Pro - athletic sentiment dominates open meeting

The Univers i ty Athlet ics Review Committee held an open meeting in Sewall Hall Monday night. The purpose of the meet ing was to field ques t ions and sugges t ions from members of the Rice community. The committee was formed by Dr. Hackerm a n . Mos t people h a v e assumed that the underlying motive was financial: can Rice afford to compete? At the meeting, it was never made clear whether that was the c o m m i t t e e ' s p u r p o s e , or whether the question was if Rice should have an athletic p r o g r a m a t a l l , even a profitable one. The committee has studied sample budgets from several schools, some of which have dropped athletics, some of which have cut back and even one that conducted a non-