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The Rice Thresher
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Thresher Editorial Staff Checks and balances If there's anything to be learned from the Brown College treasurer fiasco, it's that we need better safeguards to prevent embezzlement. Students at Rice are in charge of tens of thousands of dollars throughout campus, most of it in the budgets of the eight colleges - and we like it that way. Current precautions call for signatures by two different people on checks and receipts to document legitimate expenses. But this incident proves how easy it is for things to go awry. To prevent something like this from happening again, a college could choose a trusted staff member or associate, such as a college coordinator, to occasionally glance at the books to make sure they're in good shape. Why not choose a student to check the records? They are, on the whole, responsible and trustworthy. But many college coordinators, resident associates and masters are around a college longer than most students, so they could provide some amount of institutional memory. We believe that students should control the money in student organizations, but we think that there should be somebody else looking over the books once in a while. And that person certainly shouldn't be doing the work of the college treasurer, but if something seems amiss, he should ask the treasurer for an explanation and the receipts.
In favor of inefficiency Though we appreciate Registrar Jerry Montag's efforts to streamline the registration process, his proposal of a preferential registration system is antithetical to the spirit of Rice University. We go to a small school where undergraduates can get into the classes they want. Sure, they might have to wait a year to get into Photography I, or they might have to stay up all night to get into English Professor Dennis Huston's Public Speaking class. But most classes are open to whomever wants to take them. The size of our university allows us flexibility in our class schedules unheard of at larger schools. The relatively few number of capped classes helps flexibility too. Thus, for most classes currently offered, preferential registration would have no effect. Everyone would still get to take whichever classes they choose. But sometimes, problems arise. Twenty people too many sign up for a history class here; seven too many sign up for a theater class there. Last year, 211 people signed up for a Baker College course titled "Getting to Know Your Car," even though the cap was 20. Preferential registration would efficiently solve the occasional problem of over-registered classes. But at what price? First, the Registrar's Office cannot create a simple formula to determine the students who may take a class. Class composition, especially for upper-level seminar classes in the humanities, is often carefully crafted. Perhaps a professor wants to let in a student who, though a sophomore, has a particular interest in the topic of the class. Perhaps the class is required for a certain major, so she wants to let students of that major in first. Maybe she wants for the class to have students with a diverse set of academic interests. Another advantage of Rice's size is ease of interaction between faculty and students. If a professor wants to have a capped class, students should be encouraged to talk to the professor about how to get in - not be accepted or rejected on their preregistration slip. Finally, we detest the idea of having an allotted three-hour time slot to register. What if a student has class all morning? Should we skip class to register? And what if we want to get into a class like Public Speaking? In the past, students camped outside Huston's office all night. Will they perch eagerly in front of their computers to register online at the first possible moment in the future? Montag said he wants Rice to do things like other schools do them. But Rice isn't like other schools - and we like it that way. Keeping preregistration the same may make registration less efficient, but it will also make the Registrar's Office seem less like an arbitrary dictator of students' schedules.
Changing the rules to fit the election We have yet to be convinced that two Student Association presidents would be better than one. But this is not specifically forbidden under the current SA Constitution and Election Code, and so a pair should be allowed to run jointly for SA president this year. The senate should not consider a hasty constitutional amendment to specifically deny Hanszen College juniors Jamie Lisagor and Gavin Parks - or any other duo - the opportunity to run together for the job. The philosophical question is still open, and it should be debated as a part of the constitutional revision going on now. But the time for such an amendment for this year is past. This year's Election Code was approved at Monday's SA Senate meeting, and more importantly, no change could go into effect before candidacy petitions are available Feb. 9. Parks and Lisagor will have to thoroughly defend their choice to run as co-presidents during campaigning. If the students agree with them, they will be elected. If students are wary of the idea of two chief executives, the two will be defeated. Senate interference at this point would be inappropriate.
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