Or, Danny Blows His Stack, Part 3
Dear Mr. Leebron;
My name is Daniel Mee. I graduated from Rice with a Bachelor of Arts in 2002. My parents, who met and married while they were both undergraduates at Rice, are also alumni. After I graduated, I was a Rice staff member for three and a half years, and I now work for a company founded by Rice graduates that has employed at least four other Rice alumni. I currently play in a band founded by two other Rice alumni and a child of a Rice professor.
All of this is to say, I have very strong ties to Rice University. Additionally, I have strong ties to regional music and media communities—I am currently a freelance music writer for one of the Houston Chronicle’s online outlets, and have been a regular contributor to the print editions of the Houston Press and Austin Chronicle.
My introduction to the music and media communities came through KTRU-FM, where I was a DJ for seven years. Many of the closest connections I’ve maintained from my undergraduate years were formed at KTRU with my fellow DJs. As someone who values the unique and vital contributions of this radio station to Rice and the surrounding community, and feels strongly invested in both, I am deeply ashamed of the manner in which the Board of Trustees and the administration of Rice University have treated KTRU.
I was horrified to learn on Monday evening from the Houston Chronicle that Rice University was one day away from finalizing an agreement to sell the license and transmitter that are currently in use for the Rice student radio station. Not only were the students, faculty and staff of Rice not consulted about this plan, but the staff of the radio station were not even informed of it—they had to find out about it from the Chronicle’s website.
Later that evening, Mr. Leebron, I received an e-mail from you in which you outlined the reasons the University had decided to liquidate the student radio station. Among other things, you claimed that KTRU is a “vastly underutilized resource that is not essential to providing our students the wide range of opportunities they need,” citing that “[a] recent Arbitron report showed that KTRU’s audience was so small that it did not even register in the ratings.” You note that “KTRU will continue to serve its campus and external audience with student-managed programming via www.ktru.org.”
The ability to stream student programming over the internet is not a replacement for a radio broadcast for the simple fact that it cannot be heard on a radio. If KTRU-FM is liquidated, many listeners will no longer have access to KTRU programming. But the Arbitron report that you cite deals with this point neatly, does it not? The terrestrial listening audience is “so small that it did not even register in the ratings.”
It’s true that KTRU does not show up in Arbitron data, at least not in the most recent Arbitron report that I was able to access*, but here is a brief list of other stations that do not appear: KTSU, KACC, KPFT, and KUHF, the University of Houston NPR affiliate that claims to have 300,000 daily listeners. Based on this data, one might conclude either that KUHF is also “not essential,” or that Arbitron ratings provide no useful data by which to judge the value of a noncommercial radio station.
Even assuming that the terrestrial broadcast of KTRU has a small audience, it is not at all clear to me that it follows that the station ought to be terminated. Most Rice students, alumni, faculty and staff probably have not contemplated that “underutilized resources” on campus are eligible for liquidation. Surely there are other assets that are ripe for divestiture. How many people visit the Rice Art Gallery on an average day? What about the Rice Media Center— is that still around? How many of Fondren library’s 2.6 million print volumes are consulted on a regular basis, now that most of the information contained therein is now available on the internet?
Perhaps we should start by demolishing the proportionally least-utilized resource in Rice history, the football stadium, which according to legend could not be filled even if every Rice alum, living or dead, were occupying a seat simultaneously. Clearly, it seems that the best course of action would be to demolish the stadium and use the space to alleviate Rice’s perpetual parking shortage, and simultaneously generate income through parking permit sales. Or, if the University really is desperate for cash, perhaps that portion of the campus can be partitioned off and sold.
Of course, we all know this idea would be untenable to the Board of Trustees. In 2004, a Rice-commissioned study by McKinsey Consulting recommended that Rice drop its division 1A athletics program, which was losing $10 million dollars per year, in favor of any of four less costly programs. After seeing this report, the Rice Board of Trustees chose to ignore this recommendation, thereby rendering the report a boondoggle in its own right.
But let’s back up a bit to the Rice athletics program losing $10 million per year. TEN MILLION DOLLARS. PER YEAR. This is more than the entire proceeds of the proposed sale of KTRU-FM. If only we had more radio stations to sell, we could subsidize athletics for years to come.
How dare you insult our intelligence by informing us that, in the name of university advancement, we must liquidate an educational resource to which hundreds of students have devoted thousands upon thousands of hours of volunteer labor to build and maintain over the course of 40 years, when the sale price doesn’t even match a fifth of the fortune that the athletics program lost in the last decade?
According to your e-mail, the proceeds from the sale are to be put in large part toward the construction of a new East Servery near Will Rice. While I’m sure that this will benefit the 400 or so students who are members of those colleges, I’m having difficulty seeing the need for this building. Undergraduate enrollment at Rice University has increased only 7% since I matriculated in 1998**, and yet, since that time, Rice has added three new residential colleges and two new serveries. As I recall, I had no problem getting enough to eat when I was a freshman living on campus. Why is the construction of another servery so urgent that educational assets must be sold off to pay for it?
After all, Mr. Leebron, as you note in your e-mail, “the economic downturn which began two years ago has forced Rice . . . to make hard choices to prioritize spending and maximize the use of our resources.” Why wasn’t one of these “hard choices” to not build another new building until you have the cash on hand to pay for it? For the last fifteen years, the university has been spending like a drunken sailor, adding building after building, and now that we’re in a recession, rather than regroup, your strategy is to sell things off to raise capital.
I’m sure you are aware that, due to the recession, many state governments have been reduced to selling state property, such as public parks, to private corporations in order to balance their budgets as tax revenues decline (perhaps you are even aware that the state of Arizona has taken the bizarre measure of selling and then leasing back its own state capitol!). This state of affairs is generally considered to be a disgraceful indication of governmental breakdown, in which an abject failure of political courage has necessitated drastic, unsustainable and irreversible steps merely to stave off disaster.
Is this an indication that Rice is experiencing a similar crisis of political courage? You told the Houston Chronicle only six months ago that Rice might “need” to build a new football stadium soon, even as negotiations for the liquidation of an irreplaceable university resource were carried out behind the backs of faculty and students. How are we to interpret this?
In short, it strikes me that this sale is so unnecessary as to be perverse, and the reasoning proffered to justify it is hogwash. At least when, ten years ago, Rice last attempted a hostile takeover of KTRU-FM, it did so because it valued the opportunities availed to students and the community by FM radio, even though it completely overlooked the value of a student organization and a community voice unlike any other. In 2000, President Malcolm Gillis even told the Rice Thresher that he would not consider selling KTRU-FM. Today, by contrast, you deem KTRU-FM to be “not essential.” If you had consulted any of the dozens of the students who are KTRU DJs, or any of the 500+ alumni who are former KTRU DJs, or any of KTRU’s audience, or indeed anyone at the University at all, I believe you would have come to a different conclusion.
The administration of Rice University has an obligation, as a trustee of its students, faculty and alumni, to value our contributions and opinions just as concretely as it does a new building. Not only have you and the Board of Trustees failed to do so, you have made crucial and irreversible decisions about an invaluable part of this university in secret, without consulting or informing the people for whose benefit the institution ostensibly exists. This is a breach of trust and a violation of the mores of liberal education.
It is unethical.
When I was merely a prospective student, my parents, and the university itself, portrayed the school as an idealistic institution that valued the individual and often idiosyncratic contributions of students more highly than the money they paid for tuition. KTRU-FM, a radio station founded in a dorm room, managed almost exclusively by students and grown to national renown as one of the most adventurous and unusual college radio stations in the country, is a shining example of those contributions, and an essential part of the institution that I decided to attend. If KTRU is liquidated in the manner you have proposed, for me and many others, that institution will be severely and permanently damaged.
I know I speak not only for those members of the Rice community who have been involved with the radio station, but for those like my mother (Jones ‘80), who was never involved with KTRU but who, upon hearing of its impending sale, described it as “sickening.”
I would like to think that, when I have college-age children, I could recommend Rice to them in the same way my parents recommended it to me. Despite my lifelong connection to Rice, if you proceed with the sale of KTRU-FM, I most certainly will not be able to do so, nor could I in good conscience donate a red cent to an institution that places so little value on the contributions of those it purports to serve. Not that I imagine it matters, since the appalling practice of selling off bits and pieces of Rice’s legacy should be more than sufficient to finance the University’s continued improvement.
Sincerely,
Daniel Mee
Baker ’02
Many thanks to Angela Lee, Esq. (UT-Austin ’99, UH Law ’06) for editorial assistance.
[Edit 4/22 11:41 PM]
* See comment below by Charles for information about more recent Arbitron data.
** Another sharp-eyed alum pointed out that this number is a couple of years out of date and no longer accurate. The 7% figure came from the 2008 enrollment report, while the 2010 report shows a 17% increase between 1998 and 2009. Contributing to this difference are (A) 270 students added between 2007 and 2009 and (B) a revision upward of the numbers in every other year on the chart. This significantly larger growth figure still represents a much smaller number than the residential capacity added during this period.
Nicely played, Daniel. My inability to pay attention for longer than it takes to bat an eye took a seat and read every word. I hope that the passionate and equally relevant/pointed message of your post (and Heidi’s and others) makes a difference in this situation. I hope, but am not confident.
Holy crap, I didn’t even know our commenting system would break the comments into multiple pages.
I didn’t either. Nice.
this will be hard to top (and I’m glad I didn’t hit “notify me of follow up…”)
Yeah, I’m un-checking that box RIGHT NOW.
Alicia, I am one of the “majority” who doesn’t care about KTRU. But since when does majority opinion dictate what resources and opportunities Rice will offer its students? I’m pretty sure the majority of Rice wouldn’t mind getting rid of ADVANCE, the MOB, or some of the religious student groups, or athletics. Why? Because Rice students are notoriously apathetic about things that don’t obviously and directly affect them. Most of us didn’t realize how valuable the Rice University experience is until 1-2 years after graduation. “The majority doesn’t care” is an invalid (and unnecessarily hurtful) argument in this case. Selling something that students worked so hard to build must have been a tough decision and I don’t fault Rice for that, but doing so behind students’ backs was just plain cold. Students are protesting anyway – why couldn’t they have let the KTRU staff know what their intentions were? Rice should’ve had the sense to get a PR goon to deal with the students and their complaints so they would at least feel heard. An internet-only show is a huge change, but it isn’t all bad. Why couldn’t they spend some time and money communicating that to the DJs? The way they dismissed the student body when they say they’re doing this for the students doesn’t sit well with me. This is a dangerous precedent and I can no longer support Leebron’s vision. As a minority student, I benefited greatly from things that most people at Rice didn’t care about. When will they stop selling our assets in order to make our campus unrecognizable to us?
I agree with you completely–the majority not caring doesn’t speak to how valuable the resource may or may not be. And the reason I bring it up isn’t to say KTRU was or wasn’t worth saving. I bring it up to say that even with student input, things probably would’ve went the same way they did. I agree–all the clubs/athletic teams would be gone if you let the student body decide on them. This is why I don’t like the fact that there being no student input was used to support why the sale shouldn’t have happened entirely. Being mad at the process is one thing; being mad at the result is another. I don’t think you can realistically be mad at the result and cite lack of student input as one of the issues–I think they would have supported it, which makes their lack of input moot (on the results issue, not the process issue). I’m not trying to be hurtful–the student body would likely hack off things I loved and dedicated a ton of time to as well.
I think the difference between you and me is I trust that, despite the fact that they did it in a rude fashion, the decision the administration made was the right one. I hope they’ve learned their lesson re: the importance of communicating better with students, but hard decisions have to be made and I’m glad they made this one. I don’t want to see Rice come to a standstill because people are afraid of change.
I agree with Alicia. And yes, while communication would have made things nicer, they would not have made a difference. Actually they may have dragged on the inevitable even longer.
KTRU’s resistance to change (athletics programming and the desire to stay “eclectic”) shows us that they would not be willing to part with their current ways of running the station.
What sort of “compromise” could be expected?
Well you and me will just have to differ on that point. I am tired of Leebron and the Board acting like if Rice isn’t constructing a new building every year or making a drastic change to Rice culture every month, then Rice is stagnating. There is no need to cover every parking space, basketball court, IM field, or square inch of dirt with a building. And it is certainly uncalled for to start secret sales of student organization assets to fund this uncontrolled “growth.” How about we take this time during the recession to focus on maintenance and making the best of existing infrastructure and programs? How about treating alumni and students with respect instead of insulting our intelligence with every new, “right” decision they make? How about appreciating Rice for what it is instead of working tirelessly to make it into something that it’s not? A university can grow and develop as time passes by showing more commitment to the growth and development of its students instead of its buildings or enrollment count. This is not what Leebron’s vision calls for, and it is for that reason that I am upset and will remain so until Rice gets a new President.
And those of you concocting stories about Alicia and her probable “intentions” are taking a pointless path. She’s a fellow Rice alum with her own opinion and is to be respected like everyone else who comments here.
I’ve tried to read through as much of these comments as possible, so I may have missed this point if someone already made it, and I’m only making this comment because there’s an obvious disconnect in the logic between selling the radio license and supporting a money-draining sports program. Boston University got rid of its football over a decade ago and used the money for other sports programs, yet they are still Division I. Would it not be possible for Rice to cut its football program, maintain its hallowed Division I status in sports like baseball, and use the savings for other purposes, either athletic or academic? I’d hate to see Rice lose its Division I rating simply for the fact that the baseball team is a great success. But at some point, I believe the University really needs to sit down and reconsider why we are Division I, and whether or not its worth it to continue maintaining that level of athletic support.
Okay is it just me or is the passion behind finding this to be the “right” decision simply a demonstration for distaste in KTRU culture?
I can understand not really having an opinion but the reasoning behind finding this to be the “right” decision seems to be based on this distaste and on blind faith in authority.
I’ve been wondering myself about Alicia’s intentions in this exchange. I understand she’s an attorney, so her passion for this debate may very well just be passion for debate in general. But I wonder if she really is as objective as she claims to be or whether she has disclosed all her ties to the administration at Rice. For a minute I thought she may be working for them. Alicia, anything you’d like to disclose?
@Found in the Alley: I don’t have a distaste for KTRU. I have no feelings towards it really–it didn’t really affect me while I was on campus and I didn’t listen to it. That being said, I completely understand the attachment to it by those that were affected by it. Believe me, I was involved in lots of stuff while on campus that no one/very few people care about, so I can empathize with the situation. I just think that a lot of KTRU’s value remains despite the sale, and we’ve come out of it with $10 mil more to dedicate to things the majority of students will benefit from (btw, the servery keeps getting thrown around and the symbolic thing we’ll be getting from the money, but I think I read somewhere that only $4 mil of it will go towards that. The rest will probably go towards many minute things around the campus, but only the future will tell on that one).
As far as a blind faith in authority: perhaps. I hope the Board of Trustees were hired for a reason–for understanding Rice’s culture (I can confirm that at least one of the trustees is an alumna, but to be honest, I haven’t heavily researched them), for understanding the university’s financial position better than you or me, and for having the brains and balls to make difficult decisions. That’s the best I can hope for from my position, unless I want to disown the entire administration and university over a decision I don’t like or understand.
@roberto: Nothing to disclose here, but if you have a particular question to ask, I’m happy to answer it. I did work with Leebron and his staff my senior year at Rice; I saw things up close and I feel like he really loves the university and is striving to improve it without letting it become stagnant. That’s all I care about, really–no one’s going to be right or do the right thing all the time.
But I haven’t spoken to him in over a year and definitely not since we were both aware that any of this KTRU stuff was going on. Outside of that, all I can say is I wish I was working for them. Then I could get paid and make the sting of debt from law school a little less painful
My greatest objection is the way this was handled. I firmly believe that the “concept” of selling the station could have been exposed early, without affecting any specific negotiations, just to allow some sense of transparency, and allow student and alumni comment early on. But this presentation of it as a fait accompli is what really rankles. Frankly, between this and the Baylor fiasco, I have to wonder at the overall competence of the administration.
I saw your show at the Rodeo, Mr. Jackson. Your use of background videos was distracting, but you put on a good show, and I think everyone appreciated the effort you put into it. I agree with your stance on the Rice radio thing, but mostly I’m just here to push the post count up one to a nice even 120, on this the highest post-count NAP thread ever.
Dear Friends, the saga with 91.7 FM continues, please help! We did not know about your plight to save KTRU, alas, because 91.7 FM is not available on our radio dials.
But we became very involved recently when classical music moved from KUHF 88.7 FM to 91.7 FM – suddenly thousands of people around Greater Houston found themselves without classical music. We have started the FB page http://www.facebook.com/pages/KUHF-Please-Return-Classical-Music-Station-to-Houston/219637344735987?sk=wall%5B%2F%5D and blogger page http://kuhf-return-classical-station-to-hous.blogspot.com/ to convince the KUHF establishment to revert to a previous format on KUHF.
This is very sad state of affairs, indeed. KUHF was the only station broadcasting classical music and now it is no more. Very few people can reach 91.7 FM. Listeners are outraged as they were supporting public radio KUHF for years and were plainly duped.
Please share your opinions and suggestions,
Sincerely yours, Helena and thousands bereft classical music lovers.