New syllabus rules a step in the right direction
A new rule has made syllabus distribution a requirement for professors on the first day of classes (See story in NEWS). Syllabi are the roadmap that professors and students follow in their journey of higher learning. Most professors do their due diligence and post their syllabi on Owlspace before their classes, but some do not. Rice University and the Student Association widely standardized this practice by mandating it across all departments. Rice plans on archiving these syllabi online.
This presents several benefits. First, potential employers will now no longer have to play a guessing game when evaluating the relevant coursework of a job applicant. Second, this principle holds true for transfer credits to other institutions as well. Finally, the new system will allow students far more information when shopping around for classes. This will not only help undergrads make better choices but will also reduce the elaborate first-week ritual of class selection that causes unnecessary stress and paperwork.
All this is great, but as Alec Baldwin famously said in Glengarry Glen Ross, "Always be closing."
None of these great aspects of the syllabus plan will come to fruition if the university does not follow through with what it has promised to do. The Thresher urges it to do so at the quickest possible speed possible.
More from The Rice Thresher
Do more to make campus bird-friendly
April is the month of many things: Beer Bike, a solar eclipse, the last day of classes and, perhaps lesser known, Earth Month. As Rice launches a series of Earth Month events, I would like to address our potential as a campus community to be more environmentally conscious, particularly in an effort to make this campus more friendly to birds.
Take time for yourself during the summer
The academic year’s close means this issue will be our last until the fall semester, which gave us some time to reflect on what our editorial for our last issue should look like.
Student activism is working – and fear-mongering cannot hold us back
S.RES 02, titled “Student Association Boycott and Divestment from Corporations Complicit in the Ongoing Genocide in Gaza,” was presented to the Student Association on March 25. This resolution proposes the creation of an Ethical Spending Advisory Board designed to ensure that Blanket Tax funds are not dedicated to corporations that are complicit in Israeli colonial violence and apartheid based on guidelines created by the BDS movement.
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