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NEWS 4/4/23 11:46pm

Beer Bike 2023 welcomes more races, a new record

By Viola Hsia

The 2023 Beer Bike races took place Saturday, with all three races — alumni, women’s and men’s — divided up into two heats. The times from both heats will be compared by the RPC to determine the final results after penalties for each team are calculated. According to campus-wide Beer Bike coordinator Anne Wang, results are expected to be released later in the week, likely on Friday.

A&E 4/4/23 10:44pm

Rice to host inaugural Moody X-Fest

By Nayeli Shad

To celebrate the $100 million donation made by the Moody Foundation, Rice is hosting the first Moody X-Fest on April 7 featuring free food, games and a concert headlined by GROUPLOVE. The event will be taking place at 5 p.m. in Tudor Fieldhouse.

FEATURES 4/4/23 10:14pm

‘Disgraced financial analyst’ Matthew Broussard talks being funny

By Riya Misra

A self-described “disgraced financial analyst,” Matthew Broussard (’10) was crowned Houston’s Funniest Person a mere two years after graduating from Rice with a degree in computational and applied mathematics. What started as doing open mics as a hobby before transitioning to full-time comedy, Broussard has since appeared on shows like Comedy Central and Conan, prodded John Mayer about his ex-girlfriends on Roast Battle and created a puzzle app called Monday Punday. He has also met Chris Hemsworth once in an elevator.

NEWS 3/28/23 10:04pm

Rice hits record low 7.7% acceptance rate for ‘27

By Riya Misra

Rice’s Office of Admissions admitted 2,399 students out of a total 31,049 applicants, on March 27. With a 7.7% admit rate, this year has seen a new record-low for acceptances, surpassing last year’s previous record-low of 8.56% for the Class of 2026.

NEWS 3/28/23 10:01pm

Undergrad tuition to increase 5.7% next academic year

By Spring Chenjp

Rice’s undergraduate tuition for the 2023-24 academic year will be $57,210, a 5.7% increase from the previous year. This brings the total cost of attendance up to $74,028, marking the fourth consecutive year of tuition increases and highest percentage increase in recent years. The most recent comparable tuition hike was an increase of 5.4% for the 2010-11 academic year, which came in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.

NEWS 3/21/23 10:38pm

Beer Bike to divide races amid safety concerns

By Spring Chenjp

Beer Bike races will be held in two heats this year, instead of the traditional singular race, according to Anne Wang, a campus-wide Beer Bike coordinator. The change is in light of last year’s crash during the women’s race, which injured three bikers and sent one to the hospital.

NEWS 3/21/23 10:35pm

Proposed Quad redesign decenters controversial history

By Nayeli Shad and Michelle Gachelin

The architect firm Nelson Byrd Woltz unveiled their proposed plans for the Academic Quadrangle redesign to the public on March 9. The changes included relocating Willy’s statue to the corner of Lovett Hall and the Welcome Center, adding community gathering spaces by Fondren Library and paving a curved, tree-lined path stretching diagonally from Rayzor Hall to Herzstein Hall. 

FEATURES 3/21/23 10:28pm

Agnes Ho talks wellbeing, social work and sushi

By Juliana Lightsey

Agnes Ho has two loves: sushi restaurants and genuine connections. The latter is one that she’s spent the past decade cultivating at Rice as director of the Wellbeing and Counseling Center. Her experiences as a first-generation, international student have enabled her to tackle mental health issues for a wide variety of adolescents at Rice and in the Houston community as a whole. 

FEATURES 3/7/23 11:05pm

‘A significant milestone’: Women carve out spaces at Rice

By Morgan Gage

When the then-Rice Institute welcomed its first matriculating class, Nellie Mills was among its ranks. Mills, the first woman to matriculate at Rice, was one of the few women attending Rice in its early days. While students were largely male, Rice was established as a coeducational institution, admitting both male and female students from its inception — though admission was restricted to white Texas residents. 

SPORTS 3/7/23 11:00pm

After Title IX: Looking back at early women’s sports at Rice

By Riya Misra

In 1977, one of the most smuggled goods at Rice was sandwiches. The perpetrators were the women’s volleyball team, forced to sneak food out of the serveries to accommodate for their practice time at the gym, which overlapped with dinner times. Neither Rice nor the athletics department had made any mealtime provisions for female athletes at the time, according to Helen Travis Savitzky (’80), who was on the volleyball and swim teams during her time at Rice.

NEWS 2/28/23 11:34pm

Rice on fire: Prairie Plot reborn through controlled burn

By Riya Misra

Rice’s Crisis Management team supervised a prescribed burn at the Prairie Plots, a 10,000 square foot plot of prairie garden on the south lawn of the James Turrell Skyspace, next to the Shepherd School of Music, on Tuesday, Feb. 28. Prescribed burning is a common practice and involves intentionally setting a controlled fire to maintain prairie vegetation. Maggie Tsang, an assistant professor at the Rice School of Architecture who created the installation, said that the Prairie Plot was installed nearly a year ago to reduce maintenance efforts for the previous turf grass.

A&E 2/28/23 11:18pm

Senior Spotlight: Multi-hyphenate Daniel Cho composes life after Rice

By Michelle Gachelin

From music composition to multivariable calculus, one prolific artist has excelled at it all. Daniel Cho, a double major in violin performance and composition at the Shepherd School of Music, began playing the violin around the age of five and won a competition for his first original composition at the age of nine. In addition to his impressive portfolio, Cho is minoring in business and is set to intern in Los Angeles this summer at Crowe, a global accounting firm, before returning to Rice to earn his Masters in Accounting. He hopes that his experience in finance will be another string on his bow to position himself in Los Angeles long term, where he can begin composing music for film soundtracks.

SPORTS 2/21/23 11:51pm

‘Evolving daily’: Rice athletes navigate the NIL world

By Diego Palos Rodriguez

Since the NCAA introduced a new policy allowing student-athletes to profit off of their name, image and likeness more than a year ago, Rice athletes are increasingly agreeing to sponsorships with a variety of businesses. Student-athletes have had the opportunity to partner with everything from clothing stores, to food and drink brands, to restaurants. According to Quincy Olivari, a junior guard on the men’s basketball team, he’s used the new NIL rules to sponsor companies to which he feels a personal connection.

NEWS 2/21/23 11:42pm

SA town hall features slate of uncontested candidates

By Riya Misra

Student Association candidates Solomon Ni, Alison Qiu, Crystal Unegbu and Yuv Sachdeva outlined their goals for the SA and addressed questions about their candidacy platforms at the Rice Thresher’s SA Town Hall on Monday, Feb. 22. The town hall was in lieu of the traditional presidential debate, as every SA executive candidate is running uncontested this year. 

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