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Rice's class rings have been a tradition since 1916; however, there is now a student push to create more of a tradition and culture around the ring itself. The committee involved with this initiative would like to increase student participation in ring purchases and would like to help make the ring more special by planning events around it.
Rice has expressed interest in accumulating monetary donations towards a new $40 million athletic facility to replace the current one adjoining Rice Stadium. The building would house football team locker rooms, coaching staff offices, a media room and a sports medicine complex.
During the past 99 years, Rice University has grown significantly while staying true to its core message of establishing an institution for the advancement of literature, science, art, philosophy and letters.
We hope you enjoy this special edition of the Thresher. Our regular publication will resume next Friday, Oct. 21.
As we look to the next century, we at the Thresher believe that Rice should continue to grow and achieve in all aspects of the university. In particular, we encourage the Rice community to strive toward the following goals in the next hundred years:
The WIkiRice page has been live for several months now and is slowly expanding (see story, pg. 5). The concept is a brilliant one; essentially, anyone can update the Rice-related pages. As the website expands, there will be pages to represent Rice's most famous (and infamous) moments. Ultimately, WikiRice may serve as the archive for campus happenings. Unfortunately, this ultimate vision is hampered by the constant possibility of illegitimite posts. Without proper monitoring, the site could quickly degenerate into a medley of inside jokes and college rivalry.
The Rice University Police Department took great strides to improve its relationship with the student body by instituting a new college-centric training program for newly-hired RUPD officers (see story, pg. 7). RUPD has hired quite a number of new officers over the past year, and Rice's culture makes it necessary for the new officers to be specifically trained to understand how the college system operates.
Rice's own Richard Tapia was honored with the U.S. National Medal of Science this past week (see story, pg. 1). Tapia's work in the field of mathematics, paired with his contributions outside the class room, make him extremely deserving of the award. Tapia has been a member of the Rice community for over 40 years, and his long-term association with the university is a testament to Rice's ability to draw and retain the best faculty in the country.
Apathy is quite the buzzword at Rice; for every comment about rigorous majors and extreme coursework, a reference is made to Rice students' failure to get involved and effect change. Whether discussing voting, college cabinets, environmental consciousness or entrepreneurship, it seems that too many students simply decide to stay out of the fray and not participate. Of course, there are widespread exemptions to all of the claims, but on the whole, Rice students could certainly benefit from less apathy. It is precisely this lack of initiative and leadership that the leadership committee has been established to address (see story, pg. 1).
St. Arnold's Centenni-Ale was released at Valhalla this past Friday and the volume of sales was extremely impressive. The Thresher would like to extend a sincere thanks to Brock Wagner, Rice aulmnus and St. Arnold's founder, for celebrating his alma mater's centenial anniversary in such a distinct way. It is these sorts of small but unique happenings around Rice that make us who we are.
Rice is an outstanding academic institution for most things, but recent information indicates that foreign language education is not one of Rice's strengths (see story, pg. XX). However, Rice is considering a strong proposal to have lower-level language courses meet five times a week.
This past week, the hip-hop world was rocked by yet another leaked album. This time it was J. Cole's debut album, Cole World. In a world where illegal music pirating occurs without a second thought, Rice University is giving students a reason to think again before clicking that download button (see story, pg. 1).
In the Sep. 16 issue of the Thresher ("Limelight: The Rice Players' season"), the directors of the listed productions were incorrectly attributed. Joseph Lockett is directing Dead Man's Cellphone, opening this week, and T.J. Burleson is directing The Baltimore Waltz, opening next spring. The Thresher regrets this error.
The recent Bicycle Awareness Week seemed to antagonize campus cyclists more than promote them (see story pg. 7). The influx of signs around campus offer pointed, patronizing directions to bikers; furthermore, these signs address only bikers, not pedestrains. Campus biking safety is not a simple one-way street. Pedestrians, cars, scooters and bikes all have equal responsibility to pay attention to the road, and the recent attempts to only focus on the bikers' responsibilities is absurd. The Bicycle Awareness Week also coincided with the negative news that bikers will soon be susceptible to moving violation tickets. Frankly, biking safety around campus is reasonable, and bikers seems to be quite responsible on the whole. RUPD's decision to begin ticketing bikers will only dissuade students from using bikes on campus. If Bicycle Awarness Week is to occur again at Rice it should be completely overhauled, and the vastly negative tone of the week needs be reversed. Perhaps in the future, we can take a look at promoting the environmentally-conscious act of biking, offer biking opportunites around Houston and emphasize campus cycling facilities such as the bike shop.
The Rice Owls football team found itself on SportsCenter's Top 10 plays this past Saturday for its unbelievable last-second, game-saving field goal block (see story pg. 1). The Owls looked great all afternoon and were rewarded with a marquee win against a Big Ten opponent. In fact, the win against Purdue marked the first win Rice has posted against a BCS league opponent since 2001. The victory has the potential to spark the team to a great season and to rejuvenate student interest in the football team. The home opener was very well-attended, and those students who left early were plagued with the guilt of missing the greatest Rice athletics moment of the past few years. Rice looked good against a stronger University of Texas opponent during the first half and came away with a huge win in their second game of the season against Purdue. The team deserves the students' support, as this may just be the breakout year we've all been dreaming about. As the hero on the last play, Justin Allen said, "The last couple years we're just a play away or one step short. But today we weren't. Today we took that last step, and we believed in ourselves."
The RMC received quite the overhaul this past summer, resulting in a new convenience store and a new Mediterranean food outlet (see story pg. 7). However, these non-student businesses are out of sync with the needs of the student body.
Currently, the NCAA football conference landscape is in upheaval. Universities such as Colorado and Utah have already shifted conferences and Texas A&M is in the process of moving to the SEC. Rice should actively pursue a similar motion.
It has been a trying 10 years for our country since the devastating attacks of September 11, 2001. However on the 10-year anniversary of the terror strikes, we at the Thresher hope that the Rice community and the whole country can come together and remember those that perished in the tragedy. Rice is hosting a number of events in memoriam of the anniversary. On Sunday, there will be a vigil and there will also be bell tolls at the exact time of each of the four attacks to the minute ten years ago. The Thresher strongly encourages everyone to participate in these memorial events and to take time to reflect on the 9/11 tragedies. as unity is what will move this great country forward.
Rice hosted the author of its common reading book, "The Honor Code," this past Tuesday (see story, pg. 1). Unfortunately, many new students bypassed the opportunity to hear Kwame Anthony Appiah speak. Only a hundred students attended the talk; the poor attendance reflects the continued struggle of the common reading program at Rice to really captivate the enthusiasm of new students.
The city of Houston is in a level two drought, and the situation is much more dire than what most at Rice believe (see story, pg. 1). The harsh shortages are affecting the Houston community, while the Rice community remains largely shielded from the issue within the hedges. However, as per our university's mission statement and essence, we play an integral role in our local community, and that dictates that we become a part of the water shortage solution rather than continue contributing to the problem.
