Special Projects

Review: ‘Dear Evan Hansen’ meaningfully captures teen mental health struggles

Adapted from the 2016 Broadway musical of the same name, “Dear Evan Hansen” is a  coming-of-age musical teen drama focusing on Evan Hansen (Ben Platt), a high school senior struggling with social anxiety disorder. The movie has an excellent soundtrack and skillfully depicts the experience of the Murphy family after Connor Murphy passes away from suicide.  

Review: ZillaKami goes all out on “DOG BOY”

Underground group City Morgue, consisting of ZillaKami and São Paulo rapper SosMula, began their rise to prominence a few years ago. They took the edgiest attributes of contemporary rap and amplified them by incorporating elements of rock and metal. On “DOG BOY,” ZillaKami takes everything unique about his previous music and turns it up to 11. 

Review: Noah Kahan returns with cathartic sophomore release ‘I Was / I Am’

In just two years, Noah Kahan’s career has skyrocketed: His music has been streamed over a billion times, and in 2019, he toured the world with his personal inspiration James Bay. The transition to fame hasn’t been easy. His long-awaited sophomore album, “I Was / I Am,” offers fans a candid confession of how he’s been changed, for better or for worse. With his signature vivid lyricism and buoyant melodies, Kahan delivers stories of heartbreak, addiction, depression and hope in all of his sardonic and self-deprecating glory.

Review: Project Pollo vegan “chikn” falls short of expectations

If you’re looking for a vegan, sustainable alternative to your Chick-Fil-A addiction, then Project Pollo might be the place for you. But if you’re not looking to sit in Houston traffic for 30 minutes and pay steep prices for soy-based chicken dishes, then maybe not. Project Pollo, a local fast food chain serving fried “chikn” and Impossible burgers, opened a new location in Houston on Sept. 18 about nine miles west of Rice University’s campus. 

Smaller artists to keep an eye on this ACL

Three things are certain in life: death, taxes and Rice students trying to assemble groups of friends to trek to Austin for the Austin City Limits Festival. As we’ve somehow almost gotten to the start of the October, the Thresher is excited to announce that we’ll be covering the festival throughout the next few weeks. While we’re certainly excited for some of the bigger names, we know most of y’all have already made up your minds about which headliners to see. Instead, we wanted to recommend some lesser known artists that we’re hyped for.

Thresher Declassified: ACL Survival Guide

It’s been two years since music fans flooded into Zilker Park for the Austin City Limits Festival. This music festival spans two weekends, eight stages and features over 100 musical acts and a plethora of food options. The 2021 festival dates are set for the weekends of Oct. 1-3 and 8-10, and, while tickets are sold out, there are resale options available. 

Administration is prioritizing money and prestige over student well-being

As last summer neared its close and I began looking towards the fall semester, I was more excited than I had ever been to start a school year. After a difficult year of online classes and social isolation, I couldn’t wait to finally see all the friends that I had missed for the last 16 months, as well as meet the underclassmen that I had been unable to interact with throughout my junior year. Despite the rise of the Delta COVID-19 variant, with Chair of Crisis Management Advisory Committee Kevin Kirby’s email on Aug. 3, I was still filled with a strong sense of optimism about my final year at Rice. Unfortunately, it has since become clear that this optimism was misplaced, as was my trust in the Rice administration. 

Less horny all the time, please

Rice Missed Encounters were once synonymous with a public Facebook group after the same name. This group was invented for students to reach out to cuties seen around campus when in-person contact was either faux pas, as in the middle of an event, or impossible without some loud and embarrassing pursuit. Through it, friends of mine found relationships, and I received a shoutout myself for my “very sincere and lovely” smile. Though many pioneers pushed at its boundaries with concupiscent calls to action like “I want you in my bed”, the question remained: what if the page were horny? Like, frighteningly, debilitatingly horny.

Rice must clarify academic accommodations

Four weeks ago, we wrote an editorial calling for the Rice campus to embrace a new normal when it comes to COVID policies and our activities on campus. Because we are arrogant enough to believe that everyone reads and takes guidance from our editorials each week, it seems that, by and large, the community has taken our advice as this semester has continued along in a relatively “normal” way. However, there is still work to be done in ensuring that courses are delivered in a uniform manner, allowing every student an equal opportunity to succeed in their classes while we continue through this pandemic. 

GSA president discusses servery dinner options for graduate students

At the Student Association meeting Monday Sept. 27, Graduate Student Association President Mario Escobor discussed the fact that there are no dinner options for graduate students on campus. Escobor said the GSA wanted the input of the undergraduate population on this initiative. 

Electrical fire in Mudd Lab leads to campus phone and network outages

Rice campus experienced phone and network outages due to an electrical problem in the Mudd Computer Science Laboratory building, according to B. Paul Padley, interim vice president for IT and chief information officer. At 11:04 a.m. on Sept. 27, an electrical fire was reported and the Houston Fire Department arrived on site, according to the Office of Information Technology Status Page.

Annual global climate strike occurs Sept. 24, with low Houston turnout

Sept. 24 marked climate marches that occurred across the country, including one scheduled to occur in Houston. Rice Climate Alliance, a club dedicated to advocating for and educating students on the current climate crisis, did not attend due to the Houston march’s poor organization, according to Clara Ursic, the Rice Climate Alliance treasurer.

Moody Foundation donates $100 million to build new student center

Rice received a $100 million donation from the Moody Foundation which will support construction of the new student center as well as endowments to support some of the program components of the center, according to President David Leebron. This donation, along with the Welch Foundation grant, are the largest private donations in Rice’s history, according to Leebron. 

Rice hires external agency to assist with contact tracing

Rice has entered a contract with Evergreen Contract Resources to support contact tracing on campus, according to Jerusha Kasch, Rice’s director of institutional crisis management. Approximately five employees from the external Houston company will work 36 hours per week as contact tracers at Rice, Kasch said.

9-29-2021 Crossword Solutions

‘Some call it Hell; I call it “Flue”’: A look back at the 1918 pandemic

In the history of the Rice Thresher, the publication of print editions has been suspended three times: last February in the midst of a historic winter storm, in spring 2020 during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States and in 1918 during World War I — and the coinciding Spanish influenza pandemic. The last edition of the Thresher in 1918 was published May 25. Thresher staff wrote about the establishment of the Student Association and the poor quality of food during wartime and published advertisements, aimed at the student body of a militarized campus, for military uniforms for sale. 

Waitz no more: Crowd level monitoring now offered at Fondren

When a student walks into Fondren Library, a lot of factors go into choosing their studying location — the amount of natural lighting, the comfiness of the chairs or maybe someone cute sitting nearby. Recently, Fondren has started sharing another factor to consider before students even enter the building: crowd levels, posted online and at Fondren’s entrances. 

Turning a COVID year into a gap year: 6 students share their stories

There is no linear path to take in life and in college — no one-size-fits-all plan to success. Sometimes, the unexpected happens (say, a global pandemic). Or you simply decide to step back and re-evaluate what would be best for you, regardless of what others say you should be doing. Taking a gap year is a choice that students make for a multitude of reasons. The Thresher talked to six students who took last year off from school to learn more about the unique experiences they’re bringing back with them. 

Working group proposes changes to undergraduate education requirements

Two recommendations, including introducing themes into distribution courses and removing prerequisites from distribution offerings, have been proposed to alter the undergraduate curriculum requirements by the General Education Faculty Working Group, according to Douglas Schuler, associate professor of business and public policy. Schuler presented these working group recommendations at the Sept. 20 Student Association Senate, after presenting them at the Sept. 1 Faculty Senate meeting.

Majority of classes return to in-person instruction this week and next

The majority of classes with 50 or more students will transition back to in-person learning between Sept. 20 and Sept. 27, following an email from the Office of the Provost announcing this return. Previously, courses with 50 or more students were kept online, even as other classes returned to in-person learning after the second week of the semester, according to an email from the Office of the Provost on Sept. 2.