluate one's own position, and
perhaps to find mistakes in one's
reasoning. If opinion articles were
not controversial and just pleasing
to the crowd, they would not be
worth reading.
Cutting out articles that are not
loved by some of the readers is a
poor choice, the equivalent of trying
to lose weight by eating nothing. If
you want to improve the Thresher's
opinion articles, increase the paper's
metabolism by hiring an opinion
editor with a radically different point
of view.
Mathias Ricken
Sid Richardson '04
Removal of editor
detrimental to paper
To the editor:
Scott Berger's call for the firing
of Thresher Executive Editor Evan
Mintz is patently absurd for a few
reasons.
The first is that Berger seems
to have forgotten how a newspaper
works.
As executive editor, Mintz deals
with the staffing, business and edito-
rial aspects of the paper. Firing an
editor should only happen if they
have mishandled these duties and
Berger fails to warrant as to why this
might be the case.
Second, firing Mintz for any per-
ceived lack of writing ability would
be a journalistic version of the Sedi-
tion Acts and as a 77tresher alumna
myself, I find that impermissible. A
more nuanced solution might have
been to ask the opinions editor who
edits Mintz's columns to encourage
him to moderate his tone.
Third, the letter itself dem-
onstrates more of the pejorative
language Berger claims to dislike
than Mintz's column itself. In fact,
the point of Mintz's column was that
in-person communication is more
constructive than blanket slogans.
The fact that the Thresher pub-
lished this letter proves that Mintz is
doing his job as executive editor, no
matter how much some people might
disagree with his opinions. The last
time I checked, newspapers were
supposed to guarantee and engender
the exercise of free speech.
Kirti Datla
Sid Richardson senior
Critique should not
cause disagreement
To the editor:
The irony of the attack on Evan
Mintz was that it was "childish" and
"insecure." Berger's opinions were
changed in reaction to infantile
logic and expression? Damn. I like
infants and middle-schoolers but I
am secure enough in my beliefs to
resist their sophistry.
To the point, though, I opened
up the Backpage last Friday to find
that it was a send-up of philosophy
majors ("Backpage," Nov. 9). I am
a philosophy major. 1 thought it
was hilarious.
Suppose that I was offended,
though — how dare he suggest
that philosophy butters no bread!
I wouldn't reconsider my opinions
unrelated to the Backpage, "those
which I held, frequently in agreement
with him," because I was suddenly
the subject of his satire.
I thought I wanted a longer winter
break until I read his quote about
philosophy and masturbation of
the ego on the Backpage ("linger
winter break, that's all we need,"
Nov. 9). Well, fuck you Evan Mintz,
an academic calendar is all we do
not need!
Jacob Nelson
Baker freshman
Columnist tarnishes
Satanism and its style
To the editor:
You know, I have always kind of
looked up to Evan Mintz, the guy who
continues to churn out Backpage
articles, even though he knows only
a handful of students on campus will
ever think they are funny.
So imagine my surprise when I
open the IJiresher to find an article
publicly blasting my religion ("Stu-
dents: You know you are a Satanist
if...," Nov. 2). Evan's shoddy article
suggesting that a good majority of
the public is Satanist is a mockery
of my life's work.
Little does Evan know, Rice Sa-
tanists have been planning a large
Satan campaign to give the religion a
more legitimate public face. Just like
the homosexuals adopted the word
"gay" and atheists adopted the word
"bright" to make their causes more
socially acceptable, we are planning
to adopt the phrase "people who
agree to disagree with God."
On top of that, we have finally
robbed enough people that we can
afford to make "WWSD" brace-
lets, print "Not without my Satan"
T-shirts, and stamp "You just made
baby Satan laugh" buttons.
All in all, we are a simple people:
We just want to kill a few minorities
on the weekend and drink their blood
while we sing Satanic hymns by fires
burning aborted babies.
Let me apologize if I seem haughty,
because I'm not perfect. Sometimes
I say kind words inadvertently,
without thinking about their impact.
However, I try to live my life to fulfill
Satan's purpose as best I can. I have
spent many a night torturing and kill-
ing people aimlessly, so that I might
secure myself a good place in Hell.
Satanists also contribute greatly
to life at Rice. Though we keep it
quiet, we are actually responsible
for many social aspects of this com-
munity. We started Wiess College's
Night of Decadence, we suggested
the distribution credit system, we
hired Todd Graham (and David
Leebron) and we also created the
syllabus for CAAM 210. What thanks
do we get? A nasty little column in
our school's newspaper suggesting
that it is easy to be a Satanist.
Thanks to this Evan Mintz charac-
ter, our movement is set back another
hundred years or so, another century
that we will have to keep our hobbies
private, unable to truly be ourselves.
Mintz, 1 hope you cannot sleep
at night thinking of all the innocent
people you have saved from certain
pain and brutality. 1 hope you are
See* LETTERS, page 4
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Whitfield, Stephen. The Rice Thresher, Vol. 95, No. 12, Ed. 1 Friday, November 16, 2007, newspaper, November 16, 2007; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth443211/m1/2/: accessed June 19, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Rice University Woodson Research Center.