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Sunday, December 22, 2024 — Houston, TX

Spotlight

FEATURES 10/25/22 10:18pm

‘An investment in our future’: Meet Ruth López Turley

By Felicity Phelan

Ruth López Turley, director of the Kinder Institute for Urban Research, doesn’t have it easy. She oversees all of the organization’s research operations, raises the money to fund its work and describes herself as constantly in meetings. On top of that, she’s still teaching in her role as a Rice sociology professor. When López Turley thinks about hard work, however, she doesn’t think of jobs like hers.

FEATURES 10/25/22 10:15pm

Trans students at Rice talk difficulties, community

By Morgan Gage

What is community? For Marina Klein, it’s little queer people in your phone, chatting and exchanging compliments and advice in a GroupMe. “[People in the group chat are] so supportive … they’re always there for you when you need them to be,” Klein, a McMurtry College sophomore, said. “You can be there for them when you have the time as well, because that’s how community works.”

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.

FEATURES 9/20/22 11:53pm

Inside the lives of Rice’s newest RAs

By Felicity Phelan

When Bianca Lopez arrived on the Rice campus in 2019, she received a warning about the resident associate program: “Only crazy people do that.” RAs, a unique feature of Rice’s residential college system, are adult members of the community who live alongside and support students in residential colleges, often with their partners and children. Despite the warning, Lopez, who works in asset management for Rice Management Company, was excited to get involved.

FEATURES 9/20/22 11:51pm

Explore culture and coffee in Houston’s Third Ward

By Sara Davidson

Across State Highway 288 from Rice, the Third Ward neighborhood of Houston is an area teeming with rich history, great restaurants and fun activities. Our recommendations below are great starting points to get a better feel of Third Ward’s thriving culture and history. 

FEATURES 9/20/22 11:50pm

Rice pursues a NEWT solution for water treatment

By Madison Barendse

For some, it is all too easy to take fresh water for granted. However, in many parts of the United States and the world, clean water is a commodity. Dozens of labs and organizations are working to solve this problem, including the Nanotechnology Enabled Water Treatment Center on Rice’s campus. The NEWT Center is an engineering research center that aims to advance global water-treatment technologies. Other universities — Arizona State University, University of Texas at El Paso and Yale University — are also involved with NEWT. Dr. Rafael Verduzco, a Rice professor and researcher at NEWT, said that the connections between these universities are an important part of the center.

FEATURES 9/20/22 11:48pm

Forgotten health professions: Checking in with Rice’s pre-health students

By Allison He

Rice has scores of undergraduates interested in pursuing a health profession. Roughly 40% of advising cases at the Office of Academic Advising are for health professions, according to Director of Academic Advising Christine Martinez. But many pre-health students — such as those looking to pursue dentistry, physical therapy or physician assistant — said they experience a lack of advising and resources compared to those offered to pre-meds. 

FEATURES 9/13/22 11:46pm

Space City: The Rice-NASA relationship through the years

By Madison Barendse

Anyone who has been on campus is bound to have heard the name “John F. Kennedy” repeated tens of times recently. Indeed, Rice hosted a number of events this past weekend to commemorate the 60th anniversary of JFK’s “We choose to go to the Moon” speech at Rice stadium. Many of these events featured collaborations with NASA astronauts and administrators, marking just another result of the decades-long partnership between Rice and NASA.

FEATURES 9/13/22 11:43pm

Owls dive into the startup world

By Jahnavi Mahajan

Pressed to picture where the big companies in Silicon Valley started, one could imagine a badly-lit dorm room with a copious number of monitors and red, green and blue LED lights. And they may not be wrong. For many Rice alumni and graduate students involved in the startup world, their entrepreneurial careers began at Rice.

FEATURES 9/6/22 10:44pm

Senior Spotlight: Hunter Brown just tries to have a decent time

By Riya Misra

Hunter Brown lives for three things: pad thai, melodica and a “good fucking time.” “Have you ever seen a piano that you blow into? That’s the melodica,” Brown, a McMurtry College senior, said. “It truly is the Swiss Army knife of musical instruments. And I’m going to say, it’s my favorite pastime. I can spend an hour just blowing into that.”

FEATURES 9/6/22 10:40pm

Amid a move, a second start for Rice’s Holistic Garden

By Zoe Katz

When the Betty and Jacob Friedman Holistic Garden moved last semester from behind the Moody Center to behind the Gibbs Recreation Center, it provided an opportunity for more cross-campus connection with the space. Joe Novak, the garden’s director, said he noticed an uptick in the amount of visitors in the Holistic Garden since May.

FEATURES 9/6/22 10:35pm

Off campus spots to visit with your next METRO ride

By Riya Misra

At any given time throughout the night, you’d be hard-pressed to find available seating at Agora. A Greek marketplace-themed cafe situated in Montrose, Agora is open until 2 a.m. Its coffee, eccentric interior decorations and late hours attract hosts of Rice students looking for an enjoyable spot to spend time outside of the campus hedges.

FEATURES 8/30/22 10:45pm

Students talk unconventional jobs at Rice

By Zoe Katz

As the school year gets going, Rice students may begin the search for an on-campus job. There are lots of options — from Coffeehouse barista to teaching assistant — but some jobs are off the beaten path. These jobs are unique ways to get involved around campus and make some money while doing so.

FEATURES 8/30/22 10:42pm

Instagram accounts reveal the meme-ing of Rice

By Lauren Yu

Another year, another batch of Rice-inspired Instagram pages. Rice students have made niche Rice-related Instagram pages about everything from bricks to possums to chairs, but they are also no strangers to meme accounts that make light of Rice happenings and traditions, from parodies of the ‘Be Bold’ campaign to relentlessly positive affirmations about servery swipes. 

FEATURES 8/23/22 11:59pm

As Roe falls, Rice grapples with diminishing abortion access

By Prayag Gordy

It had been just hours since the doctor confirmed her unwanted pregnancy. Bethany* had taken a negative pregnancy test just the week before, but she had missed a period and was still not feeling herself. A few days into the initial remote weeks of the spring 2022 semester, Bethany, now a senior, knew she wanted an abortion. Just seven months earlier, Texas Governor Greg Abbott had signed a bill banning abortions after the detection of an embryonic heartbeat, which the Cleveland Clinic says generally occurs six weeks after gestation and two weeks after the first missed period. Commonly referred to as the “heartbeat bill,” the law was a precursor to Texas’ now near-total ban on abortions.

FEATURES 8/23/22 11:55pm

International Owls: Summer study abroad returns in full force

By Nithya Shenoy

The beginning of another academic year at Rice has seen the return of study abroad programs that were inactive the past two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Rice offers students the opportunity to study abroad in multiple countries, from Costa Rica to Germany. These students not only take classes outside the United States, but also immerse themselves in new cultures and perhaps even improve their language skills. 

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