Letters to the Editor

By Rice Editorial Staff     9/11/13 7:00pm

To the Editor,

 

I find it troubling that the Rice community was blindsided with a sudden space reduction in West Lots 2 and 3, compounding the already worsened parking situation as a result of the Anderson-Clarke Center, the new building for the Susanne M. Glasscock School of Continuing Studies ("West Lot construction impacts parking, bus routes," September 6, 2013).

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With the increased crime around campus during the evening hours, my primary concern is the safety of our students and faculty. Instructing commuters to park farther away, near the stadium, does not reassure the young women and men of our community that they will be safe on their long walk to and from the shuttle stops. Many of us have obligations that disallow us from accessing our vehicles until it is past dusk.

It also concerns me that at an astonishing $460 per permit, the Parking Office suggested that West Lot commuters park at a significant distance from the lot for which they purchased a permit. If students and faculty are to sacrifice their safety, Parking should organize shuttles to run in the evening hours to all lots.

I think it is feasible, and certainly reasonable, to allow parking in the Visitor Lot in front of the Shepherd School of Music. This lot is often mostly empty, and I think it would be a fair compromise to allow West Lot permit holders to find space in the Visitor Lot.

I am sure Parking is well aware that the Rice University community continues to grow, and that space is tight. I hope whomever it may concern considers building a garage or suspending construction until a garage has been built.

 

Rachel L. Wong is a 

senior at Brown College.

 

To the Editor,

 

I read with great interest Asiya Kazi's article "School of Humanities departments relocated" (August 28, 2013). I particularly enjoyed the discussion between Dean of the School of Humanities Nicolas Shumway and undergraduate Asian studies major William Otter about the Chao Center for Asian Studies' move from the Office of the Provost to the School of Humanities. In the exchange, neither individual acknowledges that Asian studies is actually a discipline itself, like sociology or mechanical engineering, with a long history rooted in national defense.

Asian studies, the discipline, is institutionalized in many different ways. At Yale University, it is called the Program in East Asian Studies; at New York University, it is a Department of East Asian Studies; many other schools choose what Rice University has done, which is to create a center. Program, department or center, it is all one discipline, Asian studies, and includes specialists in history, sociology, anthropology, political science, art, languages and demography. The discipline of Asian studies may be housed in either the humanities or the social sciences division of a university, but it belongs under an academic dean where administration is most routinized. 

Regardless of centers of gravity or institutional expediency (my discipline, history, is classified as either humanities or social sciences, depending, yes, on the history of the given university) or worries about the CCAS's relation to the Baker Institute for Public Policy, the fact is that Asian studies is a thing in itself. 

What sort of thing is it? Asian studies - the discipline - is multidisciplinary both foundationally and by design. That is because the United States federal government funded and established it, and the idea in the 20th century was that U.S. citizens should know as much about the world - languages, geography, population, ways of life, thought - as possible.  Over time, because Asian studies became so well-established, we also teach our students to think about the concept of "Asia" as well as encourage them to go to countries, learn languages and study population, history and literature. The concept of "Asia" is not stable and has a long intellectual history of its own. We teach these disciplines and core concepts no matter what division or office handles our administration. Finally, the CCAS will remain a center because, as Otter points out, Rice students take Asian studies as a second major, and given our university's small Asian studies faculty, there is no reason to create a department. 

One final thing: Over in the engineering quad, on the second floor of the old Mechanical Laboratory building, is the bright, renovated, cheerful physical space of the CCAS. There you will find scholars who have a collective experience of almost a century in the discipline of Asian studies. Associate Director of the CCAS Dr. Haejin E. Koh is a Koreanist with a doctorate in linguistics and a master's in Asian studies. We have four postdoctoral fellows and one researcher who are specialists in Chinese digital literature and databasing, global and transnational media, family dynamics within socio-cultural contexts, critical race theory and popular religion among diasporic Asian communities. Collectively, their doctoral degrees are in literature, language, sociology, women's studies and anthropology. I myself have 25 years teaching in history departments in four different universities where the department was either in the humanities or social sciences division and yet always remained itself, a department of history. Otter's activism, and the activism of students who will follow in his footsteps, will determine what sort of courses are offered at the CCAS and what kind of intellectual direction the center will take. I welcome Shumway, Dean of the School of Social Sciences Lyn Ragsdale, Otter and all interested Rice students to visit the CCAS, and I encourage students concerned about Asia and the CCAS to lobby for courses that directly interest them.

 

Tani Barlow is the

director of the Chao Center for Asian Studies

and a professor of history.

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