Special Projects

Shorter add/drop time detrimental to students

As a current freshman, I may not yet fully understand the importance of choosing classes or majors. But as a devoted part of the Rice community, I do understand the importance of these choices in shaping our academic paths.The new add/drop deadlines that are being imposed upon us will be completely detrimental to our autonomy as students. Beginning next fall, the amount of time to add a class will be cut in half, and the time period to add a class without a fee will decrease from two weeks to one. Further adding to the pressure of decision making, students will only have five weeks to drop a class, as opposed to the current 10 weeks.

Personal choices factor into credit crisis

In the wake of the recent economic meltdown, Americans are eager to assign blame and hold the guilty parties accountable for, at best, their poor judgment and, at worst, malevolent greed. To be sure, there is more than enough culpability to go around, from reckless mortgage brokers to politically correct lending practices to inadequate oversight. While institutional glitches bear a great deal of responsibility, the tendency for individuals to allocate any and all misfortune, even that which is self-inflicted, on external scapegoats is a troubling trend in our society.Indeed, the majority of financial failures in America these days are the consequence of poor decision making on the part of the individuals themselves - not the lenders, not the banks and not the stores. Ours is a credit culture, and far too many people have grown accustomed to living outside their means. This is a mistake and one that lends itself to negligence and poor judgment. As the markets seem so erratic, and we struggle to maintain stability, a return to personal responsibility is imperative. And living within one's means is the number one requirement for such accountability.

New policy provides notivation for swim team

Head coach Seth Huston has a new policy for his swim team: If a swimmer wants to travel to away meets, she must earn her spot on the roster by showing up to practice and displaying commitment to the team. College swim meets allow each team only 18 entries. This year, Rice has 21 girls eligible to swim. Therefore, at each meet Huston must choose three girls who swim for exhibition only but cannot score points.In the past, Huston has taken the entire team to every meet because it made sense numerically. Now that he has choices available about who swims, Huston intends to use them.

Superhero-themed NOD to have contest, burritos

Get ready to show off those washboard abs you've been working on all semester. This year, Wiess College's annual Halloween party, Night of Decadence, will take place tomorrow at 10 p.m. in the Wiess Commons. The theme is KryptoNOD: Horny Heroes and Villainous Vixens. Tickets cost $8 dollars in advance and $10 dollars at the door, and T-shirts are also available for $10. Wiess Socials Brett Wakefield and Becky Leven said they are expecting 1,200 to 1,500 people to attend. Last year, 1,391 showed up to the party, almost half the total number of undergraduates. There will be nine Rice University police officers, approximately 120 student security personnel, Emergency Medical Service volunteers on hand and three carts to transport people back to their colleges at the end of the evening organized by the College Assistance Peer Program.

This Week in Photos

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RPC makes good choice with The National

Rice Program Council officially announced today that the band The National will perform Nov. 7 as part of Rice's homecoming weekend activities. With the live show on Friday, and the football game and Esperanza the next day, students should have more than enough activities in which to partake. In a staff editorial we wrote in September, we stated "the burden is now on RPC to go to students for ideas, to increase its visibility and prestige on campus . RPC has the chance to make itself one of the most active and most respected organizations at Rice" ("With great budget comes great responsibility" Sept. 19). The results to this point have been impressive, and we applaud RPC for its obvious efforts to break from the mold of previous years. It appears as though this year's homecoming and Esperanza will be more memorable than students are used to, and we cannot wait to see how they turn out.

Men's XC stumbles at Penn State

As head coach Vince Lombardi of the NFL's Green Bay Packers once said, "Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence." The excellence that the men's cross country team will be chasing this weekend will be in the form of the runners in orange from the University of Texas-El Paso and the runners in blue from the University of Tulsa. The Owls, Miners and Golden Hurricane will clash with the other members of Conference USA at the C-USA Championships held Saturday, Nov. 1 in Memphis, Tenn. The team continued their chase for the national championship meet last Saturday at the Penn State National in University Park, Penn. Oct. 10, a week earlier, the team competed at the Houston Baptist University Invitational in Houston.

Owls unable to recover from 7-point halftime deficit

Unfortunately for the Rice football team, it was the University of Tulsa's turn to beat an opponent by a truckload's worth of points. Just one week removed from trouncing the University of North Texas 77-20, the Owls fell hard to the Golden Hurricane's merciless offense and effective defense, losing by a 63-28 score. The two games shared a few characteristics - in both games the score was close at the beginning, and Jarett Dillard set a major wide receiver record. Despite Rice's defensive efforts, the score only stayed close for a half. The Owls and the Golden Hurricane exchanged scores for the first 28 minutes of the game to work a 14-14 tie, but Tulsa sneaked in one more touchdown with less than two minutes to play and headed into the break with a 21-14 lead.

Soccer earns second place with late game heroics

A record setting weekend for both the players on the field and the coach on the sideline has left the soccer team hanging on to second place in the Conference USA standings. With a difficult road trip ahead of them and only three points separating five teams from second place, late game heroics against Southern Methodist University and the University of Tulsa could not have been more timely. The Owls had only beaten SMU one time prior to their meeting on Friday and never at home. An early goal from sophomore midfielder Kate Edwards on a penalty kick given for a foul in the box gave the squad a 1-0 lead in the 16th minute.

Comic: Cingle Cellularity

PR campaign a move towards recognition

Times have changed for higher education. As competition for students, faculty and funding increases, so does the need to promote what sets an institution apart from others offering similar services. In interviews about Rice with hundreds of faculty, students, staff, alumni and community members last year, a common refrain was: "We need to make more people better aware of how good we are."The backpage agreed. On Nov. 30, 2007, the backpage asked: "Who knew it would take a university 95 years to start a severely needed PR campaign?" That piece complained that Rice has "spent our history dedicated to the idea of remaining some sort of cheap secret" but was glad it was starting to get in the game.

SA, presidents obliged to voice student opinion; Rice obligated to listen

Monday night, Dean of Undergraduates Robin Forman and Vice President for Finance Kathy Collins faced a Farnsworth Pavilion jam-packed with students and their representatives at the Student Association's weekly meeting (see story, page 1).Forman and Collins presented a rough description of and fielded questions about the future changes to Rice student organizations' finances.First of all, we would like to thank all of the students who attended the meeting. Any proposal with such wide-reaching ramifications as this one demands open and frequent communication between undergraduates and administrators, and those of you who voiced your opinions took important steps to facilitate that communication.

Letters to the Editor

Palin piece resorts to personal attacks

Former UN ambassador speaks on AIDS, rape crises in Africa

The world's problems never sit on the back-burner for too long before they hit home. Stephen Lewis, former Canadian ambassador to the United Nations and current UN secretary-general's envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, spoke to a packed audience at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy Thursday, Sept. 25, about the world's struggle to achieve the UN Millennium Development Goals. As part of the 2008 Global Health Technology Speaker Series, Lewis' speech entitled Race Against Time incorporated personal anecdotes, current statistics and raw emotion to capture the current situation in Africa."As long as Mr. Lewis continues his work, the world will know what AIDS will look like," Rebecca Richards-Kortum, director of Rice 360? and founder of Beyond Traditional Borders said in her introductory remarks.

My Naji Hakim Experience

Monday saw the initiation of this fall's President's Lecture Series. Graced by the presence of the renowned Lebanese-French organist and composer Naji Hakim, the Rice community, especially the Shepherd School of Music, was abuzz with anticipation for the rare appearance of a musician on the academic platform. Hakim is most famous for having succeeded Olivier Messiaen, one of the most important composers of the 20th century, as organist at Paris' Église de la Sainte-Trinité. He has won many awards for his playing and compositions, so I was excited for his lecture, although I did not know what to expect considering no one in the composition department had ever heard of him.Composers are not usually given the chance to address the public. It is hard to intimately discuss music in front of an audience who has little understanding of the musical lexicon. It may be for this reason that Hakim's lecture was bland. His improvisations were very safe, almost stunningly simple to an experienced listener like my friend Tema Watstein, a Lovett College junior and violin performance major.

Amy's: Sushi ice cream ! !

When all that is good and holy in this world comes to a tragic end, the thought that Amy's Ice Cream is still delicious is comforting. This, however, is no longer the case. The once reputable ice cream joint, located at 3816 Farnham St., does not live up to its historic hype anymore.Ask any student who knows anything about ice cream. It's always Amy's this and Amy's that, except when Ben and Jerry's has Free Scoop Day. Sadly, in their recent years of being considered the number one ice cream joint in the Rice community, their fame has gone to their head. Serving mediocre ice cream, offering disappointing flavors and creating flavor combinations that taste of sushi and soy sauce cannot possibly be good for business. Here are some selections to stay away from: Belgian Chocolate, Atomic Blaster and Coffee White Chocolate.

Ike causes $3 million in campus damage

When it tore through campus in mid-September, Hurricane Ike left $3 million in campus damages in its wake. About two-thirds of the buildings and one-third of the trees on campus were affected, Facilities, Engineering and Planning Manager of Communications Susann Glenn said. Glenn said the majority of the damage was minimal. She said hurricane damage typically involved wet carpet and some broken windows, she said.

News in Brief: Traffic stop yields wanted felon

A routine Rice University Police traffic stop turned into a criminal chase when the car's driver turned out to be a wanted felon. A Rice University Police Department patrol stopped a car going the wrong direction down College Way on Sept. 28, Chief Bill Taylor said. After looking up information about the driver, Drake Young, the officers discovered that he had a felony warrant for a parole violation in Fort Bend County. The officers handcuffed Young and transported him to the RUPD station. While being transferred from the car to the building, Young took off running west down University Blvd. RUPD called the Houston Police Department for backup and were soon joined by a helicopter crew and a canine team, Taylor said.

WipEout HD wipes out even the most demanding players

Last Thursday, futuristic anti-gravity combat racing made its debut on the PlayStation 3 with WipEout HD, the latest entry in the WipEout franchise.Since WipEout HD is essentially a retooled version of the PlayStation Portable titles WipEout Pure and WipEout Pulse, some gamers may be hesitant about spending money on the game. Rest assured - there is plenty of stuff crammed in there for both veterans and newcomers alike.

This Week in Photos: Screw Yer Roommate and more

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