The future of KTRU has set a traditionally apathetic Rice network of students, alumni and community members to action.

Rice students, even those working at KTRU, had no advanced notice of the sale of the KTRU broadcast tower and FCC license that was all-but finalized this morning to the University of Houston for $9.5 million. KTRU will continue to broadcast online.

While there has been a healthy amount of outrage and sadness, there's a certain sense of déjà vu to the proceedings. It was just under 10 years ago that the administration last tried to shut down KTRU, locking out students after DJs played punk songs over a Rice basketball game in protest of the new athletic programming requirements. After a campus-wide protest, a petition signed by 2,000 students, faculty, and alumni (and a few famous musicians), the administration backed down.

Comparing the situation today to that of 10 years ago, KTRU loyalists are split on whether a similar take-back is possible.

"People are equally outraged, but there is an underlying current of fatalism," says Dennis Lee, who has deejayed The Vinyl Frontier, a show dedicated to underground hip-hop, since his time as a graduate student in 1999. "People realize it's too late. Ten years ago there was no real money at stake, now there's $10 million on the table."

Despite the difficulty in affecting the all-but-completed deal, a Save KTRU website, Facebook group and online petition have sprung up directing interested parties to e-mail the Rice president, deans and board of trustees, all before Rice president David Leebron released an e-mail statement to students and alums. A quickly-arranged protest has been organized to take place 7 p.m. Tuesday at the Rice Media Center.

"I'm expecting a huge turnout at the (protest). The administration knew what they were doing, and remembered and learned from from last time," says former DJ Matt Brownlie. "There was no removing students from station, just cold business behind closed doors. Texas Tech's station shut down the same way, they waited until the students were gone and then pulled the plug."

With the future of KTRU as an online-only entity all but certain, many are focusing on the loss to Rice as a university and for the students, the loss of a truly local independent medium to Houston and the damage in the relationship between the university administration and the Rice community at large.

"I am shocked, betrayed and disgusted by how the Rice administration handled the sale," says Rose Cahalan, Rice and KTRU alumnus. "They did it swiftly and secretly, without consulting faculty, staff or students, or even informing us until the day it happened. This secrecy was clearly designed to prevent any protests from being effective--there just wasn't time to act. A 'Call to Conversation' was a major component of President Leebron's Vision for the Second Century, and this utter lack of dialogue clearly violates that supposed value."

"Hopefully, if nothing else, Rice is going to get a black eye over their handling of this — it's just so underhanded," Brownlie says. "It baffles me that a university with the prestige and seemingly progressive leanings would pull something like this on their own students ... it's so disrespectful, like they are saying, 'Go on and do whatever campus and community work that interests you — until we decide to make money off of it.'"

"Gotta love that they decided this when no students were around," commented alum Stephanie Taylor. "Reminds me of when they decided to charge hundreds for parking during finals. The only difference is that then Rice at least had the courtesy to tell the students what was happening instead of letting them read about it in the news."

Alum Teresa Monkkonen agrees, "It's not just about the radio station, it's about not involving any talking to students before making this decision and killing a student club at the expense of the bottom line."

As alumus Ray Shea noted on the official Rice Facebook page, "Rice is trumpeting the fact that they made it into the Top 25 in the U.S. News Top Colleges rankings. Ironically, Rice will soon be the only school in that list without a student-run broadcast radio entity."

Leebron's e-mail did attempt to address these concerns:

The format change leaves many wondering what will become of KTRU's local focus.

"We will still attempt to cover local music, but when you take away a 50,000-watt broadcast you're taking away a core part of independent music community," Lee says.

"I just don't see people getting as excited to be part of an Internet radio station," Brownlie adds. "There's something about the intimacy of radio, about what you're playing broadcasting out over the airwaves. People listen to KTRU in their cars. It's the only radio station that makes local music a big part of its everyday playlist. I can't count the number of local bands I've discovered."

"KTRU was a forum for national bands to come to Houston," says former KTRU DJ and Rice alum Catherine Adcock. "I remember when Ted Leo and the Pharmacists played a show in the RMC and then drank beer at Valhalla. Now they're huge. Where else does that happen in Houston?"

"Rice has reputation for not interacting with city, but KTRU is one of the ways that we did," says Laura Elizabeth Bellows, an alum and a DJ for six years. "Even after college, it's something that keeps me connected to Rice, so shutting it down, it makes me much less likely to donate, not just because I'm angry but because that connection is lost."