The Rice Thresher

Location: http://the.ricethresher.org/opinion/2007/08/31/letters_to_the_editor

August 31, 2007 > Opinion > Letters to the editor

Letters to the editor

By The Rice Thresher Editorial Staff | Thresher Editorial Staff

Thresher misjudges management Ph.D.

To the editor:

The Thresher’s recent editorial was based on a misunderstanding of graduate admissions standards across campus (“Management Ph.D. must meet university standard,” Aug. 24). The editorial falsely asserted that “the Jones School standard … is markedly lower than the university’s.” The Jones School admissions standards for MBA students are highly competitive but not directly comparable with other programs at Rice. Contrary to the editorial’s assumption that it is possible to talk about universal admissions standards across programs, closer analysis reveals that admissions criteria are tied to the unique goals of each program. Admissions criteria for English, engineering, MBA and management Ph.D. programs are each uniquely tailored to the demands and career goals of each program. Most literary scholars would struggle with an engineer’s manuscript, and vice versa.

Although the best graduate programs at Rice are ranked higher than the Rice MBA, many other programs are not ranked higher. The standards for our MBA program meet or exceed those of other top-tier MBA programs and are aggressively improving. The quality of our students is reflected in the global ranking of our program, the career success of our graduates, and the growing international reputation of the relatively new Rice MBA program.

Our common goal is the pursuit of excellence for the Rice community. In this spirit, we are proposing a Ph.D. program that will compete directly with doctoral programs in other top-tier business schools. The proposed management Ph.D. will recruit and develop a small number of researchers and scholars for faculty positions at other universities rather than returning to industry. Thus, the admission standards for the proposed Ph.D. program will emphasize scholarly research potential. The admissions decisions will be made by our faculty using a different process and criteria than those applied by our MBA admissions office. We expect our Ph.D. students, like our faculty, to be capable of competing for journal space with faculty in economics, statistics, psychology, and management. We will therefore only admit Ph.D. students that are likely to excel, not just survive, in related disciplinary Ph.D. courses.

Management Ph.D. students will enhance rather than diminish the educational experience of Rice graduate students of other disciplines since they will bring new perspectives and broader interests to courses in economics, statistics, and psychology. We will also welcome graduate students from other programs to our proposed doctoral courses. Together, we are committed to “pathbreaking research, unsurpassed teaching, and contribution to the betterment of our world.”

Bill Glick

Dean, Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Management

Editorial statements

reveal arrogance#

To the editor:

Your editorial concerning how a potential Ph.D. program at the Jones Graduate School of Management will dumb down Rice is wrong (“Management Ph.D. must meet university standard,” Aug. 24).

First of all, to draw conclusions from theses about which you have only vague opinions rather than hard evidence, such as admission standards at the Jones School, is irresponsible and, ironically, one of the first things you will learn as a graduate student.

Let me be the first to tell you that we have students from Duke, Harvard and the Indian Institute of Technology, institutions more selective than Rice. We have students who have already earned a Ph.D. degree. We have many students who are Rice alumni, from the engineering, computer science and music schools. I have two master’s degrees in history, one from Johns Hopkins University — a program not exactly suffering due to competition from Rice. All of the students in my courses — with years of industry experience — enhance my learning of, and appreciation for, differing points of view. Take a lesson.

How adding a Ph.D. program to a school that already has one of the best finance faculties in the world will threaten Rice’s elite undergraduate reputation, or its growing graduate programs, is a bit of a puzzle to me. It is arrogant and grossly irresponsible for you to alienate an entire segment of this great university by suggesting such a thing. The degree certificate my colleagues are earning will display the same university name as the one you are earning. We both have a right to be proud of that fact, not just you.

Jon L. Albee

Professional MBA

Class of 2008

Attacks on wealthy not black and white

To the editor:

In his guest column in last week’s Thresher, Ian Ragsdale argues that we “rarely” hear “complaints about those big-bucks black holes” who form such a destructive force in American society (“Exploring the true drains on American society,” Aug. 24). While I agree that the filthy rich can be and often are causes of major political problems, I find it unbelievable that Ragsdale has not heard anyone complain about them. After all, this is the country where people have a fit of rage when they hear the phrase “tax cuts for the rich.” This is the country where Enron CEO Kenneth Lay’s disaster made headlines for months. This is the still the same country where former President Bill Clinton got in enormous trouble after giving a presidential pardon to famed tax evader and Swiss banking fan Marc Rich.

In today’s America, where presidential candidates holler about “two Americas” and “big business’s return” and the enormous income gap, I think it is pretty hard to find people who consider burned-out hippies and welfare leeches to be our biggest problems. Rich folks do an enormous amount of good for the world, with programs like the Gates Foundation, the Ansari X Prize and Khosla Ventures. But, rather than being ignored or even liked in this country, they get a pretty lousy rap. And folks like Ken Lay, Marc Rich and Jack Abramoff are certainly well-recognized as the “drains on society” that Ragsdale rightly says they are.

Brian Reinhart

Wiess freshman

End of article

Back to top