Rice and Baylor, BFF?

Finally! Something local to distract me from my unsubstantiated opinions about Sarah Palin!

Since no one has given me an inside scoop on why, how, or what in the world is good or bad about a Baylor/Rice merger, my one well-founded argument about this whole issue actually has nothing to do with the speculative partnership itself:

David Leebron, President of Rice University, really needs to learn how to talk to a student body.

I can't think of the last time he broke news to Rice's paying population in a way that respected their input at all. We are constantly bombarded with new buildings, new colleges, new construction, and changes to campus procedure either midway through the negotiation phase or after the fact. The Pavilion? The coffee shop inside the Pavilion? A complete restructuring of campus finances? Sacking the SAC in favor of a super-strict campus tour? The list goes on. Last time I checked that's not a great way to make people like you, no matter the power you wield.

Rice's students are already weary of Leebron's image-centric improvements to the campus. Some changes have turned out to be been pretty awesome-- like, I don't know, that new recreation center will probably be an improvement over the last one. But after the campus finance fiasco came to a head a few weeks ago, it felt implicit that Leebron would have no choice but to start announcing his future projects before they are fully mature.

And then this story breaks about a potential merger of convenience between Rice and the Baylor College of Medicine. In the Chronicle, of all places.

You know what the difference between a serf and a citizen is, right? Well, the student body's lack of input into the decisions that affect their $40,000/yr sheepskin dimplomas makes them less like Americans and more like Fudal Europeans. Actually, not only the student body, but faculty and employees as well. They must feel about as distant as a body of respected, tenured employees can possibly feel from the day-to-day decisions that affect their paychecks. Neat.

Rice and Baylor have the potential to collaborate and do some really awesome things together, like cure cancer or make candy that turns you into a giant blueberry or whatever the two schools could possibly do with their pooled resources. But the merger also comes with a possible financial detriment to their existing schools of study, an even-more rapid expansion of the campus population, and basically changing what Rice means to the world.

That's not something you just announce to the Rice community after beginning serious deliberations.

Knowing Leebron, the merger will happen. It's not too late to switch to Bioengineering, right?