Resolution considered

By Ellen Liu     9/9/10 7:00pm

The members of the Student Association, decked out in "BRO-wear," gathered in the Farnsworth Pavilion Sept. 6 for smoothies, backslaps and something more serious: discussion of the Student-Administration Relations Resolution.This resolution was introduced at the Aug. 30 SA meeting by Duncan College junior Kevin Bush and is sponsored by SA President Selim Sheikh. The purpose of the proposition is enumerated at the beginning of the document: "To Disapprove of the Secretive Process Employed During the Sale of KTRU-FM; To Call for a Collaborative Dialogue Between Student Stakeholders and the Rice Administration."

"The heart of the resolution is basically the sense that, within a process of any kind of major student initiative, there must be some form of student input," Sheikh, a Martel College senior, said.

Bush, who is one of KTRU's music directors, said that he wanted to pursue action through the SA as soon as he heard about the sale of the transmitter.

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"I was prompted to write the resolution by the administration's circumvention of student input during the sale of KTRU, but my underlying motivation for creating it is greater than KTRU," Bush said.

Bush said the process the administration took to sell the transmitter brings up troubling issues about student-administration relations at Rice.

"I oppose how they ignored student input in making this decision and hope that the Student Association will join me in my belief," Bush said. "The sale is an egregious violation of the integrity of the student-administration relationship here at Rice, and it demands immediate action. I would've written something even if I wasn't part of KTRU leadership."

Since its introduction, the resolution has raised both support and skepticism in the Rice student body.

Brown College sophomore Josh Corey agreed that the scale of the issue extends beyond KTRU's sale.

"[The conflict] is not only about KTRU," Corey said. "It's about the way the administration handled the problem."

However, Martel College sophomore Anna Meriano was unsure the resolution would solve any problems.

"If the whole issue is that the administration isn't communicating with [students], how will a student-made resolution solve the problem?" she said.

When the resolution was discussed again at the SA meeting Sept. 6 in a discussion led by SA Parliamentarian Jonathan Stewart, debate arose. There was a motion to strike a line that read, "WHEREAS, hundreds of Rice students have viewed KTRU as an essential part of their undergraduate experiences since the station was established in 1967," because the statement was viewed as irrelevant to the overall document. In response, Bush said the line demonstrated the importance of student input when changing valuable traditions and initiatives. Ultimately, the motion passed and the line was removed from the final resolution.

A second motion was introduced to add the words "or initiative" to the phrase "student organizations" because some senate members felt that "student organizations" made the resolution's focus too narrow. After additional dialogue about the specific wording of the document, this amendment also passed.

With the conclusion of discussion, several senate members expressed a desire to suspend the rule that requires the senate to wait two weeks after a resolution's introduction before voting on it. They said that the resolution was time-sensitive and was extremely relevant to current events, making its passage more likely to elicit opinions and reactions.

"We wanted to expedite the process because we want to show that this sort of thing cannot happen in the future," Sheikh said. "The Student Association wants to be proactive as opposed to reactive."

However, the motion to suspend the waiting rule fell one vote short of the two-thirds majority of the SA leadership needed, so the Student-Administration Relations Resolution will be voted on at the Student Senate meeting next Monday.

Bush attributed the motion's failure to the beliefs of some senators that the resolution was too "KTRU-centric."

"I ask students not to allow their personal opinions of KTRU to cause them to overlook the bigger, more troubling issue at hand," Bush said.

Despite the delay, Bush said he is optimistic about the success of the resolution.

"I am disappointed that the Student Association didn't want to move forward this Monday, but still confident that they will eventually join me in disapproving of the administration's actions," Bush said.

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