Ricardo Poveda Calderon, a Rice graduate student studying in the mechanical engineering department, passed away Oct. 24 at the age of 32. Poveda was a Fullbright scholar and an active member of the Rice graduate student community. He was involved in the Latin American Graduate Student Association, Graduate Student Association and numerous intramural graduate club sport programs.
Sophomore Grace Forbes defended her Conference USA cross country championship title last Saturday, securing her second conference title in as many years en route to a third place finish for the women’s cross country team.
When the calendar turns over into November, it not only means that Thanksgiving is right around the corner , but that it’s time to start the college basketball season. With the opening night at Tudor Fieldhouse set for this Tuesday, the Rice women’s basketball team looks to follow up on their WNIT championship last season with another strong year, but will have to overcome an offseason of turnover first.
Following last year’s quarterfinal exit in the Conference USA tournament and their 15-13 record, men’s basketball head coach Scott Pera and his team hope to have a more successful season as they continue to build the program for the future. Pera will be entering his fifth season as the head coach of the Owls and had his first winning season leading the Owls last year.
Long before she was offered the head coaching job at Rice, Lindsay Edmonds knew the one thing she would focus on if she ever got a chance to take over a program of her own. “I learned from both [former James Madison University head coach] Kenny Brooks and [North Carolina State University head coach] Wes Moore how to do things the right way in your program and with the right people,” Edmonds said. “It was a non-negotiable for both of them so I know that’s how I want to run my program — [making] sure that I’m getting the right people here. It’s not just about basketball players, it’s about getting well-rounded [people].”
Jasmine Hearn, an artist who incorporates dance, sound and costume into their performances, will be performing at the Moody Center for the Arts on Nov. 5 with three improvisational solo performances at 5:30, 6:30 and 7:30 p.m. with free admission. Hearn was commissioned as part of Moody Center’s Dimensions Variable series, which brings performance art to Moody in conversation with its current exhibitions. They will be performing dance, featuring sound and song, in conversation with Kapwani Kiwanga’s current exhibition at the Moody Center and is a part of their “Nile: A Wondering River” series. Due to its improvisational nature, they do not exactly what their performance will look like.
As spring course registration approaches, why not take advantage of all that Rice has to offer and venture into the arts? Whether someone is fitting the course between general chemistry and computer science or looking to add yet another art class to their schedule, everyone needs a change of pace, and these courses may offer just that. With everything from watching modernist auteur cinema to movement training for actors, Rice offers courses for a variety of interests. Not only do several of these courses fill distribution group one requirements, they also offer a new way to engage with the material, often with plenty of hands-on and performance-based work. So, before you completely fill up your schedule, try springing into these fine arts-based courses.
Wes Anderson’s movies exist between disagreement and divisiveness. He’s a filmmaker so distinct and unwavering in his style that you either love him or hate him, but his films aren’t likely to lead to spirited debate. Anderson clicks for some people, and for others he doesn’t. “The French Dispatch” is no different. As a solid but not stellar entry from Anderson, this movie should be enjoyable for fans of his work but an easy skip for his detractors.
The Moody Project Wall, a new initiative that sets aside a large interior wall in the Moody Center for the Arts for muralists, recently welcomed its first tenant: Houston artist Gerardo Rosales’s “¡Displaced Mundo!,” an original mural meant to call attention to the struggle of Venezuelans displaced by the nation’s current economic crisis.
Tomás Morín, a poet and assistant professor of creative writing at Rice, released his new book “Machete” on Oct. 12. “Machete” is Morín’s third published book, a poetry collection that he calls his most personal yet. Morín and other writers will come together for a reading on Rice campus on Nov. 16.
You’ve probably seen them charging in your college commons, parked in the back of your lecture hall, or zooming past you on the way to a 9 a.m. class. With top speeds of around 20 mph, electric scooters can shorten trips across campus by several minutes.
Across from Valhalla, the graduate student pub, sits a small red birdhouse. It boasts a handful of books: Al Franken’s “The Truth,” Lisa Lutz’s “The Spellman Files,” texts on managerial economics and “The Maze Runner” series. This little birdhouse is in fact one of Rice’s three Little Free Libraries. Little Free Library is a Wisconsin-based nonprofit aiming to expand literacy and book accessibility through public mini-libraries, according to the organization’s website. These small, weather-resistant boxes can be found in over 100,000 locations globally.
Since it was implemented this past summer, nearly everyone on campus has been affected in one way or another by the new ImagineOne human resources and finance system. Undergraduate students in charge of organizations are having to literally guess at their budgets and hope that they are spending within their limits. Additionally, graduate students were having issues receiving their paychecks, and faculty could not find their research funds without specific coaching.
Faculty discussed Rice University’s troublesome transition to ImagineOne that caused issues such as delayed payment, inaccessibility to grant money and inability to track spending and funds in the Oct. 27 Faculty Senate, after months of faculty members, staff and students expressing dissatisfaction with the new payment system.
