The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 77, No. 14, Ed. 1 Friday, December 8, 1989 Page: 1 of 16
sixteen pages : ill. ; page 19 x 15 in.View a full description of this newspaper.
Extracted Text
The following text was automatically extracted from the image on this page using optical character recognition software:
uJ%& fib!?.. ??74
SINCE 1911
" vs.
wKRs
¥|fc(irv!5S
y-•"#Sw' *9wwm- A
VOLUME 77, NO, 14
DECADE OF DECADENCE
!..J:| I JUJU.' .
Lovett president files complaint
Dominguez charges college secretaries with peer harassment
by Greg Kahn
Mari Dominguez, the President
of Lovett College, has filed a com-
plaint to the University Court of Rice
University charging the secretaries
of Lovett, Elaine Howard and Tim
Graves, with peer harassment The
complaint was lodged because of the
content of the college minutes, ac-
cording to several members of Lov-
ett College.
"Mari filed a complaint of peer
harassment and defamation of char-
acter," said Susan Wood, Master of
Lovett. "There is a lot of erroneous
information floating around that she
complained of sexual harassment,
but that isn't the case."
Dominguez, Howard and Graves
were not available for comment on
the case at press time.
George Thomas, Chairman of the
University Court, would not com-
ment on the specifics of the case.
However, he did state that the court
"will try and get this taken care of this
semester. It will be difficult because
we have two trials scheduled for
[next week] already, and we have to
deal with people preparing to take
final exams. For the process to be-
gin, we have to have seven justices of
the 14 eligible, and that might be
hard to work out [by the end of the
semester]."
Thomas said that the University
Court begins proceedings with a pre-
trial, where the defendants and their
court-appointed ombudsman are
brought before the justices and pre-
sented with the charges. "The defen-
dants have three options at a pre-
trial. They can choose to have the
case referred to the Dean of Stu-
dents, they can plead guilty to the
charges and accept the sentence
given by the court, or they can
choose to bring the proceedings to a
full trial."
The complaint was registered
because of the controversial nature
of the Lovett CC minutes, written by
Howard and Graves and distributed
throughout the college. The two
secretaries, in a letter given to the
members of Lovett and college sec-
retaries across campus, admitted
making "insulting" references to
Dominguez. The examples listed in
the letter were sexually oriented, but
Howard and Graves vehemently
denied any kind of sexual harass-
ment Graves said Wednesday eve-
ning that at the time the letter was
written they were under the mis-
taken impression that Dominguez
was filing charges for sexual harass-
ment instead of peer harassment and
defamation of character.
"I talked to Elaine and Tim earlier
in the year after this issue had come
up, and told them that they were in
danger of violating the code of peer
harassment" Wood said. "I said they
needed to use good judgement and
that they needed to think about not
Rice selected to host
1990 Economic Summit
by Tr£ Fischer
At a Friday morning press confer-
ence, President George Rupp an-
nounced that Rice will host the for-
mal sessions of the July 1990 interna-
tional economic summit, a confer-
ence between the heads of state of
the world's largest industrial democ-
racies: Canada, France, Great Brit-
ain, Italy, Japan, the United States
and West Germany.
The summit will be held July 9-11,
a Monday through Wednesday. An
estimated 4,000 to 8,000government
officials and journalists, who will
spend an estimated $20 million, are
expected to descend upon the city
for the event
Before and during the summit,
some buildings on campus will be
open only for summit business.
Additionally, the administration will
provide those buildings, as well as
labor and food for the delegations,
for no cost
The publicity that will accompany
the summit which will draw an esti-
mated 3500 journalists, is why the
administration is willing to make
financial and space sacrifices.
"This is a wonderful opportunity
SEE PAGE 8
writing the same kind of minutes in
the future.
"The New Student Code of Con-
duct, which I helped work on, has
specific statutes against peer harass-
ment," she added. "Throughout the
semester, Mari and some other
people who were referred to in the
minutes have complained about the
style they were written in. On Mon-
day, our CC met and discussed the
issue of the minutes. There were
many more people there than usual.
No vote was taken, but it seemed to
me...that the consensus was to cool
it to stop the vicious attacks in the
minutes...! don't know how divided
Lovett is right now. It is a bad situ-
ation — very unpleasant to say the
least"
"It's a tradition at Lovett to give
the president a lot of crap in the
minutes," Lovett senior Pat Morrow
said. "(1988-89 Lovett President]
Mark Norman took a lot of stuff last
year, and he took it pretty well... But
I guess I can understand why Mari's
Lovett College President Mari Dominguez at a Student Association meeting.
Dominguez has filed a harassment complaint against the Lovett secretaries.
so upset, because she did ask them
to cut it out and they refused."
Lovett senior Vaiarie Mattice,
Dominguez's roommate, said that
she did not read the minutes any-
more "because I don't get anything
out of them. They don't tell you what
happened at the meeting... Last year
the secretaries [ 1989 graduates Jon-
athon Furstonburg and Gene Rele-
vance] managed to write...minutes
in an unconventional way that still
told you what happened at the meet-
ings. I know that a lot of people read
the minutes, but 1 think a lot of
people have been turned off from the
secretaries."
The Lovett minutes seem to be
off-base to me," said senior Gilbert
Saldivar, secretary of Sid Richardson
College. "They're distributed all
over campus, and 1 think that the
secretaries there need a complete re-
evaluation of their whole job. Having
minutes like those undermines par-
SEE
PAGE 6
Students face another tuition increase
by Elise Perachio
At their December 5 meeting, the
Board of Governors decided to ac-
cept the proposal to raise tuition and
room and board. The tuition in-
crease for the 1990-91 academic year
will be $800 for undergraduates and
$1200 for graduate students. Those
increases represent a rate that is
13. l%higher for undergraduates and
19.7% higher for graduate students.
Room and board will increase by
$225.
Vice President for Finance and
Administration Dean Currie said,
"There was discussion about the
proposal during the meeting. No-
body likes to raise prices. The issue
of tuition is more central to the image
of Rice, so it merits discussion."
Currie gave several reasons why
graduate students will be charged a
higher tuition rate. "Graduate stu-
dents are more expensive to edu-
cate," he said. He also said that
graduate students generally could
bear a heavier burden of loans, be
cause "in some of the graduate pro-
fessional schools, the earning oppor-
tunities for graduates are significant
in relatively short periods after
graduation."Tuition for many gradu-
ate students at Rice is waived or
supported by grants and contracts
relieving those students of the need
to pay anything towards tuition, he
added.
He emphasized that the issue of
the increase will still be important for
some graduate students who do
Students,faculty excited to
host international summit
President George Rupp points out the area of the campus that will be utilized for
the International Economic Summit to be held this July.
by Tania van den Houten
The administration, faculty and
students have responded positively
because Rice will host the formal
sessions of the 1990 Economic
Summit Some students, however,
are concerned whether there is any
correlation between the "significant"
increase in tuition for the 1990-1991
year and the costs for having the
summit at Rice.
"I just think it's interesting that
Rice isnt going to be reimbursed for
its summit expenses and a 'signifi-
cant' increase was just announced,"
said junior Andrew Dunne.
According to the administration,
there is no connection between the
two. President Rupp announced
from his first months at Rice that the
tuition would increase steadily over
the years in order to pay for his
"enhancement program." In agree-
ing to provide buildings, labor, and
food for delegations at no cost, the
administration apparently felt the
11 osts and inconveniences of hosting
| Hie summit would be less than the
5 benefits that would accompany all
I • >ie media coverage.
| As Rupp states in his letter to the
Rice community, "Hosting this event
will allow us to contribute to a his-
toric set of meetings. At the same
time, the Summit will offer the op-
portunity for people around the
world to learn about Rice and to
appreciate its quality and beauty."
Sociology professor Steven Klin-
eberg added that Rice is thought of
as a secret and it is not what it used to
be. The 1990 Economic Summit will
be a "chance to show us off in a
wonderful context Although it may
be a pain and inconvenience to many
in the short run, in the long run it can
only be greatly beneficial," Klin-
eberg said.
He said students will receive the
rewards of and be enhanced by all
the media recognition Rice will re-
ceive. Klineberg added that Rice's
joining with Houston is a "powerful
manifestation of Rice's interdepend-
ence with the city and that it is also an
integral part of the city."
Political science professor Robert
Stein responded to student concern
abotit the cost of the summit by say-
ing it is an "enormous opportunity to
get national and world-wide cover-
age... The recognition that Rice will
get is worth millions and will pay off
in many unknown ways in the fu-
ture."
The newspaper, radio, and espe-
cially television coverage means that
SEE BCACrtCttS PAGE 5
have to pay it but that they should
not be discouraged from
applying. "The core idea of this insti-
tution was involved from the begin-
ning around providing education
regardless of the wealth of the poten-
tial student," he said.
Currie said this philosophy also
applies to the undergraduate stu-
dents. He said he thinks neither the
tuition increase this year nor the
potential for increases in the future
will affect the quality or quantity of
applicants. "A university can do
many things right, but if they don't
admit the right students then that's a
problem. The quality of the student
body is one of the few things by
which you can define a great univer-
sity. Rice exists in society to provide
an expensive education for bright,
able, and deserving people from
wherever, who may not have the
means to pay for that kind of educa-
tion," he said.
According to Currie, Dick Stebei
and Ron Moss have said this type of
tuition increase will not decrease the
quality of the incoming classes.
Currie said high school students
trying to decide among colleges and
universities will notice Rice's reputa-
tion for quality in all areas is increas-
ing and that there is still a difference
in price between Rice's tuition and
those of comparable schools.
Among other sources of informa-
tion, Currie used a table of average
tuition and fee increases from
schools such as Tulane, Harvard,
Duke and Trinity to project a tuition
increase for Rice which would re-
main low but would keep tuition at
20% of the entire budget for Rice.
Calculating back to 1978, Currie dis-
cover that students consistently paid
SEE
PAGE 7
i—jfeu, ■
! auc JPslSii '•
Mm
It's the end of the
decade as we know
it, and we feel fine,
IJie 80s best
Misclass
See page h
■ mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmKmsmm &-• *
Upcoming Pages
Here’s what’s next.
Search Inside
This issue can be searched. Note: Results may vary based on the legibility of text within the document.
Tools / Downloads
Get a copy of this page or view the extracted text.
Citing and Sharing
Basic information for referencing this web page. We also provide extended guidance on usage rights, references, copying or embedding.
Reference the current page of this Newspaper.
Kahn, Greg & Leedy, Sarah J. The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 77, No. 14, Ed. 1 Friday, December 8, 1989, newspaper, December 8, 1989; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth245737/m1/1/: accessed April 26, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Rice University Woodson Research Center.