SAC makes changes to tours

By Rachel Carlson     9/25/08 7:00pm

Love it or hate it, most students remember their Rice campus tour. Due to a series of changes to the Student Admissions Council this year, hundreds of students may now experience essentially the same tour regardless of the tour guide. Guides will now be paid, follow a script and dress code and will be hired by faculty rather than by a student panel. Changes to the SAC most significantly affect the campus tour program, in which current Rice students guide visitors on an informative walk around campus. Associate Director of Admission Fitima Jackson said tour guides will now be paid per hour, instead of volunteering for the activity. Aesthetic changes have occurred as well. Instead of blue t-shirts bearing the SAC logo, guides will wear a more professional polo with "tour guide" on the breast pocket. Additionally, tour guides are provided with a training handbook to prime them on features of the developing campus.

"What we've done is taken the same campus tour manual and just updated it to make sure tour guides are well-equipped to answer any questions on tours," Jackson said. "For instance, the new manual gives [tour guides] the information they need to answer questions about construction."

Jackson said the training program for new tour guides has also been modified. All tour guides, including those returning from last year, are required to complete training. This year's sessions took place during two afternoons in September and followed a retreat format. Jackson said training involved informative briefings and activities, including discussions with seasoned tour guides about their past experiences. Additionally, guides completed a mock tour of campus, which allowed them to practice with a supervisor before confronting visitors.

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"An hour of training is not enough to push you out there to start communicating about Rice," Jackson said.

Hanszen College senior Eric Silberman said training during previous years was more student-directed and informal.

The application process for tour guides has been revamped. In previous years, experienced students were not required to reapply to the SAC. This year, all students desiring to be tour guides had to submit applications, which asked for faculty references and contained several essay questions. Also, applicant interviews were conducted by faculty this year, whereas a student panel performed interviews in the past.

SAC Director Kevin Sigerman said interviews from faculty eliminated the threat of student bias.

"In the interviews, we wanted to make sure it was not just student run," Sigerman, a Lovett College junior, said. "We wanted to professionalize and elevate it, to make sure students weren't just picking who they knew."

Silberman said the application process reflects greater faculty regulation of the SAC. He said this differs from past years, when Rice students were solely responsible for interviewing new tour guide applicants, training the new guides and setting tour schedules.

"The SAC used to be very much run by students, and the students have been progressively phased out, but there was a big jump this year," Silbeman said.

Silberman said he knew at least eight former tour guides from Hanszen who did not reapply as tour guides.

"Some don't want to be paid, some don't want to jump through the hoops of reapplying, some for other reasons," Silberman said.

Former Chair of Tours Sam Banon, who did not return this year due to schedule restraints, said he was wary of the reapplication requirement at first, but now considers it to be reasonable.

"They have changed so much that everybody who wants to [give tours] should find out more information by talking with somebody," Banon, a Hanszen senior, said. "Returning guides who want to do the same things that they've always done might run into problems."

Jackson said the SAC interviewed about 40 tour guide applicants this year, and finally selected around 20 sophomores, juniors and seniors. She said the requirement to reapply was reasonable, and was designed to reveal students' dedicated interest in the SAC.

"We wanted [applicants] to be enthusiastic and invested," Jackson said. "We thought that with rolling out new modifications, all students might not be committed to the vision of Rice University . There were a lot of returning tour guides who did resubmit, those who were fully committed and interested in being part of change and working with the admissions office to move into Rice's Vision for the Second Century."

Sigerman said he does not believe this new policy will negatively impact the SAC.

"The tour guide program is not going to suffer because certain students decided not to reapply," Sigerman said.

Banon said it might be too soon to tell what kind of impact these changes will have on the SAC and campus tours.

"Things have certainly changed, but the jury's still out," Banon said.

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