The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 85, No. 21, Ed. 1 Friday, March 13, 1998 Page: 2 of 24
twenty four pages : ill. ; page 19 x 15 in.View a full description of this newspaper.
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Opinion!
Getting KTRU's
back on
It's difficult to applaud a change that may increase university
control over a student organization. The KTRU staff, in particular,
seem to be of two minds about the university's recent hiring of a
professional general manager—Will Robedee, who currently holds
a similar position at the State University of New York, New Paltz
to oversee the station. Although the station fears administration
involvement in the station's programming, KTRU leadership be-
lieves Robedee will strive to act as an advocate for the station, rather
than as a university appointed Big Brother. *
KTRU suffers from lack of student input more than anything else.
To help make KTRU more of a student station, and more of a Rice
station, Robedees's first priority when he begins work this summer
should be to make it possible for Rice students to actually hear their
radio station on campus.
KTRU's 50,000-watt signal, broadcast from an antenna north of
Houston, is blocked by downtown skyscrapers which lie between
the Rice campus and the antenna. In the Thresher office, only a few
feet from the broadcast booth, KTRU comes through as garbled
static. In Beaumont it sounds great.
Student interest in KTRU, and student understanding of the
station will increase with better reception. KTRU is already one of
the largest student organizations on campus, with over 80 DJs and
other staff, the vast majority of whom are students (some DJs are
listeners from the Houston community). But many students com-
plain about KTRU's irrelevance to the Rice community, because
they say the music KTRU plays is too obscure and annoying. The
simple fact that so many Rice students are involved in the radio
station indicates that whatever music goes on the air reflects student
life at Rice — even when it is 1H minutes of bongo drums.
A possible solution to the "shadow" cast by downtown is the
construction of a smaller antenna to serve the Rice/Montrose area
exclusively. The new general manager should head the effort to
make this - - or any other workable solution — a reality.
Hiring a general manager to oversee projects such as this one
should free students to focus on programming.
KTRU's general manager should help to coordinate with other
university organizations, such as the Shepherd School of Music and
the Athletic Department, but only if KTRU's student leadership
wants to program more university content. Although KTRU is
unique among student organizations because it is completely depen-'
dent on university funding, it would be a shame if KTRU became a
forum for university propaganda. But if the student body and the
station want KTRU to broadcast lectures or Owls'games, then KTRU
should have the infrastructure it needs to put them on the air.
KTRU will move this summer from the Student Center to new
quarters in Mudd bib, where the university hopes it will begin
broadcasting over the Internet and undertaking other high-tech
projects. But first and foremost, Robedee and KTRU should find a
solution to the blocked signal problem. Rice students should be able
to hear their own radio station on campus.
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SATOKO IGARASMi
Food in the library
Hie staff at Fondren Library seems lately to be making a more
concerted effort to crack down on students who break library rules
by taking food into the library. The reason for heightened enforce-
ment of the oft-ignored rule is that students have recently been
leaving Fondren littered with soda cans, food debrisand othertrash.
Things werdi't always this way, of course. Up until 1957, when the
Student Center and Sammy's opened, Fondren Library's basement
played home to both the Campus Store and the Roost, a small soda
fountain/coffeeshop. The idea of a coffeeshop in the library base-
ment may seem odd today, but the cozy Roost was more popular in
those pre college system days than sterile Sammy's has ever been.
Fondren staff are certainly justified in taking action if students are
making a mess of the library, but it would be refreshing to see a more
thoughtful solution, especially since Fondren will likely undergo
renovation sometime in the next couple of years.
Students spending the night at the library to study or hash out a
paper need food to fuel their bodies through the early morning
hours, and after Sammy's closes at midnight they don't really have
any alternative but whatever they smuggle into the library with
them. As another option, what about setting up a small lounge
somewhere irt the library and equipping it with snack and drink
machines (including coffee), a microwave and refrigerator, and
enough space for students to relax for a few minutes and enjoy their
snacks? Studentscould quiet thoseguawing late nighthunger pains,
and the library would be a cleaner place.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
KTRU staff addresses
management change
To the editor:
There lias been a lot of specula-
tion and confusion in the past year
or so about possjhle.changes occur-
ring at KTRU. Various rumors have
been floating around the Houston
community about university crack-
downs, corporate takeovers and
massive programming changes. We,
the KTRl) staff, are writing to set the
record straight.
KTRU (pronounced kay-true)
91.7 FM is the student-run radio
station of Rice University. As a
noncommerical educational station
with a signal that covers one of the
nation's largest cities, we are in a
unique position to provide the
greater Houston area with underex-
posed music and ideas not available
from mainstream media. Created by
students in the early '70s, KTRU has
gradually grown over the years from
a hu ruble on campus carrier current
to the 50,000 watt FM station that it
is today. Through its 27 years, KrRU
has been entirely student managed
and operated with minimal interven-
tion from either the faculty or ad-
ministration.
Certain aspects of KTRU's op-
erations, however, are in the pro-
cess of changing. In May 1996, Presi-
dent Malcolm Gillis formed a com-
mittee to reassess'KTRU's position
within the university. The commit-
tee, which included two KT RU staff
members and other members of the
Rice community, issued its recom-
mendations at the end oMhe 1997
spring semester. One of these rec-
ommendations was to hire a full-
time professional general manager
to serve as an advisor to the stu-
dents at KTRU and a liason between
the students and the rest of the uni-
versity.
In late May 1997, another univer-
sity-wide committee, which also in-
cluded two KTRU staff members,
was formed to search for someone
to fill this new position. On July I,
1998, Will Robedee tlf New Paltz,
N.Y. will become the first profes-
sional general manager qf KTRU.
We believe that this new position
will allow us to broaden and enrich
KTRU's programming. As full-time
university students with exceedingly
heavy work loads, KTRU's volun-
teer staff has always been limited in
what it could accomplish. Hopefully,
by shifting the day-to-day tasks in-
volved in running a radio station
(such as Federal Communications
Commission compliance and disc
jockey management) onto a full-time
administrator, the students will be
able to focus on what really counts
— our programming. Most of what
KTRU broadcasts is music, but we
would also like to include news,
community events, lectures and
.concerts given on campus. We also
look forward to increased collabo-
ration with community organiza-
tions like Diverseworks and
MFC A.
On the other hand, we fear that
the new general manager posit ion is
just the first of a long series of at-
tempts by the university administra-
tion to gradually take KTRU out of
the students' hands, We understand
that this is an extreme situation, but
we also recognize that it is a real
possibility. What we-are more wor-
ried about is'that, as generations of
students,come and go, the general
manager position may gradually —
albeit with the best of intentions —
come to dominate the station's op-
eration, until one day KTRU will no
longer be truly student-run.
While we are aware of the poten-
tial dangers involved in hiring a
general manager,^we believe that
the changes occurring at KTRU are
for the best. We are confident that
these changes will allow us to ex-
pand the .scope of KTRU's activi-
ties without significantly changing
its essential character by allowing
it to remain a radio station run by
the students of Rice University.
Heather Colvin
. Sid sophomore
Station manager
Kevin Knight
Will Rice senior
Jazz director
Maggie Large
Hanszen senior
Music director
JeffSmith
Brown '97
Music director emeritus
KTRIJ
Discussion'ignores
misguided Cuba policy
To the editor:
It is debatable how much inac-
tivity is necessary to qualify as apa-
thy, but I for'one have been waiting
for a long time to see some discus-
sion about international affairs in
the pages of this newspaper. I may
have missed it, but I haven't seen
any discussion about the relation-
ship between the United States and
Cuba, even though in "Beyond the
Hedges" it has become a regular
topic of discussion, sparked by the
Pope's.recent visit to Cuba. I found
it surprising that, on a campus suj>
posedly concerned about justice
and human rights, no opinions
were voiced in the Thresher con-
cerning the antagonistic relation-
ship between the United States and
Cuba.
The Iraq crisis has been going
on for weeks, but it was only re-
cently that the topic reached the
pages of the Thresher ("Iraq situa-
tion prompts student activism,"
Feb. 20). Disappointingly, however,
the recent articles (with the excep-
tion of a letter from a freshman)
focus on defending the student
body from accusations of being
apathetic, rather than voicing an
opinion about Iraq and the pros-
pect of war and stimulating discus-
sion.
I don't want to fall into that trap,
so I'll express my opinions clearly:
the United States embargo against
Cuba is an absurd piece of foreign
policy that is hurting the people of
Cuba, holding back U.S. compa-
nies that want to do business with
Cuba and straining relations be-
tween the U.S. and other countries
more sympathetic to Cuba. Iraq
does pose a potential threat to
neighboring countries, but the cur-
rent U.S. policy against Iraq is only
hurting the ordinary people of Iraq
and not achieving the goal of con-
trolling a military threat,
Eugenia L. dejiostos
Assistant professor
Department of Biochemistry and
Cell Biology
CONTACTING THE
THRESHER
Letters
■ Letters to the editor
should be sent to the Thresher
by mail, fax, e-mail to
thresher@rice.edu or be deliv-
ered in person. We prefer that
letters be submitted on disk
or by e-mail, letters must be
received by 5 p.m. on the Mon-
day prior to a Friday publica-
tion date.
■ All letters must be signed
and include a phone number.
Rice students and alumni must
include their college and year.
We will withhold names upon
request.
■ Letters should be no
longer than 500 words in
length. The Thresher reserves
the right to edit letters for
both content and length.
News Tips
W Tips for possible news sto-
ries should be phoned in to
the ThresheraX (713) 527-4801.
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Hardi, Joel. The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 85, No. 21, Ed. 1 Friday, March 13, 1998, newspaper, March 13, 1998; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth246617/m1/2/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Rice University Woodson Research Center.