Survey gathers necessary student input

By Staff Editorial     3/25/10 7:00pm

Unlike the campus-wide Beer Bike coordinators, the university's architects seem to have nothing to do but plan. Last November, University Architect David Rodd presented the Campus Master Plan to the Rice community ("Master plan presented at SA meeting," Nov. 13, 2009). In the months since, the Student Association has been scrambling to ensure that the student body's opinion will be considered in these designs. The results of the SA's Master Plan Survey were presented Monday (see story, page 1).The 640 students who participated in the survey clearly had strong views on the aspects of campus that they valued. Students expressed support for green space, student center renovations, underground parking garages, traditional architecture and the retention of the current football stadium.

We laud the SA for taking the initiative to gather this information, which is the first step toward ensuring that students have a voice in the design of our future campus. The Master Plan Survey could be an invaluable resource to the administration as well, should they realize its significance. The results provide a thorough summary of the future campus that Rice students envision and an answer key of how to maintain student satisfaction with campus aesthetics and functionality. In the past, the collaborative efforts with the student body have been met with success - as in the case of the Humanities Building - while cases where the administration openly defied student opinion have faced uphill battles for campus acceptance - as in the case of the Susan and Raymond Brochstein Pavilion.

We challenge the administration to incorporate student input in Master Plan designs. Doing so would be mutually productive for both students and architects, and would foster an environment of campus collaboration that will contribute positively to the Rice experience.

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