RATS
They are among you. They are in your colleges, in your classes, in the rooms next door to you. You might even live with one.
Don't panic; the earth is not being invaded by small, furry rodents. These are your fellow students, the ones who had experiences at other universities and who may have experienced Orientation Week -- but never as freshmen. These are transfer students.
At the start of every semester, several new transfer students are admitted. Most come in the fall and go through all of the O-Week activities with the entering freshman class. Mid-year transfers, however, lack the experience of O-Week to help integrate them into their colleges and Rice as a whole.
Until recently, transfers were largely left to fend for themselves when they came to Rice -- going on their own to meet people and find activities. For many transfers, this made for a difficult transition as most live off campus their first year. And as off-campus students, transfers, especially those who arrive mid-year, have little exposure to their college.
"I didn't think it was going to be as hard as it was to meet other people," Jones College senior Byron Holt, who came to Rice from Lamar University in January of 1995, said.
Sid Richardson College senior Pam Carlson, who transferred from Johns Hopkins University in the fall of 1993, agreed.
"My first year at Rice sucked," she said. "I lived off campus and I didn't meet anyone. My roommate was a visiting student, and the whole thing was just tough ... [1993] was the first year Rice accepted a large number of transfers, and I think they just didn't know what to do with us."
Since Carlson had already experienced firsthand the difficulties of being a transfer, she recognized the potential for improvement in January of 1994, when that year's mid-year transfers arrived.
"Sarah [Nelson Crawford] did mid-year orientation, but she had the [returning] transfers help out. I met a lot of new people that way, and the next fall we petitioned for a club."
Carlson and Baker College senior Mike Corbett, who transferred from the University of Wisconsin in the fall of 1993, began to organize weekly events for transfers, and eventually they became a group.
"There was a steady base of us, about 10 or 15 who transferred [in 1993], and the university realized that we had a lot of problems," Corbett said.
The Rice Association of Transfer Students (RATS) is now an official student organization, of which Carlson and Corbett were co-presidents this past year. In the 1996-97 school year, that position will be filled by Brown College junior Vanessa Sikes, who transferred to Rice from Bryn Mawr College in January of 1995.
As the organization grew, the administration began to take notice.
"There came to be about 15-20 hard-core RATS," Corbett said, "and the administration wanted to know what they could do, so they held a couple of forums for input."
Now, in addition to suggesting to the administration ways to improve life for transfer students, RATS holds events in which transfer students can get together, including meetings at the CoffeeHouse, weekly lunches and trips to sporting events.
Additionally, this year RATS was completely responsible for coordinating "O-Weekend" for the January 1996 mid-year transfers.
"RATS is ... where transfers can make friends and talk to people who understand the problems they go through -- it's a starting block," Carlson said, adding that RATS is also a good way to meet other upperclassmen, which many transfers agree is difficult to do.
Transfers are a mixed bag of characters, and their reactions to many Rice traditions vary. O-Week is an example of a Rice tradition that transfers experience differently.
Baker sophomore Anne Kimbol, who transferred to Rice in the fall of 1995 from Johns Hopkins, said,"Being included in O-Week really helped me feel a part of campus and taught me a lot about Rice."
But while some transfers enjoyed and recognized the importance of things like campus tours, the introduction to the honor code, the getting-to-know-you activities, and the community and integration fostered during O-Week, many were displeased with having to take part in freshman activities like academic advising and lectures on living independently. "We are not the same [as freshmen]; we have different needs," Carlson said.
"It makes me sick to be called `my freshman' [by] an adviser who has not been in college as long as I have been," Hanszen College senior Clayton Finney, a fall 1993 transfer from the University of Arkansas, said.
Corbett feels that "there needs to be more done [specifically for transfers] in O-Week. It helps that RATS has been having transfer functions, but each of the colleges needs to take the transfers aside and introduce them to each other."
Transfers also have differing opinions on the college system itself.
Carlson feels that the college system helps transfers get integrated into the Rice community. "Since the college is supposed to be like a family, people will ask who you are if they don't know you," she said.
Holt has a different opinion. He mentioned that, judging from conversations with a friend from his former university who transferred to the University of Houston, it seemed to be easier to meet people at UH.
At a place like UH, "it's easier to meet people in class because [it doesn't have] the residential college system," Holt said. "People [at Rice] don't make an effort to meet people outside of their college."
Despite their differences, Rice transfers are in agreement on one issue: housing. There is a strong feeling among transfer students that they miss out on some of the Rice experience by not being guaranteed on-campus housing their first year at Rice.
While acknowledging the value of the college system, Corbett points out that it really helps in getting integrated into one's college if one has on-campus housing.
Kimbol agreed. "I wish I had been able to live on campus this year to become more a part of my college, but that didn't happen," she said.
"Rice University treats transfers as a second-class group of incoming students. ... Transfers need to make social ties for non-academic purposes through on-campus living just as much as freshmen do," Finney said. "I still feel estranged from my college."
Other reasons cited for wanting transfers to live on campus include the difficulty of searching for off-campus housing near Rice while attending another university, especially outside Texas, and the difficulty of finding a roommate. Some transfers also expressed academic concerns like accessibility to professors and other after-class help.
"Transfers are enrolled in upper-level courses and need the benefit of living on campus more than freshmen in this regard," Finney said. "Better organization of the handling of new-student requests for assistance in finding roommates for off-campus living needs to be instituted."
There is also a feeling that once they live off campus their first year, transfers have little incentive to move on campus in their subsequent years at Rice. If they do not feel involved, they do not feel the need to be close to their college. Because they may not meet people in their college, off-campus transfers may find themselves without roommates when room draw comes around. Carlson had originally been assigned to Baker but transferred to SRC because she had someone to live with there.
To address the issue of on-campus housing for transfer students, earlier this semester RATS circulated a petition in support of getting more new transfer students on campus. They requested signatures from both transfers and non-transfers, and this was the first time some Rice students were exposed to the issues related to transfer students and on-campus housing.
Many students understood the petition to mean that transfers would be guaranteed on-campus housing, resulting in more returning students being forced off campus. Additionally, some students felt that the writers of the petition were not being entirely honest as to the petition's intent. The controversy generated over the petition prompted a letter from Corbett and Carlson to the Thresher in an attempt to correct the misunderstanding.
"The purpose of the petition was to create awareness that transfers exist and that housing is a problem. We wanted to know if it was important to other students that first-year students need to live on campus," Carlson said. "It wasn't formatted the proper way."
In response to concerns that allowing more transfers on campus means bumping more continuing students off, Carlson said, "We're talking about maybe two to four people per college. What if two to four more freshmen were admitted?"
Though RATS is pleased with its progress in making new transfers feel more comfortable at Rice, the organization recognizes that there are still some problems. The RATS officers take pride in being in a position to assist new transfers. "I wanted to make an active change," Corbett said. "I really enjoy being RATS president. I know so many transfers now -- probably over 200."
Overall, students who transfer to Rice seem to be pleased with their decision. Organizations like RATS that assist in smoothing transfers' transitions accomplish much to improve the quality of life for transfer students and the Rice experience as a whole.
This item appeared in the Features section of the April 26, 1996 issue.
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