•••Goes Bananas

# The /HTM >iwcei»i» VOLUME 75, NO. 2 IS THAT A BANANA YOU'RE ARRESTING OR ARE YOU JUST GLAD TO SEE ME? Rici e Thresher Counseling center changes organization to help students actively a six-month residency at the center. Danielle McWilliams. McWilliams, a by Lorie List One of the center's goals is to do recent graduate ofTeachers College, more research on students' attitudes Columbia University, began her du- A new name and new staff mem- and concerns. "It will help us pro- ties as Residence Life Counselor and bers transformed Rice Psychiatric gram [activities] better if we know Sid Richardson Residential Associ- Services into the Rice Counseling what issues are out there," Doran ate in late July. Center this summer. In July, psy- said. The position of Residence Life chologist Lindley Doran became the Counselor was created to integrate director of the new center. Doran We want to see people the center into student life and coor- spent the previous ten years at dinate its activities with the colleges Southern Methodist University as use us as consultants or organizations with similar objec- Associate Director of the Counseling tives or goals like Health Education. Center. to the whole academic While McWilliams is not a psycholo- Doran said the whole concept of environment.' gist, she recently received her MA the center has changed. Instead of in Student Personnel Administration utilizing one on one therapy like —Lindley Doran and has worked extensively with The Psychiatric Services, the staff will Julliard School in New York to de- now prepare programs to work within Doran said the center's emphasis velop its residence life program. \ the residential colleges. will shift from dealing mainly with McWilliams described her job as The Counseling Center added crisis problems to taking an active one which will provide a link between psychologists to the staff to increase part in teaching how to deal with students and the counseling center. the diversity of possible therapy. college students' typical develop- Through community-wide program- Psychologist Deborah Story has been mental problems before the prob- ming, McWilliams hopes to address hired as a full-time assistant director lems get out of control. needs and concerns before problems wmmm. and staff psychiatrist Stan Dean will "We want to see people use us as happen, rather than react to problems continue to work with the center. In consultants to the whole academic after they arise. addition, four psychiatrists from environment," Doran said. McWilliams said she can't yet Baylor College of Medicine will serve Another new staff member is predict the most prevalent problems at Rice. "I can't tell what Rice needs until I spend a lot of time here. I can't know what Rice needs until I know New Director of Rice Psychiatric Services Lindley Doran. SEE COUNSELORS, PAGE 7 Rice switches to 80% Houston water is land subsidence, slipping, and de- is being constructed. The new cool- by Louis Evan Spiegler terioration of the grou nd, all of wh ich ing tower is more efficient," said can be caused by depleted water Mack. "It has one-half the water Rice University began buying wells. \osses oi Xhe o\<J lower." water from the City of Houston to The effects of this change will not Student Association President mix with its own well water earlier be noticeable initially but will soon Mitra Miller said she is aware of the this summer in response to a strong have a small financial impact on the changes, but said, "If Rice doesn't recommendation by The Harris- Rice Community. have a choice, Rice doesn't have a Galveston Coastal Subsidence Dis- The university currently con- choice." She also mentioned a need trict. sumes 244 million gallons of water for a larger conservation effort. The Before the July 1 changeover, Rice per year, as much of a quarter of S.A. is organizing a campus-wide used its own water exclusively, but which is used for the colleges. In the conservation effort that will involve the University now uses a 2(W6-80% past the cost was negligible, but it not only water but electricity." mixture of well and city sources. now costs $5.94 per 1,000 gallons. Director of Student Activities The changeover was approved Part of this will be reflected in next Sarah Nelson Crawford said that it is Students struggle to haul a sofa up a flight of stairs in Hanszen College. by The Board of Governors and cost year's student housing costs, an in- important for students to "preserve The 624 new students arriving on campus this summer were selected $240,000. crease of a few dollars per month for what we have." from a record-setting 6028 applicants, up from 5289 last year. According to Bill Mack, Director students. Students are testing shower heads Some other stats: of Facilities and Engineering, the Food and Housing is aware of the that use less water. Crawford said •The male-to-female ratio has changed by only 1 percentage point; to university had no choice in the mat- increases and is putting some water that her office would be making an 59%to-41% from 60%-to-40%. ter. "The subsidence district board conservation measures into effect. effort to promote conservation, a so- •The class of 1995 includes 249 National Merit Scholars, asppposed said "you've got to stop using your There will be tighter control over the lution also supported by Miller and to 182 for the class of 1994. wells.'"The motivation for the change current cooling tower, and a new one the Physical Plant. • 132 of the new students were the valedictorians of their high school class. 74% were in the top 5% of their class and 83% were in the top 10%. • 192 of the students expressed an interest in science majors; 187 in University restructures NSCI courses majors in the humanities and social sciences; 185 in engineering; 37 in music; and 23 in architecture. Kinsey said that in last year's be given written multiple-choice tests •The middle 50%of the class spored between 1210 and 1430 on their by Peter Howley evaluations, "there didn't seem to be on lectures and readings. There will SATs. an overpowering sentiment that the be ten recitation sections of roughly •The distribution between Texas and out-of-state students is almost Natural Science (NSCI) 101 and smaller lecture format was better." 20 students each. exactly 50%-50%. Ten foreign countries are represented. 102 have been restructured for the "Student evaluations have been The recitation leaders will be •Tlie yield, or percentage of students accepting Rice's offer, also fourth time, said F. Curtis Michel of very influential in gu iding the course professors from the departments of increased this year, from 47% to 50%. the DepartmentofSpace Physics and Michel said. "We paid a lot of atten- Computer Science, Geology, Math- Dean of Admissions Richard Stabell said the change in yield is Astronomy. Michel supervised the tion to the comments." ematics, and Electrical Engineering. unusual, especially considering the increase in applications. "Usually, restructuring of the classes. These Michel intends to alter the The content of the course, which when something like that happens you expect the yield to go down. foundation courses (or exemption course's presentation in other ways has included introductory calculus, "People are beginning to investigate Rice and in doing so are finding exams) are required of all non-sci- as well. "The spirit of the course is to physics and chemistry, will be essen- this is a great alternative to some of the other expensive schools. ence/engineering majors. introduce students to concepts," he tially unchanged. "We're becoming known," he said. "People are finding out about us The new NSCI program will in- This is the first year that the De- for the first time." clude two large lectures on Mondays We wanted to create a partment of Space Physics and As- and Wednesdays and a recitation on tronomy will head the course. Pre- Fridays. course in which viously, Stephen Baker of the Phys- Roughly one hundred students ics department organized it. will attend each lecture. Michel will anybody that tried hard Michel volunteered to redesign teach both sections. could pass it.' the course when the Physics de- This marks a major change from partment finished its third year of last year's courses, which were bro- —Curtis Michel running NSCI. ken down into seven small sections taught by seven different professors said. To achieve that, concepts will Feature from various natural science depart- be taught "horizontally" instead of ments. "vertically," meaning that they will ' "I know that this is not the ideal not build on each other sequentially. teaching situation," said Michel. "We This technique was designed to Matriculation would have liked to have smaller compensate for the inherent inequi- classes, but we couldn't find a suitable ties of a course that rewards students text." who already have a background in •••Goes James Kinsey, Dean of Natural the class. Sciences, said, "I'm concerned about "We wanted to create a course in going back to the big lecture format which anybody that tried hard could bananas because I thought last year was an pass it," he said. improvement" over the previou s large The recitations work toward ac- See page 8 Will Rice advisor helps her freshman unload the car. lecture format. complishing this goal. Students will 2 FRIDAY, AUGUST 23, 1991 THE RICE THRESHER 'nvsnrr t i\re<. \ hivshor 1 Inv^hrrThsvshrrThtv^Hr r i h Don't wait for '95 panic A valuable anthem at any college, but particularly at Rice, is "never letyour academics get in the way of your education." Certainly, we are ENOUGH here to learn from our academic classes, but there is much more to SUHSWMETOR what should be perceived as a Rice education than that.

Load more