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NEWS 3/28/23 10:01pm

Undergrad tuition to increase 5.7% next academic year

By Spring Chenjp

Rice’s undergraduate tuition for the 2023-24 academic year will be $57,210, a 5.7% increase from the previous year. This brings the total cost of attendance up to $74,028, marking the fourth consecutive year of tuition increases and highest percentage increase in recent years. The most recent comparable tuition hike was an increase of 5.4% for the 2010-11 academic year, which came in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.

NEWS 3/21/23 10:38pm

Beer Bike to divide races amid safety concerns

By Spring Chenjp

Beer Bike races will be held in two heats this year, instead of the traditional singular race, according to Anne Wang, a campus-wide Beer Bike coordinator. The change is in light of last year’s crash during the women’s race, which injured three bikers and sent one to the hospital.

NEWS 3/21/23 10:35pm

Proposed Quad redesign decenters controversial history

By Nayeli Shad and Michelle Gachelin

The architect firm Nelson Byrd Woltz unveiled their proposed plans for the Academic Quadrangle redesign to the public on March 9. The changes included relocating Willy’s statue to the corner of Lovett Hall and the Welcome Center, adding community gathering spaces by Fondren Library and paving a curved, tree-lined path stretching diagonally from Rayzor Hall to Herzstein Hall. 

FEATURES 3/21/23 10:28pm

Agnes Ho talks wellbeing, social work and sushi

By Juliana Lightsey

Agnes Ho has two loves: sushi restaurants and genuine connections. The latter is one that she’s spent the past decade cultivating at Rice as director of the Wellbeing and Counseling Center. Her experiences as a first-generation, international student have enabled her to tackle mental health issues for a wide variety of adolescents at Rice and in the Houston community as a whole. 

FEATURES 3/7/23 11:05pm

‘A significant milestone’: Women carve out spaces at Rice

By Morgan Gage

When the then-Rice Institute welcomed its first matriculating class, Nellie Mills was among its ranks. Mills, the first woman to matriculate at Rice, was one of the few women attending Rice in its early days. While students were largely male, Rice was established as a coeducational institution, admitting both male and female students from its inception — though admission was restricted to white Texas residents. 

SPORTS 3/7/23 11:00pm

After Title IX: Looking back at early women’s sports at Rice

By Riya Misra

In 1977, one of the most smuggled goods at Rice was sandwiches. The perpetrators were the women’s volleyball team, forced to sneak food out of the serveries to accommodate for their practice time at the gym, which overlapped with dinner times. Neither Rice nor the athletics department had made any mealtime provisions for female athletes at the time, according to Helen Travis Savitzky (’80), who was on the volleyball and swim teams during her time at Rice.

NEWS 2/28/23 11:34pm

Rice on fire: Prairie Plot reborn through controlled burn

By Riya Misra

Rice’s Crisis Management team supervised a prescribed burn at the Prairie Plots, a 10,000 square foot plot of prairie garden on the south lawn of the James Turrell Skyspace, next to the Shepherd School of Music, on Tuesday, Feb. 28. Prescribed burning is a common practice and involves intentionally setting a controlled fire to maintain prairie vegetation. Maggie Tsang, an assistant professor at the Rice School of Architecture who created the installation, said that the Prairie Plot was installed nearly a year ago to reduce maintenance efforts for the previous turf grass.

A&E 2/28/23 11:18pm

Senior Spotlight: Multi-hyphenate Daniel Cho composes life after Rice

By Michelle Gachelin

From music composition to multivariable calculus, one prolific artist has excelled at it all. Daniel Cho, a double major in violin performance and composition at the Shepherd School of Music, began playing the violin around the age of five and won a competition for his first original composition at the age of nine. In addition to his impressive portfolio, Cho is minoring in business and is set to intern in Los Angeles this summer at Crowe, a global accounting firm, before returning to Rice to earn his Masters in Accounting. He hopes that his experience in finance will be another string on his bow to position himself in Los Angeles long term, where he can begin composing music for film soundtracks.

SPORTS 2/21/23 11:51pm

‘Evolving daily’: Rice athletes navigate the NIL world

By Diego Palos Rodriguez

Since the NCAA introduced a new policy allowing student-athletes to profit off of their name, image and likeness more than a year ago, Rice athletes are increasingly agreeing to sponsorships with a variety of businesses. Student-athletes have had the opportunity to partner with everything from clothing stores, to food and drink brands, to restaurants. According to Quincy Olivari, a junior guard on the men’s basketball team, he’s used the new NIL rules to sponsor companies to which he feels a personal connection.

NEWS 2/21/23 11:42pm

SA town hall features slate of uncontested candidates

By Riya Misra

Student Association candidates Solomon Ni, Alison Qiu, Crystal Unegbu and Yuv Sachdeva outlined their goals for the SA and addressed questions about their candidacy platforms at the Rice Thresher’s SA Town Hall on Monday, Feb. 22. The town hall was in lieu of the traditional presidential debate, as every SA executive candidate is running uncontested this year. 

A&E 2/21/23 11:03pm

Review: ‘Blood and Honey’ is a sticky mess

By Hamza Saeed

I am not an advocate of government censorship, but this movie should be criminalized. It should be a punishable offense to have been involved in the making of this movie. It shouldn’t even qualify as a movie, as it has none of the necessary elements. There is no plot, no motives, no characters, no beginning and no end. Let’s discuss this fever dream of an experience.

NEWS 2/15/23 12:57am

Sex Week heats up campus

By Hajera Naveed and Chloe Singer

This Monday marked the beginning of two Sex Weeks at Rice, one hosted by the Student Association’s Student Health Services Committee and another by the club Sex Week Educational Awareness Team at Rice. Both weeks are devoted to increasing awareness within the Rice community about sexual health and wellness.

A&E 2/15/23 12:15am

“Bigger and better”: Africayé! the Musical is back

By Shreya Challa

Africayé, the Rice African Student Association’s annual cultural showcase, is being held at the Shepherd School of Music’s Stude Concert Hall for the first time in history on Feb. 18, with doors opening at 4 p.m. Celebration of African culture is at the core of Africayé, from the overarching storyline to the food, music and fashion show. This year’s theme is Africayé! The Musical, with the aim of spotlighting the art, dance and music that come from African culture.

NEWS 2/2/23 9:24pm

Will the real Yo-Yo’s Hot Dog please stand up?: H&D brings True Dog Houston to campus after all

By Ben Baker-Katz , Morgan Gage and Prayag Gordy

Housing & Dining announced on Jan. 31 that they had reached an agreement with “YOYO” to operate on campus. But the next day, H&D sent the Rice community a follow-up email with a flyer for the vendor they had actually secured: True Dog Houston, operated by Damion Loera, a former partner of YoYo’s Hot Dog who has since opened his own business selling similar hot dogs.

A&E 1/31/23 11:14pm

Rice historian Douglas Brinkley on his Grammy nominations, musical community

By Shreya Challa

In his free time, Douglas Brinkley, a history professor at Rice University, gets nominated for Grammy awards. This year, Brinkley has been nominated for two Grammys for co-producing “Black Men Are Precious” by Ethelbert Miller for Best Spoken Word Poetry Album and “Fandango At The Wall in New York” by Arturo O’ Farrill and the Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra for Best Latin Jazz Album. Brinkley previously won a Grammy in 2017 for co-producing “Presidential Suite: Eight Variations on Freedom.” The Grammy Awards ceremony will be held on Feb. 5 in Los Angeles, broadcast live on CBS and streamed on Paramount+.

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