Let’s reevaluate music as a social resource

Since COVID-19, from my new home in California, I found myself reading the news from Rice more eagerly, thinking back to the seven years I spent there with many life-changing encounters. As the pandemic highlights many of the challenges we face today, from social inequity to climate change to political division, I crave the late-night Valhalla discussions and the small talk waiting in line at Coffeehouse. It is with this nostalgia, and the urge to share my own source of encouragement, that I am writing to my beloved and sorely missed community at Rice.