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The Rice Thresher
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by Rachel Rustin Thresher Editorial Staff
The new cheers stem from contests held at each college. Contest winners received prize money from an Envision Grant that was awarded to four students who filed a formal complaint last semester about college cheers. The students wanted to change what they saw as a sexually harassing atmosphere on campus created by the cheers. New cheers were submitted to the 2000-'01 college presidents, who met with Associate General Counsel Carlos Garcia to ask about any cheers they thought might violate the sexual harassment policy. Each college developed its own method of judging who won for the best new cheers and gave out $133.33 in prize money. The number of submissions and process for determining the winning cheers varied widely between the colleges. Brown College President Mike Chapman said Brown received 10 submissions, more than he anticipated. A committee narrowed the list to five finalists and cheered the five submissions in the Brown Commons one day at lunch. "They yelled the five submissions, and we kind of gauged the response of everybody," Chapman, a junior, said. "Everyone liked three out of the five and really hated the other two, so we are adopting the three that everyone liked." Chapman had worked on two of the winning cheers, so all of the prize money for Brown will be given to senior Brian Tison, who served on the committee. Tison's cheer begins by repeating the line, "Bow down to Brown" three times. Tison said he came up with the cheer while driving home to Wichita Falls. Cheers had been on his mind and he saw it as a good way to help the college, he said. Will Rice College created a committee composed of former President Eden King, President Jesse Dickerman and the Orientation Week coordinators. After looking at the three submissions the group received, they decided to split the money evenly in order to reward everyone who entered a new cheer. Will Rice senior Erik Garza's cheer included references to Lysol, Windex and Mr. Clean. "The first few people who heard it thought it was the funniest thing they had ever heard, so it gave me motivation," Garza said. He said when he saw all the posters looking for clean cheers, he automatically thought about cleaning supplies. "I figured, who's more clean than Mr. Clean?" Garza said. However, not all colleges have new cheers yet. Jones College has not given out its reward money and is still looking for ideas for new college cheers. Martel College is currently determining how it will create college cheers. Although the colleges have advertised their new cheers, there are no guarantees they will be used tomorrow at Beer-Bike. King said if some people start cheering the new cheers, others will join in. Some people aren't so optimistic. Baker College senior Alexis Wiesenthal, an author of the original complaint, said she thinks it will be a normal Beer-Bike, and that there may even be some backlash because of the effort to eliminate sexually harassing college cheers. Wiesenthal said she believes the campus has opened up this year to recognizing that problems can be fixed by working together. "I just think that Rice will be a more welcoming place for students in the future, and for current students, too," Wiesenthal said. She said she has seen the attitude of campus towards cheers change dramatically since last semester. As students cycle through the university, she believes change will continue to happen quickly. Because Beer-Bike will be over after this weekend, the college cheers discussion has begun to shift to incorporating sexual harassment education and new cheers into this fall's O-Week. The O-Week Steering Committee has started discussions on this topic and will continue working on the issue this summer. The committee has decided to follow the presidents' recommendation that cheers deemed sexually harassing not be taught at O-Week. "During O-Week, it's a definite liability for someone to get up there and scream these cheers at a whole bunch of freshmen who just left their parents, some for the first time," O-Week Student Director Shannon Scott said. "We're trying to keep the cheers because everybody loves them, but the tradition of cheers doesn't have to include sexual harassment." Scott, a Hanszen college junior, said information to educate new freshmen about sexual harassment would most likely be distributed in packets or presented in a program during O-Week. She is glad the O-Week coordinators at the colleges agree that sexual harassment is an issue that needs to be addressed. "The coordinators were really supportive of the fact that O-Week is for the freshmen, it's not for the advisers and coordinators to relive their O-Week," Scott said. "It's for all of the freshmen to feel comfortable with the change that they are going through in coming to Rice." Hanszen sophomore Sarah Cloots, a writer of the original complaint, is happy cheers are finally being addressed. "Hopefully, people won't feel alienated, because I know [for] a lot of people, including myself, [cheers were] their first impression of Rice and for some people it really turned them off," Cloots said. "I think that it will set a totally different tone, a more welcoming tone, and that's good." Jones College senior Michelle Brand, another writer of the formal complaint, agreed, adding that cheers should be taught later during O-Week. "Cheers in general can make people feel uncomfortable," Brand said. Brand thinks what has happened with the college cheers issue will help resolve other diversity issues on campus. "It made it public that it's OK not to be happy with your college," Brand said. "If you aren't OK with it, you aren't the only one. I had no idea that there were so many people who were not OK with their college until I went through this."
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