There is nothing wrong with classical music and it does have its place but let’s face it, classical stations are a dime a dozen while high-quality, eclectic, college radio, stations are absolutely not. KTRU is something special and is something well worth defending.

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Join us in a peaceful, non-violent protest to Save KTRU this Sunday, 2:00 pm at Rice University, in the Academic quad in front of the statue of William Marsh Rice. Wear your KTRU t-shirt, make a clever picket sign, bring your friends, and be prepared to make some noise for college radio.

The rally will feature speeches from station manager Kelsey Yule, community DJ Greg Starks, post-punk show DJ Lindsey Simard, Revelry Report DJ Matt Wettergreen, Rice University/KTRU alumna Heather Nodler, Rice student DJ Kevin Bush, Rice student DJ Joey Yang, Professor of Computation and Applied Mathematics Steven J. Cox, Professor of Composition and Theory at The Shepherd School of Music Arthur Gottschalk, and General Manager of KPFT Duane Bradley.

There will be an informal pre-protest gathering before the rally starting at 11am, Sunday, August 22nd, at Valhalla in Rice University where you can help us make signs, write chants, and print t-shirts before we walk over to Willy’s statue at 1:30pm.

1. The greater Houston community, the music world, and Rice students would all lose out with this deal.

• Houston radio listeners would have less choice, less diversity, and less commitment to local and diverse artists.
• Artists, record labels, and clubs would no longer have an avenue in the U.S.’s 4th largest city to promote their work.
• Rice students—setting aside the “internships” KUHC will offer—would no longer have the opportunity to learn leadership, management, and communications skills in a hands-on environment.

2. We are actively pursuing steps to stop the sale of KTRU’s FM frequency, license and tower to KUHF.

3. We call upon the administration of Rice University to return FM broadcast capability to the hands of KTRU immediately.

4. Online broadcasting is a poor substitute. In fact, KTRU has been available online for many years.

When I visited Rice University as a potential student in 1997, I met a student who invited me to accompany her on her 4-7am shift at KTRU. Naturally, I jumped at the chance. It would not be an exaggeration to say that my visit to KTRU was one of the primary reasons I chose to attend Rice. One year later, I was proud to have a 4-7am general shift of my own. In my second year I was the Promotions Director as well as a DJ, restarting the publication of the KTRU Folio, writing public service announcements, silk-screening home made t-shirts for the station and making flyers to promote the Outdoor Show.

In my third year, I found myself in the somewhat less desirable position of trying to force myself to leave the house after being physically sick the morning I learned that KTRU had been shut down in stated direct response to the civil disobedience that I had chosen to participate in the night before– the simultaneous broadcast of a Rice Athletics game and my scheduled show. I clearly remember dragging myself into the Jones Commons’ during breakfast, standing on a chair, and trying to hold back tears as I told my classmates what had happened.

My memory of the weeks following the shutdown of 2000 are hazy, but I can honestly say that the greatest regret of my life to this point has been that I did not protest more loudly and with more conviction. Some may say that if this is my greatest regret, I have certainly lived a charmed life. However, I look at it from the point of view that KTRU is *that* crucial of a resource for Rice students and the Houston community– KTRU is *SO* important to me that my greatest regret in life is that when I took a stand, I did not stand up for it as strongly as humanly possible.

When we are teenagers, we feel injustice more strongly. Similarly, art can be life-changing, music sounds better, and it is worth remembering that it will never sound that good again. It is a testament to KTRU that for myself and for hundreds of other DJ’s and alumni, the passion we feel for KTRU as a cultural institution to this day is NO less than the passion we felt for it when we were 18.

The secretive sale of the KTRU broadcast license to UH is unjust, disrespectful, and shameful. The reasons for the sale as cited by President Leebron in his letters do not make logical sense, and his assertion that universities are entering a new age in which we must sacrifice “underutilized resources” to meet our PRIORITIES is simply confusing, as apparently an “underutilized resource” does not refer to activities that lose more money than they could potentially bring in (see the Rice Athletics program), but instead refers to the sterilization of what could be seen as a minority group of undesirable weirdos with a public face.  What other resources will be sacrificed to attain this brave new digital world of prioritized gleaming chrome food serveries? I loved my experience at Rice because of the very qualities it claims to value as seen on the official quote on its Facebook page: “radical”, “unconventional”, “passionate” thinking people– words that can also be used to explicitly describe the KTRU mission, but much less so a dormitory cafeteria.

Among all the other problems that have been brought up with the sale of KTRU, President Leebron needs to tell the Rice community what his Priorities are, in the most specific terms possible. Is it the corporatization of Rice University as a for-profit business? Is it to foster academic freedom and research via the creation of a campus that values creativity in ideas from all areas?

Whatever his Priorities may be, it is crucial that the alumni know what they are, so we can decide if we want to continue supporting what Rice University stands for. It is not a question of the University ultimately “changing over time” and alumni resisting the changes– it is a question of the values we as a society want to promote in the education of our young people, and indeed in the operation of an academic institution: independence, creativity, humanity, leadership, originality, passion, and openness.

If the Priorities of Rice University are accurately reflected in the events undertaken secretly for the last year and (reluctantly) in public for the last week, I do not support them ethically, financially, academically, or personally, and will never again give Rice the benefit of my praise or my money.

Save KTRU.
Victoria Keener, Ph.D.
2002, Jones, BS Bioengineering

I served as Program Director from 2006-2008, Business Manager from 2007-2008, and a proud Americana DJ from 2006-2009. KTRU was a refuge for me at Rice. Some of my favorite memories came from the ridiculous overnight shifts and the crazy calls and conversations I had at 4 am with people either drunk or getting off of work. We meant something to those people, those that mainstream media forgets. KTRU taught me that life is better when I live outside of the box and that dot matrix printers can form a beautiful symphony. I have never been around such a diverse group, and such a passionate group of people. It has killed me over the past week that future students are not going to be able to experience that. They won’t be able to play an alphabet show and discover the Skating Club. They won’t be able to review albums and listen to a pre-release of the Maybellines or TV on the Radio. They won’t be able to take epic adventures with their Station Manager to conferences in St. Louis and eat vegan French Toast in a super-sketchy part of town (maybe that was just me, but it’s in keeping with the spirit of the station). The station exists for more than just Rice. It exists for Houston and for all of us out there that get tired of Top 40 and inane commercials. I’d never change my mind about being a part of KTRU or working to defend it.

Claire Hein

In the spring of my sophomore year at Rice, I got an awesome mixtape as a gift and I couldn’t stop listening to it. It was full of music that KTRU played– some old and some new, but all of which I had never heard before.

Over the next three years I got involved with KTRU as a DJ, promotions director, and avid listener. The mission of KTRU “to educate the station membership, the greater Houston community, and the students of Rice University through its progressive and eclectic programming in the spirit of the station’s non-commercial, educational license” worked its wonders as my horizons expanded exponentially.

Rice University has always tried to trust its students more than most other universities– the College system puts the power in the hands of the students regarding the organization of theater, sports, and other events; the Honor Code and Council relies on the students both to keep their academic standards high and to report, judge, and punish those who do not. Another point of pride for Rice University has always been the amazing opportunities for interdisciplinary interaction. Students in art and architecture and chemistry and electrical engineering all interact on such a regular basis that sometimes they even feel their disciplines are not that different.

KTRU epitomizes both of these notions. First of all, the station was built up by students over 40 years; it was run by students, programmed by students, and carried on every day because of student DJs who went to the station to play music at all hours, reviewed CDs for quality and inappropriate content, and organized shows for local talent. Secondly, KTRU brought together students from every part of campus to work together on an inherently multi-disciplinary project: sending music over radio airwaves. Through KTRU I have been exposed to so many different kinds of music, and then people, and then ideas that I never would have experienced otherwise.

Since I left Rice, I have worked as a software engineer and received a MS in electrical engineering. I am now working on my Ph.D. I have every intention to return to Rice in some form or another– as a visiting researcher, perhaps– and participate in KTRU 91.7fm once again. In the meantime, I will do all I can to keep KTRU on the airwaves.

sincerely,
Laura Balzano
Jones College, 2001 BS Electrical and Computer Engineering.
KTRU 1999-2002

I’ve been thinking about it, and I would have to say that if Rice had not had KTRU, I probably would have transferred. I came to Houston from Washington, DC, and while Rice is a fabulous place in many ways (I often argue, for example, that the architecture school is the best in the nation), the within-the-hedges monoculture of student life was pretty depressing. I spent my high school years assuming political and cultural engagement were the norm and was a little deflated to find that was not the case everywhere. But during O Week I discovered KTRU and its inhabitants and realized that there was an organization on campus that housed a band of unconventional, culturally-curious people. The average Rice student was trying to fight their way through organic chemistry (and drink their way through college nights—not that that wasn’t fun), not reach out to the greater cultural and political world, and KTRU was one of the only venues on campus where that reaching out was possible.

To me the best parts of Rice were the moments of entrepreneurialism. Taking a straightforward opportunity and turning it in to something incredible. That could apply to anything: an engineering project, a ridiculously clever college night costume, an architecture studio that actually designs and builds a low-income project, starting a coffee house whose profits would benefit causes, etc). KTRU abounded in entrepreneurialism. Firstly, just fielding all of the cd’s and promotional material that flowed in to the office from music labels around the country exposed us to the creativity that is independent music. We interacted with start-up music labels all over the world and then in turn were inspired to start our own bands and labels. I am finding myself right now developing my own very successful printing business, and it all started at KTRU, hand-printing T-shirts and cd covers for our friend’s bands.

KTRU is often about discovering and fostering new music, but while dj’ing at the station I became exposed to and obsessed with traditional music, such as bluegrass, klezmer, blues and zydeco. I became an expert in Western Swing and to this day regularly enjoy the collection of vintage albums I amassed while at Rice. My interest in this music, in turn, got me out into Houston and Texas, discovering traditional music venues in neighborhoods and cities not usually populated by Rice students and graduates. The cultural map of Houston became another obsession of mine, an interest I would carry in to my architectural graduate studies at UC Berkeley, returning again and again to Houston as a subject and a reference. Music served as my passport to the city and state, so I thank KTRU for that exposure.

At some point in my KTRU tenure I had the position of PSA director, not the sexiest job!, but I had a fantastic time getting out into Houston, looking for organizations either benevolent or idiosyncratic, to promote on the KTRU airwaves, and remember it clearly as one of my first moments of considering myself a citizen of Houston.

It was only when I moved to California that it became apparent how much KTRU and Houston had given me. KTRU had just created & hosted a jazz festival at the Shepherd School (in 1995, an impressive gathering of alternative jazz musicians from around the country) and when I landed in the SF bay area, I was already in the thick of their vibrant and groundbreaking music scene, thanks to my involvement at KTRU. Rice radio was participating & supporting the national dialogue of independent music, which only became clear once I had moved away.

I’ve given the sale of KTRU a lot of thought in the last couple days, and it is indisputable that the covert nature of the sale itself was underhanded and wrong. This action alone is enough to keep me from donating to Rice or recommending it to possible students. But I’ve also tried to maintain an open mind about the possibility of internet radio and quizzed numerous people about the viability of KTRU online. And it has become apparent that selling the signal will, in essence, kill KTRU. KTRU will not be able to participate in the CMJ reporting, and will lose its flow of music from labels worldwide. It will lose its place in the national dialogue, its vibrancy in the city, and to be honest, what student is going to want to get up at 4 am to do an internet radio show? KTRU will dwindle, no two ways about it. To state that “KTRU is not going away” is both patronizing and false. I can only hope that Rice comes to its senses and cancels the sale.

thanks
Elinor Nissley
WRC ‘93

It’s hard to drum up much enthusiasm about Internet radio,” Yule said. “For a lot of DJs there’s something thing really special and unique about knowing that your voice is going out over the airwaves.

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The biggest problem with internet radio is that people have to already know about you and actively seek you out. I regularly field calls from people who describe themselves as long-time Houstonites who have finally just stumbled upon my show. And perhaps more of a blow, hip-hop probably speaks in general to a younger, mobile crowd who won’t necessarily have streaming internet radio in their cars or phones.

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The students, however, are not happy at all… They’re particularly incensed that this was done in secret, just before the students returned for the fall semester.

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Scroll to the bottom for a list of similar losses to public radio.

If we pretend, for a moment, that ubiquitous Internet access is available for free for the entire population of Houston, you’ve still got the issue of tapping into the resource. The number of users who currently have Internet access built into their cars is minuscule. There’s no trend suggesting that will explode, either.

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I’m a big fan of KTRU in Houston, which is a fantastic and eclectic mix of new hip-hop, old Saturday morning cartoon music, college baseball, Reggae, and whatever else the DJs can find.

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The history of KTRU is as a terrestrial station, something people listened to in their cars, at home, with friends; the future of KTRU as an online-only station is an ersatz one at best. The polarized public outcry, retelling of stories of how KTRU shaped lives and careers and passions is a celebration of those terrestrial memories and of the way KTRU has changed lives.

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An organized protest has been planned for 2 p.m. this Sunday at Willy’s statue – aka Rice founder William Marsh Rice – on the Rice campus. A street team was formed to distribute flyers as well as circulate copies of the petition found on the savektru.org website.

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KTRU already does internet radio. In addition to KTRU’s air broadcast, we have carried a live stream on ktru.org for several years. The internet stream does have a lot of merit, because it allows our out-of-state and international listeners to tune in, and lets Rice alumni keep up with the station wherever they may be. However, to propose taking the transmitter away and going internet-only as a “compromise” is ludicrous. The only possible result is a dramatic decrease of our audience.

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