
Admissions reformer named vice president for enrollment
Yvonne Romero Da Silva, the current vice dean and director of admissions at the University of Pennsylvania, will begin her role as vice president for enrollment in mid-August.
Yvonne Romero Da Silva, the current vice dean and director of admissions at the University of Pennsylvania, will begin her role as vice president for enrollment in mid-August.
Students, faculty, staff and alumni donned rainbow tie-dyed T-shirts and marched in Houston’s Pride Parade alongside Rice’s float on Saturday.
Incoming Dean of Humanities Kathleen Canning plans to improve career preparation and promote the relevance of the humanities when she begins at Rice University on Jan.
Significant changes to Willy’s Pub took place over the course of the spring semester, including the removal of sake and 40-ounce bottles of Mickey’s malt liquor from the menu, as well as the institution of a Rice University Police Department officer on Thursday nights and prohibition of underage attendance at Wednesday trivia nights.
Rice University Police Department employees voted May 17 not to unionize, amid opposition to unionization from Rice administration.
As Senate Bill 6 and House Bill 2899 aim to restrict bathroom accessibility for transgender and gender-nonconforming people in Texas, the Rice University Queer Resource Center hopes to increase the number of gender neutral bathrooms on campus by changing gendered signs on single-stall bathrooms to gender-neutral signs this summer. This change comes after a five-year-old initiative despite administrative delays.
After receiving appeals for both the men’s and women’s bike races, the campuswide Beer Bike coordinators have released updated results they say are final: Sid Richardson College was moved to second place behind Will Rice College for the women’s race, although both teams believe this to be incorrect, and fourth through seventh places were noted as possibly incorrect for the men’s race.
Following a months-long search, the School of Engineering announced that Reginald DesRoches, the current chair of civil and environmental engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology, will take the position of engineering dean on July 1.
New academic opportunities are underway for next year with the introduction of the museums and cultural heritage minor.
Two-thirds of Rice students did not receive formal sex education prior to attending Rice, according to the findings of a survey conducted by a group of students in Social Problems (SOCI 231). The survey also found 44 percent of the 367 respondents said they or someone they knew had been involved in an incident of sexual assault.
As the last week of classes unfolds, the pilot course for Critical Thinking in Sexuality also comes to an end. CTIS, which will become a mandatory class for next year’s incoming new students, was piloted as an LPAP section this semester.
The Student Association Senate passed a resolution encouraging the Faculty Senate to make changes to the distribution system in a 22-2 vote, following debate about Rice’s commitment to liberal arts education and reforming major requirements. The Faculty Senate will decide whether to implement the changes, which reduce distribution requirements from 12 hours to nine hours in each area, in a vote at their meeting on Wednesday.
The recently founded Rice Business Society aims to unite all undergraduate students interested in business, according to Hanszen College sophomore Jeemin Sim and Wiess College sophomores Ashish Kulkarni and Jason Ye. Since its formation this January, the club has gained 75 members.
The 2017 move-out date for nongraduating students has been changed to Friday, May 5 at noon in the housing agreement. Last year, students were required to move out by May 16 at 4 p.m. In response, several students are working with Housing and Dining to change the move-out date until after graduation.
Several bike team captains and one float builder have called into question the 2017 Beer Bike results released by Rice Program Council on April 5. Martel College captain Colin Losey has filed an appeal of the men’s bike race results, which he believes are incorrect due to timing errors. Meanwhile, Jones College float builder Matt O’Gorman said Jones would have placed third rather than fourth in the float contest had their highest score from the judges not been thrown out, but the campuswide Beer Bike coordinators said they removed this score because it was an outlier.
Former Thresher executive editor, columnist and Backpage editor Evan Mintz (Hanszen ’08) was chosen as one of two finalists for the 2017 Pulitzer Prize in editorial writing for his work at the Houston Chronicle. The series of 10 editorials that earned him his spot as a finalist, which are chosen in addition to one prize winner, were co-written with Joe Holley and covered gun laws and gun culture in Texas.
After a year on the grind post-Rice, the class of 2016 has their salary data in: Rice’s median salary for engineering, natural sciences and social sciences graduates remained above the median of most American colleges, while humanities graduates were below the national median, according to newly released senior exit survey data from the Center for Career Development.
Clara Roberts, a recent Duncan College alumna (‘15), passed away April 6. The Pearland, Texas native, who is survived by her parents Suzy and Jay Roberts, was involved in a car accident while driving along Liberty Bridge in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Starting at Orientation Week next year, the residential college system will have a new syllable: the title of college ‘masters’ will be replaced by ‘magisters’ according to Dean of Undergraduates John Hutchinson. The change comes after a decision by a committee of college masters as well as a Student association senate survey supporting the removal of the title of ‘master.’ Hutchinson said the term of ‘master’ as it is used at Rice University is intended to be an academic term of British origin, but the history of the United States and the use of the term ‘slave master’ complicates its usage. “"The initiative to make a change came from the masters themselves, who recognized that the title was problematic,” Hutchinson said.
The first bill of Student Association President Justin Onwenu’s term passed Monday night, but the vote occurred as a straw poll by hand in an apparent constitutional violation.