New finance policy another deception

By Sean McBeath     10/9/08 7:00pm

Treasure these years. Because at the rapid rate things are changing, you won't recognize Rice at the end of your years here. Remember the school that you fell in love with during Owl Weekend? On your campus tour? When your brothers and sisters moved in five years ago? Kiss it all goodbye, because you're about to get hit with the full force of a reorganization nearly five years in the making.Some will argue that this is simply the next step in Rice's 10-year cycle of expansion. "It's natural," they will tell you. "This is how things are meant to happen." But what we as a student body are witnessing is not progressive thinking, but rather the result of an administration that consistently turns a deaf ear and a cold shoulder to the concerns and complaints of its student body.

I have complete faith in President David Leebron as a businessman, but this is not a business, it's a school. And for 3,000 of us, it's also home. The core of the issue is that the things that make us interesting are slowly being warped by steady changes in policy.

Take, for instance, the late Student Admission Council. I say "late," of course, because it's not really a Student Admission Council anymore - it's a Puppet Admission Council. We've become frontmen for the administration's thinly-veiled takeover of our student-run institution. Let's be honest: Updating the campus tour manual "to make sure tour-guides are well-equipped to answer any questions on tours" is a short step from handing out talking points.

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Frankly, it's appalling to think that we're letting ourselves become mouthpieces. And the few pieces of rhetoric I've read from Associate Director of Admission Fitima Jackson are frighteningly Orwellian in tone.

The Student Admission Council is not the only self-governing student organizations whose autonomy is in danger. Starting two years ago when the prospects for what were then affectionately known as "College 10" and "College 11" were released, it's been clear that Leebron has no love for the college system. Plans to make McMurtry and Duncan colleges into 400-student behemoths plowed through any and all questions, concerns and counter-arguments by students. They'll nearly double smaller colleges in size? Not a problem. They'll lack the coherence that makes the college system function in the first place? We never needed it anyway. It might not be obvious, but the introduction of the new colleges could very well be the beginning of the end for the college system as we know it.

Not worried yet? Maybe you read this headline in last week's issue: "More money, more problems: Upcoming account restructuring could restrict club financial autonomy." What does it mean? If you want to be sensationalist (which I do), it means this: Vice President for Finance Kathy Collins is going to steal your money. It's more complicated than that, but the endgame is that the funds that allow organizations at Rice (most prominently the colleges) to function will be stored under lock and key by Collins.

The essence of this system is that the freedom we enjoy right now, as colleges, could be stripped from us. Instead of functioning in blissful independence, we could have administrators looking over our shoulders at everything we purchase. Any purchase that our potential financiers don't approve of could be denied without second thought.

And the concerns of how our purchasing freedom could be restricted leave nothing to be said of the bureaucratic nightmare this system forces upon the students who volunteer to handle our funds.

These are just a few examples of how Rice's administration under President David Leebron is sidestepping the concerns of students to forge onwards. What we need right now isn't a Vision for the Second Century, but a revision: one in which the voices of students are hearkened to, not simply heard.

Because, while words and figures might make it seem like Bron-Bron's got our best interests at heart, I can't help but be skeptical of the commitment and dedication from a president who can't even correctly spell the names of all the colleges.

Sean McBeath is a Martel College junior and calendar editor.

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