Senior thesis could create student unity

It is 3 a.m. on a weeknight at Fondren Library. Scattered throughout the library, night owls (pun intended) listen to iTunes and crank out papers or finish problem sets. No one talks, no one makes

eye contact. It is the stationary equivalent of walking down a Rice sidewalk.

Of course libraries are supposed to be quiet, but why is everyone so distant? Aren’t we all in this together? Strangely enough, it doesn’t seem like it.

I feel a loose sense of connection with fellow English and Hispanic Studies majors, but on an academic level, I feel dissociated from students of all other majors. In short, my diploma will represent to me a journey I took more or less alone (excepting the involvement of professors). I doubt I will look out across the crowd of graduating seniors at our 2006 commencement ceremony and feel any sense of solidarity or any closure to a collective experience.

I would love for Rice to strive for some enhanced sense of academic cohesion. We are fundamentally an academic community, and I want to feel that. Requiring a senior thesis of all undergraduates would provide campus-wide academic harmony, stressful as it might be for individuals.

Princeton University is one university that requires a thesis of every graduating senior. Its Web site states, ‘Started in 1931, the senior thesis required of all undergraduates is unique to Princeton. Whether a research paper or a collection of poetry, the thesis is an original, in-depth project that focuses on a student’s specific interests. Both an academic requirement and a rite of passage, the senior thesis is an independent work that typically runs about 100 pages.’

Sure, I can write one here at Rice, but I would be one of a few students doing so. I cannot speak for the entire undergraduate population at Princeton, but I imagine the senior thesis is a project that begets intense camaraderie across the campus and, by extension, commiseration of the sweetest kind.

However, Rice only offers the Rice Undergraduate Scholars Program; its Web site boasts, ‘Most Rice professors enjoy sponsoring undergraduate research, whether in the form of independent study or reading projects, departmental honors projects or RUSP projects.’

Does anyone else notice a little wishful thinking on the university’s part? While some exceptional professors are eager to assist students, I get the feeling ‘most’ are either too busy or too lazy. The RUSP objective is to have a ‘well-balanced program in terms of areas of specialization,’ thereby exposing the students, roughly 15-20 per year, to a broad range of research topics and methods. Only 15 to 20 students per year — out of 2,700? RUSP is hardly a campus-wide affair.

You could argue an honors thesis is the most isolating academic endeavor a student can pursue.

Perhaps that is true. I suspect writing an honors thesis is a process of intense self-discovery coupled with academic exploration, an experience shared intimately with a department adviser but few others.

I do not propose we all sit in a room and tell each other about our projects. The journey can, and would, remain an individual one to a certain degree. But in those moments of intense despair or enlightened productivity, we would know we were in this together. Imagine the day when your graduating class turns in 700 or so theses. There would be a sense of group accomplishment stemming from individual hard work. There would be a sense of belonging, a sense of having finally arrived. And imagine the party afterward.

A heightened sense of academic unity among the student body is not the only reason to require a thesis. It instills within the four-year process of an undergraduate career a momentum that builds and builds, leading up to a culminating endeavor. Many students are already doing work that could easily be developed into an honors thesis.

We’re just as smart as Princeton undergrads. And I will venture to say we are just as motivated, on the whole. We copied the residential college program from similar schools, so why not borrow one more great idea? There’s no shame in that.

Searcy Milam is a Wiess College junior and assistant opinion editor.

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