Rice is joining the Scholars at Risk network as well as the Welcome Corps, planning to host threatened scholars and refugees seeking resettlement into the U.S.
The student body voted to pass S.REF 01, which asks the Rice Management Company to disclose all of its holdings investments, but rejected the remaining divestment proposals. While every ballot measure gained a majority of votes in favor, the remaining three did not achieve the two-thirds majority required to pass.
Four Student Association referenda open for the general student body vote today at noon. The referenda call for disclosure of Rice Management Company holdings and divestment from entities that profit off the Israel-Hamas war. The referenda also ask that Rice release a statement condemning genocide and materially support anti-colonial scholarship. Voting will close Dec. 11 at noon and the results will be published the next day. For the referenda to pass, a two-thirds majority with a 20% student body turnout is needed.
On the evening of Election Day, hundreds of students gathered in the Sid Richardson College commons, sitting chair-to-chair. They cheered when Rep. Colin Allred amassed votes, and again when Massachusetts went blue.
The Student Association passed four referenda calling for university response to the ongoing Israel-Hamas war in its Oct. 28 meeting. The general student body will vote on the referenda this academic year.
Four referenda were introduced to the Student Association during the Oct. 21 senate meeting that call for university divestment from Israel-aligned companies and a university condemnation of the “horrific violence” in Gaza as part of the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. The SA also passed S.RES 05, a resolution that asks the university to review its recently revised demonstration and postering policies.
Nearly 150 students, staff and faculty gathered at Farnsworth Pavilion for a vigil commemorating the one-year anniversary of the Oct. 7 attack on Israel. Held up by clothespins, pictures paying tribute to killed Israeli people lined the walls of the room.
The Student Association senate asked the president’s office to review the new demonstration and postering policies with a commission including students Sept. 30. The labor commission also discussed raising the minimum wage of undergraduate student workers from $7.25 an hour, the federal minimum wage, to $15 an hour.
Rice ranks No. 18 in the the U.S. News and World Report’s 2025 national university rankings tied with Vanderbilt University and the University of Notre Dame. Rice has also placed No. 8, 9 and 29 in the Niche, Forbes and Wall Street Journal rankings, respectively.
While many gathered to celebrate the reopening of the academic quad, Rice Students for Justice in Palestine staged a walkout just a few hundred feet from the festivities, protesting what they described as a shameless celebration, according to a Sept. 10 Instagram post.
