Letters to the editor

Rice community truly special To the editor: As graduates of the university, we have long been familiar with the special feeling of allegiance, kinship, and rapport that binds the people of — students, alumni, faculty, and staff. Thus, we should not have been surprised by the intense and caring reaction that followed the death of our son Parker Redman, a Baker College junior, on March 31. But we were, and we continue to be. The University Police Department was wholly professional yet clearly stricken, and the Emergency Medical Technicians’ efforts went beyond heroic. We would specifically like to thank Chief William Taylor, Lieutenant Dianna Marshall, Sergeant Tina McDuell, Clemente Rodriguez, and Officer Peter Alvarado. Letters and notes poured in from Parker’s friends and from their relatives, most of whom we’d never met. We heard from his professors (including some who, long ago, had taught us), and from staffers who knew or worked with Parker. Baker Masters José Aranda and Krista Comer stepped in to take care of many things, including the organization of the distinctive candlelight vigil as well as the establishment of the Parker Redman Memorial Fund. Rice President Leebron and his wife, Y. Ping Sun, not only sent a gift basket approximately the size of the Baker Institute, but also arranged for us to borrow a huge banner of the seal. On the day of Parker’s funeral, that banner — along with an official one bearing the Baker insignia — hung in the funeral home foyer. A bright moment on that dark morning came from hearing the gasps those beautiful banners elicited from the hundreds of people who came to pay their respects. Most of all, we are deeply grateful for the love and comfort shown to our son Phil and our nieces Caroline Crites and Kate Hildebrandt. No other university and no other group of people could have shown more kindness, warmth, and grace. On April 4, the day of Parker’s memorial service in Austin, the attendees included many of Parker and Phil’s friends as well as our own classmates. That meant there were representatives from classes of the sixties, seventies, eighties, nineties and the twenty-first century. We hope — and predict — that Phil, Caroline, Kate and other current students at will experience the same lifelong support and friendship. Look around: Your classmates are people you will love and cherish for many decades to come. Anne Dingus Brown ’75 Patrick D. Redman Baker ’76

Leadership Rice a worthy program To the editor: While I agree in spirit with the majority of your comments concerning Dr. Eliot, your treatment of the facts surrounding him and the connotation implied towards Leadership are disappointing and misguided (“Don’t Save Eliot,” 20). Yes, many students were first introduced to Eliot through UNIV 309, but he was just a single-class guest lecturer in that course. However, that class no longer exists and it has since become LEAD 309: Leadership: Theory to Practice. To respond to the nature of this course and its “inherent intellectual merit,” say the V2Cc calls explicitly for “a holistic undergraduate experience that equips our students with the knowledge, the skills, and the values to make a distinctive impact in the world,” and you yourself call for an emphasis on the use of team building in pursuit of salubrious intellectual matters. goal of the introductory course of Leadership aims precisely at these measures. Leadership provides students with unique opportunities to implement their education in the real world right now, and it does so at an impressive rate. One result Leadership has created is the Undergraduate Research Symposium, which received seed funding via the Envision Grant. project last fall sought to team up with the Smalley Institute. These are precisely the projects we should foster more at Rice, not hinder them. Leadership demands of its students carefully considered reflection and quality writing, more so than many of my upper-level classes in the humanities school. Should we abolish all non-standard prose? Lastly, Leadership receives much of its funding from independent foundations and philanthropists, making your argument in reference to budget cuts downright worthless. In the future please consider your opinions more thoroughly before you sling them. Control of the most powerful outlet on campus demands care, even at 4 a.m. on Thursday morning. Paul Tucker Brown sophomore

Gun control argument flawed To the editor: Matthew Sschumann claims in his article that the present state of gun ownership in America leads to more harm than good. As support, mentions the tragedy at Virginia Tech and other cases of gun violence (“America not ready for gun ownership in fearful culture,” April 20). The problem with Schumann’s argument is that at least two types of information are needed to justify his claim, yet provides only one type. The harms that ensue from gun ownership must be noted. provides this type of information. But the harms that gun ownership prevents must also be noted. fails to provide this type of information. Schumann’s failure to provide the second type of information is understandable. First, prevented harms do not exist. is the nature of something prevented — it never comes into being. As a result, we can have no direct evidence of prevented harms. This makes them less conspicuous than actual harms, but they are no less relevant to the claims at hand. Second, even if reliable data about prevented harms were available, it is unlikely that media sources would give them the same degree of exposure that they give gun-related harms. This makes it easy for an incomplete picture to form. The only way to determine how much harm is prevented by gun ownership is to consider hypothetical scenarios in an informed manner. For example, we might consider how criminals would behave if they knew that law-abiding citizens did not own guns. is certainly an open question whether the answer favors case, and it is one that should be addressed based on our knowledge of U.Ss. society and criminology. Rex Hubbard Jones senior

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