Getting over the hedges

By Brooke Bullock     10/7/10 7:00pm

The hedges surrounding Rice University seem to wall in students, despite the university's location within America's fourth-largest city. A microcosm forms on the Rice campus where students almost never have to leave the hedges unless they feel compelled to, but on-campus programs are working to change this. 1. HedgeHopper

The HedgeHopper card is a program that works to encourage students to get off campus and explore the city of Houston: the cultural, and edible, opportunities the city has to offer.

HedgeHopper cards provide a list of restaurants and stores that agree to give Rice students a discount if they eat or shop there. Arranged by the Student Association, HedgeHopper cards offer an incentive for students to get off campus.

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Every student receives a HedgeHopper card in their mailbox. This year's card includes restaurants such as Swirll, Pasha Turkish Restaurant and Thai Village. New additions to the Hedgehopper this year include Berripop, Bodegas Taco Shop and Red Mango. SA External Vice President Carl Nelson said the card has historically been mostly restaurants but the SA is trying to expand to other types of stores, like Today's Vision, an eyewear store.

"The cards advertise for the businesses too," Nelson said.

This source of advertisement to a large group of people is what encourages the local businesses to agree to give students a discount year after year, Nelson said.

"I use the HedgeHopper card about once a week, on Saturday nights usually," Jones College freshman Cameron Smith said." My favorite place to go is Swirll in the village because they have good cheap frozen yogurt."

2. METRO Q-Card

The Passport to Houston program provides free METRORail Q-cards that are meant to encourage students to go beyond the hedges and participate in other Passport to Houston events. However, a problem has come up with the Q-card system.

More students are losing their Q-cards every year. In the short time school has been in session, 72 students have lost their Q-cards. Director of Student Center and Campus-wide Programs Boyd Beckwith said that two years ago, only 25 students lost their Q-cards the entire year, whereas the next year 94 students lost them.

"It is clearly a problem," Beckwith said. "My speculation is that because we currently provide a METRO Q-card to students automatically, whether they plan to use it or not, they are more likely to lose track of them."

Possible solutions included making the Q-card itself harder to lose.

"You know how grocery cards have the hole in them?" RPC A&E Committee co-Chair Adrianne Waddell said. "We want to do that for the Q-card so it's like a keychain."

After presenting the problem at an SA meeting, Passport to Houston and VP of Finance Kathy Collins reached a solution this week.

"Passport to Houston and the VP for Finance have revised the fee schedule for lost cards effective Nov. 1 and will no longer automatically distribute Metro Q-cards to all new students next fall," Beckwith said.

The program is set up so that going to cultural events in Houston is easy and affordable for all Rice students.

"We concentrate on venues that are withing walking distance from the light rail," Beckwith said.

Transportation and discounted, sometimes free, tickets are provided through Passport to Houston and the committee is always looking for more opportunities for students to get off campus. Waddell said some students may be hesitant to use Q-cards because many haven't used public transportation before.

"My first semester I used the METRO maybe once a month, but my second semester I started using it more because I had to go to art exhibits for a class," Wiess College sophomore Yahaira Verdejo said. "It was after I started using it more I saw how cool it was."

3. Passport to Houston

Passport to Houston is a program run by Rice Program Council and the A&E Committee that arranges discounted or free tickets to a variety of cultural events: symphony, opera and ballet performances, various sporting events and museum visits.

The amount of students using the program has significantly increased over the years, according to Beckwith. Last year's records show 5,190 attendees to Passport to Houston events, up from 2,277 two years ago, although students have been counted multiple times if they attended more than one event in both figures, Beckwith said.

Coming up, Passport to Houston has discounted tickets for the Houston Dynamo versus Seattle Sounders game and a performance of Madame Butterfly on Nov. 5. A "potatotini" bar, which, according to Beckwith, was a big hit at an event last year will be offered again preceding this year's performance of Madame Butterfly.

"You get all kinds of mashed potatoes in a martini glass and put toppings on it," Waddell said. "We try and get people out to our events by enticing them with food."

The committee is working on other events for the rest of the year.

"Currently, we're picking our spring Rice Nights. Last year, we did Wonderland at the Alley and the Houston Ballet," RPC A&E co-chair Fay Yang said."I know we've already lined up the Nutcracker and Blue Man Group tickets to sell at a reduced rate."

However, Waddel, a Sid Richardson College junior, said that she feels students aren't taking full advantage of all these opportunities.

"We just want to find opportunities for Rice students to go beyond the hedges and explore the culture and everything that's available in Houston," Yang, a Wiess junior, said.

Passport to Houston also tries to make all the events offered easily accessible to Rice students. She said that some events get a large turnout while others don't. One factor could be unused tickets from students who pick up tickets from RPC and then decide not to go to the event.

Waddell said some students just don't know about events, but there is an easy remedy.

"Go to the Passport website - it's just been redone, or join the Facebook group," Waddell said. "We post on there about events a lot.

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