COLUMN: Will we let the `Student Center' take over student life, bit by bit?

---

by Christof Spieler

---

But ignoring it won't make it go away. In fact, it's consolidating its position, slowly but surely taking over Rice institutions we take for granted.

There are now four people in the Student Center Office next to the Pub, twice as many as two years ago. Only one of them is occupied with reservations and building maintenance. That staff time has to go somewhere: meetings, meetings and more meetings. Here's what they're meeting about:

* Orientation Week. Freshman orientation has been student-run at the college level for a long time. Now we have a central O-Week super-coordinator, a huge number of meetings between the college coordinators and a lot more bureaucracy. The result? Jacks have become more personal, arbitrary fines are draining college budgets, and I haven't seen evidence to suggest freshmen are getting a better introduction to the university.

In case you haven't guessed, the new central O-Week committee is advised by the Student Center staff and is now chaired by Associate Director Lisa Jones. Isn't it ironic?

* RSVP. Founded with virtually no administrative support, the Rice Student Volunteer Program quickly grew into one of the most successful student organizations on campus, a low-overhead clearinghouse of volunteer opportunities.

Now its office has become the Community Involvement Center, staffed with two full-time Student Affairs professionals (considered part of the Student Center staff) in addition to interns and student assistants.

So we have an administrative office serving the same functions as the old RSVP (albeit with several times as many person-hours) and doing its best to meddle in the remaining student-run volunteer organizations (Habitat for Humanity, Best Buddies, etc.).

* SCAB. The Student Center Advisory Board was founded for just that purpose: to advise the Student Center. It's rarely consulted, however, when important decisions are made.

Instead, it hosts second-rate comedy shows. SCAB is a quite competent organization, but programming is why we have the student-run Rice Program Council (which, incidentally, is now advised by the Student Center staff). I know what I'm talking about; I'm one of the original SCAB members and was improvements chair until last fall.

* Willy's Pub. Until recently, Director of Student Activities Sarah Nelson Crawford advised the Pub, taking a fairly hands-off role toward one of Rice's most popular student-run institutions. Now it's the Student Center staff, and while they haven't brought any improvements, they have brought bureaucracy.

For example, the Thresher always traded advertising space every week in exchange for food at Wednesday lunch meetings and discounted pitchers. Now, the Pub writes us a check every week, and we write them a check in return.

Lisa Jones, it seems, feels it's better accounting procedure. Why it matters, no one knows. (The cheap beer is still on hiatus.) By the way, the CoffeeHouse is now being advised by the Student Center staff, too. Be worried.

* Student media. Rice has a proud tradition of student-run media: the Thresher , the Campanile and KTRU all have no faculty adviser. Now there's a committee appointed for KTRU, and we're getting a new "media adviser."

Such an adviser may bring some benefit to the Campanile , which has had continuity problems in recent years, but there are only potential downsides for the newspaper and radio station.

The intent is for the adviser to take no editorial role, but we can't count on that, especially if future university administrations want to censor content. As Cathi Clack of Multicultural Affairs has shown, there are plenty of administrators who do.

Students still have a lot of power, but every time they lose (or give) a bit of it to administrative staff they'll never get it back again.

Moreover, the more professional staff members we get, the more politicized the campus becomes.

RSVP used to sponsor projects where students got out and helped people; now they're making students aware of the "politics of poverty." We have innumerable awareness weeks (free soft drinks in the Pub, as we all know, can cure any problem). We must be preached to. Never mind that no one listens.

For the record, I've mentioned three more positions of misguided authority ... and there are probably more on the way. That's a lot of money for things few students seem to want.

Meanwhile, the Student Center, pleading funding problems, has considered cutting back hours and maintains minimum hours during holidays. Why not use one of those positions to hire a night watchman? Maybe that's too sensible.

Besides, these Student Affairs Professionals (SAPs) are dangerous. Yes, they're well-meaning and nice people to boot, but that's the problem.

They think they're acting in our best interests: In fact, their graduate degrees may well convince them that they know what we want better than we do. Besides, they seem like such nice people -- they must be on our side, right? Don't believe it.

The problem here is not the members of the Student Center staff; it's that their positions exist at all. It's their job to exert this sort of influence. (There's a reason they were hired.)

This is not what Rice is about. Unlike many universities, students have had real power here, and many of our best institutions -- the CoffeeHouse, Valhalla, KTRU, the college system itself -- were founded or nurtured by students.

I'm worried that we're losing that. We don't need SAPs to do what students can do just as well (and probably better).

Students need to take a stand before this goes too far, and Rice needs to realize that, strange as it may seem, it may not be in the interest of the students to give Student Activities the monies and positions they request.

Christof Spieler is the graphics editor and a Sid Richardson College senior.

This item appeared in the Opinion section of the January 31, 1997 issue.

Copyright © 1996 The Rice Thresher. All Rights Reserved.
This document may be distributed electronically, provided that it is distributed in its entirety and includes this notice. However, it cannot be reprinted without the express written permission of:
The Rice Thresher, Rice University, 6100 Main, Houston, TX 77005-1892, USA.