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April 20, 2007 > Opinion > Letters to the Editor

Letters to the Editor

By The Rice Thresher Editorial Staff | Thresher Editorial Staff

Alumni regret lack of proper advising

To the editor:

With respect to Evan Mintz’s annoyance with Rice’s undergraduate advising system, it is easy to understand both his desire to be treated as an adult and his frustration in trying to find an available faculty advisor (“Rice PIN process violates student freedoms,” April 13). Before deciding that Rice should abandon faculty advising, however, consider an alternative perspective.

Before 1988 advising of freshmen and sophomores was the responsibility of all college associates. Alumni surveys regularly reported that this advising system did not work. The ad hoc committee of which I was chair proposed in 1988 that we adopt an idea proposed by Dean of Student Affairs Ronald Stebbings — restrict advising to associates who enjoy it and presumably are good at it. This “divisional advisor” plan was an improvement but apparently has not solved the problem. In recent surveys, I am told, alumni continue to express dissatisfaction with advising, although I suspect not simply for the reasons Mintz raises.

Alumni with whom I have spoken over the years more often complain that they received too little advice rather than too much. Some students clearly seek to avoid advice — sometimes, no doubt, because they do not wish to be asked to explain why they have chosen a particular set of courses. It may be easier and less stressful to pick individual courses haphazardly rather than to select them in the context of clear educational and vocational goals. As alumni, former students may regret that they were not asked to think more deeply about their choices.

The present system clearly is imperfect. It is not easy to find faculty members with both the time and the ability to advise well. Recruiting and training faculty advisors require constant effort and investment. Yet, however valuable student advisors may be — and I have great respect for them — is it not reasonable for parents who pay the bills to expect that their child receive academic advice from someone with more experience than an undergraduate?

John Ambler

Professor Emeritus of Political Science

Tragedy should

encourage planning#

To the editor:

As I write this, a man at Virginia Tech has just shot and killed at least 31 people, wounded many others, and killed himself. I saw the footage of the wounded being carried from buildings, read someone’s brother’s instant message about how he saw most of his classmates shot. It is a horrific tragedy, one that literally made me sick. It also scares me; not with the irrational fear that we experience on an instinctual level, but with one that I felt because I kept coming back to a single thought: why Virginia Tech? This could have happened here. Are we prepared for it? Is there anything we can do to stop or deal with it better?

We should think about the official University response; is there a policy on what to do when shots are fired on campus? If not, one should be made. If there is one, we should reexamine it in light of these events.

The Tech shootings happened in two stages: one in the early morning that claimed two lives, and another two hours later that claimed 31. For some reason, Tech officials did not cancel classes immediately after the first shooting, despite the fact that the shooter was still not in police custody. This mistake cost 30 lives — every administrator on duty at the time should be fired for this. Do we have a sensible policy that will be enacted immediately? Also, how able to handle threats of this nature is RUPD? I am unfamiliar with their resources, but they should be examined. If they are lacking, we need to make sure Houston’s police can be quickly contacted and directed to the area of a crime.

One preparation we should consider is admittedly controversial. Like Rice, Virginia Tech has a strict policy against firearms on campus. No one can know whether a fellow student could have used a firearm to stop this massacre, but I know quite a few students and staff members, all responsible gun owners and citizens, who would have tried their best in this situation. While we can all agree that the world would be a safer place with a perfectly behaved police force and no firearms in any private citizens hands, this is not the case. Our firearms ban only applies within the hedges, and no serious measures are taken to enforce it. We should consider the consequences of an alternative policy.

This tragedy may or may not have been preventable, but we must stop and examine our University’s policies on such matters.

Bobby Anderson

Martel sophomore

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