A letter from your outgoing editors
This is our last issue as your Editor in Chief and Managing Editor. During this past year, we have had the pleasure of reporting the news for this campus.
Dear Readers,
This is our last issue as your Editor in Chief and Managing Editor. During this past year, we have had the pleasure of reporting the news for this campus.
When we began this time last year, we had grand plans for the Thresher. We wanted to redesign the paper and change to a new website. We wanted to move the day of the week the paper came out, and we hoped to improve what we felt was a broken relationship with other organizations on campus. We definitely wanted to get the office carpet and couches cleaned.
It has been a hard year, but we are very happy to say that we have actually managed to see most of our goals through. Over last summer, we took the time to update our layout and make the paper more reader-friendly. While redesigning, we even managed to clean out the office and get some new paint on the walls. When last semester began, the Thresher changed from coming out on Friday to coming out on Wednesday so we could better cover events in a time-efficient manner, and we said goodbye to our crazy deadline night ever-so-fondly called “Whursday.” Recently, we have also switched to a new website that we believe will better serve the needs of our student body in a digital age. While we acknowledge that the website is far from perfect and are still working to fix problems, we are excited about what it means for the Thresher’s ability to cover important events online first.
Most importantly, we hope that we have helped to move the Thresher back into the good graces of students across campus. We believe the Thresher is meant to serve the students and we certainly tried to remember that as we led this newspaper the last year.
We cannot describe how much the past year has meant to us, but we are looking forward to what the Thresher is going to do in the year to come. We are so proud of our wonderful — albeit young — staff, and we are excited to see how they are going to make the paper even better!
Sincerely,
Rachel Marcus and Molly Chiu
More from The Rice Thresher
Students of conscience should boycott Local Foods
Local Foods has served, for many years, as a casual Houston restaurant option for Houston residents, including Rice students. Folks on campus will notice that this option has become more proximate, as a Local Foods location claims space on campus in the Brochstein Pavilion.
Insurance options for Ph.D. students are overpriced and insufficient
Doctoral students at Rice are given insufficient health insurance options especially compared to institutions with graduate student unions. Aetna’s graduate student health insurance plan leaves students with significant costs compared to the minimum annual stipend. Additionally, the available Aetna plan offers insufficient benefits when compared both to medical insurance plans at peer institutions and to the non-subsidized Wellfleet plan – Rice’s alternative option for international students.
Keep administrative hands off public parties
Emergency Management is hoping to implement a new system that has students swipe their IDs when entering public parties to cross-check their name with a pre-registered list. This idea is being touted as an effort to reduce check-in time and lines at publics. The thing is – we are tired. After bans on events, APAC and dramatic changes in party requirements, we want hands off the public party.
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