Special Projects

FEATURES 9/27/22 11:02pm

Diving into the DEEP with Rice’s Data Science Club

By Danika Li

Data Education and Exploration Program is an annual data science showcase competition put on by Rice’s Data Science Club, open to all levels of coding experience. According to Vinay Tummarakota, president of the Data Science Club, the program consists of a semester-long workshop series that alternates between lessons where senior Data Science Club students teach curriculum, and application-style workshops where mentors help students apply skills learned the week before. Over the course of the fall semester, student teams develop projects on their chosen data set, and eventually present in a final showcase.

FEATURES 9/27/22 11:01pm

Explore these Houston attractions from new heights

By Nishanka Kuthuru

Check out Houston from a new perspective by visiting some of the city’s best rooftops scenes. These venues offer varieties of activities to keep their visitors entertained throughout the day, with sunrise yoga at Skylawn, midday swimming at Marriott Marquis or night-time dancing at one of the many rooftop bars. Browse through some of the following recommendations to explore Houston from above.

FEATURES 9/27/22 10:59pm

ROPEing Rice into the outdoors

By Madison Barendse

Rice’s location in Houston is beneficial in a variety of ways. After all, we have access to entertainment, culture and research in a world-class city. However, we don’t have as much access to nature — a problem Rice Outdoor Programs and Education is trying to solve.

OPINION 9/27/22 10:56pm

Rice is not your average school. We don’t want an average band.

By James Karroum , Kaitlyn Esneault and Ryan Mbuashu-Ndip

Starting this season, Rice’s Marching Owl Band, longtime instigators of musical shenanigans at various Rice sporting events, will no longer play at basketball games — a role the university intends to fill with the traditional-instruments-only, student-only, audition-only, near-perfect attendance-required Owl Pep Band. To the three of us, this is a slap in the face to everything the MOB, and indeed Rice, stand for.

OPINION 9/27/22 10:54pm

Universities should support the public good

By Moshe Vardi

What is the purpose of universities, in general, and Rice University, in particular? This is a subject of much debate these days. Let me first offer a disciplinary perspective. I am an active member of the Association for Computing Machinery, the oldest and largest professional society dedicated to computing. The Associations’ Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct states: “Computing professionals’ actions change the world. To act responsibly, they should reflect upon the wider impacts of their work, consistently supporting the public good.” So ethical computing has a responsibility to support the public good. Going back to the opening question, I believe that the core purpose of universities is to support the public good. What is the public good? My favorite definition was provided by Hammurabi almost 4,000 years ago: “to further the well-being of mankind.”

OPINION 9/27/22 10:47pm

Backpage is satire, not journalism

By Thresher Editorial Board

Every week, the Thresher’s Backpage staff spend their Monday nights in a corner of our office coming up with a satirical take on the week’s news. Their goal is simple: to bring some levity to what might otherwise be a dreary week of problem sets, essays and exams. Their works of comedy also serve as a delightful ending to much of our more serious journalistic content; and for this reason, the Backpage is a consistent favorite for many of our readers.

NEWS 9/21/22 12:30am

Rice Athletics plans new pep band for basketball season, angers MOB

By Daniel Schrager and Prayag Gordy

A new paid and audition-only student pep band will replace the Marching Owl Band at men’s and women’s basketball games and some volleyball matches, according to Rick Mello, Rice’s deputy athletics director. Mello said Rice athletics hopes to have a band of 30 students in place for the first basketball game in November.

NEWS 9/21/22 12:29am

Six computers, two iPads stolen from north campus

By Keegan Leibrock

Rice University experienced a series of thefts this past week. Six laptops and two iPads were stolen from a Duncan College suite and Duncan Hall respectively, according to the Rice University Police Department in a campus-wide email sent out last Wednesday morning.

NEWS 9/21/22 12:27am

Inflation nation: Campus grapples with rising costs

By Renly Liu

As prices for various goods and services continue to rise nationally, student-run businesses and Rice departments such as Housing & Dining and Facilities Engineering & Planning are among those on campus implementing changes to handle this inflationary spike, while also working to keep prices reasonable for students.

NEWS 9/21/22 12:25am

Engineering professor Marc Robert remembered

By Hajera Naveed

Marc Robert, a professor in the department of chemical and biomolecular engineering, died Sept. 2 from COVID-19 complications at the age of 72. Robert, a physicist, became a professor at Rice in 1984 after receiving his doctorate in physics from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, Switzerland, where he was born and raised.

SPORTS 9/21/22 12:23am

50 years later, Rice’s first Black student-athletes reflect on their impact

By Daniel Schrager

Stahlé Vincent came back to Rice over the weekend. But this time, he got a different reception than he did when he first set foot on campus over five decades ago. “[When I first got here] there was not an open-arm reception,” Vincient said. “There were people who never spoke [to me], people avoided me, I had professors who wouldn’t call my name at roll. There was an animus there that you could feel.”

A&E 9/21/22 12:21am

Review: ‘See How They Run’ is a fun, quirky ode to the whodunnit

By Jay Collura

The prospect of writing a whodunnit is undeniably challenging – as Adrien Brody’s character says in “See How They Run,” “Once you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all.” Audiences have been accustomed to solving the mystery due to both the formula’s consistency and the Internet’s role in facilitating fan theories, creating a generation of filmgoers looking out for every detail. However, despite this challenge, the whodunnit genre is seemingly making a comeback: 2019’s “Knives Out” was a major success with a sequel coming out later this year, and “See How They Run” debuted in theaters to positive reception this past Friday. “See How They Run” forges its own identity by simultaneously taking a comedic approach to the whodunnit through parody and creating a loving tribute to the mystery subgenre.

A&E 9/21/22 12:20am

Review: BLACKPINK crafts an addicting and varied album with ‘BORN PINK’

By Jacob Pellegrino

On “BORN PINK,” BLACKPINK creates an addicting album that melds elements of pop, hip-hop and rock, leaving listeners wanting more. Drawn from a wide range of locations and forged through years of preparation in K-pop’s trainee system, BLACKPINK has found a unique sound that draws from both the strengths of its members Lisa, Jennie, Rosé and Jisoo, as well as the combined production savvy of their agency, YG Entertainment, and producer Teddy Park.

SPORTS 9/21/22 12:20am

After 350 wins, Volpe still isn’t thinking about her legacy

By Landry Wood

During her 19-year tenure, Rice volleyball head coach Genny Volpe has led the Owls to seven NCAA tournaments, two conference championships, 14 winning seasons and, as of Aug. 26’s victory over the University of Houston, 350 wins. With the Owls back in the American Volleyball Coaches Association’s top 25 as of Monday, those numbers seem poised to keep improving. This is a flooring amount of success for a program that had never even been to the tournament until Volpe was hired, but she is far from willing to take sole credit.

SPORTS 9/21/22 12:17am

Volleyball upsets No. 17 Creighton, jumps into top-25

By Cadan Hanson

On Sunday, a flock of birds rose victorious above Tudor fieldhouse and it wasn’t a band of blue jays. After five intense sets, the Owls team took down No. 17 Creighton University on a second match point, capping off a tournament which started off with a reverse sweep of Big 12 opponent Kansas State University. After missing out on the American Volleyball Coaches Association’s Top 25 last week by one spot, the defining weekend was enough to jump the Rice volleyball team to No. 23 on the rankings.

SPORTS 9/21/22 12:14am

Owls put an end to longest winning streak in college football

By Pavithr Goli

The Rice football team broke the nation’s longest winning streak when they defeated the University of Louisiana at Lafayette 33-21 on Saturday night. The Ragin’ Cajuns had won 15 straight games, going back to last season, before their trip to Rice Stadium over the weekend. The victory against the Ragin’ Cajuns puts the Owls at 2-1 on the season as they head into their last week of non-conference play. Head coach Mike Bloomgren said that the upset win felt like a reward for the hard work that he and his team have put in.

A&E 9/21/22 12:08am

Review: ‘The Hardest Part’ is the sound of love’s funeral

By Francesca Bliss

Like a prism turns light into color, Noah Cyrus turns pain into music. Emotion moves through Cyrus’s sound without resistance, leaving nothing lost in translation between her experience and her expression. While Cyrus cultivates a beautifully melancholic palette in “The Hardest Part,” I’m left equally impressed with her lyricism as I am with her musicality. “The Hardest Part” does more than provide listeners with ten pretty songs to cry to, it paints Cyrus’ world of doomed love, addiction and fragility with vivid colors and palpable grief.

A&E 9/21/22 12:06am

Review: Houston Ballet’s ‘Peter Pan’ soars above expectations

By Michelle Gachelin

Neverland has never been so magical. The last time choreographer Trey McIntyre’s “Peter Pan” appeared at the Wortham Theater Center for the Houston Ballet was ten years ago during the 2012-2013 season. This season, the show returned from Sept. 9 to Sept. 18 in full fashion, featuring fairies, flying flips and fantastical sets.

A&E 9/21/22 12:05am

Rice’s newest a cappella group chimes in on Chinese culture

By Parker Blumentritt

Rice’s newest a cappella group, the Chimes, is adding to campus’s vibrant music community. According to the club’s vice president, Anita Zhou, it is the first and only Chinese a cappella group at Rice. Co-president Alexia Huang was inspired by the chimes, a Chinese instrument, in creating its name.

A&E 9/21/22 12:04am

Houston’s Arte Público Press triumphs over ‘slings and arrows’ for 40th anniversary