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The Rice Thresher
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by Olivia Allison Thresher editorial staff
The first song to be played on 91.7 FM in over a week was by jazz great Miles Davis - the song interrupted by static when the station was shut down Nov. 30. The operating policy, which declares KTRU a "student-run radio station," is the result of three days of negotiations between Student Association President Lindsay Botsford, KTRU DJ Directors Ben Horne and Sarah Pitre, KTRU DJ Alexei Angelides and Camacho. Horne, Pitre and Angelides presented an early draft of the proposal at Monday's SA meeting. KTRU will hold by Camacho's decision from Nov. 29 that three to four sports events per week, in addition to most tournament games, will be broadcast for the next two years. Horne, Pitre and Angelides said they were happy with the agreement. "I think people recognize that, in some ways, this wasn't the ideal," Horne, a Wiess College junior, said. "This is what we have to go with, and I feel like we really bargained with the administration well." The policy states that the station is accountable to the university, which holds the Federal Communications Commission license, and the student body, and it "serves Rice University and the Houston community as part of the local radio network." The policy also states that "DJs must be responsible for their on air conduct and accountable to student station management." The station manager will be elected by the student body, and if the general manager, an employee of Student Affairs, disagrees with the station manager, he or she can appeal to the SA Senate. The internal structure of KTRU will be determined by the KTRU Constitution, which has yet to be written, and its DJs. A significant difference between the agreed-upon policy and the draft presented at Monday's SA meeting is the make-up of the committee to oversee the station. The original policy called for a KTRU College Committee composed of one student from each college. The KTRU Friendly Committee in the current policy consists of three undergraduate students appointed by the SA, the station manager, three faculty members nominated by the Faculty Committee on Committees and appointed by the president, one staff member appointed by the president and one alumni member, who is required to have KTRU DJ experience. (See Policy, Page 8.) Horne said he was satisfied with the composition of the committee because any changes must be approved by at least six of the nine committee members. "Students have basically veto power," Horne said. "Anything that goes to the committee, if students vote against it, it won't pass." President Malcolm Gillis said the change was a result of cooperative efforts between students and the administration. "In the process of negotiations [the committee makeup] changed," he said. "That's not important - we're talking about a process of negotiation that was done in good faith between many different people." After the two-year agreement between the Athletics Department and KTRU is over, athletics will need to present a request for programming to the committee through the procedure outlined in the proposal, Pitre said. However, she said some KTRU DJs continue to resent the agreement because they feel it is unfair. "It was never about some sort of dislike for sports or dislike for athletes or anything like that - the main reason people weren't happy was that they felt it was kind of forced on them," Pitre, a Wiess senior, said. Pitre added, however, that the athletics agreement was not an issue at this point. "We did not want that to drown out this policy," she said. "I feel talking about that now is just people not knowing when to celebrate. I think we should celebrate this proposal." KTRU Operations Manager Dennis Lee said he was impressed with the student body's response to the KTRU shutdown and with the way the KTRU leaders conducted themselves in this week's negotiations. "I am really proud of the student body coming together and making it possible for this proposal, which gives a lot of power to the students, to happen," Lee, a biochemistry and cell biology graduate student, said. "I think [the administration] was really caught off-guard by the speed ... that this thing moved, and I don't think the administration had much ground to stand on. "Essentially what happened was that we came with what we thought was perfect, and they got the few things they absolutely had to get," he said Botsford said she believes the proposal will prevent a situation like the KTRU shutdown from occurring again. "I don't think it can ever happen again, quite honestly," Botsford, a Wiess junior, said. "Certainly the administration can do whatever they want technically, but this document puts the backing behind the students and holds the university accountable to certain standards, which they weren't before." Botsford said she is not completely happy about the name of the committee because its acronym is the name of a fast-food chain. "I think the word 'friendly' does reflect what the committee's trying to accomplish," Botsford said. "I've gotten e-mails reflecting that the committee's supposed to be the powerful, end-all committee, and they have an acronym that is somewhat like a joke." However, Horne said he believes the committee's name reflects the fact that students created and will be heavily involved in it. "I think it's important to note that this is a committee that is here for students," he said. "It's not an official-sounding name, and we want to make it clear that this is not like any faculty committee. ... That's why we felt it was appropriate to have a name which doesn't sound so official." The station was taken out of student control Nov. 30 after two DJs broadcast music along with a women's basketball game Nov. 28. Their on-air protest followed months of negotiations and meetings of the KTRU Oversight Committee after the Athletics Department requested that KTRU play twice as many sports games as were played last year. KTRU scheduled a TG at 4 p.m. today in the Ray Courtyard and the Grand Hall of the Student Center to thank the student body.
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