The voting period for the special election for the Student Association external vice president position began on Sept. 29 and will end on Oct. 2. The two candidates are Kevin Guo and Tessa Schreiber, whose platforms can be found on the SA website.
“Screw Yer Roommate,” the mass blind date event hosted each year by the Rice Program Council was held again this year, despite COVID-19-specific challenges. This year the event had a hybrid format, with both an in-person and virtual option to allow remote students to participate.
Former Sid Richardson magister and planetary sciences professor Dale Sawyer, who passed away on Sept. 15, was honored this past week with a tribute at the Memorial Hermann Medical Plaza. The building, also known to Rice students as the rainbow building, displayed Sid’s colors of red, black and gold starting on Sept. 22 until the end of last week.
The 2021 spring semester will potentially start one to two weeks late due to an extended winter break, according to Speaker of the Faculty Senate Christopher Johns-Krull. Johns-Krull said at the Student Association Senate meeting on Sep. 21 that there will also likely not be a weeklong spring break during the semester, but a potential for intermittent holidays spread out either during the weekdays or through three-day weekends.
Rice’s Crisis Management Team plans to add a fourth and more rapid COVID-19 testing option on the Rice campus. Currently there are three sites that provide daily testing for asymptomatic students, staff and faculty who spend time on campus.
Rice Coffeehouse reopened its doors last Monday after shutting down in mid-March amid the pandemic, carrying out a soft reopening plan it has been shaping for months, according to Brendan Wong, the general manager of Coffeehouse.
Breaking its four-year tie with Cornell University, Rice University’s ranking tied with Washington University of St. Louis at No. 16 in the newly released U.S. News & World Report’s 2021 Best National Universities list, one place up from No. 17 last year.
Construction of the new Sid Richardson College building is on schedule to be completed by the start of the spring semester and will be ready for occupancy when students return in the spring, according to Anzilla Gilmore, senior project manager for new Sid.
A group of Rice students have continued the summer protest to remove the Founder’s Memorial through daily sit-ins in front of the Founder’s Memorial since Aug. 31. Shifa Abdul Rahman, a junior at Lovett College, organized the sit-ins to advocate for the immediate removal of the statue.
Rice Management Company has entered a multiyear partnership with Brighter Bites, a nonprofit focused on addressing food insecurity and health education, according to a Sept. 16 press release. Rice Management Company is currently developing The Ion, an under-construction tech hub in Midtown, as well as the South Main Innovation District in the surrounding neighborhoods of Midtown and Third Ward.
On Sept. 15, students, faculty and staff received a Rice Alert around midnight warning them that a patient, described as a Black male, had escaped custody from Ben Taub Hospital and was running towards Rice University. This was the second time this semester that the Rice Alerts system was used to notify students about escaped hospital patients.
U.S. News & World Report’s Top 20 colleges have adopted varying reopening plans and testing strategies for the fall semester. Rice, which has maintained a low positivity rate on COVID tests, joins only five other Top 20 institutions — the University of Chicago, the University of Notre Dame, Duke University, Vanderbilt University and Cornell University — in offering a hybrid or in-person classroom experience for the fall.
A group of Rice students have continued the summer movement to remove William Marsh Rice’s statue through daily sit-ins in front of the Founder’s Memorial since Aug. 31. Shifa Abdul Rahman, a junior at Lovett College, organized the sit-ins to push for the administration to remove the statue immediately.
Ronald Stebbings, professor emeritus of space physics and astronomy and former dean of undergraduates, passed away on Aug. 27 at age 91. Stebbings is survived by his two sons, Vernon Stebbings (Will Rice College ‘78) and Martin Stebbings (Sid Richardson College ‘83).
To assist instructors with the classroom technology for online or hybrid courses, the Office of Information Technology has hired 160 students as technology teaching assistants. According to the OIT Associate Vice President Diane Butler, faculty have requested Tech TAs for approximately 270 courses.
The Rice Program Council canceled the “Mulan” (2020) movie night after students addressed on social media a boycott movement against the film due to one of its filming locations being Xinjiang, China, its end credits thanking local agencies that conduct concentration camps and the main actress’s support of Hong Kong police.
From filmmaking to sculpture, faculty and students in the visual and dramatic arts department are discovering what it means to create art when COVID-19 restrictions include room capacity limits and social distancing measures throughout campus. For those who are engaging remotely this semester, finding space to work on art at home can be a challenge.
The Shepherd School of Music has conducted classes this semester both in-person and remote despite challenges regarding proximity, airflow, and, in the case of wind instruments, the spread of saliva particles. Consistent and exhaustive COVID-19 precautionary measures, specifically designed to restrict the spread of particles while playing instruments, have been enacted to make in-person music classes possible, according to Rice’s Director of Bands Chuck Throckmorton.
Rice received $3.4 million in funds from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act this past summer and completed the first phase of payments in June, while the second phase of payments has not occurred yet.
Rice’s Reckling Park will be the on-campus polling location for both early voting and election day this year, according to Lila Greiner, the media relations director of Rice Young Democrats. Harris County officials moved Rice’s polling location off-campus in February due to accessibility concerns for non-Rice voters.
