The following items were noted at the most recent meeting of the Student Association on Oct. 25.President David Leebron presented to the SA on university finances, expansion of the student body and initiatives for the future.
When I read Falan Mouton's letter to the editor about the Rice Annual Fund two weeks ago in the Thresher ("Rice just a business; donations are purely optional for graduates," Oct. 8), I had one of those "spit out your coffee" moments that Jon Stewart likes to use for comedic effect. Dr. Mouton seems to be quite upset that the Annual Fund calls her to ask her to support Rice. A large part of her complaint against Rice centers around the fact that she got too many parking tickets when she was on campus. I can't really argue with her there - parking on campus sucks, even when you chair the Annual Fund. Sorry. But I do have to argue with much of the rest of Dr. Mouton's letter. A lot of what Dr. Mouton gets wrong is financial. After noting Rice's $3.6 billion endowment, the market value as of June 30, 2009, Dr. Mouton asserts: "This is not money that goes to education. This is money that sits and hopefully collects interest."
Last Friday, when Jordan Roseman, better known by his stage name, DJ Earworm, stood and played his laptop for two hours, it didn't occur to me until after the show and after my interview with him just how different his mashup style is versus that of Girl Talk, and why. Even though the two artists are lumped in the same mashup genre, some obvious characteristics separate the latter's densely packed, bouncin' dance party shows and the former's somewhat scattered live performance. Girl Talk's stage presence is undoubtedly magnitudes stronger, and when he confidently invites the "people in the back" to put their "hands in the air," the resulting wave of arms seems neither forced nor out of place. At the other end of the spectrum, it's difficult to imagine DJ Earworm successfully inciting the crowd like this, and rather than a thrashing, gyration-inducing beam of confidence and barrage of seamless samples, last week's show initially rubbed me as clunky and dorky.
After a big win against crosstown rival University of Houston, it looked like the Owls' football program was finally turning the corner. It looked like it was all coming together, with a running game, a defense and a quarterback who could hold it all together. So much for that.
Should doctors be genetically engineering babies? Should they proceed with clinical trials at the risk of a patient's life? Should a doctor be able to force lifesaving but painful treatment on a patient? Medicine and Morals: Your Jewish Guide Through Life's Tough Decisions hopes to answer these questions and more through lessons from the Torah and modern Western ethics. The class is provided by the Jewish Learning Institute and is offered at the Barbara and David Gibbs Recreation and Wellness Center in classroom 160B. Classes are held on Tuesdays from 7-8:30 p.m. for six weeks, starting Oct. 26. Each of the six classes will cover a different issue of ethics in modern medicine, including patient autonomy, assisted reproduction, patient confidentiality, mental illnesses, organ donation and medical experimentation.
After 15 years of fluctuating discussion, the French, Hispanic, German, and Classical Studies departments are considering a merger to form one World Literatures department. The merger would not result in any changes to staff or curriculum but would restructure the four departments into one overarching department making cross-listed courses and expansion easier to organize. Dean of Humanities Nicolas Shumway has set up a task force that is looking into a possible graduate program for the departments as well as what advantages there would be for combining the departments into one.
The Brochstein Pavilion has found itself in the midst of various controversies since its inception, ranging from discussions about the building's appearance, service providers, Coffeehouse's unsuccessful attempt to make a bid for the space and, most recently, operating hours.As of last week, Brochstein's hours have once again changed. New hours will be from 7 a.m. to midnight Monday through Thursday, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday and 9 a.m. to midnight on Sunday.
On Monday, a new car charged to the Rice campus, giving a glimpse at the future of the automotive industry: the electric car. The cars that students may have seen driving around the inner loop were examples of a new hybrid electric vehicle manufactured by Chevrolet called the Volt. In an event hosted by the Baker Institute Student Form, Chevrolet brought four Volts to campus to educate members of the Rice community about this new technology and give them an opportunity to drive and ride in these vehicles.
Earlier this month, students of PHYS 401: Physics of Ham Radio passed their amateur radio licensing exams, allowing them to independently broadcast on various frequencies.Three exam levels - technician, general and extra - give increasing orders of permitted access to frequencies. Passing the technician test permits broadcasting at 30 MHz and above; passing the general test permits broadcasting on all frequencies; passing the extra test permits the licensed user to use more modes and access additional band lengths. Eight students in PHYS 401 passed the technician level exam, only one student passed the technician and general levels and one student passed the general level, having taken the technician level several years ago.
Food at Rice may have its share of problems. Maybe it's not diverse enough, maybe it's not quality enough, maybe it's not vegetarian enough or maybe it's not healthy enough. Regardless of what complaints there may be against the on-campus servery food, let's cast away the protests and the shunning of serveries. Most of the common issues that students hold against H&D's meal offerings can be addressed if the administration can simply get a grasp on which concerns are of greatest priority.
Housing and Dining is conducting a campus-wide survey of the overall quality of its eating establishments. The survey was opened to all students, faculty, and staff members on Oct. 25 and will be available online until Nov. 24. The survey is part of an annual national assessment of college cuisine that is administered by the National Association of College and University Food Services. NACUFS is a food services organization that includes over 1000 university members organized by region. Rice is in the Southern Region and will be compared to colleges both regionally and nationally.
The soccer team may be healthier now than at any other point since conference play began, but that has not translated onto the field, where the team is limping toward its final game of the regular season. The Owls went into last weekend looking to win two tough games in hopes of setting up an intra-city showdown with the University of Houston (11-4-3, 6-2-2 C-USA) for the Conference USA lead. Instead, they lost both games, dropping their record to 8-8-2 overall and 5-3-2 in conference play.
Students from the south colleges have been expressing their discontent with higher meal plan costs and inconsistent quality between serveries.Wiess College freshman Monica Zatarain said that she did not think the food from South Servery was comparable to that from West Servery.
One of the reasons Rice is so appealing to prospective students is its reputation for having one of the happiest student bodies on a university campus. From my experiences here this rating is accurate. Two things we do very well is work hard and party hard; the Rice University Police department and the alcohol policy have allowed us to do this safely within our hedges. RUPD is a great resource for our student body and is always available when needed. The Rice alcohol policy regards us as adults by limiting us to the state laws of Texas while giving us more freedom than other universities' policies. Resident associates at other universities raid rooms in search of alcohol to confiscate; RAs and masters at Rice are our friends, people we look up to and lean on for help or and our family away from home.
While it may surprise certain ex-girlfriends and former high school teachers of mine, I do, in fact possess a heart. Therefore, I cannot help but feel good and a little choked up when George Bailey discovers Zuzu's petals are still in his pocket in Frank Capra's It's A Wonderful Life or when Will Hunting decides to go after the girl in Good Will Hunting. So I approached Conviction , a movie based on the real-life story of Betty Anne Waters (played by Hilary Swank of Million Dollar Baby fame), a woman who became a lawyer to exonerate her falsely imprisoned brother Kenny Waters (Sam Rockwell of Frost/Nixon ), with the hope that I could revel in the human spirit before I had to leave the theater and get back to slogging my life away in the cruel yoke of academics. Unfortunately, the only thing I felt during the film was the all too familiar feeling of ennui.The plot follows the close relationship of the Waters siblings after the violent murder of Kenny's neighbor in the lower-class community of Ayer, Mass. The evidence seems overwhelmingly stacked against Kenny, but Betty remains steadfast in her belief in his innocence, even when a judge sentences him to live the rest of his days behind bars. Despite being a high school dropout and single mother, Betty overcomes the educational hurdles to pass the bar exam.
The volleyball team fought to keep its regular season conference championship hopes alive, but they ran into a speed bump against the University of Tulsa as Rice lost 3-0. This loss drops the Owls to 12-11 overall on the season and 7-4 in conference play.In the first set, Tulsa got off to a hot start as they led 15-6. Rice could never quite catch up as Tulsa cruised to a 25-15 set win. Senior middle blocker Nancy Cole had four kills while junior outside hitter Jordan Meredith had three kills. Senior setter Meredith Schamun had nine assists while junior outside hitter Ashleigh McCord and junior outside hitter Megan White had five digs apiece.
The Thresher would like to commend the joint efforts of the Student Association and Graduate Student Association in hosting the first annual Research Mixer earlier this month. As an institution known internationally for our focus on undergraduate research, it's a wonder that Rice hasn't already developed more events like this one (see story, page 6).It was refreshing to see an even distribution of disciplines represented among the research groups, rather than the typical asymmetry frequently exhibited by career fairs and other recruiting endeavors. While it would be nice to imagine all majors could be represente at the mixer, 40 lab groups is nothing to scoff at.
The football team got its second win of the season with a dramatic 34-31 victory over the University of Houston. Davon Allen (right) holds the Bayou Bucket trophy after the game. For the full story, turn to Football jump-starts excitement with dramatic win.
German filmmaker Werner Herzog promised to eat his shoe if friend and fellow filmmaker Errol Morris were to complete his documentary on pet cemeteries and have it shown in theaters. Sure enough, Gates of Heaven - Morris' feature debut - was released in 1978, forcing Herzog to eat both his words and his shoe. Interested viewers can actually watch Herzog eat his shoe, boiled to perfection in garlic and herbs, in Les Blank's aptly named short, Werner Herzog Eats His Shoe. Gates of Heaven is a series of interviews centered on the shutdown of Floyd McClure's Foothill Pet Cemetery in Los Altos, Calif. and the subsequent transfer of the buried pets to Bubbling Well Pet Memorial Park in Napa Valley. The film is not narrated, and the story is told through the words of Morris' interviewees telling their pet stories. I never expected to find so much honest wisdom on life, eternity, love and death in the monologues of the pet cemetery owners, pet owners and pet lovers. Humor, philosophy and irony support Morris' film throughout - to say that Gates of Heaven is a movie about pet cemeteries is to misunderstand Morris' work. Great works of art begin with the specific and end in the realm of universal truths.
