Special Projects

Review: Concert battle pits Paul Wall against Gary Clark Jr.

Texas music was alive and well last Thursday night, when Houston rap legend Paul Wall “battled” Austin-based, Grammy-winning guitarist Gary Clark Jr. in a Red Bull SoundClash. The stage set-up accentuated the two artists’ home cities: Clark’s stage sported a brick building with classic Austin signage — a marquee and a neon Antone’s sign for the city’s famed live music venue — and Wall’s stage featured a massive Houston Oilers logo and Houston skyline cutouts. 

Volleyball gets final chance to reverse the C-USA tournament curse

Even though they’ve won 48 of their last 50 conference regular season games, the Rice volleyball team has not won a Conference USA tournament since 2018. After three straight years as the conference’s runners-up, the Owls will finally look to reverse their fortunes in what will be their final postseason in C-USA. This year, the No. 22 Owls enter the tournament with an almost perfect conference record of 13-1, and 23-3 overall. According to head coach Genny Volpe, the team is excited to jump into postseason volleyball.

Women’s basketball tops S. F. Austin in back-and-forth season opener

The Rice women’s basketball team defeated Stephen F. Austin State University 89-77 on Thursday to open their season. The Owls’ highest scorer was sophomore forward Malia Fisher, who contributed 18 points and 20 rebounds over the course of the night.

Volleyball misses out on C-USA regular season title to WKU by inches

Whenever the Rice volleyball team plays Western Kentucky University, the two head coaches have a running joke. “[WKU head coach] Travis [Hudson] and I always joke, ‘let’s get ready for a five set match,’ because we know it’s going five,” Owls’ head coach Genny Volpe said. Thursday’s game between the two Conference USA heavyweights was no exception. It took the Hilltoppers five sets and a tie-break to claim the conference regular season title over the Owls in the closest you’ll get to an instant classic in small-conference volleyball.

Injuries and INTs: Football crushed by WKU in turnover-fest

The Rice football team lost to Western Kentucky University 45-10 on Saturday afternoon, dropping them to 5-5 on the season and 3-3 in conference play. The Owls struggled on both sides of the ball, with the offense recording six turnovers and the defense allowing 495 yards. According to head coach Mike Bloomgren, the team just didn’t play very well.

Cross country season ends quietly for both teams at regionals

Rice’s Cross Country season ended at the South Central Regional Meet on Nov. 11. The women’s team, coming off a third place finish in the Conference USA Championship, crossed the line ninth this weekend, falling short of their second place finish and NCAA championship berth attained last fall. In a season plagued with injuries, the Owls were missing some of 2021’s most impressive runners, including last year’s regional champion junior Grace Forbes. This year, junior Taigen Hunter-Galvan led the Owls in nineteenth place with a six-kilometer time of 21:04.2, improving on her twenty-first place 21:25.5 run at 2021’s regionals. According to Hunter-Galvan, the team had their eyes set on nationals again before injuries got in the way.

11-16-2022 Crossword Solutions

11-16-2022 Crossword: "Child's Play"

REMS to the rescue: Owls talk Collegiate EMS Week

From stubbed toes to life-threatening injuries, one group of dedicated students has seen it all. Throughout the past 26 years, Rice University Emergency Medical Services has rallied around the Rice community, providing support during natural disasters such as Winter Storm Uri and Hurricane Katrina and administering 4,372 vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic. For Collegiate EMS Week, which takes place during the second week in November, the organization hosted a series of events to increase their visibility and continue expanding their impact on campus. 

Tyler Perini wants to be the mentor he never had

Tyler Perini — or, as students call him, Dr. P — is a Pfeiffer Postdoctoral Instructor in Computational and Applied Mathematics who also researches multiobjective discrete optimization at Rice. He grew up in Atlanta and did his undergraduate at the College of Charleston in South Carolina, where he studied applied math. He later returned to Atlanta to Georgia Tech and received his Ph.D. in operations research. 

Spice up your Thanksgiving break with these activities

Explore new ways to celebrate Thanksgiving in the greater Houston area. From parades to adventure parks, there is a Thanksgiving Day activity — or two — for everybody to enjoy this season. Bundle up and head out into town on Thanksgiving Day to make some unforgettable fun-filled memories.

Senior Spotlight: Erin Harrison explores her boulder self at Rice

As a self-professed guide through the outdoors, Erin Harrison is no stranger to a bit of nature. From placing in national rock climbing competitions to leading trips for Rice Outdoor Programs and Education, Harrison’s love for climbing — which sparked nearly a decade ago — has remained constant throughout the years.

Where we must agree: the politics of humanness

The words “free speech” will likely elicit groans from Thresher readers. Over the last three years, there have been three articles in the Opinion section bemoaning the need for a “classically liberal” political discourse at Rice. Unfortunately, between their self-righteousness and needless wordiness, they read more like whiny lectures than conversation starters. However, despite their condescension, their existence does suggest something unsettling about not just our campus politics, but politics at large. As the electorates of democracies around the world have become more sharply divided, the way we speak to each other, not just across the aisle but to our similarly minded partisans, has become more accusatory, exclusionary and violent. Put simply: we do not want to talk to each other, and understandably so. It is exhausting, and, more than that, we just don’t seem to know how to.

Rice ends on-campus winter housing accommodations

Rice will not be offering on-campus housing for winter recess this year. Due to COVID-related travel restrictions, on-campus housing was available for the past two winter recess periods. Dean of Undergraduates Bridget Gorman said that the decision to revert to pre-pandemic operations, when no on-campus housing was provided, follows the trend of various other aspects of campus life this year.

Off-campus students should sublet their rooms to those who need winter break housing

For the first time since 2019, Rice is not allowing undergraduate students to remain in their on-campus housing during winter break. While this is a disappointing development, we understand why this decision needed to be made. Like students, staff need a break after a long semester. Further, keeping students on campus by providing housing over break was originally implemented to address pandemic travel restrictions, which are mostly gone. However, the need for winter housing is not gone. This decision still leaves some international students — or any other on-campus student looking to remain in Houston — scrambling for housing.

Which Rice professor are you?

Review: ‘The Banshees of Inisherin’ perfectly balances comedy and drama

As “The Banshees of Inisherin” begins, the audience is introduced to Inisherin, an island off the coast of Ireland divided into corners for farming by cobblestone walls. For Pádraic Súilleabháin (Colin Farrell), the repetitive cycle of working and then going to the pub is sufficient, as his happy-go-lucky attitude and welcoming demeanor immediately establish. This cycle is interrupted, however, when Colm Doherty (Brendan Gleeson) announces that he will no longer talk to Pádraic, despite the fact they have been best friends for years. This seemingly small decision to break off a relationship ripples across the island, forcing both Pádraic and Colm to reconcile with abandonment and reevaluate who they really are.

Review: ‘Her Loss’ is a solid, if lopsided, collaborative album

For his past two albums, Drake’s best tracks have featured 21 Savage, and for good reason: the duo displays strong chemistry and elicits some of Drake’s best bars in years. “Her Loss,” a collaborative album between Drake and 21 Savage, promised a continuation of what we’d heard in “Knife Talk” and “Jimmy Cooks.” However, it is largely a Drake album that regularly features 21 Savage. While still a solid listen with some really enjoyable moments, the album falls flat in delivering the kinetic collaborations we have seen in the past.

Review: Rec Room’s apocalyptic romantic comedy thriller ‘Put Your House in Order’ is a promising show for the spooky season

Upon walking through its doors, Rec Room quickly distinguishes itself from other local theatre spaces in Houston: its cozy lighting, exposed brick walls and dynamic background music lend themselves to an intimate, homely environment before the show even begins. As the audience trickles into the venue for the night’s show, the stage’s intricate set design, furnished with a full-thrust front porch and yard (impressively designed by Stefan Azizi), boldly precedes the riveting journey that is to come. 

Shepherd revives ‘Street Scene’ opera with new production

On Nov. 4 and 6, the Shepherd School of Music performed “Street Scene,” an opera with music composed by Kurt Weill, book by Elmer Rice and lyrics by Langston Hughes. Patrick Diamond, the stage director of the show, is in his third year as a faculty member of Shepherd’s Opera Studies program. Diamond said that his role involves coordinating the show’s spatial elements, the interactions between characters and collaborating with the show’s conductor, Steven Osgood, to create a show that builds dramatically and tells a story.