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Features

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. 

FEATURES 8/23/22 11:54pm

Cycle through these spots off-campus

By Disha Baldawa

With the beginning of a new academic year comes a surge of new students who are looking to explore their surroundings. But it also comes with Houston’s humid, musty weather. This fall semester, escape the Houston heat by commuting to these places using your beloved bike or e-scooter.

FEATURES 4/19/22 11:15pm

Senior Spotlight: Isabel Sjodin talks chemical engineering and residential college leadership

By Nithya Shenoy

Even though McMurtry College senior Isabel Sjodin was raised in Houston, she didn’t know much about Rice until her junior year of high school. She said the first time she was scheduled to tour Rice she ended up chatting with a Rice student on campus and missing said tour. However, that conversation and a later overnight visit at Sid Richardson College made a strong impression on her. 

FEATURES 4/19/22 11:12pm

Leebron reflects on his time at the corner of Sunset and Main

By Tomás Russo

In his almost 18 years at Rice, President David Leebron said he’s never taken more than four weeks off at a time, despite having the option for a sabbatical every seven years. While he doesn’t know what his future career plans are after stepping down this summer, he plans to take full advantage of his delayed sabbatical.

FEATURES 4/12/22 11:08pm

Almost a year in, students and faculty discuss new business major

By Allison He

Last fall, the Jones Graduate School of Business added to its offerings for undergraduates by launching a business major. Rice undergraduates in the Classes of 2024 and 2025 can declare a business major with either a finance or management concentration, and many students have shown interest in it, according to the Director of Undergraduate Business Programs Natalia Piqueira.

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