Sans serif soliloquies:Untapped power of college system: shenanigans

By Sean McBeath     4/10/08 7:00pm

In the rigmarole that is a Rice education, it's easy to lose focus. We spend so much time occupying the floors of Fondren Library and pounding cappuccino at Coffeehouse that schoolwork overshadows the rest of our lives. And, with what little remains, we fail to appreciate the one thing that should save us from the mundane routine into which each semester eventually falls: The college system.While many universities have their own local rivalries, Rice finds itself in a rather unique position. With our proclaimed academic rivals residing thousands of miles to the northeast and our academic equals spread across the south, we find ourselves without any unifying force to pull us together as a student body.

And so, lacking the solidarity provided by an antagonist, it seems obvious that we should do what people always do in this situation: We need to go to war. And before you start taking offense, this is just a metaphor. Mostly.

We've already got the nine colleges. (Eight, depending on how old-fashioned you want to be.) But the college system fails to live up to its potential - which, in my opinion, is beyond the scope of what we imagine now. Today, the system is a convenient way to break down a student body of 2,800 into manageable chunks; it creates intimacy amidst a relatively large number of people. What it should do is create more intimacy among the considerably smaller number of people living at each college.

---

---

Sure, we chant and yell and cheer during Orientation Week and Willy Week. We jokingly banter and mock our friends. We all hate Lovett and acknowledge that Martel isn't really a college, that Brown is shit and Hanszen is just another high school.

But beyond that, coming together as a college is almost exclusively a result of or an excuse for drinking. The three most popular events for most colleges? I would bet they are Beer-Bike, College Night and Pub Night, in some order. I am not suggesting that the drinking stop; but the college life should not stop there, either.

All too often students bail on their colleges, citing a lack of involvement as their justification. I don't know whether to laugh or cry at the irony. There is so much potential for greatness here; we just need a few good leaders. It has been twenty years since a handful of Rice students, by methods still uncertain, turned Willy's statue toward Fondren. I think that should give us some idea of how far we have fallen and how far we can still rise.

My dad went to the California Institute of Technology. I don't know if you know anything about the school, but apart from being ridiculously rigorous and recently proclaimed the best value education in America, CalTech has a bit of a reputation for admitting a disproportionate number of pranksters. Growing up, I heard fairytale-esque accounts of students building citrus catapults and filling nearby reflecting pools with oranges and dropping frozen pumpkins 13 stories.

Raised on these sorts of stories, I naturally assumed that all colleges enjoyed the same sort of ingenious prankings-on. And we do, to a certain extent. We get two weeks a year in which we are "allowed" to do our jacks. But, all too often, these are hastily constructed and unoriginal acts of vandalism. Past events have indicated that a bit of oversight is a good thing; I don't think anyone wants a repeat of the Martel Raid or the Fishing Line Fiasco.

But I'm going to be a bit of a rebel and propose that these sort of activities do not have to end at Dis-O and Beer-Bike. I want to come back to the Martel Commons at 4 a.m. any time of year and discover a mountain of chairs and tables ziptied together. Because, as much of an inconvenience as it may be, it lends a levity that my day could certainly use.

I am sure there is enough creativity here to pull off another Willy-caliber prank. It's been twenty years, after all. The next time you find yourself saying, "You know what would be funny..." you should make it happen. Make school more fun and make your college awesome.

Sean McBeath is a Martel College sophomore and calendar editor.

---