Special Projects

New hours at Brochstein Pavilion disappointing

It's 9 p.m. on Thursday night, and if you are like many Rice students, you have a problem set due tomorrow and are just about ready to sit down to take a look at it. As you walk toward the lonely confines of Fondren Library for the rest of the night, the overwhelming need for a cup of coffee hijacks your mind. But before you head over to Brochstein Pavilion to prepare for your night in the stacks, be forewarned that the administration is no longer interested in catering to your needs.We at the Thresher, along with much of the student body, were shocked to learn that with the start of the new semester came dramatic cuts in the operating hours of a commonly used study and meeting area (see story, page 4). But the decision to reduce hours does more than give Coffeehouse larger profits in late-night hours.

Brochstein hours reduced

As of the first day of classes, late-night studying at the Brochstein Pavilion is no more. A recent change in policy this summer means that the Pavilion will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on weekdays and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekends. The Pavilion previously closed at 10 p.m. during the week, while the weekend hours have not changed. The Pavilion opened in April 2008 as a gathering space for students, faculty, staff and visitors. The week it first opened, the Pavilion was open for 24 hours a day, as its grand opening corresponded to exam week for students. The hours of the Pavilion fluctuated as the building became a central part of campus.

Baker Institute offers plethora of opportunities

What does the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy have to offer Rice students? More than you would think. True, we don't grant degrees. Our focus is on high-quality public policy research aimed at informing our national debate on major domestic and international issues. The institute is a think-tank, yes. But we're a lot more. That's because education is also a core part of our mission. Our fellows and scholars teach classes in a variety of disciplines. Just last spring, for instance, I taught a class on the contemporary Middle East (POST 455). It was an experience, let me add, that reminded me how smart Rice students are and how hard their professors must work to stay one step ahead of them. This semester, institute fellows will be teaching or co-teaching courses in economics (ECON 437, 481, and 516), sociology (SOCI 314) and history (HIST 291, 352 and 425).

Oil rig disasters a preview of things to come

The news on Thursday, Sept. 2, was big enough to warrant a column on energy. Yet again, there was an accident on an oil rig. To be fair, there were many differences between the fire that broke out last week on Mariner Energy Inc.'s oil rig and the massive explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig which caused the largest oil spill in U.S. history. But I'm not too concerned with the differences, because I'm not here to talk about regulation or safety practices. What concerns me most are the inherent risks and danger associated with drilling for oil, especially off the coast. These two incidents (it might not be right to call them accidents) reminded us all that we just don't have the means to make oil drilling safe, and that fact should be part of our impetus to change the way our country is powered. Given all of the problems which our country faces today, would you be in favor of creating millions of jobs, reducing the amount of money which we hand over to Middle Eastern countries, breathing cleaner air, leading the world, as a country, in the most promising new sector of research and production, and restoring American lives to the forefront of technology?

Cross country gets run down at finish line

Things aren't always as they seem. This is a fitting description for the men's cross country team's second-place effort at the University of Houston last Friday. Rice came into the Johnny Morriss Invitational expecting to defend their title but found the Cardinals of Lamar University to be just a bit quicker, as the Owls tallied 38 points to Lamar's 35. Redshirt sophomore Gabe Cuadra led the Owls, completing the 4.75 kilometer course in just over 15 minutes to claim fourth place. Freshman Alex Weinheimer followed Cuadra by 12 seconds and crossed the finish line three seconds ahead of redshirt sophomore James Llamas. Junior Michael Trejo helped the Rice effort by coming in 10th place and redshirt freshman Anthony Lauriello rounded out the scoring effort for the Owls in 15th place.

PSL studies leaders

Vision, drive, humility - these are the makings of a leader, according to some of this year's undergraduate fellows within the Program for the Study of Leadership. The new program, which focuses on the scholarly study of leaders and their role in society, was launched this summer. This year, 15 undergraduates received a yearlong fellowship to conduct research under PSL Director D. Michael Lindsay.The PSL is housed under the Institute for Urban Research, which launched in May under the direction of Institute for Urban Research co-directors Michael Emerson and Stephen Klineberg.

Blue, gray, in the sky

Rice students packed the METRORail last Saturday and headed to Reliant Stadium to watch the football team open its season against the No. 5 Texas Longhorns. The Owls lost the game 34-17, but the enthusiasm and spirit shown by Rice fans signaled the beginning of a great year for Rice athletics, Assistant Athletic Director for Marketing and Ticket Sales Ryan Holloway said. Brown College junior Melissa Fwu agreed with Holloway's sentiments.

Football falls to Texas in valiant effort inside Reliant

As President John F. Kennedy once said, "Rice does not play Texas because it is easy, but rather because it is hard." As the Owls learned last Saturday, it's really, really hard. But, despite the national media giving them absolutely no chance, the University of Texas' (1-0) roster being infinitely more athletic and Vegas' placing the line at 31 points, Rice (0-1) fought valiantly under the bright artificial lights of Reliant Stadium, managing to put a scare into the Longhorns and remind them that sometimes David can get some shots in against Goliath.

Resolution considered

The members of the Student Association, decked out in "BRO-wear," gathered in the Farnsworth Pavilion Sept. 6 for smoothies, backslaps and something more serious: discussion of the Student-Administration Relations Resolution.This resolution was introduced at the Aug. 30 SA meeting by Duncan College junior Kevin Bush and is sponsored by SA President Selim Sheikh. The purpose of the proposition is enumerated at the beginning of the document: "To Disapprove of the Secretive Process Employed During the Sale of KTRU-FM; To Call for a Collaborative Dialogue Between Student Stakeholders and the Rice Administration."

Are you ready for some football

It was a beautiful day for football on Saturday when, despite a sea of orange, the Owls played host to the University of Texas Longhorns at Reliant Stadium (see story, page 7). In what has been collectively regarded as a better-than-expected effort, the game marked the much-anticipated start of the 2010 football season, and as long as running back Sam McGuffie promises to stop running backward, the 34-17 loss gave Rice fans a positive outlook for the rest of the year.We at the Thresher took note, however, that little was done to transform the speckles of blue into a cohesive blotch in the crowd of more than 70,000. UT fans come in full force every time the 'Horns come in town to play, and we feel it would have been pertinent to maintain some semblance of a home-team presence with a designated student section, as opposed to randomly scattering Rice students among the unsold nosebleeds.

SA announces new site for student book sales

Student Association President Selim Sheikh announced the launch of the new Textbook Madness website Aug. 30, which will serve as a replacement for the SA Textbook Marketplace website. The Textbook Marketplace site, which was hosted on the SA website, was a site where students could post listings of their used textbooks and potential buyers could search for available books by courses listed.

A sneak peek at the Brockman Hall for Physics

Brockman Hall for Physics, a new state-of-the-art facility for faculty in the Department of Physics and Astronomy and the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, is expected to be completed by the end of 2010. The earliest move-in date for faculty, as projected by Project Manager Erik Knezevich, is Jan. 27, 2011. The building will include a classroom, labs, offices for faculty and a lecture hall expected to seat about 255 students, Knezevich said. There will also be a science quadrangle and an outdoor green space with a fountain similar to those near the Brochstein Pavilion. A rooftop observatory will be on the east end of the south wing and will be surrounded by red LED lights to make it easier to view the night sky.

Like nothing else you've seen before

"D-17," Sarah Oppenheimer's new installation at the Rice Gallery, reflects her calculated and rational manner. She is not one for frills or excess. She takes her coffee black. She wears a plain blue jumper spattered with paint to work. Her brown hair is reduced to an extremely short buzz cut. She is an artist who relies less on imagination and more on innovation, investigation and academic reasoning. Her piece dominates both the foyer and interior of the gallery: Long sections of white aluminum stretch horizontally back from the middle window of the foyer through the glass panels of the gallery before tapering down to a small point near the back of the interior gallery space. The placement of the aluminum panels forms a tunnel-like passage in the crease of the structure, which allows light from the outside to shine down on the work. The simple and minimalistic streamlined aesthetics of the piece seem especially striking, instilling curiosity and wonderment in the viewer.

Last week's online poll results

Nanochip technology marks breakthrough

Rice researchers have developed a new kind of memory chip from silicon oxide using nanotechnology that could increase maximum storage space on chips and open the way for 3-D memory storage.Flash memory, the current standard, uses an applied voltage to allow electrons to flow from a source through a gate and into a drain. The transistor begins conducting when electrons leave the gate. Two-terminal silicon chips, which contain a source and drain, stand out from standard three-terminal flash memory, Chemistry Professor Jim Tour said. Without the need for a third terminal, these silicon nanocrystal devices can be built into three-dimensions, which allows for increased density and memory space, Tour said.

Machete gets the goods

Co-directors Robert Rodriguez (Predators) and Ethan Maniquis have succeeded at the difficult task of following up the comically gore-soaked, nudity-filled and politically incorrect Machete trailer - which originally debuted on the silver screen as a fake trailer sandwiched between the 2007 Rodriguez/Quentin Tarantino double-feature, Grindhouse, and gained instant cult status. With their feature-length expansion of the trailer, they have delivered more entertainment than Machete fans could have ever hoped for.Cinematically speaking, Machete looks and feels like an average B-movie. Shaky camera work, grainy photography and, at times, very disappointing editing leave you staring at Steven Seagal's (A Dangerous Man) shirt in the middle of the climatic fight sequence, yet the film entertains like a blockbuster. The action is outrageously bloody from the very beginning, yet despite the unsteady camera work, the blood and gore is shown in just the right amounts to induce shrieks and laughter in the audience. That is the beauty of Machete; everything is so disgustingly wrong and offensive that the effect is hilarious.

KTRU Top 35: Week of 08.08.2010

Rice named 'Great College to Work for'

Rice has made the Honor Roll for the second year in a row in the Chronicle of Higher Education's "Great Colleges to Work For" national survey. This annual assessment, started in 2008, examined 275 colleges this year for 12 "core attributes of a great academic workplace." Of those 275 institutions, Rice not only made the cut as one of 97 "Great Colleges to Work For"; it placed on the Honor Roll, a privilege awarded to only 39 colleges that have demonstrated excellence in the most categories. Specifically, Rice was commended in the categories of Professional/Career-Development Programs; Teaching Environment; Compensation and Benefits; Facilities, Workplaces, & Securities; Job Satisfaction; Work-Life Balance; Supervisor or Department Chair Relationship and Respect and Appreciation.

This week's Editorial Cartoon

Smoking policy enacted

No butts about it. A policy signed by President David Leebron last month officially restricts where students can smoke on campus. Rice University Policy No. 839, signed by Leebron on Aug. 3, adopted a formalized nonsmoking policy that complies with the city of Houston's nonsmoking ordinance. Prior to Aug. 3, Rice defaulted to the city of Houston's ordinance, Business Process Consultant Daniel Fu said.