The completion of East Servery and the Brockman Hall for Physics and Astronomy marks an end of a construction era at Rice, which started in 2007.Planning for both of these buildings began in 2008. East Servery opened on Monday and move-in to Brockman Hall is scheduled for Feb. 14.
Recording more losses than wins thus far, the swim team had elicited skepticism from their devotees by the end of 2010. However, three dual-meet wins and a stack of season-best times later, the Owls have weathered a demanding start to the season against elite competition. Additionally, the team went through their usual rigorous winter training in south Florida to be up and ready for the remainder of the season and the Conference USA Championship Feb. 23-26. Still, the Owls had business to finish before they embarked on said winter training. While many students were carefree on the last day of school on Dec. 3, the swim team was busy preparing themselves for a clash against eighth-ranked Texas A&M University at the Rice Aquatic Center.
After two semesters of consultation and discussion among the Duncan College community, Duncan's crest has been finalized. Symbols include an owl, an oak tree, the letter "D", a sun, and a motto reading "Classis et germanita," - a Latin phrase meaning "Class and Brotherhood" - meant to emphasize Duncan's community aspects.A committee of Duncan students, headed by senior Martha Cox and sophomores Estevan Delgado and Priscilla Leung, was formed last Spring to direct Duncan's new crest design. Cox was the main artist for the crest design, and the official crest was first unveiled on Nov. 19 at Duncan's dedication. According to Delgado, members of the college have already begun to decorate items such as T-shirts, coffee mugs and shot glasses with their newly finished crest.
Swan Lake is an obvious ballet to use as a foundation for a psychological horror film; rife with supernatural occurrences, identity thieves and mistaken personalities, it seems unlikely that the ballerinas participating in the performance could not be emotionally affected. Darren Aronofsky, known for his other dark, cerebral dramas like Pi and Requiem for a Dream, creatively emulates a young ballerina's artistic struggle with her first big part and her resulting mental breakdown in his new film Black Swan.Black Swan's plot very loosely follows the plot of the ballet: Nina Sayers (V for Vendetta's Natalie Portman) is trapped, not in a swan's body, but in an overly competitive dance company, held captive by her bizarre and constraining mother (The Portrait of a Lady's Barbara Hershey). Nina becomes increasingly self-destructive as the pressure from her role, her competition with new company member Lily (Forgetting Sarah Marshall's Mila Kunis) and her developing sexual curiosity escalate. As Nina is pushed both emotionally and physically, her imagination consumes her, culminating in a dramatic opening night.
Rice has experienced several losses over the past month. The deaths of two Owls during winter break - Dexter Gannon, a Hanszen College junior and Brandon Cooke, a Baker College sophomore - have left a hole in our community. The Shepherd School of Music has also sustained several deaths this year; regrettably, Violin Professor Sergiu Luca and Concert Manager Tom Littman both died in December. This loss comes in addition to David Waters, a Shepherd School Trombone Professor who died in September. The Thresher extends its condolences to these individuals' families and to those they touched on a daily basis.While these losses, particularly in such quick succession, are tough to stomach, it is important to take away what we can for the future. While many of these sorts of tragedies are a natural part of life, it is imperative that we as a community continue to support each other, especially in the most difficult of times.
Career services will get a makeover for the new year, complete with a brand new name. The Center for Career Development, formerly the Center for Student Professional Development, will shift its focus to career development by increasing communication with potential employers and expanding information to students beyond traditional aspects of professional development.The CCD, which counsels students in post-graduate planning, officially changed its name last Monday. CCD held an open house on Wednesday to inform students about the recent changes, review resumes and disperse information about upcoming events. The event took place at the Huff House, where the CCD is currently located.
As if to dash any hope that the state of education might improve in the new decade, NewSouth Books announced recently that it will release a new edition of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn with the word nigger and other "hurtful epithets" replaced with "less offensive words." The reason for this change, they say, is that many school districts today refuse to teach the novel due to parent complaints.What's troubling about this decision isn't just the desecration of a great work or the fact that complaints from illiterate parents can get great books banned in schools, but that any person of even modest education can still bring himself to behave as if there were such a thing as race at all.
Housing and Dining continued its baffling tradition this past winter break of further limiting access to students' residences. While some sort of campus closure over break is necessary for security and resource conservation, the remarkably tight window left for students' arrivals back on campus is unacceptable. Students were told to not arrive on campus until 2 p.m. on Jan. 8, the Saturday before classes started.The establishment of this ultimatum gives students fewer than 48 hours to arrive on campus, get settled, prepare for the semester and begin classes. This short time period leaves students scrambling to finalize preparations on the eve of the semester. The crunch is even worse for international students, who are reeling from journeys that eclipse 24 hours and from the jetlag that inevitably ensues. The 48-hour time period for international students is remarkably brief.
The first week of classes: a week of limbo, where days are spent floating from class to class, picking and choosing which seminars will be interesting enough to make those three hours fly by and deliberating which lectures will be intriguing enough to encourage regular attendance. A week that brings the elusive luxury of being at college without any real responsibilities. A week to ease slowly back into the grind of papers, tests and projects. For some Rice students, however, the first week of classes looks very different. For example, the women's track team competes in its first meet today. The first week of classes for the track team was a final chance to tune up after a full semester and winter break spent training, because, come this afternoon, they are back in competition. Now it counts.
The Shepherd School of Music lost two professors and one staff member over the course of the past semester - Trombone Professor David Waters died Sept. 25, Violin Professor Sergiu Luca died Dec. 6 and Concert Manager Tom Littman died Dec. 22.Double Bass Professor Paul Ellison said that he first met Waters in 1966 when he started playing for the Houston Symphony Orchestra and that both of them went on to be founding professors of the Shepherd School. Ellison is now the only remaining founding faculty member at the Shepherd School.
A service was held Monday for Hanszen College junior Dexter Gannon, who died near his home in Ketchum, Idaho, on Dec. 31. Approximately 50 members of the Rice community gathered at the Hanszen masters' house to remember "Dex."A math and economics major, Gannon left Rice last spring in order to deal with personal health issues, but planned on returning next fall to continue his studies.
2010 certainly did not end up being the football season that Rice had in mind. 4-8 and a November end to the season left many on the team disappointed, but the final two weeks will make the early offseason much easier to stomach. The Owls played their first home game since October on Nov. 20, welcoming East Carolina University (6-6, 4-4 C-USA), who will be playing in the Military Bowl later this month, into Rice Stadium, looking for a spark of confidence after losing three-straight games on the road.
The 2011 Senior Class Gift competition broke all participation and giving records since its inception, with a total of $10,745.11 gathered from all 11 colleges, more than triple what was collected last year.The competition, part of the Rice Annual Fund Student Initiative, was open for seven weeks, from Oct. 4 to Nov. 24, during which time 515 seniors gave donations, the most in the history of the Senior Class Gift.
What can a sociology major taking 12 hours each semester do when she graduates? If her name is Maryana Iskander (Wiess '97), she can rack up a long list of scholarships and take on a series of influential leadership roles, including working with federal judges, advising President David Leebron and acting as chief operating officer of Planned Parenthood. Iskander visited campus Nov. 18 to discuss the role leadership has played in her life and the importance of education. Students, staff and faculty members attended her presentation in Herring Hall, which was sponsored by Leadership Rice and the Program for the Study of Leadership.
On Nov. 22, seniors Nicole Mericle and Britany Williams and juniors Becky Wade and Allison Pye reached the goal they had been training for for two years: compete at the national meet one final time. The group brought the team a 31st-place finish and Mericle finished higher than any Owl ever, at 46th overall. However, the results do not tell the whole story, as reaching the national meet was quite the accomplishment considering the past 24 months. Rewind to Nov. 24, 2008 - the last time these ladies raced together at Nationals. Pye and Wade were upstart sophomores, contributors to the team despite their youth. Mericle and Williams were juniors in the prime of their careers, both used to competing with the best week in and week out.
With 2010 coming to an end, the Thresher would like to reflect on the plethora of incidents over the last year which have hindered the success of the administration in terms of its relationship with the student body. As a small university, we have the rare opportunity of having administration and student body present a unified, synchronized front in which the desires of each party are mutually understood. However, over the past year it seems that a great disconnect has emerged between the administration's actions and the students' desires.Needless to say, this shift toward disconnect is epitomized by the KTRU debacle. The nature of secrecy and lack of communication surrounding this business deal which dealt a severe blow to a major student organization was simply unprecedented. The administration could have, quite frankly, not cared about student desires less than they did during the KTRU sale. There was no student input in the decision because they was simply no opportunity to contribute at all. While President David Leebron said the unilateral process of the KTRU decision was simply a one-time happening, other occurrences around the university suggest a potentially dangerous trend forming to the contrary.
The Thresher would like to wish Coffeehouse a wonderful 20th birthday (see graphic, page 1). For the last 20 years, Coffeehouse has done everything from providing the setting for Rice students' awkward first dates to providing the only thing that could get an engineer through the late nights of finals. We've seen the menu expand from just coffee to a lineup that includes just about every nuance of caffeinated beverage possible (minus Four Lokos). Coffeehouse has shifted from just a place to refuel to one of the eminent student groups on campus. We at the Thresher certainly hope that the administration will soon reward Coffeehouse's loyalty and service to the Rice community with a new and improved home in the Rice Memorial Center.
In its longest meet of the year, the swim team posted more than 30 season-best performances at the Phill Hansel Cougar Classic Invitational, hosted by an old foe in the University of Houston. The three-day meet featured five other teams, including Louisiana State University (4-1) and last year's Conference USA champions Southern Methodist University (4-1) - both ranked top 25 of the CollegeSwimming.com/CSCAA poll. Yet the challenging match-ups failed to subdue the Owls' performances, as the team went on to finish what would be their best meet of the season.
In light of the recent G-20 meeting in Seoul, it is worth examining one central, much talked-about, yet certainly unresolved, issue: exchange rates, or more specifically, the undervaluing and overvaluing of certain currencies and the impact of such policies. Of late, there has been much discussion about the U.S. policy of quantitative easing (QE) - which involves the Federal Reserve buying medium and long-term treasury bills to increase the money supply so as to decrease interest rates - as compared to the Chinese policy of intervention. Many people have suggested that the U.S. QE is simply a latent means to devalue the dollar, similar to Chinese ?currency manipulation.
