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January 26, 2007 > Opinion > Baker Institute fails students with Clinton plans

Baker Institute fails students with Clinton plans

By The Rice Thresher Editorial Staff | Thresher Editorial Staff

We are thrilled that former President Bill Clinton is coming to speak at Rice in two weeks. (See story, Page 1.) That said, we have been let down by the event’s organization. The dearth of student seats, poor ticket distribution and an improperly selected group of students for a Clinton photo-op tarnish what should be an event to celebrate.

Venue

Clinton will be speaking in a 781-seat auditorium, while the university has at its disposal Autry Court, which has a capacity of up to 5,600. Managing Director for Programs and International Studies Mark Scheid explained that Clinton’s speech will occur too soon after the previous day’s Rice-Southern Miss basketball game to give Autry the security detail and setup required for a former president.

We are sympathetic to that problem, but we cannot help wondering whether the Baker Institute for Public Policy could have negotiated an agreement with the Athletic Department. Sure, Autry is not as picturesque or as easy to secure as the Shepherd School’s Stude Concert Hall, but this event should be about bringing a political rock star to the Rice community — not impressing him with a pretty stage.

And while we hold concern for the former president’s security, Autry seated 1,100 in Spring 2004 as a venue for the highly-secured Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, just two weeks after an attempt on his life.

Tickets

If there is no way to grant more undergraduates the opportunity to see Clinton in person, the limited seats should at least go to those who are most bent on attending — not those who have obsessive-compulsive e-mail-checking disorder. Rather than randomly selecting 300 names from the 1,000-plus that flooded the Baker Institute inbox, tickets could be distributed like they were for the Dalai Lama: in person, first come, first served. This way, tickets would go to the students who actually want them most, instead of those with merely the timeliest e-mail access.

Rice Athletics has never had fans line up for tickets like Duke’s “Cameron Crazies,” but if the e-mail volume was any indication, this could have been the chance for Autry to see “Clinton Crazies.” It would be hard to argue that Rice has a politically apathetic campus in the face of a 300-head line of students waiting to get tickets for a political speech.

Indeed, there is something special about seeing a president in person — rather than the usual Internet videos or television speeches — and it is something students clearly want to experience for themselves.

Photo-op

In addition to considering student attendance at Clinton’s speech, Baker Institute planners should have used a different method of selecting students to represent Rice at the photo and coffee session that will precede the speech. While it may seem intuitive to send campus politicians — the college presidents, the Student Association and Graduate Student Association presidents, two members of the Baker Institute Student Forum and heads of four campus political organizations — we cannot support this choice.

We know any personal interaction with Clinton will probably be little more than a publicity stunt, but the select group should encompass a wider variety of Rice students. The self-selecting subset of students who make up, for example, the college governments tend to reflect only a particular segment of the student body. And the campus political organizations are notoriously internal, with the current president of Rice Young Democrats not even elected by the club as a whole.

So while these groups serve their purposes on campus and undoubtedly contribute to the Rice community, we fail to see the connection between holding such positions and deserving this rare opportunity to (maybe) have a cup of coffee with Clinton. As it stands, this supposedly representative group fails in its goal to demonstrate Rice students’ ranges of interest and diverse backgrounds.

There are many ways a more fair and representative group could be chosen. If the Student Association was given the task — rather than someone in the Baker Institute who rarely sets foot this side of Alumni Drive — students would at least be able to petition it with ideas and hold the selection committee accountable for its choices.

While it may be too late to fix these problems, we look forward to the next visit by a former president or political rock star. And if given opportunity, we hope students will show the same interest and excitement that campus has seen this past week.

End of article

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