The Rice football team got their first win of the season this past Saturday against the University of Southern Mississippi. Playing an away game in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, the Owls piled up 30 points on the Golden Eagles, giving up only six. Rice’s overall record is now 1-1, while Southern Miss has dropped to 1-5.
Students have heightened anxieties during this time, regardless of who wins — for their safety, for their futures, for other people, for their families, for the rest of the world. With all this going on, no midterm break to properly rest, and an increasingly worsening pandemic without proper academic accommodations to account for it all, we need time to rest and check in with one another. Whatever outcome, election night will be hard; the days following may be worse. Be gentle with us — we’re trying.
As early voting came to a close last week, many Rice students cast their ballot ahead of national Election Day, either by mail-in or early voting at one of the many sites in the Houston area, including this year on campus at Rice Stadium.
The Rice men’s and women’s cross country teams began and ended their season on Saturday when they competed in the Conference USA Championship, their first and only meet of the season. The men’s team finished third overall, and the women finished fourth. But the story of the day was sophomore Grace Forbes, who became just the third Owl in the history of the program to win an individual conference title.
Two days after the early voting period started in Texas on Oct. 13, Katimah Harper got in a car with her boyfriend and drove down the street to NRG Stadium. They pulled up behind a line of cars and waited for about 10 minutes, then pulled into a tent, where a poll worker checked their IDs and gave them a tablet to fill out their ballots for the 2020 general election.
Back in April, the Thresher compiled a playlist of songs submitted by students that made them feel more grounded while swimming in the sea of COVID-19 chaos. Now, seven months and a seeming lifetime later, the series is back for a second installment, “Songs For Quiet Time Pt. 2.” We asked the same two questions to those who submitted music: What songs or artists have been helping you get through self-isolation, and how have they helped you do so?
I am obsessed with seventeen. It’s the transitive property, really: I’m obsessed with music and music is obsessed with seventeen. Ever since McCartney howled “she was just seventeen” and Hammerstein celebrated “sixteen going on seventeen,” bands from Marina and the Diamonds to The 1975 have celebrated this liminal year. Seventeen is the terminus of the slow death of childhood but prior to the rude awakening of adulthood. It’s when you sneak out of the house or read philosophy or, in my case, listen to Amanda Pascali.
When ground broke in 2017 for the construction of the Brockman Hall for Opera, no one could have predicted that the first show in the new hall would be one without an audience. The new hall, equipped with a three-tiered, 600-seat European-style theater, the first of its kind according to the Shepherd School of Music’s website, amongst all U.S. conservatories and universities, will be completely empty for its pre-recorded and lip-synced showing of the little-known chamber opera: “Der Kaiser von Atlantis.”
The Academic Restart Committee is not currently considering accommodations via adjusted grading systems due to COVID-19 for this semester, according to Speaker of the Faculty Senate Christopher Johns-Krull. Johns-Krull said the committee is open to recommending accommodations to the Faculty Senate if it seems to be necessary.
Robert T. Brockman, the namesake behind two campus buildings and an overseer for the Jones Graduate School of Business, has been charged with hiding $2 billion in income in the largest tax evasion case in U.S. history, purchasing $30 million in luxury vacation properties along with a yacht. The news came in a press release on Oct. 15 from the U.S. Department of Justice, just one day before Brockman’s first official court hearing.
This week, another prolific Houston artist is making their mark on Rice’s largest canvases in the next installation of the Moody Center for the Arts’ season of “Creative Interventions.” Through the week of Oct. 26, internationally acclaimed Houston-based graffiti artist GONZO247 is joining forces with Rice students, alumni and community members to create a mural in celebration of Owl Together, the first combined celebration of Homecoming & Reunion and Families Weekend.
This semester, non-Rice personnel and visitors have come to campus for several reasons varying from exercise to photoshoots, and students have noticed that these visitors are frequently maskless. Rice University Police Department is still enforcing the mask policy as it was originally announced, according to RUPD Chief Clemente Rodriguez.
The Rice Office of Admission plans to launch a new self-guided tour program for prospective students, starting with a pilot this weekend for Houston area high school seniors and their families, according to Vice President for Enrollment Yvonne Romero da Silva.
In a normal year, October would find R2: The Rice Review, Rice’s award-winning undergraduate literary journal, hosting its annual Open Mic Night where students performed a broad range of work. Although the pandemic stalled the in-person event, R2 has come up with a creative alternative in the form of their first year-round Open Mic Online blog.
