Solomon Ni for Student Association president

The Thresher endorses a Student Association presidential candidate every year. This year, to no one’s surprise, the Editorial Board endorses Solomon Ni — not only because he is the only option, but also because he has expansive plans to make changes. However, in a time of exceptionally low engagement both externally and within the SA, many of his plans are overly ambitious without laying a solid foundation.

As we read through Ni’s platform, we couldn’t help but chuckle. Some of his proposals — hiring more Wellbeing & Counseling staff and implementing free on-campus winter housing for students — are presented as simple fixes, when in reality they are unlikely to materialize. Others, such as lobbying the City of Houston for bike lanes near campus and renter protections or lobbying the state legislature to allow Rice IDs to be accepted as voter ID, are laughably unachievable. We’re concerned that Ni is too preoccupied with their lofty plans to actualize real changes that will truly benefit student lives during his term. We suggest that Ni choose a few concrete, achievable proposals and work to successfully implement them, rather than stretching himself too thin by setting utopian groundwork that future Student Associations may or may not build upon.

To his credit, Ni’s proposals for internal improvements are much more feasible. Ni has been a champion for transparency of the SA’s actions through publicizing the budget in their role as treasurer and has plans to create a bill tracker to increase visibility of the movement of legislation. We also applaud their plans for the implementation of a bereavement policy in professors’ syllabi and revisions of Title

Ni is running unopposed for a reason. SA engagement is embarrassingly low, and many students feel that voting, much less serving within the SA, doesn’t make enough of an impact to be worth their time. Before Ni can focus on ambitious policy goals, he needs to build a solid foundation for the SA and address the fact that no one on campus thinks the SA does anything that affects their lives.

Editorial Staff

* Indicates Editorial Board member

Ben Baker-Katz* Editor-in-Chief

Morgan Gage* Editor-in-Chief

Bonnie Zhao* Managing Editor

NEWS

Hajera Naveed* Editor

Maria Morkas Asst. Editor

OPINION

Nayeli Shad* Editor

FEATURES

IX policies to prioritize survivors. Ni also discussed wanting to increase the number of appointed positions within the SA, and he and the other candidates at the recent Thresher Town Hall assured attendees that they plan to fill appointed positions with qualified students. While we appreciate that sentiment, it is notable that these appointed positions will be appointed by Ni and a slate of candidates who essentially appointed themselves through uncontested elections.

Every year, candidates come in with these big ideas. They set up groups to talk about them, but then nothing gets done. The president that the SA needs right now is not one who has a four page platform of mostly unachievable goals. The president the SA needs right now is one who gives a few specific and achievable plans they can devote their time to implementing. Those include the aforementioned bereavement policies in syllabi, beginning discussions with departments and student-run businesses on increasing students’ minimum wage and working with Housing & Dining to introduce more late-night food options on campus.

Ni isn’t running for president of the United States, city council or anything in between. He should throw out the parts of his platform that are nothing more than political grandstanding and fight for concrete, effective changes that will boost students’ trust and engagement in our Student Association.

ChatGPT isn’t the villain it’s made out to be

Last week’s issue of the Thresher included a letter to the editor that discussed the use of ChatGPT by Rice students. Felicity talks about how the reason we came to Rice was “to grow as a student and individual,” and I believe that in this regard, they are absolutely correct. Where she errs is when she implies throughout the article that this growth and intellectual stimulation are completely incompatible with the use of ChatGPT as an online tool. She is most certainly not the only one who holds that view. Many professors at Rice and across the world are currently grappling with how to handle the rise of A.I. I firmly believe that ChatGPT does have a place in academia and that the vast majority of Rice students are using ChatGPT in a positive manner that actually contributes to their educational pursuits.

To initiate any defense of ChatGPT, it is important to look at what the software can really do. ChatGPT is an A.I. software that generates outputs based on online templates, writings and articles in response to user prompts. ChatGPT scours the web for works that are related to the given input, and then, regardless of the veracity of the information it cobbles together, presents it to the user for judgment. As soon as instructors create prompts or assignments that actually challenge a student and force them to expand their thinking (i.e. assignments that are not simply “busy work”), ChatGPT struggles significantly with providing an adequate response that can just be dropped into a Canvas submission. As such, assuming that these assignments allow for the use of online resources, I fail to see how using ChatGPT to highlight new ideas and concepts from across the web means that a student has cheated themselves out of the learning process. Fundamentally, what is the difference between me searching up research articles and writing templates to help me develop an argument and asking ChatGPT to round up those resources and present them to me? If I were to clearly cite my sources and provide my own interpretation of the information that I find, I do not believe many professors or students on this campus would find ethical issues with online research, so why should they find issue with the use of ChatGPT?

What is the difference between me searching up research articles and writing templates to help me develop an argument and asking ChatGPT to round up those resources and present them to me?

Despite this apparent contradiction, or perhaps in spite of it, many individuals have made the point that turning in work that you did not create is in conflict with why we all decided to pursue higher education. This argument’s fatal flaw, however, is that it hinges upon the assumption that Rice students are directly submitting outputs, as well as the fact that it seems to be a subtle insult towards students: their work somehow wasn’t honest or had no effort behind it because they made use of an online tool. Call me naive, sure, but I do sincerely believe that most people here at Rice do want to present their own work and put in a lot of effort to submit things that they themselves are proud of. There does seem to be a lack of nuance in these arguments where you are either completely working from scratch and actually learning the material, or you blatantly and unethically plagiarized someone else’s work.

To be clear on where I stand, I absolutely agree that online essay writers are inherently unethical, no matter what the circumstances are. Taking someone else’s writing and completely passing it off as yours is, to put it simply, wrong. But drawing a parallel between that and the utilization of ChatGPT when professors permit online resources is, in my opinion, a vast oversimplification and a position that fails to recognize the differences in how a resource can be utilized. Going forward, I hope to see an integration of new technologies in the academic space. Instead of shaking our fists in the air, Rice should put some serious thought into the best way that tools like ChatGPT should be integrated into our curriculum. Should we get rid of busy work, weigh presentations and exams higher than essays or even bring ChatGPT directly into the classroom? Quite frankly, I don’t have an answer for you, but I am confident that we, collectively, can figure it out.

Hamza Saeed BROWN COLLEGE FRESHMAN

Riya Misra* Editor

Sarah Knowlton Asst. Editor

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

Michelle Gachelin* Editor

Hadley Medlock Asst. Editor

SPORTS Daniel Schrager* Editor

Pavithr Goli Asst. Editor

SPECIAL PROJECTS

Prayag Gordy* Editor

BACKPAGE

Timmy Mansfield Editor

Ndidi Nwosu Editor Andrew Kim Editor

COPY

Jonathan Cheng Editor

Annika Bhananker Editor

PHOTO, VIDEO, & WEB

Katherine Hui Photo Editor

Cali Liu Asst. Photo Editor

Camille Kao Video Editor

Eli Johns-Krull Asst. Video Editor

Brandon Chen* Web Editor

DESIGN

Robert Heeter Art & Design Director

Anna Chung News

Siddhi Narayan Opinion

Alice Sun Features

Ivana Hsyung Arts & Entertainment

Chloe Chan Sports

Lauren Yu Backpage

BUSINESS

Edelawit Negash Business Manager

Anna Rajagopal Social Media

Vanessa Chuang Distribution

ABOUT

The Rice Thresher, the official student newspaper of Rice University since 1916, is published each Wednesday during the school year, except during examination periods and holidays, by the students of Rice University.

Letters to the Editor must be received by 5 p.m. on the Friday prior to publication and must be signed, including college and year if the writer is a Rice student. The Thresher reserves the right to edit letters for content and length and to place letters on its website.

Editorial and business offices are located on the second floor of the Ley Student Center: 6100 Main St., MS-524 Houston, TX 77005-1892

Phone: (713) 348 - 4801

Email: thresher@rice.edu

Website: www.ricethresher.org

The Thresher is a member of the ACP, TIPA, CMA and CMBAM.

© Copyright 2023 ricethresher.org