Special Projects

Rice endowment decreases $60 million

As the Wall Street collapse earlier this month indicated, times are tough for investments. Reflecting this trend, Rice's endowment this year has decreased $60 million from $4.67 billion to $4.61 billion. Nationally, Rice ranks 19th for the size of its endowment, and ranks sixth in amount per student according to the National Association of College and University Business Officers Endowment Study. The endowment is a permanent investment that the university uses to support the general operation of the school, faculty chairs, scholarships, fellowships and departmental programs. The endowment is invested in U.S. stocks, international stocks, fixed income, hedge funds, private equity and real assents - which include real estate, oil and timber. It is invested with over 100 different investment managers and partnerships around the world.

Volleyball sweeps tournament for landmark win

After three years of trying without success to come out on top in an in-season tournament, the volleyball team finally reached their goal in Ohio at the Best Western Invitational last weekend, recording their first tournament win since 2005. In what was a big weekend for the Owls, Rice defeated Hofstra University 3-1 on Friday night and swept Saturday's matches over Bowling Green State University and Binghamton University by 3-1 and 3-0 scores, respectively. Rice looks to build upon last weekend's performance as they open the conference season against the University of Texas-El Paso on Friday at 8 p.m. in El Paso. Coach Genny Volpe plans to caution her team against looking ahead of UTEP to Sunday's match against Tulane University in New Orleans at 1 p.m.

News in Brief: Beer Bike coordinators chosen

This year's Beer Bike coordinators will be Brown College junior Mary Chapman and senior Mark Eastaway, Rice Program Council President Michelle Kerkstra said at the club's meeting Tuesday. Both Chapman and Eastaway have been involved in Beer Bike before, but they will not participate in Brown's activities this year.

Masden to leave Rice

After holding down the fort for five years, Director of Student Activities Heather Masden will step down from her position Tuesday to return to Florida with her family. Assistant Dean of Students Catherine Clack will begin the search for a new director this semester, Masden said. As director of student activities, Masden oversees Rice clubs, provides students with opportunities to engage in leadership positions and organizes campus events.

Search begins for new college masters for Hanszen, Lovett

Although this school year is far from over, some colleges are already preparing for next year. Since this year marks the end of their masters' five-year terms, Lovett and Hanszen Colleges are beginning their search for new college masters this fall.Wes and Barbara Morris, the Hanszen masters, and Bernard and Carolyn Aresu, the Lovett Masters, will be leaving their positions in May.

This week's Editorial Cartoon

The Women is a chick flick worth missing

Imagine a hybrid film that combines the metropolitan feel of The Devil Wears Prada, the sappy sweetness about four friends of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and the high drama of "Gossip Girl." All great to watch separately, these elements absolutely fail when combined into one movie like the newly-released The Women, based on the 1936 play by Clare Boothe Luce.A chick flick without a directed plot line and a drama without enough ethos to make the viewer feel for the characters, The Women is a disappointment.

Esperanza IV: A new hope

Esperanza this year will not be held at an aquarium or a baseball stadium. Rather, Rice Program Council will host its fall formal on campus, in a tent located between the Shepherd School of Music and the Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Management. Esperanza will be held Saturday, Nov. 8 from 10 p.m.-2 a.m. RPC Formals Committee co-Chair Maggy Taylor said ticket costs are still up in the air. Though the official theme is undecided, RPC is considering a "blue and grey" motif, RPC President Michelle Kerkstra said.

Temporary triage center set up in Oshman Kitchen

Rice hosted its first medical triage center last week in the Oshman Engineering Design Kitchen in an attempt to keep the hospitals in the Texas Medical Center from overflowing with patients arriving after Hurricane Ike. The triage was planned to remain on campus for several weeks, Jim Parisi, Memorial Hermann Hospital System Executive for Emergency Services, said. In another effort to help the overburdened medical center, the university opened its Greenbriar lot last week as a landing pad for five helicopters.

Grad students protest Ike plans

When Hurricane Ike tore through Houston two weeks ago, it was expected that most of the city would lose electrical power. However, many of Rice's graduate students found themselves completely in the dark in other ways, as lines of communication with the university broke down. Last week, Graduate Student Association President Michael Contreras met with Dean of Graduate Students Paula Sanders to discuss the way the university handled the graduate student population during Ike. The GSA also provided an open forum Tuesday night for graduate students to share their thoughts. Contreras, a fourth-year civil engineering student, will assign a focus group to review the university's hurricane steps and to draft a proposal to Sanders next month outlining the ways in which the university could have better planned for the event.

Common reading lacking common goal

Dear Common Reading, this is for you. I think you should ponder this candid review. You're hogwash, you're toothless, you're gonna be great. I believe in you truly, but first I berate. A text is a means, not an end to pursue. An author's deficient with one point of view. To your book-centric past please now say adieu for a transfiguration I here beg of you.Oh Common Reading, I must beat you blue but I'll do it with love; I'll do it for you. Your name, to be frank, is an earful of sigh. No import, no fanfare, no reason to fly. This gift with a spine is just one I don't want. It's pressure; it's hazing; a high school haunt. This shared ID is a humorous plea. I'm Hanszen! I'm MechE! I'm Three Cups of Tea! This dialogue's missing a who, where and how. Professor Plum in the library by the candlestick now? Your issues are passive, enslaved by a book. What's cheaper? What's easy? Where shouldn't we look? You're present at orientation each year. Those freshmen, those suckers! Upperclassmen drink beer. And most sorry yet, you're still thinking small. We're Rice and we're hedged, but we can be tall. You salute our new presence by having us read or sit in a theater to hear of a need. But what of our talents, our minds and our hearts? We're not just some sponges; we've got moving parts!

SAC makes changes to tours

Love it or hate it, most students remember their Rice campus tour. Due to a series of changes to the Student Admissions Council this year, hundreds of students may now experience essentially the same tour regardless of the tour guide. Guides will now be paid, follow a script and dress code and will be hired by faculty rather than by a student panel. Changes to the SAC most significantly affect the campus tour program, in which current Rice students guide visitors on an informative walk around campus. Associate Director of Admission Fitima Jackson said tour guides will now be paid per hour, instead of volunteering for the activity. Aesthetic changes have occurred as well. Instead of blue t-shirts bearing the SAC logo, guides will wear a more professional polo with "tour guide" on the breast pocket. Additionally, tour guides are provided with a training handbook to prime them on features of the developing campus.

Cross Country squads start season at A&M

Men's Cross Country

The deadly Dillard-Clement connection

As the offense runs plays in practice, senior quarterback Chase Clement drops back and fires the ball. And whether it's a long spiral downfield that leads him across the goal line or a short, hard pass over the middle, senior receiver Jarett Dillard catches it. The problem for other Conference USA schools and the rest of the teams on the Owls schedule? The two often made make it look as easy in games as they do in practice.

Letters to the Editor

Praise for Bush's policies misplaced

HedgeHopper Week 4: Reggae Hut Café

The new Reggae Hut Café, located at 4814 Almeda Rd., right after Southmore Blvd. and right before Blodgett St., is the closest to Jamaica that Houstonians can get without actually traveling there; in addition, it offers the Rice community a 15-percent discount with the HedgeHopper card.Before 4 p.m. cars can park in front of the establishment; after that, parking is located behind the shopping strip. Live entertainment on Tuesday nights and free wireless Internet draw people to this intriguing café. The fact that their staff is beyond friendly and their portions are more Texas-sized than those of any other restaurant in the Village should also help draw more people from the Rice community this year. Opening at 11 a.m. for lunch Monday through Saturday, it is a welcome change from barbeque, Tex-Mex and Thai. Soft reggae and essences of irie riddims gently serenade entering customers, while the smells of amazing dishes encircle them.

Lakeview Terrace mixes absurdity with substance

"I'm the police; you have to do what I say!" Folks, let's take a moment to reflect on this very profound statement. Your next-door neighbor, screaming this at you, might leave you slightly befuddled. But imagine your neighbor as Samuel L. Jackson (Snakes on a Plane). Doing so instantly injects this somewhat innocuous threat with pure badass. Seriously, I would do anything to have Jackson's iconic voice as my voicemail recording, telling the mothafuckin' caller to leave a GODDAMN message.The line above is featured in the trailer for this weekend's box office headliner Lakeview Terrace, starring Patrick Wilson (The Phantom of the Opera), Kerry Washington (The Last King of Scotland) and Jackson as the antagonist. Wilson and Washington are newlyweds, moving into their California dream house. Jackson, a strict widowed father of two, does not approve of their interracial marriage.

National Society of Collegiate Scholars holds fall induction

This Monday, 164 Rice sophomores and juniors will join the Rice chapter of the National Society of Collegiate Scholars honor society. Every spring, the NSCS invites freshmen and sophomores in the top 20 percent of their class who have at least a 3.4 grade point average to join. The society has 233 chapters nationwide and includes 250 current Rice students. The NSCS induction ceremony will be held in the Farnsworth Pavilion of the Rice Memorial Center 6 p.m. Monday.

Ad campaign cheapens Rice's reputation

Who knew we have an official motto: "Rice University: Unconventional Wisdom."? The only other school I can think of with an official motto is University of Phoenix Online, and their slogan, "Thinking ahead," is not dissimilar to ours. I don't want a motto. I know of no other elite school with a motto. If Rice is unconventional, this should be evident to anyone familiar with the school. Otherwise, the slogan only serves to cheapen our reputation by suggesting a slogan is required to enhance it.Who Knew is one increasingly ubiquitous example of mottos on our campus. Rice's promotional campaign of banners and slogans which trumpets our fitness as an unconventional research university has even made its way onto our police cruisers. Who Knew is campy, but if Rice wants to announce its credentials with on-campus and online banners and slogans, phrasing them as questions is preferable to just stating them. "The prestigious Shepherd School of Music is at Rice" would be an embarrassment. So instead we have "Who knew the prestigious Shepherd School of Music was at Rice?" I worry, however, that this campaign and related efforts by Rice to create and expand its reputation has the effect of presenting Rice as insecure in its confidence.

SAC changes risk misleading prospective students

Recently, the student-led tour program facilitated by the Student Admissions Council has undergone several changes (See story, page 1). "Professional" polo shirts, optional visors, applications, training manuals and paychecks are in; flip-flops and a number of veteran tour guides are out. The admissions office itself has been renovated, and plans are even in the works for a model dorm room to become part of the standard tour package.What strikes us as the principal effect of all of this change is standardization, stagnation and, with that, sterility. With the push to make Rice's tour program more centralized and overseen (faculty replaced students as the principal selectors of new tour guides this year), we fear the consequential result could be a bland shell of its former self.