KTRU proceeds spending

By Staff Editorial     1/27/11 6:00pm

Let's assume the KTRU sale isn't stuck in legal battles for the next ?five years. The sale would net $9.5 million for the university, and the committee established to spend proceeds of the sale would need to go to work (see story, page 1). Subtracting pre-allotted amounts, the committee will advise the administration on how to spend about $6 million. The Thresher believes the funds would be most effectively spent in two capacities: improvement of the Rice Memorial Center and Rice Program ?Council endowments.The RMC is quite frankly outdated. A quick comparison of the RMC to counterpart facilities at peer universities immediately exposes the dramatically poor condition of our student center. With the exception of Willy's Pub, the RMC lacks popular lounge-like spaces that are conducive to relaxing or hanging out; the lack of study space is also something that needs to be addressed. On the food front, the RMC also lags behind its peers. While most student centers provide food that college students find attractive, such as Whataburger, Taco Cabana or another popular chain restaurant, Rice students are stuck with 13th Street's boring sandwiches and boxed sushi. As Rice continues to grow, the Grand Hall's grandeur also seems to be lacking a bit. Functions such as the Screw Yer Roommate reception and the South Asian Society's Dhamaka are simply too big for the Grand Hall, and Rice needs to quickly implement changes to establish new spaces so it can continue to foster the cultural and social university-wide events that make Rice special.

Next, we need to address the mediocre concerts that RPC has put on over the past few years. No more Augustana. No more DJ Earworm. No more The National. Schools much smaller than ours are getting performances from mainstream artists. Musicians such as Kid Cudi, T-Pain, Chiddy Bang, Wyclef and Wiz Khalifa have performed at universities nationwide. To really put it in perspective, Vanderbilt University, a university called an absolute "peer school" by President David Leebron, attracted Drake, Phoenix and Passion Pit just last spring. However, there is no need for us to carry on this embarrassing trend. Using funds left over from the RMC renovation, the administration should create a concert endowment fund of about $1 to 1.5 million. The interest accrued from the endowment could fund an epic annual KTRU concert with a budget of about $50,000-$75,000. We could say goodbye to the dark days of Augustana.

Few people are happy about the KTRU sale situation, but, because of it, we are in a advantageous position to have an excess of money with which we can improve our community. Let's make the best of it. Let's get a real student center and let's get some real artists at our concerts. And if we can't do that, let's go for plan B: Inner Loop lazy river and the Rice Village zipline.

---

---

---