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November 16, 2007 > Opinion > Give students power over distribution status

Give students power over distribution status

By The Rice Thresher Editorial Staff | Thresher Editorial Staff

Students do not have to make fun of Rice’s distribution system — it already makes a mockery of itself. After all, it cannot be taken seriously that, for some random reason, HIST 295: The American South counts for distribution credit, while HIST 265: American Revolution does not.

Many classes do not count for distribution credit not because they lack the necessary qualities, but because professors simply do not submit the applications for their courses to receive distribution status. After all, it is students, not professors, who are affected by distribution status. So, students should do the work: They should have some say in a class’ distribution status.

There needs to be an infrastructure put in place for students to appeal for classes to be given distribution status. We suggest that if a majority of students in a class sign a petition before midterms, the class must undergo the distribution approval process. This system would fix the seemingly random allocation of distribution credit and allow students to take classes based on what interests them rather than arbitrary distribution credits.

One way or another, the distribution system needs to make sense. And the best method would be one that follows the Rice tradition of putting responsibility in students’ hands.

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